Ileana Cotrubas - "Musica Prohibita" by Gastaldon

Ileana Cotrubas sings "Musica Prohibita"
composed by Stanislaus Gastaldon

Czech Symphony Orchestra
Armando Krieger - conductor
at The Roman Amphitheatre of Siracuse

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Ileana
• Cotrubas
• Musica
• Prohibita
• Stanislaus
• Gastaldon
• Czech
• Symphony
• Orchestra
• soprano
• opera
• classical

[Fegen]

The late Ileana Cotrubas was always one of my favorites when she sang

at the Met Opera House in New York City.

[vivachinwen]

sento questa voce , io non verro mai da lei ,se io fosse un bel ragazzo !!! :(

[vivachinwen]

sento questa voce , io non verro mai da lei ,se io fosse un bel ragazzo !!!

[Miauriceful]

This is not a "song" (canzone) it's name is "romanza".

[caruuso]

I don't think Cotrubas is at all dead!

The song actually doesn't work for a man, albeit sung by all the "big men" of the 19th century - Caruso, Gobbi (yuck) etc. The words are simply the words of a woman, apart from short chorus section. As noted below, Domingo changed the words to actually work for a man, but the result is extremely bizarre.

[halavey]

She stopped singing not long after doing a terrific Mimi in 84 with Neil Shicoff at the met. but has since died.

[thechinadesk]

Dear Labienus,

It's amazing how far into obscurity something can fall, isn't it?

Another interesting aspect of the aria is how male singers have deftly dealt with the gender issue in the lyrics.

Because the aria is sort of a "song within a song," it's not hard to reframe the aria as being sung by the male walking below rather than by the female on th balcony above.

As a result, most male singers go ahead and sing the lyrics, as is. Only Domingo felt obligated to change the gender.

[Labienus]

A good project for someone because I can't find the answer. I suppose one approach would be to see if the score of the opera can be located.

I know that the melody was put to English words-O Promise Me -for an 1891 musical Robin Hood-imagine that!

Somewhere I thought I encountered an obscure Italian film with the title of the song-but not sure??

[thechinadesk]

Dear Labienus,

The wag had a sense of humor! LOL!

I read that, yes indeed, the opera never went over, and all that has remained is the aria, which most people assume is an art song rather than an aria.

The answer to the questions you posed, are no and no.

Bottom line? I am making a reasonable inference about the soprano part, based on casting requirement. A mezzo would probably come across as too old.

But no explicit evidence.

[Labienus]

This is an interesting question. Traditionally and effectively sung by tenors, it is indeed written from a woman's pt of view. However, to the best of my knowledge there is no recording of the opera-it was a flop-and I've even read the music is hard to find. So do you actually know who sang it in the opera, other than the assumption it was a female voice( you say soprano) based on the text? Have ever heard the opera etc?

A wag once said Mascagni is known for one opera, Gastaldon for one song.