QUOTE OF THE DAY - DECEMBER 9, 2016: ROSSINI'S COMMON LANGUAGE FOR ALL OF MANKIND feat. Did You Know?

Today’s Quote of the Day comes us from 19th century Italian composer Gioachino Rossini:

“The language of music is common to all generations and nations;
it is understood by everybody, since it is understood with the heart.”

Rossini’s sentiments ring ever so true in the delectable – and tragic – cabaletta “Assisa a' piè d'un salice” from the composer’s 1816 opera Otello, loosely based on William Shakespeare’s stage play of the same name (Othello in English). The anguished aria – destined to tug at the heart-strings of any musical soul fortunate enough to hear it - is sung by the unlawfully scorned character Desdemona as she sings a doleful verse about succumbing to overwhelming grief – a longing for death over sorrow. Listen below to a gorgeous rendition of this mournful lament below, sung by American mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade:




Did You Know?

The role of Desdemona was originally written for Rossini’s mistress - and soon to be wife – at the time, the much-lauded Spanish mezzo-soprano Isabella Colbran, who appeared as the mournful character at the December 4 premiere in Naples in 1816. 

The power couple would wed in 1822 in Bologna. It was, however, a tumultuous and short-lived union: Ms. Colbran certainly had reason to grieve – Rossini would leave her just five years into their marriage (officially divorcing in 1836) for a woman 14 years her junior (for the beautiful model Olympe Pélissier) – and shortly after infecting her with Gonorrhea – a then incurable venereal disease that would directly contribute to her death in 1845.

 
-Rose.

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