2023-05-11 21:43:08
Adopted son of the writer, he was a musicologist and artistic director. Riccardo Chailly: «he explored and rediscovered». He also headed the Italian Cultural Institute in New York
He had just returned to his home – in the historic Palazzo Lanza Tomasi in via Butera in Palermo – after hospitalization at the Buccheri La Ferla hospital in Palermo for lung and heart problems, but on Wednesday 10 May, towards the evening, the musicologist Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, at 89 years oldhe closed his eyes: he “surrendered”.
He was born in Rome on 11 February 1934 and throughout his life he was also the custodian of the legacy of The Leopardkeeping alive the memory of the literary masterpiece of his adoptive father, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Palermo, 1986 – Rome, 1957), but he should be remembered above all for his activity in the field of music and culture. It is not easy to summarize his long activity between books, reviews, essays, theatres, scores and artistic directionsbut his assignments at the Roman Philharmonic Academy (1973-75 and 1988-92), at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (1971-75), at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome (1976- 1984), at the Rai Symphony Orchestra and Choir of Rome (1984-1992), at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna (1992-1995), at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples (2001-2006).
Maestro Riccardo Chailly reminds him of the «Corriere» when they were together in Bologna: «He was the artistic director of the theatre. I remember him first of all as a person of a boundless culture. He was also very attentive to research on little-travelled repertoires and open to any discussion. We worked well together: they were beautiful years».
Lanza Tomasi was also director general of the Rome Europe Art and Culture Foundation and from 1996 to 2000 he was at the head of the Italian Cultural Institute in New York. «My father – his son Giuseppe explains to Corriere – was a man of other times, the last Ocelot, the last glimmer of an extinct world. An era ends with him. He loved to repeat a phrase that I memorized: “You can no longer go on thinking that music is a negligible element. For reasons of domination of the masses, today the stadium has become essential, the opera no’».
In his work, as Chailly underlined, Lanza Tomasi has long promoted the resumption of works from the repertoire and the dissemination of new trends in contemporary musical theatre, entrusting the stagings to renowned painters and sculptors, collaborating, among others, with Roberto De Simone, Arnaldo Pomodoro and Michelangelo Pistoletto. The music historian and friend Jacopo Pellegrini explains it well: «As a music organizer he focused on authors (not very popular, ndr) such as Jacques Offenbach, Saverio Mercadante, but also Philip Glass. He was the first to bring Glass and Bob Wilson to Italy. He was looking for qualified collaborations of visual artists for the scenography. He also worked with Corrado Cagli and Anselm Kiefer, among many others. He liked to bring together directors, set designers and conductors and then direct them towards the ideas that he personally had regarding the title that would be staged. He was a demiurge art director».
Two friends from Palermo, Gigi Planeta and Costanza Tasca Camporeale, also reminded the Corriere of this. «Gioacchino was a couple of years older than me, we went to the same schools», says Planeta. «He was then part of the group of theintelligentsia Palermitan in the seventies with Francesco Agnello. We never lost sight of each other and we met often, even more in recent years ». Tasca adds: «The three of us had known each other since we were children. In the last few years, when Gioacchino was ill, he always sought Gigi’s company because it put him in a good mood. We always listened to music together, especially opera».
Pellegrini adds: «He had a fondness for Bellini. In 2001 she had dedicated a charming little book to him, Vincenzo Bellini for Sellerio: he said that if he hadn’t died so young, melodrama would have taken a different path here». He also wrote about Giuseppe Verdi and Erik Satie. His funeral is on May 12 (10 am) in the church of Santa Maria di Gesù in Palermo. With music.
May 11, 2023 (change May 11, 2023 | 21:34)
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