#da Ponte

[tealviscaria]

Other drawings from my old sketchbook: Da Ponte!

[letenebremihannoavvolto]

<< {...} Fu Einstein a rivalutare definitivamente, nella sua monografia mozartiana, il bellissimo libretto di Da ponte:

"Ma il libretto di 'Così fan tutte è', dal punto di vista dell'abilità, il miglior lavoro di Da Ponte, migliore di quello fatto per 'Le nozze di Figaro' e per 'Don Giovanni'. A prescindere dal fatto che si tratta, questa volta, di una sua creazione personale, fatto che smentisce coloro che considerano Da Ponte un semplice riduttore o, peggio, un plagiatore letterario, questo libretto non contiene un solo punto morto. L'intera azione si svolge allegramente e logicamente e, alla fine, noi proviamo quella soddisfazione estetica che ci dà un problema di scacchi ben riuscito o un gioco di prestigio." (Albert Einstein, 'W. A. Mozart. Il carattere e l'opera', trad. it., Milano, Ricordi, 1951, p. 479.)

[Foto ed estratto preso dal libretto di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 'Così fan tutte', del teatro di San Carlo a Napoli]

[vera-dauriac]

One more to celebrate the day.

[widevibratobitch]

I'll never be over the fact that Don Ottavio literally tells Donna Anna, minutes after her father is murdered, that he'll be her daddy now 😏😏

[willstafford]

Concerted Effort

COSI FAN TUTTE

Town Hall, Birmingham, Friday 8th November, 2019

  Sometimes you see plays that are ‘reconstructions’ of radio studio recordings, where the cast stand behind microphones, holding scripts, and the action is limited, leaving it to the audience to imagine setting, costume and everything else.  This concert performance of the final collaboration between Mozart and librettist Da Ponte…

[outsiderlookinginward]

Mozart lost and found

Mozart lost and found

Go to St Michael’s Church, Vienna, for a glimpse of Mozart’s world. (more…)

[mirandagoing4baroque]

On Columbian Exchanges

I believe, before I went to Prague, that the only artifacts that pre-dated the arrival of Columbus in America I’d ever seen were in the Native American History Museum. Regardless, before I went to Prague, all of the pre-Columbia’s artifacts I’d seen had certainly been in some kind of museum. One of the things that struck me in Prague would be walking along and seeing a plaque that casually announced that a wall dated from the 1300s.

However, Columbus’s arrival in America was only the beginning of the Columbian exchange, or the passage of goods, diseases, people, and ideas across the Atlantic. (Footnote, it’s a touch more complicated than that, but those complications aren’t relevant for the story I’m telling here.) When my father and I went to a concert in the Mirror Chapel, there were at least three levels of Columbian Exchanges that occurred.

The musicians played, among other things, Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Dvorak was a Czech composer who was particularly famous for writing classical music that was very Czech in style. In fact he is credited as one of the two most important composers in developing the Czech music style. He did such a good job of it, that when America was looking to develop its own musical style, a group in New York hired him to come to America and develop an American style of music. He wrote the New World Symphony as part of this assignment.

Fifty years before Dvorak wrote his New World Symphony, another Columbian Exchange connected the Mirror Chapel and New York City. The story goes that Mozart played the organ in the chapel on one of his visits to Prague. If that was true, it is likely he would have been in the city to conduct one of the operas he wrote to a libretto written by Lorenzo da Ponte. (You want to google this man. Trust me.) Debt drove da Ponte to flee Europe around 1800. He eventually settled in New York and became one of the first professors of Italian at Columbia University.

The Columbian Exchange never ended. And now I’m a part of it.

[lessthansix]

i'm a decent lad

[musicainextenso]

For my part in this week’s celebration of W.A. Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte’s Don Giovanni, I can’t help but take the opportunity to revel in the glorious tones of the incomparable Joyce DiDonato. Here, as Donna Elvira, she sings of her betrayal by the title character in Mi tradi quell’alma ingrata (Act II). This aria was not part of the opera when it originally premiered in Prague, but was written by Mozart for the 1788 revision performed in Vienna. Translation below by Jane Bishop. 

More as the week continues! - Melinda Beasi

In quali eccessi, o Numi,               In what excesses, O Heavens, in quai misfatti orribili, tremendi     In what horrible, terrible crimes è avvolto il sciagurato!                 The wretch has involved himself! Ah no! non puote tardar l'ira del cielo, Ah no! The wrath of Heaven cannot delay, la giustizia tardar.                   Justice cannot delay. Sentir già parmi la fatale saetta,     I already sense the fatal bolt chi gli piomba sul capo!               Which is falling on his head! Aperto veggio il baratro mortal!...     I see the mortal abyss open!... Misera Elvira! che contrasto d'affetti Unhappy Elvira! what a conflict of feelings in sen ti nasce!                       Is born in your breast! Perchè questi sospiri?                 Why these sighs? e quest'ambascie?                       And these pains? Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata,         That ungrateful soul betrayed me, Infelice, o Dio!, mi fa.             O God, how unhappy he made me! Ma tradita e abbandonata,             But, though betrayed and abandoned, Provo ancor per lui pietà.           I still know pity for him. Quando sento il mio tormento,         When I feel my suffering, Di vendetta il cor favella;           My heart speaks of vengeance; Ma, se guardo il suo cimento,         But when I see the danger he's in, Palpitando il cor mi va.             My heart beats for him.

[vera-dauriac]

Let the fun continue! HBD Da Ponte!

[widevibratobitch]

I just remembered how much I fucking love Don Giovanni. How come it is just so perfect?!

Amazing music, amazing libretto, amazing characters (each and every one of them!!!) that you could interpret in hundred different ways and they're still interesting and they still make sense and oh god the ensembles dear g o d the ensembles i mean fuck holy shit

Thank God for Don Giovanni.

[studio-polimaterico-blu]

Trama e protagonisti del Don Giovanni di Da Ponte/Mozart

Trama e protagonisti del Don Giovanni di Da Ponte/Mozart

Trama e protagonisti del Don Giovanni di Da Ponte/Mozart

Atto primo

Don Giovanni, nottetempo, è penetrato furtivamente nelle stanze di Donna Anna, mentre Leporello monta la guardia imprecando contro il proprio destino di servo. Un grido: Donna Anna ha resistito al seduttore e cerca di riconoscerlo; accorre il padre di lei, il Commendatore, con la spada sguainata. Don Giovanni lo uccide e fugge…

[lessthansix]

[outsiderlookinginward]

“A Song for New Year’s Eve”

“A Song for New Year’s Eve”

Something old, something new. (more…)

[dorktodiva]

I want an AU where Cherubino grows up and become Don Giovanni