Best Of Opera, Vol. 5

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Cat No: 8554683

Release Date: 09 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943468326

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BEST OF OPERA, VOL. 5

Description
Best of Opera Volume 5[1] It was significant for Mozart that in 1786 he was encouraged by theEmperor to collaborate with Lorenzo da Ponte in the composition of an Italianopera, The Marriage of Figaro, a task more often entrusted to Italiancomposers. The new opera was based on one of a trilogy of plays by Beaumarchaisalready banned in Vienna. Da Ponte, however, was able to assure the Emperorthat anything objectionable had been removed from the opera based on the secondof these plays. Figaro, in the service of Count Almaviva, leads the intriguethat finally deflects the Count's attentions from his beloved Susanna, maid tothe Countess, in a series of events that reveals Figaro's own parentage, showsthe love-lorn page Cherubino in love with being in love, and finally puts allmatters. The brilliant overture sets the scene, as Figaro measures the roomallocated to him and his bride Susanna, one conveniently close to the Count'sown quarters.[2] Carmen, by the French composer Georges Bizet, set new and disturbingstandards of realism when it was first mounted in Paris in 1875. Carmen is agypsy factory-girl, employed in a Seville cigarette factory. Arrested forassault, she persuades her guard, the young Don Jose, to let her go and to joinher and her criminal companions in the mountains. Her purpose achieved, shesoon tires of him and turns her attentions to the handsome toreador DonEscamillo. She goes with him to the arena in Seville, but is waylaid by DonJose, who murders her, in a fit of jealous rage. Carmen sings her seductive Seguidillato Don Jose, suggesting a tavern where they may meet, once she has escapedfrom arrest.[3] There is a mixture of realism and the exotic in much of the work ofGiacomo Puccini, not least in The Girl of the Golden West, set in thewilds of California and first staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in1910. The drama centres on the love of Minnie and the bandit Ramerrez, aliasDick Johnson. Johnson is caught and is to be hanged, but pleads with hiscaptors not to let Minnie know of his fate, but to imagine him free and faraway. Before the execution can take place, however, Minnie comes to his rescue,threatening the men, who eventually allow her and her lover to go free.[4] Gioachino Rossiniwas brave in his decision to base an opera on the first play of theBeaumarchais Figaro trilogy, challenging a popular earlier opera by Paisiello. TheBarber of Seville was at first at a disadvantage when it was performed inRome in 1816. In the end, of course, it has been Rossini who has triumphed overPaisiello. The plot deals with Count Almaviva's wooing of Rosina, ward of thejealous old Dr Bartolo. The Count lets Rosina believe that he is a student andgains entry to Dr Bartolo's house through subterfuge, once as an officersupposedly billeted on the household and then as a music-master. In all thisintrigue he is abetted by Figaro, the barber of the title, and is finallysuccessful. The Count, known to Rosina as Lindoro, has serenaded her and
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