The gentlemen pictured above is Maestro Bruno Bartoletti, who has been a conductor at the Lyric Opera of Chicago for more than fifty years – and more than 600 performances – but who is about to end that long and fruitful association in order to spend more time in his native Florence, Italy with family and friends. The current run of La Traviata performances are his last with the company, and the performance that Marshall and I saw Tuesday night was the third from the last. . . and it was no surprise that he was showered with exceptionally warm and appreciative applause from all of us who realized that this was our last Bruno performance.
It’s the end of an era- and it was nice that the era ended on a high, with such an impressive performance, because unfortunately Marshall and I have experienced a lot of lifeless, tepid conducting from Maestro Bartoletti over the twenty-plus years that we have been attending the Lyric. But from some inner reservoir he managed to draw some sort of extra inspiration over the last several seasons and really did exciting work.
Rewind to 1985-86 and my tenure with the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists, an apprentice program in which a dozen or so young artists performed in our own production of The Marriage of Figaro, studied languages and stagecraft, and performed tiny roles in the operas at the Lyric itself. I was assigned one word in Madama Butterfly, one line in La Rondine, and one line in La Traviata – I could sing my entire season’s worth of solo work in about nineteen seconds. (Don’t believe them when they say “there are no small parts.” I know there are small parts because I’ve sung some of them!) I was also in the chorus for three operas – Otello, Samson, and Die Meistersinger.
I didn’t know Maestro Bartoletti – at that time the artistic director of the Lyric – very well at all, but we did have one moment of unpleasantness. The opera in question was Puccini’s La Rondine, in which I had a grand total of one line in the last act. . . but when the first musical run through with conductor and piano is scheduled, you are there for every minute of it – even though it means a lot of sitting and listening. This particular rehearsal was going quite slowly – partly because this was a relatively unfamilar opera and for several of the principals, including the star, it was their first time performing it. So the rehearsal was going quite slowly as various problems along the way were discussed and addressed, and it was looking very much like we wouldn’t make it all the way to the end of the opera in the allotted time. So during the half-point break, I went up to Maestro Bartoletti to ask him if he thought he was going to be reaching the end of act three – and if he wasn’t, I wondered if I could leave. Maestro Bartoletti is a diminutive man, but he seemed to suddenly loom over me as he icily asked me “Meester Berg, are you a member of this cast or aren’t you?” I felt like I was about an inch tall and I slunk away in abject misery and humiliation and retook my seat. But that wasn’t the worst of it. We did eventually reach that point in the last act where I sing my little line – “desidera che’avete la signora.” Much of this score was typically Puccini – rather complex, with lots of changing meters, keys, etc. But my entrance could not be easier. . . a simple, major chord repeated four times before I entered on the and of beat four. And I missed it! (One of the drawbacks to singing such small and unimportant roles is that it’s all but impossible to remain engaged and alert, and by the time they finally got to me, I was practically in a coma.) I can still see the conductor’s withering look he gave me – utter contempt for this inconsequential singer who tried to leave early and then botched his one and only entrance. I felt like a squashed bug. Believe me, I never missed that entrance again.
I think of two things with that La Rondine production – one thing being that this was the very first Lyric production which utilized projected supertitles of the English translation. Now such a thing is completely commonplace, but back then this was quite a new and exciting innovation. The other thing I recall from that time is one afternoon not long before the opera opened when I walked through the backstage area and heard singing and piano playing from behind a black curtain. I listened in and quickly realized that it was Maestro Bartoletti and the star soprano in the opera, Ileana Cotrubas, and he was coaching her in the opera’s one and only big aria. And you didn’t have to listen long to realize that she was having some real trouble with it – especially the high-flying climax – and Maestro Bartoletti was doing everything he could think of to help her sing this with more ease and confidence. And as they kept hammering at these trouble spots, sounding in a sense more and more concerned, I was given quite a sobering taste of the pressures that are part of being a leading opera singer – the huge responsibility which rests on their shoulders – and also of the immense difference which the conductor might hope to make in helping any singer struggling with an important role. That too is a huge responsibility.
One thing which was surprising to me was that Maestro Bartoletti conducted in what appeared to me to be such a lifeless fashion- seeming to barely move his hands and arms at all . . . in fact sometimes looking like Tim Conway in those hilarious sketches in which he would play an extremely elderly man trying to perform some hopelessly difficult task, moving with teeny tiny steps and driving poor Harvey Korman insane. Bruno was a little bit like that in the pit- he did so little, physically – sometimes his beat seemed like little more than a bit of a quiver. . . nothing like any other conductor under which I’d ever sung. Finally I went up to a friend of mine in the opera chorus – one of the veterans – and asked him about it . . . and I could scarcely believe what I heard. “Bruno is a FRAUD! He doesn’t know how to conduct and never has! He stands on that podium and just bluffs his way through. He is utterly incompetent . . . etc.” I was surprised and fascinated by the comments – and for a time I really believed what my colleague said. But over time I’ve come to realize that conducting comes in many shapes and sizes, and Bruno seems to be part of a school of conductors – Toscanini was another – in which you work diligently in rehearsal, so that by the time you get to the performances themselves, problems have been solved and all are sufficiently prepared to the extent where the conductor need not be flapping his arms through every beat of the piece and might indeed conduct very little. I am more and more convinced that this was more of the story of Bruno’s conducting and that there was more to it and to him than met the eye. And his is style based at least partly on trusting the great abilities of your musicians.
This friend of mine from the chorus was driven crazy by one other trait of the maestro’s, and this I experienced very directly – and that was Bruno’s practice of suddenly forgetting how to understand and/or communicate in English just when some unpleasant matter might require his attention. As far as my friend is concerned, that was nothing but a premeditated snow job designed to keep Bruno’s life as simple as possible. And indeed it was my distinct impression that Bruno would be fully fluent in English, very easily carrying on in English- and then when some sort of sticky matter might be brought to his attention, Bruno was suddenly saying “non capisco” (I do not understand) with this look of bewilderment on his face that I am sure was far from fully authentic.
Still, for all of the quirks – for all with which we might take issue – Bruno is first and foremost a gentleman and musician- – – and someone who has given more than a half century’s worth of service to the Lyric. It is so weird to think that he has been conducting at the Lyric longer than I have been alive. And it’s even weirder to think that after two more performances, he will be done with the Lyric and I will presumably never set eyes on him again. So I am grateful for the brief encounter I had with him backstage, facilitated by our cellist friend Laura Deming, to take a picture of him with Laura – and to catch one more fleeting glimpse of him before he retires.
By the way, one lasting legacy for me of my time with the Lyric is that in that house, you ALWAYS ALWAYS call conductors “Maestro” as a gesture of respect- and ever since, with both the Kenosha Symphony and Racine Symphony, I have also addressed the conductor at hand as Maestra or Maestro. Old habits die hard and the conductors around here often razz me for addressing them in that way – but that was so drilled into my head way back when and I still have to do it. (I think I felt like a lightning bolt from the sky would come down and burn my to a crisp if I forgot.) Such was the reverence given to the conductor at a place like the Lyric – and Bruno Bartoletti represents one of the last links to that era.
pictured: backstage at the Lyric – Bruno Bartoletti posing with our good friend Laura Deming, who plays cello with the Lyric Orchestra. This is the same Laura mentioned in a blog entry back in June titled “Bonnie and Clyde.”