J'TE RÉSUME - Gounod/Faust

Puis que c'est la Nuit de Walpurgis aujourd'hui (enfin, ce soir), j'ai pensé partager cette vidéo de l'Opéra et ses Zouz, un canal YouTube que j'ai découvert l'année dernière et que j'aime bien, vidéo qui résume le Faust de Gounod. Quel rapport, me direz-vous? Il y a une scène complète de l'opéra qui se passe cette nuit-là, c'est en fait grâce à l'opéra que je l'ai découverte. Quant à l'opéra lui-même, c'est un de ceux post-Mozart que j'aime le plus, pour ses thèmes sombres et son atmosphère terrifiante. Sa musique fait partie dema musicographie à l'Halloween.

Figarohaus

My father sent me a few weeks ago pictures dating back from our family trip in Austria, during the 200th nniversary of the death of Mozart. We visited a lot of towns and cities, among them Vienna. This is where he took this picture. I am not sure if it is the same as the Mozarthaus, only with a different name, but from my father's memory this is where Mozart composed Le Nozze di Figaro. I must confess I don't remember seeing the Figarohaus of the Mozarthaus, or whatever its official name is, but I do remember quite a few things about that trip, especially the music, the concerts and the operas we went to. I will blog more about our time in Austria it in the future. I also think a post about Vienna would not be quite completed without a bit of music, and that it would be fitting to share something from Le Nozze di Figaro, an aria sung by Luca Pisaroni.

Vous qui faites l'endormie...

Quand l'Halloween approche, j'ai un programme musical assez précis et éclectique. J'écoute notamment le Faust de Gounod. Je n'aime pas tous les opéras du XIXe siècle, mais celui-ci disons qu'il a de la gueule. Et puis la légende de Faust est en soi fascinante. Je partage donc ici ce soir l'un de ses arias. Que j'ai déjà partagé. Mais comme ça fait quasiment une décennie... Enfin, partager des arias de Faust est un peu une tradition sur Vraie Fiction.

A duet from Cosi fan tutte

Since I watched Cosi fan tutte in the local park two months ago, I have been rediscovering this opera and decided to find some free time to watch again all three collaborative works between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte, back to back. Not sure if I will have time until my own little Wolfie arrives, but at least that gives him the occasion to hear Mozart while he is in the womb, and apparently it's good for him and his intellectual development. Anyway, so I thought I would share a duet from Cosi fan tutte, the duet Il core vi dono, sung between Guglielmo (Luca Pisaroni) and Dorabella (Anke Vondung). As I mentioned in my previous post on the subject, if I had studied opera enough to become a professional opera singer, Guglielmo would have been my role, as I am a baritone. Fittingly enough, Guglielmo is also Guillaume in Italian. It's is absolutely sublime as a duet and like the whole opera a complete deconstruction of what a love duet should be. In fact, it is far more about infatuation than love and as you can read in the subtitles, the lyrics are surprisingly raunchy. But it is beautiful all the same and the rendition here is amazing.

Pimm's and Mozart in the park

One cannot seldom evenings as ideal as the one I've had last Sunday. There was a representation of Cosi fan tutte by Mozart in the town's most important park. Not a live one, it was on a big screen and from recorded stage performance dating back from last year, but all the same. It was Mozart, for free, on a gorgeous evening of June, in a beautiful park. And to top it off, they were serving Pimm's. Not for free, it was two pounds a glass, there was a good deal left near the end of the evening, two pounds a pint and one pound a half. But it was for charity, so there was no reason to feel guilty about a few drinks. I missed the beginning of the opera, otherwise I watched the whole thing. It was a pleasure to rediscover Cosi fan tutte, another great subversive collaborative work between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. It is the anti love story. And it was a rediscovery in more than one way for me: one of the characters has the same name as me, but in Italian: Guglielmo. And he is played by a baritone, which is my voice. If I ever go back on stage and sing Mozart, I want to sing Cosi fan tutte. And to end this post, here is one of Guglielmo's arias, Donne mie la fate a tanti, sung by Luca Pisaroni. Okay, so I don't have his voice, especially not after all these years of not working on it, but I think with enough work I could pull a decent performance.