On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Jennifer wrote:
> I'm planning on doing an "aspects of love" theme - > exploring things like wanting to be in love, falling > in love, falling out of love, losing a loved one, > feelings about being in love, etc. I'm a full lyric > soprano with a good high C, a decent middle and lower > range (but I prefer not to hang out there for extended > periods of time) and a fair amount of flexibility > (although I'm definitely not a coloratura). Since the > audiences I'll be targeting include people who aren't > overly familiar with opera, I'd like to do arias or > art songs that have nice melodies or have some other > appeal (strong emotion, for example). Nothing atonal > :o). I wouldn't mind doing one or two lesser known > arias/songs, but the majority should be fairly > familiar.
And you must, of course, include a song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's ASPECTS OF LOVE. :) Actually, "Love Changes Everything" might not be a bad song to include, given your theme.
If you are willing to consider some "legit" popular stuff, the song that immediately leapt to mind (after the Lloyd Webber) is Rogers & Hart's "Falling in Love with Love". It would surely be a song familiar to many people even if they don't know opera or art song. Another possibility is "If love were all" from Noel Coward's operetta BITTERSWEET - again, lyrically it fits in very nicely with your theme, and is also written for a legit soprano/mezzo. I love the lyric: "Hey ho - if love were all, I would be lonely/I believe that since my life began/The most I've had is just/A talent to amuse..." Actually, Noel Coward is a wonderful source for songs about love - his "Mad about the boy" is a great torch song about the agonies of the wrong woman falling for the wrong man.
Then, there's Victor Herbert's "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" from NAUGHTY MARIETTA, in which the singer discovers the glorious feelings that love causes (seemingly for the very first time).
Some classical possibilities:
Amy Beach: Ah love, but a day (from her 3 Browning Songs; about the mixture of hope, desperation and fear of unknown future that love can bring; a song on a similar theme is John Dowland's "Dear, if you change"; a third, on the uncertainty of love, is Faure's "J'ai presque peur, en verite", from LA BONNE CHANSON, op. 61 #5)
George Butterworth: When I was one and twenty (from his Songs from 'A Shropshire Lad'; about growing up to understand love better)
Peter Warlock: Late Summer (about the enduring love of an elderly couple; on a similar theme, Robert Schumann's "Familiegemaelde", which has two different generations looking at each other - the young couple thinking of how it will be to be an old, devoted couple in the future, and the old couple looking at the young one and reminiscing about their love in youth)
William Lawes: He that will not love (about how miserable love is, and how it just ain't worth it)
Henry Purcell: Love quickly is pall'd, Z.632 (from TIMON OF ATHENS, #11; on how liquor is better than love, and why)
Aaron Copland: Heart, we will forget him (from 12 POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON; about forgetting an ex-lover; also set by John Duke)
Sir Lennox Berkeley: If, Lord, Thy love for me is strong (from FOUR POEMS OF ST. TERESA OF AVILA, #1; on Divine love; another on this theme is Hugo Wolf's "Neue Liebe" from his MOERIKE-LIEDER, #30)
Erik Satie: Chanson du chat (from LUDIONS, #5 - about love for one's cat - very silly!)
Charles Gounod: O ma belle rebelle! (about unrequited passion; another on unrequited love is Tchaikovsky's "Kaby znala ja [If only I had known] op. 47 #1)
Sergei Rachmaninoff: "Ja opjat' odinok [I'm alone again]", op. 26 #9; interesting song about how a lover about to leave gets affectionate again in anticipation of parting)
Maude Valerie White: The devout lover (about sacred love)
Johannes Brahms: Treue Liebe, op. 7 #1 (about dying for love; another song on this theme is Donizetti's "Depuis qu'une autre a su te plaire - #3 from his SEI ARIE, and a third is Sir Hubert Parry's "Lay a Garland on my Hearse", also set by Peter Warlock as "A Sad Song", #2 in his first set of PETERISMS)
Johannes Brahms: Guter Rat, op. 75 #2 (about parents getting in the way of their children's true love)
Henry Purcell: In vain we dissemble, Z.385 (about all the games lovers play to make the world - and each other - think they're not actually in love)
Edward Elgar: After, op. 31 #1 (about the seeming briefness of the shared life of lovers/spouses)
Camille Saint-Saens: Suzette et Suzon (about loving two women at once; another Saint-Saens song on this theme is his later "Grasselette et maigrelette")
Richard Straus: Glueckes genug, op. 37 #1 (the simple joys of romantic love; also set by Max Reger as his op. 37 #3)
Enrique Granados: La maja dolorosa #2 (from Coleccion de tonadillas #10; about a woman mourning her dead lover; another song on this theme is "Sur les lagunes" #4 from Berlioz's LES NUITS D'ETE - also set by Offenbach as "Ma belle amie est mort, in his LES VOIX MYSTERES; by Faure as "Chanson de Pecheur [Lamento] op. 4 #1, and by Gounod as "Lamento - La chanson de pecheur"; yet another is Rachmaninoff's "Ne mozhet byt' [It's impossible]" op. 34 #7)
Hector Berlioz: Absence (#5 from LES NUITS D'ETE, about the pain of separation between lovers; another lighthearted song on a similar theme is "Air de la letter" by Reynaldo Hahn, from his MOZART Act 2; another good one that is quite well known is Tchaikovsky's "Net, tol'ko tot, kto znal svidan'ja [None but the lonely heart], also set by Schubert as "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" and "Sehnsucht" in numerous different settings, and by Beethoven as "Sehnsucht" in 4 different setting; set also by Wolf as "Mignon II" in his GOETHE-LIEDER, and by Schumman as op. 98a #3, by Nikolai Medtner as #4 of his 6 GEDICHTE VON GOETHE, op. 18, and by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel as her "Mignon")
Franz Schubert: Die erste Liebe, D.182 (about the feelings of first love)
Franz Schubert: Libesrausch, D.179 (about almost overwhelming emotions/sensations brought about by being in love; similar is "Freudvoll und leidvoll" by Beethoven, op. 84 #2, which was also set by Schubert as "Liebe" D.210 and by Liszt as "Freudvoll und Leidvoll"; another, from a woman's point of view, is Dargomyzhsky's "Ja vsjo jeschchjo jego ljublju [I still love him]")
Charles Koechlin: Mon reve familier, op 22 #3 (about a dream-lover)
Robert Schumann: Muttertraum, op 40 #2 (about motherly love - but with a macabre twist)
Robert Schumann: Der Page, op. 30 #2 (about Courtly Love, a la the medieval Cours d'amour)
Hugo Wolf: Lied eines Verlibten (from MOERICKE-LIEDER, #3; about a young man's frustrations with being unable to act as he wants to in response to being in love)
Franz Schubert: Du liebst mich nicht D.756b, op. 59 #1 (about the miseries of NOT being loved by the object of one's affection)
Kirke Mechem: Fair Robin I Love (from FROM AN ABSENT LOVE, #3; about two fickle lovers who seem to quite deserve each other)
Thomas Brewer: On Inconstancy (about a lover who just can't be consistent)
Peter Warlock: The Droll Lover (about loving [and deserving] someone for their less-than-desirable traits...)
Michael Head: Love not me for comely grace (...or for no reason at all)
Vincenzo Bellini: Ricordanza (from QUATTRO SONETTI; about the night when their love was first [carnally] requited)
Maude Valerie White: Farewell if... ("breaking up is hard to do", Byron style; also set by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel as "Farewell")
Rutland Boughton: "The little boy lost", op. 34a (from SIX UNISON SONGS, #4; about the grim fate of a child who confessed an inability to accept of Christ's exhortation to 'Love thy neighbour as thyself')
William Lawes (attrib.): Lady Bothwell's Lament (about a young mother abandoned - at least emotionally - by her errant husband; on a similar theme - the agony of abandonment by one's lover - Donizetti's "Il mio ben m'abbandono", #5 from his SEI ARIE)
Hugo Wolf: Rat einer Alten (from Moerike-Lieder #41, the advice of an old woman to a young one about how to behave with her lover)
Henry Purcell: Man is for the woman made, Z.605 #3 (from DELICIAE MUSICAE Vol. III; about how men and women suit each other perfectly)
Paolo Tosti: NON T'AMO PIU - a cycle of two songs (about falling out of love)
An aria possibility:
"Voi lo sapete" from Pietro Mascagni's CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA (about betrayal by one's lover)
Lots and lots more out there, but I'm frankly getting tired of thinking this hard.
Karen Mercedes http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html *************************************** Verdi and Wagner delighted the crowds With their highly original sound. The pianos they played are still working, But they're both six feet underground. - Michael Palin
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