To celebrate the Valentine month, La Scena Musicale’s team of opera experts present five great Puccini love duets.
Franco Corelli & Renata Tebaldi
“Tu, tu, amore? Tu?” Manon Lescaut
When it comes to love duets, I’ll stick my neck out and say nobody can beat the great Giacomo Puccini, the master of Italian verismo. When you have great singing actors in a believable production, a Puccini love duet is truly incandescent. Top on my list is the Manon Lescaut Act 2 duet, “Tu, tu, amore? tu?” sung by ill-starred lovers, Manon and Des Grieux. I had the great good fortune of hearing some wonderful singers in this at the Met during my student days.
Performers: The great Renata Tebaldi with the incredible Franco Corelli can be seen on YouTube at a 1966 Met Gala. For the best current singers, I would choose Jonas Kaufmann and Kristine Opolais. I heard them sing this at Covent Garden 10 years ago (also on YouTube), and it was unforgettable. JS
Luciano Pavarotti & Mirella Freni in rehearsal for La bohème, 1996
“O soave fanciulla” La bohème
One of the most romantic duets in the operatic repertoire. We find the full breadth of Puccini’s expression of love reinforced here by the marriage of two high voices that eventually merge. In his apartment, Rodolfo is admiring Mimì’s face, illuminated by the moonlight, and does not hesitate to shower her with compliments. The young woman succumbs to the poet’s charm. Both confess their love for each other, between several kisses, before rejoining their friends. What makes “O soave fanciulla” unique is that it’s more like an aria for two voices, where each singer’s line is as beautiful and as emotionally powerful as the other’s. There’s also the special effect of musical spatialization achieved by the couple’s gradual retreat backstage for their final soaring lines.
Performers: Suggested recording: Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni, two singers born in Modena, Italy (Decca, 1972) or for a live performance, Roberto Alagna and Leontina Vaduva (Opéra Bastille,1995). JB
Eva Urbanová as Turandot
Final duet, Turandot
Puccini’s final opera, Turandot, was famously left incomplete due to the composer’s untimely death. It premièred at Teatro alla Scala in 1926 using composer Franco Alfano’s ending based on fragments of vocal lines and indications for orchestration left by Puccini. Much controversy and critical dissatisfaction has always swirled around the Alfano ending, prompting the commissioning of many alternate completions. The most famous of these is Italian composer Luciano Berio’s 2002 rendering. Its vocal lines are familiar from the Alfano completion, but their more dissonant orchestration better reflects the story’s trauma. The title character has left a long line of suitors who are summarily executed when unable to answer her confounding riddles. In this context, Alfano’s more familiar anointment of Turandot and Calaf as the happy couple with its encore of the opera’s big tune, “Nessun dorma,” can border on the absurd.
Performers: A recommended recording of the Berio ending is 2003’s Puccini Discoveries on Decca with Riccardo Chailly conducting soprano Eva Urbanová and tenor Dario Volonté. GS
Roberto Alagna & Angela Gheorghiu in La Rondine, Met Opera, 2009
Final duet, La Rondine
La Rondine (The Swallow) can be seen as Puccini’s variation on La traviata. It tells the story of a love triangle between the courtesan Magda, her idealistic young lover Ruggero and her wealthy protector, Rambaldo.
While the opera fails to match the dramatic depth and intensity of Verdi’s masterpiece, it is rich with Puccini’s signature sweeping melodies and lush orchestrations.
Performers: The work’s most iconic aria is “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta,” sung by Magda. At the height of her powers, Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu gave a particularly breathtaking performance of the aria at a New Year’s Eve Gala in New York City which can be found on YouTube.
The opera ends with a heart-wrenching duet as the two lovers are forced to part. Magda, nicknamed, “The Swallow,” must return to her “nest” leaving Ruggero behind. A memorable performance from 2009 at the Metropolitan Opera (available on YouTube) features Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna as Ruggero. The duo rose to stardom in the 1990s and even married in real life in 1996. Their love would also end bitterly. AR
Zinka Milanov as Tosca, 1946
“Mario! Mario! Mario!” Tosca
Coming near the beginning of the opera, this duet sets up the masterpiece’s succession of flowing melodies for Tosca and Cavaradossi. At first, Tosca is jealous of the woman portrayed in Cavaradossi’s painting, but over the course of the duet, he allays her fears. The ebb and flow of their emotional journey is matched and transcended by the music. Only Puccini can infuse music and text with so much palpable emotion.
Performers: Jussi Bjoerling and Zinka Milanov’s 1957 RCA Victor recording is the gold standard. WKC
