by Fred Plotkin

For a couple of years in the late 1990s, I had the opportunity to work with Anton Guadagno (1925-2002), the Sicilian conductor who was a mainstay at the Vienna State Opera and the Palm Beach Opera. He was considered a guardian of the Italian operatic tradition and certainly thought of himself that way. You can see him in this concert video, even though not all of the music he is conducting is Italian.

Guadagno worked under Herbert von Karajan and shared with the Austrian conductor the belief that maestro did not imply "teacher" as much as "master." He was quite autocratic and sure that he was correct. He did not warm to the likes of me and my questions about how things might be done even better. We conversed in Italian and once I asked him about his approach to opera. He replied tersely, "io lavoro italianamente," which could be generally translated as "I work Italianly" or, to be more specific, "I work in an Italian way."

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Source: http://www.wqxr.org/