When Beaumarchais subversive comedy Le Mariage de Figaro was premiered in Paris in 1784, it sent shock waves across Europe. Everyone wanted to see it, aristocrats read it on the sly, but the censors guarding Europes shaky monarchies on the eve of the French Revolution refused to allow it on the stage. The notion of a barber-valet, Figaro, and his ladys maid-fiancée, Susannah, opposing a count wishing to exercise the droit du seigneur with the bride on her wedding night and making their aristocratic boss look like a fool before his entire household was just too threatening to the status quo. In Act IV comes one of the most exquisite arias of the entire score, “Giunse alfin il momento — Deh vieni, non tardar,” sung by Susannah in the palace garden at night and set in the lilting pastoral rhythm of an Italian siciliana. She sings of her eagerness for her lover’s arrival. Hiding in the bushes and not privy to her plot with the Countess to thwart the Count, Figaro thinks she is singing to the aristocrat; she, knowing Figaro can hear her, is actually expressing her love for him while letting him stew in his own jealousy. https://youtube/watch?v=5i0cHootX2I#t=21 Hear “Opera’s coolest soprano,” Danielle de Niese, sing Mozart’s Giunse alfin il momento as well as works from Handel, Grieg, and Bizet on Sunday, November 16 at 5:30pm! Her singing is utterly delectable and completely assured,” writes The New York Times, “Sheer ‘joie de vivre’ and mastery come spilling across, to the eyes as well as the ears. Get tickets while you can: shriverconcerts.org/event/display/39/index.php
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:25:42 +0000
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