Parisina - Donizetti - duet: "Ah! Chi veggio? Tu signore?” - Caballé, Quilico - New York, 1974 скачать в хорошем качестве

Parisina - Donizetti - duet: "Ah! Chi veggio? Tu signore?” - Caballé, Quilico - New York, 1974

“Ah! Chi veggio? Tu signore?” is the blazing baritone-soprano duet from Act 2 of Donizetti's 'Parisina', one of his three 'Ferrara operas' of 1833 ('Torquato Tasso', 'Lucrezia Borgia'). It is the turning point of the plot and a masterpiece of Romanticism in Italy. Quilico brings considerable power to the difficult baritone rôle of Azzo, while a peak-period Caballé -- in gorgeous voice -- tears into a legendary career moment. This duet is one of the score's three expressive peaks, which are also the anguished Act 1 duet "Dillo...Io te 'l chieggo in merito" and its striking ariosi ("Ma girne in bando ancora"), and the whole of the brief, intense Act 3. The entire drama can be discerned in these sections alone. "Ah! Chi veggio?" represents an important milestone for Donizetti, and contributes the kind of anti-Rossinian material to the Italian operatic tradition that Verdi would admire and emulate for his own art. "Most of my readers are aware that the second act of "Parisina" opens with the celebrated and effective duet in which Parisina, while sleeping, betrays to Azzo the secret of her love for Ugo. The injured husband goes through all the emotions of jealousy, until conviction seizes on his mind, and then, in a frenzy of rage and indignation, he awakens his guilty wife to tell her that he knows her guilt and to threaten her with his vengeance. This duet is one of the most beautiful, expressive and terrible conceptions that has ever emanated from the fruitful pen of Donizetti." ---Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, ch 34 The libretto by Felice Romani is based on a poem, 'Parisina', by Lord Byron, which was published 13 Feb 1816. Byron based his story on this brief tale related by Edward Gibbon in his 'Miscellaneous Works' of 1796: "By the testimony of a maid, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous love of his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle, by the sentence of a father and a husband, who published his shame, and survived the execution. He was unfortunate, if they were guilty: if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate: nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of the injustice of a parent." The poem concerns Niccolò III d'Este (9 Nov 1383 - 26 Dec 1441), Marquess of Ferrara and notorious womanizer, whom Byron renamed Azzo. Lord Byron's Azzo should not be confused with Azzo IX d'Este, Niccolò's uncle, who in 1395 made a disastrous play for Niccolò's seat of power at Ferrara (see: Battle of Portomaggiore). Byron describes the pathos of the young lovers' fate: Hugo is fallen; and from that hour, No more in palace, hall, or bower, Was Parisina heard or seen; Her name – as if she ne’er had been – No tomb – no memory had they; Theirs was unconsecrated clay. Laura Malatesta (1404 - 21 May 1425), known as Parisina Malatesta, was an Italian marchioness, daughter of Andrea Malatesta, lord of Cesena, and his second wife, Lucrezia Ordelaffi, who was poisoned by Lucrezia's father Cecco III Ordelaffi when Parisina was a few days old, thereby foreshadowing her own fate. She grew up in the court at Rimini. In 1418 in Ravenna, age 14, she married Niccolò III d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, age 35, whose first wife Gigliola da Carrara had died in 1416, and moved to a plague-ravaged Ferrara. She lived in the tower of Rigobello in rooms under the library, and in the Delizia di Consandolo, built by Niccolò, and surrounded by gardens. In 1419 she gave birth to twin daughters, Lucia and Ginevra. In 1421 a baby son, Alberto, lived only a few months. During a trip in 1424 to visit her family, Parisina was accompanied, according to her husband's wishes, by Ugo d'Este, illegitimate son of Niccolò by his lover, Stella de' Tolomei, and who had been raised luxuriously by his father. The two young people came to know each other in Ravenna and became lovers. The relationship continued in Ferrara. They met in the 'Delizie' (pleasure palaces) of Belfiore, Fossadalbero and Quartesana. Other sources report she fled to the Castello di Fossadalbero accompanied by Ugo to escape the plague of 1423, starting the relationship there. A maid named Zoese told Niccolò about the affair, who had a hole made in the ceiling of the chamber where the lovers met to see into the room below with a system of mirrors. He imprisoned his wife and son in the castle dungeon after a brief trial. They were beheaded on 21 May 1425. Both Ugo and Laura were but 20 yrs old. But Parisina’s fate lies hid Like dust beneath the coffin lid; But whatso’er its end below, Her life began and closed in woe! ---Lord Byron #Caballé #Parisina #Donizetti #Byron #opera #operaduets #Ferrara #Quilico #LauraMalatesta #Italy #Italianopera #belcanto #Ah!Chiveggio? #duetto #NiccolòIIId'Este