How
are you?
Following
the last week, I am going to start my 36th lecture.
I
had conducted music lectures at Art Collage JANG in Seoul, South Korea every
Saturday from March 2015 to December 2017.
I
am going to introduce the lecture by the lecture’s order every Saturday.
Please
refer to the following link for my previous lectures.
Today's
lecture is five operas featuring “Tragic Love between Man and Woman”, which was
introduced in “The 36th ACJ Music Academy” on February 27, 2016.
1. Lucia
di Lammermoor (Donizetti)
It is a three-act tragedy opera written by Donizetti and Salvadore Cammarano wrote libretto based upon Sir Walter Scott's novel
“The Bride of Lammermoor”.
Enrico Ashton tries to marry his sister
Lucia to a rich Arturo to revive his family, but Lucia is in love with Edgardo,
whose families were enemies between ancestors. Recognizing this relationship,
Enrico interrupts the love of the two by intercepting and changing the contents
of love letters from Edgardo to Lucia. Not knowing this, Lucia blames Edgardo
for a change of his heart, accepts her engagement with Arturo, which her
brother forces, and signs her marriage certificate. Then, Edgardo appears and
Lucia knows the truth, but in despair, she stabs the groom and kills herself on
the first night of the marriage. Upon hearing the news, Edgardo suffers
affliction and goes to Lucia's grave to commit suicide.
2. La
Traviata (Verdi)
It is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe
Verdi set to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on “La Dame aux Camélias
(1852)”, a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils.
The main character, Violetta, lives every
day in nobles and bourgeois men who are enjoying parties with social
prostitutes every night. One day a young bourgeois Alfredo, who was watching
her, confesses his love to Violetta, whose health deteriorated with alcohol and
cigarettes, but she knows that it is impossible to realize. In the end,
however, the two live in a suburb of Paris, without marriage. But Alfredo, who
has not yet inherited his possessions from his father, lives in the house where
Violetta sells her stuff to make money for living. He doesn't even care about
what money they're living, but after hearing from Annina, Violetta's maid, he
goes out to earn money. In the meantime, Alfredo's father, Germont, comes to
the country house where Alfredo and Violetta live to find his son. At first, he
thought his son would feed the prostitutes and attack Violetta, but knowing that
his son is living due to her, he changes his attitude toward her. However, Germont
asks her to break up with Alfredo because Alfredo's sister has to marry, but the
marriage might be broken due to the rumors that her brother is living with a
prostitute. Eventually Violetta leaves and returns to the world of
prostitution. Misunderstanding her, Alfredo appears at a party and insults Violetta
and leaves. Finally, the truth is revealed, Alfredo returns to Violetta and Germont
accepts her, but she dies of illness.
3. Evgeny
Onegin (Tchaikovsky)
It is a three-act opera composed by Tchaikovsky
and the libretto was organized by the composer himself and his friend
Konstantin Shilovsky, based on a novel by the same name by Alexander Pushkin.
An aristocratic youth, Onegin, comes to a
relative in the countryside to receive a legacy, becomes close to the poet Lensky.
They go to the home of Lensky's lover, Olga, where Onegin meets Olga
and her sister, Tatyana. Passionate Lensky falls in love with Olga, who has lively
and active character, but Onegin is interested in Tatyana, who is a passive
dreamer and a book lover. In a quiet rural life, Tatyana felt intense affection
for Onegin and tried to restrain her feelings all night, but eventually wrote a
letter for the confession of love to Onegin. But Onegin, who doesn't want
marriage and family bondage, refuses to Tatyana’s love. At the ball at Olga's house,
Lensky gets upset when he saw Onegin dances with Olga, and as Onegin and Olga
laugh at him, infuriated Lensky filed a duel with Onegin. In the duel, Onegin killed
his friend Lensky, and he wanders the world for a while, and reunites with Tatyana
at the ball. Seeing Tatyana, who married to the Prince Gremin, the battlefield
veteran, and became the social queen, Onegin begged her to start again. Tatyana
bids him farewell forever, leaving him alone and in despair.
4. Werther
(Massenet)
It is a four-act opera composed by Jules
Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges
Hartmann, based on the novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe.
The main character, Werther, loves Charlotte,
who was engaged to Albert, but she is married soon. Werther, in desperate love,
is obsessed with the poetry of the ancient Irish poet Ossian with the same
sentiment. Werther and Charlotte, who were reading the poems of Ossian
together, “Pourquoi me réveiller?,” feel passionate emotions, weep, hug and
kiss. However, Charlotte declares an eternal farewell to Werther. Then, Werther
leaves a long letter to Charlotte and commits suicide with the pistol of Albert.
5. La
Bohème (Puccini)
It
is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by
Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on “Scènes de la vie de bohème” by
Henri Murger published in 1851.
Set
in the Latin Quarter of Paris, where poor artists and young people live,
Rodolfo, a poet, talks with a painter Marcello in an unburned room, and when
Colline, a philosopher, comes in, they burn the manuscript of Rodolfo's drama.
Musician
friend, Schaunard, comes in and says, “I made money with a weird part-time job
by playing music and killing annoying parrots” and he goes with his friends to
enjoy Christmas Eve.
Rodolfo,
who stayed for writing, falls in love with Mimì, who lives in a neighboring room
and comes to get matches. The two begins to live together but Rodolfo, who
couldn't make enough money, suffers from the fact that Mimi's illness of lung
disease and the asthma is getting worse, and finally declares her separation.
However,
Mimi, weakened by the despair of parting, eventually returns to Rodolfo after wandering
and dies while his friends watch.
You
can listen to all the arias selected in this course from following YouTube
link.
1.
Il dolce suono, Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti)
2.
Libiamo ne’lieti calici, La Traviata (Verdi)
3.
Kuda, kuda, kuda, vy udalilis, Evgeny Onegin (Tchaikovsky)
4.
Pourquoi me reveiller?, Werther (Massenet)
5.
Che gelida manina, La Boheme (Puccini)
Next
week, I will lecture 3rd "Opera" course as my 37th lecture.
Thank
you.
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