Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment: Sailing the High Cs

Aria Code

WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera

Music Interviews, Music Commentary, Aria, Music, Arts, Metropolitan, Performing Arts, Code, Wqxr, Opera, Wnyc, Studios

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2019

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Singing even one high C can be an event for the tenor and his audience. Everyone in the room knows how easily it could go wrong. Multiply that pressure by nine? You get “Ah, mes amis.” Gaetano Donizetti wrote this high-stakes aria for his opera La Fille du Régiment. The young hero Tonio has just enlisted in the army and received permission to marry the girl of his dreams. “Ah, mes amis” is his celebration: Tonio’s bursting with so much joy that the guy sings nine – count ‘em, NINE – high C's. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens considers the sheer athleticism it takes to pull off “Ah, mes amis” with a singer, a vocal coach and a former NFL player. And once they've surveyed this Mount Everest of tenor arias, you'll hear tenor Javier Camarena scale its heights from his base camp on the Metropolitan Opera stage.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Love can make you crazy and can make you do crazy things.
0:11.0	But, well, I know I will never go to the army for a girl.
0:20.0	From WQXR in the metropolitan opera, this is Arya Code.
0:25.0	I'm Rianne Giddens.
0:27.0	The reason that the Arya has been referred to as the Mount Everest of tenor Aryas is that there are nine high seas at the end.
0:34.0	And the seas are extreme for any human for any tenor.
0:40.0	My mission? Explore one great Arya and find out what's beneath the surface.
0:45.0	Today it's Ah Mes ami, from La Fie du Ojumon by Gaetano Donetsetti.
0:50.0	He's full of joy and he's full of life and just full of...
0:54.0	Let's get this party started, you know, type of stuff.
0:58.0	And with me, it was the same thing.
1:00.0	It's like, it's really scary when you have to change, but change is good.
1:14.0	People don't realize how much stamina it takes to be an opera singer.
1:18.0	I read somewhere that the average opera singer spends the same amount of energy as a football player during the course of a game.
1:25.0	I didn't believe it until I started studying myself.
1:28.0	And I say one of the hardest moments that I had when I was studying opera was I remember I was in a production of Manel.
1:35.0	And I had this really high note to sing. I had to sing a high D, which is so high.
1:39.0	I don't even sing it anymore.
1:41.0	But back then I still had a few in me.
1:43.0	And I had my costume on, which was corsets and skirts and powdered wigs and all sorts of things.
1:49.0	And I was kneeling at the tenor's feet and I had to slowly make my way up,
1:54.0	kind of climb up his body while I was singing, heading up to this really, really high note.
	...

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