Samuel Ramey                           Joyce Di Donato

   
Callas readying for publicity photos                Bryn Terfel as Scarpia
 for recording of "Manon Lescaut."
 

           

             Gobbi and Callas

In Puccini's "Tosca" (see post # 5), the Rome police chief, Scarpia, has summoned the singer, Floria Tosca, to his chambers. His plot to drive her away from the painter, Cavaradossi, has failed, and now he resorts to more nefarious means. Tosca arrives, only to hear Cavaradossi's screams of anguish as he is tortured in the next room. Scarpia extracts a promise of sex in exchange for releasing the painter, which he actually has no intention of doing. Tosca agrees, then sings the beloved, heart-rending aria, "Vissi d'arte," asking God how he can be so cruel to one who has never "harmed a living soul." The rape that follows is thwarted by Tosca herself, in an act that every civilized person wishes would befall Putin, who is extorting the world with the threat of nuclear war, as he rapes Ukraine. Here is that full scene, from Act 2 of "Tosca," with astonishing performances by Maria Callas and Tito Gobbi. With English subtitles.

At times such as these---wait a second, there have never been times such as these. Well, at this time, one is torn between antipathy toward humanity, for never having overcome the compulsion to destroy and kill, and. . .deep love of this fragile oasis in cosmic nothingness, the paradise Earth. Here, SOL opts for due condemnation of humanity, in the voice of Satan himself, gloating over the evils and ills that forever plague our sorry species. This, of course, is as cogent a denunciation of evil and foible as can be found in opera, and possibly anywhere, "Ecco il Mondo," from Boito's "Mefistofeles." The sensational performance is by Samuel Ramey.
Setting: The heights of Brocken Mountain, medieval times.
Synopsis: During a series of Satanic rituals on the mountaintop, a group of witches give Mefistofele a glass globe. He sees the world in it and declares his hatred for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSyV3cjWLWY
Translation:
Here is the world,
Empty and round.
It rises, falls,
Dances, glitters,
Whirls about
Under the sun,
Trembles, roars,
Creates, destroys,
Now barren, now fecund-
Such is the world.
Upon its huge
And rounded back
Dwells an unclean
And mad race,
Wicked, subtle,
Proud, vile,
Which lorever
Devours itself,
From the depths to the heights
Of the guilty world.
This proud
And foolish race,
Amid vanities
And orgies,
Laughs, exults,
Merrily, heedlessly,
Wealthy, proud,
And swells up
On the foul globe!
Of the guilty world!
ITALIAN:
Ecco il mondo,
Vuoto e tondo,
S’alza, scende,
Balza e splende.
Fa carole intorno al sole,
Trema, rugge, dà e distrugge,
Ora sterile or fecondo.
Ecco il mondo.
Sul suo grosso
Antico dosso
V’è una schiatta
E sozza e matta,
Fiera, vile, ria, sottile,
Che ad ogn’ora si divora
Dalla cima sino al fondo
Del reo mondo.
Fola vana è a lei Satana,
Riso e scherno
E’ a lei l’inferno,
Scherno e riso il Paradiso.
Oh per Dio!
Che or rido anch’io,
Oh per Dio! ecc.
Nel pensare ciò
Che le ascondo.
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah

8.
Here, perhaps, is the opposite extreme of Satan's sermon, "Ecco il Mondo" (see post # 7), from Boito's "Mefistofeles." This is prayer, or perhaps more accurately, an exaltation, of earthly beauty following the catastrophe of war. From the baroque opera by Claudio Monteverdi, "Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" (The Return of Ulysses to His Homeland), this is "Illustratevi, o cieli," or "Shine with light, o heavens!" The soprano is, again, Joyce Di Donato, from her album dedicated to peace, "In War & Peace - Harmony through Music."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWcARO9DyM
Translation:
Illustratevi, o Cieli, rinfioratevi, o prati! Aure, gioite!
Shine with light, o Heavens, flower again, o meadows! Breezes, rejoice!
Gli augelletti cantando, i rivi mormorando or si rallegrino!
The small birds singing, the rivers murmuring, now let them be glad!
Quell'erbe verdeggianti, quell'onde sussurranti, or si consolino!
Those verdant grasses, those whispering waves, now let them be consoled!
Già ch'è sorta felice, dal cenere troian, la mia Fenice!
Now that, fortunate, from the ashes of Troy, has risen my phoenix!

ABOUT the opera:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_ritorno_d%27Ulisse_in_patria


9.

           Mirella Freni in "Carmen"

Over and over, you see Ukrainians---mostly women, it seems---tearfully saying, and I am paraphrasing, "Last week this was a peaceful city (or village or town). How can this be happening?" They are in absolute shock that one day, one might go about quotidian business: errands, cooking, taking children to school, etc., and the next, a life shattered by evil: families broken up, home in ruins, no water, food, hope. Only fear. This is an aria of such desperation, a prayer asking God for the courage to continue. From Bizet's "Carmen," this is the grippingly beautiful, "Je dis que rien ne m'épouvante" ("I say that nothing can frighten me"), sung in a concert performance by the late Mirella Freni.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZE-XizmGzI
Setting: A mountain pass
Synopsis: Searching for Don José, who she still loves in spite of the smugglers, Micaëla finds herself alone in the mountains. Frightened, she prays for courage.
Translation:
http://www.aria-database.com/search.php?individualAria=41

AND how it can look on stage, with Hiromi Omura:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ewD1Vjn3Y
About Ms. Omura:
https://www.hiromiomura.com/


FINAL BOW:

Young Joan Sutherland in "Puritani"

About 1.5 million families have been broken up in Ukraine, with mothers and children leaving behind husbands and fathers. An estimated three or four million might follow, if they are able to leave before Putin shuts down escape routes. . .In the opera, "I Puritani," by Bellini, Elvira is separated from her beloved Arturo, who is wanted for treason during the English civil war. As it becomes increasingly clear that he is not likely to return, she goes mad. At one point, her uncle takes note of her precarious mental state, and sings of it. This is the aria, "Cinta di Fiori," or "surrounded by flowers," sung here by bass Bonaldo Giaiotti.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3CQfb6Kdh0
FOLLOWED BY. . .Joan Sutherland as Elvira, singing "Qui la voce... Vien diletto," from the same opera, in which the character loses her mind in grief.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_h73c22C4I
Translation, "Cinta di Fiori:"
Girded with flowers and with beautiful dissolved hair
Sometimes the dear virgin wanders,
And she asks the aura, the flowers with a sad face:
"Where did Elvira go? Where did she go? Where did she go?"
White dressed, what if, at the altar
She fulfills the rite, and goes singing of the promise
Then cries out, out of trembling love:
"Ah, come, Arturo, ah, come, Artur!"
TRANSLATION, "Qui la voce... Vien diletto"
http://www.aria-database.com/search.php?individualAria=839


Saturdee Opry Links Encore!
In memory of all the cherished home life being savagely destroyed by the fiend, Putin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0_LKGp_h10
Setting: Apartment of Chevalier Des Grieux, Paris, France, 18th century
Synopsis: Manon has been told by a nobleman that her love, Des Grieux, will soon be kidnapped by his father's men in order to get him away from her. She knows that the happy days they have spent in Des Grieux's apartment will soon be at an end and takes the opportunity to bid adieu to the table at which she and her love ate many meals together. (With English subtitles.)
Translation:http://www.aria-database.com/search.php?individualAria=610