Some questions on Verdis Don Carlos

Hi, I guess I can do a search, but I'm too lazy to do so, so I may as well ask the experts. It came up in a conversation last night, so I guess I should find out more about it lest I appear too ignorant.

(1) Is this in French or in Italian? Isn't there a French version? Which is more common? The person I talked with claims it's in Italian, but I'm sure I've read somewhere it's in French. What are the differences in the versions (apart from the obvious differences in the libretto(e?)s (libretti?)), if any?

(2) Pronunciation: Is the 's' at the end pronounced? Presumably not in French. But would it be pronounced in Italian?

(3) To keep this on topic, which recording would you recommend for this?

Thanks, and happy Memorial Day weekend.

Verdi wrote Don Carlos for the Paris Opera. It was premiered as a 5 Act production, complete with ballet. Over the next 30 years, he returned to the work repeatedly, making substantial revisions to both the music and the format. Towards the end of his life, he was at work on a definitive 4 act version, for Bologna, I believe. But other projects and perhaps disinterest prevented him from completing this. As a result, while much of the music still retains the original's flavor, there are large sections that sound close to Otello. In addition, there are peculiar text declamation problems clearly indicating a french rhythm that was never altered to accomodate the new italian text. In spite of this, a great work and my favorite Verdi.

Quick answers:

(1)The opera was originally in French, but Verdi rewrote into Italian. The versions are quite different. The French version opens with an extended scene in Montainbleu. There are other smaller differences.

(2) The opera is Don Carlos, and the 's' is pronounced. The nema is neither French, not Italian, but Spanish.

(3) I prefer not to criticize recordings of this opera. Let's just say that none is completely bad, while none is totally satisfactory. The work is just too big and challenging, and has too large a cast to be pinned down.

The Italian performing version (which until very recently was the dominant version, even after the five-act with restored Fontainebleau scene began to supersede Verdi's four-act abridgement) is called 'Don Carlo,' and all of the principal character names, not just the titular one, are modified from what they had been in French. The original French title is 'Don Carlos,' and the emphasis in 'Carlos' falls on the second syllable.

See Google for my remarks (and Geoffrey Riggs's far more eloquent ones) on the problematic _Carlo/s_ discography. I'd recommend Giulini/EMI for five-act Italian; Karajan/EMI '79 for four-act Italian; and take your pick between Abbado/DG and Pappano/EMI, the only recordings of the five-act French edition of which I'm aware

Fontainebleau, non?

Hi from Rome! There are 4 version of the Opera: 1) Original version in French (Don Carlos) Paris 12/3/67 in five acts. The same version, translated in Italian, was performed in Bologna on 26/10/67 (as Don Carlo). By the way also in French language the 's' of Don Carlos' is supposed to be pronounced because it's a Spanish name (like Roland Garros, if you like the Tennis!). 2) For the Naples performance in 1872 Verdi did some slight modifications, that today are almost no more in use. 3) Completely new version in Italian in four acts, with large modifications, for La Scala's performances in January 1884. 4) December 1886, performances in Modena. Reintrodution of the first act (Italian version 1867) and the following four acts were performed in the version of 1884. To be short in the latest years in several parts of the world the Opera was again performed in French following the version n. 1 (with or without ballet): my advice is the EMI edition conducted by Pappano (Alagna, Van Dam, Hampson, Mattila and Meier). For the Italian version every conductor selected one of the basic version (in 4 or 5 acts), but cutting and adding pieces from other different versions (including the almost forgotten n. 2). For the Italian version in 5 acts you can select between the official recordings of Solti or Giulini (I prefere the Solti one, especially for Bergonzi and Ghiaurov), for the other one in 4 acts my favourite is the live recording of the Met performance of 22/4/72 (Corelli, Siepi, Milnes, Caballé and Bumbry - cond. Molinari Pradelli). Also interesting is the live recording of the Karajan performances in Salzburg in 1958, but the tenor is weak. Ciao Roberto

I suspect it was this version that was performed at The University of Texas at Austin back in the 1980's, produced with professional singers in the main roles (e.g., Ezio Flagello as Filippo) and students elsewhere among the cast and orchestra. One unique thing about this performance (for me, at any rate) was the inclusion in the performance of the scene in which Eboli and Elisabetta exchange cloaks. I had never seen that passage before in a staged performance, nor have I since! (FWIW, this production by the university's Music Dept. was mounted in collaboration with the Drama Dept. which produced an English-language version of Schiller's drama during the same week. So I was able to see Schiller's play one night and Verdi's opera the next.)

E.A.C., this makes you one of the luckiest people I know!

-david gable, Don Carlos fan

Oui, Fontainebleau. Je m'excuse!

I did not check my spelling. Haste makes waste.

Perhaps so. I have also taught the Schiller play in German. For any who read that language, there is a volume of _Erläuterungen_ (annotations) to the play published by Reclam (Reclam UB 8120 [3]). This includes the historical context of the events in the play, notes on Schiller's sources and the influence particularly of the Enlightenment upon the author's ideas, esp. as expressed though the lines for the Marquis of Posa (a.k.a. Rodrigo), and notes on the text itself. The Reclam edition of the drama (Reclam UB 38) is, like the volume of annotations, available in an inexpensive paperback edition. I used both extensively in a number of graduate courses when I was a German professor.

Does that mean they also did the ballet, or did they manage to cut it