Wednesday 17 December 2008 at 7.30pm
Soirée Rossiniana
Cecilia Bartoli mezzo-soprano
Sergio Ciomei piano
Rossini
La regata veneziana
Bellini
L’Abbandono
Il fervido desiderio
Vaga luna
La Farfalletta
Donizetti
Il barcaiolo
Amore e morte
La conocchia
Me voglio fà ‘na casa
Rossini
Ariette à l’ancienne
L’Orpheline du Tyrol
La grande coquette
Bellini
Dolente immagine
Malinconia, ninfa gentile
Ma rendi pur contento
Rossini
Or che di fiori adorno
Viardot
Havanaise
Hai luli!
García
Yo que soy contrabandista
Malibran
Rataplan
Rossini
Beltà crudele
Canzonetta spagnuola
La danza
Please restrict applause to the end of each group of songs.
INTERVAL 20 minutes
Barbican Hall
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The first part of the concert lasts approximately 45 minutes,
the second part approximately 35 minutes. The
performance will end at approximately 9.00pm.
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Barbican Committee
Chairman
Jeremy Mayhew MBA
Deputy Chairman
John Barker OBE
Committee Members
Christine Cohen OBE
Andrew Parmley
Maureen Kellett
Lesley King Lewis
Catherine McGuiness
Joyce Nash OBE
Barbara Newman CBE
John Owen Ward
John Robins
Keith Salway
John Tomlinson
Clerk to the Committee
Stuart Pick
Barbican Directorate
Managing Director
Sir Nicholas Kenyon
Artistic Director
Graham Sheffield
2
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Mark Taylor
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Ali Ribchester
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Leonora Thomson
Barbican Music
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Robert van Leer
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Vicky Cheetham
Music Programmers
Gijs Elsen
Bryn Ormrod
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Chris Sharp
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Angela Dixon
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Katy Morrison
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Jasja van Andel
Ingo Reinhardt
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Maurice Adamson
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Sean McDill
Martin Shaw
Tom Shipman
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Elizabeth Burgess
Stage Managers
Christopher Alderton
Julie-Anne Bolton
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Paul Harcourt
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Andy Clarke
Hannah Wye
Stage Assistants
Ademola Akisanya
Michael Casey
Trevor Davison
Martin Thompson
Robert Rea
Danny Harcourt
Technical and Stage
Coordinator
Colette Chilton
Notes
Soirée Rossiniana
Cecilia Bartoli mezzo-soprano
Sergio Ciomei piano
There’s a popular view that once Gioachino Rossini had
demonstrated his mastery of Parisian grand opera with
the first performances of William Tell in August 1829, and
had been all but promised a French State pension, that
was it. The most famous composer of the age retired
from professional musical life to eat to excess, to enjoy
abundant ill-health and to marry his Parisian mistress
Olympe Pélissier. It’s true, says this version of Rossini’s
biography, that the promise of a diamond-encrusted
snuff-box and the machinations of an unscrupulous
publisher coaxed a setting of the Stabat mater from the
composer, while the prospect of eternity may have
encouraged him to write that late masterpiece, the Petite
messe solennelle, but for the remaining three decades of
his life after William Tell had first rocked musical Paris, the
maestro forsook serious composition.
In a celebrated interview with Wagner, who was in Paris
to prepare Tannhäuser for the Opéra, Rossini told the
younger composer that he was bone tired after writing
operas at breakneck speed for 17 years. (Some 40
operas if you include reworkings and alternative
versions.) He also deplored contemporary standards of
singing and mourned the disappearance of the castrato.
Rossini might have added that a wise artist always senses
when he is out of step with the times, and Europe was
riding on a flood tide of Romanticism, while he was very
much an Enlightenment realist. Cynical even. And
certainly not afraid to deploy a mordant wit. Of
Wagner’s music he is supposed to have said that it had
some good moments, but some bad quarter-hours.
So what of the Soirées musicales and sets of Péchés de
vieillesse, those collections of songs that become ever
darker as Rossini grows older? The traditional view is that
they are mere salon music – slight pieces written to divert
the guests the composer and his new wife invited to their
celebrated Samedi Soirs. Most notably at the apartment
on the corner of the rue de la Chausée d’Antin and the
boulevard des Italiens, where the composer made his
Parisian home after he and Olympe had bid a final
farewell to an Italy – and Bologna in particular – that
pleased them no longer. And where the composer had
also buried his first wife, the singer Isabella Colbran.
These songs are, however, anything but occasional.
Some may be slighter than others and some appear to
be little more than compositional callisthenics, but
alongside the songs that bubble with irresistible
inconsequentiality are those that bury themselves deep in
the shadows. But they all belong to a distinct musical
tradition and to a particular cultural moment. The
tradition is about Italian song, with its emphasis on words
first and music – above all, melody – second. Bellini and
Donizetti, who also feature in Cecilia Bartoli’s Soirée
Musicale alongside their older contemporary Rossini, are
deft exponents of this particular art. The cultural moment
is the creation of the French 19th-century salon.
The musical salon, a place for eager amateurs and, if
you were sufficiently rich or famous, a venue to show off
press-ganged professionals, is one of 19th-century
society’s principal leitmotifs. There’s a picture in the
Manchester City Art Galleries painted in 1875 by James
3
Notes
Tissot called Hush. In the middle of a very grand room,
crowned with an imperial chandelier, a young woman is
poised to play her violin. A sizeable audience has
already taken its place, crowding down the stairs too, in
the hall beyond. The pianist sits ready. But the guests are
still talking, while in the foreground a couple of wellupholstered women – fans to the ready – even have their
backs to the musicians. And is that the hostess, or perhaps
the girl’s mother, who leans forward, ready to hang on
every note once a hush has descended on the salon? But
will it? Over a hundred years later that hapless violinist is
still waiting for the chit-chat to recede. She would have
done well to recall Algernon’s remark in The Importance
of Being Earnest when his aunt, Lady Bracknell,
announces her forthcoming musical soirée. ‘… if one
plays good music, people don’t listen, and if one plays
bad music, people don’t talk.’
Rossini and Olympe Pélissier didn’t invent the musical
soirée, but when they moved to Paris for good in 1855
they set a pattern for such social gatherings, building on
the tradition that the composer had established when he
first lived there three decades earlier. Everyone who
thought themselves to be anyone hoped to be on the
guest list. Verdi, Boito, Auber, Meyerbeer, Gounod,
Saint-Säens and Liszt (who was regularly persuaded to
play), all made their way on a Saturday night to the
second-floor apartment on the corner of the rue de la
Chausée d’Antin. Delacroix was invited and Gustave
Doré, who possessed a fine voice as well as prodigious
gifts as an engraver and illustrator, was a regular too.
Anton Rubinstein and Pablo de Sarasate and the dancer
Marie Taglioni all came to pay homage to the Rossinis –
4
and enjoy themselves too.
As they arrived, guests were required to hand in their
engraved invitations. Once through the vestibule they
would be received by Olympe in the salon itself. There
was food, but never as lavish as might have been
expected from a host who lived to eat and a hostess who
wrote to a friend from Italy that she scarcely left the
dining table. And some sources say that only a chosen
few were actually fed at all. Quite simply the choicest
delicacies on the menu were music and conversation,
which often meant gossip. While Olympe queened it over
the salon proper, Rossini presided in a smaller room
where guests gathered to relish his wit and perhaps his
obscenities too. And then there was the music, all
performed to the highest standards and supervised by
the host himself.
These were the occasions for which Rossini wrote the
music later published as Péchés de vieillesse, a worthy
successor to the Soirées musicales. And the semi-public
nature of the first performances of this music is a
reminder that conventional divisions between music for
public and private occasions, between serious and
occasional music, and indeed between amateur and
professional, belong to our own time rather than the 19th
century. On first seeing Tissot’s painting Hush we have no
way of knowing whether the violinist is the daughter of
the house or a trained musician hired to entertain the
guests. The line between a well-appointed drawing room
and a recital room begins to fade and we have no idea
what they are going to play a Paganini Caprice or Home
Sweet Home.
Notes
We know that the three canzonettas in Venetian dialect
that are grouped together as La regata veneziana were
given their first performance at one of Rossini’s Samedi
Soirs. They were probably written in the late 1850s, with
1858 being the most likely date, and subsequently
published in Volume 1 of the Péchés de vieillesse.
Anzoleta – Angelina – is of course a mezzo-soprano, the
composer’s favourite vocal type and she’s just as
determined to get her man as that other iron-willed
heroine, Rosina, in The Barber of Seville. In ‘Anzoleta
avanti la regata’, Angelina urges her young gondolier
Momolo to win the race and to bring her the prize flag.
Then in ‘Anzoleta co passa la regata’ Momolo pulls
away into first place when he sees Angelina glittering in
the crowd. And his prize, when the race is won in the final
song, ‘Anzoleta dopo la regata’? A kiss, as all Venice
talks about the boy who won the red flag.
At the beginning of the 19th century there were
compelling reasons for an ambitious Italian composer to
write songs. Musical status could only really be achieved
in the opera house, and Italian opera was built on
melodic song. What Rossini in his old age deplored most
about the new generation of opera composers was the
absence of melody in their work, and melody, always at
the service of the words and not the other way round,
was the essence of the bel canto tradition.
There were practical considerations too: simple songs
quickly written were a ready source of income as the
public appetite for published music grew ever greater
through the 19th century: the bourgeois 19th century with
a chicken in every pot and a piano in every parlour. As
Julian Budden has written of Bellini’s songs, ‘There is
nothing here of the German Lied. The poems are
conventional; the accompaniments never exploit the
possibilities of the keyboard in the manner of Schubert or
Schumann … certainly the operatic world is rarely far
away.’ Nor is there anything here, or in the songs of
Donzetti, that approaches the sophistication of the
French mélodie. In this respect Lady Bracknell wasn’t far
short of the mark when she was planning the programme
for her proposed musical soirée. ‘French songs I can’t
possibly allow. People always seem to think that they are
improper, and either look shocked, which is vulgar, or
laugh, which is worse.’
In defence of the seeming simplicity of these Italian songs
you could also argue that they are easy enough to be
performed by the gifted amateur and equally rewarding
for the professional artist. And let’s not forget that what
has come to be a pretty fixed boundary between those
who make music for a living and those perform for
pleasure was a great deal more fluid 150 years ago.
Bellini wrote L’Abbandono in Paris in 1835 at the end of
his absurdly short life. Julian Budden suggests that it is a
sketch for his unfinished opera Ernani, with a libretto
based on Victor Hugo’s play Hernani, now remembered
mainly for the riot at its first performance just five years
earlier. If the introduction to L’Abbandono suggests
Chopin’s First Ballade, then that is a reminder that these
two composers were closer than many critics will allow.
Il fervido desiderio, which is all about lovers who can’t
wait, was composed for the Countess Sofia Voina before
Bellini left for Paris and is an elegant piece of musical
flattery for an aristocrat’s personal album. Vaga luna,
which was also written before Bellini left Milan in search
5
Notes
of greater fame and fortune in France, turns a rather
conventional poem about the silvery moon into one of
those unmistakable Belliniesque musical meditations,
with each verse barely moving between intervals. La
Farfalletta is said to have been written when the
composer was barely 12 years old, for a puppet show to
be staged by the incipient composer’s playmates.
Dolente immagine, suffused with that particularly
Bellinian melodic melancholy, dates from 1821 when the
composer was at the Naples Academy, and sets a text by
Maddalena Fumaroli, a pupil with whom the composer
is supposed to have been in love, despite the strong
disapproval of the girl’s parents. If that is the case, why is
it dedicated to another woman, Nicola Taura? By the
time that he reached Milan and scored a palpable hit
with Il pirata at La Scala, Bellini’s songs had found a
willing publisher. Malinconia, ninfa gentile was issued by
Ricordi in 1829 as the first of Sei ariette. Ma rendi pur
contento is the sixth and last of these elegant songs
complete with one of those long-limbed melodies that
only Bellini can spin.
No Italian composer visited Paris without calling on
Rossini. In Paris ‘he is the musical oracle’, Bellini told a
friend. The older composer had influence and friends in
the right places and he worked hard on behalf of his
musical compatriots, relishing Bellini’s success with
I puritani in 1835, though warning the younger man not
to be seduced by ‘German’ harmonies. Alas, there was
little chance of that. By September of the same year
Bellini was dead, a full 20 years before the Rossini and
Olympe moved into the rue de la Chausée d’Antin.
6
The music played there on Saturday nights and when
Rossini had first come to Paris in the 1820s could be
earnest or playful, reflecting the composer’s own
temperament. (A modern diagnosis might be mild manic
depression, though when gloom dug its claws into the
composer’s shoulder it took a lot of shifting). Rossini’s
earliest songs, which were written in Italy when he was a
young man in a hurry to reinvent Italian opera, are
altogether more light-hearted. Or che di fiori adorno is
positively playful, a walk in the country, complete with
bird calls in the piano part to make the listener smile.
Beltà crudele was written in 1821 when Rossini was in
charge of the San Carlo opera house in Naples. The
composer grew so attached to the melody for the song
that he used it twice more. Canzonetta spagnuola also
dates from Rossini’s Neapolitan years, with its Spanish
tinges doffing a musical cap towards the profound
Spanish influence that permeates that city’s history. We’re
back in Italy for La danza, a tarantella that scarcely
pauses for breath
At the beginning of the 19th century it was customary for
publishers to issue ariette and canzonette by the halfdozen, complete with fanciful titles. Writing in 1837 to his
brother-in-law Antonio Vaselli, Gaetano Donizetti makes
light of this kind of songwriting, mostly intended for the
salon. ‘I shall have to write 12 canzonette as usual, to get
20 ducats for each, something that in past times I used to
do while the rice was cooking.’ But the proof of the song
is in the hearing and Donizetti usually cooks up a pretty
toothsome vocal risotto. Be wary of taking the composer
at his written word, says Julian Budden, these songs
‘display a freshness of melodic invention, neat
Notes
craftsmanship and, above all, that inexhaustible formal
resource that marks the best of his operas’.
INTERVAL 20 minutes
Il barcaiolo is both melodically inventive and neatly
crafted, with plenty of vocal business at the start and a
soft ending to the song that allows the singer to display
the full range of her voice. Amore e morte, in which you
can literally feel the chill of autumn, was published in a
collection of three songs entitled Soirées d’automne à
l’Infrascati. L’Infrascati is close to Naples and there’s an
extrovert Neapolitan feel to many of Donizetti’s songs,
reflecting the years that he spent in that city. La conocchia
and Me voglio fà ‘na casa were both published in 1837
as Canzone napoletana, using traditional texts in local
dialect.
vicomtesse – or singer either, perhaps – would have been
seen there. They, too, had their Samedi Soirs. Pauline
Viardot, who had made her operatic debut in 1839, as
Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello in London, presided over
a music salon in the Boulevard Saint-Germain after she’d
retired from the stage. She composed operettas, an
opera based on the Cinderella story and over 100 songs.
Given that Viardot was born a García – one of the great
Spanish opera families of the 19th century – perhaps her
Havanaise can be said to have a more genuine Spanish
lilt than many similar French musical excursions across the
Pyrenees. And the faster second section of the song
certainly keeps the singer on her toes. There’s a stylish
sense of regret in Hai luli!, with piano keeping a tactful
distance from a woman abandoned by her lover.
Vincente García was father of both Pauline Viardot and
Maria Malibran – that other great 19th-century singer.
García created the role of Count Almaviva in The Barber
And so to three more ‘Sins of Old Age’. Sins that can
make you smile too. Ariette à l’ancienne is from the third of Seville in Rome in 1816, while Malibran was also a
volume of Péchés de vieillesse, and is an elegant exercise notable Rossini exponent, singing in Otello, Il turco in
Italia and La Cenerentola. Malibran also created the
in style with a text by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In
L’Orpheline du Tyrol, which is described as a ballade
lead role in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda and Bellini wrote a
élégie, the hapless orphan of the title is to be heard
new version of his last masterpiece, I puritani, for her. So
yodelling. A joke at the expense of Rossini’s William Tell? songs by father and daughter – García’s Yo que soy
La grande coquette is from the second book of the sins, a contrabandista, and Malibran’s Rataplan – bring us full
storm of a song in which the magnetic allure of the
circle in a programme that has abandoned the opera
coquette ‘even made Pompadour tremble’.
house for the salon, bidding farewell to William Tell to
embrace the sins of old age that were so elegantly
Women as well as men had their salons in 19th-century
performed in that second-floor apartment in the rue de
Paris. In the demi-monde the ‘grands horizontales’
la Chausée d’Antin where the very last of Rossini’s
entertained their men friends with music and dancing
Samedi Soirs took place on the 26 Sept 1868.
and conversation. Look no further than Violetta’s party at
the beginning of Verdi’s La traviata or Flora’s rout in the
Programme note © Christopher Cook
Second Act. Of course no respectable duchesse or
7
Texts and translations
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)
La regata veneziana
Three songs in Venetian dialect
1 Anzoleta avanti la regata
La su la machina xe la bandiera,
varda, la vedistu, vala a ciapar.
Co quela tornime in qua sta sera,
o pur a sconderte ti pol andar.
1 Angelina before the race
Over there the flag is flying,
look, you can see it, now go for it.
Bring it back to me this evening
or run away and hide.
In pope, Momolo, no te incantar.
Va voga d’anema la gondoleta,
né el primo premio te pol mancar.
Va là, recordite la to Anzoleta
che da sto pergolo te sta a vardar.
Once in the boat, Momolo, don’t start gawping!
Row the gondola with heart and soul,
then you cannot help being first.
Go on, think of your Angelina
watching you from this arbour.
In pope, Momolo, no te ineantar.
In pope, Momolo, cori a svolar!
Once in the boat, Momolo, don’t start gawping!
Once in the boat, Momolo, go with the wind!
2 Anzoleta co passa la regata
I xe qua, i xe qua, vardeli, vardeli,
povereti i ghe da drento,
ah contrario tira el vento,
i gha I’acqua in so favor.
2 Angelina during the race
They’re coming, they’re coming, look at them,
the poor things, they’re nearly all in:
ah, but the wind’s against them,
but the tide’s running their way.
EI mio Momolo dov’elo?
ah lo vedo, el xe secondo.
Ah! che smania! me confondo,
a tremar me sento el cuor.
My Momolo, where is he?
Ah, I see him, in second place.
Ah! The excitement’s too much for me,
my heart’s racing like mad.
Su, coragio, voga, voga,
prima d’esser al paleto
se ti voghi, ghe scometo,
tutti indrio lassarà.
Come on, keep it up, row, row,
you must be first to the finish,
if you keep on rowing, I’ll lay a bet
you’ll leave all the others behind.
Caro, par che el svola,
el Ii magna tuti quanti
meza barca I’è andà avanti,
ah capisso, el m’a vardà.
Dear boy, he’s almost flying,
he’s beating the others hollow,
he’s gone half a length ahead,
ah, now I understand: he’s seen me.
3 Anzoleta dopo la regata
Ciapa un baso, un altro ancora,
cara Momolo, de cuor;
qua destrachite che xe ora
de sugarte sto sudor.
3 Angelina after the race
Here’s a kiss for you, and another,
darling Momolo, from my heart;
now relax, because I must
dry the sweat from your body.
8
Texts and translations
Ah t’o visto co passando
su mi I’ocio ti a butà
e go dito respirando:
un bel premio el ciaparà.
Ah, I saw you, as you passed,
throwing a glance at me,
and I said, breathing again:
he’s going to win a good prize.
Sì, un bel premio in sta bandiera,
che xe rossa de color;
gha parlà Venezia intiera.
la t’a dito vincitor.
Indeed, the prize of this flag,
the red one;
all Venice is talking about you,
they have declared you the victor.
Ciapa un baso, benedeto,
a vogar nissun te pol,
de casada de tragheto
ti xe el megio barcarol.
Here’s a kiss, God bless you,
no one rows better than you,
of all the breed of watermen,
you are the best gondolier.
Vincenzo Bellini (1801–35)
L’Abbandono
Solitario zeffiretto,
a che movi i tuoi sospiri?
Il sospiro a me sol lice,
ché, dolente ed infelice,
chiamo Dafne che non ode
I’insoffribil mio martir.
Abandonment
Lonely little breeze,
why do you sigh?
Sighs are meant for me alone,
for, grieving and unhappy,
I call on Daphnis, who does not hear
my unbearable suffering.
Langue in van la mammoletta
e la rosa el iI gelsomino;
lunge son da lui che adoro,
non conosco alcun ristoro
se non viene a consolarmi
col bel guardo cilestrino.
The violet, rose and jasmine
languish in vain;
I am far from the one I adore,
and have no relief
unless he consoles me
with the gaze of his light blue eyes.
Ape industre, che vagat:do
sempre vai di fior in fiore,
ascolta.
Se lo scorgi ov’ei dimora,
di’ che riedi a chi I’adora
come riedi tu nel seno
delle rose al primo albor.
Industrious bee, always flitting
from flower to flower,
listen.
If you spy him,
tell him to return to the one who adores him,
as you return to the roses
at the first light of dawn.
Il fervido desiderio
Quando verrà quel dì
che riveder potrò
quel che l’amante cor
tanto desia?
The fervent desire
When will that day arrive
when I shall see once more
what my loving heart
so desires?
Please turn page quietly
9
Texts and translations
Quando verrà quel dì
che in sen t’accoglierò,
bella fiamma d’amor,
anima mia?
When will that day arrive
when I shall press you to my breast,
my beautiful loved one,
my beloved?
Vaga luna che inargenti
Vaga luna che inargenti
queste rive e questi fiori,
ed inspiri agli elementi
il linguaggio dell’amor;
testimonio or sei tu sola
del mio fervido desir,
ed a lei che m’innamora
conta i palpiti e i sospir.
Lovely moon, your silver light
Lovely moon, your silver light
shines on these banks and these flowers,
you inspire the elements
to the language of love;
you alone are witness
to my ardent desire,
and tell the one I love
of my beating heart and my sighing.
Dille pur che lontananza
il mio duol non può lenir,
che se nutro una speranza,
ella è sol nell’avvenir.
Dille pur che giorno e sera
conto l’ore del dolor,
che una speme lusinghiera
mi conforta nell’amor.
Tell her that distance
cannot ease my pain,
and that if I cherish one hope
it is for the future alone.
Tell her too that day and night
I count the hours of pain,
and that one tempting hope
comforts me in love.
La farfalletta
Farfalletta, aspetta, aspetta,
non volar con tanta fretta.
Far del mal non ti vogl’io;
ferma appagar il desir mio.
Vo’ baciarti e il cibo darti,
da’ perigli preservarti.
Di cristallo stanza avrai
e tranquilla ognor vivrai.
Little butterfly
Little butterfly, wait, wait,
don’t fly off so quickly.
I don’t mean to harm you,
stop and fulfil my wish.
I want to kiss you and feed you,
and save you from danger.
You shall have a room of crystal
and will always live in peace.
L’ali aurate, screziate
so che Aprile t’ha ingemmate,
che sei vaga, vispa e snella,
fra tue eguali la più bella.
Ma crin d’oro ha il mio tesoro,
il fancuillo ch’amo e adoro.
E a te pari vispo e snello
fra i suo’ eguali egli è il più bello.
I know that April has adorned
your golden, speckled wings,
that you are pretty, lively and graceful,
the most lovely of all your kind.
But my beloved has golden locks,
the lad I love and adore.
And he is as lively and graceful as you,
the most handsome of all his kind.
Vo’ carpirti, ad esso offrirti;
più che rose, gigli e mirti
ti fia caro il mio fanciullo,
I’m going to snatch you and offer you to him;
let my lad be dearer to you
than roses, lilies and myrtles,
10
Texts and translations
ed a lui sarai trastullo.
Nell’aspetto e terso petto
rose, e gigli ha il mio diletto.
Vieni, scampa da’ perigli,
non cercar più rose e gigli.
Anonymous
and you will be his plaything.
My darling has roses and lilies
in the way he looks in his pure heart.
Come, escape from danger
and look no more for roses and lilies.
Dolente immagine di Fille mia
Dolente immagine di Fille mia,
perch´s´ ì squallida mi siedi accanto?
Che più desideri? Dirotto pianto
io sul tuo cenere versai finor.
Sorrowful likeness of my Phyllis
Sorrowful likeness of my Phyllis,
why do you sit at my side so disconsolately?
What more do you desire? I have poured out rivers of
tears on your ashes.
Temi che immemore de’ sacri giuri
io possa accendermi ad altra face?
Ombra di Fillide, riposa in pace,
è inestinguibile l’antico ardor.
Maddalena Fumaroli
Are you afraid that I shall forget my sacred vows?
that I could be inflamed by another?
Shade of Phyllis, rest in peace,
my passion of old will never fail.
Malinconia, ninfa gentile
Malinconia, ninfa gentile,
la vita mia consacro a te;
i tuoi piaceri chi tiene a vile,
ai piacer veri nato non è.
Melancholy, gracious nymph
Melancholy, gracious nymph,
I devote my life to you,
whoever disdains your pleasures
is not born for true pleasures.
Fonti e colline chiesi agli Dei;
m’udiro alfine, pago io vivrò,
né mai quel fonte co’ desir miei,
né mai quel monte trapasserò.
Ippolito Pindemonte
I asked the gods for springs and hills,
they heard me at last, and I shall live content,
I shall never desire to pass beyond
that spring or that mountain.
Ma rendi pur contento
Ma rendi pur contento
della mia bella il core
e ti perdono, Amore,
se lieto il mio non è.
Gli affanni suoi pavento
più degli affanni miei,
perché più vivo in lei
di quel ch’io vivo in me.
Metastasio
Only make happy
Only make happy
the heart of my beautiful lady,
And I will pardon you, love,
If my own heart is not glad.
Her troubles I fear
more than my own troubles,
Because I live more in her
Than I live in myself.
Please turn page quietly
11
Texts and translations
Rossini
Or che di fiori adorno
Or che di fiori adorno
sorride il colle, il prato,
e dolce cosa intorno
girsene a passeggiar.
Placidi ovunque spirano
soavi zeffiretti,
s’odono gli augelletti
fra i rami a gorgheggiar.
Anonymous
Now adorned with flowers
Now adorned with flowers
and hills and meadows smile,
and it is pleasant
to stroll around.
Everywhere tranquil breezes
softly blow,
and in the boughs
the little birds are heard warbling.
Beltà crudele
Amori scendete,
propizi al mio core,
d’un laccio, d’un fiore
deh fatemi don.
Cupids, descend
to assist my heart’s designs;
come, present me with
a ribbon and a rose.
Se Nice m’accoglie,
ridente, vezzosa,
le porgo la rosa,
le dono il mio core.
If Nice should welcome me
with smiles and caresses,
I’ll give her the rose,
I’ll give her my heart.
Se vuol poi l’ingrata
vedermi ramingo …
Che dico? … ah la cingo
col laccio d’amor.
Anonymous
But if the cruel girl prefers
to leave me all alone …
what then? … I’ll bind her to me
with a love-knot.
Canzonetta spagnuola
En medio a mis colores, ay,
pintando estaba un día, ay,
cuando la musa mía, ay,
me vino a tormentar, ay.
Surrounded by my colours
I was painting one day
when my Muse
came to torment me.
Ay, con dolor pues dejo
empresa tan feliz
cual es de bella Nice
las prendas celebrar, ay.
With sadness then I left
my happy task
of celebrating the charms
of the fair Nice.
Quiso que yo pintase, ay,
objeto sobrehumano, ay,
pero lo quiso en vano, ay,
lo tuvo que dejar, ay.
My Muse asked me to depict
a more spiritual subject;
but she asked in vain,
for I could not do so.
12
Texts and translations
Ay, con dolor, etc.
With sadness then I left, etc.
Conoce la hermosura, ay,
un corazón vagado, ay,
mas su destin malvado, ay,
le impide de cantar, ay.
An inconstant heart
may know beauty,
but its cruel destiny
prevents it from singing.
Ay, con dolor, etc.
Anonymous
With sadness then I left, etc.
La danza
Già la luna è in mezzo al mare,
mamma mia, si salterà;
l’ora è bella per danzare,
chi è in amor non mancherà.
The dance
Now the moon is above the sea,
mamma mia, how we’ll leap!
The time is perfect for dancing,
all those in love will be there.
Già la luna è in mezzo al mare,
mamma mia, si salterà.
Presto in danza a tondo a tondo,
donne mie, venite qua;
un garzon bello e giocondo
a ciascuna toccherà.
Carlo Pepoli
Now the moon is above the sea,
mamma mia, how we’ll leap!
Quickly dance in a ring,
my ladies, come here;
every one shall have
a handsome, lively lad.
INTERVAL 20 minutes
Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)
Il barcaiolo
Voga, voga, il vento tace,
pura è l’onda, il ciel sereno,
solo un alito di pace
par che allegri e cielo e mar:
voga, voga, o marinar.
The boatman
Row, row, the wind has stilled,
the waves are clear, the sky serene,
it seems that only a peaceful breeze
stirs the sky and sea:
row, row, o boatman.
Or che tutto a noi sorride
in sì tenero momento,
all’ebbrezza del contento
voglio l’alme abbandonar,
voga, voga, or marinar.
Now that everything smiles on us
at this tender moment,
I wish to abandon our souls
to a joyful ecstasy,
row, row, o boatman.
Voga, voga, il vento tace, etc.
Row, row, the wind has stilled, etc.
Please turn page quietly
13
Texts and translations
Ché se infiera la tempesta,
ambidue ne tragge a morte,
sarà lieta la mia sorte,
al tuo fianco io vuo’ spirar:
voga, voga, o marinar.
L. Tarantini
For if the tempest roars,
and both of us are dragged down to death,
my fate will be a happy one,
for by your side I wish to die:
row, row, o boatman.
Amore e morte
Odi d’un uom che muore,
odi l’estremo suon.
Quest’appassito fiore
ti lascio, Elvira, in don.
Quanto prezioso ei sia
tu déi saperlo appien.
Nel dì che fosti mia
te lo involai dal sen.
Love and death
Hear the last words
of a man who is dying.
I leave you this faded flower,
Elvira, as a gift.
You well know
how precious it is.
On the day that you were mine
I stole it from your breast.
Simboli allor d’affetto
or pegno di dolor.
Torna posarti in petto
questo appassito fior.
E avrai nel cor scolpito,
se duro il cor non è,
come ti fu rapito
come ritorna a te.
G. L. Redaelli
A symbol then of affection,
now a token of grief.
This faded flower returns
to rest in your breast.
And you will have engraved on your heart,
if your heart is not hardened,
how it was stolen from you
and how it returns to you.
La conocchia
Quann’a lo bello mio voglio parlare,
ca spisso me ne vene lu golio,
a la fenesta me mett’a filare,
quann’a lo bello mio voglio parlare.
The distaff
When I want to speak to you my sweetheart,
for I often feel the desire,
I sit at my window and spin,
when I want to speak to my sweetheart.
Quann’isso passa, po’ rompo lo filo
e con ‘na grazia me mett’a priare,
bello, peccarità, proitemillo,
isso lu piglia, e io lo sto a guardare.
E accossì me ne vao’mpilo mpilo a jemmè!
Canzone napoletana
When he comes past, I snap the thread,
and gracefully I ask,
my dear, please hand it back to me,
and as he picks it up, I just gaze after him
And so this longing consumes me, day after day!
Me voglio fà ‘na casa
Me voglio fà ‘na casa miez’ ‘o mare
fravecata de penne de pavune.
Tralla la le la, tra la la la.
I want to build a house
I want to build a house surrounded by sea,
made of peacock feathers.
Tralla la le la, tra la la la.
14
Texts and translations
D’oro e d’argiento li scaline fare
e de prete preziuse li barcune.
Tralla la le la, tra la la la.
I shall make the stairs of gold and silver,
and the balconies of precious stones.
Tralla la le la, tra la la la.
Quanno Nennella mia se va a affacciare
ognuno dice, mo’ sponta lu sole.
Tralla la le la, tra la la la.
Canzone napoletana
When my Nennella leans out
everyone will say, now the sun has come out.
Tralla la le la, tra la la la.
Gioachino Rossini
Ariette à l’ancienne
Que le jour me dure
passé loin de toi!
Toute la nature
n’est plus rien pour moi.
Ariette in the Old Style
How the days seem long,
When I am far from you!
Nature herself
Now means nothing to me.
Le plus vert bocage
quand tu n’y viens pas
n’est qu’un lieu sauvage
pour moi sans appas.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The greenest copse
Without you
Is a mere wilderness
And holds no charm for me.
L’Orpheline du Tyrol
Seule, une pauvre enfant sans parents
implore le passant en tremblant.
‘Ah voyez mes douleurs et mes pleurs!
Ma mère dort ailleurs sous les fleurs.’
The Tyrolean orphan girl
Alone, a poor girl with no parents
Timorously begs from passers-by.
‘Oh, see my pain and my tears!
My mother sleeps, far away, beneath flowers.’
L’humble enfant orpheline a bien faim
et pour un peu de pain tend la main.
‘Je chanterai mon vieux refrain:
Ah, loin de mon doux Tyrol,
mon coeur brisé prendra son vol.
L’écho muet des bois
n’entendra plus ma triste voix:
Ah Dieu, j’espère en toi,
prends pitié, prend pitié de moi!
The humble orphan girl is hungry
And holds out her hand for a little bread.
’I shall sing my old song:
Oh, far from the Tyrol that is dear to me,
My broken heart takes flight.
The silent echo of the woods
Will hear my sad voice no more:
Oh Lord, my hope lies in you,
Have pity, have pity on me!
Ma mère, ton adieu en ce lieu
m’inspire mon seul voeu au bon Dieu.
À quinze ans tant souffrir c’est mourir,
ne peux-tu revenir me bénir?
Pourquoi le froid trépas et le glas
t’ont-ils saisie, hélas, dans mes bras?
Ton coeur glacé ne m’entend pas:
ah! la douleur et la faim
Mother, your farewell from this place
Carries with it my prayer to the Good Lord.
For me, just 15 years old, such suffering is death,
Will you never return to give me your blessing?
Why did the chill of death and the tolling knell
Snatch you, alas, from my arms?
Your frozen heart cannot hear me:
Oh, grief and hunger
Please turn page quietly
15
Texts and translations
à mes tourments vont mettre fin;
ma mère, je te vois,
j’entends de loin ta douce voix:
Ah! Dieu, j’espère en toi,
prends pitié, prends pitié de moi!’
Émilien Pacini
Will soon end my suffering;
Mother, I see you,
In the distance I hear your sweet voice:
Oh Lord, my hope lies in you,
Have pity, have pity on me!’
La grande coquette
La perle des coquettes
ne fait que des conquêtes
dans ses riches toilettes
aux menuets de cour.
Pour moi tournent les têtes,
les coeurs sont pris d’amour,
Et je crois même qu’un beau jour
j’ait fait trembler Pompadour.
T` he great coquette
The most magnificent coquette
conquers all in her path
with her splendid robes
while the minuet plays at court.
For me, heads turn
and hearts are captured.
I believe that one fine day,
I even made Pompadour tremble.
Dans une belle ivresse
plus d’un marquis s’empresse
à m’offrir sa tendresse...
je les dédaigne tous.
En vain chacun m’implore,
me jure qu’il m’adore à genoux.
Je veux que l’on m’admire,
pour moi que l’on soupire;
de l’amour que j’inspire,
de ce brûlant délire
moi je ne sais que rire.
Ma foi! tant pis pour eux!
Malheur aux amoureux!
In the flower of intoxication,
More than one lord hastens
To make love to me,
But I hear none of them.
In vain does each implore me,
Swear on his knees his love for me.
I want to be admired,
and sighed for;
but this love they feel for me,
this burning frenzy,
it just makes me laugh.
Heavens, too bad for them!
Let lovers be miserable!
A plus d’une rivale
je fus souvent fatale;
ma grâce triomphale
a séduit maint galant,
coquette sans égale,
qu’on n’aime qu’en tremblant.
On pleure, on se désole
aux pieds de son idole vainement.
Avec indifférence.
j’aime à voir la souffrance
d’un coeur sans espérance,
en proie à la démence
implorant ma clémence,
mais sans me désarmer
non, je ne veux jamais aimer.
More than one rival
has been crushed by me;
My magnificent grace
has melted the heart of many a young knight.
For I am the coquette of all coquettes
that men must love, trembling.
They cry and lament
at the feet of their idol in vain.
Coldly,
I like to watch the torment
of a heart of hope.
driven to madness,
begging for mercy.
But I do not yield;
no, I will never love.
16
Texts and translations
Brillants Seigneurs, muguets de cour,
pour vous jamais d’amour.
et si vous me faites la cour,
n’espérez nul retour.
pour vous jamais d’amour!
Émilien Pacini
Great rulers or courtly fops,
there will never be love for you;
and if you come a-courting me,
Expect nothing as your reward;
I shall never love you.
Pauline Viardot (1821–1910)
Havanaise
Vente niña conmigo al mar
que en la playa tengo un bajel,
Bogaremos a dos en él
que allí sólo se sabe amar.
Ay rubita si tu supieras,
Ay rubita si supieras … Ah! Ah!
Vente niña, etc.
Ay ay ay rubita, dame tu amar.
Come with me, my child, to the sea,
for on the shore I have a boat;
we shall row it together,
for only there do people know how to love.
Ah, my fair one, if only you knew,
if only you knew … Ah, ah!
Come with me, my child, etc.
Ay ay, my fair one, give me your love.
Sur la rive le flot d’argent
En chantant brise mollement,
Et des eaux avec le ciel pur
Se confond l’azur!
Sois moins rebelle.
Ô ma belle, la mer t’appelle!
Ah! viens, viens, viens!
À ses chants laisse-toi charmer!
Ah, viens, c’est là qu’on sait aimer, etc.
Upon the bank the silver wave
gently breaks up while singing,
and the waters and the pure sky
merge in the azure distance!
Be less stubborn.
O my fair one, the sea calls you!
Ah! come, come, come!
Let yourself be charmed by its song, come,
it is there that people know how to love.
Sois, ma belle, moins rebelle,
Laisse-toi charmer,
Oui, laisse-toi charmer,
Ô belle!
C’est en mer que l’on said aimer, etc.
O my fair one, be less stubborn,
let yourself be charmed,
yes, let yourself be charmed,
o my fair one!
It is at sea that people know how to love …
Rubita, ay vente conmigo al mar,
Bogaremos a dos en él,
Que allí sólo se sabe amar!
Vente rubita, vente rubita,
Vente al mar, al mar!
Louis Pomey
Fair one, come with me to the sea,
we shall row together,
for only there do people know how to love.
Come, my fair one, come,
come to the sea!
Please turn page quietly
17
Texts and translations
Hai luli!
Je suis triste, je m’inquiète,
Je ne sais plus que devenir,
Mon bon ami devait venir,
Et je l’attends ici seulette.
Hai luli! Hai luli!
Où donc peut être mon ami?, etc.
Willow-waley
I am sad, I am anxious,
I don’t know what’s to become of me,
my true friend was to have come,
and here I wait all lonesome.
Willow-waley! Willow-waley!
Where can he be, my lover?, etc.
Je m’assieds pour filer ma laine,
Le fil se casse dans ma main …
Allons, je filerai demain;
Aujourd’hui je suis trop en peine!
Hai luli! Hai luli!
Qu’il fait triste sans son ami!, etc.
I sit myself down to spin my wool,
the thread breaks in my hand …
Come, I will spin tomorrow;
today I’m too full of sorrow!
Willow-waley! Willow-waley!
How sad it is without my lover!, etc.
Si jamais il devient volage,
S’il doit un jour m’abandonner,
Le village n’a qu’à brûler,
Et moi-même avec le village!
Hai luli! Hai luli!
À quoi bon vivre sans ami?, etc.
Xavier de Maistre
If ever he turns fickle,
if one day he is to desert me,
the village only has to burn down,
and I with the village!
Willow-waley! Willow-waley!
What’s the point of living without a lover?, etc.
Manuel del Pópulo Vicente García (1775–1832)
Yo que soy contrabandinsta:
caballo from the monodrama ‘El poeta
calculista’
El Poeta
Yo que soy contrabandista
y campo por mi respeto,
a todos los desafio
pues a naide tengo mieo.
Ay, ay, ay, jaleo muchachos,
¿quién me merca algún hilo negro?
Mi caballo está cansao
y yo me marcho corriendo.
¡Ay, ay, ay, ay, que viene la ronda
y se movió el tiroteo!
Ay, ay, caballito mío, caballo mío, careto,
ay, jaleo, ay, jaleo, que nos cojen.
¡Ay, sácame de este aprieto!
¡Ay, caballito, jaleo,
ay, caballito, jaleo!
Anonymous
18
The Poet
I’m a smuggler
and I do as I please,
I defy one and all,
because I fear no one.
Ah, ah, ah, here’s trouble, boys,
who’ll buy my fine tobacco?
My horse is worn out,
and I set off at a run.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, for the patrol’s on its way
and the shooting’s begun!
Ah, ah, my little horse, my white-faced horse,
ah, here’s trouble, they’re catching us.
Ah, get me out of this scrape!
Ah, little horse, here’s trouble,
ah, little horse, here’s trouble!
Texts and translations
Maria Malibran (1808–36)
Rataplan
Rataplan, tambour habile,
rataplan, pataplan, pataplan,
rataplan, matin et soir,
rataplan, plan par la ville,
rataplan, plan plan, plan plan,
je vais toujours
tambour battant –
Rrrrrrrrrrran plan plan pataplan pataplan, etc.
Ratatat
Ratatat, the skilful drummer,
ratatat, ratatat, ratatat,
ratatat, morning and night,
ratatat, tat through the town,
ratatat, tat-tat, tat-tat,
do I march,
always beating my drum –
Rrrrrrrrrrrat tat tat, ratatat, ratatat, etc.
Aux plaines des pyramides
j’ai mené tambour battant,
ranpataplan pataplan pataplan,
les français de gloire avides
à la victoire en chantant,
mais au sort toujours docile
me voilà dans mes foyers,
devenu tambour de ville,
de tambour de grenadiers.
To the plains of the pyramids
I led to victory, beating my drum,
ratatatat, ratatat, ratatat,
the French troops hungry for glory,
singing as they went,
but obeying my fate as ever,
here I am back home,
the town drummer now,
the grenadier drummer.
Rataplan, etc.
Ratatat, etc.
Et quand de quitter la terre
enfin ce sera mon tour,
ranpataplan pataplan pataplan,
je désire qu’on m’enterre
à côté de mon tambour ;
quand des anges les trompettes
sonneront le jugement,
je pourrai de mes baguettes
faire un accompagnement,
plan plan plan plan.
And when my time finally comes
to leave this earth behind,
ratatatat, ratatat, ratatat,
I want to be buried
alongside my drum;
when the angelic trumpets
sound the last judgement,
I’ll be able to accompany them
with my drumsticks,
tat tat tat tat.
Rataplan, etc.
Anonymous
Ratatat, etc.
Translations by Avril Bardoni, Charles Bourne, Kenneth Chalmers, Susannah Howe and Barbara Miller.
All texts and translations reprinted with kind permission from the Decca Music Group.
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
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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.
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Administration 020 7638 4141
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19
About the performers
Cecilia Bartoli
mezzo-soprano
Sergio Ciomei
piano
For more than two decades
Cecilia Bartoli has been a
leading classical artist, via
performances in opera
houses and concert halls
around the world and through
her best-selling and critically
acclaimed recordings, which
in recent years have centred
around the rediscovery of
neglected repertoire.
Herbert von Karajan, Daniel Barenboim and Nikolaus
Harnoncourt were among the first conductors with
whom Cecilia Bartoli worked. Since then, she has
developed regular partnerships with renowned
conductors, pianists and orchestras, most recently
period-instrument ensembles including the Akademie für
Alte Musik, Les Arts Florissants, Concentus Musicus Wien,
Freiburger Barockorchester, Il Giardino Armonico,
Kammerorchester Basel, Les Musiciens du Louvre,
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Orchestra La
Scintilla. Increasingly, she is involved with orchestral
projects for which she assumes overall artistic
responsibility.
Cecilia Bartoli’s stage appearances include the
Metropolitan Opera, New York, Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden, La Scala, Milan, Bavarian State Opera
and the Zurich Opera House. Most recently, her roles
have included Rossini’s Fiorilla (Il turco in Italia),
Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare) and the title-roles in Semele
and Halévy’s Clari.
She is currently focusing on the 19th century, and in
particular the legendary singer Maria Malibran, whose
200th birthday earlier this year she celebrated with no
fewer than three concerts in one day, alongside artists
such as Lang Lang, Vadim Repin, Adám Fischer and
Myung-Whun Chung. Her Malibran album, Maria,
received two Grammy nominations.
Among Cecilia Bartoli’s many awards are an Italian
knighthood, the Italian Bellini d’Oro prize and honorary
membership of the Royal Academy of Music.
20
The Italian organist and
harpsichordist, Sergio Ciomei,
graduated in piano in 1984.
He then went on to study with
Muriel Chemin, Piero Rattalino
and András Schiff, winning
several piano competitions,
which helped to launch his
career. He also studied
harpsichord (with Christophe
Rousset and J. W. Jansen) and
fortepiano (with Andreas
Staier and Laura Alvini). From 1989 to 1994 he was
assistant to Frans Brüggen and Kees Boete in running
Baroque courses at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.
As a pianist and harpsichordist, Sergio Ciomei gives solo
recitals worldwide, as well as performing as a member
of Europa Galante and Triple Concordia. He has played
under the direction of Frans Brüggen, Fabio Biondi and
David del Pino Klinge and has performed in such venues
as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Auditorium Nacional in
Madrid, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and the
Theatre Universidad Santiago de Chile.
He began working with Cecilia Bartoli in 2001, and has
appeared with her at many major European venues.
Sergio Ciomei’s discography includes solo, chamber
and orchestral appearances on several labels; those
with Triple Concordia and Europa Galante have been
particularly well received.