TRAVEL TUESDAY #194 - SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

“A great opera house isn't run by a director, but by a great administrator.” - Steven Berkoff

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Sydney, capital of New South Wales and one of Australia’s largest cities, is best known for its harbourfront Opera House, with a distinctive sail-like design. Massive Darling Harbour and Circular Quay are hubs of waterside life, with the towering, arched Harbour Bridge and esteemed Royal Botanic Gardens nearby. Sydney Tower’s 268m glass viewing platform, the Skywalk, offers 360-degree views of the city, harbour and suburbs.

Here is a view of the Opera House from the front terrace, a view not often seen on postcards. The massive scale of the building is better appreciated here, when one notices the tiny human figures next to the building.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

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SONG SATURDAY - RICCARDO BROSCHI

“Without a song, each day would be a century.” - Mahalia Jackson

Riccardo Broschi (c. 1698 – 1756) was a composer of baroque music and the brother of the opera singer Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli. Broschi was born in Naples, the son of Salvatore Broschi, a composer and chapelmaster of the Cathedral of the Puglinese citizens, and Caterina Berrese (according to the Book of Baptisms of the Church of S. Nicola, today near the Episcopal Archives).

The Broschi family moved to Naples at the end of 1711, and enrolled Riccardo, their firstborn, in the Conservatory of S. Maria di Loreto, where he would study to become a composer under G. Perugino and F. Mancinipresso. Salvatore, meanwhile, died unexpectedly, at age 36, on 4 November 1717. Caterina subsequently made Riccardo head of the family.

He made his debut in 1725 with “La Vecchia Sorda”. Next, he moved to London in 1726 and stayed there until 1734 and wrote six heroic operas, his most successful being “Artaserse”. In 1737 he moved to Stuttgart and briefly served at the Stuttgart court (1736-7) for Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, then returned to Naples before joining his brother in Madrid in 1739. He died in Madrid.

The dramatic relationship between the Broschi brothers is the quintessence of the 1994 movie “Farinelli”, in which a few of Riccardo Broschi’s works are performed.

Here is “Ombra Fedele Anch’ Io”, an aria from his opera “Idaspe” (1730) sung by Ann Hallenberg (mezzo-soprano), live from the Wigmore Hall, London with Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset. This was a radio broadcast of the live concert on 28th April 2014.

MUSIC SATURDAY - JACOPO PERI

“Don’t follow trends, start trends.” - Frank Capra

Jacopo Peri (Zazzerino) (20 August 1561 – 12 August 1633) was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the first work to be called an opera today, “Dafne” (around 1597), and also the first opera to have survived to the present day, “Euridice” (1600).

Peri was born in Rome, but studied in Florence with Cristofano Malvezzi, and went on to work in a number of churches there, both as an organist and as a singer. He subsequently began to work in the Medici court, first as a tenor singer and keyboard player, and later as a composer. His earliest works were incidental music for plays, intermedi and madrigals.

In the 1590s, Peri became associated with Jacopo Corsi, the leading patron of music in Florence. They believed contemporary art was inferior to classical Greek and Roman works, and decided to attempt to recreate Greek tragedy, as they understood it. Their work added to that of the Florentine Camerata of the previous decade, which produced the first experiments in monody, the solo song style over continuo bass, which eventually developed into recitative and aria.

Peri and Corsi brought in the poet Ottavio Rinuccini to write a text, and the result, “Dafne”, though nowadays thought to be a long way from anything the Greeks would have recognised, is seen as the first work in a new form, opera. Rinuccini and Peri next collaborated on “Euridice”. This was first performed on 6 October 1600 at the Palazzo Pitti. Unlike “Dafne”, it has survived to the present day (though it is hardly ever staged, and then only as a historical curio). The work made use of recitatives, a new development, which went between the arias and choruses and served to move the action along.

Peri produced a number of other operas, often in collaboration with other composers (such as “La Flora” with Marco da Gagliano), and also wrote a number of other pieces for various court entertainments. Few of his pieces are still performed today, and even by the time of his death his operatic style was looking rather old-fashioned when compared to the work of relatively younger reformist composers such as Claudio Monteverdi. Peri’s influence on those later composers, however, was large.

Here is Peri’s complete opera “Euridice”, a work in one act based on the well-known Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It is performed by I Solisti di Milano directed by Angelo Ephrikian. They are supplemented by Coro Polifonico di Milano directed by Giulio Bertola.

The painting is “Orpheus and Eurydice” by Pieter Paul Rubens.

BELATED ART SUNDAY - BAKST

"The art of becoming wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." - William James

For Art Sunday, the art of Léon Bakst who spent most of his life working in the world of costume and stage design. Léon Bakst (born February 8, 1866, St. Petersburg, Russia - died December 28, 1924, Paris, France) was the pseudonym of Lev Samoylovich Rosenberg. He was a Russian artist who revolutionised theatrical design in both scenery and costume.

Bakst attended the Imperial Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg but was expelled after painting a “Pietà” that was deemed to be too-realistic. He went to Paris to complete his studies and returned to Russia where he became a court painter. He was a co-founder with Sergey Diaghilev of the journal Mir Iskusstva (“World of Art”) in 1899. Bakst began to design scenery in 1900, first at the Hermitage court theatre and then at the imperial theatres. In 1906 he went to Paris, where he began designing stage sets and costumes for Diaghilev’s newly formed ballet company, the Ballets Russes.

The first Diaghilev ballet for which he designed décor was Cléopâtre (1909), and he was chief set designer thereafter, working on the ballets Scheherazade and Carnaval (both 1910), Le Spectre de la Rose and Narcisse (both 1911), L’Après-midi d’un Faune and Daphnis et Chloé (both 1912), and Les Papillons (1914).

Bakst achieved international fame with his sets and costumes, in which he combined bold, innovative designs and richly sumptuous colours. His attention to minutely refined details conveyed an atmosphere of picturesque, exotic Orientalism, well-suited to the works he designed. In 1919 Bakst settled permanently in Paris. His designs for a London production of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty in 1921 are regarded as his greatest work.

Scheherazade is of course a retelling of the famous story of the Arabian Nights and the stirring, exotic music of Rimsky Korsakov (1844-1908) provided the artistic stimulus that Bakst required in order to produce some opulently magnificent oriental costumes and sets for this ballet (1910). Two costumes shown here: The “Blue Sultana” and an “Odalisque”.

MUSIC SATURDAY - 'DARDANUS' BY RAMEAU

“I’ve learned to respect the whimsical.” - Michael Leunig

Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683 – 12 September 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.

Little is known about Rameau’s early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his “Treatise on Harmony” (1722) and also in the following years as a composer of masterpieces for the harpsichord, which circulated throughout Europe. He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. His debut, “Hippolyte et Aricie” (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked by the supporters of Lully’s style of music for its revolutionary use of harmony.

Nevertheless, Rameau's pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon acknowledged, and he was later attacked as an “establishment” composer by those who favoured Italian opera during the controversy known as the ‘Querelle des Bouffons’ in the 1750s. Rameau’s music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, and it was not until the 20th that serious efforts were made to revive it. Today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent.

Here is his complete opera “Dardanus”, which is characterised as a ‘tragédie lyrique’ in five acts by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The French libretto was by Charles-Antoine Leclerc de La Bruère. It is directed by Raphaël Pichon with the Bordeaux National Opera, in quite a sumptuous production.

The original story is loosely based on that of Dardanus of Greek mythology. However, in the opera, Dardanus is at war with King Teucer, who has promised to marry his daughter Iphise to King Anténor. Dardanus and Iphise meet, through the intervention of the magician Isménor, and fall in love. Dardanus attacks a monster ravaging Teucer’s kingdom, saving the life of Anténor who is attempting, unsuccessfully, to kill it. Teucer and Dardanus make peace, the latter marrying Iphise.

MUSIC SATURDAY - RUSALKA

“But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.” - Arthur Rimbaud

“Rusalka”, Op. 114, is an opera (‘lyric fairy tale’) by Antonín Dvořák. A Rusalka is a water sprite from Slavic mythology, usually inhabiting a lake or river. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil (1868–1950) based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. Rusalka is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses. Rusalka was the ninth opera Dvořák composed.

Dvořák had played viola for many years in pit orchestras in Prague (Estates Theatre from 1857 until 1859 while a student, then from 1862 until 1871 at the Provisional Theatre). He thus had direct experience of a wide range of operas by Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Lortzing, Verdi, Wagner and Smetana. For many years unfamiliarity with Dvořák’s operas outside Czechoslovakia helped reinforce a perception that composition of operas was a marginal activity, and that despite the beauty of its melodies and orchestral timbres Rusalka was not a central part of his output or of international lyric theatre. In recent years it has been performed more regularly by major opera companies.

In the five seasons from 2008 to 2013 it was performed by opera companies worldwide far more than all of Dvořák’s other operas combined. The most popular excerpt from Rusalka is the “Song to the Moon” (‘Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém’) from Act 1 which is often performed in concert and recorded separately. It has also been arranged for violin and used on film sound tracks. It begins at 21 minutes into the video, which is subtitled in Italian.

Song to the Moon

Silver moon upon the deep dark sky,

Through the vast night send your rays.

This sleeping world you wander by,

Smiling on men’s homes and ways.

Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me,

Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?

Oh moon ere past you glide, tell me

Tell me, oh where does my loved one bide?

Tell him, oh tell him, my silver moon,

Mine are the arms that shall hold him,

That between waking and sleeping he may

Think of the love that enfolds him,

May between waking and sleeping

Think of the love that enfolds him.

Light his path far away, light his path,

Tell him, oh tell him who does for him stay!

Human soul, should it dream of me,

Let my memory wakened be.

Moon, moon, oh do not wane, do not wane,

Moon, oh moon, do not wane....

Jaroslav Kvapil

Here is the whole opera performed in the National Theatre in Prague, with Rusalka: Eva Jenišov; Prince: Vladimir Hrisko; Water King: Peter Nicholas; Witch: Marta Beňačková; Foreign Princess: Anda-Louise Bogza; conductor Jiri Belohlavek.

OPERA AND LIBRETTI

"No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible." - W. H. Auden

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the most talented, prolific and divinely inspired composers that ever existed. Besides writing every sort of vocal and instrumental music for solo performers and ensembles, Mozart has left us with some magnificent operas. Who can forget “The Magic Flute”, or “Così Fan Tutte”, or “Don Giovanni”, or “The Marriage of Figaro” or “Idomeneo”?

Opera has been described as the ultimate art form as it incorporates literature and poetry, music and dance, painting and costume design, acting and presentation, singing and instrument playing. In order for an opera to be composed, a composer needs to have a “libretto” (Latin for “little book”, plural “libretti”). This is a specialised literary form where the librettist takes an idea (derived from a pre-existing work or an original one) and works it into the conventions followed by opera. The opera libretto from its inception (around 1600) was written in verse, and this continued well into the 19th century. Musical theatre forms with spoken dialogue have typically alternated verse in the musical numbers with spoken prose. Since the late 19th century some opera composers have written music to prose or free verse libretti.

The libretto of a musical, on the other hand, is almost always written in prose (except for the song lyrics). The libretto of a musical, if the musical is adapted from a play, may even borrow their source's original dialogue. Shakespeare’s works have provided librettists with much inspiration for writing for the operatic stage (eg: “The Merry Wives of Windsor”; “Othello”; “Macbeth”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” etc). Myths and legends are other rich sources for libretti (eg: “Orpheus and Euridice”; “Alceste”; “Iphigenia in Tauris”, etc). Novels, historical and biographical subjects and original librettos written by the composer himself (eg. Wagner) are also common.

Well-known poets originally wrote librettos in 17th and 18th centuries. Metastasio (1698-1782, real name Pietro Trapassi) was one of the best known librettists in Europe. Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838) wrote many librettos, including three that Mozart used for some of his best known operatic works: “Così fan Tutte”, “Don Giovanni” and “The Marriage of Figaro”. Eugène Scribe was a famous 19th century librettist, whose work was set to music for the opera by Meyerbeer, Bellini, Donizetti, Auber, Verdi and Rossini.  Arrigo Boito, a composer himself, wrote librettos not only for his own use, but also for Verdi and Ponchielli. The duo of Frenchmen, Meilhac and Halévy wrote many librettos for Offenbach, Massenet and Bizet.

For the English speaker one of the most successful duo of operetta was Gilbert and Sullivan (librettist and composer respectively). They collaborated on fourteen comic operas, including such delights as “The Mikado”, “HMS Pinafore” and “The Pirates of Penzance”. They collaborated despite their personality clash and strained relationship.

Now, back to Mozart! “Don Giovanni”  (K527 with complete title of “Il Dissoluto Punito, ossia Don Giovanni” – The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni) is a two-act opera that was premiered in the Estates Theatre in Prague on October 29, 1787. It is widely regarded as one of the most magnificent pieces of music written and certainly the best opera that is based on the life of the notorious womaniser, Don Juan. The opera is described as a tragicomedy or “dramma giocoso”.

Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, has written a lengthy essay in his book “Either/Or” in which he claims that Mozart's “Don Giovanni” is the greatest work of art ever realised. The finale in which Don Giovanni refuses to repent has been a captivating philosophical and artistic topic for many writers including George Bernard Shaw, who in “Man and Superman”, parodied the opera.

A useful site for finding the librettos of many operas is to be found here.

MUSIC SATURDAY - VERDI'S LA TRAVIATA

“Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.” - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Giuseppe Verdi (Oct 9 or 10 1813 – Jan 27 1901) was born in Italy in 1813, prior to Italian unification. Verdi produced many successful operas, including La Traviata, Falstaff and Aida, and became known for his skill in creating melody and his profound use of theatrical effect. Additionally, his rejection of the traditional Italian opera for integrated scenes and unified acts earned him fame.

Verdi was born Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi on October 9 or 10, 1813, in the community of Le Roncole, near Busseto in the province of Parma, Italy. His mother, Luigia Uttini, worked as a spinner, and his father, Carlo Giuseppe Verdi, made a living as a local innkeeper. Verdi first developed musical talents at a young age, after moving with his family from Le Roncole to the neighbouring town of Busseto. There, he began studying musical composition. In 1832, Verdi applied for admission at the Milan Conservatory, but was rejected due to his age. Subsequently, he began studying under Vincenzo Lavigna, a famous composer from Milan.

Verdi got his start in Italy’s music scene in 1833, when he was hired as a conductor at the Philharmonic Society in Busseto. In addition to composing, he made a living as an organist around this time. Three years later, in 1836, Verdi wed Margherita Barezzi, the daughter of a friend, Antonio Barezzi. In 1838, at age 25, Verdi returned to Milan, where he completed his first opera, Oberto, in 1839, with the help of fellow musician Giulio Ricordi; the opera's debut production was held at La Scala, the famed opera house in Milan. While working on ‘Oberto’, the composer suffered what would be the first of many personal tragedies: His and Margherita’s first child, daughter Virginia Maria Luigia Verdi (born in March 1837), died in infancy on August 12, 1838; just one year later, in October 1839, the couple’s second child, son Icilio Romano Verdi (born in July 1838), died, also as an infant.

Verdi followed ‘Oberto’ with the comic opera ‘Un Giorno di Regno’, which premiered in Milan in September 1840, at Teatro alla Scala. Unlike Oberto, Verdi's second opera was not well-received by audiences or critics. Making the experience worse for the young musician, ‘Un Giorno di Regno’ debut was painfully overshadowed by the death of his wife, Margherita, on June 18, 1840, at age 26.

Dispirited by the loss of his family, Verdi entered the 1840s disheartened, struggling to find inspiration to continue creating music. He soon found solace in his work, however, by composing two new, four-act operas in 1842 and ‘43, ‘Nabucco’ and ‘I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata’ (best known simply as ‘I Lombardi’), respectively. Both pieces earned the composer a great amount of success. Subsequently, Verdi held a prominent reputation in Italy’s operatic theatre scene and, later, in the country's political scene as well. He became known for his skill in creating melody and his profound use of theatrical effect. His rejection of the traditional Italian opera for integrated scenes and unified acts only added to his fame.

For the rest of the 1840s, and through the 1850s, '60s and '70s, Verdi continued to garner success and fame. Comprising a popular operatic series throughout the decades were ‘Rigoletto’ (1851), ‘Il Trovatore’ (1853), ‘La Traviata’ (1853), ‘Don Carlos’ (1867) and ‘Aida’, which premiered at the Cairo Opera House in 1871. Four years later, in 1874, Verdi completed ‘Messa da Requiem’ (best known simply as ‘Requiem’), which was meant to be his final composition. He retired shortly thereafter.

Despite his retirement plans, in the mid-1880s, through a connection initiated by long-time friend Giulio Ricordi, Verdi collaborated with composer and novelist Arrigo Boito (also known as Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito) to complete ‘Otello’. Completed in 1886, the four-act opera was performed for the first time at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala on February 5, 1887. Initially meeting with incredible acclaim throughout Europe, the opera—based on William Shakespeare’s play ‘Othello’ —continues to be regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time.

Never one to rest on his laurels, even in his old age, Verdi followed Otello’s success with ‘Falstaff, another collaboration with Boito. Completed in 1890, when Verdi was in his late 70s, ‘Falstaff’ (a comedic adaptation of the Shakespearean plays, ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ and ‘Henry IV’, and consisting of three acts) debuted at Milan's La Scala on February 9, 1893. Like Othello, early reactions to Falstaff were, by and large, tremendously positive, and the opera continues to be popular today.

Here is ‘La Traviata’ in its entirety, staged at La Scala of Milan. 'La Traviata' (‘The Fallen Woman’) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on ‘La Dame aux Camélias’ (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The opera was originally entitled ‘Violetta’, after the main character. It was first performed on 6 March 1853 at the La Fenice opera house in Venice. Piave and Verdi wanted to follow Dumas in giving the opera a contemporary setting, but the authorities at La Fenice insisted that it be set in the past, ca 1700. It was not until the 1880s that the composer and librettist’s original wishes were carried out and ‘realistic’ productions were staged.

MUSIC SATURDAY - IPHIGÉNIE EN AULIDE

“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

 
'Iphigénie en Aulide' (Iphigeneia in Aulis) is an opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the first work he wrote for the Paris stage. The libretto was written by Leblanc du Roullet and was based on Jean Racine’s tragedy “Iphigénie”. It was premiered on 19 April 1774 by the Paris Opéra in the second Salle du Palais-Royal.
 

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them ‘Orfeo ed Euridice’ and ‘Alceste’, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century.
 

The strong influence of French opera in these works encouraged Gluck to move to Paris, which he did in November 1773. Fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French national genre into a new synthesis, Gluck wrote eight operas for the Parisian stages. One of the last of these, ‘Iphigénie en Tauride’, was a great success and is generally acknowledged to be his finest work. Though he was extremely popular and widely credited with bringing about a revolution in French opera, Gluck’s mastery of the Parisian operatic scene was never absolute, and after the poor reception of his ‘Echo et Narcisse’ he left Paris in disgust and returned to Vienna to live out the remainder of his life.
 

“ ‘Iphigénie en Aulide’ did not prove popular at first, although its overture was applauded generously from the start. [After the premiere] it was billed on 22, 24 and 29 April only to have its first run interrupted by the 1 May to 15 June 1774 closing of the theatre on account of the illness and death of Louis XV ...The opera was not returned to the stage until 10 January 1775, but it was revived annually in 1776-1780, 1782-1793, 1796-1824. It was mounted in Paris more than 400 times in this interval of 50 years.” It eventually turned out to be Gluck’s most frequently performed opera in Paris.
 

For the 1775 revival, Gluck revised Iphigénie en Aulide ... introducing the goddess Diana (soprano) at the end of the opera as a dea ex machina, and altering and expanding the divertissements. So, broadly speaking, there are two versions of the opera; but the differences are by no means so great or important as those between “Orfeo ed Euridice” and “Orphée et Euridice” or between the Italian and the French “Alceste”.
 

The plot has as follows: Calchas, the great seer, prophesies that King Agamemnon must sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, in order to guarantee fair winds for the king’s fleet en route to Troy –- a demand that comes from the goddess Diana herself. Throughout the opera, Agamemnon struggles with the terrible choice between sparing his daughter's life and ensuring his subjects’ welfare.
 

Agamemnon summons his daughter to Aulis, the port where the Greek navy is gathering, ostensibly for her to marry Achilles, the great warrior hero. Then, reconsidering his decision to sacrifice her, the king tries to prevent her arriving with the fabricated explanation that Achilles has been unfaithful. Iphigenia, however, has already reached the Greek camp accompanied by her mother Clytaemnestra. The two women are dismayed and angered by Achilles’ apparent inconstancy, but he eventually enters declaring his enduring love for the girl, and the first act ends with a tender scene of reconciliation.
 

The wedding ceremony is due to be celebrated and festivities take place with dances and choruses. When the couple are about to proceed to the temple, however, Arcas, the captain of Agamemnon’s guards, reveals that the king is awaiting his daughter before the altar in order to kill her. Achilles and Clytaemnestra rush to save the girl from being sacrificed. Agamemnon finally seems to give up his plan to kill her.
 

The third act opens with a chorus of Greeks: They object to the king’s decision in case they are never allowed to reach Troy, and demand the ceremony be celebrated. At this point, Iphigenia resigns herself to her fate, and offers her own life for the sake of her people, while Clytaemnestra entreats the vengeance of Jupiter upon the ruthless Greeks. As the sacrifice is going to be held, however, Achilles bursts in with his warriors and the opera concludes with Gluck’s most significant revision of the original myth: Calchas’ voice rises over the general turmoil and announces that Diana has changed her mind about the sacrifice and consents to the marriage. In the second 1775 version Diana appears personally to consecrate both the wedding and Agamemnon’s voyage.
 

Here is the complete opera with De Nederlandse Opera (September 2011) with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble – Directed Marc Minkowski and staging by Pierre Audi. Iphigénie: Véronique Gens; Diane: Salomé Haller; Agamemnon: Nicolas Testé; Clytemnestre: Anne Sofie von Otter; Achille: Frédéric Antoun.
 

http://youtu.be/XglTn41I7ok

MUSIC SATURDAY - PORPORA, ALTO GIOVE

“O’ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!” - William Shakespeare
 
For Music Saturday, a beautiful aria performed by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. It is “Alto Giove”, an aria for castrato male voice from  “Polifemo” (1735), an opera by the Neapolitan baroque composer Nicola Porpora (1686-1768).

The illustration is the 1733 painting, “Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his Sisters” by Philip Mercier (circa 1689-1760). In this portrait the 26-year-old Prince is shown playing the cello with three of his younger sisters; from left to right, Anne, Princess Royal (age 24) at the harpsichord, Princess Caroline (age 20) plucking a mandora (a form of lute) and Princess Amelia (age 22) reading from Milton. In the background is the Dutch House or Kew Palace at Kew where Anne lived before her marriage in 1734 to Prince William of Orange. The suggestion of harmony between the siblings belies the antipathy felt by his family for Frederick; it is said that he was hardly on speaking terms with Anne in the year that this portrait was painted.

VIVA VERDI!

“I adore my art... when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.” - Giuseppe Verdi
 

Giuseppe Verdi (October 10, 1813 - January 27, 1901) one of the greatest opera composers that ever lived, was born in the Italian town of Le Roncole, a village in the province of Parma (Emilia-Romagna region) of Italy. Verdi and Richard Wagner (also born in 1813) are considered the two preeminent opera composers of the nineteenth century. Verdi dominated the Italian opera scene after the eras of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture, as “La donna è mobile” from Rigoletto, “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” (The Drinking Song) from La Traviata, “Va, pensiero” (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, the “Coro di zingari” from Il Trovatore and the “Grand March” from Aida.

When he was still a child, Verdi’s parents moved from Le Roncole to Busseto, where the future composer’s education was greatly facilitated by visits to the large library belonging to the local Jesuit school. When Verdi showed early talent, Antonio Barezzi, a music-loving grocer paid for his music education. Back then, Italy was not a united country, and a lot of it was under Austrian rule – in fact technically, Verdi was born a Frenchman, as Le Roncole was under French rule at the time of his birth.
 

It was in Busseto that Verdi was given his first lessons in composition. The young composer went to Milan when he was twenty to continue his studies. He took private lessons in counterpoint while attending operatic performances and concerts, often of specifically German music. Milan’s Beaumonde association convinced him that he should pursue a career as a theatre composer. During the mid-1830s, he attended the Salotto Maffei salons in Milan, hosted by Clara Maffei.
 

Returning to Busseto, he became the town music master and gave his first public performance in 1830 in the home of Antonio Barezzi, the music lover who had long supported Verdi’s musical ambitions in Milan. Because he loved Verdi’s music, Barezzi invited Verdi to be his daughter Margherita’s music teacher, and the two soon fell deeply in love. They were married on 4 May 1836, and Margherita gave birth to two children, Virginia Maria Luigia (26 March 1837 – 12 August 1838) and Icilio Romano (11 July 1838 – 22 October 1839). Both died in infancy while Verdi was working on his first opera and, shortly afterwards, Margherita died of encephalitis on 18 June 1840, aged only 26. Verdi adored his wife and children and was devastated by their deaths.
 

Nabucco, one of the earliest operas that Verdi wrote, included a chorus of Hebrew slaves longing for their country “so beautiful and lost”. Italians latched onto Verdi’s “Chorus of Hebrew Slaves” as an unofficial anthem for their divided nation that was ruled by foreign occupying powers. Verdi and his music became part of the Italian struggle for independence. Even his name became a political statement. The letters V-E-R-D-I are the first letters of the phrase “Vittorio Emanuele, Rei D’Italia”, which translates to “Victor Emanuel, King of Italy”. Victor Emanuel was the man Italians wanted to be their ruler. When Italians shouted “Viva Verdi” (long live Verdi)! their Austrian rulers didn’t know that they were talking politics, not opera, because the Austrians knew how much the Italians loved opera.
 

In his late thirties, Verdi composed Rigoletto (1853), and La Traviata (1853). Although the public loved them, critics were often scandalised by their subject matter - they seemed to condone rape, suicide, and free love. But Verdi was fiercely independent and himself lived openly with his second wife for ten years before marrying her. After these operatic successes had made him wealthy, Verdi bought an estate in Busseto; and in 1861 he was elected in the first parliament that convened after Italy had become a nation. In his later years he wrote Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and at the age of seventy-nine his final opera, Falstaff (1893).
 

Verdi composed not for the musical elite but for a mass public whose main entertainment was opera. He wanted subjects that were “original, interesting and passionate; passions about all!” Almost all his mature works are serious and end unhappily; they move quickly and involve extremes of hatred, love, jealousy, and fear; and his powerful music underlines the dramatic situations. Expressive vocal melody is the soul of a Verdi opera. There are many duets, trios, and quartets; and the chorus plays an important rule. Verdi’s style became less conventional as he grew older; his later works have greater musical continuity, less difference between aria and recitative, more imaginative orchestration, and richer accompaniments. His last three operas, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff, are perhaps his greatest. Falstaff, his final work, is a comic masterpiece which ends with a carefree fugue to the words “All the world's a joke!"
 

Here are the Three Tenors (Carreras, Pavarotti and Domingo) with Verdi’s “La Donna e Mobile” (Rigoletto) and “Brindisi” (La Traviata).

MUSIC SATURDAY - ALCINA

“No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.” - W. H. Auden
 
“Alcina” (HWV 34) is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of “L’ Isola di Alcina”, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy. The plot was originally taken from – but partly altered for better conformity – Ludovico Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso” (like those of the Handel operas “Orlando” and “Ariodante”), an epic poem set in the time of Charlemagne’s wars against Islam. The opera contains several musical sequences with opportunity for dance: these were composed for dancer Marie Sallé.
 
“Alcina” was composed for Handel’s first season at the Covent Garden Theatre, London. It premiered on April 16, 1735. Like the composer's other works in the opera seria genre, it fell into obscurity; after a revival in Brunswick in 1738 it was not performed again until a production in Leipzig in 1928.
 
Here it is in its entirety performed by the Staatsorchester Stuttgart, in 1999, conducted by Alan Hacker, with:
Catherine Nagletstad – Alcina
Alice Coote – Ruggiero
Helene Schneiderman – Bradamante
Catriona Smith – Morgana
Rolf Romei – Oronte
Michael Ebbecke – Melisso
Claudia Mahnke – Oberto
Heinz Gerger – Astolfo
 
Musically it is wonderful, but the unfortunate modern-day costumes and setting by stage directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito are really distracting and so out of keeping with the opera that they grate on me… Never mind, just listen to the music!

ORFEO ED EURIDICE

“Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.” - Plato
 
For Music Saturday, “Orfeo ed Euridice”, an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck (2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the “azione teatrale”, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at Vienna on 5 October 1762. “Orfeo ed Euridice” is the first of Gluck's “reform” operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of opera seria with a “noble simplicity” in both the music and the drama.
 
The opera is the most popular of Gluck's works, and one of the most influential on subsequent German opera. Variations on its plot – the underground rescue-mission in which the hero must control, or conceal, his emotions – include Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Beethoven’s Fidelio and Wagner’s Das Rheingold.
 
Though originally set to an Italian libretto, “Orfeo ed Euridice” owes much to the genre of French opera, particularly in its use of accompanied recitative and a general absence of vocal virtuosity. Indeed, twelve years after the 1762 premiere, Gluck re-adapted the opera to suit the tastes of a Parisian audience at the Académie Royale de Musique with a libretto by Pierre-Louis Moline. This reworking was given the title "Orphée et Eurydice", and several alterations were made in vocal casting and orchestration to suit French tastes.
 
This 1982 performance is with the London Philharmonic, Glyndebourne Festival de Opera, conducted by Raymond Leppard, With Janet Baker and Elisabeth Speiser in the title roles.

MUSIC SATURDAY - RAMEAU

“For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.” - Wallis Simpson
 

For Music Saturday, here is Jean Philippe Rameau’s 1735 complete opera, “Les Indes Galantes”, performed by Les Arts Florissants and directed by W Christie.
 

Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683 – 12 September 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.
 

Little is known about Rameau’s early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his ‘Treatise on Harmony’ (1722). He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests. His debut, ‘Hippolyte et Aricie’ (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked for its revolutionary use of harmony by the supporters of Lully’s style of music. Nevertheless, Rameau’s pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon acknowledged, and he was later attacked as an “establishment” composer by those who favoured Italian opera during the controversy known as the ‘Querelle des Bouffons’ in the 1750s.
 

Rameau’s music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, and it was not until the 20th that serious efforts were made to revive it. Today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent.

SONG OF INDIA

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” - Rabindranath Tagore

Music from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera in seven scenes, “Sadko” (Russian: Садко, the name of the main character). The libretto was written by the composer, with assistance from Vladimir Belsky, Vladimir Stasov, and others. Rimsky-Korsakov was first inspired by the bylina of Sadko in 1867, when he completed a tone poem on the subject, his Op. 5. After finishing his second revision of this work in 1892, he decided to turn it into a dramatic work. The musically unrelated opera was completed in 1896.  The music is highly evocative, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s famed powers of orchestration are abundantly in evidence throughout the score. According to the Soviet critic Boris Asafyev, writing in 1922, Sadko constitutes the summit of Rimsky-Korsakov’s craft.
 
Although the opera is not performed often nowadays, one of the arias is often played as an instrumental arrangement. This is the famed “Song of India” – which is one of the three arias that fit into the plot as replies by foreign merchants to questions about what their respective countries are like. Song of the Indian Guest (Песня Индийского гостя). Tommy Dorsey's 1938 instrumental arrangement of it is a jazz classic. Here are the classic arrangement and the jazz arrangement.
 
The illustration above is a detail from the 1876 painting by Ilya Repin of “Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom”.

MONTEVERDI'S "L' ORFEO"

“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.” - William Penn
 

“L’ Orfeo” (SV 318), sometimes called “L’ Orfeo, favola in musica”, is a late Renaissance/early Baroque opera by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to the living world. Written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua, “L’Orfeo” is one of the earliest music dramas still regularly performed.
 

Claudio Monteverdi, born in Cremona in 1567, was a musical prodigy who studied under Marc’ Antonio Ingegneri, the maestro di cappella (head of music) at Cremona Cathedral. After training in singing, strings playing and composition, Monteverdi worked as a musician in Verona and Milan until, in 1590 or 1591, he secured a post as suonatore di vivuola (viola player) at Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga’s court at Mantua. Through ability and hard work Monteverdi rose to become Gonzaga’s maestro della musica in 1601.
 

Vincenzo Gonzaga’s particular passion for musical theatre and spectacle grew from his family connections with the court of Florence. Towards the end of the 16th century innovative Florentine musicians were developing the intermedio (a long-established form of musical interlude inserted between the acts of spoken dramas) into increasingly elaborate forms. Led by Jacopo Corsi, these successors to the renowned Camerata were responsible for the first work generally recognised as belonging to the genre of opera: “Dafne”, composed by Corsi and Jacopo Peri and performed in Florence in 1598.
 

"Dafne" combined elements of madrigal singing and monody with dancing and instrumental passages to form a dramatic whole. Only fragments of its music still exist, but several other Florentine works of the same period (“Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo” by Emilio de’ Cavalieri, Peri’s “Euridice” and Giulio Caccini’s identically titled “Euridice” survive complete). These last two works were the first of many musical representations of the Orpheus myth as recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and as such were direct precursors of Monteverdi’s “L'Orfeo”.
 

Here is the complete "L' Orfeo" of Monteverdi performed by La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Conducted by Jordi Savall, with stage settings by Gilbert Deflo and directed by Brian Large. The painting above is by Margherita Fascione.