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DOI: 10.2478/ajm-2019-0004 Artes. Journal of Musicology no. 19-20, 2019, 79-89 Lăsați-mă să cânt! [Let me sing!] – a Romanian operetta by Gherase Dendrino: links between the ethical, aesthetic and political content TATIANA OLTEAN “Gheorghe Dima” Music Academy Cluj-Napoca ROMANIA∗ Abstract: It was during the communist regime of the post-war years that Romanian composer Gherase Dendrino wrote an operetta in celebration of the centenary of Ciprian Porumbescu’s birth, named Lăsați-mă să cânt [Let me sing!]. It revolves around the figure of Porumbescu himself, as the first Romanian composer to have ever written an operetta that would be performed and published, named Crai nou [New Moon]. Lăsați-mă să cânt [Let me sing!] tells the story of the making of the first Romanian operetta and was revived during the spring of 2018 at the Cluj-Napoca Romanian National Opera House, as part of the festivities related to the Centenary of the Great Union. The present research highlights three aspects of Dendrino’s operetta: firstly, the one related to the ethical values, epitomized in the libretto by the main character, Ciprian, who, along with his friends, achieves the greatest task of the birth of the Romanian operetta, in spite of all opposition and pitfalls; secondly, the aesthetic content, regarding de musical language of the work, opposing the world of the Romanian provincial town to the Viennese Salonmusik; thirdly, the political aspect, encompassing the subtext of the libretto and the message of the work, which underwent continuous changes over the decades and social and political contexts up to the present day. Thus, the analysis takes into account both the sound and the word. Keywords: Romanian, operetta, ethical, aesthetical, political. 1. Introduction In 19531, Romanian composer Gherase Dendrino2 wrote an anniversary operetta named Lăsați-mă să cânt [Let me sing!], in celebration of the Centenary of ∗ [email protected] 1 The operetta, set in three acts and subsequently revised in two acts, premiered in Bucharest on the 30th of October 1954, at the Operetta Theater, under the baton of the composer. The libretto was devised by Erastia Sever, Liliana Delescu and Viorel Cosma and later translated into German, Czech, Russian, Hungarian and also premiered in East-European cultural cities as Dresda (The Democratic Republic of Germany), 1956, Olomouc (Czechoslovakia) 1957, Odessa (The USSR) 1957. 2 Gherase Dendrino (b. 1901, Turnu Măgurele, Romania – d. 1973, Bucharest, Romania) was a Romanian composer and conductor. He studied composition at the ”Ciprian Porumbescu” Conservatory in Bucharest under the tutorship of Dumitru Georgescu Kiriac and Alfonso Castaldi. He is acclaimed for his stage works (operettas such as Let me sing! and Lysistrata); he also wrote film music and popular songs. There is a vast array of performers of his songs, many 79 Ciprian Porumbescu’s birth3. The plot was set in Brașov, a central provincial Romanian town, in 1882, during the last year of the young composer’s life, around the days of the premiere of his operetta: Crai Nou [New Moon]4 (Cosma, 1999, p. 177). As the Centenary of the Great Union Day of 19185 drew near, the Opera House in Brașov staged a new production of Porumbescu’s New Moon. In its turn, The Romanian National Opera House in Cluj-Napoca programmed a new production of Gherase Dendrino’s operetta: Let me sing!. It was going to be an event full of significance not only in view of the content of the work but, moreover, in that of the unfolding of events during the preparation of the new production. Thus, theatre director Cătălin Ionescu-Arbore was appointed, son of Anghel I. Arbore, who was, in his turn, a famous Romanian director who had been in charge of the first premiere of Let me sing! in Cluj6 (Cosma, 2010, of them renowned Romanian singers such as Gică Petrescu, Mia Braia, Doina Badea, Jean Moscopol. His musical style was influenced by folk idioms and by light genres like the romance and the tango. 3 Ciprian Porumbescu (born as Ciprian Gołębiowski, 1853, Șipotele Sucevei, d. 1883, Stupca) is one of the most iconic figures of the second half of the 19th Century Romanian School of composition. A renowned violinist and composer, Porumbescu studied composition in Vienna under Anton Bruckner. He wrote works that are still widely spread and well-known to the Romanian audience, such as the Balada pentru vioară și orchestră [Ballad for violin and orchestra] op. 29, as well as patriotic songs and choral pieces; let us not forget his most acclaimed creation, an operetta called New Moon [Crai nou], was the first Romanian operetta to be premiered in Brașov (Romania) in 1882, just a few months prior to the composer’s premature death. He is also known for his patriotic chorus `Union!`is written on our flag! [Pe-al nostru steag e scris `Unire!`] which has been used by Albania as its national anthem since 1912. 4 The New Moon is generally regarded as one of the four phases of the Moon. As well as Romanian folk is concerned, however, the New Moon is a symbol of pure love and good luck. At night, throughout a new moon, it is believed that young maidens invoking the new moon would dream their husbands-to-be. It is also believed that bad luck will be pushed away at midnight during a new moon. 5 In 1859, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected to rule over both Moldavia and Wallachia; at the time, the two main Romanian principalities were still vassals of the Ottoman Empire until the Independence War of 1877-1878; thus, Cuza contributed to the creation of modern Romania, and historiographers refer to this major event as ”The Little Union”, while Transylvania, the third Romanian main principality, was still part of the Austrian Empire. Romania became a kingdom in 1881, under the rule of King Carol I of the royal family of Hohenzollern- Sigmaringen. Following the First World War, in 1918, Transylvania, along with Bukovina (currently divided between Romania and Ukraine) and Eastern Moldavia (historical Romanian province fallen under Russian rule in 1812, but still home to a sizeable Romanian speaking population) reunited with Romania; the historical event is referred to ever since as ”The Great Union”. 6 The work premiered in Cluj on the 29th of June 1958; stage director: Anghel I. Arbore, conductor: Alexandru Taban, scenery and costume design: Valer Vasilescu, Roman Morawsky: master of ballet, conductor of the choir: Kurt Mild. Cast: Ciprian – Alexandru Racolța, Vasile Șildan, Berta Gorgon – Stella Simonetti, Elena Vătafu, Martha Roth – Livia Liseanu, Lya 80 pp. 828-829); his mother, Constanța Ionescu, had been cast in the production, playing the part of Suzana, and she was with child at the time (during the whole period preceding the 2018 premiere, her son would refer to the character previously played by his mother as Suzănica, a diminutive form of Suzana). In other words, the director absorbs, almost six decades later, the entire vibration of his parents’ performance and restages it as a token of high esteem and gratitude. 2. Staging and Reception of the premiere: 1957 and 2018 As Octavian Lazăr Cosma stated in his Monography of the Romanian Opera House in Cluj (2010, p. 828), Let me sing! had been the only premiered work during the season of 1957-1958 and it proved itself a great success: “a generous staging, featuring numerous moments of dramatic intensity. There were plenty of comic situations, well highlighted in the theatrical directing” but, at the same time, the abundant cast of over 40 spoken and sung parts added a shade of massiveness and stodginess to the performance, featuring “crowded and overstuffed scenes” (Cosma, 2010, pp. 828-829), in spite of the cuts in the libretto, wisely operated by the theatre director. Fig. 1 Poster of the first premiere, The Operetta Theatre, Bucharest, 1954 The new production witnessed another four performances during the same season, which was already close to the end at the time of the premiere, and another almost 30 performances during the next season, confirming the success Mărcuș-Anca, Suzana – Constanța Ionescu, Nastasi – Corneliu Fânățeanu, Constantin Drăghici, Eduard Strauss – Ion Piso, Martin – Traian Popescu, Ion Budoiu. 81 of the premiere, the operetta being kept in the repertoire of the Romanian Opera House in Cluj for more than three decades, until a few years after the Revolution (1989). Sixty years later, in 2018, the difficulties and pitfalls preceding the premiere are strikingly similar to those Ciprian Porumbescu himself encountered in 1882 with the staging of his operetta, a set of events which also constitute the plot of Dendrino’s operetta. Thus, in spite of programming the premiere on the 25th of May, financial distress of the Opera House and the lack of ‘sprint’ of the Ministry of Culture, which was to ensure the funds, imposed that the artists7, as well as the collaborators, together with the stage director, engage in this project for several months without wages; moreover, the premiere had to be postponed for the next season, following that the three performances of May and June 2018 to be designated as avant-premiere, each time being sold-out. Fig. 2 Poster of the 2018 revival, The Romanian National Opera House, Cluj-Napoca 3. Characters and Plot Let us uncover the complicated threads of the plot of Dendrino’s operetta: the story revolves around young composer Ciprian Porumbescu, resident in Brașov8 as a music teacher at the Andrei Șaguna High School, as well as 7 Cast of the premiere in 2018: Conductor: Adrian Morar, Stage direction: Cătălin Ionescu Arbore, Scenery and costume design: Adriana Urmuzescu, Choreography: Felicia Șerbănescu, Conductor of the choir: Emil Maxim, Ciprian Porumbescu – Cristian Mogoșan, Bertha Gorgon – Diana Gheorghe, Martha Roth – Diana Țugui, Suzana – Iulia Merca, Nastasi – Bogdan Nistor, Eduard Strauss – Tony Bardon, Contele de Lichtenberg – Petre Băcioiu, Martin – Cristian Bogdan.

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