557442 bk Tian 2/13/06 12:01 PM Page 16 Mais lui! But him!… Il a fait noblement ce que l’honneur conseille: He did nobly what honour dictates: Sous les drapeaux sacrés tomber pour son Roi! To fall covered by the sacred flags for his king! OPERATIC ARIAS @ Amilcare Ponchielli: La Gioconda – Ombre di mia prosapia Verdi • Rossini • Bellini • Gounod Alvise: Alvise: Sì! Morir ella de’! Sul nome mio Yes, she must die! Will this infamy Hao Jiang Tian, Bass Scritta l’infamia impunemente avrà? be written on my name with impunity? Chi un Badoer tradì Whoever betrays a Badoer Non può sperar pietà!… cannot hope for mercy! Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra • Alexander Rahbari Se ier non la ghermì Though the hand that seized her yesterday Nell’isola fatal questa mia man, on that fatal island was not mine, L’espiazion non fia tremenda meno! the end will be no less terrible! Ieri un pugnal le avria squarciato il seno. Yesterday a dagger would have ripped open her heart. Oggi…un ferro non è… sarà un veleno! Today…a dagger it won’t be…it will be poison! Là turbini e farnetichi Let the dancing over there La gaia baraonda, continue its boisterous frenzy, Dell’agonia col gemito let the moan of agony La festa si confonda! be drowned out by the din of the party! Ombre de mia prosapia Shadows of my forefathers, Non arrossite ancor! do not blush yet! Tutto la morte vendica, Death avenges everything, Anche il tradito onor! even betrayed honour! Là del patrizio veneto There they are giving a sumptuous party S’adempia allargo invito, for the Venetian noblemen. Quivi il feral marito Here the outraged husband Provveda al proprio onor! take care of his own honour! Fremete, o danze, o cantici!... Shake it up, oh dances, oh singing…! È un infedel che muor! It is an unfaithful wife who dies! Translations by Diana Liao 8.557442 16 557442 bk Tian 2/13/06 12:01 PM Page 2 OPERATIC ARIAS 0 Charles Gounod: Faust – Vous qui faites l’endormie (Sérénade) sung by Hao Jiang Tian Méphistophélès: Méphistophélès: «Vous qui faites l’endormie, You who pretend to sleep, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) N’entendez-vous pas, can you not hear 1 Nabucco: Tu sul labbro dei veggenti 5:07 O Catherine, ma mie, my voice and my steps, Ma voix et mes pas?» oh Catherine my love? 2 Les vêpres siciliennes: Et toi, Palerme 7:08 Ainsi ton gallant t’appelle, And so your young man calls 3 Jérusalem: Grâce mon Dieu! 5:08 Et ton coeur l’en croit!… and your heart believes him!… 4 Macbeth: Come dal ciel precipita 3:56 Ah, ah, ah… Ha, ha! 5 Simon Boccanegra: Il lacerato spirito 4:10 N’ouvre ta porte, ma belle, Do not open the door, my beauty, Que la bague au doigt! till the ring is on your finger! 6 Don Carlos: Ella giammai m’amò 8:24 «Catherine que j’adore Catherine whom I adore, Pourquoi refuser why refuse Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) À l’amant qui vous implore a lover who begs you for 7 Eugene Onegin: Lyubvi vse vozrasty pokorny (Gremin’s aria) 5:41 Un si doux baiser?» a sweet little kiss? Ainsi ton gallant supplie, And so your young man pleads, Et ton coeur l’en croit!… and your heart believes him!... Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) Ah, ah, ah… Ha, ha! 8 Il barbiere di Siviglia: La calunnia 4:41 Ne donne un baiser, ma mie, Do not kiss him, my love, Que la bague au doigt! till the ring is on your finger! Ah, ah, ah… Ha, ha!... Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) 9 La Sonnambula: Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni 2:57 Charles Gounod (1818-1893) ! Jules Massenet: Le Cid – Il a fait noblement ce que l’honneur conseille 0 Faust: Vous qui faites l’endormie (Sérénade) 2:46 Don Diègue: Don Diègue: Jules Massenet (1842-1912) Ainsi, mon fils est mort! So, my son is dead! ! Le Cid: Il a fait noblement ce que l’honneur conseille 5:07 Il a fait noblement ce que l’honneur conseille: He did nobly what honour dictates: Sous les drapeaux sacrés tomber enseveli! To fall covered by the sacred flags! Et c’est au premier rang que le héros sommeille A fallen hero’s place is in the forefront Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886) Dans la sérénité du devoir accompli! Peaceful with the thought of duties fulfilled! @ La Gioconda: Ombre di mia prosapia 4:33 Pour son peuple, et son Roi, comme une pure offrande, Towards his people and his king, like a pure offering, Quand il donna ses jours sans avoir hésité; He gave up his life without hesitation; Ma douleur à le perdre est encore moins grande My pain at losing him is less great Que n’est grand mon orgueil de l’avoir enfanté! Than my pride at having sired him! Hao Jiang Tian, Bass • Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra • Alexander Rahbari Vils déserteurs des nobles tâches, Vile deserters from noble duties, Faces de traîtres et de lâches, Faces of traitors and cowards, Loin de moi! Loin de moi! Away from me! Away from me! Sortez! Sortez tous! Get out! Get out all of you! 8.557442 2 15 8.557442 557442 bk Tian 2/13/06 12:01 PM Page 14 E ti fa d’orror gelar. it freezes you in terror. Operatic Arias sung by Hao Jiang Tian Alla fin trabocca e scoppia, At the end it overflows and breaks loose, Si propaga, si raddoppia it spreads, redoubles The Beijing-born bass Hao Jiang Tian has long made a After the Cultural Revolution, Tian’s climb onto the E produce un’esplosione and produces an explosion habit of challenging expectations. First there is his operatic stage began with two fortuitous steps: first, his Come un colpo di cannone, like a cannon shot, distinctive operatic career, which he has carved not acceptance into the re-inaugural class of Beijing’s newly Un tremulto, un temporale, an earthquake, a fierce gust, merely in orientalist backdrops like Puccini’s Turandot reopened Central Conservatory, and second, his studies Un tumulto generale an all round shake-up but in the squarely Eurocentric landscapes of Verdi and with the Italian baritone Gino Bechi, the first western Che fa l’aria rimbombar. that sends the air a-buzzing. Rossini. Then there’s his upbringing during the Cultural opera star invited to teach in China. Tian, who had never E il meschino calunniato, And the wretched slandered one, Revolution, which he neither hides nor downplays but seen a western opera, auditioned with a Schubert Lied, Avvilito, calpestato humbled and trampled on partly credits for shaping his subsequent path. much to Bechi’s chagrin. ‘He said I had a nice voice, but Sotto il pubblico flagello by the public whipping, ‘Growing up, I hated music’, he admits, explaining he could only help me if I wanted to sing opera. I had no Per gran sorte va a crepar. with a bit of luck, goes off and dies. that European repertoire was inextricable from the piano idea what that meant, but I said, “Yes, Maestro, I want E il meschino, ecc. and the wretched slandered one, etc. lessons he endured at the behest of his conductor father to be an opera singer”’. and composer mother, both musicians with the People’s Now a veteran of the world’s most prominent opera Liberation Army. The sound on the street was stages, Tian has established a particularly close propaganda, not art, and when all western music became relationship with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, 9 Vincenzo Bellini: La Sonnambula – Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni banned, the twelve-year-old Tian happily joined in the where he has appeared every season since 1991. From national efforts by destroying his parents’ prized record his Met début as Billy Jackrabbit in La fanciulla del Rodolpho: Rodolpho: collection. West (‘I guess they thought I looked like an Indian’, he Il mulino… il fonte… il bosco! The mill…the source…the woods!… When the family was later forced to move from laughs), Tian has worked his way through the company E vicin la fattoria! and nearby the farm! Beijing for political ‘re-education’, the boy discovered a into such major rôles as Oroveso in Norma, Walter in Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni, Again I see you, oh lovely places, recording that had escaped his earlier wrath. It was Luisa Miller and Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor. In cui liete, in cui sereni In which happy, serene Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the last piece his father Virtually from the start of his career, however, Tian has Sì tranquillo i dì passai And peaceful days had conducted in public. ‘He was silent for a minute’, been cast in major rôles in European companies. Della prima gioventù! of my early youth I spent! Tian recalls. ‘Then he said, “Let’s play” — very softly, ‘There are many fine singers in China, but because Cari luoghi, io vi trovai, Dear places, I found you, of course, because it was dangerous. He began to tell me it is not our culture, singing western opera is probably Ma quei dì non trovo più. but those days I find no more. for the first time what the music was all about, and little the most difficult job we could undertake’, he says. It is Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni, ecc. Again I see you, lovely places…etc. by little I saw this severe man shine with a natural a particular testament to Tian’s success that, of the beauty in his eyes.