So many different outsiders have controlled Sicily that if an alien power were to conquer Earth, it would likely start on that island. Among the temporary rulers of the place are the Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, the Byzantines, the Muslims, the Normans, the Angevin French, the Bourbons, and now the Italians. I’ve probably left some passersby out, but what’s a conquest or two among a people who outlasted all of them?

Verdi’s next opera after the blockbusters of Rigoletto, Traviata, and Trovatore was written for Paris with a libretto by the omnipresent Eugène Scribe. Les vêpres siciliennes (I vespri siciliani in its Italian version) took the composer two years to complete because of a variety of snafus. Despite being a big hit at its premiere, it quickly dropped out and is the most infrequently performed of Verdi’s mature operas. It succeeded with a French audience despite depicting the French as bad guys and ending with their massacre.

I find it very hard to understand its relative neglect. It’s a masterpiece on a par with Verdi’s other great operas. Berlioz, music’s greatest critic wrote: “In Les vêpres the penetrating intensity of the melodic expressiveness, the sumptuous, wise variety of the instrumentation, the vastness and poetic sonority of the concerted pieces, the hot color that shines throughout … communicate to this opera an imprint of grandeur, a species of sovereign majesty more distinguishable than in this composer’s earlier products.”

Its story is built around the rebellion in 1282 on Easter. It started in Palermo and led to the death or expulsion of 13,000 French men and women. Hélène is a fervent revolutionary, as is her lover Henri. But things get complex when Henri discovers that Montfort, the leader of the French, is his father. He’s torn between passion and revolutionary zeal on the one hand and filial duty on the other. Hélène is similarly torn. She decides to break with Henri. Procida (the revolutionary leader) is furious at her lack of zeal, as is Henri for her lack of romantic commitment. Then Montfort arrives, takes the couple’s hands, joins them together, and pronounces them married as the bells begin to ring. This is the signal for the Sicilians to rush in and hurl themselves upon Montfort and the French.

Wagner’s Ring Cycle ends as it started. The ring forged from the gold stolen from the Rhine Maidens is returned to them. Brünnhilde, in a stunning solo, sums up much of what has happened in the light years of music drama that have preceded this final scene. Siegfried’s corpse is before her. He’s been stabbed in the back earlier in the opera. After she takes the ring from his lifeless finger and throws it in the Rhine, she mounts a horse and rides into the flames. Valhalla catches fire, as does the hall of the locals. All the gods die, as do most of the mortals. There are a few survivors.

The cycle is a generous smorgasbord of leitmotifs. The opera and the cycle end with the redemption-through-love motif. It’s not clear what has been redeemed by love as only a bit of property has been returned to its rightful owners, but that’s the story and Wagner’s sticking to it. Kirsten Flagstad is the soprano and Wilhelm Furtwängler is the conductor.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1860) completed three operas. The second of these, Les Troyens, is based on Books Two and Four of the Aeneid. Berlioz wrote the libretto himself. It took him two years to write the words and music for the opera, from 1856 to 1858. Most musicologists consider it to be his masterpiece. It’s as impressive as it is long – about four hours and twenty minutes, not counting intermissions. I prefer Benvenuto Cellini, but that’s just a personal opinion. I have seen both operas in performance at the Met. The Trojans is a bladder buster.

The Trojans was never performed in its complete two-part form during Berlioz’s lifetime. A truncated version of Part II was performed at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1863. It made a profound impression on musicians. Meyerbeer is said to have attended 12 performances of this first staging. The first staged performance of the whole opera took place only in 1890, 21 years after Berlioz’s death. The two parts were given on consecutive nights. It is now customary to present the whole opera on a single evening.

The first act depicts the fall of Troy. The Trojan Horse has led to the downfall of the city. The second scene of Act 2 is in Priam’s palace. It’s about to be overrun by Greek soldiers. Cassandre, whose prophesies are as ignored as they are accurate, stabs herself as the Greeks enter. The rest of the Trojan women do likewise committing mass suicide. Cassandre summons one last cry of “Italie!” before collapsing, dead.  Énée (Aeneas) is headed there to found Rome. He stops in Carthage (Acts 3-5) before finally going to the peninsula.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was perhaps the greatest musical child prodigy ever. He grew up to be both a virtuoso organist and pianist. As a composer, his music was, and still is, often performed. He composed in almost every genre of music. Of his 12 operas, only Samson et Dalila is part of the standard operatic repertory. During the composer’s life Henry VIII was more popular. The little bits of it I’ve heard suggest that it might deserve a reconsideration.

There’s no need to recite the story of Samson and Delilah as virtually everyone knows it. The opera ends with the blinded Samson shorn of his power giving locks, praying to God for one more chance.

The Philistines are having a great time celebrating their victory over Samson. Following the famous Bacchanal Samson enters led by a boy. He is ridiculed by the High Priest and the crowd. Dalila taunts Samson further by recounting to him the details of her devious plot in a variant of her love song. When the priests try to force him to kneel before Dagon, he asks the boy to lead him to the two main pillars of the temple, then telling the child to flee. Samson prays to God to restore his strength, and pushes down the pillars and the temple with them, crushing himself and his enemies.

There’s no exact number of Philistines buried by Samson’s anti-architectural feat, because I don’t know the capacity of the Temple of Dagon. But it was a lot.

Death and opera are as linked as bacon and eggs. The subject of this short series of articles is wholesale death – death that kills not only the principals, but the supers as well. This grim occurrence often gets the composer’s best effort, which is my excuse for presenting it.

I’ll start with Meyerbeer. He was the most popular composer of operas in the 19th century. Beginning in the early 20th century, his works fell out of favor, overwhelmed by those of Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini. Though they never completely vanished, their appearance was rare to almost invisible.

One reason they were not performed was that they required extensive resources to stage, as well as a posse of great voices. Also, tastes change, and Meyerbeer seemed old-fashioned and overblown. But the taste cycle is always in motion, and Meyerbeer once again seems attractive despite the paucity of great voices up to the task he set for his principals. Also important is that at his best he is very good.

The two operas discussed here are his two best – Les Huguenots and Le Prophète. Both deal with religious themes, and both end badly for lots of people. Eugène Scribe, who turned out librettos and “well-made” plays like drops in a thunderstorm, wrote the book for both operas. The plots of these archetypal French Grand Operas are very complex. I’ll just summarize their conclusions, which end in carnage.

Les Huguenots took five years to construct. Meyerbeer, who was independently wealthy, could take his time to get things exactly as he wanted. The opera is about the events leading to the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, when thousands of French Protestants (Huguenots) were massacred by their Catholic compatriots. The event is historical; the characters and their interactions were invented by Scribe.

The opera was a triumph at its premiere at the Paris Opéra. It was the first work to receive 1000 performances at the Opéra. Yet between 1936 to 2018 it went unperformed by the Opéra. Berlioz called the score a “musical encyclopedia”. The Met has done the opera 129 times, but the last performance there was in 1915. If the company could find a proper cast, it seems time for a revival.

The opera ends with Protestant Raoul (tenor) and his Catholic lover together in a church. She knows of the planned massacre of all the Protestants led by her father, St Bris, and abjures her Catholic faith to share Raoul’s religion. Everyone is murdered. As Valentine dies, St Bris discovers that he has killed his own daughter. If this sounds like the end of Halévy’s La Juive (1835), it’s because it is the same – father discovers he’s killed his daughter. Luther’s hymn “Ein feste Burg” is a motif frequently used in the opera. For a synopsis of the story and more, go here.

Le Prophète (1849) was his next French Grand Opera. It is based on the life of John of Leiden, the Anabaptist leader and “King of Münster”. Scribe was again the librettist. The opera is in five acts, as was standard for the Opéra. It was another colossal success for Meyerbeer. Berlioz was again very impressed by Meyerbeer’s skill and invention.

His dominant position in French opera, combined with his Judaism, bred envy and resentment. Wagner was particularly hateful toward Meyerbeer, verging on maniacal anti-Semitism. This behavior was manifest only after Wagner had established himself as a composer. Meyerbeer had helped Wagner early in his career to such an extent that he wrote that without Meyerbeer ‘My wife and I would have starved in Paris’. And Meyerbeer continued his support; he recommended Rienzi to Dresden, and in 1841 he recommended The Flying Dutchman to Berlin.

The complex libretto is filled with ambiguity and darkness. There is no conventional love story; rather, the two protagonists are John and his mother, Fidès. The opera ends in the great hall of the Münster palace. John knows that Imperial troops are approaching and that he will be killed. He has the doors to the hall sealed after his enemies have entered. A huge explosion is triggered, and flames cause the palace to collapse, killing everyone. Sounds like a Wagner opera you may know. I’ll come to that one in a subsequent post.

As I mentioned above, Meyerbeer’s operas are big and require many fine singers. But these characteristics are true for Verdi’s Don Carlos and Aida. The same applies to many of Wagner’s operas. Yet they are regularly staged at both large and smaller houses. Meyerbeer’s turn may be coming around again.

The subject is operas with prisons or prisoners as part, or all, of their story. I’ve got a dozen of them here. There are more, but 12 are enough. They’re not in chronological order, but rather as seems logical to me.

The ultimate prison opera is of course Beethoven’s Fidelio. The entire work take place in “A Spanish state prison, a few miles from Seville.” It is an example of the “rescue opera” popular around the turn of the 19th century and the only one to survive as part of today’s standard operatic repertory.

Anything by Beethoven is of great interest, but opera was not his forte. He struggled with his only opera for a decade constantly revising it. It remains a flawed opera with both arid passages and moments of inspiration. The prisoners chorus (O welche Lust—”O what a joy”) is their expression of joy at being given a moment of fresh air and sunlight.

Florestan had been unjustly imprisoned by Pizarro a rival nobleman. His wife Leonore disguised as Fidelio infiltrates the prison and eventually frees him to the delight of all save the evil Pizarro. At the start of Act 2 Florestan, alone in his cell, sings of his wretched state in the darkness and then has a vision of his wife coming to save him. The aria, indeed the whole opera, focuses on two of Beethoven’s favorite themes – conjugal love (he was a lifetime bachelor) and freedom. (Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!—”God! What darkness here”). The aria is very difficult as is most of Beethoven’s writing for voice. The tessitura is challenging and the aria is centered in the most difficult part of the tenor range. The singer is Jonas Kaufmann who gives a perfect reading of the thrilling but awkwardly placed aria.

Verdi’s Il Trovatore concludes in a dungeon. Manrico and Azucena have been captured and are awaiting Manrico’s execution by the Count di Luna who may or may not be his brother. Azucena threw a baby into her mother’s funeral pyre. Supposedly, the baby was the younger brother of the Count. Azucena is so mentally messed up that she may have thrown the wrong baby, hers, into the flames.

Manrico attempts to soothe Azucena, whose mind wanders to happier days in the mountains (‘Ai nostri monti ritorneremo‘ / ‘Again to our mountains we shall return’). The singers are Fedora Barbieri and Jussi Björling.

Verdi’s Don Carlo has a prison scene. It’s Act 3 scene 2 of the 1883 revised opera in Italian. It started life as a five act French grand opera – Don Carlos. Don Carlo has been imprisoned by his father King Philip II. Rodrigo visits him in jail. While he describes how he saved Carlo from execution by allowing himself to be incriminated by politically sensitive documents he is shot by agents of the Grand Inquisitor who demanded and received permission to assassinate Rodrigo in exchange for clerical approval for the king to kill his own son – Carlo. Rodrigo dies to the most beautiful music written for a soon to be ex-baritone. Ettore Bastianini and Flaviano Labò are Rodrigo and Carlo, respectively.

Two operas on the Faust story have prisons scenes. Gounod’s Faust was once the most popular opera in the world. It was performed so often in New York that the Met was dubbed the Faustspielhaus. It popularity has waned, but it’s still regularly performed.

The opera’s final scene is in a prison where Marguerite is being held for killing her child. Faust offers to rescue her from but she prefers to trust her fate to God and His angels. She asks why Faust’s hands are covered in blood, pushes him away, and falls down dead. Méphistophélès curses her, but a chorus of angels declares her salvation and her soul rises to heaven. Nicolai Gedda is Faust, Boris Christoff is Méphistophélès, Victoria de los Angeles is the abused Marguerite.

Boito’s Mefistofele is the second Faust opera presented here. After Gounod’s, it’s the most often performed of those based on the Faust story. In Act 3 Margareta is in a cell for poisoning her mother. She gave her a sleeping draught supplied by Faust. She also drowned their baby. She’s overjoyed at seeing Faust again, but horrified by the appearance of Mefistofele. She prays for divine forgiveness. She dies as a celestial choir grants her prayer. The devil hurries Faust away. The singers are Renata Tebaldi, Mario Del Monaco, and Cesare Siepi.

Johann Strauss Jr’s operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat) was derived from a farce called Das Gefängnis (The Prison). Gabriel von Eisenstein, a Viennese man-about-town, has been sentenced to eight days in prison for insulting an official. He doesn’t get there until Act 3, the entirety of which takes place in a jail. The plot details are very complicated, but all gets sorted out by the Act 3 and the operetta’s end. The jailer Frosch is typically played by a non-singing comedian.

The work was a big hit at its premiere in 1874 and has remained so ever since. Even the staid Met has done it 233 times, which ranks 39th in frequency of operas performed by the company.

The ‘Champagne Song’ ends Act 2. Its reprised at the operetta’s conclusion. Herbert von Karajan conducts a cast headed by Elisabeth Schwarzkof and Nicolai Gedda.

Bizet’s Carmen is based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée. Don José is a Basque nobleman hence the title Don. In the opera José is a corporal making Don inappropriate. But it’s an opera, so who cares? Bizet’s Carmen and José are much less nasty than in the novella. There’s a prison scene in Mérimée’s story. In the opera José is in prison between Acts 1 and 2. He was punished for letting Carmen escape at the end of Act 1.

In his Flower Song in Act 2, José recounts how he kept the flower with him in his cell and how he thought only of her during his incarceration. The tenor is the 61 year old Richard Tucker – from a live performance in 1974.

The Story of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut is a novel by Antoine François Prévost. Most commonly referred to as simply Manon Lescaut, the novel is a tragic love story about a nobleman (known only as the Chevalier des Grieux) and a common woman (Manon Lescaut). Defying conventional morality, they run away together and commit an escalating series of crimes to fund a lifestyle of pleasure. The narrative is presented as a long speech by des Grieux nine months after Manon’s death, and is often interrupted by his retrospective emotions. The novel is regarded as a classic, and is the most reprinted novel in French literature, with over 250 editions. [From Wikipedia]

The novel has been the source of at least three operas. Manon by Massenet and Manon Lescaut by Puccini are part of the core of the standard operatic repertory. In both operas Manon goes to jail. In the Massenet she dies on the road to Le Havre. Puccini finishes her off on “A desert plain on the borders of New Orleans.” Geography isn’t important in opera. In fairness to Puccini and his battalion of librettists, the English translation should be “A deserted plain…”

The death of Massenet’s Manon is sung by Victoria de los Angeles and Henri Legay.

Puccini’s Manon death scene is sung by Licia Albanese and Jussi Björling. The conductor is Jonel Perlea.

Act 3 of Puccini’s Tosca is set in atop Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo. Cavaradossi is led in by a jailer who tells him that he has one hour to live. He starts to write a letter to Tosca but is overcome by emotion. He then sings ‘E lucevan le stelle’ recalling his time with her and how he dies in desperation. Franco Corelli sings the aria recorded live at London’s Royal Opera House during his house debut in 1955. His diminuendo and filatura on the word ‘disciogliea’ are spectacular. The conductor cuts short the applause, otherwise the audience would still be clapping.

Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chenier is his only opera to get into the standard repertory. But is a very good one. Hard to understand why he could never reach this level again. His Fedora is occasionally performed, but that’s it for this composer.

Act 4 of Chenier is set in the Saint-Lazare Prison in Paris. The eponymous poet is soon to meet the guillotine. Like many of its victims during the French Revolution, he’s not guilty of anything. His lover Maddalena di Coigny takes the place of a condemned noblewoman, and they go to face the guillotine joined in love. Their final duet is a barnburner. ‘Vicino a te’ is sung by Zinka Milanov and Richard Tucker.

Richard Strauss’s third opera and first success was Salome. The opera was so shocking that after one performance at the Met in 1907, it was withdrawn and didn’t reappear at the house until 1934. Salome wandering across the stage kissing the severed head of John the Baptist still has shock potential even in the jaded 21st century. The Baptist spends most of the opera imprisoned in a cistern. Brigit Nilsson definitively sings the opera’s final scene under the leadership of Georg Solti.

There are other operas that involve prisons and prisoners. Among these are Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, The Beggar’s Opera, and The Threepenny Opera.

Maria Caniglia (1905-1979) was a spinto soprano who sang at many of the major opera houses, though her career was mainly in Italy. She was a regular performer at La Scala and then at the Rome Opera House. She opened the 1938 Met season as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello. After 14 performances during the 38-39 season, she never returned to the Met. There are several likely reasons she never returned to New York. The onset of WW II is an obvious explanation. The dominance of Zinka Milanov in the Italian spinto repertory is another. Milanov debuted at the Met in 1937 and remained with the company until 1966, with a four-year hiatus from 1947 to 1951. Finally, Caniglia’s voice was just a bit below the standard expected of a singer with such a big career in Italy.

She made numerous recordings, several with Beniamino Gigli. Her voice was uneven. Nevertheless, she was capable of realizing the emotional content of some of the music she sang, especially that of the late verismo composers.

Her voice was improperly placed. Much of her sound came from the throat with almost nothing from the chest register. Her high notes were sometimes controlled screams that were disembodied from the rest of her voice. Her tone was often unsteady and inclined to wobble. Despite these flaws, she had a long and successful career. She is considered by some to be the leading Italian spinto soprano between the primes of Claudia Muzio and Renata Tebaldi. That opinion, at least to me, seems a stretch.

The 10 arias below give a good impression of her strengths and weaknesses. First Verdi. Her Met debut was, as mentioned above, as Desdemona. The ‘Ave Maria’ is from the final act, just before her matrimonial murder. Her vocal placement in this excerpt is much better than in some of the other selections.

‘Tacea la notte placida’ is from Act 1 of Il Trovatore. Leonora recalls her love for a mystery knight who later appeared as a troubador and sang beneath her window. Naturally, he’s the tenor.

‘Suicidio’ is from Act 4 of Ponchielli’s only opera to enter the standard operatic repertoire, La Gioconda. The soprano prepares to die by her own hand rather than submit to the embrace of the baritone. In this case of baritonal rejection, Barnaba, the villainous baritone, is a very nasty piece of work, and her choice is understandable. The lack of chest tones is particularly noticeable in the aria’s last word.

Mascagni’s L’Amico Fritz was his second opera. It is occasionally performed in Italy, but rarely elsewhere. ‘Non mi resta che il pianto’ is in Act 3. Suzel, the soprano, voices her despair and love for Fritz – the tenor. Things work out and the opera ends happily.

‘Ebben? Ne andrò lontana’ is Catalani’s best-known composition – likely his only well-known one to most people. It’s from the first act of his opera La Wally.

Nextm two Puccini aria. His third opera, Manon Lescaut, was his first hit. ‘In quelle trine morbida’ is in Act 2. The eponymous soprano has deserted her young, but poor lover for an older man with lots of cash. Now she’s a bit sorry.

‘Vissi d’arte’ is Tosca’s show stopper aria from Act 2 of Tosca. This description is literally true. While Tosca has to have an aria, this one is terrific, but it stops the action like a hundred-car pile-up on the interstate. After the diva has her moment, the action resumes as if nothing had happened.

Umberto Giordano’s only opera to make it big is Andrea Chénier. While it’s a tenor’s opera, it also has good roles for soprano and baritone. ‘La mamma morte’ is in Act 3. The soprano relates the ill effects of the French Revolution on her and her aristocratic family.

Finally, two arias from another composer to have only one opera in the standard repertory – Francesco Cilea. Adriana Lecouvreur is very loosely based on the life of the French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur (1692-1730). Io son l’umile ancella (I am the humble servant of the creative spirit) is in Act 1.

The opera has one of the more imaginative death scenes. Adriana dies from inhaling poisoned violets sent to her by her rival in love. She dies, but not before singing an apostrophe (‘Poveri fiori’) to the flowers she thinks were from her lover.

Gina Cigna (1900-2001) was a dramatic soprano who was prominent during the interwar years. She was born in Angers, France to parents of Italian ancestry. She initially trained as a pianist studying with the renowned pianist Alfred Cortot. In 1921 she married French tenor Maurice Sens who convinced her to turn to singing.

In 1927, she debuted at La Scala as Freia in Das Rheingold. Over the next two years, she sang minor roles with the company. In 1929 she appeared as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and scored a big success. Thereafter, she appeared at many of the world’s major opera houses singing the core Italian dramatic soprano parts.

She gave her first performance at the Met as Aida in 1937. She got good reviews for her Aida performance and was rapturously received by the Met’s audience. During the same month of her appearance at the Met she sang the leads in Il Trovatore, Norma, and La Gioconda. Audience interest remained high, but the critics were harsh. She returned to the New York company the following season adding Don Giovanni, again as Donna Elvira, and Cavalleria Rusticana to her Met list – but that was it. She never again sang at the Met. By the time World War II was over so was most of her voice.

She continued to appear at La Scala until 1945. In 1948, she suffered a severe automobile accident, which ended her career. He is also said to have suffered a heart attack in the same year, but given her survival to age 101 I doubt the diagnosis. She spent her post-operatic career as a voice teacher.

She participated in the first complete recordings of Norma and Turandot – both for Cetra Records.

Cigna’s singing was known for its power and intensity. Her noticeable vibrato may bother some listeners. I have no trouble with it. The fine details of vocal expression were not part of her armamentarium. These deficiencies likely explain the divergence between the critics and the audience. Her best years were the thirties. Her voice lost effect when she was still relatively young due to the punishment her vocal style inflicted on it.

Below are eight examples of her singing made in the studio and in performance. Her best singing seems to correspond with her performances in the early thirties.

‘In questa regia’ from Turandot is from the studio recording of the opera. The tenor heard at the end is Francesco Merli.

‘Casta Diva’ is from the complete recording of Norma.

The two arias from Aida are from a Met performance. Note the audience’s reaction. ‘Ritorna vincitor’

‘O patria mia’

‘D’amor sull’ali rosee’ from Il Trovatore does not meet the stylistic requirements of this great aria which are beyond Cigna’s ability to realize its great demands.

She does better with the three verismo aria that conclude this piece. ‘La mamma morte’ is from Act 3 of Girodano’s Andrea Chenier. The aria plays to the soprano’s strengths – effective declamation and powerful high notes.

One of opera’s guiltiest pleasures is Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. I confess to sucumbing to Adriana’s vocal delights. ‘Io son l’umile ancella’ is from Act 1.

‘Poveri fiori’ is from Act 4. The flowers she sings about were poisoned by her rival in love. She kisses the flowers and dies, but not before singing a few very good tunes.

Cigna represents the style of singing of Italian opera that was dominant about a century ago. One can understand her popularity during her prime even if she was not at the top of a very strong list of Italian style singers like Claudia Muzio and Rosa Ponselle.

Francesco Cilea (1866-1950) had the misfortune of attempting a career as an opera composer during the period dominated by Giacomo Puccini. His modest compositional skill forced him to abandon opera after 1907, mostly for pedagogy. He is best known for L’arlesiana (1897) and Adriana Lecouvreur (1902). Both operas benefited from the presence of Enrico Caruso in their tenor leads.

Of the two operas just mentioned Adriana Lecouvreur is far more often performed. In fact, the Met has never done L’arlesiana while Adriana Lecouvreur has staged Adriana 81 times. The opera survives mainly because of its Act 2 tenor aria È la solita storia del pastore (Federico’s Lament). The lyrics in Italian and English are below

Federico is madly in love with a girl from Arles, the Arlesiana of the title, but his family has arranged his marriage with Vivetta. Vivetta has always loved Federico since childhood and is disappointed to know of his love for l’Arlesiana. When he has been left alone, Federico reads the letters of l’Arlesiana (which prove she has another lover) and ponders them with his broken heart. The ‘poor boy’ in the second line is Federico’s brother who has a learning disability – he’s called L’Innocente.

The aria requires both beauty of tone and stylistic excellence to be fully realized. Just about every tenor includes it on one of his recordings on recitals. Giuseppe Di Stefano’s 1947 recording made when he was just 25 years old sets the standard for those who followed him.  Federico’s lament Di Stefano. The high note commonly sung near the end is a tenorial insertion; it’s not in the score. 

Mario Lanza was born the same year as Di Stefano – 1921. This recording was made in concert at the Royal Albert Hall the year before he died. Lamento di Federico Lanza. Note how dark his voice had become. He seems to have developed into a spinto tenor.

Alfredo Krauss was one of the great stylists of the last century. His singing of the aria is finely honed and limited only by the size of his lyric tenor. Federico’s Lament Krauss

Franco Bonisolli had a beautiful tenor that was capable of producing great singing. Alas, he also had spells during which bizarre behavior drove him off the operatic rails. His rendition of this aria is excellent. Federico’s Lament Bonisolli.

Salvatore Fisichella was one of the great bel canto tenors of the 20th century. For reasons mysterious to me he only sang five performances at the Met all in 1986. He gets everything his lyric voice will allow from the aria. Federico’s Lament Fisichella.

Ferruccio Tagliaviani had a very light tenor; he was noted for his piano singing. He participated in the first complete recording of the opera in 1951. Tagliavini Federico’s Lament.

Jonas Kaufmann has a very wide repertoire. He can sing bel canto, Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner. His reading of the aria is finely nuanced and fully expresses the text. The only quibble, and it’s a very small one, is the ‘brown’ sound of his voice. Ferdico’s Lament Kaufmann

Rolando Villazon is one of opera’s sad stories. He was in the middle of a great career when his voice left him. He was able to reconstruct it so he could sing light roles but he never got back to the top of the pole where he was until disaster struck. Federico’s lament Villazon.

Modest though Cilea’s achievements are he has a lasting position in opera, a feat attained by only a few composers.

È la solita storia del pastore…
Il povero ragazzo voleva raccontarla
E s’addormì.
C’è nel sonno l’oblio.
Come l’invidio!
Anch’io vorrei dormir così,
nel sonno almen l’oblio trovar!
La pace sol cercando io vo’.
Vorrei poter tutto scordar!
Ma ogni sforzo è vano.
Davanti ho sempre di lei
il dolce sembiante.
La pace tolta è solo a me.
Perché degg’io tanto penar?
Lei! Sempre lei mi parla al cor!
Fatale vision, mi lascia!
Mi fai tanto male! Ahimè!

It’s the old tale of the shepherd…
The poor boy wanted to retell it
And he fell asleep.
There is oblivion in sleep.
How I envy him!
I too would like to sleep like that
To find oblivion at least in slumber!
I am searching only for peace.
I would like to be able to forget everything!
Yet every effort is in vain.
Before me I always have
her sweet face.
Peace is ever taken from me.
Why must I suffer so very much?
She, as always speaks to my heart.
Fatal vision, leave me!
You hurt me so deeply! Alas!

The title role of Verdi’s Rigoletto is the greatest role ever written for a baritone. That’s saying a lot, given that the composer wrote more great parts for the baritone than any other composer of opera. Of his 26 operas, five have the baritone’s name as their title. All the rest of the composer’s operas have major baritone parts that are among the most challenging and important in the genre.

Rigoletto is the story of a man brought down not by a flaw but by a virtue – his love for his daughter. The opera’s most demanding and dramatic scene is when Rigoletto realizes that his daughter has been kidnapped by the Duke of Mantua’s courtiers and then given over to him. Rigoletto first demands and then pleads for her release. They thought she was Rigoletto’s mistress and are horrified when they find that she was his daughter, but it’s too late for them to rectify their error, especially to a man they hold in contempt.

‘Cortigiani, vil razza dannata’ is an aria (an inadequate noun for a scene of such overwhelming dramatic impact) that makes extraordinary vocal and histrionic demands on the singer. It takes a great baritone to fully express the dramatic power Verdi put into this inspired writing. Most baritones run out of operatic gas before it’s over.

Here are a dozen recordings of Cortigiani sung by 12 baritones active in the previous century. These are followed by a video of one of the leading baritones of today performing the scene. Below the video is the text in Italian and English. They are not presented in chronological order, but according to my arbitrary preference.

The first is by Leonard Warren, the greatest Verdi baritone I ever heard in performance. It’s taken from a 1956 Met performance. Note both the power and subtlety of his singing.

Next is Warren’s younger contemporary Robert Merrill. Merril had a distinctive sound unlike that of any other baritone I know of. His only flaw was occasional difficulty with the very high notes Verdi wrote for his baritones.

Lawrence Tibbet was the first in a succession of great American baritones. In addition to being a regular at the Met, he appeared in films and on radio.

Cornell MacNeil in his prime, the first half of his career, was a singer capable of volcanic explosions and high notes of extraordinary intensity.

The remainder of the baritones are Europeans. Matteo Managuerra was French, though of Italian ancestry. He was a regular at both the Met and in Chicago where I heard him several times. His performances were always at the highest level.

Giuseppe Taddei was active in the post World War II era. His career was noted for its length. He sang with effectiveness until he was in his late sixties.

Domenico Viglione Borghese was a baritone active in the first part of the 20th century. Those who heard him said he had the biggest baritone voice they had ever heard. After his singing days were over he had a successful second career as a character actor in the movies.

Tito Gobbi was one of the 20th century’s greatest singing actors. Though his voice was not the magnificent organ of some of his coevals it had a distinctive sound and he used it with the greatest skill and expression. He was an outstanding artist.

Ettore Bastianini is one of opera’s saddest stories. He had a bright baritone that was effective and well focused. He died at age 44 from throat cancer. He sang Rigoletto at the Met only one time out of the 89 performances he gave with the company.

Renato Bruson was one of the world’s leading baritones during the last third of the 20th century. He appeared in all of the major houses, though only 19 times at the Met. I don’t know what limited his New York appearances. He was particularly known for his portrayal of Rigoletto.

Renato Cappuccilli sang everywhere, but only one time at the Met. I heard him several times in Chicago. He was known as a Verdi baritone. He appeared in 18 of Verdi’s operas.

Leo Nucci has had one of the longest careers of any singer within living memory. Only Placido Domingo can boast similar durability. Now 82 Nucci sang Rigoletto in 2016 at La Scala. He is said to have performed the role 500 times.

The video below as promised above shows Quinn Kelsey’s interpretation of the great scene. You can judge for yourself whether he meets the standard of past perfomers who excelled in the role.

Feodor Chaliapin ( 1873-1938) was perhaps the greatest singing actor of the 20th century. His voice was on a par with Caruso’s (also born in February 1873) while his acting ability was at least equal to that of Maria Callas. He was born to a peasant family in Kazan Russia. After vocal studies with a private teacher, he debuted at the Tbilisi Georgia, and sang at the Imperial Opera House in Saint Peterburg. When he sang at Mamontov’s Private Russian Opera in Moscow, he met Sergei Rachmaninoff, an assistant conductor with the company who became a lifelong friend.

Rachmaninoff, another 1873 baby, taught Chaliapin how to analyze a score and insisted that he learn not only his part in an opera but all the others as well. With Rachmaninoff, he learned the role of Boris Gudonov. It became his signature part.

Soon he was singing at the Bolshoi. He regularly appeared there between 1899 and 1914. In 1901 he appeared as Mefistofele in Boito’s opera at La Scala. Toscanini conducted. The Maestro proclaimed him the greatest operatic talent he had ever worked with. He appeared at the Met during the 1907-08 season. The realism and intensity of his acting overwhelmed some of the then prim New York audience. He entranced others. For whatever reason he did not return to the company until 1921. His success in the 20s in New York was sensational. During his first season at the Met, he appeared several times with Caruso. Wouldn’t you like to have heard these performances?

Chaliapin’s singing is unique. He was able to realize every nuance of the emotional contact of whatever he sang. In addition to the standard Russian repertory, Chaliapin was equally effective in French and Italian operas. His presence was so overpowering that it was hard for audiences to focus on anyone but him. He was equally compelling as a recitalist. His interpretive insights reveal the inner meaning of what he sang with unmatched power. He was to opera what Babe Ruth was to baseball.

Chaliapin made many recordings in both the acoustical and then electrical formats. His dark voice came across almost as well on the former as it did on the more advanced technology. His rendition of Count Rodolfo’s aria from Bellini’s La Sonambula shows his ability to master any style. Oroveso’s aria from Norma is equally well done. Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni was a regular part of his repertory. He sang the role during his first season at the Met. His reading of the Catalog aria is incisive. I can’t tell if the fast tempo is the result of the limitations of the recording process or his choice.

It was his depiction of Don Basilio in Rossini’s Barber as a dirty and sweaty priest that upset some New Yorkers in Chaliapin’s first season at the Met. La Calumnia is Basilio’s great depiction of the effects of slander.

Chaliapin was a great interpreter of Verdi’s basso roles. Infelice!… e tu redev is Don Ruy Gomez de Silva’s Act 1 aria from Ernani. He’s an old man who wants a young bride who of course loves the tenor. When he sang King Philip in Don Carlo he became the center of the work. Dormiro sol starts a bit into the Phlip’s aria that begins the famous scene in the King’s apartment.

Chaliapin made his Met debut as the title character in Boito’s Mefistofele. In the Prologue Mefistofele declares that he can win the soul of Faust. Ave signor. Gounod’s devil (in Faust) was also a favorite part of Chaliapin. Le veau d’or (The golden calf). He also recorded the Coat Song from Puccini’s Bohème, though I don’t know if he sang the relatively small role onstage.

He often sang the Song of the Volga Boatmen during his frequent recitals. His is the definitive version of the song.

Finally his greatest role – Boris Gudonov. Deems Taylor’s review of his first Met appearance (Dec 9, 1921) as the tortured Tsar is below. Taylor was an esteemed composer and critic. His review reflects the gigantic presence of the legendary Russian basso. Boris’s three solos are presented with their English titles though, obviously, Chaliapin sang them in Russian as he did at the Met, the rest of the cast performed the opera in an Italian translation. I have attained the highest power./ The Clock Scene./ The Death of Boris.

Chaliapin was a unique artist. Many great singers have succeeded him and the future will see more, but his like will never again appear.

Review of Deems Taylor in The New York World:

Feodor Chaliapin brings something to the opera that is greater than singing, greater than acting. He brings drama, that perfect realization, and illusion of life for which singing and acting exist, the thing that only a few of the great possess. Jeritza has it; Whitehill sometimes has it; but neither possesses it to the overpowering degree that Chaliapin does.

He sang Boris at the Metropolitan last night for the first time here. One says “sang” because it is the conventional word and the most easily comprehended. It is not adequate. He lived Boris; he was Boris. When he strode upon the stage in the first act towering above his lords and nobles, his gold crown flashing in the sun, his kaftan heavy with embroidery, and swept his arm over his people in a great gesture of benediction, all sense of artifice, of the theatre, vanished. As long as he was there the other singers, the scenery, the audience, even Moussorgsky’s great music-all were blotted out. One saw only the Czar Boris Godunoff, living, triumphant, agonizing and dying.

Chaliapin must be the most stupendous stage personality in the world. There is no question of his creating an illusion. The thing he inspires is belief, instant, absolute, unquestioning. Even as he gazed, terrified, across the palace chamber at the ghost of the murdered Dmitri, the audience turned started eyes toward the spot at which he has gazing. And when they saw nothing there they turned again to the Czar, groveling on his knees by his chair, a tortured Rodin figure some to life, so huge, so pitiful-and wrung their hands and suffered his torment with him. When he lay dying in the hall of the Duma, his great frame stretched prone as a fallen oak, his glazed and blinded eyes turned for the last time upon his little son, men and women watched him with unashamed tears trickling down their cheeks.

His voice is marvelous. Such thrilling timbre, such almost incredible control of coloring and dynamics, are something one might not ever find again in a generation of opera going. He sang in Russian; and it seemed as if Moussorgsky’s music had never quite been heard before. For Moussorgsky did more than set Russian words to music; he wrote music that is as much a part of the Russian language as the words themselves…

The house was sold out completely, of course, and the audience was hysterical in its reception of the great Russian. The roar that greeted him after the Kremlin scene was deafening. And well they might cheer. They were seeing operatic history in the making.