WHAT IS YOUR ARIA?

I have a dear friend Betty, whose life has been dedicated to family, faith, and music.  When I met her, I was immediately taken with her positive attitude.  As our friendship grew, I learned she was a lover of animals and nature, a terrific cook, a sparkling conversationalist, and a dedicated friend. But it is when I got the opportunity to hear her sing that I began to see the soul of this remarkable woman. This was a trained voice… and only by delving into her past and overcoming her humble objections toward talking about herself did I learn that she was an accomplished opera star! Over the years since her retirement from her professional career she has offered her talent as a welcome addition to several choirs and chorales, and her repertoire has ranged from classical pieces to fun renditions of Broadway tunes, and every imaginable musical rendition in between.

Betty’s approach toward music mirrors her attitude toward life, as she pours her heart and soul into everything she encounters. In fact, listening to Betty’s operatic recordings over the years has shown me that opera mirrors life and its entire emotional spectrum.  Her solos, or arias, were designed to thread the opera storyline in a climax of performance and passion, seeming to musically describe so many of the storylines of our everyday lives.

So what is your aria?

What storyline of your life ignites your passion?

Or have you several arias, each of which depicts a single chapter or a portion of your life story?

The composers of the world of opera provide several examples of life stories with which we can identify.  Read on and learn, as I have in researching this piece, how many of the stories sung from opera’s great stages are really the stories of each of our lives.

Has your story come from parents’ or others’ encouragements or ultimatums, resulting in choices not of your own making?  

Three famous arias from 3 famous operas pose just such a dilemma:

-      In “Queen of the Night” from Mozart’s Magic Flute, the Queen places a knife into the hand of her daughter and directs her to assassinate the Queen's rival, else she will disown and curse her.  In the aria’s final verse she warns: “Hear a mother's oath!”

-      In Gaetano Donizetti’s “Pour mon âme” from La fille du régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) Marie, facing a forced marriage to her family’s chosen mate, hears the plaintive call from her own true love, “my soul, my soul, my soul…I put all my soul into it.”

-      Finally,”Deh vieni, non tardar,” the aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro tells how servants Figaro and Susanna foil the efforts of their philandering employer and succeed in getting married. The aria ends with Figaro’s climactic call: ”Come, come! I want to crown you with roses.”

Or is yours the story of a love affair doomed by class distinction? 

-      Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer-prize and Tony award-winning 1996 play Rent, wherein the main characters are suffering from HIV/AIDS and drug addiction, is based on La Boheme, the story of star-crossed love between a poor poet and an equally poor seamstress in 19th century Paris.

Is your story about a potential love interfering with a friendship?

-      In Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin,”Tatiana's Letter Scene” concerns a selfish hero who lives to regret his blasé rejection of a young woman's love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend.

Has anyone made a relationship impossible for you?

-      In Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” (made famous at the Italia 1990 World by The Three Tenors), Prince Calaf falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. To obtain permission to marry her, he must solve three riddles; any wrong answer results in death.

Have you ever encountered love’s sometimes-fickle nature?

-      Opera audiences around the globe have enjoyed Verdi’s “La donna è mobile.” Rigoletto’s concept that “women are fickle” is meant to resonate with men and women alike. 

Has any of your stories revolved around being haunted by a risky decision which you know will wreak havoc with your family?

-      In “Si Un Jour” by Verdi, a Marquis sings of his concern for his daughter’s apparent sadness, not aware she intends to elope against his will. (By the way, a musical excerpt from this score appears in a Stella Artois ad!)

To end on a happy note…

Has love ever stirred a song in you from the depths of your heart? 

-      Sung by an array of crooners from Mario Lanza to Bryan Adams and even to Elvis, Eduardo di Capua’s famous “O Sole Mio” is not an aria, but is very operatic in sound.

So I ask again – what is your aria?  If you have identified with any of these storylines, it’s certainly because they describe so many common aspects and dilemmas of the human condition.  One or more may remind you of someone you know.  You may empathize or commiserate when you recall the emotions involved.  But is one of them relatable to your personal story?

As for Betty, I celebrate her birthday today by dedicating this post to her life’s aria… one of a giving heart with a vibrant soul, ably regaling all who know her with her brilliantly musical personality.