Rossini and beyond

Interpolations in the Lesson Scene in "Barbiere"

Speranza

Rather pedantically, I am tempted to entitle the thing, now:

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

and make it a "dall'A alla Z" -- more material below -- and again, thanks
to all!

Cheers,

Speranza

--
(a)
Pedantic as it may sound, the term seems to be indeed "interpolation", as
I read from the (never pedantic) Met archives, when, for one occasion, it
signals:

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

There are various things to consider here, as listers have. These include:

* Rossini, obviously, had something pretty specific in mind. And _his_
aria is *usually* (now almost invariably) sung -- as IT SHOULD. The practice
allows you not to have to BOTHER to justify a different criterion for choice
(even if realise that there is charm in the proceeding).

* As a matter of fact, as I learn from browsing the Met archives, ROSSINI
provided, for some reason, an 'alternate' (interpolated) aria, which was
also sung occasionally: "La mia pace, la mia calma". I would think this was
the first 'interpolation' ever.

* Then the implication started that the soprano could sing 'something
else' -- the implicature: rather than Rossini's intended aria. I would love to
think that it was Patti who started the practice with her memorial of "Home
Sweet Home" (in East Hampton).

* The custom then seems to have been, perhaps to enhance the whole comical
effect, to INTRODUCE something NOTABLY *different* (even anachronically)
from Rossini's fare -- and there is a point by an earlier reviewer -- in the
Met archives -- on precisely this.

* I'm sure, as we browse biographies of divas, etc. that a few NOTABLE
ANECDOTES relate to this scene and choice of alternate aria. I would like to
think that even Wellings had something to say about a Rosina interpolating
his "Some Day" for an occasion -- a song that the reviewer in the Met
archives maliciously describes as "too, too trite", though.

In any case, if anyone is interested in 'helping improve' wiki, there's
room for expansion in wiki's current note in "Barbiere", which reads:

"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.""

--
(b) Dall'A alla Z: towards THE (alphabetic) 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 -- NOT an interpolation: Rossini's original
idea for the thing.

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.
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.

----
(c) Appendix: some of the DOCUMENTS (from Met archives):

"Galli-Curci's BEST [emphasis mine -- Speranza] 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."

"In 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."