What does it take to make a difference in the opera world? And what does it mean? Should one be world-famous, have a star-management and a five-figure fee? I guess it’s a certain way. But then, on a planet [over]-populated by almost eight billion people, we would have just a handful of such personalities.

When a couple of years ago, my family decided to move to a small town in Apulia, Italy, there were not many operatic matters to anticipate. When you talk about Southern Italy, you mean Teatro San Carlo di Napoli, but for this, you literally need to get over the mountains and change the cost. Apulia was just its own story.

Very soon, I discovered, Mola di Bari was not only the birthplace of Niccolò van Westerhout, a composer, highly regarded by Puccini himself, but also had an actively developing artistic stage.

A bit later I started to notice the names of those very world-famous artists on the little posters of the local palazzo. Francesco Meli, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, Grace Bumbry?! You must have a good imagination to believe they would actually come to Mola.

But nobody asked me to believe, and there were no public events with the stars on stage. For a moment, they seemed to be only names on the poster. But something was indeed happening, and the big names on the tiny posters were true.

To solve the mystery, I had to catch the elusive red-hair mezzo-soprano, who among her other talents, can park her car in the busy central street of Mola at any hour…

One Young Singer

Margherita Rotondi never planned to become a musician. She was trained to play piano, which was an usual practice in Italy, and had absolutely different ideas about her future until her middle-school teacher of music Nicola Diomede invited her to join an amateur choir at the age of 12.

“I never sang before this audition, not even in a shower. I remember we started to sing ‘Inno alla gioia’ by Beethoven. Surprisingly, I was so much in tune. And this is how it all started,” says Rotondi.

“I still don’t know how I developed this operatic voice. When I turned 18, after another performance, I was suggested to take some lessons with a professional operatic soloist Sallustio in Bari. He was a baritone, a little old school, but a really effective one, we worked a lot on the middle center of my voice. And after one year I was prepared and willing to apply to the Conservatory of Bari,” says Rotondi.

The same year, Margherita enrolled in studies in Electronic Engineering. In five years, she graduated both. And while the engineering path was quite clear, the academic studies in music, as it often happens, gave a very little understanding about the real world.

“By finishing my studies, I saw no way for me in the opera world. In the conservatory, I was specified as a lyric soprano. Eventually, I had to admit that singing could only be my hobby. I had a lovely voice and what they called musicality, but I wouldn’t accomplish anything. I couldn’t sing a role,” says Rotondi.

If Margherita lived in any other country, five years at the conservatory couldn’t be so easily neglected, but in Italy, where music is the way of living, the diploma would normally become a beautifully framed achievement on the wall. All the more, she had another degree.

The operatic education in Italy just proved its weakness, again, and it could be the end of this story. Fortunately, the gods of opera decided this bad experience may become a good beginning for such a proactive person instead.

Soon after graduation, a friend invited Margherita for a choir audition for Carmen in Bari. It was a chance to be heard by a skilled practitioner — Choir Master of Teatro Petruzzelli, Franco Sebastiani.

“He looked at me very kindly. ‘I like your voice Margherita, but in my opinion, you’re a mezzo-soprano. So, if you join us, I’d like you to be trained with other mezzos,'” says Rotondi.

“After one month of training at the choir, my voice was finally relaxed and free. In the conservatory, I always ended up without a voice, stretching my chords so hard to get mediocre soprano results. After that, I believed the maestro was right, so I started to think about the further development. I took a masterclass with Bruna Baglioni,” says Rotondi.

The iconic mezzo agreed with the conclusion of her colleague in Bari. She suggested Margherita develop her voice with light mezzo parts such as Sesto in “La clemenza di Tito,” Dorabella and other Mozart’s mezzo parts, Handel’s travesti roles.

“Suddenly, it’s all falling into place. I won an opera competition, became a first mezzo in the Petruzelli Choir, and soon I also won an audition for this position at Opéra de Monte-Carlo,” says Rotondi.

“After six months there, I knew I wanted to try the soloist career. I applied for an ensemble opera studio in Genoa, Teatro Carlo Felice. There I made my debut as Cherubino and many other roles. At that time I was also taking a Baroque opera degree with Sonia Prina. But the most important was that in Genova I could sing together with great Italian singers and learn from them,” says Rotondi.

“For the next four years, I became a freelancer.”

Festivals, travel, work in ensembles of the theatres, Margherita Rotondi saw this all, just like most quite successful young singers do. But, there was always something that made her question her choice.

The rules, the wages, the requirements. Was it right for her? I believe every singer faces this dilemma and not once. But in most cases, one calms that inner turmoil, until the circumstances leave you no reason to hope for a happy ending.

“I was in Bologna, and the situation proved itself to be really difficult. It was a usual thing to be paid a year later, meanwhile, the cost of living in Bologna was always one of the highest in Italy. I started to think that although I had a great experience, it was not enough to sustain my living. It wasn’t the life I wanted to live, so I decided to return to Mola.”

After years of being dependent on the decisions of other people, auditions, and traveling afar chasing her best role, Margherita Rotondi decided to see what she could do on her own.

Palazzo Pesce

At the beginning of the ’90s, Apulia wasn’t a nice place to stay. Touristic guides would suggest you stay away. Mafia was a normal part of life, but not only that. The economy was weak, and the unemployment rate was exorbitantly high, a large part of the local population moved to the US decades ago, so the half of town was abandoned.

At that period, the Rotondi family managed to buy an old crumbling palazzo in the city center of their hometown. The restoration took 14 years. Just in time for Margherita’s return.

“The years in the musical industry changed a lot for me and I didn’t want to break this connection. I had a place in my hometown, now I needed to understand what I could do,” says Rotondi.

First of all, she applied for a short master’s program in Digital Marketing so she could establish communication. She built a website and launched a concert activity at Palazzo Pesce.

“I knew how to make concerts and what it takes to organize a masterclass, so I started to work on the online presence of my future business to reach the audience and use all the connections I built in recent years to fill our program with the events,” says Rotondi.

“Sure, we couldn’t offer singers a lot of money for those masterclasses, but we had something more than this. I would say, ‘Come. Mola is a wonderful place on the Adriatic Sea. We will give you wonderful food, and plenty of sun, while the masterclass itself will take place in a beautiful old palazzo with great acoustics.’ And they have to come,” says Rotondi.

Soon, Palazzo Pesce, named in memory of the former owner of the building, a journalist, liberal, and anti-fascist, Piero Delfino Pesce, became a cultural constant of the town, providing a diverse program of music events from jazz to classical music and, certainly, opera.

But the most fascinating events were hidden from the eyes, though not the ears of the locals. When one noticed a little poster, promoting a concert of the masterclass alumni on Friday or Saturday night, one could be sure, that the entire week before, from the windows overlooking Corso van Westerhout, would be voices of young performers from all over the world led by their famous mentors.

The mentors were free to choose the direction of work, Margherita Rotondi invited only those she could fully rely on, so many of them brought their specialties to the program.

“Nicola Alaimo would ask the students to bring a Bel Canto repertoire. Francesco Meli was passionate about Verdi. Of course, we try to take advantage of their skills and passions,” says Rotondi.

“But there’s always something more than this. When we were lucky to host Anna Bonitatibus [famous for her Bel Canto roles], she would give amazing insights about Verdi and how to switch the repertoire or to use more particular skills in different areas,” says Rotondi.

The students come from everywhere: Italy, other European countries, Russia, China, Japan, and Northern America. For most of them, it is the first time in Apulia, which now experiences tremendous economic growth while maintaining its cultural authenticity and people’s goodness and gentleness that distinguished it from the other southern regions.

Palazzo Pesce has won great acclaim of both students and mentors. The singers gladly start thinking about the next masterclass during the traditional dinner after the concert of their alumni.

Suddenly, a step back from the established pattern in the opera industry turned out to be a huge career boost for a young mezzo-soprano.

“We are proud of our path,” Ms. Rotondi concludes.

Re-Evaluation

Having established a deeply satisfying activity and being surrounded by many talented professionals, Margherita Rotondi easily revived her love and ease of performing. Besides her participation in the concerts at Palazzo Pesce, she is a frequent guest on operatic stages in Italy and Germany.

The mezzo-soprano often works with her regular partner, the pianist Vincenzo Cicchelli, with whom they prepare original programs based on rare works unearthed in the archives of the composers, which they present to the public accompanied by fascinating stories, or record CDs to consolidate and remember what they have achieved.

And certainly, she keeps learning. When I ask her about what differences she learned about approaches to operatic education through so many various schools and which one she adopts the most, she seems to have no preferences.

“I adopted the main idea. Whatever works for you, it works. One thing I’m sure of is that your voice is to serve the music and composer’s will. Therefore, you develop an understanding of how your singing conveys this intention, and only then, you enrich it with your skills and ideas,” says Rotondi.

“With every piece of knowledge and inspiration I get from the masterclasses we host, I still return to dig into all my new parts with my two teachers Maria Grazia Pani and Lucrezia Messa, and then perfect them with Anna Bonitatibus,” says Rotondi.

From the old methods, she learned how to concentrate on the sound to convey the right message of the piece — to find the right one, and to maintain it, no matter what. However, the given method never paid attention to what happened inside the instrument, which made the professional life of the singer shorter. To fix this, Margherita Rotondi started to focus on the conscious use of her instrument.

“Singing is all about feelings and imagination, but not only artistically, technically too. You can’t see your cords, but you must feel them properly and imagine what is happening there, to get the best result and to safely develop your instrument too. Teachers can hear you, but only you can have the fullest picture of what’s happening inside,” says Rotondi.

Mixing the best parts of the old and the new, Margherita Rotondi, like many other talented modern artists, improved what we call a technique. But the legendary Old Times keep poisoning singers with tales about the features, that they cannot adopt, and they keep talking about them and thinking about what did they do wrong? Why they cannot be this way?

“Grace Bumbry sang everything: over the styles, voice ranges, and centuries. During the masterclass, she used to say, ‘If you can sing it, you can sing it!’ Probably, you have to have no less talent than the great Grace Bumbry to do so, but that is right. This motto gives so much freedom to the singer. To choose, to try, to find your next role. But it hardly works now,” says Rotondi.

“We say there are no more singers of that quality like they were in the past. The singers of the past could sing Tosca for only three years. This way, you have mastered Tosca and found your own special impeccable way of presenting the character. Then, you can switch to a completely different role, even another voice range, and perfect it for another season or two. Today, nobody has such a possibility. It’s a different industry now and we are adapted to it, but we don’t want to realize how much the requirements changed us and what we have mastered,” says Rotondi.

“Prepare the role in two weeks. The piano rehearsals are on you during your preparations. Spend two weeks preparing in the theatre. No orchestra rehearsals, move directly to the stage rehearsals once you’re ready. Too fast, rarely deep enough,” says Rotondi.

“Be beautiful, speak four languages. Get 10 roles a year, and be always ready for more. That’s who we, singers, are in today’s opera. And we still succeed. People who have done it for 30 years, are superheroes,” says Rotondi.

The modern opera industry made its rules clear, and they are actually quite the same for everyone, even for the top stars. Margherita Rotondi understood them well, because “you need to know the rules in order to break them,” as she once noted. 

She never stopped learning, working, and reevaluating her decisions and her status. From what I’ve heard and seen during her performances, I could definitely suggest she could reach a high level in the opera world. But from what I learned about her in two years in Mola di Bari and in our conversations, I remain confident that she would prefer to keep the status and the rules she once established herself. The status based on her own achievements and her daily work done, and the rules that only provoke conscious progress, set no limitations and never break a single cord.