Nabucco was Giuseppe Verdi’s first great success. The composer himself was to write in later years, “With this opera, you can truly say that my artistic career began.” The premiere audience vociferously insisted on an encore of “Va, pensiero“, a chorus that has remained one of Verdi’s most beloved pieces. Unusually, the choruses from this opera were singled out for acclaim in the reviews of Nabucco at its premiere. An early pupil and assistant of Verdi’s, Emanuele Muzio, wrote that following Nabucco and I Lombardi, Verdi was known as “il padre del coro” (the father of the chorus) thanks to the immense popularity of his choruses for these early operas. Sung by chained Jews at forced labor on the banks of the Euphrates while awaiting death at the hands of their Babylonian captors, “Va, pensiero” resonated deeply with an Italian public under the yoke of Austrian occupation. The Hebrew slaves send their thoughts on golden wings to their native land. Remembering the sweet air in their country so beautiful and lost, they pray to the Lord for the strength to endure. The first scene of Nabucco takes place in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. In “Gli arredi festivi giù cadano infranti“, the Hebrews bemoan the final onslaught of the barbarian hordes led by Nabucco, the King of Assyria, who will take them captive. The priests tell the young women to raise their arms in supplication, as their innocent prayers are most pleasing to the Lord. The virgins pray for the destruction of the Assyrians and beg for mercy and forgiveness of their sins. The Hebrews entreat God not to let them fall prey to the blasphemous foe nor to let Nabucco sit on the throne of David among false Assyrian idols.
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky first evinced his musical talent at the age of five but came late to serious musical training. He entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory at the age of 23, previously having been employed for four years as a clerk in the Ministry of Justice. He remains perhaps the most popular of Russian composers, noted for his symphonies, chamber music, a number of ballets, and operas. The most popular of his ten operas are Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame, both based on works of the seminal Russian poet Pushkin. During the last years of his life, Tchaikovsky was also active as a conductor, touring Europe and the United States (where he conducted the New York Music Society on the opening night of Carnegie Hall). In the West, Tchaikovsky’s operas have not attained the popularity of his ballets, although the operas remain staples of the Russian repertoire.

Eugene Onegin – Considered Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin’s stature in Russian literature is that of Shakespeare’s in English and Goethe’s in German. Pushkin’s sense of drama and character has inspired at least fourteen operas by Russian composers alone, including three by Tchaikovsky. The libretto for Eugene Onegin was closely adapted by Tchaikovsky and Constantine Shilovsky from Pushkin’s eponymous novel in verse form. The script is quite faithful to the original poem, with much of it being almost direct quotation. In spite of his great pleasure in composing the opera, Tchaikovsky feared that “Onegin will never have a future”. Recognizing that the piece depended more upon its mood and characters than upon theatrical devices (“I spit upon ‘effects!’”), he described it as “lyric scenes” rather than an “opera”. First produced in 1879 at the Moscow Conservatory with a cast of student singers, it was not well received by audiences or critics. However, its subsequent production in 1883 in St. Petersburg scored a great popular success and intensified Tchaikovsky’s growing fame.

The opera opens in the garden of the country estate of Madama Lárina, who is making preserves with her servants as her daughters Olga and Tatyana sing of romance. A group of reapers enters, declaring their weariness at the completion of the harvest (Chorus and Dance of the Reapers). They greet their mistress and present her with a decorated sheaf of wheat to symbolize the end of their labors. Lárina welcomes them and asks that they sing a happier song and they cheerfully oblige.

Olga’s fiancé, the poet Lensky, arrives for a visit accompanied by his friend Eugene Onegin, who is immediately taken with Tatyana – and she, despite her shyness, is more than taken with him. That night Tatyana cannot sleep and tells her servant that she has fallen in love with Onegin. Dismissing the servant, she decides that she will write to Onegin and in the famous Letter Aria proceeds to pour out her heart to him.

The following day, young women from the village come to Lárina’s estate to gather berries. In the Chorus of Country Girls they sing of romantic plots to coax young men to woo them. Onegin arrives and coolly informs Tatyana that he has received her letter and that he has no interest in leading a dull domestic life. To further her humiliation, Onegin tells Tatyana that she must learn self control.

Shortly thereafter, a ball is held at Lárina’s house in honor of Tatyana’s birthday, and the assembled guests sing of their excitement at being invited to such a splendid affair (“Hail to the Dance!”). They also proceed to gossip about Onegin, who is dancing with Tatyana as Lensky dances with his beloved Olga. Onegin, already bored by life in the country and the dullness of the ball, is annoyed by their gossip and proceeds to flirt with Olga in order to punish Lensky for dragging him to the party. Onegin cuts in on Lensky to dance with Olga yet again, and Lensky’s jealousy overwhelms him. Exploding with rage, he stops the music and challenges Onegin to a duel.

The following morning, as Lensky awaits Onegin’s arrival at the appointed place, he sings of his apprehension about the duel to come, and the sacrifice he is willing to make to prove his love for Olga (Lensky’s Aria). To Onegin’s shame and remorse, he kills Lensky in the duel. (In a curious echo of his most famous work, Pushkin was also killed in a duel with a rival for his wife’s affections). Onegin leaves the country for several years. Invited to a ball on his return, he is astounded to find that his relative Prince Gremin has married Tatyana – and Onegin promptly falls in love with the now beautiful and assured woman that he once scorned. Declaring his love, he begs Tatyana to forgive him and run away with him. Tatyana admits that she still loves Onegin, but she vows to remain faithful to her husband and overcome her feelings. As she bids her farewell to Onegin, he is left in despair.
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Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades), based on a dark and cynical short story by Pushkin, was adapted into a libretto by Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest for another composer, who refused it. Tchaikovsky took over the script and rewrote it to his own satisfaction, achieving almost as great a success with Pique Dame as with Onegin. In spite of the American premiere having a starry cast led by no less a conductor than Gustav Mahler, Pique Dame did not achieve the success in the United States that it continues to enjoy in Russia and Europe. Hermann is secretly in love with Lisa, the granddaughter of a Countess known as the Queen of Spades, renowned for her luck at cards. Hermann is convinced by fellow soldiers that the Countess is the possessor of a special trick for winning at cards. Hoping that the secret will enable him to win a fortune and the love of Lisa, Herman hides in the Countess’ room in hopes of persuading her to give him the secret – but he only succeeds in frightening her to death. Haunted by a vision of the Countess, he proceeds to gamble against Lisa’s fiancé, and stakes everything on a card shown to him by the ghost. The card instead turns out to be the queen of spades. Having lost everything, Hermann stabs himself. In the final scene of the opera, before Hermann arrives at the gambling house, the soldiers and other gamblers sing of their joy in escaping their troubles by drinking and gambling (“Pass the wine and let’s be merry!”).
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Prince Igor – Alexander Borodin was born in St. Petersburg, the illegitimate son of a Tartar Prince. After earning a doctorate in medicine, his primary interests were his noteworthy career in chemistry, and social issues such as the emancipation of women. He was a member of a group of composers which included Musorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. The group was variously known as the “Russian Five” or the “Mighty Five” and its members hoped to break away from European tradition to achieve a style of purely Russian music. However, composing remained a secondary pursuit for Borodin; he described himself as a “Sunday composer.” Prince Igor is the best known of Borodin’s works, both in opera form and for its overture and the Polovtsian Dances, which are often performed as stand-alone concert works. Having worked sporadically on Prince Igor since 1869, Borodin left the opera incomplete at his death in 1887 (of heart failure while dancing at a ball). Its composition and orchestration were completed posthumously by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. The opera was first performed in St. Petersburg in 1890.

Set in four acts with a prologue, the libretto was adapted by Borodin himself from an East Slavic epic about a 12th-century Russian prince and his campaigns against the invading Polovtsian tribes from northeastern Russia. Act II of Prince Igor is set in the camp of the Polovtsian army, which has captured Igor and his son, who falls in love with the daughter of the enemy Khan. In Igor’s aria (“No sleep, no rest“), he laments his captivity. Longing to be reunited with his wife, he wishes himself free to fight for his honor and the safety of his country.
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Boris Godunov – Musorgsky was raised on his noble family’s estate, but due to financial losses was forced to resign from the army and, much as Tchaikovsky did, work as a civil servant while pursuing his musical career. He is best known today for Night on Bald Mountain and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition, along with Boris Godunov, which premiered in 1874 in St. Petersburg, providing Musorgsky with his greatest success during his short lifetime. A combination of grinding poverty and recurrent alcoholism would leave Musorgsky dead just a week after his 42nd birthday.

Based on Pushkin’s 1825 historical drama of the same name, Boris Godunov relates the story of a Russian czar who ruled from 1598 to 1605. Musorgsky himself adapted the libretto of the opera. Calling it a “National Music Drama” he described the Russian people as the actual heroes of the piece. The historical Boris was a soldier who ingratiated himself with Czar Ivan (the Terrible). Upon Ivan’s death, Boris rapidly became the sole regent of Russia, ruling on behalf of Ivan’s son Feodor. Following Feodor’s death, Boris was elected by the Russian national assembly as the new Czar. His reign was dogged by rumors that he had been responsible for the death of Ivan’s illegitimate son Dimitri in order to eliminate any rival for the throne. In both the play and the opera, Boris is haunted by guilt over the murder, years before, of the ten year old Dimitri. An ambitious young monk named Gregory flees to Lithuania and passes himself off as Dimitri, the rightful heir to the throne. With the assistance of rebellious Lithuanians and the Polish army, the bogus Dimitri mounts a campaign to win the throne. Boris prepares to defend his rule but falls ill and passes his power to his son. Praying to heaven to forgive him his crimes, Boris falls dead in the Palace of the Kremlin. (Boris’ son, murdered within a few months of his father’s death, was to be succeeded by the Romanov dynasty, which reigned for 300 years.) In the Prologue of Boris Godunov, Boris has retired to the seclusion of a convent and is refusing to accept the throne in spite of the entreaties of both the nobles and the populace. In Scene 2 of the Prologue, set in the great square between the Cathedrals of the Assumption and the Archangels in Moscow, the people, the army and the nobles are assembled to pay tribute to Boris, who has acceded to their wishes to rule (The Coronation Scene). As the people hail Czar Boris, they wish him a long reign and acclaim his glory (“slava“).
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Alfredo Catalani was born in Lucca, likewise the birthplace of Puccini, with whose uncle Catalani studied before continuing his education in Paris and Milan. He achieved some success with a number of operas as well as becoming professor of composition at the Conservatory in Milan. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 39, a year after reaching the height of his success following the premiere of La Wally at La Scala in 1892. La Wally is Catalani’s most famous work. Based on the German novel Die Geyer-Wally (The Vulture Wally) by Wilhelmine von Hillern, it is set to a libretto by Luigi Illica (also the librettist for this evening’s Andrea Chenier and Tosca, as well as La bohème and Madama Butterfly).

The story is set in a Tyrolean village and opens on the birthday of Stromminger, the father of La Wally (known in the novel as “the vulture” because she rescued a vulture chick from the mountains and gave it to her father – a symbol of the young woman’s fierce, independent spirit). Wally has fallen in love with the hunter Hagenbach, unaware of her father’s enmity for Hagenbach’s family. Attempting to thwart their romance, Stromminger orders Wally to marry the suitor of his choosing, Gellner. Defying her father, she decides to run away. Upon her father’s death a year later, Wally returns to the village. She insults Hagenbach’s new fiancee and in turn is insulted by Hagenbach. Persuading Gellner to kill Hagenbach in return for her promise of marriage, Wally is stricken by conscience. Singlehandedly rescuing Hagenbach from the ravine into which Gellner has pushed him, Wally sends him back to his fiancee. However, Hagenbach returns and admits that Wally is the woman he loves. Seemingly on the verge of happiness, their idyll is shattered when an avalanche carries Hagenbach into an abyss. Wally throws herself after him into the abyss, and to her death.

At the opening of La Wally, the villagers have gathered in the piazza to celebrate Stromminger’s birthday. Horns in the distance announce the return of the hunters (“S’ode un corno echeggiar“) who are led by Hagenbach. As the sun falls on the horizon and the sunset colors the alps, the hunters (“cacciatori”) exult in their successful day as the other villagers hail them.

La Wally averts a near-brawl between her slightly tipsy father and the arrogant Hagenbach. When she refuses to marry Gellner, Stromminger tells her to leave his house. In “Ebben? Ne andró lontana“, she says she will go far away, like the echo of the church bell, among the white snow and clouds of gold, where hope becomes regret and sorrow. Leaving her mother’s cheerful house, she knows that perhaps she will never see it again.

A year later, the villagers gather for a festival. As the young women parade back and forth across the town square (“Entro la folla che intorno s’aggira“), they twitter about one young man who longs for them, and for another who is staring. Observing them, the young gentlemen scoff that if they have to get married, it won’t be to fickle flirts such as these. Meanwhile, the village matrons complain that the young women aren’t thinking about God, but laughing and fluttering about frivolous pleasures and clothes, and the village elders joke that it has been so long since the old women committed any sins that even God has forgotten what they were. Enjoying themselves thoroughly in their own ways, all are summoned by the church bells to celebrate the holy day.
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Andrea Chenier - The verismo composer Umberto Giordano wrote primarily for the opera house, and his best known works today are Fedora and, by far his most enduring success, Andrea Chenier,. The librettist Luigi Illica based the opera on the life of the French poet André Chénier, a historical figure in Paris who supported the aims of the French Revolution but was himself executed during the Reign of Terror.

In the Spring Chorus from Act I, a chorus dressed as shepherdesses (à la Marie Antoinette) appears at a grand ball in Paris. Totally oblivious to the social ferment going on outside the walls, the “shepherdesses” sadly sing farewell to their fields and to each other as they set out for unknown shores. Once they abandon their home, they will have no joy in their hearts until they return.

During the ball, the hostess asks the poet Andrea Chenier to favor them with one of his poems. Refusing, he is tricked into speaking of love by the hostess’ daughter Maddalena, who mocks him in front of the other guests. Rising to her bait in the Improviso (“Un di all’azzurro spazio”), he tells her what a poem the word “love” is. He recalls how one day he looked at the blue sky and at the golden earth filled with violets, and was overcome by love as the earth seemed to rise to kiss him. Shouting how divinely beautiful his homeland is and inspired to pray, he went to a church, but found the priest too busy gathering donations to help a poor beggar. Then he listened to a workingman curse the world and God for the poverty of his children. Chenier disparages the priests and patricians at the ball for their thoughtless inaction about such things. Telling Maddalena that he had seen in her angelic gaze some humanity and some pity, he tells the beautiful young woman to heed his words: she doesn’t know what love is and shouldn’t scoff at it, for the divine gift of love is the life and soul of the world.

One of Giacomo Puccini’s greatest operas, Tosca was based on the French play La Tosca, written expressly for Sarah Bernhardt by Victorien Sardou. To a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, Tosca premiered in Rome in 1900. Amidst great political turmoil in Rome, the famous singer Floria Tosca and the painter Cavaradossi find their love thwarted by the evil chief of police, Scarpia, who hopes to have Cavaradossi executed for revolutionary activities, and to claim Tosca for himself. At the end of Act I, Scarpia plants seeds of doubt in the already jealous Tosca’s mind about her lover’s fidelity. As Tosca tries to hold back tears at her imagined betrayal, Scarpia attempts to comfort her. Ignoring his tender words, Tosca vows that she will catch the traitors in the act. Sending her on her way so that his spies may follow (and capture Caravadossi), Scarpia gloats that he will nest in Tosca’s heart, now that he’s unleashed the hawk of her jealousy. As the churchgoers begin their hymn of thanks (the “Te deum“), he relishes his double goal: the rebel painter dispatched to the gallows and, even more precious, the flame in Tosca’s eyes as she trembles with love in Scarpia’s arms. As the parishioners raise their voices to God, Scarpia vows that he will forget even God in order to have Tosca.
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Kismet owed much of its Broadway success to its adaptation of the works of Borodin. Based on music from Prince Igor (including the Polovtsian Dances) as well as symphonic pieces, a string quartet and piano suites, it was far and away the greatest hit for the team of Robert Wright and George Forrest, who also fashioned Broadway musicals using the music of Grieg, Villa-Lobos, Rachmaninoff and Johann Strauss. Kismet (which means “fate”) was based on a popular 1911 play of the same name by Edward Knoblock, which was later turned into a film starring Otis Skinner, Loretta Young and Sidney Blackmer, followed by a film version with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich (resplendent in gold paint). An extravagant fable set in long-ago Baghdad, the musical’s premiere was presented by the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association in 1953. It went on to a long run on Broadway, where it won six Tony awards including the Tony for Best Musical – and a posthumous Composer Tony for Alexander Borodin. Although the Verdi Chorus has presented work by other Tony winners, none of them can best the record of receiving a Tony 66 years after the composer’s death.

Contributed by TONY ARN