Wanted: Real Pasta

"Italian opera," snorts one Milanese buff, "is going to the dogs because so many dogs are singing it today." Symptomatic of the problem was La Scala's season-ending production last week of a 147-year-old opera called Olympie, by Gasparo Spontini. It flopped, mainly because it lacked a singer of superstar rank. In the past, the company could dredge up any old potboiler, cast Callas or Tebaldi in the lead, and have a resounding success. But now Callas and Tebaldi are little more than memories in Italy. Along with the younger corps of fine singers, they have been lured away by bigger money and better working conditions in the U.S. and elsewhere. What is left is hardly satisfying to the discriminating Italians. "They want the real pasta asciutta," says Tenor Mario del Monaco, "not ersatz spaghetti."

In fact, opera attendance in Italy has slipped off by more than 30% in the past 15 years. At the core of the problem is a serious deficiency in young talent. Time was when there were as many first-rate young singers in Italy as pigeons in Piazza del Duomo. But now, with the high cost of training, most singers are not willing to devote the seven to ten years necessary to cultivate their voices. Moreover, the number of Italian opera houses where a fledgling singer can test his roulades has declined from 80 in 1930 to only 17 today.

As for the exodus of name singers, the Italian audiences can in part blame themselves. "They hiss or whistle too easily," says Soprano Mirella Freni. "I like a certain battle climate, but in Italy every evening is a graduation exam."

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