L'amour est un oiseau rebelle (Habanera)

Recorded for U. S. Zonophone at the time Eugenia Mantelli toured America with her "Mantelli Operatic Company" giving opera in English, offering scenes from Carmen and Faust and a complete Trovatore.
The voice is most beautifully recorded, catching the lovely timbre: The piano, however, sounds like a banjo...
Mantelli's recordings might be considered master-classes in belcanto. The emission of the voice may be described as perfectly natural and apparently spontaneous: it is free of the throat in all three registers, and the registers are well blended. The tone is warm, limpid and velvety, round and fresh, and truly 'forward'; the primitive but frequently close recordings enable us to hear her clear attack. This is the basis for Mantelli's impeccable legato. Her voice always floats on the breath. However, on records, at least, she does not offer much variation in dynamics or tone color, and shows little emotional involvement in her singing... the enchanting, capricious gypsy girl in all her moods from gaiety to sensuousness, to ironic and fatalistic...

Emma Calvé's "Habanera" from 1907 is very reminiscent of Mantelli's record in its phrasing:
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The score was adapted from the habanera "El Arreglito," originally composed by the Spanish musician Sebastián Yradier. Georges Bizet thought it to be a folk song; when others told him he had used a song that had been written by a composer who had died only ten years earlier, he had to add a note to the score of Carmen, acknowledging its source.
It is based on a descending chromatic scale followed by variants of the same phrase in first the minor and then the major key, corresponding with the vicissitudes of love expressed in the lyrics...

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle
que nul ne peut apprivoiser,
et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle,
s'il lui convient de refuser.
Rien n'y fait, menace ou prière,
l'un parle bien, l'autre se tait:
Et c'est l'autre que je préfère,
Il n'a rien dit mais il me plaît.
L'amour! L'amour! L'amour! L'amour!

L'amour est enfant de Bohême,
il n'a jamais, jamais connu de loi;
si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime
si je t'aime, prends garde à toi! (Prends garde à toi!)
Si tu ne m'aimes pas,
Si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime! (Prends garde à toi!)
Mais, si je t'aime,
Si je t'aime, prends garde à toi!

L'oiseau que tu croyais surprendre
battit de l'aile et s'envola ...
l'amour est loin, tu peux l'attendre;
tu ne l'attends plus, il est là!
Tout autour de toi, vite, vite,
il vient, s'en va, puis il revient ...
tu crois le tenir, il t'évite,
tu crois l'éviter, il te tient.
L'amour! L'amour! L'amour! L'amour!

L'amour est enfant de Bohême,
il n'a jamais, jamais connu de loi;
si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime
si je t'aime, prends garde à toi! (Prends garde à toi!)
Si tu ne m'aimes pas,
Si tu ne m'aimes pas, je t'aime! (Prends garde à toi!)
Mais, si je t'aime,
Si je t'aime, prends garde à toi!

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Love is a rebellious bird
that nobody can tame,
and you can call him (although it is) quite in vain,
because it suits him not to come.
Nothing helps, neither threat nor prayer.
One man talks well, the other, silent;
but it's the other that I prefer.
He says nothing, but he pleases me.
Oh, love! Love! Love! Love!

Love is a gypsy's child,
it has never known the law;
if you love me not, then I love you;
if I love you, you'd best beware! (You'd best beware!)
if you love me not,
if you love me not, then I love you (You'd best beware!)
but if I love you,
if I love you, you'd best beware!

The bird you hoped to catch
beat its wings and flew away ...
love stays away, you wait and wait;
when least expected, there it is!
All around you, swift, swift,
it comes, goes, then it returns ...
you think you hold it fast, it flees
you think you're free, it holds you fast.
Oh, love! Love! Love! Love!

Love is a gypsy's child,
it has never known the law;
if you love me not, then I love you;
if I love you, you'd best beware! (You'd best beware!)

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