wladek:
Get that e flat out of your ass, it is clogging you up.
How the hell do you know how Verdi would have felt?
How many tenors do the B flat at the end of Celeste Aida or sopranos the High C in O Patria Mia piano?
Horrors….What an affront to Verdi!! No PPP??? An E flat at the end of Sempre Libera….Such a travesty. No trills in Coppia Iniqua?? OMG a flute cadenza at the end of the Lucia Mad Scene AAAHHHHH!!!! What an insult to Donizetti.
Betsy Ann:
I’ll cook you dinner anytime while you swill beer and scratch your balls.
Thanks for the recommendation on Shaw. I do own the complete musical criticism of Bernard Shaw. Yes, he is a classic, well worth reading. I also own some Euripides and, of course, all of Proust.
I looked in the index of my Shaw for ‘Di quella pira’. Let me quote. “In the same way, if you check your excitement at the conclusion of the wedding scene in Il Trovatore to ask what, after all, Di quella pira is, the answer must be that it is only a common bolero tune, just as Stride la vampa is only a common waltz tune. Indeed, if you know these tunes only through the barrel organs, you will need no telling. But in the theatre, if the singers have the requisite power and spirit, one does not ask these questions: the bolero form passes as unnoticed as the saraband form in Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga, whereas in the more academic form of the aria with caballetto, which Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti accepted, the form reduces the matter to absurdity. Verdi, stronger and more singly dramatic, broke away from the Rossinian convention; developed the simpler cavatina form with an integral codetta instead of a separated cabaletto; combined it fearlessly with popular dance and ballad forms; and finally produced the once enormously popular, because concise, powerful, and comparatively natural and dramatic type of operatic solo which prevails in Il Trovatore and Un Ballo.”
Shaw continues as always, I agree with you, in a most genial way. I was looking for, though, to more of a performance history on the matter of the high C, something that Porter often did, so that is why I mentioned I wished I had his works with a good index.
Talking about Il Trovatore and going back to Maria, of whom Shaw reminded me by mentioning in the quoted passage the “requisite power and spirit” of the singers, I have to mention the incredible, absolutely out of this world rendition of Maria outside the prison in the pirated recording at the San Carlo in Naples, I believe circa 1954. Breathtaking is the only word for that performance, and the words of JJ in the above article also come to mind as when he says, “More important that that, I think, was what she did with the voice; how she used the voice as an expressive instrument.” I think Verdi would have been very glad, had he been alive, to have an artist as Maria of such power, spirit and expressiveness to make some of his opera characters come alive on stage.
You may already have this but the high C was sung by Carlo Baucade
for the first time 1853 . He did not sing it at opening but supposedly
give the c a shot in 1853 . I forget
the opera house , but am sure it was not Rome.
Our Own JJ discusses Maria Callas and her Voice Of Perfect Imperfection with NPR’s Lynn Neary.
wladek:
Get that e flat out of your ass, it is clogging you up.
How the hell do you know how Verdi would have felt?
How many tenors do the B flat at the end of Celeste Aida or sopranos the High C in O Patria Mia piano?
Horrors….What an affront to Verdi!! No PPP??? An E flat at the end of Sempre Libera….Such a travesty. No trills in Coppia Iniqua?? OMG a flute cadenza at the end of the Lucia Mad Scene AAAHHHHH!!!! What an insult to Donizetti.
Betsy Ann:
I’ll cook you dinner anytime while you swill beer and scratch your balls.
Oh, dear Dylan! I’m so flustered. I’ve always felt that people ought to do things . . . together!
dylan- It seems you are able to read -but to comprehend is beyond your ability- hope your cooking is better.
This is a warning: keep it civil and on-topic or you’ll go on moderation.
wladek,
Thanks for the recommendation on Shaw. I do own the complete musical criticism of Bernard Shaw. Yes, he is a classic, well worth reading. I also own some Euripides and, of course, all of Proust.
I looked in the index of my Shaw for ‘Di quella pira’. Let me quote. “In the same way, if you check your excitement at the conclusion of the wedding scene in Il Trovatore to ask what, after all, Di quella pira is, the answer must be that it is only a common bolero tune, just as Stride la vampa is only a common waltz tune. Indeed, if you know these tunes only through the barrel organs, you will need no telling. But in the theatre, if the singers have the requisite power and spirit, one does not ask these questions: the bolero form passes as unnoticed as the saraband form in Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga, whereas in the more academic form of the aria with caballetto, which Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti accepted, the form reduces the matter to absurdity. Verdi, stronger and more singly dramatic, broke away from the Rossinian convention; developed the simpler cavatina form with an integral codetta instead of a separated cabaletto; combined it fearlessly with popular dance and ballad forms; and finally produced the once enormously popular, because concise, powerful, and comparatively natural and dramatic type of operatic solo which prevails in Il Trovatore and Un Ballo.”
Shaw continues as always, I agree with you, in a most genial way. I was looking for, though, to more of a performance history on the matter of the high C, something that Porter often did, so that is why I mentioned I wished I had his works with a good index.
Talking about Il Trovatore and going back to Maria, of whom Shaw reminded me by mentioning in the quoted passage the “requisite power and spirit” of the singers, I have to mention the incredible, absolutely out of this world rendition of Maria outside the prison in the pirated recording at the San Carlo in Naples, I believe circa 1954. Breathtaking is the only word for that performance, and the words of JJ in the above article also come to mind as when he says, “More important that that, I think, was what she did with the voice; how she used the voice as an expressive instrument.” I think Verdi would have been very glad, had he been alive, to have an artist as Maria of such power, spirit and expressiveness to make some of his opera characters come alive on stage.
You may already have this but the high C was sung by Carlo Baucade
for the first time 1853 . He did not sing it at opening but supposedly
give the c a shot in 1853 . I forget
the opera house , but am sure it was not Rome.