Sunday Classics special: Remembering Margaret Price, Part 2 -- finding her way to Mozart's Countess

At this concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, as an encore -- announced by conductor Kurt Herbert Adler (1905-1988, the San Francisco Opera's general director for nearly 30 years up to his retirement in 1981) -- Margaret Price sings the Countess's "Dove sono" from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

by Ken

Last night we heard brief snatches of Price's history with Figaro: her c1973 recording of the Act II canzone of Cherubino, the role of her 1962 stage debut with the Welsh National Opera and then, as an emergency replacement for Teresa Berganza, at Covent Garden; and Barbarina's little moment-of-tragedy aria from Act II, from the 1970 EMI Figaro recording conducted by Otto Klemperer. As I pointed out last night, the very next year Price was back in the studio recording Mozart with Klemperer, catapulted from Barbarina up to the heroically challenging role of Fiordiligi in his Così fan tutte.

Fiordiligi became a "calling card" role for Price -- she sang it to great acclaim in Chicago in 1973 -- along with that other familiar soprano-killing Mozart role, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. I thought we might start tonight by hearing the only Price recording I'm aware of having of Donna Anna's thundering aria "Or sai chi l'onore," her immediate response to the great quartet, "Non ti fidar, o misera," in which Don Giovanni has tried to persuade her and her fiancé, Don Ottavio, that Donna Elvira's accusations about him are the result of temporary insanity (and to which we devoted a fair amount of attention), and at the end Anna has suddenly recognized his voice as that of her mysterious intruder of the night before, the man responsible for her father's death (which we covered in that same post).

We might note that the story Anna tells Ottavio about the previous night's events is riddled with contradictions, implausibilities, and apparent omissions, and in the case of her father's death, which we in the audience actually witnessed, we know that her version isn't exactly what happened. But that's her story, and she by golly sticks to it.

As best I can think, this is the only Price performance of "Or sai chi l'onore" I own. It's from the LP edition of the problematic 1978 Solti Don Giovanni, but it should be good enough for our purposes.

MOZART: Don Giovanni, K. 527: Act I, Recitative, Donna Anna and Don Ottavio, "Don Ottavio, son morta" . . . Aria, Donna Anna, "Or sai chi l'onore"

Recitative
DONNA ANNA: Don Ottavio, I've died!
DON OTTAVIO: What's happened?
DONNA ANNA: For pity's sake, help me.
DON OTTAVIO: My darling, have courage.
DONNA ANNA: O gods! O gods!
That man is the murderer of my father!
DON OTTAVIO: What are you saying?
DONNA ANNA: Doubt no more! The last words
the villain uttered, his whole voice
recalled to my heart that unworthy one
who in my chamber . . .
DON OTTAVIO: O heaven, is it possible that beneath
the sacred mantle of friendship . . .
But how did it happen? Tell me
about the strange occurrence.
DONNA ANNA: Night was already somewhat advanced
when in my rooms, where by mischance
I found myself alone, I saw enter,
wrapped in a cloak,
a man whom for at the first instant
I took for you,
but then realized
I had been deceived.
DON OTTAVIO: Stars! Continue!
DONNA ANNA: Silently he approached me
and tried to embrace me.
I sought to free myself;
he pressed me more. I cried out!
No one came. With one hand
he tried to stifle my voice,
and with the other he crushed me so tightly
that I thought myself already vanquished.
DON OTTAVIO: Miscreant! And then?
DONNA ANNA: At last the pain, the horror
of the infamous attempt
so increased my strength
that by dint of wrenching myself free
twisting and turning,
I broke away from him.
DON OTTAVIO: Whew! I can breathe again!
DONNA ANNA: Then I redoubled my cries.
I called for help. The villain fled.
Boldly I followed him into the street
to stop him, and became myself
both assailant and assailed! My father
came running out and sought to discover
his identity, when the vile creature,
who was stronger than the poor old man,
completed his crime by killing him.
Aria
Now you know who
would have robbed me of my honor,
who the traitor was
who deprived me of my father.
I ask you for vengeance;
your heart demands it too.
Remember the wound
in that unhappy breast;
see once more the ground
soaked in his blood,
if in you should languish the fury
of righteous indignation.
Now you know &c.
Remember the wound,
see once more the blood;
I ask you for vengeance,
your own heart craves it too.

Margaret Price (s), Donna Anna; Stuart Burrows (t), Don Ottavio; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded 1978


TO HEAR PRICE IN ONE OF THE MOZART
ROLES SHE SETTLED INTO, JUST CLICK HERE

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