Sempre Libera, at last!
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Artist:
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Album:Il Loggione
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Track:Sempre Libera
Many years ago I caught a really great, and really odd, movie called "The Music Teacher," which is about an opera legend in his old age, and his two students. The pivotal scene involves a duet of the two students at a competition, and both the movie scene and the song knocked my socks off. However, I know nothing of opera, and neither do most of my friends. So for years I've been trying to find that song, based on the fact that it was probably Verdi because it sounded like other Verdi, and the word "gioia" was in the first line. Even my opera-loving friends came up blank on that scanty evidence. And then today i happened to channel-surf onto a Great Performances production of I Puritani, and between the acts they had a clip of the soprano performing this very song, with the opera identified as La Traviata.This was enough to head off to iTunes and just play songs from La Traviata till I hit the right one. And then discovered that there are eleventy gazillion different versions, so I listened to clips of 'em all. So far, Callas wins, though I'm also going to download the Jeannette McDonald version from "San Francisco," just because I'm a fool for Jeannette McDonald singing in "San Francisco." (ITunes is being ornery at the moment, so I haven't yet.)(In the course of the search, I discovered another tune from La Traviata from a Pavarotti and Friends album, with a stunning array of opera and non-opera voices. Pavarotti starts off in fine form, and then along comes reedy but stalwart Bryan Adams, whose voice and Italian aren't really up to it, but he doesn't disgrace himself and the result is charming. I dunno, if I like two tunes from La Traviata maybe i should check it out.)
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