Brit selects four gorgeous, popular operatic melodies…
Some opera this week – nothing esoteric, the only gimmick is that these tunes are a quartet, trio, duet and solo aria respectively, and they’re in reverse order of loveliness (according to me, anyway) – hence an ‘operatic countdown’.
This performance of the Bella Figlia Dell’amore quartet from Verdi’s Rigoletto features a pretty high-powered cast: Pavarotti, Sutherland, Leo Nucci and Isola Jones. There’s all sorts going on in this fiendishly clever scene – I won’t attempt to summarise, you can read about it here.
For simple beauty, I don’t think Mozart composed anything to beat the Soave sia il vento (‘May the wind be gentle’) trio from Cosi fan tutte, except perhaps the Adagios of the 21st piano concerto and the clarinet concerto. The trailing ‘Ai nostri desir’ is as sublimely, sweetly sad as music gets. This performance is from the 2006 Salzburg festival, and features Ana Maria Martinez, Sophie Koch and Sir Thomas Allen…
Puccini occupies the top two slots in my countdown. The O soave fanciulla duet from La Boheme is ripe drama indeed. Here’s Pavarotti again, this time with Mirella Freni, performing live in 1969 (incidentally, there’s not even an argument to be had in my, admittedly inexpert, opinion: Pavarotti was the best tenor by a country mile.) The picture at the top is Pavarotti with Freni, unusually without the beard (or so the caption says – when clean-shaven it’s hard to recognise her, boom boom!). Recently, I noticed that this duet was used to good effect in the movie of Atonement – Robbie plays it on the gramophone as struggles with lustful thoughts of Keira Knightley on a blistering hot day…
Finally, O Mio Babbino Caro from Gianni Schicchi. On the Desert Island, a Kiri Te Kanawa recording of this aria would be the one Disc I’d save. I’m glad the lyrics are Italian as they’re a little bit silly (a girl threatening to throw herself of a bridge unless her ‘daddy’ lets her bring her unsuitable boyfriend home). But this is the most beautiful melody ever written – goes straight to the spine and the tear-ducts. And it doesn’t hurt to have a version sung by Anna Netrebko as she isn’t too difficult to look at, either.
Sweet as a nut on this fine Sunday, heard another Russian lassie sing Babbino Caro, outside of the registry for the Berlin half marathon at Spandau, on a dark rainy day, kinda worked, squish-squish wise.
(a girl threatening to throw herself of a bridge unless her ‘daddy’ lets her bring her unsuitable boyfriend home)….Not just any bridge dear boy but the Ponte Vecchio, I have given strict instructions that, upon my demise and contrary to my families wishes that I be given a Viking burial from the beach on Holy Island, I will be lowered from the Ponte Vecchio into the algae covered Arno in a winding sheet made up from a copy of Primavera whilst an Italian funeral band, hanging out of the windows of the Vasari Corridor, play one of those tacky dirges, like the one from The Godfather.