Patrick Bade
Don Carlos: Verdi

Patrick Bade - Don Carlos: Verdi

- Thank you Lauren and welcome everybody. I’m going to talk tonight about Verdi’s opera, Don Carlos. There are many ardent Verdians who thinks it’s his greatest opera. I mean, that’s a debatable point. It’s a incredibly sprawling complex opera. It’s certainly a great masterpiece, but rather like Beethoven’s Fidelio, I would say it’s a flawed masterpiece, unlike, say, Rigoletto or Aida or Otello which are, they may not necessarily be greater, but they work more smoothly than Don Carlos does. Now, Don Carlos dates from 1867, and in the late 1860s, Verdi was the most famous and most sought after composer in the world. So it was quite a coup for France in particular for the Emperor Louis Napoleon, to secure the services of Verdi to write an opera to coincide with the Paris World Fair of 1867. And you can see the caricature top left, which shows the Emperor Louis Napoleon really as a kind of supplicant to Verdi. Now, the main image here is of the so-called Palais Garnier, the Paris Opera.

This is the most lavish, the most spectacular, and in real terms the most expensive opera house ever built. It’s completely jaw dropping, it’s amazing. In fact, it wasn’t ready for Verdi’s opera. It wasn’t open till a few years later. But it’s worth spending a moment to look at this section of the building because it tells us quite a lot about what Verdi was required to do for this opera. He was required to write a French grand opera. And as we know, the French loved their rules and regulations and they had very strict rules about what was a grand opera. I mean, it had to consist of five acts including the intervals. It lasted a good five hours. There had to be a ballet in the second act. There had to be scenes, big, spectacular scenes that would involve sort of amazing spectacles on the stage. And so if we look at this section, one of the curious things about the Paris Opera is that the auditorium is very small in relation to the size of the whole building.

You can see that there in the middle. The two really, the main parts of the building are the backstage and what you could call the social areas where the wealthy people, the aristocratic ladies and the courtesans, the so-called grande horizontale would strut around in the intervals or flow up and down the staircase at the beginning, the end of the performance showing off their gorgeous clothes and their jewels and so on. And you can see the tallest part of the building is this huge, huge flytower. And this was to enable the changes of sets between the five acts. And it’s something, it still dominates the Paris skyline. If I just walk a few yards to the end of my street, the Rue La Fayette, I can look down it and I can see this flytower in the distance. It’s a kind of optical illusion really, ‘cause I stand there and I feel I could reach out and touch it. But in fact it would be about a half hour walk from here to the Paris Opera. So Verdi, he was rather daunted by this task. His letters at the time were full of complaints.

Oh my God, this is so enormous this job. I just have to compose so much music for this thing, you know, for a five hour spectacle. In the end, he overdid it and he wrote so much music for Don Carlos that even before the premier, quite big chunks had to be cut out of it because the opera had to stop by a certain time so that people could take the suburban trains back home afterwards. So in fact the first excerpt I’m going to play you is something that was not in the world premier and was actually never heard in this form till the opera was sort of reconstructed in its original form in the late 20th century. I’m going to play this to you and I imagine the music will be very familiar even if you’ve never seen Don Carlos in the opera house. So that is actually the scene, it’s part of the dungeon scene. And it’s King Philip II mourning the death of the Marquis of Posa. So I’m going to play it, well that’s more or less the same music in a form that may be more familiar to you 'cause obviously Verdi regretted having to cut it, thought it was too good to waste. So he reuses the same material in his famous requiem. Okay, that’s the same thing, isn’t it? Oh, here it is, here it is. The requiem. Sorry, nothing’s happening there. Anyway, I think you probably know it. Now, this is Paris, the Paris of the late 1860s. Paris had been totally transformed over the previous two decades under the control of Baron Haussmann. And of course it was still basically a mediaeval city. And Baron Haussmann very ruthlessly cut these wide boulevards from top to bottom across the city in circles around the city, 90 kilometre of wide streets. This is in fact what the opera house, the Palais Garnier looked like in 1867, it’s still very much a building site. And you can see that the Avenue de l'Opera at this point is nothing but rubble.

This is what the new Paris looked like, this famous paintings by Caillebotte showing these very regular, very straight streets. And if you arrived in Paris for the World Exhibition, you could see such wonders as the new sewage system. If you really wanted to, you could take a trip in the sewers of Paris floating on a river of sewage. And of course the main attraction was the World Exhibition of 1865, first ever World Exhibition, London 1851, the Crystal Palace one. But the French took up the idea of these world exhibitions and they held them at regular intervals through the 19th century. So as I said, the Palais Garnier was not complete. So Verdi’s opera was put on at the previous Paris Opera House in the Rue La Fayette. This is what it looked like. It was a building dating back to the early 19th century. Also very splendid, absolutely huge by the standards of the time. And this is an illustration from a magazine of the time showing all the different sets for the production at the Peletier Opera House in 1867.

Now, Don Carlos is based on the play of Schiller about historical characters. King Philip II of Spain, his son Don Carlos. So these are real people. Don Carlos, who in reality very unlike the hero of the opera. He was, you know, disastrously inbred, this dreadful habit of the Hapsburgs of marrying their first cousins and their nieces and so on, had really gone on too long. And he suffered from very severe, I think you have to say he was really psychotic. And he became more eccentric and more violent and eventually had to be locked up and was probably murdered on the orders of his father. So the three main characters, well three of the four main characters were Philip II, his son, and Phillip II’s third wife, Elizabeth De Valois. She’s the daughter of Catherine de Medici, so you probably know a bit about her from Trudy’s lectures. She was 14, oh, Phillip II he’d been married twice. The wife who just died, was our bloody Mary, Mary Judah, who he doesn’t seem to have been very fond of. But he was very fond of Elizabeth De Valois.

She was 14 years old and he was 32. There was a big age difference between them, but he certainly loved her very much. Even sat beside her bed when she had smallpox 'cause he wanted to be with her and was absolutely devastated when she eventually died in childbirth at the age of 22. And he was very caring, very solicitous towards her. And her correspondence with her mother shows that she actually loved him too and felt very lucky to be married to him. So here on the left you have a portrait of Elizabeth De Valois by the Italian artist, Sofonisba Anguissola, and that’s a self-portrait of Sofonisba Anguissola. Philip II brought Sofonisba to Madrid to be a companion of, she also she gave painting lessons to Elizabeth de Valois. But they were two young girls of more or less the same age, and he thought it would be good for her to have this companion. In the middle, you can see the rather formidable looking Marie Sass who took the part of Elizabeth in the premier. Now Schiller is partly responsible of course, for something I’ve talked about in an art historical context, which is the so-called black legend of Spain. This very dark view of Spain as being religiously fanatical, cruel. Well, we know there’s a quite a big element of truth in it with the persecution of Jews and the burning of heretics. And the image you see on the screen is an auto-da-fe where heretics were publicly tortured and burnt alive. And these continued all the way through the 16th century. They actually continued into the first half of the 18th century. So Don Carlos presents actually a very, very dark view of 16th century Spain and a very, very dark view of the Catholic church. Apparently the Empress Eugenie, who was of course Spanish and very Catholic was not at all pleased. And she rather ostentatiously stood up in her box and stood with her back to the stage for much of the first performance. Now the, as I said, the opera it was enormously long even after the cuts that had been made for the Paris premier.

And it was only a kind of in Paris. And Verdi realised he had to cut it and edit it if he wanted to give it a life in Italy. So further, much more drastic cuts were made, including the whole of the first act, the so-called Fontainebleau act which was cut from nearly all performances until the late 20th century. This is the palace of Fontainebleau, a gloriously beautiful, fascinating palace, in my view far, far more beautiful than and far more interesting than Versailles. And this is where Elizabeth de Valois was born and brought up. Incidentally, I think she was always used to having female companions of her own age. In this palace as a girl, she shared her bedroom with Mary Queen of Scots. So in the first act of Don Carlos which I think these days, I think pretty well every performance includes the first act, the Fontainebleau act takes place in the park of this castle. And Don Carlos encounters Elizabeth, and he’s been sent because there’s going to be an arranged marriage between him and Elizabeth, but he falls in love with her anyway and he’s very happy at the prospect of marrying her. And so I’m going to play you a little bit of their love duet in the park of Fontainebleau. You are going to hear Carlo Bergonzi and the great Renata Tebaldi. Now Verdi makes quite sophisticated use of musical reminiscences throughout this opera, almost in a Wagnerian way. There are certain themes are associated with certain places, certain feelings, certain people, and they recur in the opera. So it’s really, if you lose the Fontainebleau act of Don Carlos, it’s actually a big loss for the rest of the opera because when you get reminiscences of that theme that you just heard later in the opera, of course they don’t mean anything if you haven’t heard it in the first act.

So after they declare their love for one another and they’re very, very happy, then there is a very shocking announcement that actually the plan has changed. And Elizabeth is not going to marry Don Carlos, she’s going to marry his father, Phillip II. Of course Don Carlos is brokenhearted. So the act two or act one, if you have a performance without the Fontainebleau act, takes place in Spain at the monastery of Saint Just where Don Carlos’ grandfather, the emperor, Charles V had retired after his abdication. And we’re in front of his tomb in a cloister in the monastery of Saint Just, and this is what it looked like in the first performance. And so in this scene I’m going to play you now, Don Carlos confesses to his great friend, excuse me, I’m having a bit of a sinus problem tonight. He confesses to his great friend the Marquis of Posa, that he is in love with a woman who has just married his father. And Posa is initially rather shocked by this, but then he reassures him and he assures him of his love and his friendship, and they sing one of the most popular numbers of the opera, which is a tenor baritone duet, a duet of friendship. And then this again is a theme which will recur at certain points in the opera. So here it is. Now the next scene introduces another important character in the opera, which is the Princess Eboli and she is also based on a historical character. She was a mistress of Philip II and she was supposed to be a very beautiful woman although she’d lost an eye and she wore an eye patch, as you can see in this contemporary portrait of her. And so this is the scene where you have dancing and merriment and Eboli sings a song in what is the veil song, which as you can see tells a story. You can read the story here about a Moorish king. And it has all sorts of orientalist inflexions and Moorish ornaments. Now this is a wonderful, meaty role, and it’s, I think it’s been said that every mezzo worth her salt, every dramatic mezzo should really say a prayer to Verdi every night for giving mezzos such wonderful role.

Sometimes that threaten to outshine the soprano heroines as Amneris can outshine an Aida, and as Azucena can outshine a Leonora in Il Trovatore. So this is a very showy aria that requires considerable flexibility, vocal flexibility. Don Carlos manages to wangle a private audience with the woman who is now his stepmother. And once again, he declares his love for her, but she very firmly tells him that though she loves him, there’s nothing doing between them. But the king discovers that Elizabeth has been alone with Don Carlos. Of course that’s a complete no-no, a severe sin against, you know, court behaviour. And to punish Elizabeth he banishes her favourite lady-in-waiting from Spain. And Elizabeth is brokenhearted by this, and she sings a very touching farewell to the Countess of Aremberg. And you’ll hear from this that like Bellini, Verdi really knows how to weep in song. This has a wonderful poignancy in the very beautiful vocal line. Now though Eboli is the mistress of Philip II, she’s actually in love with Don Carlos. And she sends him a letter of assignation to meet her in the garden of the queen at midnight. And he thinks that the letter is from Elizabeth. So he turns up and she’s wearing a veil. And of course, as you know, and I’ve mentioned this already, in opera all you have to do is put a veil over your face or wear a mask and nobody can recognise you. So he thinks that she is Elizabeth and he passionately declares his love for her. And then of course she lifts the veil and he’s horrified. He says, oh God, it’s not the queen.

And then she of course realises that he is in love with his stepmother and not with her. At that point, still relatively polite. But she then really turns into a woman scorned and she turns on him and she threatens him. And along comes Posa, Don Carlos’s friend, and it turns into a very roistering violent trio with Posa and Eboli threatening one another. Now the next scene is the big scene that was necessary for every Parisian grand opera. You had to have a really spectacular scene with magnificent scenery and a huge chorus with wonderful costumes. And this is the scene of the auto-da-fe. And all the Dutch Protestants and the heretics have been brought and they’re going to, brought along and they’re going to be burned to death. And it’s a wonderful mixture of festive and sinister. It’s very, very spectacular. Don’t know where it is, my thing to click on to. Oh, here it is. Now you hear it turning dark and sinister at the end as the prisoners are brought in. And Don Carlos tries to intercede with the king, mercy for the Dutch heretics, and is scorned by the king, refused by the king, and he pulls his sword against the king. So there’s a moment of shock, horror. And the king says, “Who will disarm Don Carlos?” And nobody dares do it, except of course his friend Posa. So that’s a very, very dramatic moment. And the king says to Posa, “Marquis, you are now a duke.” In the next scene, I think this is one of the greatest scenes in the opera and one of the greatest scenes ever written for a bass. The king is alone meditating on his unhappiness and the fact that his young wife doesn’t love him. As I said, this is quite, there’s no basis in reality for this. I mean, the king, he was older than her, but he was 32, he’s not an old man by any means.

And there was in fact a lot of love between them. But in this scene, he makes a very heartfelt declaration that she doesn’t love them and she’s never loved him. Now, a point I should have emphasised earlier is that Don Carlos was written as a French opera, I did say it was written as a French opera, but it was written to a French text. So nowadays you might get to hear it either sung in the original French or in Italian translation. And I have to say, I actually think it sounds better in Italian than it does in French even though the Italian is a translation and not the original text. I’m going to play you this aria in the two parts. First of all, the opening recitatif. We’re going to hear it in a great French version by the great French bass, Vanni Marcoux. And then we’ll move, for the main part of the aria, we’ll move onto the Italian, Ezio Pinza. And I think it’s very interesting to compare the two. If some of you heard my talks about introducing the opera of different nationalities, French opera, Italian opera, German opera, etc., you may remember that I made the point that French voices are very, very special. They’re very different from Italian voices, for instance. They often tend to sound lighter and brighter. So that’s certainly the case here with Vanni Marcoux. When he starts to sing, he makes me think, oh, is this a bass voice at all? Sounds more like a rather light baritone than a bass. It’s not a dark voice and it has a very French quality. It’s a bit nasal, got a very frangent quality, and he has superb diction and annunciation.

If you speak French, you should be able to understand every single word that he sings. But this is, overall, this is my favourite version of this much recorded aria. And I think it’s just got such a poignancy to it. It’s so without any kind of exaggeration. It is so touching and deeply felt. Now we’re going to move on to the main part of the aria sung by the very great Italian bass, Ezio Pinza. Now he is the perfect example of what the Italians call a basso noble. He really, it’s a gorgeous warm sound, perfect for kings, high priests, very dignified people. It really is a noble sound, a wonderfully smooth, you know, this is dark, dark chocolate bass sound. Now, Caruso used to say that all you needed for Verdi’s Trovatore was the four greatest singers in the world, the greatest tenor, the greatest baritone, the greatest mezzo, and the, let’s see, greatest soprano. But for Don Carlos, you need more than that. You’ve got to have a great soprano, great tenor, great mezzo, great baritone, and three really good basses. So this makes it quite a difficult and expensive opera to put on. So in the next scene, the king gives an interview to the Grand Inquisitor. And my image on the left is El Greco’s portrait of the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, round about 1600, so just a little bit later than the period of the opera. And he’s a terrifying, sinister, sinister character. This is the darkest vision of the Spanish Inquisition. And the king, he thinks his son is a traitor to him, that he’s trying to seduce his wife and that he’s encouraging the rebellion of the Dutch Protestants.

So he seeks the advice of the Inquisitor and he says, “What should I do? Should I let my son go or shall I kill him?” And the Inquisitor says, “Oh, well, yes, of course you should kill him. After all, God sacrificed his son for humanity. You shouldn’t blink or think twice about sacrificing your son.” And he also tries to force the king into murdering or executing the Marquis of Posa. And Philip is initially resistant to this but the inquisitor threatens him. He says, you think you are king, you think you are powerful, but I’m more powerful than you and the Catholic church is more powerful than the monarchy. It’s wonderfully dark and sinister scene with these two great bass voices facing up against one another. Now in her rage and jealousy, Eboli has betrayed her mistress, the queen. She steals her her jewellery box and in the jewellery box is a miniature portrait of of Don Carlos. And she shows this to the king and he uses it as evidence that or to accuse her of adultery with Don Carlos. And then, no sooner has she done this, then Eboli, she’s sorry, she’s sorry she’s done this. So she goes to the queen and she confesses that she’s done this. And the queen says, “Oh, you love Don Carlos?” And she said, “Yes, I love Don Carlos.” And the queen says, “Well, you know, I understand that, that’s fine.” And then Eboli says, “But I’ve got something more to confess and that I’ve been having it off with your husband.” And this is really too much for the queen.

And she banishes Eboli, she says, “You can choose between going into exile or going into a convent.” And she walks out, she leaves Eboli, and Eboli then has her big number to sing of regret for her actions and cursing the beauty that brought the attention of the the king. Wonderful, meaty stuff for a real sort of hairy chested Italian mezzo to let rip with. Now the king does follow the orders of the Inquisitor and he has the Marcus of Posa shot and murdered. And as is the way in grand operas after he’s shot, he has enough breath in him to sing a very beautiful aria or farewell to his friend Carlos. And to give her a message, give him a message that he must meet his Elizabeth at San Yuste by the tomb of Charles V. And I’m going to play you this farewell and a very great performance by one of the supreme operatic artists of the 20th century. This is Tito Gobbi. Little reminiscence here of the friendship duet. Let’s move on to this, the final scene of the opera. We’re back in this cloister with the tomb of Charles V. And it opens with a marvellously dark, brooding orchestral prelude to a set scene. Then Elizabeth enters for her big number. This is her most impressive aria in the opera. And it starts off as a prayer and she’s actually addressing Charles V in his tomb.

And then it moves on but I think I shall have to cut off before that, when she has reminisces of her youth in Fontainebleau and her love for Don Carlos, and again, we get these musical reminiscences of act one. But here is the opening of the aria. So Carlos arrives and they have a very poignant duet of farewell. Once again, this wonderful weeping melody. And the accompaniment too suggests human tears and weeping. This is actually from a live performance, a very famous production of Don Carlos at Covent Garden in 1958. It was a Visconti production conducted by Guilini with a fabulous cast, and you can buy it on CD. And I was just having a correspondence a few days ago with Aurelia Young who talked to you about her father, Oscar Neman. And she told me that her husband, Lord Young, proposed to her in the second act of that production. It wasn’t 1958, it was 1965, but I think it would’ve been, was certainly the same production and most of the same singers. So I think this might have very special memories for her. John Vickers, really superb there. It’s terrible to have to cut them off. Anyway, they are surprised by Philip II and his guards and Phillip II orders the guards to attack Don Carlos. And he pulls out his sword to fight them off. And then a wonderful coup de theatre the tomb opens and out comes the supposedly dead Charles V and he pulls Don Carlos into the tomb. And that’s how the opera ends. I’m going to play you a rather special performance. This is from the Metropolitan Opera in 1972. And the cast included Franco Corelli, who is of course the idol of New York, but this is towards the end of his career. And it included the young Montserrat Caballe. And clearly she was stealing the performance, that the audience just lapped her up, they loved her. And Corelli had a real hissy fit.

And just as she was about to walk on stage for that huge aria right at the end there, he deliberately bumped into her and winded her. But anyway, she recovered her voice and she went and sang the aria, and boy did she ever get her revenge on him at the end because as Don Carlos is dragged into the tomb, she has to sing a top B, and this is the top B to end all top Bs. You’ll have never have heard anything like this. It just, it just gets bigger and bigger and it goes on forever. She just holds onto it until the curtain comes down and you’ll hear the reaction of the audience to this incredible vocal feat. So talk about having the last word or the last note. Right, that’s it. So let’s see what comments and questions we have.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Can the music be a bit louder please?

A: That’s up to you. I can’t, I have no control over how loud it is. I think it needs to be from your end.

I think one needs the five act version and the Fontainebleau act makes all the difference. I agree with you totally, that’s Arlene.

End of the fourth Fontainebleau act is very moving. It’s acapella, slowly fades out. Yes, I mean, it is fantastic.

I wish I could play you more of this very, very long opera. You can, Tessa, you’ve got all the list of all the singers. That list went out with the PowerPoint.

Shades of Aida March of the Prisoners during the Grand March. That’s probably, you are talking about the auto-da-fe scene.

This is Sandy Landau, she says my husband was an extra at the Met and wasn’t allowed to wear his glasses. He was a scholar carrying a very large pole and was saved by his fellow scholar the last Met for not falling into the auto-da-fe pit. Oh dear. The director gave his friend a big thank you hug after the scene was over. That must have been a bit scary.

Q: Is it true he did not read music?

A: You’re talking about Ezio Pinza, I think. Yes, he did not read music and of course it’s famous that when he sang in South Pacific, he was extremely embarrassed that what’s her name who sang the the female part could read music much better than he could.

Pinza was a professional bicycle racer before his singing career. That’s true. And never learned to read music, that is also true. But what a intelligent musical singer. And he could sing really difficult, you know, long roles like Boris Godunov and so on.

Dormiro Sol, I shall sleep alone, indeed. In one of the Met productions, the Grand Inquisitor is led in by a small boy holding him by the hand. I would love to see a production where the Inquisitor is wearing sunglasses. I bet you it does happen these days. You say it probably never happens. The images I have of the singers are all the singers who are actually singing and you do have the list.

Yeah, Tito Gobbi, what can you say? I just wish I could play more, could have played more of him for you. And thank you for your all very nice comments.

Q: Why did he not choose a French historical story?

A: Yeah, interesting. And I’m surprised he was allowed to get away with it, as I said, because you know, Schiller was a Protestant and it’s a very Protestant view of the Catholic church and Spain. And I suppose, you know, Verdi had such a prestige at this time he could more or less probably get away with whatever he wanted.

Q: Who sings Elizabeth in the aria before the tomb?

A: That was again Renata Tebaldi, as I said it’s all on,

and this, Yvonne you saw the, of course I also saw that Covent Garden production. It went on for years and years and years. And Doris too, lucky you.

Q: Who did I see in it?

A: Well, I did see Christoff in it, not Gobbi.

Verdi does a phenomenal job of giving each of the principals magnificent music to sing. You are so right. Not like the other guy who writes for tenor and soprano. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, I’ll give you a hint.

No, what, I’m sorry, I refuse to hear anything bad about Puccini. I won’t accept a single negative thing about him.

Yeah, the ending is, isn’t that incredible? It’s just so amazing that top note that she does.

Q: Why do I think the opera is flawed?

A: I think it’s really a tricky opera because it’s too long. It’s not well shaped, if you know what I mean, in the way that you know everything, you couldn’t really think of cutting anything from Rigoletto or Trovatore. Those are operas which everything falls into its place. He doesn’t put a foot wrong. So even though I think it’s, I mean some people think it’s Verdi most profound, most moving opera, but it’s not, I would say a very well shaped opera.

Q: Was the opera a financial success?

A: Well he was paid a huge amount of money that was even a scandal at the time in France, how much money he was paid for that opera. But it wasn’t a success in the sense he didn’t get very many royalties for it.

Tamara’s saying Caballe one of the world’s greatest. Gave a recital in New York, bungled the words in one song, she burst out laughing, started over again. It’s so nice when a singer has the confidence to do that.

Tony Levy saying he saw Corelli and Nilsson up staging. Yeah, of course, that was a famous rivalry, wasn’t it? And what was he? He had he bit her on the air or threatened to bite her on the ear and she said if he does, I’m going to get myself injected for rabies. So yes, they weren’t nice about one another. Not put on today.

No, it is, actually Don Carlos is done a lot, but not always with such wonderful singers as I was able to play tonight. Yeah, it’s such a, I felt a bit rushed tonight, Herbert. I did. It’s such a huge sprawling opera. It’s quite tough to get it into one session.

• I agree. Thank you, but thank you Patrick for a fantastic presentation, I agree. You know, I really feel like we should slow it down a little bit because it is such a brilliant opera.

• Yeah, well I could do them over two if you like. I mean Don Giovanni is another one where there’s a hell of a lot to say, but, we’ll see, yeah.

• We’ll chat offline.

• Yeah.

• Well thank you everybody for joining us again. Sorry I was a little bit late. And Patrick, thanks a million. How’s Paris?

• It’s fine. I mean it was grey and wet today but it’s not cold. It seems to be much colder in London.

• Yeah, oh that’s miserable here.

• Mm.

• So, all right, thank you everybody. Thank you for joining us. And on that note, we’ll say night, night and I’ll talk to you offline, Patrick.

• Yeah.

• Thanks a million.

• All right.

• Take care. Thanks, bye-bye.