Opera Daily đ¶ â Luisa Miller
This week's Opera Daily features the tenor and mezzo-soprano duet from Act 1 of Verdi's Italian opera Luisa Miller
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Quick announcement: I will be taking off until July 9th due to some traveling. But donât worry; I am leaving you today with something beautiful. We will be back after July 4th, inspired and refreshed!
Letâs get to it!
Today weâre listening toâŠ
âDall'aule raggiantiâ the tenor (Rodolfo) and mezzo-soprano (Federica) duet from Act I of Verdiâs Italian opera Luisa Miller.
Federica arrives, and the count leaves Rodolfo and Federica alone. Rodolfo tells Federica that he loves another woman, but Federica, who has worshipped him since childhood, refuses to break off the engagement.
đ§Â Listening Example: (6 minute listen): Placido Domingo and Florence Quivar singing âDall'aule raggiantiâ the tenor and mezzo-soprano duet from Act 1 of Verdiâs Italian opera Luisa Miller.
Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller was Verdi's 15th opera, and it is regarded as the beginning of the composerâs âmiddle period.â He wrote it in 1849 in his mid-thirties, with the premiere in 1849 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. The opera marks the inflection point from the early Verdi style, strongly influenced by the formal structure of bel canto (for example, the double aria, cavatina, and cabaletta), to a more mature Verdi.
In Luisa Miller, he turns away from kings and princes to a new environment that is far more intimate, familiar, every day. Despite the opera's more down-to-earth setting, it's about big emotionsâlove, jealousy, rage, desireâall of them.
âThis is what Verdi expected from singers: emotions so strong that they become ideas. To study archival recordings is to realize how deliberately the old singers marshaled their resources toward the few notes that truly mattered.âÂ
Verdi used a more refined composing style with Luisa Miller than the operaâs predecessors. Many of the colors in Luisa Miller show up in his later operas like Il Trovatore, La traviata, and even Otello. Because of this, Luisa Miller is considered the proving ground for the polished musical style he perfected four years later with one of his greatest works, La traviata.
Luisa Miller is Verdiâs tragedy based on a play by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. Luisa falls in love with Rodolfo, unaware he is the son of a powerful Count. When Rodolfo's father learns his son is in love with Luisa, he does everything he can to destroy the relationship.
âThe appeal of Italian opera is difficult to put into words, but it has something to do with the activation of primal feelings. Operatic characters have a way of laying themselves bare, and they are never more uninhibited than at the climax of a Verdi tragedy.â
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Verdi followed convention in casting the essential roles; the soprano and tenor are the young lovers, and the father is a baritone. The âother womanâ is, of course, a mezzo-soprano. Sound familiar? đ
The overture to Luisa Miller is fantastic. The entire piece is in one tempo and based on a single theme from the third act.
Verdi was a perfectionist. It wasnât uncommon at the end of rehearsal for the scores of his conductors to be covered in their own sweat.
âThe greatness of Verdi is a simple thing. A solitary man, he found a way of speaking to limitless crowds, and his method was to sink himself completely into his characters. He never composed music for music's sake; every note has a precise dramatic function. The most astounding scenes in his work are those in which all the voices come together in a visceral massâlike a human wave that could carry anything before it.â
Thank you for reading (and listening),
Michele
PS. If you missed last weekâs selection, we featured the quartet from Act 3 of the Italian opera Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi.
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Listening to this duet brings me sadness The death of Carlo Bergonzi in 2014 brought to an end of 100+ years of the great tradition of the Italian tenor. Starting with Caruso and followed by Gigli, Laura Volpe, Schipa, DeStefano, Tagliavini, Martinelli, DelMonico, Corelli and Pavarotti. And Iâm sure I left
several out. Gone forever with no legacy in sight
Juan Diego Florez, Joseph Calleja, Jonas Kauffman, Javier Camarena, and Vittorio Grigolo and Piiatr Beclaza are certainly important singers in our time as well. Tutto non e perduto, Roberto.