“Most probably not even Diego was fully aware of it, but his successful artistic career is closely tied to Ludwig. The first connection is evident, since Diego Moccia is the contributor to our site who handled the performance of the Klavierstücke, waltzes and dances.

The second thread is more intricate and intriguing. We were able to admire Diego’s gifts as an actor, in addition to those as a pianist, as performer in the show Maria Callas Master Class at the Teatro Duse in Genoa at the end of February.

The play recalls the lessons that the soprano Maria Callas held at the Juilliard School in New York between 1971 and 1972, after her retirement from the stage.

On stage we heard Diego as the accompanying pianist of the divine Callas, portrayed by Mascia Musy, an actress who gives character and sweetness to the role; then, gradually, as students/victims in the Master Class, two sopranos and a good tenor, Andrea Pecci, vain and amusing.

Now the connection: not everyone knows that among Maria Callas’s interpretations there was also Fidelio.

It is August 1943 and the Singspiel in two acts is presented at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus on the southern slope of the Acropolis of Athens. In that period Greece was in the hands of the German occupiers, and the performances of Fidelio acquired, in such a climate, an allusive significance regarding the conditions of the country. This did not spare Callas from the accusation of collaborationism for having sung under German direction.

How much history in this double thread that binds Maestro Moccia, the divine Callas, and the great Beethoven…

Fiorella Romenzi