Tag

Il Trovatore

Di Quella Pira

June 23, 2018

‘Di quella pira’ is the cabaletta to the aria ‘Ah sì, ben mio’ which together make up almost the entirety of Act 3 scene 2 of Verdi’s Il Trovatore. The number’s famous high C (or sometimes Cs) were an addition to the score that Verdi allowed provided, he added, that the high note was good. […]

Il Trovatore in HD – 2015

October 3, 2015

Enrico Caruso’s famous quip that all you needed to do Verdi’s Il Trovatore were the four greatest singers in the world was proven correct this afternoon by the Met’s HD telecast of the opera. When you have performers as good as the Met brought together for this show you realize what an extraordinary masterpiece Il Trovatore is and […]

Tutto Verdi – Il Trovatore

September 27, 2014

Another Il Trovatore. This one from Parma’s Teatro Regio’s series of all the composer’s operas. It’s just chance that this post on the opera follows a previous one on the same work. I confess that I didn’t expect much from this performance as Verdi’s lyrical lunatics were portrayed by singers, excepting Marcelo Álvarez in the title role, who […]

Il Trovatore in Salzburg 2014

September 16, 2014

Last Month Verdi’s opera was staged at the Grosses Festspielhaus. The performance of August 15 was telecast. If you have a subscription to medici.tv you can watch it at your leisure. I just got around to viewing it. Alvis Hermanis’ production is another on the ever growing list of those that are best viewed from behind a […]

Il Balen

August 13, 2012

No composer wrote so much great music for baritone as did Giuseppe Verdi. In Italian opera the baritone is usually a villain, or the guy who doesn’t get the girl, or an older protagonist. But regardless, Verdi usually has him sing like an angel. Nowhere is this more so than in the second act of Il […]

D’amor sull’ali rosee

January 2, 2012

If a knowledgeable opera goer were asked to name the most demanding and beautiful bel canto aria written for the soprano voice “Casta diva” from Bellini’s Norma or “Bel raggio lusinghier” from Rossini’s Semiramide or perhaps “Regnava nel silenzio” from Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor might head the list. But to my ears nothing is as beautiful and […]

Il Trovatore in HD

April 30, 2011

Verdi’s Il Trovatore is the transcendental Italian opera of the first half of the 19th century. It is the culmination of that style of operatic writing introduced by Rossini and further advanced by Bellini and most importantly for Verdi’s development Donizetti. That Verdi was moving in a new direction was shown by Rigoletto (1851). That […]

The Perfect Il Trovatore

March 1, 2009

Verdi’s great opera currently on display at New York’s Metropolitan Opera rarely gets a good performance anywhere because of the extraordinary demands placed on its four protagonists. In 1952 RCA got the best cast ever assembled to record the opera. It’s as close to perfection as we’re ever likely to get. You can quibble about […]

Met's New Il Trovatore Vocally Disappointing

February 17, 2009

Enrico Caruso declared that all one needed for a good performance of Verdi’s masterpiece of the id gone berserk – Il Trovatore – were the four greatest singers in the world. Unfortunately they did not show up last night at the Met’s first performance of its new production at least if you were listening on […]