Not a dry eye...

May 3, 2009 4:12 PM | Related Categories: Music

I've been busy for a couple of weeks - and because it's a Sunday maybe I should reappear with a fanfare of trumpets?

But no. Some of the songs I've posted on Sundays have been elusive and ambiguous in their emotions. Accusations that cannot normally be leveled at Puccini. In recent years Nessun Dorma has been the aria most in the public ear and Pavarotti the leading voice (rightly so). However for me "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca is the tear-jerker par excellence. Sung by the hero Cavaradossi, as the dawn breaks and he awaits execution, remembering his lover Tosca.

Music for Sunday 3rd May

Here it is sung by a favourite from an older generation - Franco Corelli..

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One of my favourites. Once upon a time when getting back to basics working on a railway station I discovered a colleague who also loved opera. "I luv it, Mate! It makes the 'airs at the back of me 'ead go all tingley!" We considered the tunneled concourse where we awaited the rampaging hoard each mornning to be the ideal accustic environment for Puccini and generally all of the great tenor arias. I wished I had the courage to launch into something "Great". It would have stopped the surge, perhaps, but maybe caused a disaster further down along the platforms, as the masses piled up. The " 'elf " (Health&SafetyExec) might have become very upset.
# Posted By Chuckeroon | 5/3/09 6:49 PM
The opera is based on a play by Victorien Sardou, who wrote a lot of good and well known plays, but hardly worked in the pure comedy, rather in the melodramatic style, often to be played by Sarah Bernhardt. It’s easy to understand why Puccini wanted to adopt this one.

Especially the introduction to this aria is fantastic!
# Posted By Peter | 5/4/09 2:29 PM
Et pourquoi pas des trompettes ? Dis donc tu as de fiers commentateurs en les personnes de C et de P, comment lutter ?
....
Tu ne trouves pas que sur ce morceau la voix est un peu trop couverte par l'orchestre ?
Est ce que tu connais le concerto pour piano et tuba basse de Vaughan ?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yfu1EKnTmo

[Ceci dit j'aime mieux l'écouter en vrai ou en CD, chez Chandoz)
# Posted By Cergie | 5/4/09 10:12 PM
Hi Cergie - yes, I don't much like listening to music seriously on the computer, but these posts are more to try and find something to say, rather than just listen. I think the balance here is quite good. It's a live performance from 1966 so technically it might not be the best. Birgit Nilsson is Tosca and I think she and Corelli are utterly spine tingling - even if I'm not really a big Puccini fan.

I'm not too keen on orchestras that play "quietly" as if they are accompanying - it's a competition after all, especially in a concerto. I never heard the Vaughan Williams like that before. You have to be brave to play the tuba - you never know what sound is going to come out! (Your son plays, doesn't he?)
# Posted By richard | 5/4/09 10:54 PM
That's what I like about your posts.
They are just not read and forget.
They usually send me on a little voyage of discovery.
This one has been going round in my head for the last few days.
Freefalling (the blog - I don't like to speak of myself in the third person!) has been quiet for a while.
But you've loosened my tongue (sounds awkward).
I feel a post coming on.

(ps - am LOVING my Freddies - oh, I hope that word doesn't have the same euphemistic meaning in other countries, as it does here)
# Posted By freefalling | 5/7/09 5:40 AM
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