Musical Destinations
Oliver Condy follows in the footsteps of artists, poets and musicians on the Italian west coast where a youthful music festival is taking flight
Oliver Condy takes in the sights of Lerici, Italy
Gianluca Marcianò never seems to stop. An interview with the Italian conductor is snatched during a coffee or, in this case, on board a bus as he scuttles around Lerici, calling in favours, securing concert venues or piecing together his next wild ambition (such as last year’s dream of floating an orchestra on a pontoon, ultimately scuppered by Italian bureaucracy). His limitless energy has, in the space of just one year, transformed the f ledgling Suoni dal Golfo festival from a seat-of-the-pants week of events to a solidly programmed celebration showcasing talented young orchestral players from across the globe in anniversary concerts of Rossini and Debussy, talks on peace and diplomacy through music, and much more.
And an important operatic premiere. This year, the festival’s pride and joy is the Italian premiere of Liszt’s Sardanapalo. Begun in 1849, the opera was to have been the composer’s calling card into Europe’s major houses, but was abandoned halfway through (Act I survives complete), and the manuscript lost to the archives for over
170 years. Recently, Cambridge scholar David Trippett has been painstakingly completing it, and the result of his threeyear forensic work is set to be performed in cities related to the opera’s original genesis: Weimar, where Liszt started work on it; London, where Liszt intended it to be premiered; and finally on to Lerici, where
Lord Byron wrote the Middle-eastern story on which the opera is based.
Byron’s involvement in Sardanapalo shouldn’t surprise anyone – the poet, nobleman and all-round scoundrel left his mark across Italy (including on Ravenna, as you may have read in our April issue) and spent his time in Lerici and the surrounding areas writing, challenging friends to swim with him across the nearby Bay of Portovenere and sailing around the coast. Byron, however, wasn’t alone in being seduced by Lerici’s natural beauty. Shelley and his wife Mary set up home here for a while in 1822, renting a large white house, Casa Magni, right on the coast – once pretty dishevelled, it’s since been tarted up and is now open to visitors. Shelley also died here, drowning while on an ill-judged boating expedition, his body, found weeks later, identified only by a copy of Keats’s poems found in his coat pocket.
Byron and Shelley were both fond of the Bay of Spezia, also known as the Bay of Poets. But Mary Shelley was rather less enamoured: ‘we could scarcely have found ourselves farther from civilisation and comfort,’ she wrote. Today, however, a road shields the house from its then-constant Mediterranean battering, and Lerici itself, smartened over the years, is a popular destination for those in the know, with its winding passageways, spectacular views out to sea from the 13th-century Pisan Castle, marina and fabulous seafood.
Even at the height of summer, the town isn’t overly crowded. But should things get a little claustrophobic, Lerici is on the edge of the Cinque Terra, and you can explore a network of railways and footpaths connecting five of Italy’s most unspoilt villages, including Vernazza and Manarola, each with their colourful houses balanced precariously on the hillsides looking down on charming little harbours.
Marcianò himself hails from the area. ‘Lerici has inspired musicians and artists over the years thanks to the warm colours of the houses, the beauty of the
Lord Byron wasn’t alone in being seduced by Lerici’s natural beauty
landscape, how the sea is kissing the coast,’ he says poetically, with an added hope that the festival will bring much-needed international money to the region.
Certainly, a couple of weeks on the Italian west coast is an enticing prospect for the festival’s orchestra, Orchestra Excellence, made up of young musicians from over 20 countries, all of whom sent their applications via videos posted to Youtube. But a holiday it isn’t… Most of the players won’t have met before the summer, so they’ll be preparing Sardanapalo on site in addition to rehearsals for half a dozen or so orchestra concerts and chamber recitals. Marcianò sees the pressure they’ll be under as a rite of passage. ‘It’s a really tough schedule, but I think it’s important for young musicians to learn what the real life of a musician is.’ Orchestra Excellence includes players from New York’s Juilliard, London’s
Royal Academy and Royal College, and five players from the Damascus Higher Institute of Music that the festival is flying over from Syria as part of Marcianò’s plan to make the festival a centre of cultural diplomacy: ‘It’s important that youth sets an example to the rest of the world, with a positive message of cooperation through music’s universal language.’
Further information:
This year’s Suoni dal Golfo takes place 16-31 Aug. See www.suonidalgolfo.com