Opera title: | Il Trovatore |
Composer: | Giuseppe Verdi |
Language: | Italian |
Synopsis: | Il Trovatore Synopsis |
Libretto: | Il Trovatore Libretto |
Translation(s): | English Deutsch |
Type: | duet |
Role(s): | Count di Luna / Leonora |
Voice(s): | Baritone / Soprano |
Act: | 4.07 |
Previous scene: | Udiste? come albeggi |
Next scene: | Conte..ne cessi? |
Marie Rappold and Taurino Parvis sing 'Mira, di acerbe lagrime,' recorded for Edison in July 1918. Despite the problematic surface noise, the voices come through well in what is quite a spirited performance. For once, even the Edison orchestra provides a rather solid accompaniment!
From Wikipedia: Marie Rappold, née Winterrath (17 August 1872 – 12 May 1957) was a German-born American operatic soprano. She sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1905 to 1920.
She was born in Barmen, Germany on 17 August 1872.
She appeared on stage in London at the age of five before moving with her parents to Brooklyn, New York, where she later studied with Oscar Saenger and sang with the Amberg German Opera Company.
On 22 November 1905, Rappold made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Sulamith in Karl Goldmark's Die Königin von Saba (The Queen of Sheba, 1875). She continued to appear at the Met until 1920, during which time, she gave a total of 198 performances in 23 roles and 22 operas. Her first husband, Dr. Julius Rappold, objected to her career, and she divorced him in 1907. In 1913, she married tenor Rudolf Berger (17 April 1874, Moravia – 27 February 1915, New York City).
During World War I, Edison Records started a marketing campaign, hiring prominent opera singers and vaudeville performers to perform alongside and alternating with Edison records of their performances played on top-of-the-line Edison Diamond Disc Phonographs. At various stages during the performances, all lights in the theater would be darkened and the audience challenged to guess whether they were hearing a live performance or a recording. Written accounts of the time often said that much of the audience was astonished when the lights went back up to reveal only the Edison phonograph on stage. According to a book published by the Edison company titled Composers and Artists whose Art is Re-Created by Edison's New Art (ca. 1920), the first such 'comparison test' took place at Carnegie Hall on April 28, 1916, with Rappold providing the live vocal performance.
She recorded for Edison and Victor Records, and appeared in short films for Universal Studios. She also appeared in a short film made by Lee De Forest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process in 1922, which is now in the Maurice Zouary film collection at the Library of Congress.
In June 1925, Rappold played the female lead in the premiere of Frank Patterson's opera The Echo with tenor Forrest Lamont (1881–1937).
She died on 12 May 1957 at Victory Hospital in North Hollywood, California.
On October 11, 2010, Rappold's former home in Upstate New York was featured on History Channel's series American Pickers.
Taurino Parvis (Turin, September 15, 1879 - Barcelona, ​​May 9, 1957) was an Italian baritone.
'A singer-actor of remarkable quality, as well as a man of vast culture ... able to sing in six languages,' who was also called 'an intellectual baritone.' He studied music (cello) and singing first in Turin with Maestro Wilkinson, then he perfected in Milan with Maestro Vanni, and at the same time continued his university studies in Law at the University of Turin, a degree he obtained in 1903. After obtaining a contract with the singing company set up by the Neapolitan soprano Emma Carelli, he made his debut in 1900 in the first Brazilian performance of Pietro Mascagni's opera Iris, in the part of Kyoto, at the Teatro Lirico in Rio de Janeiro.
His debut in Italy took place in 1901 at the Teatro Comunale di Cesena in the part of Marcello in La Bohème... In the seasons 1904-1905-1906 he participated in an American tour that saw him on the stages of the main theatres of the cities of North America: at the Metropolitan in New York he made his debut in November as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor with Marcella Sembrich, Enrico Caruso and Marcel Journet...
Between 1905 and 1907 he recorded numerous opera arias for the Columbia, Zonaphone, Pathè Record, Edison Record, Società Fonografica Napoletana record companies...
Parvis's career lasted over thirty years: he retired from the stage in the early thirties, playing for the last time the part of Ping in Turandot. He resumed his legal activity and moved to Spain, where he became the local agent of all Italian film companies...
LEONORA
Si getta disperatamente a' suoi piedi
Mira, di acerbe lagrime
Spargo al tuo piede un rio:
Non basta il pianto? svenami,
Ti bevi il sangue mio...
Calpesta il mio cadavere,
Ma salva il Trovator!
CONTE
Ah! dell'indegno rendere
Vorrei peggior la sorte:
Fra mille atroci spasimi
Centuplicar sua morte;
Più l'ami, e più terribile
Divampa il mio furor!
LEONORA
He desperately throws himself at his feet
Mira, of bitter tears
Spread your foot on a stream:
Is not crying enough? svenami,
You drink my blood ...
Trample my body,
But save the Trovator!
COUNT
Ah! of the commitment to make
I would make the fate worse:
Among a thousand atrocious spasms
Centuplicar his death;
The more you love him, the more terrible
Blaze my furor!
Sheetmusic for duet | ![]() |
Sheetmusic for opera | ![]() |
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