Fausta - Donizetti - "T'amo ancora" - Renato Bruson - 1981 - Rome Opera - 2/3

"T'amo ancora" is one of three baritone arias in Act 2, Scene 2 of Donizetti's opera 'Fausta', which was written in 1831, a year important in Romanticism---the year of 'Norma', 'Robert le diable', 'Marion Delorme', 'Notre Dame de Paris', Chopin's arrival in Paris, and preparations for 'La Sylphide'. Bruson is superb at expressing the tender paternal melancholy of the aria. "T'amo ancora" exhibits the DNA that Verdi would exploit so well in "Di Provenza". The opera premiered at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 12 January 1832 and was quite successful. The role of Fausta was the first of six great vehicles written for Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis by Donizetti, whom the composer deeply admired, while Costantino was created by Antonio Tamburini, then soaring to his position as the major baritone of his time. In the grand tradition of Italian baritones, Renato Bruson is divine as the Emperor Costantino: ruler, husband, yet always a father: T'amo ancora, ancor dal ciglio per te, o figlio, il pianto scende, al perdono ancor mi rende per te pronta la pietà, ma mi svela i fatti tuoi. Solo sei, nessun t'ascolta: tutto il core aprir mi puoi, Costantin qui non ti udrà. This aria was written by Donizetti for Giovanni Orazio Cartagenova to replace "Se di regnar desio" in the 1834 Venice Carnival season revival with Giuditta Pasta at the Teatro La Fenice. Cartagenova (1800-1841) also created the role of Filippo in Bellini's 'Beatrice di Tenda' in that same Venice season. Appropriately in the audience for this opera of forbidden attachments were George Sand and Alfred de Musset -- those notorious Romantic exemplars of sexual transgression -- then famously sojourning in Venice. Sand admiringly described the city in a letter of 16 March 1834: "...the murmurs of the sea breaking upon the ear; moonlights nowhere else to be seen; choruses of gondoliers, sometimes very correct, serenading under every window; cafes fall of Turks and Armenians; fine and spacious theatres where you can hear Pasta and Donzelli; gorgeous palaces..." Both arias were sung by Renato Bruson in the 1981 Rome Opera revival. The character is the conflicted Emperor Costantino, torn between loyalties to his wife and son, a role which was created by the great baritone Antonio Tamburini -- he of the legendary 'Puritani Quartet' -- in his youthful prime. The critic Castil-Blaze described Tamburini's voice in 'The Harmonicon' of May 1833: "His voice is a fine baritone, well defined, extending from A to F, occasionally reaching G#, and sometimes descending to Gb. I might have allotted to him the two full octaves without reserve, but I prefer to retrench the semitone, above and below, that I may give to his voice and tone the full praise it merits. It is round, rich, and clear, of wonderful flexibility, and such astonishing firmness, that it is impossible to suspect any note is passed over unperceived. He has the neatness and precision of execution that Ber and Barizel have acquired on the clarinet or bassoon. The tone is equal in its whole extent, taking and holding F# with as much ease as a tenor voice would do, or running over the notes with a vivacity unheard of till now." #Fausta #Donizetti #RenatoBruson