Guinness World Records Day

Sunday, November 15th, is the Annual Guinness World Records Day, so we thought that it would be fun to go share some Guinness World Records from the Opera world:

Oldest Opera Singer (Guinness World Record)

Luo Pinchao receiving his Guiness World Record

Luo Pinchao (b. China, 19 June 1912) began his singing career in 1930 and continued to regularly perform Cantonese opera and celebrated his 93rd birthday and record-breaking career with a performance at the Guandong Cantonese Opera Grand Artistic Theatre, Guangzhou, China on 20 June 2004.

Luo Pinchao passed away on 15 July 2010, at the age of 98.

Longest Opera (Guinness World Record)

Richard Wagner

The longest regularly performed opera is Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by German composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883). A normal uncut version can entail 5 hours and 15 minutes of music.

The opera The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin by Robert Wilson (b: October 4, 1941) was performed in 7 acts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on December 14 and 15 in 1973 and required 13 hours 25 minutes. Act 7 was deemed by some to be the best.

The Heretics by Gabriel von Wayditch (1888–1969) has a piano-vocal score that numbers 2,850 pages of music and lasts 8½ hours.

Most Curtain Calls (Guinness World Record)

Luciano Pavarotti

Famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti holds the record with 165 curtain calls after a performance of Donizetti's The Daugher of the Regiment at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He was applauded for 1 hour and 7 minuets.

He also holds the record for longest applause ever at 1 hour and 30 minutes, most roles performed, most recordings made, most famous living operatic tenor at his 70th birthday in 2005, most money raised by an individual for charities, and another for the best-selling classical album (In Concert by the Three Tenors; the latter record is thus shared by fellow tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras).

Most Performed Opera (Guinness World Record)

The 2009 production of Verdi's La traviata at Sarasota Opera

According to Opera Database, Giuseppe Verdi is the most performed composer with 3009 operas programmed, and his opera La Traviata is the most performed opera with at 659 performances over the last five seasons from 2009-10 through 2013-14.

Composer and opera tables are based on counts of performance runs (how many times a work was programmed, not the number of performances) over five seasons from 2009-10 to 2013-14.

Sarasota Opera Visits Verdi - Last Leg

The final leg of Sarasota Opera’s Verdi Pilgrimage, took the group to the beautiful city of Venice.

Teatro La Fenice

Venice figured large in Verdi’s career. Several of his greatest operas were premiered in the city including Ernani, Attila, Rigoletto, La traviata,  and Simon Boccanegra. It was in the city he also met one of his closest collaborators and friends, librettist Francesco Maria Piave. In another act of the composer’s charity, Verdi supported Piave and his family after the poet was struck down by a stroke and left paralyzed in 1867, until his death in 1876.

The Sarasota group traveled from Parma to Venice by bus and then transferred by water taxi to the Bauer’s Hotel, near the Piazza San Marco. The afternoon was taken up with touring the Ca’ Rezzonico, a palazzo which once included Robert Browning and Cole Porter as its tenants and is now one of the finest museums of art in Venice.

Members of the group at dinner at Cipriani overlooking St. Mark's Basilica

Following the tour we adjourned to the island of Giudecca and the famous Cipriani Hotel where we had a private dinner overlooking the Grand Canal.

Despite the rain, the following morning a few hardy souls toured the Basilica of St. Marks, the Rialto Market, and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, a building for which Tintoretto provided all of the artwork, including some of his greatest masterpieces.

The group in front of the Teatro La Fenice

A performance at the Teatro La Fenice was on tap for the evening. The famous theater, site of the Verdi premieres (including the opening night fiasco of La traviata) in Venice, is named after the “Phoenix.” The beautiful, but ill-starred venue has had to repeatedly “rise from the ashes” as fires have destroyed the theater three times, in 1792, 1836, and most recently in 1996. It is one of the most historically important theaters in the country and one of the most ornate.

The artistic director of the Teatro La Fenice, Fortunato Ortombina, gave some insight into the theater and the production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly that we were about to see. Coincidentally, Mo. DeRenzi recognized Mr. Ortombina from his earlier work with the Institute of Verdi Studies in Parma.

Maestro DeRenzi, Teatro La Fenice Artistic Director Fortunato Ortombina, and Executive Director Richard Russell
inside Teatro La Fenice

The performance of Puccini’s masterwork provoked much conversation among the group over dinner at the Taverna La Fenice, after the opera. Through a partnership with the Art Biennale, the set design was by visual artist Mariko Mori, whose futuristic aesthetic is reflected in the giant Möbius that dominates the spare stage and which inspired a modernistic interpretation of the opera. Notwithstanding the varying opinions of the production, everyone was glad to have experienced opera in this historic theater.

The interior of Venice's Teatro La Fenice with Mariko Mori's set for Act I of Madama Butterfly on stage

The following day, the last of the trip, took the group to Lake Orta and the beautiful Villa Crespi. Everyone assembled in the 2-Michelin starred restaurant for a delectable dinner and a chance to reminisce about the exceptional experiences of the past 9 days. Even Mo. DeRenzi, who had been to many of places we visited before, had never been to parts of the Casa Verdi in Milan and Villa Verdi at Santa’Agata that are not usually open to the public, as well as the opportunity to meet one of the composer’s descendants. Everyone was sorry to see the trip end and spirits were hardly dampened when the maître’d of the restaurant felt the need to cut off our attempt to pay homage to Verdi by singing “Va pensiero sull’ali dorate” from Nabucco one last time.

It was an experience that no one will soon forget and a fitting start to the season that will bring the Grand Finale to Sarasota Opera’s 28-season long “Verdi Cycle.”