Fontainebleau! Foresta immensa

You are going to hear Bruno Prevedi, a sadly undervalued Italian spinto-dramatic tenor, perform this Act I aria, taken from the Fontainebleau Forest scene of the five-act version of Verdi's Don Carlo, sung in Italian.


Giuseppe Verdi: DON CARLO
Don Carlo -- Bruno Prevedi
Elisabetta di Valois -- Leyla Gencer
Principessa d'Eboli -- Fiorenza Cossotto
Don Rodrigo di Posa -- Sesto Bruscantini
Re Filippo II -- Nicolai Ghiaurov
Il Grande Inquisitore -- Luigi Roni
Un frate - Franco Pugliese
Tebaldo - Virginia De Noraristefani
Conte di Lerma - Athos Cesarini
Un araldo reale - Fernando Jacopucci
Voce dal cielo - Giovanna di Rocco
Orchestra e Coro Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
Direttore - Fernando Previtali
Roma - 24 aprile 1968


Bruno Prevedi -- "Fontainebleau! Foresta immensa e solitaria...Io la vidi e il suo sorriso"


Don Carlos (Don Carlo), son of Phillip II (Filippo), King of Spain, passionately sings about his ardent love for Élisabeth de Valois (Elisabetta), the French royal Princess, whose hand in marriage was promised to him by his father, and beseeches God's blessing upon their "chaste love". Further in Act I, however, his idealistic dreams of love and forthcoming life-long happiness with his betrothed are cruelly scattered by the announcement from King Phillip: he is to renounce Elisabetta and give her away in marriage to his father for political reasons.

P.S. More excerpts from this live Rome performance will be uploaded in due course.

I am leaving you to relish Prevedi's impassioned rendition of this aria. Feel free to comment!

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