Gian Carlo Menotti

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 30:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

On our desert island on this occasion is the composer and librettist Gian Carlo Menotti.

Presenter0:37

Mr Menotti, would you rather have scores than discs on this island?

Gian Carlo Menotti0:41

Uh well that that is a rather difficult choice. I'm a very lazy reader of scores. So perhaps I would rather have a disc. I also don't I I very seldom play discs because just as I hate frozen food, I hate frozen music. And uh I I feel that even the most uh marvelous piece of music interpreted by the most marvelous interpreter on repeated hearings becomes very monotonous and irritating. Especially because I think that uh music depends very much on on a spontaneous interpretation. It should change. That is why I think that um

Gian Carlo Menotti1:21

If I were to to choose, I know you're going to ask me for some some discs to take with me. So I I think that if I really were completely sincere, I think that the only discs I could stand to have with me and hearing again and again and again are um discs of rather more abstract kind of music. All right. What what do we start with? What's the first?

Gian Carlo Menotti1:43

I would like to start with one of my favorite composers of all times, which is Orlando de Larsos, a composer that I think has been a bit forgotten and I don't think as appreciated as he should. Shall we start with something out of one of his masses? For example, the the Kyria from the Bellam Fit Altera.

Presenter3:08

The Curie from the Misa Bell'Anfitri Altera by Lazos.

Presenter3:13

Sung by the choir of Christchurch Cathedral, Oxford, directed by Simon Preston.

Presenter3:18

Whereabouts in Italy were you born?

Gian Carlo Menotti3:21

I was born in a little village.

Gian Carlo Menotti3:24

on the Lake of Lugano, or overlooking the Lake of Lugano.

Presenter3:28

And I believe you took to music very early indeed.

Gian Carlo Menotti3:31

Uh yes, I was one of those horrible enfempro dir and uh uh I started uh music when I was five years old. I always knew I wanted to be a composer, so I had no troubles about choosing my

Gian Carlo Menotti3:45

My career. You were one of a large family, a a large musical family. Actually, we were, yes, we were. Well, my mother had ten children. By the time I was born, two were already dead. So I grew up in a family of eight children. It was actually a musical family, but none of them were professional musicians.

Presenter4:04

But you played chamber music at home.

Gian Carlo Menotti4:06

Very often, yes, in in the evening, my

Gian Carlo Menotti4:09

My mother played the piano, had one brother who played the cello.

Gian Carlo Menotti4:13

one one played the violin. They all played, if I recall, rather abominably. They all s took everything twice too slow, but they did get through in any any Beethoven trio or Mozart trio.

Presenter4:27

What was your contribution?

Gian Carlo Menotti4:28

Uh oh, I was then a little a little boy and while my smaller brothers and sisters had to go to bed by I think it was eight o'clock if I remember, I was allowed to to fall asleep in the uh music room and so I if I used to fall asleep every night at the sound of Beethoven and Mozart because my mother played badly but she had a very good taste and she always surrounded me with good music.

Presenter4:53

You weren't far away from Milan, of course, so you went to La Scala?

Gian Carlo Menotti4:57

Yes, I went to La Scara, but not until I was about fourteen. My my father hated the the city.

Gian Carlo Menotti5:04

and uh kept us in in the country all year round. So actually I didn't have a taste of of the Opera House until I was about fourteen.

Presenter5:13

By which time you'd already written a complete opera yourself.

Gian Carlo Menotti5:16

Yes. I I used to have a puppet theatre and I used to write the operas for my puppet theatre. And I wrote one opera called The Death of Pierrot, a very tragic work, uh at the end of which everybody's been either killed or died of natural death.

Presenter5:31

Yeah. And you enrolled at the Milan Conservatory in due course. Composition, obviously. What was your other subject?

Gian Carlo Menotti5:38

Well the concept of authorities we al always did harmony and counterpoint and the usual thing, piano and the lot.

Presenter5:43

Block, yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti5:44

I was not a very good student, to tell you the truth.

Presenter5:47

Right.

Gian Carlo Menotti5:47

Right, let's have your second.

Presenter5:48

Second record. What shall we have now?

Gian Carlo Menotti5:50

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti5:51

Well, my my second record is really it's a very conventional choice, which is Bach.

Gian Carlo Menotti5:56

I would like to take the whole of the well-templed cafe.

Presenter5:59

One discount

Gian Carlo Menotti6:00

Yes, but I mean to the desert island you will have me you'll let me take the whole of it because I will not take Skip

Presenter6:05

Good.

Gian Carlo Menotti6:05

Or only one disc only.

Gian Carlo Menotti6:07

Oh, well, that's a very cruel choice. Well, then um let us have I mean they're they're also beautiful, but what about the one in B Fret Minor?

Gian Carlo Menotti6:19

I must say I must confess something that will horrify some of your listeners. I love to hear my my uh well tempered on the piano rather than on the clavi chord. Um I'm not a purist. And always the um clavi cembo, more often than not, sounds to me like squash marmalade. That's horrible.

Gian Carlo Menotti6:40

So let let me have a nice clean piano. I'm sure that Bach would have been delighted to hear his own works on a on a nice pianoforte.

Presenter6:46

And who's will play it?

Gian Carlo Menotti6:48

I've chosen the recording of Glenn Gould, which I think is rather brilliant recording.

Presenter7:53

From Bach's well-tempered clavier, the prelude and fugue in B-flat minor played by Glenn Gould, or the opening of it at any rate.

Presenter8:02

While they were at the Milan Conservatory,

Presenter8:05

Not doing very well, you said. Um

Presenter8:08

In fact, your mother took you away because you weren't doing well enough. Is that so?

Presenter8:12

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti8:13

Um yes, I was a a rather lazy student and my mother took me to Arturo Toscanini, who was uh m more or less a friend of the family, and uh asked him what she should do with such a unruly uh student.

Gian Carlo Menotti8:30

And Toscanini advised her to take me away from Milano, away from the family, and to abandon me in a sort of desert island which in this case turned out to be Philadelphia, which could very well be a desert island. You cannot imagine a duller place than Philadelphia. And there I was dumped by my mother at the age of sixteen. And I enrolled in the Curtis Institute of Music. Did you speak English?

Presenter9:00

Do so I think

Gian Carlo Menotti9:01

Uh well, the sort of of English that I learned from my nurse and which was really uh it was very primitive indeed. So as a matter of fact, the first thing I tried to buy in America um I wanted to have some nails to hang some pictures. And I thought of Chiaordi in Italian, Clue in French, Clavos in Spanish. So I went into a a a hardware store

Presenter9:06

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti9:24

and asked for some clouds because I thought that's the first thing I tried to buy in America were clouds. I'm still trying to buy them.

Presenter9:29

Yeah.

Presenter9:33

I'm still trying to buy them.

Presenter9:36

Now you were just, I think, twenty-five when you wrote your first opera, your first drone.

Gian Carlo Menotti9:40

Actually I wrote it when I was twenty three and then it I think it was given by the school when I I was twenty four and then it was finally given a public performance when I was twenty five.

Presenter9:50

That was Amelia goes to the ball.

Gian Carlo Menotti9:51

And that's

Presenter9:53

and it was produced at the Metropolitan New York.

Presenter9:57

During

Gian Carlo Menotti9:57

Two seasons

Presenter9:57

Mm.

Presenter9:58

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti9:58

Yes.

Gian Carlo Menotti9:59

What did you f Follow it with

Gian Carlo Menotti10:01

Uh after that, what did I write after that? I I then I wrote the very first opera I've ever written for Wireless, uh which was called The Old Maid and the Thief.

Presenter10:07

Uh

Gian Carlo Menotti10:10

Yes. Which still uh is still alive and kicking.

Presenter10:14

Yeah. And then the island

Gian Carlo Menotti10:15

God. Then the Iron God, which was a tremendous disaster. No, actually it it was worse than a disaster. It it was damned with fucking prayer.

Presenter10:22

But nevertheless, it played at the Met and

Gian Carlo Menotti10:25

Uh yes, it was done actually on a commission by the Metropolitan.

Presenter10:25

Uh yes, it was

Presenter10:29

And there can't be many young composers in their twenties who can claim two operas.

Gian Carlo Menotti10:29

Yeah.

Presenter10:33

at the Metropolitan New York.

Gian Carlo Menotti10:36

Well, I'd uh except it would have been much better if both had been a success.

Presenter10:41

And in fact, two Pullet Surprises you have too.

Gian Carlo Menotti10:44

Uh yes, or that's not talk about p

Presenter10:45

Right.

Gian Carlo Menotti10:46

Right.

Gian Carlo Menotti10:50

I I don't like funerals and I I hope that when I'm buried I'm I'll be buried without any music or prayers or anything, just thrown into the earth and and uh done away with. But if I must have some music at my funeral, the piece that you're about to hear uh is my choice and that is the the Schubert Printette for Tuccellis in C major. I I think it is perhaps one of the the greatest uh pieces of music ever written and one that always moves me immensely.

Presenter11:51

Part of the first movement of the Schubert quintet for two cellos played by the Juilliard Quartet.

Presenter11:58

Augmented by Bernard Greenhouse.

Presenter12:00

Now you continued to make history, mister Minotti, by transferring your next operatic production from the Opera House to Broadway. Now, Opera on Broadway, that was indeed a novelty.

Gian Carlo Menotti12:10

Well actually it was not um my intention to bring opera to Broadway. It was simply an experiment to uh present opera as a production in itself and not as part of a repertoire. My theory w was that if an opera is very well prepared uh as a player's, it can play every night and it can have an audience for uh night after night and one needn't change uh fare every night the way we do it at opera houses so then no production is ever faultless. And it was an experiment that was quite successful. We ran the medium for I believe eight months uh in a small theater and then in a bigger theater we did the console for over a year and the Saint Oblique Street for about three months or four months.

Presenter12:56

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti13:00

You like to direct your operating

Presenter13:02

Where is yourself?

Gian Carlo Menotti13:03

Not that I especially like it. I don't like to abandon my opera when they are still infants and I like to nurse them myself, just like most psychologists think that children should be fed by their own mother at the beginning. So I be I believe that if if if a composer can present his own operas, he should do so. And I feel that I'm as good a a producer as most people are. As a matter of fact, I'm I feel I'm slightly better. So I I like to take care of my of my young children myself, at least for a while, then I'll let them go.

Presenter13:31

I love it.

Presenter13:36

And that way that takes you about the world.

Gian Carlo Menotti13:39

Indeed.

Gian Carlo Menotti13:41

I don't think I will go on doing that much longer because it is very tiring and I

Gian Carlo Menotti13:46

and at my age I think it's time that I retire.

Presenter13:48

There's a short opera that you wrote for television, which is a great standby all over the world at Christmas, Amale and the Night Visitors.

Gian Carlo Menotti13:56

Yes, indeed. Uh uh that is what helps me to pay all my telephone bills and uh my electric bills and

Gian Carlo Menotti14:05

It is an opera that has given me great joy, especially because it has brought me in contact with children all over the world.

Gian Carlo Menotti14:11

And the letters I've received from children as far away as India and Japan, they're letters that I treasure and they've often reread because there are some of them are extremely amusing.

Gian Carlo Menotti14:25

Your fourth record we got to.

Gian Carlo Menotti14:28

The fourth record, well I I'm entering now the

Gian Carlo Menotti14:33

the operatic field and um I've chosen one of my favorite operas, uh Peleasse Milisante.

Gian Carlo Menotti14:41

And I've chose uh that opera because um

Gian Carlo Menotti14:45

Curiously enough, every time I hear Peleas, although I've I've produced it myself uh quite a few times every time I hear it I I discover something new in it.

Gian Carlo Menotti14:55

And it uh seems to me that it contains uh so much richness that uh I never get tired of hearing it.

Presenter16:04

The interlude between the second and third scenes of Act One of Dubussy's Bellias and Melissande.

Presenter16:12

Anse Mais conducting the Swiss Romant Orchestra.

Presenter16:15

I think it was about twenty years ago that you decided to run your own festival in a town in Umbria called Spoleto. How did all that start?

Gian Carlo Menotti16:24

Oh, please don't ask me that, because people have asked me that again and again, and every time they ask me, I give a different answer, because I cannot remember myself why I started it. Why Spoleto? Why Spoleto actually because it was in the ideal town for a small festival. It had two enchanting theatres, nineteenth century theatres. Actually, one is almost eighteenth century theatre. And they were abandoned. The theater was small enough to be almost like a drawing room.

Gian Carlo Menotti16:54

And uh because Pareto needed me and I wanted to be needed.

Presenter16:58

And you spend several months a year at it because you have to go and raise the money in the winter as well as the summer.

Gian Carlo Menotti17:02

Well, I don't actually do that any I have sort of a trust now without that unpleasant job.

Presenter17:10

And you'll have plays and concerts and operas and films and ballet and art exhibitions.

Gian Carlo Menotti17:16

Are you

Gian Carlo Menotti17:17

Yeah.

Presenter17:18

to disgruntled spectators and critics.

Presenter17:21

And you don't allow your own music to be presented?

Gian Carlo Menotti17:24

Uh no, I I actually do now. You do now. I'm not that much of a masochist. I I did forbid it for um

Gian Carlo Menotti17:32

About fourteen years. That is as long as I was the artistic director of the festival. But then I decided that I m I I wanted to hear some of my own music there. So I vacated my my seat and I let somebody else take over the artistic direction. And now I'm allowed to have some of my music in the festival. I'm o I'm only the grandpapa of the festival now.

Presenter17:57

Vain one.

Gian Carlo Menotti17:58

Uh

Presenter17:58

Now one thing you must be very proud of. The Festival gives you a procession for your birthday every year.

Presenter18:05

Uh

Gian Carlo Menotti18:05

No, I haven't. Whoever told you that? No. No, they light they light a few torches and uh and they send me a f a few uh bunches of roses and that's about all.

Gian Carlo Menotti18:19

It is the legend all this about the procession.

Presenter18:21

Record number five.

Gian Carlo Menotti18:23

I really thought very um

Gian Carlo Menotti18:27

carefully about what I would take with me to to a desert island, and I feel that I should like to take also something that would remind me of my past.

Gian Carlo Menotti18:35

and uh something very dear to me, and that is the music of a very dear friend, it's Samuel Barber, not only because he's a friend, but also because I do admire his music immensely, and I think that uh his opera Vanessa is one of the of the most beautiful contemporary operas written. And I think you'll hear the beginning of the quintet.

Speaker 419:03

Too fun, too keen.

Speaker 419:09

Who stayed on wait? Coop to dream.

Speaker 419:20

Could we

Gian Carlo Menotti19:23

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti19:27

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti19:29

Uh

Presenter19:51

The beginning of the quintet from the last act of Samuel Barber's Finessa, for which you wrote the libretto, I believe.

Gian Carlo Menotti19:58

Yes, I did.

Presenter20:00

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti20:00

You live now in these islands?

Gian Carlo Menotti20:02

I live now in uh in Scotland. I bought myself

Gian Carlo Menotti20:07

Well, you it has been called different names. Uh, a beautiful house, a white elephant and a w an ivory tower.

Gian Carlo Menotti20:16

I call it an ivory tower.

Presenter20:18

Near the east coast of Scotland.

Gian Carlo Menotti20:18

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti20:20

Yes, in East Lothian.

Gian Carlo Menotti20:22

And I love the weather over there and I love the silence and I couldn't be happier.

Presenter20:28

And on this occasion you come south to see the

Presenter20:31

First London revival of the console by the English National Opera at the Coliseum.

Gian Carlo Menotti20:36

Yes, I was rather taken by surprise because I believe it was uh a last minute decision to revive the council.

Gian Carlo Menotti20:43

And I was rather nervous at the premiere because I I knew that the production has been put together in a bit of a haste. But I must say I was quite impressed and by it and I thought it it is a really very a very exciting and moving production.

Presenter20:59

Could you compose at the piano?

Gian Carlo Menotti21:01

No, I wouldn't say that I compose at the piano. I I compose near the piano. I I I think uh or mathematic material and I d sketch things without without the piano and then I like to try them on the piano. And very often the actual sound surprises me at times and so I correct things and I change them. What's your next record?

Gian Carlo Menotti21:22

Well, we take a big jump backwards and we go ba to uh back to Palestrina.

Gian Carlo Menotti21:27

uh who was another one of my favorite composers. And uh I think that Palestrina would do very well in a desert island. I I don't think one can get tired of Palestrina, especially if one has a good ears and can follow all the intricate uh design of of the part.

Speaker 421:48

God's place.

Speaker 422:13

And his fonts on science praise on sun. It's all for Jesus.

Presenter22:44

The Palestrina motet, Veni Sponsa Christi, sung by the choir of Saint John's College, Cambridge, directed by George Guest.

Presenter22:53

How well could you look after yourself on this island? You consider yourself

Presenter22:57

A good Robinson Crusoe or not?

Gian Carlo Menotti23:00

I think I could at this time of of of my life, I think I could very well take care of myself. When I was younger I probably couldn't have stood it because uh

Gian Carlo Menotti23:10

Uh well, first of all, because I'm a rather amorous person and uh I I think being alone in a desert island would have driven me crazy. Would you try to escape?

Gian Carlo Menotti23:22

Hmm.

Gian Carlo Menotti23:24

Well, yes, of course I would try to escape, I imagine. I mean that uh don't don't you think it is instinctive of men to try to escape from anything? I I've been trying to escape from myself all my life, so I certainly would try to escape from from a desert island. It also would depend how big the desert island is. But there are so many ifs.

Presenter23:41

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti23:43

If it is big enough, perhaps I would I would settle there forever. I wouldn't try to escape.

Presenter23:47

More music, please, record number seven.

Gian Carlo Menotti23:49

Um well, uh this may be a terrible mistake, but I I feel that uh Wagner should be included for some of the lazy afternoons when I really feel intellectually uh lazy and want to

Gian Carlo Menotti24:03

to bask in some beautiful sensual sound. Uh I've chosen Tristan because of all Wagner's operas as the one I I love most. And uh

Gian Carlo Menotti24:16

And also I do love the voice of Flagstadt, so I've chosen of course the second act, which is what probably everybody would choose.

Presenter25:23

An excerpt from the second act of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, Kirsten Flagstad and Ludwig Sutthaus.

Presenter25:31

And now we come to your last record. Watch that.

Gian Carlo Menotti25:34

Well, when I I came to my last record I felt really terribly guilty because first of all I suddenly realized that I had left Beethoven out.

Gian Carlo Menotti25:44

And I've left the Chopin out and I left uh oh dear Schumann out. I mean and then there's Mozart, I mean w you can't leave Mozart out. Between Beethoven and Mozart I think I'd I'd really I I'd rather have Mozart. So I've taken my favorite opera of Mozart, which is not Don Giovanni, but uh Notzi di Figaro.

Speaker 426:40

Oh, miserable missile.

Gian Carlo Menotti26:43

Oh, the sea of the sky.

Gian Carlo Menotti26:46

I said I've been on the board.

Speaker 426:58

But you know.

Presenter27:08

Teresa Baganza as Kerubino in the first act to the marriage of Figaro.

Presenter27:14

Now if you could take

Presenter27:15

Only one disk of your aid, which would it be?

Gian Carlo Menotti27:19

Oh dear, what a terrible question. Uh well frankly, I would not want to take any discs, because the the idea of taking one of these uh beautiful discs with me and having to play it again and again, the same disc again, it would absolutely spoil it for me forever. So I'd rather well, I would I would take one disc for maybe play it two or three times and then break it.

Presenter27:38

Don't break it, make something useful out of it. I mean melt it and make a flour vase or

Gian Carlo Menotti27:41

Out.

Gian Carlo Menotti27:43

Valves on it. That's a good idea. And you're allowed to take one luxury.

Gian Carlo Menotti27:48

Well I imagine perhaps a a pack of cards, tarots, of course. Taros? Yes, of course. Because that you can play games with them. I can also read my future and know whether somebody's going to rescue me or not.

Presenter28:00

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, and we don't allow big encyclopedias.

Gian Carlo Menotti28:06

Perhaps a book of philosophy. I mean other Kant or

Presenter28:08

Yeah.

Gian Carlo Menotti28:10

of Wittgenstein or something to something that would take me a long time to figure out.

Gian Carlo Menotti28:14

Um

Presenter28:15

A Book of Philosophy by Kant Or Wittgenstein, and thank you, Gian Carlo Minotti, for letting us hear your Desert Island Disc.

Gian Carlo Menotti28:22

Thank you, and do come to visit me in my desert island.

Presenter28:25

I surely shall. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 328:36

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.