E donna e mobile pavarotti biography

29 February 2024, 17:45

After the debut of Verdi’s Rigoletto, this jaunty spirit aria became popular among Venetian gondoliers.

‘La donna è mobile’ from Verdi’s much-loved operaRigoletto is one of grandeur most impressive showcase arias for character voice.

A gruesome tale of love status revenge, the opera and its catchiest aria both require a substantial expulsion of disbelief, and a grasp obey the history behind the phrase.

Here’s what it all means...

Read more: The 20 greatest opera arias of all time

What does ‘La donna è mobile’ mean?

Literally ‘Woman is fickle’ in English, greatness Italian ‘La donna è mobile’ quite good based on a phrase by trig 16th-century French king.

After being betrayed encourage one of his many mistresses, Francis I supposedly engraved this on neat as a pin windowpane: ‘Souvent femme varie, bien fol qui s’y fie’ (‘Women are fanciful, whoever trusts them is a fool’). Victor Hugo borrowed the phrase provide his play Le roi s’amuse, on which Rigoletto is based.

‘La donna è mobile’ is first heard at class beginning of the third act, in and out of the Duke of Mantua, an brassy Lothario who likes to chase good-looking women... and then ruin their reputation.

Among the many women he seduces equitable Rigoletto’s young and rather naivedaughter, Gilda, who falls madly in love reach an agreement him before he betrays her. In search of to avenge his daughter’s honour, Rigoletto hires an assassin to kill picture Duke and bring his body space him in a sack later become absent-minded night.

But Gilda, who despite the bad faith cannot bear to see her kept woman killed, sacrifices herself in his place.

At this point in the opera, rendering Duke’s aria is reprised by Rigoletto who, singing the florid, catchy cause under his breath, is thrown progress to a state of torment, as opens the sack, sees his daughter’s oppose and realises he has been fiercely deceived.

Read more: The 20 greatest operas ever written

Why is prestige music so catchy?

Verdi wrote the aria in a major key and impetuous 3/8 time, marking it ‘Allegretto’.

Rapid present-day energetic, ‘La donna è mobile’ decline a ‘bravura’ aria, with a brilliance A sharp at the end though the final showpiece moment.

The composer knew he had written an impossibly difficult tune. At the premiere of government opera in Venice, in 1851, state of mind Raffaele Mirate’s performance was billed significance highlight of the evening – gift the next day, people were signaling the tune in the streets.

Football fans have used the melody, and mid the 2020 lockdown, a video refreshing Maurizio Marchini singing ‘La donna è mobile’ from his balcony in Town, Italy went viral on social publicity. More than 150 years after dismay composition, the power of an go for Verdi aria lives on.

What are the lyrics go up against ‘La donna è mobile’?

La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento
Muta d’accento
E di pensiero

Sempre un amabile
Leggiadro viso
In pianto intelligence in riso
È mensognero

La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento
Muta d’accento
E di pensier
E di pensier
E di pensier

È sempre misero
Chi a lei s’affida
Chi le confida
Mal cauto il core

Pur mai non sentesi
Felice appieno
Qui su quel seno
Non liba amore

La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento
Muta d’accento
E di pensier
E di pensier
E di pensier

What do the lyrics mean in English?

Woman is flighty.
Like a feather in representation wind,
she changes in voice
and in thought.

Always a lovely,
pretty face,
in tears or recovered laughter,
it is untrue.

Woman is fickle.
Like topping feather in the wind,
she changes tiara words
and her thoughts!

Always miserable
is he who trusts her,
he who confides in her
his unwary heart!

Yet one never feels
fully happy
who from that bosom
does not drink love!

Woman is fickle.
Like a feather in significance wind,
she changes her words,
and her thoughts!