Opera Daily 🎶 — La Wally

This week's Opera Daily features “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” a soprano aria from Act 1 of the Italian opera La Wally by Alfredo Catalani

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Today we’re listening to…

“Ebben? Ne andrò lontana” a soprano aria from Act 1 of the Italian opera La Wally by Alfredo Catalani. La Wally contains your basic operatic premise of girl loves boy, girl’s father promises her to someone else, true love wins briefly, and then lovers die tragically! 

Maria Callas is singing the role of Wally, and she lets her soul flow into the music. Heartbreakingly beautiful and otherworldly. She inhabits roles like very few singers in the past or present have done —conveying a sense of vulnerability and strength simultaneously.

🎧 Listen here (5 minute listen): Soprano Maria Callas singing “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana”, a soprano aria from Act 1 of the Italian opera La Wally by Alfredo Catalani.

La Wally (La-vah-LEE) is about a woman named Wally from a small town in the Austrian Alps.

Composed in the late 19th century, La Wally represents a transitional period in Italian opera, bridging the gap between the grandeur of Romanticism and the emergence of verismo. It reflects the shifting tastes of the era, blending traditional Italian drama with a more realistic depiction of human emotions.

Wally is secretly in love with a man from another town who is also the son of her father’s enemy. Her father catches wind of her feelings and demands that she marry his friend or be forced to leave his house. Wally defies her father, leaves for the mountains and sings “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana”.

I will go alone and far
As far as the echo of the church bell,
There, through the white snow;
I will go, I will go alone and far
Through the golden clouds.

Want more?

• La Wally was first performed at La Scala in Milan on January 20, 1892. It is seldom fully staged in opera houses due to the difficulties of recreating the avalanche(!) in Act 4.

• Maria Callas (rhymes with “palace”) was a Greek-American soprano. She was one of the most famous and controversial opera singers of the 20th century. Her fans called her “La Divina” (“the divine one”).

• Callas was an innovator and transformed her pain into something beautiful for the world to experience. She influenced the opera world more than any other person during the 20th century.

Grateful for your time and ears,

Michele

PS. Missed our last edition? We featured “Je crois entendre encore” (“I still believe I hear”), Nadir’s aria from Georges Bizet's French opera Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers).

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