In these days like every year, since 1993, Montréal hosts Italfest, an Italian culture festival, in which they mix, art, cuisine music, made in Italy, capable of welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors in the French -speaking region from Canada which welcomes the second largest community of Italian origin in the country: about 300 thousand people, second only to that of Ontario.
In music, the Belcanto, the trademark of Italy in the world, of which Gianluca Sciarpelletti, Italian-American tenor cannot be missing,with a film story, back from a success in Lima, present on August 17th at the Italfest with a recital concert in which he mixes work and songs, He often lends himself to act as an ambassador.
Is lyric perceived as a symbol of Italy in the world, is it true that there is a different relationship with this kind of music here and there from the Atlantic?
“It is no coincidence that it entered the UNESCO heritage as an intangible asset, to mean that music and art represent Italy in the world. Certainly from the American side of the Atlantic, an even greater charm is perceived: the descendants of the Italians abroad warn Italy as a country of dreams, an Italian music concert has an extra charm here. But it applies to all the cultural and artistic events in the world. We are the country of Florence, Venice, Rome, we have always exported art and culture even if sometimes we forget this great singularity and wealth lately ».
He breathed music at home, his parents were a tenor and a soprano who taught the Rome Conservatory. For this he defines as “old school”?
«Mine were lucky enough to study with Mario Filppeschi and with Luigi Ricci, who was the generational bridge between the old Roman School of singing by Antonio Cotogni (late nineteenth century), author for the memories of Variations, cadences and traditionsa small book in which all the cadences and traditions was pinned, starting with the do of Troubadournot written in the score, but enter the tradition that those who listen to lyrical music in the world likes so much. I was lucky enough to see this school handed down which had its essence in reciting singing, in the sculpted and understandable word, in the combination of voice and stage presence: you cannot sing “love” without giving meaning to what you say, simply shouting it. I grew up in a home house with the autographs of many musicians, the scores of Mascagni, the Wagner trilogy with autograph notes, the letters of De Sabata … ».
Ever had the temptation to escape from music to the house of two teachers, perhaps as a teenager?
“As a child I would say that I” immediately “immediately” in the sense that being the son of two singers he felt continually singing, studying, and dinners with friends who were Franco Corelli, Filippeschi, Anita Cerquetti punctually ended up in singing with someone who went on the piano to accompany. When I started studying violin at the Frosinone Conservatory, I finished my lesson hour, and then I stopped all afternoon to wait for my father to go home, and in the meantime I listened to 5-6 hours of men’s and female singing lesson ».
Is this that he convinced him to move on to singing?
“No, it was all more tortuous than this: I continued to study violin, but because of the serious illness that my mother hit I stayed behind with the exams and I could not ask for the postponement for the mandatory lever that was still there. So in the fifth year I left the Conservatory. I didn’t want to be a simple soldier, so I entered the police first in the carabinieri as an official student. He became my work: I was a marshal of the carabinieri in the operating departments to anti -terrorism, and in his free time I studied: as a Marshal, however, I then completed the musical path for a road other than how I had imagined it and in the meantime I graduated in Political Sciences in Siena, who had a convention with the weapon for the recognition of credits of the military academic two -year period “.
But he did not explain to us as he came from the violin to singing …
«A funny story: I had brought the violin to the barracks as a life partner, every now and then I played. For everyone I was the marshal who played the violin. A carabiniere who married in Ciociaria asked me to play at his wedding in Frosinone, something in style as it is normal in those parts. He had already booked the musicians, there was the organist, two girls who had to sing. I entered the church, introduced myself to them and I explained that I was doing it: I am Gianluca, a friend of the groom, I should insert myself in your performance because he would like me to play the violin at the ceremony. They tell me they would sing Schubert’s Ave Maria. “Ah well I know her very well.” I asked to do a test to take the times, because I hadn’t played it for a long time. The organist began with the introduction, the arpeggios, but something sounded strange to me. I made the first note, the yes Bemolle, and it seemed out of tune, I thought I had the violin forgotten but it was not. The organist explained to me that the singers lowered it of three tones. At the first test a version came out that knew some country music, very different from the Ave Maria that I had listened infinite times as a child. Discovered, after the test, left alone with the organist and asked him to play the original shade, not the one transported and, in a completely spontaneous way as I had been in the shower, I started singing them. They began to say that I had to sing it and I ended that at the offertory I sang it and I played it alone. The two spouses who paid the two girls to the male voice turned towards me. In the end during lunch a procession of people who asked me to reply to the wedding of the brother, the cousin, the daughter … I said to myself: Well, you can see that I sang well. I never did it. Back in the barracks I called my father: “How did it go?”. Well, ah you know, I also sang … “. I had never told him.”
He took it badly?
“Moreover. He made me black: “You have never sang, never studied: in Frosinone then where I taught many years you start making the phenomenon of a slum, what a figures you make me do. They will think that this is my school”. I almost attacked the phone and we didn’t talk to each other for weeks. Then the bridegroom returned to the barracks from the honeymoon with a VHS with a professional video of the ceremony, a little worried I concerned him and I did not seem that my performance had been so bad, perhaps in all the hours spent as an involuntary auditor to the lesson by my father I had learned something. I sent it to my father. He recalled me apologizing, he said that they had heard the recording with his mother and apologized. When I returned to Rome the first real singing lesson: a full -blown audition. Then a speech began: if you come back to Rome, if maybe you change your mind and you are not sure of the job you do, maybe you take the lower complement you need to teach the middle schools – then it was so – you do a plan B. I started jokingly, taken the private diplominal in Latina, then I was passionate about, I went to Osvaldo Nicolosi, the pianist of my father, and I asked him to help the program for admission to the Conservatory. To my father. I had applied to Santa Cecilia. I entered the colors and every examination an anxious situation, there was a half conservatory to make me feel under examination twice because of the surname, perhaps I took away the fear of singing in public. Before graduating I won the Marcinelli International Competition in Orvieto: a debut was also won. It started like this ».
Is it true that the fear of the stage never passes? “Yes, even if I live it well: it is a positive tension, which makes me concentrate”.
Is there a role, a person who is linked more than others?
“I love very green, I have a special bond with The masked dance And, in particular, with Riccardo’s character, my first role ». That as the first love is never forgotten.
