So the Moondai Furkids tell me we can’t move on from opera without giving our favourite peeps “O Mio Babbino Caro” and I have to say, I was a little surprised that they’d choose this one. As I said to them, the lyrics aren’t all that uplifting with the daughter threatening to jump off a bridge if her beloved father refused to consent to her marriage.
“No, no!” they all clucked, bayed, mooed, twittered (you get the picture). “That was just Puccini writing on the cuff!”
Um… don’t you mean off the cuff?
“No, on the cuff — he couldn’t find any paper so he used his shirt sleeves and it all got kinda silly by the time he got down to the cuff.”
Uh huh, sure. I could see how that might happen. So…?
“We have better lyrics!” they proclaimed confidently.
Of course they do.
Singing Puccini’s “O Mio Babbino Caro” from the Opera Gianni Schicchi is Dutch soprano sensation, Amira Willighagen, who was then just ten years old. The conductor is Andre Rieu, leading the Johann Strauss Orchestra in Maastricht, Netherlands on July 11, 2014.
~~~***~~~
~~~***~~~