Friday 7 May 2010 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Juan Diego Flórez
in recital
Juan Diego Flórez tenor
Vincenzo Scalera piano
Deca Music Group Limited
There will be one interval of 20 minutes.
this evening’s programme
Domenico Cimarosa
(1749–1801)
Rafael Calleja (1874–1938)
&Tomás Barrera (1870–1938)
Il matrimonio segreto (1792)– Pria che
spunti in ciel l’aurora
Emigrantes (1905) –Adiós Granada,
Granada mía
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)
Amadeo Vives (1871–1932)
Péchés de vieillesse (1857–68) – La
lontananza; Le Sylvain (Romance)
Soirées musicales (pub. 1835) – L’orgia
Otello – Che ascolto! ahimè! che dici! (1816)
Doña Francisquita (1923) – Por el humo
Interval
Adrien Boieldieu (1775–1834)
José Serrano (1873–1941)
La dame blanche (1825) –Viens, gentille
dame
La alegría del batallón (1909) – El mismo
rey del moro
Agustín Pérez Soriano
(1846–1907)
El guitarrico (1900) – Suena guitarrico mío
2
Jules Massenet (1842–1912)
Werther (1892) – Pourquoi me réveiller?
programme note
Squawking capons and top C sharps
The rise and rise of the heroic tenor
The history of singing in the Western tradition is packed with
new directions. There are wrong turnings, crossroads,
swerves to the left and right and sometimes the road just
peters out. Think no further than the rise and fall of the
castrati in the 18th century, or the triumph of a new kind of
tenor in the Romantic period. Much of the music in tonight’s
concert was written for that new kind of tenor, or at least
tenors who wanted to sound different from their
predecessors – sometimes with disastrous results. While
attempting the new technique of producing top notes
from the chest register rather than the head voice in a
performance of Pacini’s Cesare in Egitto, the tenor Americo
Sbigoli burst a blood vessel and expired there and then on
the stage of the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
Alas, too, for Adolphe Nourrit, by some accounts the
greatest French tenor of the age until he took himself to Italy
in 1837, hoping to italianise his voice and inherit the mantle
of the great Giovanni Battista Rubini. Working with the
composer Donizetti he strove to banish a typically French
nasal tone from his voice, only to sacrifice almost entirely his
head voice. But it all proved too much: disappointment at his
progress, the censor’s ban on performances of Poliuto (the
opera Donizetti had written for him), together with a delicate
state of health did for the man. When Nourrit’s wife joined
him in Italy she encouraged her husband to put the
Frenchness back into his voice, but it was too late. Five days
after his 37th birthday Nourrit climbed the stairs to the top
floor of the Villa Barbaia in Naples, opened a window and
jumped to his death.
Nourrit had been trying to darken his voice to satisfy a
growing taste among audiences for a beefier tenor sound.
We can speculate that this new fashion reflected a revised
attitude in the early Romantic period about what constituted
the heroic. (This was, after all, the age of Beethoven’s
‘Eroica’.) The artificiality of the castrati version of the hero
with which the 18th century had fallen in love wasn’t at all to
the taste of a new age mesmerised by Bonaparte and Byron,
one that wanted operatic heroes who were manly and closer
to life as it might be lived. Orchestras were getting noisier,
too, and opera houses larger, so singers needed more
muscle to project across the pit and into the house.
However, it was a new generation of singing teachers –
the teachers who had replaced the castrati of the previous
age – that presided over this change in tenor vocal style.
Pre-eminent among these were Manuel García and his son,
also named Manuel. García padre had been a muchadmired singer before he became a teacher, creating the
role of Almaviva in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and
performing in London in 1818 and 1819. His interpretation of
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programme note
Cimarosa there would seem to have been in the fully
decorated bel canto manner, a kind of vocal halfway house
between the castrati now firmly locked in their dressing
rooms and the new beefy tenors waiting in the wings. It was
not to everyone’s taste, however, the poet and essayist Leigh
Hunt describing him as ‘running about in vain, with his
gratuitous high notes, like a dog that scampers 10 miles to his
master’s voice’.
Cimarosa lived just a single year into the new 19th century
and his comic opera Il matrimonio segreto has more Mozart
than Rossini about it; indeed the first performance was given
in Vienna in 1792, the city where Mozart had died a year
earlier. The opera’s libretto began life as a play by George
Colman and David Garrick. Paolino is secretly married to
Carolina, whose father wants her to marry Count Robinson.
In ‘Pria che spunti in ciel l’aura’ Paolino plots his elopement
with Carolina.
When his singing career ended, García senior took up
teaching, tutoring three of the greatest artists of the new age
– his daughters Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot, and
Adolphe Nourrit – at his influential singing school in Paris in
the 1830s. In time the school was inherited by his son Manuel
II, who was one of the earliest teachers to exploit the lower
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larynx technique known as voix sombre or sombrée. As John
Potter notes in his recent book Tenor – History of a Voice, ‘this
had the effect of darkening the tone and was a significant
factor in the enrichment of vocal colour that occurred in the
newer, more powerful “post-bel canto” tenors’. And the
lowering of the larynx, creating greater resonance in the
chest register, ‘presupposes a concern for tone colour for its
own sake: it will no longer be sufficient to deliver the text in
the most communicative way’. By this point we’re only a few
bars away from the Verdian ideal of vocal expressivity.
The chest register became the engine that drives the tenor
voice and it was only a matter of time before singers were
attempting to produce their best top notes from the chest
rather than, as before, the head voice. Gilbert-Louis Duprez
is the tenor who is generally credited with producing a
chested top C in Rossini’s last masterpiece, William Tell.
Certainly it was a triumph when sung at the Paris Opéra in
1837, but it wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Rossini, who had
written the passage in question for the traditional head voice,
caustically observed that Duprez’s feat sounded like ‘a
capon squawking as its throat is cut’.
Rossini was never reconciled with the new style. When Enrico
Tamberlik sang the title-role in Otello with top notes from the
programme note
chest the composer was even more scathing, though he
wrapped his scorn in his customary wit. John Potter quotes
Rossini’s response in Tenor. ‘Now comes Tamberlik. That
jokester, wanting ardently to demolish Duprez’s C, has
invented the chest-tone C sharp and loaded it onto me. In the
finale of my Otello there is, in fact, an A that I emphasised. I
thought that it, by itself, launched with full lungs, would be
ferocious enough to satisfy the amour-propre of tenors for
all time. But look at Tamberlik, who has transformed it into a
C sharp, and all the snobs are delirious … Fearing a second,
aggravated edition of the Duprez adventure, I cautioned
Tamberlik to deposit his C sharp on the hall tree and pick it
up again, guaranteed intact, when he left.’
‘Che ascolto!’ is Rodrigo’s aria from the beginning of Act 2
of Otello where he pleads his case with Desdemona. It’s a
virtuoso opportunity for Rossini’s beloved high tenor that
puts any singer on their mettle. But whether you leave your
top notes in the hall or wear them on the stage, there is
character – the rejected lover, first self-pitying and then
burning with anger – as well as technique here. And the
music to match the turn in moods.
Otello was written for Naples in 1816 and it went with Rossini
to France when he set up shop in Paris eight years later.
There, his public composing career came to a sudden if
magnificent end with the first performances of William Tell,
in 1829. Rossini was 37 and had composed more operas
than he’d had birthdays. He was successful with the public
and royalty alike, and hugely admired by the up-andcoming generation of opera composers. His music had quite
literally conquered the world. So why retire from the theatre?
Was he tired and ill? Had he made enough money and
acquired sufficient public honours? Or was he simply out of
sympathy with the new directions that opera was taking –
and singing styles in particular.
When Rossini returned to Paris in 1855, having married his
mistress, Olympe Pélissier, the two of them established one of
the most celebrated of all 19th-century Parisian artistic salons
in their apartment on the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. And
for these Saturday ‘at homes’ Rossini began to compose
again – for his own amusement as much as that of his guests,
one suspects, writing for piano and voice the Soirées
musicales and the teasingly named Péchés de vieillesse (‘Sins
of Old Age’). ‘La lontananza’, ‘Le Sylvain’ and ‘L’orgia’ are
salon music at its best, stretching the versatile amateur but
with plenty of expressive opportunities for the professional
artist too. The Péchés de vieillesse may be exercises in style,
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programme note
but there’s substance too – death and old age as well as
desire and childish nonsense. And maybe the salon became
the last home with a hall where aspiring tenors could leave
their chest top notes hanging on a hat stand!
Adolphe Nourrit’s decision to leave France and travel to Italy
to ‘italianise’ his voice reminds us of something else about
singing in the 19th century that sometimes gets lost in an age
where singers can breakfast in London or Milan or Paris and
sing for their supper in New York (provided there are no
clouds of volcanic ash to ground them, of course). A centuryand-a-half ago there were ‘national’ styles of singing, with
the French demanding nasal timbre in the head voice and
the Italians valuing expressive power driven from the chest.
There was a distinct Russian style and perhaps a Spanish
way too.
combines spoken dialogue, song (which can be operatic or
popular in style) and dance. Its roots go back to the middle of
the 17th century and it was named after the Palacio de la
Zarzuela, a royal hunting lodge outside Madrid, situated in a
remote countryside thick with zarzas or brambles.
As Spanish power waned and the Bourbons inherited the
throne, French and Italian styles came to dominate the
culture; at least until the middle decades of the 19th century,
when a group of patriotic nationalist writers and musicians
revived the zarzuela tradition with short one-act pieces and
full-length works. José Serrano, who was born in 1873, was
heir to this Madrid tradition and a late master of what has
been called the Romantic zarzuela tradition. In La alegría
del batallón (‘The Pride of the Battalion’) the tragedy of the
tale itself is offset by the showstopping ‘El mismo rey del
moro’. Agustín Pérez Soriano, whose El guitarrico was
A concern for national vocal styles in the mid-19th century
written in 1900 and proved hugely popular in Spain and
was perhaps connected with the appeal for audiences,
Spanish America, belongs to a slightly older generation of
composers and cultural arbiters of national operas on-stage
zarzuela composers, while Tomás Barrera’s best-known
in the opera house, and indeed with political nationalism too,
work, the dark-hued Emigrantes, written in collaboration
as Europe embraced the age of the nation state. An obvious
with Rafael Calleja, was given its first performances five
example would be the passion with which Russian composers
years later at the celebrated Teatro Zarzuela in Madrid.
from Glinka onwards strove to write specifically ‘Russian’
‘Adiós Granada, Granada mía’ is a heart-tugging romanza
operas. And at the other end of the continent there was the
from a man saying a final farewell to his country. Amadeo
rebirth of the zarzuela, a distinctly Spanish form that
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programme note
Vives (1871–1932) became one of the most popular of the
younger generation of zarzuela composers in Catalonia,
creating a form of this distinctly Spanish entertainment that
was designed to appeal to a newly affluent middle-class.
However, Doña Francisquita, which was written at the
beginning of the 20th century, was in fact written for Madrid,
where Vives settled in 1897, remaining there until his death.
If Madrid had zarzuela then Paris had its opéra comique.
And Adrien Boieldieu, who was a master of this form – which
mixes musical numbers with spoken dialogue – would have
surely applauded Rossini when he deplored the vocal sins of
this young age, with tenors digging deep to discover their
chests. This, despite the fact that the two composers were
competing for the attention of Parisian opera-goers in the
early 19th century.
Boieldieu was writing an unmistakably traditional style of
opera, with charming melodies and elegant vocal lines for
his singers. Audiences around the world rewarded him with
their enthusiasm, making his masterpiece, La dame blanche,
which was premiered at the Opéra-Comique in December
1825, one of the most popular works of the century. By 1874 it
had notched up an incredible 1,500 performances in Paris.
La dame blanche is a Gothic mystery with a libretto
fashioned by the ubiquitous Eugène Scribe from novels by
Walter Scott. Graceful and elegant, ‘Viens, gentille dame’
has always attracted lyric tenors. After much mystification the
tenor gets the girl – the white lady of the title.
In Massenet’s version of Werther, the tenor gets a bullet and
not the girl, Charlotte; but before he takes his own life the
eponymous hero is rewarded with ‘Pourquoi me réveiller?’,
surely one of the finest of all late-19th-century French tenor
arias. For while Massenet’s score may be infected with late
Wagner and the instrumentation distinctly of its time – the
saxophone solo that accompanies Charlotte’s aria ‘Les
larmes qu’on ne pleure pas’ – the vocal style is unmistakably
French and it requires a tenor, whatever his nationality, who
respects and who understands what that tradition asks of a
singer. Verismo sobs have no place here! And it works
because of the intimate nature of this opera: there’s no
chorus and an absence of large-scale orchestral
commentary means the voices have space. The tenor may be
following a vocal path that would have seemed strange and
unnatural to Rossini or Boieldieu or Cimarosa and in a style
that is far removed from zarzuela, but it is still – as it had
been a century earlier – about the power of the human voice
to move us. Singing changes, but the voice is a constant.
Programme note © Christopher Cook
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text
Domenico Cimarosa
Il matrimonio segreto – Pria che spunti in ciel l’aura
Pria che spunti in ciel l’aurora
Cheti, cheti, a lento passo,
Scenderemo fino abbasso
Che nessun ci sentirà.
Before the first light of day appears
Before the first light of day appears,
softly, softly, we shall go down,
slowly creeping,
so that no one hears us.
S` ortiremo pian pianino
Dalla porta del giardino:
Tutta pronta una carrozza
Là da noi si troverà.
Quiet as mice we’ll leave
by the garden gate:
there, a carriage
will be ready and waiting for us.
Chiusi in quella il vetturino
Per schivar qualunque intoppo,
I cavalli di galoppo
Senza posa caccerà.
We’ll hide inside and,
to avoid our discovery,
the coachman will set
the horses to a gallop straightaway.
Da una vecchia mia parente,
buona donna assai pietosa,
Ce ne andremo, cara sposa,
E staremo cheti là.
We shall go, my love,
to the house of my kinswoman,
a kindly old woman,
and stay there without fear.
Come poi s’avrà da fare
Penseremo a mente cheta.
Sposa cara, sta pur lieta,
Che l’amor ne assisterà.
Then we can think clearly
about what is to be done.
My beloved wife, be happy,
for love will aid us.
Pria che spunti in ciel l’aurora
(Cara sposa, senti bene)
Sortiremo piano pianino
dalla porta del giardino, etc.
Sposa cara, sta pur lieta,
Che l’amor ne assisterà.
Before the first light of day appears
(my darling, listen closely),
we’ll leave very quietly
by the garden gate, etc.
My beloved wife, be happy,
for love will aid us.
Giovanni Bertati
Translation © Susannah Howe
8
text
Gioachino Rossini
Péchés de vieillesse, Book 1 – No. 2, La lontananza
Quando sul tuo verone
Fra l’ombre della sera
La flebile canzone
Sciorrà la capinera
Ed una pura stella
Nel suo gentil passaggio
La fronte tua si bella
Rischiarerà d’un raggio,
Quando il ruscel d’argento
Gemere udrai vicino
E sospirar il vento
E sussurrar il pino,
Deh ti rammenta, o sposa,
Che quello è il mio saluto.
Donami allor, pietosa,
Di lagrime un tributo,
E pensa, o Elvira mia,
Che il povero cantor
Per mezzo lor
T’invia sempre più fido il cor, etc.
Sins of Old Age, Book 1 – No. 2, Absence
When on your balcony,
amid the twilight shadows,
the blackcap sings
his fluting song,
and a ray of light
from a bright star above
softly shines down
and illumines your lovely brow,
when you hear nearby
the silvery stream murmur
and the wind sigh
and the pine trees whisper,
ah, remember, beloved wife,
that these are my greetings.
Weep for me then, in pity,
a tribute of tears,
and think, o my Elvira,
that by means of them
this poor singer is sending you
his heart ever more true, etc.
Giuseppe Torre
Translation © Susannah Howe
Péchés de vieillesse, Book 3 – No. 9, Le Sylvain
(Romance)
Belles Nymphes blondes
Des forêts profondes,
Des moissons fêcondes,
Et des vertes ondes,
Vous fuyez le Sylvain
Qui vous appelle en vain.
L’heure est solitaire,
Tout semble se taire;
L’ombre et le mystère
Règnent sur la terre.
Sois moins cruel, moins cruel,
Sins of Old Age, Book 3 – No. 9, The Sylvan
(Romance)
Fair and beautiful Nymphs
of the forest depths,
the fruitful harvests,
and the green waters,
you flee the Sylvan
who calls to you in vain.
The hour is lonely,
all seems to fall silent;
shadow and mystery
reign across the earth.
Be less cruel, less cruel,
Please turn page quietly
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text
Dieu de Cythère,
C’est pour mon coeur,
Pour mon coeur trop de rigueur!
Rêves d’esperance,
Cette indifférence
Qui fait ma souffrance,
Vous bannit désormais.
Ô peine extrême,
Celle que j’aime
N’entend pas même
Mon voeu suprême.
Grands Dieux, non, non, jamais!
Ô peine extrême, non, jamais!
god of Cythera,
such suffering is too much
for my poor heart to bear!
Dreams of hope,
you are henceforth banished
by the indifference
behind my agony.
O deepest sorrow,
the one I love
understands not
my supreme vow.
Dear gods, no, no, never!
O deepest sorrow, no, never!
La laideur sauvage
De mon noir visage
Semble faire outrage
À l’Amour volage...
Adonis! Ta beauté
Pour ma divinité!
Que la pâle Aurore
Dise aux fleurs d’éclore,
Que Phoebe colore
Le vallon sonore.
Seul, le Sylvain, le Sylvain supplie,
Implore et nuit et jour,
Nuit et jour languit d’amour.
Nymphes immortelles,
À Vénus rebelles,
Pourquoi donc, cruelles,
Me percer de vos traits?
Ô peine extrême,
Celle que j’aime
N’entend pas même
Mon voeu suprême.
Grands Dieux, non, non, jamais!
Ô peine extrême,
Non, non, jamais!
So hideous are
my dark features
they seem an insult
to fickle Cupid…
Adonis! Your beauty
for my divinity!
Let pale Aurora
tell the flowers to bloom,
let Phoebus gild
the sonorous valley.
Alone, the Sylvan, the Sylvan begs,
implores, and night and day,
night and day, he languishes with love.
Immortal Nymphs,
you do not obey Venus,
why, then, cruel ones,
pierce me with your beauty?
O deepest sorrow,
the one I love
understands not
my supreme vow.
Dear gods, no, no, never!
O deepest sorrow,
no, no, never!
Émilien Pacini
Translation © Susannah Howe
10
text
Soirées musicales – No. 4, L’orgia
Amiamo, cantiamo
Le donne e il liquor,
Gradita è la vita
Fra Bacco ed Amor.
The Orgy
Let us love, let us sing
women and liquor,
life is a pleasure
with Bacchus and Cupid.
Se Amore ho nel core,
Ho il vin nella testa,
Che gioia, che festa,
Che amabile ardor.
If I’ve love in my heart,
I’ve wine in my head,
what joy, what delight,
what sweet ardour.
Amando, scherzando,
Trincando liquor,
M’avvampo, mi scampo
Da noie e dolor.
Loving, joking
quaffing liquor,
I’m ablaze, I escape
boredom and pain.
Cantiam, gradita è la vita
Fra Bacco ed Amor.
Let us sing, life is a pleasure
with Bacchus and Cupid.
Danziamo, cantiamo,
Alziamo il bicchier,
Ridiam, sfidiam
I tristi pensier!
Let us dance, let us sing,
Let’s lift our glasses,
let us smile, let us defy
all sad thoughts!
Regina divina,
La madre d’Amor,
Giuliva rinnova,
Rinnova ogni cor.
Divine queen,
mother of Cupid,
make all hearts
happy again.
Balzante, spumante
Con vivo bollor,
E il vino divino
Del mondo signor.
Leaping, sparkling
with effervescence,
divine wine
is the lord of life.
Già ballo, traballo,
Che odor, che vapor,
Si beva, ribeva
Con sacro furor.
Already I dance, stagger,
what a bouquet and haze,
one drinks, and drinks again
with sacred fervour.
Please turn page quietly
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text
Cantiam, la vita è compita
Fra Bacco ed Amor.
Let us sing, life is fulfilled
with Bacchus and Cupid.
Evviva, evviva,
Le donne e il liquor,
La vita è compita
Fra Bacco ed Amor.
Long live, long live
women and liquor,
life is fulfilled
with Bacchus and Cupid.
Carlo Pepoli
Translation by Ronald Smithers © Hyperion Records
Otello – Che ascolto! ahimè! che dici!
Che ascolto! ahimè! che dici!
Ah come mai non senti
pietà de’ miei tormenti,
Del mio tradito amor?
Perché pietà, oh Dio, non senti
Del mio tradito amor?
Ma se costante sei
Nel tuo rigor crudele,
Se sprezzi i prieghi miei,
Saprò con questo braccio
Punire il traditor.
What do I hear? Alas! What are you saying!
What do I hear? Alas! What are you saying!
Ah, how can you not feel
pity for my sufferingly,
for my betrayed love?
Why, oh God, do you not feel pity
for my betrayed love?
But if you continue to stand firm
in your cruel severity,
if you scorn my prayers,
with my very own hand
I shall know how to punish the betrayer.
Francesco Berio di Salsa
Translation © Decca Music Group Limited
INTERVAL
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text
José Serrano
¡Ajaaaaaa!
Aqui está quien lo tiene tó
Y no quiere ná.
The Pride of the Batallion – With the king of the
Moors himself
Aha!
Here’s a man who has got everything
and wants for nothing.
¡Ojooooo!
El mismo rey del moro
No me cambiaría yo.
Que no tengo ná
Y lo tengo tó.
Con lo que guardo aquí
Pa’ mi morena, nena, nena,
Que no importa que haya penas
Si no hay pena para mí.
Oho!
With the king of the Moors himself
I wouldn’t change places.
I don’t have anything
but I have everything.
With what I have here
for my dark-eyed beauty,
all the pains in the world
hold no pain for me.
¡Lalaa lalalalala larala laralaa!
Mi amigo rey del moro
No le envidiaría yo
Que no tengo ná
Y lo tengo tó.
Lalaa lalalalala larala laralaa!
My friend the king of the Moors
I don’t envy him
for I don’t have anything
but I have everything.
Ni el tronío del cañón
Y de la noche el callar
Hacen perder la alegría
Del alma mía
Siempre, siempre tendrá.
Que el que nada ha de perder
Y sin nada tiene tó
Desde que el sol se levanta
Anda que canta
Sin dar tregua a su garganta
Pasa el día como yo.
Neither the thunder of the cannon
nor the silence of night
can make me lose the joy
in my soul
which I’ll always, always have.
For he who has nothing to lose
and with nothing has everything,
as soon as the sun rises,
sings as he goes
without giving his throat a rest
and spends his the day like me.
La alegría del batallón – El mismo rey del moro
Please turn page quietly
13
text
¡Lalaa lalalalala larala laralaa!
Mi amigo rey del moro
No le envidiaría yo
Que no tengo ná
Y lo tengo tó.
Lalaa lalalalala larala laralaa!
My friend the king of the Moors
I don’t envy him
for I don’t have anything
but I have everything.
Ay nena
Sólo no ver tu carita
De beber los celos
Sólo por no verte muero.
¡Ajaaaaa!
Ay my love,
simply not seeing your dear face
is to drink jealousy
simply not seeing you I’m dying.
Aha!
Carlos Arniches and Félix Quintana
Agustín Pérez Soriano
El guitarrico – Suena, guitarrico mio
Suena, guitarrico mío
Y no te importe que el viento
Vaya barriendo tus quejas.
Como el viento es para todos
Puede tropezar con ella.
The Little Guitar – Play, my little guitar
Play, my little guitar,
and don't worry if the wind
blows your plea away.
As the wind is for everyone
it may still light upon her.
Dila si la ves cruzar,
Dila pero muy bajito,
Dila que estoy medio loco,
Dila que loco perdido,
Dila que la Inquisición,
Dila que era un gran tormento
Pero que aquello no es nada
Para lo que estoy sufriendo,
Dila muchas cosas,
Dila que la quiero,
Dila que no vivo,
Dila que me muero,
Dila que me mire
Siquiera un poquito,
Dila que se apiade
De este tu baturrico.
Suena, guitarrico mío.
Tell her if you see her pass,
Tell her though very softly,
Tell her I am half out of my mind,
Tell her I've lost my mind,
Tell her the Inquisition,
Tell her it was great torture
but that it is nothing
to what I am suffering,
Tell her everything,
Tell her I love her,
Tell her I cannot live,
Tell her I’m dying,
Tell her to glance at me,
if only for a moment,
Tell her to take pity
on this little simpleton.
Play, my little guitar.
14
text
Dila que mi corazón,
Dila que lo estoy buscando,
Dila que en ella lo puse,
Dila que donde lo ha echado,
Dila que calme mi amor,
Dila que escuche mis quejas,
Dila que me estoy muriendo,
Y quiero vivir para ella.
Dila muchas cosas, etc.
Tell her that my heart,
Tell her I am looking for it,
Tell her I gave it to her,
Tell her I ask where she’s thrown it,
Tell her to satisfy my love,
Tell her to listen to my pleas,
Tell her I am dying,
and I want to live for her.
Tell her everything, etc.
Calla, guitarrico mio.
Stop, my little guitar.
Augustín Pérez Soriano
Rafael Calleja & Tomás Barrera
Emigrantes – Adiós Granada, Granada mía
Adiós Granada, Granada mía,
Yo no volveré a verte
Más en la vía.
¡Ay, me de pena!
Vivir lejos da tu vega
Y del sitio onde reposa
El cuerpo de mi morena.
The Emigrants – Farewell Granada, my Granada
Farewell Granada, my Granada,
I’ll never return to see you
again in my life.
Ay, what pain!
to live far from your plain
and from the place where rests
the body of my darling.
Dobla campana, campana dobla,
Que tu triste sonido
Me traen las olas.
Que horas tan negras!
En la cajita la veo
Y la nieve de sus labios
Aún en los míos la siento.
Dobla, dobla campana.
Toll, bell; bell, toll,
as your sad sound
drifts across the waves to me.
what dark hours!
I still see her in her coffin,
and feel the cold whiteness
of her lips on mine.
Toll, toll, bell.
Pablo Cases
Please turn page quietly
15
text
Amadeo Vives
Doña Francisquita – Por el humo
Por el humo se sabe dónde está el fuego;
Del humo del cariño nacen los celos:
Son mosquitos que vuelan
Junto al que duerme
Y zumbando le obligan a que despierte.
Doña Francisquita – By smoke
By smoke we know where the fire is,
from the smoke of love, jealousies are born.
They are mosquitoes which fly
over those who sleep,
and, buzzing, force them to wake.
¡Si yo lograra, de verdad para siempre,
Dormir el alma!
Y, en la celdilla del amor aquel,
Borrar el vértigo de aquella mujer.
If only I could enjoy truly, forever,
calm in my heart!
And in the haven of this love,
Erase my mad passion for that other woman.
Por una puerta del alma va saliendo
La imagen muerta.
Por otra puerta llama la imagen que podría
Curarme el alma.
Se me entra por los ojos y a veces sueño
Que ya la adoro.
Cariño de mi alma recién nacido,
La llama extingue, ¡ay! de aquel cariño.
Through one door of the soul
the dying image exits.
At the other door an image beckons
that could cure my spirit.
It enters through my eyes and sometimes
I dream that I really adore her.
Darling of my soul, newly born,
extinguish the flame of that other love.
¡Vana ilusión!
Vain hope!
En amores no vale matar la llama,
Si en las cenizas muertas, queda la brasa.
El amor se aletarga con los desdenes
Y parece dormido, pero no duerme.
In love it is no good to douse the flame,
if in the dead ashes the embers remain.
Love grows drowsy with slights,
and seems sleepy, but isn’t sleeping.
¡Ay, quién lograra de verdad para siempre
Dormir el alma!
Y, en la celdilla del amor aquel,
Borrar el vértigo de aquella mujer fatal.
¡Ah! fatal.
Ah, if only I could enjoy truly, forever,
calm in my heart!
And in the haven of this love,
Erase my mad passion for that other
fatal woman. Ah, fatal!
Federico Romero and Guillermo Fernández Shaw
All zarzuela texts and translations © Christopher Webber,
zarzuela.net
16
text
Jules Massenet
Werther – Pourquoi me réveiller?
Pourquoi me réveiller, ô souffle du printemps?
Sur mon front je sens tes caresses,
Et pourtant bien proche est le temps
Des orages et des tristesses!
Pourquoi me réveiller, etc.
Why awaken me?
Why awaken me, O breath of springtime?
On my forehead I feel your caresses,
and yet very near is the time
of storms and sadness!
Why awaken me, etc.
Demain, dans le vallon, viendra le voyageur,
Se souvenant de ma gloire première,
Et ses yeux vainement chercheront ma splendeur:
Ils ne trouveront plus que deuil et que misère!
Hélas! Pourquoi me réveiller, etc.
Tomorrow, in the valley, the traveller will arrive
remembering my earlier glory,
and his eyes will look in vain for my splendour:
they will no longer find anything but mourning and
wretchedness!
Alas! Why awaken me, etc.
Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet & Georges Hartmann, after Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
Translation © Roger Nichols, from French Operatic Arias
for Tenor
Adrien Boïeldieu
La dame blanche – Viens, gentille dame
Viens, gentille dame,
De toi je réclame
La foi des serments.
À tes lois fidèle,
Me voici, ma belle,
Parais, je t’attends.
Come, kind lady
Come, kind lady,
I beg you to confirm
what I have heard of you.
O lovely one, faithful to your commands
I am here; appear,
I am waiting for you.
Que ce lieu solitaire
Et que ce doux mystère
Ont de charmes pour moi!
Oui, je sens qu’à ta vue
L’âme doit être émue,
Mais ce n’est pas d’effroi,
Non, non …
Viens, gentille dame, etc.
What charms there are for me
in this lonely place
and this sweet mystery!
Yes, I feel that at the sight of you
the soul should be moved,
but not with fear,
no, no …
Come, kind lady etc.
Please turn page quietly
17
text
Déjà la nuit plus sombre
Sur nous répand son ombre,
Qu’elle tarde à venir!
Dans mon impatience
Le coeur me bat d’avance
D’attente et de plaisir.
Viens, gentille dame, etc.
Already dark night
is casting its shadows on us.
How slow it is in coming!
In my impatience
my heart is already beating
with expectation and pleasure.
Come, kind lady etc.
Eugène Scribe, after Walter Scott
Translation © Roger Nichols, from French Operatic Arias
for Tenor
18
about the performers
Decca Music Group Limited
About tonight’s performers
Juan Diego Flórez tenor
The Peruvian-born tenor Juan Diego
Flórez studied in Lima and at the Curtis
Institute in Philadelphia. He made an
acclaimed operatic debut in Matilde di
Shabran at the 1996 Rossini Opera
Festival in Pesaro. His repertory centres
around the operas of Rossini, Bellini,
Donizetti and Verdi but also includes
Gluck’s Armide and Nino Rota’s The
Italian Straw Hat.
Among the renowned conductors with
whom he has worked are Roberto
Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-
Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir
John Eliot Gardiner, Daniele Gatti,
Gianluigi Gelmetti, James Levine,
Jesús López-Cobos, Sir Neville
Marriner, Riccardo Muti, Antonio
Pappano, Carlo Rizzi, Christophe
Rousset, Marcello Viotti and Alberto
Zedda.
Opera, Madrid’s Teatro Real, Gran
Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, and the
Zurich Opera House, and at the
Salzburg and Montpellier festivals,
among others. He has also sung in
Moscow, Tokyo, Warsaw, Caracas,
Lisbon, São Paulo, St Petersburg,
Toulouse, Nice, Lyon and Hamburg.
He has made acclaimed appearances
in opera houses throughout Italy and
around the world, including La Scala,
Milan, the Teatro Comunale in
Florence, the Carlo Felice Opera
Theatre in Genoa, Teatro Regio, Turin,
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
in Rome, Teatro Comunale of Bologna,
Teatro Filarmonico in Verona and
Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.
Future engagements include
appearances at La Scala, the
Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera
House, the Vienna Staatsoper, the
Teatro Real in Madrid, the Rossini
Opera Festival in Pesaro, Opéra de
Paris, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the
Liceu in Barcelona and in Japan.
Outside Italy he has sung at the
Metropolitan Opera House, New
York, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San
Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera,
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden,
Vienna Staatsoper, Opéra de Paris,
Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State
Since 2001 Juan Diego Flórez has
recorded exclusively for Decca, and his
discography includes a number of
award-winning recital discs.
In addition to many prizes and
accolades, he has received the Orden
del Sol from the Peruvian Government.
19
about the performers
He continued his studies in Italy and, in
1980, joined the musical staff of
Milan’s Teatro alla Scala as coach and
pianist, assisting conductors Claudio
Abbado, Riccardo Chailly,
Gianandrea Gavazzeni and Carlos
Kleiber, among others.
Vincenzo Scalera piano
Vincenzo Scalera was born in New
Jersey, USA, of Italian-American
parents and began piano lessons at
the age of five. After graduating from
the Manhattan School of Music he
worked as assistant conductor with the
New Jersey State Opera.
He has performed at many major
festivals, including the Edinburgh,
Martina Franca, Jerusalem, Istanbul,
Chorégies d’Orange, Carinthian
Summer, Salzburg and Rossini Opera
Festival in Pesaro.
He has accompanied many celebrated
singers, including Carlo Bergonzi,
Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras,
Leyla Gencer, Sumi Jo, Raina
Kabaivanska, Katia Ricciarelli, Juan
Diego Flórez, Maria Guleghina,
Programme produced by Harriet Smith; printed by Sharp Print Limited;
advertising by Cabbell (tel. 020 8971 8450)
Please make sure that all digital watch alarms and mobile phones are switched off during the
performance. In accordance with the requirements of the licensing authority, sitting or standing
in any gangway is not permitted. Smoking is not permitted anywhere on the Barbican premises.
No eating or drinking is allowed in the auditorium. No cameras, tape recorders or any other
recording equipment may be taken into the hall.
20
Renata Scotto, Cesare Siepi, Lucia
Valentini Terrani and Leontina Vaduva.
Vincenzo Scalera’s discography
includes many vocal recitals, including
albums with Sumi Jo, José Carreras
and Carlo Bergonzi. As a
harpsichordist he has recorded the
soundtrack of the video of Rossini’s La
Cenerentola under the direction of
Claudio Abbado, and the world
premiere recording of Rossini’s Il
viaggio a Reims, also with Abbado.
He has been on the staff of the Renato
Scotto Opera Academy in Savona,
Italy, has taught accompaniment
classes and is currently on the staff of
the Accademia d’Arti e Mestieri of the
Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Administration 020 7638 4141
Box Office 020 7638 8891
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Information Hotline 0845 120 7505
www.barbican.org.uk