Sunday Classics: The seething revolutionary rage of "Andrea Chénier" certainly strikes a chord at our present moment

Last night we heard two minutes' worth of Plácido Domingo singing the Improvviso. It seemed only fair to let him get through the whole thing.

by Ken

As I explained in last night's preview of Chénier's Improvviso, we're continuing the three-part series devoted to Giordano's best-known opera begun earlier this month with a post called "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare" (also with a Saturday preview), built on the premise -- well, my premise -- that Chénier is a great revolutionary opera. Our goal is to get to the great Madelon scene of Act III. (I know you may not know what a "Madelon scene" is, but I don't want to try to explain the scene until we get to it.)

It's true that eventually Giordano and librettist Luigi Illica (also one of Puccini's most important librettists) cared more about the doomed love of the anti-royalist poet Chénier and the aristocrat Maddalena di Coigny, and I don't have a huge problem with that, because that's interesting enough and occasioned a fair amount of swell music. But for me the opera sizzles when it focuses on the way its characters are caught up in the tide of revolution in France, starting -- literally starting -- the overwhelming opening scene in which the servant Carlo Gérard, observing his broken-down father still in service to the Contessa di Coigny, vents some volcanic rage that there's no escape from servitude not just for his father but for his father's children; they're a race of menials.

In that opening scene we saw Gérard occupied, along with all the other servants in the household, with preparations for a grand soirée at the Coigny home -- just as the French Revolution, as we learn, is about to break out. Later we see the Countess and her lovely, inquisitive daughter Maddalena engaged in final preparations for Maddalena, and then the guests arrive. At the party, one of the guests, a young poet, is going to be moved to share some recent experiences and observations that will scandalize everyone present except Gérard and Maddalena: the Improvviso we heard last night, which today we're going to put in context.

We're going to pick up as the arrival of the guests is well under way, a starting point that was determined by one of three recordings we're going to hear -- all that survives of the broadcast of a 1938 San Francisco performance -- once we've broken the scene down a little. It's actually not a bad starting point, though, as the Countess greets the first of her "special" guests.


FOR OUR CHUNK OF ACT I, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics preview: Is the moral of "Andrea Chénier" that poets make lousy party guests?

DG herewith shares two minutes' worth of Plácido Domingo singing the Improvviso from Andrea Chénier (at the Vienna State Opera, 1981, Nello Santi conducting) from its Domingo 70th-birthday audio-and-video sampler.

by Ken

A few weeks ago I began what I explained would eventually be three sets of posts devoted to Giordano's opera Andrea Chénier. In that first post, "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare" (with a Saturday preview), we looked at the opening scene given to Carlo Gérard, a servant in the household of the Contessa di Coigny immersed in preparations for a swanky soirée on, literally, the even of the French Revolution.) We're headed for the Madelon scene of Act III, but before we get there we have to consider the poet Chénier's arresting Improvviso (which refers both to its improvisatory quality and to its suddennesss and unexpectedness), which shocks the dickens out of most of the guests.

In tomorrow's post we're going to work our way through the scene that leads up to the Improvviso as well as hearing the scene in its entirety (several times, actually).

Tonight we're going to listen just to the Improvviso itself. For the sake of my sanity I limited myself to what I've got on CD, but I think we've got an interesting assortment of performances -- in terms of voice types, national origins (two Italians, two Canadians, and an Argentinian), personalities, and interpretive thoughts -- beginning with Enrico Caruso's only recording of it, made when the opera, which had its premiere in March 1896, was little more than a decade old. Don't worry about hearing a bunch of antique recordings. After the Caruso, we jump to 1958, and everything is in stereo. (Which reminds me, there's also some notable variety in the conducting and orchestral playing. Just listen to the way the veteran Tullio Serafin balances, and the Rome Opera Orchestra plays, the chord that launches the aria proper.)

Believe it or not, I really don't have anything else to say tonight. I'll let the performances speak for themselves, and the music too, of course.


FOR TONIGHT'S IMPROVVISO PERFORMANCES, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: Giordano's "Andrea Chénier" and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare

Giorgio Zancanaro as Gérard at Covent Garden, with Julius Rudel conducting, 1985.

by Ken

In last night's preview I indicated that we're taking a slow journey toward the tear-jerker of all tear-jerker scenes, the Madelon scene of Act III of Giordano's Andrea Chénier, starting with the very opening of the opera and going up to, well, a particular point. We heard the bustle of the preparations for a grand party in the home of the Countess of Coigny, on the very eve of the French Revolution, including some of the ruminations of the household servant Carlo Gérard.

Here's what we've heard so far:

GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Gérard, "Compiacente a' colloqui" . . . "Son sessant'anni"

The country estate of the Coigny family. The winter garden, the grand conservatory.

The curtain rises on a scene bustling with activity. Servants, lackeys, valets, all under the command of an officious MAJOR-DOMO, run hither and thither carrying pieces of furniture about and placing it down where he instructs them to. GÉRARD, in full livery, lends a hand in carrying a heavy blue sofa.

MAJOR-DOMO: This blue sofa, let's put it there.

GÉRARD and the lackeys obey his orders. Then the MAJOR-DOMO goes to another part of the château followed by all the servants. GÉRARD, left behind, kneels before the blue sofa, unruffling the fringe, smoothing the satin covering, and arranging the curtains.

GÉRARD: Obliging to the discourse
of the dandy
who offered his hand
to mature ladies here!
Here Red Heels
said sighing to the Beauty-patch:
"Orinthia, or Chloris, or Nike, powdered,
oldish and painted,
I long for you
and, only on this account, perhaps,
I love you!"
Such is the custom of the times.

An old man comes in from the garden carrying a heavy piece of furniture. GÉRARD throws down the duster he is holding and goes to help him. Weak and shaky, the old man leaves, disappearing through the garden. GÉRARD, much moved, watches him go.

GÉRARD: It's sixty years, old man,
that you've been a servant here!
On your insolent,
arrogant masters
you've lavished fidelity, sweat,
the strength of your nerves,
your soul, your mind . . .
and as if your own life didn't suffice
to carry on
eternally
the horrendous suffering,
you've given the existence
of your children . . .
[With immense disdain he strikes his breast with open hand, murmuring through tears]
You've fathered menials!

Louis Sgarro (bs), Major-Domo; Leonard Warren (b), Carlo Gérard; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Dec. 28, 1957

As I indicated, something extraordinarily dramatic is about to happen. Right after the click-through. (New genre, the click-hanger?)


TO CONTINUE WITH THE OPENING SCENE
OF ANDREA CHÉNIER, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics preview: Giordano's "Andrea Chénier" and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare

The opening of Andrea Chénier: The Major-Domo directs party preparations (at Covent Garden, 1985), with the servant Carlo Gérard (Giorgio Zancanaro) looking on at right. We'll hear this bustling opening music in a moment, played two ways -- very perky and not so perky -- in a moment. (And we'll see this Covent Garden clip tomorrow.)

by Ken

There was a plan to this week's post which made sense in its way. Working up to one of the great tear-jerking scenes in Western theater, the Madelon scene of Act III of Giordano's Andrea Chénier, we were going to "preview" two of the high spots that pave the way to it: the very opening of the opera, with the baritone Gérard's great monologue; and Chénier himself's great Act I "Improvviso." Which would have meant either a pair of ginormous previews or the merest dabs at two of the most remarkable chunks of musical theater ever created.

So, on the theory that both Gérard's monologue and Chénier's "Improvviso" deserve posts of their own, they're going to get them. We'll simply proceed to the Madelon scene in, if not baby steps, then at least babier ones.

For starters, we're going to more or less literally raise the curtain. As regular readers know, we always like to know how a piece starts, and in the then-modern way, pioneered in Italian opera by Verdi in his last two operas, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893), and made standard practice by Puccini (whose first successful opera, Manon Lescaut had premiered in 1893, followed by La Bohème in February 1896, eight weeks before Chénier), Giordano plunges us into the action without a formal prelude.

This is obviously "bustling" music, which we're going to hear played two ways. First, Riccardo Chailly plays it for the "bustle." Then Marcello Viotti trusts that the bustle is built in and drives it less hard. This would probably be more effective in a more confident, knowing performance, but you get the the idea that Viotti is facing an orchestra doesn't really know the music, possibly having played no more than a single run-through.

GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Major-Domo, "Questo azzurro sofà"

The country estate of the Coigny family. The winter garden, the grand conservatory.

The curtain rises on a scene bustling with activity. Servants, lackeys, valets, all under the command of an officious MAJOR-DOMO, run hither and thither carrying pieces of furniture about and placing it down where he instructs them to. GÉRARD, in full livery, lends a hand in carrying a heavy blue sofa.

MAJOR-DOMO: This blue sofa, let's put it there.

GÉRARD and the lackeys obey his orders. Then the MAJOR-DOMO goes to another part of the château followed by all the servants. GÉRARD, left behind, kneels before the blue sofa, unruffling the fringe, smoothing the satin covering, and arranging the curtains.

Neil Howlett (b), National Philharmonic Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. Decca, recorded August 1982Michele Pertusi (bs), Major-Domo; Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Marcello Viotti, cond. Capriccio, recorded Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 1989


GÉRARD AND THE SOFA: FOR MORE OF
THE CHÉNIER OPENING SCENE, CLICK HERE

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