The Renhai Pages: Tipping the Scales: Solo Renhai No. 146

by John Daleiden

cherry blossoms
fall on kissing lovers—
a twilight breeze

La donna è mobile—
rainfall on her wedding day

divorce court—
the judge slams his gavel
on the man's rude talk

Verse 1: While quite beautiful, cherry blossoms last only a very short time. With the added condition of a breeze at twilight, it is quite problematic how long the scene will last. Ironically, there is no way to tell if...

Verse 2: "La donna è mobile": Woman is fickle — the famous aria from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto (1851) dramatically plays out the fickleness of characters in song and drama — an age old situation. The unpredictable of the weather on an important day, a wedding day, is always a crap shoot — you can never really know in advance what the weather will do — in this case, the day brings rainfall, a bit like the perils of daily living.

Verse 3: Set in a divorce court the relationship between a couple is in the process of being legally dissolved — the testimony of the man in this case is deemed by the judge to be "rude" even for a court of law. Did these two ever love each other — perhaps for a time, but then the element of fickleness intervened.

Italian — La donna è mobile" ("Woman is fickle") is the cynical Duke of Mantua's canzone from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto (1851). The inherent irony, of course, is that the callous playboy Duke himself is mobile. Its reprise in the last act is chilling, as Rigoletto realizes from the sound of the Duke's lively voice coming from within the tavern (offstage), that the body in the sack over which he has grimly triumphed is not that of the Duke after all: Rigoletto had paid Sparafucile, an assassin, to kill the Duke but Sparafucile deceived him by killing Gilda, Rigoletto's daughter, instead. The aria is famous as a showcase for tenors. It has been recorded by Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza, Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Juan Diego Flórez, Jussi Björling, Vitas and hundreds of others.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_donna_%C3%A8_mobile

The Renhai Pages

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Tipping the Scales: Solo Renhai No. 146

by John Daleiden

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