Michael Fabiano Verdi · Donizetti LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA · ENRIQUE MAZZOLA Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Luisa Miller (1849) Giuseppe Verdi: Ernani (1844) 1 Oh! fede negar potessi … Quando le sere al placido 5. 25 8 Odi il voto … Sprezzo la vita * 6. 48 Giuseppe Verdi: Rigoletto (1851) Giuseppe Verdi: I Due Foscari (1844) 2 La donna è mobile 2. 01 9 Notte, perpetua notte … Non maledirmi 5. 21 Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848): Poliuto (1838/1848) Giuseppe Verdi: Oberto (1839) 3 Veleno è l’aura ch’io respiro ... Fu macchiato l’onor mio … 5. 56 10 Ciel, che feci! ... Ciel pietoso 3. 30 Sfolgorò divino raggio Giuseppe Verdi: Il corsaro (1848) Giuseppe Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (1859) 11 Ah sì, ben dite … Tutto parea sorridere … 7. 21 4 Forse la soglia attinse … Ma se m’è forza perderti 6. 27 Pronti siate a seguitarmi * Gaetano Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) Total playing time: 57. 03 5 “Tomba degli avi miei … Fra poco a me ricovero“ 7. 04 * with London Voices (chorus master: Terry Edwards) Giuseppe Verdi: La Forza del Destino (1862) 6 Qual sangue sparsi … S’affronti la morte * 4. 21 Michael Fabiano, tenor Gaetano Donizetti: Maria di Rohan (1843) London Philharmonic Orchestra 7 Alma soave e cara 1. 49 Conducted by Enrique Mazzola From my first days of study in opera, I’ve always had a deep intrigue with the era of late bel canto leading into Verdi’s works. The late bel canto era of opera (1835 and beyond) is a reckoning in time of a paradigm shift in operatic composition. The beautiful line of Bellini or crispness of Rossini gave way to the fire-laden later works of Donizetti. And it’s in this fire that Verdi’s works become even more relevant. A keen listening to Ernani and Poliuto next to each other reveals a symbiosis of sonority between the two composers. The works that Donizetti and Verdi wrote between 1835 and 1875 are of great interest to me because they reveal a drastic development in musical architecture and drama, bringing instrumentation, harmony, and layers of text and music much closer to each other than they were in decades before. My album is but a taste of this big bel canto era. 4 5 Verdi: Luisa Miller (1849) Verdi: Rigoletto (1851) with librettist Salvadore Cammarano. The incisive declamation and stamina. Poliuto, "Oh! fede negar potessi … Quando le sere al "La donna è mobile" bold imagination and creative strength in a Christian martyr, first expresses jealous placido" Roberto Devereux (1837), Poliuto (1838) suspicions of his wife Paolina, only to turn his It is no surprise the supple, suave writing and Maria di Rohan anticipate Verdi, not attention to a heroic rescue of a Christian Giuseppe Verdi’s tenor roles are largely for the Duke (Rigoletto) was introduced to be matched again in sheer artistic comrade when learning of his arrest. Nourrit invested in revealing the humanity of either by Raffaele Mirate, who earned much authority until the full flowering of Verdi's had self-exiled to Naples for this premiere, a helpless slave to fate or its master. Rodolfo fame in Donizetti. Everything in this opera middle period. Donizetti's Poliuto lies at driven from Paris by Gilbert-Louis Duprez's (Luisa Miller) lies midway in that continuum: demonstrates the vividness with which Verdi a crossroads in tenor history. Although triumph in 1837 with the first known high a victim of his fate, he ultimately takes could summon up a distinctive character, the tenor in Acts I and III parallels many C from the chest. Nourrit's bigger sound charge, with tragic consequences for all. His from the dour sarcastic Sparafucile to the qualities familiar in more lyrically-written hardly needed such enhancement; yet he «Quando le sere al placido» in Act II marks tormented title role to the idealism in Gilda Donizetti roles, Act II reflects the ambitions now felt he too needed a top from the the first moment we hear the full musical to the insouciance in the callous Duke. both Donizetti and tenor Adolphe Nourrit, chest. He could not bring the chest voice depths of a figure no longer willing to accept Leaving aside Piave’s fine libretto, the music the intended protagonist, brought to up to a C; but the resulting high A was likely his fate. As Rodolfo expresses pain at Luisa’s tells the story. The aria heard here became this piece. There, both a ferocious Grand the most powerful sound yet heard in the presumed betrayal, the music oscillates an instant hit, never going out of fashion, Finale and the staggering two-part scena opera world. Hence this selection's emphatic between helplessness and nostalgia on the assuming iconic status as capturing the heard here anticipate Verdi. Although this setting for "immenso", climaxing on a high one hand and heroic dignity and outrage on essence of Italian opera. two-part selection follows a traditional A. Sadly, Naples' censors banned this piece the other. At this critical moment we first hear structural format musically, it does not for its religious overtones, and Nourrit's middle-period Verdi, and also in the last act, Donizetti: Poliuto (1838) follow a traditional format vocally: The tenor disappointment was so bitter it drove him to whose ending reflects a common pattern, the "Veleno e l'aura ... Fu macchiato l’onor mio … usually opens a scena with reflective inward a tragic end right out of opera, a death leap tenor’s suicide. Settimio Malvezzi, Rodolfo’s Sfolgorò divino raggio" sentiments, stressing gentler vocal qualities, from the top story of his hotel. creator, mirrored the contrasts in Rodolfo’s more hard-driving qualities reserved for a writing, performing high-lying elegant parts Today's renewed understanding of Gaetano flashier second half. Here, both parts are like Rodrigo (Rossini’s Otello) alongside more Donizetti's importance to Verdi centers equally hard-driving, an atypical test of both strenuous roles like Pollione (Bellini’s Norma). around Donizetti's mature collaborations 6 7 Verdi: Un ballo in maschera (1859) Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) Verdi: La Forza del Destino (1862) nor made them so integral a part of his "Forse la soglia attinse" ... Ma se m’è forza "Tombe degli avi miei … Fra poco a me "Qual sangue sparsi … S’affronti la morte" regular repertoire. Not only did he create the perderti" ricovero" original Alvaro, he regularly performed in By contrast, here is the latest excerpt on this Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Meyerbeer's Robert Of those tenors active during the bulk of This selection is the earliest on this album album, a rare selection from the original le diable, Les Huguenots and Le prophète, Verdi's career, none delighted Verdi more than and holds special interest, both for the opera La Forza del Destino, premiered in Saint Donizetti's Poliuto and Les martyrs and Verdi's Gaetano Fraschini. Fraschini's incisive tones itself, Donizetti’s first true masterpiece, and Petersburg in 1862. Its later 1869 version is Les vêpres siciliennes, even going outside the could encompass both Verdi's most energetic for its being written for a great tenor still the one usually heard. While the tenor role Italian/French repertoire to perform Florestan writing and the gentler style of earlier years. finding himself, Gilbert-Louis Duprez. In 1835, of Alvaro is hardly inconsiderable in its later (Beethoven's Fidelio)! Tamberlik also kept his Here, Verdi gave Fraschini the finest gift of Duprez was not yet the fearsome lion with version, it was originally a longer and more extraordinary top to the very end despite the his career, the last and most wide-ranging his high C from the chest heard at his Paris varied part, tailored to tenor Enrico Tamberlik, arduousness of the most challenging tenor challenge of all. For many, Verdi's inspiration Opera debut in 1837. But the deeply expressive who first negotiated the contract for the repertoire. It is fitting that the latest piece throughout this work marks his greatest nature of Edgardo’s music here shows that work on behalf of the Imperial Theatres. It here is a part of the Tamberlik story, a career achievement to date. We hear the vividness Duprez was already a highly expressive is ironic that an opera more known for its that sums up a whole era in Italian tenor of Verdi's mature gifts in the tenor's "Forse artist capable of uncommon depths. Here, soprano started out as a vehicle for a star writing. Once again, “Quel sangue sparsi”, la soglia attinse" from the final act. In great in the wake of Lucia’s apparent betrayal of tenor. Indeed, the original Alvaro assumes a with its death wish in the midst of battle, anguish, a King's agitated recitative gives their love, Edgardo anticipates his eventual slightly more important role than Leonora. He shows a hero longing for his end. way to somber and deliberate phrases as suicide. Like Roberto Devereux (1837), Poliuto is even at the center of the action at the end, he contemplates the finality of Amelia's (1838) and Maria di Rohan, Lucia is also a a virtual denunciation of all creation and a Donizetti: Maria di Rohan (1843) departure from his court. The range of Donizetti/Cammarano collaboration, the first shocking suicide off a cliff. Tamberlik was the "Alma soave e cara" Fraschini's expressive powers is further shown success of that partnership, signaling many most versatile and the most resilient tenore in the hero's climactic resolve to see Amelia a masterpiece to come. As with those three, di forza of his day.