Accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, Franco-Belgian cellist Camille Thomas plays the tenor part of Una furtiva lagrima (English: A furtive tear), a romanza from act 2, scene 8 of Gaetano Donizetti’s “L’elisir d’amore” (English: The Elixir of Love), an 1831 comic opera (melodramma giocoso) in two acts., on cello. Recorded at Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Conductor: Mathieu Herzog. Directed by Martin Mirabel.
Una furtiva lagrima
One of the best-loved arias in the operatic repertoire, Una furtiva lagrima is sung by Nemorino (tenor) in act 2, scene 8 of Gaetano Donizetti’s “L’elisir d’amore” (English: The Elixir of Love) when he finds out the love potion he bought to win the heart of his dream lady, Adina, actually works.
Nemorino is in love with Adina, but she is not interested in a relationship with an innocent, rustic man. To win her heart, Nemorino buys a love potion with all the money he has in his pocket. That love potion is actually a cheap red wine sold by a traveling quack doctor, but when he sees Adina weeping, he knows that she has fallen in love with him, and he is sure that the “elixir” has worked.
Though he must leave to join the army, he is reassured that the “furtive tear” he saw in Adina’s eye was proof that she finally loved him. He sings of his joy with this aria.
Related: Pavarotti sings Una furtiva lagrima
Camille Thomas
Camille Thomas was born in 1988 in Paris. She began playing cello at the age of four and made such rapid progress that she was soon taking lessons with Marcel Bardon. She moved to Berlin in 2006 to study with Stephan Forck and Frans Helmerson at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik, and continued her training in the form of postgraduate lessons with Wolfgang-Emanuel Schmidt at the Franz Liszt Hochschule für Musik in Weimar.
She has worked with such conductors as Paavo Järvi, Mikko Franck, Marc Soustrot, Darrell Ang, Kent Nagano, Stéphane Denève, and with orchestras such as the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Academia Santa Cecilia, the Sinfonia Varsovia, Staatsorchester Hamburg in the Elbphilharmonie, the Lucerne Festival Strings in the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Orchestre National de Bordeaux, and Brussels Philharmonic.
Camille Thomas plays the famous ‘Feuermann’ Stradivarius 1730 as a loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
Sources
- Una furtiva lagrima on Wikipedia
- Camille Thomas official website
- Pavarotti sings Pourquoi me réveiller [Massenet] at the Central Park in 1993 - April 23, 2024
- Elgar: Serenade for Strings [Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra] - April 19, 2024
- Mozart: Serenade No. 10 “Gran Partita” [MET Orchestra Chamber Ensemble] - April 18, 2024
