"Tu, che in seno agli angeli" - Don Alvàro; ossia, la potenza del fato - Torna 1862

Speranza

O tu che in seno agli angeli
Eternamente pura,
Salisti bella, incolume
Dalla mortal jattura,

Non iscordar di volgere
Lo sguardo a me tapino,
Che senza nome ed esule,
In odio del destino,
Chiedo anelando,
Ahi misero,
La morte d'incontrar.

Leonora mia, soccorrimi,
Pietà del mio penar.


---

The first quatrain neatly disposes of Leonora. Alvaro believes Leonora dead, and she is safely transported "bella, incolume" ("beautiful, untouched") to the great fuori sceni in the sky.

The remaining EIGHT lines get to the business in hand: a remarkably DENSE, entirely conventional LITANY of tenorish self-pity, of railing, once again, at the 'odio' of the 'destino'.

The music, though, is, in some ways,
a strange accompaniment.

During the course of the first PHRASE,
Alvaro achieves Ab (yet again
using a diminished chord at the
port of entry) as he described
his beloved.

But in spite of being repeated
the first arrival is generally
so strange
as to be functionally premature:

when is the opening of a
cantabile,
usually the most tonally stable
of moments,
so harmonically unsettled?

The romanza quits
Ab major
to move through
a troubled
Ab minor.

During the moment of transition,
over a dominant pedal,
Alvaro marks himself
as part of the process
by declaiming a somewhat crude
synopsis
of his first quatrain
over the orchestral transition.

And then,
by introducing a distinctive NEW THEME
("non iscordar di volgere")
that will dominate this section.

The romanza then moves,
with minimal functional preparation,
to B major,
in which Alvaro, again,
apostrophises Leonora.

Then finally returning
to Ab major
for the closing moments.

This description of HARMONIC process
partially explains the romanza.

It serves to emphasise
the sense of ACHIEVEMENT,
of triumph almost,
at the end of the aria.

It might even seem as though
Alvaro's
powerful final cadenza
rising to a sustained
high Ab,
is at odds with the
"pietà di me" that are his words.

The clarinet's
understated added sixths
hardly return to the
ambiguity
and hesitancy
of the past;
they rather underline
the sense of arrival
this new tonic has signalled.

---- R. Parker.