DON CARLO DI VERDI

Speranza

Verdi, “Don Carlo”. The tenor aria is “L’ho perduta”. It was created by Tamagno – who also created Verdi’s “Otello.

Io l'ho perduta! Oh potenza suprema!

Un altro... ed è mio padre... un  altro... e questi è il re

Lei che adoro m'ha rapita

La sposa a me  promessa, ah, quanto puro e bel

fu il dì senza doman in cui ebri di  speme

C'era dato vagar, nell'ombra, soli insieme,

Nel dolce suol di  Francia,

Nella foresta di Fontainebleau!"

---> Io la vidi e il suo  sorriso

Nuovo un cielo apriva a me!

Ahi! per sempre or m'ha diviso

Da  quel core un padre, un Re!

Non promette un dì felice

Di mia vita il triste  albor...

M'hai rubato, o incantatrice,

Cor e speme, sogni... amor!

("Je l'ai vue, et dans son sourire, dans ses yeux pleins d'un feu charmant 

tout ému, mon coeur a pu lire le bonheur de vivre en l'aimant", etc.). I 

wouldn't mind leads for online analysis of that. Meanwhile, some facts (from 

wiki):

       "[The Italian libretto] was in  preparation by Achille de Lauzières

as early as the autumn of 1866. ... This  Italian [libretto] - with some

cuts and alterations - was presented first  at the Royal Italian Opera House on

4 June 1867 (conductor: Michael Costa), and  received its Italian premiere

- uncut - at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna on 27  Oct. of that year,

conducted by Mariani."

      "Following an unsuccessful performance in  Naples in 1871, Verdi ...

made two more modifications to the score", including  some "verses by A.

Ghislanzoni to replace some of the previously cut  material."

       "An Italian [libretto], re-using much  of the original 1866

[material] was made by A. Zanardini. The La Scala, Milan,  première of the revision

took place on 10 Jan. 1884.

         Verdi did "allow a  performance on 29 Dec. 1886 in Modena which

presented the “Fontainebleau’’ first  act along with the revised 4-act

version. This version was published by Ricordi  as “a new edition in five acts

without ballet”".

      The opera, wiki goes, "has been regularly  performed, particularly in

the four-act 1883 'Milanese' version."

"Following the notable 1958 staging of the 1886 5-act Italian version at 

the C. Garden (director Visconti), this version has increasingly been

performed  elsewhere and has been recorded by Giulini."

1867

Verdi, Don Carlo – “Don Carlo” has been called an ‘ever-changing opera”, as in a piece in the New York Times.

"Don Carlo" is _not_ a tenor's opera (titles can be misleading). But the tenor role is obviously the centre. In Italian, Verdi changed some things,  and it has more exuberance. It's brighter. Alagna is quoted as saying. Ulrik  comments: Io l'ho perduta! Oh potenza suprema! Un altro... ed è mio padre... un  altro ... e questi è il Re, Lei che adoro m'ha rapita! La sposa a me   promessa! Ah! quanto puro e bel Fu il dì senza doman, in cui, ebri  di  speme, C'era dato vagar, nell'ombra, soli insieme, nel dolce suol  di  Francia, nella foresta di Fontainebleau! nella foresta di  Fontainebleau. Aria: Io la vidi e il suo  sorriso ------ a nuovo un cielo apriva a me!  --- b Ah! per sempre or m'ha diviso--- a Da quel core un padre, un re.----  b Non promette un dì felice ------ c di mia vita il triste  albor  -------- d M'hai rubato, o incantatrice ---- c Cor e speme, sogni... amor  ---- d --- Coda: Aime, io l'ho perduta, io l'ho perduta. The librettists  involved were Ghislanzoni and Zanardini. The NYT quotes from Italian conductor  A. Pappano,  comparing the French with the the Italian version:  like "meat and potatoes”. Verdi was from Emilia-Romagna". "In  French that Emilia-Romagna spirit is lost. ... In French, the baritone’s aria becomes a chamber piece." Of course, the important point of "Don Carlo"  is philosophical. The NYT article is so full of references to 'moral ambiguity' that are interesting. We want you to see IL MARCHESE DI POSA turn. Every man has his price. Betrayal of one kind or another is a foregone conclusion. We watch  characters on the stage hoping against hope that they will pass a moral test.

We should always start with the historical'. Some won't attend a 5-hour  performance of anything unless it's minimal _historical_. So, who  _was_ this "Carlo". The easy access  to it I found in Budden, vol. 3, of his  "Operas of Verdi", revised edition --  now a Clarendon paperback: On p. 10, Budden writes of the _real_ Carlo. Carlo was the only legitimate son of King Philip II of Spain. Carlo was a violent, uncontrolled man who at an  early age developed an unreasoning hatred of his father and  was soon declared  by him unfit to succeed to the throne. His attempts to raise  support for  his rights abroad led to his being placed under house arrest; long  fasts alternating with bouts of over-eating together with copious draughts of  ice-cold  water resulted in his early death. What is  fascinating is Verdi's first approach to the  thing. They mention Schillfer, of  course, and the letler by Royer and Vaez  (dated 1850) “Dear Verdi, I suggesting to you Schiller's _Don Carlo_" as an early source, but I prefer to think -- and I may  need further support to this that.” Verdi was already quite familiar with Schiller’s “Don Carlo” and perhaps had come to _love_ the thing via the translation of his friend  Maffei. Vide: Lamport, "E. N. O." Guide to "Don  Carlo", Calder Publications, p. 23: "A complete Italian translation of  Schiller's plays was made in  the 1840s by Andrea Maffei. Verdi ... knew Maffei  well." Io la vidi e il suo sorriso  Nuovo un ciel apriva a me! Ah! Per sempre or m'ha diviso Da quel core  un padre, un re. Non promitti un dì felice Di mia vita il triste albor, M'hai rubato, incantatrice, E cor, e speme, e sogni, e amor. "I saw her, and her smile opened a new heaven to me! Ah, my father the king has separated me forever from that heart. The sad morning of my life does  not  promise a single day of happiness. Enchantress, you have robbed me of  heart and  of hope, of dreams and of love! You have robbed me of hope, of dreams, and of  love!" An alternate version goes: Io la vidi e al suo sorriso Scintillar mi parve il sole; Come l'alma al paradiso Schiuse a lei la speme, il vol. Tanta gioia a me prometto Che s'inebria questo cor; Dio, sorridi al nostro affeto, Benedici un casto amor. "I saw her, and at her smile, to scintillate to me the sun appeared, as the soul to paradise disclosed to her the hope the flight. So much joy to me promised that this heart embriagates itself. God,  smile at our affection, bless one chaste love." The next thing is to provide the link  between such an _abstract_ thing as that provided -- essentially by Achille de  Lauzierès out of the original by Méry and du Locle. The vocal limitations of the tenor, Morère, no doubt helped  to shape  the role of Carlo. However, Verdi manages to take advantage of the _narrower trimbre_ of the  French voice of Morere to create a tenor of a different sort. So, while  critics jump fast  enough to psychological considerations it may all be _in  the difference between French (a language foreign to Verdi) and Italian, his soul.   Carlo's opening utterance ["Fontainebleu!  Foresta immensa e solitaria!" -- recit. to the cavatina above, establishes him  at once as a tenor of sensibility. J'ai la vue, et dans son sourire, Dans ses yeux pleins d'un feu charmant, Tout ému, mon coeur a pu lire Le bonheur de vivre en l'aimant. Avenir rempli de tendresse! Bel azur dorant tous nos jours! Dieu sourit à notre jeunesse, Dieu bénit nos chastes amours! FONTAINEBLEU: FORESTA IMMENSA E SOLITARIA "Fontainebleau! Forêt immese et solitaire. The average  Italian indeed often _shies_ away from French_vowels_ being afraid that they will interfere with his voice   production. Tamagno, created the role in one Italian version. There was an earlier Italian version (under Michele Costa's direction at  Covent Garden, on June 4 1867) was. This was followed by productions in Italian  too: -- I draw the info from Budden: Bologna Oct 27, 1867 (cond. Mariani), and  Milan March 1868 cond. Mazzucato. _Celada_ (I read in that great book, "A pictorial treasure of Opera in  America" by Blum, p. 59) who 'created' the role  at the New York Academy of  Music on April 12 1877.

"The duty-bound Isabella has just a few hours of joy, in Atto I, the Fontainebleau scene.

Carlo tracks down Isabella in France to see the woman he is supposed to marry.

When they meet, they have an extended duet of blissful lyricism, which these  lovers relish.

The Fontainebleu act is _hardly_ Schiller -- but, rather the minor  play by the librettist of

"Pescatori di Perle" (Cormon, “Filippo II”).

It is  nonsense to refer to the _Don  Carlos_ of 1867 as 'French' and that of 1884 as  'Italian.

While  French-language "Don Carlos" opened in Paris in March 1867, by June 4 1867 it  was opened at

Covent Garden ("Royal Italian Opera") as conducted by  Neapolitan-born Michele Costa, as sung in the title tenor role by Neapolitan-born  Emilio Nadin, and as  translated by Neapolitan-born Achille de Lauzières.

In the five-act version, the aria is: "Io la vidi e _al suo sorriso_"). In the four_-act version the aria is:

"Io la vidi e _il_ suo sorriso".

The two versions can be compared: 

J'ai la vue, et dans son sourire ----------------a   Io la vidi e  al suo sorriso  -------a

Dans ses yeux pleins d'un feu charmant,  -b   Scintillar mi parve il sole -------b

Tout ému, mon coeur  a pu lire ----------------a   Come l'alma al  paradiso -------a

Le bonheur de vivre en l'aimant.  --------------b   Schiuse a lei la speme, il vol. --b

Avenir rempli  de tendresse! --------------------c   Tanta gioia a me prometto  ------c

Bel azur dorant tous nos jours! --------------d   Che  s'inebria questo cor ----------d

Dieu sourit à notre jeunesse,  -----------------c   Dio, sorridi al nostro affetto, -----c

Dieu  bénit nos chastes amours! ------------d   Benedici un casto   amor.-----------d

Note that it’s one shared 'amor' – singular -- (however 'casto') being 

_singular_, i.e. one thing _shared_ by the lovers (even if as verbalised by 

Carlo only) rather than double ("chastes amours", in the French).

De  Lauzières's  original version (which he was working on by 1866) may have  been modified by Zanardini (On top of that, there's the _third_ Italian  librettist  involved here: Ghislanzoni, for the Filippo/Posa duetto, _and_  Faggione for  those editions which reintroduce the opening chorus by the  woodcutters).

Schiller’s “Don Carlo” (tr. by Maffei, who was friends  with Verdi, had  provided a translation of the German play which Verdi may have  read by the  late 1840s -- it was officially published in the 1850s)

The "Fontainebleu" scene is nowhere in the Schiller play.

Budden   notes that in Cormon's play, “Filippo II”, the thing opens with a 'Prologue', set in   St-Germain, and led by Carlo disguised as an 'étudiant d'Alcalá' (title of  the  'prologue' in fact).

But the idea of re-setting it in Fontainebleu in the   winter is of course very appropriate.

So, the imagery of the smile is present  in  both the French and the Italian. The 'feu' in the French becomes the 'sun' in  the Italian. The imagery being synaesthetic: it's all about the  _warmth_ about  this 'love at first sight' Carlo is experience (re-emphasised  shortly after when  Carlo becomes, in the words of Budden, 'the first boy scout who kindles a fire  by rubbing two twigs together'.

The Italian manages to rhyme  'sorriso' with 'paradiso', which I think makes a good eschatological point,  since the recitative to the cavatina has already  mentioned "Eden". None of that  imagery in the French.

By 1867, when Verdi was corresponding with Costa (indeed Verdi was congratulating  Costa) on the staging of "Don Carlo" at Covent Garden (the convention of  referring to the _Italian_ version as "Don Carlo" is however later), he would NOT know,  as he did, in his later years, that the "Royal Italian Opera" were  indeed  _counted_ by then.

de Lauzières wonders.

How much store did Verdi himself set by the original language?

Certainly he never imagined that Don Carlo--- tr.de Lauzières --   would be performed outside France in any  other language than Italian, unless it were the vernacular of the country concerned.

But it should be borne in mind that Italian was still in most theatres the accepted lingua franca of opera. All over Europe and America Fausts greeted Marguerite's cottage with  a 'Salve dimora' [tr. de Lauzières. Speranza], [and] Lionels apostrophised their Marthas with 'M'appari tutto amor' [tr.

de Lauzières.

As for the 'variorum' -- what Budden calls the 1866,  1867, 1872,  1884, and 1886 editions, each seem to present a  different  version of "Carlo".

Some are fascinated  by Verdi's 'craft'  (as opposed to 'art', as a critic had it) when it came to  re-write the cavatina  of the five-act version ("Io la vidi e al suo  sorriso") -- an outburst of  expectation and passion -- into the totally different  animal of the four-act  version ("Io la vidi e il suo sorriso" -- an  outburst of nostalgia, perhaps even  more powerful.

In Hume's  words, the real Carlo  was a "semi-imbecile", "lame and epileptic", "already vicious and 

uncontrollable ... yellow and wasted with intermitent fever" (cited by Godfrey,  "The dramatic genius of Verdi", vol. 2, p. 137).

Budden, for one, seems clear as to the nature of Carlo's passion for "Isabella"  (the Italian translators preferred this shorter version to the French  'Elisabeth'), and he presents Carlo as being a 'tenor' "in love with love”, much like Alexis in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Sorcerer!” (I love love only).

In both  versions of the cavatina (in the five-act and four-act  versions) there is always  a reference to Carlo's father. So it seems it is _hatred_ for the father figure  (authority figure) vis-a-vis an

Inter-generational conflict, that seems to  explain Carlo's behaviour much more than any

unconditional passion for the  daughter of the King of France.

Similarly, the associations of Carlo with the Marchese  (later Duca) di Posa seem slightly artificial in

that Posa seems an  ideological element which interested Schiller ONLY and perhaps  Verdi, but that seems  totally otiose in explaining Carlo's traits -- other  than his sublimation for  his 'forbidden' (or 'guilty', as he has it) love.

1867

Verdi, “Don Carlo”.

While there is much to  comment on different aspects, the best way to  approach these issues is via  proper musical characterisation. In this respect, a comparison between the first version of the cavatina (in the five-act  version) and the second version  is illuminating.

In the first version ("Io la vidi e al suo sorriso")  we have what Budden  calls 'an old-fashioned a1-a2-b-a2 complete with CODA and a  rest for the  voice at the start of the third phrase.

There are ornamentations on "tanta gioa a *me*  prometto che  s'inebria *questo* cor: "a reverie of classical delicacy, with a  delicious  core ... in the suavest accents.

But what about the _second_  version?

Recall there is a big lapse in between, and styles _do_ change. Verdi  knew he  was working for Tamagno in this case, who created the four-act "Carlo". 

Like all Verdi's revisions it is longer breathed  and  less repetitive than the original.

There is no reprise of the opening  phrase  and no separate coda.

The changes are clearly designed to  reflect the  altered mood of the singer, and a hundred deft touches transform  joyful  anticipation into nostalgic memory.

At this point is good to go back to  the orchestral score for the FIRST cavatina.

For all his  scheming, Carlo is a guileless boy at heart.

The antiquated  form in a a ternary pattern does NOT preclude a very definition of his present  mood.

Witness the schwaermerish upward-reaching gatures combined with moving  chromatic inner  parts, the perfect expression of someone in love with love.

This enrichment of the harmonic palette engenders a subtlety of scoring.

Where we should expect a string accompaniment, it is,  rather, the WIND instruments that provide the scaffolding and the strings that  unterline  the important countours with varieties of arco and pizzicato.

The  different animal of the four-act version requires a different scoring.

Not only  is the key lowered by a tone from C to B flat; it is approached through G  minor,  so affording that yearning for _lost happiness which the romantic Italians never failed to draw from the relative major used in such a context.

Regarding the orchestration proper, there’s no glinting upper  woodwind colours to relieve the gloom of the low clarinet.

Instead of the  caressing chromaticisms" of the earlier version, there is a viola fidget to  give a sense of nagging restlessness.

1867

Verdi, “Don Carlo”

Michele Costa's performance  'rights' as he performed (or 'conducted') Verdi's  "Don Carlos" -- and the

correspondence with Verdi that followed. How much did  Verdi know? Would his letter have been as complimentary if he KNEW? But also it  may relate to  Costa's _own_ opera by that title. 

About Costa's own "Don Carlo", Costa himself had composed a "Don Carlo" in 1844, also based on Schiller – and it had opened in Italy. 

London’s "Royal Italian Opera"  was a thing initiated in the 1830s, so one may think that Costa's "Don Carlo"  had a showing there, too.

What Costa did to Verdi’s "Carlos": the first act was removed completely.

In this, Costa’s changes were very much LIKE Verdi's own later changes.

Likewise, he  removed the ballet.

Costa did retain the scene  in which Isabella" and La Principessa d’Eboli  exchange masks.

Costa also shortened the duet  between FILIPPO II and the Inquisitor  by four line.

This may be the lines that had  offended the French Empress.

Of Elisabetta's great aria  in Act V he gave only part of  the central episode and the  reprise.

Costa removed the tenor's aria (Io la vidi) from Act  I to just before the terzetti  in Act III where Carlo receives a note of  assignation from Eboli.

Verdi wrote to Escudier:  "I'm not surprised some of the numbes were encored.  That may seem odd in Paris, but I can well imagine the effect the terzetto  could produce  when sung by three singers who have _rhythm_. Rhythm is  just a dead letter at the Opéra". 

The less complimentary comment by Verdi concerns the 'cavatina' role of  Carlo's aria: What is remarkable is the extent to  which Costa's  scheme anticipates that of Verdi's own revision of 1883. 

None the  less when Verdi did learn of the displacement of Carlo's aria, he was irritated.

“”Io la vidi” is a  cantabile which is all right at the start of the  action, but not when the action  is already under way." (Verdi, Letter to du Locle,   5.12.1867)

It was an "aria d'entrata" as  it were -- more so in the 4-act version.

Verdi's own  subsequent solution was subtler and more apt, turning the aria into a  'reminiscence' and keeping the symmetry of Act I  and Act IV -- with no  transposition of the locale unity (no action set in 

France).