Best Of Opera, Vol. 4

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Cat No: 8554682

Release Date: 04 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943468227

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BEST OF OPERA, VOL. 4

Description
The Best of Opera,Vol. 4[1] Wagner's opera The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, first stagedin Munich in 1868, is set in sixteenth-century Nuremberg, where a song contestis to be held, according to the traditional rules of the guilds. On thisoccasion the goldsmith Pogner is offering the winner the hand of his daughterEva in marriage. Matters are complicated by the intrusion of the young knightWalther, who falls in love with Eva and enters the contest, to the disgust ofthe town-clerk Beckmesser, who has his own ambitions. The Overture weavestogether various leading motifs associated with characters, ideas and events inthe work, starting with the Mastersingers motif, followed by that associatedwith Walther's love. There are motifs for the Guilds, for youthful fervour,love, passion and, in an accelerated version of the Mastersingers motif, musicfor the apprentices, all reaching a climax as they appear together.[2] Giuseppe Verdi owed something to Wagner, however different hisoperas may seem. From his first success in Milan in 1842 he went on to dominateItalian opera for years to come, with works that still remain central toItalian operatic repertoire. Aida, written to celebrate the opening of anew opera house, was first performed in Cairo in 1871. Set in Egypt, it dealswith the love of the Egyptian general Radames for the captive Ethiopianprincess of the title. Tricked into unwitting betrayal of the planned campaignof his army and object of jealous anger to the Egyptian princess Amneris, whosehand in marriage he had been offered by the grateful King, he is eventuallycondemned to death, immured in a tomb where he is joined by Aida, as Amnerislaments the fate of the man she had loved. In Ritorna vincitor! (May hereturn victorious) Aida is troubled by the prospect of her lover's victory overher own people, as he leaves to lead the Egyptian army against the Ethiopians.[3] Verdi's opera IlTrovatore ('The Troubadour'), first staged in Rome in 1853, has a plot ofsome complexity. The troubadour Manrico, supposed son of the gypsy Azucena butin fact, as is later revealed, the lost son of the Count di Luna, is pittedagainst his brother in war and for the love of Leonora. Azucena, who has comein search of her son, is seized by the Count di Luna and condemned to death atthe stake. Manrico, in Di quella pira ('That pyre's terrible fire'),learns of his mother's imminent death and resolves to rescue her, an attemptthat leads to his own imprisonment and death and, in final self-sacrifice, thatof Leonora.[4] The opera Cosi fan tutte ('They all behave like this') wasstaged in Vienna in 1790. It was Mozart's last collaboration with thelibrettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. Two lovers plan, for a wager, to test the fidelityof the sisters pledged to them by pretending to go away to the wars butreturning in disguise. As each woos the other's mistress, they eventuallysucceed, losing their wager, although matters are eventually put right, in oneway or another. In Come scoglio ('Steadfast
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