#amami alfredo

[per1w1nkl3]

one thing I genuinely think more people should get into is opera. like I know its kinda slow and hard to understand (english speaking people I am sorry) but its so good. it's dramatic of course but it's funny too when it needs to be!! (the entire first act of la boheme) you've got people suffering, crying, killing out of jealousy and sacrificing themselves for their loved ones and then you've got people cheering to the the wonders of drinking, partying and having sex (la traviata 'libiamo', la cavalleria rusticana 'viva il vino spumeggiante'). and on top of that there are many things happening on stage between the music, the words and the acting that me personally it stimulates me enough to stay focused.

[malusienki]

i tell myself hey let’s listen to la traviata and then amami alfredo hits and then i’m sad

[terrainofheartfelt]

Lit™ Opera Lit - Abridged

for @clarasamelia

Jo enabled me into doing this though I’ve been tempted to for a WHILE, so here, have an Opera Primer Playlist, by me. A few notes before we begin:

This says Abridged, because the original Lit™ Opera Lit on my spotify is….5 ½ hours long, and I didn’t want to throw ALL that at someone new to the genre. So. (It is public on my spotify if you wanna take a peek)

Also, this is not a music history survey, and is therefore very biased to my tastes as a lover of romantic opera and as a trained mezzo soprano. #lowvoicesupremacy

And there is sooooooooooooooooooo much more I want to share so if anyone has any questions or wants a rec of something else please feel free to ask and I would be happy to answer! 

Actually, new ask game time: send me a pop culture media thing and I can relate it back to opera in 6 degrees or less. 

*means I’ve sung it before!

Okay, onto the playlist

Overture – La forza del destino, Verdi

You gotta start off an opera with a good overture right???? And this one is a fave, BY a fave. Overtures are sort of a…musical trailer of everything you’re going to hear in the show before it starts. It’s a sneak peek, it’s the opening credits, it’s a goddamn shame we don’t do them anymore. For real I went to a concert earlier this fall and the orchestra played the overture to The Sound of Music and it was glorious and I remember thinking “they don’t make em like this anymore!” Anyways, idk much about Forza because there’s no mezzos, but it’s a gutwrenching tragedy with glorious music, and this overture FUCKS

“Gira la cote!”* — Turandot, Puccini

First things first, lemme just say this outright, yes, this opera is racist. All white European composers were perpetrators of Orientalism in their music, Puccini being one of the more notorious. As such, opera is a thing that you have to engage with critically, but I don’t want to make that sound like it’s “work,” because I don’ twant to prolong this thing that you have to perform some sort of intellectual labor before you can enjoy opera, but you have to give it the same grace and critical eye you give other media, fuck I run a gossip girl blog, it’s like that, you know? Okay, sermon out of the way, this opera is about a Chinese princess, who vows to never marry because, honestly men have given her very little reason to want to, so she poses this challenge: if a man wants to marry her, he must answer three riddles, and if he gets even one of them wrong, she takes his head. This chorus is the opening of the show, when her latest failed suitor is about to get his head chopped off, the chorus of her subjects love the free show, and are shouting “gira la cote! / sharpen the blade!” and, reader, it fucks. 

“Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém (Song to the Moon)” — Rusalka, Dvořák

It’s the little mermaid!!!!!!!!! No, seriously, it’s based on the same myth. From my sweet Czech prince, Tony, this masterpiece tells its own spin on a Slavic version of the fairytale. This is, effectively, the “part of your world” song, Rusalka begs the moon to pass on a message of love to her human prince. And it is…one of the most glorious arias ever, to the point that sometimes I’m like “ugh, overdone” but really, it’s gorgeous, and when sung right, transcendent. 

“Čury mury fuk” — Rusalka, Dvořák

Ježibaba, aka Baba Yaga, aka Ursula, sings about how she’s gonna poison the beautiful sprite Rusalka. Fun fact: the saying for mezzo roles is: witches, bitches, and britches, because the archetypes low-voiced women always sing in opera are always either witches, bitches, or pants roles (women playing a male character, usually a teenaged boy). I was more a Mistresses and Princesses mezzo meself, so really…just bitches….

“Amami, Alfredo” — La Traviata, Verdi

Verdi is my absolute favorite, my opera blorbo, I love him so very much. The way he writes emotion into his orchestra is just hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. Anyways. Traviata is perhaps the most popular opera in the world (tied with Carmen). If you don’t think you know it, you do. It’s based off Dumas’ La Dame aux Camellias, and the direct inspiration for the film Moulin Rouge! (though not the musical, evidently, it’s fine I’ve ranted about that elsewhere). AND, it’s featured in the garden party scene in Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement! What you here Anne Hathaway listening to there is the grand ending to the famous aria “Sempre libera,” but to me, the most sublime moment in the opera is this one, in Act II, Violetta’s lover’s father comes to plead with her to leave his son, Alfredo, because Violetta is a courtesan and therefore a detriment to the noble family’s reputation…yeah. And Violetta agrees, not wanting to send Alfredo’s family into poverty or ruin the reputation of his little sister (that she’s never met btw, fuckin catholics), plus, it’s hinted that Violetta already knows that she is dying of tuberculosis (consumption), so she decides to leave and go back to her old life, and when Alfredo returns as she’s trying to write him a farewell letter, she has this outburst of emotion. It’s brief, but, jesus christ—

Amami, Alfredo, quant'io t'amo. Addio. / Love me, Alfredo, how I love you. Goodbye.

"Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso" — La Rondine, Puccini

Another opera based of the lady of the camellias! (She was indeed a real person, Marie Duplessis, I read a biography about her! It’s so fascinating!) This one has a bit of a different plot and play out, but the theme is the same. There’s actually some dispute about there being multiple endings to this opera (Turandot too I guess, but I digress) Magda, a glamorous courtesan of Paris, bored of her gilded cage, puts on a disguise and goes out for the night, and meets up again with the hot young poet who came to her house party earlier that night, they share a drink, meanwhile Magda’s maid has a drink in the same bar with her tenor lover, what results is this, what me and my friends call The Best Quartet Ever. it sounds exactly like falling in love in Paris. No offense, but tswift could never.

"È amabile invero cotal giovinotto” — Rigoletto, Verdi†

Hi, it’s me with my low voice supremacy agenda again. There’s a much more famous quartet, but. My house.  Based off of a play by Victor Hugo, Rigoletto is a jester who has enough of his boss’ bullshit. His boss being the Duke. What puts him over the edge? The scumbag of a Duke seduces Rig’s daughter, Gilda, and now Gilda thinks she’s in love, but Rig has worked for the Duke long enough to know that, best case, she’ll have her heartbroken.  But that is all just BACKGROUND for this scene. Rigoletto hires an assassin-slash-bartender to take care of the Duke for him, so this guy, Sparafucile, gets the Duke drunk, but now, unfortunately, the assasin’s sister, Maddalena, has a crush on the fuck. She demands that her brother spare the duke’s life, but Sparafucile promised Rigoletto a body. So while a storm hits, Spara tells his sister “fine, the next person that knocks on the door, i’ll kill instead.” Gilda, of course, overhears all of this, and decides that what she has to do his take the place of the man she loves, and knocks on the door (babygirl, it’s NOT WORTH IT) †I’ve never done one of these roles, but I have been in the opera!

“Pourquoi me réveiller” — Werther, Massenet

An underrated, imho, French tragedy. Is it because the heroine is a mezzo? Who’s to say.  Based off Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther, it follows the tragic star-crossed love of Werther, the poet, and Charlotte, the woman who loves him, but for ehr family’s financial security and stature marries another man she doesn’t love. This moment in the opera comes after Charlotte’s two barn-burner arias, when she looks over her letters from Werther and realizes the depth of her feelings, Werther comes to see her in this moment of vulnerability, and recites this piece of poetry. It’s sexy and angsty and the build-up to the explosion of emotion that’s about to take place.  And because I’m me, I’ll just say: it’s dair-coded.

“Pietà! perdon!...O don fatale” — Don Carlos, Verdi†

Verdi wrote this opera for the bisexuals!!!! So, there’s a big ol’ convoluted love pentagon going on in the court of Phillip II of Spain, but what you need to know in this scene is: Eboli, a courtier and friend of the queen Elisabeth de Valois (daughter of Catherine de Medici, fun fact), frames Elisabeth for cheating on her husband with her stepson (complicated, I know). And Eboli is acting out of homoerotic jealousy because she wanted Carlo (the stepson) herself, and what is a rival if not a crush you’re mad about having? After her subterfuge blows up in her face, Eboli throws herself at Elisabeth’s feet begging for mercy (“pietà”), and confesses to setting Elisabeth up, and even, sleeping with the king. Elisabeth is heartbroken and furious at the betrayal, and banishes Eboli to a convent. Once alone, Eboli curses the beauty she was born with that brought her here, and laments that she’ll never see Elisabeth again (GAY). And then, she realizes there’s still a chance to save Carlo, who’s been jailed for treason.  This opera is in my top 5 favorites, and this excerpt has one of my top 5 favorite musical moments, the low strings after Eboli confesses, the pain and betrayal you can FEEL in the strings and it’s so !!!!! I am not capable of being normal about it. I’m listening while writing this and CHILLS (Also, I saw this live very recently and it was extraordinary! And they did something interesting with the supertitles and the acting that implied that – rather than a presumed consensual encounter – Phillip assaulted Eboli, which paints her aria cursing her looks in an entirely new light!!!!!) †I’ve not done this publicly, but it was in my repertoire

“E qual via scegliete?” — Tosca, Puccini†

I tried to keep this brief and not put on too many things, but I can’t not put Tosca on here! This is my second favorite part of the opera (my first favorite is the finale, but that’s like, only 30 seconds, so), and it fucks. Floria Tosca, a famous singer in Rome, is put in an impossible position by absolute dirtbag Scarpia, who takes her lover Mario Cavaradossi political prisoner. Cavaradossi, a republican and therefore enemy of the Italian state, is sentenced to death, but Scarpia promises he’ll set C free if Tosca spends a night with him. She’s heartbroken by this choice, but she agrees. She insists that Scarpia sign the paperwork granting the both of them safe passage out of Rome, and he also promises that the firing squad will fake C’s death to give them a cover to escape. The tension in this scene is delicious, and it builds and builds, and the STRINGS. While Scarpia is writing, Tosca takes a knife from his dinner table. When it’s done and her and her lover’s escape is promised (Scarpia will actually betray her one more time, but she doesn’t know that yet), Scarpia moves to put his arms around her (gross, I know), and says “Tosca, finalmente e mio! / Tosca is finally mine!” and she STABS him. Rather than being raped by this absolute toilet plunger of a man, she KILLS him. She stabs him, and he cries out and goes down, and she taunts him, telling him to “feel the kiss of Tosca” and she stands over him saying “Muori, muori,” in this raw, low voice like die, bitch! It is sooooo thrilling to watch. This is a scene I will never get tired of. In a genre where women characters are too frequently brutalized for nothing, seeing a woman kill her would-be rapist is just — so satisfying.  †I’ve only been in the chorus of this opera

“Ohimè!... morir mi sento!”(Scena del giudizio) — Aida, Verdi

Regrettably, my favorite mezzo recording of this (Dolora Zajick) involves both James Levine and Placido Domingo, both of whom are pieces of shit! I’ve selected Cossotto’s instead, but if you come away from this playlist knowing one thing, it’s that James Levine and Placido Domingo are pieces of shit whose supposed skill is not worth all the pain and misery they caused. And now back to the music! Also, this opera has a racist history that companies are still working to move away from. They could work a little bit faster, tbh. A favorite opera and a dream role for me, tbh. Amneris, daughter of the king, gets carried away with jealousy when she discovers the man of her affection, Radames, is in love with her servant Aida, a prisoner of war who turns out to be a princess of an enemy nation. Amneris’ fury gets Radames and Aida caught. Taken by regret and pain and, let’s face it, more homoerotic angst, Amneris eavesdrops on Radames’ trial before the elders, and her dread builds as Radames refuses to speak in his defense. He’s sentenced to death—buried alive—and Amneris and the orchestra react viscerally to the sentence. Like her pleas for mercy when the scene hits its climax, those pietas…

“O furibonda iena…Quest’ultimo bacio”* — La Gioconda, Ponchielli

UNDERRATED OPERA OF ALL TIME. No but really. This is just…everything. This is a grand opera masterwork by this guy, Amilcare, who was Puccini’s teacher, and so few people know about it which is a SHAME. But, understandable, it’s notoriously hard to produce, and expensive, since the finale of Act II involves sinking a pirate ship…but the MUSIC.  It’s another convoluted and vaguely homoerotic love triangle. Laura and Enzo were in love, then pulled apart. Enzo sought comfort in a singer, known only as La Gioconda, and she is madly in love with him, but when Laura comes back into his life, that’s it for him. There’s ship burnings and evil husbands and a ballet (which you may know as the K-9 Advantix commercial song), but it all comes to this finale. Though she vowed Laura was her rival, Gioconda learns that Laura saved her mother once, and was under her mother’s blessing, noted by the rosary Gioconda’s mother gave her, that Laura always carries with her. So, bound by honor to her mother and desire to see her ex Enzo happy, Gioconda schemes to help Laura fake her death to escape her abusive husband, and gets Enzo to come to them just as Laura’s waking up from her sleeping draught (think R&J, but happier ending).  Enzo comes in spitting mad, thinking Gioconda is responsible for his Laura’s death, and Gio—who’s going through some shit of her own—is ready to let him kill her, and then Laura wakes, and calls Enzo’s name, and the relief in the orchestra is PALPABLE, while Gioconda sings quietly to herself “oh darkness, hide me.” After they’ve reunited, Gioconda tells them the rest of her plan, she’s got a boat to get them out of the city, and from there they can start a new life. Through her own pain and grief, in an act of unbridled selflessness and compassion, she tells them: “Amatevi. Siate felici. / Love each other. Be happy.” and they thank her and promise to remember her. And, I mean, how often does the mezzo get to win like that?

LITTLE WOMEN* (2005) MY BELOVED. It’s not on spotify, but I couldn’t not put this opera on this playlist for you, Jo <333 so, please see below for youtube links. the story is already important to me, and being in the opera when I was in college only made it even more so, and it’s a forever favorite and forever special in my heart. This is the only contemporary opera on this list, and it’s a wide and varied field, but in many ways, it’s a host unto itself (but if anyone wants to hear more contemporary stuff, I’d be happy to share!) Now, LW has a mixed reputation amongst operaphiles, who’s to say why? Misogyny, misogyny is why. But more than that, LW is such a domestic drama in a way that is not really conventional in opera, with its fantasy plots and royal characters and otherworldliness about it, but LW has always been about the small intricacies of family, which is why when Greta Gerwig put in that line about domestic struggles and joys in her film I felt so fucking SEEN. It is a technically challenging work, rife with lots of 21st century music toughness that makes the music hard to learn, but it’s absolutely not inaccessible to listen to. But, you know, call a spade what it is, a goddamn shovel, and LW is an opera with a majority women cast. You can count the men in the show on one hand, and that combined with its lack of a typical “operatic” story, and it’s challenging 21st century sound, makes lots of people keen to dismiss it. But those people, are WRONG. It’s a beautiful opera, meaningful and powerful and it sounds pretty, and I will die on that hill. 

“Perfect as we are” — Little Women, Adamo

Jo has a total of…three? arias in the show, and this is the second. After a meeting of the pickwick club and a chat with Laurie, Jo is in her attic trying to write her next “potboiler,” but keeps getting distracted by what she and Laurie were talking about, mainly, the possibility of Meg being in love with Laurie’s tutor, Brooke. It’s another hint at the main conflict of the opera (which is plainly stated in the next selection). Jo is happy with her family and her best friend, and she doesn’t see why any of it has to change. But it won’t be up to her. I love this one because it goes back and forth between Jo trying to write and find the right words for her story, and monologuing at an invisible Laurie, and her monologue helps her find that word and then she’s back in it. It’s so whimsical and just very her. I love it so much. Low voice supremacy

“Things change, Jo”

THIS ARIA!!!!!! Jo is so upset when Meg decides to marry John Brooke, and she plaintively sings “Why don’t you love me anymore?” and her big sister says, “Of course I love you!....but once I saw him, once he looked at me….I can’t explain it, Jo. I love you. Things end – no,” and that’s the lead in to the aria. She’s trying to explain her heart to her sister, and the poetry of it is glorious and the MUSIC. It’s a plea, really, a begging for Jo to understand her side: childhood was always going to end, and what a happy ending. The “Things change, Jo,” leitmotif is repeated over and over again. It’s the central conflict: Jo versus Change. Laurie repeats the motif when he proposes to Jo, Beth repeats it as she’s dying (her death aria is EXQUISITE I just can’t include it here because it makes me too emotional), and interestingly, when Laurie and Amy are abroad together, he sings the dissonant three-note motif, and then Amy resolves it. “Things change, Amy.” / “And a good thing too.” GENIUS. Adamo is a genius. 

My best friend from college sings this aria and also preaches the gospel of Adamo’s LW to me, and she texted me out of the blue the other day: If someone doesn’t like Things Change Jo…they’re misogynist. I don’t make the rules. And she’s right. It may sound like I’m coming down hard but I have heard so many people (mostly cismen) talk down at this opera and at people for liking it, and I’m over it. It’s good!!!!!! This isn’t me trying to say “you better like this or ELSE” but “I have so much love for this and it means so much to me personally and so I dearly hope you’ll give yourself a chance to like it too.”

“Let me look at you”* (Quartet)

THEE finale! Jo is alone in her attic again, and she finally surrenders, to her grief, to the current of change running through her life. Surrounded by the ghosts of her sisters, she makes peace with each of them, and they sing about how life has pulled them to separate goals, but they will always still have the love between them. I want to cry even as I’m writing this, it’s so beautiful and so meaningful. Jo ends the quartet with the exact same line as the end of her aria above “how grateful I am,” but it means something different now!!!! And she echoes the melody of “perfect as we are” a minute later, when Bhaer knocks on the door and asks if now is a good time, she sings “Now is all there is.” best finale ever. Except tosca, maybe.

I sang the role of Marmee when I was in the opera, but on my senior recital, this was my closer, and I sang it with 3 of my closest friends who were also graduating that year. Our groupchat is still called the March Sisters. And. AND. my friend who sang Meg is getting married next summer, and we are all bridesmaids. She really did find her knight 😭😭😭😭😭

[supercantaloupe]

alright operablr might hate me for this one but i...was not wild about don carlo, tbh. i think it's kind of a mess. before i elaborate i want to stress that a lot of my opinions are taste based and i am not saying that the opera or anyone who likes it are Bad or Wrong, i just don't think it's quite For Me. adding a cut so you can ignore all this if you want

anyway after having seen both nabucco and don carlo within a week of each other (thereby doubling my previous experience with verdi of traviata and otello), i'm starting to feel like, stylistically, early/mid verdi is much more my speed than late verdi. i remember coming away from otello thinking "that was alright" whereas with nabucco and traviata i was thinking "wow that was great!"...after finishing don carlo last night i was just...confused. i feel like i'm missing something.

actually, i definitely am; i've seen people posting about recurring motifs and beautiful arias etc in the music and i definitely missed those. again, late verdi (along with a lot of late romantic music tbh) just Is Not My Thing, i think. and considering how late don carlo is in verdi's output i'm not surprised (very much a post-wagner composition, don carlo is. same with otello). i'm planning on writing a separate post about this so i won't go into much detail here but the music really lacked a lasting memorable-ness for me; what was there was nice, yes, but it didn't feel like anything stood out much. i mean, numbers like the brindisi and amami alfredo in traviata, va pensiero in nabucco, and la donna e mobile in rigoletto -- these all Stand Out, even after only a single listen, but i am not even 12 hours off watching don carlo and i don't think i could hum for you one of its melodies. again, this has a lot to do with personal taste; in general i tend to prefer 18th and early 19th century music styles, and i plan on going into more detail about memorable music in theater in a different post.

and man, the plot is a mess. also, not to apply too modern a lens of story criticism here, but the pacing is all over the place: act ii is, like, twice the length of act i, and act iv is no quick jaunt either, then v is pretty short again. (and really who am i to complain about a 3.5 hour runtime, as a giulio cesare fan, an opera which bumps up against 4? well, at least giulio cesare has a consistent if slow pace...)

it is all over the place. one moment it's a typical operatic romance, then a political intrigue, another it's a gay psychodrama, and then it's about the catholic church. i think this is a feature rather than a bug for some people but it really did not work for me. like it's all well and good watching rodrigo and carlo swearing their loyalty for one another in the most totally heterosexual way possible or making plans to save flanders or deal with carlo's embarrassing crush on his stepmom or whatever, but when the very next scene (with no real warning) is a public parade of heretics for shaming and burning...bit of a tonal whiplash there, i think!

again, taste is a factor here. known sexy oklahoma enjoyer sasha supercantaloupe is no stranger or opponent of tonal whiplash in theater, but when it comes to "no one expects the spanish inquisition!" i think there's a difference between guys with silly outfits and silly accents popping out from behind a corner and a crowd of people dressed in friar habits carrying crosses and torches around onstage...especially to a jewish viewer like me. the plot very much feels like something someone who doesn't like opera would make up to belittle the art form imo: it's like four different things at once all thrown together in a very long, kind of jumbled mess. (i mean, what does eboli even do other than show up, make things Even More Complicated, and then disappear within two acts?)

and...i get the sense that verdi/contemporary audiences might've thought this, too. obviously the fact that it got so many productions that it HAS so many different versions at all shows that people liked it enough to keep performing it -- but there being so many different versions of the opera (disregarding translations), four acts versus five, cut or revised arias, etc, i think also indicates that something about the opera was not working quite right that they kept trying to fix. now i've only seen one version (granted it came highly recommended to me by mutuals, but only one nonetheless) and can't comment on other versions of the opera; maybe another version works better for me, idk. on its own i actually think it's really interesting that there are so many different revisions out there to study -- a real lucky glimpse into the dramaturgical process that you don't normally get to see from shows of the era or earlier. (ask me about hadestown if you want to know more of my thoughts on changes made over the course of a show's development being for better or worse.) but the finished version of the opera (at least the version i saw) is a bit of a mess imo. i definitely think it has its high moments, but i don't think they completely overshadow its lows. comparing it again to otello, which was a much more consistent product in tone and pacing etc. to me, although a bit less interesting overall too.

i feel like i might be disappointing some people by saying all this lol but i have to be honest. don carlo was just not my thing. suffice to say that i think late verdi has absorbed too much wagnerism for my taste, musically and dramatically. maybe i'll rewatch it at some point -- i'd be curious to check it out in french this time -- but i don't expect to be doing that anytime soon, unless a friend or something is watching and really wants me to join (and i can spare four hours...). i can see why y'all like it (well, some of why y'all like it) and i do admit there's some good stuff in there to like. namely the carlo & rodrigo shit. i understand now lol. the opera definitely feels like it's ripe for shitpost/meme content and i am here for that. but i can't say this one is going at the top of my fave shows list. sorry everybody!

[eukariote]

Tagged by @nizynskis to post ten songs I like by ten different artists :) I'm going all classical for fun!

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Debussy

Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor by Bruch

Symphony No. 6 in B Minor by Tchaikovsky

Adelaide by Beethoven

Amami, Alfredo from La Traviata by Verdi

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor by Chopin

O du, mein holder Abendstern from Tannhäuser by Wagner

Je te veux by Satie

Variation XVIII: Andante Cantabile by Rachmaninoff

5 Romantic Pieces, Op. 101: No. 1: Romance by Sibelius

Rather basic, but oh well, what can I say. Tagging @boudicca @ijustwantasheetcake and @ladyoftheharbour :)

[opera-ghosts]

Rosa Ponselle sings "Violetta" in this January 5, 1935 performance of Verdi's LA TRAVIATA at the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.

Broadcast commentary is provided by Milton Cross.

Tenor Frederick Jagel sings Alfredo and baritone Lawrence Tibbett sings the role of Alfredo's father Germont.

Ettore Panizza conducts the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra.

Ponselle on her reaction to the New York critics and to this broadcast: “In the Letter Scene, when I heard it again I said to myself, ‘Come on, Rosa, you could do better than that!’ I just didn’t put enough of myself into it that day. The ‘Libiamo ‘wasn’t one of my best. I don’t like the ‘Amami Alfredo’ either—it’s not dramatic enough, not at all like I usually did it. But I like the way the first act came out, especially ‘Ah! Fors e Lui’ and ‘Sempre Libera’ and of course the scenes with Tibbett as the father the death scene, too. I was pleased with that. I took that from Gemma Bellincioni. They say she was Verdi’s favorite Violetta. I worked with her [in Naples] when I was preparing the role.” Her reaction to the New York reviews of her Violetta: “I don’t care about critics. Audiences are the ones who matter, not the critics.”

[bipaulinadlm]

manuel and nina kissing to amami alfredo forgive me but i just threw up in my mouth a little

[mlle-gautier]

Amami Alfredo

[iwritetopassthetime]

amami alfredo masterlist

Javier Peña x Opera singer!Reader

summary: Y/N is an opera singer who has a connection to a man who can possibly lead our favourite DEA team to Pablo Escobar.

warnings: 18+ (un)protected sex, oral sex (m/f receiving), choking kink, daddy kink, violence, attempted assault, mentions of death, guns and violence, mentions of drug cartels, a decent amount of angst and fluff, mutual pining, Javi is a total simp

* [marks chapters with smut]

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE*

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE*

CHAPTER FOUR*

CHAPTER FIVE*

CHAPTER SIX*

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT//EPILOGUE

[thestrangegirl091200]

A moodboard for La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi.

Pictures not mine.

[verdiesque]

Act 2 of Traviata going from least interesting to my favourite, growth and character development

[solraneth-archive]

*screams*

[nastasyafilippovnas]

AND La Traviata is the opera they go to in Pretty Woman? Haha. No, this is just...too much. I have too many feels. 

[operanewbie-blog]

This is one of the reasons I love opera. Here Violetta is telling Alfredo (who she must leave) "Love me, Alfredo, love me as I love you" and you don’t really need to know the words to know the emotion of the situation. Between Verdi’s music and the singer (especially a singer like Moffo) putting the emotion into the text.

One of those butterflies in the stomach moment.

[thebridgesandtunnels]

At this point I should probably stop being surprised at my capacity to full on sob listening to that One Part of la traviata

[writing-in-april]

Javier Peña Fic Recs

(#3- Multi-Chapter Fics)

A/N: This is my first Fic Rec list not for Spencer Reid but for another Agent- Javier peña. This character has wormed its way into my heart and I absolutely love him so much. And- I really love binge reading series so here’s a list of all my favorites I’ve read so far! I’ll continue to add to this list as I find more favorites! If you have a fic rec list to request just drop it in my inbox!I’m releasing this fic rec list as bonus content for my 1000 follower celebration day 1 and if you want to check out my fics I’ve written for Javier check my Pedro Pascal Characters Masterlist. April’s Fic Rec Masterlist of Lists is where I have the rest of my fic rec lists if you are interested. I am putting an 18+ warning on this list because I don’t think there’s one that doesn’t go into adult themes. Even if it’s not explicit smut, Javier just kinda gets an 18+ warning most of the time.

@storiesofthefandomlovers

Teach me tonight

@steeeeeeeviebb

Woman

@qveenbvtch

Fun times in Babylon

@pedropascaldice

Scenes from a marriage

@zeldasayer

Futile Devices

@iwritetopassthetime (fuck I’m mad it won’t let me tag you)

Amami Alfredo

@mouthymandalorian

Reputation series

@forever-rogue

A Good Man

@buckstaposition

I cling to your lips like gloss

@filthybookworm

Waterfall Inquiry

@bestintheparsec

The same coin

@hopelikethemoon

Maybe today, maybe forever

@tintinwrites

I’d rather be lonely

@babypedrito

Girl Next Door

@hiscyarika

Landslide

@californiakoenig

Baila Conmigo

@sleepwithacommunist

Work for it

Pushing your luck

@amoramarillos

Andromeda (this only has three parts so far but I’m in love with it already)