Sunday Classics snapshots: Rosina I and Rosina II

Victoria de los Angeles as Rosina II at the Met in 1952

Rosina I

I'm docile, I'm respectful;
I'm obedient, gentle, loving;
I let myself be ruled and guided. But --
but if you touch on my weakness,
I shall be a viper, I shall,
and a hundred tricks
I'll play before I'll yield.
And a hundred tricks, etc.
I'm docile, I'm respectful;
I let myself be ruled and guided, etc.

Victoria de los Angeles (s), Rosina; Orchestra of the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Carlo Felice Cillario, cond. Live performance, June 1962

Rosina II

Grant, love, that relief
to my sorrow, to my sighing.
Give me back my treasure,
or at least let me die.
Grant, love, etc.

Victoria de los Angeles (s), Rosina; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. Live performance, Mar. 1, 1952

by Ken

It's not that we've never done this sort of thing before in Sunday Classics. In fact, I like to think we've taken pretty frequent advantage of the oportunity afforded by this peculiar, er, format, to put together any two (or three or more) damned things we want which can benefit from being heard together. Butting together "the two Rosinas," as we've just done, is an idea so obvious that it doesn't seem to occur to many people that it really doesn't get done that often.

Well, here it is.


MY NEED TO DO THIS JUXTAPOSITION STARTED . . .

Ghost of Sunday Classics: Hoffmann just can't get over his "three mistresses"

"It's a song of love that soars aloft sadlly or madly": Nazhmiddin Mavlyanov (Hoffmann) and Hibla Gerzmava (Antonia) at Moscow's Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theater

by Ken

In preparation for our quick survey of the poet Hoffmann's account of his three "mad loves," as set out last week, in last night's preview we made the acquaintance of the first of them, Olympia-- the "artist," according to Hoffmann's reckoning. (We'll come back to this in a moment.) As I noted last night, making Olympia's acquaintance is more than Hoffmann did before he fell soul-convulsingly in love with her. (It doesn't help that the poor fellow is literally looking at her through the equivalent of rose-colored glasses, sold to him by one of Olympia's creators, the eccentric inventor Coppélius.) Of course this is only the teeniest exaggeration of the way many of us so frequently fall just as consumingly in love as our poor hero has.

As noted, we're going to sample some of the astonishing music by which Offenbach captured the states of need and urgency and bliss that afflict Hoffmann in all three of his mad stories. First, though, let's meet another, very different object of the poet's passion: Antonia, one of the theatrical literature's great creations.

(Note that we're going to hear a sprinkling of German-language performances today. As with Gounod's Faust, the German-sourced Tales of Hoffmann -- the fantastic fables of E.T.A. Hoffmann, the source of the opera's tales, are standbys for German readers -- was taken up by German audiences if anything faster and more avidly than by French ones.)

OFFENBACH, The Tales of Hoffmann, Act III, Orchestral introduction and Romance, Antonia, "Elle a fui, la tourterelle" ("She has flown, the turtledove")

Munich. The home of Crespel. A bizarrely furnished room. At right a clavichord. Violins suspended from the wall. At left a window. At the back two doors, one the door to Antonia's room; in front, at left, a window casement that leads to a balcony, which is closed by a curtain. Between the two doors at the rear a large portrait of a woman hanging on the wall. The sun is setting. ANTONIA is seated at the harpsichord.

Romance, Antonia
She has flown, the turtledove!
Ah, a memory too sweet!
An image to cruel!
Alas, at my knees
I hear him, I see him!
Alas, at my knees
I hear him, I see him!
[She walks to the front of the stage.]
She has flown, the turtledove,
she has flown far from you;
but she is always faithful
and she keeps her faith!
My dearly loved, my voice calls to you!
All my heart is yours!
All my heart is yours!
She has flown, the turtledove,
she has flown, she has flown far from you!
[She approaches the harpsichord again and continues, standing, leafing through the music.]
Ah, dear flower that has just bloomed,
in pity answer me!
You that know if he still loves me,
if he keeps faith with me!
My dearly beloved, my voice implores you,
ah, let your heart come to me,
let your heart come to me!
She has flown, the turtledove,
she has flow, she has flown far from you.
[She lets herself fall on the couch in front of the harpsichord.]

[in German] Julia Varady (s), Antonia; Munich Radio Orchestra, Heinz Wallberg, cond. EMI, recorded 1979

Rosalind Plowright (s), Antonia; Symphony Orchestra of the Opéra National du Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), Sylvain Cambreling, cond. EMI, recorded June-July 1988

Victoria de los Angeles (s), Antonia; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. EMI, recorded 1964

Beverly Sills (s), Antonia; London Symphony Orchestra, Julius Rudel, cond. ABC-EMI, recorded July-Aug. 1972


HOFFMANN'S "THREE MISTRESSES"

THE TALES OF HOFFMANN POSTS

"The poet Hoffmann and the legend of Kleinzach" (Sept. 14)
Preview, "The name of the first was Olympia" (Sept. 19)
"Hoffmann just can't get over is 'three mistresses'" (Sept. 21)
Preview, "Our Frantz knows it's all a matter of technique" (Sept. 27)
"Who is the author of Hoffmann's misfortunes?" (Sept. 28)

Preview: In "I Pagliacci," is it so surprising that Nedda would choose the mysterious Silvio over her husband?

Tonight we hear a chunk of the 1934 recording of Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci built around the great tenor Beniamino Gigli.

by Ken

In last week's Pagliacci post, we left Nedda in a state, after fending off the unwelcome advances of her troupemate, the hunchback clown Tonio. As unpleasant as that surprise was, she's now in for a pleasant one: the unexpected arrival -- scaling a wall! -- of a gentleman she immediately identifies as "Silvio."

WE ALREADY KNEW THAT NEDDA HAS A SECRET

When we took our close look at the monologue Nedda sings after her husband and Beppe go off to have a drink with the hospitable villagers ("Pagliacci and the woman who understood the birds' song"), in which we learned that Nedda has a secret. Here's the start of the recitative again.

LEONCAVALLO: I Pagliacci: 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!

Claudia Muzio (s). Edison, recorded Jan. 21, 1921

Gabriella Tucci (s), Nedda; Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Decca, recorded 1958

WE'VE ALREADY HAD A TANTALIZING TASTE OF SILVIO

Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" and the woman who understood the birds' song

Elizabeth Futral does her best at singing while she histrionicizes Nedda's recitative and Balatella. The chunk of recitative below, the first of three, occupies the first 57 seconds of the clip.

(1) "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!

Claudia Muzio (s). Edison, recorded Jan. 21, 1921

Gabriella Tucci (s), Nedda; Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Decca, recorded 1958


"Nedda is at best an unthinking creature who allows her basic desires to get the better of her."

-- from the London Records booklet for the 1967 Decca Pagliacci

by Ken

Now it could be that our commentator means that in describing Nedda as "at best an unthinking creature" he has in mind a comparison with her husband, Canio, the master of their little troupe of itinerant players (or pagliacci), who is well known as a student of the dialogues of Plato. Or it could be that he has simply embraced the popular view of the function of art as a medium for making people even stupider.

We've been working our way through the opening scenes of I Pagliacci, starting several weeks ago ("On our way to focusing on Nedda's scenes with the two baritones of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci") with some attention to the statement of the "author" in the Prologue and to Canio himself and then venturing into the monologue Nedda sings when the rest of the troupe goes off with a band of villagers to enjoy a drink or two, leaving her alone -- except, importantly, the hunchback clown Tonio, who's now off grooming the little donkey. Then in Friday night's preview ("'He said, she said' in the opening scenes of I Pagliacci") we began taking a closer look at Nedda's monologue, starting with the chunk of recitative we heard again above.

If it's fully imagined and experienced, it already tells us an awful lot about the character, I think: about the closed-in, fearful way Nedda lives; about her husband's brutality (whose exact form we're left to imagine for ourselves, though there seems to me no doubt that she fears the worst); about the dangerous secret she's keeping; and then about her way of dealing with all the above.


THIS SETS THE STAGE FOR --

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

Manon and des Grieux go their separate ways, or try

Natalie Dessay sings Manon's farewell to her table from Act II of Manon, from the same 2007 Barcelona performance from which we saw Rolando Villazón sharing des Grieux's dream with her in last night's preview. (Isn't it wonderful that you can sing like this and still be a star?)

by Ken

We're going to hear more of the full scene, but for now, to try to wash away the taste of the above performance, here's just the aria sung in Italian, as "Addio, o nostro picciol desco."

MASSENET: Manon: Act II, Manon, "Adieu, notre petite table" ("Farewell, our little table") (sung in Italian)

[Approaches the table, laid for dinner.]
Farewell, our little table,
that brought us together so often.
Farewell, farewell, our little table --
so big for us, however.
We take up, it's unimaginable,
so little space . . . especially while squeezing each other!
Farewell, our little table!
The same glass served us both.
Each of us, when we drank,
searched for the other's lips on it.
Ah! poor friend, how he loved me!
Farewell, our little table, farewell!

Mirella Freni (s), Manon; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Peter Maag, cond. Live performance, June 3, 1969

As I wrote in last night's preview, today we're focusing on music that Massenet found to portray the pain of separation felt by both Manon and des Grieux. And as I also mentioned, we're filling in here some knowledge that Manon possesses already when des Grieux shares with her his ravishing dream, a dream that might not seem nearly so dreamy to her even if she didn't know that he's about to be abducted from their cozy little love nest by emissaries of his father, the Count des Grieux.


AS ACT III BEGINS, THE FORMER LOVERS
HAVE GONE THEIR SEPARATE WAYS

Preview: "We'll live in Paris, together" -- a mystery theme and a mystery duet-fragment

Or, more properly, Andante sostenuto:

by Ken

For tonight's preview, we have a mystery theme, above, and a mystery duet-fragment, below. Before we proceed to it, though, I thought we might hear a somewhat fuller setting of our above theme -- starting a bit earlier in the piece and continuing on a bit longer, though still not quite to the end. We'll hear the whole thing (a whopping four minutes at its most drawn-out), properly identified, in the click-through. I think this is some of the most beautiful and moving music ever written, and its source is a piece that has a somewhat grudging place in the standard repertory but for a number of reasons doesn't get the respect I think it deserves.




NOW LET'S HAVE OUR DUET-FRAGMENT

We'll have these same performances, properly identified, in the click-throughd, so if you're not interested in hearing them blind, as it were, you can skip straight to there.

"Nous vivrons à Paris, tous les deux!"
("We'll live in Paris, together!")

HIM: We'll live in Paris . . .
HER: Together!
HIM: . . . together, and our loving hearts . . .
HER: In Paris!
HIM: . . . bound to one another . . .
HER: In Paris!
HIM: . . . for ever reunited . . .
HER [together]: We'll have only blessed days!
HIM [together]: . . . there we'll live only blessed days!
TOGETHER: In Paris! In Paris, together!
We'll live in Paris! Together!
HIM [approaching HER tenderly; soulfully]: And my name will become yours!
[then coming back to himself; half-spoken] Ah, pardon!
HER: In my eyes you must see well
that I am not angry with you.
And yet, it's wrong!
HIM: Come! We'll live in Paris . . .
HER: Together! &c.

[A]

[B]

[C]

[D]



FOR OUR COMPLETE MYSTERY PIECE, AND
DULY IDENTIFIED VERSIONS OF OUR DUET --