One Verdi Opera a Day: Lombardi, Ernani, Foscari

  
 
Continuing the One a Day thread honoring Giuseppe Verdi's bi

La Scala, Milan

centennial. I listened to these operas over the past ten days. I'm hoping to go through all of them in chronological order. I'm, only offering a few gut reaction comments. I'm not a musicologist. Join in!

I Lombardi all prima crociata The Lombards in the First Crusade  1843
Temistocle Solera  La Scala, Milan 1843

Aprile Millo, Carlo Bergonzi, Paul Plishka. Opera Orch of New York/Eve Queler, January 1986

Another hit on the heels of Nabucco, I've always enjoyed I Lombardi without being moved my much of it. The plot is so convoluted, I have to close my eyes and listen. Lombardi has Verdi's first wonderful tenor aria, Le mie letizie infondere. The great trio Qual volutta trascorere had an extended violin solo, an innovation for such a young composer. The finale withs its musical glimpses of Jerusalem is theatrical and effective. Verdi was quickly becoming a real theater geek. I Lombardi is an opera for artists, not only singers.







 
Ernani  1844

Francesco Maria Piave  Teatro Fenice Veince 1844

Leontyne Price, Carlo Bergonzi, Cornell MacNeil, Giorgio Tozzi/Thomas Schippers. Metropolitan Opera broadcast, April 1962

It's taken me a while to savor Ernani. The distillation of Victor Hugo's massive Hernani seems clumsy. Verdi himself admonished librettist Piave: "Brevity!" Listening again and paying attention I realize Ernani is the first Verdi opera to create believable characters. The situations may be bizzare, but Carlo's torment is convincing, as is Ernani's nobility and Elvira's grandeur. Don Silva actually moves  us with Infelice! E tu credevi? Who is the real villain in this piece? Not easy to say. Rosa Ponselle called this "the baritone's opera". He is absent for the Act IV trio which to me is the most exciting part of the score.








I due Foscari  The Two Foscari    
Francesco Maria Piave  Teatro Argentina, Rome  1844

Katia Ricciarelli, Jose Carreras, Piero Cappucilli, Samuel Ramey/Lamberto Gardelli

Francesco Maria Piave

When this recording was released over thirty years ago it was the first time most people  had heard of I due Foscari. It's a compact opera, meaning a lot happens in a brief performance time (less than 2 hours) The bel canto model of aria/cabaletta is followed. There is less distinguished music than Lombardi or Ernani. But there's a momentum that's hard to resist. The characters are opaque, but the rum tum clang is fun and exciting. 

One Verdi Opera a Day Oberto, Un giorno di regno, Nabucco

Verdi c. 1845

Giuseppe Verdi was born October 11, 1813. For his bicentennial year, I'm hoping to listen to one Verdi opera per day, in chronological order. I'll leave a few words about each on this blog, along with the recording I used. This is not meant to be musicological document. Just some impressions. I'd welcome your comments.



If you love Verdi, you should know the masterful biography by the late Mary Jane Philips-Matz.

What a pleasure to immerse oneself in this great composer.

Here are the first three:

Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio (1839)
Temistocle Solera, Antonio Piazza
La Scala, Milan 1839
 
Carlo Bergonzi, Ruza Baldani, Rolando Panerai, Ghena Dimitrova/Lamberto Gardelli

A mash up of a plot, but an auspicious debut. Bartolomeo Merelli signed the young Verdi to a contract for three operas for La Scala, Milan. Oberto has a respectable success for a first-timer. Already it has some of the drama and the bite that differentiates the early Verdi form Donizetti, tho he as yet lacks Bellini's gift for melody and Rossini's sophistication. Still, this opera deserves an occasional revival. Wonderful tenor role.




Un giorno di regno ("A One-Day Reign") 1840
Felice Romani   La Scala, Milan  1840

Jose Carerras, Jessye Norman, Fiorenza Cossotto, Ingvar Wixell/Lamberto Gardelli

A comic opera and a flop. It sounds half-hearted, like a first draft that was never revised. This would be a good doctoral project, fixing it up and producing the opera at the College/Conservatory level. Verdi's wife and two children died of diphtheria while he worked on Un giorno. Verdi couldn't have been in the mood for this bubble of mistaken identity. The opera was finished  to complete a contract. It failed at La Scala and has been seldom revived. 



Nabucco
Temistocle Solera  La Scala, Milan 1842
Jan Dirksen, Pauline Tinsley, Jan Blinkhof, Hent Smit/Hans Vonk  The Netherlands, 1972

Now we're talking. Impresario Merelli used some tough love on the despairing Verdi. The result was the composer's first bona fide hit. The story of Nebuchadnezzar as told in the Old Testament. Verdi was tempted by the text of a chorus of displaced slaves. Va pensiero is to this day an unofficial national anthem. The vocal writing for Abigaille is deadly: up down, she enters on a low A, she goes up to a b flat. Nearly impossible to sing, the role derailed Giuseppina Strepponi in the first performances. Never mind. Verdi eventually married her. We begin to hear the energy that was the hallmark of Verdi's early operas. Try the Act I finale. Verdi has arrived.