Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Spot the Looney! It's the Soprano, Naturally!

Verdi.
He wrote some of the most famous and enduring music of all time.
He was one of the most influential composers of his time.
The man was a sadist.

I give you exhibit A, the Sempre Libera.
This aria was written for the sole purpose of turning sopranos into nervous puddles of insecurity. The cadenzas... the runs and all that trilling, what was he thinking? I am quite certain he wanted to fuck with some soprano who aggravated him. And she was probably all "you think I can't sing that, you think I can't bring it?" so she spent many sleepless nights practicing those cadenzas and trilling into the wee hours of the morning.

Over and over and over, begging her lover to tell her how it sounded, "was it right? Was it fast enough? I think a little faster... But did it sound ok? No... No I need to do it again" until at last, unable to handle her insecurity, her lover left her.

Over and over and over, until her closest friend and confidant, her cat, was driven insane by the sound and clung day and night to her Venetian chandelier.

Over and over and over, until her neighbors (close cousins on her, thankfully, long-dead mother's side) complained to her landlord (a close cousin on her father's side) who threw her into the street, still trilling.

But she sang it. Whirlwind fast and looking as gorgeous as can be expected when you're living in a shed behind an opera house with a cat who thinks you're suffering some sort of contagious howling madness. Sola, abandonatta, she sang it, and 150 years later we're stuck with this monstrosity, this pinnacle of the coloratura repertoire... Made all the worse by the brilliant addition by some showboating soprano who decided to add a high e-flat somewhere along the way (probably to piss off Verdi's ghost.)

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