Read on to find out the Concert Heaven and Concert Hell performances of baritone Nicola Alaimo...
Nicola Alaimo... Concert Heaven
Verdi Falstaff
Nicola Alaimo et al, Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala/Daniele Gatti
Teatro alla Scala, Milan (2015)
My goodness, there are so many beautiful memories which I would call heavenly moments in my career so far. One of the most vivid moments, however, which springs to mind immediately, dates back more than ten years ago.
It was in 2015 when I sang Verdi’s Falstaff for the first time at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala. It was a truly extraordinary experience, made all the more moving because I was conscious of the fact that more than a century earlier, in 1893, the opera had received its world premiere in the very same theatre. So, to sing Falstaff on stage where the character was first brought to life is a memory I will always treasure.
'Falstaff contains the entirety of human knowledge and experience'
Falstaff is such an extraordinary character that describing him in just a few lines is truly reductive! I would say that he contains within himself the entirety of human knowledge and experience. Thanks to the perfect triad of William Shakespeare, Giuseppe Verdi and librettist Arrigo Boito, he encompasses and evokes every possible form of feeling: love, hatred, dreams, illusions, the reality of life, loneliness, old age, youth and so much more. To interpret Falstaff, it is not enough simply to sing it well; it is essential to be an actor. To be – not to act. And that is very different.
My debut as Falstaff was in 2006 in Pisa. So, when the call from Milan’s Teatro alla Scala came in 2015, I trembled with such fear! But at the same time, I immediately accepted, aware that I had shaped the role over time – even though time, in study, is never enough. Yet it was wonderful!
The chemistry with my colleagues, the conductor and the extraordinary production by Robert Carsen – everything contributed to making that performance truly unforgettable. It is certainly one of the most important milestones of my career and also of my life, because in the audience, in tears, was my beloved mother.
Nicola Alaimo... Concert Hell
Bellini Il pirata
Nicola Alaimo et al, Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala/Riccardo Frizza
Teatro alla Scala, Milan (2018)
As for a hellish memory from my career – it was also at Teatro alla Scala that this experience took place. A few years after my Falstaff debut there, in June of 2018 I performed the role of Ernesto in Bellini’s Il pirata. It’s of course an operatic masterpiece but, in my humble opinion, it’s a masterpiece mainly for the soprano and tenor roles (Imogene and Gualtiero). I don’t think the baritone role – including the most famous aria ‘Sì, vincemmo, e il pregio io sento’ – is the most exhilarating of parts to sing.
'The audience let loose a wave of whistles and boos'
In any case, during this particular performance, I felt like I didn’t have enough time to catch my breath during the evening, as I can in other roles, like Falstaff, for example. And perhaps I didn’t prepare the role enough or my performance just didn’t leave a strong enough impression on the public but at the curtain call, the audience let loose a wave of whistles and boos – which seemed to go on forever and seemed particularly intense from the gallery.
I know I’m not the only performer who has had such an experience, and it is all experience of course which obviously helped me grow as an artist, but when I had to return in the autumn of the same year in October for Rossini’s La Cenerentola, I was absolutely terrified.
I was so scared, in fact, that I was at the point of cancelling, but it was thanks to my wife that the show went on, as they say. She said it to me straight: ‘Look, La Cenerentola is your “thing”. Dandini is a role you were born to sing. I think you were in fact born to sing Rossini, my dear, so don’t worry and just go for it!’
And the rest is history – my performance as Dandini went very well and I managed to make peace with the La Scala audience.
