Luogo e data di registrazione		Staatsoper, Wien (Austria) - 21 dicembre 1980
	Registrazione: live / studio		live recording
	Artistic Supervision		Gottfried Kraus
	Recording Supervision		Gerhard Lang
	Recording Engineer		Alfred Zavrel
	Digital Remastering		Ton Eichinger / Othmar Eichingen, Gottfried Kraus
	Prima Edizione LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		Orfeo | C 601 032 I | LC 8175 | 2 CDs - 67' 55" & 41' 31" | (p) 2003 | ADD
	Note		Eine Aufnahme des Österreichischen Rundfunks ORF.

Attila Conquers Vienna Memories of the Attila-Premiere at the Vienna State Opera on the 21.12.1980 It was a premiere that couldn’t have been more glittering. at least, that is, from a musical point of view. As an event it wrote history because since then Verdi's early operas have been seen in an entirely new light. If, before this premiere, one tended to see pieces like Attila as nothing more than stations along the route to the mastery that Verdi achieved in such works as Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traiviata, one also recognised that even in his early works Verdi was not limited to a simple reworking of the conventional forms of the Italian opera of the first half of the nineteenth century. Instead he used these forms and forced them open from the inside creating a cleared field in which he would later construct his outstanding masterpieces. One fact is incontrovertible: Only in his Rigoletto did Verdi first find a specific musical sound world for each of his operas that corresponded to the respective subject. This is not so apparent in the works of his so-called galley years, to which Attila belongs. The work is his ninth of a total of 28 operas; its successful world premiere took place in Venice in 1846 and performances throughout the rest of Europe followed soon afterwards. A glimmer of the fire that is proof of his strong character and superior will to create is already evident in these early works. It was Giuseppe Sinopoli, the man at the musical helm of the legendary premiere on the 21st of December 1980 and concurrently making his debut at the House on the Ring, who first brought this quality to light. In contrast to many other conductors who at the best allow the fire in Verdi's early works to smoulder, Sinopoli did his utmost to set the glow of this music ablaze in a manner that perhaps only Thomas Schippers, who died in 1977, had done before him in his recordings of Ernani and Il Trovatore. Before this debut Sinopoli’s name was largely unknown in Viennese operatic circles. They had certainly heard about a sensational Macbeth premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin a few months previously. Beyond they knew only that the venetian conductor and composer, born in 1946, had graduated in the famous conducting class of Hans Swarowsky. He was seen to belong primarily to the realm of the musical avantgarde. On entering the orchestra pit he was given a friendly, but cautious reception. However, it was clear after a few bars of the prelude that the events of the evening would touch on the extraordinary. Sinopoli spurred the orchestra to an intensity that the Viennese had deemed impossible for this sort of music. When he reclaimed the podium after the interval the enthusiastic ovation corresponded to his achievenebt. At the end of the performance his appearance in front of the curtain brought on further ovations and storms of excitement. There habe been few such triumphant debuts in this house. To answer the question of how exactly Sinopoli achieved this rehabilitation of Verdi's early works, one must first turn to his treatmente of rhythm. Sinopoli cracked open the apparent uniformity of the accompanying instrumental figures, so typical of the Italian opera of that period, over which Verdi spins his heavenly melodies. He dynamically sharpened and accentuated these stereotypical accompanying figures, achieving a pressing urgency and sometimes an almost aggressive power. In this way rhythm became tonecolour and it was this that imbued the evening with its enormous tensio, Verdi made his first forays into musical nature painting in Attila: the second scene in the prologue presents a thunderstorm that soon transforms into a sunrise. In the banquet scene of the second act a wild tempest rages, an external symbol of the apparently out of control situation in which Foresto offers Attila a poisoned cup. Foresto's lover, Odabella unexpectedly warns Attila against the cup although she too is contemplating the death of the Hun king. But Verdi also begins to use more intimate portraits of nature in his music, for example Odabella's Romanza Oh! nel fuggente nuvolo. The moonlit night in tghis scene is expressed in a filigreelike web of sound in which an English horn keeps the voice company, surrounded by the gentle accompaniment of the flute, harp, cellos and basses. It was one of Sinopoli's strengths that he made this sort of instrumental finesse crystal clear to the public and gave it as much attention as the voices. Two years after this spectacular State Opera debut I had the opportunity to take a peep into Giuseppe Sinopoli's workshop. As a student of the Musikhochschule in Vienna I invited him to give a lecture for which he requested no payment, but instead asked me to assist him with the preparation of the orchestral parts for Verdi's Nabucco. I was amazed by the many additions that Sinopoli had made to the printed score. Directions for bowing, rhythmic and or dynamic accents were marked over almost every note. All specifications that, when translated into sound, gave rise to the fiery, vibrant playing that made Sinopoli's Verdi interpretations so unique. Nothing was left to chance, Sinopoli had not only made an exhaustive study of the sources (the autographed manuscripts and the first editions), but had also won insight by careful comparison with Verdi's other early works. In places where the composer's specific intentions remained unclear Sinopoli went in search of a similar dramaturgical or musical moment in another opera that might offer more specific directions, to gain insight into Verdi's intentions. This method could also be applied to Attila, which was composed for years later. The premiere on the 21st of December 1980 - Attila was being performed for the first time in the House on the Ring, prior to this the work had only four performances at the Kärntnertortheatre in 1851 - was not only sensational because of Sinopoli. The cast kept up with the high demands made on them and presented the public with a festival of singing, with Nicolai Ghiaurov in the title role. His fiery bass gave him the high level of refinement required to portray the complete character in this role. In Ghiaurov's interpretation the bold, martial conqueror was as visible as the tender loving man. Take for example the final scene where he greets Odabella with a gentle gesture while she holds a bared sword, ready to avenge her father's death. Odabella is probably the most energetic of all Verdi heroines, even her first entrance requires her to ascend to a high C in wide leaps, only to descend immediately to a low B-natural in a coloratura cascade. Not even Attila can resist this woman's passionately wild determination though he and his troops hold the world in fear. The role provided a showcase for Mara Zampieri, who was particularly beloved in Vienna. It would be difficult to withstands the fascination of her highly expressive singing and dauntless attitude to risks. Mara zampieri was volcanic. She had an attack that few other singers could rival, but she could also lose herself in ethereal fields where she enjoyed her few contemplative passages to the full and with a high degree of vocal and intellectual intensity. On the occasion of the Vienna premiere in 1851 the critic Eduard Hanslick termed Verdi's Attila the culmination of the cabaletta style. In this opera the cabalettas do indeed follow one another in quick succession, the most famous is that of Ezio. When bidden by the weak Emperor Valentinian to make a dishonourable truce with Attila, the Roman general decides to act independently. Piero Cappuccilli, then at the zenith of his art, sang Ezio in the Vienna State Opera production. He crowned the stretta with a high B-flat that is most unusual for a baritone. The public jubilation was so overwhelming that Cappuccilli was forced to repeat the stretta, not only at the premiere, but also at almost every repeat performance in which he sang Ezio. This in its turn incited some comment in the press. One piece, signed Roger that appeared in the Volksstimme complained about the lengthy interruption of the performance. Clemens Höslinger in his turn, reported primeval noises in the Neue Zeit and claimed that the riotous scenes played out at Attila present themselves as a clear case of idiocy. Such remarks prove the imperfect knowledge of the Viennese opera going public, which allows its self to be caried along by both enthusiastic approval and criticism. On this opening night the choir leader Norbert Balatsch met with misplaced disapproval because he was the first man in a dark suit to take a bow on stage. In fact the public animosity was not directed at him, but rather at the designer Ulisse Santicchi and the director, Giulio Chazalettes, a Strehler student. The critics also shredded the creative output of these two men. In the Presse Franz Endler claimed that Mr. Chazalettes arranged the scene with a routine hand, the choir moved like a relic of a bygone era that we no longer know. The protagonist stand aound like trees on the stage unless they are arbitrarily enganging in a game of puss in the corner that also fails to make sense. To disguise this Mr. Santiccho plunges his scenes into a pleasant darkness in which the protagonist currently singing is mildly illuminated by spotlight. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung Otto F. Beer wrote: Giulio Chazalettes was responsible for the production, or rather the lack thereof. Ulisse Santicchi's setting supplies an Italy in the grip of a Mediterranean low pressure cell, complete with bad weather and endless grey, The chorus and soloists stand around helplessly in  the middle of this Hun war and when a light occasionally blinks through the darkness of the night one is left unsure of whether it is a flash of lightning or the result of a loose connection. The assessment of the musical side of the evening was very different. Karlheinz Roschitz reported on the triumph of the star singers in the Kronen Zeitung, Walter Beyer of the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten described the opulent casting adding that Nicolai Ghiaurov in the title role was streets ahead of his colleagues. The best Piero Cappuccilli that has ever been brought the house down with his stretta that scaled the heights of the high B-flat and he was promptly forced to repeat it. All the while, Mara Zampieri was waiting with her giant vocal resources and almost vibrato free high register. The majority of the press attributed Attila's raging conquest of Vienna to the conductor. Klaus Geitel of Die Welt was of the opinion that: As the leader of the lively, sparkling and enterprising Vienna Philharmonic orchestra he (Sinopoli) brought a Verdi to light that could not have been more fiery, nor differentiated. The briskness, the joy in risk taking that belong to early Verdi (he was only 33 when he wrote Attila), the explosions of temperament, the robustness and the rigour all lend the traditional formal arrangement an overwhelming newness: a virility that was not suited to the delicate opera music of his predecessors. In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Hilde Spiel, the Grande Dame of Austrian critics came to the conclusion that the true musical event of the evening was the appearance of Giuseppe Sinopoli, until now primarily known as an avant-garde composer, on the conductors podium. In terms of tension and precision, in terms of voluptuous brio he is no way inferior to the best Italian conductors od today, it seems he has been preordained to follow Abbado. Hilde Spiel's prophecy should have held true, with this production of Attila Giuseppe Sinopoli had played himself into the highest league of conductors. He led further new productions at the Vienna State Opera in the following years. These included Verdi's Macbeth, Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten along with a new version of Wagner's Tannhäuser. Further projects were planned, but the sudden death of the conductor - he collapsed during a performance of Verdi's Aida in April 2001 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin - put a close to  his work at the Vienna State Opera all too soon. Peter Blaha (Translation: Kirsten Dawes)