[lit-ideas] Re: "E muoio disperato"
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 05:43:15 EDT
In a message dated 6/1/2009 12:17:53 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>I think one of the most beautiful aria's is "Eben Ne Andro Lontana"
>from La Wally, by Catalani, especially as sung by Maria Callas.
Indeed. I have not heard it _complete_ but I love it. I have it in one CD
called, 100 bits of arias. It's literally 100, and only bits. We play at our
opera club by playing it and check how many we recognise. Of course I
recognise them all because they are ordered alphabetically by composer's name.
Catalani was a tuberculosis-dying genius. I have not been able to find the
DVD pirate for La Wally -- It may exist, but I only purchase pirate copies
from a few people. What I did get was his LORELEY -- which was fascinating.
It's so Wagnerian the overture. As someone said, "Italy was the cradle of
instrumental music; it still is". Not with Catalani. Of course Toscanini
loved La Wally. I was told that many remember his daughter displaying a big
locket of Toscanini around her neck. Toscanini's daughter's name: La Wally
Toscanini.
---- What has been useful to get to know Catalani is a book which I
retitled, Italian Opera, but it's actually called "Last Acts: Puccini and his
contemporaries, from A to Z". It's 16 composers, including Catalani.
>Second most beautiful if not equal is Un Bel Di Vedremo from Madama
Butterfly.
I should say I love many tunes in Madama -- not the tenor aria, Addio,
fiorito asil. So, to get to play it on the piano myself, I learned the
so-called modulated scale which I start in
A major
and continue up to F major
-- it's fascinating. The modulation is used by Puccini as leit motiv of
Butterfly in her entrance (instrumental only) and THEN in
Che bella notte, o quante stelle.
This is the Flower Duet -- of the end of the Atto I. I love the music so
much, that I don't care the tenor has a few lines, rather orgiastic: "Come,
come, come, come, come" (Vieni, vieni, vieni, vieni).
----- I must have been seeing Madama Butterfly since I was 6 years old if
not earlier, since it was a staple (if that's the word) in our local opera
house and in the Colon.
---
>I must confess that I hate Opera, but I love arias.
>I think they're the most powerful music in the world.
>I hate all English opera arias. Not knowing what
>they're singing is a great gift.
Right. I should be getting soon DVD Dido and Aeneas, though -- by Purcell,
sang by Memphis native, I think (well, Louisiana), Maria Ewing. Her "When I
am laid to rest" has a beautiful melody, and we don't have that many DVD
of operas available for the period. Yesterday I ordered Scarlatti, which is
later.
----- I think there is a quotation in the Oxford Dict. of Music,
"I don't care what language opera is sung, provided it's a language
I don't understand"
--- There's another on the Boheme. A physician was asked about his
favourite opera and that was the reply.
-- For the music? Plot?
-- No: it's the shortest.
--- The golden age of opera was possibly only attained with Puccini. But I
do also love the arias by FRANCESCO CILEA ("L'arlesiana" -- Il lamento di
Federico -- e la solita storia del pastore; and "L'anima ho stanca" from
"Adriana Lecouvreur). Arias of bel canto are extraordinary to sing on piano. I
mean Donizetti's last aria for tenor in LUCIA or Bellini Spirto Gentil
from La favorita.
BEL CANTO arias for TENOR _are_ my weakness. I love them. They mean to me
the best the Italian art has to offer. Language is important in that it's
basically simple structures, and at least it's _not_ Japanese, which
shouldn't do things for me.
----- I have a potpourri sing-along of tenor arias I can play and sing on
the piano; they usually include one per composer, and when I play them I am
trusting my audience will join somehow.
>One must go purely with the quality of the music and voice. It's all
about the emotional content. No doubt many would think this is the judgment
of a >diminished mind, but guess what? I don't care. I've only seen one
opera, La Boheme when the Met used to stop in Memphis. The staging was so
?>luxurious I had to close my eyes to appreciate the music. I only "saw"
about 1/3 of it.
Exactly. Visualising can be VERY confusing. These pirate copies (e.g.
Loreley) are so dark, that I just don't even care to visualise them -- but
listen to them. Also you can doze off as you do. In that way, you can hear as
much as 4 operas per morning, sometimes.
-----
The acting is typically awful, the stage designs totally unnecessary. I
don't think I care to visualise any one opera.
----
>I listened to JL's favorite E Lucevan le Stelle sung by Monsalve. Very
good, very passionate, but males can't rip my heart out and jump up and down
on it >like divas can.
Yes. When I play the aria, -- which is in the trick of B minor -- I love to
take my time. I do love how the melody in the first stanza is so LINEAL,
and only gets robust in the second stanza. The clarinet obligato does some
things, too. I actually prefer the first part where the melody is carried by
the clarinet or the piano, not the voice. The second bit, when the voice
joins the melody, it can be over the top. I mentioned that because I believe
the 'muoio disperato' _is_ a Puccini concept -- and makes me ashamed,
slightly of my surname Speranza. But Then I don't think there is an Italian
surname called Disperato.
-----
>Of course, there's "Recitar! Vesti La Giubba" from Pagliacci, but that
can get a bit over the top,
>still it's something to be reckoned with.
Yes, this book Last Acts, has a lot on Leoncavallo. Unfortunately that's
the only opera available on DVD, and indeed, the melody I call Neapolitan,
with the minor chords, etc. I also love by Leoncavallo the aria for La
Boeheme. I recently acquired a rather expensive collection of CDs called
ITALIAN
OPERA which comes with Leoncavallo's complete Boheme, the main aria of
which "Testa adorata", I also have in other collections. Worth listening to. It
is almost nicer than "Vesti la giubba" -- much more passionate. In his
Boheme, the tenor is not Rodolfo, but Marcello.
----
Mind: Vintage Verdi can be good. "Celeste Aida", corny as it is, has some
good harmonies if you play it softly in the piano. By far preferrable to
cheap tunes like "La donna e mobile". But the best Verdi is perhaps Macbeth
(McDuff's aria, La paterna mano) -- and of course the many choruses.
It's amazing how a simple genre can provide so many styles. Even if you
hear Monteverdi "Lamento di Arianna" -- there's an online version sung by
Kathleen Ferrier -- it does so many things to you. So beyond styles (baroque,
'classical' proper, 'romantic', grand opera, verismo, etc) it touches the
soul.
Diva singing -- besides Catalani -- I seem to like them in the French,
Dalila's aria in Saint Saens, for example, does things to me. But I'm no expert
in French opera.
----
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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