Juan Diego Flórez Dazzles at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 06 December 2023 15:44

Written by Jack Angstreich

Juan Diego Flórez, photo by Steve J. Sherman

At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium on the night of Wednesday, November 29th, I had the exceptional pleasure of attending a wonderful recital featuring the marvelous tenor, Juan Diego Flórez—he is one of the most appealing operatic talents of our time—admirably accompanied by pianist Vincenzo Scalera, in a program that was especially refreshing for its focus on less commonly encountered repertory.

The first half of the event, in which the singer seemed at least slightly underpowered, was devoted to Italianate music, beginning with Christoph Willibald Gluck’s memorable aria, “O del mio dolce ardor,” from his late, now rarely performed 1770 opera, Paride ed Elena. A highlight of the evening was the incredibly beautiful song, “Amarilli, mia bella,” by Giulio Romolo Caccini from his 1602 collection, Le nuove musiche. The next song was another example of early music, Giacomo Carissimi’s solo cantata “Vittoria, mio core!” of 1656 from his Canzonette amorose.

The first half concluded with a set of works, mostly not often played, by Gioachino Rossini, beginning with three selections from his late collection, Péchés de vieillesse (Sins of Old Age). The first of these, which is from the third volume, was “L’esule” (“The Exile”), followed by “La lontananza” (“Distant Love”), which is from the first volume. Scalera then performed “Danse Sibérienne” from the volume of solo piano pieces. Flórez then sang two arias: first, “Deh! tu m'assisti amore" from Il signor Bruschino, an opera that premiered in 1813 and that Rossini composed when he was only twenty and which, according to Janet E. Bedell’s program note, is famous today for its overture; and second, the double aria known as acavatina-cabaletta,"La speranza più soave,” from the last of the composer’s Italian operas, the more well-knownSemiramide,which premiered in 1823 and was adapted from Voltaire’s tragedy Semiramis.

The second half of the concert was much more impressive, with Flórez’s voice sounding much stronger and with the singer truly coming into his own with the Romantic repertory. He began with “Linda! Si ritirò!” and theromanza, “Se tanto in ira agli uomini,” from Gaetano Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix, which premiered in 1842 and is described as a “pastoral romance” by the annotator, who adds that is “rarely revived today, but remains a cherished work for aficionados of bel canto opera.” About the next selection, she usefully writes:

Far more obscure is Donizetti’s unfinished opera Il duca d’Alba, originally commissioned by the Opéra national de Paris in 1839 as the grand opera Le duc d’Albeto a libretto by the famous Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier. Unaccountably, the Opéra decided to terminate the commission after Donizetti had written about half the score. He then turned his attention to another libretto for Paris, La favorite, staged successfully in 1840. (Interestingly, in 1855 Scribe and Duveyrier’s libretto was revised into Les vêpres siciliennes for Verdi.)

Thirty-four years after Donizetti’s death, the Milanese publisher Lucca entrusted Donizetti’s one-time pupil Matteo Salvi with the task of completing Il duca d’Alba now in an Italian translation; this was premiered in Rome in 1882. And it was Salvi, not Donizetti, who actually composed the beautiful tenor aria “Angelo casto e bel.”

Much less obscure was Giuseppe Verdi’s “Questa o quella” from his celebrated opera, Rigoletto, that premiered in 1851. Flórez then sang the recitative, “L’émir auprès de lui m’appelle,” with its accompanying aria, “Je veux encore entendre.” About their source, Bedell explains:

Jérusalem fulfilled Verdi’s first commission for the Opéra national de Paris in 1847, but it wasn’t a new creation: Instead, it was a translation into French and revision of his fourth opera,I Lombardi, premiered at Milan’s La Scala in 1843.

She comments that the “aria will be familiar to many listeners, for it is Lombardi’s well-known ‘La mia letizia infondere.’” And about the next work, she summarizes:

Verdi rarely wrote for instruments alone, but Vincenzo Scalera opens this section with a brief piece he composed in 1844, “Romanza senza parole” (“Romance without Words”). In 1865, Verdi’s first publisher, Giovanni Canti, turned to various prominent composers of the day to assemble a collection of short piano pieces entitled Gioie e sospiri (Joys and Sighs). Grateful for Canti’s help when he needed it most, Verdi offered this romanza.

The aubade that followed, Edouard Lalo’s “Vainement, ma bien-aimée,” was probably the most beautiful selection in the program. About the composer and its source, the annotator remarks:

The greatest triumph of his career, however, came in 1888 when he premiered his opera Le roi d’Ys at Paris’s Opéra-Comique. Originally written in 1875, it had initially been turned down by the Opéra national de Paris, but Lalo’s revision over the next decade finally led to its warm embrace by French audiences. 

She also records, “Premiering on April 27, 1867—only a month after Verdi’s Don Carlos debuted at the Opéra national de Paris—Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette enjoyed a far greater success than Verdi’s grand opera.” Flórez performed the aria “Ah! lève-toi, soleil” from that work.

The program proper concluded with two selections by Giacomo Puccini, starting with one of his few purely instrumental works, a piano piece here played by Scalera, titled “Foglio d’album” (“Page in an Album”) and marked Moderato, con affètto (“with tenderness”), about which Bedell says it is “believed to have been written in either 1907 or 1910 in New York City while Puccini was assisting with productions of his operas at the Metropolitan Opera.” Bedell is also informative on the background of the final aria:

The Central European legend of thevila—young women betrayed by their lovers who turn into dancing nocturnal spirits bent on vengeance—received its most famous dramatic representation in Adolphe Adam’s classic ballet Giselle in 1846. Four decades later, Puccini chose it for his first opera, Le Villi, composed for a competition in 1884. Though it didn’t win, composer-librettist Arrigo Boito was sufficiently impressed that he backed it for a premiere at the Teatro dal Verme in Milan. However, when other theaters mounted Le Villi, the initial excitement dissipated as Italian audiences rejected it as “too Wagnerian.”

Flórez sang what she describes as “its greatest number,” the scena drammatica “Torna ai felice dì”—which was added by the composer in 1885—preceded by its opening recitative (“Ecco la casa”).

An enormously enthusiastic reception was rewarded by the artists with an amazing seven encores, several with the singer accompanying himself on guitar including the Peruvian anthem "La flor de la canela,” "El día que me quieres" by Carlos Gardel and the exceedingly popular "Cucurrucucú paloma.”