The months Giuseppe Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi spent wandering the pretty Paris streets in 1847, after enamouring each other in the Cafe Les Deux Magots, could not last forever. Shortly after the romance began, the news that the peoples of Italy had risen up against the Austrian occupation brought them back to reality. The revolution had finally erupted. Milan and Venice had revolted. The king of Piedmont, Carlos Alberto, attacked Austria.
"Music of the cannon"
Although he qualified at best as a moderate liberal, Verdi did not remain oblivious to the storm winds that were shaking Italy. In a letter to his friend and librettist Francesco Maria Piave –enrolled in the revolutionary army– he wrote these lines:
"The hour of [Italy's] liberation has sounded... You speak to me of music!! What's got into you? ...Do you believe I want to concern myself now with notes, with sounds? ...There must be only one music welcome to the ears of Italians in 1848. The music of the cannon!"But the revolution failed. Pope Pio IX withdrew his support and the rebellious king, the aforementioned Carlos Alberto, had to abdicate in favour of his son Victor Manuel –the Austrian domination not changing one iota. Thus began a new era in which the maestro Verdi would become one of the heralds of the Italian yearning for freedom.
If in the past years Verdi's music was sung ostentatiously in the streets, and if in the theaters the libertarian songs were chanted and applauded standing next to Austrian officers with frowning brows, now it is his own name that would serve as an emblem of the revolutionary spirit. The second war of independence would be preceded by the acronym of his name the Italians painted on the walls of the streets: VIVA VERDI: Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia.
But it would be necessary to wait 11 years, until 1859, for the second Italian independence war to develop, this time successfully.
The popular trilogy
In the meantime, Verdi is going to compose eight operas, among which is included the famous "popular trilogy" consisting of the works Rigoletto, El Trovador and La Traviata, a clear sign that his music had taken another path. The defeat of the year 1848 had the effect that the patriotic choirs, the libertarian armies and the wailing of oppressed peoples lost their meaning entirely. The music of the trilogy's operas, in contrast, would sing the intimate conflicts and the main character’s situation would be the key foundation for building the story line and the dramatic conflicts. Therefore, these operas are also known as "character operas", because the characters are the ones that move Verdi, they are the protagonists and it is thanks to them also that these three works survive to this day.
Rigoletto
Released in 1851 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Rigoletto is the first opera of the trilogy. With libretto by Piave, and based in the work by Victor Hugo, Le roi s'amuse ("The king has fun" –the bad tongues would say that he is the only one who has fun), the work tells the highly pathetic story of the court jester Rigoletto who for protecting his daughter Gilda, by means of a curse will end up killing her with his own hands.
Bella figlia dell'amore (Beautiful daughter of love), the famous vocal quartet from Act III, has been described as "an intricate musical depiction of four personalities and their overlapping agendas". Indeed, the four singers sing two dialogues at the same time, but they are as couples singing in different places.
In a concert version, the soprano Anna Netrebko and the mezzo Elina Garança. The guys, Ramón Vargas and Ludovic Tézier. The quartet itself begins at the minute 1:30.
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