I have no idea if many people here like opera. I do, it's more than a form of theater with music, it's a combinations of words and music that are pleasing to the ear and attractive to the heart. If you know how to develop your senses more fully, opera is to perceive and not just see, to listen rather than simply hear, to let ourself go by the feelings it arises without going through a rational analysis. The emotional dimension is amplified far beyond what words by themselves and the music by itself can achieve.
It's amazing how we use our senses to perceive opera but also how those senses are used in every aspect of life. I have selected Una Furtiva Lagrima from Donizetti's timeless opera L'elisir d'amore, one of my favorite music when anchored at night. Every time it reminded me of the way I first fell in love with opera.
Una Furtiva Lagrima, played in this revival by French tenor Roberto Alagna.
"Roberto Alagna - The Story of a Tenor.
The career of Alagna could well be made into a novel. He was born of Sicilian parents settled in the Parisian suburbs.
For years, he spent his nights singing old tunes and playing the guitar in the cabarets. But deep inside, he was fond of opera, and his idol was Pavarotti. So when the tenorissimo came to Paris to sign autographs in a department store, young Alagna sneaked through the crowd, managed to approach him and tell him a few words. The right words undoubtedly, as he was then invited to audition by the maestro. He went there and earned a ticket to the finale of the Pavarotti Competition in Philadelphia – which he won. This was 1988; he was twenty-four years old.
Alagna’s voice was then bright and radiant. It was the voice of the Italian tenor people dream about. Glyndebourne called him to play Alfredo in La Traviata. He then performed in Monte Carlo, and soon after at La Scala with Riccardo Muti, portraying Alfredo with rare fervor. After that, he played the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, once again with Muti, and Rodolfo in La Bohème. In just a few years, the greatest international stages, from New York to Vienna and London, opened their doors to him; the greatest conductors were honored to direct him; everywhere he was acclaimed.
Adopted by a broad public, Roberto Alagna appears on television sets where he performs with pop singers, participates in charity concerts (Michael Jackson & Friends) or exceptional events – in 2002 and 2003, he sang for the Pope in Rome. On his own admission, the high point of his career remains his performance, on July 14th 2005, of the French national anthem on the Champs-Élysées, in front of the official gallery.
Although his recordings and performances have earned him the highest musical and official awards (he was made knight of the French Legion of Honor in 2008), Roberto Alagna is not idling his time away. His schedule for the years to come includes major roles, such as Paolo in Francesca da Rimini, recently acclaimed in Paris and unanimously praised by the critics, Le Cid, Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, etc.
Roberto Alagna’s gamble has now paid off: he has become a popular singer, known and loved by a broad audience, without renouncing the standards of the great lyrical repertoire.
As a consequence, at an age when other tenors start to feel somewhat drained, Alagna tackles these great roles with unbelievable freshness, on the world’s greatest stages, at a pace no-one but him could withstand. Add to that his perpetual risk-taking and the surprising initiatives the tenor embarks on, on a crush or by instinct."
As he likes to put it and repeat it again and again,
my own secret (Alagna speaking) could be just the French identity which is made of generosity, tolerance, a firmly humanist, a pluralist in valuing diversity and the right to be different, and an unfailing enthusiasm in brotherhood.
Merci Roberto.
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