Youtube thread

[Schigolch]

We can hear to Luciano Pavarotti singing the alternative romanza from Attila, "O dolore! Ed io vivea sol pensando alla spergiura", written by Verdi for the premiere at La Scala in December, 1846, sung by the tenor Napoleone Moriani ('Il tenore della bella morte'), and that replaces "Chi non avrebbe il misero" from the first performance at La Fenice a few months before.

There is also an alternative aria for Foresto, "Sventurato! alla mia vita", in this case written for tenor Ivanoff in a Trieste performance, that we can hear in the voice of Renato Palumbo.

[Schigolch]

Few singers have sung both female roles in Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda.

One of those few is Bulgarian soprano Raina Kabaivanska. First, we can hear her singing Agnese in 1961, with Joan Sutherland being Beatrice:



Five years later, she is now singing Beatrice, in a cast completed by Oralia Domínguez, Giuseppe Taddei and Giorgio Casellato Lamberti:

[Schigolch]

Who was Victor Massé?.

Today rarely performed outside France, he wrote around twenty operas and operettas. His greatest success was Les Noces de Jeannette, premiered in 1853.

Massé is also remembered by being mentioned in Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu, where one of the characters, Swann, is annoyed because her lover, Odette de Crécy, is dying to watch a performance of another Massé's opera: Une Nuit de Cléopâtre. Swann, with some sarcasm, remarks that after living together for six months, he has not yet been able to change Odette's enough, so she can forget her interest in Massé's music.

Let's hear the most performed piece by Massé today, the "L'Air du Rossignol" from Les Noces de Jeannette in the delightful voice of Liliane Berton:

[Schigolch]

In the early 1830s, Louis Véron, director of the Paris Opera, went to visit an already retired Rossini and offered him the nice sum of 100,000 francs to write a new opera, based on a play in five acts by Eugène Scribe. Rossini refused, but the story will find its way into the operatic repertoire, in several adaptations. The most famous are:

GUSTAVE III (Auber, 1833)

IL REGGENTE (Mercadante, 1843)

UN BALLO IN MASCHERA (Verdi, 1859)

Gustave and Amélie are in love, but they can't be together. Here below we can hear how the three composers made Amélie/Amelia express her feelings:

Auber - Air d'Amélie

Mercadante - Aria de Amelia

Verdi - Aria de Amelia

[Schigolch]

In 1850, Giuseppe Verdi premiered Stiffelio, with a libretto by Piave based on a French play. It was troubled, as other Verdian operas, due to problems with the censorship. The plot involved a Protestant minister with an adulterous wife, and it was not a well liked subject in the Austrian Empire or in the Italian theaters. Musically, it was not among the best operas of the great Verdi.

A few years later, a revision under the name of Aroldo was staged. The plot was similar but using now a Crusader and the Middle Ages to remove any lingering modern religious overtones. More interestingly, Verdi also introduced important changes in the score.

This is the great aria of the soprano, "Ah, dagli scanni eterei". First we hear the Stiffelio version, in the voice of Dimitra Theodossiou, with the cabaletta "Perder dunque voi volete questa misera":



And now, the Aroldo version, with Montserrat Caballé, ending with the cabaletta "Ah, dal sen di quella tromba":

[Schigolch]

March, 28th, 1969.

In the Florentine Church of San Jacopino, Magda Olivero, 59 years old, is offering a recital, accompanied by just a piano.

This was a magical evening, remembered as such by some of the members of the audience, and also recorded live. We can hear some of the pieces in youtube:

Sì, Mi chiamano Mimì

Un bel dì vedremo

Signore, ascolta

Vissi d'arte

Sola, perduta, abbandonata

Poveri fiori

L'altra notte in fondo al mare

Ebben? ne andrò lontana

[Schigolch]

It's always nice to hear a singer that premiered a role, to sing this role in a recording.

Here we have Cesira Ferrani, that sung for the first time a couple of Puccini's operas: La Bohème and Manon Lescaut:



Cesira Ferrani - Mimi

Cesira Ferrani - Manon Lescaut

[Almaviva]

A very fine performance (Tezier) of one of greatest baritone scenes in repertoire:

Darn, the video is gone, do you have a different one for the same performance?

[Anne of Green Gables]

Darn, the video is gone, do you have a different one for the same performance?

[Almaviva]

Nice, thanks. Oh, I actually have this blu-ray at home.

[sospiro]

Nice, thanks. Oh, I actually have this blu-ray at home.

Of Tezier concert or I Puritani?

[Almaviva]

Of Tezier concert or I Puritani?

I was talking about the concert. It's this one:



I also do have I Puritani on blu-ray, Anna's version of course.

[Schigolch]

Carlo Evasio Soliva was an Italian composer, born in Switzerland, that worked mainly in Milan. His first opera, La testa di bronzo, premiered at La Scala in 1816, was received with enthusiasm, but the rest of his operatic work was a fiasco.

With reason?.

In my view, his opera Giulia e Sesto Pompeo, written in 1818, is a neglected masterpiece. Of course, the major influence in the Italian stage those years was Rossini, and Soliva is close to Rossini's style, but even closer to La Clemenza di Tito, by Mozart.

The libretto, by Benedetto Perotti, was certainly old-fashioned and could have been signed by Metastasio himself, but was able to inspire Soliva wonderful pages like the duettos "Questo che vedi stringere" or "Di quella voce il suono", or the beatiful aria for Ottavio, "Sì miei prodi". I would heartily recommend this to all Opera lovers.

[Anne of Green Gables]

^ why does this tenor pretend to be Domingo?

Great music anyway. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[Aksel]

This is just about the funniest thing to ever come out of the world of baroque opera.