Sunday Classics snapshots: In D.C., still no Lincoln -- or even a Boccanegra

Leonard Warren as Simon Boccanegra

I weep for you, for the peaceful
sun on your hillsides,
where the olive branches
bloom in vain.
I weep for the deceptive
gaiety of your flowers,
and I cry to you "Peace!"
I cry to you "Love!"

Leonard Warren (b), Simon Boccanegra; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Stiedry, cond. Live performance, Jan. 28, 1950

Lawrence Tibbett (b), Simon Boccanegra; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ettore Panizza, cond. Live performance, Jan. 21, 1939

by Ken

The great political chronicler Richard Reeves titled his book about the start of the post-Nixon (i.e., post-Watergate) presidency of Jerry Ford: A Ford, not a Lincoln. I think of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt. And while other American presidents have certainly risen to moments of great challenge, it's not something our political system can be counted on to make happen, and if anything even less so with the rabble that makes up our Congresses.

So perhaps it's not surprising that under the combined influence of the fratricidal follies rending the House of Representatives and a not-all-that-attentive watching of the whole of the upgraded-for-HD Ken Burns Lincoln film, and in addition with the notable contrast of the summonses to a very different sort of action delivered by Pope Francis on his American visit, my mind wandered to the rising-to-the-moment of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the plebeian Doge of Genoa faced with the riot that breaks out in his own Council Chamber between the blood-rival factions of Plebeians and Patricians, following the attempted abduction of the patrician daughter Amelia (in reality Boccanegra's long-lost daughter Maria, as he himself has only recently discovered, in the Recognition Scene of Act I, Scene 1, which we spent a fair amount of time on here once upon a time) on behalf of the Doge's henchman Paolo, which was foiled by Amelia's patrician fiancé, Gabriele Adorno, who killed the would-be abductor.


ABOVE WE'VE HEARD THE DOGE'S GREAT PLEA --

"Don't tempt me," Nedda implores Silvio -- but they can't help themselves

Teresa Stratas and Alberto Rinaldi as Nedda and Silvio in Franco Zeffirelli's film of Pagliacci

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.

Teresa Stratas (s), Nedda; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Georges Prêtre, cond. Philips, recorded 1983

by Ken

We're continuing with Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci. The fine piece of imploring from Nedda above comes in answer to the stretch of imploring from Silvio we've already heard, most recently in Friday night's preview {"In I Pagliacci, is it so surprising that Nedda would choose the mysterious Silvio over her husband?"). I was going to chop it down to just Silvio's immediately preceding plea ("Nedda, Nedda, answer me"), but I just couldn't make that chop.

LEONCAVALLO: I Pagliacci: Act I,
Silvio, "E fra quest'ansie in eterno vivrai?"

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!

Mario Zanasi (b), Silvio; Lucine Amara (s), Nedda; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Lovro von Matačić, cond. EMI, recorded 1960


INSTEAD OF BREAKING DOWN THE SILVIO-NEDDA
SCENE, WE'RE JUST GOING TO SWEEP THROUGH IT

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

Simon and Maria Boccanegra -- no longer alone in an unkind world

Plácido Domingo as the Doge and Ana Maria Martínez
as Maria Boccanegra in Los Angeles this past February

VERDI: Simon Boccanegra: Act I, Scene 1: Boccanegra and Maria, "Ah!" . . . Boccanegra, "Figlia a tal nome io palpito"

MARIA BOCCANEGRA: Father! Ah! Clasp to your breast Maria, who loves you!
SIMON BOCCANEGRA [simultaneously]: Ah! daughter my heart calls you!
[Orchestral outburst]
SIMON B: Ah! Daughter, daughter my heart calls you!
MARIA B: Ah! Clasp to your breast Maria, who loves you!
SIMON B: Daughter! At the name I tremble
as if Heaven had opened up to me.
You reveal to me
a world of unspeakable joy;
your loving father will create
for you a paradise;
the luster of my crown
will be your glory.

Leyla Gencer (s), Maria Boccanegra; Tito Gobbi (b), Simon Boccanegra; Vienna Philharmonic, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, Aug. 9, 1961

by Ken

Above we hear the moment of recognition, which we heard in last week's Sunday Classics preview, "Together again, and all's right with the world -- more or less," introducing opera's two great recognition scene. We listened last week to the one in Richard Strauss's Elektra, when Elektra and Orest, over great obstacles and with great difficulty, finally recognize each other as sister and brother.

Now we return to the scene in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra when both Simon, now Doge of Genoa, and the young woman who has been known as Amelia Grimaldi, understand that she is in fact his long-ago-abducted daughter Maria. As I noted, we heard the actual moment of recognition last week, but we stopped short of the meltingly beautiful solo that follows immediately.

I described these two scenes last week as "scenes whose power over me undoubtedly exceeds anything I'll be able to explain," and in presenting the Elektra scene I didn't even try. As we approach the Boccanegra scene (having listened, in Friday night's preview, to that supreme expression of grief, the aria "Il lacerato spirito," voiced by her grandfather, Jacopo Fiesco, at the death of her mother, Maria), I will just suggest that while there likely are people who have never felt some version, albeit likely less extreme, of the feeling of utter-aloneness-in-the-world felt by both pairs of characters, and consequently truly don't experience a wrench of the gut at these instances of the character pairs, against all odds, being reunited with another person who is closely related to them, and more importantly entirely with them, on their side, available to kiss the booboo and make it better.

Before we proceed to the full scene, I thought we might hear just the final word of the scene. According to the stage direction: "MARIA, accompanied by her father all the way to the threshold, enters the palace. SIMON contemplates her ecstatically as she disappears," after which "he says one last time": "Daughter!" This last "Figlia!" could hardly be set more simply: dolcissimo (very sweetly) and very softly, the first syllable on the baritone's high F (not that high for a baritone, but right on the vocal "break"), dropping for the second syllable to the F an octave below.

Here are four renditions of this final bit. I'll identify the performers in the click-through.

The final "Figlia!"




LET'S PRESS JUST A BIT FURTHER
INTO THE BOCCANEGRA-AMELIA SCENE

The Prologue to Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci" entreats, "Consider our souls"

Juan Pons as Tonio lip-syncs the Pagliacci Prologue in Unitel's 1982 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, with Georges Prêtre conducting the La Scala orchestra. (Ignore the other clowns Zeffirelli's inserted, mere distractions.) We even get to see the traveling players arrive in the Calabrian village, with Plácido Domingo as the master of the troupe, Canio, and Teresa Stratas as his wife and costar, Nedda.

If I may? If I may?
Ladies! Gentlemen!
Excuse me if I present myself thus alone.
I am the Prologue.
Because the author is putting
the old-style masks
onstage again.
In part he wants to revive
the old customs, and to you
once again he sends me.

But not to tell you, as before,
"The tears that we shed are false,
by our agonies and our suffering
don't be alarmed."
No! No!
The author has sought
to paint truly for you
a slice of life.
He has for maxim only that the artist is a person,
and that he must write for people,
and draw inspiration from what's true.

A nest of memories in the depths of his soul
sang one day, and with real tears
he wrote, and his sobs beat time for him!

So then, you'll see loving, yes, the way
real human beings love; you'll see hate's
sad fruits, miseries' agonies.
Cries of rage you'll hear, and cynical laughter!

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!

by Ken

Hanging on the grimy wall of my college newspaper office was a yellowed sheet that was the "key" to the 5-point rating system we used for movie reviews. Oh, I pooh-poohed the numerical ratings, on the ground that how can you reduce a sensible evaluation to a number? But the fact was that our readers all too clearly paid more attention to the ratings than to the ever-so-wise reviews.