The Sorceress - Kiri Te Kanawa
Voilà, probably one of the weirdly campest videos ever made: Kiri Te Kanawa's The Sorceress, (filmed in 1993) with English and Italian subs, so even if you are unfamiliar with opera - you have no excuse!
Tiptoeing the fine line between kitsch and camp, Kiri's The Sorceress has been a long favourite of mine. It's not only a video; it's its own mini-genre. Using the very Baroque tradition of the pasticcio (a patchwork piece to enrich an existing piece or following a known plot), The Sorceress is informed by a time that was celebrating the novelties of MTV video storytelling and was still obsessed with John Malkovich's Liaisons Dangereuses a couple of years prior. It's a throwback to the 90s in so many awesome ways. There are many versions of The Sorceress YouTube; I cleaned up one video a little, made translations and added captions in English and Italian so everyone can understand what Alcina is so upset about.
Kiri Te Kanawa
Ensemble: The Academy of Ancient Music
Conductor: Christopher Hogwood
Choreography: Baroque Opera Atelier Toronto
Mise-en-scène: Barbara Willis Sweete
Ruggiero: Andrew Kelley
Bradamante: Jeanette Zingg
Alcina's Servant: Wilbert Hanssen
Music by Georg Frideric Händel
I needed a short mental break, so I wasted a day (and a couple of bucks). The original plan was only to add subtitles in English and Italian, but I ended up scrubbing the video a little, upscaling and cleaning it with AI. Don't expect too much; the best version flying around is 444x360 pixels or something (black frame around it included) - VHS, I believe filmed from a screen too.
tl; dr: I did what I could!
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Daniel Behle sings "Pensa che In campo armato" from Antonio Tozzi's "Rinaldo"
The motive is a recurring one and was a staple in the 18th century. Rinaldo + Armida, Ruggiero + Alcina … Sometimes grudgingly, sometimes tragically, the hero has to renounce his love or at least postpone his desires to follow the call of duty. Tozzi writes an aria for the voice of reason that in its virtuosity deserves a hero. Tozzi is probably not one of the "Greats" and a lot of his music is craftsmanship. However, there are more than just a few passages in this particular piece that lift it well above and beyond. The coloraturas are interesting and "galant", and the little chromatic figures that kindly urge the hero on show that it's important for Tozzi to establish that the reasonable one (who may be called Ubaldo) doesn't (only) strongarm Rinaldo into making the right decision; he wants to convince him.
Oh, and obviously, Daniel Behle is excellent.
Libretto and translation below the cut
Bayreuth, Markgräfliches Opernhaus 2023
Aufnahme: BR
Antonio Tozzi, Rinaldo (1775)
Translation below
Pensa, che in campo armato
il tuo valor ti chiama.
Del tuo valor la fama
combatterà con te.
Scordati il volto amato,
fuggi quel dolce incanto.
Maggiore d'ogni vanto
è il trionfar di te.
*
Consider, that onto the battlefield
Your valor summons you.
The renown of your valour
Will fight beside you.
Forget the beloved face,
Flee that sweet enchantment.
Greater than any vain glory,
Is your triumph.
*
Wisse, Dich ruft die Ehre,
Dich ruft die Pflicht zum Streite.
Dort wird Dir Ruhm zur Seite,
der Sieg zum Lohn Dir seyn.
Flieh aus der Wollust Armen!
Fort! lass sie ohn' Erbarmen,
Dich selbst als Held besiegen,
muss höchster Ruhm Dir seyn.
*Artwork: Tiepolo, Rinaldo & Armida
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Benjamin Britten’s opera for television: Owen Wingrave
The Wingrave family prides itself on being a family of soldiers. When Owen Wingrave decides that he will refuse to fight in the military, they don't take his decision well. Both he as well as his fiancé Kate lost their respective fathers in battle; while Owen sees this death as pointless, Kate embraces the apotheosis offered by society, that they died for a greater good, for honour, for King and country. Owen's decision challenges her own narrative. She calls Owen a coward and puts him up to a test of courage: in the attic of the Wingrave mansion, generations ago, a boy has died. Since then, the room is said to be haunted.
If you're in a hurry, I recommend listening to just the two minutes starting at 55 min that blend Act I into Act II - a beautiful cantilene with an edge, and a disturbing children's choir, recounting the story of young Wingrave who refused to fight. [x]
Kent Nagano - conductor
Margaret Williams - director
Gerald Finley - Owen Wingrave (baritone)
Peter Savidge - Spencer Coyle (bass-baritone)
Hilton Marlton - Lechmere (tenor)
Josephine Barstow - Miss Wingrave (dramatic soprano)
Anne Dawson - Mrs Coyle (soprano)
Charlotte Hellekant - Kate Julian (mezzo-soprano)
Martyn Hill - Sir Philip Wingrave (tenor)
Elizabeth Gale - Mrs Julian (soprano)
The Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin
Libretto: Myfanwy Piper, after Henry James
Directed by Margaret Williams, 1991.
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Egyptian
Statuette of Anubis
Ptolemaic Period
332-30 B.C.
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Cecilia Bartoli sings Mozart's Concert Aria "Ah, lo previdi … Ah, t'invola … Deh non varcar" (KV 272)
I can't even tell I love Kiri or Bartoli more - I never get tired of this piece and it absolutely kills me every time.
Ah, don't leave, beloved shadow,
I want to join you.
On the final step,
While the pain kills me,
In the meantime, tarry, tarry awhile!
Cavatina
Ah, do not cross the river,
Soul of my heart.
To the other shore of the river Lete,
Shade, your companion, I too
Want to come, come with you.
"Ah, lo previdi … Ah, t'invola … Deh non varcar"
Mozart, KV 272
Libretto: Vittorio Amedeo Cigna-Santi, "Andromeda" (also set by Paisiello)
Andromeda
Recitativo
Ah, lo previdi!
Povero Prence, con quel ferro istesso
che me salvò, ti lacerasti il petto.
(ad Eristeo)
Ma tu sì fiero scempio perchè non impedir?
Come, o crudele, d'un misero a pietà
non ti movesti?
Qual tigre, qual tigre ti nodrì?
Dove, dove, dove nascesti?
Aria
Ah, t'invola agl'occhi miei,
alma vile, ingrato cor!
La cagione, oh Dio, tu sei
del mio barbaro, barbaro dolor.
Va, crudele! Va, spietato!
Va, tra le fiere ad abitar.
(Eristeo parte)
Recitativo
Misera! Misera! Invan m'adiro,
e nel suo sangue intanto
nuota già l'idol mio.
Con quell'acciaro, ah Perseo, che facesti?
Mi salvasti poc'anzi,or m'uccidesti.
Col sangue, ahi, la bell'alma,
ecco, già uscì dallo squarciato seno.
Me infelice!
Si oscura il giorno agli occhi miei,
e nel barbaro affanno il cor vien meno.
Ah, non partir, ombra diletta,
io voglio unirmi a te.
Sul grado estremo,
intanto che m'uccide il dolor,
intanto fermati, fermati alquanto!
Cavatina
Deh, non varcar quell'onda,
anima del cor mio.
Di Lete all'altra sponda,
ombra, compagna anch'io
voglio venir, venir con te.
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Odessa, Ukraine | syndrom__stendalya
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Awwwww
Cafarelli's cat 🥺
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"Gelido in ogni vena"
Giovanni Battista Ferrandini, "Siroe"
Libretto: Antonio Maria Lucchini
Countertenor + piano accompagniment: Philippe Jaroussky
Live on France Inter Nov 2023
Cosroes' aria (Act III, scene V)
Gelido in ogni vena
Scorrer mi sento il sangue,
L'ombra del figlio esangue
M'ingombra di terror.
E per maggior mia pena
Vedo che fui crudele
A un'anima innocente,
Al core del mio cor.
**
I feel my blood congealing run
Thro' ev'ry vein, in ev'ry part,
And the pale ghost of my dear son,
Strikes dread and terror to my heart.
And still to add to greater woe,
The loyal innocent I've slain,
Of cruelty at length I know,
I, on myself, have fix'd the stain.
"Gelido in ogni vena" is an aria from a libretto by Antonio Maria Lucchini. It appears in two distinct operas: "Siroe" and "Farnace". "Gelido in ogni vena" was set to music by almost every composer of the Baroque era and beyond. The approaches are very different and interesting to hear. They range from Vinci's odd decision to make it more pleasing than gripping to Vivaldi's soul-crushing benchmark of what a baroque aria can be.
The fellow Venetian Giovanni Battista Ferrandini (*1710) has a yet different approach. It's not quite clear when his version was composed, only that it happened before 1758. The dread that befalls Cosroe when he imagines seeing his deceased son whom he (justly) feels he has wronged that makes his blood run cold with fear and guilt Ferrandini illustrates with fragile diminished jumps and subtle harmonic shifts and chromatics as Cosroe's world is coming apart at the seams, shifting and shaking while he tries to somehow smoothen the cracks and live on. More personal and intimate than Vivaldi's, Ferrandini's interpretation is sublime by its own merit.
The full da capo aria can be found on Philippe Jaroussky's album "Forgotten Arias" [x]. On the radio, live, he gives us a two-minute slice.
The full radio podcast is still available here: [x]
Translation Source: Siroe, re di Persia. Drama per musica
1736, British Library [x]
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For the true connoisseur: Peter Kreuder's Wagner Medleys. (ca. 1960-1970) I found them on YouTube and cleaned them up a little. Please check out the original channel I lifted them from: [x]
#1: Freudig begrüßen wir die edle Halle (Tannhäuser) // Treulich geführt (Lohengrin)
#2: Matrosenchor (Der fliegende Holländer) // O du, mein holder Abendstern (Tannhäuser) // Pilgerchor (Tannhäuser)
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Bruno de Sá, "Qual pellegrino errante" (Galuppi) ("As the errant pilgrim")
Qual Pellegrino errante (As the pilgrim wandering)
From the opera Evergete by Baldassare Galuppi
Libretto + translation under the cut
(Atto Primo, Senca XI)
Candace
(Recitativo)
Numi, voi che vegliate
Fedelmente sui casi de Monarchi,
Nel periglio imminente,
Il destin d'Evergete a voi consegno.
Quanto puote il mio amore,
Già tutto oprò, confuso
Così col finto ò il vero,
Ch'Amasi nol saprà, d'un crudo scempio
Nell'atroce desio,
La gelosia del suo conservi il mio.
(Aria)
Qual Pellegrino errante
In solta, oscura selva,
Muove l'incerte piante,
Teme d'ingorda belva
Il barbaro furore,
E mille volte more
Di pena, e di terror.
Così ne'dubbj suoi
Pien d'ira, e di spavento,
Ei provi ogni momento
Il fiero mio dolor.
Source: [x]
English (Aria):
As the errant pilgrim
in a solitary, dark forest,
stirs the unsteady plants,
fears the barbarous fury
of the greedy beast,
and a thousand times dies
of sorrow, and of terror.
So shall he in his doubts
full of bitterness and terror
in every moment
feel my terrible pain.
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would a beheaded saint wear their halo like this
or like this
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Philippe Jaroussky sings "Sposa, non mi conosci" from Geminiano Giacomelli's opera "La Merope"
Philippe Jaroussky and his Ensemble Artaserse live, Versailles, 2009.
The opera "(La) Merope" tells the story of Merope, the widow of King Cresfonte (greek: Kresphontes). Her husband and children were killed by his enemy, with only her son Eptide (greek: Aipytos) escaping this fate. Growing up in exile, Epitide falls in love with Argia. The plot culminates in Act III, when Epitide finds himself completely alone among the two people who he thought knew him best.
In "Sposa, non mi conosci", Epitide addresses his mother Merope and his lover, Argia, alternately which makes for a slightly confusing text. Later, Vivaldi used the achingly beautiful piece for his pasticcio "Bajazet", but with an altered text: "Sposa, son disprezzata".
Italian
Sposa non mi conosci?
Madre tu non mi ascolti.
(Cieli che feci mai!)
E pur sono il tuo Cor,
Il tuo figlio, il tuo amor
La tua speranza.
Parla, ma sei infedel
Credi, ma sei crudel
Morir mi lascerai?
Oh dio! manca il valor
E la costanza.
English, literal translation
My love, do you not recognize me?
Mother, you do not listen to me.
(Heavens, what did I do!)
And yet I am your heart,
Your son, your love
Your hope.
Speak! but you are unfaithful
Believe! but you are cruel
Will you let me die?
Oh gods, I am losing my courage
and my constancy. (FR)
English (poetic) translation
And am I to my spouse unknown?
Will not my mother lend an ear?
Say, oh ye gods, what have I done,
Deserves a torture thus severe!
I once was object of thy love;
Thou plac'd thy hopes in me thy son.
Speak; but thou dost faithless prove.
Believe; but thou art cruel grown.
What will ye both, than, let me die,
Ye gods, I find I can't prevail:
And now I feel my constancy,
And former courage both do fail.
*** Disclaimer ***
I believe the publication of this track fulfils the criteria of fair use, discussion and study. If you have any objections against this being online, please get in touch and I will remove it immediately.
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Margaret Isabel Dicksee The Child Händel 1893
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That's a brutal choice. Don Carlo. But only if Il Barbiere is without the tenor aria in the end.
Round of 16 Match 6
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My ancestors, watching me dump an entire stick of cinnamon, two cloves, an allspice berry, and a generous grating of nutmeg into my tea, sweetened with white sugar and loaded with cream, while I sit in my clean warm house surrounded by books, 25+ outfits for different occasions, and 6 pairs of shoes, in a building heated so well I have the windows open in mid-autumn:
Our daughter prospers. We are proud of her. She has never labored in a field but knows riches we could not have imagined.
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cannot get over this comment on a chess tournament video
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