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Giuseppe VERDI

LUISA MILLER

Luisa and Rodolfo love each other with forbidden love. Wurm, the steward of Rodolfo's father, makes Luisa sing and forces her to marry him. Rather than living in loneliness and despair, Rodolfo prepares a poisoned beverage that will reunite Luisa and him in death.

It is a stellar cast that interprets this tragedy at the Met: Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva and Polish tenor Piotr Beczala will sing the roles of the two lovers Luisa and Rodolfo and will be accompanied, among others, by the immense Plácido Domingo in the role of Miller, Luisa's father.

Plácido Domingo adds yet another role to his legendary Met career in this rarely performed Verdi gem, a heart-wrenching tragedy of fatherly love.

Conductor Luisa Miller Bertrand Sonya Plácido De Billy Yoncheva Domingo

soprano tenor

Rodolfo Federica Walter Piotr Oleysa Alexander Beczala Petrova Vinogradov

tenor mezzo-soprano bass

DATE : Saturday 14th April 2018 Time : 6.00 pm Opera in 3 acts by Giuseppe Verdi

Luisa Miller

World Premiere: Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, 1849.

Luisa Miller represents a transitional moment in Giuseppe Verdi’s unparalleled career. While reminiscent of the youthful vitality that had made Verdi an international sensation, the opera also looks forward to the dramaturgical discipline and sophistication of the composer’s middle period. The story centers on the bond between a father and his daughter as they stand together against a hostile world, and much of the dramatic and psychological acumen that would define the mature Verdi is already fully apparent in this earlier work. It is an opera very much like its title character—one that impresses with genuine virtues rather than superficial flashiness.

Setting

The opera was originally set during the first half of the 17th century in the Tyrolean Alps (now part of Austria), which reflects the Germanic source of the drama. The non-Mediterranean setting is also typical of an interest in Northern Europe that was a hallmark of the Romantics and other artists of the early 19th century. The Met’s current production updates the setting to rural England in the era of the work’s composition.

Music

A turning point in Verdian music

At first glance, the score may appear as typical of the "galley years" by its arias to the significant melody with a concise and usual rhythm, as by the expressiveness of the sets. The characterization of the people suffers from Verdi's desire to turn Luisa into a dramatic virtuous coloratura, which did not correspond to her sensitive and fragile character, making the duchess a degraded secondary role. During the year 1848, Verdi began to search on one side for a new form and on the other for "stereotypical" dramatic conventions; Cammarano did not want to present him any more suitable text. Luisa Miller is one of the turning points of Verdi's writing. On leaving the grand epic opera that characterized the composer's early works and focusing on the personality of bourgeois characters, he prefigures the "trio of maturity": Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Le Trouvère.

Opening

The opening of Luisa Miller is not an opening type potpourri of air borrowed after the book or a simple opening, but it is the work around a theme, which makes it is a monothematic allegro without great rupture. One can look at this thematic work as a way to fully introduce a plot that "masters drama as a misfortune," wrote Verdi to Cammarano. He opposes in the first painting a warm pattern typical of a song melody. Also, these two motifs will be found throughout the opera at places and moments that suit them but not in the manner of leitmotif. In fact, the latter must, despite its modifications, be immediately recognized by the auditor who can report it in the sense that has been commonly attributed to him. Verdi, on the contrary, tries to establish a unity of tone or impression by rhythmic or melodic figures which are not always easily recognizable but which ensure the homogeneity of the work. The simplicity of the theme and its violence, its "driving force that shakes everything in its path", close to the opening of La Forza del Destino which is considered one of Verdi's greatest. It does not attach to a character or air coming into the room, but the climate of the drama that will be played. However, this opening was not received successfully by all critics, some said she was "nothing else than a symphonic stretta that does not deserve to be noticed" 7. While for Alain Zürcher, it is a "quick and tortured" opening32 and thus introduces the violence of the tragedy.

Composer Giuseppe Verdi 1813-1901

First years He was born October 10, 1813 in La Roncole, near Parma then under French rule, then taken over by Austria in 1814 and finally Italian since 1847. Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi, son of traders, was French for a few months then Austrian for 33 years, until the reconquest of Milan, the first stage of the reunification of Italy. He quickly shows musical talents that his parents, nonetheless musicians, discover very quickly. His father offers him a spruce (instrument of the family of harpsichords). The progress of this child is dazzling and, at nine, he is the organist of the village, which is worth a small remuneration. Aware that he must be given a more serious training, his father confides Verdi to Antonio Barezzi, an amateur musician director of the local philharmonic association of the nearby city of Busseto. He is going to live in hard years of study. He takes him to boarding school. At sixteen, his reputation has already crossed Busseto. Verdi starts to compose. At the age of 18, he left for Milan to continue his training. However, he must take composition lessons with Vincenzo Lavigna, the conductor of La Scala, because he is refused by the conservatory, partly because of his age too high and, secondly, because of his rudimentary piano technique. He will remember it at the end of his life by refusing that this conservatory bears his name. This one is green with rage.

Career In 1836, Giuseppe Verdi returned to Busseto where he remained for three years. The vacant organist of the cathedral escapes him because of his atheism. However, he obtained a professorship at the city's music school, which allowed him to marry Margherita, Barezzi's daughter, in 1836. He composed a series of steps and openings and his opera Oberto. In 1838 he left Busseto and moved to Milan. Oberto is presented at La Scala and makes a triumph. The director of La Scala immediately commissioned other works for the young composer. At this time, Verdi also knows the misfortune because he loses successively his two young children and while he finishes A giorno di regno, Margherita dies in turn in 1840. To make matters worse, his second opera, played on September 5, 1840 is a disaster. It is removed from the poster from the beginning, mainly because of the weakness of the booklet but also music. Verdi will never be able to erase this boring failure. He will seek refuge in Busseto. However, two years later, with the confidence of Bartolomeo Merelli, the impresario of the Milan theater, Verdi writes Nabucco. Represented at La Scala in Milan on March 9, 1842, the work is extremely popular. It evokes the fate of the Jews, oppressed by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon (listen to the Chorus of Slaves).

The Milanese, then under Austrian occupation, are not long in identifying with the Hebrews. The opera is then understood as the call of a people for its independence with, as culminating point, the famous "Va, pensiero", a true hymn to freedom. Verdi's reputation wins all of Italy. The following ten years, it is attached to a series of operas (Il Lombardi, 1843, Ernani, 1844, Luisa Miller, 1849), pressed that it is by the impresarios. In 1847 he composed Macbeth, inspired by Shakespeare. He will dedicate this score to Barezzi. This opera is generally considered his first great masterpiece. Suffering from nervous tension and various ailments, Verdi is at this time very demanding and quarrels frequently with the management of La Scala. His fame has far exceeded Italy. Hateful of public life, he lives on the sidelines not far from Busseto and is nicknamed "the bear".À partir de 1849, il vit, en partie à Paris, avec Giuseppina Strepponi, une ancienne chanteuse lyrique qui exercera sur lui une bonne influence. He gives with great success the Sicilian vespers, a work which attracts him the praises of a Hector Berlioz, however, very stingy with compliments. He then composes his popular trilogy: Rigoletto (listen Like the feather in the wind and read La donna è mobile), Le Trouvère (listen to the Miserere) and La Traviata (listen to the famous brindisi and read Libiamo). Nevertheless, the connection he has with the singer will shock in his home province because of two illegitimate children. He married Giuseppina only ten years later in 1859. In 1862, he went to St. Petersburg to play La forza del Destino (The Force of Destiny). Then, until 1870, Verdi spent most of his time composing for the Paris Opera (A Masked Ball, 1859, Don Carlo, 1867). At that time two names stand out on the European scenes: Richard Wagner and Verdi. The collaboration with the musicians of the Opera (which he calls "the big shop") is sometimes difficult. Tired, he leaves by slamming the door. It is then absorbed in agricultural activities in his farm of Sant'Agata.

Verdi and politics Few musicians have incarnated so strongly a moment in the political history of their homeland. Its very name symbolizes the revolt against Austria which occupies the north of Italy since the fall of Napoleon in 1815. When a patriot shouts "viva VERDI! It means: "Vive Vittorio-Emmanuele Re D'Italia". It is a call to fight for the reunification of Italy under the banner of the King of Sardinia. Verdi's popularity is not a coincidence. It begins with the creation in 1842 of his 3rd opera: Nabucco. Subsequently, his fame never wavers and he becomes the flag-bearer of the Risorgimento, especially since he returns on several occasions on patriotic themes: the choruses of his operas give voice to the people and they are sung everywhere. When in 1870 Italy finally found his unit, he was considered a national hero and sits in parliament.

Last years Verdi remains active for a very long time: at 57, he composes Aida for the opening celebrations of the Suez Canal. In fact, the creation will take place only two years later, in 1871, at the inauguration of the Cairo Opera House: listen to the Triumphal Parade. This opera will triumph two months later at La Scala. In 1872, on the death of Manzoni, a great Italian writer, he composed a Messa da Requiem to his memory, a sort of "opera in ecclesiastical dress" (according to a critic of the time) which puts stage the prayers to the Lord: listen to Dies irae and Tuba mirum. Executed May 22, 1874 in Milan, it is immediately a triumph across Europe.

At more than seventy years old, he wrote two great operas: Otello (1887: listen to Willow Air); and finally Falstaff, which is a huge burst of laughter, with all the youth of a composer of 80 spring (1893: listen to the beginning). At the end of his life, he devoted himself to various charitable works and his vigor amazed Italy. In 1897 Giuseppina died. Their union lasted more than fifty years. The composer is very touched and his health declines. In 1901, during a stay in Milan, he suffered from cerebral hemorrhage. He died at age 88 and will be buried in Milan. All Italy is in mourning. An immense choir directed by Toscanini sings Va pensiero.

Conclusion During his long career, Verdi mainly composed operas: about thirty of which ten are regularly represented. Heir to the lyrical tradition of Gioacchino Antonio Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini, he has adapted it to the demands of modern drama by bringing dramatic power to the qualities of melody and the exploitation of the possibilities of the human voice. Certainly, he does not refuse bel canto, despite his melodramatic excesses, but he transcends it by a dramatic tension based on human conflicts. He borrows his subjects from the greatest authors: Victor Hugo, Schiller, Shakespeare. He gradually abandons recitatives for profit (like Wagner but outside his influence) of a continuous

stream of music that favors drama and gives the orchestra a prominent place.

Synopsis

Act I: Love

England, 19th century. Luisa, daughter of an old soldier, is in love with a young man she knows as Carlo, but who is actually Rodolfo, the son of the local lord, Count Walter. The two lovers proclaim undying fidelity, but Miller, Luisa’s father, is dubious. His fears are confirmed when Walter’s retainer, Wurm, who also loves Luisa and hopes to marry her, reveals Rodolfo’s identity.

In his castle, Walter, informed of Rodolfo’s love for a commoner, resolves to end their relationship. Instead, he hopes to have his son marry a widowed duchess, Federica. When Rodolfo is alone with Federica, he reveals that he loves another, but the duchess, who has been infatuated with him since childhood, refuses to break their engagement. Back in the village, Miller tells Luisa that Rodolfo has deceived her and is about to contract a wealthy marriage. The young man, however, comes to plead his sincerity. When Walter storms in and insults Luisa, Miller defends her. The count orders both Luisa and her father consigned to prison, but Rodolfo secures their freedom by threatening to reveal how his father, with Wurm’s assistance, murdered his cousin to gain his present position.

Act II: The Intrigue

Inside her home, Luisa learns that her father has been jailed for insulting Walter. Wurm appears and tells her that the only way she can save Miller is to write a letter admitting she sought Rodolfo for his wealth and pledging herself to Wurm. He then compels her to go to the castle and declare her love for him before the duchess. At the castle, Wurm presents Luisa’s letter to Walter, and the two plot to send it to Rodolfo. Wurm then brings in Luisa. Goaded with threats by Wurm and Walter against her father, she professes her love for Wurm to Federica. In the castle courtyard, Rodolfo receives Luisa’s letter. In despair, he is about to attack Wurm when Walter persuades him that marrying Federica will be the best way for him to avenge Luisa’s treachery.

Act III: The Poison

At home, Miller, who has been released from prison, tries to comfort Luisa. The two agree to leave the village the next day. As Luisa prays, Rodolfo enters and pours a vial of poison into a glass. He confronts Luisa with the letter. When she cannot deny she wrote it, Rodolfo asks her to pour him a drink; when he says it tastes bitter, she swallows some too. Rodolfo tells Luisa the cup was poisoned, and she, released from her vow, tells him the truth. She collapses in her father’s arms. When Wurm and Walter arrive, Rodolfo kills Wurm before succumbing to the poison himself.

Next broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera New York

CENDRILLON Jules Massenet Saturday 28th April 2018 6.30 pm