(Note: Budden, Julian. The Operas of Verdi. I. From Oberto to Rigoletto. London: Cassell, 1973.)He had heard that Jenny Lind, the Swedish songbird, was not going to learn any more roles, and he had written the role with her in mind. Benjamin Lumley, the Impresario, had problems with singers and conductor Michele Costa earlier that year at Her Majesty's Theatre. The conductor and singers let to form Covent Garden.
Previously at Her Majesty's Theatre, when the London audience realized that the baritone singing was not their beloved Tamburini, but newcomer Filippo Coletti, the rushed the stage in protest. Coletti was cast in this new Verdi opera.
From wikipedia: "Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha attended the first performance, together with the Duke of Wellington and every member of the British aristocracy and fashionable society that was able to gain admission."
Not the baritone, but someone:
The song bird should likely be sung by a bird, I always prefer crows, but they are not songbirds, nor very feminine.
ReplyDeleteThe picture is fabulous.
Duke Wellington, oddly the strongest association I have with that is a line from Woody Allen's Love and Death where Woody as Napoleon speaks about how his rival has invented Beef Wellington, so he must create a superior dish. "More sauce, more cream!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQAoyWMTrV4 the trailer
Turns out that was made in the year of my birth. It also is the first movie that I saw on our home VCR and I watched it a lot! I and my siblings can recite many a line from this epic film. Oh, and that is where I fell in love with Alexander Nevsky (I have a great MKE SYmph recording) music by Prokofiev.
Maybe Verdi meets Prokofiev via a bending of a Woody Allen behind the scenes scene...
I know the Prokofiev recording you speak of. I think we have listened to it.
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