Juan Diego Flórez
Barbican Residency
Sunday 21–Saturday 27 April 2013
Programme produced by Harriet Smith; printed by Vertec
Printing Services; advertising by Cabbell (tel. 020 8971 8450)
Confectionery and merchandise including organic
ice cream, quality chocolate, nuts and nibbles are
available from the sales points in our foyers.
Please turn off watch alarms, phones, pagers, etc. during the
performance. Taking photographs, capturing images or using
recording devices during a performance is strictly prohibited.
1
If anything limits your enjoyment please let us know during
your visit. Additional feedback can be given online, as well as
via feedback forms or the pods located around the foyers.
The Residency
Sun 21 Apr 7.30pm, Hall
Juan Diego Flórez & Friends
Wed 24 Apr 7.30pm, Hall
Sat 27 Apr 3pm, LSO St Luke’s
Juan Diego Flórez in recital
Juan Diego Flórez Masterclass
Gioachino Rossini
La Cenerentola – Sinfonia; ‘Tutto
è deserto … Un soave non so che’;
‘Nacqui all’affanno’
Gioachino Rossini
Guillaume Tell – Sinfonia
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Il crociato in Egitto – ’Popoli
dell’Egitto … Queste destre l’acciaro’
Gaetano Donizetti
L’elisir d’amore – ‘Come Paride
vezzoso’; ‘Una furtiva lagrima’;
‘Venti scudi’
Stefano Donaudy
O del mio amato ben; Quand’
il tuo diavol nacque; Vaghissima
sembianza
George Frideric Handel
Semele – ‘Where’er you walk’;
‘I must with speed amuse her’
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Les Huguenots – ‘Plus blanche
que la blanche hermine’
Giuseppe Verdi
Jérusalem – ‘Je veux encore
entendre ta voix’
A rare opportunity to hear this great
tenor teaching some of today’s
young singers
interval 20 minutes
interval 20 minutes
Léo Delibes
Lakmé – ‘Prendre le dessin’
Charles Gounod
Roméo et Juliette – ‘Je veux vivre’
Vincenzo Bellini
I Capuleti ed i Montecchi –
‘Se Romeo’
Giuseppe Verdi
I vespri siciliani – Sinfonia
Rigoletto – ‘Giovanna, ho dei rimorsi
… È il sol dell’anima’; ‘Ella mi fu
rapita! … Parmi veder le lagrime’;
‘Un dì … bella figlia’
Paolo Tosti
Ideale; Vorrei morire!; Parted; L’alba
sepàra dalla luce l’ombra
Pablo Luna
La pícara molinera – ‘Paxarín,
tú que vuelas’
Jacinto Guerrero
Los gavilanes – ‘Flor roja’
José Serrano Simeón
El trust de los tenorios – ‘Te quiero,
morena’ (Jota)
Gaetano Donizetti
Roberto Devereux – ‘Come uno
spirto angelico’
2
Juan Diego Flórez tenor
Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano
Julia Novikova soprano
Marco Caria baritone
London Symphony Orchestra
Karel Mark Chichon conductor
Juan Diego Flórez tenor
Vincenzo Scalera piano
3–3.30pm Laura Ruhi Vidal soprano
3.30–4pm Dominic Felix tenor
interval 20 minutes
4.20–4.50pm Alessandro Fisher tenor
4.50–5.20pm Joshua Owen Mills
tenor
Juan Diego Flórez & Friends
21 April
Sunday 21 April
Juan Diego Flórez tenor
Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano
Julia Novikova soprano
Marco Caria baritone
London Symphony Orchestra
Karel Mark Chichon conductor
It was 1824, and Stendhal’s
‘conqueror’ was Gioachino Rossini
– already the composer of over 30
operas, and now, at just 32, the new
director of Paris’s Théâtre-Italien.
When, with Guillaume Tell, Rossini
retired from operatic composition at
the age of just 37, he was probably
the wealthiest composer in the
history of music. And when he died
in 1868, after a long retirement
filled with lavish dinner parties and
brilliant conversation, he was worth
over 2.5 million francs. A musical
conqueror for a democratic century:
opera had become big business.
Rossini was only the vanguard of
a whole invading army. Bellini,
Donizetti, Meyerbeer and Verdi
all followed him to Paris, and
even the young Richard Wagner
spent a wretched three years
there – miserably arranging other
composers’ hits into mass-market
cornet solos. (The inventor of
the Gesamtkunstwerk was later
forced to insert a ballet into his
opera Tannhäuser thanks to the
demands of the Paris audience.)
But the invasion started in Italy.
Rossini composed La Cenerentola
in 1817 for the Teatro Valle in
Rome and, like all his operas, it
was tailored exactly to its theatre.
You know the story; we all do – it’s
Cinderella. Well, nearly. Roman
censors considered the sight of a
lady’s bare foot to be indecent, so
out went the glass slipper. Rossini
didn’t trust the Teatro Valle’s special
effects team, so out went pumpkin
coaches and fairy godmothers too.
‘Delight must be the main basis
of this art’, he wrote, years later.
‘Simple melody – clear rhythm!’
Still, it takes a lot of craft to write
a ‘simple melody’ as sophisticated
as ‘Tutto è deserto’ – as the
downtrodden Cenerentola and
an incognito Prince Ramiro meet
for the first time and feel an
instant connection. Or to round
off a story – however silly – as
brilliantly and touchingly as Rossini
does with Cinders’s spectacular
closing aria ‘Nacqui all’affanno’.
First, though, Rossini cooked up a
fizzing, deliciously witty Overture
for a cut-price pit orchestra
with only one trombone.
In Paris, though, it was a different
story – and in 1829, with the musical
world at his feet (and an unlimited
budget) he let his gourmet instincts
run free. In the 12-minute overture
to Guillaume Tell, he gives us a
mouthwatering variety of musical
flavours. Certainly, few overtures
open with such poetry, as six cellos
in close harmony paint a serene
mountain sunrise. Basses darken
the skies; woodwinds flee for cover
as an Alpine storm breaks; and as
the final rumbles of thunder recede,
the scene shifts to the meadows,
where a shepherd (cor anglais),
is piping a gentle song. Then,
suddenly, in come the trumpets for
the victorious closing galop, the most
famous – and most exhilarating –
three minutes of music Rossini ever
wrote. That’s one way to retire!
Rossini might have left the stage, but
his successor was already in Paris.
Giacomo Meyerbeer was born
Jakob Meyer Beer in Berlin, but he
quickly realised that the operatic
road to Paris lay through Italy. By
1829 he was in the French capital
and working on his breakthrough
hit Robert le Diable – a spectacular,
five-act grand opera modelled
directly on Guillaume Tell.
Il crociato in Egitto (‘The Crusader
in Egypt’), premiered at Venice’s
La Fenice in 1824, was the opera
that won Meyerbeer that first Paris
commission. It had all the features
of his later successes: an exotic
setting, a noble but tormented hero,
secret identities and lavish effects
(the onstage band alone included
eight trumpets and a serpent).
Plus – as this aria demonstrates
– glorious bel canto melody by
the yard. Meyerbeer played the
Italians at their own game and
for the next half-century was the
undisputed master of Parisian grand
opera at its absolute grandest.
Like Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti
rose from a humble background,
and like Rossini, he crammed a
breathtaking amount of work into
a short career, eventually writing
some 65 stage works before his
early death at the age of 50.
Operas such as Il borgomastro di
Saardam and Gemma di Vergy
aren’t heard much today (though
Emilia di Liverpool was revived
in that city in 2008, leaving local
audiences thoroughly bemused by
3
‘Napoleon is dead, but a new
conqueror has already shown
himself to the world; and from
Moscow to Naples, from
London to Vienna, from Paris to
Calcutta, his name is constantly
on every tongue. The fame of
this hero knows no bounds save
those of civilisation itself.’
such characters as ‘Claudio, Count
of Liverpool’). ‘A father loves his
weakest children best’, lamented
Donizetti. ‘And I have so many.’
But L’elisir d’amore (‘The Love
Potion’) entered the international
repertoire on the night of its
premiere: 12 May 1832, in Milan. It’s
still there today. And that’s not just
down to Nemorino’s indelible mocktragic aria ‘Una furtiva lagrima’,
because this sunniest of romantic
comedies positively sparkles with
melody – from ‘Come Paride
vezzoso’, the swaggering entrance
number (complete with martial
drum) for the ladykilling Sergeant
Belcore, to the deftly characterised
tragi-comic duet ‘Venti scudi’ in
which Belcore suavely manoeuvres
his all-too-credulous rival Nemorino
into enlisting in the army.
Military honour was often a useful
get-out in 19th-century opera. When,
in Bizet’s Carmen (1875), Don José
deserted the ranks for a shameless
gypsy girl, the Paris audience
was scandalised and the opera
flopped. The British officer Gérald
in Delibes’s Lakmé (1883) behaves
far more respectably, returning to
the colours when prompted and
leaving his heartbroken Indian lover
Lakmé to kill herself – as we expect
from a good operatic heroine.
That was more like it. Lakmé was
an immediate success and even
today this gorgeously sensuous
score deserves to be known
for more than just the ravishing
‘Bell Song’. Gérald’s ‘Prendre le
dessin’ – as, gazing at a sketch
of an Indian maiden’s jewels,
he feels the inexorable (though
obviously not that inexorable) call
of destiny – shows how a later
generation of French composers
had learned to create their own,
very Gallic brand of bel canto.
4
Certainly, it’s hard to imagine
anything more deliriously Gallic
than ‘Je veux vivre’, the glittering
coloratura waltz-song, as fizzy
as Veuve Clicquot, that Charles
Gounod gave to the heroine of
his 1867 opera Roméo et Juliette.
Yes, seriously: Romeo and Juliet.
‘Musical ideas sprang to my mind
like a flight of butterflies and all
I had to do was to stretch out my
hand to catch them’, commented
Gounod. English-speaking
audiences may not have pictured
Shakespeare’s tragic heroine as a
coquettish Parisian party-girl, but
Gounod’s prima donna, Marie
Miolan-Carvalho, knew what she
wanted, and the audience loved it.
opera in the best Meyerbeer manner,
but Verdi’s national pride was
insulted by the plot – a melodramatic
re-telling of a 13th-century massacre
of Frenchmen by Italians. Still, Verdi
– ever the professional – excelled his
brief, and rang up the curtain with
one of his most stirring overtures. He
even got his own back on the French.
The lyrical, gloriously hummable
big tune, first played by the cellos,
was recycled from his 1845 opera
about a great French national
hero, Joan of Arc. In I vespri siciliani
it’s given to an Italian patriot.
And as an expression of youthful
high spirits, what’s not to love?
Gounod’s take on Shakespeare
was at least more faithful than
Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi
(1830). Hector Berlioz caught it in
Florence in 1831 and was shocked
to see ‘no ball at the Capulets’,
no Mercutio, no garrulous Nurse,
no grave and tranquil hermit, no
balcony scene, no sublime soliloquy
for Juliet as she drinks the potion
… no Shakespeare, nothing’.
With the right libretto, though,
Verdi could conquer more than
just Italy, and more than just Paris.
Rigoletto (1851) went around the
world. Victor Hugo’s play Le roi
s’amuse was banned in France in
1832 and the first draft of a libretto
based upon it (and which, after
some tactful alterations, became
Rigoletto) was banned by the
censors in Venice in 1850, too (they
cited its ‘revolting immorality and
obscene triviality’). The final result
… well, it hardly needs introduction.
Every opera lover shares Gilda’s
helplessness before the seductive
wiles of the Duke of Mantua (‘È il sol
dell’anima’), knows exactly how far
to trust the Duke’s crocodile tears
(‘Parmi veder le lagrime’) and feels
their heart quicken to Verdi’s great
quartet ‘Bella figlia dell’amore’.
Oh, and no something else, too:
Bellini wrote the role of Romeo
for a woman. The contralto aria
‘Se Romeo’ is actually sung by
Shakespeare’s greatest romantic
hero. Berlioz, disgusted, went
on to write his own Roméo et
Juliette; though if Bellini’s opera
convinced at least one Frenchman
that he could do a better job than
the Italians, the Paris audience
disagreed. With the great mezzo
Maria Malibran in a fetching pair
of breeches, I Capuleti was the hit
of the season when Rossini staged
it at the Théâtre-Italien in 1832.
Even a generation later, no ambitious
Italian opera composer could afford
to ignore French taste. Verdi’s I
vespri siciliani began life as Les
vêpres siciliennes, commissioned by
the Paris Opéra for the 1855 Paris
Exposition Universelle to a libretto
by Meyerbeer’s French collaborator
Eugène Scribe. They wanted a grand
When Rigoletto reached Paris
in January 1857, it ran for a
phenomenal 100 performances,
and was seen (with distinctly mixed
feelings) by Victor Hugo himself.
Le roi s’amuse was still banned:
it wouldn’t be produced in Paris
until 1882 (for which Delibes wrote
incidental music). But even Hugo
had to concede Verdi’s triumph. ‘If
I could only make four characters
in my plays speak at the same
time, and have the audience grasp
the words and emotions, I would
obtain the very same effect.’
Programme note © Richard Bratby
21 April
Texts & translations
Tutto è deserto … Un soave non se che
Ramiro
Tutto è deserto. Amici?
Nessun risponde. In questa
Simulata sembianza
Le belle osserverò. Né viene alcuno?
Eppur mi diè speranza
Il sapiente Alidoro,
Che qui, saggia e vezzosa,
Degna di me trovar saprò la sposa.
Sposarsi … e non amar! Legge tiranna,
Che nel fior de’ miei giorni
Alla difficil scelta mi condanna.
Cerchiam, vediamo.
There’s no-one to be seen. My friends?
No reply. Hidden behind
this disguise of mine
I shall observe these beauties. Is no-one coming?
And yet wise old Alidoro
gave me cause for hope
that here I might find
a worthy bride, a girl of wit and charm.
The idea of marriage … without love! A cruel law
condemns me to this difficult choice
in the flower of my youth.
Let’s take a look, let’s see.
Cinderella Una volta c’era …
Ah! è fatta
Once upon a time there was …
Ah! now I’m done for.
Ramiro Cos’è?
What’s wrong?
Cinderella Che batticuore!
You gave me such a shock!
Ramiro Forse un mostro son io!
Do you think I’m a monster!
Cinderella Sì … no, signore.
Yes … no, sir.
Ramiro Un soave non so che In quegl’occhi scintillò!
(A certain soft light
shines in her eyes!)
Cinderella (Io vorrei saper perché Il mio cor mi palpitò?)
(I wish I knew why
my heart was pounding so.)
Ramiro (Le direi … ma non ardisco.)
(I’d tell her why … but I dare not.)
Cinderella (Parlar voglio, e taccio intanto.)
(I want to speak, but can’t say a word.)
Cinderella and Ramiro (Una grazia, un certo incanto Par che brilli su quel viso! Quanto caro è quel sorriso. Scende all’alma e fa sperar.)
(There’s a grace, a special charm
that lights up his/her face!
How lovely his/her smile. It’s entered my heart and given me hope.)
5
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)
La Cenerentola
6
Ramiro Del Baron le figlie io chiedo Dove son? qui non le vedo.
I was looking for the baron’s daughters.
Where are they? I can’t see them here.
Cinderella Stan di là nell’altre stanze. Or verranno. (Addio speranze.)
They’re in the other rooms.
They’ll be here any moment. (Farewell to my hopes.)
Ramiro
Ma di grazia, voi chi siete?
But tell me, please, who are you?
Cinderella Io chi sono? Eh! non lo so.
Who am I? Well, I don’t know.
Ramiro Nol sapete?
You don’t know who you are?
Cinderella Quasi no.
Quel ch’è padre, non è padre …
Onde poi le due sorelle … Era vedova mia madre … Ma fu madre ancor di quelle … Questo padre pien d’orgoglio … Sta’ a vedere che m’imbroglio? Deh! scusate, perdonate Alla mia semplicità.
Not really.
My father isn’t really my father …
So then my two sisters …
My mother was a widow …
But she became their mother too …
This father, a man full of pride …
You see how I’m in a tangle?
Ah! I’m sorry, forgive
my simple ways.
Ramiro (Mi seduce, m’innamora Quella sua semplicità.)
(Those simple ways of hers
are seducing me, stealing my heart.)
Quante voci! che cos’è?
I hear voices! What is it?
Cinderella A ponente ed a levante, A scirocco e a tramontana, Non ho calma un solo istante,
Tutto tutto tocca a me.
Vengo, vengo. Addio, signore. (Ah ci lascio proprio il core Questo cor più mio non è.)
No matter whether the wind’s blowing
from east or west, north or south,
I never have a moment’s peace,
every single task is left to me.
I’m coming, I’m coming. Farewell, my lord.
(Ah! but I’m leaving my heart behind.
My heart’s no longer my own.)
Ramiro
(Quell’accento, quel sembiante È una cosa sovrumana. Io mi perdo in quest’istante Già più me non trovo in me.
(Her voice, her face,
are those of an angel. I’m lost, this very instant,
I don’t know who I am any more.
Che innocenza! che candore! Ah! m’invola proprio il core! Questo cor più mio non è.)
What innocence! What purity! Ah! she’s stolen my heart from me!
My heart’s no longer my own.)
Nacqui all’affanno
Cinderella
Nacqui all’affanno e al pianto,
Soffrì tacendo il core;
Ma per soave incanto
Dell’età mia nel fiore,
Come un baleno rapido
La sorte mia, la sorte mia cangiò.
No, no! tergete il ciglio:
I was born to grieve and weep,
bearing my heart’s pain in silence;
yet by some sweet enchantment
of my youthful years,
like a flash of lightning
my fate suddenly changed.
No, no! dry your eyes:
why are you afraid?
Fly to my breast,
daughter, sister, friend,
all of these shall I be to you.
Father, husband, friend, oh happy moment!
No longer shall I sit sadly singing,
alone by the fire, no!
Ah, my long years of sorrow
were but a flash, a dream, a game.
21 April
Perché tremar, perché?
A questo sen volate,
Figlia, sorella, amica,
Tutto, tutto, tutto, tutto trovate in me.
Padre, sposo, amico, oh istante!
Non più mesta accanto al fuoco
Starò sola a gorgheggiar, no!
Ah, fu un lampo, un sogno, un gioco
Il mio lungo palpitar.
Popoli dell’Egitto … Queste destre l’acciaro
Adriano
Popoli dell’Egitto,
Valorosi guerrieri,
Sul Nilo ecco di Rodi i Cavalieri
Non più vostri nemici.
Pace vengono a offrir – eccone il pegno.
People of Egypt,
Valiant warriors,
Behold the Knights of Rhodes on the Nile
No longer your enemies. They have come
To offer peace. Here is the pledge.
Pace io reco, a noi più grata
Delle palme di vittoria.
E la patria consolata
Lieta omai respirerà.
Ben più cara d’ogni gloria
È la sua felicità.
Peace I bring, more welcome to us all
Than the palms of victory.
And the comforted homeland
Will at last breathe happily.
For more cherished than any glory
Is happiness.
Queste destre l’acciaro di morte
Contro voi già brandiro tremende:
Già di Marte fra l’aspre vicende
Dividemmo le palme, gli allor.
Questa destra amistade vi stende:
Della pace all’invito si ceda.
Agli orrori la calma succeda,
E di Marte omai cessi il furor.
These terrifying hands once wielded
the sword of death against you.
In harsh fortunes of war, palms and laurels
were equally divided.
This hand now proffers friendship:
yield to the offer of peace.
Let serenity follow the horrors,
and Mars finally quell his fury.
Palpitò dolente sposa
Del consorte al fier periglio:
E tremò pel caro figlio
Mesta madre nel timor.
Bella pace renda omai
Sposa, e figlio al sen d’amor.
Geme ancora, e freme il core
Al pensier di tanti orror.
The unhappy wife trembled
at the dire peril of her husband:
and the mournful mother trembled
with fears for her dear son.
May wonderful peace now restore
wife and son to the loving breast.
The heart still laments and
shudders at the thought of such horror.
Rassicurata dai suoi timori,
Non più turbata da tanti orrori
La terra omai respirerà.
Vedrà rinascere quei dì felici,
Che uniano i popoli in nodi amici
Pace, concordia, e fedeltà.
Da suoi timori, da tanti orrori
Lieta la terra respirerà.
Reassured from its fear,
no longer troubled by such horrors
the land will breathe again.
It will see the return of those happy days
when people were joined in friendly unions
of peace, harmony and loyalty.
Free from such fears, from such horrors
The land will breathe happily once more.
7
Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864)
Il crociato in Egitto
8
Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)
L’elisir d’amore
Come Paride vezzoso
Belcore
Come Paride vezzoso
Porse il pomo alla più bella,
Mia diletta villanella,
Io ti porgo questi fior.
Ma di lui più glorioso,
Più di lui felice io sono,
Poiché in premio del mio dono
Ne riporto il tuo bel cor.
Just as handsome Paris
awarded his apple to the fairest,
my pretty village girl,
I present you with these flowers.
Yet prouder than he am I,
happier than he am I,
for in return for my gift,
I shall have your fair heart.
Veggo chiaro in quel visino
Ch’io fo breccia nel tuo petto.
Non è cosa sorprendente;
Son galante, e son sargente.
Non v’ha bella che resista
Alla vista d’un cimiero,
Cede a Marte, Dio guerriero,
Fin la madre dell’Amor.
I can see clearly from your pretty face
that I’ve found the way to your heart.
It’s hardly surprising;
I have charm, and I’m a sergeant.
No woman alive can resist
a military man;
even Venus, mother of Cupid,
fell for Mars, the god of war.
Una furtiva lagrima
Nemorino
Una furtiva lagrima
Negl’occhi suoi spuntò:
Quelle festose giovani
Invidiar sembrò.
Che più cercando io vo’?
M’ama, sì, m’ama,
Lo vedo, lo vedo.
Un solo istante i palpiti
Del suo bel cor sentir!
I miei sospir confondere
Per poco a’ suoi sospir!
Cielo, si può morir;
Di più non chiedo,
Si può morir d’amor.
A single furtive tear
welled up in her eyes:
She seemed jealous
of those carefree girls.
What more could I wish for?
She loves me, yes, she loves me,
I can see, I can see she does.
To feel her dear heart beating
just for a moment!
To mingle my sighs
for an instant with hers!
Heaven, then I’ll die happy;
I’ll ask for nothing more,
I’ll happily die of love.
Venti scudi
Nemorino
Venti scudi!
Twenty scudi!
Belcore
E ben sonanti.
In cold hard cash.
Nemorino
Quando? Adesso?
When? Now?
Belcore
Sul momento.
This very instant.
Nemorino
(Che far deggio?)
(What shall I do?)
Belcore
E coi contanti,
Gloria e onare al reggimento.
And as well as the money
you’ll get your share of regimental glory and honour.
Belcore
Se è I’amore, in guarnigione
Non ti può mancare amor!
If it’s love you’re after, you’ll find no shortage
of that in the garrison!
Nemorino
Ah, non, Ah, no, Ah!
(Ai perigli della guerra
Io so ben che esposto sono.)
Ah, no, ah, no, ah!
(I know all too well
I’ll have to face the dangers of war …)
Belcore
Venti scudi! …
Twenty scudi! …
Nemorino
(Che domani la patria terra,
Zio, congiunti, ahimè, abbandono.)
(… that tomorrow I’ll be leaving, alas,
my homeland, my uncle, my family.)
Belcore
… E ben sonanti.
… in cold hard cash.
Nemorino
(Ma so pur che fuor di questa,
Altra strada a me non resta
Per poter del cor d’Adina
Solo un giorno trionfar.)
(But I know too that
it’s now the only choice I have
if one day I’m to have the chance
to win Adina’s heart.)
Belcore
Del tamburo al suon vivace,
Tra le file e le bandiere.
Aggirarsi Amor si piace
Con le vispe vivandiere.
Cupid loves to wander among
the pretty vivandières,
behind the ranks who bear the colours,
to the lively beat of the drum.
Nemorino
(Ah! chi un giorno ottiene Adina,
Sì, la vita, sì, la vita può lasciar.)
(Ah! the man who one day wins Adina
can willingly give up his life.)
Belcore
Sempre lieto, sempre gaio,
Ha di belle un centinaio,
Di costanza non si annoia,
Non si perde a sospirar.
Credi a me, la vera gioia
Accompagna il militar.
Always happy and carefree,
he has a hundred pretty girls,
he doesn’t get bored with fidelity,
doesn’t waste his time on lovesick sighs.
Believe me, the soldier leads
a life of true happiness.
Nemorino
Venti scudi!
Twenty scudi!
Belcore
Su due piedi.
On the spot.
Nemorino
Ebben, vada.
Li prepara.
Very well, so be it.
Give me the money.
Belcore
Ma la carta che tu vedi
pria di tutto dêi segnar.
Qua una croce.
Belcore
But first you have to sign
this piece of paper.
Put your mark here.
21 April
Ah! it’s not ambition
that’s tempting my heart.
9
Nemorino
Ah! non è, non è ambizione,
Che seduce questo cor.
Nemorino
(Dulcamara volo tosto a ricercar.)
(Now I’ll run and find Dulcamara.)
Belcore
Qua la mano, giovinotto,
Dell’acquisto mi consolo:
In complesso, sopra e sotto,
Tu mi sembri un buon figliuolo.
Sarai presto caporale,
Se me prendi ad esemplar, sì.
(Ho ingaggiato il mio rivale.
Anche questa è da contar.)
Give me your hand, young man,
I’m pleased with my new recruit:
by and large, all things considered,
you seem a fine young man to me.
And, if you follow my example,
you’ll soon be a corporal, oh yes.
(I’ve signed up my rival,
and that’s all to the good as well.)
Nemorino
Ah! non sai chi m’ha ridotto
A tal passo, a tal partito:
Tu non sai qual cor sta sotto
A sì semplice vestito!
Ah! you don’t know who’s brought
me to this point, to this decision:
you don’t know what kind of heart
beats beneath this humble exterior!
Belcore
Sempre lieto, sempre gaio
Non si perde a sospirar.
Ha di belle un centinaio,
Non si perde a sospirar.
Always happy and carefree,
he doesn’t waste his time on lovesick sighs.
He has a hundred pretty girls,
he doesn’t waste his time on lovesick sighs.
Nemorino
Quel che a me tal somma vale
Non potresti immaginar.
(Ah, non v’ha tesoro eguale
Se riesce a farmi amar.)
You could never imagine
what this money means to me.
(Ah, if it brings me love,
it’s treasure beyond compare.)
interval: 20 minutes
10
Léo Delibes (1836–91)
Lakmé
Prendre le dessin
Gérald
Prendre le dessin d’un bijou,
Est-ce donc aussi grave?
Ah! Frédéric est fou!
Mais d’où vient maintenant cette crainte insensée?
Quel sentiment surnaturel
A troublé ma pensée
Devant ce calme solennel!
Fille de mon caprice,
L’inconnue est devant mes yeux!
Sa voix à mon oreille glisse
Des mots mystérieux.
Non! Non!
Could there really be anything wrong
in my sketching these jewels?
Ah, Frédéric is mad!
And yet, whence comes now this nameless fear?
What unearthly feeling
is clouding my thoughts
amid this calm and solemn scene?
An unknown woman,
the girl of my dreams, stands before my eyes!
Into my ear she whispers
words of mystery.
No! No!
Fantaisie aux divins mensonges,
tu reviens m’égarer encor.
Va, retourne au pays des songes,
O fantaisie aux ailes d’or!
Va! Va! Retourne au pays des songes,
O fantaisie aux ailes d’or!
Au bras poli de la païenne
Cette annelet dut s’enlacer.
Elle tiendrait toute en la mienne,
Fantasy of heavenly lies,
you have come to mislead me once more.
Go, back to the land of dreams,
O fantasy with wings of gold!
Go! Go! Back to the land of dreams,
O fantasy with wings of gold!
This little bracelet must have enclosed
the burnished arm of the Indian girl.
The only hand small enough to pass through it
would be entirely enclosed by mine.
This golden ring,
so I imagine,
has followed the tripping steps
of tiny feet that tread only
on moss and flowers.
And this necklace still redolent of her perfume,
still bathed in the fragrance of her body,
has felt the beat of her faithful heart,
quivering at the name of her beloved.
No! No! Run!
Flee, idle fancies,
passing dreams
which addle my wits.
Fantasy of heavenly lies,
you have come to mislead me once more.
Go, back to the land of dreams,
O fantasy with wings of gold!
21 April
La main qui seule y peut passer.
Ce cercle d’or
Je le suppose,
A suivi les pas voyageurs
D’un petit pied qui ne se pose
Que sur la mousse ou sur les fleurs.
Et ce collier encor parfumé d’elle,
De sa personne encor tout embaumé,
A pu sentir battre son coeur fidèle,
tout tressaillant au nom du bien-aimé.
Non! Non! Fuyez!
Fuyez, chimères,
Rêves éphémères
Qui troublez ma raison.
Fantaisie aux divins mensonges,
Tu reviens m’égarer encor.
Va, retourne au pays des songes,
O fantaisie aux ailes d’or.
Charles Gounod (1818–93)
Roméo et Juliette
Ah! I want to live
in the dream which intoxicates me
for this one day yet!
Sweet flame,
I keep you in my soul
like a treasure!
This intoxication
of youth,
alas, only lasts a day,
then comes the hour
when one weeps,
the heart yields to love,
and happiness flees, never to return!
Ah! I want to live
in this dream which intoxicates me
for a long time to come!
Sweet flame,
I keep you in my soul
Like a treasure!
Far from the sullen winter,
let me sleep,
and breathe in the rose’s scent
before scattering its petals.
Ah! Sweet flame,
stay in my soul
like a cherished treasure
for a long time to come!
Ah! Like a treasure
for a long time to come!
11
Je veux vivre
Juliette
Ah! Je veux vivre
Dans le rêve que m’enivre
Ce jour encor!
Douce flamme,
Je te garde dans mon âme
Comme un trésor!
Cette ivresse
De jeunesse
Ne dure hélas! qu’un jour,
Puis vient l’heure
Où l’on pleure,
Le coeur cède à l’amour,
Et le bonheur fuit sans retour!
Ah! Je veux vivre
Dans ce rêve que m’enivre
Longtemps encor!
Douce flamme,
Je te garde dans mon âme
Comme un trésor!
Loin de l’hiver morose,
Laisse-moi sommeiller,
Et respirer la rose
Avant de l’effeuiller.
Ah! Douce flamme,
Reste dans mon âme
Comme un doux trésor
Longtemps encor!
Ah! Comme un trésor
Longtemps encor!
Vincenzo Bellini (1801–35)
I Capuleti ed i Montecchi
Se Romeo
Romeo
Se Romeo t’uccise un figlio,
In battaglia a lui diè morte;
Incolpar ne dêi la sorte;
Ei ne pianse e piange ancor.
Deh! ti placa, e un altro figlio
Troverai nel mio signor.
Though Romeo killed your son,
he dealt the blow in battle;
’tis fate you must blame;
Romeo wept for it, and weeps for it still.
Ah, quell your anger, and you will find
another son in my lord and master.
La tremenda ultrice spada
A brandir Romeo si appresta:
Come folgore funesta,
Mille morti apporterà.
Ma vi accusi al cielo irato
Tanto sangue invan versato;
Ma su voi ricada il pianto
Che alla patria costerà.
Romeo is readying himself
to brandish the powerful sword of vengeance:
like a deadly bolt of lightning
he will deal a thousand deaths.
But let wrathful heaven hold you responsible
for such vain and dreadful bloodshed;
on your head be the grief
that it will bring our people.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
Rigoletto
Giovanna, ho dei rimorsi … È il sol dell’anima
Gilda
Giovanna, ho dei rimorsi …
Giovanna, I’m ashamed …
Giovanna
E perché mai?
Ashamed? why’s that?
12
Gilda
Tacqui che un giovin ne seguiva al tempio.
I didn’t tell my father about the young
man who followed us to church.
Giovanna
Perché ciò dirgli? L’odiate dunque
Cotesto giovin voi?
Why would you? Do you dislike
the young man?
Gilda
No, no ché troppo è bello e spira amore …
No, no, he’s so handsome, and makes me think of love …
Giovanna
E magnanimo sembra un gran signore.
He seems generous too, a real gentleman.
Gilda
Signor né principe io lo vorrei;
Sento che povero più l’amerei.
Sognando o vigile sempre lo chiamo,
E l’alma in estasi gli dice: t’a …
I’d rather he wasn’t a gentleman or a prince;
I think I’d love him more if he were a poor man.
Awake or dreaming, I call out to him again and again,
and my heart in ecstasy tells him: I love …
Duke
T’amo!
T’amo; ripetilo sì caro accento;
Un puro schiudimi ciel contento!
I love you!
I love you; say those dear words once more;
open up a heaven of sheer joy to me!
Gilda
Giovanna? … Ahi, miseria! Non v’è più alcuno
Che qui rispondami! … Oh Dio … nessuno?
Giovanna? … Alas! There’s no one here now
to answer me! … O God … is no one here?
Gilda
Chi mai, chi giunger vi fece a me?
But who, who led you here to me?
Duke
S’angelo o demone, che importa a te?
Io t’amo …
Whether it was an angel or a demon, what do you care?
I love you …
Gilda
Uscitene.
You must leave.
Duke
Uscire! … Adesso! …
Ora che accendene un fuoco istesso!
Ah, insparabile d’amore il Dio
Stringeva, o vergine, tuo fato al mio!
È il sol dell’anima, la vita è amore,
Sua voce è il palpito, del nostro core …
E fama e gloria, potenza e trono,
Terrene, fragili cose qui sono.
Una pur avvenne sola, divina:
È amor che agli angeli più ne avvicina!
Adunque amiamoci, donna celeste;
D’invidia agli uomini sarò per te.
Leave! … Now! …
Now that a single flame has set both of us ablaze!
Ah, the god of love, o innocent girl, has joined
your fate to mine in an everlasting bond!
Love is the sun of our souls, it’s life itself,
its voice is the beating of our hearts …
and fame and glory, power and dominion
are earthly, fragile concerns, here below.
One thing alone is unique and divine:
love, which lifts us closer to the angels!
So let us fall in love, o heavenly woman;
you will make me the envy of all men.
Gilda
Ah, de’ miei vergini sogni son queste
Le voci tenere sì care a me!
Ah, these are the tender words so dear to me
that have filled my maiden dreams!
Ella mi fu rapita! … Parmi veder le lagrime
Duke
Ella mi fu rapita!
E quando, O ciel! … Ne’ brevi
Istanti pria che il mio presagio interno
Sull’orma corsa ancora mi spingesse!
Schiuso era l’uscio! La magion deserta!
E dove ora sarà quell’angiol caro?
Colei che potè prima in questo core
Destra la fiamma di costanti affetti?
Colei, sì pura, al cui modesto sguardo
Quasi spinto a virtù talor mi credo!
Ella mi fu rapita!
E chi l’ardiva? … ma ne avrò vendetta …
Lo chiede il piano della mia diletta.
Parmi veder le lagrime
Scorrenti da quel ciglio,
Quando fra il dubbio e l’ansia
Del sùbito periglio,
Dell’amor nostro memore
Il suo Gualtier chiamò.
Né ei potea soccorrerti,
Cara fanciulla amata;
Ei vorria coll’anima
Farti quaggiù beata;
Ei che le sfere agli angeli
Per te non invidiò.
She has been stolen from me!
But when, o heaven? … In those brief
moments before some ominous sense
spurred me to run back to her side!
The door lay open! The house was deserted!
And where can my beloved angel be now?
She who was the first to light the flame
of constant love within my heart?
She, so pure, in the light of whose modest gaze
I almost believed myself turned to virtue!
She has been stolen from me!
Who dared do this? … I shall have my revenge …
The weeping of my beloved demands it.
I seem to see the tears
flowing from her eyes
when, fearful and distraught,
facing sudden danger,
thinking of our love,
she called out to her Gualtiero.
But he could not save you,
dear, beloved girl;
he who desired with all his heart
to bring you earthly blessings;
he who because of you
envied not the angelic spheres.
21 April
I am here to answer you with my heart …
Ah, two people in love are a world in themselves! …
13
Duke
Son io coll’anima, che ti rispondo …
Ah, due che s’amano, son tutto un mondo! …
14
Un di … Bella figlia
Duke
Un dì, se ben rammentomi,
O bella, t’incontrai …
Mi piacque di te chiedere
E intesi che qui stai.
Or sappi che d’allora
Sol te quest’alma adora.
One day, if I remember well,
I met you, my beauty …
I made sure to ask about you,
and learned that you live here.
Now I need you to know that, ever since,
this heart has loved you alone.
Maddalena
Ah! … ah! … e vent’altre appresso
Le scorda forse adesso?
Ha un’aria il signorino
Da vero libertino
Ha! … ha! … and twenty other girls
who’ve perhaps slipped your mind?
You, fine sir, have
the air of a libertine.
Duke
Si …un mostro son …
Yes … I’m a monster …
Maddalena
Lasciatemi, Stordito.
Leave me alone, you drunkard.
Duke
Ih che fracasso!
Hey, what a fuss!
Maddalena
Stia saggio.
Behave yourself.
Duke
E tu sii docile,
Non farmi tanto chiasso.
Ogni saggezza chiudesi
Nel guadio e nell’amore.
La bella mano candida!
And you, be a good girl,
don’t give me such a hard time.
All good sense lies
in love and making merry.
How white and pretty your hand is!
Maddalena
Scherzate, voi signore.
You’re making fun of me, sir.
Duke
No, no.
No, no.
Maddalena
Son brutta.
I’m ugly.
Duke
Abbracciamo.
Give me a kiss.
Maddalena
Ebbro! …
You’re drunk! …
Duke
D’amore ardente.
On the passion of love!
Maddalena
Signor, l’indifferente
Vi piace canzonar?
Cold-hearted man,
do you enjoy such mockery?
Duke
No, no, ti vo’ sposar …
No, no, I want to marry you …
Maddalena
Ne voglio la parola …
I want your word of honour …
My trusting little girl!
Rigoletto
E non ti basta ancor? …
Do you need to hear more? …
Gilda
Iniquo traditor!
The faithless villain!
Duke
Bella figlia dell’amore,
Schiavo son de’ vezzi tuoi;
Con un detto sol tu puoi
Le mie pene consolar.
Vieni e senti del mio core
Il frequente palpitar.
Beautiful child of love,
I’m a slave to your charms;
you can soothe my woes
with a single word.
Come and feel how
my heart is pounding.
Maddalena
Ah! ah! Rido ben di core,
Ché tai baie costan poco;
Quanto valga il vostro gioco,
Mel credete, so apprezzar.
Sono avvezza, bel signore,
Ad un simile scherzar.
Ha, ha! Such foolish words
are cheap and make me laugh;
believe me, I know exactly
what game you’re playing.
I’m quite used, fine sir,
to this kind of nonsense.
Gilda
Ah, così parlar d’amore
A me pur l’infame ho udito!
Infelice cor tradito,
Per angoscia non scoppiar.
Perché, o credulo mio core,
Un tal uom dovevi amar?
Ah, the wicked man declared
his love for me in just this way!
Unhappy heart, now betrayed,
do not burst with sorrow.
Why, o credulous heart,
did you fall for a man such as this?
Rigoletto
Taci, il pianger non vale;
Ch’ei mentiva or sei sicura …
Taci, e mia sarà la cura
La vendetta d’affrettar.
Pronta fia, sarà fatale;
Io saprollo fulminar.
Hush, your tears will do no good;
now you know he was lying …
Hush, and leave it to me
to expedite our vengeance.
It shall be quick, and deadly;
I shall strike him down.
21 April
Duke
Amabile figliuola!
15
Translations © Susannah Howe except for that of
Il crociato in Egitto (by Gwyn Morris © Opera Rara)
Wednesday 24 April
Juan Diego Flórez in recital
Juan Diego Flórez tenor
Vincenzo Scalera piano
Stefano Donaudy (1879–1925)
O del mio amato ben
Quand’ il tuo diavol nacque
Vaghissima sembianza
16
Stefano Donaudy was born in
the Sicilian city of Palermo, the
son of a French father and an
Italian mother; after studying with
Guglielmo Zuelli, the director of the
Palermo Conservatory, he made
a living as a singing teacher and
accompanist to wealthy Sicilian
families. His compositions include
operas, most of them first produced
in Palermo but one premiered as
far away as Hamburg, a cantata
and some orchestral music. But he
is remembered today only for his
collection of 36 Arie di stile antico,
composed over many years (on
texts co-written with his brother
Alberto) but published together in
1918. These are songs (including
one canonic duet) labelled with
various historic subtitles such
as ‘frottola’, ‘madrigale’ and
‘villanella’, but all basically essays in
a melodious ‘olden style’ (perhaps
suggested by Alessandro Parisotti’s
anthologies of Arie antiche). The
general designation of ‘aria’ is
applied to the popular ‘O del mio
amato ben’ and to ‘Quand’ il tuo
diavol nacque’, with its hints of the
early Classical style of Pergolesi,
while the equally unspecific
appellation of ‘canzonetta’, or ‘little
song’, is attached to ‘Vaghissima
sembianza’, which Donaudy is said
to have written at the age of 13.
George Frideric Handel
(1685–1759)
Giacomo Meyerbeer
(1791–1864)
Semele – ‘Where’er you walk’;
‘I must with speed amuse her’
Les Huguenots – ‘Plus blanche
que la blanche hermine’
Handel dominated London musical
life for three decades as a composer
of Italian operas; and when opera
audiences declined he turned to
English oratorios, on sacred or
at least moral subjects. Semele
stands somewhere between the
two genres: it is an English opera,
first performed in concert format in
Handel’s 1744 oratorio season. The
text, adapted from a libretto written
at the beginning of the century by
the playwright William Congreve, is
based on a Greek legend about a
love affair between Jupiter, the chief
of the gods, and the beautiful mortal
Semele. Tonight’s two arias from
Act 2 both belong to the tenor role of
Jupiter, designed for one of Handel’s
favourite English singers, John
Beard. The gentle ‘Where’er you
walk’ (a setting of lines borrowed
from a poem by Alexander Pope) is
the god’s serenade to Semele when
he has conjured up an Arcadian
grove to enchant her; it is in the
A–B–A form of the operatic da capo
aria, which allows the singer to
demonstrate his skill and taste by
decorating the reprise. A little earlier
in the act, ‘I must with speed amuse
her’ is Jupiter’s reaction to Semele’s
discontent that he has not made her
immortal; again it is in da capo form,
with the outer sections including
some flashing runs on the word
‘explain’, to suggest the infatuated
god’s irritation at Semele’s volubility.
Meyerbeer, born and educated
in Germany but for much of his
life resident in Paris, dominated
Romantic opera to an extent now
obscured by his near-disappearance
from the repertoire. His four ‘grand
operas’ set a new standard for the
combination of vocal virtuosity and
expressiveness, colourful choral
and orchestral writing, ballet, acting
and staging in the telling of an epic
historical story. The most popular
of them was Les Huguenots, first
performed at the Paris Opéra in
1836. It is set in France in 1572,
and ends with the notorious
St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of
Protestant Huguenots by Catholic
activists. The leading Huguenot
character is the nobleman Raoul
de Nangis, a part sung in the first
production by the celebrated tenor
Adolphe Nourrit and treasured by
generations of his successors. His
first solo number is the Romance in
Act 1, on a text added to Eugène
Scribe’s initial libretto at the
composer’s behest by the poet Émile
Deschamps. In it, Raoul describes
how he has fallen in love with a
woman ‘whiter than the white
ermine’ whom he has rescued from
a group of molesting students, and
whose name he never discovered.
As it turns out, she is Valentine,
daughter of a Catholic nobleman
and fiancée of another, and the
love affair between the couple is to
form the heart of the opera’s plot.
The light-textured accompaniment
24 April
Duprez, famous for singing the high
Cs in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell as chest
notes; and Verdi here twice takes
his vocal line up to the same note.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
interval: 20 minutes
Jérusalem – ‘Je veux encore
entendre ta voix’
Verdi initially ventured onto the
hallowed ground of the Paris Opéra,
in the footsteps of Meyerbeer,
with Jérusalem, first performed
in November 1847. This was a
reworking of his I Lombardi alla
prima crociata of four years earlier,
with a new libretto by Alphonse
Royer and Gustave Vaëz which
retained the setting of the original in
Palestine during the First Crusade,
but completely overhauled the plot
and the musical treatment, and so
required the composition of much
new material. Verdi was enthusiastic
about the new version, arranging
for it to be translated in its turn into
Italian; and it was the opinion of the
great Verdi scholar Julian Budden
that ‘Jérusalem remains to anyone
but an Italian chauvinist the better
of the two operas’. The leading
tenor role is that of Gaston, Vicomte
de Béarn. In Act 2, he finds himself
imprisoned on a false charge in
the palace of the Emir of Ramla,
separated from his beloved Hélène,
who he knows has come to Palestine
in search of him. He sings about his
anguish in a recitative and arioso in
impeccable French style, then about
his hope of seeing Hélène again
in an aria of Italianate grace and
elegance. The part was originally
written for the French tenor Gilbert
Paolo Tosti (1846–1916)
Ideale; Vorrei morire!; Parted;
L’alba sepàra dalla luce l’ombra
Paolo Tosti was born in Ortona, on
the Abruzzo coast, and studied with
the veteran opera composer Saverio
Mercadante in Naples, the spiritual
home of Italian song-writing. He
gained his diploma as a violinist,
but his fluent piano playing and his
reportedly beautiful tenor voice won
him an entrée to the salons of Rome
and an appointment as singing
teacher to Princess Margherita of
Savoy, later to be Queen of Italy. In
1880 he moved to London, where
he became singing teacher to the
royal family and a professor at
the Royal Academy of Music. He
took British citizenship in 1906 and
was knighted two years later. He
died in retirement in Rome. Tosti’s
sentimental ballads were among
the most popular songs of his day,
and remained in circulation as sheet
music and on record for many years.
Of the four in this group, ‘Ideale’,
with its shimmering accompaniment
and telling vocal envoi, was first
published in 1882. ‘Vorrei morire!’,
with its bittersweet alternation of
minor and major, dates from 1878.
‘Parted’, which bears a publication
date of 1900, has English words
by Fred Weatherly, who provided
the texts for many of Tosti’s songs
and is best known for writing
the words of ‘Danny Boy’. The
Puccini-like ‘L’alba sepàra dalla
luce l’ombra’ is the second of a
set of four Canzoni d’Amaranta,
published in 1907, on poems by the
ultra-Romantic writer and political
activist Gabriele D’Annunzio.
Pablo Luna (1879–1942)
La pícara molinera –
‘Paxarín, tú que vuelas’
Jacinto Guerrero (1895–1951)
Los gavilanes – ‘Flor roja’
José Serrano (1873–1941)
El trust de los tenorios – ‘Te
quiero, morena’ (Jota)
Zarzuela, Spanish light opera
including spoken dialogue, can trace
its roots back to the 17th century,
but its heyday – for productivity
and quality – was the ‘golden age’
of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Unfortunately, the genre
has not often been successfully
exported on stage, but many
individual numbers have found
an international audience through
performances and recordings by
star singers from Spanish-speaking
countries. This group consists of
three popular tenor songs.
Pablo Luna, who began his career
as a violinist and conductor in
Zaragoza, was best known for a
series of operetta-style zarzuelas
with exotic settings, but his La pícara
molinera, staged in Zaragoza in
1928, is a tragedy set in a village
in the northern region of Asturias.
17
to Raoul’s aria, originally
featuring an obbligato part for
the almost obsolete viola d’amore,
enhances its rapt atmosphere.
Juan has been wounded in a
gunfight with his rival for the hand
of Carmona, the ‘teasing mill girl’ of
the title, and is unable to go to the
village fiesta; instead, he pours out
his unrequited love in the passionate
romanza ‘Paxarín, tú que vuelas’.
Jacinto Guerrero, a native of Toledo,
was another stalwart of the Madrid
zarzuela theatres in the 1920s
and 1930s. His Los gavilanes (‘The
sparrowhawks’), first performed in
1923, is set in a Provençal fishing
village in the 1840s; it includes the
charming romanza ‘Flor roja’,
addressed by the young fisherman
Gustavo to a flower which he kisses
and presents to his beloved Rosaura.
The Valencian José Serrano was
one of the most prolific and popular
zarzuela composers of his time,
specialising in the shorter one-act
forms. His El trust de los tenorios,
first performed in 1910, centres
on a ‘company of libertines’ who
make their rackety way around the
world; in Venice at Carnival time,
they encounter a Spanish troupe
dancing the jota, which is sung to
the words ‘Te quiero, morena’.
Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)
Roberto Devereux – ‘Come
uno spirto angelico’
Gaetano Donizetti, a native of
Bergamo, composed comic and
serious operas with equal facility
and equal success over a period
of some 20 years. He found a rich
source of material for his serious
works in English royal history, with
Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth
in 1829, Anna Bolena the following
year, Maria Stuarda in 1835, and
in 1837, for the Teatro San Carlo
in Naples, Roberto Devereux, ossia
Il conte di Essex. The libretto, by the
prolific Salvatore Cammarano, is
set in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, is
arrested for treason after his failure
to pacify Ireland. He is loved by the
Queen, who has given him a ring
Barbican Classical Music Podcast
Stream or download our Barbican
Classical Music Podcasts for
exclusive interviews with the world’s
greatest classical stars. Recent artists
include John Adams, Christophe Rousset, David Daniels,
Maxim Vengerov, Joyce DiDonato, William Christie and
many more.
18
Available on iTunes, Soundcloud and the Barbican website
which when returned to her will
secure his safety. But the ring is in
the possession of Sara, Duchess of
Nottingham, with whom Essex is in
love; and when Essex is in greatest
danger she is imprisoned by her
jealous husband and unable to
deliver it to the Queen. In Act 3
Scene 4, Essex languishes in the
condemned cell at the Tower of
London. He reflects on his plight,
while still hoping that the ring
will bring him deliverance; he is
prepared to die in combat with
the Duke of Nottingham, and
looks forward to assuring him that
his wife is innocent, ‘her soul like
that of an angel’. Guards arrive
to take him off to execution. In a
quick cabaletta, he expresses his
willingness to die, so that he can
ask God for mercy for himself
and Sara. Donizetti’s vocal writing
throughout the scene exemplifies
the smoothness and flexibility
implied by the term bel canto.
Programme notes © Anthony Burton
24 April
Texts & translations
O del mio amato ben
O del mio amato ben perduto incanto!
Lungi è dagli occhi miei
Chi m’era gloria e vanto!
Or per le mute stanze
Sempre la cerco e chiamo
Con pieno il cor di speranze.
Ma cerco invan, chiamo invan!
E il pianger m’è sì caro,
Che di pianto sol nutro il cor.
Oh, lost charms of my dear beloved!
She who was my glory and pride
lies far beyond my gaze!
Now I walk through empty rooms,
looking for her, calling out to her,
my heart full of hope.
But in vain I look, in vain I call out!
And my tears are so dear to me
that they are my heart’s sole nourishment.
Mi sembra, senza lei, triste ogni loco.
Notte mi sembra il giorno;
Mi sembra gelo il foco.
Se pur talvolta spero
Di darmi ad altra cura,
Sol mi tormenta un pensiero:
Ma, senza lei, che farò?
Mi par così la vita vana cosa
Senza il mio ben.
Without her, everywhere seems sad to me.
Day is as night to me;
fire is as ice to me.
And though at times I hope
to think of other things,
one thought returns to haunt me:
But, without her, what shall I do?
Without my beloved,
life seems futile to me.
Quand’ il tuo diavol nacque
Quand’il tuo diavol nacque
Il mio già andava a scuola,
Sicché a un’astuzia sola
Il cor mai non soggiacque.
T’in ghingheri, ti buzzichi,
Fai per piacermi e stuzzichi …
Ma sai cos’è l’amor? Cos’è?
È un certo non so che
Che niun comanda al cor.
When your devil was born,
mine was already at school,
and so my heart was never subjected
to any of its artful ways.
You put on your finery, move sensually,
act as if to please me and tease me …
But do you know what love is? What love is?
It’s a certain intangible thing
that can’t be forced on another’s heart.
Se finsi un solo istante
D’assecondar tue mire,
Fu per non far poltrire
Un cor d’antico amante.
Nessuno mai s’attedia
giucando tal commedia.
Ma sai cos’è l’amor? Cos’è?
È un certo non so che
Che niun comanda al cor.
If I pretended just for a moment
to encourage your designs,
It was only so as not to leave idle
the heart of an experienced lover.
No one ever wearies
of taking part in such a play.
But do you know what love is? What love is?
It’s a certain intangible thing
that can’t be forced on another’s heart.
19
Stefano Donaudy
Vaghissima sembianza
Vaghissima sembianza d’antica donna amata,
Chi, dunque, v’ha ritratta con tanta simiglianza
Ch’io guardo, e parlo, e credo d’avervi a me
Davanti come ai bei dì d’amor?
Beautiful image of the woman I once loved,
who, then, has portrayed you so faithfully
that I look at you, speak to you, believe you to be
here with me, as in the happy days of our love?
La cara rimembranza che in cor mi s’è destata
Sì ardente v’ha già fatta rinascer la speranza,
Che un bacio, un voto, un grido d’amore
Più non chiedo che a lei che muta è ognor.
The beloved memory newly roused in my heart
has so ardently revived my hopes
that of one who is silent for ever I ask only
a kiss, a pledge, a cry of love.
George Frideric Handel
Semele
Where’er you walk
Jupiter
See, she appears,
But sees not me;
For I am visible
Alone to thee.
While I retire, rise and meet her,
And with welcomes greet her, –
Now all this scene shall to Arcadia turn,
The seat of happy nymphs and swains;
There without the rage of jealousy they burn
And taste the sweets of love without its pains.
Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade;
Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade.
Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise,
And all things flourish where’er you turn your eyes.
Where’er you walk, etc.
20
I must with speed amuse her
Jupiter
I must with speed amuse her
Lest she too much explain.
It gives the lover double pain
Who hears his nymph complain,
And hearing, must refuse her.
I must, etc.
24 April
Plus blanche que la blanche hermine
Raoul
Non loin des vieilles tours
Et des remparts d’Amboise
Seul j’égarais mes pas,
Quand j’aperçois soudain
Une riche litière au détour du chemin;
D’étudiants nombreux la troupe discourtoise
L’entourait, et leurs cris,
Leur air audacieux
Me laissaient deviner leur projet:
Je m’élance …
Tout fuit à mon aspect.
Timide, je m’avance …
Ah! quel spectacle enchanteur
Vint s’offrir à mes yeux!
Not far from the ancient towers
and ramparts of Amboise
I was wandering alone,
when suddenly I spied
a rich litter at a bend in the road;
a large crowd of unmannerly students
surrounded it, and their shouts
and insolent mien
led me to guess their intentions I hurried forward …
All made off on sight of me.
Bashful, I approached …
Oh, what a bewitching sight
presented itself to my view!
Plus blanche que la blanche hermine,
Plus pure qu’un jour de printemps,
Un ange, une vierge divine,
De sa vue éblouit mes sens.
Vierge immortelle!
Qu’elle était belle!
Et malgré moi devant elle m’inclinant,
Je disais, je lui disais:
Belle ange, reine des amours,
Beauté du ciel,
Je vais t’aimer toujours!
Whiter than the white ermine,
purer than a day in spring,
an angel, a divine maid,
dazzled my senses!
Immortal maid!
How lovely she was!
And bowing involuntarily before her,
I said, to her I said:
Lovely angel, queen of love,
heavenly beauty,
I shall love you always!
En m’écoutant, un doux sourire
Trahit le trouble de son coeur,
Et dans ses yeux j’ai su lire
Le présage de mon bonheur.
Amant fidèle, flamme nouvelle
Brûle mon coeur, flamme éternelle
Me brûle encor, et je me dis:
Belle ange, reine des amours,
Beauté du ciel,
Je vais t’aimer toujours!
Listening to me, a gentle smile
betrayed the confusion in her heart,
and in her eyes I could read
the presage of my happiness.
Faithful lover, a new flame
burns in my heart, an everlasting passion –
it burns there yet, and I tell myself:
Lovely angel, queen of love,
heavenly beauty,
I shall love you always!
21
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Les Huguenots
Giuseppe Verdi
Jérusalem
Je veux encore entendre ta voix
Gaston
L’Émir auprès de lui m’appelle.
Que dois-je craindre encore?
De la France banni,
Captif au sein d’une ville infidèle,
Je ne pourrai combattre dans mon zèle
Pour les ingrats qui m’ont injustement puni!
Hélène est près de moi! … dans leur camp! ...
Chère Hélène!
Dont un destin cruel m’a séparé!
Ne pas te voir,
Quand le ciel te ramène!
Je briserai ma chaîne
Et je te reverrai.
The Emir has summoned me to him.
What more have I to fear?
Banished from France,
a prisoner in an infidel town,
prevented from displaying my valour in battle
for the ungrateful people who have
unjustly punished me.
Helène is nearby, she is in their camp!
Dear Hélène,
separated from me by a cruel fate!
Not to see you,
when heaven brings you near!
I must break my chains
and see you again.
Je veux encore entendre
ta voix, ta voix si tendre.
Pour fuir il faut attendre
les ombres du soir.
Ange vers qui s’envole
mon rêve d’espoir,
ah! bel ange, mon idole,
je veux encore te voir.
I want to hear your voice again,
your gentle voice.
I must await the shadows of dusk
before I can escape.
My angel, my dreams of hope
fly to you,
ah, fair angel, my idol,
I want to see you again.
22
interval: 20 minutes
24 April
Ideale
Io ti seguii come iride di pace
Lungo le vie del cielo:
Io ti seguii come un’amica face
De la notte nel velo.
E ti sentii ne la luce, ne l’aria,
Nel profumo dei fiori;
E fu piena la stanza solitaria
Di te, dei tuoi splendori.
I followed you like a rainbow of peace
along the paths of heaven;
I followed you like a friendly torch
in the veil of darkness,
and I sensed you in the light, in the air,
in the perfume of flowers,
and the solitary room was full
of you and of your radiance.
In te rapito, al suon de la tua voce,
Lungamente sognai;
E de la terra ogni affanno, ogni croce,
In quel sogno scordai.
Torna, caro ideal, torna un istante
A sorridermi ancora,
E a me risplenderà, nel tuo sembiante,
Una novella aurora.
Absorbed by you, I dreamed a long time
of the sound of your voice,
and earth’s every anxiety, every torment
I forgot in that dream.
Come back, dear ideal, for an instant
to smile at me again,
and in your face will shine for me
a new dawn.
Vorrei morire!
Vorrei morir ne la stagion dell’anno
Quando è tiepida l’aria e il ciel sereno,
Quando le rondinelle il nido fanno,
Quando di nuovi fior s’orna il terreno.
Vorrei morir, vorrei morir quando tramonta il sole,
Quando sul prato dormon le viole.
Lieta farebbe a Dio l’alma ritorno
A primavera e sul morir del giorno.
Vorrei morir, vorrei morir.
Lieta farebbe a Dio l’alma ritorno
A primavera e sul morir del giorno.
Ma quando infuria il nembo e la tempesta,
Allor che l’aria si fa scura scura:
Quando ai rami un foglia più non resta,
Allora di morire avrei paura.
Vorrei morir, etc.
I’d like to die at the time of year
when the air is warm, the sky serene,
when the swallows are building their nests,
when the earth is bright with new-grown blooms.
I’d like to die, to die when the sun is setting,
as the violets slumber in the meadow.
A man’s soul would happily return to God
in spring, at the dying of the day.
I’d like to die, to die.
A man’s soul would happily return to God
in spring, at the dying of the day.
But when the clouds gather and storms are brewing,
when the air grows darker and darker:
when not a leaf is left on the bough,
then I should be afraid to die.
I’d like to die, etc.
23
Paolo Tosti
Parted
Dearest, our day is over –
Ended, the dream divine.
You must go back to your life;
I must go back to mine.
Back to the joyless duties,
Back to the fruitless tears.
Loving and yet divided
All through the empty years.
How can I live without you?
How can I let you go?
I that you loved so well, dear –
You that I worship so.
Dearest, the night is passing.
Waneth the trembling moon.
Hark! how the wind ariseth.
Morn will be here so soon.
Tell me again you love me –
Kiss me on lips and brow.
Love of my soul, I love you.
How can I leave you now?
24
How can I live without you?
How can I let you go?
I that you loved so well, dear –
You that I worship so.
L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra
L’alba separa dalla luce l’ombra,
E la mia voluttà dal mio desire.
O dolce stelle, è l’ora di morire.
Un più divino amor dal ciel vi sgombra.
The dawn divides the darkness from the light,
And my sensual pleasure from my desire.
O sweet stars, the hour of death is now at hand:
A love more holy sweeps you from the skies.
Pupille ardenti, O voi senza ritorno
Stelle tristi, spegnetevi incorrotte!
Morir debbo. Veder non voglio il giorno,
Per amor del mio sogno e della notte.
Gleaming eyes, O you who’ll ne’er return,
sad stars, snuff out your uncorrupted light!
I must die, I do not want to see the day,
For love of my own dream and of the night.
Chiudimi, O Notte, nel tuo sen materno,
Mentre la terra pallida s’irrora.
Ma che dal sangue mio nasca l’aurora
E dal sogno mio breve il sole eterno!
Envelop me, O Night in your maternal breast,
While the pale earth bathes itself in dew;
But let the dawn rise from my blood
And from my brief dream the eternal sun!
24 April
Paxarín, tú que vuelas
Juan
Mi locura non tié cura.
¡Qué amargura!
Mi sufrir no es vivir,
Y pido a Dios morir,
Que es el mayor pesar amar.
There’s no cure for my madness.
I feel such unhappiness!
This suffering is no life,
and I beg God for death,
for love’s the weightiest burden.
Paxarín, tú que vuelas,
Tiende las alas,
Y con tu pico de oro
Dile a mi amada,
Dile tú si está sola,
Que estoy ya loco,
Porque a mí no me quiere
Y quiere a otro.
Por ella no duermo
Y es mi gran pena
Tenerla yo miedo
Porque no es buena.
Dile tú que esta
Noche en la fiesta
La estaré viendo,
Y que si no me mira
Por ella muero.
Dile tú que yo deliro
Y por ella suspiro,
Pues vivo por su amor.
Que sin ella non rezo
Ya a los santiños,
Que non canto como antes
Por los caminos,
Y que si a veces canto,
Casi me afuego,
Que a la vez canto y lloro,
Como los neños, ¡como los neños!
¡Ah! … Con ella sueño.
Dame vergüenza lo que he llorado
Solo en mi alcoba
Sabiendo lo mala
Que es esa loba.
Dile tú
Que no dejo de verla
Por donde miro,
Y abrasarme quisiera
Con sus suspiros.
Dile tú que yo deliro
Y por ella suspiro,
Pues vivo por su amor.
Little bird, you who fly,
spread your wings,
and with your beak of gold
tell my beloved,
tell her, if she’s alone,
that I’ve gone mad,
because she doesn’t love me,
but loves another man.
Because of her I cannot sleep
and it’s my great sorrow
to be afraid of her
because she’s a wicked girl.
Tell her that tonight
at the fiesta
I shall be watching her,
and that if she doesn’t look at me
I shall die for her.
Tell her I’m raving
and sighing over her,
since I live for her love.
That without her I can’t pray
to the saints any more,
that I don’t sing as before
in the lanes,
and that when I do try to sing,
it’s as if I were choking,
because I’m singing and crying together,
just like babies do, like babies do!
Ah! … I dream of her.
I’m ashamed to have wept
alone in my room,
knowing how wicked
that she-wolf is.
Tell her
that I can’t stop seeing her
wherever I look,
and long for her breath
to warm me.
Tell her I’m raving
and sighing over her,
since I live for her love.
25
Pablo Luna
La pícara molinera
Jacinto Guerrero
Los gavilanes
Flor roja
Gustavo
¡Flor roja,
Como los labios de mi zagala!
¡Flor bella,
Que yo he cortado para mi amada!
¡Un beso
Pone mi boca con toda el alma!
¡De amores
Esta flor sea la más preciada!
Lleva tú, linda flor,
Lleva el beso a mi amor,
Y que bese también con pasión.
Nuestros besos unirá
Esta flor.
Nunca pude soñar
Una gloria mayor
Si ella llega a besar
Donde yo con apasionado amor.
¡Es ella mi ilusión y ella es mi fe!
¡Flor roja,
Como la sangre que hay en mis venas!
¡Mi sangre,
Por sus amores con gusto diera!
¡Flor mía,
Dile a mi amada que mis pasiones
De fijo
No se marchitan, como estas flores!
De amores
Esta flor sea la más preciada.
Scarlet flower,
red as my sweetheart’s lips!
Pretty flower,
that I’ve plucked for my love!
My lips
give you this most heartfelt of kisses!
May this flower
be the most prized pledge of love!
Carry, pretty flower,
carry my kiss to my love,
and may she kiss you too with passion.
This flower
will bring our kisses together.
If she places a kiss
where I did with passionate love,
it would be the greatest delight
I could ever imagine.
She is my hope and my faith!
Scarlet flower,
red as the blood that runs through my veins!
My blood
I’d gladly shed for her love!
Flower of mine,
tell my beloved that it’s certain
my feelings
will never fade like these petals!
May this flower
be the most prized pledge of love!
26
José Serrano
El trust de los tenorios
Te quiero, morena (Jota)
Te quiero, morena, te quiero,
Como se quiere la gloria,
Como se quiere el dinero,
Como se quiere a una madre,
Te quiero.
I love you, dark beauty, I love you,
just as some love glory,
just as some love money,
just as some love their mothers,
I love you.
¡Me muero!, baturra, me muero.
Por tu boquita de rosa,
Por tu reir zalamero,
Por los ojos de tu cara,
Me muero.
I’m dying, girl of Aragón, I’m dying.
because of your rosebud lips,
because of your flattering laugh,
because of your beautiful eyes,
I’m dying.
Es la jota que siempre canté,
La sal de mi tierra. ¡Olé! ¡Olé!
This is the jota I’ve always sung,
the soul of my homeland. Olé! Olé!
24 April
Gaetano Donizetti
Roberto Devereux
Come uno spirto angelico
Roberto
Ed ancor la tremenda
Porta non si dischiude? … Un rio presagio
Tutte m’ingombra di terror le vene!
Pur fido è il messo, e quella gemma è pegno
Securo a me di scampo.
Uso a mirarla in campo
Io non temo la morte; io viver solo
Tanto desio, che la virtù di Sara
A discolpar mi basti …
O tu, che m’involasti
Quell’adorata donna, i giorni miei
Serbo al tuo brando, tu svenar mi dei.
And still the fearful door
remains closed? … A dire foreboding
fills all my veins with terror!
Yet my messenger is trusty, and that gem
is a certain pledge of my reprieve.
Accustomed to look upon death in the field,
I am not afraid to die; the reason I wish
so much to live is that I may clear
Sara’s good name – that would suffice me…
And you, Nottingham, who stole
that adored woman from me … it is for your sword
that I would preserve my days: it is you who must kill me.
A te dirò negli ultimi
Singhiozzi, in braccio a morte:
Come uno spirto angelico
Pura è la tua consorte …
Lo giuro, e il giuramento
Col sangue mio suggello …
Credi all’estremo accento
Che il labbro mio parlò.
Chi scende nell’avello
Sai che mentir non può.
As death receives me, amid
my final sobs, I shall tell you:
Your wife is pure,
her soul like that of an angel …
I swear it, and I seal the oath
with my blood …
You must believe in the last word
that my lips utter:
you know that a man who descends
into the tomb cannot lie.
Bagnato il sen di lagrime,
Tinto del sangue mio,
Io corro, io volo a chiedere
Per te soccorso a Dio! …
Impietositi gli angeli
Eco al mio duol faranno …
Si piangerà d’affanno
La prima volta in ciel!
With my breast bathed in tears,
discoloured with my blood,
I run – I fly – to ask God
to come to your aid! …
The angels, moved to pity,
will give echo to my grief …
for the first time in Heaven
there will be tears shed over suffering!
27
Translations © Susannah Howe except for the zarzuelas
(with thanks to Christopher Webber: www.zarzuela.net),
Jérusalem (by Andrew Huth © Decca), Roberto Devereux
(by Jeremy Commons © Opera Rara) & Les Huguenots
(© Ate∞ Uslu)
About the performers
Juan Diego Flórez tenor
Born in Lima, Peru, Juan Diego
Flórez studied music both in his
native Lima and at the Curtis
Institute in Philadelphia. In 1996,
he made his official operatic
debut in Matilde di Shabran at the
Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro,
where his expressive voice and
striking agility immediately won
him critical accolades. Since then,
he has become much sought after
in major international theatres.
28
He is a frequent guest on the world’s
most prestigious opera and concert
stages: the Metropolitan Opera in
New York (Il barbiere di Siviglia, La
Cenerentola, L’italiana in Algeri,
Don Pasquale, La fille du régiment
and La sonnambula); Lyric Opera
of Chicago (La Cenerentola); San
Francisco Opera (La Cenerentola
and La fille du régiment); Los
Angeles Opera (Il barbiere di
Siviglia); the Royal Opera, Covent
Garden (Donizetti’s Elisabetta,
Rossini’s Otello, La Cenerentola, La
sonnambula, Don Pasquale, La fille
du régiment, Matilde di Shabran
and Il barbiere di Siviglia); Vienna
Staatsoper (Il barbiere di Siviglia,
L’italiana in Algeri, Gianni Schicchi,
La sonnambula, I puritani, La fille
du régiment and L’elisir d’amore);
Salzburg Festival (La donna
del lago); Vienna Konzerthaus
(Semiramide); Opéra de Paris
(L’italiana in Algeri, La Cenerentola
and La donna del lago); Châtelet
in Paris (Falstaff); Festival de Radio
France in Montpellier (La donna
del lago); Deutsche Oper Berlin (La
sonnambula); Bavarian State Opera
(L’italiana in Algeri); Teatro Real in
Madrid (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Orfeo
and I puritani); Gran Teatre del
Liceu in Barcelona (Maria Stuarda,
Semiramide, La Cenerentola and
La fille du régiment); Teatro de La
Maestranza in Seville (Donizetti’s
Alahor in Granata); Dresden
Semperoper (Rigoletto); Opernhaus
in Zurich (La Cenerentola and Don
Pasquale). He has also appeared in
Moscow, Tokyo, Warsaw, Caracas,
Lisbon, São Paulo, St Petersburg,
Toulouse, Nice, Lyons and Hamburg.
Plans up to 2016 include productions
at La Scala, the Metropolitan
Opera House, the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden, Vienna
Staatsoper, Opéra de Paris, Teatro
Real, Liceu, Deutsche Oper Berlin,
Zurich Opernhaus, Rossini Opera
Festival in Pesaro and in Japan.
He has been an exclusive Decca
artist since 2001 and his discography
includes many award-winning
recordings. He has received
many accolades including the
‘Order of the Sun’, the highest
civilian award conferred by
the Peruvian government.
Karel Mark Chichon conductor
Hailed as one of today’s most
exciting young conductors, Karel
Mark Chichon was described
by the New York Times as ‘A
conductor of genius’. In recognition
of his services to music, he was
awarded an obe in June last year.
He has been Chief Conductor of
the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie
Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern since
September 2011; he has also
been Chief Conductor and Artistic
Director of the Latvian National
Symphony Orchestra since 2009.
His previous positions include
Chief Conductor of the Graz
Symphony Orchestra (2006–9).
In addition to his posts in
Saarbrücken and Riga, he
regularly conducts at the Vienna
Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin,
Bayerisches Staatsoper Munich,
Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Teatro
Comunale di Bologna, Teatro
Real Madrid and the Gran Teatre
del Liceu. He works with many
prominent ensembles, including the
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra,
the Berlin Radio, London, RAI
National, Vienna and Vienna Radio
In December 2010 he received
widespread acclaim when he
made his debut with the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra,
replacing Sir Antonio Pappano
at short notice in a series of
four subscription concerts.
Born in London in 1971, Karel
Mark Chichon hails from
Gibraltar. He studied at the Royal
Academy of Music and was
assistant conductor to Giuseppe
Sinopoli and Valery Gergiev.
Since 2003 he has been a regular
guest conductor with the English
Chamber Orchestra and in 2004
he was invited by the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra to conduct
concerts at their International
Orchestra Institute in Salzburg,
making highly successful return
visits in 2005 and 2006.
He is a frequent guest conductor with
leading orchestras throughout the
world at venues such as the Berlin
Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein
and Konzerthaus, the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw, the Royal Festival
Hall, Paris’s Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées, the Munich Philharmonie,
Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Alter Oper
Frankfurt, the Great Hall of the
Moscow Conservatory, Auditorio
Nacional de Música Madrid and the
Seoul Arts Centre in South Korea.
Josef Fischnaller
Future debuts include Madama
Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera,
New York, and La bohème at
the Teatro alla Scala, Milan.
Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano
Winner of the 2012 Grammy
Award for Best Classical Vocal
Solo, Joyce DiDonato has been
acclaimed by audiences and critics
alike across the globe. Born in
Kansas and a graduate of Wichita
State University and the Academy
of Vocal Arts, she trained on the
young artist programmes of the
San Francisco, Houston and Santa
Fe opera companies. She has since
come to international prominence
in operas by Rossini, Handel and
Mozart, as well as through her
wide-ranging discography.
Recent highlights include her
debut at the Deutsche Oper as
Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia);
her first European Octavian (Der
Rosenkavalier) at Madrid’s Teatro
Real; Sister Helen (Jake Heggie’s
Dead Man Walking) at Houston
Grand Opera; Isolier (Le comte Ory)
and the Composer (Ariadne auf
Naxos) at the Metropolitan Opera;
about the performers
a European tour in the title-role in
Ariodante with Il Complesso Barocco
(which she has also recorded); and
the title-role in Massenet’s Cendrillon
at the Royal Opera House.
Highlights of the 2011/12 season
included back-to-back title-roles at
La Scala, Milan (Der Rosenkavalier
and La donna del lago), the world
premiere of the Baroque pastiche
The Enchanted Island at the
Metropolitan Opera, concerts with
the New York Philharmonic and
the title-role in Donizetti’s Maria
Stuarda for Houston Grand Opera.
She began the current season
with her first recital tour to South
America. Other highlights include the
title-roles in Maria Stuarda with the
Metropolitan Opera and La donna
del lago at the Royal Opera House
and at the Santa Fe Opera Festival.
Joyce DiDonato is an exclusive
recording artist with EMI/Virgin
Classics and among recent
highlights is her Grammy Awardwinning solo CD Diva Divo, which
comprises arias by male and female
characters that tell the same story
from their different perspectives.
Other honours include
Gramophone’s Artist of the Year
and Recital of the Year awards,
and a German ECHO Klassik
Award as Female Singer of the
Year. In 2011 she also received
the prestigious Franco Abbiati
Award for Best Singer.
29
Symphony orchestras, English
Chamber Orchestra and the Russian
National Orchestra, in Vienna,
Berlin, Paris, Rome, Turin, Bologna,
Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart,
Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.
Rigoletto a Mantova (conducted
by Zubin Mehta and featuring
Plácido Domingo as Rigoletto).
Shirley Suarez
Forthcoming engagements include
Rigoletto at the Komische Oper
Berlin; Les contes d’Hoffmann
at Frankfurt Opera; Amina (La
sonnambula) in Bonn; Norina (Don
Pasquale) in Washington; and
Ariadne auf Naxos, The Magic
Flute, Un ballo in maschera, L’elisir
d’amore and The Marriage of
Figaro at the Wiener Staatsoper.
Julia Novikova soprano
Julia Novikova studied at the
Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in
St Petersburg, her native city, and
made her first stage appearances
while still a student, singing
Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro),
Serpina (La serva padrona) and
Marfa (The Tsar’s Bride). She
made her professional stage
debut in 2006 at the Mariinsky
Theatre, singing the role of
Flora in The Turn of the Screw
conducted by Valery Gergiev.
Between 2006 and 2010 she sang
Olympia (Les contes d’Hoffmann)
at the Komische Oper Berlin;
Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia) in
Stuttgart; Queen of Shemakha
(The Golden Cockerel); Gilda
(Rigoletto) in Dortmund, Bonn and
Lübeck; Queen of the Night (The
Magic Flute) in Frankfurt, Bonn,
Hamburg, Vienna and Berlin;
Medoro (Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso),
Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Oscar (Un
ballo in maschera) and Blonde
(Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
in Bonn; Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf
Naxos) in Strasbourg; and Gretel
(Hansel and Gretel) in Lyons.
30
She has recently participated in the
filming of Andrea Andermann’s
She is also in demand in the concert
hall and has appeared at festivals
in The Hague and Amsterdam
and given recitals in Bordeaux,
Nancy, Paris (Champs-Élysées),
New York (Carnegie Hall) and at
the Budapest National Opera. Her
recent and future engagements
include a solo concert with Camerata
Bern and a New Year’s Concert
in Vienna with ElĪ na Garan∂a
and Jonas Kaufmann under the
baton of Karel Mark Chichon.
has appeared in La bohème,
Il barbiere di Siviglia, Madama
Butterfly, L’elisir d’amore, Simon
Boccanegra, Paglacci, Falstaff,
Werther and Lucia di Lammermoor.
Elsewhere, highlights of recent
seasons have included Donizetti’s
Maria Padilla at the Wexford
Festival, Maria Stuarda in Trieste
and at the Teatro San Carlo in
Naples, La bohème in Shanghai,
Seoul and for the inaugural
performance of the refurbished
Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and
Simon Boccanegra for Rome
Opera.
Other highlights include his North
American debut with the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra in 2008 in
La forza del destino conducted by
James Conlon; appearances at
La Fenice in Pagliacci and Maria
Stuarda; his American stage debut
with Cincinnati Opera as Rodrigo in
Don Carlo, which was followed by
return invitations to appear in La
bohème and La traviata; and a gala
concert at the 2010 Verbier Festival.
Marco Caria graduated from the
Conservatorio di Sassari in
Sardinia, winning a scholarship to
further his vocal studies at the
Accademia Nazionale di Santa
Cecilia in Rome. He has won several
international competitions, including
the 2005 Luciano Neroni
Competition and the jury prize at
the 2004 Tito Gobbi Competition.
Since 2005 he has pursued further
studies with Mirella Freni.
Marco Caria baritone
Marco Caria is one of the most
exciting young baritones to have
emerged from Italy in recent years.
In September 2010 he joined the
Vienna State Opera, with which he
Recent and future engagements
include Falstaff in Los Angeles,
Simon Boccanegra in Parma and
Roberto Devereux, L’elisir d’amore
and La bohème in Vienna.
As harpsichordist, he recorded
the soundtrack of the DVD of
Rossini’s La Cenerentola under the
direction of Claudio Abbado, and
performed in the world premiere
recording of Rossini’s Il viaggio
a Reims, also with Abbado.
Vincenzo Scalera piano
Vincenzo Scalera was born in the
USA, of Italian-American parents,
and began piano studies at the
age of 5. He graduated from
Manhattan School of Music and
worked as assistant conductor with
the New Jersey State Opera.
He continued his studies in Italy and
in 1980 joined the musical staff of
Milan’s Teatro alla Scala as coach
and pianist, assisting conductors
including Claudio Abbado, Riccardo
Chailly, Gianandrea Gavazzeni
and Carlos Kleiber, among others.
He has appeared at many leading
festivals, including Edinburgh,
Martina Franca, Jerusalem,
Istanbul, Les Chorégies d’Orange,
Carinthian Summer Festival,
Salzburg Festival and the Rossini
Opera Festival in Pesaro.
He has accompanied many
celebrated singers, among them
Carlo Bergonzi, Montserrat Caballé,
José Carreras, Leyla Gencer, Sumi
Jo, Raina Kabaivanska, Katia
Ricciarelli, Juan Diego Flórez, Maria
He has been on the staff of the
Renato Scotto Opera Academy
in Savona, Italy, teaching
acompaniment and operatic
repertoire classes; he is currently on
the staff of the Accademia d’Arti e
Mestieri of Teatro alla Scala, Milan.
Among Vincenzo Scalera’s most
recent engagements has been a
recital tour with tenor Andrea Bocelli.
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra
is widely regarded as one of the
world’s leading orchestras. It has an
enviable family of artists, including
LSO President Sir Colin Davis and
Principal Conductor Valery Gergiev,
plus long-standing relationships
with some of the world’s leading
musicians: Leonidas Kavakos, AnneSophie Mutter, Mitsuko Uchida and
Maria João Pires among others.
The LSO is Resident Orchestra at
the Barbican, where it performs
around 70 concerts a year. Joint
projects between the Orchestra
and the Barbican, including London
2012 Festival concerts with Wynton
Marsalis and Gilberto Gil, place the
about the performers
Orchestra at the heart of the Centre’s
programme. The LSO also enjoys
successful residencies at the Lincoln
Center in New York, Salle Pleyel
in Paris and the Aix-en-Provence
Festival. Other tour destinations
include the Far East, North America
and all major European cities.
The LSO is set apart from other
international orchestras by the
depth of its commitment to music
education, reaching over 60,000
people each year. LSO Discovery
enables it to offer people of all
ages opportunities to get involved in
music-making. The recent LSO On
Track project culminated in young
musicians performing ‘Nimrod’
from Elgar’s Enigma Variations
at the Opening Ceremony of the
London 2012 Olympic Games.
LSO St Luke’s, the UBS and LSO
Music Education Centre, is the
home of LSO Discovery, and also
host to chamber and solo recitals,
dance, folk music and more.
The Orchestra is a world leader in
recording music for CD, film and
events. LSO Live is the most successful
label of its kind, with 80 releases
available globally on CD, SACD
and online. The LSO was the official
Orchestra of the London 2012
Olympic and Paralympic Games
Ceremonies, memorably appearing
with Rowan Atkinson performing
Chariots of Fire, conducted by Sir
Simon Rattle. The LSO has also
recorded music for hundreds of
films, including Pixar’s latest release,
Brave, four of the Harry Potter
series, The King’s Speech, Superman
and all six Star Wars movies.
31
Guleghina, Renata Scotto, Cesare
Siepi, Lucia Valentini Terrani and
Leontina Vaduva. He has also made
recordings with many of them .
London Symphony Orchestra
President
Sir Colin Davis ch
Principal Conductor
Valery Gergiev
Principal Guest
Conductors
Daniel Harding
Michael Tilson
Thomas
Conductor Laureate
André Previn kbe
Violin 1
Roman Simovic leader
Carmine Lauri
Tomo Keller
Nigel Broadbent
Ginette Decuyper
Gerald Gregory
Jörg Hammann
Maxine Kwok-Adams
Laurent Quenelle
Colin Renwick
Ian Rhodes
Sylvain Vasseur
Hilary Jane Parker
Helena Smart
Violin 2
David Alberman
Thomas Norris
Miya Vaisanen
Richard Blayden
Matthew Gardner
Belinda McFarlane
Iwona Muszynska
Philip Nolte
Andrew Pollock
Paul Robson
Louise Shackelton
Hazel Mulligan
32
Viola
Paul Silverthorne
Gillianne Haddow
Malcolm Johnston
German Clavijo
Lander Echevarria
Anna Green
Robert Turner
Heather Wallington
Jonathan Welch
Fiona Dalgliesh
Cello
Rebecca Gilliver
Alastair Blayden
Noel Bradshaw
Eve-Marie Caravassilis
Daniel Gardner
Hilary Jones
Nicholas Cooper
Morwenna Del Mar
Double Bass
Colin Paris
Nicholas Worters
Patrick Laurence
Matthew Gibson
Thomas Goodman
Jani Pensola
Flute
Adam Walker
Alex Jakeman
Horn
Tim Jones
Angela Barnes
Nicolas Fleury
Jonathan Lipton
Phillippa Slack
Trumpet
Roderick Franks
Gerald Ruddock
Paul Mayes
David Hilton
Trombone
Dudley Bright
James Maynard
Bass Trombone
Paul Milner
Tuba
Patrick Harrild
Piccolo
Sharon Williams
Timpani
Nigel Thomas
Oboe
Fabien Thouand
Holly Randall
Percussion
Neil Percy
David Jackson
Sam Walton
Cor anglais
Christine Pendrill
Clarinet
Chris Richards Chi-Yu Mo
Bassoon
Daniel Jemison
Joost Bosdijk
Harp
Karen Vaughan