MR GREEN'S CURE FOR THE BLUES

I'd been feeling some late autumn blues at the start of this week and went idly in search of a cure. In this state of mopey malaise, like a cold and wet November mist, I can't say I got very far, but then, just this morning, I stumbled upon a vinyl box set (on Phillips) of Carlo Bergonzi singing 31 tenor arias by Giuseppe Verdi (Joe Green) hiding behind some old books in my office; it immediately set me right, like lighting an old stove inside my heart and slowly helping fire my passion for life and art back up again.

There must be something about the melodramatic histrionics of an Italian tenor singing his heart out that always seems to outdo my own self-indulgent wallowing and counteracts me falling any deeper into a psychological and emotional slump. I've often believed that opera is so much larger than life itself that it dwarfs my own (relative) sense of suffering, instantly curing me like some sort of 19th Century Italian folk medicine.

Verdi (1813-1901) certainly had some immensely difficult times in his life, not least in 1840 when he lost his wife who died following the deaths of their two infant children. The composer's ability to write rousing music which finds its way out of the darkest of nights is legendary and listening to one of the greatest Verdi tenors, Carlo Bergonzi, sing like burnished gold is truly a tonic for any soul who thirsts for a spirit of defiance in a world gone quite mad.

Mind you, Bergonzi (1924-2014) had some rough times himself. Held in a German POW camp in 1943, he was later freed by the Russians a few years later and on release subsequently went in search of an American camp, walking 70 miles on foot, contracting typhoid fever on the way after drinking unboiled water. It took an entire year for the tenor to recover from the illness after which he returned to study at the Boito Conservatory in Parma weighing just 80 pounds. You'd never believe it to hear him singing 'O Magnanima' from 'La Battaglia Di Legnano' (1849) full blast as I've just done.

Perhaps, then, it is the alchemy of suffering between Begonzi and Verdi which results in this life affirming music for the soul and will no doubt assist me in making an exceptional risotto later. I may even name it 'Don Aborio' and imagine some convoluted plot revolving a starving tenor in search of his last meal on earth.