Verdi's Luisa Miller: Masterwork on the Cusp

 

William Shakespeare and Friedrich von Schiller were among Verdi’s favorite authors. The Bard of Avon inspired three of the composer’s librettos (Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff); the giant of German Classicism and Romanticism provided subjects for no less than four of his operas: Giovanna d’Arco (Die Jungfrau von Orleans), I Masnadieri (Die Räuber [The Robbers]), Don Carlos, and Luisa Miller (Kabale und Liebe [Intrigue and Love]). Only Don Carlos (known familiarly with its Italian title Don Carlo) has secured a place in the core repertoire of the world’s major lyric theatres.

Luisa Miller premiered just two years before the beloved Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata, vintage 1851-53. Yet with its strong narrative and rewarding roles for five soloists, the opera deserves greater popularity. Its thrilling score culminates in a final act among Verdi's greatest creations.

The Metroplitan Opera did not stage Luisa Miller until 1929; its stellar cast—Rosa Ponselle, Giovanni Lauri-Volpi, Giuseppe De Luca—was able to earn but a paltry six performances in two seasons. The opera waited until 1968 to enter the company’s repertoire with some regularity.

In Act II, in order to save her father, Luisa, a commoner, is forced to write a letter renouncing her love for Rodolfo, the son of the ruling nobleman. She prays that God not abandon her. Adriana Maliponte conveys the pathos with fervor, musical precision, and rich tone, capping the aria with a breathtaking cadenza.

Carlo Bergnzi sings the opera’s most famous aria, “Quando le sere al placido (When in the evening, beneath a starry sky),” recalling the happiness of Rodolfo's love for Luisa. The tenor’s affinity for Verdi and command of the requisite style are fully evident in this commercial recording.

 

Act III contains one of Verdi’s most touching soprano-baritone duets. Severely put upon by the local aristocracy, Luisa and Miller, her father, contemplate a life exiled from their homeland (“Andrem raminghi e poveri, ove il destin ci porta [We’ll wander, poor, wherever destiny leads us].” Here, from a recording of the complete opera, are Anna Moffo as Luisa and Cornell MacNeil as Miller, both in peak form and sensitive to the pathos of the scene.

Rodolfo, mistakenly believing that Luisa has betrayed him, poisons himself and his beloved. In this extract from a complete recording, Luciano Pavarotti and Sherrill Milnes voice the anguish of Rodolfo and Miller, Montserrat Caballé invests the dying Luisa with ethereal pianissimi. Luisa’s phrases, lofted heavenward, prefigure the demises of Verdi’s Leonoras in Il Trovatore and La Forza del destino.

 

 A number of commercial recordings and excellent live performances are available on YouTube.

 

 

 

Rossini and the Stars

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It has been the stars above all who have charted the fortunes of Gioacchino Rossini’s legacy at the Metropolitan, sopranos and mezzo-sopranos, and lately tenors as well. The exception has been Il Barbiere di Siviglia, first staged in the company’s inaugural season, 1883-1884, and since then the recipient of six new productions. Il Barbiere has been on the calendar in roughly half of the Met’s by now 130 seasons and ranks thirteenth in the list of works most often performed on 39^th Street and then at Lincoln Center.

The quickening of interest in Rossini in particular and in bel canto in general--the operas of Donizetti, Bellini, and, of course, Rossini—was sparked by singers who could flaunt the virtuosity of florid music, Maria Callas in the 1950s, followed soon after by Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, and Montserrat Caballé.  Since then, a veritable torrent of belcantists has been enlisted in the annual Rossini Festival held each summer in Pesaro, the composer’s Italian birthplace. 

At the Met, the Rossini era was launched in 1974 by Marilyn Horne’s assumption of the role of Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri. And with Olga Borodina and Jennifer Larmore the title has persisted in the repertoire.  In 1975, it was the turn of L’Assedio di Corinto (The Siege of Corinth), a vehicle for the debut of Beverly Sills. Horne, once again, was the spur for the 1990 Semiramide. Cenerentola was mounted for Cecilia Bartoli in 1998; it has been revived five times with Borodina, Elina Garanca, Joyce DiDonato, and twice simulcast live in HD.  In 2009-2010, the Met put on Armida for Renée Fleming and the next year Le Conte d’Ory for Juan Diego Flórez, the first male star to lead the Rossini parade. Which brings us to La Donna del Lago. It premiered at the Met on February 16, 2015 and will be simulcast “Live in HD” on March 14.

And the feast will continue beyond this season. William Tell is on the schedule for 2016-2017 when it will be heard, at last, in the original French, in its first revival at the Met since the 1930s. Looking ahead, here is a glimpse of the splendors of this Rossini masterpiece, the transcendent ensemble that constitutes the opera’s finale. Tell, his family, and the Swiss patriots hail the rising sun that smiles on their triumph over the Austrian tyranny. The clip is from a 2003 Paris performance with Thomas Hampson and Marcello Giordani.

Rossini’s operas demand singers with virtuosic command of the bel canto style. This technique is founded on the most rigorous control of the breath, essential to the free and even use of fioritura (embellishment): melismatic trills, turns, appoggiature (grace notes), scales, arpeggios, and other figures of the bel canto rhetoric. Marilyn Horne was master of it all. We were present at a performance of Semiramide with Horne and Sutherland in Boston in the early 1960s that was a spectacular demonstration of the opera’s viability. As the Babylonian general Arsace, a bearded Horne entered and conquered with an exhibition of vocal pyrotechnics. Here she sings her first aria in a 1980 concert in Washington, D.C.

Another of Horne’s warrior roles was the title character of Tancredi. In one of Tancredi’s arias, here is countertenor David Daniels as he poaches on the dramatic mezzo’s turf. In this 1997 New York concert, Daniels traverses the three contrasting sections of the piece brilliantly, the opening dramatic recitative “O Patria,” the sweetly lyric cavatina “Tu che accendi questo core,” and the lilting cabaletta “Di tanti palpiti” whose coiling melody was the rage of Europe in the 1820s.

Watch for our next post on Rossini’s La Donna del lago.