Antonio Paoli and his Love for his Homeland
Essay by Néstor Murray Irizarry
Director/Founder, Puerto Rican Folklore Research Center
I only regret that you were not born earlier, because you are the
greatest and most humane interpreter of my Othello.
Verdi's autograph to Paoli in “Paseos y Visitas,” El Noticiero, Valencia, Spain, 1904
Music is a language and it communicates ideas through sounds; it expresses a particular ideology, at a given time and in places determined by a certain type of aesthetic that is not necessarily valid for all times. "The present of each area,"—says Olivera—"contains its past and these products are the crystallization of the expressiveness of each era."
In Paoli and in Verdi, similar characteristics and aspirations coincide. Both maestros, in their respective areas of creative work, maintained a fervent patriotism. Sincerity, simplicity, and rectitude were constant guides throughout their lives. Passionate about nature—Paoli and Verdi—liked to stay in direct contact with the flora and fauna.
Verdi crowned his life at the age of 74, with Otello, uniting Shakespearean tragedy with Latin musical genius. His evolution as a composer has been interpreted in many different ways. His technical mastery evolved a great deal, it is true, but its peculiar qualities and characteristics were always the same. It is fascinating to note that Paoli, over all "classic" composers, always had a preference for Verdi. Nature is stronger than will.
Great composers almost always create new directions in art. With this in mind, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), undoubtedly, cannot be considered a great composer. However, he always kept his spirit open to new trends, and was able to leave behind an artistic output that synthesizes the evolution of a whole century of music, which is why he can be considered a great composer.
Verdi is a "liberal" composer par excellence. It is known that, as a politician, he was a revolutionary. For a time, some of his works came to signify a battle cry, a revolt. And Verdi's personality is all the more interesting, given the very interesting evolution of Italian music embodied in his work.
The true testimony of love for country is built fundamentally on the pedestal of our own cultural identity expressed in the origins of our being and our destiny. The artistic work, as a tribute to strength and life, longing and aspiration, travels across latitudes and advances over the dominion of continents. Antonio Paoli, equipped with all the expressive means at his disposal, enriched the great operas of his time.
Antonio Emilio Paoli y Marcano (b. April 14, 1871, Ponce—d. August 24, 1946, Santurce) performed Verdi's Otello, according to the tenor himself, 578 times during his successful international musical career.
For all difficult situations of the soul, Paoli always had a gesture, a look, an attitude that externalized them and gave them relief, and that is the contribution of Paoli and of all great artists, those who know how to feel human passion, in all of its terrible and beautiful facets:
…because in Paoli, the phrase comes from the heart, passes through the brain
and takes its musical form in the privileged throat. And that is where the secret
of his triumphs lies, that is why he dominates and moves his listeners, because
he knows how to live his character….
The prominent writer, Luis Bonafoux-Quintero (1855-1918), who lived for many years in Europe, particularly in France and Spain, referring to the debut of his "compatriot" at the Paris Grand Opera in 1899, commented:
Last night, the Spanish tenor Antonio Paoli sang at the Grand Opera in Paris,
achieving a real triumph....
In Paris, there is a tenor, and that tenor is Spanish… he is very Spanish, although
Puerto Rican and from Ponce; Spanish by feelings, by ideas, by character, by
customs, even by figure, with the addition of the cape a la Mazzantini and the
round hat to go to rehearse at the Grand Opera in Paris. Spanish of good stock is
his whole family.
Antonio Otero Arce, who since 1876 had been head of Bazar Otero in Ponce, had the privilege of witnessing Paoli's debut in Paris on the night of April 30, 1899:
Imagine, our friends, the joy of this Puerto Rican, and from Ponce, to boot.
The emotion overwhelmed us to the point of wanting to shout to all:
He is our countryman. He's from Ponce.
Otero Arce affirmed that on no other occasion had he felt such an intimate pleasure from attending a theater. Otero would have liked to have his family, all his friends and music-loving compatriots by his side, in short, someone to whom he could palpably express how his nervous system vibrated and how great his pride and satisfaction were, which reached to the deepest depths of his feelings.
The tenor himself commented that at a very young age he was taken to Spain, and that “I am intimately Spanish, never American: my language is Spanish; even more, my religion is Spanish, because I am an apostolic Catholic.” However, he always felt Puerto Rican and he expressed his nostalgia for his country constantly:
Sixteen years ago (1887), I left, still a child, leaving the smiling beaches of my
beloved land to search in different regions for what was difficult to find here [in
Puerto Rico]; means of progress and elements to realize the aspiration of being a
good fighter in the eternal struggle of those who aspire to a better future. And,
when back on the old continent, I was rewarded for my efforts by feeling flattered
by the applause of the DILETTANTI of Barcelona, Paris, and London, in those
moments that represented victory for a pilgrim absent from the homeland, the
recollection of it came to my memory and the triumph made me happier, to my
never-forgotten countrymen, as a tribute of my adoration of the blessed Puerto
Rican land. Today, I realize this aspiration; and in presenting to you the output
of my artistic efforts, if I can get my countrymen to give it their approval, I will
feel a thousand times happier and prouder than, when in strange lands, I bowed
to the thunderous ovation. Greetings, then, gentle Nereid of these seas in which
an eternal rhythm of light and poetry seems to accompany the placid murmur
of the waves that give kisses of love to the flowery cradle of Agüeybaná."
Hail the Homeland!”
It is important to point out that Paoli's beautiful and profound expressions, a reflection of his indisputable love for his blessed land, were written in 1901, at the age of thirty, a time of great success for the tenor in Europe, and the same year he undertook an international tour of artistic triumphs with his performances in Wagner's Lohengrin and Verdi's Otello and La Traviata. At his peak, Paoli gave his people the best of his art. According to Jesús M. López, Paoli's historian, the year 1901 was the period when Paoli offered in his native country the largest number of recitals in the major cities of Puerto Rico.
In the newspaper La Bruja de Mayagüez, it was commented that Paoli was a Puerto Rican celebrity and that his name later "will be universal," stamped with the enthusiastic applause of the public in Europe and America. The correspondent, who had recently heard Paoli sing, gave his opinion and observed that since the tenor had left the first lyrical scene in France, from the Paris Grand Opera, to go to the United States, “he has been parading the merits of his triumphal career through the major cities of the world.” They also rejoiced at the power of Paoli's talent, which drew applause from everywhere, moving audiences, regardless of opposing temperaments, from the enlightened German, to the phlegmatic English, to the Russian, and the Austrian. He wondered, then: Isn't it portentous that latitudes and environments disappear due to the power of an artist, ethnographic reasons are erased, and the fussiness of patriotism is muted?
When Paoli disembarked in San Juan in 1901, he was cheered by hundreds of people who had come to the dock to welcome him with music.
In 1900, he married a young Austrian named Josefina Vetiska in Vienna. When he returned to Puerto Rico in 1901, on a honeymoon trip, he offered a concert at the San Juan Cathedral and another in the present-day Nuestra Señora de la Guadalupe Cathedral in Ponce, where he gave thanks to God for the gift of his voice. He also performed in Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, Central America, and New York.
On May 31, 1901, Paoli, accompanied by his wife, Josefina, and before a large public crowd, sang at the Cathedral of Ponce at a solemn gathering in honor of the Virgin Mary organized by the Daughters of Mary of the Stately City.
In addition, that same year, the Spanish colony in San Juan sponsored an evening concert by Paoli at the Casino Español, on the night of July 24. At the end of the first act, Paoli received a nice gift consisting of a watch hanging from a lyre, all in bronze, fire-gilded, with stone fittings, and with a dedication engraved on the back of the watch, which read as follows: "the Spaniards of Puerto Rico, to the eminent tenor and compatriot Antonio Paoli." The organizers of the evening considered Paoli a glory of Puerto Rico and Spain at the same time.
According to Antonio Arnaldo (Tonino) Paoli, his only son, and the fruit of his marriage to Josefina Vetiska, on his first visit to Puerto Rico in 1962: “…as an artist, my father was considered an Italian in Italy, and in Spain, a Spaniard”. Affirming, on that same occasion, that he had come to deny “the lie propagated by so many that my father had once denied being Puerto Rican… he loved Puerto Rico dearly and showed it by coming here to live his last years and to die."
The outcome of the Spanish-American War, according to his son, depressed and disappointed Paoli. The attitude assumed by Puerto Ricans in 1898 in the face of the results of the North American invasion, especially in his hometown, Ponce, moved the tenor as he considered it an "improper act."
Paoli always wanted to give his best to America and his country, particularly the town of Ponce, where, unfortunately, he had difficulties. On June 23, 1922, he returned to Puerto Rico, after twenty years of absence. He sang in San Juan and Arecibo. In Ponce, the tenor had to authorize the placement of a poster, in front of the Teatro Broadway, announcing the "suspension of the act due to lack of public." The tenor apologized and took away happy and sad memories from his town.
The eminent musicologist and teacher Arístides Chavier (1867-1942) commented on the act of grievance, in Ponce, against Paoli:
And when that artist, enjoying world consecration, prepares to make us participants
in the beauty and charms of lyrical art…. And offers to the native hearth the
brilliance of his fame, then it is necessary to agree that such an artist must gloriously
occupy the highest moral summit of our respectful admiration and affection.
Chavier, an eyewitness to the entire event, narrated that the leadership of the Juan Morel Campos Club: Juan Carlos Ramos, Eustaquio Pujals, Fausto Percy, and Federico Ramos Escalera appeared at the Hotel Maliá, together with the mayor, Francisco Parra Capó, Pedro Albizu Campos, and a large crowd representative of the "simple townspeople." In the Morel Campos Club, the "great Ponceño" was splendidly entertained. Chavier affirmed that that "demonstration of the people was the most human thing that the noble people of Ponce have witnessed."
In New York, Paoli received the news that an article had been published in the Ponce newspaper El Día accusing the tenor himself of being a “bad Puerto Rican.” Indignant, Paoli wrote about this incident:
The coat of arms of my entire life, and the deep love that I profess for the island
where I was born make the… accusation fall from its base.
The following year, 1923, on a tour of Cuba, he insisted to the journalists of the time that “I was born in Puerto Rico…”. Also, in 1939, he emphasized that he is an "authentic jíbaro"... and that...
I have never denied my country, despite the fact that I still hold Spanish
citizenship. I cannot deny it… I am not a citizen of Puerto Rico because such
citizenship does not exist. That's it.
Nine years earlier, he had confessed to the same journalist, José A. Romeu, that he never denied that he was Puerto Rican and from Ponce and that he spent his childhood in the cuarenta cuerdas, a field located near El Vigía;
How well I remember everything! All those scenes from my childhood are still vivid
in my memory. I can talk about the guasimilla, the calambreña, the jácana, the
guayaba, the almacigo, the caimito, the mamey, the jagüey, the cupey, the guamá….
I descend from Spaniards. I am proud to belong to the Latino race whose superiority
over the Saxon race I believe to be undeniable.
Paoli thought that the United States of America was progressive because it had the money, the strength, the initiative, the mercantile and entrepreneurial spirit. It represented, for the tenor, the materialistic part of human progress, which for Paoli was not synonymous with culture and civilization. It is very different, he said, to own large organizations, buildings that reach the clouds, enormous factories, millions of dollars, than to reach supremacy in everything that signifies spiritual progress, art, and letters.
Paoli commented that North America was a "child" because it was in the "Childhood" of its evolution. Hence, added the tenor, he did not approve of Puerto Ricans "adopting its actions and customs here," possessing, as we do, a civilization and a history inherited from our ancestors. Puerto Rico, in his opinion, must reaffirm "the values of its race, and not distort them...."
In a review that appeared in 1925, it was commented that Paoli's glory is the glory of Puerto Rico, and it is the most solid and beautiful thing to which a human being can aspire. Paoli not only represented for the people of Puerto Rico a genuine figure of value whose consistency vigorously stood out among the most eminent singers of Europe and America, but was also a "true lover of this country," which now recognized him with all the affection and love of their collective soul, … and for whom the inimitable tenor does not deny the opportunity to hear him once before departing for foreign lands….”
It should be remembered that Paoli, in 1928, among other performances given in Puerto Rico, sang Verdi's opera Otello with the International Opera Company at the Teatro Municipal of San Juan. At the end of this performance, the theater was shaken by his interpretation of Othello, "as had never been heard before...." Paoli also sang in the same theater and period Verdi's La Traviata. The applause of the public present in the theater was “robust, crazed, endless.”
Antonio Paoli dearly loved his country and Spain. The human being who never tired of repeating that "my heart is loyal and my friendship sincere," lived his entire life proud and grateful to the Spanish people.
In Spain, Paoli knew the greatness of the Augustinian spirit in the centuries-old classrooms of the Royal College of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. He studied and cultivated his culture, under the direction of the Spanish Augustinian fathers, from the age of fourteen. Paoli was a Tertiary of the Order of San Agustín de El Escorial. There, the Infanta Isabel de Borbón heard him sing and from there he left for Italy where he became a great singer.
It was due to the royal protection of Queen María Cristina, mother of the last Catholic king of Spain, Don Alfonso XIII, that Paoli owed his career and that of his siblings Carlos and Amalia.
For this reason, as irrefutable proof of his gratitude to Spain and its Queen, Paoli kept his Spanish citizenship until his death.
The Paoli Academy, founded in Puerto Rico by Amalia and Antonio in 1929, and later the creation of the Paoli Conservatory in 1932, is another earnest example of the respect and love that Antonio Paoli felt for rescuing the musical values of his country.
It is worth remembering, with admiration and respect, the human being who kissed the sands of our beaches a thousand times. To the great Puerto Rican pilgrim and ambassador, without an embassy; the proud squire, without a shield, who traded his sword for his vibrant voice; and who, in the absence of a shield, created his own… his original shroud.
Hail Paoli!