Sunday Classics preview: DWT Opera Quiz -- Is this any way to start an opera? (Part 2)

Confidential to the operaphobic: There's hardly any singing in tonight's music (UPDATED with answers)


by Ken

A

B


It should go without saying that great composers, just like great writers, worry a lot about how they start a piece, how they grab an audience's attention while preparing us in some fashion for what's to follow.

C

D


It took the fledgling form of opera awhile to settle into the convention of starting with an overture of some sort played by the orchestra, but once established, the convention held for some 250 years, and has hardly been totally abandoned. Of course over that tme the overture -- or its shorter, usually less self-contained cousin the prelude -- came to take such a wide range of forms that composers still had to think long and hard about how, in that overture, they wanted to make contact with their audience.

E


Inevitably, though, resistance to even that much of a convention set in. We've already devoted fairly close attention to the bewildering assortment of ways that Puccini -- following the example of the great Verdi in his final masterworks, Otello and Falstaff and dispensing with any but the briefest orchestral introduction -- got his operas going.

F

G


One of these excerpts -- possibly more, but at least one -- was written to begin an opera by one of the greatest of all opera composers. So the challenge is to identify the opera-starter(s), and of course the opera(s).

H

I


Naturally, it would be lovely to have the other excerpts identified as well, which leads us to --

HINT 1: The excerpts are all by the same composer, and they are all connected somehow.

HINT 2: As usual, there could be a trick or several, but also as usual, there could be some aids built in. The photo at the top is a dead giveaway, if you know what it is.

NOTE: My aim is to post the answers, including English texts for the few vocal parts, in an update about noon ET (9am PT) tomorrow.


UPDATE: THE ANSWERS

Since the criterion was "written to begin an opera," the correct answers are C and D, although E+B also wound up beginning many performances of the opera (see below). The opera in question, the source of all our excerpts, is Verdi's Don Carlos. C is the orchestral introduction to the original -- no, no, I mean the original original -- opening, an interesting scene that was cut for length before the Paris premiere (as were a number of other chunks of the opera) and replaced by the hunters' chorus D. (At the Met, James Levine has made the scene that starts with C part of his standard performing version of the opera.)

E+B is the opening of Act II, Scene 1 in the five-act version of the opera. However, when Verdi yielded to pressure to produce a still-shorter version for wider consumption, he omitted the first act, which is really a sort of prologue, and the opening of Act II became of the four-act version of the opera. A pretty darned striking opening, if you ask me.

Apart from A and B, which are obviously related, and were pulled out of order as an intentionally deceptive setup, following the two alternate openings of Act I (C and D) the excerpts appear in the order that they do in the opera.

E, as you know, followed by B, is the opening of Act II, Scene 1 in the five-act version, or of Act I, Scene 1 in the four-act version. This scene, set in the monastery of San Yuste, is in fact the one we're going to be focusing on this week. The monks' chorus is recalled vividly in A, the orchestral introduction to the final act.

The lovely F is the prelude to the garden scene, Act III, Scene 1, and G is the tingling opening of Act III, Scene 2, the auto-da-fé ("act of faith") -- what could be more festive than the burning of heretics condemned by the Inquisition?

H is the brooding introduction to the sleepless King Phillip's Act IV, Scene 1 pre-dawn monologue (known in Italian as "Ella giammai m'amò") in his study, a succession of extraordinary numbers that may add up to the greatest scene Verdi ever wrote. In it the Grand Inquisitor demands the head of the king's confidant Rodrigo, the Marquis of Posa, and in Scene 2 (to which I is the brief orchestral inroduction), the order is carried out as Posa visits his friend Carlos in prison.

Finally, as noted above, A opens Act V, introducing Queen Elisabeth's monologue, "Tu che le vanità."

A. Act V Prelude
Orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera (Stockholm), Alberto Hold-Garrido, cond. Naxos, recorded live Dec. 18, 1999 and Jan. 22 and 27, 2000

B. Act II, Scene 1: Monks' Chorus
Martti Wallén (bs), the Monk; Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera (Stockholm), Alberto Hold-Garrido, cond. Naxos, recorded live Dec. 18, 1999 and Jan. 22 and 27, 2000

Scene: The tomb of Charles V in the monastery of San Yuste

A choir of monks is praying in the offstage chapel. Onstage, a kneeling monk pray before the tomb.

MONKS: Charles, the supreme emperor,
is no longer more than mute dust.
At the feet of his heavenly maker
his haughty soul now trembles.
A MONK: He wanted to rule over the world,
forgetting the one who in the sky
guides the stars on their faithful path.
His pride was immense;
his error was profound.
MONKS: Charles, the supreme emperor &c.
A MONK: Great is God alone, and if he wills it
he makes heaven and earth tremble.
Ah! Merciful God,
compassionate to the sinner,
you will grant
that peace and pardon
descend on him from heaven.
MONKS: Let your wrath not fall,
not fall on his soul.
ALL: Great is God alone.
He alone is great.

C. Act I: Orchestral introduction to the original opening
Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra, James Levine, cond. Sony, recorded April-May 1992

D. Act I: Replacement introduction
[in French] Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded January 1983 and June 1984

Scene: The forest of Fontainebleau

The princess Elisabeth of Valois and her party enter. Offstage hunters are heard from either side.

HUNTERS: The stag flies beneath the branches.
By St. Herbert,
let's follow, it as long as the day lasts,
In the deserted wood.

E. Act II, Scene 1 Prelude (opening of four-act version)
Orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera (Stockholm), Alberto Hold-Garrido, cond. Naxos, recorded live Dec. 18, 1999 and Jan. 22 and 27, 2000

F. Act III, Scene 1 Prelude
Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded January 1983 and June 1984

G. Act III, Scene 2 opening
Chorus of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI, recorded Sept. 15-20, 1978

Scene: A great plaza in front of Nostra Donna d'Atocha

The crowd is gathered for the auto-da-fé.

CHORUS: The day of rejoicing has dawned.
All honor to the greatest of kings.
The peoples have confidence in him.
All the world lies prostrate at his feet.
Our love follows him everywhere,
and this love will never wane.
His name is the pride of Spain
and must live forever.
CHORUS OF MONKS [leading the condemned]:
The day has dawned, day of terrors,
the terrible day, the fatal day.
They will die, they will die.
Just is the severity of the Immortal.
But the supreme voice of forgiveness
Will revoke the anathema
if the sinner in the ultimate hour
will repent.
CHORUS: The day of rejoicing &c.

H. Act IV, Scene 1 Prelude
Orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera (Stockholm), Alberto Hold-Garrido, cond. Naxos, recorded live Dec. 18, 1999 and Jan. 22 and 27, 2000

I. Act IV, Scene 2 Prelude
Orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera (Stockholm), Alberto Hold-Garrido, cond. Naxos, recorded live Dec. 18, 1999 and Jan. 22 and 27, 2000

ABOUT THE PHOTO: That's the exterior of the monastery of San Yuste, where Charles V was buried -- and the setting for Act II, Scene 1 and Act V (in the five-act version) of Don Carlos.


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS PREVIEW --

How Charles V became emperor of the world

Then Sunday's post: "In Verdi's Don Carlos all paths lead back to the tomb of Charles V"


SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

The current list is here.

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