Caro nome che il mio cor

THE SONGBIRD: Margaret Price (1941 - 2011) was born in South Wales. She began her music training at Trinity Music College in London as a mezzo-soprano. She made her operatic debut as Cherubino at the Welsh National Opera, which helped her get hired for small roles and as the cover for Cherubino at Covent Garden. And sure enough, in 1963 Teresa Berganza became ill and Price stepped in at short notice to immediate acclaim. In the mid-1960s, Price reframed herself as a soprano with tremendous success in lyric roles, especially by Mozart (Konstanze, Madame Silberklang, Pamina, Donna Anna, Fiordiligi) and Verdi (Nanetta, Desdemona, Amelia, Elisabetta). Price was one of the pre-eminent lieder singers of her generation with about a dozen solo recital recordings of Brahms, Strauss, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Debussy, Duparc, and Granados. She was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1993.

This selection is taken from a BBC broadcast of a live concert. I don't have the exact provenance, but BBC Genome archives show it could have been sung at one of three concerts: either March 4, 1967 (Llandaff), September 30, 1967 (Huddersfield), or October 5, 1968 (Brexhill-on-Sea.)

THE MUSIC: Verdi's "Rigoletto" is a true operatic masterpiece and one of the most performed and recorded works in history. Its premiere in Venice in 1851 was a triumph with the public -- some critics at the time felt the plot was too dark and the music too tuneful, but simply put, they were wrong; "Rigoletto" has never faded from the core repertoire in 170 years. The opera contains many watershed innovations in plot and character, musical structure, and orchestration. Gilda's aria "Caro nome che il mio cor" is one example as there were really no arias prior to it that had its unusual structure, inventive blend of rhythm and melody, and shimmering orchestration, all elements that Verdi combined to effectively convey the breathless innocence of the naive young woman's first infatuation. The score as written tops out at a High C#, but it has become standard practice for sopranos to insert a short cadenza with a staccato volley to a High D#. The full scene ends with a long coda where Gilda dreamily repeats phrases of its main theme, unaware that the conniving Courtiers are stealthily approaching in the dark to abduct her, and then softly diminishes on a long trill held over two and a half measures. In recital or concert performances or recordings, the coda is sometime cut, as Dame Price has done.