Opera. An Introduction

The Music

The Words

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the ‘Classical For Everyone’ Podcast… five hundred years of incredible music. My name is Peter Cudlipp and… If you enjoy any music at all then I’m convinced you can enjoy classical music. All you need are ears. No expertise is necessary. If you’ve ever been curious about classical music… or explored it for a while once upon a time… or just quietly wondered what all the fuss was about… then this is the podcast is for you.

And because there’s a lot of music out there each episode has something of a theme. And for today it is… Opera. And the episode is going to be slightly targeted toward those of you who are perhaps a little unconvinced of the merits of this part of the classical music world. Which is not to say that those of you who are already fans won’t get something out of the episode. After all it really is 85% music.

Ok. Now I get it that for some people opera is just noise that they are not ever going to enjoy but if there are listeners out there with a bit of curiousity and an inquiring mind… and that is how I would describe anyone listening to this podcast… then I urge you to keep listening. Why? Well because if you any enjoy music with singing… then you can enjoy opera. And the selection I have made for the next hour is based on one simple criteria… pure pleasure.

For what it’s worth when I was younger I thought I hated opera. But I was lucky to hear a couple of pieces and found a way in. And once you’re in, there is so much great music to enjoy. And in the interest of trying to give you a modestly comprehensive overview I have ten pieces of opera to play you… from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Georg Friedrich Handel, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppi Verdi, Georges Bizet, Giacomo Puccini and John Adams.

I’m going to start with some Mozart. Here is a song, or an aria to give it the Italian term that is somewhat annoyingly used pretty much all the time, from the 1786 opera he wrote to a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte… ‘The Marriage of Figaro’.

You’re going to hear Figaro, a very clever and resourceful butler attached to a nobleman’s household is explaining to a young servant, Cherubino, who for various misdemeanours is being sent off to join the army… just how bad his military life will be. The song is known, as most opera arias are, by the first line of the lyrics which is ‘Non più andrai’, but it the better if you add the rest of the line which is ‘farfallone amoroso’, and the translation then is… ‘You shall go no more, lustful butterfly’. Here is Samuel Ramey singing Figaro and Georg Solti conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Non più andrai from Mozart and Da Ponte’s The Marriage of Figaro.

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That was Samuel Ramey singing Figaro’s aria ‘Non piu andrai’ from Mozart and Da Ponte’s The Marriage of Figaro. Georg Solti conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Next up is some more opera written in Italian… and perhaps not unexpectedly there will be a fair amount of opera in Italian in the episode. In fact I was just doing some research and it seems that close to 50% of all operas still performed were written to librettos in Italian. By contrast… even though English is today the dominant global language… operas in English account for at most 3% of the operas staged today. One of those is coming up though… but for now back to operas in Italian. Here is a song from an opera in Italian written by a German who would end up an Englishman. This is the aria ‘Let Me Weep’ or in the original ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from the opera ‘Rinaldo’ by Georg Friedrich Handel from 1711. Here is the singer Sandrine Piau and the group Les Paladins directed by Jerome Correas.

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That was the aria ‘Let Me Weep’ or in the original ‘Lascia ch’io pianga’ from the opera ‘Rinaldo’ by Georg Friedrich Handel. The singer was Sandrine Piau and the group Les Paladins was directed by Jerome Correas. Ok now we get into Italian operas written by Italians and into the nineteenth century which really was the era where you could say, with the exception of the operas of Richard Wagner (which I’ll save for another time) the core repertoire of what is thought of as opera today was being written.

And I have some great music from this incredibly fertile time. Starting with the wonderfully exuberant music of Gioachino Rossini and his comic opera ‘The Barber of Seville’ from 1816.

I’m going to start with the overture and then I am going to play you the character Figaro’s song ‘Largo al factotum della Citta’ (cheeTAH) or roughly ‘Make way for the city’s jack of all trades’. And if the name ‘Figaro’ sounds familiar then you’re right. This Figaro and the one from the first piece I played you, that is the one from Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’, are both based on the same set of plays written in the 1770s in Paris by Pierre Beaumarchais. Ok. Figaro’s aria from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Will Humburg conducts the Failoni Chamber Orchestra and Roberto Servile sings Figaro.

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That was Figaro’s aria ‘Largo al factotum della citta’ or roughly ‘Make way for the city’s jack of all trades’ from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Will Humburg conducted the Failoni Chamber Orchestra and Roberto Servile sang Figaro.

In the middle of the nineteenth century there was one Italian composer who reigned supreme. His name was Giuseppi Verdi. And he wrote 28 operas. Ten are still performed all the time all over the world and another five turn up very frequently. In 1842 Verdi wrote his second opera, Nabucco. Based on the biblical Old Testament story of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, its chorus ‘Va pensiero’, or ‘go, my thoughts’ was one of the reasons for the opera’s huge success. To give you an idea, it was performed 57 times at La Scala in Milan in its premiere season. The words of the chorus are loosely based on Psalm 137 which is the source for the phrases ‘By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept’ and ‘How can we sing the songs of the Lord in a strange land?’ And this idea of a captive people, it is argued, meant that this Verdi chorus came to be identified with the Italian Unification Movement… which finally succeeded in the 1860’s and the nation of Italy, largely as it is known today, come into being. Once upon a time, opera had rather a big social impact.

Enough history. Here’s the chorus. Verdi’s ‘Va, pensiero’, all four minutes of it. Giuseppe Sinopoli conducts the German Opera Orchestra & Chorus.

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That was the chorus. ‘Va, pensiero’, by Giuseppi Verdi from his opera ‘Nabucco’. Giuseppe Sinopoli conducted the German Opera Orchestra & Chorus.

Ok. I have just made a big case that for opera in the 19^th century it was all happening in Italy and/or in Italian. And whilst there is some truth to this… fans of music from France would be chasing me with baguettes, escargots and fromage if I did not mention that the French opera I am about to play you an aria from is perhaps today’s most popular opera…. ‘Carmen’ by Georges Bizet from 1875. Here is one of the best known moments from the opera. Carmen’s song L'amour est un oiseau rebelle or ‘Love is a rebellious bird.’ This is Georg Solti conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Tatiana Troyanos sings the role of Carmen.

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That was Carmen’s song L'amour est un oiseau rebelle or ‘Love is a rebellious bird.’ Georg Solti conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Tatiana Troyanos sang the role of Georges Bizet’s Carmen. Alright I hope you are enjoying this  all – opera edition of Classical For Everyone.  I’m going to leap back in time now. Back to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and 1787. Why? Well I think that Mozart is by far and away the best composer to start with if you are tempted to dip your toe into the great big, wonderful world of opera.

And for me it was the song from Don Giovanni I am about to play you that as a teenager made me rethink some preconceptions I had about opera. And the biggest one was that opera was dreadfully serious. Now it can be… but there is also a lot of it that is surprisingly funny and I think the best of it combines humour with a perhaps unexpected discomfort. No great art is all laughter or all tears. And the very best operas put entire worlds on stage and those worlds sometimes beautifully mirror the complexities of the real one. And I think that Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte are the absolute masters of this. I think their three opera collaborations Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Fan Tutte remain the most accessible and instantly rewarding operas for someone looking to get into this amazing corner of classical music.

Now back to the song from Don Giovanni I mentioned. This is known as ‘the catalogue aria’ and it comes from a moment in the opera where Don Giovanni has just been cornered by Donna Elvira who he had left waiting at the altar on their wedding day. As he flees the scene he instructs his servant Leporello to disabuse Donna Elvira of any remaining romantic illusions by showing her the list of his conquests that Leporello keeps for him.

Now Don Giovanni will come to a horrible end. His crimes will catch up with him. But Mozart and Da Ponte have their cake and eat it too. As if explaining to Donna Elvira that there really is nothing out of the ordinary going on here and with a politeness bordering on irony Leporello begins with…

Madamina, this is the catalogue

Of the beauties my master has loved

A catalogue that I made

Observe, read with me.

Observe, read with me.

Here is Jose Van Dam singing Leporello with Lorin Maazel conducting the Paris Opera Orchestra… from Mozart & Da Ponte’s 1787 opera  ‘Don Giovanni’… the aria… "Madamina, il catalogo è questo"      

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That was Jose Van Dam singing Leporello with Lorin Maazel conducting the Paris Opera Orchestra… from Mozart & Da Ponte’s 1787 opera  ‘Don Giovanni’… the aria… "Madamina, il catalogo è questo".

Incidentally, that performance is actually from the soundtrack to a film version of the opera directed by Joseph Losey in 1979. And some very kind person has uploaded the first half of the film to YouTube. I’ll put a link on this episode’s webpage at classicalforeveryone.net. The aria begins at about 28 minutes in. And you will get the bonus of seeing Kiri Te Kanawa as Donna Elvira.

So, the next piece was catapulted to massive popularity when three opera stars sang it together in the encore for a concert in Rome 35 years ago at a concert before a world cup football final. The singers were Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. And I think for a lot of people it might have been the first time they went… huh, opera… there might be something to this stuff. The aria was ‘Nessun dorma’ or ‘None will sleep’ from Giacomo Puccini’s 1924 opera ‘Turandot’. The lead male character Prince Calaf sings in a moonlit garden imagining the cruel princess he is in love with, and who holds his fate in her hands, cannot sleep as well. Here is one of those three tenors… Luciano Pavarotti singing ‘Nessun dorma’ from Puccini’s opera ‘Turandot’. Zubin Mehta conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

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That was Luciano Pavarotti singing ‘Nessun dorma’ from Puccini’s opera ‘Turandot’. Zubin Mehta conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

So with that I played you some opera from the 20^th century and I am going to stay there for ten minutes. More than that am going to focus on an opera that was written in English.

Now I said earlier that operas sung in English are rarities but in the 20^th century primarily with a cultural and economic shift from the old world to the new there was a significant increase in operas aimed squarely at the English speaking audience. Probably the most successful was the British composer Benjamin Britten but I am going to give him his own episode in a couple of months so I have chosen an opera by another composer… the American John Adams. It is his 1987 opera… ‘Nixon in China’. The idea came from opera director Peter Sellars, and the libretto is by Alice Goodman.

It’s hard looking back over the decades to get a sense of just how revolutionary this opera was. So much opera in the general public’s imagination was and I guess still is a 19th century group of overwrought tragic stories filled with young women who die… generally whilst singing. Even in the 1980’s to write an opera based on incredibly recent political events… in particular the first visit by a US President to Communist China, must have seemed like a crazy idea. It probably was, but Nixon in China has become that rare thing… a modern opera performed more than once. And, in my opinion, deservedly so. It is just great.

I’m going to begin with the orchestral moment of Air Force One arriving in Beijing and Richard Nixon being greeted by Chao-En-Lai followed by Nixon’s aria ‘News has a kind of mystery’ which captures Nixon's neurotic relationship with the press and his desperate need for validation and positive coverage of what he considers his greatest diplomatic achievement. Not standard operatic fare I think you’ll admit.  Here is the Orchestra of St Lukes conducted by Edo De Waart and James Maddalena singing Nixon and you’ll hear a moment of Sanford Sylvan as Chao-En-Lai. John Adams’ ‘Nixon In China’.

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That was the Orchestra of St Lukes conducted by Edo De Waart and James Maddalena singing Nixon and Sanford Sylvan as Chao-En-Lai in John Adams’ ‘Nixon In China’.

My name is Peter Cudlipp and you have been listening to the ‘Classical for Everyone’ Podcast. I have another couple of pieces coming up but before I get to them I want to give you a little information that I hope you find useful… If you would like to listen to past episodes, of which there are more than a dozen, or get details of the music I’ve played please head to the website classicalforeveryone.net. That address again is classicalforeveryone.net.

And on the individual episode pages of the website there are links to Spotify playlists with the full versions of most of the music played in each of the episodes.

I hope you have enjoyed this opera focused episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’. If you want to make sure you don’t miss the shows as they are released then please Subscribe or Follow wherever you get your podcasts. That would also mean the search algorithms will smile more benignly on the show and it might reach a few more people. For that I would be very grateful. And if you want to get in touch then you can email…info@classicalforeveryone.net.

Alright, to finish this episode I’m going to return to Mozart. I mentioned earlier that I think the operas he wrote with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte are great introductions. But maybe not for kids. For kids I think the best first opera is his ‘The Magic Flute’ which Mozart wrote with the actor and impresario Emannuel Schikaneder in 1791. The whole work is dripping with joy and comedy one of operas absolute originals is the character of Papageno a cheery bird-catcher roaming the forests for the Queen of the Night at the beginning of the opera. In this aria he introduces himself with his song ‘Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja’,  or ‘I am the birdcatcher’. Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau sings Papageno. The orchestra is the Berlin Philharmonic and the conductor is Karl Böhm.

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That was ‘I am the birdcatcher’ from Mozart & Schikaneder’s The Magic Flute. Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau sang Papageno. The orchestra was the Berlin Philharmonic and the conductor is Karl Böhm.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to playing you some more incredible music on the next ‘Classical For Everyone’. This podcast is made with Audacity Software for editing, Wikipedia for Research, Claude for Artificial Intelligence and Apple, Sennheiser, Sony, Rode and Logitech for hardware… The music played is licensed through AMCOS / APRA. Classical For Everyone is a production of Mending Wall Studios and began life on Radio 2BBB in Bellingen NSW, Australia thanks to the late, great Mr Jeffrey Sanders. The producers do not receive any gifts or support of any kind from any organisation or individual mentioned in the show. But, never say never.

And if you have listened to the credits… here is a little more music for you… a moment from the third of the Mozart and Da Ponte operas… Cosi Fan Tutte.

In the scene I am going to play the two male leads have told their beloved partners that they must leave Naples and go off to war. In the.y. minutes that follow there are beautiful and sad farewells and a final song… "Soave sia il vento"—"May the wind be gentle" as the ship carrying the men sails away. The Orchestra is the Concerto Cologne, the conductor is Rene Jacobs (Yacobs) and the singers are Bernarda Fink, Veronique Gens, Werner Güra and Marcel Boone.

Thanks again for listening.