Verdi's Operas: Giovanna d'Arco

This year (and probably part of next year), I’m listening to the operas of Giuseppe Verdi. I’ve heard some of his operas and have seen Macbeth and Simon Boccanegra. But I’ve been curious about his several others. So, I decided to purchase the 2013 75-CD set of Verdi’s operas (and additional music), and then listen in order. For reference, I'm studying Charles Osborne, The Complete Operas of Verdi (New York: Knopf, 1979). 

I’ve been listening right along. A summer visit to our cousin in Indianapolis—she reads my blog posts—reminded me that I need to catch up on writing about the operas! 

Verdi's opera about Joan of Arc premiered at La Scala on February 15, 1845. This performance is conducted by Paolo Garignani of the Philharmonica Chor Wien and the Munchner Rundfunkorchester. Anna Netrebko sings Giovanna, and Placido Domino sings Giacomo. 

The libretto is based on Schiller’s play Die Jungfrau von Orleans. Robert Osborne writes, “Solera’s libretto for Giovanna d’Arco is generally thought of as the epitome of the really silly opera libretto.” The story has Joan in love with the French Dauphin, so that she is caught between her love interest and her sacred duty. She dies in battle rather than by execution. Osborne comments that Schiller was a romantic like Byron and Hugo, and so this approach to the story appealed to Verdi. 

Osborne comments that although the libretto is two-dimensional, Verdi does write beautiful melodies as always. He writes, “One can love Tristan or Die Walkure while remaining impervious to Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot or Rienzi, for Wagner’s early efforts are heavily charmless; but I distrust the man who says he adores Flagstaff yet has no soft spot for Il corsaro or I masnadierei. Giovanna d’Arco has a curiously primitive but pervasive charm of its own that sets it apart from bigger works like Nabucco and Ernani.”