Battle of the Scores

The Casa Ricordi in Milan is the world's most fabled storehouse of Italian opera. In 17 zinc cases sunk 45 ft. below the ground, the firm has stored away original operatic manuscripts by most of the great Italian composers, including Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini. One discordant note in this musical melange: the firm is under heavy criticism for permitting errors by the thousands to creep into its printed scores--and for refusing to let outsiders compare them with the originals. Last week the criticism grew so loud and bitter that the Italian Senate considered new copyright rules that would open Ricordi's musical treasure vaults to the world.

The dispute was touched off by Australian-born Conductor Denis Vaughan. While studying Italian opera in Italy, Vaughan, 34, was struck by the variations between different printed editions of Puccini's operas. He visited Ricordi, turned his attention to Verdi and began comparing printed scores with manuscripts. Eventually, Ricordi officials confiscated Vaughan's notes and banned him from the archives, but not before he had made some surprising discoveries: there are 27,000 errors in printed versions of Falstaff, 8,000 in the Requiem, 18,000 in Tosca. Examples, from Falstaff:

P: In the first act, such a penetrating instrument as the trombone was marked fortissimo by Verdi only four times; in the printed version there are 25 fortissimo trombone markings.

P:Verdi marked only three slurs on the first page of the score; the printed versions have 43. Result:, a much quicker, slicker opening than Verdi intended.

P: Verdi indicated that the first-act quartet, "Quell'oltre," was to be sung unaccompanied, but it is regularly performed today with full orchestral accompaniment.

P:The famous "Laugh, Falstaff" at the beginning of Act II is marked allegro sostenuto, but it is always sung exactly the reverse, staccato.

The general effect of the changes, Vaughan found, was to muddy a style that has far greater clarity than Verdi admirers realize. The orchestral volume has been in creased almost without exception, subjecting modern singers to shouting contests that Verdi never intended. Vaughan suspects that the same thing has happened to the works of others--including Bizet, whose manuscript he had a chance to examine briefly in Paris.

Ricordi's angry response is that certain changes are inevitable in the hands of strong conductors like Toscanini, who simply made the music "accord with the times.'' The company's irritation at Vaughan and his supporters is heightened by the fact that the Verdi copyright is due to run out at year's end, and Ricordi is anxious to extend its profitable monopoly for another 20 years. As for Vaughan, he is looking ahead to an "artistic revolution." When the copyright expires, he hopes, the whole operatic orchestra will be tuned back to its proper volume, ridding the stage of the vocal athletes whose only distinction is the ability to shatter footlights at a dozen paces.

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