He had recently returned to his home – in the historic Palazzo Lanza Tomasi on Via Butera in Palermo – after a hospitalization at Palermo’s Buccheri La Ferla Hospital for lung and heart problems, but late on Wednesday 10 May, towards evening, the Musicologist Gioacchino Lanza The 89-year-old Tomasi closed his eyes: he “surrendered”.
Born in Rome on February 11, 1934, he was also the life custodian of the legacy of “The Leopard” and kept alive the memory of the literary masterpiece of his adoptive father, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Palermo, 1986 – Rome, 1957), but he should be remembered above all for his work in the field of music and culture. It is not easy to summarize his long activity between books, reviews, essays, plays, scores and artistic direction, but his assignments at the Roman Philharmonic Academy (1973-75 and 1988-92) should be mentioned, at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (1971-75), at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome (1976-1984), with the Rom Rai Symphony Orchestra and Choir (1984-1992), at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna (1992-1995), at the San Carlo Theater in Naples ( 2001-2006).
Maestro Riccardo Chailly reminds him in the “Corriere” of their stay together in Bologna: “He was the artistic director of the theatre.” I remember him above all as a person with a limitless culture. He was also very attentive when researching under-traveled repertoires and open to any comparison. We worked well together: they were beautiful years.”
Lanza Tomasi was also General Director of the Rome Europe Art and Culture Foundation and headed the Italian Cultural Institute in New York from 1996 to 2000. “My father,” his son Giuseppe explains to Corriere, “was a man from another time, the last leopard, the last gleam of an extinct world.” An era is coming to an end with him. He loved to repeat a phrase I had memorized: “You can no longer think that music is a negligible element.” Today, for reasons of mass domination, the stadium has become indispensable, the opera no longer.
As Chailly pointed out, Lanza Tomasi’s work has long promoted the revival of works from the repertoire and the dissemination of new trends in contemporary musical theater, entrusting the productions to renowned painters and sculptors, collaborating with Roberto De Simone, among others. Arnaldo Pomodoro and Michelangelo Pistoletto. The music historian and friend Jacopo Pellegrini explains it well: “As a musical organizer, he addressed authors (not very popular, editor’s note) such as Jacques Offenbach, Saverio Mercadante, but also Philip Glass.” Glass and Bob Wilson brought to Italy. He was looking for a competent collaboration between visual artists on stage designs. He also worked with Corrado Cagli and Anselm Kiefer, among others. He liked to bring directors, set designers and conductors together and then orient them towards the ideas he personally had regarding the title to be staged. He was a demiurgic artistic director.”
Two friends from Palermo, Gigi Planeta and Costanza Tasca Camporeale, also reminded the Corriere. “Gioacchino was a few years older than me, we went to the same schools,” says Planeta. ‘At the time he was part of the Palermitan intelligence group of the 1970s, along with Francesco Agnello. We never lost touch and saw each other often, even more so in recent years.” Tasca adds, “The three of us have known each other since we were kids. In recent years, when Gioacchino was ill, he always sought out Gigi’s company because it put him in a good mood. We always listened to music together, especially opera.”
Pellegrini adds: “He had a fondness for Bellini. In 2001 he dedicated a charming little book to him, Vincenzo Bellini for Sellerio: he said that if he had not died so young, melodrama would have taken a different path here.” He also wrote about Giuseppe Verdi and Erik Satie. The funeral will take place on May 12 (10 a.m.) in the Church of Santa Maria di Gesù in Palermo. With music.