557309 bk OprNext US 26/08/2004 12:30pm Page 24 bello è affrontar la morte it is good to face death gridando: libertà! crying: liberty! Amor di patria impavido Let fearless patriotic love mieta i sanguigni allori, win bloody laurels, A NIGHT AT THE OPERA poi terga i bei sudori then may mercy wipe away e i pianti la pietà. our sweat and tears. Favourite opera arias, duets and ensembles featuring RICCARDO e GIORGIO RICHARD and GEORGE Indra Thomas, Soprano • Kristine Jepson, Mezzo-Soprano All’alba! At dawn! Matthew Polenzani, Tenor • Mariusz Kwiecien, Baritone English translation by Susannah Howe and Keith Anderson (tracks 13-14) Valerian Ruminski, Bass Royal Philharmonic Orchestra • Charles Rosekrans Valerian Ruminski Charles Rosekran Photo: Harry Heleotis Photo: Erich Hartmann / Magnum Photos 8.557309 24 557309 bk OprNext US 26/08/2004 12:30pm Page 2 A Night At The Opera Basta con queste ubbie… grette e piccine! Enough of this small-minded prejudice! Firenze è come un albero fiorito Florence is like a tree in blossom, Based on Victor Hugo’s Le Roi s’amuse, Verdi’s Sextus agrees to Vitellia’s demands, to the che in piazza dei Signori ha tronco e fronde, its trunk and branches stand in the piazza dei Signori, Rigoletto centres on the curse of a father on the father of accompaniment of a basset clarinet, in the original ma le radici forze nuove apportano but its spreading roots bring new life the title, the court jester to the Duke of Mantua. The scoring, a part for the Vienna court clarinettist Anton dalle convalli limpide e feconde! from the limpid, fertile valleys! climax of the action comes in the third act. Gilda, the Stadler, for whom Mozart wrote other works in the last E Firenze germoglia ed alle stelle Florence puts forth shoots and beloved daughter of Rigoletto, has been abducted by years of his life. salgon palagi saldi e torri snelle! great palaces and fine towers climb up to the stars! Rigoletto’s enemies at court and seduced by the Duke, Perhaps the best known operatic transformation of L’Arno, prima di correre alla foce, The Arno, on its way to the sea, for whose murder Rigoletto has hired an assassin, Goethe’s drama Faust is the 1858 opera by the French canta baciando piazza Santa Croce, sings as it kisses the piazza Santa Croce, Sparafucile. The scene is by the banks of the River composer Charles Gounod. In his third-act Cavatina e il suo canto è sì dolce e sì sonoro and so sweet and tuneful is its song Mincio, where Rigoletto and Gilda wait outside a two- Faust, left alone outside the house of his beloved che a lui son scesi i ruscelletti in coro! that brooks join in as they flow down to the river! storey house. The Duke appears, disguised as an Marguerite by his satanic guide Mephistopheles, sings Così scendanvi dotti in arti e scienze Let men of art and science come therefore ordinary officer, and enters the house, asking of her innocence, but Mephistopheles is soon to return a far più ricca e splendida Firenze! to increase Florence’s wealth and splendour! Sparafucile for wine and for a room. He is joined by with a casket of jewels, a temptation for Marguerite. E di val d’Elsa giù dalle castella Let Arnolfo come from the castle of Val d’Elsa Sparafucile’s sister Maddalena, while Sparafucile She is later to give way to Faust, in his transformed ben venga Arnolfo a far la torre bella! to build his beautiful tower! leaves them together, going out into the street to ask guise as a young man, and bears a child, which she kills. E venga Giotto dal Mugel selvoso, And let Giotto come from the leafy Mugello, Rigoletto if this is the man. In the quartet the Duke In the final scenes she is imprisoned, condemned to e il Medici mercante coraggioso! and the courageous merchant Medici! declares his love for Maddalena, while Gilda, observing death. Faust, assisted by Mephistopheles, tries to Basta con gli odi gretti e coi ripicchi! No more hatred and malice! the scene from outside, is heart-broken at her lover’s persuade her to escape with him, but she turns instead to Viva la gente nova e Gianni Schicchi! Long live new blood and Gianni Schicchi! faithlessness, to which Rigoletto draws her attention. In the angels, who will assure her salvation in spite of the what follows Rigoletto tells his daughter to go home machinations of the Devil. Published by G. Ricordi & Co., Milan / United Publishers Ltd London and disguise herself in man’s clothes, ready to leave the Puccini’s popular opera of 1895, La Bohème, set in city. Sparafucile is persuaded by Maddalena to spare the the artists’ quarter of Paris, is based on Henri Murger’s Duke, killing instead the first man to enter. In the event novel Scènes de la vie de bohème. The impoverished ^ BELLINI: I puritani - Act II this is Gilda, willing to sacrifice herself for her lover. young poet Rodolfo falls in love with Mimì, a Rigoletto returns, ready to receive the body of his seamstress, a neighbour. Their love fails and Mimì GIORGIO GEORGE victim, and takes the murdered body in a sack, prepared seeks other protectors, before her poignant death from Suoni la tromba, e intrepido Let the trumpet sound, and bravely to throw it into the nearby river. At this moment he consumption, united once more with Rodolfo. At io pugnerò da forte; I shall fight with all my strength; hears the voice of the Duke from within the house, and Mimì’s return Rodolfo’s friends try to raise money to bello è affrontar la morte it is good to face death realises he has been tricked. He opens the sack and in a help her and Colline, the philosopher of the group, goes gridando: libertà! crying: liberty! flash of lightning sees the face of his daughter Gilda. out to pawn his old coat, Vecchia zimarra, to buy Amor di patria impavido Let fearless patriotic love Mozart wrote his opera La clemenza di Tito (The medicine for her. mieta i sanguigni allori, win bloody laurels, Clemency of Titus) in 1791 for the coronation in Prague Mozart’s 1787 collaboration with the poet Lorenzo poi terga i bei sudori then let mercy wipe away of Leopold II as King of Bohemia. The libretto was Da Ponte, Don Giovanni, was written for Prague, where e i pianti la pietà. our sweat and tears. adapted from Metastasio and deals with the beneficence it was first performed. It deals with the escapades and of the Roman Emperor Titus, whose friend Sextus is fate of the ruthless philanderer of the title, eventually RICCARDO e GIORGIO RICHARD and GEORGE persuaded by Vitellia, jealous of Titus, to attempt his dragged down to Hell by the stone statue of the old All’alba! At dawn! murder, a plan from which she later relents, when it Commendatore he has killed in his attempt on the seems that she herself may marry the Emperor. Sextus honour of the old man’s daughter. In Là ci darem la RICCARDO RICHARD makes his attempt, Vitellia admits her complicity, and mano (Give me your hand) Don Giovanni exercises his Suoni la tromba, e intrepido Let the trumpet sound, and bravely both are pardoned. In his first-act aria Parto, parto, powers of seduction on the peasant girl Zerlina, whose tu pugnerai da forte; you will fight with all your strength; 8.557309 2 23 8.557309 557309 bk OprNext US 26/08/2004 12:30pm Page 22 Oui, partageons le même sort, Yes, let us share the same fate, marriage to Masetto is about to be celebrated. written for the great bass Antonio Montagnana. soyons unis jusqu’à la mort! let us be together even until death! Verdi’s 1867 opera Don Carlo has a plot of some In Restoration London it became the fashion to complexity, derived from Schiller. Written with a adapt the plays of Shakespeare to suit modern taste, in French libretto it was revised in an Italian version in addition to a further current repertoire of plays with a $ STRAUSS: Ariadne auf Naxos - Prologue 1884. The Infante Don Carlos is in love with Elisabeth considerable musical element. The Tempest was de Valois, who, it is decided, shall marry his father, adapted by various writers and staged in these revised KOMPONIST THE COMPOSER Philip II of Spain. Matters are complicated when Don forms. The version with music attributed to Henry Seien wir wieder gut! Ich sehe jetzt alles mit Let us be friends! I already see it all differently! Carlos declares his love to one he thinks to be Elisabeth, Purcell, who died in 1695, is only certainly known to anderen Augen! but is in fact the Princess Eboli, who determines on have been staged in 1712, and the greater part of the Die Tiefen des Daseins sind unermesslich! - Mein The depths of existence cannot be measured! - My revenge, when she learns of his true feelings. Don music is now generally attributed to John Weldon, a lieber Freund, dear Carlos is implicated in disaffection in Flanders and contribution that includes the famous aria Arise ye es gibt manches auf der Welt, das lässt sich nicht friend, there is much in the world that cannot be put imprisoned, while his friend Rodrigo, also involved, is subterranean winds, sung by a devil. sagen. into words. killed. Don Carlos meets the Queen by the tomb of the Verdi’s Il trovatore (The Troubadour) was first Die Dichter unterlegen ja recht gute Worte, recht Poets put down very good words, very good - old Emperor, whose voice is heard, allowing the young staged in Rome in 1853.