Lazy Man's Festival

Gioacchino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868), an ebullient, easygoing man, wrote 39 operas, and stopped at the age of 37 with the explanation that he was "too lazy" to compose any more. Because his operas have a reputation for being hopelessly oldfashioned, and because most of them are excruciatingly difficult for modern singers, little but his bubbling Barber of Seville and the galloping overture to William Tell* get much of a hearing today. But last week Florence's Maggio (May) Musicale ended a cycle of six Rossini operas in as many weeks, won bravos from audiences and critics.

Director Francesco Siciliani had combed through the composer's entire output to find six representative operas. He chose Armida (composed in 1817), Il Conte Ory (1828), Tancredi (1813), La Scala di Seta (1812), La Pietra del Paragone (1812) and William Tell (1829). Florence critics relished all of them, singled out the "scenic and choreographic spectacle" of Armida, hailed Ory as the "first musical comedy of the 19th century," called La Pietra "second only to The Barber of Seville." But the lid came off for Tell.

Basso Nicola Rossi-Lemeni had the biggest personal triumph, mesmerized the audience with his singing and acting as the Swiss hero: when he fired his crossbow and the apple on his son's head split with a stage-trick snap, there was a loud and relieved cheer.

The only casualty was Tenor Kurt Baum of the Metropolitan Opera, who sang the young lover Arnoldo; on Tell's opening night, his voice cracked on some nearly impossible high notes, and before long had the hypercritical Italian audience jeering. Said a theater official, mopping his neck between acts: "There is always an atmosphere of the battlefield about our performances, but this is the most ferocious audience I have seen in 30 years."

Two nights later, at a second performance, Tenor Baum redeemed himself magnificently. Extra police were in the balcony to keep Florentines from violence if he fluffed again. The big test was the fourth act, where the tenor has an aria lasting ten minutes and running the entire tenor scale. As Baum began to climb to the high notes, the usually noisy galleryites were quiet as mice. When he got to the stratospheric climax and crashed out the finish, the audience applauded its hands raw, cheered itself hoarse. Tenor Baum grinned like a schoolboy.

Conductor Tullio Serafin was pretty pleased too: Rossini might be difficult, but he was worth the difficulty. Said Serafin: "Rossini is the billionaire of musical ideas."

* For decades the "classical" selection on outdoor band concerts in the U.S., it now furnishes the musical signature of radio's Lone Ranger.

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