Sunday Classics: "Andrea Chenier" (3) -- We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?

This is the veteran mezzo Larissa Diadkova (age 56) as Madelon at Madrid's Teatro Real, February 2010. I believe the Gérard is baritone Marco Vratogna; the conductor, Victor Pablo Pérez. (The staging, in a production that originated at Opéra Bastille, is by the noted Chénier's son Giancarlo del Monaco, an internationally known opera director.)

Several women in the crowd make offerings. Amid the din an old blind woman is heard urging the other women to make way. Accompanied by a 15-year-old boy she forces her way through the crowd.



MADELON: I am Old Madelon. My son is dead.

His name was Roger. He died in the taking

of the Bastille. His first son

at Valmy won promotion and death.

Another few days and I too will die.

[Pushing the boy forward]

He's the son of Roger. The last son.

The last drop of my old blood . . .

Take him!

Don't say that he's just a child!

He's strong . . . He can fight and die!

GÉRARD [after an officer of the National Guard has examined the eager boy and pronounced him eligible]:

We accept him. Tell me his name.

MADELON: Roger Alberto.

GÉRARD: He'll leave this very evening.

MADELON: My joy, farewell!

Take him away!

[Seeking helplessly around her as two National Guardsmen lead the boy away.]

Who'll give me his arm?

[She is led away by sympathetic onlookers. The deputies now remove the urn, the crowd thins out, the officer and the National Guard march away. MATHIEU starts to transform the hall into a court of justice, the Revolutionary Tribunal. Outside, the crowd begins dancing and singing the Carmagnole.]

by Ken



I've been building up so long now -- most recently in Friday night's and last night's previews -- to this confounded "Madelon scene" that I'm nearly paralyzed, and consider that the scene needs either no explanation or comment or more and better than I can supply. And in a late inspiration, I'm going to try it both ways. This week we'll mostly just listen to the scene. Then in the future (maybe next week, maybe not) we'll look more closely at the innards.



Either way, I know it's crucial to appreciate the context, especially since in my experience Americans tend not to be aware that almost immediately after overthrowing the monarchy the new revolutionary government in France found itself -- without any experience of governing, let alone raising or commanding an army -- having to defend the country against the combined forces of the remaining crowned heads of Europe, who were equally appalled by (a) the beheading of a king and (b) the even crazier notion of a social order built around "liberty, equality, and fraternity."



This is the appeal to which we've seen and heard the response in the video clip above.

GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act III,

Gérard, "Lagrime e sangue dà la Francia! Udite!"



GÉRARD: France offers up blood and tears! Listen!

Laudun has hoisted

the white flag!

And the Vendée is in flames!

And Brittany threatens us!

And Austrians, and Prussians, and English -- and everyone

sink their armed fangs

into the breast of France!

We need blood and gold!

Women of France, give the

useless gold of your necklaces!

Give your sons to the great mother,

o you, French mothers!

[Carried away by GÉRARD's eloquence, several women come running forward and throw trinkets and coins in the urn.]



Several women in the crowd make offerings. Amid the din an old blind woman is heard urging the other women to make way. Accompanied by a 15-year-old boy she forces her way through the crowd.



Ettore Bastianini (b), Carlo Gérard; Hilde Konetzni (s), Madelon; Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Lovro von Matačić, cond. Live performance, June 26, 1960

Heck, as far back as there have been autocracies, political and religious, this is what they do in the face of massing dissent: Crack down! Repress! By whatever means necessary, including where necessary invading. As a result, "free" France was fighting for its life, or at least the anti-royalist factions were. It was a great opportunity for supporters of the monarchy to wage civil war. The end result, of course, was to ensure the supremacy of the most extreme, violent, repressive elements within the French revolutionary leadership. Well done, crowned heads of Europe! Somehow they never took credit for this remarkable accomplishment. (In the year 2011, is any of this sounding familiar?)



NOW ABOUT ROGER ALBERTO . . .



To get back to our scene, the old woman who fights her way through the crowd will shortly announce herself as "Old Madelon" (as we've seen and heard in the video clip above), and this is indeed the "Madelon scene" I've been making such a fuss over. On the other side of the click-through, once we've plugged a small but important information gap left over from Act I, we're going to pick up at the point we left off in Act III, in this very same Vienna State Opera performance, with this rather unexpected singer we've already heard fleetingly as Madelon.





TO FINISH OUR UNFINISHED BUSINESS FROM ACT I

AND HEAR "OLD MADELON" TELL HER STORY, CLICK HERE

THE EARLIER ANDREA CHÉNIER POSTS

(1) The opening scene: Gérard's monologue



Main post (7/10/2011): "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare"

-- Leonard Warrren (Met 1957), Mario Sereni (1963 EMI recording), Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960), Bechi (1941 EMI recording)



Preview (7/9/2011): "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare "

-- Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960)

-- Giuseppe Taddei (RAI Milan, 1955)

-- Giorgio Zancanaro (1985 Covent Garden video and 1986 Sony/Hungaroton recording) et al.



(2) The scene that leads up to the Improvviso



Main post: "The seething revolutionary rage of Andrea Chénier certainly strikes a chord at our present moment"

Complete scene:

-- Beniamino Gigli et al. (San Francisco 1938)

-- Luciano Pavarotti et al. (1982-84 Decca recording)

-- Franco Corelli et al. (1963 EMI recording)

-- Mario del Monaco, Maria Callas, et al. (La Scala 1955)

Plus excerpts from Vienna 1960 (Kostas Paskalis as Fléville), Met 1957 (Richard Tucker et al.)



Preview (7/30/2011): "Is the moral of Andrea Chénier that poets make lousy party guests?"

-- studio recordings of the Improvviso by Enrico Caruso, Jon Vickers, Giuseppe di Stefano, Ben Heppner, José Cura (chosen on the basis of "what I've got on CD")



(3) The Madelon scene of Act III



Preview No. 1 (8/19/2011): "Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 1, Gérard's monologue"

-- "Son sessant'anni" and "T'odio, casa dorata" sung by Riccardo Stracciari (1925)

-- complete scene with Ettore Bastianini and Renata Tebaldi (1957 Decca recording)



Preview No. 2 (8/20/2011): "Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 2, Chénier's Improvviso"

-- the Improvviso sung by Aureliano Pertile (1927)

-- complete scene with Mario del Monaco, Renata Tebaldi, et al. (1957 Decca recording)

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Sunday Classics preview: Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 2, Chénier's "Improvviso"

Aureliano Pertile (1885-1952) as Chénier

by Ken



As I explained in last night's preview, in preparing (finally) to approach the Madelon scene of Andrea Chénier, we're reviewing the two chunks of the opera, both from Act I, that we've looked at already from the standpoint of what seems to me a remarkable depiction of a society that can't help but explode into revolution. Last night we reviewed the servant Carlo Gérard's extraordinary opening monologue (extending into his lust-saturated observation of our heroine, Maddalena). Tonight it's the astonishing story, known as his Improvviso, that the poet Chénier chooses to tell the upper-crust gathering of his hostess, the Contessa di Coigny.



In the click-through we're going to do the same thing we did last night: listen to the whole scene in the 1957 Decca recording. And once again I'm dipping into the archives to offer just one more Improvviso. I would have liked to make it one that nails the piece's poetic (and human) truth. Alas, I don't happen to have one of those offhand, so instead I offer Aureliano Pertile, understanding that with Pertile comes a whole package of, well, stuff.



You'll notice that at the start he's not telling a story, he's showing off how "sensitive" he feels; and this happens whenever he pulls back to singing softly (as when he later addresses Maddalena directly), which in fact he can quite beautifully but does as a show-off effect rather than fulfilling the musical sense. Similarly, when the piece goes big, the shoutiness is about showing off his feelings -- and of course his voice -- rather than conveying what it is that Chénier is trying to communicate here, or what he's experiencing. There's a lot of embarrassingly obvious histrionics. Still, there's no getting around that voice, a tenorial wonder. One is tempted to put up with a lot from Pertile, for the sake of . . . well, just listen.



GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Chénier, "Un dì, all'azzurro spazio" (Improvviso)

CHÉNIER: One day into the blue sky

I gazed deeply,

and on the meadows heaped with violets

the sun rained down gold,

and with gold

the world shone;

the earth appeared an immense treasure,

and serving as its coffer was the firmament.

From the earth to my brow

came a living caress, a kiss.

I cried out, conquered by love: I love y ou,

you who kiss me, divinely

beautiful, o my fatherland!

And I wanted, full of love,

to pray!

I crossed the threshold of a church;

there a priest, in the niches

of the saints and the Virgin

accumulated gifts . . . and to his deaf ear

a trembling old man vainly

pleaded for bread and in vain reached out his hand!

I crossed the entrance of a humble abode;

a man there was cursing, slandering

the soil that barely covered his taxes,

and against God

and against men

hurled the tears of his children.

[With the exception of GÉRARD, who stands listening entranced, everyone is completely scandalized.]

In the face of such misery

what do the ranks of the nobility do?

[To MADDALENA] Only your eyes express humanly

here a look of pity,

and so I looked at you as if at an angel.

And I said: "Here is the beauty of life."

But then, at your words,

a new sorrow wounded me full in the breast.

O beautiful maiden,

do not disparage the words of a poet.

Love, divine gift -- do not scorn it.

The world's soul and life -- that's love.

Aureliano Pertile (t), Andrea Chénier; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Carlo Sabajno, cond. EMI, recorded October 1927





FOR TONIGHT'S ANDREA CHÉNIER RECAP, CLICK HERE

THE ANDREA CHÉNIER POSTS



(1) The opening scene: Gérard's monologue



Main post (7/10/2011): "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare"

-- Leonard Warrren (Met 1957), Mario Sereni (1963 EMI recording), Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960), Bechi (1941 EMI recording)



Preview (7/9/2011): "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare "

-- Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960)

-- Giuseppe Taddei (RAI Milan, 1955)

-- Giorgio Zancanaro (1985 Covent Garden video and 1986 Sony/Hungaroton recording) et al.



(2) The scene that leads up to the Improvviso



Main post: "The seething revolutionary rage of Andrea Chénier certainly strikes a chord at our present moment"

Complete scene:

-- Beniamino Gigli et al. (San Francisco 1938)

-- Luciano Pavarotti et al. (1982-84 Decca recording)

-- Franco Corelli et al. (1963 EMI recording)

-- Mario del Monaco, Maria Callas, et al. (La Scala 1955)

Plus excerpts from Vienna 1960 (Kostas Paskalis as Fléville), Met 1957 (Richard Tucker et al.)



Preview (7/30/2011): "Is the moral of Andrea Chénier that poets make lousy party guests?"

-- studio recordings of the Improvviso by Enrico Caruso, Jon Vickers, Giuseppe di Stefano, Ben Heppner, José Cura (chosen on the basis of "what I've got on CD")



(3) The Madelon scene of Act III



Main post (8/21/2011): "We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?"

-- Madelon's story told by Larissa Diadkova (video, Madrid 2010) and Hilde Konetzni (Vienna 1960)

-- Gérard's appeal sung by Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960)

-- the complete opening scene of Act III with Fernando Corena, Bastianini, and Amelia Guidi (1957 Decca) and Paolo Montarsolo, Mario Sereni, and Anna di Stasio (1963 EMI)

Plus the end of Act I from 1957 Decca and 1963 EMI



Preview No. 1 (8/19/2011): "Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 1, Gérard's monologue"

-- "Son sessant'anni" and "T'odio, casa dorata" sung by Riccardo Stracciari (1925)

-- complete scene with Ettore Bastianini and Renata Tebaldi (1957 Decca)



Preview No. 2 (8/20/2011): "Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 2, Chénier's Improvviso"

-- the Improvviso sung by Aureliano Pertile (1927)

-- complete scene with Mario del Monaco, Renata Tebaldi, et al. (1957 Decca)

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Sunday Classics preview: Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 1, Gérard's monologue

Ettore Bastianini as Gérard at the Met in 1955 -- we're going to hear him in a moment in the opening scene of Andrea Chénier, and then again Sunday in Act III.



by Ken



As I've explained in our two previous weeks devoted to Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier (see the listings below), my proposition is that I take the opera seriously as a representation of the popular rage that exploded into the French Revolution, and in our earlier installments we listened to two chunks of Act I, which takes us up to the outbreak, in preparation for some listening to the scene involving the elderly Madelon in Act III.

In this week's previews we're going to recap the episodes covered in those first two parts, starting tonight with the opera's very opening. Amid the bustle of preparations for a grand soirée at the home of the Contessa di Coigny, the servant Carlo Gérard first demonstrates his wit, shrewdness, and verbal facility with an apostrophe to a couch that has been witness to so much aristocratic foolishness and then, seeing his father still "on the job" despite his advanced age and infirmity, is rerouted to an expression of his feelings abjectness and humiliation, and finally explodes in rage that's expressed as intensely and forcefully as I've encountered in the theater world.



As a pre-refresher refresher, here are the second and third parts sung by the great baritone Riccardo Stracciari in 1925, at the age of 50.



GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Gérard, "Son sessant'anni, o vecchio, che tu servi" . . . "T'odio, casa dorata"

An old man comes in from the garden carrying a heavy piece of furniture. GÉRARD throws down the duster he is holding and goes to help him. Weak and shaky, the old man leaves, disappearing through the garden. GÉRARD, much moved, watches him go.



GÉRARD: It's sixty years, old man,

that you've been a servant here!

On your insolent,

arrogant masters

you've lavished fidelity, sweat,

the strength of your nerves,

your soul, your mind . . .

and as if your own life didn't suffice

to carry on

eternally

the horrendous suffering,

you've given the existence

of your children . . .

[With immense disdain he strikes his breast with open hand, murmuring through tears]

You've fathered menials!

[He dries his tears disdainfully, turns to survey pridefully the opulence around him]

[1:24] I loathe you, gilded house!

You are the image of a world

powdered and vain!

You pretty gallants in silk and laces,

faster ever faster whirl

your merry gavottes and minuets!

Your fate is sealed!

Worthless and wicked race,

the son of serfs and a servant

here, a judge in livery,

I tell you: It's the hour of death!

Riccardo Stracciari, baritone. Columbia, recorded in London, 1925



In the click-through we're going to hear the opening scene, including the first appearance of the Contessa's beautiful daughter Maddalena, observed most unsilently by Gérard. And luckily we can draw on a recording we haven't heard at all in our previous Chénier posts, from which we'll also be hearing excerpts tomorrow night and Sunday. I'll have more to say about it in the click-through.





TO BEGIN OUR ANDREA CHÉNIER RECAP, CLICK HERE

THE ANDREA CHÉNIER POSTS



(1) The opening scene: Gérard's monologue



Main post (7/10/2011): "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare"

-- Leonard Warrren (Met 1957), Mario Sereni (1963 EMI recording), Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960), Bechi (1941 EMI recording)



Preview (7/9/2011): "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare "

-- Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960)

-- Giuseppe Taddei (RAI Milan, 1955)

-- Giorgio Zancanaro (1985 Covent Garden video and 1986 Sony/Hungaroton recording) et al.



(2) The scene that leads up to the Improvviso



Main post: "The seething revolutionary rage of Andrea Chénier certainly strikes a chord at our present moment"

Complete scene:

-- Beniamino Gigli et al. (San Francisco 1938)

-- Luciano Pavarotti et al. (1982-84 Decca recording)

-- Franco Corelli et al. (1963 EMI recording)

-- Mario del Monaco, Maria Callas, et al. (La Scala 1955)

Plus excerpts from Vienna 1960 (Kostas Paskalis as Fléville), Met 1957 (Richard Tucker et al.)



Preview (7/30/2011): "Is the moral of Andrea Chénier that poets make lousy party guests?"

-- studio recordings of the Improvviso by Enrico Caruso, Jon Vickers, Giuseppe di Stefano, Ben Heppner, José Cura (chosen on the basis of "what I've got on CD")



(3) The Madelon scene of Act III



Main post (8/21/2011): "We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?"

-- Madelon's story told by Larissa Diadkova (video, Madrid 2010) and Hilde Konetzni (Vienna 1960)

-- Gérard's appeal sung by Ettore Bastianini (Vienna 1960)

-- the complete opening scene of Act III with Fernando Corena, Bastianini, and Amelia Guidi (1957 Decca) and Paolo Montarsolo, Mario Sereni, and Anna di Stasio (1963 EMI)

Plus the end of Act I from 1957 Decca and 1963 EMI



Preview No. 1 (8/19/2011): "Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 1, Gérard's monologue"

-- "Son sessant'anni" and "T'odio, casa dorata" sung by Riccardo Stracciari (1925)

-- complete scene with Ettore Bastianini and Renata Tebaldi (1957 Decca)



Preview No. 2 (8/20/2011): "Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 2, Chénier's Improvviso"

-- the Improvviso sung by Aureliano Pertile (1927)

-- complete scene with Mario del Monaco, Renata Tebaldi, et al. (1957 Decca)

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Sunday Classics: The seething revolutionary rage of "Andrea Chénier" certainly strikes a chord at our present moment

Last night we heard two minutes' worth of Plácido Domingo singing the Improvviso. It seemed only fair to let him get through the whole thing.



by Ken



As I explained in last night's preview of Chénier's Improvviso, we're continuing the three-part series devoted to Giordano's best-known opera begun earlier this month with a post called "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare" (also with a Saturday preview), built on the premise -- well, my premise -- that Chénier is a great revolutionary opera. Our goal is to get to the great Madelon scene of Act III. (I know you may not know what a "Madelon scene" is, but I don't want to try to explain the scene until we get to it.)



It's true that eventually Giordano and librettist Luigi Illica (also one of Puccini's most important librettists) cared more about the doomed love of the anti-royalist poet Chénier and the aristocrat Maddalena di Coigny, and I don't have a huge problem with that, because that's interesting enough and occasioned a fair amount of swell music. But for me the opera sizzles when it focuses on the way its characters are caught up in the tide of revolution in France, starting -- literally starting -- the overwhelming opening scene in which the servant Carlo Gérard, observing his broken-down father still in service to the Contessa di Coigny, vents some volcanic rage that there's no escape from servitude not just for his father but for his father's children; they're a race of menials.



In that opening scene we saw Gérard occupied, along with all the other servants in the household, with preparations for a grand soirée at the Coigny home -- just as the French Revolution, as we learn, is about to break out. Later we see the Countess and her lovely, inquisitive daughter Maddalena engaged in final preparations for Maddalena, and then the guests arrive. At the party, one of the guests, a young poet, is going to be moved to share some recent experiences and observations that will scandalize everyone present except Gérard and Maddalena: the Improvviso we heard last night, which today we're going to put in context.



We're going to pick up as the arrival of the guests is well under way, a starting point that was determined by one of three recordings we're going to hear -- all that survives of the broadcast of a 1938 San Francisco performance -- once we've broken the scene down a little. It's actually not a bad starting point, though, as the Countess greets the first of her "special" guests.





FOR OUR CHUNK OF ACT I, CLICK HERE

PART 3 OF THE ANDREA CHÉNIER SERIES . . .



. . . continues with previews and http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/08/sunday-classics-preview-preparing-for.htmlhere, and the main post "We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?"

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Sunday Classics preview: Is the moral of "Andrea Chénier" that poets make lousy party guests?

DG herewith shares two minutes' worth of Plácido Domingo singing the Improvviso from Andrea Chénier (at the Vienna State Opera, 1981, Nello Santi conducting) from its Domingo 70th-birthday audio-and-video sampler.

by Ken

A few weeks ago I began what I explained would eventually be three sets of posts devoted to Giordano's opera Andrea Chénier. In that first post, "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare" (with a Saturday preview), we looked at the opening scene given to Carlo Gérard, a servant in the household of the Contessa di Coigny immersed in preparations for a swanky soirée on, literally, the even of the French Revolution.) We're headed for the Madelon scene of Act III, but before we get there we have to consider the poet Chénier's arresting Improvviso (which refers both to its improvisatory quality and to its suddennesss and unexpectedness), which shocks the dickens out of most of the guests.

In tomorrow's post we're going to work our way through the scene that leads up to the Improvviso as well as hearing the scene in its entirety (several times, actually).

Tonight we're going to listen just to the Improvviso itself. For the sake of my sanity I limited myself to what I've got on CD, but I think we've got an interesting assortment of performances -- in terms of voice types, national origins (two Italians, two Canadians, and an Argentinian), personalities, and interpretive thoughts -- beginning with Enrico Caruso's only recording of it, made when the opera, which had its premiere in March 1896, was little more than a decade old. Don't worry about hearing a bunch of antique recordings. After the Caruso, we jump to 1958, and everything is in stereo. (Which reminds me, there's also some notable variety in the conducting and orchestral playing. Just listen to the way the veteran Tullio Serafin balances, and the Rome Opera Orchestra plays, the chord that launches the aria proper.)

Believe it or not, I really don't have anything else to say tonight. I'll let the performances speak for themselves, and the music too, of course.


FOR TONIGHT'S IMPROVVISO PERFORMANCES, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: Giordano's "Andrea Chénier" and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare

Giorgio Zancanaro as Gérard at Covent Garden, with Julius Rudel conducting, 1985.



by Ken



In last night's preview I indicated that we're taking a slow journey toward the tear-jerker of all tear-jerker scenes, the Madelon scene of Act III of Giordano's Andrea Chénier, starting with the very opening of the opera and going up to, well, a particular point. We heard the bustle of the preparations for a grand party in the home of the Countess of Coigny, on the very eve of the French Revolution, including some of the ruminations of the household servant Carlo Gérard.



Here's what we've heard so far:



GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Gérard, "Compiacente a' colloqui" . . . "Son sessant'anni"

The country estate of the Coigny family. The winter garden, the grand conservatory.



The curtain rises on a scene bustling with activity. Servants, lackeys, valets, all under the command of an officious MAJOR-DOMO, run hither and thither carrying pieces of furniture about and placing it down where he instructs them to. GÉRARD, in full livery, lends a hand in carrying a heavy blue sofa.



MAJOR-DOMO: This blue sofa, let's put it there.



GÉRARD and the lackeys obey his orders. Then the MAJOR-DOMO goes to another part of the château followed by all the servants. GÉRARD, left behind, kneels before the blue sofa, unruffling the fringe, smoothing the satin covering, and arranging the curtains.



GÉRARD: Obliging to the discourse

of the dandy

who offered his hand

to mature ladies here!

Here Red Heels

said sighing to the Beauty-patch:

"Orinthia, or Chloris, or Nike, powdered,

oldish and painted,

I long for you

and, only on this account, perhaps,

I love you!"

Such is the custom of the times.



An old man comes in from the garden carrying a heavy piece of furniture. GÉRARD throws down the duster he is holding and goes to help him. Weak and shaky, the old man leaves, disappearing through the garden. GÉRARD, much moved, watches him go.



GÉRARD: It's sixty years, old man,

that you've been a servant here!

On your insolent,

arrogant masters

you've lavished fidelity, sweat,

the strength of your nerves,

your soul, your mind . . .

and as if your own life didn't suffice

to carry on

eternally

the horrendous suffering,

you've given the existence

of your children . . .

[With immense disdain he strikes his breast with open hand, murmuring through tears]

You've fathered menials!

Louis Sgarro (bs), Major-Domo; Leonard Warren (b), Carlo Gérard; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Dec. 28, 1957



As I indicated, something extraordinarily dramatic is about to happen. Right after the click-through. (New genre, the click-hanger?)





TO CONTINUE WITH THE OPENING SCENE

OF ANDREA CHÉNIER, CLICK HERE

PARTS 2 AND 3 OF THE ANDREA CHÉNIER SERIES . . .



. . . continue with (2) "The seething revolutionary rage of Andrea Chénier certainly strikes a chord at our present moment" and (3) "We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?" (You'll find links to the associated previews at the main posts.)

.

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Sunday Classics preview: Giordano's "Andrea Chénier" and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare

The opening of Andrea Chénier: The Major-Domo directs party preparations (at Covent Garden, 1985), with the servant Carlo Gérard (Giorgio Zancanaro) looking on at right. We'll hear this bustling opening music in a moment, played two ways -- very perky and not so perky -- in a moment. (And we'll see this Covent Garden clip tomorrow.)

by Ken

There was a plan to this week's post which made sense in its way. Working up to one of the great tear-jerking scenes in Western theater, the Madelon scene of Act III of Giordano's Andrea Chénier, we were going to "preview" two of the high spots that pave the way to it: the very opening of the opera, with the baritone Gérard's great monologue; and Chénier himself's great Act I "Improvviso." Which would have meant either a pair of ginormous previews or the merest dabs at two of the most remarkable chunks of musical theater ever created.

So, on the theory that both Gérard's monologue and Chénier's "Improvviso" deserve posts of their own, they're going to get them. We'll simply proceed to the Madelon scene in, if not baby steps, then at least babier ones.

For starters, we're going to more or less literally raise the curtain. As regular readers know, we always like to know how a piece starts, and in the then-modern way, pioneered in Italian opera by Verdi in his last two operas, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893), and made standard practice by Puccini (whose first successful opera, Manon Lescaut had premiered in 1893, followed by La Bohème in February 1896, eight weeks before Chénier), Giordano plunges us into the action without a formal prelude.

This is obviously "bustling" music, which we're going to hear played two ways. First, Riccardo Chailly plays it for the "bustle." Then Marcello Viotti trusts that the bustle is built in and drives it less hard. This would probably be more effective in a more confident, knowing performance, but you get the the idea that Viotti is facing an orchestra doesn't really know the music, possibly having played no more than a single run-through.

GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Major-Domo, "Questo azzurro sofà"

The country estate of the Coigny family. The winter garden, the grand conservatory.

The curtain rises on a scene bustling with activity. Servants, lackeys, valets, all under the command of an officious MAJOR-DOMO, run hither and thither carrying pieces of furniture about and placing it down where he instructs them to. GÉRARD, in full livery, lends a hand in carrying a heavy blue sofa.

MAJOR-DOMO: This blue sofa, let's put it there.

GÉRARD and the lackeys obey his orders. Then the MAJOR-DOMO goes to another part of the château followed by all the servants. GÉRARD, left behind, kneels before the blue sofa, unruffling the fringe, smoothing the satin covering, and arranging the curtains.

Neil Howlett (b), National Philharmonic Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded August 1982Michele Pertusi (bs), Major-Domo; Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marcello Viotti, cond. Capriccio, recorded Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 1989


GÉRARD AND THE SOFA: FOR MORE OF
THE CHÉNIER OPENING SCENE, CLICK HERE

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