L'albo d'Oro

The True Story about Giovanni Oro (1742-1829) norsk versjon By Gunnar Øyro

This is the story about my great grand grand grand etc. uncle, Giovanni Oro. Giovanni Oro was born in Pisa in 1742 and died in peace in 1819. (I stress this because word have it that he died in pieces, which is wrong.) Of course, he also died in Pisa...

Non è tutt'Oro quel che ridicolo

"Experimenting with electrisity is a silly thing to do, beeing a conductor" -- G.Oro.

40K Giovanni Oro was a multitalented genious, but unfortunatly, also a multihandicapped genious. He worked as an artist, an inventor and scientist. His boatdesign was later used for the building of Titanic. He also designed airplanes that could have been capable of flying if he had access to an engine powerful enough to overcome the lack of wings. But most of all he was a skilled composer. This is impressing considering the fact that he was muslectict, which is the musical parallel of dyslectic, which of course, he also was - in addition to shortsighted. Muslexy is a very rare dysfunction, believed (by most basses) to occur at an astonishing rate among tenors.

So some of you might think that Giovanni Oro also was a tenor, but we will never know that for sure, since he could not sing. It is reported that not only the books fell out of the shelves when he sang, but the letters fell out of the books as well. (No wonder he couldn't read) So I guess he must have been a tenor after all...

Still his vocal capacity was virtuously compared to his instrumental skill. He played the violin rather violently. He often blew his own trumpet, but let the trombone slide. He was simply not able to play the piano, although he frequently did, and I think that is why he eventually was given a very high position in Pisa: He was working at the top of the leaning tower as counterbalance. 30 years in this position gave him a slight problems with his balance. For example, when trying to conduct his own work, he tended to fall down from the conductor platform from time to time, . This is how he met his wife, Madonna di Campiglio. She played the violin, and he virtually fell in love on her. This was most fortunate, because until that day, his lovelife had been very complicated, beeing both colour-blind and sexblind as he was. This means that he could not tell the difference between eg. a white man and a black woman, or vice verca, ..whatever that means. Beeing very straight, albeit leaning, this caused him a lot of trouble in his youth, as you can imagine. Madonna never played the the violin again (it was crushed) and devoted her life to support her husband, something he badly needed.

Anyhow, he loved conducting, but as a result of his muslexy, he never knew if he had given the orcestra the right notes, but since he also was tone-deaf, he was always quite happy with the result. Giovanni Oro had serious problems with his short-time memory. as well as minor problems with the long-time memory. This was a result of his research in physics. As he said in one of his clearer moments: "Experimenting with electrisity is a silly thing to do, beeing a conductor". And we may add, trying to find the exact limit of impact where the human skull would brake, is not much wiser. He suddenly found it, and this was concidered a major brake-trough in skull-science. It's a pity that he was never able to recall it himself. This lack of memory has its side effects on his compositions. For instance, he once composed the opera “La triviata” no less than five times. I don’t know why, they are most boring pieces, all of them. But instead of throwing away the previous versions, he just added them. So La triviata is now a 15 hour maraton-opera never staged, and never listened to. No wonder he is called the Pisa-Wagner. His operas are very fragmented and dynamic. The lines are short, not unlike the Puccini style, although not by intention. Things change suddenly. Main characters keep dissapearing, only to reappear in other operas. New characters are brought in for seamingly no reason, and all sorts of strange things happen. Just read the synopsis of "The Fleeing Dodgem" , and you will understand (not the synopsis, but what I mean). This reaches the peak in his least unfamous opera, I messageri. The synopsis is totally incomprehensible, so it may be, and constantly is, intrepreted in a variety of ways. Two main schools of interpretations have emerged, though. The first is the Buffa-interpretation, and the second is a highly sohisticated, and philosophical one.

Oro Rubato

Giovanni Oro has, although unnoticed by most historians, had an enormous impact on classical opera. Most of the great composers, like Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and P.D.Q Bach have stolen ideas and elements from him. For instance, Bizet stole the whole Carmen consept from Oros great opera Cramer. Well Ok, Bizet changed the name and sex of the lead-character, and some of the story, but given the handicaps of Oro, it is not unlikely that he had meant Cramer to be a woman named Carmen. Cramer, a weird-looking guy with funny hair and amusing accent, also appears in two other Oro-operas, namely in MacDeath as Lady MacDeath’s son from an earlier marriage, and in the ’MetaOpera’ Don Pervos, as Don Pervos, a mad, perverted stage-director, trying to stage MacDeath. These three operas are called The Cramer Trilogy.

"Cramer."

Here we meet Cramer him smuggling empty wine-bottles on his Moto-Guzzi from Granada to San DeMento. His friend, the next-door stand-up picador Zuniga, has warned him not to, but for no good. (Zuniga is so called, because he use to pick a door, and come in with it) Cramer is soon captured by gypsies but convinces them that he is one of "the three amigos", and that he has come to rescue them from the evil ranch-owner Placebo Dominus that tries to take over the whole place. In the mean time Cramers friends Zuniga, Elantra and Don Georgé sit at the "Lillas Pastacentral" and try to figure out what to do. There they see a Television-commercial advertizing for the new sigarillo "Escamillo" where Cramer appears together with the young gypsy Michaela. Cramer is coughing violently, and the three friends realize that he is in serious trouble. Cramer on his part, is now suing the tobacco factory for ruining his health, but the fabric-owner Prospér Merimée pleas for mercy. They agree that if Cramer withdraws the sue, he receives a brand new Caddilac Seville . Elantra, Don Georgé and Zuniga who now are sitting on a greyhound bus to rescue Cramer, suddenly spot him driving in the opposite direction together with the beautiful orange-seller, Katia Riciarelli. Elantra manages to persuade the bus-driver to follow Cramer. This classic race ends outside Yankie Stadium where Elantra crashes into the Seville. Don Georgé tries to reach Cramer, but stumbles and loose the four free tickets for the game that he had in his pocket

MacDeath (The play)

This play is is never put up anymore as an ordinary opera. Even stage-directors repels it, on the only performance, the premiere, it resulted in complete chaos among the audience, many of which was severely injured, and so was the actors.

The story is so completely blood-dripping, awsome and horryfying that I can't even tell you half of it, in fact I shall only tell you the start and the end. Macdeath starts off as an assistent for a knife-smith, but killed his boss and used him as meet for his macdeath burgers. The rest is sensured. Lets just say that an endless series of raping and killing finally ends when he has become the president of russia, after killing the duma, and half the nation, and raping the other half. In russia, of course, this is common, and does not even cause people to raise their eyebows. And, since the international diplomacy is so diplomatic, Macdeath is accepted as russias rightful leader. He appears in the UN, where he also tries to create chaos by throwing hand-granades after the american president, but since it is made in russia, it does not cause any damage.

"Don Pervos."

Don Pervos takes place in the sick, twisted mind of a perverted stage-director who is haunted by his own nightmares, represented by an enormous red cloth. We first encounter this cloth hanging down from a wall in the back. Later it appears crawling after him on the floor, and eventually it engulfs him completely. (In fact, this is the only of Oros operas that has a happy ending.) Don Pervos is very special, in that the lead-character never actually appears on stage. Instead the stage is filled with naked people rolling and crawling on the floor, copulating and fighting with each other while they sing. Some of the main characters are tortured and whipped constantly while the orcestra is laughing. A lot of naked and bloody women are dragged around by their hair, or carried after their feet. Most of the people are in chains, while the rest of the people are using chain-saws and various other tools like, drills etc. on them. There are witches burnt and heads cut, so there is a lot of blood, and various other body-fluids dripping on the floor, and literally all of this ends up on the lowest niveau, (which is the orchestra-pit). In sum: There is a lot of action, but nothing happens. Needless to say, Don Pervos has become a cult-opera among stagedirectors. It is performed every year at the stagedirector-festival in Trento, the "Men In Black- Bianal"..

"I Messageri", or "The mess of the messengers".

"I Messageri" is an opera where the next-to-nothing parts is converted to lead parts. In short, a mighty and evil queen who rules her virtual queendom by taking control over all the information is conquerred by a group of messengers, who manages to confuse her by appearing one after the other singing strange messenges like "La Foresta di Birnam si muove!". This brings the communication to a halt, and her queendom is demolished. Most composers after Giovanni Oro have stolen one or several of his great messageri parts. One example is the great "Vengo" and "Des Oranges - Vite" parts of La Boheme. Another is the famous "Pro Macbetto " part of MacBeth.