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\u2018There\u2019s something cinematic about Puccini<\/a><\/strong>. In a song or an aria of perhaps no more than two pages he can write a whole story. He knew how to go to the heart of it.\u2019 Angela Gheorghiu might well be describing herself. On stage she has the presence of a movie star and cuts straight to the emotional chase. Strong men have gone weak at the knees at her Tosca<\/a><\/strong> confronting Baron Scarpia and Gheorghiu\u2019s Madame Butterfly<\/a><\/strong> must have done wonders for the sale of handkerchiefs.\u00a0<\/p> Now, along with pianist Vincenzo Scalera, she has made a recording (for Signum) of Giacomo Puccini\u2019s songs. \u2018I feel I need to sing Puccini. I\u2019ve been recording for 30 years now, so I thought for the centenary of Puccini\u2019s death, and because I recognise that he is really suitable for my voice, I would sing all of his music, including the songs.\u2019 \u00a0<\/p> Not all of the extant songs for, as Gheorghiu reminds me, the provenance of some are now challenged by the Puccini Foundation. The singer has selected 17 of them. \u2018To tell the truth, I adore everything connected with the number seven! I was born on the seventh,\u2019 says Gheorghiu. \u2018Of course, this is a happy coincidence.\u2019<\/p> Strong men have gone weak at the knees at her Tosca confronting Baron Scarpia and Gheorghiu\u2019s Butterfly must have done wonders for the sale of handkerchiefs<\/p><\/blockquote> Puccini wrote songs throughout his composing life, from his student years in Milan in the 1880s to his last days after World War I, when he was acknowledged as the Grand Old Man of Italian Opera. It\u2019s tempting to think of him as embracing a tradition of song writing, which, by the early-19th century, had become the birth-right of every Italian composer. But unlike Rossini<\/a><\/strong>, Bellini<\/a><\/strong>, Donizetti<\/a><\/strong> and later Tosti, Puccini\u2019s songs<\/a><\/strong> are not really for the drawing room or salon. He wrote them for himself, for his friends and sometimes as commissions, which is not to say that they are footnotes to the operas. As musicologist Michael Kaye shrewdly observes, \u2018His songs reflect the stages of development of his very personal musical language\u2019.\u00a0<\/p> He wrote \u2018E l\u2019uccellino\u2019, a beguiling lullaby, for Memmo Lippi, the son of a doctor friend who had died of typhus a few days after his marriage; \u2018Avanti, Urania!\u2019 was composed two years earlier in 1896 to celebrate the purchase of Urania<\/em>, a 179-ton iron screw steamer, by his friend the Marchese Ginori-Lisci, an aristocrat who invited the composer on his estates to indulge his passion for hunting; \u2018A te\u2019, a love song, dates back to when Puccini was still a student in his hometown of Lucca. \u2018It\u2019s the first song he ever wrote,\u2019 says Gheorghiu. \u2018He was very young. What we hear is that Puccini wrote a song when a melody came into his head.\u2019<\/p> Gheorghiu argues that the songs, which she has been including in her recital programmes for a while now, are not always easy for the singer. There are \u2018tough aria<\/a><\/strong>-like numbers, including two that would become tenor arias in the operas. It was quite an experience for me to be a tenor and a soprano in a single recording!\u2019\u00a0<\/p> Then there\u2019s the balance between music and words \u2013 often by admired poets like Antonio Ghislanzoni, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Adami, who also turned their hands to libretti. \u2018Puccini is always concerned with the words. He had a history of fighting with his librettists to get just what he wanted,\u2019 explains Gheorghiu. \u2018He wanted a beautiful relationship between the text and the music. And the accompaniment is very different from Verdi<\/a><\/strong> and bel canto<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, where the piano and the orchestra isn\u2019t that important. [With Puccini] it\u2019s really a duet between me and the piano and very theatrical in the setting of the words. This suits my character!\u2019<\/p> And what are the particular challenges for the singer who takes on these songs? \u2018The tessitura is sometimes very high; in some of them you need a vocal purity and to be able to sing softly, which fits like a glove for me! In each of the songs you have to find a little drama. And you have to find the right colour for your voice.\u2019<\/p> Gheorghiu admits that singing a song like \u2018Mentia l\u2019avviso\u2019 (\u2018It was a false alarm\u2019) \u2018is like climbing Everest!\u2019 It\u2019s a recitative<\/a><\/strong> and aria, a graduation exercise set by the Milan Conservatoire in June 1883 with a text by Felice Romani, who wrote libretti for Bellini and Donizetti. Here, the captain of an army of Moors sings of the woman he both fears and yet longs to see. And it\u2019s him not her. \u2018It\u2019s a tenor aria! Throughout my career when I have studied my roles, I have also studied the arias for the tenors. And I\u2019ve sung all of Puccini\u2019s tenor arias too, like \u201cNessun dorma\u201d!\u2019 Gheorghiu is laughing now. \u2018And \u201cMentia l\u2019avviso\u201d is a long, long song, like an aria!\u2019 \u00a0<\/p> Gheorghiu argues that the songs, which she has been including in her recital programmes for a while now, are not always easy for the singer<\/p><\/blockquote>Why Angela Gheorghiu is returning to Puccini<\/h2>
The challenges of singing Puccini’s music<\/h2>
Puccini as a borrower of his own music and songs<\/h2>