Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Random Youtube Video of the Day

Today's video is yet another opera video dedicated to the incredible Jussi Bjorling(there's an umlaut on that o but I am not sufficiently skilled enough to put it in there) It's the aria Che Gelida Manina-What a cold little hand- from Puccini's La Boheme. Hands down my favorite aria of all time and possibly my favorite 15 minutes of opera comes from this segment of La Boheme leading from Rodolfo's aria into her aria(Si, Mi chiamano Mimi-Yes, they call me Mimi) and then finally into their duet O soave fanciulla-O gentle maiden- 


Jussi Bjorling lived from 1911-1960 and was widely acclaimed for very good reason to be the greatest living tenor. Jussi is of Swedish descent and sang in major opera houses all over the world in just about every repertoire imaginable. He inspires singers to this day and was one of Pavarotti's favorite singers if that gives any more credibility to this guy's copious amounts of opera street cred.


The basis of the aria is Rodolfo explaining to Mimi who he is and what he does. He's essentially a very simple and poor poet and artist. I advise following along with this rough translation while listening..It's truly stunning stuff..I guess Puccini knew what he was doing. Translation. Enjoy the video and incredible singing by the great Jussi.

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