Above: Gian Carlo Menotti
A day at work in the opera room at Tower Records could veer, in the twinkling of an eye, from the accustomed drudgery of a job in retail to memorable encounters with artists from the world of classical music and dance.
Over the nine years that I worked in that now-forgotten space, it sometimes felt like the center of the world. Singers - from Juilliard hopefuls to retired divas - came in on a daily basis. Conductors (Ehrling, Levine, and Conlon, among others) and designers (Ming Cho Lee was a lovely regular), and even famous fans (Mayor Giuliani - hate him if you want, but he was a true opera-lover...), all made their way to 66th and Broadway.
One day in November of 2001, a very elegantly dressed older gentlemen stepped into my small domain. It took me only a moment to recognize Gian Carlo Menotti. Mr. Menotti was in New York City for events surrounding the 50th anniversary of his "TV opera", AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS; but he did not mention that at all in the course of our chat. He was wearing a light grey suit, immaculately tailored, and his noble posture was that of a much younger man (he was 90, I believe, at the time). His Old World manners and the delightful cordiality of his speaking voice put me at ease.
Above: Roberta Peters as Kitty in Mr. Menotti's opera THE LAST SAVAGE
We talked, surprisingly enough, about his comic opera THE LAST SAVAGE, which had had its US premiere at the Old Met in 1964. I mentioned that I would love to see the opera performed again, and he smiled and said: "You remember the music, then? Which parts did you most enjoy?" (I think he doubted that I could actually recall anything specific from the piece.)
Since the voices of George London, Roberta Peters, Nicolai Gedda, and Teresa Stratas are indelibly linked in my mind to their arias from THE LAST SAVAGE, I began to 'sing' little snatches for him. By the time I got to Kitty's line, "Let me explain to you the how and the why: no anthropologist is braver than I!", he was smiling. "Oh...wonderful! You must tell the people at The Met to revive it!"
Mr. Menotti found the recording he'd been looking for; we shook hands and bowed to one another as he departed.
Gian Carlo Menotti was the lover and domestic partner of Samuel Barber, a relationship that was sustained for forty years. Above, a photo from 1936 shows what a handsome couple they were.
In 2007, I read of Mr. Menotti's death at Monte Carlo. Although there was a place reserved for him next to Samuel Barber's grave at West Chester, Pennsylvania, Menotti was buried in Gifford, East Lothian, Scotland, beneath the simplest of stone markers:
If AMAHL is probably Menotti's most widely-known opera, and if THE LAST SAVAGE still sings in my mind, it's with Magda's aria "To this we've come..." from THE CONSUL that the composer made his most enduring statement. Desperate to get a visa so that her husband can escape persecution by the secret police, Madga Sorel fights a losing battle against bureaucratic indifference to her plight.
Watch Patricia Neway's incredible performance of this scene here.
Magda's aria opens with these chillingly timely lines:
"To this we've come:
that men withhold the world from men.
No ship nor shore for him who drowns at sea.
No home nor grave for him who dies on land.
To this we've come:
that man be born a stranger upon God's earth,
that he be chosen without a chance for choice,
that he be hunted without the hope of refuge.
To this we've come.
And you, you too shall weep!"
~ Oberon