Friday 2 May 2008 at 7.30pm
Roberto Alagna sings Verdi
Roberto Alagna tenor
London Symphony Orchestra
Ion Marin conductor
London Symphony Chorus
Jeremy Summerly chorus master
Macbeth Patria oppressa!; O figli … Ah, la paterna mano 17’
La forza del destino Overture; La vita è inferno … Oh tu che in seno agli angeli
I lombardi alla prima crociata La mia letizia infondere 3’
Nabucco Va, pensiero 4’
Aida Se quel guerrier … Celeste Aida 5’
interval
Nabucco Overture 8’
La traviata Lunge da lei … De’ miei bollenti spiriti 2’
Rigoletto Questa o quella 2’
arr. J. Strauss II Quadrille on motifs from ‘Un ballo in maschera’ 5’
Luisa Miller Oh! fede negar potessi … Quando le sere al placido 4’
Il trovatore Vedi, le fosche notturne (‘Anvil Chorus’) 7’
Otello Niun mi tema! 4’
6’
There will be one interval of 20 minutes in this performance; the first and second halves of the concert each
last approximately 35 minutes.
Roberto Alagna will be signing CDs on the ground floor foyer after tonight’s performance.
Barbican Hall
The Barbican is
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Corporation.
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Notes and texts
Viva Verdi!
Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) as a man and a musician is
the magnificent sum of his own contradictions. A patriot,
indeed nationalist, who wrote operas for an international
audience, for Paris, St Petersburg, Cairo and London as
well as his own country; a businessman who counted
every penny yet who gave generously to friends and
charities; and an agnostic with a deep distrust of
organised religion whose finest soprano arias are often
extended prayers. Musically conservative, yet building on
the achievements of Donizetti, he was a composer who
changed the form of Italian opera; a musician who cared
passionately about singers and casting the right artists in
his works, yet was always pushing his singers beyond
bel canto. Sopranos, certainly, and baritones too; and
eventually – after a somewhat less than leading role in
Verdi’s first four operas – the tenor began to move
centre-stage, always encouraged to do things ‘in an
entirely new manner’ – the phrase to which Verdi kept
returning when trying to explain what he wanted from the
first cast of Macbeth in 1847.
Macbeth
Patria oppressa!
Macbeth is the first of three Verdi operas which turn
Shakespeare into music drama. (There might have been
a fourth – Lear – to join Macbeth and that pair of late
Indian summer masterpieces, Otello and Falstaff. It was
a project that tantalisingly slipped in and out of the
composer’s entire professional life.) Shakespeare’s
tragedy Macbeth, Verdi wrote to his librettist Francesco
Maria Piave ‘is one of the greatest creations of the
human spirit. If we cannot make something great out of it,
let us at least do something out of the ordinary.’
Suona a morto ognor la
squilla,
Ma nessuno audace è tanto
Che pur doni un vano pianto
A chi soffre ed a chi muor.
Chorus
Patria oppressa! il dolce
nome
No, di madre aver non puoi,
Or che tutta a’ figli tuoi
Sei conversa in un avel.
D’orfanelli e di piangenti
Chi lo sposo e chi la prole
Al venir del nuovo sole
S’alza un grido e fere il ciel.
A quel grido il ciel risponde
Quasi voglia impietosito
Propagar per l’infinito,
Patria oppressa, il tuo dolor.
Homeland oppressed! the
sweet name
Of mother, no, you
cannot claim,
Now that to all thy children
Thou art changed into a
tomb.
From orphans and from the
bereaved
– Who are the spouse and
who are the children –
At the coming of the new sun
Raises a cry and strikes
heaven.
To which cry heaven responds
As if t’would, moved to pity,
Spread o’er the infinite,
Homeland, oppressed, thy
sorrow.
Tolls for death ever the knell,
But none is so daring
As yet to shed a vain tear
For those who suffer and
those who die.
Yet, when Macbeth was given its first performance in
Florence in 1847, the patriotic chorus ‘Patria oppressa!’
cannot have sounded particularly out of the ordinary. It’s
sung by Scottish exiles who have fled to England to
escape the murderous Macbeth, making it a close
relative to ‘Va, pensiero’ from Nabucco, another chorus
for exiles sitting by the waters of Babylon and weeping –
3
Notes and texts
and for Hebrew slaves and Scottish exiles read Italians
yearning to throw out the Austrians and unite their
country. But when Verdi revised the opera for its Parisian
premiere in 1865 he spiced up ‘Patria oppressa’. Out
went a rather old-fashioned, regular-footed piece and in
its place we hear all manner of daring harmonies that
flirt with the kind of dissonance that Verdi was to put to
such expressive use in the Requiem.
The plum part in Macbeth, that of the villain himself, goes
to the baritone. But then what is there for the tenor to do
in a story with no obvious, or at least conventional, love
interest? Save the day of course and rescue Scotland
from the Macbeths. Macduff will eventually liberate
Scotland from the murderous duo but first this Macduff
needs an aria and Verdi obliges with ‘O figli … Ah, la
paterna mano’ in Act 4 of the opera, when the news
arrives that his wife and children have been murdered by
the tyrant. It’s a romanza in a standard minor/major
form but not simply a conventional operatic interpolation
into the action. In the right hands it’s an aria of immense
cumulative power, not simply something for the tenor to
do to earn his applause, even if Macduff does have to
share his cabaletta with Malcolm, the future king of
Scotland.
By the time Verdi came to compose La forza del destino
in 1861, the tenor was centre-stage, where he would
remain for the rest of the composer’s career. He had
become the suffering hero, with the top of the voice
suffused with grief and pain, thwarted in love and
defeated by politics. A figure altogether too good for this
world and with a vocal timbre to prove it. (Think of
Carlo’s final encounter with Elisabetta in Don Carlo.) And
no middle-period Verdi hero suffers more than Don
Alvaro in La forza del destino.
Commissioned for St Petersburg, the premiere almost
didn’t happen. Five days after the opera was finished, in
November 1861, Verdi and his wife Giuseppina set off for
Russia via France ‘armed with a good supply of
Macbeth
O figli … Ah, la paterna
mano
Io lasciai la madre e i figli!
Ah, sons, my dear sons!
You all were killed by that
tyrant,
And, together with you, your
unhappy mother too!
Ah, into the claws of that
tiger I abandoned
The mother and her sons!
Ah! la paterna mano non vi fu
scudo, o cari,
Dai perfidi sicari che a morte
vi ferîr!
E me fuggiasco, occulto voi
chiamavate invano
Coll’ultimo singulto,
Coll’ultimo respir.
Ah! Trammi al tiranno in
faccia,
Signore, e s’ei mi sfugge
Possa a colui le braccia del
tuo perdono aprir.
Ah! The paternal hand didn’t
defend you, my dears,
From the hired ruffians who
struck you dead!
And you looked in vain for
me, a concealed fugitive,
With your last sobs,
With your last sighs.
Ah! Bring me in front of that
tyrant,
Lord, and if he escapes from
Me, may I offer him to your
forgiveness.
O figli, o figlio miei!
Da quel tiranno tutti uccisi voi
foste,
E insiem con voi la madre
sventurata!
Ah, fra gli artigli di quel tigre
Notes and texts
Neapolitan pasta and French wines’. En route they heard
that the premiere had been cancelled. ‘The singers’
voices’, Giuseppina wrote to a friend, ‘are as fragile as …
I leave you to finish the sentence.’
Destiny – or rather fate which is the great Romantic
theme of La forza del destino – had struck and it would
be a year before a Russian audience finally got to hear
fate knocking at the door, with those ominous thricerepeated chords at the start of the Overture. And it’s an
overture that does exactly what overtures are supposed
to do. It relates the musical story of the work before the
curtain rises: how Don Alvaro accidentally dropped a
pistol that killed the father of Leonora, the girl he was
running away with, and how her brother Carlo drove the
lovers to their fate sometime in the middle of the 18th
century. Verdi’s orchestra is beginning to tell his audience
all manner of things about his characters. So the exquisite
Introduzione to Alvaro’s scena and aria ‘La vita è inferno
all’infelice … O tu che in seno agli angeli’ allows the
clarinet to meditate on a theme from earlier in the opera
which is associated with the purity and holiness of his love
for Leonora, whom Alvaro now believes to be dead.
The same theme will recur as Alvaro, now fighting under
an assumed name in a Franco-Spanish army, provides us
with a little of his history – though rather through a glass
darkly, it has to be said. Then comes his aria ‘O tu che in
seno agli angeli’. This is not the passionate Verdi tenor
caught up in the white-hot heat of romantic love, but the
Romantic hero cheated of what might have been his. So
the one constant musical idea is a rising sixth, a kind of
deep musical sigh of regret. The great Verdi scholar
Julian Budden was surely right when he wrote of this aria
that it ‘perfectly illustrates Wordsworth’s “emotion
recollected in tranquillity” … [as] Verdi explores the
“inward” aspects of Romanticism.’ Perhaps the tenor only
comes into his own in Verdi when the composer begins to
explore this meditative side of European Romanticism.
La forza del destino
La vita è inferno … Oh tu
che in seno agli angeli
La vita è inferno all’infelice.
Invano morte desio!
Siviglia! Leonora!
Oh, rimembranza!
Oh, notte ch’ogni ben mi
rapisti.
Sarò infelice eternamente,
è scritto.
Della natal sua terra il padre
volle
Spezzar l’estranio giogo,
E coll’unirsi
All’ultima dell’Incas la corona
Cingere confidò.
Fu vana impresa!
In un carcere nacqui;
M’educava il deserto;
Sol vivo perché ignota
È mia regale stirpe.
I miei parenti sognarono un
trono,
E li destò la scure!
Oh, quando fine avran
Le mie sventure?
Oh tu che in seno agli angeli
Eternamente pura,
Salisti bella, incolume
Dalla mortal jattura.
Non iscordar di volger
Lo sguardo a me tapino,
Che senza nome ed esule,
In odio del destino,
Chiedo anelando,
Ahi misero,
La morte d’incontrar.
Leonora mia, soccorrimi,
Pietà del mio penar!
Pietà di me!
My life has been hell, a misery.
I’ve sought death, but in vain!
Seville! Leonora!
Oh, what memories!
That night robbed me of all
my happiness.
I’m doomed to eternal
sorrow.
My father dreamed of freeing
our land from Spanish rule,
And when he married
The last Inca princess,
He believed the crown
secured.
All an illusion!
I was born in a prison and
Raised in the desert;
I survived only because none
Knew of my royal blood.
My parents dreamed of a
throne,
And they awoke under the
axe!
Oh, when will my misfortunes
end?
Leonora, you now rest in the
arms of the angels.
In heaven you are free of
earthly cares.
Remember to look upon this
wretched being,
Upon this nameless exile,
Despised by destiny,
All I ask is that death
Ends my misery.
Leonora, dearest, comfort me.
Have pity on my suffering!
Have pity on me!
5
Notes and texts
The white-hot heat of romantic love is, by contrast, very
much to the fore in Verdi’s operatic trip to the Holy Land
itself, to the Crusades, in I lombardi alla prima crociata
of 1843. At last the tenor is allowed to twinkle, if not
exactly shine, as the young lover Oronte – a Saracen, son
of the ruler of Antioch – falls in love with the Christian
Giselda. It’s all there in a charming cavatina, ‘La mia
letizia infondere’, the secret love that cannot be told, a
love that is just one step away from heavenly bliss. Good
solid tenor territory and Verdi writes a nicely
old-fashioned number decked out with a jolly tune yet
with a beat to the music that looks forward as well as
backwards.
Just a year earlier, still some way off discovering the
meditative aspect of Romanticism, we find Verdi
responding to an altogether brasher version of the new
sensibility that had all of intellectual Europe on its knees in
the first four decades of the 19th century. ‘History’ is read
and seen as a vast panorama where ‘ignorant armies
clash by night’, where princes and powers scheme for
glory, and life is a fight to the death between love and
duty: the world of Victor Hugo’s baggy dramas that
enthralled Parisian audiences and enraged the French
censor. Nabucco (1842) was Verdi’s first unequivocal hit.
Indeed, the clash between the Children of Israel and
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon – and their resulting
moral triumph and his descent into madness – resembles
nothing so much as a huge mural commissioned for a
19th-century town hall or opera house. And audiences
loved it. ‘With Nabucco’, said the composer, ‘my career
can be said to have begun. Since then I have never
lacked for commissions.’
The Overture, workmanlike though it is, is not the heart of
Nabucco, though among the music it previews from the
opera you do hear for the first time the music for ‘Va,
pensiero’ that drives the whole work. This chorus of the
Hebrew Slaves is, of course, a kind of national anthem,
designed to bring an Italian audience to their political
6
I lombardi alla prima crociata
La mia letizia infondere
La mia letizia infondere
Vorrei nel suo bel core!
Vorrei destar co’palpiti
Del mio beato amore,
Tante armonie nell’etere
Quanti pianeti egli ha:
Ah! ir seco al cielo, ed
ergermi,
Dove mortal non va.
Come poteva un angelo
Crear sì puro il cielo.
E agli occhi suoi non
schiudere
Di veritade il velo?
Vieni, m’adduci a lei,
Rischiari i sensi miei,
Vieni, e nel ver s‘acquetino
La dubbia mente e il cor.
If only my heartfelt joy
Could stir her feelings!
If only she could share my
Passionate love,
Then the universe would be
Filled with harmony:
Ah! If only I could fly with her
to heaven,
Where no mortal can go.
I believe this angel of love
Prays to the only true God.
How could heaven create so
pure an angel
Without revealing the truth to
her?
Come, lead me to her,
She will enlighten me,
The sight of her will soothe my
Doubting heart and mind.
Nabucco
Va, pensiero
Chorus
Va, pensiero sull’ali dorate
Va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli,
Ove olezzano tepide e molli
L’aure dolci del suolo natal.
Del Giordano le rive saluta,
Di Sionne le torri atterrate …
O, mia patria sì bella e
perduta!
O membranza sì cara e fatal.
Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati,
Perchè muta dal salice pendi?
Go, thought, on golden wings
Go, alight on the cliffs, on the
hills,
Where there are wafting the
warm and gentle
Sweet breezes of our native
land.
Greet the Jordan’s banks,
The fallen towers of Zion …
Oh, my fatherland so
beautiful and so lost!
Oh, remembrance so dear
and fatal.
Harp of gold of the prophet
bards,
Why do you hang silent, from
the willow?
Notes and texts
Le memorie nel petto
feet. But the shape of this music also sets a pattern which
raccendi
Verdi found irresistible for almost all of his composing
Ci favella del tempo che fu.
life: a long-limbed melody punctuated by bursts of triplets
as it makes its stately way home. It’s noble music, with just O simile di Solima ai fati,
a hint of heroic possibilities.
Verdi chose his singers with great care. His
correspondence is littered with requests for particular
singers and speculations about their strengths and
weaknesses. And while matching the song to the singer
had always been a part of the Italian tradition, Verdi also
matched the singer to his song. In Francesco Tamagno he
found exactly the kind of heroic tenor he wanted for the
roles of Otello and Radames. A big voice, certainly, with
ringing tone. But not a voice that turned its back on the
gentler art of the lyric tenor. And maybe this blend of the
heroic and lyric tenor neatly encapsulates the theme that
preoccupied Verdi in nearly all of his later operas – the
conflict between public duty and private happiness. So in
‘Celeste Aida’ Radames is every inch the warrior, but
when he hopes for victory in the coming battle it is for the
sake of Aida, the Ethiopian Princess enslaved by the
Egyptians with whom he has fallen head over heels in
love. Verdi writes a three-part aria that is by turns big and
brash, but tender too. Short on self-awareness perhaps,
but then Radames scarcely seems a man to have lived the
examined life.
Interval: 20 minutes
Traggi un suono di crudo
lamento
O t’ispiri il Signore un
concento
Che ne infonda al patire virtù.
Rekindle the memories in our
breast
That speak to us of the time
that was.
O [harp], like Solomon to the
fates,
Draw a sound of harsh
lamentation
May the Lord inspire in thee
an accord
Which might infuse our
suffering with endurance.
Aida
Se quel guerrier … Celeste
Aida
Se quel guerrier io fossi!
Se il mio sogno si avverasse!
Un esercito di prodi da me
guidato
E la vittoria e il plauso di
Menfi tutta!
E a te, mia dolce Aida,
Tornar di lauri cinto
Dirti: per te ho pugnato,
Per te ho vinto!
If I were that warrior!
If my dream came true!
An army of brave men led by
me
And victory and the
praise of all Memphis!
And to you, my sweet Aida,
Returning wrapped in laurels
I would say: I’ve fought for
You, I’ve won for you!
Celeste Aida, forma divina,
Mistico serto di luce e fior,
Heavenly Aida, divine shape,
Mystic garland of light and
flowers,
You are queen of my
thoughts,
You are the splendour of my
life.
I would like to give you your
sky back,
The sweet breeze of the
fatherland:
To put a regal garland on
your heart
To build up a throne for you
next to the sun.
Del mio pensiero tu sei
regina,
Tu di mia vita sei lo splendor.
Il tuo bel cielo vorrei ridarti,
Le dolci brezze del patrio
suol:
Un regal serto sul crin posarti,
Ergerti un trono vicino al sol.
7
Notes and texts
In general, Verdi’s tenors are not much given to detailed
introspection – at least in the earliest operas that made
Verdi’s name throughout Europe: Rigoletto, Il trovatore
and La traviata. Or, if they are, it is just a passing mood
and then it’s on to another round of pleasure. Isn’t there
something just a little smug about Alfredo’s Act 2 scena
and aria ‘Lunge da lei per me … De’ miei bollenti spiriti’
in La traviata (1853)? Those racing, tremulous strings at
the start are surely a reminder that the story of his bliss
that Alfredo is about to share with us is only possible
because of Violetta – the same Violetta who is paying the
bills. Violetta and her fragile health are there again in the
pizzicato strings that hover just below the surface of the
spacious melody Verdi gives to Alfredo in the aria proper.
And the tenor who gives the final phrase a little vocal
flourish only underscores Alfredo’s implicit narcissism.
La traviata
Lunge da lei … De’ miei
bollenti spiriti
Lunge da lei per me non v’ha
diletto!
Volaron già tre lune
Dacchè la mia Violetta
Agi per me lasciò, dovizie,
Amori e le pompose feste,
Ov’agli omaggi avvezza,
Vedea schiavo ciascun di sua
bellezza.
Ed or contenta in questi
ameni luoghi
Tutto scorda per me.
Qui presso a lei io rinascer mi
sento,
E dal soffio d’amor
rigenerato,
Scordo ne’ gaudi suoi tutto il
passato.
De’ miei bollenti spiriti
Il giovanile ardore
Ella temprò col placido
Sorriso dell’amore!
Dal dì che disse: Vivere
Io voglio a te fedel!
Dell’universo immemore
Io vivo quasi in ciel.
8
There’s no pleasure in life
when she’s away!
It’s three months now since
Violetta gave up for me
Her easy, luxurious life
Of love affairs and expensive
parties,
There she was used to the
homage of all,
Who were enslaved by her
beauty.
But she seems happy here in
this charming place,
Where she forgets everything
for me.
With her beside me, I feel
myself reborn,
Revived by the breath of love,
Forgetting the past in present
delights.
My passionate spirit
And the fire of youth
She tempers with the
Gentle smile of love!
Since the day when she told
me: I want to live,
Faithful to you alone!
I have forgotten the world
And lived like one in heaven.
Notes and texts
For the genuine article – arrant narcissism – listen no
further than to the Duke in Rigoletto. Faced with this serial
seducer, you can almost sympathise with the censor who
wrote of Piave’s libretto that it was replete with ‘repellent
immorality and obscene triviality’. But Verdi knew what
he was doing. ‘The Duke’, he wrote ‘absolutely must be a
libertine. Without that there can be no justification for
[Rigoletto’s] fear that his daughter might come out of her
hiding place.’ ‘Questa o quella’ is the first of two cynical
credos sung by the Duke; the other is ‘La donna è
mobile’. At the end of the opera women are fickle, at the
start two a penny for a man’s pleasure. And yet what
Julian Budden calls ‘the skipping elegance of [this]
ballata’ is irresistible. Amoral but packed with charm.
This was music that charmed its way deep into the hearts
of all manner of 19th-century men and women.
Remember the poet Alfred Noyes and the barrel organ
churning away in Kew at lilac time?
‘And there La traviata sighs
Another sadder song;
And there Il trovatore cries
A tale of deeper wrong …’
Franz Liszt, who knew a popular thing when he heard it,
wrote Rigoletto – Concert Paraphrase for the piano and
Johann Strauss the younger turned a handful of themes
from Un ballo in maschera into a quadrille, a group
dance that seems to have originated in France. In the
beginning, quadrilles used traditional tunes, but Johann
Strauss II borrowed songs and opera arias that were
popular in his own day for his dances. Hence the
Quadrille on motifs from ‘Un ballo in maschera’.
Riccardo in Un ballo is a new kind of Verdian tenor hero,
more thoughtful than his predecessors and less heroic
than those of the later years: a lyric tenor, sensitive to his
own feelings and those of other people. It is Rodolfo in
Luisa Miller, written in 1849, a decade before Un ballo,
who initiated this change of direction. It’s a role that has
Rigoletto
Questa o quella
Questa o quella per me pari
sono,
A quant’altre d’intorno mi
vedo,
Del mio core l’impero non
cedo
Meglio ad una che ad altre
beltà.
La costoro avvenenza è qual
dono
Di che il fato ne infiora la vita.
S’oggi questa mi torna
gradita
Forse un’altra doman lo sarà.
La costanza tiranna del core
Detestiamo qual morbo
crudele,
Sol chi vuole si serbi fedele;
Non v’ha amor se non v’è
libertà.
De’ mariti il geloso furore
Degli amanti le smanie
derido,
Anco d’Argo i cent’occhi
disfido
Se mi punge una qualche
beltà.
This girl or that girl are just the
same to me,
To all the others around me,
I won’t give away my heart
To this beauty nor to the
others.
Their charm is a gift
Given by destiny to embellish
their lives.
If today I love this one
I’ll probably love someone
else tomorrow.
We hate constancy, the
heart’s tyrant,
As if it were a cruel plague,
Let those who wish to be
faithful stay faithful.
There is no love without
freedom.
The rage of jealous husbands
And lovers’ woes I despise,
I can defy Argus’ hundred
eyes
If I fancy a beautiful girl.
Luisa Miller
Oh! fede negar potessi …
Quando le sere al placido
Oh! fede negar potessi
Agl’ occhi miei!
Se cielo e terra,
Se mortali ed angeli
Oh! If I could only doubt
The evidence of my own eyes!
Should heaven and earth,
Mortals and angels
9
Notes and texts
been described as ‘one of the best integrated, most
rewarding tenor roles in all Verdi’. Now the music is cast
in a quieter style better suited to everyday emotions and
everyday people. It was perhaps time spent in Paris that
encouraged Verdi to take the grandiose out of grand
opera. The use of regular stanzas in Rodolfo’s aria
‘Quando le sere al placido’ seems to acknowledge a
debt to French composers such as Grétry and Auber.
How simple the aria, but how complicated the story.
Suffice it to say that Rodolfo has seen a letter in which
Luisa denies that she ever loved him. Meanwhile …
but,no, that way lies acres of plot and plotting!
No need to plot one of Verdi’s most celebrated choruses:
the Anvil Chorus from Il trovatore (1853), with a tribe of
gypsies, eyes glued to the conductor, beating out their
song to the rhythm of on-stage anvils.
And so to Otello (1887), the first of Verdi’s two late
masterpieces and a return to his beloved Shakespeare,
the artist whom he had admired above all others
throughout his adult life. With Otello we arrive at the third
age of the Verdian tenor. Heroic, certainly; a man of
action, too, but psychologically more complex than
Radames, and pitted against pure evil. That word ‘nulla’
(nothing) in the penultimate line of Iago’s Credo crosses
the footlights like a blast of Arctic air. All we can hope for
is a brief moment of dignity at our end. And that is
granted to Otello in his final aria, ‘Niun mi tema!’. As
Julian Budden suggests, the finest interpreters of the role
understand that ‘no tenor part of Verdi’s is encrusted with
more nuances’. The heroic, the lyric and above all the
simply human meet at Otello’s moment of death, our
sense of loss somehow absolute as the orchestra
murmurs the music from the love duet from Act I and
sounds an ambivalent benediction in a sequence of
chords that never quite resolve.
Programme note by Christopher Cook © 2008
10
attestarmi volesser ch’ella
non è rea,
Mentite! io risponder dovrei:
Tutti mentite!
Son cifre sue! Tanta perfidia!
Un’alma
Sì nera! sì mendace!
Ben la conobbe il padre!
Ma dunque i giuri, le
speranze,
La gioia, le lagrime,
l’affanno?
Tutto è menzogna,
tradimento, inganno!
assure me of her innocence,
Quando le sere al placido
Chiaror d’un ciel stellato
Meco figgea nell’etere
lo sguardo innamorato,
E questa mano stringermi
Dalla sua man sentia …
Ah! mi tradia! Mi tradia!
When at night in the serene
Light of a starry sky
She and I gazed lovingly
Into the heavens,
And I felt her hand
Warmly on mine …
Ah! she betrayed me! She
betrayed me!
Allor, ch’io muto, estatico
Da’ labbri suoi pendea,
Ed ella in suon angelico,
‘Amo te sol’ dicea,
Tal che sembrò l’empireo
Aprirsi all’alma mia!
In suon angelico,
‘Amo te sol’ dicea.
Ah! mi tradia! Mi tradia!
Then I, silent, ecstatic,
Listened to her words
As she, with an angelic voice,
Said ‘I love only you’,
So that paradise
Seemed to open to my soul!
With an angelic voice,
She said ‘I love only you’.
Ah! she betrayed me! She
betrayed me!
Lies! I would have to reply:
You all lie!
This is her hand! Such perfidy!
A soul
So black, so deceitful!
My father knew her well!
But what of the promises,
the hopes,
The joy, the tears,
the suffering?
All lies, treachery, deceit!
Notes and texts
Il trovatore
Vedi, le fosche notturne
(‘Anvil Chorus’)
Chorus
Vedi, le fosche notturne
spoglie
De’ cieli sveste l’immensa
volta;
Sembra una vedova che alfin
si toglie
I bruni panni ond’era involta.
Otello
Niun mi tema!
Look, see how the darkness of
night is lifting
And revealing the great vault
of heaven;
It seems like a widow who is
finally casting off
The dark clothes in which she
was enveloped.
All’opra, All’opra,
Dagli, martella!
To work, to work,
Ready, hammer!
Chi del gitano i giorni
abbella?
La zingarella!
Who cheers up the gypsy’s
days?
The gypsy lady!
Versami un tratto; lena e
coraggio
Il corpo e l’anima traggon dal
bere.
Oh guarda, guarda! Del sole
un
Raggio brilla più vivido nel
mio bicchiere!
Pour me a drink; body and
soul draw strength
And courage from drink.
All’opra, all’opra …
Dagli, martella!
To work, to work …
Ready, hammer!
Chi del gitano i giorni
abbella?
La zingarella!
Who cheers up the gypsy’s
days?
The gypsy lady!
Oh look, look! A sun’s ray
Shines brighter in my glass!
Niun mi tema
S’anco armato mi vede,
Ecco la fine del mio cammin.
Oh! Gloria! Otello fu.
E tu, come sei pallida!
E stanca, e muta, e bella,
Pia creatura nata sotto
maligna stella.
Fredda come la casta tua
vita …
E in cielo assorta.
Desdemona! Desdemona!
Ah … morta! Morta! Morta!
Ho un’arma ancor!
Pria d’ucciderti … sposa …
ti baciai.
Or morendo … nell’ombra …
In cui mi giacio …
Un bacio … un bacio
ancora …
Ah! … un altro bacio …
Do not be afraid,
Though you see me armed,
This is my journey’s end.
Oh! Glory! Otello is no more.
How pale you are!
How wan, how silent, how
beautiful,
Good creature, you were
born under an evil star
How cold … like your
chastity …
And your soul is now in
heaven’s hands.
Desdemona! Desdemona!
Ah … dead! Dead! Dead!
I still have a weapon!
I kissed you … my wife …
before I killed you.
No way but this …
Killing myself to die upon a
kiss
A kiss … one more kiss …
Only one more kiss …
11
About the performers
Roberto Alagna
tenor
Ion Marin
conductor
Roberto Alagna was born in
France of Sicilian parents and
began music lessons aged 10.
When he was 17 he
appeared in various Parisian
cabarets as writer-composerperformer, and he later
enrolled at the Opera School
in Paris, where he met Simone
Féjard with whom he still
collaborates.
In 1988 he won first prize at the Luciano Pavarotti
Competition in Philadelphia and made his UK debut
with Glyndebourne on Tour in the role of Alfredo (La
traviata), a role he would go on to sing throughout
Europe and in Japan. He next took on the role of
Rodolfo (La bohème), appearing for the Royal Opera,
Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Opéra de Paris, the
Metropolitan Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceo in
Barcelona and La Scala, Milan.
His operatic repertory includes Tosca, La rondine,
Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, L’elisir d’amore,
Lucia di Lammermoor, Roberto Devereux, Il trovatore,
Don Carlos, Aida, Simon Boccanegra, Macbeth,
Roméo et Juliette, Faust, Werther, Manon, L’amico Fritz,
Carmen, Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Andrea
Chénier and Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice.
Forthcoming performances include Cyrano de
Bergerac and Andrea Chénier in Monte Carlo; Faust in
Orange, Vienna and Paris; La rondine in New York;
Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci in New York and
Orange; Francesca da Rimini in Paris; Carmen in New
York, London, Berlin and Barcelona; and La bohème
and L’elisir d’amore in London.
He has appeared on many award-winning recordings
including La traviata, Rigoletto, L’elisir d’amore, The
Tales of Hoffmann, Gianni Schicchi and La bohème, as
well making many recital discs and DVDs. Cinema
marked a new step in the career of Roberto Alagna,
when he starred in a highly successful 2001 film
adaptation of Puccini’s Tosca.
12
One of the most exciting
conductors of his generation,
Romanian-born Ion Marin is
now an Austrian citizen. He
trained at the George Enescu
Academy in Bucharest,
followed by the Salzburg
Mozarteum and the
Accademia Musicale
Chigiana in Siena.
Ion Marin’s first major post
was as Resident Conductor at the Vienna Staatsoper
from 1986 to 1991.
Since 1994 he has conducted for virtually all the major
international opera houses, including the Deutsche
Oper Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, Opéra de Paris, La
Fenice and Dresden Semperoper. Recently he
conducted Manon for La Scala, Milan, La rondine for
San Francisco Opera and Werther for the Bavarian
State Opera.
Ion Marin has also established a solid reputation in the
concert hall, having worked with the London Symphony
Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Leipzig
Gewandhaus, London Philharmonic Orchestra,
Orchestre National de France, Accademia di Santa
Cecilia and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Last season he took up the post of Principal Guest
Conductor of the Russian National Philharmonic and
also worked with the Berlin, Munich and Oslo
Philharmonic orchestras, Vienna Symphony Orchestra
and Budapest Festival Orchestra.
This season, in addition to his regular European
commitments, he has engagements with the NHK
Symphony in Tokyo, the KBS Symphony in Seoul and the
New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.
His award-winning discography includes works by
Donizetti, Mozart, Rodrigo and Rossini, as well as
recordings with singers such as Roberto Alagna, Cecilia
Bartoli, Plácido Domingo, Angela Gheorghiu and
Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
About the performers
London Symphony Chorus
The London Symphony Chorus was formed in 1966. It has
a broad repertory and has commissioned works from Sir
John Tavener, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Michael Berkeley
and Jonathan Dove.
A recent highlight was the world premiere of James
MacMillan’s St John Passion with the LSO and Sir Colin
Davis as well as other concerts in the Barbican, Royal
Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall and St Paul’s Cathedral.
The Chorus tours extensively throughout Europe and has
visited Israel, Australia, the Far East and the USA. It has
recently returned from a performance of Mahler’s
Symphony No. 8 in Paris with the Orchestre de Paris
under Christoph Eschenbach. This autumn it returns to the
USA with performances of Verdi’s Requiem in Denver
with the Lamont Symphony Orchestra under Lawrence
Golan.
The Chorus has an extensive discography, including
many recordings with Richard Hickox; most recently
Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony. Its latest
collaboration with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO is
Mozart’s Requiem, which has just been released. Other
recordings with Sir Colin include Sibelius’s Kullervo
(which won a BBC Music Magazine Award last year),
Verdi’s Falstaff (which won a Grammy Award), Elgar’s
The Dream of Gerontius, plus a series of highly
acclaimed Berlioz recordings.
While maintaining special links with the LSO, the Chorus
has partnered many other orchestras in the UK, including
the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Orchestra of the
Age of Enlightenment, City of Birmingham and BBC
Symphony orchestras and BBC National Orchestra of
Wales. Internationally, it has worked with many leading
orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston
Symphony Orchestra, European Union Youth Orchestra
and the Vienna Philharmonic.
The London Symphony Chorus is always interested in
recruiting new members, welcoming applications from
singers of all backgrounds, subject to an audition. For
further information call Helen Lawford, Auditions
Secretary, on 020 8504 0295 or apply online at
www.lsc.org.uk.
Sopranos
Kerry Baker
Carol Capper
Debra Colvin
Anna Daventry
Gabrielle Edwards
Kate Gardner
Ashley Germain
Jo Gueritz
Gladys Hosken
Debbie Jone
Rei Kozaki
Helen Lawford
Cinde Lee
Rachael Leggett
Alison Marshall
Margarita Matusevich
Jane Morle
Emily Norto
Maggie Owen
Varuni Paranavitane
Carole Radfor
Maria Simoes
Amanda Thomas *
Kate Turner
Zoe Williams
Altos
Sarah Biggs
Elizabeth Boyden
Gina Broderick
Alexis Calice
Yvonne Cohen
Genevieve Cope
Janette Daines
Maggie Donnelly
Linda Evans
Lydia Frankenburg
Christina Gibbs
Yoko Harada
Elisabeth Iles
Sue Jones
Gillian Lawson
Susan Lee
Catherine Lenson
Belinda Liao
Etsuko Makita
Aoife McInerney
Gulay Saritas-Willsher
Nesta Scott
Suleen Syn
Claire Trocmé
Curzon Tussaud
Rebecca Walker
Judith Youdell
Mimi Zadeh
Tenors
Paul Allatt
Simon Bainbridge
Lorne Cuthbert
Joseph Denby
John Farrington
Stephen Hogg
Tony Instrall
David Leonard
John Marks
Alastair Mathews
Malcolm Nightingale
Panos Ntourntoufis
Stuart Packford
Rik Phillips
Harold Raitt
Mattia Romani
Takeshi Stokoe
Malcolm Taylor
Owen Toller
James Warbis *
Robert Ward *
Paul Williams-Burton
Basses
David Armour
Peter Avis
Joe Bahoshy
Bruce Boyd
Andy Chan
David Clark
Alastair Forbes
Robert Garbolinski
John Graham
Robin Hall
Owen Hanmer *
Derrick Hogermeer
Anthony Howick *
David Illingworth
Alex Kidney
Gregor Kowalski
Geoff Newman
Alan Rochford
Nic Seager
Ed Smith
Nick Weekes
* denotes member of Council
13
About the performers
London Symphony Orchestra
As well as being regarded as one of the world’s leading
orchestras on the strength of its performances, the
London Symphony Orchestra is also highly visible outside
the concert hall. It has a ground-breaking education and
community programme, a record company, a music
education centre and undertakes exciting work in the
field of information technology, and much more.
At its Barbican home in the City, the LSO promotes more
concerts than any other classical music organisation in
London, and its LSO Live recordings made there take the
Orchestra to a worldwide audience. In film soundtracks –
such as all six Star Wars films – on radio, TV, on computer
games, on planes and online, you can hear the LSO
just about anywhere where music is enjoyed. LSO Live
is the best-selling orchestral own-label in the world, and
is regularly No. 1 in the classical downloads charts on
iTunes.
Violin I
Carmine Lauri co-leader
Lennox Mackenzie
sub-leader
Nicholas Wright
Robin Brightman
Jörg Hammann
Michael Humphrey
Maxine Kwok
Claire Parfitt
Elizabeth Pigram
Colin Renwick
Ian Rhodes
Gabrielle Painter
Ellie Fagg
Geoffrey Silver
14
Violin II
Evgeny Grach †
Tom Norris *
David Ballesteros
Richard Blayden
Matthew Gardner
Belinda McFarlane
Paul Robson
Stephen Rowlinson
Iwona Muszynska
Norman Clarke
Giovanni Guzzo
Oriana Kriszten
Viola
Paul Silverthorne †
Gillianne Haddow
Richard Holttum
Robert Turner
Jonathan Welch
Gina Zagni
Nancy Johnson
Caroline O’Neill
Peter Norriss
Duff Burns
Five minutes from the Barbican, at LSO St Luke’s, the UBS
and LSO music education centre, the LSO is expanding
its artistic programme to include BBC TV Sessions, BBC
Radio 3 lunchtime chamber concerts and UBS
Soundscapes: Eclectica concerts with world-class artists
from diverse musical backgrounds. LSO Discovery is
facilitating music education and community musicmaking, using LSO musicians and animateurs, and new
technology to build ever stronger links with local people
and in East London schools.
More than 100 years after it was formed, the LSO still
attracts excellent players, many of whom have flourishing
solo, chamber music and teaching careers alongside
their orchestral work. The LSO’s roster of soloists and
conductors is second to none, starting with Principal
Conductor Valery Gergiev, LSO President Sir Colin Davis,
and Daniel Harding and Michael Tilson Thomas as
Principal Guest Conductors.
Cello
Rebecca Gilliver †
Alastair Blayden
Jennifer Brown
Noel Bradshaw
Keith Glossop
Maria Zachariadou
Alexandra Mackenzie
Claire Thirion
Double Bass
Colin Paris †
Nicholas Worters *
Axel Bouchaux
Michael Francis
Tom Goodman
Gerald Newson
Flute
Karen Jones +
Martin Parry
Piccolo
Sharon Williams †
Oboe
Kieron Moore †
John Lawley
Cor Anglais
Christine Pendrill
Clarinet
Andrew Marriner †
Chi Yu Mo
Bassoon
Susumu Takahashi +
Joost Bosdijk
Dominic Morgan
Robin Kennard
Orchestra list
Horn
David Pyatt †
Jonathan Lipton
Brendan Thomas
David McQueen
Nick Hougham
Trumpet
David Gordon +
Gerald Ruddock
Nigel Gomm
Ben Godfrey
Trombone
Katy Jones †
Robert Workman
Andrew Connington
Barbican Committee
Chairman
John Barker OBE
Deputy Chairman
Jeremy Mayhew MBA
Committee Members
Mary Lou Carrington MBA
Christine Cohen OBE
Stuart John Fraser
Maureen Kellett
Lesley King Lewis
Catherine McGuiness
Joyce Nash OBE
Barbara Newman CBE
John Owen Ward
John Robins
Keith Salway
John Tomlinson
Clerk to the Committee
Stuart Pick
Barbican Directorate
Managing Director
Sir Nicholas Kenyon
Artistic Director
Graham Sheffield
Bass Trombone
Paul Milner
Tuba
Patrick Harrild †
Timpani
Nigel Thomas †
Percussion
Neil Percy †
David Jackson
Alexander Neal
Harp
Karen Vaughan †
Gabriella Dall’Olio
Commercial and Venue
Services Director
Mark Taylor
Projects and Building
Services Director
Michael Hoch
Finance Director
Sandeep Dwesar
Personal Assistant to
Sir Nicholas Kenyon
Ali Ribchester
Barbican Music
Department
Head of Music
Robert van Leer
Executive Producer
Vicky Cheetham
Music Programmers
Gijs Elsen
Bryn Ormrod
Programming
Consultant
Angela Dixon
† principal
+ guest principal
* sub-principal
President
Sir Colin Davis CH
Principal Conductor
Valery Gergiev
Principal Guest
Conductors
Daniel Harding
Michael Tilson Thomas
Conductor Laureate
André Previn KBE
Programming
Assistants
Andrea Jung
Katy Morrison
Concerts Planning
Manager
Frances Bryant
Music Administrator
Thomas Hardy
Head of Marketing
Chris Denton
Marketing Campaign
Managers
Bethan Sheppard
Greg Fearon
Acting Music Marketing
Executive
Sarah Hemingway
Acting Performing Arts
Marketing Assistant
Jessica Tomkins
Media Relations
Ginny Macbeth & Dennis
Chang, Macbeth Media
Relations
Media Relations
Managers
Alex Webb
Annikaisa Vainio
Media Relations Officer
Hannah Kendall
Senior Production
Manager
Eddie Shelter
Production Managers
Jessica Buchanan-Barrow
Alison Cooper
Jonathan Mayes
Senior Event Manager
Rachel Smith
Event Managers
Claire Corns
Kate Packham
Fiona Todd
Production Coordinator
Catherine Langston
Technical Managers
Eamonn Byrne
Jasja van Andel
Ingo Reinhardt
Programme produced by Harriet Smith; printed by Sharp Print Limited; advertising by Cabbell (tel. 020 8971 8450)
Please make sure that all digital watch alarms and mobile phones are switched off during the performance.
In accordance with the requirements of the licensing authority, sitting or standing in any gangway is not
permitted. Smoking is not permitted anywhere on the Barbican premises. No eating or drinking is allowed
in the auditorium. No cameras, tape recorders or any other recording equipment may be taken into the hall.
Technical Supervisors
Mark Bloxsidge
Steve Mace
Technicians
Maurice Adamson
Jason Kew
Sean McDill
Martin Shaw
Associate Producer
Elizabeth Burgess
Stage Managers
Christopher Alderton
Julie-Anne Bolton
Stage Supervisor
Paul Harcourt
Senior Stage Assistants
Andy Clarke
Hannah Wye
Stage Assistants
Ademola Akisanya
Michael Casey
Trevor Davison
Martin Thompson
Technical and Stage
Coordinator
Colette Chilton
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Administration 020 7638 4141
Box Office 020 7638 8891
www.barbican.org.uk
15