40. Opera 6: Revenge, ACJ Music Academy

How are you?

Following the last week, I am going to start my 40th 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.

https://blog.naver.com/csydr/220995605864

Today's lecture is five operas featuring “Revenge”, which were introduced in “The 40th ACJ Music Academy” on March 26, 2016.

1. Norma (Bellini)

2. Il Trovatore (Verdi)

3. Carmen (Bizet)

4. Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni)

5. Pagliacci (Leoncavallo)

1. Norma (Bellini)

This is a two-act opera by Vincenzo Bellini, with libretto by Felice Romani based on the play “Norma, ou L'infanticide (Norma, or The Infanticide)” by Alexandre Soumet. This opera is considered one of the representative “bel canto” operas. However, until the twentieth century, the opera was almost forgotten, and it became popular again after Maria Callas took over the title role of the opera.

Norma is the High-priestess of the Druids, the ancient Celtic mystics who believes in the immortality of the soul. She fell in love with the Roman proconsul in Gaul, Pollione, the occupying army, broke the vows of chastity as a priestess, gave birth to two children and secretly raises them in the hands of a maid. However, Pollione no longer loves Norma, and falls in love with a younger priestess Adalgisa. While the Druids are waiting for a divine message to fight with Rome, Norma, who does not want to fight with Rome, begs the goddess of the moon for peace. However, when Norma knew Pollione's betrayal, she is resentful and gives a divine message to the Druids, and attempts to arrest Pollione, who sneaked into the house to take the young priestess, and make him a sacrifice to pray for the victory of the war. Norma wants to burn the priestess with Pollione by accusing her who violated the vows of purity and desecrated the sanctuary. However, at the last moment, she speaks her name instead of the name of the young priestess and heads for the flames. Inspired by the courage and sacrifice, Pollione again feels a hot love for Norma, asks for forgiveness, holds her hand, and goes to the flames together.

2. Il Trovatore (Verdi)

It is a four-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi with an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano and Leone Emanuele Badare based on the play “El trovador (1836)” by Antonio García Gutiérrez, who was a Spanish Romantic dramatist.

The historical background was in the early 15th century, when civil war was fierce over the succession of the throne in Spain. Between Leonora, a noble lady, who serves as a lady-in-waiting to the Princess, Manrico is in a rival relationship with Count di Luna. Neither of them knows the truth but in fact, Manrico and Count di Luna are brothers. When the father of the Count di Luna, who believed that his youngest son was sick due to the curse of a gypsy woman, caught her and executed by burning, the gypsy woman's daughter, Azucena, swears revenge for her mother. Azucena, who abducted the youngest son, named him Manrico and raised him as her son. The Count di Luna, who doesn't know that Manrico is his younger brother and thinks that he is his rival, wants to kill Manrico. When he captured Manrico's mother, he goes to rescue her and is arrested. Leonora sacrifices her life to save Manrico, but he is finally executed in the hands of his older brother, the Count di Luna. Once Manrico is dead, Azucena, the mother of Manrico, cries, "He was your brother ... I took revenge, Oh mother!" The Count di Luna finds out that Manrico was his brother, but it is too late.

3. Carmen (Bizet)

It is a four-act opera composed by Georges Bizet. The French libretto was written by Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée.

This is a story about a beautiful and seductive gypsy woman Carmen with a fiery character, and today it is one of the most popular operas in the world.

Seville, a city of Andalusia in southern Spain, where is the stage for the opera, “Carmen”, was famous for having many gypsies and most of them worked in tobacco factories, and Carmen was one of them.

Don José, a soldier from the northern Basque region, who has the opposite sentiment to the hot blood of Andalusia, falls in love with Carmen at first sight when he sees her singing “habanera”, who came out of the factory for a break. After many twists and turns, José lives with Carmen's gypsy group. But before long, Carmen is fed up with him and is attracted to the star toreador Escamillo. José pleads to Carmen “Let's start a new life”, but when she doesn't change her mind to the end, he stabs Carmen with a knife and kills her.

4. Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni)

It is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni with an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from the short story by Giovanni Verga. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called Cav/Pag double-bill with Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo.

When the protagonist Turiddu goes to the army, his lover, Lola, marries Alfio, a carter who carries things in a wagon. In the pain of losing love, Turiddu meets a peasant's daughter, Santuzza, and gradually gains stability and comfort. But while Alfio goes to work, Lola seduces Turiddu and insults Santuzza who wants to stop it. When Turiddu, obsessed with a new passion for his old lover, forcibly kicks out Santuzza who is begging, she loses her temper with anger and informs Alfio of Lola's betrayal. Alfio rushes to Turiddu, and asks for a duel. Turiddu, who foresees his death, asks his mother to take care of Santuzza and then he dies in Alfio's hands.

5. Pagliacci (Leoncavallo)

It is a two-act opera in a prologue, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo, which is his only successful opera. Since 1893, it has been frequently performed with Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni, a double bill known as "Cav and Pag".

Canio, head of the troupe, raised orphan Nedda as an actress in the troupe and made her his wife. However, young and attractive Nedda is popular everywhere and he lives in anxiety. Tonio, a hunchback actor from the same troupe, loves Nedda, but she refuses him because she is in love with a young farmer, Silvio, in the town where they are staying for a while. Tonio, beaten by Nedda with a whip and captured by anger, tells Canio about Nedda's affair. Canio, who is filled with jealousy, grabs a knife from the table and stabs Nedda in the stage. As she dies, she calls Silvio for his help. Silvio attacks Canio, but Canio kills him as well.

You can listen to all the arias selected in this course from following YouTube link.

1. Casta Diva, Norma (Bellini)

2. D’amor sull’ ali rosee, Il Trovatore (Verdi)

3. L’amour est un oiseau rebelle, Carmen (Bizet)

4. Voi lo sapete, o mamma, Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni)

5. Vesti la giubba, Pagliacci (Leoncavallo)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSmshmgJzYhdmTnAY98uBchhTH6iLMQ99

Next week, I will lecture 7th "Opera" course as my 41st lecture.

Thank you.

Korean Blog

39. Opera 5: Political Strife/Religion, ACJ Music Academy

How are you?

Following the last week, I am going to start my 39th 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.

https://blog.naver.com/csydr/220995605864

Today's lecture is five operas featuring “Political Strife/Religion”, which were introduced in “The 39th ACJ Music Academy” on March 19, 2016.

1. L'incoronazione di Poppea (Monteverdi)

2. Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Handel)

3. I Puritani (Bellini)

4. Boris Godunov (Mussorgsky)

5. Prince Igor (Borodin)

1. L'incoronazione di Poppea (Monteverdi)

It is a two-act opera composed by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, based on the historical events described in “The Annals of Tacitus”. The opera’s main character is Poppaea Sabina, the second wife of the emperor Nero in the Roman Empire.

After returning from his overseas expedition, Ottone is excited about seeing his beloved Poppea soon. But when he finds two guards standing outside the house, he realizes that Emperor Nero has captured her and feels sad. The next morning, before Nero leaves, Poppea reaffirms Nero's promise that he will abolish Ottavia and make her his wife. Arnalta, aged nurse and confidante of Poppaea, tells Poppaea that Ottavia knows Nero's injustice.

Ottavia is angry with her husband's affairs, but Seneca, a philosopher and Nero's tutor, advises Ottavia to accept her fate and keep quiet. Nero tells Seneca to abolish Ottavia and marry Poppea, but Seneca opposes it and Nero is angry. Poppea tells Nero that Seneca must be killed because he is a hindrance to their love.

Ottone approaches Poppea and asks for reconciliation, but she laughs at him and Drusilla, who crushed on Ottone, gives attention to his obsession to Poppea.

When a slave arrives at Seneca's garden to announce his death sentence, Seneca takes his own life. Nero is pleased with his death, while Ottavia orders Ottone to kill Poppea.

Ottone asks Drusilla to help him, and she gives her clothes to disguise him. Poppea is thrilled with Seneca's death, and Ottone, disguised as Drusilla, sneaks in and tries to kill Poppea, but fails and runs away.

Drusilla is arrested for Poppea's assassination attempt and she admits it to protect Ottone. When Nero sentenced her to death, Ottone confesses his sin and says that the conspirator behind it is Ottavia.

Nero expels Ottone and Drusilla accompanies him. Nero also deports Ottavia as an assassin and declares Poppea to be his bride that day. Ottavia leaves Rome and Poppea becomes Empress.

2. Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Handel)

It is a three-act opera composed by George Frideric Handel with the libretto by Nicola Francesco Haym. The opera is set in 48 B.C., when Giulio Cesare and Cleopatra first met. Cesare, who was in early fifties at the time, defeated Pompeo, conquered the world, and was about to enter the path of sole dictatorship, and Cleopatra, who was just over twenty, was fighting with his younger brother Tolomeo for the Egyptian throne. History describes Cleopatra as an incarnation of the desire for power, but her desire for the power was directly linked to her survival in the context of being assassinated if she is being pushed out of the royal war.

Cleopatra immediately recognizes Cesare as a concrete helper to sit her on the throne and actively seduces him. She disguises as a maid, approaches Cesare, and Cesare falls in love with her.

The two enjoy a secret love and are found by Tolomeo's close person, and then Cleopatra reveals her identity and Cesare jumps into the sea. Tolomeo attempts to subdue his sister Cleopatra's supporters and execute her for treason, but Cesare, who thought to be dead, returns with his army, defeats Tolomeo, and raises Cleopatra to the throne.

3. I Puritani (Bellini)

It is an opera composed by Vincenzo Bellini, representing Italian bel canto opera with Rossini and Donizetti. Count Carlo Pepoli wrote a libretto based on Jacques-François Ancelot's "Têtes Rondes et Cavalieres".

The opera is set in Plymouth in 1645. But Plymouth here is not the place where English Puritans arrived to New World by the Mayflower, but the port city of the mainland of England.

In the English Civil War between 1644 and 1645, as the Puritan Republicans, led by Oliver Cromwell, triumphed, their ideology soon became political ideology, and then Cromwell soon executed the king and took over power. The story of the opera begins with the preparation of the wedding of Elvira, daughter of a puritan, Lord Gualtiero Valton, who imprisoned the queen, the wife of executed king.

Originally, Lord Valton tried to marry his daughter to Riccardo, but, after realizing that his daughter’s real love is Arturo of the Royalists, not the Puritans, he allows his daughter’s marriage. However, Arturo, who realized just before the wedding that the queen was imprisoned in Valton's castle, rescues the queen and runs away with her for the duty to keep faithful to the Stuart dynasty.

When the bridegroom disappears on the wedding day, Elvira, who doesn't know the exact reason, falls into despair and goes mad.

Arturo, who came back to the castle to meet Elvira, is arrested and sentenced to death, but pardoned just before execution. Elvira, who met Arturo, regains her spirit, and finally marries him.

4. Boris Godunov, (Mussorgsky)

It is a four-act Russian opera with a prologue composed by Modest Mussorgsky. The Russian-language libretto was written by the composer, based on the drama “Boris Godunov” by Aleksandr Pushkin, and Nikolay Karamzin's “History of the Russian State”.

Moscow, 1598. Shortly after Ivan the Terrible’s firstborn son passed away, the queen’s brother, Boris Godunov, was accused of assassinating Ivan the Terrible's youngest son, Dmitriy. Boris hides himself in the monastery, rejecting the plea of people to be crowned but eventually accepts the crown, and the coronation takes place at the Kremlin square.

The Chudov Monastery in 1603. Pimen, a venerable monk, recalls the past as he writes the last chapter of the chronology. A young monk, Grigoriy, who was sleeping at his side and awaked from a nightmare, is amazed by Pimen's story: "Emperor Boris ordered Dmitriy's assassination, and if Dmitriy is alive, he would be the same age as you."

Meanwhile, at an inn near the Russian and Lithuanian border, the drunken vagrant 
Varlaam sings "So it was in the city of Kazan" in praise of Ivan the Terrible's siege of Kazan. Grigoriy comes here and runs away in fear of arrest.

Kremlin Palace. Boris' daughter Kseniya is weeping because of her dead fiance, and her nurse and Fyodor comfort her with humorous songs. Boris suffers extreme anxiety and psychological pain when the fiancé of his daughter died, the nobles plan revolution, and the people turn their backs due to the famine and pestilence. In addition, he agonizes for killing the prince of previous king.

At this time, Prince Shuysky arrives and reports that "the pretender Dmitriy is trying to attack Moscow with the Polish army," and once again portrays the dead prince, Boris sees Dmitriy in the hallucinations and creates a mad scene.

In the castle of Sandomierz in Poland, the daughter of the Polish commander, Marina, appears. She is in love with Grigoriy, pretending Dmitriy.

To a fake Dmitriy enthusiastically confessing love to her, Marina deliberately stimulates Dmitriy's pride, saying, “I want to be the Emperor of Moscow rather than love”, and makes him decide the war. In the forests near Novgorod, Varlaam and Misail, stir up the people, saying, "Overthrow the demon Boris and crown the orthodox prince Dmitriy."

Meanwhile, at the Kremlin, the aristocratic congress is discussing the defense against Dmitriy's attack. In this place, Boris enters in delirium. When Monk Pimen tells the story of a blind man who “worshiped the grave of Prince Dmitriy and miraculously opened his eyes,” shocked Boris calls his son to preach the basics of his rule and dies in deep repentance.

5. Prince Igor (Borodin)

It is an opera in four acts with a prologue, written and composed by Alexander Borodin. However, he completed part of the opera during his life, including the prologue's first chorus and the “Dance of the Polovtsian Maidens”.

The rest was jointly organized and supplemented by Rimsky-Korsakov and his pupil, Alexander Glazunov, to become the current work.

The story that Igor, the Duke of Novgorod, fought against the nomadic Polovtsians and defended their territory during the founding of Russia in the 12th century fits well with Borodin's patriotic and nationalist passion.

When Igor leaves the cathedral after praying to win the battle with the Polovtsians, the eclipse suddenly emerges and the people appeal to withdraw the battle because it is an ominous sign. However, Igor leaves his wife Yaroslavna to her brother Galitsky and goes to the battle along with his son Vladimir.

Yaroslavna is full of worries about her husband, but Galitsky, who wants to take the place of the prince, tries to urge the remaining people to rebel against him while living an extravagant and prodigal life when Igor is away. In that situation, news is reported that Igor and his son were defeated in the battle and captured by the Polovtsians.

Igor's son Vladimir falls in love with the daughter of enemy Polovtsian Khan, and the two promise love. Igor is deeply disappointed to know it. But Khan treats Igor as a dear guest, not a prisoner, and feasts to entertain him. At that time, a Polovtsian, baptized by Russian Orthodox, offered a secret escape to Igor.

But Khan's daughter, who overheard the plan, begs Vladimir to take her or live with her here. Vladimir escapes with his father, but is eventually caught and marries Khan's daughter, and Igor succeeds in his escape and arrives at his castle. Sorrowful Yaroslavna recognizes him coming on a horse from afar and greets Igor, and the two appear before the cheering people.

You can listen to all the arias selected in this course from following YouTube link.

1. Signor, deh, non partire!, L'incoronazione di Poppea (Monteverdi)

2. V'adoro pupille, Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Handel)

3. Qui la voce sua soave, I Puritani (Bellini)

4. Ukh! tyazhelo! Day dukh perevedu, Boris Godunov, (Mussorgsky)

5. Polovtsian Dances, Prince Igor (Borodin)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSmshmgJzYheDP1vclpkrkY3ZN89x_SXG

Next week, I will lecture 6th "Opera" course as my 40th lecture.

Thank you.

Korean Blog