[lit-ideas] La Cabaletta
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:10:21 EDT
In my "Il Palco", I gather my reflections on Italians and Opera, as
misunderstood by the English of the right century (late Victorians).
Consider cabaletta. The OED notes, "It's not from 'horse'", and the wiki
misleads us by saying it's from 'cabal'. Matter of fact, it's a corruption
of Latin 'copula'.
Consider Atto III of Lucia di Lamermoor (based on the Bride of Lamermoor):
a compleat master class in bel canto tenor singing, with recit, aria, and
cabaletta.
"Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali".
What is interesting to learn is that in vocal arrangements of this for the
Victorian drawing-room balladry repertoire, the Italian floridities are
rightly all evacuated: in their place, the metric of the whole thing makes the
cabaletta sound like a common-or-garden music-hall ditty, which it might
be just as well!
Warner, who first used 'cabaletta' in English, or at least defined it in
1844 interpolates the Victorian bias to the Donizetti (Don Izett): "The
Italians may suffer a long recit and longer aria, provided they KNOW it will
be
closed up by a cabaletta". And then there's the toast!
J. L. Speranza, The Swimming-Pool Library, Bordighera --
_jlsperanza@xxxxxxxx (mailto:jlsperanza@xxxxxxx)
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