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Guiseppe Verdi’s fourth opera was I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade) and it was written fast on the heels of his first great success Nabucco. Both of which premiered at La Scala within less than a year of each other in 1842 and ‘43. Another patriotic saga with a love story woven through it plus a side of fraternal revenge. It afforded the composer the opportunity to do one of the things he did best, which was write great choral ensembles. 

The plot is based on a popular Italian epic poem of the same name written by Tommaso Grasso and published twenty years previously. Cleverly Verdi has his librettists condense the exposition of the story into the opening chorus, “O nobile esempio”, with the townsfolk recounting the tale of the brothers Pagano and Arvino. Both sought the hand of the gentle Viclinda in marriage but she chose Arvino causing the jealous Pagano to attack and wound his own brother. Pagano was then sentenced to exile but has now repented and is returning to his homeland for the first time in many years. In spite of his purported remorse the chorus sings about the look in his “terrible, hollow eyes” as he approaches.

Much later in the story the Lombard army and their pilgrims have finally achieved the valley of Jehoshaphat. They gaze onto the Holy Land for the first time in wonder at the city of “Jerusalem”.

Then Paris Opera came calling for Verdi in 1847, four years after the success of I Lombardi. Having been given a limited time to fulfill the commission (which promised a princely sum) he chose to refashion the music and reset the story to have it start in Toulouse with the same pilgrimage. What resulted was Verdi’s first “Grand Opera” complete with the de rigueur Act Three ballet titled Jérusalem. It was considered a succès d'estime at the time and even translated into Italian for performances at La Scala, Venice, Verona, and Rome. In spite of many musicologists considering it a superior work it never displaced I Lombardi in the hearts of Italian audiences. 

Twenty years later after some of Verdi’s greatest successes, including La Forza del Destino written for St. Petersburg and French adaptations of both Macbeth and Trovatore, L’Opera commissioned Verdi again and he delivered a brooding masterwork based on Friedrich Schiller’s highly romanticized play about the intrigues of the Spanish court, Don Carlo. The opera supposes a love affair between the betrothed Spanish prince Don Carlo and the daughter of King Henry II of France, Elisabeth di Valois. Tragedy strikes when in order to speed the wheels of diplomacy Elizabeth is instead wed to Carlo’s father King Phillip II, twenty years her senior.

Act One of the Italian version begins in the monastery of Saint-Just where Carlo meets with his great friend Rogrigo, the Marquis of Posa. Carlo reveals his heartbreak over the marriage of his once betrothed to his father. Although Rodrigo is initially shocked he begs Carlo to forget these worries and focus on the pressing political matters nstead. They swear bonds of eternal friendship in the passionate duet, "Dio, che nell'alma infondere".                                      

Act Two finds us in the garden of the queen where the Princess of Eboli entertains the ladies of the court with the famous “Veil Song”; “Nel giardin del bello”.  She sings an amusing story about a Moorish King who tries to woo a beautiful veiled woman in his garden only to discover that she is his wife (!) A great vocal showpiece, Verdi wrote the role for a singer who specialized in both soprano and mezzo roles and had great coloratura facility. You can hear this in the two cadenzas that end each verse that are tinged with Moorish harmonies.

Shortly thereafter the King discovers that Elizabeth has been alone in the garden with Don Carlo and without her ladies in attendance. Incensed at this breach of etiquette he demands that her favored Lady-in-Waiting be dismissed from the royal court in shame. Elizabeth sings the plaintive, “Non pianger, mia compagna” to console the young woman. She gives her a ring and tells her that her own heart will follow her as she returns to her beloved France.

Pity poor Georges Bizet. After winning the prestigious composers competition the Prix de Rome at 19 years old he worked on, or in part, over 10 operas. Most of them left incomplete while he made a living as a musical arranger and copyist for other composers. He was convinced his final opera, Carmen,  was a failure because of the reception it received from both the audience and critics. He succumbed to a heart attack just three months after its premiere at 37 years of age. His widow, having no concept of the musical legacy she had inherited, gave away or lost many of her husband’s autographed manuscripts. The cruelest of finales for a talent that garnered meager recognition in its heyday. Ask someone to hum a tune from Aida or La Boheme? But everyone knows a tune from Carmen. Even the ones who don’t know it’s from Carmen.

But what of those other operas? Well, there’s La jolie fille de Perth, which is almost akin to spotting a unicorn. Or his opera Ivan IV which is even rarer. Only his Les pecheurs de perles has managed to be fished from the sea of obscurity and plated on the rare occasion. 

The pearl fishers  received only 18 performances in its initial staging and wasn’t revived again until a decade after Bizet passed. Although many of the composers contemporaries, including Hector Berlioz, found much to admire in the music, critical opinion found it wanting. It has only become part of the standard repertory in the past thirty years in spite of semi-regular revivals in France. 

We open in ancient Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, in a village of fishermen. It’s a plot so feeble that in its recounting it threatens to evaporate into the air like French perfume.  Suffice to say it’s a horrible idea to get sweet on the same girl as your best buddy and double that if she happens to be a Hindu virgin Priestess. Coincidence and calamity follow, wrapped in some of the most ravishingly diaphanous music ever written. 

The opening chorus,“Sur la grève en feu”  finds the pearl fishers community beginning their day by performing rituals to ward off evil spirits and electing one of their number, Zurga, to be their chief.

Joyously the crowd welcomes the Brahman Priestess Leila with a lilting melody as she arrives via boat, “Sois la bienvenue, Amie inconnue”.  She proceeds to pray for their continued safety with, “O Dieu Brahma”.  Because of similarities in the mystical plot, its elegant melody, and challenging coloratura writing for the soprano, it’s been referred to as the French “Casta Diva”.

Later at the Finale of Act Two Zurga discovers his best friend, Nadir, has been meeting Leila in secret and they have declared their love for each other. This shatters their friendship and endangers her sacred vows as well as her spiritual protection over the village. Zurga is emotionally torn but finally joins the villagers in calling for the guilty pair to be sacrificed. Suddenly a ferocious storm descends on the village and the populace prays to the God Brahma for their safety,"Brahma divin Brahma!". Our first half ends with possibly one of the most exciting pieces of ensemble and choral writing in all of French opera.

We return for one more number from Verdi’s early work with, “O Signore, dal tetto natio”, which finds the Crusaders and Pilgrims at their camp dying of thirst in the desert. They pray for guidance and long for their return to their home in Lombardy.

From 1851 to 1853 Giuseppe Verdi composed the three operatic masterpieces that are considered his “Middle Period” works. He was no longer satisfied with the time-tested formats and musical structures of the Bel Canto used since the beginning of the century. Verdi proceeded to combine accompanied recitative, cavatina, cabaletta, and ensemble in new and surprising configurations. The three works that initially broke these molds the most were Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Il Trovatore.  

The first of which was based on Victor Hugo’s play  Le roi s'amuse. The story of a corrupt king and his debauched hold over his courtiers. Its performances in France had caused a scandal with its thinly veiled depiction of the current French King and it was promptly banned after the premiere. Victor Hugo ended up having to sue the French censors to allow performances to continue thus earning him celebrity as a champion of free speech. The Austrian censors governing Italy’s northern theaters gave Verdi just as much trouble. The final submitted libretto ended up having its leading antagonist changed from a king to the Duke of Mantua, a noble line that had long died out. 

We open in the palace with the Duke hosting his courtiers. He sings of his life of pleasure and pursuing the favors of as many women as he can, be they married or not, “Questa o Quella”.             

In the next scene the Duke’s jester, the hunchback Rigoletto, returns home to the daughter he has kept in secret in order to keep her safe from the lascivious courtiers and the Duke. Gilda greets him warmly, "Figlia!" "Mio padre!" , yet she questions him again about who he is since she doesn’t even know her father’s name nor his occupation. He warns her never to venture out without her governess and then only to church. She begs to be told again about her mother who has long passed and Rigoletto recounts his great love for her telling Gilda she is now his entire world.

Later, assuming she is Rigoletto’s mistress, the courtiers kidnap Gilda for the Duke’s licentious purposes. Returning to the palace Rigoletto feigns nonchalance in front of the courtiers hoping to recover his daughter while he’s mocked by those surrounding him “Povero Rigoletto”.  Rigoletto explodes in a towering rage demanding, in fiery language, the return of his child to the shock of all concerned, “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata”.  His anger turns to tears and pleading as he humbles himself and begs as an old man to be reunited with the only person he holds dear.     

In the final act we discover the Duke in the dilapidated home of Sparafucile, who’s a local assassin for hire. His sister Maddalena entertains the Duke while, unknowingly, Rigoletto and Gilda listen from outside. Gilda is broken-hearted to discover the Duke’s faithlessness while Rigoletto plots revenge and their eventual escape from Mantua. The famous quartet, "Un dì, se ben rammentomi" has both pairs of characters singing in ensemble. Their contrasting emotions and intent, are actually a double duet since neither couple is aware of the other. It has since become one of the most recognizable works in all of opera. Victor Hugo himself marveled at its execution and effect which was something impossible for him to achieve in the spoken theater with four characters expressing themselves simultaneously..

It is a certainty that if Georges Bizet had never written another note of music in his life Carmen would unquestionably hold the same place in the operatic repertoire that it does today. Still it’s difficult to imagine any other opera whose public perception has changed more significantly since its premiere. Initially regarded as the story of a fine young man whose life is ruined by an amoral virago. Now by current standards it’s viewed as the tale of a young, free-spirited woman stalked and murdered by a mother-obsessed sociopath. Its realism shocked the Paris audiences of the family-oriented Opera-Comique in 1875. After the initially cool reception by the public and critics the composer died a few months later. Carmen found its first successes outside of France shortly thereafter. RIchard Wagner and Johannes Brahms enjoyed the first production in Vienna which Brahms reportedly saw twenty times.

Carmen was finally mounted again in the French capital in 1883. For the record Tchaikovsky attended one of these performances and wrote to a friend calling it, “A masterpiece in every sense of the word”. So not everyone in Paris was deaf to its charms. The very next year the Metropolitan Opera produced it in their second season and to much acclaim. It then proceeded to sweep the globe. To give you an idea of its popularity there are over 60 commercial and live recordings available in the current catalogue.  When Deutsche Grammophon released their studio recording of the Metropolitan Opera’s 1972 production conducted by Leonard Bernstein it sold over 100,000 copies the first year. To date the Met has performed the opera over 1,000 times in 10 different productions.

We present a potpourri of some of the best moments starting with the rousing “smuggler’s chorus” of Act Three, “Quant au douanier”.  Carmen and Jose have taken up with her smuggler friends to avoid the authorities since he’s gone awol from his regiment. The women sing of how they’ll distract the custom’s agents at the border while the men do the smuggling in the dark of night.

Now we have Carmen’s justly famous Act One entrance, the “Habanera”.  The women of the tobacco factory take their afternoon break in the blazing sun of Seville. Carmen attracts the most attention from the young men gathered to admire the ladies. She sings that her, “Love is like a rebellious bird that is impossible to tame”. 

Later in the story we have the duet between the young Corporal Don Jose and the young girl from his village, Miceala.  She’s come to deliver a letter from his mother with news and a little money to supplement his pay ,“Parle-moi de ma mère!”. As well she has asked Micaela to deliver a kiss from his mother that will protect him until he finally returns home to her.

A fight breaks out in the tobacco factory between Carmen and one of the other women. Carmen is arrested and Don Jose is tasked with watching her while the jail warrant is being prepared. Carmen promises that if he lets her go she will meet him later at the tavern of her friend Lilias Pastia. There she says they will dance the seguidilla and drink manzanilla, “Près des remparts de Séville”. Needless to say he acquiesces.

Later in the story Frasquita and Mercedes are passing the time by reading their fortunes in the cards. They both sing about the love and money they see in their future. Carmen joins them and lays out her own deck. No matter how many times she reshuffles and casts them however, they only foretell her death, ”Mêlons! Mêlons! Coupons! Coupons!”

To close our program we have the brilliant song of the Toreo, “Votre toast”.  The Toreador Escamillo describes to the excited crowd in the tavern his last bullfight.  Explaining how he must always  be alert to the dark eyes and rage of the bull he’s challenging. “En Garde!”