Music
Although not frequently performed today, it contains some of Donizetti's best vocal writing, some of it "first rate" (the end of Act 1's duet between Roberto and Sara beginning with Dacchè tornasti, ahi misera ("Since you returned, ah miserable me!"), while the brief second act is "superb". The opera is raw and emotional; it is a powerful vehicle for the soprano. Some of the highlights include the Act 1 duet between Elizabeth and Robert, Nascondi, frena i palpiti ("Hide and check your wild beating / oh my unhappy heart"). The final scene is one of the most dramatic and difficult in bel canto opera. As Elizabeth is going mad with the death of her lover, Quel sangue versato ("That spilled blood / rises to heaven") pushes romantic opera to the limits of melodic expression and has been described as "mak(ing) a powerful end to one of Donizetti's finest and most affecting operas."
Read more about this topic: Roberto Devereux
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“When we are in health, all sounds fife and drum for us; we hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours,
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.”
—Andrew Lang (1844–1912)
“The great challenge which faces us is to assure that, in our society of big-ness, we do not strangle the voice of creativity, that the rules of the game do not come to overshadow its purpose, that the grand orchestration of society leaves ample room for the man who marches to the music of another drummer.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)