Great suicide aria

[zamyrabyrd]

I don't find Britten's soundworld glassy Andre. Early on he seemed to have an affinity for French music and poetry. Les Illuminations possibly gets its best outing from Heather Harper. She savors the words and manages the quicksilver of the piece.
Mike

Ditto. Without identification, I would have thought she were française.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj12MIjNGaw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RppEMOGKPuE&feature=related
ZB

[Lilas Pastia]

Tebaldi's "Suicidio", of which quite a few versions can be heard, was consistently excellent. The descent in the low registrer at "fra le tenebre" is natural, sonorous and suitably desperate. In the same phrase Callas sounds baleful and implacable. Two valid nuances that suit both text and music. By comparison, Caballé can't really muster the vocal weight of her colleagues, although much else is beautilful. Another very strong interpretation is Anita Cerquetti's. I like her approach. She relies on purely vocal means to convey Gioconda's torment. She was often criticized for her unhistrionic singing and acting, which critics found placid and uninvolved.

[knight66]

I know the Cerquetti, but, as so often I first heard the aria sung by Callas and I have never found another version to compare with her way of communicating, but Cerquetti is very fine. I know a Tebaldi version which I thought finer than I had expected. A surprise here is a recording from 1995, (she was 56), by Brigitte Fassbaender. As would be expected, she is intense. Her voice is firm and she even uses a little portamento and produces long phrases the voice still flexible and strong at the top. My only criticism is the conducting which is just too slow.

Mike

[Lilas Pastia]

In Ô Ma lyre immortelle the heroine seals her fate by jumping off a cliff. I guess that's what you do when the urge seizes you, or if there is no more convenient way to terminate your life (no dagger, poison vial, rope or gun at hand).

I know of two other operas where the heroine uses such a device. Tosca's famous line "O Scarpia, avanti a Dio" is one such blood curdling moment. It's impossible to compare Sapho's predicament with Tosca's own, as the two have a totally different context.  The listener doesn't have any time to feel much pity or horror. Tosca is there one moment, gone the next.

The other opera I know that describes the fate of the main character in a similar way is Auber's La muette de Portici. The title role is - as you may have guessed - a silent one. It is usually taken by a mime or dancer. Not quite sure such an unusual character would excite audience interest, the librettists made sure to arouse our sympathy all right by having her climb all the way to the top of Mt Vesuvius and throw herself in the flaming crater. At this point she can't hurl imprecations or even shout a deathly and sonorous Ahhh ! What a bummer of a role ! What is not said is how long it took her to go off Portici (a port near Naples) to the top of the mountain, some 9 km away (not counting the 1200 meters climb). The lass must have been a practicing marathonian. The overture is all that remains of this, a once popular work.

Anyone taken by the fates of other unlucky girls such as Ophélie, Juliet, Cleopatra, Norma (my own favourite), Cio-Cio San ? Lord Harewood, an opera fanatic, has chronicled some 306 opera plots. Of those, 77 end with a suicide. There is an attempted suicide in another 12. It seems to be a favourite way for librettists to end an opera !

[Tsaraslondon]

Going back to the original aria in this discussion, I have just listened (on spotify) in quick succession to Marilyn Horne, Grace Bumbry. Caballe (late in 1994), Magdalena Kozena, Denyce Graves, Crespin, Jeanne Gerville-Reache, Felia Litvinne and Shirley Verret.

Both Horne and Bumbry struck me as somewhat anonymous, as did Denyce Graves, beautifully  though they all sing. Caballe in a very late recital, from 1994, has to husband her resources, but is considerably more interesting, though, as was often her wont without a strong hand on the podium, she is unconscionably slow. Still, she certainly grabbed my interest. So did Kozena, in a slightly different way. Surely this voice is far too light for this aria, but she engages with the emotions, and the voice is certainly lovely, though possibly a little strained in the closing stages. It lacks grandeur, and, from that point of view, is at the opposite end of the scale from Crespin, who, singing in her own language, certainly knows what she is singing about. But am I alone in finding her singing altogether too civilised? As if she daren't get too worked up in case she messes up her hair or make up?

The two older singers are of course not without interest. Gerville-Reache, a contralto rather than a mezzo ducks the high note at the end and the richness of her voice has its beauties, but she doesn't altogether engage with the emotions of the piece. Litvinne (with Cortot, no less, on the piano), is a different matter entirely. She takes a few more breaths than any of the more modern singers, but, her passionate advocacy has its own reward, a rather wavery final top note (is it a Bb?) notwithstanding.

However, the last version also turned out to be the best. Shirley Verrett has both the voice and emotional commitment to do full justice to the aria, the final note more convincing than any of the others, yet with the richness down below that the majority of the music demands. From the first notes of the recitative, she grabs the attention. Unlike Crespin, she feels every note of the music, she is not the grande dame prima donna, singing an aria, but she is Sapho, suffering there and then. This is great singing. It appears on a 2 disc set "Opera Francais - Coffrets RTL Classique". Please try and hear it if you can.

[MariaCallasFan]

I first heard " Se piete de me non senti" when watching a TV programme starring Ken Stott called Messiah ( nothing to do with Handels Messiah ) and it was so haunting beautiful, I would say that it was this piece coupled with Stenz Mama that really whetted my appitite for opera.  I am still very new to it all and dont have the technical knowledge that many have I just know what sounds good to me.  My favourite version so far is by Simone Kermes



I am going to my first opera preformance in November " Cavallero Rusticana" with a local company.