Opera "Don Carlos": content, interesting facts, video, history

D. Verdi opera "Don Carlos"

The most ambitious opera by Giuseppe Verdi. Several premieres and many editions. Until now, it is impossible to say with certainty which of them is “genuine”. ”Don carlos". In Paris, put the French version, in Milan or Naples - various Italian. The rest of the world often prefers the Italian, considering that they are closer to the author.

Summary of the opera Verdi Don Carlos and a lot of interesting facts about this work read on our page.

Summary of Don Carlos

On a hunt in the forest of Fontainebleau, the Spanish Infant Don Carlos meets a girl. It turns out that before him was Elizabeth Valois, with whom he was betrothed in absentia as a sign of the end of the war between France and Spain. Young people fall in love, but their hopes are broken about political interests, forcing Elizabeth to marry King Philip II, father of Carlos. The only person to whom Carlos revealed the secret of his heart is his friend, Rodrigo, the Marquis de Poza. Rodrigo, in his turn, is preoccupied with the struggle for the independence of Flanders and is seeking support from Carlos.

Carlos is trying to remind Elizabeth of their feelings in person. Elizabeth insists that they are now literally mother and son. Rodrigo di Posa in the meantime becomes a confidant of the king, to whom Philip confesses that he suspects a relationship between his wife and son. Another lady is in love with Carlos - Princess Eboli. She is in an anonymous note making him a date during the masquerade. Carlos is sure that the lady under the veil is Elizabeth, he tells her about his love. Eboli is angry with what he heard and intends to reveal to the king the criminal passion of his son.

Carlos leads Philip to the Flemish deputies asking for peace and freedom for their country. The king orders them to be arrested, then Carlos raises his sword on his father. Di Pose disarms the infant. Philip on the denunciation of Eboli accuses Elizabeth of treason. Rodrigo comes to prison to Carlos, reporting that he took all the blame for planning an uprising in Flanders for himself, which means that the Infante will soon be released. The secret killer of the king hears this and mortally wounds the Marquis. Carlos escapes from prison. The last time he meets with Elizabeth at the tomb of his grandfather, Charles V. Suddenly, Philip appears with the guards and passes his son into the hands of the Inquisition. However, Carlos is hiding in a tomb.

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Interesting Facts

• In correspondence with the publisher of his notes, Giulio Recordi, Verdi notes that the gorgeous in form and feeling, this drama is essentially a fiction. The real Don Carlos was an unsympathetic feeble-minded choleric who never had a love affair with Elizabeth. Di Poza is a completely invented character, and Philip was not so soft. In fact, in the plot of the literary and opera "Don Carlos" there is nothing historical.
• According to contemporaries, the Spanish Infant Carlos had an ugly hump, was a mentally unstable man with sadistic inclinations. Problems with his physical and mental health were probably due to genetics. Carlos's parents were cousins ​​of both his father and mother. The paternal grandfather was the maternal grandmother's sibling, and the maternal grandfather was the paternal grandmother's sibling. In turn, all of them on the maternal lines were the grandsons of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. In 1568, Philip II was forced to arrest his son for anti-state activities. Six months later, Carlos died in prison.

• Despite the fact that the plot has a prominent political line, it is based on the stories of tragic love, unrequited or mutual, which bears torment. With the exception of Rodrigo and the Grand Inquisitor, all the protagonists of Don Carlos are in love and unhappy.
• The culmination of the opera is the grand scene of auto-da-fe. She is not in the play of Schiller. The diversity and complexity of this episode is a real challenge for opera production. According to the preserved records of the premiere, one can judge how far the large-scale forces were involved: the entire stage tablet was filled with hundreds of soloists of the choir, mimansa, and a big brass orchestra playing fanfare. Everything worked for an impressive effect.
• After the Parisian premiere, Verdi’s two great contemporaries have controversially commented on his opera. Gioacchino Rossini He said that Verdi was the only one who could write the "great opera". And Georges Bizet noticed that the Italian composer had lost his style, wanting to imitate Wagner.
• Different versions of “Don Carlos” contain different finals. The Milan version of 1884 ends with the death of a young couple: Elizabeth takes poison, and Carlos stabs with a dagger. In the Modena version, the last scene is solved in a mystical way: the infanta takes the old monk with the voice of Charles V.
• "Don Carlos" is difficult to stage not only because of its crowd scenes, but also because of the high demands on the quality of performance. Parties are represented for all kinds of voices: two bass, baritone, tenor, soprano, mezzo-soprano. In this opera there are almost no “walk-through” characters, all six main parts play a leading role in the development of the plot and musical material.
• The performers consider Don Carlos to be "ungrateful" because it is dynamic, with many dialogues and actions, but, unlike the rest of the central characters of the opera, it is almost devoid of winning arias. Despite this, from the middle of the last century, the role of Carlos is present in the repertoire of all outstanding tenors.

• Each opera of the mature Verdi has its own musical color, individual phrasing and rhythm. Most of the Don Carlos melodies are built on dotted rhythms. They illustrate the harsh ceremonial of the Spanish court, and at the same time the thirst for political and personal freedom, flashing against its background. This rigid rhythm recedes only in the female arias and most of the duos of Elizabeth and Carlos, emphasizing their lyricism and wide melody, revealing the intimate world of human feelings.
• Just a month after "Don Carlos" in Paris, the premiere took place opera Romeo and Juliet by Charles Gounodwhich awaited an incomparably greater success with the French public. However, in our day, the Verdi masterpiece appears on the stage twice as often.
• Don Carlos is ranked 35th among the most performed operas. Every year 635 performances are given in 136 theaters of the world. This is Verdi’s 10th most popular opera.

Popular arias and numbers

Phillip's aria "Ella giammai m'amo" (listen)

Carlos and Rodrigo duet "Dio, che nell'alma infondere amor" (listen)

Elizabeth's aria "Tu che la vanita" (listen)

Recitative and aria Rodrigo "O, Carlo, ascolta" (listen)

History of creation

In 1866 Giuseppe Verdi signed a contract with the Paris Grand Opera to create an opera based on Friedrich Schiller’s play Don Carlos. The composer is 53 years old and the story of the passionate love of the young infanta does not excite the creative mind as much as the figure of King Philip, his relationship with the deadly Grand Inquisitor and the revolutionary marquis di Poza. Perhaps in the 16th century there was no more powerful ruler than Philip II of Spain. But Verdi, first of all, he is interesting as a person, the maestro treats his hero with incredible sympathy and sympathy. This strong and endowed with limitless power is the same victim of rock as any of his subjects, and his deep human experiences are hidden behind the harsh mask of the impregnable sovereign. It is the pain of Philip - father, husband, monarch - through the thread drags through the whole drama. Verdi created a truly monumental tragic figure.

The composer worked on his twenty-third opera on the estate of Sant'Agata and in his house in Genoa. Verdi brought an incredible volume to Paris: the opera consisted of 5 acts! It was truly a work in the style of the Grand Opera. In the course of 270 long rehearsals, “Don Carlos” began to be cut: the beginning of the first act was removed, partially or completely, several duos. On March 11, 1867, the premiere took place, after which, two days before the second performance, additional reductions were made.

When Don Carlos turned into Don Carlo, that is, the opera was translated into Italian by Ashil de Lozier and Angelo Zanardini, further author's alterations followed for productions in Naples (1872), Milan (1884), Modena (1886). So, for the Neapolitan San Carlo Verdi changed a few numbers, including the final duet of the second act. For La Scala, he radically reworked three duets, turned the five acts into four, discarding the first Fontainebleau, and turning Carlos’s aria out of it into the second act. The third act lost two scenes at the beginning, and the fifth - the choir. The libretto was edited by one of the authors of the original French version, Camille du Locle (co-author Joseph Meri did not live to see the premiere). All these alterations Verdi called tedious and long work. Even for the Teatro Comunale in Modena, although they were the most insignificant: the shortened first act and the beginning of the second returned to the opera. This was the last appeal of the maestro to his work.

Production history

The premiere of the opera was held in Paris on March 11, 1867 during the World Insert. The performance was visited by the entire French elite, including the Emperor Napoleon III. The poet and critic Theophile Gautier wrote that the opera surprised the public rather than gave her pleasure. And it was an accurate and capacious definition. Verdi in the letters himself noted that there was no success, but he blamed it on the theater - its inexpressive singers and the unassembled orchestra. June 4, 1867 "Don Carlos" gives London Covent Garden, where he has an incredible success. In Italy, the opera was waited by as many as three premieres - according to the number of author versions of the score: in 1872 in Naples, in 1884 - in Milan and in 1886 - in Modena.

The period of the late 19th - early 20th century, "Don Carlos" survived almost in oblivion, it was put extremely rarely. In 1958, the world as if re-acquainted with this masterpiece. And again, success awaited him at Covent Garden. The production of the director (and in this case also the set designer) Luchino Visconti and conductor Carlo Maria Giulini sounded the best voices of that time - John Vickers (Don Carlos), Gre Brauvenstein (Elizaveta), Boris Hristov (Philip), Titto Gobbi (Rodrigo), Fedor Barbieri (Eboli).

The first performance with Russian singers took place only in February 1917 through the efforts of Fyodor Shalyapin. Even with his name and prestige, it was not easy to obtain permission to perform a work that is permeated with a revolutionary spirit. Only 10 performances took place. On the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, the opera returned in 1963 in an outstanding composition - I. Petrov, E. Nesterenko, V. Atlantov, T. Milashkina, I. Arkhipova, E. Obraztsova. The Mariinsky (Kirov) Theater began performing the opera only in 1976. Of all the works of Verdi, it was Don Carlos that was chosen by the Bolshoi Theater to be staged in honor of Verdi's bicentennial in 2013.

Music "Don Carlos" on video

Surprisingly, the opera, full of such amazing melodies and striking in the amount of music, cannot compete with the recognized "hits" from other Verdi works - "Rigoletto", "Traviata", "Nabucco". Her music is rarely used in movie soundtracks. However, recordings of brilliant performances are released on DVD:

• Covent Garden Theater, London, 1985, Italian version. Carlos - Luis Lima, Philip - Robert Lloyd, Rodrigo - Giorgio Zancanaro, Elizaveta - Ileana Cotrubas, Eboli - Bruna Baloni, conductor - Bernard Hating, director - Luchino Visconti.
• 1986, Vienna, Italian version. Carlos - José Carreras, Philippe - Ferruccio Furlanetto, Rodrigo - Piero Cappuccilli, Elizabeth - Fiamma Itzzo D'Amico, Eboli - Agnes Baltsa, conductor - Herbert von Karajan, director - Ernst Wild.
• La Scala Theater, Milan, 1992, Italian version. Carlos - Luciano Pavarotti, Philip - Samuel Raimi, Rodrigo - Paolo Coni, Elizaveta - Daniela Dessi, Eboli - Luciana D'intino, conductor - Riccardo Muti, director - Franco Zeffirelli.
• Theater Châtelet, Paris, 1996, French version. Carlos - Roberto Alanya, Philip - Jose van Dam, Rodrigo - Thomas Hampson, Elizaveta - Carita Mattila, Eboli - Waltraud Mayer, conductor - Antonio Pappano, director - Yves-Andre Hubert.
• Covent Garden Theater, London, 2008, Italian version. Carlos - Rolando Villazon, Philip - Ferruccio Furlanetto, Rodrigo - Simon Kinliside, Elizaveta - Marina Poplavskaya, Eboli - Sonya Ganassi, conductor - Antonio Pappano, director - Nicolas Heitner.

Twenty years of your life Giuseppe Verdi one way or another he worked on Don Carlos, but his contemporaries were not ready to appreciate the opera, in which behind the spectacular scenes lies subtle psychologism and a deep understanding of the human soul. Fortunately, a wise time put everything in its place, showing that the value of a true masterpiece sooner or later becomes obvious and unconditional.