We move on to No. 7 as we count our way through those "Top 10 [or 11] Orchestral Clarinet Solos" with (mostly) Stanley Drucker

STANLEY D. GOES TO THE OPERA --
AND HEREUPON HANGS OUR TALE
(with apologies for the crappy sound and crappier end-edit)


OR, TO HEAR IT IN CONTEXT --
(still in crappy sound, but at least without my unavoidably crappy edit)

Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall, live, April 1983
[Note the audience's response when they hear Stanley D. launch "The Solo."]

And the stars were shining
and the earth was perfumed,
the garden gate creaked,
and footsteps grazed the path.
She entered, all fragrance,
she fell into my arms.
O sweet kisses, o languid caresses,
while I, trembling,
unloosed the veils, revealing her beauty!
Gone forever that dream of love --
the hour has fled,
and I die despairing, and I die despairing!
Yet never before have I loved life, loved life so much!

Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; with Stanley Drucker, clarinet; New York Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta, cond. Encore performance from a Pavarotti-Mehta "Gala Concert," telecast live from Avery Fisher Hall, Apr. 4, 1983 (with post-performance announcements by Martin Bookspan)
[Note: Farther along we're going to hear Luciano P. in good studio sound.]

by Ken

We're continuing our countdown through Charlotte (NC) Symphony Orchestra clarinetist Allan Rosenfeld's list of his "Top 10 Orchestral Clarinet Solos," in the company (mostly) of the New York Philharmonic's 61-season clarinetist, Stanley Drucker (1929-2022) -- first, from age 19, as assistant principal, then for an amazing 49 seasons as principal clarinet.

Last week (in "An orchestra principal's most visible job is playing orchestral solos written for his/her instrument. He-e-re's Stanley D.!") we made it all the way down from No. 10 (the end of "Pines of the Janiculum" from Respighi's Pines of Rome) to No. 8 (the opening of the Andante of the Brahms Third Symphony) -- oh, right, passing through No. 9 (from the "Andante cantabile non troppo" section of Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini).

So here I was thinking that with two good pushes we could get through the whole list, even allowing ample excursion time to look in a larger way at the music represented, which, as I tried to explain, is one effect pondering Stanley D.'s enormous career has had on me. I mean, to have been that immersed in music -- mostly not of his own choosing -- all those decades while maintaining an insistence on bringing to each performance first-performance freshness: How awesome is that?


WOULDN'T YOU KNOW? RIGHT AWAY AT NO. 7 I GOT STUCK

We have more "An die Musik," "Zueignung," and "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst" -- but remember, this only SOUNDS like a "good news" post

We have our missing recording of "An die Musik"!
So let's hear it along with its intended companion --




Pavel Lisitsian, baritone; Naum Valter, piano. Melodiya, recorded 1961

Fritz Wunderlich, tenor; Hubert Giesen, piano. DG, recorded November 1965

by Ken

Last week, for possibly predictably perverse purposes of your proprietor, we focused on three bits of music that almost inevitably suggest some connection to the proposition that life is good, life is worth living ("Today's sacred word is 'heilig' ('holy' or 'sacred'), chez Schubert and R. Strauss -- make of it what you will"). Our cases in point were the Schubert song "An die Musik," Richard Strauss's song "Zueignung," and the moment in the final minutes of the Prologue to Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos when the super-serious Composer of the super-serious opera seria Ariadne auf Naxos, in the countdown to its first performance (under troubled circumstances, to put it mildly, in the home of "the richest man in Vienna"), declares, "Music is a sacred art."

However, we only heard two of the three song performances we should have, performances I've lived with so long and so closely that they're inextricably woven into my consciousness. The problem was that one of the two intended "An die Musik"s I had only on an old MK LP I've cherished for more than 40 years (since I plucked it out of a 99-cent bin in the old Sam Goody bargain store across 49th Street from the old West Side store), and at the moment I'm unable to make audio files from LP. Anyway, as I hope you've heard above, the Armenian-born Soviet baritone Pavel Lisitsian's "An die Musik" is now united, as intended, with the much-lamented tenor Fritz Wunderlich's, originally recorded as part of a glorious group of Schubert songs to fill Side 4 of his wonderful 1965 DG Schöne Müllerin (the way the Schubert song cycle, which now fits comfortably on a single CD, usually came to us in those days, on three LP sides).

Over this past week I've scouted for a companion to Jussi Bjoerling's March 1958 Carnegie Hall encore performance of "Zueignung," again with the limitation that it would have to come from my CD holdings, or possibly via digital download. We heard some pretty good ones last week, and I heard lots more this week, but just now we're not looking for pretty good, we're looking for magic. As often happens, though, the joke was on me. I found magic, but not with "Zueignung." Oh, I'd just heard a very very good one, but again, we're not looking for very very good. I couldn't be bothered to stop the disc after the very very good "Zueignung," and wound up hearing something like this:

R. STRAUSS: "Zueignung," Op. 10, No. 1,
plus a special bonus performance (at 2:09)

Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. BBC Legends, recorded live at Summer Festival, Wigmore Hall, July 15, 1978


OHMYGOODNESS! ARE THERE ANY WORDS? WELL,
FIRST OFF, I HAVE TO EAT SOME UNKIND ONES

Today's sacred word is "heilig" ("holy" or "sacred"), chez Schubert and R. Strauss -- make of it what you will

UPDATE: A second Fischer-Dieskau/Moore "Zueignung" added!

"An die Musik": Maybe we don't need words?
(But not to worry -- we'll have 'em eventually)


The man himself, seen here at home, is heard playing his own solo-piano rendering -- one stanza only -- of Schubert's one-of-a-kind song "An die Musik" ("To Music"), to conclude the Homage to Gerald Moore in London's Royal Festival Hall, Feb. 20, 1967 (as audio-recorded by EMI).

by Ken

I hadn't known when I started out that Gerald Moore, the one and only, was going to be leading the whole thing off, but when the above solo performance of "An die Musik" slipped provisionally into this lead-off position, it just seemed right. I hadn't expected either to be so affected rehearing this performance of an indulgent kind G.M. never would have given when he was partnering another performer, as he did so luminously with so many performers in his long and storied career. Nor, finally, was I prepared for the double take I did the third or fourth time I typed the date of the Homage to Gerald Moore concert. My goodness, that was more than 50 years ago! How did that happen?

For years now I've wanted to "do" G.M. in a post or posts, and have always shied away from it. Do I have to add that in all this time I still haven't heard another accompanist in his league? Oh, every now and then I hear a pianist who seems in that moment almost worthy of comparison. I settle almost-happily for that.


IF YOU DON'T KNOW "AN DIE MUSIK," BY ALL MEANS
SKIP AHEAD TO THE PERFORMANCES WITH WORDS

Sunday Classics snapshots: Signposts on the steep path of Otello's downfall

Now and forever farewell, blessed memories!
Farewell, sublime enchantments of her thought!
Farewell, shining battalions; farewell, victories,
flying arrows and flying steeds!
Farewell, triumphant and sacred banner,
and reveille ringing shrilly in the morning!
The clamor and song of battle, farewell!
The glory of Otello is here at an end!

Francesco Tamagno (t), Otello; piano. Victor, recorded February 2003 (digital transfer by Tim Ecker) -- for some notes on this recording, see below

by Ken

We've been ruminating about and eavesdropping on Verdi and Boito's Otello and his monstrous fall, and last week I posed the question of how the Moor of Venice sinks from the ecstatic raptures of the Act I Love Duet to the moment in Act III when he browbeats the innocent Desdemona lying in the dust by his hand ("More Vickers -- 'Otello fu,' how he gets from here to there").

I would like to answer that more fully, but for now we're just going to signal a pair of signposts along the way, as the poisons his lieutenant "honest Jago" dumps in his mind take hold, in the form of the lie that Desdemona is having an affair with the Moor's former lieutenant, Cassio. Then next week I hope to flesh these moments out.

Otello: Act II, Otello "Tu, indietro" . . . "Ora e per sempre addio"

OTELLO: You! Stand back! Flee!
You have bound me to the cross! Alas!
More horrible than any horrible injury
is the injury of suspicion!
In the secret hours of her lust
(and they were stolen from me!) was by breast agitated
by no omen? I was bold, happy.
I knew nothing yet; I didn't feel
on the divine body that I adored
and on her lying lips
the burning kisses of Cassio! And now, and now . . .

Now and forever farewell, blessed memories!
Farewell, sublime enchantments of her thought!
Farewell, shining battalions; farewell, victories,
flying arrows and flying steeds!
Farewell, triumphant and sacred banner,
and reveille ringing shrilly in the morning!
The clamor and song of battle, farewell!
The glory of Otello is here at an end!

[from "In the secret hours of her lust"] Enrico Caruso (t), Otello; Victor Orchestra. Victor, recorded in New York City, Dec. 28, 1910

Mario del Monaco (t), Otello; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Georg Solti, cond. Live performance, June 30, 1962

Jon Vickers (t), Otello; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 30, 1971

Plácido Domingo (t), Otello; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Carlos Kleiber, cond. Live performance, Dec. 7, 1976

Luciano Pavarotti (t), Otello; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded live in concert, April 1991

The great heroic tenor Francesco Tamagno was 36 when he created the role of Otello at La Scala in February 1887, but 52 and semi-retired when he recorded three excerpts, in February 2003: Otello's entrance, "Esultate"; the scene at the end of the opera following his murder of Desdemona, "Niun mi tema"; and the performance we heard above of the Act II outburst "Ora e per sempre addio." At least four takes have been circulated, and they're noticeably different, perhaps nor surprising when we hear his sort of improvisatory, embellished approach -- and all much slower than the composer's metronome marking, which we see above.

But notice that Enrico Caruso too sings "Ora e per sempre addio" a lot more lyrically than the virtual battle cry we're accustomed to. Would they actually have sung it this way (a good deal slower than Verdi's metronome marking, as we see above) in the theater? Who knows?

On our way to focusing on Nedda's scenes with the two baritones of Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci"

Daniel Sutin as Tonio the clown in Austin, 2012

PROLOGUE (sung by the performance's Tonio) -- conclusion:
And you, rather than our poor
actors' costumes, consider
our souls, because we are people,
of flesh and bone, and since in this orphan
world, just like you, we breathe the air!

I've told you the concept.
Now hear how it worked out.
Let's go -- begin!

Leonard Warren (b), Tonio; RCA Victor Orchestra, Renato Cellini, cond. RCA-EMI, recorded January 1953

Giuseppe Taddei (b), Tonio; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded Sept.-Oct. 1965

by Ken

The recordings by leonard Warren and Giuseppe Taddei are the ones we heard in the September 2010 post "The Prologue to Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci entreats, 'Consider our souls' " when we broke the Prologue down into chunks, culminating in this one. We should probably note that the high notes -- on "al pari di voi" ("just like you") and "incominciate!" ("begin!") -- aren't Leoncavallo's, but the music sounds pretty flat without them, and I can't imagine he would complain about the effect that Leonard Warren in particular achieves with them.

I was tempted to repeat that Prologue breakdown here, but especially now that I've imported it that series of posts into the stand-alone "Sunday Classics" blog, it's readily available via click-through. But I don't want to venture into the opera again without hearing the whole of the Prologue, so let's do that.

THE COMPLETE PAGLIACCI PROLOGUE

Sunday Classics goes on hiatus (continued)

Tenor Michel Sénéchal (born 1927 and apparently still with us), whom
we're going to hear sing, of all things, Mahler -- and something else

by Ken

As I wrote Friday night in connection with this hiatus Sunday Classics has chosen to go on, a happy surprise for me in beginning to tinker with the heap of hundreds and hundreds of posts that have by now accumulated was the discovery that by golly there really and truly is a heap of wonderful music buried in that heap. This at least slightly undercuts the feeling I generally have when one of these posts is sent out into the ether (beyond the feeling "Thank goodness that's done, or done-ish"), which is "What the [expletive deleted] was the point of that?"

Sharing a lot of music that I love was the basic point of the enterprise -- that and helping people approach it, especially (ideally) people who for whatever reason have been shy about listening. I try like the dickens not to try to tell people how they should listen, because my feeling is that the whole deal with listening is precisely each individual working out his/herself how to listen, and hear. The best I thought I could do was to provide some clues based on my own habits of listening -- that and perhaps providing a nudge and a maybe little courage, and a glimmering of some of the rewards that lie in store.

For the time being, as I also mentioned Friday night, I want to focus on getting that heap of stuff accessible in the form of a stand-alone blog (at sundayclassicswithken.blogspot.com), which I've only just begun doing. (At some point I reckon we'll add a button or some kind of link thingie here on DWT.) I won't bore you with the heap of difficulties involved in this project -- or the even more fierce, and tedious, difficulties involved in the parallel project of updating the index that would provide some sort of overall access to the material, which sputtered and stalled as of July 11, 2010. I myself have spent more time than I care to admit yahoo-ing for links to old posts. What's worse is that I keep finding indications that over these last four to five years there have been posts of which I have no ready recall at all.


NOW TO BUSINESS!

Preview: The post-operatic Rossini

Tenor Dalmacio Gonzalez sings the "Cuius animam" from Rossini's Stabat Mater -- in an August 1981 Proms performance with the Philharmona Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini. (DG made a recording with the same forces as the Proms performance.)

by Ken

It's impossible to talk about the career of Gioachhino Rossini (1792-1868) without taking note of the fact that, though he lived almost another 40 years, he completed his last opera, William Tell, in 1829, at the age of 37. With his retirement from the stage he didn't stop composing, though -- though now, freed from the exigencies of opera-house work, he could decide what and when to compose (probably the most representative products of this period are the short instrumental and vocal pieces collected as his Sins of Old Age), and didn't show a lot of concern for unleashing these works on the public.

Among the "post-theatrical" compositions are Rossini's two major sacred works, the Stabat Mater (1831-1841) and the Petite Messe solenelle (1864-67). The highly unorthodox Mass clearly qualifies as a "late" work, whereas Rossini's setting of the medieval Latin poem Stabat mater dolorosa (The Sorrowful Mother Stood) was completed well before the composer's 50th birthday. For our purposes this week, however, it does give us one example of music that came from his pen following his retirement from the stage.

What we're hearing tonight is the famous tenor solo, "Cujus animam gementem" (which soars famously up to higher-than-high-C high D-flat). I don't think it's going out on a limb to suggest that not many composers would have heard music anything like what Rossini did for the "Cujus animam."

The Caruso and Bjoerling recordings were done as 78s, and so were almost certainly influenced by the 78-side recording limitation. Even so, I think it's fair to say that the Giulini-conducted performance in the video clip above is really broadly paced, even more so than the 1967 Rome Radio performance from which we hear Luciano Pavarotti singing the "Cujus animam" below. For comparison, we're also hearing the Decca studio recording Pavarotti made just a few years later with István Kertész.

ROSSINI: Stabat Mater: "Cujus animam gementem"

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,

now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed

was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,

she beneath beholds the pangs

of her dying glorious Son.

[English adaptation by Victorian poet-composer Edward Caswall]

Enrico Caruso, tenor; Victor Orchestra. Victor, recorded Dec. 15, 1913

Jussi Bjoerling, tenor; orchestra, Nils Grevillius, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 12, 1938

Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; RAI Symphony Orchestra, Rome, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. Live performance, Dec. 22, 1967

Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; London Symphony Orchestra, István Kertész, cond. Decca, recorded March 1971


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We're actually going to be focusing on the other end of Rossini's creative career.

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"The (Hi)story of the Chévalier des Grieux and of Manon"

MASSENET: Manon: Prelude to Act II

New Phliharmonia Orchestra, Julius Rudel, cond. ABC-EMI-DG, recorded July 1970

by Ken

This isn't an excerpt you're apt to hear often outside the context of the opera (it's not meant to stand alone, of course), but I've plunked it in here, not just because it's such a lovely two minutes' worth of music, but because it directly follows the chunk of duet we heard between Manon and the Chévalier des Grieux in Friday night's preview, when they declared so joyfully that they would live in Paris, tous les deux, tous les deux. Because as Act II begins, they are indeed living in Paris, tous les deux, and for this while at least, they're blissfully happy.

Without worrying about dramatic context for a moment, let's jump to later in the act, near the end, in fact, and hear des Grieux share with Manon a dream he's had -- one of the most celebrated and beautiful specimens of the lyric-tenor repertory, often known simply as "The Dream." (Not to worry, in the click-through we're going to hear it in proper dramatic context.)

Manon: Act II, Recitative and aria, des Grieux, "Instant charmant, où la crainte fait trêve" ("Enchanting moment, where fear is dispelled") . . . "En fermant les yeux ("On closing my eyes")

DES GRIEUX: Enchanting moment, where fear is dispelled,
where we are just the two of us.
Listen, Manon, while walking
I just had a dream.

On closing my eyes, I see
in the distance a humble retreat,
a little house,
all white, in the depths of the woods.
In its tranquil shadows
clear and joyous streams,
in which leaves are reflected,
sing with the birds.
It's Paradise. Oh, no!
Everything there is sad and morose,
for there's one thing lacking there.
Still needed there is Manon!
Our life will be there,
if you wish it, o Manon!

Jussi Bjoerling, tenor; orchestra, Donald Voorhees, cond. NBC Radio concert, Jan. 8, 1951

Léopold Simoneau, tenor; Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paul Strauss, cond. DG, recorded 1953

[in Italian] Beniamino Gigli, tenor; orchestra, John Barbirolli, cond. Live performance, London, June 26, 1931

In good time the story of Manon and des Grieux (as told originally by the ex-Benedictine Abbé Prévost in his 1731 novel L'Histoire du Chévalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, bearing in mind that the French histoire conveniently means both "story" and "history") will turn not just wrong but horribly, disastrously wrong. For this week, though, I want to focus on what's right about the relationship, from the standpoints of both participants, as I'll explain in a moment.


BACK IN ACT I, ENTER MANON

Preview: Our "Vesti la giubba" recordings are identified, and the aria is put in context

Jussi Bjoerling sings the recitative and aria, with Howard Barlow conducting, from the Voice of Firestone telecast of Nov. 19, 1951.

by Ken

First, let's finish last night's unfinished business. Here again are our seven recordings of "Vesti la giubba," now properly identified. You'll notice that the singers are in alphabetical order.

LEONCAVALLO: I Pagliacci: Act I, " Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio . . . Vesti la giubba"

[English translation by Peggie Cochrane]

Recitative
To have to act, whilst caught up in mad frenzy;
I no longer know what I'm saying nor what I'm doing.
And yet you must -- force yourself to try!
You're the comedian!
Aria
Put on your costume and make up your face.
The public pays and wants to laugh here.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine,
laugh, comedian, and everyone'll clap!
Turn your agony and tears to jest,
your sobs and sufferings to a grimace.
Ah! Laugh, comedian, over your ruined love.
Laugh at the pain that is poisoning your heart.

A

Jussi Bjoerling, tenor; RCA Victor Orchestra, Renato Cellini, cond. RCA/EMI, recorded January 1953
B

Franco Corelli, tenor; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Apr. 11, 1964
C

Mario del Monaco, tenor; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Dimitri Mitropoulos, cond. Live performance, Jan. 3, 1959
D

Giuseppe di Stefano, tenor; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Tullio Serafin, cond. EMI, recorded June 12-17, 1954
E

Plácido Domingo, tenor; San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Kenneth Schermerhorn, cond. Live performance, Nov. 5, 1976
F

Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; Philadelphia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti, cond. Philips, live performance, February 1992
G

[aria only] Lawrence Tibbett, baritone; orchestra, Alfred Newman, cond. Delos (Stanford Archive Series), recorded for the soundtrack of Metropolitan, 1935

The oddity is that our final Canio is not a tenor but a baritone, perhaps the finest America has produced, Lawrence Tibbett. (Okay, it's transposed down a tone, and yes, that would have been a correct answer to the question of what's odd about one of our recordings. But still . . . ) Tomorrow we're going to hear him back in his proper range, singing the Prologue to Pagliacci. Note that among our tenor Canios we've heard a not-quite-even split between lyric (Bjoerling, di Stefano, Domingo, Pavarotti) and dramatic (Corelli, del Monaco) tenors, and while "Vesti la giubba" is probably the part of the role most accessible to lyric tenors, I think you'll still hear a marked difference in the kind of effect the different voice types make in the music.

BONUS: NOW WE ARE GOING TO HEAR CARUSO

Last night I teased you with a photo of the label of Victor 88061, Enrico Caruso's third (I think) recording of "Vesti la giubba" (famous, by the way, as the first record to sell a million copies), with the news that no, we weren't going to hear it. Well, now we are. (Confession: I didn't realize I had it on CD.)


Enrico Caruso, tenor. Victor, recorded March 17, 1907

Here Giuseppe di Stefano sings just the aria.


NOW WHY DON'T WE HEAR THE ARIA IN ITS PROPER CONTEXT?

Although Pagliacci is normally thought of as a one-act opera -- usually in combination with Pietro Mascagni's one-act Cavalleria rusticana -- it's technically in two acts, separated by an intermezzo (just as Cavalleria is in two scenes separated by the famous Intermezzo). The scene that culminates in "Vesti la giubba" brings Act I to a pretty theatrical close, and since the opera is virtually always performed in one act, it's followed immediately by the Intermezzo sinfonico (technically really an entr'acte), so why don't we hear that as well? We're going to hear it again tomorrow, when it will make more musical sense after we've spent some time with the Prologue, which contributes important music to it. Our final Canio today, the Russian Vladimir Atlantov, is another specimen of the full-weight dramatic tenor.

LEONCAVALLO: I Pagliacci: Act I, Scene 4; Intermezzo sinfonico

A little troupe of traveling players, having only recently arrived in this Calabrian village, has a show to put on, "a ventitre ore," as Canio, the volatile boss of the troupe has put it so invitingly to the villagers -- "at 23 hours," or 11pm. Canio accepted an invitation from the villagers for a pre-show libation, and was joined by Beppe but not the hunchback Tonio, who claimed he had to groom the donkey and stayed behind with Canio's wife, the troupe's diva, the extremely unhappy Nedda. Leaving the donkey to fend for itself, Tonio made profoundly unwelcome overtures to Nedda, which she not only rejected but ridiculed, finally driving him off with a whip. Nedda was then joined by a man with whom, in a tender and passionate scene, she agreed to run off after the show, at midnight. Unfortunately Tonio saw them and to get revenge on Nedda has quietly brought Canio back to the scene.

TONIO [to CANIO]: Tread softly and you'll catch them!
SILVIO [climbing over the wall, to NEDDA]: I'll be waiting there at midnight. Clamber down cautiously and you'll find me.
NEDDA [to SILVIO]: Till tonight, and I'll be yours forever. CANIO [overhearing these words]: Ha!
NEDDA [shouting in Silvio's wake, as she becomes aware of CANIO's presence]: Fly!
[CANIO rushes to the wall. NEDDA goes to bar his way but, shoving her aside, he vaults over.]
NEDDA: Help him, Lord!
CANIO's voice offstage: Coward! You're hiding!
TONIO [laughing cynically]: Ha ha ha!
NEDDA [to TONIO]: Bravo! Bravo, my Tonio!
TONIO: I do what I can.
NEDDA: That's what I thought.
TONIO: But I don't despair of doing a great deal better!
NEDDA: You revolt and disgust me!
TONIO: Oh, you don't know how happy I am about it! Ha ha ha!
CANIO [clambering back across the wall]: Derision and scorn! Nothing! He knows that path well. No matter -- [furiously, to NEDDA]: since you're going to tell me your lover's name now!
NEDDA: Who?
CANIO: You, by our eternal Father! [Drawing his knife] And if I haven't cut your throat before this it's because, before I soil this blade with your stinking blood, you shameless woman, I want his name! Speak!
NEDDA: Insults won't do any good. My lips are sealed.
CANIO: His name, his name, don't delay, woman!
NEDDA: No!
[At this point BEPPE comes hurrying onto the scene.] No! I'll never tell it!
CANIO [rushing at NEDDA, knife upraised]: By Our Lady!
BEPPE [seizing him, as he rushes at NEDDA, wrestling the knife away from him and flinging it away]: Boss! What are you doing? For the love of God! People are coming out of church and coming here for the show. Let's go . . . come along. Calm yourself!
CANIO: Let me go, Beppe! His name! His name!
BEPPE [calling to TONIO]: Tonio, come and hold him!
CANIO: His name!
BEPPE: Let's go, the public is arriving! You'll talk things over later! [To NEDDA] And you, come away from there. Go and get dressed. [As he pushes her inside and goes in with her] You know, Canio is violent but good-hearted.
CANIO: Disgrace! Disgrace!
TONIO [softly, to CANIO]: Calm yourself, boss. It's better to dissemble; the gallant'll return. Rely on me! I'll keep a watch on her. Now let's give the performance. Who knows but he won't come to the show and give himself away. Come now. One must dissemble, in order to succeed!
BEPPE [coming from the stage]: Let's go, come on, get dressed, boss. [Turning to TONIO] And you beat the drum, Tonio.
[Both go off, leaving CANIO alone.]
CANIO: [Recitative]
To have to act, whilst caught up in mad frenzy;
I no longer know what I'm saying nor what I'm doing.
And yet you must -- force yourself to try!
You're the comedian!
[Aria]
Put on your costume and make up your face.
The public pays and wants to laugh here.
And if Harlequin should steal your Columbine,
laugh, comedian, and everyone'll clap!
Turn your agony and tears to jest,
your sobs and sufferings to a grimace.
Ah! Laugh, comedian, over your ruined love.
Laugh at the pain that is poisoning your heart.

Bernd Weikl (b), Tonio; Wolfgang Brendel (b), Silvio; Lucia Popp (s), Nedda; Vladimir Atlantov (t), Canio; Alexandru Ionita (t), Beppe; Munich Radio Orchestra, Lamberto Gardelli, cond. Eurodisc, recorded December 1983

Tito Gobbi (b), Tonio; Mario Zanasi (b), Silvio; Lucine Amara (s), Nedda; Franco Corelli (t), Canio; Mario Spina (t), Beppe; Orchestra of the Teatro all Scala, Lovro von Matačić, cond. EMI, recorded 1961


TOMORROW: The Prologue to Pagliacci begs us, "Consider our souls."

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