• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Gramilano logo 2023

- dance, opera, photography...

  • HOME
  • POPULAR POSTS
    • DANCE
    • MUSIC & OPERA
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
  • QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
    • DANCERS
    • SINGERS
  • MY PHOTOS
  • CONTACT

La Scala pays tribute to Fiorenza Cossotto

10 May 2015 by Gramilano Leave a Comment

Alexander Pereira with Fiorenza Cossotto
Alexander Pereira with Fiorenza Cossotto

Yesterday, La Scala celebrated Fiorenza Cossotto's 80th birthday with a conference in the Toscanini Foyer. Joining her were Sabino Lenoci and Giancarlo Landini from L'Opera Magazine.

The idea of celebrating the ‘grandi voci' that this theatre has witnessed started with the celebration of Mirella Freni's 80th birthday in February. The meeting with Cossotto kicks off a series which will celebrate artists no longer with us – Mario Del Monaco, Carlo Bergonzi, Piero Cappuccilli – as well as the over-eighties such as Renata Scotto and ninety-year-old Virginia Zeani.

The idea of ‘celebration' has never been high on La Scala's agenda until now. The last performance of the millennium – the ballet Excelsior on 31 December 1999 – passed without an ‘auguri' or a glass of bubbly… just another day at La Scala. The new Sovrintendente, Alexander Pereira, seems to have brought about this change, wanting a Christmas tree in the foyer during December (another first), and he obviously adores these great singers, dropping to his knees in front of Cossotto, just as he'd done with Freni.

from left, Giancarlo Landini, Fiorenza Cossotto and Sabino Lenoci
from left, Giancarlo Landini, Fiorenza Cossotto and Sabino Lenoci

If this was a one off event, I wouldn't be critical but, as this may be the format for the following encounters, I should say that there was not enough space for Cossotto to tell her story. Landini filled us in with dates, casts, repertoire and other useful information, and we heard long-ish extracts of her – glorious – singing. This left very little time for Cossotto herself during a one hour encounter. The audience consisted of fans, many of her generation, so they already knew that she started singing important roles at a very young age, they knew of her various débuts, and they have her recordings at home. What was interesting was to hear Cossotto's personal recollections. Here are a couple of the few she managed to get in.

I actually ‘lived' at La Scala. When I first came to Milan I was afraid to go by myself to a hotel. I was only used to the three or four streets between my home and the railway station [in Crescentino, near Vercelli in Piedmont, where she still lives] to go to the Conservatoire in Turin, so to arrive in Milan…! The porter at the time used to live with his family in an apartment above the theatre and he offered me a bed. So I ‘lived' at La Scala until I found a room in a house with a lady from Piedmont.

Montserrat Caballè with Mario Bolognini & Fiorenza Cossotto - Norma, La Scala 1972
Montserrat Caballè with Mario Bolognini & Fiorenza Cossotto – Norma, La Scala 1972

She was just 21 when she made her début in Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel, and just a month later in January on 1957 she created the role of Sister Mathilde in Poulenc's opera Dialogues des carmélites. She sang continuously at the Piccolo Scala (an intimate theatre housed in the main building which no longer exists) and on the main stage, but in 1962 her big break came at the theatre which firmly established her as one of opera's brightest stars. By this time, she had had ready made her Covent Garden début and recorded a Madama Butterfly with Renata Tebaldi, La Gioconda with Maria Callas and Principessa d'Eboli in Don Carlo. However, this last minute substitution in 1962 really made waves.

I was rehearsing Serse for the Piccolo Scala with Mirella Freni, Luigi Alva… we were all young. I had already attended a rehearsal of La Favorita for the main house as the protagonist [Giulietta Simionato] was not feeling well. After a day of rehearsing, I arrived home tired and my Mother had prepared something hot for me to eat. As we were starting to eat the Sovrintendente phoned and said “Cossottina…”, and when he called me Cossottina I knew he wanted something. He said that the mezzo was ill and could I go on. I said that she'd been ill for days, so couldn't he have asked me before so I could have relaxed during the day. I told him I was about to eat. “Eat? No! If you eat you won't be able to sing!” I rushed to La Scala and went straight on stage. There was an announcement that I was the replacement and there was a groan from the audience. But as I was so tired, and I remembered all the sacrifices my parents had made so that I could study, I didn't let it get to me.

At the end of the first act I belted out a high-C that I held on to as long as the tenor. The audience were amazed… they had only heard me in Mozart, Handel or singing Suzuki before. Maestro Bianchi came to me and said, in the Milanese dialect, “So Cossottina, you've got a high-C!”

Fiorenza Cossotto receiving applause after La Favorita, La Scala 1974
Fiorenza Cossotto receiving applause after La Favorita, La Scala 1974

That is how she came to sing the opening night of La Favorita and show the Milanese audience what she could deliver. The 7 December of that year, the opening night of the season, was a Trovatore, and Cossotto was the Azucena!

I remembered the gypsies who came to our town to mend boilers and do odd jobs when I was a girl. One had all these gold and silver medals, they were enormous! We would ask each other if they were real. She was the Queen of the gypsies. When I was to sing Azucena I remembered this and so I said that I wanted gold everywhere, so I had gold medals around my neck, around my waist and on my forehead. The experience of a small town brought to the stage of La Scala.

What Pier Luigi Pizzi, the meticulous designer, though about this input is unknown!

Cossotto is renowned for her strong character, sometimes difficult. But she is a woman who says what she thinks.

If I had been a little smarter, I wouldn't have said what came in to my head. But I was infantile, a girl, and said what I thought, things that others wouldn't have… I should have kept my mouth shut.

So playing a strong woman like Amneris fitted her like a glove.

I always played her as a woman in love who felt betrayed… I tried to make her human not a statue, a woman who was suffering. I don't know whether this came over to the audience, but…

Extracts of her Amneris floated through the corridors of La Scala once more, and at the end, once again, she had the audience on its feet.

Graham Spicer version
Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.

Related

Filed Under: music & opera Tagged With: Alexander Pereira, Carlo Bergonzi, Fiorenza Cossotto, Madama Butterfly, Maria Callas, Mario Del Monaco, Mirella Freni

Reader Interactions

Post a comment...Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

SUBSCRIBE

Gramilano newsletter 2019

CATEGORIES

FOLLOW

  • 21,200 Subscribers
  • 22,866 Followers
  • 235k Followers
  • 602 Subscribers
  • 3,473 Followers
  • 20,023 Followers

NEWS

[Review] Eun-Me Ahn’s ‘Dragons – “Like a large plate of tasteless food”

A final bow for Russell Janzen: From Danseur Noble to creating Contemporary Ballet

World premiere of film of Kenneth MacMillan’s Sea of Troubles

Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands embarks on six-month UK tour

The Royal Ballet celebrates Bronislava Nijinska in free livestream

Phoenix Dance Theatre appoints Marcus Jarrell Willis as new artistic director

Prison cancels opera about violent gangster and gay composer Ivor Novello

Scottish Ballet’s Twice-Born double bill in rehearsal

SlowDancing/NYCB – hyper slow-motion films of New York City Ballet dancers in NYC

There’s a new Nutcracker in town – Drew McOnie’s vision will open at the Tuff Nutt Jazz Club

POPULAR MUSIC POSTS

Reopening concert, photos by Brescia e Amisano ©Teatro alla Scala (5)

Opera at La Scala cancelled for Covid-19

Maria Callas at La Scala, recording Il trovatore in 1956

Maria Callas in newly restored photos from the La Scala archive

Unseen photos: Maria Callas at La Scala

Anita Rachvelishvili at La Scala, 2016

Anita Rachvelishvili and David Aladashvili cast magic at La Scala

Stradivari

The secrets of the Stradivari and Guarneri sound

Luca Pisaroni as Leporello in Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne   photo by Bill Cooper

In conversation with Luca Pisaroni: back to Milan with his La Scala debut

Aged 97, Franco Zeffirelli will stage a new production of Rigoletto

Talents young and old(er) for La Scala’s Barber of Seville

Angela Gheorghiu reveals Alagna’s pathological jealousy of Kaufmann

2 1 dracula

Vampires are taking over the opera house

More Posts from this Category

FEATURED POSTS

Anna Netrebko and Yusif Eyvazov in cover art for the Romanza album

Interview with Anna Netrebko on her son, his autism and his abandonment by his father Erwin Schrott

Romeo and Juliet with Sergei Polunin

Sergei Polunin on sex change, his new girlfriend, and manning up

In and Out: Bolle, Gomes, Stiefel – how easy is it to be an openly gay ballet dancer?

Vittorio Grigolo’s new women’s shoes and a song for Hillary Clinton

Lawrence Brownlee, © Shervin Lainez

Interview with tenor Lawrence Brownlee on being a black man in America: Cycles of My Being

Francesco Gabriele Frola. Photo By Karolina Kuras, 2016 01

Meet Francesco Gabriele Frola — National Ballet of Canada and English National Ballet’s new Principal Dancer

Thomas Hampson by Jiyang Chen

Thomas Hampson answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Singers’ Edition

franco fagioli © thibault stipal, 2014

Franco Fagioli answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Singers’ Edition

The Tricks of the Trocks: powder, ice and pointe shoes

Luca Pisaroni as Leporello in Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne   photo by Bill Cooper

In conversation with Luca Pisaroni: back to Milan with his La Scala debut

GRAMILANO

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan, aka ‘Gramilano’. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times. He wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.

Since 2022, Gramilano is pleased to welcome guest authors: Alisa Alekseeva, Paul Arrowsmith, Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel, Jonathan Gray, Marina Harss, Matthew Paluch, Jann Parry, Graham Watts, and Deborah Weiss.

Referred-to-by

SEARCH

Related

Copyright © 2023 · Gramilano · All rights reserved

about me · contact me · privacy and cookies

Would you like to receive an email
whenever we publish a new post?

SUBSCRIBE