He was wrong, and rumours began to spread in early summer that the production would be forbidden. As Verdi wrote in a letter to Piave: "Use four legs, run through the town and find me an influential person who can obtain the permission for making Le Roi s'amuse." Guglielmo Brenna, secretary of La Fenice, promised the duo that they would not have problems with the censors. The play had been banned in France following its premiere nearly twenty years earlier (not to be staged again until 1882) now it was to come before the Austrian Board of Censors (as Austria at that time directly controlled much of Northern Italy.)įrom the beginning, both composer and librettist knew this step would not be easy. Verdi later explained that "The subject is grand, immense, and there is a character that is one of the greatest creations that the theatre can boast of, in any country and in all history." However, Hugo's depiction of a venal, cynical, womanizing king ( Francis I of France) was considered unacceptably scandalous. That came in the form of Victor Hugo's controversial five-act play Le roi s'amuse ("The king amuses himself"). He initially asked Francesco Maria Piave (with whom he had already created Ernani, I due Foscari, Macbeth, Il corsaro and Stiffelio) to examine the play Kean by Alexandre Dumas, père, but soon came to believe that they needed to find a more energetic subject. He was prominent enough by this time to enjoy some freedom in choosing texts to set to music. La Fenice of Venice commissioned Verdi in 1850 to compose a new opera. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda falls in love with the Duke and sacrifices her life to save him from the assassin hired by her father. The opera's original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to a curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter the Duke has seduced with Rigoletto's encouragement. Its tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's daughter Gilda. The work, Verdi's sixteenth in the genre, is widely considered to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It's great, but it's a lot.Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. “It was like this light bulb went off,” she said.
#Verdi opera professional#
Thomson Anderson said her husband, who is also a professional opera singer, “really didn’t get” how much work it was until he himself joined the Met Opera, years after she did. “As wonderful as this job is - and it is, it’s an amazing job - it’s also just an incredible sacrifice of time and coordination,” said D’Amato’s colleague and locker room neighbor, Christina Thomson Anderson, a mezzo-soprano who has been a Met Opera chorister for more than a decade. It’s D’Amato’s favorite opera, and it’s also how she met her husband, an opera singer, during a reading of the libretto when they were in a production in Sarasota.
Many roads in D'Amato's life lead to “La Bohème.” As a first grader, she watched it on PBS with her mom.
“I liked how the music made me feel, that it made me feel emotion, and feel sad and sympathetic towards the characters. She fell in love with it when she was 15 and saw a performance of “La Bohème” at the New York City Opera. But then theaters reopened and opera lured her back, as it always has.ĭ’Amato didn’t get into opera for money or fame.
#Verdi opera full#
She thought about pursuing baby music full time. “I obviously don't use my opera voice,” she said, noting that she dialed down the vibrato before singing classics like “Wheels on the Bus” and “Open Shut Them.” Two years ago, when theaters went dark, she even taught a baby music class. “I cleaned, I babysat, I did anything to piece together a career.” Where else is an opera singer with 20-plus years of experience going to find a steady gig, with summers off, and a pension, in New York City? D’Amato says it’s the kind of job people keep until they retire.Īnd she has tried other jobs: She taught singing and also sang in a church choir.
0 kommentar(er)
