Rossini and beyond: towards a catalogue raisonné of interpolated arias for singing lesson in "Barber of Seville"

Speranza

--- dall'A alla Z


The technical word here is INTERPOLATION, as one reads from the MET archive, for one occasion:

"The program did not specify the selection
sung by Sembrich during the Lesson Scene. On
all other occasions this season, when her
interpolation was listed, the soprano
invariably performed Voci di primavera (Strauss

There are various things to consider here:

* Rossini, obviously, had something in mind. And his aria is usually sung -- as IT SHOULD. The common practice seems to be this, and it is a BOTHER to have to change and provide criterion for choice.

* As a matter of fact, ROSSINI provided an 'alternate' aria, which is also sung occasionally.

* But then, the topic of this note, started: someone thought that she (ROSINA -- or was the soprano herself?) COULD sing 'something else' -- the implicature, in Grice's sense, apparently being that "Rossini's own aria" will not do.

* The custom seems to have been at one point to INTRODUCE something that NOTABLY contrasts with Rossini's style -- vide Review in Met archives for the earliest interpolations in this opera house.

And so on, including:

* NOTABLE ANECDOTES: why a soprano thought of this rather than that, and what effect the thing had in the 'history of music', as it were.

--

Etc.

I read from wiki:

"For the singing lesson in Act II [of Rossini, "Barber of Seville"]

sopranos have often inserted a song of their own choice. Pauline
Viardot began the practice of inserting Alabiev's "Nightingale". Callas
sung a cut-down version of Rossini's own "Contro un cor.""

Can we have a catalogue raisonné of that? I would be interested to survey the choices, along the years, with info on lyricist, composer, et al. Thanks for input!

QUI LA VOCE


In the Lesson Scene Galli-Curci sang "Qui la voce" from BELLINI, "I Puritani" and


HOME SWEET HOME
"Home sweet home" from "Clari" (Bishop).

HOME SWEET HOME. "Galli-Curci's best singing was reserved for the lesson scene in the last act. Here she sang the "Qui la voce" aria from "Puritani" with immense popular success. Then, waving the pseudo music-master from his seat at the piano, she moved to the instrument, and, following her custom, gave "Home, Sweet Home," in English."

"Again and again she was called upon to bow, and in vain the actors attempted to proceed with the scene. A male voice paused in the midst of a scarcely audible recitative, and applause burst out in another storm. Finally Gennaro Papi solved the situation and saved the recently emphasized no-encore rule in the face of the audience by starting the orchestra, and the opera went on to its gay end."

In the Lesson Scene Galli-Curci sang "Je suis Titania" from Mignon and "Home sweet home" from Clari (Bishop).

There was a real outburst of enthusiasm after she sang the polonaise from "Mignon" in the lesson scene. It is interesting to note that in this scene Rosina always sings something that was composed long after "II Barbiere di Siviglia." It would be a novel experiment for some Rosina to unearth an aria from some forgotten seventeenth century opera, in the later years of the century, for instance, when operas were full of vocal fireworks.


[In the Lesson Scene Galli-Curci sang Deh torna mio bene (Proch) and Home sweet home from Clari (Bishop).]

In the lesson scene she sang the antiquated variations of Proch in a dull and listless style except for the easy staccati and followed it with "Home Sweet Home," given in an equally pallid manner.

[In the Lesson Scene Galli-Curci sang Deh torna mio bene (Proch) and Home sweet home from Clari (Bishop).]

The lesson scene brought a captivating rendition of the "Shadow Song" from "Dinorah," followed by her own personally accompanied 'Home Sweet Home" in English. The distinctive and flower-petal quality of Galli-Curci's fragrant voice was in rich evidence, lifting and winging its way into memories of the listeners. Where in all the garden of birds, is there such another as this human heaven-soaring songster?

[Throughout this season, the aria sung by Rosina in the Lesson Scene was Contro un cor.]


[In the Lesson Scene Sembrich sang Deh torna mio bene (Proch), Wiegenlied (Ries) and Ich liebe dich (Foerster).]

"It was in the music lesion scene that Mme. Sembrich most thoroughly captivated her hearers last evening and in that, of course, the music was not only not Rossini's but was utterly unlike Rossini in every feature. The song and variations, by Proch, first sung in this country by Mme. Peschka-Leutner 14 years ago, was the first selection introduced by Mme. Sembrich in this division of the opera, and the dazzling brilliancy of her execution of this bit of music teacher's work, and the ease with which she overcame the difficulties of its most bewildering bars fully merited the wild applause which followed it. Afterwards she sang, with much grace and tenderness, two German love songs."

[In the Lesson Scene Sembrich sang Proch's "Deh torna mio bene," the Queen of the Night aria from Die Zauberflöte "Gli angui d'inferno," and "Someday" an English song by Wellings.]

In the lesson scene SEMBRICH sang Proch's aria and variations, and the grand scene from "Il Flauto Magico," arousing the greatest enthusiasm.

As for the extra songs SEMBRICH sang, according to time-honored custom, in the scene, we should have preferred almost anything to Proch's "Variations," and that too, too trite "Some Day!" (Beautifully sung as they were).

[In the Lesson Scene Patti sang Eckert's "Swiss Echo Song," and then supplemented this selection with "Home sweet home" and "The Last Rose of Summer."

[In the Lesson Scene, Sembrich sang Strauss's "Voci di primavera," which had been dedicated to her by the composer.

[In the Lesson Scene, Sembrich sang Voci di primavera (Strauss), Ah non giunge from La Sonnambula and The Maiden's Wish (Chopin).]

SEMBRICH chose for her songs of display the waltz, "Voci di Primavera" by Strauss; Chopin's "Mère la Birding," which she sang in Polish, accompanying herself at the piano in a most musicianly way, and "Ah non Guinge" from "Sonnambula."

[In the Lesson Scene Munsel sang L'Inutile Precauzione by Pietro Cimara. The arietta, using the words from the opera, was written in 1941 at the suggestion of Bidú Sayao.]

[In the Lesson Scene Sayao sang Bel raggio from Semiramide.]

[In the Lesson Scene Reggiani sang Il Carnevale di Venezia (Benedict).

[In the Lesson Scene Antoine sang Charmant oiseau from La Perle du Brésil (David).]

[In the Lesson Scene Pons sang Ah vous dirai-je maman from Le Toréador (Adam).]


[In the Lesson Scene HORNE sang "La mia pace, la mia calma," an alternate aria composed by Rossini for this scene]

[In the Lesson Scene Horne sang Tanti affetti from La Donna del Lago by Rossini.]

"Contro un cor che accende amore," (Victoria de los Angeles) the aria that Rossini wrote to be sung at this point.

"It is such a wonderful display-piece and so dramatically effective that one wonders how the custom of interpolating another aria here was ever started."


[In the Lesson Scene Berger sang Pur dicesti (Lotti).]

[In the Lesson Scene Peters sang "Quel bonheur je respire" from Fra Diavolo in Italian.]


[In the Lesson Scene Munsel sang O luce di quest'anima from Linda di Chamounix.]
[In the Lesson Scene Pons sang La fauvette avec ses petits from Zemire et Azor (Grétry, La Forge).]

[In the Lesson Scene Sayao sang Deh vieni non tardar from Le Nozze
di Figaro.]



[In the Lesson Scene Tourel sang Nacqui all'affanno from La Cenerentola.]
[In the Lesson Scene Pons sang Villanelle (Dell'Acqua).]


[In the Lesson Scene Pons sang Où va la jeune Indoue from Lakmé.]

[In the Lesson Scene Pons sang Villanelle (Dell'Acqua) and Ach ich liebte from Die Entführung aus dem Serail.]

[In the Lesson Scene Pons sang Deh torna mio bene (Proch) and Lo Hear the Gentle Lark (Bishop).]

[In the Lesson Scene Morgana sang Ô légère hirondelle from Mireille.]

[In the Lesson Scene Elvira de Hidalgo sang the Shadow Song from Dinorah and Al pensar en el dueño de mis amores from Las Hijas del Zebedeo (Chapí).]

[In the Lesson Scene Ottein sang L'incantatrice (Arditi).]

[In the Lesson Scene Cora Chase sang Je veux vivre from Roméo et Juliette.]

[In the Lesson Scene Barrientos sang Ah non sai qual pena (Mozart).]


[In the Lesson Scene Hempel sang An der schönen blauen Donau (Strauss).]


[In the Lesson Scene Nielsen may have sung Parla (Arditi), the selection scheduled by Hempel, who was replaced as Rosina by Nielsen.]

[In the Lesson Scene Hempel sang Il Bacio (Arditi).]

[In the Lesson Scene De Pasquali sang Grande Valse (Venzano).]



[In the Lesson Scene Lipkowska sang The Nightingale (Alabiev, Rôze).]

In the Lesson Scene Sembrich sang "Voci di primavera" by Strauss, "Ah non giunge" from La Sonnambula, and a Mazurka by Chopin, the latter with her own piano accompaniment.]

[n the Lesson Scene, Sembrich sang Strauss's "Voci di primavera" and "Ah, non giunge" from La Sonnambula. She followed these selections by going to the piano and playing and singing Chopin's "The Maiden's Wish."]


[In the Lesson Scene Sembrich sang Strauss's "Voci di primavera" and Taubert's "Ich muss nun einmal singen." In response to the audience's demands for more, she took a seat at the piano and sang a Chopin song, playing her own accompaniment.]

[In the Lesson Scene Sembrich sang Là là là air chéri from L'Étoile du Nord (Meyerbeer).]


[In the Lesson Scene Sembrich sang the Bolero from I Vespri Siciliani.]



Dall'A alla Z:

******************

THE CATALOGUE RAISONNE ITSELF.


ACH ICH LIEBTE
(Mozart, Ratto del Seraglio). Interpolated by Pons

AH NON GIUNGE
Bellini, Sonnambula.
Interpolated by SEMBRICH.

AH NON SAI QUAL PENA
Mozart
Interpolated by Barrientos

AH VOUS DIRAI-JE MAMAN
From "Le Toreador" (Adam)
Interpolated by Pons.

AL PENSAR EN EL DUENO (from Las Hijas del Zewbedeo -- Chapi) -- Elvira de Hidalgo.
AN DER SCHOEN BLAUEN DONAU (Strauss) -- Hempel
BACIO, Il (Arditi) -- Hempel
BEL RAGGIO (Rossini, SEMIRAMIDE) -- Sayao.
CHARMANT OISEAU (from La Perle du Bresil (David)) -- Antoine.
CONTRO UN COR CHE ACCENDE AMORE --
DEH TORNA MIO BENE (Prosch)
DEH VIENI NON TARDAR (Mozart, Le nozze di Figaro) SAYAO.
FAUVETTE, LA -- from "Zemire et Azor" (Gretry, La Forge) -- Pons
GRANDE VALSE (Venzano) -- De Pasquali

****************

HOME SWEET HOME

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble there's no place like home! A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere: Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home! |: There's no place like Home! :| 2. I gaze on the moon as I tread the drear wild And feel that my mother now thinks of her child As she looks on the moon from our own cottage door Through the woodbine whose fragrance shall cheer me no more. Chorus:

3. An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain Oh, give me my low, thatched cottage again, The birds singing gaily that come at my call, Give me them with that peace of mind, dearer than all. 4. How sweet 'tis to sit neath a fond father's smile, And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile. Let others delight 'mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, oh give me the pleasures of home. 5. To thee I'll return overburdened with care, The hearts dearest solace will smile on me there No more from that cottage again will I roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

*******************


ICH MUSS NUN EINMAL SINGEN (Taubert) -- Sembrich
INCANTATRICE, L' (Arditi) -- Ottein
JE VEUX VIVRE (Romeo e Giulietta) -- Cora Chase.
Là là là air chéri (La stella -- Meyerbeer)-- Sembrich.


********************
LAST ROSE OF SUMMER, The (PATTI)
The Last Rose of Summer is a poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore, who was a friend of Byron and Shelley. Moore wrote it in 1805 while at Jenkinstown Park in County Kilkenny, Ireland. Sir John Stevenson set the poem to its widely-known melody, and this was published in a collection of Moore's work called Irish Melodies (1807–34). In Ireland, it is claimed that the melody was composed by George Alexander Osborne, a composer from Limerick City.
Ludwig Van Beethoven composed Theme and Three variations for flute and piano, Op 105, based on the song late in his life.Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy composed a Fantasia in E major, Op. 15, based on the song (1827?, publ. London, 1830). Friedrich von Flotow uses the song in his opera "Martha," premiered in 1847 in Vienna. It is a favorite air ("Letzte Rose") of the character Lady Harriet. The interpolation works, and indeed the song helped popularize the opera. (According to the 1954 Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the opera grew from an 1844 ballet-pantomime, "Lady Henriette," for which Flotow wrote the music to Act One. Burgmuller and Deldevez wrote the rest of the music; "Lady Henriette" was produced in Paris.)
It has been arranged into a set of extremely difficult variations by Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst for the violin.
The song is mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses.^[1] It is also mentioned by Wilkie Collins in The Moonstone.
Opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini began with the song in her free public concert in the streets of San Francisco, California on Christmas Eve, 1910. ^[2]
As well as being a common phrase^{[citation needed]}, the poem is alluded to in the Grateful Dead song "Black Muddy River".
Clannad released a rendition of the song on their album Crann Úll. Sarah Brightman recorded the song for her album The Trees They Grow So High. It was made popular in the twenty-first century in a recording by Charlotte Church and the Irish Tenors.
It is sung in the musical group Celtic Woman by Méav Ní Mhaolchatha and Hayley Westenra. Chloë Agnew's solo version is recorded on her self-titled album. In the Celtic Woman: A New Journey tours, she sang duets with Ní Mhaolchatha, Westenra, and the vocalist-guitarist of the same group, Lynn Hilary. Agnew and Hilary are performing the same version in the Isle Of Hope tour. Ní Mhaolchatha's solo version is included in her Celtic Journey album.
In the 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan it is the character Joe Pendelton’s inability to play “The Last Rose of Summer” on his saxophone anything other than badly which allows him to prove that he is alive in another man’s body; all the other characters think he is the dead man from whom he got the body, but when he plays the sax for his old boxing manager, he uses the same wrong note in the melody as he always did, and which thus confirms his story of coming back from the after-life.
In the 16th (final) episode of the 6th season of the UK Channel 4 television show Shameless, the song was sung by Jamie Maguire (played by Aaron McCusker) at the funeral of his sister Mandy Maguire (Samantha Siddall).
In the 1995 film An Awfully Big Adventure, the song is used as P.L. O'Hara's theme music and is a recurrent musical motif in the film's score.
The song was featured in Ric Burns' documentary series, New York: A Documentary Film, broadcast on PBS in the USA.
The song was used in the game Endless Ocean: Blue World as the theme of the Depths area of the Zahhab Region. It is also playable on the jukebox that the player can purchase in-game.
Off their 1977 album "Sin After Sin", Judas Priest recorded a song entitled "Last Rose of Summer". Written by Rob Halford and Glenn Tipton, the song is all about "unyielding love". A 1977 3 hr. Science Fiction BBC radio production written by Stephen Gallagher.
Fionnuala Sherry of the New Instrumental duo Secret Garden released a version of the song titled "The Last Rose" on her solo debut album "Songs From Before".
February 2011, the song was featured in FOX TV series,"The Chicago Code" Season 1 Episode 2, "Hog Butcher". This traditional Irish song was sung by Jason Bayle, as the uniformed officer during the memorial service of fallen Chicago police officer Antonio Betz.
Laura Wright recorded a version, featured on her album The Last Rose (2011)



'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter,
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?





'Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone
All her lovely companions are faded and gone
No flower of her kindred, no rosebud is nigh
To reflect back her blushes and give sigh for sigh

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, to pine on the stem
Since the lovely are sleeping, go sleep thou with them
Thus kindly I scatter thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden lie scentless and dead

So soon may I follow when friendships decay
And from love's shining circle the gems drop away
When true hearts lie withered and fond ones are flown
Oh who would inhabit this bleak world alone?
This bleak world alone


**************
L'INUTILE PRECAUZIONE (Pietro Cimara) -- arietta -- using the words from the opera, written in 1941, at the suggestion of Bidu Sayao.
LO, HEAR THE GENTLE LARK -- Bishop -- PONS. Of note is Bishop's 1819 musical comedy adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, which included the popular coloratura soprano aria "Lo, Hear the Gentle Lark".
MAIDEN'S WISH, The (Chopin) -- Sembrich
MAZURKA (Chopin) -- Sembrich
MERE La Birding (Chopin) -- SEMBRICH.
NACQUI ALL'AFFANO (Rossini, La Cenerentola) -- Tourel.
NIGHTINGALE, The (Alabiev, Roze) -- Lipkowska
O LUCE DI QUEST'ANIMA (Donizetti, "Linda") -- Munsel.
OU VA LA JEUNE (Lakme) Pons
PARLA (Arditi) -- Nielsen
PUR DICESTI (Lotti) -- Berger
QUEL BONHEUR JE RESPIRE -- Fra Diavolo, in Italian -- Peters.
QUI LA VOCE
SHADOW SONG -- from Dinorah
SOME DAY (Wellings) -- "too, too trite".
SWISS ECHO SONG
VILLANELLE -- (dell'Acqua) -- Pons
VOCI DI PRIMAVERA (waltz) Strauss -- SEMBRICH.

Cheers.