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BEST OF OPERA, VOL. 4 |
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Composer: |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amilcare Ponchielli, Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Verdi, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Richard Wagner, Pietro Mascagni, Jules Massenet, Georges Bizet, Gaetano Donizetti, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Gioachino Rossini |
Artist: |
Graciela Alperyn, Giacomo Aragall, Jussi Bjorling, Joanna Borowska, Priti Coles, Francesco Ellero d' Artegna, John Dickie, Maria Dragoni, Miroslav Dvorsky, Stefka Evstatieva, Maurizio Frusoni, Miriam Gauci, Thomas Harper, Raoul Jobin, Kristjan Johannson, Kaludi Kaludov, Monika Krause, Giorgio Lamberti, Lotte Lehmann, Herbert Lippert, Daniela Longhi, Andrea Martin, Nicola Martinucci, Anna di Mauro, Lauritz Melchior, Peter Mikulas, Jozsef Mukk, Ewa Podles, Rosa Ponselle, Yordy Ramiro, Teresa Ringholz, Donna Robin, Helge Rosvaenge, Bidu Sayao, Janos Selmeczi, Roberto Servile, Thomas Sunnegardh, Gladys Swarthout, Renata Tebaldi, Georg Tichy, Alan Titus, Eduard Tumagian, John Brownlee, Katarina Dalayman, Kurt Azesberger, John McCormack, Louise Homer, Nellie Melba, Dorothy Kirsten, Giuseppe Valdengo, Salvatore Baccaloni, Lina Bruna-Rasa, Carlo Galeffi, Set Svanholm, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Mercedes Capsir, Lionello Cecil, Pia Tassinari, Ina Souez, Luise Helletsgruber, Licia Albanese, Beniamino Gigli, Frida Leider, Richard Tauber, Elisabeth Schumann, Leonard Warren, Erna Berger, Jan Peerce, Nan Merriman, Nathaniel Sprinzena, Gino Bechi, Maria Marcucci, Giannina Arangi-Lombardi, Ebe Stignani, Camilla Rota, Eleanor Steber, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Tiana Lemnitz, Iva Pacetti, Mario Basiola, Giuseppe Nessi, Leone Paci, Maria Caniglia, Italo Tajo, Lucrezia Bori, Ida Conti, Aristide Baracchi, Natale Villa, Bo Skovhus, Bianca Scacciati, Enrico Molinari, Giuseppina Zinetti, Francesco Merli, Frances Alda, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, A. Regis Rossini, Ulrik Qvale, Mirella Freni, Peter Schreier, Karita Mattila, Thomas Allen, Margaret Price, Agnes Baltsa, Fedora Barbieri, Riccardo Stracciari, Francis Lapitino, Hellen Kwon, Ruth Ziesak, Titta Ruffo, Joan Sutherland, Kiri Te Kanawa, Hilde Gueden, Anton Dermota, Alfred Poell, Charles Kullman, Tito Schipa, Giovanni Martinelli, Roberto Frontali, Landon Ronald, Zsuzsa Csonka, Rohangiz Yachmi, Franco de Grandis, Kurt Rydl, Wilfried Gahmlich, Boje Skovhus, Alzbeta Michalkova, Carlo Forti, Doina Palade, Vicente Sardinero, Marcel Rosca, Donald George, Irina Tchistjakova, Barbara Dever, Mark Rucker, Pietro Spagnoli, Alessandra Ruffini, Simone Alaimo, Mariangela Spotorno, Anders Bergstrom, Ingrid Tobiasson, Per-Arne Wahlgren, Justin Lavender, Jonas Degerfeldt, Miriam Treichl, Lars Martinsson, Maria Zamboni, Solange Michel, Michel Dens, Martha Angelici, Jennie Tourel, Richard Wright, Otto Edelmann, Frederick Dalberg, Erich Majkut, Hans Berg, Erich Kunz, Heinrich Pflanzl, Josef Janko, Karl Mikorey, Gerhard Stolze, Heinz Tandler, Heinz Borst, Arnold van Mill, Hans Hopf, Gerhard Unger, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Ira Malaniuk, Werner Faulhaber, Zinka Milanov, Nicola Moscona, Margaret Roggero, Paul Franke, George Cehanovsky, Giuseppe de Luca, Fernando Corena, Piero De Palma, Studio pianist, Bruno Pratico, Yaroslava Poberezhna, Ruslan Tansky, Dusolina Giannini, Joseph Schmidt, Claramae Turner, Marian Vach, Vittore Veneziani, Ladislav Neshyba, Jan Rozehnal, Alma Gluck, Lucienne van Deyck, Lars-Erik Jonsson, Elvira Casazza, Dario Zani, Robert Merrill, Hilde Leidland, Amelita Galli-Curci, Elisabeth Norberg-Schulz, Jozef Spacek, Danilo Rigosa, Ann Liebeck, Dalia Schaechter, Rannveig Braga, Ivica Neshybova, Peter Oswald, Pavol Maurery, Peter Subert, Henk Lauwers, Ludwig van Gijzegem, Sandor Pasztor, Janos Tandari, Riccardo Ferrari, Antonio Marceno, Monica Trini, Lotte Leitner, Anna Tomson, Adam Giertz, Emelie Clausen, Mattias Nilsson, Johan Lilja, Mario Del Monaco, Aldo Protti, Dario Caselli, Hedwig Fassbender, Victoria De los Angeles, Marcello Giordani, Maria Arghiracopulos, Sunhae Im, Salvatore Cottone, Stefano Secco, Maria Callas, Rolando Panerai, Tito Gobbi, Franco Calabrese, Maria Amandini, Gianni Poggi, Paolo Silveri, Giulio Neri, Armando Benzi, Piero Poldi, Heddle Nash, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, Veronique Gens, Gerhard Husch, Richard van Allan, Boris Christoff, Vincenzo La Scola, Renato Bruson, James Ehnes, Carol Brice, Indra Thomas, Mario Sammarco, Leopold Simoneau, Soile Isokoski, Else Schurhoff, Goran Eliasson, Anna Maria Canali, Ede Gandolfo Marietti, Ines Marietti, Francesco Albanese, Ugo Savarese, Mariano Caruso, Mario Zorgniotti, Alberto Albertini, Gino Bianchi, Franco Rossi, Giulio Mogliotti, Marlis Petersen, Hermann Prey, Yvonne Naef, Juliane Banse, Harald Proglhof, Franz Bierbach, Ljubomir Pantscheff, Hermann Gallos, Fritz Wunderlich, Cloe Elmo, Giuseppe Noto, Johanna Gadski, Jose Maria Zapata, Paolo Bordogna, Patrizia Cigna, Martina Borst, Luca Pisaroni, Marco Bellei, Rina Gigli, Bernarda Fink, Werner Gura, Matteo Peirone, Ebe Ticozzi, Nicola Monti, Renato Ercolani, Luisa Villa, Mario Carlin, Plinio Clabassi, Enrico Campi, Kitty Wilson, Anna Maria Rota, Giuseppe Conca, Karl Donch, Lisa Otto, Kenneth Collins, Donald Shanks, Hao Jiang Tian, Paul Schoeffler, Hugo Meyer-Welfing, Wilhelm Felden, William Wergnick, Gunther Treptow, Bruna Rizzoli, Fiorenza Cossotto, Sesto Bruscantini, Irene Eisinger, Enrico Caruso, Colin Mawby, Antonietta Stella, Lucy Isabelle Marsh, Elvira Galassi, Luisa Mandelli, Lauris Elms, Marcos Fink, Vittorio Tatozzi, Nicola Zaccaria, William Dickie, Marjorie Heyward, Franco Ricciardi, Richard Tucker, Giuseppe Modesti, Klaus Florian Vogt, Anna Ryberg, Lado Ataneli, Jonathan Summers, Cynthia Johnston, Robin Donald, Elsie Baker, Silvio Maionica, Giuseppe Zampieri, Max Saal, Tatiana Pavlovskaya, Giulio Mauri, Hui He, Anna-Kristiina Kaappola, Joyce DiDonato, Julian Pregardien, Konstantin Wolff, Dermot Troy, Magnus Staveland, Daniel Behle, Simone Kermes, Giuseppe Morresi, Cesare Valletti, Mario Zanasi, Marie Collier, Lea Roberts, Forbes Robinson, Miljenko Turk, Rene Moller, Christa Mayer, Josef Wagner, Michael Nagy, Hans-Jurgen Lazar, Marcel Boone, Graciela Oddone, Joachim Buhrmann, Anna Grevelius, Inga Kalna, Sarah M'Punga, Franco Ventriglia, Daniela Mazzuccato, Giulio Fioravanti, Dino Formichini, Vito Tattone, David Kelly, Daniel Schmutzhard, Isabelle Druet, Alois Muhlbacher, Christoph Schlogl, Philipp Potzlberger, Clemens-Maria Nuszbaumer, Christian Koch, Stuart Burrows, Jenny Carlstedt, Ronald Lewis, Sebastian Bollacher, Camilla De Falleiro, Daniel Martinez-Corvera |
Conductor: |
Peter Schreier, Landon Ronald, Christoph Poppen, Wilfrid Pelletier, Gyorgy Selmeczi, Sten Frykberg, Cesare Sodero, Rene Jacobs, Josef A. Pasternack, Richard Bonynge, Gabriele Santini, Lawrence Collingwood, Georg Huber, Will Humburg, Gaetano Merola, Sebastian Weigle, Pietro Mascagni, Willem Mengelberg, Herbert von Karajan, Michael Halasz, Konrad Leitner, Antonello Gotta, Lodovico Zocche, Stanford Robinson, Argeo Quadri, Enrico Sivieri, Marcus Creed, Michael Hofstetter, Otto Dobrindt, Clemens Schmalstich, Hans Knappertsbusch, Pietro Cimini, Alberto Erede, Victor Trucco, Giulio Setti, Carlo Sabajno, Steven Mercurio, Klaus-Peter Hahn, John Barbirolli, Lorenzo Molajoli, Giuseppe Antonicelli, Walter B. Rogers, Rosario Bourdon, Fritz Busch, Umberto Berrettoni, Dino Olivieri, Renato Cellini, Selmar Meyrowitz, Franco Ghione, Eckhard Weyand, Oliver Dohnanyi, Nils Grevillius, Ondrej Lenard, Karl Muck, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Arnold Ostman, Alexander Rahbari, Ricco Saccani, Leif Segerstam, Tullio Serafin, Yoav Talmi, Johannes Wildner, Charles Rosekrans, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Carl Schuricht, Percy Pitt, Jonel Perlea, Long Yu, Alberto Zedda, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Antonino Votto, Colin Davis, Thomas Beecham, Bruno Seidler-Winkler, Andre Cluytens, Vincenzo Bellezza, Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Jean Morel, Roberto Paternostro, Giacomo Spadoni, Ivan Anguelov, Wolfgang Grohs, Mikko Franck, Heinz Wallberg, Heinz Fricke, Nicola Rescigno, Kurt Peter Eichhorn, Vladimir Ghiaurov, Otmar Suitner |
Choir: |
Bayreuth Festival Chorus, Budapest Festival Chorus, BRT Philharmonic Chorus , Hungarian State Opera Chorus, Kiev Chamber Choir, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, RTE Chamber Choir, RTE Philharmonic Choir, Slovak Philharmonic Chorus, Vienna State Opera Chorus, Hungarian Festival Chorus, Royal Opera House Chorus, Covent Garden, Favres Solisten Vereinigung, Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Robert Shaw Chorale, Milan La Scala Chorus, Rome Opera House Chorus, Opera Australia Chorus, Studio chorus, Drottningholm Theatre Chorus, Hungarian Festival Choir, Jaak Gregoor Choir, Tomtberga School Children's Choir, Paris Opera-Comique Chorus, Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Bratislava Children's Choir, Royal Swedish Opera Chorus, CETRA Chorus, Columbus Boychoir, Catania Teatro Massimo Bellini Chorus, Prague Chamber Chorus, Culwick Choral Society, Bray Choral Society, Dublin County Choir, Dun Laoghaire Choral Society, Cantabile Singers, Goethe Institut Choir, Capella Vocalis Boys Choir, Musica Sacra, Phoenix Singers, Frankfurt Opera Chorus, Frankfurt Opera Children's Chorus, RAI Chorus, Turin, Philharmonia Chorus, RIAS Chamber Chorus, Ludwigsburger Festspiele Choir, Bratislava National Opera Choir, Cologne Chamber Choir, Compagnia d'Opera Italiana Chorus, Covent Garden Opera Chorus |
Ensemble: |
Camerata Transylvanica |
Orchestra: |
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Victor Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Zagreb Festival Orchestra, Milan Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, MGM Studio Orchestra, Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Rosario Bourdon Orchestra, Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden, Ukrainian National Opera Symphony Orchestra, Prussian State Orchestra, Budapest Failoni Chamber Orchestra, Stockholm Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Royal Opera Orchestra , Munich Radio Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, RCA Victor Orchestra, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Belgian Radio and Television Philharmonic Orchestra, RAI Symphony Orchestra, Turin, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Drottningholm Court Theatre Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ireland National Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Razumovsky Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, Josef Pasternack Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Catania Teatro Massimo Bellini Orchestra, Glyndebourne Festival Orchestra, Rome Opera House Orchestra, Quebec Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nils Grevillius Orchestra, CSR Symphony Orchestra, Bratislava, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, John Barbirolli Orchestra, South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Baden-Baden, Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Swedish Orchestra, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Irish Army No. 1 Band, Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra, Schwanen Salon Orchestra, Vienna Mozart Orchestra, Wurttemberg Philharmonic Orchestra, Failoni Orchestra, Budapest, Berlin State Opera Orchestra, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Milan La Scala Orchestra , Concerto Koln, Dresden Staatskapelle, Studio orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra , Paris Opera-Comique Orchestra, Camerata Transsylvanica, Ludwigsburger Festspiele Orchestra, Europa Symphony, Moscow State Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Akademie fur Alte Musik, German Radio Saarbrucken-Kaiserslautern Philharmonic Orchestra, Compagnia d'Opera Italiana Orchestra, Covent Garden Orchestra |
Lyricist: |
Ludovic Halevy, Henri Meilhac, Francesco Maria Piave, Domenico Oliva, Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, Paul Schott, Emanuel Schikaneder, Ranieri Calzabigi, Antonio Ghislanzoni, Felice Romani, Lorenzo Da Ponte, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Salvadore Cammarano, Richard Wagner, Jacopo Ferretti, Tobia Gorrio, Luigi Illica |
Label: |
Naxos |
Catalogue No.: |
8.554682 |
Format: |
CD |
Barcode: |
0636943468227 |
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The Best of Opera,
Vol. 4
[1] Wagner's opera The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, first staged
in Munich in 1868, is set in sixteenth-century Nuremberg, where a song contest
is to be held, according to the traditional rules of the guilds. On this
occasion the goldsmith Pogner is offering the winner the hand of his daughter
Eva in marriage. Matters are complicated by the intrusion of the young knight
Walther, who falls in love with Eva and enters the contest, to the disgust of
the town-clerk Beckmesser, who has his own ambitions. The Overture weaves
together various leading motifs associated with characters, ideas and events in
the work, starting with the Mastersingers motif, followed by that associated
with Walther's love. There are motifs for the Guilds, for youthful fervour,
love, passion and, in an accelerated version of the Mastersingers motif, music
for the apprentices, all reaching a climax as they appear together.
[2] Giuseppe Verdi owed something to Wagner, however different his
operas may seem. From his first success in Milan in 1842 he went on to dominate
Italian opera for years to come, with works that still remain central to
Italian operatic repertoire. Aida, written to celebrate the opening of a
new opera house, was first performed in Cairo in 1871. Set in Egypt, it deals
with the love of the Egyptian general Radames for the captive Ethiopian
princess of the title. Tricked into unwitting betrayal of the planned campaign
of his army and object of jealous anger to the Egyptian princess Amneris, whose
hand in marriage he had been offered by the grateful King, he is eventually
condemned to death, immured in a tomb where he is joined by Aida, as Amneris
laments the fate of the man she had loved. In Ritorna vincitor! (May he
return victorious) Aida is troubled by the prospect of her lover's victory over
her own people, as he leaves to lead the Egyptian army against the Ethiopians.
[3] Verdi's opera Il
Trovatore (‘The Troubadour’), first staged in Rome in 1853, has a plot of
some complexity. The troubadour Manrico, supposed son of the gypsy Azucena but
in fact, as is later revealed, the lost son of the Count di Luna, is pitted
against his brother in war and for the love of Leonora. Azucena, who has come
in search of her son, is seized by the Count di Luna and condemned to death at
the stake. Manrico, in Di quella pira (‘That pyre's terrible fire’),
learns of his mother's imminent death and resolves to rescue her, an attempt
that leads to his own imprisonment and death and, in final self-sacrifice, that
of Leonora.
[4] The opera Cosí fan tutte (‘They all behave like this’) was
staged in Vienna in 1790. It was Mozart's last collaboration with the
librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Two lovers plan, for a wager, to test the fidelity
of the sisters pledged to them by pretending to go away to the wars but
returning in disguise. As each woos the other's mistress, they eventually
succeed, losing their wager, although matters are eventually put right, in one
way or another. In Come scoglio (‘Steadfast as a rock’) one of the sisters,
Fiordiligi, declares her intention of resisting to the end the advances of the
stranger who now presses his attentions on her.
[5] A leading figure in French opera towards the end of the nineteenth
century, Jules Massenet based his 1894 opera Thaïs on a work by Anatole
France. It deals with the love of the courtesan of the title for a holy man,
Athanaël, who is finally tempted by her beauty, after her successful
conversion. This last is reflected in the famous Méditation, an
intermezzo that marks her change of heart.
[6] Massenet, in his opera Manon, turned his attention also to
the story of Manon Lescaut, fated heroine of a novel by the Abbé Prévost.
Puccini, a dominant figure in Italian opera at the turn of the century, treated
the tragic story in an opera first staged in Turin in 1893. Manon, escorted by
her brother to a convent but accompanied by the rich older man Geronte, meets
the Chevalier Des Grieux and the two elope, before Lescaut and Geronte can
leave for Paris. There, however, she is finally forced to accept the protection
of Geronte and when she seeks to leave him for her former lover, she is
arrested at Geronte's insistence, accused of theft as she attempts to take with
her jewels he has provided for her. Condemned to transportation, she is
accompanied by Des Grieux, only to die in the desert outside New Orleans, Sola,
perduta, abbandonata (‘Alone, lost, abandoned’), as her lover goes to seek
shelter for them.
[7] Donizetti's lighter hearted L'Elisir d'amore (‘The Elixir of
Love’) of 1832 shows the apparently hopeless love of the simple peasant
Nemorino for a rich landowner, Adina, who herself is attracted to the bragging
soldier Belcore. Nemorino finds help in his suit from the quack doctor
Dulcamara and his bogus elixir and in a legacy that brings him unusual
popularity. In Una furtiva lagrima (‘A furtive tear’) he sees signs of
Adina's love for him and the pair are eventually united.
[8] Staged first in Venice in 1853, Verdi's La Traviata (‘The
Fallen Woman’) is based on La Dame aux camélias (‘The Lady of the
Camelias’) by Alexandre Dumas. The courtesan Violetta meets and falls in love
with the young Alfredo Germont, with whom she sets up house, leaving her former
life. She is persuaded by Alfredo's father to break off the relationship, while
not revealing her reason for this action, to the anger and contempt of her
lover. It is only when she lies dying of consumption that Alfredo learns the
truth. After their first meeting, Violetta seems to experience true love for
the first time, but in Follie!… Sempre libera (‘Folly!… Always free’)
she dismisses the thought.
[9] A composer of the greatest precocity, Erich Korngold spent much of
his career in America, writing music for the cinema. His opera Die tote
Stadt (‘The Dead City’) had its successful premières in Cologne and Hamburg
on 4th December 1920, when Korngold was twenty-three. The work deals with the
preoccupation of the protagonist Paul with his dead wife Marie and his
fascination with the actress Marietta. A dream about the latter breaks the
spell, allowing Paul to embark on a new life. Marietta's song Glück, das mir
verblieb (‘Joy, that is left me’) tells of a beloved who soon must die,
affecting Paul deeply.
[10] The last of Mozart's operas to be staged in his lifetime, Die
Zauberflöte (‘The Magic Flute’), running at the time of his death in the
winter of 1791, has a masonic setting. The hero Tamino passes through ordeals
of various kinds before reaching enlightenment and union with his beloved
Pamina. He is shown her picture, at the beginning of his quest, and is dazzled
by the beauty he sees there in Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön (‘This
picture is bewitchingly beautiful’).
[11] La Cenerentola (‘Cinderella’) allows Rossini some latitude
in his 1817 treatment of Perrault's tale. The heroine is finally united with
her prince and shows magnanimity in pardoning her father and sisters,
expressing this in a remarkable show piece, Nacqui all'affanno e al pianto (‘I
was born to trouble and tears’).
[12] Italian verismo (realism) in opera is seen in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci
(Players), first mounted in Milan in 1892. Based on a court case, the plot
concerns the justified jealousy of the actor Canio towards his wife Nedda, whom
he murders in the course of a play that reflects something of the real
situation in the actors' lives. The Bell Chorus in the first of the two
acts marks the departure of the villagers at the sound of the vesper bell,
leaving Nedda aware of the danger she faces from her husband's possible
jealousy and from the unwanted attentions of the ugly Tonio, whose actions
finally provoke the catastrophe.
[13] In a plot of some complexity, Ponchielli's 1876 opera La
Gioconda is again a tale of love and jealousy. Here the Genoese Laura is
married to the chief of the Venetian state inquisition, but in fact loves the
Genoese prince Enzo Grimaldi, who comes to Venice disguised as a sea captain.
On the deck of his ship he sings his aria Cielo e mar (Sky and sea), as
he awaits the arrival of Laura, unaware of the plot that the wicked spy Barnaba
has laid for him. It is only through the self-sacrifice of the singer of the
title that Laura and Enzo Grimaldi are eventually united.
[14] The ancient Greek story of Alcestis, who was prepared to take her
husband's place by dying and descending to the Underworld instead of him, was
notably treated by Euripides. Gluck, in his Italian opera on the subject in
1767, followed nine years later by a French version for Paris, explored the
same legend with a new attempt at dramatic realism. The sacrifice of Alcestis
has proved acceptable to the gods and she sings her defiance of death in Ombre,
larve (‘Shades, ghosts’).
[15] Georges Bizet tackled the subject of Carmen, in 1875, with a
work that explored new operatic territory in a story of love, jealousy and
murder set in Spain. There the gypsy factory-girl Carmen seduces the young
soldier Don José, who deserts his post to accompany her and her smuggler
companions to the mountains. She turns her favours to the toreador Escamillo
and is finally murdered by Don José outside the bull-ring in Seville. The
entr'acte to Act III sets the relatively tranquil mountain scene.
[16] Mascagni's opera Cavalleria rusticana (‘Rustic Chivalry’) is
often given in a double bill with Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, which it
matches in realism. Set in a Sicilian village, it deals once more with love and
jealousy. Santuzza, neglected by her former lover Turiddu, resents his
attentions to Lola, now married to the village carter Alfio. She is
instrumental in exciting Alfio's jealousy and provoking a duel that ends in
Turiddu's death. In Mamma, quel vino è generoso (Mamma, this wine is too
potent) Turiddu bids his mother farewell, before leaving to fight with Alfio.
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