Hidden treasures - Carlos Gomes - Il Guarany (1870) - Selected highlights (Act I & II)

"A real musical genius" - Verdi when asked about Gomes.

When Brazilian composer Carlos Gomes, in accordance with the Emperor of Brazil's wishes, arrived to Milan in 1863 to further develop his compositional skills, he was already an experienced composer, boasting a quite successful career in his home country, even composing several stage works of various degrees of ambition. After studying with Lauro Rossi for several years and passing an examination at the Conservatory of Milan in 1866, however, he began an even more triumphal composing career in Milan which culminated in the production of his grand opera, "Il Guarany", based on a novel by the Brazilian writer Jose de Alencar with a libretto in Italian by Antonio Scalvini. The opera was premiered at La Scala on March 19, 1870, and was a great success, Gomes, however, made the mistake of selling his rights to it during the intermission for 3000 lire to publisher Francesco Lucca who profited greatly as it was played in major opera houses all over Europe for decades to come. The composer still did receive great fame and honors: he was made a Knight of the Italian Crown and received a hero's welcome when he returned to Brazil to produce the opera on Don Pedro's birthday on December 2, 1870. Nevertheless, none of Gomes' later works managed to repeat the success of "Il Guarany", the piece on which we will concentrate in these two postings.

The story (comparable in its' exotic setting to "L'africaine" and "Aida") is a quite complex one, set in the area near Rio de Janeiro in 1560. The heroine, Cecilia (soprano), is the daughter of the Portuguese governor, Don Antonio (bass). Although betrothed to Portuguese explorer Don Alvaro (tenor), she is in love with Peri (tenor), the titular Guarani chief, and desires to be with him. Since the Guarani are at war with the rival Aymore tribe, and both the leader of the latter tribe, Il Cacico (bass), and the leader of the explorers, Gonzales (baritone), also fall in love with Cecilia, numerous captures, rescues and other complications occur before the love triangle (in essence, a love rectangle, but both Don Alvaro and Cacico are small parts of no true significance) is resolved in a monumental denouement that includes Cecilia's father sacrificing himself for her by blowing up his castle while he is still in it. The gargantuan scale and the remarkable, if highly romanticized, drive of the plot is similar to that of Verdi's "Il trovatore", and, in essence, to understand Gomes' style one has to go back to Verdi's operatic works.

Musically, the piece, just as Verdi's "Don Carlos" and "La forza del destino", finds itself somewhere in between Donizetti's opera serie (especially obvious in the portrayal of the heroine) and Meyerbeer's grand opera (indeed, one more act would be more than enough to label it "a grand opera"). As such a work, it produces a rather unusual but nonetheless effective combination of the old and the new in contemporary musical tradition, marking an important musical threshold between the final breath of romanticism, a musical period that had already ended by the 1870s (Cecilia's two arias - the first one amounting to a cabaletta without a cantabile, the second one repeating the tradition of the Italian romanza (for example, Giulietta's beautiful cavatina by Bellini) - are proof of Gomes' affinity with the belcanto tradition), and verismo (Pery's heroic portrayal, while reasonably close to the archetypical belcanto hero, is characterized by a much more virile musical style, looking forward to the heroes of Puccini). The music is consistently hot-blooded, Gomes particularly responding to the drama's darkest episodes: thus, a scene from Act III, as the Aymore tribe prepares to slay the lovers, is presented as a chilling prayer. One could complain about a certain lack of elegance in the music, but, considering the continuous action and the romantic story, it is not exactly a trait one would expect to find in a setting of such a violent story.

The live recording (conducted by John Neschling), so far the only one reasonably complete (as far as I can see, only some of the recitatives have been cut) rendition of the opera to appear on the market today, is a winning representation of the opera and features a good cast headed by three distinctive lead singers (with Domingo a particularly realistic Pery).

Hao Jiang Tian - Don Antonio de Mariz,
Veronica Villarroel - Cecilia,
Placido Domingo - Pery,
Marcus Haddock - Don Alvaro,
Carlos Alvarez - Gonzales,
Graham Sanders - Ruy (tenor), an explorer,
John Paul Bogart - Alonso (bass), an explorer,
Boris Martinovic - Il Cacico.

Hope you'll enjoy :).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• romantic
• Gomes
• opera
• verismo

[lababoc]

credits please

[LindoroRossini]

@lababoc. Check the description below the video :).

[pumapreto]

Upon retiring, Verdi said of Carlos Gomes: ''questo ragazzo incomincia dove lascio io'' - (this young man begins where I leave off''.

[pumapreto]

Bravo! thank you for posting!

[elballroom]

Gran selección, felicitaciones!!