Villazón & Verdi Rolando Villazón & Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino

• 1 'Ciel che feci!... di qual sangue...' 04:10
• 2 Scena: 'Qui ti rimani'. Arioso: 'Brezza del suol natio' 07:39
• 3 Brindisi 02:06
• 4 L'esule 08:14
• 5 O madre mia, che fa colei - La mia letizia infondere 01:58
• 6 In solitaria stanza 03:51
• 7 'Eccomi prigionero!' 03:44
• 8 'Questa o quella' (Ballata) 01:55
• 9 'La donna è mobile' 02:07
• 10 'Lunge da lei ... De' miei bollenti spiriti' 03:36
• 11 'O mio rimorso!' 01:56
• 12 'La rivedrà nell'estasi...Il cenno mio' 03:25
• 13 'Fontainebleau! Foresta immensa e solitaria!' 04:13
• 14 Ingemisco 03:39
• 15 'Dal labbro il canto estasiato vola' 04:01
• Total Runtime 56:34

Info for Villazón & Verdi

Welcome to this musical journey through some of the many beautiful works that Verdi wrote for tenor.

We start with an aria from his very first opera, Oberto. Then you will listen to other arias from his early years, from his most popular operas and from his mature period, as well as to a selection of songs orchestrated by Berio, to the solo tenor part from his great religious oratorio, all the way to the very last aria he composed for tenor.

To perform Verdi is to perform variations on the eternal melody of the human soul. Verdi was a man who came from the people and composed for the people, a genius who never lost contact with the basic forces of the human heart. Verdi was indeed the least pretentious of all composers. When critics of his time said that he who thinks that great music is an expression of love, pain etc, is wrong, he simply replied: “And why should one not believe that music is the expression of love and pain and etc?” For Verdi, “art that misses simplicity and naturalness is not Art. An idea must stem from the simple.”

It has been an immense joy to sail through Verdi’s rich musical sea – with its limpid blue waters, tremendous tempests, caressing waves and sunsets red as blood – in the company of the Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino and the great Gianandrea Noseda. It is also a pleasure to welcome my dear colleague Mojca Erdmann on this wonderful musical odyssey. We hope you enjoy the journey with us and that, after having listened to it, you feel an absolute need to dive into the vast ocean of the great Maestro Verdi’s complete works.

VERDI AND VILLAZÓN - A TENOR’S MUSICAL JOURNEY

Tenor roles in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi require vocalism of exceptional beauty and power, combined with a blazing sincerity of expression. That is abundantly clear in Rolando Villazón’s all-Verdi recital, finely balanced between popular pieces and significantly less familiar ones. The feeling of discovery will surely be as thrilling to Villazón’s listeners as it has been to the singer himself. Verdi has been integral to Villazón’s international career and, in continuing his exploration of Verdi via this disc, the tenor has created a fascinating journey through the composer’s very long life. Villazón cherishes, above all, the emotional pull that gives him a universal and timeless appeal. “Verdi was able to translate the main emotions of humanity into music,” says Villazón. The operas repeatedly depict “jealousy, love, sadness, moaning for death, craving for what you cannot have.” But, whatever the dramatic situation, Verdi “connects directly to the essence of what makes us human beings.”

Villazón views Verdi as “a genius who was capable of making direct contact with the people. When we think Verdi, we think ‘La donna è mobile’, the Traviata ‘Brindisi’, all of these very accessible pieces for which a lot of Verdi’s critics called him vulgar. I call him close to the people.” During Verdi’s lifetime, “composers already were having big intellectual discussions, separating themselves from their work and who they were, but Verdi is still in the old tradition of being one with the emotion he is portraying through his music.” For Villazón, the unalloyed immediacy of those emotions gives Verdi an indisputable modernity, even 200 years after his birth.

At the time Verdi was born, in 1813, tenors were finally beginning to assert themselves. For much of the 18th century the operatic stage had been dominated by female sopranos and castratos, with tenors generally in supporting parts (notwithstanding the occasional leading role, as in Mozart’s opere serie). For opera composers and audiences the castratos, with their superhuman prowess in florid singing, had represented the hero. Rossini, however, gave the tenor new prominence and, as the Romantic era progressed, it was tenors who came to embody heroism on stage.

Contemporary accounts lead us to conclude that the top notes of Rossini’s and Bellini’s tenors were essentially falsetto (certainly reinforced by strong breath support, but falsetto nonetheless). Vocally speaking, the turning point came in 1831, thanks to a young Frenchman: in Lucca, singing Arnold in the Italian premiere of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, Gilbert-Louis Duprez introduced the “do di petto” – a high C produced using chest resonance. Duprez repeated the feat upon his return to Paris in 1837 (Rossini famously likened it to “a capon having its throat cut”). This hair-raising sound, with its new sense of forceful masculinity, had become the norm among tenors by the time Verdi’s career as an opera composer began.

In approaching the Verdi repertoire, tenors could draw heavily on their experience in the more dramatic roles of Donizetti, where graceful legato and a certain declamatory fervor were both vital. The roles Verdi created in such early operas as Oberto and I due Foscari were all enriched by a grace of phrasing that Verdi inherited from his bel canto predecessors. But, even at this stage, a major change was already evident: tenors now needed a new intensity of accent and an invigorating rhythmic drive. In cabalettas, with the hero at his most assertive, the florid style yielded to a mode of expression characterized by incisiveness and slancio (translatable as “dash” or “impetuosity”), indicative of tenors’ newfound machismo.

The musicologist Rodolfo Celletti authoritatively described the Verdi tenor as “essentially in a state of equilibrium between lyrical ecstasy and nostalgic, elegiac abandon, on one hand, and ardent, vigorous outbursts, whether patriotic, moral, or simply amorous, on the other.” Verdi was adamant that “the vocal writing had to provide an immediate reflection of the psychology of the character, that it register feelings, conflicts, and changes of mood, with a rapidity unknown to earlier opera composers.”

Villazón is also devoting attention here to Verdi’s songs, all too rarely encountered today. Verdi composed them throughout his long career, although the total output numbers fewer than 30. Eight romanze were orchestrated in 1991 by one of the 20th century’s most distinguished composers, Luciano Berio (Villazón has included three of these). Several Verdi songs can be viewed as studies for operatic arias or cabalettas; Villazón finds them “extraordinary, beautiful, uplifting, and full of emotion.”

This disc prompts a wish from Villazón for his audience: “Everybody – people who don’t know opera, or people who love opera – should listen to all the Verdi they can, and they will discover this volcano of essential emotions.” Verdi gives his audience “a world that lives inside themselves. He translates it for us – he gives it to us in the form of music.” (Roger Pines, Roger Pines is dramaturg and broadcast commentator at Lyric Opera of Chicago)

'Verdi is the perfect match for Villazón's ebullient style: the wracked remorse he brings to 'Ciel, Che Feci!' from 'Conte di San Bonifacio', is the vocal equivalent of weeping. The Duke's cocky promiscuity is evident in every syllable of Rigoletto's 'Questo o Quella' and 'La Donna è Mobile'. (Andy Gill, Independent)

Rolando Villazon, tenor
Orchestra Teatro Regio Torini
Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Rolando Villazón
Through his uniquely compelling performances with leading opera houses and orchestras around the world, Rolando Villazón has firmly established himself as one of the music world’s most critically acclaimed and beloved stars and as one of the leading tenors of our day. Heralded as “the most charming of today’s divos” (The Times) and “a great singer and brilliant entertainer, at once extremely funny and deeply profound” (Crescendo), Rolando Villazón is among the most versatile artists alive today, maintaining successful careers as a stage director, novelist, and TV personality next to his on-stage career. His singularly beautiful voice and arresting stage presence have prompted critics to hail him as “better than ever before…the sound of his voice is phenomenal…few tenors of such vocal power can shape such pianissimi” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) and “his artistry as astonishing as ever, fusing sound, sense and gesture in an uncompromising quest for veracity” (The Guardian).

In 1999, Villazón won several top prizes at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition and burst on to the international music scene. He has subsequently performed on all the world’s important stages. His signature roles include Alfredo in La traviata, des Grieux in Manon, the Duke in Rigoletto, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore and the title role in Werther, along with Gounod’s Roméo, Offenbach’s Hoffmann, Puccini’s Rodolfo, Tchaikovsky’s Lenski and Verdi’s Don Carlo.

An acclaimed concert artist and recitalist, Rolando Villazón has appeared with leading orchestras and conductors on concert stages all over the world. His outdoor concerts with Anna Netrebko and Plácido Domingo at Berlin’s Waldbühne on the eve of the 2006 World Cup Final and at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace before the 2008 Euro Championship Final were both televised live and watched by millions of people around the world.

In 2011 Rolando Villazón made his debut as a stage director with the critically and publically acclaimed production of Massenet’s Werther with the Opéra de Lyon. The production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore that he directed at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in 2012 (he also sang the role of Nemorino) was broadcast on television in December 2012. He will make three further directorial debuts in the 2014-15 season.

Rolando Villazón began the 2013-14 season with “powerfully radiant” (Weser Kurier) performances as Mozart’s Lucio Silla with the Musikfest Bremen, conducted by Mark Minkowski. Mozart dominates the tenor’s season throughout: In October 2013 he performs Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni at the Berlin Staatsoper, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, and in January 2014 at the Vienna Staatsoper, followed by his return in summer 2014 to Milan’s Teatro alla Scala for performances as Ferrando in Così fan tutte in a new production directed by Claus Guth and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, before closing the season in July 2014 with his role debut as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden to be recorded for release on Deutsche Grammophon.

In November 2013 he returns to New York’s Metropolitan Opera to sing Lenski in Eugene Onegin, a role which he will also sing in Vienna in March 2014. Villazón joins Emmanuelle Haim and her Le Concert d’Astrée for Monteverdi-themed concerts in Paris in February 2014 and can be heard in recital in Regensburg, Bremen, Graz and at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala.

January 2014 sees the release of an album of Mozart Concert Arias for tenor, recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano. In Spring 2014 he performs the concert arias with the Basel Chamber Orchestra on a European tour which takes him to Prague, Munich, Vienna, Paris, Dortmund, Berlin and London.

Rolando Villazón became an exclusive recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon in 2007 and renewed his contract in October 2012. The yellow label has released his recordings of La traviata and La Bohème (both with Anna Netrebko) and Werther, DVDs of Manon (with Netrebko), Roméo et Juliette and The Berlin Concert: Live from the Waldbühne, as well as CDs of duets with Anna Netrebko, Italian opera arias, Handel arias and classic Mexican songs. In 2012 he embarked on a project to record Mozart’s seven mature operas under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The first, Don Giovanni, was released in September 2012; the second, Così fan tutte, in August 2013.

Deutsche Grammophon named Villazón its Verdi ambassador and he recorded Villazón Verdi, an homage to the great Italian composer in his 200th birthday year (2013), released in November 2012. In October 2013 he co-hosted the ECHO Klassik Awards at the Konzerthaus Berlin, where he also was honoured with the award for Solo Recording of the Year/Voice (Arias/Recitals) for Villazón Verdi.

In April 2013 Rolando Villazón displayed a new talent with the publication of his debut novel, Malabares, It was released in Mexico in October 2013 and will appear in France and Germany during 2014. The book has been dubbed “The fascinating first novel of a great artist” by fellow Mexican author Jorge Volpi.

Booklet for Villazón & Verdi