La Gioconda: Act by Act; Act 2, 1980-04-15

La Gioconda Opera. Act by Act is made possible by a grant from BankAmerica Corporation. [Construction Noises] Places ladies and gentleman, places.

Places. Welcome to Opera, Act by Act. Today, act two of La Gioconda. I'm Tony Randall, standing backstage at the San Francisco Opera where I would be standing more often if God had kissed my vocal chords instead of Pavarotti's. So I talk while others sing. When composer Amilcare Ponchielli first looked over the script of La Gioconda by librettist Arrigo Boito, he wrote a frenzied letter to a friend. "More than 100 times each day, I am tempted to stop. I have no faith in the libretto. But Boito pushes me. I pray I'll have the good sense to take the text, put it in the bottom drawer of my dresser and forget it. If Ponchielli was troubled back in 1876, imagine how the general director of an opera company feels today with inflation compounding the artistic problems. La Gioconda's visible accompaniment includes 10 soloists, 74 musicians, a chorus of 71 plus a 25 loud voiced

chorus, 21 dancers and 67 supers or extras. The invisible brigade includes a crew of 110, 28 more in the wardrobe staff and another 21 souls involved with wigs and makeup, and 14 in the musical and production staff. That's 441 people give or take a soprano. In Act 2 which we are about to enjoy, an entire ship explodes in flames. This is definitely not your low budget extravaganza. It is an Act 2 that Enzo, Luciano Pavarotti, sings the sensual aria Cielo e Mar as he wonders if his love will come to him from the sky or the sea. One of the standard operatic jokes is about the tenor so stupid that he sings [singing emphatically] Cielo e Mar. Planning for La Gioconda began long before opening night. Remember a slip of a lip can sink a ship on the wrong cue and the sinking of the boat. I've never dealt with flames and I have only seen things in opera that I thought were

unsatisfactory so that maybe then we could come up with something that would. Well, this upstage - [talking over each other]. It's - what's a spectacular effect that you could do through the doors if they were practical and could open is upstage or that we could use - uh- t's a Hollywood technique of using the Mother of Pearl Mylar with light below and a fan on it. And you can then put a tremendous amount of light on it. The man responsible for sinking Enzo's brigantine is Tom Munn, who also creates the dazzling lighting design for La Gioconda. We could do that in that unit if the doors were all practical, but I would stay away from the rigging or anything like that. How many people do you think, Zack, would be stored inside or would be hidden inside? I have no idea. I mean, right now, I don't know what happens down here. This little ladder goes down the back and there's a boat waiting. Now, part of this is up to the director. What happens with this is these hatches open so that Enzo can throw a torch

down there so that we can have explosions and fire come out of there and smoke out of the trap. Right. Zac Brown designed all of the sets and hundreds of costumes. He's built scale models for everything that moves in La Gioconda. Well, right now he's talking that if we have this rigging, he wants little kids up in the rigging. [Continued muffled conversation] The doomed ship takes shape in San Francisco Operas' huge warehouse, master carpenter Pierre [Gaillard] in charge. It takes six weeks to build Enzo's vessel and only a few seconds to blow it up. What is it upstage now? 9, uh 9.7, I think. My problem is just on that huge, vast empty stage finding a place to put the fans and all to make this work [Loud construction noises]. I don't know where I'm gonna put them. It's not a long effect.

I just want a startled effect. Bright, movement, explosions, smoke, there will be nobody in here. Lofti has promised me that once the conflagration starts, this is up to us. I mean, this is ours. There's no singers. There's no performers. There's nobody in the way. The action is that Pavarotti will take the torch, he opens up the hatch, he throws the torch, the burning torch down into the pit and drops the lid or whatever. I think we'll use the salzburg. Originally I wanted the doors to blow out. Well, I think we'll just put a cable on them. It'll be an implosion, sort of an explosion and they'll just go like that. But if he's throwing a torch down the trap, how does the rigging catch fire? Well, that's the hope. Maybe he could light the rigging, I suppose, and then throw the torch down the hall. Come on! Light the rigging! John Priest, technical director, has the job of deciding what will work and what won't.

We don't know at this stage. Spectacular effect!. Eight weeks before opening night, the enormous sets are trucked to the Opera House to be tried on for size. If John Priest and Pierre [Guillard] have goofed, this is when they first find out. [Construction noises and shouting] It's one of those things that we have to work until that curtain goes up and sometimes after the curtain goes up, there's some elements to make sure that everything is gonna work 100 percent. You're walking on eggshells now, but we have lots of things that the last minute we have to catch up.

There's a fantastic amount of lighting. There's a lot of light cues in Gioconda with the explosion of the ship and with the last act, with the affect of the water, of the gondola and all that. These requires enormous amount of time at which we don't have as much as we really should. And so we are working constantly like I am lining over the orchestra and then even until the last second before the curtain goes up. Two weeks prior to final dress rehearsal, Maestro Bruno Bartoletti works with Renata Scotto, Gioconda, and Stefania Toczyska, Laura, and they're demanding Act 2 duet. [Speaking in Italian]

[Speaking in Italian] [Speaking in Italian] [Singing in Italian] Director Lotfi Mansouri's staging rehearsals and Maestro Bartoletti's musical rehearsals take place concurrently with both men pushing for all the time they can get. Pavarotti's great aria Cielo e Mar is movement as well as music. [Singing in Italian] [Singing in Italian]

[Singing in Italian] One of Gioconda's loveliest duets is sung between lovers Enzo, Pavarotti,

and Laura, mezzo soprano Stefania Toczyska. [Speaking and singing in Italian] Pavarotti and Toczyska test each other's timbre during an early staging rehearsal. La Gioconda will be Madam Toczyska's American debut and a high point in her career. Should be center. That's it. Tom Munn overseas final installations for the big back.

Remember, we got to keep this clear because we've got chorus coming up the ladder. A demolitions expert has been called in to supervise the pyrotechnics for the onstage sinking of Enzo's ship. And don't think it can't be dangerous. Makes sense. If we can lay this thing all the way over. Lay it on the decks and it doesn't matter -- its where you've got the ring then would almost be right. Put it downstage some, more downstage. All I know about that unit is that Pavarotti has to open it at one point. And if he can't do it, we're gonna cut a major piece of business. And I don't see how he's going to reach that ring. Sure. No. We'll put it a foot from the edge. That's all. All right, fine. Take take the torch. Pick this up like this. And before that, you see you go like this thing here. [Singing in Italian]

Right now, the minute you are the cannon shot. Weeks earlier, the chorus was put through the same paces. Let me see you run out. Come right out. Ready? OK. Come on. Right now. Spread out. And when you, Luciano, When you hear this, there's cannons. Boom, boom. And it's the ships of Alvise following to try to capture you. And then they [singing]. Come down. Look here. My God. What's happening? Well, you know what's happening. So she stays here, [singing]. So that she tells you are anon. And then this one now. [Speaking Italian] this one, Do it. Keep it down here as much, because then the chorus comes all over the ship. Run! Run! It's like as if the entire world is exploding. [Singing in Italian] Now run after him! Ba - ba - ba. Finished! Now curtain falls

Yeah. In Act 1, Barnaba, a spy for the tyrannical government of Duke Alvise, plotted to win the love of the beautiful and talented ballad singer Gioconda, his plot hit a snag when a mysterious masked lady, Laura, the Duke's wife, saved Gioconda's poor blind mother from Barnabus' terror. What Gioconda is about to learn, is that the very same Laura is also the secret love of her love, Enzo, and the rotten Barnaba is about to make the most from this spine tingling triangle. Barnaba arranges a secret meeting between Laura and Enzo at Eno's ship. But the double cross is in Barnaba has tipped off Laura's husband, the Duke. When Gioconda learns of the trap, she hides herself on Enzo's boat. Later that night, under mist and moonlight. La Gioconda, Act 2.

[Singing in Italian]

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[Singing in Italian] [Singing in Italian]

[Singing in Italian] [Singing in Italian]

[Singing in Italian] [Singing in Italian]

[Singing in Italian] [Singing in Italian] [Singing in Italian] [Singing in Italian] It's going to be all that.

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0 0 0 7 9 1. Modest Slobo about. Suffered. Could be to. You call it. Oh, I call called.

The curtain falls and the audience responds with great enthusiasm to that spectacular conclusion to act 2.

This presentation of La Gioconda via [inaudible Italian], and starring Renata Scotto and Luciano Pavarotti. Luciano Pavarotti for his curtain call in the role of Enzo Grimaldo. This is Luciano Pavarotti's first Enzo. It's a spectacular performance for this great artist. Now Norman Mittelmann leads curtain call for his role as Barnaba, along with Renata Scoto as Gioconda, Stefania Toczyska as Laura and Luciano Pavarotti as Enzo Grimaldo [Applause]. [Applause]

I mentioned earlier that this was the first time Luciano Pavarotti sang the role of Enzo. It is also the first time that Renata Scotto has performed as La Gioconda. Pavarotti and Tocyska, Luciano Pavarotti and Stefania Toczyska as Enzo and Laura. Norman Mittelmann leading Renata Scotto. Norman Mittelman and Renata Scotto, Gioconda. Luciano Pavarotti, leading the artists out as we see them all now

Luciano Pavarotti, Stefania Tocyska, Renata Scotto and Norman Mittelmann. And now we return you to your host for the series La Gioconda Opera, Act by Actby Tony Randall. One reason La Gioconda not only tore the house down, it nearly burn the house down is the ending of Act 2. You can never say that composer Ponchielli and librettist Boito spared the special effects. Well, friends, how do you top a four alarm fire? I'll tell you how. With a party to celebrate a suicide. And if that's not enough to grab him, we'll throw in an entire ballet, the dance of the Hours. Remember that from the movie Fantasia. The next episode, Act 3 of La Gioconda whisks us to the House of Gold, Duke Alvise's Palace, just as the Duke catches up with his errant wife, Laura. There's no mercy in the man. He demands her death. Gioconda faces a kind of death, too.

She must accept the fact that her Enzo loves another woman. Duke Alvise cooks up the ultimate surprise party to celebrate his wife's suicide by poison. Opera is fun. Tune in for La Gioconda Act 3 and see how one woman's passion becomes another woman's poison. And we'll go backstage for an intimate glimpse of the people who make it all work. From costume preparation to chorus rehearsal, from dancers auditions to tailoring the priceless Pavarotti Torso. For Opera Act by act, this is Tony Randall. La Gioconda Opera. Act by Act was made possible by a grant

from Bank America Corperation