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Gian Carlo Menotti
described his life in the words of Jorge Luis Borges: "scattering his gifts with indifferent glee."1 He had a gift for joining music with text. As both composer and librettist for his dramatic works, Menotti had the freedom to capitalize on the strengths of instruments and voices, and flexibility with the text. Using a full-color palette of sounds to lay bare all the shades of human emotion, he engages his audiences with the characters in his works. By obscuring definitive lines between recitative and aria forms, the interplay between action and reaction of the characters is more realistic and true to living expression than the more standard form, in which recitative carries the action, and aria expresses resulting emotion. As a result, authences and performers find characters genuine and valid. So, why is Menotti not more familiar to musicians?
Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) is perhaps his most recognized work, but it does not define his contribution to music, in particular American music. Menotti composed many operas, choral works, songs, chamber music, and ballets. He not only created the music and wrote the librettos for his operas, but also directed the staged productions.
He was groundbreaking throughout his life, bringing many firsts to the public. In 1939, NBC Radio Network approached Menotti to write an opera specifically for radio, and decidedly American in theme. This was the first such work ever commissioned, and its outcome was The Old Maid and the Thief. Amahl was the first opera specifically commissioned for television in the United States. The Consul (1950) took a pioneering step by premiering not in an opera house, but in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, known for its musical theatre rather than for opera. In 1958, Menotti founded the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds, with the specific aim of providing young artists-musicians, visual artists, dancers, and theater personnel-an opportunity to perform at the highest level, in an "intellectual commune."2
The paradoxes that surround the composer may contribute to his obscurity. The first of these is his dual identity as both Italian and American. He was born and brought up in Cadegliano, Italy but after moving to the United States to attend the Curtís Institute at the age of seventeen, he...