Overture: Nabucco (1842)

Verdi was persuaded to write the overture to Nabucco just at the last minute before the first performance of the opera in Milan in 1842. He agreed, no doubt, in the belief that the score contained some good tunes – above all the chorus “Va, pensiero,” the words of which had inspired him to accept Solera’s libretto in the first place – and that it would do no harm at all to give them extra exposure. The opening brass chorale does not appear in the opera itself but the next main theme, quietly introduced by trumpet, is an allusion to “Il maledetto” in Act II where a chorus of Levites curse Ismaele whose treachery has allowed the Babylonians to take the temple of Solomon. “Va, pensiero,” the famously melodious lament of the captive Hebrews in Babylon, is featured as the centre-piece of the overture: it is presented first in its original form on oboe over pizzicato strings and then in an attractive if slightly incongruous trumpet variation. The closing section refers to three other tuneful episodes in the opera before it ends with a rousing coda based on “Il maledetto.”

Giuseppe Giordani (1751-1798)

Caro mi ben

It is ironic that the one work by which Giuseppe Giordani, who wrote as many as thirty operas, is remembered today is an aria which might well be by a contemporary but unrelated Italian composer with the same surname, Tommaso Giordani – or even, to complicate matters, by Tommaso’s father who was also called Giuseppe Giordani. The problem as to which Giordani wrote it pales into insignificance, however, alongside the sublime simplicity of the music itself with its sadly drooping melodic line and a middle section just different enough and just long enough to offset the lamenting outer sections.

Georg Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Lascia ch’io pianga from Rinaldo (1711)

Rinaldo was not only Handel’s first London opera but also the first Italian opera intended specifically for a British theatre. Based on Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, it was first performed at the Queen’s Theatre Haymarket in 1711. The aria Lascia ch’io pianga was written as long as four years before that, however, for the allegorical oratorio Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, where its function is seductive rather than pathetic. In its new context during the First Crusade, as the imprisoned Almirena (daughter of the leader of the Christian armies) laments her imprisonment by the Saracens, it is even more effective.

Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945)

Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana (1890)

Mascagni’s one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana – nowadays all but inseparable in the opera house from its regular double-bill partner Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci – is set in Sicily, where passions traditionally run high. The fact that it is Easter Sunday does nothing to modify the deadly jealousy of the carter Alfio when he discovers, while most of the villagers are at Mass, that his wife is having an affair with a young peasant called Turiddu At the end of Mass and before Alfio exacts his revenge on Turiddu there is a serenely melodious orchestral Intermezzo which echoes the music sung in the church and which, if only he were in a mood to listen, would surely inspire Alfio to extend Christian forgiveness to all concerned. Unfortunately, he is in no such mood.

Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1857-1919)

Stridono lassù from I Pagliacci (1892)

Directed at the same audience as Cavalleria rusticana, I Pagliacci is also set in the south of Italy and is based on another story – devised by Leoncavallo himself from a real-life event – of jealousy and violently executed revenge. At this early stage, however, in the second scene of the first act, Canio, the leader of a group of travelling players is unaware of his wife Nedda’s affair with a villager called Silvio. Although she is afraid of being found out by her brutal husband, Nedda casts such thoughts aside and, moved by a flight of chattering birds in the August sun, sings to herself a song her mother taught her. Except in a brief encounter with stormy adversity towards the end, Stridono lassù flies as freely and effortlessly on its carefree orchestration as the birds themselves in the cloudless sky.

Puccini

La Rondine

Puccini

Manon Lescaut

Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

Habanera from Carmen

‘Take the Spanish airs and mine out of the score,’ Charles Gounod was heard to remark on the first performance of Carmen at the Opéra-Comique in 1875, ‘and there remains nothing to Bizet’s credit but the sauce that masks the fish.’ Well, it is true that Carmen’s first act habanera, ‘L’amour est un oiseau rebelle’, is based on a song called ‘El arregilito’ by the Spanish composer Sebastián Yradier, who no doubt picked up the habanera rhythm when he was working in Cuba. But Bizet’s inspired and hypnotic version of the tune, which is the perfect vehicle for Carmen’s provocative first entry in the opera, adds erotic zest to what was originally a rather insipid fish. It was one of the few items that won spontaneous applause on what turned out to be a generally depressing first night.

When he realized that “El arregilito” was not, as he thought, a folk song but the work of another composer Bizet duly acknowledged his source. He had to make no such apology for Carmen’s seguidilla, “Près des remparts de Séville,” which is probably a result of his preparatory studies in the Spanish idiom rather than a straight borrowing. Certainly, it is so seductive that Corporal Don José, evidently a sucker for manzanilla, cannot resist it. Having been put in charge of Carmen after she has been arrested for causing a violent disturbance in the cigarette factory, he forbids her to speak. But, she says, there is nothing to stop her singing - which she does so to such devastating effect that, accepting the disciplinary consequences for the sake of the promised reward at Lillas Pastia’s tavern, he lets her go.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Fantasy Overture: Romeo & Juliet

Tchaikovsky would probably never have thought of writing a concert overture based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet if the idea had not been suggested to him by another musician. The idea came from Mily Balakirev, the leading member of the “mighty handful” of Russian nationalist composers. While he wasn’t entirely in sympathy with Balakirev’s principles, Tchaikovsky knew that he had much to learn from him. So he immediately made a start on the project, taking into account Balakirev’s design for the construction – an introduction representing Friar Laurence, an Allegro depicting the street brawls between Montagues and Capulets, a love scene between Romeo and Juliet, a development of the main themes, and a tragic ending.

Although progress on the work was slow and required extensive revisions, the final version – dedicated to Balakirev and first performed in Tiflis in 1886 – retained the shape originally dictated by the older composer. So Tchaikovsky’s first great orchestral work begins with Friar Laurence’s theme, a chorale “with an ancient Catholic character,” just as Balakirev had requested. The first theme of the Allegro giusto is appropriately violent and argumentative, coloured by the clash of Montague and Capulet swords as the first major climax approaches. The second main theme, on the other hand – Romeo’s song to Juliet on cor anglais and violas and Juliet’s whispered reply on violins – is a love scene of exquisite tenderness.

All the main themes are duly developed in the ensuing dramatic conflict which, inevitably, ends in tragedy. The funeral music, sadly tinged with low drum beats, a new chorale, and a final reminiscence of the love song act as a structural balance to the slow introduction. The last “suddenly thumped chords” did not please Balakirev but Tchaikovsky resisted his colleague on this point, feeling that they were musically and emotionally just right.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

“O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi (1918)

“O mio babbino caro” is not, as it might superficially seem to be, a dutiful daughter’s expression of her love for her dear father. In fact, Lauretta is turning on the charm so as to persuade her father, Gianni Schicchi, to rescue the family of her lover Rinuccio from an unfortunate situation. The head of the Donati family has just died and, it transpires, has left his property not to his expectant relatives but to the Monastery of S Reperata. Without his inheritance Rinuccio cannot marry Lauretta. Hence her fervent appeal to her father who, though he is surely clever enough to see through her endearments, gives in to her request. Who, after all could resist such a persuasive melody and such affectionate harmonies? The opera – a one-act comedy originally designed to accompany Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica in a triple bill called Il Trittico – ends happily for Schicchi, Lauretta and Rinuccio but not for Rinuccio’s greedy relatives.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)

Madama Butterfly: Un bel di vedremo (Act Two)

At this stage in the second act of Puccini’s “Japanese tragedy” Madama Butterfly – which was first performed in Milan in 1904 – Butterfly is still confident that Lieutenant Pinkerton, her American sailor husband, will return to her and their little house in Nagasaki. Bearing in mind that he has been away for two or three years, that he knows nothing of the son she is bringing up for him and that the funds he provided are all but gone, it requires a vast investment of faith on her part to sustain her belief in him. However, there is no more convincing expression of a wife’s trust in her husband than Cio-Cio-San’s aria “Un bel di vedremo” (One fine day) which – with its fervent melodic line, its intimate detail as well as its finely wrought emotional climax – is far more than Pinkerton deserves.