Harper:C - FAMOUS TENOR ARIAS

Famous Tenor AriasGiuseppe Verdi became the leading Italian composer of his generation, dominating Italian opera in the second half of the nineteenth century, from the success of Nabucco in 1842 to his final opera Falstaff in 1893. Aida, with a libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni from a scenario by the French egyptologist known as Mariette Bey, was written for the opening of the Cairo Opera House, where it received its first performance on Christmas Eve 1871. The drama concerns the love of the Egyptian general Radames for the Ethopian captive Aida, who is induced to betray him into divulging military plans against her country. Radames has been rewarded by the King for his victory in battle with the hand of the Princess Amneris, who loves him, and, learning of his love of Aida and his breach of military security, ensures his condemnation and death, in which he is joined by his beloved Aida. In his great aria Celeste Aida Radames, before the battle and victory, sings of his beloved Aida, whom he hopes to marry when he returns. Un ballo in maschera, with a libretto by Antonio Somma based on a French libretto by Scribe, was first staged in Rome in 1859. The opera had been banned by the censors in Naples, who found a royal assassination a politically inappropriate subject. Historically based on the murder of King Gustavus of Sweden in the eighteenth century, the story of the opera was transferred to Boston for the Roman production, with a further transmogrification for Paris. The aria Di'tu se fedele is given to the protagonist, whether Gustavus III of Sweden, or Riccardo, Governor of Boston. In the first act of the opera he consults a fortune-teller, Mam'zelle Arvidson in the original version and the black fortune-teller Ulrica in the Rome version, overhears his beloved Amelia, wife of his secretary, declare her love for him, for which she seeks a remedy, and demands, disguised as a fisherman, his own fortune, in his aria. The woman reluctantly tells him that he will soon die, killed by one who will be the next to shake his hand. This turns out to be the secretary of the King, a loyal subject until, in the second act, he discovers his master's love for his wife. By the third act the hero has resolved to renounce his guilty love, declaring his intention in his aria Ma se m'e forza perderti, but his secretary has now joined a conspiracy against his master and friend and kills him. As he dies the King assures his secretary of Amelia's innocence. Il trovatore, The Troubadour, with a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, was first performed in Rome in 1853. The hero Manrico, apparently the son of the gypsy Azucena, is in reality the lost son of the old Count di Luna, pitted in the opera against his real brother, the Count, his rival in love for the hand of Leonora, lady-in-waiting at the court of Aragon. In the aria Ah, si, ben mio, Manrico, who has rescued Leonora from the Count and his men and has now taken refuge in a castle besieged by the Count, sings of his