Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901):
Totto e deserto?Il balen del suo sorriso 
(from Il Trovatore) (1853)
Text:  Salvatore Cammarano (completed posthumously by Leone Emanuele Bardare), after Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez?s play El Trovador

Original Key/Recorded Key (aria):  B-flat Major
Teach-Track begins:  m. 7 of recitative (2nd chord)
Accompaniment Track begins:  m. 1 of recitative
Pianist:  Daniel Michalak

N.B.  Standard departures from the printed score featured in this recording include the following:

m. 11: beats 2 and 3 (?suona l?u??)  are sung approximately twice as fast as written (in order to avoid an unidiomatic word stress on ?suo-na?).

m. 23:  ?el-? sung on beat 3, ?-la? on beat 4, and ?ne ap-? (elided together) on the last 16th-note of the measure (again, to avoid unidiomatic word stress on ?el-la?).

m. 27:  C-natural (accented appoggiatura) substituted for B-flat on downbeat (?Leonora?).

mm. 27-28:  ?Le-o-? sung as two 8th-note pickups (D-naturals) on beat 4 of m. 27; ?-no-? sung as two slurred notes (E-natural quarter-note, and G-natural half-note, with a slight tenuto on the G); ?ra e? (elided together) as an F-natural quarter note; m. 29 as written.  (Also possible:  ?ra? on the G-natural, ?e? on the F-natural; this is less idiomatic because of the unnatural stress of ?Leonora,? though understandably tempting because of the open ?ah? vowel on the high note).

m. 45 (=m. 13 of aria):  a breath between ?favelli? and ?in,? with ?in? sung as a triplet-8th-note pickup to beat 3

m. 56 (=m. 24 of aria):  words as in m. 52 (?favore?; ?sper-? on the F-natural, etc.)

m. 58 (=m. 26 of aria):  standard optional cadenza, to the words ?sper-da il-so-le-d?un-suo-sgua-ar-do; (breath); ah-ah-la-tem-pe-e-e-e-sta; (breath); la-tem-pe-e-sta-a-de-el [repeating the D-natural]; (breath); mi-o (on an anticipatory B-flat) -cor.? (Each syllable of the preceding corresponds to a single note).


Notes © 1999 by Daniel O. Michalak