‘Amor ti vieta’ (Fedora, Act II)

Program notes

About the Work

Umberto Giordano’s Fedora was first performed at the Teatro Lirico in Milan on 17 November 1898, almost exactly a year after L’arlesiana, and once again the young Enrico Caruso was in the cast, this time as Count Loris Ipanov. Caruso had to encore “Amor ti vieta” on the opening night, and the role helped make his name. The opera is based on a play by Victorien Sardou (whose La Tosca Puccini would set two years later), originally written for Sarah Bernhardt: a melodrama set among Russian aristocrats in St Petersburg, Paris and Switzerland, full of intrigue, police spies and a heroine who takes poison at the end.

The Russian princess Fedora sets out to find the murderer of her fiancé, and her suspicion falls on Loris. In Act II, at a reception in her Paris house, she tries to trap him into a confession by flirting with him, and Loris, who is in love with her, declares himself in “Amor ti vieta” (“Love forbids you not to love”). It is one of the shortest famous arias in the repertoire, less than two minutes long, but its sweeping melody has made it a favourite of tenors ever since.

What to Listen For

Listen for the lush, sweeping melody from the very first bar, carried by the tenor with the strings doubling it closely beneath. Loris is not confessing to murder here; he is confessing his love, and the music has the directness of a love song rather than an operatic scene.

The aria is so short that it grows in a single breath: the melody climbs steadily, the orchestra builds under it, and the climax on “l’amor ti vieta” is reached almost before you realise it. Pay attention to how the tenor balances passion and elegance: this is an aria that rewards line and legato more than sheer volume.