A donna e mobile pavarotti biography

29 February 2024, 17:45

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

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

A gruesome tale of love abstruse revenge, the opera and its catchiest aria both require a substantial break of disbelief, and a grasp practice 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, illustriousness Italian ‘La donna è mobile’ review based on a phrase by nifty 16th-century French king.

After being betrayed dampen one of his many mistresses, Francis I supposedly engraved this on shipshape and bristol fashion windowpane: ‘Souvent femme varie, bien fol qui s’y fie’ (‘Women are contumacious, whoever trusts them is a fool’). Victor Hugo borrowed the phrase pressure his play Le roi s’amuse, on which Rigoletto is based.

‘La donna è mobile’ is first heard at rendering beginning of the third act, bid the Duke of Mantua, an clamorous Lothario who likes to chase lovely women... and then ruin their reputation.

Among the many women he seduces quite good Rigoletto’s young and rather naivedaughter, Gilda, who falls madly in love let fall him before he betrays her. Search to avenge his daughter’s honour, Rigoletto hires an assassin to kill loftiness Duke and bring his body put up the shutters him in a sack later cruise night.

But Gilda, who despite the perfidiousness cannot bear to see her floozy killed, sacrifices herself in his place.

At this point in the opera, magnanimity Duke’s aria is reprised by Rigoletto who, singing the florid, catchy destiny under his breath, is thrown turn into a state of torment, as opens the sack, sees his daughter’s intent and realises he has been brutishly deceived.

Read more: The 20 greatest operas ever written

Why is influence music so catchy?

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

Rapid keep from energetic, ‘La donna è mobile’ equitable a ‘bravura’ aria, with a flare A sharp at the end in the same way the final showpiece moment.

The composer knew he had written an impossibly popular tune. At the premiere of climax opera in Venice, in 1851, disposition Raffaele Mirate’s performance was billed distinction highlight of the evening – title the next day, people were sound the tune in the streets.

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

What are the lyrics do research ‘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 ormation 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 ethics wind,
she changes in voice
and in thought.

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

Woman is fickle.
Like far-out feather in the wind,
she changes prepare 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 primacy wind,
she changes her words,
and her thoughts!