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Gaetano Donizetti

LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT

Orpheline, Marie was taken in by Sergeant Sulpice, who employs him as a cantinière in his regiment. Crazy in love with Marie, the young peasant Tonio engages in the battalion to see her every day. When the Marquise of Berkenfield reveals the true identity of Mary, who is her daughter, the young woman could be separated forever from Tonio.

Acclaimed by the lyric press, South African Pretty Yende returns to the stage of the Met opposite the Javier Camarena for an of great vocal virtuosity under the baton of . The alchemist Donizetti's expertise once again acts with this unique blend of melancholy and joy. Tenor Javier Camarena and soprano Pretty Yende team up for a feast of vocal fireworks—including the show-stopping tenor aria “Ah! Mes amis … Pour mon âme,” with its nine high Cs. and Maurizio Muraro trade off as the comic Sergeant Sulpice, with mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as the outlandish Marquise of Berkenfield. And in an exciting piece of casting, stage and screen icon Kathleen Turner makes her Met debut in the speaking role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp. Enrique Mazzola conducts.

Conductor Marie Marquise Enrique Pretty Stéphanie Mazzola Yende Blythe

soprano Mezzo soprano

Duchess Tonio Sulpice Kathleen Javier Maurizio Turner Camarena Muraro

actress tenor

Production : Laurent Pelly

DATE : 2nd March 2019 Time : 6.25pm Opera en 2 acts by

LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT

World Premiere : Opéra Comique, Paris, 1840.

This frothy comedy mixes humor with a rush of buoyant melody and notorious vocal challenges. The story concerns a young orphan girl raised by an army regiment as their mascot and begins at the moment of her first stirrings of love. Complications (and comedy) ensue when her true identity is discovered. The action is startlingly simple and unencumbered by intricate subplots, allowing the full charm of the characters and their virtuosic music to come across in an uninhibited way.

Setting

The opera is set in the Tyrol, a picturesque mountain landscape. The Met’s production places the action during the First World War.

Music

Donizetti's score is a clever combination of light military melodies, striking comic book numbers, extremely graceful ensembles and vocal solos, and airy airs. Few singers have the technical ability and theatrical presence to deliver the famous fireworks tunes (including Act I of the soprano "Everybody Knows It" and Act I of the tenor "Ah, my friends," with its nine famous C high). However, the lyrical beauty and pathos of the slower melodic jewels are just as important (the soprano's "I must go" in Act I and the "To bring me closer to Mary" in Act II).

Faithful to the spirit of , in The Girl of the Regiment, it is the vaudeville spirit that dominates through the superposition of actions that manifests itself especially in the absence of true soloists. Indeed, all "solo" numbers (such as Tonio's cavatin and Marie's romance in the finale of the first act) are interrupted by short interventions by other characters in the air (so-called interrupts). perticchini). The librettists also play with the conventions of the genre by integrating a double reading of their text through subtle allusions to the dramatic conventions of the genre.

On the musical level, Donizetti broke away from his Italian influences to write in the style of French comic opera, as attested by the trio of Act II with its accompanied melody supported by orchestral pumps (or bass figures). mechanical, that is to say, repetitive), stylized dance rhythms and a vocal range (a gap between the highest note and the lowest note of singing) that restricts any acrobatic virtuosity.

To vary the musical artifices, Donizetti incorporates into his opera other conventions such as that of the great historical opera or Italian bel canto. In the lineage of the first, the opera begins with a politico-military event: that of French troops advancing. Musically, this introduction has inflections of Meyerbeer with his guns, his drums and his use of litanies. This analogy is also verified in the contrasting musical writing between the hero and the crowd (as in the finale of Act I) made possible by a dramaturgy of the instrumental material, that is to say by a clear association of stamps orchestral with the hero or with the crowd. Finally, the influence of the bel canto Italian which is particularly remarkable in the vocal treatment of the character of Mary. In her romance (finale, act I), Marie transforms herself into a beloved heroine who dialogue with the instrument that best expresses melancholy: the English horn. Similarly, in his only act of the second act ("It is done"), the character of

Mary is treated in a beautiful cantiste with the appearance of vocalises and trills, a voice port (filling by voice of the difference between two notes) between the different melodic phrases and very expressive vocal lines.

Composer 1797-1848

Born into a poor family of Bergamo, son of an employee, Gaetano Donizetti devotes himself to the musical career despite a father who intends him to the bar. Luckily, there was in Bergamo an important composer of the earlier generation: Simon Mayr, chapel master of the basilica. Thanks to grants from the Pious Institute of Misericordia Maggiore, the latter had instituted Charitable Music Lessons to which Donizetti was admitted in April 1806. He was then 8 years old. He studied for nine years under the direction of Mayr, who obtained, in October 1815, to send him to the Philharmonic High School in Bologna to study counterpoint and fugue under the direction of the best teacher of the time, Father Stanislao Mattei, also the master of Rossini (five years older than Donizetti).

While composing, under the direction of Mattei, religious pieces of a strict style, Donizetti gives Bologna, in September 1816, his first opera, The Pygmalion, which will be represented in 1960. Back in his hometown he holds a position at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. His career as an opera composer officially began on November 14, 1818 with the creation of at the Teatro San Luca in Venice.

The young composer has his first success with his next work, Zoraide di Granata, composed with the help of Mayr and represented on January 28, 1822 at Teatro Argentina in . On this occasion, Donizetti shows the extreme speed that characterizes it because it must rewrite much of the score a few days before the first, following the death of one of the main performers. In Rome, he meets and the Vasselli family. Ferretti gives him the of an opera-bouffe, the ajo nell'imbarazzo, which is represented with great success at the on February 4, 1824 and is considered the first small masterpiece of Donizetti in the comic genre.

From 1818 to 1828, Donizetti composed 19 , several of which were a real success: Elvira, Alfredo the Great, , , Chiara e Serafino, etc. But it was in Naples, where he settled after his marriage to Virginia Vasselli in Rome on June 1, 1828, that he got his first real "triumph" with L'esule di Roma (1828). With an unusual creativity and work force, he begins to chase successes.

On December 26, 1830, he triumphed at the Teatro Carcano in with , the first of which had a prestigious cast, including Giuditta Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rubini. The opera was not long in being taken up in Paris (first work of the composer created in this city, in September 1831), in London, in Madrid, in Dresden and even in Havana.

He triumphed again on May 12, 1832 with L'elisir d'amore, represented at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan. These successes earned him the title of master of the chapel and professor of composition at the Real Collegio (conservatory) in Naples on June 28, 1834, and in 1836 he was appointed master of counterpoint at the same conservatory.

In 1835, at the invitation of Rossini, Donizetti went to Paris where he played at the Theater of the Italians Marin Faliero (March 12). In April, he was knighted by the Legion of Honor by King Louis-Philippe. Back in Naples, he won a memorable triumph at the Teatro San Carlo with , his most famous work, composed in just six weeks. The death of his wife on July 30, 1837, plunged him into a deep depression. On October 29, however, he had a new masterpiece, , still in San Carlo.

The following year, the ban of by the Neapolitan censorship and the spite of not having obtained to be named officially director of the conservatory after the death of Zingarelli, while he already held this function ad interim, convince him to leave Naples and settle in Paris. Moreover, since the death of his wife, nothing keeps him in this city.

Collaborating with Eugène Scribe and other librettists like Alphonse Royer, Gustave Vaëz or Vernoy de Saint-Georges, he creates a series of operas some of which have become classics of the world lyric repertoire:

ou Poliuto (1840), from de Corneille  La Fille du régiment (1840)  (1840)  ou le Mari battu (composed in 1841 but only created, posthumously, in 1860)  (1843)  Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal (1843), « greath opera » composed in two month.

From 1842 to 1846, Donizetti continued to travel, mainly between Paris, the major Italian cities (Naples, Rome, Bologna, Milan, Venice) and Vienna where he was appointed head of the court in 1842. This is where he begins to feel the attacks of syphilis, which will force him to stop working as early as 1845. Under the effect of the nervous attacks of the disease, he loses the word, can no longer walk, and gradually darkens in the madness, he who had staged the stage in the theater. Alarmed by his condition, Donizetti's friends and family send his nephew, Andrea, son of Giuseppe Donizetti to Paris. Donizetti was interned in 1846 in the health house of Dr. Esquirol in Ivry-sur-Seine. In 1847, he was transferred to Paris in a house near the Champs Elysees.

Andrea Donizetti obtained in September 1847 the authorization of the Parisian authorities (prefect Gabriel Delessert), to be transferred to his hometown, Bergamo, where he died in 1848.

Donizetti had a brother much older than him, Giuseppe Donizetti, born in 1788, who was a long time director of the sultan's military music in Constantinople, where he died in 1856. He made western music better known in the Ottoman Empire and popularized it. his steps, pieces for piano and lieder.

Synopsis

ACT I

The Tyrolean mountains. On their way to Austria, the terrified Marquise of Berkenfield and her butler, Hortensius, have paused in their journey because they have found the French army blocking their way. When the marquise hears from the villagers that the French troops have at last retreated, she comments on the crude ways of the French people (“Pour une femme de mon nom”). Hortensius asks Sulpice, sergeant of the 21st regiment, to let the marquise continue on. Sulpice is joined by Marie, the mascot, or “daughter,” of the regiment, which adopted her as an orphaned child. When Sulpice questions her about a young man she has been seen with, she explains that he is a local Tyrolean who—though an enemy—once saved her life. Troops of the 21st arrive with a prisoner: this same Tyrolean, Tonio, who says he has been looking for Marie. She steps in to save him, and while he toasts his new friends, Marie sings the regimental song (“Chacun le sait”). Tonio is ordered to follow the soldiers, but he escapes and returns to declare his love to Marie. Sulpice surprises them, and Marie must admit to Tonio that she can only marry a soldier from the 21st.

The Marquise of Berkenfield asks Sulpice for an escort to return her to her castle. When he hears the name Berkenfield, Sulpice remembers a letter he discovered near the young Marie when she was found. The marquise soon admits that she knew the girl’s father and says that Marie is the long-lost daughter of her sister. The child had been left in the care of the marquise, but was lost on a battlefield. Shocked by the girl’s rough manners, the marquise is determined to take her niece to her castle and to give her a proper education. Tonio has enlisted so that he can marry Marie (“Ah, mes amis”), but she has to leave both her regiment and the man she loves (“Il faut partir”).

ACT II

The marquise has arranged a marriage between Marie and Scipion, nephew of the Duchess of Krakenthorp. Sulpice has joined the marquise at the Berkenfield castle, recovering from an injury and supposed to help her with her plans. The marquise gives Marie a singing lesson, accompanying her at the piano. Encouraged by Sulpice, Marie slips in phrases of the regimental song, and the marquise loses her temper (Trio: “Le jour naissait dans la bocage”). Left alone, Marie thinks about the meaninglessness of money and position (“Par le rang et l’opulence”). She hears soldiers marching in the distance and is delighted when the whole regiment files into the hall. Tonio, Marie, and Sulpice are reunited. Tonio asks for Marie’s hand, declaring that Marie is his whole life (“Pour me rapprocher de Marie”), but the marquise declares her niece engaged to another man and dismisses Tonio. Alone with Sulpice, the marquise confesses the truth: Marie is her own illegitimate daughter whom she abandoned, fearing social disgrace.

Hortensius announces the arrival of the wedding party, headed by the Duchess of Krakenthorp. Marie refuses to leave her room, but when Sulpice tells her that the marquise is her mother, the surprised girl declares that she cannot go against her mother’s wishes and agrees to marry a man that she does not love. As she is about to sign the marriage contract, the soldiers of the 21st regiment, led by Tonio, storm in to rescue their “daughter.” The noble guests are horrified to learn that Marie was a canteen girl, but they change their opinion when she describes her upbringing, telling them that she can never repay the debt she owes the soldiers. The marquise is so moved that she gives her daughter permission to marry Tonio. Everyone joins in a final “Salut à la France.”

Next broadcast of the New York

DIE WALKÜRE/LA WALKYRIE

Composer Richard Wagner

Saturday 30th March 2019 4.25pm