Lamberto Gardelli

 

 

He was a dear person and a brilliant conductor under the right circumstances. These included working in the studio with Erik Smith as producer. All those early Verdi recordings for Philips were made under those circumstances. It was an ideal partnership. Erik was a very good musician (pianist) and I think he was able to realize his conducting ambitions through Lamberto such was his interventionist style of production to which to give him credit Lamberto responded positively. He worked with Mascagni and was Serafin's assistant in his youth. He left Italy because he had been persecuted by the Fascists before and during the war and then by the Communists after it. He went to Sweden and worked at the Stockholm Opera as well as the Royal Danish Opera. I have a recording of him conducting Bjorling in Pagliacci in Stockholm in the early 50's.

I heard that he was the natural son of the son of the Chief Rabbi of Venice and an Italian girl. The (natural) father committed suicide and the mother was forced to marry an old soldier called Gardelli who treated the young Lamberto badly and beat him etc. Already the plot of an early Verdian opera.

He had a rough time in Italy as already mentioned and left after the war returning only rarely. For this he has been somewhat reviled even to this day. The Italians have never understood how fine a conductor he was.

He had a problem though. When he was in a relationship with some lady or wife, he became all sweet and placid turning in lyrical but somewhat limp performances. When he was without a partner, his frustration inspired fantastically dramatic work which was preferable of course. He also had a genius for messing up his career.

A last morsel of Lambertiana; he had two children. A boy (Lamberto junior) and a girl (Lamberta).