Lotfi Mansouri: An Operatic Life

Neal Johnson was Associate Professor of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

This slim volume, printed on glossy paper and handsomely illustrated with photographs of Lotfi Mansouri’s life and stage productions, could be taken for a minor species of coffeetable book, or a slick piece of P.R. on behalf of the Canadian Opera Company. This would be a pity, for it is more than this.

It is more than this because the COC’s present General Director is a remarkable person with a remarkable story to tell. He tells it effectively in the first person; the work of Aviva Layton, who distilled the text from hours of taped interviews, is suitably unobtrusive. Lotfi is left to tell his tale. The approach throughout is anecdotal, both with respect to his career (from Teheran to Hollywood, Switzerland, and Toronto) and to his dealings with the prima donnas (of both sexes) who populate the mad world of opera.

Mansouri’s style is conversational, refreshingly free from pomposity and interspersed with frequent pungent phrases. We learn that Lotte Lehmann belonged to the butter-churning school of lieden singing; that Rudolf Bing, cold and arrogant, looked like a funeral director; that Lanza ate himself to death; and that Caruso “was not a good musician.” We are struck by the sense of joyful enthusiasm which the author brings to all he tackles, and most of all by his humour. Unlike many of the singers he has had to direct, Mansouri is blessed with the ability to laugh at himself. The few lines he devotes to his first and only appearance as Sigmund are hilarious, as is the reaction of the conductor of his operatic debut in Europe (“If that idiot even comes on stage again, I’m not conducting”).

The author acknowledges his debts of gratitude to others, but, without the slightest bitterness, records as well slights received. He mentions an ideal cast, but proposes as well a nightmare cast. He is not afraid to name names, and he pulls no punches. We learn that the world of opera contains many who are boorish, appallingly arrogant, or otherwise downright obnoxious (including Gencer, Scotto, and the aging Klemperer). There are damaging insights. into the proud operatic tradition of La Scala, and hope and faith in the future of opera in North America.

The book does not claim to offer profound theoretical analyses of stage direction. Its very exuberance means that the reader jumps around as opera directors must. It is above all an entertaining work, permeated by the author’s love for his art.