Operatic Declarations
There are many ways to sing "I love you."
-
(V. Bellini, 1835)
Setting: A garden
Lover: Lord Arturo Talbo, a Royalist
Beloved: Elvira, the daughter of an Anti-Royalist
What’s so operatic about it? She had actually liked the windows. -
(P. Tchaikovsky, 1879)
Setting: The drawing room of a nobleman’s mansion in St. Petersburg
Lover: Eugene Onegin, a wealthy Russian
Beloved: Tatyana, the wife of another wealthy Russian
What’s so operatic about it? He shouldn’t have waited to the end of the opera. -
(G. Puccini, 1896)
Setting: An attic in a wintery Paris
Lover: Mimì, a seamstress
Beloved: Rodolfo, a poet
What’s so operatic about it? She seems to have a cold or so. -
(J. Massenet, 1894)
Setting: A monastery in the Egyptian desert
Lover: Athanaël, a Cenobite monk
Beloved: Thaïs, a courtesan
What’s so operatic about it? Nothing. A man just declares his love to a dying prostitute in a lonely, forsaken place, thereby breaking his vow of chastity.
