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Every year coal-burning power plants generate not only electricity, but a staggering amount
of leftover coal ash that contains heavy metals unhealthy to humans. Yet due in part to intense
industry lobbying, there are no federal regulations on its disposal. It's left to the states to
oversee some of the most powerful utility companies in the country.
So coal ash is often just dumped into giant pits that are dug by rivers and lakes, where
toxins can leach into nearby water and soil. There are over 1,000 ash pits or ponds dotting
the nation, many of them old, poorly monitored, all but forgotten. But every few years we
are reminded that the status quo can lead to disaster --like the coal ash spill this
past February into North Carolina's Dan River at a power plant owned by Duke Energy, the
biggest utility company in the country.
The spill at Dan River happened when a drainage pipe that ran underneath an ash basin and
dam, collapsed, sucking out six decades of waste and spewing gunk directly into the river.
Lynn Good: It was an accident. It didn't work the way it should have worked. It didn't meet
our standards or our expectations.
Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good, then only seven months on the job, had a crisis on her hands.
Lesley Stahl: How many tons of ash, do you know, went into the river?
Lynn Good: Yes, we released between 30,000 and 39,000 tons of ash into the river.
Lesley Stahl: Wow.
Lynn Good: We moved immediately to repair the pipe and also begin cleaning the river.
And we've used this as an opportunity at Duke to raise our standards, even higher, of all
of our basins to insure and confirm that they were operating safely.
Once the water spilled out of the basin - this is what was exposed: canyons and ridges of
industrial waste the size of 20 football fields, buried right by the river where people fish
and swim and get their drinking water. But the accident at Dan River wasn't the first
time a coal ash pond collapsed. It happened to another company six years ago in Kingston,
Tennessee. That spill was more than 100 times larger, smothering homes in toxic muck and
choking up the river.
Lesley Stahl: After Kingston in 2008, did Duke raise its vigilance? Did you heighten--
Lynn Good: Yes. There were inspections that went on throughout the industry, certainly
at Duke where all the basins were reviewed.
Actually, inspections had been going on for years, including this one in 1986 that Duke
itself paid for. It recommended "quantitative monitoring" of the very pipe that collapsed,
saying it was "expected to have less longevity."
Lesley Stahl: So that first report urging Duke to watch that pipe was 30 years ago.
But there were others: 1996, 2001, 2006, advising you to keep watching that pipe, over and over.
2009, the EPA warned about the pipe.
Lynn Good: Most of those--
Lesley Stahl: How could you neglect those?
Lynn Good: The results of those inspections indicated that we should monitor. And we were
monitoring. And what we were looking for is that the pipe would leak before it failed.
But it didn't fail in that way. It failed without leaking.
Pat McCrory: I don't think Duke even knew what was underneath some of their dams and
knew the structural issues.
The spill infuriated Pat McCrory, the pro-business, Republican governor of North Carolina. He
knows Duke well: having worked there for 29 years.
Lesley Stahl: How would you describe or rate Duke's record on dealing with coal ash disposal?
Pat McCrory: Well, actually there has been no record regarding coal ash disposal.
Lesley Stahl: They haven't done anything?
Pat McCrory: Very little, very little. I think the record's been quite poor. Because frankly,
it's been out of sight, out of mind.
Lynn Good: Lesley, we have been generating electricity in this country from coal for
decades.
Lesley Stahl: And that means coal ash.
Lynn Good: And that ash that has been produced has been stored in accordance with industry
standards and practices for decades. We're at a period when the electric system and certainly
Duke's system is modernizing. We're adding natural gas, we're adding renewables and we're
closing some coal plants.
Fact is, Duke closed the Dan River plant in 2012 - and that perplexed the governor.
Pat McCrory: When I heard about the Dan River plant having a coal ash spill, my first reaction
was, "Wait a minute. That plant's been closed for years. Why are we having a spill at a
plant that's not even opened?"
That's because when they closed the plant, Duke just left the ash pond where it was.
In an unprecedented program, Duke has closed half their coal plants in North Carolina in
the last three years, blowing up one... after another... after another, as the company switches
to natural gas. In all cases, they just left the coal ash ponds and basins behind.
Frank Holleman: This is no way to store industrial waste in large quantities in such a primitive
way.
Frank Holleman, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, says it makes no
sense to store coal ash - that usually contains toxins like arsenic, mercury, thallium and
cadmium - in basins right next to waterways. Frank Holleman: It doesn't take a rocket scientist
to figure out if you dig an earthen, unlined hole in the earth next to a river, and you
put in it a substance that has toxic substances, that is going to leak into the groundwater.
It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
Lesley Stahl: Your organization - you have been suing Duke Energy.
Frank Holleman: That's correct. What we have hoped is that we could convince Duke to get
the coal ash out of these unlined pits, move it to safe, lined, dry storage away from the
waterway.
That's what Duke is already doing with most of its newly-generated ash, trucking it to
dry, lined landfills away from waterways, or sending it off for reuse as building material.
But the company's big problem is what to do with the 100 million tons of old coal ash
it's accumulated in their 32 ponds in North Carolina -- some, like this one, up against
people's backyards where children play.
Lynn Good: Lesley, we're committing to closing all of the sites.
Lesley Stahl: When you say "close," what do you mean by "close?"
Lynn Good: So there are various methods that can be used to close. Certainly excavating
them to a lined landfill is one of the methods.
That method would cost up to $8 billion. But Duke is considering two other options: lining
the bottom and top of the ponds but leaving the ash there which would cost somewhat less,
or least pricy at 2 billion: "cap in place" which means just covering the top of the pond.
Lesley Stahl: With no lining on the bottom?
Lynn Good: And typically "cap in place" is not lined on the bottom. But we would not
move forward with a cap in place unless we had a certainty that the water is safe. And
so that's where the science comes in. That's where the study needs to be completed, so
that we develop smart solutions.
Lesley Stahl: It's called cap in place?
Frank Holleman: Cap in place.
Lesley Stahl: Right. Now, would that satisfy your organization?
Frank Holleman: No, it would not. An unlined pit next to a river, a lake or a drinking
water reservoir is, it stays wet. Only if you have a lining in it do you separate this
industrial waste from the water table and the groundwater. So cap in place is only pollute
in place.
Lesley Stahl: Obviously, I'm not a scientist, but shouldn't you just say, "OK, we're gonna
line them all?"
Lynn Good: I'd love to tell you there is a simple solution to this. I'd love to tell
you that ash--
Lesley Stahl: Well, why isn't that a simple solution?
Lynn Good:--that ash has been stored for decades can be solved quickly. We like quick answers.
We like to pull our cell phone up and do research and get answers right away. But in order to
do this right, we do need to do the study. We need to understand: What is the groundwater?
Where is the groundwater? We need to understand the stability of the basin. We need to understand
the soil type. I cannot immediately move 100 million tons of ash. It's not a response that
makes any sense, doesn't make common sense. As much as I'd love to tell you there's a
simple solution, it's one that requires study, it's one that requires time to complete.
But environmentalists say studying is code for stalling, because this problem isn't new.
Duke has been conducting tests around their ash ponds for decades. And five years ago,
when state regulators demanded to see the data, they found something alarming: the coal
ash ponds in all of Duke's 14 plants were either leaking toxic chemicals into rivers
and streams or contaminating the groundwater.
Lynn Good: Some of the readings that we have found are for elements like iron and manganese,
which are naturally occurring.
Lesley Stahl: But nine of your plants have been found to have groundwater violations
for contaminants including lead, sulfate, boron, chromium, thallium, selenium, and arsenic.
Lynn Good: So we have had exceedances. And when I said iron and manganese, Lesley, I
was talking about the majority of them. We have had instances of other readings as well.
Lesley Stahl: Well, I'm citing your own monitoring statistics, which do say that there have been
hazardous chemicals that have entered the groundwater or surface water, at all 14 plants,
by your own admission.
Lynn Good: And what we have recommended, and will be moving forward with, and the state
has recommended, is further assessments so that appropriate steps can be taken. (Lesley
laughs) So, Lesley-- I think--
Lesley Stahl: Further assessments!
Lynn Good: I know, I think it's important to understand this. And I--
Lesley Stahl: But even you have to throw your head back and say, "Further assessments?"
Yeah, but-- but these results go back years. And to say we need to study more, you know,
is a very frustrating thing to have to hear. And I'm not even a citizen of North Carolina.
Lynn Good: We have very openly and transparently disclosed these results to work with the regulators
to determine whether it really represents a risk.
Lesley Stahl: Does Duke's coal ash today pose any health risk at all?
Lynn Good: I believe our system is operating safely.
But local environmentalists showed us leaks from several of Duke's ash ponds - like this
one at Cape Fear.
Kemp: This stream is like this, leaking coal ash into the river 24 hours a day, 365 days
a year.
After we asked state officials about this particular leak, lab tests were done showing
"notably elevated concentrations of sulphate, aluminum, iron, manganese, boron and strontium."
The state says the leak doesn't impact the overall health of the river, but is illegal;
a violation of the Clean Water Act. Yet environmentalists like Frank Holleman say that over the years
the state never forced Duke to clean up its ash ponds, under both Democratic and Republican
administrations.
Lesley Stahl: How powerful is Duke Energy in the state of North Carolina?
Frank Holleman: It's the most powerful entity in North Carolina. It spends millions of dollars
on political contributions and it has traditionally had a very close relationship with the state
regulators.
Just this year Gov. McCrory cut the budget and staff of the specific department that
inspects the ash ponds. The state legislature did pass a law in August, requiring Duke to
clean up its plants, but only after the company had already volunteered to do that. Earlier,
when Holleman tried to sue Duke, he was thwarted by the state which stepped in and negotiated
a settlement that allowed Duke -- you guessed it -- more time to study, and imposed only
a paltry fine.
Lesley Stahl: Tell everybody how much the fine was.
Pat McCrory: I don't have that list, but again--
Lesley Stahl: It was $99,111--
Pat McCrory: That's correct.
Lesley Stahl: which does not sound like a big fine.
Pat McCrory: It wasn't a big fine.
All this has made federal prosecutors suspicious. They empaneled a grand jury to investigate
whether Duke or the regulators has done anything illegal to get the state to go easy on the
company.
Lesley Stahl: Virtually every newspaper in the State of North Carolina came out with
editorials claiming that Duke was lax, and lawless, when it came to the environment.
And acted like a bully with state regulators.
Lynn Good: I recognize that. I disagree with that characterization. There's been-- it's
been a challenging time, a difficult time. Lots of voices weighing in. Certainly lots
of scrutiny, and criticism.
Lesley Stahl: But you must take this to heart, if there's so much of it. You know?
Lynn Good: Of course we do. We take this very seriously. And we're using this as an opportunity
to raise our standards even higher. To ensure that our operations are safe. It's our highest
priority at Duke.
Later this month, the Environmental Protection Agency is set to announce whether coal ash
will be regulated by the federal government as hazardous waste, meaning potentially much
tougher disposal rules and oversight.
Cancer has outwitted scientists and doctors for decades. More than 1,500 people still
die of the disease every day in this country. But scientists will tell you they have learned
more about cancer in the last five years than ever before. And no one is more optimistic
about what that will mean for patients than Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. He's been called
a genius, a showman, an innovator and a hypester. He's also the richest man in Los Angeles,
a doctor and entrepreneur who is worth an estimated $11 billion.
Soon-Shiong was a respected surgeon before making his name in the cancer world by developing
a multibillion dollar drug that few initially thought would work. He now wants to disrupt
the conventional way we treat cancer and Soon-Shiong is overflowing with ideas on how to do it.
Give Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong a white board and a few markers, and like a mad scientist
he'll diagram how he thinks cancer can be beaten. He wants to attack on multiple fronts
and is confident there is a pathway to the cure. For 45 minutes, he outlined his vision
from beginning to end.
Sanjay Gupta: This is a crazy looking board (laughter)...
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This is what goes on in my head you know, this is, it's like bursting.
It just has to get this stuff out right?
Sanjay Gupta: Are we looking inside your head?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Yeah, I think so, a little bit (laughter)...
Sanjay Gupta: How long before we get to here?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I'm incredibly encouraged to say that we are on the path. And the technology
to actually do all these things is not just hypothetical.
Technology is the main weapon Soon-Shiong is deploying against cancer. In October, at
his company's headquarters in Los Angeles, final tests were being run on high-speed tumor
genome sequencing machines that Soon-Shiong is convinced will unmask the molecular secrets
to cancer.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: And for the first time with this technology we can watch it, catch
it, outsmart it, and play chess at this multi-dimensional level.
To understand the significance of what Soon-Shiong is touting, it's important to know what cancer
is.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: A cancer is not what people think, cells growing. Cancer is actually
the inability of the cells to die.
The key is figuring out the genetic mutation or glitch that prevents cells from dying a
natural death. Soon-Shiong's hope is to provide patients with the precise genetic mutations
that fuel their cancer regardless of where tumors are found in the body.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The mutation that happens in lung cancer could be the exact same mutation
that happens in the breast cancer. So you need to treat that patient based on its mutation
not on its physical, anatomical location.
Sanjay Gupta: That's a big idea. I mean, you know, the idea that the breast cancer specialist,
they're looking for breast cancer mutations and they may be missing the ball.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Absolutely.
A lung cancer drug could work on breast cancer, for instance, if the mutation is the same.
The concept of doing away with labeling the disease by where it's found is not unique
to Soon-Shiong, but it is a tectonic shift in the fight against cancer, the notion of
classifying a cancer by its mutation.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Imagine reclassifying cancer. And having people conceive and understand
that cancer's a slew of rare diseases. So I am very excited because we are gonna create
this revolution.
Sanjay Gupta: And what's it going to mean?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Well, it's going to mean you have a better shot at having a better
outcome and having a quality of life and actually turn the cancer hopefully into a chronic disease.
Sanjay Gupta: That's very optimistic. Realistic as well?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I think so. Very much so.
Soon-Shiong has appointed himself to lead this revolution. Cancer genome sequencing
is not new but what's different about Soon-Shiong's project is the scale. He has spent nearly
a billion dollars of his own money to build a massive infrastructure, run by super computers,
to find every single genetic mutation that could drive cancer.
This is Soon-Shiong's plan: A patient, anywhere in the world, has his tumor biopsied. The
tumor cell's complete genetic map is then created all the way down to the proteins that
are produced. What only recently took months can now be done in a day.
Ultimately, personalized information for each cancer patient would show up in the palm of
his hand.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This is the baby... Sanjay Gupta: That's it, huh?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: It'll be the world's first browser of the cancer genome, so think
about that. You'll be able to fly through to get to the single letter that's mutated.
He's teamed with Blackberry to produce a device that will identify for patients and doctors
what they need to make more informed decisions.
Sanjay Gupta: At the end of the day, someone has a tumor and they could find out the complete
analysis of that tumor and what the perfect drug is to treat it?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Correct. That's what's exciting. It's not the end of the day. This
is what we think we can bring to the world now.
But some in the cancer world fear Soon-Shiong is getting ahead of himself, that he's declaring
victory before any of this has been proven to work consistently.
Derek Raghavan: It's show me the money, show me the data. Show me that it's true.
Dr. Derek Raghavan, a renowned oncologist and researcher, is president of the Levine
Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Sanjay Gupta: Dr. Soon-Shiong says, 'Look, if we can figure out which mutation's driving
cancer, we're gonna be able to find the drugs that treat cancer.' Is that a fair theory?
Dr. Derek Raghavan: Yes. That's a fair theory. But to say I can throw a tumor into a gizmo,
and that gizmo will tell me the answer in a few minutes, and everything will flow from
that, I don't think we're there now. I don't think we'll be there next year. I think there's
just too much hard, complex science that has to be done before this is state of the art.
But it's a very cool idea for the future.
The vast majority of mutations are actually not a threat. So to figure out which mutations
are dangerous, Soon-Shiong is going back in time.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This national treasure...
Sanjay Gupta: Wow...
In the basement of the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California, decades of cancer
tissues were stored by scientists in deep freeze vats. Now Soon-Shiong wants to use
technology that didn't exist back then to map the genomes of these thousands of tissues
in order to look for critical patterns.
Sanjay Gupta: So even after a patient died, their samples were stored here. They can go
back, say, "Oh, they had this mutation." And now we can explain that this mutation actually
leads to death. And other mutations may not. Patrick Soon-Shiong: That's exactly right.
And ask the question, "Why did this patient live and why did this patient die? Why did
this treatment work, why did that not work?"
To make any of this work, Soon-Shiong believes you need to upend the way cancer drugs are
developed. He's started a biotech company to try to dramatically ramp up production.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I know it sounds an audacious goal but you need to actually develop 20 to
30 drugs a year to actually get ahead of this game.
Sanjay Gupta: Right now it takes a few years to create a single drug and you're talking
about 30 drugs in, in one year. Is that really feasible?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I think that's where we have the challenge in pharmaceutical industry.
We actually need to change the way we develop drugs now.
Soon-Shiong is impatient with the pace of drug approvals. In the early 90s, he invented
a drug called Abraxane that treats pancreatic, lung and breast cancer patients. But more
than a decade passed before the FDA approved it.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The problem is for cancer, however, we don't have that time. You know,
if you have pancreatic cancer, you have two months, if you have metastases throughout
your body. The war against cancer is a war against time.
Soon-Shiong is also frustrated with what he calls the trial and error cycle of cancer
care.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The truth of the matter, we treat cancer today, we guess. We take what
we call the average results, put it in you, see if it works. If it doesn't work, oops,
we'll try another drug. If it does work, we stop the drug. When you look back 10 years
from now, it's almost barbaric.
The 62-year-old native of South Africa can afford to be outspoken because of his immense
wealth. He doesn't need to rely on the government or Big Pharma for funding. Soon-Shiong is
certain what he terms the Dark Age of cancer treatment is nearly over, and the Enlightened
Age is about to begin.
Sanjay Gupta: What will the average person note about the Enlightened Age versus the
Dark Age?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The treatment doesn't need to be painful. Metastasis doesn't need
to be a death sentence. Cancer could be a chronic disease...and treated towards the
cure.
While the oncology world may cringe when he boasts, as he's prone to do, patients see
him differently.
David Roy: The established community doesn't like false hope. But if you have a terminal
disease like I do, you want some hope.
David Roy was diagnosed two years ago with stage four, metastatic pancreatic cancer.
He was given four and a half months to live and told to settle his affairs. He called
Dr. Soon-Shiong, whom he had met on a plane years before. Soon-Shiong recommended a UCLA
oncologist who devised an unusual therapy that combined Abraxane with other cancer drugs.
Then Soon-Shiong had Roy's tumor genome sequenced. Based on those results, Roy is now taking
part in a clinical trial involving another front in cancer treatment.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: That's the T-cell and that's the cancer cell.
It's called immunotherapy. Soon-Shiong is not the only one working on it, but he was
anxious to show us why oncologists believe it's a promising field: a time-lapse demonstration
of how T-cells, which our immune systems naturally produce, can attack cancer cells...
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This is a cell that's actually gobbling up the cancer cell. This
cell will grow in size and this cell will decrease in size so watch (laughs). So, here's
the T-cell gobbling it up. There's the cancer cell. And...
Sanjay Gupta: That's amazing. So you're literally watching cancer cells die here?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Correct.
Sanjay Gupta: If you find these T-cells and you're able to isolate them, is the idea then,
you know they could do the job, you could come out and grow them, proliferate them,
and put 'em back in the body.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Exactly.
Even though it's been two years now since David Roy's original diagnosis, he's realistic
about his chances of survival. But he's convinced Soon-Shiong and other scientists are on track
to dramatically decrease cancer death rates in the not too distant future.
David Roy: I'm not sure that it'll happen fast enough for me, but I have every confidence
that my children and grandchildren won't be concerned about the things that I'm concerned
about. We are on the edge here, of going from the oil lamp to electricity. And it is going
to happen.
Soon-Shiong's most provocative idea, though, centers on how cancers may become metastatic.
He believes chemotherapy works best when administered in frequent, low doses and that in some cancers
the traditional method of blasting a tumor with heavy doses of chemotherapy may be actually
be counterproductive - because it could induce cancer cells to escape the hostile environment,
enter the bloodstream and find a new home.
Sanjay Gupta: It's on the move.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: It's on the move. And it's looking for another place to land.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Circulating tumor cells in the blood is the new frontier. Those are
the circulating tumor cells.
Sanjay Gupta: That's incredible.
If cancer spreads the likelihood of survival decreases dramatically. So before individual
rogue cancer cells fan out and form new tumors, Soon-Shiong wants to detect them with what
are known as liquid biopsies. A person's blood sample is put through this bio-chip that separates
normal blood cells from heavier, circulating tumor cells. This is a view inside the bio-chip
as the tumor cells are being funneled to the top.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: And if we can now monitor the cancer cell in the blood we then have
a path to getting this and winning this war. We never had those paths before.
After pulling out the circulating tumor cells, scientists can take them back to the genome
sequencer to look for new mutations that made them resistant to the initial treatment...and
hopefully find a new drug to treat it. It's yet another angle Soon-Shiong is taking to
disrupt cancer.
Sanjay Gupta: You got genomics. You have circulating tumor cell liquid biopsies. Death by T-cell.
Why are you the one taking all this on, I mean these are lots of different types of
things...
Patrick Soon-Shiong: You know, somebody once said to me, "You know, Patrick, you're all
over the place." And I said, "You have to be all over the place" because I'm trying
to fight this war from all over the place. Because you can't, there's no one single magic bullet.
If you have ever taken a vacation in Italy, chances are you've been to Florence, Venice
or Rome. It's unlikely you have been to a place called Cremona - a small city with a
rich heritage. It's home to one of mankind's most glorious and coveted creations: elegant,
hand crafted, Stradivarius violins.
Cremona was home to the master himself, Antonio Stradivari, who carved stringed instruments
out of raw wood, and set the standard for a vibrant musical tradition that still flourishes today.
Time seems to stand still in the small Northern
Italian city of Cremona. It's a quiet place, almost sleepy. It moves to the rhythms of
pedals and pedestrians. But to understand the culture of Cremona you have to listen.
It's believed the violin was invented here. To an audience of school children in a Cremona
concert hall, Ukrainian musician Anastasiya Petryshak plays a violin made 300 years ago
by the most famous violin maker in history, Antonio Stradivari. He plied, many would say
perfected, the craft of violin making in Cremona in the 17th and 18th centuries. There are
tributes to him all over town. The city's Violin Museum pays homage to Stradivari and
his magnificent creations.
Paolo Bodini: And they are really our history. Paolo Bodini, a doctor, the former mayor of
Cremona and a director of the museum, took us on a tour of what he calls the Treasure
Box.
Bill Whitaker: So Paolo, these four, all by Stradivari?
Paolo Bodini: Yes, we're in the middle of the Stradivari world.
Bill Whitaker: You live with these all the time. Is it possible you have a favorite?
Paolo Bodini: I would say the 1715 that's my favorite as far as the sound.
Many of Stradivari's 1,100 instruments have decayed or disappeared over the years but
a number that survived are in remarkable condition - and in great demand by musicians all over
the world.
Cremona's creations have been exported worldwide. Here at a Strad-Fest in Los Angeles - an event
almost as rare as the instruments: not one but several Stradivarius violins on stage
together. These world class violinists played second fiddle to the old master.
Cremona has brought many of Stradivari's violins back home. There are older instruments from
Cremona here too, some made by the Guarneri family - and this one, made in 1566 by the
man credited with inventing the violin: Andrea Amati.
Bill Whitaker: Now, this could be played today and would still have that ...
Paolo Bodini: Yeah, this is ...
Bill Whitaker:...exquisite sound?
Paolo Bodini: Yeah. It has - this one is sort of a deep sound.
To nurture that sound, these delicate, old instruments must be handled, held, played
every month or two.
Bill Whitaker: They're not just museum pieces--
Paolo Bodini: No. If you want to keep them in shape you have to play it-- quite-- I won't
say quite often, but once in awhile. You know-- b-- they-- they need to u-- to vibrate-- to
be kept alive.
And when these exquisite, valuable instruments are taken from their cases to be played by
Anastasiya Petryshak they get armored-car type security. It's a measure of their timeless
power and versatility. In Anastasiya's hands the 300-year-old Strad is just as adept playing
a serene passage from Paganini as a gypsy melody by a Spanish composer.
Itzhak Perlman: I don't need something better because there isn't something better.
Itzhak Perlman, one of today's most celebrated violinists, plays only a Strad, though he
has a more humble name for his - a fiddle.
Itzhak Perlman: This fiddle is so amazing, I don't have to worry about it.
Bill Whitaker: You call it the perfect violin?
Itzhak Perlman: Well, it's the violin of my dreams, you know. If you wanna play a pianissimo
that is almost inaudible and yet it carries through a hall that seats 3,000 people, there's
your Strad.
Bill Whitaker: So describe the sound produced by this Stradivarius.
Itzhak Perlman: I can actually see the sound in my head. I can actually see it. It-- it
has silk-- God, it's so difficult to describe. But each sound is different so this one has
that sparkle, there is a sparkle to the sound.
Bill Whitaker: Somebody said it's just the Cremona magic.
Itzhak Perlman: Could be. It could be the DNA of the city.
In almost any other Italian city a medieval piazza and cathedral this magnificent would
be crawling with foreign tourists, but Cremona is off the beaten path. It doesn't draw many
visitors. But don't mistake it for some charming music box time has forgotten. Cremona actually
is a very international city, where the past and the present coexist quite harmoniously.
Thousands of violins still are made here every year. There seem to be more violin shops than
espresso shops in Cremona - there are 150 of them. Stefano Conia came here from Hungary
more than 40 years ago. Edgar Russ moved from Austria and makes violins, violas and violincellos.
Mathijs Heyligers came from Holland. He says he and all the other violin makers were drawn
by Cremona's history and tradition.
Bill Whitaker: Do you feel the old master when you're walking through these streets?
Mathijs Heyligers: Well, yes. It's a matter of realizing that the man who made all those
incredible instruments that we are admiring every day and we're listening at in the concert
halls were made by a man that actually walked on the street here, because these streets
haven't changed. The houses have-- isn't changed.
Neither has the way Mathijs Heyligers and the other craftsmen make their violins. About
the only thing that has changed in the past 500 years - workshops today have electric
lights. The violin makers use compasses, hand saws, glue, no nails. The tools are simple,
the craftsmanship precise.
Bill Whitaker: This is the way Stradivari did it?
Mathijs Heyligers: Yeah, 300 years ago, he was sitting in the same town, doing the same
job.
Bill Whitaker: The same way.
Mathijs Heyligers: The same way, absolutely. I mean, no power tools, no-- no big-- technology,
you know?
Bill Whitaker: How do you decide what piece of wood to use?
Mathijs Heyligers: Well, that is very much a matter of sound. You know, if you listen
to this one, for instance, you can hear it.
Bill Whitaker: What are you listening for?
Mathijs Heyligers: That's the note this blade has, OK? Now it has a kind of clear resonance
note. This violin is going to have a clear sound.
Bill Whitaker: Can I hear?
Mathijs Heyligers: It's kind of high, but it's-- it's clear in color, not so dark.
The violin makers of Cremona have used wood from the very same forests for hundreds of
years - maple from Bosnia and red spruce from this one valley in the Italian Dolomites.
It's said Stradivari first discovered the acoustic qualities of these woods. Now visitors
show up every year to honor the trees, and Italy being Italy, there's a violinist to
play a concert -- not for the spectators, for the trees.
Mathijs Heyligers: The material needs to be cut in the right place, but also the right
way. We need to have the right moon and the right air humidity and the right wind when
we cut the tree in the right season to make sure.
Bill Whitaker: Really.
Mathijs Heyligers: Absolutely.
Bill Whitaker: Is anyone today making violins as good as the old masters in Cremona?
Itzhak Perlman: I don't think so, but you know, I hope somebody proves me wrong, that
will be great.
Bill Whitaker: Three hundred years we're talking about and people still want to have a Stradivarius.
What is it?
Itzhak Perlman: What is it? There is nothing like a fine Italian sound.
Bill Whitaker: That's the magic?
Itzhak Perlman: Yeah.
There are only about 650 of Stradivari's creations still in existence. The old instruments from
Cremona are so rare and beautiful they've ignited a kind of feeding frenzy.
Sotheby's has this very rare Stradivari viola up for sale and says it's worth $45 million.
No takers yet...
But Stradivari violins have fetched as much as $16 million, snapped up by collectors and
investors.
Bill Whitaker: Could you afford your--
Itzhak Perlman: No, no, no--
Bill Whitaker: --violin today?
Itzhak Perlman: --no, no, absolutely not.
Bill Whitaker: Would you ever sell your violin?
Itzhak Perlman: Right now--
Bill Whitaker: Your Strad?
Itzhak Perlman: --the way-- the way-- the way it feels?
Bill Whitaker: No?
Itzhak Perlman: I don't think so, no.
Musicians lucky enough to have an old Cremonese instrument, like to play them as often as
possible. But being played decade after decade for centuries can be rough on old bodies and
joints.
Bruce Carlson: I wish it could talk...
Bruce Carlson, born in Michigan, has been restoring violins in Cremona for 40 years.
He has to take them apart to fix them.
Bruce Carlson: Once we're all the way around then we can slip the table off.
He did this to a Stradivarius that literally had fallen apart in a violinist's hands.
Bill Whitaker: What is that like to pry open a violin made by Stradivari? I'd be scared
to death to try to open that thing?
Bruce Carlson: It may be something like a surgeon, you know, when he-- when he's operating.
Can't think about-- too much about the human side of things as-- as to just getting on
with the business and doing it.
Bruce Carlson learned his craft at this school in Cremona. Students from all over the world
come here to learn to make violins in the way of the old masters. Chris Kurz dropped
out of Penn State to study here. It took him a year to make his first instrument.
Bill Whitaker: What can you get in Cremona that you couldn't get say, if you studied
at Penn State, or went to New York?
Chris Kurz: I mean, like, I can walk down the street and walk by three or four shops
on my way to-- get a coffee. And the fact that I can bring my instrument along to any
one of those people, and walk in and say, "Hey maestro, do you have a minute or two
to look at what I'm doing?" And then they give me their input.
Bill Whitaker: It's the city of violins?
Chris Kurz: Yeah, yeah, it's like living, breathing right here in Cremona.
Living...breathing here on the stage of the city's grand old hall -- a 21st century chamber
orchestra featuring a 300-year-old Stradivarius. It's a tradition, a sound, a gift from Cremona.