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MARINA DOMASHENKO Mezzo-soprano opera arias Francesco Cilea 1. “Acerba voluttà” (Principessa) from Adriana Lecouvreur (4:10) Camille Saint-Saëns 2. “Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix” from Samson et Dalila (5:16) 3. “Amour! viens aider ma faiblesse” from Samson et Dalila (4:25) 4. “Printemps qui commence” from Samson et Dalila (5:23) Modest Mussorgsky 5. “Sily potainye” (Marfa’s fortune-telling scene) from Khovanshchina (5:08) Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 6. Lyubasha’s Arioso, “Vot do chego ya dozhila” from The Tsar’s Bride (2:41) 7. Lel’s Third Song from The Snow Maiden (3:05) Sergei Prokofiev 8. “Field of the Dead” (Song of The Girl) from Alexander Nevsky (6:13) Amilcare Ponchielli 9. “Stella del marinar!” (Laura) from La Gioconda (2:29) Giuseppe Verdi 10. “Stride la vampa” (Azucena) from Il Trovatore (2:53) Georges Bizet 11. “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” (Habañera) from Carmen (3:30) 12. “Près des ramparts de Seville” (Seguidilla) from Carmen (1:54) 13. “Carreau! Pique!” (Card Scene) from Carmen (3:22) Gioacchino Rossini 14. “Cruda sorte! Amor tiranno!” (Isabella) from L’italiana in Algeri (4:28) Johann Strauss 15. “Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein” (Prince Orlofsky) Die Fledermaus (2:49) TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 57:45 Constantine Orbelian, conductor Philharmonia of Russia Delos’ Dolby Surround™ recordings are encoded naturally during the basic recording session through the use of microphone techniques that randomize stereo pickup of ambient and reverberant cues in the recording space. This creates the spacious sound in normal two-speaker stereo listening for which Delos is noted. Through careful monitoring, these techniques also insure that surround playback enhances the listening experience by reproducing an ambient sound field more closely approaching that of a musical performance in a reverberant space. John Eargle

Executive Producers: Amelia S. Haygood, Carol Rosenberger Recording Producer: Ramiro Belgardt Assistant Producer: Vladimir Koptzov Recording Engineer: Jeff Mee Assistant Engineer: Igor Solovyov Editing: Ramiro Belgardt

Recording: B&W Matrix 801 Postproduction: JBL 250Ti Microphones: Sennheiser MKH series; Neumann TLM 170, KM 140 Console: Mackie 24•8, Grace Design Microphone Preamplifiers

Recorded March 31, April 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 2001 Great Hall, Moscow Conservatory, Moscow, Russia

Domashenko photos: Vladimir Glynin Creative Direction: Harry Pack, Tri Arts and Associates Graphics: Mark Evans

DSD Processing: Emm Labs ADC8 DSD to PCM Processing: Sony Super Bit Mapping Direct DSD Editing and Mixing: Sony Sonoma Audio Workstation Monitor Loudspeakers

Special Thanks: Gus Skinas and David Kawakami of the Sony SACD Project

& W 2001 Delos Productions, Inc., P.O. Box 343, Sonoma, California 95476-9998 (707) 996-3844 • (800) 364-0645 • [email protected] Made in USA • www.delosmusic.com

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I

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

n her debut album, the exciting young Siberian mezzo Marina Domashenko traverses a wide range of musical moods and national styles. The earliest selection comes from 1813, a banner year for the 21-yearold Gioachino Rossini. In February, he triumphed in opera seria with Tancredi, and the following month in the same city of Venice came L’Italiana in Algeri, the first of his enduring two-act opere buffe. The Italian girl Isabella goes to Algiers in search of her beloved Lindoro, now a slave of the Bey of Algiers, but she arrives on its shore as a prisoner after the Bey’s men sink her ship. In her entrance cavatina she bewails the fate her steadfast love has brought but also discloses a potent weapon in her feminine wiles. 14

For his opera immediately after Rigoletto, Giuseppe Verdi turned to a play by García Gutiérrez because of its character of a gypsy mother, whom he envisioned as an unorthodox operatic figure in the Rigoletto mold. With Azucena in Il trovatore (Rome, 1853), Verdi virtually created a new voice type, for she is the first in his great line of dramatic mezzos. In her initial appearance, Azucena sings cryptically to her fellow gypsies about a woman being burned at the stake, a veiled reference to the fate of her own mother. 10 The Verdian tradition of mezzos was carried on notably by Amilcare Ponchielli with

Laura in La Gioconda (Milan, 1876), but in her glamour Laura comes closer to Princess Eboli in Don Carlos than to the rugged gypsy. The wife of a Venetian patrician, Laura has encountered her earlier love, the Genoese prince Enzo Grimaldi, and meets him secretly onboard his ship. When he goes below to prepare for their escape, her agitation finds release in an appeal to the Madonna for a blessing in her hour of need. 9 Like La Gioconda, Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur (Milan, 1902), about an 18th-century French actress, is a work much loved by opera enthusiasts because of its opportunities for impassioned vocalism. Adriana loves Maurizio, Count of Saxony, but she has a rival in the Princess of Bouillon, who has arranged a tryst with Maurizio at a villa by the Seine. While anxiously waiting for him to appear, the princess sings of the many emotions that rack her heart. 1

Georges Bizet chose the mezzo range for Carmen, a character whose uninhibited sexuality had no operatic precedent when she first appeared at Paris’s Opéra Comique in 1875. Carmen is first seen when she emerges from a group of girls employed in a tobacco factory to sing the famous Habañera. 11 She compares love to a rebellious bird who appears and flies away unpredictably, but she also warns that anyone in love with her should beware.

After assaulting a co-worker, Carmen is ordered to prison and placed in the custody of a corporal, Don José. She taunts him with a seguidilla, 12 a lively Spanish dance in triple meter, in which she pointedly refers to her availability to take on a new lover. José allows her to escape, later abandoning military life to join her and a band of smugglers, but she loses interest in him. She looks to cards to tell her fortune and learns that both of them will die, she first. In the card song, “En vain pour éviter,” she accepts her fate with stoic resolve. 13

Bizet was not the only French composer of his generation to associate the mezzo voice with seduction, as Camille Saint-Saëns vividly demonstrated in Samson et Dalila. He originally thought of writing an oratorio on the subject of the Israelite warrior Samson but was rightly persuaded by his librettist, Ferdinand Lemaire, to make an opera of it instead. When Parisian theaters showed little interest, Franz Liszt had it produced at Weimar in 1877, and it remains the one opera of SaintSaëns’s twelve to hold a place in the repertoire. After Samson leads the Hebrews in an uprising against the Philistines, Delilah urges him to accompany her to her dwelling in the valley of Sorek. In the beguiling aria “Printemps qui commence,” 4 she pretends to be a forlorn lover who will wait for him by a stream, while Samson gazes at her spellbound. At the beginning of Act II,

she prepares for his arrival, which she knows is certain. In her impassioned aria, “Amour! viens aider ma faiblesse!” 3 she calls on the power of love to render Samson her slave. Having defeated the Philistines, Samson arrives to pay a final farewell but cannot resist her. His eventual confession of love leads to Delilah’s famous “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” 2 with its bewitching refrain in which she elicits further declarations of his love. One of the most enigmatic of all mezzo personages is Marfa in Khovanshchina, Modest Mussorgsky’s great political tragedy about Peter the Great’s consolidation of power. The opera was unfinished at Mussorgsky’s death in 1881 and first heard in a version by Rimsky-Korsakov five years later in St. Petersburg. As the betrothed of the Streltsky militiaman Andrey Khovansky, Marfa is clearly meant to have feminine appeal, but it is transcended by her somber, spiritual aura. She tells the fortune of Prince Vasily Golitsin, an ally (and lover) of Peter’s half-sister Sophia in her struggle for the throne. After a dramatically charged invocation of mysterious powers, Marfa delivers her prophecy to the strain of a mournful, almost soothing melody: Golitsin will face exile and the loss of all power and wealth. 5 Although set in Russia during the time of Ivan the Terrible, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride

(Moscow, 1899) has the smoldering passions of Italian operas contemporaneous with it. Lyubasha has been rejected by her lover Gryaznoy because of his obsession with Marfa, the daughter of a merchant. At first Lyubasha is unaware of her rival’s identity, but she realizes it is Marfa when she observes her partying in her family’s house and is struck by her charm. Lyubasha also senses that Marfa loves another, but she nevertheless obtains a poison that will deprive her rival of her beauty. Alone outside the house, Lubasha muses on the bittersweet realization that Gryaznoy will never know Marfa’s love. 6 In another world entirely are RimskyKorsakov’s operas based on fairy tales, the finest of which is The Snow Maiden (St. Petersburg, 1882). Attracted by the singing of the shepherd Lel, the Snow Maiden wins permission from her father, Grandfather Frost, to live among human beings. All are struck by her beauty, but her cold heart prevents her from loving. The tsar announces a competition to see who can make the Snow Maiden fall in love and, as part of a rustic divertissement, asks Lel to sing. Lel obliges with a strophic song in the scene’s folk idiom. 7 Another and far better known trouser role than Lel is that of the inimitable Prince Orlofsky in Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus (Vienna, 1874). The terminally bored young Russian prince holds a grand party in the opera’s second act, at the outset of which he urges his guests to drink up

and enjoy themselves, “each in his own way.”

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Difficult times lay ahead for Sergei Prokofiev following his return to Russia in the mid-1930s, but his music for Sergei Eisenstein’s first completed sound film, Alexander Nevsky, won him both popular acclaim and the approbation of the Soviet establishment. The film itself about a thirteenth-century prince who leads the Russian defense against invading Teutonic knights is one of the landmarks of cinematic history. The score, composed in 1938, was never published, but Prokofiev later arranged much of the music as a cantata. In the only solo number, a Russian girl surveys the bodies after the famous Battle on the Ice and extols the valor of Russian warriors, living and dead, who repulsed the foreign threat. 8

George Loomis

VOCAL TEXTS

1. Acerba voluttà Acerba voluttà, dolce tortura, lentissima agonia, rapida offesa. vampa, gelo, tremor, smaria, paura, ad amoroso sen torna l’attesa! Ogn’eco, ogn’ombra nella notte incesa contro la impaziente alma congiura: fra dubbiezza e desio tutta sospesa, l’eternità nell’attimo misura. Verrà? M’oblia? S’affretta? O pur si pente? Ecco, egli giunge! No, del fiume è il verso, misto al sospir d’un’arbore dormente... O vagabonda stella d’Oriente, non tramontar: sorridi all’universo, e s’egli non mente, scorta il mio amor!

Bitter lust, sweet torture, slow agony, sudden offence, flame, ice, tremor, rage, fear, fill the loving heart that anxiously waits! Every echo, every shadow in the endless night conspires against the impatient soul: all is suspended between doubt and desire, eternity passes by the moment! Will he come? Does he forget me? Is he hurrying? Or even does he repent? Look, he is coming! No, it is the cry of the river, mixed with the sigh of a sleeping tree O wandering star of the Orient, do not set: smile on the universe, and if he does not deceive me, escort my love!

2. Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix, comme s’ouvrent les fleurs aux baisers de l’aurore! Mais, ô mon bien-aimé, pour mieux sécher mes pleurs, que ta voix parle encore! Dis-moi qu’à Dalila tu reviens pour jamais; redis à ma tendresse les serments d’autrefois, ces serments que j’aimais! Ah! réponds à ma tendresse! Verse-moi l’ivresse!

My heart opens to your voice, as flowers open to the kisses of dawn But, o my beloved, to better dry my tears, let your voice speak again! Tell me that you are returning to Dalila forever; renew for my love the vows of old, those vows that I loved! Ah! respond to my tenderness! Fill me with intoxication!

Ainsi qu’on voit des blés les épis onduler sous la brise légère, ainsi frémit mon coeur, prêt à se consoler, à ta voix qui m’est chère! La flèche est moins rapide à porter le trépas, que ne l’est ton amante à voler dans tes bras! Ah! réponds à ma tendresse! Verse-moi l’ivresse! Samson! Samson! Je t’aime!

Just as one sees stalks of grain wave in a gentle breeze, so my heart quivers, ready to console itself at your voice, which is dear to me! The arrow is less quick to bring death, than your lover is to fly into your arms! Ah! respond to my tenderness! Fill me with intoxication! Samson! Samson! I love you!

3. Amour, viens aider ma faiblesse! Samson, recherchant ma présence, ce soir doit venir en ces lieux. Voici l’heure de la vengeance qui doit satisfaire nos dieux!

Samson, seeking my company, has to come here tonight. This is the hour of vengeance that must satisfy our gods!

Amour, viens aider ma faiblesse! Verse le poison dans son sein!

Love, come to the aid of my weakness! Pour poison into his breast!

Fais que, vaincu par mon adresse, Samson soit enchaîné demain! Il voudrait en vain de son âme pouvoir me chasser, me bannir! Pourrait-il éteindre la flamme qu’alimente le souvenir? Il est à moi! C’est mon esclave! Mes frères craignent son courroux; moi seule, entre tous, je le brave; et le retiens à mes genoux! Amours, viens aider ma faiblesse! etc. Contre l’amour, sa force est vaine, et lui, le fort parmi les forts, lui, qui d’un peuple rompt la chaîne, succombera sous mes efforts!

Make certain that, conquered by my shrewdness, Samson is enchained tomorrow! He would want in vain to chase me, To banish me from his heart! Could he extinguish the flame that memory nourishes? He is mine! He is my slave! My brothers fear his wrath; I alone, among all, defy him; and hold him at my knees! Love, come to the aid of my weakness Against love, his strength is powerless, and he, the strong among the strong, he, who has burst the chain of a people,cast off will succumb to my strengths!

4. Printemps qui commence Printemps qui commence portant l’espérance aux coeurs amoureux, ton souffle qui passe de la terre efface les jours malheureux. Tout brûle en notre âme, et ta douce flamme vient sècher nos pleurs; tu rends à la terre, par un doux mystère, les fruits et les fleurs. En vain je suis belle! Mon coeur plein d’amour, pleurant l’infidèle attend son retour! Vivant d’espérance, mon coeur désolé garde souvenance du bonheur passé.

Springtime you begin, bringing hope to loving hearts, your breath, as it passes, dispels unhappy days from the earth. Everything burns in our soul, and your sweet flame comes to dry our tears; you give the earth, by means of a sweet mystery, the fruits and the flowers In vain am I beautiful! My heart full of love, bewailing the unfaithful one, awaits his return! Living with hope, my forlorn heart preserves the memory of a bygone happiness.

A la nuit tombante, j’irai, triste amante, m’asseoir au torrent, l’attendre en pleurant Chassant ma tristesse, s’il revient un jour, à lui ma tendresse et la douce ivresse, qu’un brûlant amour garde à son retour!

At nightfall I will go, a wretched lover, to sit by the stream and wait for him tearfully, My sorrow will be driven away, if he returns one day, for him my love and the sweet intoxication, that a burning love preserves for his return!

5. Sily potainye Sily potainye, Sily velikie, Dushi, otbyfshie V mir nevedomyi,

Mysterious forces, great powers, souls departed to the unknown world,

K vam vzyvayu! Dushi utopshie, Dushi pagipshie, Tainy poznafshie Mira podvodnova. Zdes li vy? Strakhom tomimomu Knyazu-boyarinu, Tainu sudby yevo, V mrake sokrytuyu Otkroete l? Tikho i chisto f podnebesyi, Svetom volshebnym fsyo ozareno, Sily potainye Zov moi uslyshali, Knyazhe, sudby tvoei taina otkryvaetsya: S kovarnoy usmeshkoyu Liki zlobnye fkruk tebya, knyazhe, Plotno somknulisya: Liki, tebe znakomye, Put ukazuyut kuda-to daleche. Vizhu svetlo, pravda skazalas.

to you I call! Souls of the drowned, lost souls, who know the secrets of the depths, are you there? To the noble prince, worn with fears, the secret of his fate hidden in darkness will you now reveal? All is quiet and clear in the heavens, everything is flooded with magic light. The mysterious powers have heard my call. Prince, the secret of your fate reveals itself: you are surrounded by faces wreathed in crafty and malignant smiles; they press tightly about you, prince — faces known to you, all pointing the way somewhere afar off … I see clearly; the truth stands revealed.

Knyazhe, Tebe ugrozhaet opala b zatochenye v dalnem krayu; Otnumetsya vlast i bogatstvo, I znatnost navek ot tebya. Ni slava v minufshem, ni doblest, ni znanie, Nishto ne spasyot tebya: Sudba tak reshila! … Uznaesh, moi knyazhe, Nuzhdu I lishenya, Velikuyu stradu, pechal v toi strane, V goruchikh slezakh poznaesh ty Fsu pravdu zemli…

Prince! I see you menaced by the threat of disgrace and exile to a distant land, stripped of power, wealth and fame for ever. Neither past glory nor valor nor yet your great learning, nothing will avail you Fate has decreed it thus. You will know great suffering, sadness, and privation, prince, and in this suffering and bitter tears you will know the meaning of all truth on earth.

6. Vot do chego ya dozhila Vot do chego ya dozhila… Grigory, Gospod tebya osudit, Osudit za menya. Ona menya krasivee, I kosy dlinnei moikh. Da fsyo li tut eshcho? Da lubit li yevo ona, Da lubit li, kak ya lublyu? Seichas s drugim smeyalas… Ne lubit, net ne lubit, ne lubit, net ne lubit.

This is what I have come to … Grigory, God will judge you, He will judge you because of me. She is more beautiful than I am. her tresses are longer than mine … But is that all? Does she love him, love him as I do? Just now she was laughing with someone else … No, she does not love him, no, she does not love him.

7. Lel’s Third Song Tucha s gromom zgovarivalas: Ty gremi, grom, a ya dozhd razolyu. Fsprysnem zemlu vesennim dozhdyom!

Said the cloud to the thunder: You thunder, and I will rain, Let us sprinkle the earth with spring rain!

To-to tsvetiki vozraduyutsya, Vyidut devitsy za yagodami, Fsled im molotsy uvyazhutsa, Lel moi, Lel moi, leli-leli, Lel!

The flowers will be glad, Young maidens will go out to pick berries, Young fellows will follow them, O, my Lel, oh my Lel, my Lel!

V roshche devitsy fse razbrelis, Kto f kusty, a kto po elnichku, Brali yagotki, aukalisya. Odnoi devitsy vdruk nyet kak nyet. Fse-to devitsy rasplakalisya: Nashu devitsu ne volk li zael? Lel moi, Lel moi, leli-leli, Lel!

In the grove, all the maidens straggled Some to the bushes, others — to the fir-trees, Picking berries, crying hallos to others. While one maiden just disappeared. All others burst into tears: The wolf has taken our girl! O, my Lel, oh my Lel, my Lel!

Pofstrechalsya defkam chuzh chuzhenin, Chuzheninushka star starichok. Defki glupye, s uma vy chto l zbreli? Shto za pribyl vam aukatsay? Shto za radost ei otkliknutsya? Vy b po kustikam posharili Lel moi, Lel moi, leli-leli, Lel!

On their way, they met a stranger, A strange old man. He told them: You stupid girls, are you out of your mind? Why do you cry hello to her? Why should she respond? You’d better look for her in the shrubs. O, my Lel, oh my Lel, my Lel!

8. Field of the Dead Mertvoye pole Ya poidu po polu belomu, Polechu po polu smertnomu. Poishchu ya slavnykh sokolov, Zhenikhov moikh, dobrykh molotsef, Kto lezhit, mechami porublennyi, Kto lezhit streloyu poranenyi, Napoili oni krovyu aloyu Zemlu chesnuyu, zemlu russkuyu. Kto pogip za Rus smertyu dobroyu, Potseluyu tovo ochi myortvye. A tomu molotsu, shto ostalsya zhit, Budu vernoi zhenoi, miloi ladoyu. Ne vozmu v muzhya krasivovo: Krasota zemnaya konchaetsya. A poidu ya za khrabrova. Otzovitesya, yasny sokoly.

I shall go across the snow-clad field, I shall fly above the field of death, I shall search for valiant warriors there. Those to me betrothed, stalwart men and staunch. Here lies one who was felled by the sabers wild, here lies one impaled by an arrow shaft. From their wounds warm, red blood like the rain was shed on our native soil, on our Russian fields. He who fell for Russia in noble death Shall be blest by my kiss on his dead eyes, And to him, brave lad, who remained alive, I shall be a true wife and a loving friend. I’ll not be wed to a handsome man: Earthly charm and beauty fast fade and die, I’ll be wed to the man who’s brave. Hark ye, warriors brave, lionhearted men.

9. Stella del marinar! Ho il cor gonfio di lagrime. Quel lume! Ah! una Madonna!

My heart is swollen with tears. What a star! Ah! a Madonna!

Stella del marinar! Vergine Santa, tu mi difendi in quest’ora suprema, tu vedi quanta passione e quanta fede mi trasse a tale audacia estrema! Sotto il tuo velo che i prostrati ammanta ricovera costei che prega, e trema. Ah!

Star of the sailor! Holy virgin, you protect me in this supreme hour, you see how much passion and how much faithfulness draw me to such extreme boldness! Under your veil that cloaks the prostrate ones, shelter her who prays and shudders. Ah!

Scenda per questa fervida orazione sul capo mio, Madonna del perdono, scenda sul capo mio una benedizion, O Vergin, su me, discenda la tua benedizione.

For this ardent prayer, let fall on my head, Madonna of forgiveness, let fall on my head a benediction, O Virgin, let fall on me your benediction.

10. Stride la vampa Stride la vampa! la folla indomita Corre a quel foco lieta in sembianza! Urli di gioia intorno eccheggiano; Cinta di sgherri donna s’avanza! Sinistra splende sui volti orribili la tetra fiamma che s’alza al ciel!

The flame roars! the unruly crowd runs to the fire looking joyful! Cries of joy echo around; Surrounded by assassins, the woman advances! The gloomy flame which rises to the sky shines ominously on the dreadful faces!

Et les vrais plaisirs sont à deux; Donc, pour me tenir compagnie, J’emmènerai mon amoureux!

and true pleasures are for two; Thus, to keep me company, I will bring along my lover!

Mon amoureux, il est au diable, Je l’ai mis à la porte hier! Mon pauvre coeur très consolable. Mon coeur est libre comme l’air!

My lover, he is gone to the devil. I showed him to the door yesterday! My poor heart is easily consoled. My heart is free like the air!

Stride la vampa! giunge la vittima nero vestita, discinta e scalza! Grido feroce di morte levasi, l’cco il ripete di balza in balza! Sinistra splende sui volti orribili la tetra fiamma che s’alza al ciel!

The flame roars! the victim approaches dressed in black, untied and barefoot! A ferocious cry of death rises up, the echo repeats it from cliff to cliff! The gloomy flame which rises to the sky shines ominously on the dreadful faces!

J’ai des galants à la douzaine, Mais ils ne sont pas à mon gré. Voici la fin de la semaine: Qui veut m’aimer? Je l’aimerai!

I have suitors by the dozen, but they are not to my taste. This is the end of the week: Who wants to love me? I will love him!

11. Habanera Quand je vous aimerai? ma foi, je ne sais pas. Peut-être jamais! peut-être demain. Mais pas aujourd’hui, c’est certain.

When will I love you? In truth, I don’t know. Maybe never! Maybe tomorrow. But not today, that’s for sure.

Qui veut mon âme? Elle est à prendre! Vous arrivez au bon moment! Je n’ai guère le temps d’attendre, Car avec mon nouvel amant.

Who wants my soul? It is for the taking! You arrive at the right moment! I hardly have the time to wait, to be with my new lover.

Près des remparts de Séville, etc.

Near the ramparts of Seville, etc.

L’amour est un oiseau rebelle Que nul ne peut apprivoiser, Et c’est bien en vain qu’on l’appelle, S’il lui convient de refuser. Rien n’y fait, menace ou prière, L’un parle bien, l’autre se tait; Et c’est l’autre que je préfère Il n’a rien dit; mais il me plait. L’amour est enfant de Bohème, Il n’a jamais connu de loi, Si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime; Si je t’aime, prends garde à toi!

Love is a rebellious bird that nothing can tame, and one calls it in vain, if it suits it to refuse. Nothing can make it do anything, threat or prayer, one speaks well, the other is silent; And it is the other that I prefer He said nothing, but he pleases me. Love is a Bohemian child, It has never known laws, If you do not love me, I love you; If I love you, be on your guard!

13. Card scene Voyons, que j’essaie à mon tour. Carreau! Pique! La mort! J’ai bien lu; moi d’abord, Ensuite lui; pour tous les deux, la mort!

Let’s see how I do on my turn. Diamond! Pique! Death! I have read clearly; first for me, then for him; for both of us death!

L’oiseau que tu croyais surprendre Battit de l’aile et s’envola; L’amour est loin, tu peux l’attendre; Tu ne l’attends plus, il est la! Tout autour de toi vite, vite, Il vient, s’en va, puis il re vient; Tu crois le tenir, il t’évite; Tu crois l’éviter, il te tient! L’amour est enfant de Bohème, etc.

The bird that you thought to surprise Flutters its wings and flies away; Love is distant, you can wait for it; You no longer wait for it, it is there! All around you quickly, quickly, It comes, it goes, then it returns You think you hold it, it escapes’ You think you escape it, it holds you! Love is a Bohemian child, etc.

12. Seguidilla Près des remparts de Séville, Chez mon ami Lillas Pastia, J’irai danser la Séguedille Et boire du Manzanilla J’irai chez mon ami Lillas Pastia.

Near the ramparts of Seville, at my friend Lillas Pastia’s place, I will go to dance the seguidilla and drink some Manzanilla, I will go to my friend Lillas Pastia’s place.

Oui, mais toute seule on s’ennuie,

Yes, but all alone one gets bored,

En vain pour éviter les réponses amères, En vain tu mêleras, Cela ne sert a rien, les cartes sont sincères Et ne mentiront pas! Dans le livre d’en haut si ta page est heureuse, Mêle et coupe sans peur: La carte sous tes doigts se tournera joyeuse, T’annonçant le bonheur! Mais si tu dois mourir, Si le mot redoutable Est écrit par le sort, Recommence vingt fois, la carte impitoyable Répétera: la mort! Oui, si tu dois mourir, Recommence vingt fois, la carte impitoyable Répétera: la mort! Encor! Encor! Toujours la mort!

In vain to evade the bitter replies, in vain do you shuffle. That is of no use, the cards are honest and will not lie! If your page in the book on high is a happy one, shuffle and cut without fear: the card at your finger tips will turn over joyfully, announcing your good fortune! But if you must die, if the dreadful word is written by fate, begin again twenty times and the pitiless card will repeat death! Yes, if you must die, begin again twenty times and the pitiless card will repeat death! Again! Again! Always death!

14. Cruda sorte! Cruda sorte! amor tiranno! questo è il premio di mia fe’: non v’è orror, terror, nè affanno pari a quel ch’io provo in me.

Cruel fate! Tyrannical love! this is the reward for my faithfulness: there is no horror, terror or grief equal to what I feel within me.

Per te solo, o mio Lindoro,

Because of you alone, my Lindoro,

io mi trovo in tal periglio; da chi spero, o Dio! consiglio? chi conforto mi darà?

I find myself in such danger; From whom, oh God! can I hope for guidance? Who will give me comfort?

Qua ci vuol disinvoltura; non più smanie, nè paura: di coraggio è tempo adesso, or chi sono si vedrà.

Here coolness is needed; no more raging or fear: it is now time for courage, now people will see who I am.

Già so per pratica qual sia l’effetto d’un sguardo languido, d’un sospiretto, so a domar gli uomini Come si fa.

I already know from experience what the effect is of a languid glance, of a little sigh, I know how one tames men.

Sien dolci, o ruvidi, sien flemma, o foco, son tutti simili a presso a poco

Whether they are sweet or coarse, cool or fiery, they are all alike, more or less.

Tutti la chiedono, tutti la bramano, da vaga femmina felicità.

They all ask for it, They all want it, happiness from a lovely woman.

15. Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein, Man lebt bei mir recht fein, Man unterhalt sich, wie man mag, Oft bis zum hellen Tag! Zwar langweil’ ich mich stets dabai, Was man auch treibt und spricht; Indess, was mir als Wirt steht frei, Duld’ ich bei Gästen nicht! Und sehe ich, es ennüyiert Sich jemand hier bei mir, So pack’ ich ihn ganz ungeniert, Werf ’ ihn hinaus zur Tür. Und fragen Sie — ich bitte, Warum ich das denn tu’? ‘S ist’ mal bei mir so sitte, Chacun à son goût!

I enjoy inviting guests; They have a good time And do as they please, Sometimes ‘til morning. It’s true I’m often bored By what they do and say, But I won’t tolerate Boredom in return. If I see the slightest trace Of ennui On anyone’s part, I show him the door. And if you ask, Why I do this, It’s simply my custom: Chacun à son goût!

Wenn ich mit and’ren sitz’ beim Wein, Und Flasch’ um Flasche leer’, Muss jeder mit mir durstig sein, Sonst werde grob ich sehr. Und schenke Glas um Glas ich ein, Duld’ ich nicht Widerspruch; Nicht leiden kann ich’s wenn sie schre’n: Ich will nicht, hab’ genug! Wer mir beim Trinken nicht pariert, Sich zieret wie ein Tropf, Dem werfe ich ganz ungeniert Die flasche an den Kopf Und fragen Sie, ich bitte, Warum ich das denn tu? ‘S ist’ mal bei mir so Sitte, Chacun à son goût!

When I sit with others And match them glass for glass, Everyone must be thirsty, Or I’m not a bit happy! I will tolerate nothing But drinking glass after glass. I can’t abide anyone who cries “No more! I’ve had enough!” If someone refuses To have one more with me, I simply break A bottle over his head. If you ask, Why I do this, It’s simply my custom: Chacun à son goût!

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES At 27, Marina Domashenko is already in demand at major opera houses and concert series around the world. Petite, vivacious, with a large, creamy voice of remarkable flexibility, she is at home on the stage in a wide range of music and characterizations. Her debut album reflects a variety of key roles in her burgeoning career. In June, 2000 Domashenko made her American debut at the San Francisco Opera —singing Dalila at a gala concert with Placido Domingo. She returns to the San Francisco Opera in June/July, 2002 as Carmen, and also sings Carmen in Oct./Nov. 2002 with the Philadelphia Opera.

In November/December, 2000, she sang Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus and Pauline in The Queen of Spades at the Opera Bastille in Paris. She also sings Pauline at the Teatro Communale in Bologna, Italy in January/February of 2002. During the 1999/2000 season she sang in Puccini’s Suor Angelica at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with Ricardo Chailly, Olga in Eugene Onegin at Moscow’s New Opera with conductor Evgeny Kolobov, and Alexander Nevsky in Athens and in Venice at the Teatro la Fenice with conductor Yuri Temirkanov. She appears in Nabucco at the Vienna Staatsoper in May, June and September, 2001, and in the same production at Berlin’s Deutsche Oper in November/ December, 2001.

Concert appearances include New York’s Lincoln Center and London’s Barbican Theatre in April, 2001, both with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra in a Janacek Mass.

In July, 2000 she was featured in Rossini’s Stabat Mater at France’s prestigious Montpelier Festival. She returned to the Montpelier Festival in July, 2001 singing Russian romances with Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. Also in July 2001 she appeared with Placido Domingo in a gala concert in Moscow’s Cathedral Square of the Kremlin.

Marina Domashenko was born in Kemerovo, Siberia, and spent her childhood and early teens as a pianist. Her triplet sisters, two and a half years younger, are also musicians — violinist, cellist and pianist.

She graduated from the Kemerovo Arts Institute as a pianist and orchestral conductor, a body of experience that helped to develop her individual approach to the music she sings. In the course of her study at the Institute she had also begun to take singing seriously. Continuing her vocal studies at the Ekaterinburg Conservatoire under the distinguished Russian National Artist Svetlana Zaliznyak, she graduated in voice in 1998.

First prize winner in the Antonin Dvoˇrák International Vocal Competition in 1997, Marina Domashenko made her European debut in 1998 with the Prague State Theatre, singing Olga in Eugene Onegin. She went on to sing Pauline in The Queen of Spades, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, and Carmen at the Prague National Theatre. She sang Carmen in the Prague National Theater’s tour of Japan in 1999. Also in 1999 she won first prize in Italy’s Concorso Internazionale per Giovani Cantanini D’Opera “Gianfranco Masini.”

The brilliant pianist and conductor Constantine Orbelian is the first American ever to become music director of an ensemble in Russia. His appointment in 1991 as Music Director of the celebrated Moscow Chamber Orchestra was a breakthrough event, and came in the midst of Orbelian’s successful career as a concert pianist. In September, 2000, Orbelian was named Permanent Guest Conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic, putting him in a unique leadership position with not only Moscow’s outstanding chamber orchestra but also its most illustrious symphony orchestra. As founding Music Director of the Philharmonia of Russia, Maestro Orbelian has brought together Russia’s outstanding players to form the “crème de la crème” ensemble heard on this recording.

Maestro Orbelian’s ambitious new series of recordings on Delos includes new releases with the Philharmonia of Russia: “Vodka and Caviar — the Ultimate Russian Spectacular,” with music of Khachaturian, Borodin and Tchaikovsky (DE 3288); an album of Neapolitan songs featuring the great baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky (DE 3290); and an album of Italian arias with leading Russian soprano Galina Gorchakova (DE 3286). With the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Orbelian offers “Russian Arias and Romances,” featuring the brilliant young soprano, Olga Guryakova, (DE 3273); Rachmaninoff’s one-act opera, Aleko, also with Guryakova and baritone Vassily Gerello (DE 3270); Handel arias from Rinaldo and Orlando featuring the remarkable Polish contralto Ewa Podles’ (DE 3253); the Shostakovich Chamber Symphony and Schnittke Piano Concerto, in which Orbelian is also the piano soloist (DE 3259, “Dedicated to Victims of War and Terror”); Music of Frank Bridge, with pianist Carol Rosenberger (DE 3263); Vivaldi Four

Seasons, Storm at Sea and Pleasure, with violinist Massimo Quarta (DE 3280); Tchaikovsky Serenade and The Seasons (DE 3255); Shostakovich Waltzes (DE 3257); Russian Soul (DE 3244); Piazzolla Tangos, with Italian saxophonist Federico Mondelci (DE 3252); and Mozart Adagios (DE 3243).

Born in San Francisco to Russian and Armenian emigré parents, Constantine Orbelian made his debut as a pianist with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of 11. In his early teens he went to the Soviet Union on a music scholarship; at the age of 18, after graduating from Juilliard in New York, Orbelian embarked on a solo career that typically involved 85-90 concerts per year. His solo appearances with orchestra have included the Symphony Orchestras of Boston, Detroit, San Francisco, and St. Petersburg, the Moscow Philharmonic, Scottish National and Russian State Symphony Orchestras, the Moscow Virtuosi, the Budapest Chamber Orchestra among many others. His piano recordings include concertos of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Khachaturian, the latter winning “Best Concerto Recording of the Year” award in the United Kingdom.

Constantine Orbelian is Founder and Music Director of the annual Palaces of St. Petersburg International Music Festival, a three-week event featuring concerts in many of St. Petersburg’s magnificent, lavishly restored palaces. He also founded Moscow’s unique concert series, “Musical Treasures at the Museums of the Kremlin.” Orbelian is in charge of the Music Program for the Stanford University Overseas Campus in Moscow.