Magda's aria - So ends kammarmusik festivalen

Outside Styrsö kyrkan on the First Day of August in the Year of Our Lord 2010 the scene is serene leading perhaps to thoughts of Elegy in A Country Church Yard.

Within the church, the full orchestra has gathered to carry us and Susanna through to the end of these three evenings of sheer delight.


Here a small sample of orchestra and soloist on this concluding evening.

We who filled the church this last evening need just one more song, the encore or "extra nummer" from soloist and orchestra. Our applause and foot stamping - a Swedish custom - brings results and Susanna explains to us that she is going to sing an aria that we perhaps have not heard so often, "åtminstone inte på Styrsö"


The aria is "Chi il bel sogno di Doretto"
"Who can interpret Doretta's dream?" and it is Magda (Susanna) who tells those around her that in the dream Doretta remembers a student who kissed her and, in this remembrance, Doretta realizes that "love is the key to happiness". The music alone opens the floodgates for many listeners, and now, "Even On Styrsö" we know Magda's aria. Act 1 of the opera, La Rondine, ends with Magda disguised and leaving alone, perhaps hoping to find true love now that she is in disguise.

Here is our Styrsö Magda, alone and waiting for the true love that Doretta's dream holds before her. And, yes, this is a fairy tale, so our Magda's true love soon appears to the left on the steps.


Our Styrsö Magda then spreads her wings taking flight - like the swallow (Forse, como la rondine) that fortune teller Prunier has told her she can become - and she is last seen high over the island where all this magic - hers and others - has taken place.

Footnote: I tried to enter the YouTube URL that would take you to Leontyne Price's version of Magda's aria but blogspot would not let me do that. You can find it and other versions.







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