Gian Carlo Menotti Quotes
It's always what you did before. The year before is always so much better. Even when the critics hated what you did then, it always looks better five years later.
Gruen, John. Menotti: A Biography. Macmillan, 1978, p. 160.
He argues that it is erroneous to assume motivation and position of individuals at a particular time or with respect to a particular event based on positions and writings that they take later---excepting memoirs. The particular context of Lloyd’s remark was in response to a question of what Thomas Jefferson’s position might have been on several Constitutional provisions given his correspondence post 1800. Lloyd argues that Jefferson’s trials as President later then shaped his views while at the time of the Constitutional convention, he had not had those experiences and were not influenced by them. People change their minds and political philosophies and there is the ever present exigencies of the day that affect views.
Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, his most successful works were written in the 1940s and 1950s. Highly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky, Menotti further developed the verismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era. Rejecting atonality and the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School, Menotti's music is characterized by expressive lyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent.
