Clip 1
Montserrat Caballé, soprano
by Ken
As noted above, this week brings yet another digression -- a digression from our serial digressions, if you will -- in this case from last week's post, "Montserrat Caballé (1933-2018)." There's still a lot to ponder -- and listen to -- from Caballé's career, but a small yet provocative happening this week will get us into an area I've been wanting to get into. What I've done is to press Mme Caballé into service as this week's Special Guest Artist, in a role I don't think anybody especially thinks of when they think of her. Which means dipping almost blindly into her recording of the role, which I've never though much of. But what the heck? We can listen to it together, and see what we think. (In fact, I even acquired the CD edition to make the audio-file-making easier, not to mention of higher quality, since we don't have to do all those LP dubs.)
NOW TO THAT SMALL YET PROVOCATIVE HAPPENING
So I was sitting in the dentist's chair waiting to finish up a round of work (nothing terribly threatening or invasive, unless you count the question of how it's going to get paid for) and I realized some music was playing in my head, and it took me a few beats to identify it. What I was hearing was something like what we heard in Clip 1 above. Or sometimes maybe more like this:
Clip 1 alt
Victoria de los Angeles, soprano; and --
To be honest, this has happened to me in olden days, before the memory started being not what it once was. However, of late it happens more often, and more often than I would expect with music that I know I know gosh-darned well.
I kept restarting the music in my head, and trying to get it to start earlier and/or run farther, with the result that almost at the same time I realized (a) why I was having trouble identifying the original "clip" and (b) what it was, more or less. As regards (a), my brain backed the excerpt up to a more identifiable "pickup" point, so that the excerpt was now something like this:
Clip 2
Montserrat Caballé, soprano
Or, again, sometimes maybe more like this:
Clip 2 alt
Victoria de los Angeles, soprano; and --
At least mercifully, now I at least knew who it was who was singing. The character, I mean -- it wasn't a particular singer I was hearing.The only thing was, as my brain allowed the clip to run farther, and soon enough a second voice was entering (and then again sometimes wasn't, a puzzle that was also solved eventually), meaning that, while I was pretty sure I had the character right, what she was singing wasn't what I first thought it was.
SO NO, THE MUSIC WASN'T THIS --
LEONACAVALLO: I Pagliacci: Act I: Chorus of Villagers and Canio, "I zampognari!" . . . Bell Chorus . . . Recitative and ballatella, Nedda, "Qual fiamma avea nel guardo!" . . . "Stridono lassù liberamente"
[The sound of bagpipes offstage.]
Chorus of Villagers, "I zampognari! I zampognari!"
BOYS: The pipers! The pipers!
MEN: They are on their way to church.
[The church bells sound vespers.]
OLD PEOPLE: They are accompanying the happy train
of couples as they go to vespers.
WOMEN: Come, everyone. The bell
calls us to the Lord.
CANIO: But be sure to remember,
at eleven tonight.
CHORUS: Let’s go, let’s go!
Bell Chorus, "Don, din, don"
CHORUS: Dong, ding-dong!
Ding-dong, vespers sounds,
girls and boys, ding-dong!
In pairs let's hurry to the church,
ding-dong, yonder the sun
kisses the western heights.
Our mothers watch us --
look out, companions.
Ding-dong, the world is gleaming
with light and love.
But our elders keep watch
over bold lovers!
Already the world is gleaming
with light and love.
Dong, ding-dong, etc.
Recitative, Nedda, "Qual fiamma avea nel guardo!"
How his eyes did blaze! I turned mine
away for fear he should read
my secret thought!
Oh, if he should catch me,
brutal as he is! But enough,
these are frightening nightmares and silly fancies!
Recitative (cont.), "O che bel sole di mezz'agosto!"
Oh, what a beautiful mid-August sun!
I'm brimful of life
and all languishing
with mysterious desire -- I don't know what I wish!
Recitative (cont.), "Oh! che volo d'augelli, e quante strida!"
Oh! how the birds fly up, and what a screaming!
What are they asking? Where are they going? Who knows?
My mother, who used to tell fortunes,
understood their song,
and to me as a child she would sing:
Ah! Ah!
Ballatella, Nedda, "Stridono lassù liberamente"
They scream away up there to their hearts' content,
hurled into flight like arrows, the birds.
They defy the clouds and the fierce sun,
and go about the paths of the sky.
Let them roam the air,
these creatures thirsty for blue skies and bright splendor!
They too follow a dream, a mirage
and soar among the gilded clouds!
Wind may pursue and storm bray,
with wings outspread, they can defy all;
rain, the lightning flash, nothing ever stops them,
and they soar above the abyss and the sea.
They fly far off there to a strange country
of which perhaps they dream, and seek in vain.
But the gypsies of the sky follow the mysterious power
that drives them on, and go! And go! And go!
-- English translations (mostly) by Peggie Cochrane
Montserrat Caballé (s), Nedda; with Plácido Domingo (t), Canio; John Alldis Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Nello Santi, cond. RCA, recorded Aug. 3-6, 1971
The character singing in my head, obviously, was Nedda in I Pagliacci. Alas, in my state of diminished recall, I initially placed my excerpt among the flood of musical ideas that pour out in the portion of Act I we've now just heard, when Nedda has a moment of peace following the splash the little troupe of traveling players led by her volatile husband Canio has just made with their arrival in this Calabrian village, where they'll be performing tonight, as Canio has sung so memorably, "a venti tre ore" -- at 23h, which is to say 11pm. Canio and most of the others have gladly accepted an offer from one of the villagers to join them for a drink.
THE FOR-SURE GIVEAWAY: THAT PHANTOM SECOND VOICE
Nedda's solo scene begins an extraordinary sequence for her. No sooner has she finished than she's made aware of the noxious presence of her loathsome troupemate Tonio, the morose and vicious hunchback clown. We in the audience should recall that when Canio asked Tonio if he was coming with them for the free drinks, Tonio declined, saying he would wash the donkey, prompting a villager to joke to Canio that Tonio was really staying behind to pay court to Nedda, a joke that Canio didn't find amusing, instead working himself into a jealous rage at the very idea of his wife getting mixed up with another man, a rant that is apparently extraordinary even by Canio's rageful standard, if we judge by Nedda's reaction: pronouncing herself confounded.
Are we totally surprised when art imitates, well, not life, but art-life, with Tonio proceeding to do exactly what the villager joked he would: presents himself as a suitor for Nedda's affection, and does so by baring his soul to her. In the decades since I first got to know it, this scene has always seemed to me one of the great scenes in opera. It's amazing how much Leoncavallo (who we might remember served as his own librettist) packed into under five minutes!
I Pagliacci: Act I, Nedda-Tonio scene
When NEDDA finishes her Ballatella, she is startled out of her reverie by the discovery that TONIO is watching.
NEDDA [sharply interrupting her train of thought]: You're there? I thought you had gone.
TONIO: It's the fault of your singing.
Fascinated, I reveled in it.
NEDDA [mockingly]: Ha Ha! So much poetry!
TONIO: Don't laugh, Nedda!
NEDDA: Go! Go off to the inn!
TONIO: I know well that I am deformed,
I am contorted,
that I arouse only scorn and horror.
Yet my thoughts know dreams, desires,
a beating of the heart.
When so disdainfully you pass me by,
you don't know what tears
grief forces out of me!
Because, in spite of myself,
I've suffered enchantment,
I've been conquered by love!
[Moving closer to her]
Oh! let me tell you --
NEDDA [interrupting]: That you love me?
Ha ha ha ha!
You'll have time to tell me that again tonight,
if you want. Ha ha ha!
TONIO: Nedda!
NEDDA: Tonight! When you're making your faces
out there, out there on the stage! Ha ha ha!
TONIO: Don't laugh, Nedda!
NEDDA: You'll have time!
Making faces out there! Ha ha ha!
TONIO: You don't know what tears
grief forces out of me! Don't laugh, no!
NEDDA: For then such sorrow!
TONIO: I've suffered enchantment!
I've been conquered by love! Nedda!
[NEDDA laughs. TONIO implores.]
Nedda!
NEDDA: Such sorrow you can save up!
TONIO: No! It's here that I want to tell you,
and you will hear me,
that I love you and desire you,
and that you will be mine!
NEDDA [with studied insolence]:
Ha, tell me, master Tonio,
does your back itch today?
Or is it a box on the ears
that's necessary for your ardor?
TONIO: You mock me! Wretch!
By the cross of God!
Watch out, you'll pay dearly for that!
NEDDA: You threaten? Do you want me to go call Canio?
TONIO [moving toward her]: Not before I've kissed you!
NEDDA [drawing back]: Watch out!
TONIO: Oh, soon you will be mine!
[He rushes at her. She picks up the whipe that BEPPE threw down and strikes TONIO in the face.]
NEDDA: Wretched creature!
[He screams and draws back.]
TONIO: By the Holy Virgin of mid-August,
I swear, Nedda, that you'll pay me for this!
[He goes off sobbing. NEDDA stands motionless, watching him.]
NEDDA: Viper! Go! You've at last revealed yourself, Tonio the idiot!
You have a soul just as deformed as your body! Filthy!
Montserrat Caballé (s), Nedda; Sherrill Milnes (b), Tonio; London Symphony Orchestra, Nello Santi, cond. RCA, recorded Aug. 3-6, 1971
AHA, THIS IS WHERE MY DENTAL MUSIC COMES FROM!
Obviously that second voice I was sometimes hearing (and sometimes not) in my mental musical clip is from the (finally!) ensuing scene between Nedda and her still-secret lover, as he persuades her to run off with him this very evening. (Points to the lovers for recognizing that the deed needs to be done quickly. Points forfeited for failing to recognize that "this evening" isn't quickly enough.)
I Pagliacci: Act I, Nedda-Silvio scene
SILVIO [appearing over the wall]: Nedda!
NEDDA: Silvio! At this hour! What imprudence!
SILVIO [jumping down]: Ha! Ha! I knew that I was risking nothing. I escorted Canio and Beppe to the tavern far away.
But I came prudently through the brush that's familiar to me.
NEDDA: And a little bit ago you'd have run into Tonio!
SILVIO [laughing]: Ha! Tonio the hunchback!
NEDDA: The hunchback is to be feared!
He loves me!
SILVIO: Ha!
NEDDA: Just now he told me . . .
and in his bestial delirium he was asking for kisses,
he burned to throw himself on me.
SILVIO: By God!
NEDDA: But with the whip I calmed the foul dog's fire!
SILVIO [approaching NEDDA sadly and tenderly]:
And amid this anxiety you'll live forever?
Nedda! Nedda!
[He takes her hand and leads her downstage.]
Decide my fate, Nedda! Nedda, stay!
You know that the festival comes
to an end and everyone will leave tomorrow.
Nedda! Nedda!
And when you say that you will be gone from here,
what will become of me, of my life?
NEDDA [moved]: Silvio!
SILVIO: Nedda, Nedda, answer me!
If it's true that you never loved Canio,
if it's true that you hate this wandering,
and the profession you ply,
if your immense love isn't just a fancy,
this night let's leave!
Fly, fly with me!
NEDDA: Don't tempt me!
Do you want me to lose my life?
Quiet, Silvio, no more!
It's delirium! madness!
I confide my trust in you,
to whom I gave my heart!
Don't abuse my trust, my fevered love.
Don't tempt me!
Have pity on me! Don't tempt me!
Don't tempt me! And then . . . who knows? it's better to leave
if fate stands against us. It's in vain what we say.
Yet I cannot tear you out of my heart,
I will live only by the love you awoke in my heart.
SILVIO: Ah, Nedda! Let's fly!
NEDDA: Ah! Don't tempt me!
Do you want me to lose my life?
SILVIO: Nedda, stay!
NEDDA: Quiet, Silvio, no more!
It's madness, it's folly!
SILVIO: Oh, what will become of me . . .
NEDDA: I confide my trust in you . . .
SILVIO: . . . when you've gone?
NEDDA: . . . in you to whom I've given my heart!
SILVIO: Stay!
NEDDA: Don't abuse my trust . . .
SILVIO: Nedda!
NEDDA: . . . my fevered love!
SILVIO: Let's fly!
[Above italics indicate traditionally cut section.]
NEDDA: Don't tempt me!
SILVIO: Then come!
NEDDA: Have pity on me! Don't tempt me!
SILVIO: Ah! fly with me! Then come!
No, you no longer love me!
TONIO [apprearing on the stage but hidden from the lovers]: Ah! I've caught you, hussy!
NEDDA: What!
SILVIO: You no longer love me!
[TONIO goes off, threatening.]
NEDDA: Yes, I love you! I love you!
SILVIO: And you're leaving in the morning?
[Lovingly, trying to move her]
Then why, tell me, have you bewitched me,
if you're going to desert me so pitilessly?
Why did you give me your kiss
in moments of burning passion?
If you have forgotten those moments
of fleeting passion, I cannot do so,
and I want to know again those burning moments,
those passionate kisses that awoke
such a fever in my heart!
NEDDA: I've forgotten nothing! -- I'm disturbed
and confused by this love that burns in your gaze.
I want to live bound to you, enchanted,
a life of love, tranquil and peaceful!
I give myself to you; you alone rule me!
And I take you and surrender myself utterly!
NEDDA and SILVIO: Let us forget all! Let us forget all!
NEDDA: Look in my eyes! Look!
SILVIO: Let us forget all! I am looking!
NEDDA: Kiss me, kiss me! Let us forget all!
SILVIO: I kiss you! Let us forget all, all!
Will you come?
NEDDA: Yes, kiss me!
Yes, look at me and kiss me!
SILVIO [together: Yes, I am looking, and I kiss you!
NEDDA and SILVIO: I love you! I love you!
Barry McDaniel (b), Silvio; Montserrat Caballé (s), Nedda; London Symphony Orchestra, Nello Santi, cond. RCA, recorded Aug. 3-6, 1971
A NOTE ON THAT PHANTOM SOMETIMES-THERE,
SOMETIMES-NOT SECOND VOICE IN MY HEAD
Talk about coincidence! It turns out that, at least in this instance, my head hasn't gone completely nuts. It just so happens that the "Non mi tentar"/"Io mi confido a te" chunk occurs twice in the Nedda-Silvio scene as written. The first time Nedda sings it entirely solo, leading into a whole small section of the scene that until fairly recently was almost always cut, along with a number of other once-standard cuts in the opera. At the end of the formerly "lost" section of the scene this chunk is repeated, with Silvio now joining in, making a proper duet of it. The old elided version mostly followed the "first time" format, with Silvio joining in, with a couple of "Deh vien"s, only at the end. Here's the full-duet "second time" version:
Clip 2 expanded
NEDDA: Don't tempt me!
Do you want me to lose my life?
Quiet, Silvio, no more!
It's delirium! madness!
I'm trusting in you,
to whom I gave my heart!
Don't abuse my trust, my fevered love.
SILVIO: Nedda, stay!
Oh, what will become of me
when you've gone?
Stay! Nedda!
Let's fly!
Montserrat Caballé (s), Nedda; Barry McDaniel (b), Silvio; London Symphony Orchestra, Nello Santi, cond. RCA, recorded Aug. 3-6, 1971
Which reminds me that the "alt" versions of Clips 1 and 2 are from this same source, the uncut RCA recording conducted by Nello Santi, with Montserrat Caballé as Nedda and Barry McDaniel as Silvio. For the "basic" versions of the clips I naturally had to turn to a recording with the old standard cuts, and I went with Caballé's illustrious countrywoman Victoria de los Angeles, with Robert Merrill heard briefly as Silvio, and the RCA Victor Orchestra conducted by Renato Cellini, recorded by RCA in January 1953; the rights have since devolved to EMI.
THOUGHTS ON MY RELATIONSHIP TO PAGLIACCI -- AND
THE MUSICAL AND OPERATIC REPERTORY IN GENERAL
Over these last 50-plus years I've spent a lot of time looking at, listening to, and pondering Pagliacci. Over that time the opera has become part of me, and the way I relate to it has undoubtedly changed. For one thing, 50 years ago I certainly wouldn't have described that span, following Canio's "Un tal gioco," from the Bell Chorus through Nedda's "Qual fiamma" recitative and the scenes with Tonio and Silvio as an "extraordinary sequence." Once upon a time the Bell Chorus seemed to me kind of a filler patch, I wasn't all that fond of Nedda's solo scene, and I didn't have any use for Silvio at all.
Over that time I can identify a number of specific factors and events, like encountering the fine Canadian baritone Allan Monk, during the years in which he brought such vocal life to so many second-line baritone parts, as Silvio and hearing his music in a way I'd never heard it before. I'm sure there were things happening in my life that caused me to see and hear parts of the opera in different, and I think deeper, ways.
Much the same is true, of course, of most of the music I've lived with for an extended period of time. This seems obvious, but in my experience it doesn't get talked about much. A lot of it has had to do with recordings, which have surely changed musical and operatic life in all sorts of unfortunate ways but have also accounted for almost all the richness and texture of my experience of this repertory, which again in my experience doesn't get talked about much. For almost all of the operatic repertory I care about, this also can't ever have been part of the "composer's intention" we hear so much about, as the supposed ultimate goal performers are thought to be striving to realize.
When I think, for example, of all the time, effort, and creative energy, not to mention genius, Wagner put into the creation of the Ring cycle, it kind of staggers me to think that he has to have expected his imagined audience to "get it" in a single pilgrimage to Bayreuth. Because if my experience of The Ring were limited to a single live performance, even if I were a native German speaker, and even if I prepared by studying the material Wagner worked with and reading the librettos, what I would have gotten out of it is, I'm afraid, not a whole lot. I can't imagine that Wagner ever considered the possibility of the ways in which I would be able to establish and deepen my relationship to his operas -- without ever getting near Bayreuth, though a host of recordings and broadcast performances have made what happened at Bayreuth -- back when what happened at Bayreuth mattered artistically -- a part of the way I think about and experience those operas.
I apologize if this sounds blindingly obvious. It is to me now, but it wasn't during all the time when it was ever so slowly becoming apparent. And while I'm pretty sure that this has been reflected in a lot of the writing I've done in the decades I've been writing, I don't think I've ever stated it this baldly.
I just thought maybe I should.
THE 2013 PAGLIACCI POSTS
"On our way to focusing on Nedda's scenes with the two baritones of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci" (9/1/2013)
"Preview: 'He said, she said' in the opening scenes of I Pagliacci" (9/21/2013)
"Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and the woman who understood the birds' song" (9/22/2013)
"Preview: In I Pagliacci, we finally hear two-minute samples from Nedda's encounters with the two baritones of I Pagliacci " (9/28/2013)
"In I Pagliacci, we come now to a moment of high drama for Nedda and Tonio" -- includes the whole of the Prologue (9/29/2013)
"Preview: In I Pagliacci, is it so surprising that Nedda would choose the mysterious Silvio over her husband?" -- includes complete stretch of Act I from"Un tal gioco" through Ballatella (10/5/2013)
"'Don't tempt me,' Nedda implores Silvio -- but they can't help themselves" (10/6/2013)
THEN THERE'S THIS 2010 POST (WITH PREVIEWS)
"Preview: What's odd about one of these 'Vesti la giubba' performances? " (9/11/2010)
"Preview: Our 'Vesti la giubba' recordings are identified, and the aria is put in context" (9/11/2010)
"The Prologue to Leoncavallo's 'I Pagliacci' entreats, 'Consider our souls'" (9/12/2010)
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