Tag Archives: Puccini

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Song of the Day #1,239: ‘Che gelida manina’ – Luciano Pavarotti

I’m wrapping up my week of opera arias with my very favorite — ‘Che gelida manina’ from Puccini’s La Boheme. As I mentioned on Monday, La Boheme is the one opera I’ve seen in its entirety (Baz Luhrmann’s version on Broadway).

This is among the best-known, best-loved and most referenced operas of all-time (it was the inspiration for Rent and features prominently in Moonstruck — remember Cher’s memorable line, “I didn’t think she was gonna die. I knew she was sick… I mean, she was coughing her brains out, and still she had to keep singing!”?).

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Song of the Day #1,238: ‘E lucevan le stelle’ – Luciano Pavarotti

I apologize to those who might find fault with my choice of Luciano Pavarotti as the singer of most of the arias I’m featuring this week. As I posted yesterday, my introduction to these songs came from a Pavarotti CD my parents owned, and therefore I will always make that association.

Based on comments I’ve read around the Web, some people are decidedly anti-Pavarotti, dismissing him as overrated because he’s one of the few opera singers who enjoyed a measure of crossover popularity.

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Song of the Day #1,235: ‘O mio babbino caro’ – Maria Callas

I’ve touched on almost every genre over my 1,200+ Songs of the Day but to this point I’ve never featured any opera. This week, no doubt to the consternation of many, I will remedy that.

I’m not an opera fan, by any means… the only complete opera I’ve ever sat through was a Broadway staging of La Boheme by Baz Luhrman. That was a beautiful piece of work, but you won’t catch me dropping the $20 to catch the next IMAX showing of Turandot at my local Muvico.

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