James Heffernan

But, hey, I’ve previously posted single acts of Wagner (Tristan, Walküre, and Parsifal), so why not Verdi?

Just the third Act of Luisa Miller? Because I absolutely love it and it’s among the finest forty minutes in all Verdi which means it’s indisputably one of opera’s greatest acts. Although the composer had written some very fine things before Luisa premiered in 1849–notably Ernani and Macbeth–he was just about to create that remarkable career-transforming trifecta of Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata, each destined to become among opera’s most popular works.

For its first two Acts, Luisa, the third of the composer’s four operas based on plays by Friedrich Schiller, is very fine, but its intensely emotional and moving third stands out. After an elegantly mournful opening chorus with interjections from Luisa’s Giovanna-Inez-Annina surrogate Laura, it becomes a tour-de-force for its heroine. Her interchanges with her father must be ranked with Verdi’s finest soprano-baritone duets. Then after an intense prayer, her suspicious lover enters and they clash in a duo featuring an astonishing reversal that leads directly into the sublime final trio culminating in one of the composer’s most soaring and heart-wrenching deaths.

Today’s quintet of Luisa-3s includes three Met pirates from the decade after the work reappeared in 1968 after an absence of nearly forty years. It first featured Montserrat Caballé, Richard Tucker, and Sherrill Milnes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNfnfVY5TI8

Three years later it became James Levine’s second Met opera and the first of his many, many Verdi performances there. That season’s premiere saw Maliponte spelling Caballé, but it was soon followed by numerous cast changes, a common practice during the Bing years. By the third performance (heard today), Tucci and Cornell MacNeil had taken over. Shortly thereafter, Placido Domingo and Mario Sereni (both (also heard today) met up with Maliponte. She and MacNeil got the eventual broadcast but their Rodolfo was John Alexander.

Earlier in the 1978-79 season before the famous Scotto-Domingo-Milnes live telecast, Ricciarelli took on Luisa scheduled to be paired with José Carreras. He cancelled the first three (replaced by Carlo Bini or John Alexander) but belatedly joined the cast for just three performances of the only work he sang at the Met opposite Ricciarelli after her debut run with him in La Bohème. Their chemistry is clearly palpable in today’s pirate.

Before taking on Luisa at the Met, Scotto tried it out in the Verdi city of Parma where she was fathered by Giorgio Zancanaro who unfortunately made relatively few appearances in the US.

Without intending to, today’s Chris’s Cache proves to be a salute to Mario Sereni who appears three times as Miller, a role in which the “under-appreciated” Italian baritone is intensely sympathetic. Besides the Met he performed the role in Vienna where today is dotes on Cruz-Romo in a staging that premiered several years earlier with Canadian soprano Lilian Sukis in the title role, an unusual casting choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qp4dgEpu40

American sopranos are embracing Luisa Miller lately. Nadine Sierra recently sang the role in concert and on 13 April Angel Blue makes her debut in the opera in DC—not at the Kennedy Center.

Apologies for the unavoidable snafus at the conclusion of the Maliponte and Cruz-Romo clips.

Verdi: Luisa Miller—Act III  

Luisa: Gabriella Tucci
Rodolfo: Richard Tucker
Miller: Cornell MacNeil
Laura: Ivanka Myhal

Conductor: James Levine
Metropolitan Opera
30 October 1971
In-house recording

Luisa: Adriana Maliponte
Rodolfo: Plácido Domingo
Miller: Mario Sereni
Laura: Ivanka Myhal

Conductor: James Levine
9 November 1971
Metropolitan Opera
In-house recording

Luisa: Renata Scotto
Rodolfo: Giuliano Ciannella
Miller: Giorgio Zancanaro
Laura: Rina Pallini

Conductor: Peter Maag
Teatro Regio di Parma
16 January 1976
Broadcast?

Luisa: Gilda Cruz-Romo
Rodolfo: Franco Bonisolli
Miller: Mario Sereni
Laura: Milcana Nicolova

Conductor: Anton Guadagno
Wiener Staatsoper
11 June 1976
In-house recording

Luisa: Katia Ricciarelli
Rodolfo: José Carreras
Miller: Mario Sereni
Laura: Shirley Love

Conductor: James Levine
Metropolitan Opera
4 December 1978
In-house recording

Each third Act of Luisa can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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