CHAN 3044 BOOK COVER.qxd 22/8/07 3:45 pm Page 1 CHAN 3044 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:49 pm Page 2 John Tomlinson during the recording sessions Bill Cooper Bill Great Operatic Arias with John Tomlinson 3 CHAN 3044 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:49 pm Page 4 Time Page Time Page George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) from Acis and Galatea from Simon Boccanegra, Prologue Polyphemus’ Recitative and Air Fiesco’s Scena and Aria 1 ‘I rage, I rage, I rage, I melt, I burn!’ – 6 ‘A last farewell I bid you’ ‘O ruddier than the cherry’ 4:43 58 (A te l’estremo addio) – ‘My soul is torn with suffering’ 6:19 60 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) (Il lacerato spirito) from The Abduction from the Seraglio with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir Osmin’s Song, Act I 2 ‘When a maiden takes your fancy’ 2:57 58 Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) (Wer ein Liebchen hat gefunden) Mephistopheles’ Song of the Flea (from Goethe’s ‘Faust’) 7 Osmin and Blonde’s Duet, Act II ‘There lived a king of old’ 3:37 61 (Zhil bil korol kogdato) 3 ‘I’m going, but take my advice’ 3:46 58 (Ich gehe, doch rate ich dir) with Helen Williams soprano Alexander Borodin (1833–1887) from Prince Igor Pedrillo and Osmin’s Duet, Act II Prince Igor’s Aria, Act II 4 ‘Vivat Bacchus! Long live Bacchus!’ 2:20 60 8 No rest, no slumber’ 8:00 62 (Vivat Bacchus! Bacchus lebe!) (Ni sna, ni otdikha) with Barry Banks tenor Galitsky’s Aria, Act I George Frideric Handel 9 ‘The Prince has drunk his fill?’ – from Samson, Act II ‘The sober life of boredom’ 4:07 62 Harapha’s Air (Greshno tait) 5 ‘Honour and arms scorn such a foe’ 6:29 60 with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir 4 5 CHAN 3044 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:49 pm Page 6 Time Page Time Page Khan Konchak’s Aria, Act II Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) 10 ‘Igor, listen’ 5:42 63 from The Mikado, Act II (Zdorov li, Knaz?) The Mikado’s Song 14 ‘A more humane Mikado… My object all sublime’ 4:30 66 Alexander Sergeyevich Dargomïzhsky (1813–1869) with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir from Russalka, Act I Miller’s Song Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) 11 ‘Like every maiden in the whole of Russia’ 4:06 64 from Geneviève de Brabant (Okh, toto vse vi devky molodiye) Gendarmes’ Duet 15 ‘We’re public guardians bold yet wary’ 2:45 67 Giuseppe Verdi with Andrew Shore baritone from Ernani, Act I Silva’s Scena and Cavatina Sir Arthur Sullivan 12 ‘Can I believe it?’ from The Pirates of Penzance, Act II (Che mai vegg’io!) – Policeman’s Song ‘Vain illusion! When I believed her’ 7:09 65 16 ‘When a felon’s not engaged in his employment’ 2:37 68 (Infelice! …e tuo credevi) with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir with Geoffrey Mitchell Choir Liza Lehmann (1862–1918) John Tomlinson bass from In a Persian Garden Philharmonia Orchestra Myself when young Gareth Hancock, Stephen Clarke assistant conductors 13 ‘Myself when young did eagerly frequent’ 3:43 66 David Parry 6 7 CHAN 3044 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:49 pm Page 8 Time Page Bonus track: John Tomlinson as Harapha in The Royal Opera’s Modest Mussorgsky 1985 production of Handel’s Samson from Boris Godunov, Prologue, Scene 2 Zoë Dominic Zoë (Coronation Scene) Boris’s Prayer 17 ‘My soul is sad’ 3:59 68 (Skorbit dusha!) John Tomlinson bass Chorus of Opera North Choristers of Leeds Parish Church English Northern Philharmonia Paul Daniel (from CHAN 3007) TT 77:42 00 Further appearances in Opera in English John Tomlinson: Julius Caesar (CHAN 3019(3)), Mary Stuart (CHAN 3017(2)), Rigoletto (CHAN 3030(2)), Werther (CHAN 3033(2)) and highlights from Boris Godunov (CHAN 3007) and Der Rosenkavalier (CHAN 3022) Helen Williams: The Elixir of Love (CHAN 3027(2)) and Il trovatore (CHAN 3036(2)) Barry Banks: Don Pasquale (CHAN 3011(2)) and The Elixir of Love (CHAN 3027(2)) Andrew Shore: Don Pasquale (CHAN 3011(2)), The Elixir of Love (CHAN 3027(2)), The Barber of Seville (CHAN 3025(2)), La bohème (CHAN 3008(2)), Tosca (CHAN 3000(2)) and highlights from Der Rosenkavalier (CHAN 3022) 8 CHAN 3044 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:49 pm Page 10 role.) With Fischer in his cast for The duet (‘Old Mohammad wasn’t thinking when Great Operatic Arias Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart made he put a ban on drinking’); its start is Osmin a more important character than he had rhythmically identical. Charles Burney in his General History of Music Handel’s basses, when not subsidiary been in the source libretto. Osmin’s first aria, The bass role in Ottocento opera seria was makes a striking remark: ‘Handel’s genius and characters such as captains or companions, can ‘When a maiden takes your fancy’ 2 , playfully typically a noble, authoritative ruler, a grave fire never shine brighter than in the bass songs be kindly mages, grave fathers or – like pictures his amorous possessiveness and morose priest, or a loving, possibly severe father. Don which he composed for Boschi and Polyphemus, and like Harapha in Samson – suspicions – and also exploits one of Fischer’s Ruy Gomez de Silva in Verdi’s Ernani is an Montagnana.’ Giuseppe Maria Boschi sang in blustering braggarts. The part of Harapha was specialities as a melody obsessively centred on exception: the bass as a lover, one of the three Handel’s Venetian opera Agrippina (1709), in composed for Theodore Reinhold, Handel’s middle G suddenly plunges to low G and then men – the tenor, the baritone and the bass – Rinaldo (1711), and then as the bass in all principal bass from 1736 to 1751. His later takes an octave-and-a-fifth leap upward. who seek the heroine’s hand. Elvira is in fact Handel’s operas during the eight years of the bass characters could also be tragic heroes – In Osmin’s duet with Blonde, ‘I’m going, betrothed to her elderly guardian, Silva. The Royal Academy at the King’s Theatre (1720–8). Reinhold was Handel’s first Saul and his first but take my advice’ 3 , Mozart pits a spirited, aria ‘Vain illusion! When I believed her’ 12 is We don’t know who was the bass in the Duke Hercules – but Harapha, the giant of Gath fearless young Englishwoman against the his lament and reproach when, entering her of Chandos’s musical establishment at Cannons, taunting the blinded Samson, conforms to the bloodthirsty keeper of the seraglio: a wide- chamber on the eve of his wedding, he finds but the role of Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea earlier type as he boasts in his braggadocio ranging soprano against a wide-ranging bass. the other two men there. The Venetian (1718) points to an able singer. Winton Dean virtuoso display of octave leaps, stepwise (She was Therese Teyber, and her role runs company for which Verdi composed Ernani describes the one-eyed giant, feaster on human ascents running through the registers, and from low A flat up to E in altissimo, just a did not have a leading bass, and Silva was flesh, but tenderly in love with Galatea, as coloratura. To close the middle section of the semitone below the Queen of the Night’s originally designated a basso comprimario role. ‘Handel’s first immortal stage figure’. In this aria ‘Honour and arms’ 5 , on ‘I disdain’ famous Fs.) Osmin tries to cow his ‘slave’ into But in later productions, when the great bass pastoral, the composer treats the ogre with a Mr Tomlinson extends the written range by a obedience in a stepwise descent to bottom E Ignazio Marini undertook the part, a humorous and almost affectionate touch. The fourth, down to bottom D. followed by a soaring arpeggio. Blonde, ‘vengeance cabaletta’ was added to the brief tune of Polyphemus’ amorous ditty ‘O ruddier Mozart, like Handel, wrote important bass unimpressed, mimics and mocks him. solo. Its authorship remains in doubt. The than the cherry’ 1 was in fact composed by roles for a benevolent mage, a stern father, and ‘Vivat Bacchus!’ 4 is a lively drinking-song coda is lifted from Nabucco, and self- Reinhard Keiser, for the opera Janus (Hamburg, a ferocious blusterer viewed in humorous after Pedrillo has persuaded Osmin to taste borrowing of that kind, common enough 1698); but the tootling of a sopranino recorder fashion. His first Osmin was Karl Ludwig wine for the first time. Haydn’s opera among Verdi’s predecessors, was not his high above the tune – a merry, fanciful Fischer, famous for a compass that extended L’incontro improviso, another escape-from-the- practice. On the other hand, the piece did depiction of the gigantic panpipe constructed from bottom C to high A, and for his florid seraglio comedy with a cast of two sopranos, appear in Ernani scores published in his for the giant’s ‘capacious mouth’ – is, so far as technique. (Mozart even thought of rewriting two tenors and a bass, composed seven years lifetime, and in modern performances of the we know, Handel’s own invention. Idomeneo so that Fischer could sing the title before Mozart’s, has a comparable tenor-bass opera it is more often heard than not. (A 10 11 CHAN 3044 BOOK.qxd 22/8/07 3:49 pm Page 12 complete recording of Ernani sung in English in at short notice for an indisposed colleague. in 1867 (the year of Napoleon III’s Grand pedantry would seek to alter its ambiguity.) is soon to be released on Chandos [CHAN He sang the role in London in 1931, at the Exposition, and of Don Carlos).