[7/30/2011] Sunday Classics preview: Is the moral of "Andrea Chénier" that poets make lousy party guests? (continued)

The start of the Improvviso. (If you're
of a mind, you can click to enlarge.)

GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Chénier, "Colpito qui m'avete" . . . "Un dì all'azzurro spazio" (Improvviso)

At the party of the Countess of Coigny which we saw being prepared for by CARLO GÉRARD and the other servants in our last Chénier post (Saturday preview and Sunday main post), one of the "culture"-toting guests, the poet Andrea Chénier, has fallen afoul of the youthfully contrarian spirits of the young lady of the house, MADDALENA, who has bet her friends that she could get the poet to say the word "love," which she points out has been flung at her in the course of the evening by many of her mother's lecherous male guests.

CHÉNIER: You've wounded me here where I jealously
conceal the purest beating of my soul.
Now see, dear girl, what poetry
there is in the word "Love," which rouses such ridicule.

One day at 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 ranks of such misery
what do the scions 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.

"Un dì all'azzurro spazio" only

Enrico Caruso, tenor. Victor, recorded in New York, March 17, 1907

Jon Vickers, tenor; Rome Opera Orchestra, Tullio Serafin, cond. RCA, recorded July 1961


Including the "Colpito qui m'avete" lead-in

Giuseppe di Stefano, tenor; Tonhalle Orchestra (Zurich), Franco Patané, cond. Decca, recorded 1958

Ben Heppner, tenor; Munich Radio Orchestra, Roberto Abbado, cond. BMG, recorded 1993-94

José Cura, tenor; Philharmonia Orchestra, José Cura, cond. Erato, recorded July 5-9, 1999


UPDATE: HEY, IT OCCURRED TO ME THAT WE'VE GOT
RECORDINGS MADE IN FIVE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES!

(The U.S., Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the U.K.)

I'm just saying.


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We back up and listen to the Improvviso in the context of the scene we've ripped it out of here, with Chéniers including Beniamino Gigli (not the 1941 commercial recording but a 1938 live performance from San Francisco), Mario del Monaco, Richard Tucker, Franco Corelli, and Luciano Pavarotti.


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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