Vale Carlo Felice Cillario

Born San Rafael, Argentina, February 7, 1915 (or 1917). Died Bologna, Italy, December 13.
Along with George Tintner Carlo Felice Cillario (pictured with 'the Greek') was one of those conductors that made an opera. When he was in the pit there was as much drama down there as on stage.

Cillario was born to Italian parents in San Rafael, Argentina on February 7, 1915, or 1917, he claimed his mother was the only person who knew his actual birth date. He studied violin in Argentina but after breaking his wrist in an accident he decided to study conducting. In 2000 he was coaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and had requested the overture and waltz from Siegfried Wagner's Der Bärenhäuter. It was laying about in the vault of a publisher's archive in Hamburg and was proving difficult to trace and because I was the publisher's agent I received a phone call from him in which he explained that as a young man he had seen Siegfried Wagner (who died in 1930) conduct and that that was part of his developing fascination with being a conductor himself.
He made his conducting debut with The Barber of Seville in Odessa in 1942 and by the end of that decade was conducting throughout Europe. Specialising in opera he worked at Glyndebourne (1961), the Metropolitan (1972 & 1985), the 18th century theatre Drottningholm in Sweden (1982, 1983, 1984), San Francisco (1986), Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Paris, Berlin, Florence and his native Buenos Aires.

His first Australian engagement was in 1968. Where he was one of the first conductors for the newly established Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra, formed especially to accompany opera and ballet performances. Considered an Italian repertoire conductor he actually gave performances of non Italian rep. including Fidelio, Tannhauser and rarities (at the time) like Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen . I saw him rehearsing this and Fidelio and got my first glimpse of a 'volatile' musician at work. Later, watching him conduct Tristan in 1990 he was still an amazing 'shouter' of instructions, right up the final dress ("I did not say vibrato" he yelled during a luscious moment of Tristan - but e was right, the strings tightened up instantly and began to cut like ice).

Even though he was in his 70s then he would take the tram back to where he was staying after conducting a Tristan and I (taking the same tram) had a couple of great chats with him about the score. I wrote a couple of things into my Tristan score after one of these midnight rides. Things like the great build up to Isolde's entrance in the last act where the crescendo becomes almost an earthquake.