Rusalka Likes tha Moon!
July 20, 2009 at 7:49 pm | In Music, Opera, youtube | 2 CommentsI totally already linked to this video. But since today is the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I thought I’d post it once again. So here it is: Rusalka’s beautiful song to the moon! As sung by Renee Fleming.
Another song to the moon is the one by the Spongmonkies. Not exactly beautiful perhaps, but still awesome:
Happy moon day, everyone!
Calendary Music – July – “Di tu se fedele”
July 10, 2009 at 10:14 pm | In Calendary music, Music, Opera, The Course of the Year | Leave a CommentThe Boyfriend and I are packing up to go away for a week to his family’s cabin by the north sea for a week, and I’m looking so much forward t relaxing for a whole week, going for walks and reading books and drinking tea by the open fire! I’ve started working on my dissertation now, and between that and my part-time job, I’ve been slightly stressed out, so a break is more than welcome.
But there’s no internet connection at the cabin, so that means that things will be quiet in here for the next week. I’ll see you all next week!
In the meantime, here’s my choice for my Calendary Music project this month: “Di Tu Se Fedele”. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve associated the month July with the sea and sailing. My family and I would go on the ferry between Hundested and Greenaa (between Sealand and Jutland) every summer, and I remember standing on the deck of the ferry while the sun warmed the top of my little head and the wind blew through my hair, impressed and almost overwhelmed by the vastness of the sea and by the sensation of the ferry cutting through it at full speed, and I held onto my mother who would lift me up and helt me tight so that I could lean over the rail and gaze down at the waves below while she sang songs to me about the sea. “When the sun is buried in the North Sea,” she sang, “It will rise again in the Baltic the next day”.
“Di tu se fedele” the faux sea shanty from Un Ballo in Maschiero has always reminded me of that feeling. It’s got an air of salt water and wind and sailing to it, and an air of optimism and indomitability that makes it a perfect aria for the month of July. Especially in the below version where it’s sung by Jussi Björling (in Swedish!) whose voice always sounded like a beautiful Scandinavian light summer night.
Top 5: Favourite Opera Dagger Scenes
June 16, 2009 at 1:13 pm | In Gender, Music, Opera, Top 5/Top 10, youtube | 2 CommentsOk, so this Top 5 may seem way far-fetched, but bear with me here. I wanted to do an entry on the subject of opera, because I haven’t done one of those in ages, and I wanted to do another top 5, but I’m studying for an exam, and this was the first thing that popped into my head.
And when you think about it, it’s not really that far-fetched. There are a lot of daggers in operas. I’d say it’s what kills about 60% of all opera characters. In fact, if I were to make a graph of opera deaths, I imagine that it would look something like this:
And it’s no wonder that librettists are so fond of daggers, really. A dagger is an easy prop to carry around stage, it may be aesthetically pleasing with its blade flashing in the stage light, and one might say that the dagger is the opera version of Chekhov’s Gun: You just know that someone’s going to be bleeding to death from a stab wound later on if a dagger is shown or mentioned at some point in an opera.
And thus I would say that it’s justifiable to make a top 5 of my five favourite dagger moments in operas:
5. The Foreshadowing Dagger – Macbeth: “Mi si affacia un pugnal?”
“Is this a dagger which I see before me?” - probably one of the most famous literary mentions of a dagger, featured here in Verdi’s opera based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth is still debating whether or not to take his wife’s advice and kill King Duncan in the name of ambition, as he suddenly seems to see a dagger floating before him, urging him on. The ghostly dagger is a foreshadowing both of the murder that Macbeth will later commit and of the hauntings that he will experience subsequently (by the ghost of Banquo and by his own conscience both). Macbeth is not my favourite opera, but the music here is very appropriately dramatic and hectic:
4. The Jealousy Dagger -Wozzeck: “Dort links geht’s in die Stadt”
The dagger scene in Wozzeck is related to other opera jealosy dagger scenes, such as the final scene in Carmen, where (SPOILER!!1!!) Don José stabs Carmen to death. But I chose this one because it’s a got such a singularly eerie atmosphere. The entire opera is eerie, just as the original play by Georg Büchner is, and in every scene you get that feeling that there is something dreadful and horrible lurking just around the corner. In this scene, it’s the dagger, and you kind of know that it’s coming: Wozzeck is a poor soldier who has only one thing to live for: His beloved wife Marie and their little son. But alas, Marie has been fooling around with the flashy donjuan the Drum Major, who even has the nerve to ridicule Wozzeck as the two share a scene together. “Better a knife in my body than your hands on me” Marie says spitefully, as Wozzeck confronts her with his suspicion. Famous last words…
3. The Suicide Dagger – Otello: “Niun mi tema”
Another jealous husband, yet a completely different use of the dagger. I’ve included this one because it always manages to come as a bit of a surprise for me. We’re at the ending of Otello where the title character has just strangled his wife Desdemona to death in the belief that she has been unfaithful to him with the handsome Cassio. Only too late is he informed that the whole thing was a scheme orchestrated by Otello’s vicious ensign Iago, and that Desdemona was innocent. Otello is crushed as he finds out about this, and the music turns solemn like a funeral march as he bids the pale, tired, mute, and beautiful Desdemona goodbye. It’s easy to get the impression that the opera is over now, and that there’ll be no more drama. That is, until suddenly there’s a crescendo, and Otello draws a dagger…
2. The Who-Will-It-Be? Dagger – Rigoletto: “Ah! Piu non ragiono!”
This is probably the most suspenseful opera dagger scene I can think of. In the scene, the hitman Sparafucile is preparing to kill the Duke, whom he’s been hired to kill by Rigoletto, who wants to avenge his daughter Gilda’s loss of virtue to the womanizing nobleman. However, things start to go amiss as Sparafucile’s wanton sister Maddalena has developed an elaborate crush on the Duke and tries to talk Sparafucile into sparing his life and killing Rigoletto instead. To make things worse, Gilda, who’s still madly in love with the Duke, shows up at Sparafucile’s door and overhears Sparafucile saying that if someone were to knock on their door before midnight, he’d agree to kill that person instead of the Duke. As midnight approaches and a thunder storm rages, a terrible plan forms in Gilda’s head…
What’s so great about the scene is that even if you’ve never seen the opera before you just know that by the end of the scene someone will be stabbed with a dagger and killed, and the suspense rises along with the crescendo of the storm depicting the music: Will Sparafucile kill the Duke? Or will Rigoletto be the victim? Or will Gilda sacrifise herself for her heartless seducer? The explosive auditory effects of the thunder storm makes for a horrifying on-scene stabbing; you can almost feel the sensation of blood mixing with rainwater as the dagger penetrates the victim’s drenched skin at the end of the scene… Gruelling, wonderfully so!
1. The Penetration Dagger – Tosca: “Questo è il bacio di Tosca!”
In Catherine Clement’s book Opera or the Undoing of Women, Clement recounts the anecdote of a young woman, an opera newbie, who went to see Tosca and returned saying that the ending was wonderfully feminist – that it was so great that Tosca got away with the murder of Scarpia. The explanation was, of course, that the woman had mistaken the second act for the last one, which is an easy mistake to make, really. The outcome of the second act with the death of Scarpia seems like such an appropriate ending, not least because of the dagger. Most of the second act has been like a foreplay from Hell, with Scarpia terrorizing Tosca by making her listen to her boyfriend Mario’s screams of agony from the adjacent torture chamber, and finally Scarpia forcing Tosca to have sex with him in exchange for Mario’s life. So you could say that the entire act is embued with the anticipation of a penetration, climaxing as Scarpia, having obtained Tosca’s reluctant consent, rushes to embrace her. What he doesn’t realize at this point is that Tosca has fetched a dagger from his dinner table and is preparing for an entirely different kind of penetration…
This would have been a feminist ending to the story, indeed! But then we would have missed out on the entire third act.
Here is the scene in the 1976 movie version with Kabaivanska, Milnes, and Domingo, which was the first Tosca I ever saw:
Calendary Music – April – Arabella: “Aber der Richtige”
April 4, 2009 at 12:37 pm | In Calendary music, Gender, Music, Opera, Photos, The Course of the Year, youtube | Leave a CommentSorry for my long absence! I’ve been incredibly busy lately. Since my last entry, Spring has come to Copenhagen. The weather is absolutely lovely; mild and warm and sunny with clear blue skies during the day and soft, pastel night skies full of warbling blackbird. Here’s a picture I snapped riding my bike home after having introduced Bo Holten’s brand new opera The Visit of the Royal Physician:
Arguably not a very good picture from a photographer’s point of view, but that sky, and that light? Le sigh.
I’m on cloud nine because of this beautiful April weather, and I thought I’d celebrate by doing a Calendary Music entry. I’ve picked Arabella’s and Zdenka’s duetto from Strauss’ Arabella which has always reminded me of this time of the year.
I do love Arabella. Despite the fact that I truly dislike the title character. I find her to be incredibly vain and conceited, and I always kind of try to bear with her the best I can, but then when I get to the part where she’s at the ball and she’s graceously bidding her maiden life and her suitors goodbye, and I’m like ugh. Get over yourself already. I cannot for the life of me see what Mandryka finds so attractive about Arabella, but, hey, I suppose it’s true that rural life in the villages of Mandryka’s estate will probably be good for her, fetching water from wells and whatnot.
And I have a huge soft spot for androgynous Zdenka. She’s such an indearingly absurd character. She was raised as a boy just because she was a little wild as a child? And yet she never complained? She really is an outrageously selfless character, every bit as good and virtuous as her sister is spoiled and annoying, and I like that. It’s so rare that women in operas are selfless like that and get away with it. Usually they get stabbed by hitmen or decide to stab themselves because their beloved is in love with an icy princess and things like that.
And I find the duetto between the two very different sisters to be so beautiful. Mostly because of the music which is gorgeous, but also because of the dramatic effect of the very different POVs of Arabella and Zdenka clashing in the lyrics. Arabella is all wrapped up in her own dream of erotic fulfillment, while Zdenka is all about making Arabella happy, even if that means that she’ll get married to the man that Zdenka loves and that Zdenka will have to go about wearing trousers and looking like a scrawny dude with huge manboobs for the rest of her life. “Sie ganz im Licht, und ich hinab ins Dunkel.”
I’m not sure why the piece reminds me so much of the month of April. It’s possible that I simply heard it for the first time in the month of April, but I suppose you could also postrationalize it and say that there is something spring-like about two young women singing about their dreams and hopes of love, and that there is something sunny about the light timbre of two sopranos singing together. Here it is at any rate – I’ve chosen a version with Lisa Della Casa as Arabella and Anneliese Rothenberger because I think their voices compliment each other sublimely, and the acting is quite touching. I actually find Arabella to be kind of cute in Della Casa’s interpretation, beaming and rubbing her hands together while fantasizing about The Right One:
Top 10 Best Opera Moments in Movies/Television
January 15, 2009 at 3:35 pm | In Movies, Music, Opera, Top 5/Top 10, youtube | 5 CommentsI promised that I’d make this list about two months ago, so it’s about time I get around to it. Back then I said it was going to be a Top 10 of the best opera or classical music moments in television/movies, but as it’s turned out, it’s all opera.
I got the idea from the Danish ungopera discussion board, where a poster once started a thread on the subject of opera in movies and television; the idea being to celebrate the fact that when television and movies make references to opera or makes use of opera music, because it helps to shed light on the dramatic potential that I see in opera, and thus it may help to rid opera somewhat of that its reputation; opera as an old-fashioned, boring art form. A great idea, and several posters contributed with their favourite moments.
Below is ten movie/television references to opera, that I like a lot:
10. La Grande Vadrouille: La Damnation du Faust Rehearsal
The Boyfriend introduced me to this movie last year, and the scene where the orchestra rehearses the ouverture of Berlioz La Damnation du Faust earns a place on this list for Louis de Funès’ performance as conductor Stanislas LeFort alone.
9. Atonement (2006): Robbie Turner listens to “O Suave Fanciulla”
Ah, young love. In this scene Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis each in their own room get ready for a dinner party, more or less aware of their changed feelings for each other. I loved the scene in Ian McEwan’s brilliant novel, especially for its depiction of Cecilia’s frustration while she’s getting dressed, but movie director Joe Wright did the scene great justice in his movie. Robbie takes out a recording of La Bohème and starts playing it. Mimi and Rodolpho’s ardent love duet lends voices and a temporary release to Robbie or Cecilia’s still unspoken love. A great opera moment in a truly great movie!
I couldn’t find a clip with that particular scene, but here’s a video a youtube poster made set to the duet:
8. The House of Mirth: Lily Bart and the Così fan tutte ouverture
Edith Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth is a favourite of mine. I love Terence Davies’ adaptation of the novel from 2000, and Davies uses opera music at a crucial point in the story of Lily’s downfall. In the scene Lily is at the opera with Gus Trenor, a married male aquaintance from whom she has accepted money, naïvely believing that he’s made the money for her through investments. In reality Gus has been giving Lily money from his own pocket, because he felt that this would buy him his right to Lily’s, erm, kindness, and at this point in the story, he’s starting to get impatient with Lily who isn’t delivering the commodity he feels that he has a legitimate claim to.
There’s no indication in Wharton’s novel that Lily ever attends Mozart’s Così fan tutte, but that’s the ouverture we hear in Davies’ adaptation as Lily incredulously lingers in Gus’ opera box while her surroundings regard her with a mixture of amusement, anger and offense. The music is as beautiful as Lily’s radiant’s smile, and the theme of Mozart’s opera foreshadows the fatal reputation that this night at the opera ultimately earns Lily.
The scene starts at 4:15 in the video below:
7. Skønheden og Udyret (“Beauty and the Beast”): Dido and Aneas by Purcell
Danish director Nils Malmros whom I’ve previously praised made this movie, and it’s probably my favourite among his works. The movie introduces us to a middle-aged man, Jørgen, and his 16-year-old daughter Mette who are alone during the holidays as Jørgen’s wife (Mette’s mother) is hospitalized because of a difficult pregnancy. Mette has a new boyfriend, an older, sophtisticated guy named Jønne, and the relationship between Mette and her father tenses as Jørgen disapproves of the womanizing Jønne and grows more and more overprotective towards Mette.
The story is seen from Jørgen’s point of view and the pain he feels as he slowly comes to terms with Mette’s budding sexuality is beautifully underlined by Malmros’ use of Purcell’s Dido and Aneas in the soundtrack. The story of Aneas who leaves his loving Dido behind doesn’t relate to Jørgen’s and Mette’s story, but the melancholy mood of the music fits the movie well.
You can see the opening sequence from the movie below: Here, the ouverture from Purcell’s work plays as we are shown pictures of Mette growing up from infancy to young adulthood:
6. Krystle Carrington namedrops Leitmotifs in Dynasty episode ”The Cabin”
I’ve mentioned my deep love for Dynasty before, and the following scene from the series beautifully puts the opera in soap opera.
Ok, so there’s no actual inclusion of opera music in the scene, but the way Krystle (the ex-stenographer and Blake’s current wife) tries to out-do Alexis (the cultivated former Mrs. Carrington) by using clumsily using the word “leitmotif” really warms my heart. And it’s followed by a very dramatic fire, worthy of the most competent of Loges!
5. Apocalypse Now: Ride of the Valkyries
Of course I have to include this one in my list. Not exactly a flattering context for Wagner’s music, but a classic movie moment, which needs no further introduction, I’m sure:
4. 3rd Rock from the Sun. John Cleese sings Das Rheingold at a karaoke bar.
I *heart* 3rd Rock from the Sun. This sit-com about four extraterrestrials who asume human form and come to earth in order to study human life is very underrated in my opinion, and the following moment of comedy gold only proves my point. It’s from episode “Dick and the Other Guy” in which Dick (the High Commander of the four aliens) feels interlectually threatened by an unnaturally brilliant guest professor awesomely named Liam Neesam who visits the university where Dick teaches physics. The extreme intelligence of Liam Neesam (played by none other than the always wonderful John Cleese) eventually turns out to be yet another alien who’s come to earth from a different planet.
Before leaving earth again at the end of the episode, Neesam stops by a karaoke bar and treats himself to a night of karaoke. His song of choice? Das Rheingold. Heee!! His audience is less than thrilled and try to walk out on him, but Neesam wil have none of this: “Sit down! Nobody leaves until Wotan has stolen the ring from Alberich!” he screams. Awesome! You may see the clip in the below video – it starts at 1:18, where we’re treated to his interpretation of Donner’s part:
3. È la Nave Va: Engine Room Sing-Out
There are several great opera moments in this Fellini movie about a ship that’s set off to sea with the ashes of a celebrated, deceased opera diva. The best one is arguably this one, where two tenors try to outdo each other by singing highlights from the tenor repertoire in the engine room:
2. L’Age d’Or: The Swooning Conductor and Isolde’s “Liebestod”
In this bizarre yet atmospheric scene from surrealist genius Bunuel, we see a conductor who entertains a garden party by playing an orchestration-only version of Isolde’s “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde, but he is overwhelmed and swoons. At the same time, a young man and woman try to sneak off and get themselves some action, but strange obstactles keep coming in the way of their advances towards each other. Impossible love indeed!
1. The Dead: Julia “Arrayed for the Bridal”
Like Wright’s adaptation of Atonement this is a near-perfect adaptation of a literary piece. John Huston’s The Dead based on James Joyce’s short story is one of my favourite movies. In one of my favourite scenes, Julia Morkan sings “Arrayed for the Bridal” from I Puritani. The sound of old maiden Julia singing this bridal aria with her shaky voice is a haunting one and like everything else in the movie, it works as great foreshadowing for Gretta’s soliloquy about Michael Furey and his untimely death later on in the movie.
Unfortunately, the clip was unavailable anywhere online, but if you’ve yet to see The Dead I definitely recommend it! If you’re interested in further reading on the subject, a very interesting online article by Lindsey Warren discusses the use of the aria in Joyce’s short story (as well as Joyce’s use of musical allusions in general).
R.I.P. Jørn Utzon, 1918-2008
December 1, 2008 at 2:34 pm | In Art, Music, Opera | Leave a CommentI wasn’t going to update until I had the time to do the Top Five Moments of Classical Music Used in Television or Movies as I promised, and I know I’m two days late with this particular piece of news, but as a Dane and an opera lover I’d just like to take a moment to commemorate Danish arcitecht Jørn Utzon, designer of the Sydney Opera House who passed away on November 29.
He will be greatly missed.
/marie
“Come on, it’s art, it’s… culture”: All the Great Operas in Ten Minutes
November 13, 2008 at 10:05 pm | In Internet Findings, Opera, youtube | Leave a CommentScarcely had I finished marvelling at the wonder that is Lego Opera, when I discovered yet another brilliant alternative opera video.
It’s the witty, Terry Gilliam-inspired mini-documentary All the Great Operas in Ten Minutes by Kim Thompson:
I love the dry narration! And I love the angels holding up their tags every time something juicy happens (“Murder”, “Incest” etc.).
Students from the Tulsa School of Arts and Science have produced a sequel:
It’s not quite as elegantly executed, there are some factual errors in the summaries, and The Merry Widow is not an opera, dammit!!11!! But it’s still really cute, and I love the part where they describe Faust as being “emo in the middle of some festival because he’s just not getting the happy vibe”.
/marie
“Love me, you sexy lego, you!”: Lego Opera
November 7, 2008 at 8:06 pm | In Internet Findings, Music, Opera, youtube | 2 Comments*Edited because I somehow managed to write “La Trovatore” the first time around. Gah! How did that happen? BAD opera lover!*
One thing that makes me truly proud to be a Dane is Lego. Sure our politics suck at the moment and there was that whole thing with that cartoon that put us on the Top Ten List of Terror Targets, but when it comes to making shiny, colorful little plastic bricks? We’re the thang!
And if it hadn’t hitherto, Lego has certainly proved in this digital day and age that it is indeed the toy of a thousand possibilities. The Legos are being used for all sorts of inventive online projects. I’ve enjoyed the Brick Testament (a Lego retelling of the Bible) for years already, and I have seen several videos on youtube since making brilliant use of Legos, for instance this wonderful Lego adaptation of Cash’s “The One on the Right is on the Left” .
My enthusiasm for the above mentioned phenomena was, however, nothing compared to my immense joy when I stumpled upon this little gem:
It’s Lego opera! A Lego adaptation of Tosca. And it is hilarious. Not only is it great fun to see opera converted to the modest format of Lego, the film’s creator, with the wonderful name barkingbartok/Walby Productions, also shows great creativity when it comes to the subtitles. “Do you remember me? …Middle School… Class of 1785…” Lego!Angelotti facebooks as Lego!Mario fails to recognize him, and this triggers Lego!Mario’s memory: “Angelotti! You were the boy that always smelled like fish!” he says.
Oh, and the casting of the Tosca is spot-on. The little Lego woman even has La Callas’ cute trademark Tosca bangs! And I love how Scarpia has obviously been considered too evil for a Lego person and has been cast as a Dungeons and Dragon-wizard-type thingy instead.
and Carmen (Lego!Micaëla: “I’m looking for a guy named Don José. Do you know him?” Lego!Dragoons: ”I’m sorry, but your patrol man is currently unavailable. Leave your name and number and we will have him call you.” Hee!)
Finally, Mr Walby/barkingbartok has made a Lego version of Philip Glass’s opera based on Beauty and the Beast, which was a special treat for me, seeing as I never knew that opera before. The Lego movie is kept in black and whites as a tribute to Philip Glass’s work, which is written so that it may work as a full soundtrack to the old ‘46 movie version of the fairy tale.
You guys, this is awesome. Go check it out!
/marie
Tag! I’m it.
November 1, 2008 at 11:15 am | In From the Blogroll, Music, Opera | Leave a CommentI’ve been tagged! I was tagged by the great opera news blogger, reviewer, and Wagnerienne Mostly Opera.
According to the rules, I have to:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog. .
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. If you don’t have 7 blog friends, or if someone else already took dibs, then tag some unsuspecting strangers
Okay. Here I go then.
Seven facts about myself:
1. I have a phobia of herons. Their long necks and legs freak me out, and I hate the creepy way they’re always standing so still, like statues. There are a lot of herons on my daily jogging route in Copenhagen, and my heart jumps into my throat every time I have to pass one.
2. I’m borderline addicted to salty liquorice.
3. When I was seven, I had a crush on Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Later on in my life I have crushed on opera characters such as the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro and Scarpia in Tosca thus establishing, I suppose, that this tendency towards unhealthy fictional crushes is simply part of my personality.
4. As a twiggy freshman in high school I auditioned for my school’s production of Aladdin – and got cast as Abu (a.k.a. Aladdin’s pet monkey)…
5. I was annoyingly precocious as a child and my (also very precocious) best friend and I once spent an afternoon in the sand box, building sand castles that each represented a major world religion.
6. The irrational side of me firmly believes in the existence of ghosts (and is terrified accordingly), although my rational side tells me to get a frickin’ grip.
7. Despite being mostly into classical music, I’ve been to the Roskilde Festival twice. Once, when I was earning a free ticket for the festival by collecting refund for charity at the festival grounds, I was referred to as an “Amish bitch” by a drunken guy. “Hey, check out that Amish bitch!” was his exact wording.
Passing on the tag:
I tag:
1. Christian van Horn: Bass-Baritone and graduate of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists in Chicago. I know Christian via the blogosphere. I don’t know if he’ll want to play the tag-game, but I thought I’d tag him in any case, just to promote his great blog.
2. Nerd Girl Attacks. Line, a Real Life friend of mine, blogs about fashion and various Copenhagen trends and sites.
3. Musicalis Eclectica: An Australian music blogger (he’s from New Zealand. I’m a dumbass) whose blog I’ve already given my warm recommendations.
4. My Heart is an Idiot: My friend Kåre, who blogs about politics, art, music and Ben Linus from Lost (in Danish).
5. Ópera e demais interesses: A Portuguese blogger who was recently kind enough to add me to his blogroll. He obviously writes passionately about opera and introduces himself as “João Galamba de Almeida, ossia Il Dissoluto Punito” which is awesome in itself, but as for the actual content of his writing I’m somewhat lost, since he writes in Portuguese. But I’d love to learn more about him so, yeah – tag!
6. Jonathan Biss: Young American pianist with a very nice blog and website. No idea if he will want to play either, but I thought I’d try. 
7. Fräulein Quatschen: “Quatschen” means “nonsense” in German, and behind the cute name hides Iben, whom I know from Real Life. Iben blogs (in Danish) about her experiences in Washington D.C. where she’s currently studying.
Aïda and the Native Soil: “O Patria Mia”
October 26, 2008 at 2:14 pm | In Music, Opera, youtube | Leave a CommentI had a really absurd dream last night in which I had to play the lead in a staging of Aïda at the opera because the soprano had taken ill. I don’t have much of a singing voice, but everyone seemed to be aware of this and were totally fine with me just going through the motions and singing the best I could with my feeble, measly little vocal. Because that’s what opera houses do, you know, when their lead soprano takes ill. They get an obscure comp. lit. student with no singing voice and no acting experience to fill in for her. Naturally.
The dream then became more and more stressful, because when we started rehearsals it occured to me that I didn’t know all the lyrics for the part, and so I kept halting the schedule, and although they tried to hide it, I could totally tell that the director, the conductor, and all the singers simply hated my guts and wished that they could just bury me alive in a tomb so that I could die already. And the parts of the opera where I did know the lyrics had magically disappeared from the opera. Like, I kept waiting for “O patria mia” to come along, and it never did. Instead, there was a really long segment where the Egyptians threw Aïda a birthday party. Yeah.
Anyway, I woke up from that dream with “O Patria Mia” stuck in my head, and have been in total Aïda mode all day. I really love that opera. The first two acts are a bit hit-and-miss as far as I’m concerned, because I’m not that much into huge choir tableaux and triumphal processions and all that. Great music to be sure, but I’m more of a chamber drama gal myself. However, everything from Aïda’s third act and ahead is just brilliant to me. It’s high drama at its absolute best, and I love the music, from the quiet “banks of the Nile” prelude to a desperate Amneris cursing the priests in act 4.
And then of course there’s “O Patria Mia”, the soprano aria which I missed out on in my dream. It’s one of the most famous moments of the opera, and rightfully so: It’s incredibly beautiful and moving. The set-up for the scene is this: Aïda was originally an Ethiopian princess but has been taken as a war prisoner by the Egyptian army and has since then been working as a slave, waiting on Pharao’s daughter Amneris at the court of Pharao. Here she has fallen in love with the commander of the Egyptian army, Radames, who also loves Aïda, in spite of her humble position in Egypt, and oblivious to her royal extraction.
At the beginning of the “O Patria Mia” scene, Aïda is dwelling alone by the River Nile, upset and worried. She’s supposed to meet Radames there, but is afraid to hear what he has to say. In the previous scene she witnessed Pharao’s declaration that he wishes to thank Radames for his commanding skillz by letting him wed Amneris, and so Aïda realizes this may be the last time she sees her beloved.
This is what occupies Aïda’s thoughts in the recitativo (“Qui Radames verra”) leading up to the aria, but from a feminist point of view I’m glad to say that her love for Radames is not what occupies the actual aria. Rather, Aïda’s thoughts on her doomed relationship to Radames launches her into a state of mind, where she sadly and fondly remembers her native soil, Ethiopia; her folkloristic nostalgia being beautifully underlined by the solo wood-wind in the orchestra. I really love this, in that it hints at the fact that Aïda’s misery isn’t rooted in something as banal as guy troubles; her true tragedy was the martial brutality that robbed her of her true identity. It’s the loss of identity that she mourns in this aria depicting the beauty of Ethiopia. And it’s because of the loss of idenity that she is now so pityfully at the mercy of a man, of Radames. That’s how I like to see it anyway.
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You can see and hear Swedish soprano Nina Stemme singing the aria in the video above. I chose a version that included the recitativo before the aria because I think it’s a brilliant piece in its own right. Take care to notice how Verdi lets the strings depict the beating of waves of the river Nile when Aïda sings of her desire to drown herself in the Nile: “Del Nilo i cupi vortici/Mi daran tomba” (“The dark swirling waters of the Nile/shall then be my grave”), and the enchanting orchestral calm Verdi then establishes as the exiled Aïda imagines the peace such a death would bring her: ”…E pace forse, e oblio”, (“And then perhaps I would find peace, and oblivion.”). Beautiful.
A full translation of the aria may be found here.
/marie
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