Ludovica wrote:This tells us that we are at the end of the line
I wrote, at the time of the publication of this article, a letter to La Stampa, which I am happy to share
It surprises me greatly that a prestigious newspaper like La Stampa decides to publish, at a moment of extremely grave suffering for Italian culture and particularly for the musical life of our country, a delusional article, even though written by a man of culture, which perhaps makes it even more serious, in which, with tones that are to say irreverent, he addresses a very delicate subject from a totally misinformed or feignedly foolish perspective.
It is certainly true that speaking of the Opera House as something old and outdated is the same as saying that museums could be closed because the works of art exhibited in those places have been seen and re-seen and no longer have anything to say to us. Or saying, I don't know, that the history books in all the libraries of the world could be burned, since today there are eBooks. Or saying that the churches scattered throughout our territory serve no purpose and that those spaces could be used for new hypermarkets or, even better, new banks, why not?
If times have changed for the Opera House, they have changed for all art, and so, why abolish one thing and preserve the others?
The Opera House, like all music, is "living" art, which needs people to maintain it as such, even if Ceronetti does not care.
One cannot read the Opera House in an armchair, like any work by Ceronetti, who, among many things, when speaking of the "imbecility of librettos, of which not a single one can be saved," commits two very serious errors: the first is that evaluating an opera libretto, especially one by Verdi, detached from the music, is something that even a first-year student of Musical Theater History would not do, since it is notorious that Verdi's poetics and, consequently, those of his librettists, were aimed at a theatrical effectiveness in its complexity (has he ever heard Ceronetti speak of "scenic word"? He would do well to research it); the second error is grammatical: one does not write "di cui non se ne salva..." [of which one doesn't save oneself...], because there is a useless repetition that, from an eminent man of letters in the grip of fanaticism regarding the literary purity of Piave, sincerely, one would not expect.
I would have written "di cui nemmeno uno si salva" [of which not even one is saved], more correct and elegant, while still remaining, in substance, nonsense.
Not to mention the sequence of clichés about Wagner's works (but has Ceronetti ever heard one or read, even of those, only the librettos?).
Of course, it is said "it doesn't matter what they say about you, as long as they talk about you," and without doubt Ceronetti's article has regained him a (sad) notoriety, which he perhaps envied from Piave, Verdi, or Wagner.
Was he perhaps trying to prevent those who, in the near future, might say "it is bitter to think it, but: if Ceronetti no longer writes, what harm is there?"
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