Opera

Saint-Saëns’ “Amour! viens aider ma faiblesse!” from “Samson et Dalila”: A Dark Prayer

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Throughout Camille Saint-Saëns’ 1877 opera, Samson et Dalila, Op. 47, the cunning and seductive Dalila has three prominent mezzo-soprano arias. In the most famous, Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix from Act II, Dalila lures Samson by comparing her heart to an open flower. Earlier in Act II, while seething with vengeance, she utters to the Philistine gods the dark prayer, Amour! viens aider ma faiblesse! Verse le poison dans son sein! (“Love! …

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Saint-Saëns’ Danse Bacchanale from “Samson and Dalila”: A Wild Revelry

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Set out in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges, it’s one of the Old Testament’s most scandalous and alluring stories. Samson, an Israelite judge of supernatural strength, is chosen by God to free the Hebrews from their tyrannical Philistine conquerors. Falling in love with the seductive Philistine Dalila, Samson betrays his calling. He confesses to Dalila that the source of his power came from his uncut hair. While he sleeps, Samson is …

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Remembering Antonino Fogliani

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Italian conductor Antonino Fogliani passed away on August 29 following a long illness. He was 50. Fogliani was an acclaimed interpreter of Italian bel canto and Rossini opera. Born in Messina, he rose to international prominence in 2001 when he debuted at the Rossini Opera Festival, leading Il viaggio a Reims. In 2012 he became music director of the Rossini in Wildbad Festival. Beginning in 2017, he served as principal guest conductor of …

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Remembering Ileana Cotrubaș

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Ileana Cotrubaș, a celebrated Romanian operatic soprano whose career spanned from the 1960s to the 1980s, passed away yesterday (August 20) in Bucharest. She was 87. Born into a musical family, Cotrubaș began singing in a children’s radio choir at age 9. In 1965, she won first prize at the International Vocal Competition ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. The following year, she won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. These successes opened …

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Korngold’s “Die tote Stadt” Finale: Torsten Kerl

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s 1920 opera, Die tote Stadt (“The Dead City”) is “a psychological drama about grief, obsession, and acceptance.” (English National Opera) The opera’s synopsis is nearly identical to the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film, Vertigo. Haunted by the memory of his late wife, Paul obsessively pursues a dancer who closely resembles her. Amid Paul’s psychological descent, reality blurs with hallucination. He believes that he has strangled the dancer, Marietta, with a lock …

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Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” Overture: Tragedy and Comedy

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As the story goes, Mozart wrote the Overture to Don Giovanni the night before the opera’s Prague premiere on October 29, 1787. “Don’t worry, it’s all up here,” the composer insisted, pointing to his head. Mozart’s wife, Constanze, provided punch and kept him company while he worked through the night. The manuscript was finished at 7:00 AM, and was rushed to copyists. With the ink barely dry, the musicians of the orchestra reportedly …

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Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes”: Atmospheric Portraits

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Set in a small English coastal village, Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera, Peter Grimes, tells the dark story of an alienated individual who falls victim to mob rule. This human struggle, with its focus on morality and punishment, plays out against the backdrop of the sea, a vast eternal presence. Throughout the opera, the action is interrupted by four orchestral interludes. Howard Posner describes them as scene changes by a master of the …

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