Cinquantamila.it La storia raccontata da Giorgio Dell'Arti

«After the first great performance of Wagner’s Ring at Bayreuth, which was also the opening of the Festspielhaus and the first of the Bayreuth summer festivals [1876], Joseph Rubinstein came to Rome. He had been at the piano during all the rehearsal of the great tetralogy, had trained the choruses and had made the first piano scores and piano trascriptiones of the operas. He undertook to initiate us, some dozen lovers of music, into the glories of the great cycle; the meetings took place at Madame Helbig’s. Donna Laura Minghetti had, so to speak, the principal role among the listeners, and would occasionally help by singing a snatch of soprano part in a rather faded voice; she was a grandmother, but ruly musical and intelligent. Donna Laura was one of the most interesting figure in Rome those days. She was an Acton of Naples, granddaughter of the Anglo-Neapolitan admiral. The gifted princess Bülow, wife of the German Chancellor, was her daughter by her first marriage to prince Camporeale. When I first saw her, at Madame Helbig’s, she had married Marco Minghetti, the Italian patriot of the Risorgimento, and at that time Prime Minister. Donna Laura was immensely sympathetic to artists; she had great enthusiasm and was an inspiration to many. She showed me a copy of Tristan and Isolde with a long dedication to her as the first interpreter of the role of Isolde. She had read the part with him, evidently to his liking» [date: la presidenza del Consiglio di Minghetti deve essere quella romana, quindi 1873-1876. Il Tristano venne terminato a Lucerna nel 1859 e rappresentato poi a Monaco il 10 giugno 1865.]

MRS WINTHROP CHANDLER