Franco Bonisolli sings “Di quella pira”

Italian tenor Franco Bonisolli sings “Di quella pira”, a famous tenor aria from Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore (The Troubadour), an opera in four acts. Recorded during a Beniamino Gigli Tribute Concert.

The aria (or more specifically cabaletta ^{Notes 1}) sung by Manrico, a troubadour and officer in the army of the Prince of Urgel, in Act 3, Scene 2.

Lyrics of Di quella pira, Manrico’s aria from Il Trovatore

Italian

Manrico (tenor):

Di quella pira l’orrendo foco
Tutte le fibre m’arse avvampò!…
Empi spegnetela, o ch’io tra poco
Col sangue vostro la spegnerò…

Era già figlio prima d’amarti
Non può frenarmi il tuo martir.
Madre infelice, corro a salvarti,
O teco almeno corro a morir!

Leonora (soprano):

Non reggo a colpi tanto funesti…
Oh quanto meglio sarìa morir!

Ruiz (tenor), Chorus of soldiers:
All’armi, all’armi! eccone presti
A pugnar teco, teco a morir.

English translation

Manrico (tenor):

The terrible flame of that pyre
sets my whole being on fire!
Put out that fire, wretches
or your own blood shall extinguish it…

I was her son before I loved you,
I cannot abandon her now.
My unhappy mother, either I shall save you
or I shall die beside you!

Notes

1. Cabaletta, (from Italian cobola, “couplet”), originally an operatic aria with a simple, animated rhythm, and later a fast concluding section of a two-part operatic aria. The form was particularly favored for arias in 19th-century Italian opera in the bel canto era up until about the 1850s during which it was one of the era’s most important elements. Another theory suggests that it derives from the Italian cavallo (horse), a reference to the pulsating rhythm of a galloping horse which forms the accompaniment of many famous cabalettas. The cabaletta is often used to convey strong emotions: overwhelming happiness (Linda’s famous cabaletta “O luce di quest anima” from Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix), great sorrow (Lucia’s “Spargi d’amaro pianto” from Lucia di Lammermoor), or timeless love (Lindoro’s short cabaletta from Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri).

Sources

• Di quella pira on Wikipedia
• Cabaletta on Wikipedia