S.altar on the running horse? Done. “When, in January, they called me at the last moment (due to medical emergency) for The Capulets and the Montagues, in a few hours I had to understand if it was a risk or an opportunity … I decided to throw myself: you need to have the right fear, but also the awareness of the solid path behind you. I didn’t start in 2012 with my podium debut: I started 45 years ago, studying the piano“.
The rest is news: Speranza Scappucci said yes, and was greatly applauded, making a grand entry into history: the first Italian woman to direct an opera at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Where does it come back on 2, 5 and 9 May for a Schuberth-Mozart-Mendelssohn concert and for another “notch”: the first Italian to conduct the Philharmonic. On 19 May he will be at the Carlo Felice in Genoa for the Beethoven cyclewaiting to continue the international commitments: Italian first – ça va sans dire – to the management at Covent Garden in London (Attila), at the Paris Opera (I Capulets and the Montagues) and the Metropolitan in New York (Rigoletto).
Speranza Scappucci (Dario Acosta forum).
Speranza Scappucci, every day on Rai 3
Enough? Ehmmm, no. From 9 May appointment with The joy of music (title inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s book, The Joy of Music): a daily schedule on Rai 3 with Corrado Augias, his colleague Aurelio Canonici and the contribution ofRai National Symphony Orchestra. “TV can play an important role in dissemination, in listening education. A job that, however, should be increased in schools. At the high school level, above all: teaching is not provided of the history of music, although it goes hand in hand with other disciplines: art, literature… Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism have also concerned the universe of notes ».
Love challenges.
Yes, I’m not crazy anyway: if I had been asked to direct at La Scala Salome by Richard Strauss, which I love, I would not have thrown in, I never prepared it. The Capulets and the Montagues I directed it ten years ago, in the meantime I have studied Vincenzo Bellini a lot: The sleepwalker, Norm, The Puritans… I took the score and played it from start to finish. For a long time I have been concertmaster (who replaces an entire orchestra for the piano during the preparation of singers for an opera, ed).
How far did her dreams as a child go?
Well… I’ve been playing since I was four years old, music has accompanied me naturally, there was no moment when I said: “It’s my path, I’m aiming for a specific goal…”. Already at 19 when, after the Santa Cecilia conservatory in Rome, I landed at the Julliard School of New York I seemed to have reached the stars! They selected 12 pianists out of 500 candidates, the best music school in the world!
The one that inspired They will be famous.
Dancers, singers, actors, musicians… Crazy competition, but a wonderful opportunity to enter the profession at a high level immediately. The more I developed my skills, the more new goals appeared. At one point I decided to become a master collaborator: at that point, one aspiration was to become a pianist at the Metropolitan. And it happened. In 2005 I met maestro Riccardo Muti, with whom I have collaborated fruitfully for several years. Then, however, I felt a strong need to express my musical ideas through conducting and – after debuting with students at Yale University in 2012 – I cut cleanly with the past. Fortunately, thanks to my contacts, someone has decided to trust me. La Scala has been a dream ever since: I repeated to myself “It will come when it is right”.
Speranza Scappucci at La Scala (photos Brescia and Amisano).
Debut with Cinderella
Is a little fatalism your philosophy of life?
I think it depends on character, and on having grown up in a very Catholic family: I am convinced that if you are serious about what you do, things happen. At the beginning of the pandemic, when my Metropolitan debut was canceled, I was desperate. I immediately realized: if it had to be, it will come back, and if it wasn’t supposed to be amen, something else will show up. I have the right ambition (without, you are not going anywhere), but a calm approach: we will all get where we need to go, without pushing, without getting exasperated. In addition to work, there are family and loved ones. Health!
Is there a female way to management?
No. Music is a universal language that has no gender: the result depends on the sensitivity, intuition and preparation of those on the podium as an artist, not as a woman or a man.
According to the stereotype, the director is authoritarian, a not very feminine trait …
The “great leader” belongs to an outdated imagination. The figure of the “teacher” has changed, there is more sense of collaboration. And even more is changing: a generation of directors is preparing, I have already seen the difference since I started.
Did you receive solidarity from women along your path?
Yup! The department director who hired me for Yale was a woman, as was Francesca Zambello, the artistic director of the Washington opera who, in 2015, proposed my debut with the Cinderella by Rossini.
Look & Juve
Hillary Clinton wanted to title the autobiography The Chronicles of Elastichino. It’s still all about the hair: women in leadership positions – she explains – have to waste precious time in matters of look. Do you lose any?
I found a comfortable but elegant way to dress: pants, because I move enough, and a jacket, perhaps in sequins. This hair – challenging – sometimes I collect them soft, sometimes I wear the braid. You need to be in good physical shape (I practice yoga and Gyrotonic, for the back and neck), but the same goes for men: our job requires us to be like sportsmen.
By the way: she is a passionate Juventus fan.
My mother is from Piedmont, and the maternal side is more passionate about football than the paternal one …
Hope: nomen omen?
(laughs) My parents were prescient! I am an optimist.
I realize only now that it never occurred to me to call her “Teacher” …
Eh, it seems that it evokes too much the elementary school teacher (who, however, is a fundamental presence). In reality, it’s just a matter of habit: in America and France they already call me a teacher, and so soon it will happen with us. It is inevitable.
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