WATCH rte.ie/culture LISTEN RTÉ lyric fm ROSSINI The Barber of Seville Overture VERDI La traviata, Prelude to Act III VERDI ‘Ah, la paterna mano’ from Macbeth VERDI ‘O mio rimorso’ from La traviata PUCCINI Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums) PUCCINI ‘Che gelida manina’ from La bohème MASCAGNI Cavalleria rusticana: Intermezzo EDUARDO DI CAPUA O Sole Mio LEONCAVALLO Mattinata DE CURTIS Torna a Surriento TOSTI L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra CARDILLO Core ’ngrato Prionnsías Ó Duinn conductor Gavan Ring tenor Presented by Paul Herriott, RTÉ lyric fm FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2020, 7pm NATIONAL CONCERT HALL 1 Gioachino Rossini 1792-1868 The Barber of Seville Overture Rossini’s 39 operas transformed Italian operatic life during the first half of the 19th century, setting the standard for much of what was to follow throughout Europe. If his speed in composing, his facility for memorable melodies, his impish sense of humour and his occasional disregard for dramatic fidelity did not always endear him to critics, audiences adored him for it. The Barber of Seville survived a calamitous first night in Rome in 1816 when supporters of Rossini’s elder rival Giovanni Paisiello disrupted the performance, outraged that the younger man had set Beaumarchais’ play to music as their hero had done in 1782. The following night, a less partisan audience greeted it as a triumph. Containing no themes found in the opera, the Overture nonetheless seems more in keeping with the upstairs-downstairs shenanigans that follow than it had three years earlier when Rossini used it to preface the tragedy Aureliano in Palmira and again in 1815 for the historical drama Elizabeth, Queen of England. Colourful, elegant and excitable, it is an exhilarating introduction to the deliciously farcical goings-on in the household of the lascivious Count Almaviva. 2 Giuseppe Verdi 1813-1901 Prelude to Act III of La traviata With a pronounced appetite for high drama and intense emotions, Verdi was one of the operatic titans of the 19th century. Composed in 1853, La traviata (‘The Fallen Woman’) is his most intimate opera. Originally titled Amore e morte (‘Love and Death’), Verdi’s setting of the younger Alexandre Dumas’ novel and subsequent play, La dame aux camélias (a fictionalised account of an episode in the author’s own life), remains the composer’s most popular opera, its searing emotion matched by music of luxuriously poignant romance and pointed drama. A story of love thwarted by family opposition, in bald narrative terms it can best be described as a tear-jerker. When the well-to-do Alfredo declares his love for the tuberculosis-stricken courtesan Violetta, their relationship meets with vehement disapproval from his father. The lovers buckle under the relentless pressure and separate, Alfredo too late realising his mistake. Their eventual reunion comes just moments before Violetta succumbs to her illness and dies in Alfredo’s arms. The Prelude to Act III features some of Verdi’s most sublimely beautiful and exquisitely painful music. It speaks of love, but fleetingly so, shimmering, tenuously fragile strings in its lighter moments recalling happier times even as they become subsumed by weeping anticipation of the tragedy that is yet to come. 3 Giuseppe Verdi ‘Ah, la paterna mano’ from Macbeth Few composers translated Shakespeare’s plays to opera as vividly or as successfully as Verdi. Among his masterpieces stand Otello and Falstaff, his last two works for the theatre. Forty years before the earliest of those, in 1847, his first engagement with the Stratford playwright produced a suitably dramatic take on ‘the Scottish play’, Macbeth. On the eve of the decisive battle at Dunsinane, the nobleman Macduff, ‘from his mother’s womb untimely ripped’, discoverer of the slain body of King Duncan and now mourning his murdered wife and children, laments his failure to protect them in ‘Ah, la paterna mano’ (‘Ah, the paternal hand’) and vows vengeance on the tyrant Macbeth. ‘Ah, la paterna mano’ Ah, la paterna mano Alas, a father’s hand was not there Non vi fu scudo, o cari, to shield you, my dear ones, Dai perfidi sicari from the treacherous assassins Che a morte vi ferir! who put you to death. E me fuggiasco, occulto, And in vain you called on me, Voi chiamavate invano, a fugitive, in hiding, Coll’ultimo singulto, with your last gasp, Coll’ultimo respir. with your last breath. Trammi al tiranno in faccia, Lord, bring me face to face Signore! e s’ei mi sfugge, with this tyrant, and if he escapes me Possa a colui le braccia let your merciful arms Del tuo perdono aprir. open to him. 4 Giuseppe Verdi ‘O mio rimorso!’ from La traviata Smitten by the free-spirited society courtesan Violetta – the ‘fallen woman’ of the opera’s title – Alfredo has given little thought to the consequences of his affair for his relationship with his disapproving father, his damaged social standing or even for his fatally ailing, tuberculosis-stricken lover. Discovering that Violetta has been selling her belongings to help finance their hedonistic lifestyle, Alfredo is suddenly filled with shame and remorse. In one of opera’s great apologias, ‘O mio rimorso!’, he resolves to change his ways and do whatever needs to be done to set things right. ‘O mio rimorso’ O mio rimorso! O infamia Oh, my remorse! Oh, disgrace! e vissi in tale errore? And I lived so mistaken! Ma il turpe sogno a frangere But the truth, like a flash, il ver mi balenò. Has broken my base sleep! Per poco in seno acquétati, For a little while be calm in my breast, o grido dell’onore; Oh, cry of honour; M’avrai securo vindice; In me you shall have a sure avenger; quest’onta laverò. I shall wash away this infamy. Oh mio rossor! Oh infamia! Oh, shame! Oh, disgrace! Ah, sì, quest'onta laverò. Ah, yes, I shall wash away this infamy! 5 Giacomo Puccini 1858-1924 Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums) Caught in the long shadows of two operatic titans of the 19th century, Verdi and Wagner, Puccini’s lyrical gifts established him as the leading opera composer of his age and many of his 10 operas remain in the repertoire nearly a century after his death. Although theatrical success overshadowed his achievements in other musical forms, his sublime and moving elegy Crisantemi (‘Chrysanthemums’), originally composed in 1890 for string quartet and later re-fashioned for string orchestra, is regularly heard in the concert hall. Composed in one night and prompted by the death of Puccini’s friend, the Duke of Aosta, who had briefly reigned as the king of Spain from 1870-73, it is a compact, concentrated work built around two mournful themes and imbued with a sincere sense of anguished grieving, its title acknowledging the flower’s traditional association in Italy with funerals. Later, Puccini would pilfer the work for a key moment in his opera Manon Lescaut. 6 Giacomo Puccini ‘Che gelida manina’ from La bohème Depicting the love lives of a group of impoverished students in the bohemian Paris of the 1830s, La bohème can safely lay claim to being the finest lyric opera ever written. First heard in Turin in 1896, it quickly became a firm favourite with audiences. At its centre is the doomed love affair between the struggling poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimì, whose life is cut tragically short by consumption. It prompted from Puccini one of his finest scores, a masterly combination of delicacy and drama, light-hearted brio and coruscating emotional power. With its famous high C ringing out on the word ‘hope’ (a note Puccini never wrote but which audiences now expect every bit as fervently as tenors fear it) ‘Che gelida manina’ (‘Your tiny hand is frozen’) is one of Bohème’s stand-out arias, a tender but titanic declaration of love whose purity and sincerity is mirrored by music of incomparably fragile beauty. ‘Che gelida manina’ Che gelida manina, Your tiny hand is frozen! se la lasci riscaldar. Let me warm it into life. Cercar che giova? Our search is useless; Al buio non si trova. In darkness all is hidden. Ma per fortuna Ere long the light é una notte di luna, of the moon shall aid us, e qui la luna Yes, in the moonlight l’abbiamo vicina. our search let us continue. Aspetti, signorina, So listen, pretty maiden, le dirò con due parole while I tell you in a moment chi son, chi son, e che faccio, Just who I am, what I do, come vivo. Vuole? and how I live. Shall I? 7 Chi son? Chi son? Sono un poeta. I am, I am, I am a poet. Che cosa faccio? Scrivo. What’s my employment? Writing! E come vivo? Vivo. Is that a living? Hardly! In povertà mia lieta I’ve wit tho’ wealth be wanting; scialo da gran signore Ladies of rank and fashion rime ed inni d’amore. all inspire me with passion. Per sogni e per chimere In dreams and fond illusions e per castelli in aria, or castles in the air. l’anima ho milionaria. Richer is none on earth than I! Talor dal mio forziere Bright eyes as yours, believe me, ruban tutti i gioelli Steal my priceless jewels due ladri, gli occhi belli. In fancy’s storehouse cherish’d. V’entrar con voi pur ora, Your roguish eyes have robb’d me, ed i miei sogni usati Of all my dreams bereft me, e i bei sogni miei, dreams that are fair yet fleeting. tosto si dileguar! Fled are my truant fancies, Ma il furto non m’accora, Regrets I do not cherish.