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Brazil: The "Italian" Composer from Campinas Part 4
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By Joe Lopes
August 2, 2007
Here is the fourth and final part of of Joe's article linked with the recent anniversary, on July 11, of the birth of Brazilian-born composer Antonio Carlos Gomes. The article is from a chapter in Joe's soon-to-be-concluded book, 'Brazil's Fat Lady Can't Sing', covering the life and career of the country's own uniquely Brazilian version of Verdi and Puccini.
For the Fourth Centennial Celebration of the Discovery of America, Gomes wrote Colombo, a "symphonic poem with chorus," which premiered with some success in Rio de Janeiro in 1892. It became one of his most ambitious and fully evolved large-scale pieces. He even traveled later that year to Chicago to oversee a performance of Guarany. However, when an expected subsidy from the Brazilian government failed to materialize, the put upon composer was forced to use his own exceedingly limited funds to give free public concerts of excerpts from his work instead. In a letter from that period, written in the U.S. to a friend in Italy, the exasperated Gomes complained:
"The presentation in Chicago of Guarany went for nothing.I had hoped to make a world of contacts, but too late I realized the sad truth. In this country, art is a myth. Americans are only interested in new and practical matters, that is, in the easiest methods for making money!"
Despite the comparisons to Verdi and the earlier predictions of his being the great man‘s successor, Gomes never attained the success and recognition in his profession that had once been expected of him. Although some of Verdi‘s own librettists, i.e. Antonio Ghislanzoni and Arrigo Boito, supplied texts or revisions to several Gomes works, in the long run they did nothing to help earn his operas a permanent place in the standard repertory. Further, the composer‘s work habits were often erratic, as a peremptory burst of enthusiasm for a subject would give way to complete abandonment of the idea soon after.?
Poet and playwright Ghislanzoni, a former neighbor and one of Gomes‘ closest companions, once described the tormented composer as "full of enthusiasms and disappointments, impulses and uncertainties, noble intentions and unjustified insecurities, so typical of the irreconcilable attitude of one who [constantly] struggles to produce a masterpiece." This was quite an accurate portrait.
Though they were popular in their day, the quality of the music to be found in his operas was inconsistent and derivative, what one modern critic (referring to Guarany) called "a clichéd stew of Verdian heroics and Donizettian flightiness," and another termed "Bellini without tunes, Rossini without wit."
These may seem like unduly harsh assessments, but they are not far from the mark, for Gomes chose as his musical models the operas of early and middle-period Verdi, spiced with the unwieldy five-act French opuses of Meyerbeer, whose oeuvres were already considered passé just as the Brazilian approached his creative prime, and topped them off with a dash of Wagnerian leitmotiv, for which he was severely taken to task by the press.
It was quite probable that Gomes was eclipsed, if not entirely overshadowed, by the mature Verdi‘s late career output, which included Aida (1871), the Requiem Mass (1874), and the final masterpieces of Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).
There was also a whole new stylistic form called verismo to contend with, and new challengers on the Italian front to defend against, among them Pietro Mascagni (Cavalleria Rusticana, 1890), Ruggiero Leoncavallo (Pagliacci, 1892), Alfredo Catalani (La Wally, 1892), and the up-and-coming Giacomo Puccini, whose Manon Lescaut caused a sensation at its 1893 premiere in Turin, which Gomes attended.
It was not so much feelings of inferiority that finally did Gomes in, so to speak, as that of the quality of the competition. History eventually relegated the Campineiro to a position not unlike that of Viennese court composer Antonio Salieri vis-à-vis the extraordinary body of work produced by that sublime musical genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Poor timing and equally bad luck would continue to badger the unfortunate composer all the way back to his native land. In fragile health from years of neglect, battered by bouts of depression over the earlier deaths of his wife Adelina (in 1887) and three of his five children-intermittently relieved by the liberal ingestion of opium-and constantly hounded for funds, Gomes sold off whatever property he had acquired and returned to Brazil one last time, in 1896, to assume the directorship of the Belém Conservatory, at the mouth of the Amazon River, which for him was a personal and artistic nadir compared to his earlier triumphs.
Antonio Carlos Gomes died of cancer on September 16, 1896, only five months after he had taken up his post, and in the same year that opera was about to delight in a decade-long rebirth in the region. He was 60 years old, but his legacy would forever be assured as the first and only widely recognized composer of Brazilian national opera the country would produce.
A beautiful marble bust of Gomes, sculpted by the Genovese artist Achille Canessa, reposes in the great hall of the Teatro da Paz Opera House, in the northern city of Belém do Pará, as a posthumous tribute to the man and his works. It occupies a space next to the bust of a relatively unknown fellow composer named Henrique Gurjão.
The irony of juxtaposing the perceived greatness of a Carlos Gomes with the almost total obscurity of an Henrique Gurjão cannot be lost on the casual observer: of course, Gomes towers head and shoulders above his unfamiliar countryman; but he stumbles ever so markedly-and so utterly-before the likes of Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini.
We need only to be reminded of the ephemeral quality of fame, and of how truly fleeting the memory of a great artist can be when compared to that of his peers.
Copyright © 2007 by Josmar F. Lopes
A naturalized American citizen born in Brazil, Joe Lopes was raised and educated in New York City, where he worked for many years in the financial sector. In 1996, he moved to Brazil with his wife and daughters. In 2001, he returned to the U.S. and now resides in North Carolina with his family. You can email your comments to JosmarLopes@msn.com.
To read previous articles by Joe Lopes click below:
Brazil: The "Italian" Composer from Campinas Part 3
Brazil: The "Italian" Composer from Campinas Part 2
Brazil: The "Italian" Composer from Campinas Part 1
Bringing People Together: Electronic Voyages to Brazil Part 6
Bringing People Together: Electronic Voyages to Brazil Part 5
Bringing People Together: Electronic Voyages to Brazil Part 4
Bringing People Together: Electronic Voyages to Brazil Part 3
Bringing People Together: Electronic Voyages to Brazil Part 2
Bringing People Together: Electronic Voyages to Brazil Part 2
Bringing People Together: Electronic Voyages to Brazil Part 1
Misunderstanding Brazil's National Anthem: A Crash-Course in the Hymn of the Nation
Brecht, Weill & Buarque: The Brazilian Play‘s the Thing! Part 1
Theater, the Brecht of Life: The Influences on Chico's "Modern" Street Opera, Part II
A Walk on the Weill Side: The Influences on Chico‘s "Modern" Street Opera Part 2
A Walk on the Weill Side: The Influences on Chico‘s "Modern" Street Opera Part 1
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 5
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 4
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 3
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 2
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 1
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 11
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 10
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 9
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 8
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 7
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 6
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 5
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 4
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 3
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 2
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 1
Teaching English In Brazil Part 21
Teaching English In Brazil Part 20
Teaching English In Brazil Part 19
Teaching English In Brazil Part 18
Teaching English In Brazil Part 17
Teaching English In Brazil Part 16
Teaching English In Brazil Part 15
Teaching English In Brazil Part 14
Teaching English In Brazil Part 13
Teaching English In Brazil Part 12
Teaching English In Brazil Part 11
Brazil: Thrills, Spills, and... Oh Yes, No Ifs, Ands or Head-Butts, Please
Teaching English In Brazil Part 10
Teaching English In Brazil Part 9
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 4
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 4
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 3
Brazilian World Cup Debacle: Just Wait Till 2010! Part 2
Brazilian World Cup Debacle: Just Wait Till 2010! Part 1
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 3
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 2
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia‘s Fragile Wings Part 2
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 1
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 1
Teaching English In Brazil Part 8
Teaching English In Brazil Part 7
Teaching English In Brazil Part 6
Teaching English In Brazil Part 5
Teaching English In Brazil Part 4
Teaching English In Brazil Part 3
Teaching English In Brazil Part 2
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 4
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 3
Teaching English In Brazil - Part I
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 2
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 1
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 3
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 2
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 1
Brazil: A Candid Talk with Gerald Thomas
Getting to the "bottom" of Brazil's Gerald Thomas
A Brazilian Diva Torn Between Europe and Brazil
The Enraged Genius of Brazil‘s Maestro Neschling
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest
Brazil's Musical Polyglots: What Was That You Were Singing?
Did Bossa Nova Kill Opera in Brazil?
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8/2/2007
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