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
