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entry
July
2005
Ravello
2005
Boccaccio, Rufolo, Wagner, & the World's Loudest Trombone Section  In his Decameron,
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) devoted an entire tale
(Second Day, Tale Four) to the adventures of one Landolfo Rufolo, a
contemporary of his from
the town of Ravello on the "delightful...slope of Amalfi." Rufolo
was rich but wanted more;
thus, he set off to seek his further fortune, became a pirate,
went down at sea, was rescued and
eventually found his way home to Ravello again where he built his villa
on a spectacular slope
overlooking the sea. He then "lived in honorable estate" until his
death.Poster of first Wagner Festival, 1953  As if
from Snoopy's Dark -and-Stormy-Night school of great
coincidences, just a few years earlier (c. 1200) in far-off Germany,
Wolfram von Eschenbach had written his Parsifal, which,
centuries later, would inspire Richard Wagner's
(1813-83) last work, a tale
involving the evil sorcerer, Klingsor and an enchanted garden. Wagner
visited the Villa Rufolo in
1880 and was so inspired by the beauty of the garden that he declared,
"Here is the enchanted
garden of Klingsor." Did Eschenbach know Boccaccio? And what were
Mommy and Daddy
von Eschenbach thinking when they named their kid "Wolfram," a word
that means "tungsten" in German? And how would young Tungsten have
rated Wagner? (answer: "Really loud. Say,
do you guys
know anything by Hildegard von Bingen?") And why is "Parsifal" a
pseudo-anagram for "Laugh His
Rap"? Alas, we may never know the answer to some of these questions,
but see how it all ties
together? The gardens that so moved Wagner
were
actually the result of a
renovation of the villa in 1851 when Francis Neville Reid, a Scottish
botanist, bought the property and
went crazy with the plant life. The restoration of the villa, itself,
was in the hands of Michele
Ruggiero, a gentleman who then took over the excavations at Pompeii.
Significant parts of the original
villa are still intact, including the main tower
and intriguing
Norman-Arab columns (photo, right) along a passageway
through the villa and to the back of the property where the outdoor
concerts are held. The stage
is set up at 1000 feet over the slope and sea looking due east along
the folds of the mountain
range of the Amalfi coast. The view is stunning.This year's festival started July 3 and will run through September 17; it has "sections" for orchestral, chamber, and film music, visual arts, experimental theater, and discussions on education. I went for the orchestral music— specifically, Wagner, because that is why one goes to Ravello. We heard the Orchestra and Choir of the Marinsky Theater from St. Petersburg. It wasn't all Wagner, but it was close enough and included, on two successive evenings, a prelude from Parsifal, the funeral march from The Twilight of the Gods, the overtures to Tannhäuser and The Flying Dutchman, and the introduction to the third act of Lohengrin. One non-Wagner item was Prokovief's great score to the Eisenstein film, Alexander Nevsky. I recall noting that there were two bass trombonists in the Parsifal excerpt, thus giving the collective low brass section the most lethal attack of decibels since the eruption of Krakatoa. It was fine! (Also see Ravello 2008) to main index to music portal |