Famous Soprano Arias from Italian Opera

The present collection of soprano arias from Italian opera takes its general title from a popular aria in Giacomo Puccini’s 1918 Gianni Schicchi, part of a trilogy of contrasting short operas first staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Based on an episode in Dante’s Inferno, it deals with the frustration of attempts by the relatives of Buoso Donati to effect a posthumous alteration of his will in their favour by allowing the rogue Gianni Schicchi to impersonate him. His impersonation is successful enough to allow him to make himself Buoso Donati’s heir. His daughter Lauretta, in O mio babbino caro ('My dear father'), pleads with her father to intervene in the affairs of Buoso Donati’s relatives and her new dowry finally enables her to marry Rinuccio, nephew of a cousin of the dead man.

Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani ('The Puritans') was first staged in Paris in 1835 and