GIORDANO : ANDREA CHENIER

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 6th of May 2007 at 3pm
Sunday 11th of May 2014 at 6.03 - 9.25 pm

INTRODUCTION
SYNOPSIS
REVIEW
REVIEW
LIBRETTO (Italian)

GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier, an opera in four acts
A melodramatic story of life in times of revolutionary fervor, a passionate tale of the ill-fated love of a dashing poet and an aristocratic lady, set against the backdrop of the French Revolution
Andrea Chénier................ Marcelo Álvarez
Carlo Gérard..................... Zeljko Lucic
Maddalena........................ Patricia Racette
Bersi................................. Jennifer Johnson Cano
La comtesse di Coigny..... Margaret Lattimore
Pietro Fléville................... John Moore
Mathieu............................ Robert Pomakov
Abbé................................. Dennis Petersen
The Incredible.................. Tony Stevenson
Roucher............................ Dwayne Croft
Schmidt............................ David Crawford
Madelon........................... Olesya Petrova
Fouquier-Tinville.............. Jeffrey Wells
Major-Domo..................... Kyle Pfortmiller
Dumas.............................. James Courtney
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Gianandrea Noseda

The Italian libretto I will be using comes from my box-set of "needle-in-the-groove" recordings (12-inch vinyl, 1979). The cast is headed by Renata Tebaldi (Madeleine / Maddalena) and Mario del Monaco (Andrea Chénier).
André Chénier (1762-1794) was a remarkable poet of the French Revolution, a supporter of the people but not of the extremists who exerted power. Chénier's mother was Greek, and he was an avid devotee of classical Greco-Roman culture.

He produced amorous poetry (immortalising his chaste love for Madame Lecoulteux, Fanny), but also satirical poetry (expressing his personal revulsion and revolt against the revolution as it had turned out under the Jacobins). Consequently he was executed in the French manner (the guiltless were decapitated on the guilt-teen). But the real Chénier did not die with the woman he loved.
The opera Andrea Chénier, ends with a message from Robespierre (not sung or declaimed): "Even Plato banished poets from his Republic".

Here is a snippet from his verse, written secretly in prison on scraps of paper and smuggled out in his dirty linen.
Au pied de l'échafaud j'essaie encor ma lyre;At the foot of the scaffold I again try out my lyre;
Peut-être est-ce bientôt mon tour....Perhaps it will soon be my turn....

Appendix (now excised)

BACKGROUND
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
PERFORMERS
COMPOSER
LIBRETTO