Mattia Battistini, "Deh, vieni alla finestra", Mozart: Don Giovanni (recorded in 1902)

(By request from transformingArt) The great Italian baritone Mattia Battistini (1856-1928), popularly known as "The King of the Baritones" and "The Glory of Italy", in "Deh, vieni alla finestra" from Act 2 of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The recording was made for G&T in 1902. The first picture of Battistini in the costume of Don Giovanni comes from Jacques Chuilon, Mattia Battistini: King of Baritones and Baritone of Kings, translated by Thomas Glasow (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2009).

The following biographical profile of Battistini comes from "Cantabile-Subito: A Site for Collectors of Great Singers of the Past" (www.cantabile-subito.de):
"Battistini was born in Rome and brought up in Contigliano, a village near Rome. His father, a professor of anatomy at Rome University, would have preferred his son to take up a career in medicine or law, but from the beginning Mattia showed a prodigous musical talent. He studied with Venceslao Persichini (who also taught Francesco Marconi, Titta Ruffo and Giuseppe de Luca). While still a student he sang in public. His debut was in Donizettis La Favorita in 1878 which was an immediate success. In the first three years he toured Italy and appeared in roles of La Forza del Destino, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, Il Guarany, Gli Ugenotti, Dinorah, LAfricaine, I Puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor, Aida, Ernani, as well as taking part in the world premieres of several new operas. What a repertory for a young singer! He went to South America in 1881 for the first time, where he travelled for more than one year. By his returning, he appeared in Barcelona and Madrid where he sang in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. His success in this role was enormous. In 1883 he came to Covent Garden where he appeared opposite Marcella Sembrich, Francesco Marconi, Edouard de Reszke and Adelina Patti. In 1888 he travelled to South America again. It proved to be his last trans-Atlantic trip. He never appeared at the Met or any other American opera house. He was said to have developed a horror for the Atlantic-crossing. He more and more orientated his career to Imperial Russia. He used to travel to Warszaw, St. Petersburg and Moscow like a prince, with 30 trunks, each one embossed with the initials, M.B., and each one containing a wardrobe of different stage costumes! Warszaw (then in Imperial Russia) was the place where the famous Italian vocalists gathered at the turn of the century. Battistini's first recordings (1902) were made there. Battistini was a close friend to the Tsars family. He was the most acclaimed singer of his time by the Russian aristocracy. He returned to Russia regularly for 23 seasons! Other cities he appeared in were Paris, Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, Milano, Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Budapest. After Worldwar I he toured with his own company. His career lasted almost 50 years! He gave his last concert performance one year before his death, his voice was still in very fine condition."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Mattia
• Battistini
• Deh
• vieni
• alla
• finestra
• Mozart
• Don
• Giovanni
• 1902

[francesca7564]

Great document !!!

TY Tim ...

:-)

[Kievest]

Such seductive singing and patrician good looks could lure the most innocent

woman out onto the balcony and into a world of trouble. Thank you for posting

and to paulostroff99 for sharing! Priceless historic post!

[paulostroff99]

Awesome! TY Tim for postng.

[aaronsande]

@EdmundStAustell E? You mean the sound represented as "EH"? (I'm assuming you aren't one of those who pronounces "egg" as "aig")

E is not so hard...the A sound is the hardest for me, because if you listen to Caruso, for example, it's not really "AH", but "AAAAAA" almost as in A-bsolutely. Hard to sing, for some reason...

[EdmundStAustell]

@aaronsande Ha, ha. Yep. You can tell them it's just your nature.  Open E's and O's in Italian are tricky sounds. The E is the worst of the two. It's like the E in the English word 'egg," and if you can imagine an irate Italian woman screaming at someone, "EH, Mario! Ascolta!" you can get the picture. They are uncharacteristically harsh sounds in an otherwise beautiful language.

[aaronsande]

@EdmundStAustell From now on when I receive criticism of my vowel pronunciation, I am going to blame it on my roguishness ;D

[EdmundStAustell]

Now this a real eye-opener, stylistically speaking. Singers of Mozart would not today take such liberties today with the music. But for him it works very well. Mozart was not the god then he is now, and he was treated much more casually in times past. Also, he sings in a very sly and insinuating way, like opening the open O's toward the beginning of the aria to were they are almost A's. Tesara for tesoro, etc. That's a very roguish was of talking. I'll bet he was one heck of a good actor.

[meltzerboy]

Battistini is my favorite baritone, bar none. I know he takes liberties with the score in note-values, ornaments, and individual phrasing and style; however, there is always an artistic imagination behind it, as well as some showing off, to be sure. And his voice is so beautiful, his tone production so bel canto, his breath control (especially in the earliest recordings) so incredible, that the idiosyncrasies do not bother me in the least. Thanks for sharing, Tim!

[Herur22]

I like him very much. And a very excellent quality of the recording.