On Wednesday evening at Carnegie Hall, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato was joined by tenor Lawrence Brownlee and soprano Laura Claycomb (the latter replacing Nicole Cabell who was forced to withdraw due to illness) in performing a program that included some of the most famous arias of the bel canto era - among them works by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. The singers were lucky enough to be accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra, a truly great ensemble, under the capable baton of Maurizio Benini. This was the last installment of DiDonato's "Perspective" series at the Hall, and she did her best to turn the evening into a truly festive occasion.
In the introduction to the evening's entertainment, the Program Notes made an interesting point about Italian opera:
"Italian opera in the 18th century focused increasingly on the integrity of the dramatic narrative, allowing the music to support the story rather than serving as an end in itself. Significantly, though, most of those developments were instituted by foreign composers, including Handel, Gluck, and Mozart. It was probably only a matter of time before the Italians themselves reclaimed the lead in the evolution of opera, a genre that, of course, they had invented in the first place."
Actually, the person most responsible for the growing emphasis placed on dramatic narrative was that lifelong champion of Italian culture, Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was, after all, the libretti he wrote for Mozart's three most famous works that ushered in a new era of opera. It is no accident that the standard repertoire begins with Figaro, and this is as much to Da Ponte's credit as it is to Mozart's. It was he who first saw the limitations of opera seria, that entertainment of aristocrats, in an age of social upheaval. Following the lead of his countryman Bertati, he found unsuspected depths in opera buffa that made it the perfect vehicle for serious storytelling.
If anything, the decades between the death of Mozart and the first successes of Verdi represented something of a regression. Though the lyrical bel canto operas were among the most beautiful in the repertoire, the loveliness achieved in musical expression came at the cost of a loss of dramatic intensity. As one Wikipedia entry notes:
"Orchestration became heavier, coloratura was reduced, especially for men's voices, and more importance was placed on lyrical pathos."
The evening featured not only arias by the three most famous bel canto composers - Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini - but also the music of two lesser known artists, Michele Carafa and Giovanni Pacini. Carafa was a student of Cherubini and wrote 29 operas between 1816 and 1847. After that, though, he gave up composing for the last 25 years of his life and instead became a professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Pacini was also an incredibly prolific composer with a staggering 74 operas to his credit and was at one time director of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. It was their misfortune that both men's careers were overshadowed by those of the three far more illustrious composers who dominated opera in the early nineteenth century.
The program differed somewhat from that originally announced. In the first half, following a performance of Rossini's Overture to Aureliano in Palmira, DiDonato came onstage to sing Carafa's "L'amica ancor non torna ... Oh, di sorte crudel" from Le nozze di Lammermoor. I had never before heard this piece and was deeply impressed by DiDonato's performance. Next were two pieces by Donizetti taken from his most famous opera, L'elisir d'amore. These were "Una furtiva lagrima," a solo by Brownlee, and "Prendi, per me sei libero," a duet in which Brownlee was joined by Claycomb. Both singers were in exceptionally fine voice here. Afterwards, to close the first half, DiDonato returned to sing another little known piece, "Ove t'aggiri, o barbaro" from Pacini's Stella di Napoli and scored another triumph.
Fine as the first half was, it was really in the second half that the concert came alive. It began with two Bellini arias taken from I Capuleti e i Montecchi - "Eccomi in lieta vesta ... Oh! quante volte" sung solo by Claycomb followed by the duet "Oh! mia Giulietta" sung by Claycomb and DiDonato. The latter piece was really the highlight of the program, and the two singers put everything they had into making this crowd pleaser a roaring success. Afterwards, Brownlee returned onstage to sing "La maîtresse du roi... Ange si pur" from Donizetti's La favorite. This aria is something of a rarity in bel canto in that it is one of the few sung in French rather than Italian. (There does exist a corrupted Italian version entitled La favorita that is more often performed.) Finally, the program ended with what everyone had been waiting for all evening - DiDonato singing Rossini. The mezzo has been dazzling Met audiences for several seasons now with her interpretations of this composer's works, and on Wednesday evening she brought the Carnegie Hall audience to their feet with her rendition of "Reidi al soglio" from Zelmira.
After the printed program had ended, all three singers came onstage and DiDonato gave a short charming speech in which she expressed her gratitude to all involved before launching into an exuberant encore by Rossini, "À la faveur de cette nuit obscure” from Le comte Ory, with both Claycomb and Brownlee at her side.
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