Nadia's Opera Page
Welcome to my opera page
Eating, loving, singing and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool.
Gioacchino Rossini
La musica è amore
Tito Gobbi
My earliest memories of opera are of a neighbour in Alexandria, Egypt. Armando, who kept his windows open so everyone could hear him, fancied himself as a baritone. He tried his voice daily at arias made famous by his idol, the great Tito Gobbi. Armando's repertoire matched his ambition to impress the whole neighbourhood. He went from “Di Provenza il mar” in La Traviata, to “Urna fatale del mio destino” in La forza del destino, then to “Non più andrai” in Le nozze di Figaro, and of course “Largo al factotum” in the Barbiere di Siviglia which he did with hilarious bombast.
Armando became a fixture at our parties, obliging us with requests to sing arias from L'elisir d'amore, Un ballo in maschera, Don Carlo, or Don Giovanni. The night always ended with Neapolitan songs. What better finale could a Mediterranean crowd ask for?
From an early age, I have been fascinated by opera's unique ability to showcase the many-splendored potential of the human voice. Opera is an incredibly demanding art. It is not enough to be blessed by nature with a beautiful voice. Singers go through a rigorous regimen of getting the voice type right, maintaining balance between timbre and phonation, learning the language of the libretto, bringing native clarity of diction to it, and conveying insight into every musical nuance. They must work at mastering operatic drama and acting skills. They are expected to spotlight individual colour and personality while remaining faithful to the spirit of the work. Their uniqueness is in the rare blend of all these accomplishments. Those who achieve it become legends.
Today, on our long road trips in Canada and the U. S. we fill the car with CDs of cantatas, operas, operettas, Lieder and musicals. Rossini's comic operas make riotous travelling companions. We laugh at their imbroglios, their bassi buffi, their stock characters of the crafty joker, of the fatuous Turk, of the lubricious guardian - the tutore, and the conspiring young innamorati prevented from marrying by a grumpy vecchio. The car is our mobile venue, and the seven to ten-hour drive from Montreal to Toronto, New York or Washington becomes a breeze.
My focus in the following pages is on opera and art songs. I hope you enjoy the links as much as I do.
