Smorg's 10 Romantic Opera Arias for St. Valentine's Day

Roughly listed by accelerating degree of ...er... explicitness (ahem!) here are some exothermic opera songs to warm you up on the most romantic night of the year. Click on the song title for direct link to sample clip on Youtube:

1. 'Ah! Leve-toi, soleil!' from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette: The story is of Romeo and Juliet, of course, with the French libretto very neatly translated from the famous balcony scene of the Shakespeare play. This is Romeo entreating for his beloved Juliet to appear on her balcony like a rising sun to shine a ray of love into his life. The hot headed man may not be ideal husband material, but his burning passion to live for the moment would require quite a lovelessly cold Juliet to resist! Romeo only goes up to Bb, but that is plenty high enough to precipitate a flock of fallen angels smitten by his sheer vocal virility, I think.

2. 'Quando m'en vo' (Musetta's waltz) from Puccini's La Bohème: Even though the opera is about the poor love birds Rodolfo and Mimi, it is Musetta, the cattily rich vamp who spends the opera flirting with their friend, Marcello, who has perhaps the catchiest (and flirtiest) tune in the show. It is the tune that keeps popping up at various points in the film, Moonstruck, to set up a romantic scene. An obviously apt use! Puccini was a wonderfully descriptive composer when it comes to exposing a character's personality in a song. And Musetta.... she is definitely the girl who is never lack of masculine attention!

3. 'La ci darem la mano' from Mozart's Don Giovanni: Don Giovanni (Don Juan) spends the last day of his amorous life suffering from a series of unsuccessful attempts to seduce various women... until he runs into young Zerlina, a peasant girl who is about to be married to her handsome young Masetto that very night. If you want to know how it all turns out, you'll have to rent a DVD of the opera or go catch a performance at your local opera company... Musically, though, I'm afraid no matter what does or doesn't happen on the stage, Zerlina comes away from this little duet a lot less innocent than she was going into it!

4. 'Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix' from Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila: There is love.... and then there is lust... and then there is something even more dangerous than both; a vengeful seduction. Dalila may have entertained some romantic feelings for the heman-ly strong Samson, but a young ingenue looking for love, she isn't. And so, our splendid hair-ed hero finds himself in the third act of the Biblical-theme opera mesmerized by a siren song of a woman seduced not by his look but also by the prospect of his destruction. Isn't it terrifying how a little danger can make a woman so ...irresistable?

5. 'O soave fanciulla' from Puccini's La Bohème: On the opposite of the scale from Dalila is Puccini's Mimi, a frail and kindhearted woman dying of consumption just as she finally meets her true love, Rodolfo. They are two youngsters with humble means who are looking for a long lasting romance rather than a quick fix to their passion... And that shows in the longevity of the popularity of this duet. Rodolfo is unexpectedly visited by this girl next door and invites her out... if you want to know how it resolves, click on the song title and find out! You won't even have to understand Italian to get it.

6. 'Glück, das mir Verblieb' (Mariettas Lied) from Korngold's Die tote Stadt: This is a rather haunting song in more ways than one... Paul moves to the dead city of Bruges because he loves his recently deceased Marie too much to move on with his life. Instead, he runs into Marietta, a dancer who resembles his wife to the very shade of her red hair. His obsession with 'Marie's incarnation in the flesh' reaches a most eerie note when Marietta starts to sing him a song... that turns out to be his dead wife's favorite. It triggers a hallucination sequence that boggles the mind of many audiences and stage directors alike when this opera is performed on the stage.

7. 'Au fond du temple saint' from Bizet's Les pecheurs de perle: Well... while there is no openly gay male character in opera that I know of (Billy Budd and Captain Vere not withstanding), there are many soaring tenor-baritone duets for our gay friends to revel about in opera. Nadir (the tenor) and Zurka (the baritone) are long lost friends who had fallen out with each other in their youth over a beautiful woman. Now that they've found each other once more, they resolve to never again let a woman come between their friendship. Anyone who have lived past his teenage years would know to take such a proposition with a (large) grain of salt, but Bizet's glorious music should make it easy to believe it if just for the moment.... until Leila shows up, that is...

8. 'Mira, o Norma' from Bellini's Norma: Is... practically to the gay gals among us what the Pearl Fishers duet (the previous number) is for the gay guys. Norma is so incensed that her lover, Pollione, had been shagging up with her protégée, Adalgisa, that she contemplates killing herself and the children she has in secret with Pollione. Luckily, mother instinct prevents her from harming her kids... and Norma slides to the floor a broken woman when Adalgisa turns up promising to be a good friend from now on (the libretto is really a bit more suggestive for the story, but that's flowery Italian poetry set to music for you... it sometimes bears unintended interpretation).

9. 'Dome êpais, le jasmin' (Flower Duet) from Délibes' Lakmé: Another womanly love tune between a mezzo and a soprano... Brahmin princess Lakmé and her slave, Malika, are out in the forest admiring their flowery environs, singing this song about following the river to its source. Even the non-opera fans will be familiar with this gorgeous and light as a feather tune... It is a favorite of car and luxury items commercials, and erotic scenes at the cinema... for obvious reason, I think.

10. 'Ce n'est qu'un rêve' from Offenbach's La belle Hélène: Jacques Offenbach's operetta on the theme of 'how Helen of Sparta runs off with Paris of Troy' is a satiric commentary on the French upperclass of the 2nd Republic. Musically it is unabashly adorably x-rated (ahem!). Honestly.... the only rival for it in terms of graphic acoustic description of what lovers do on their Valentine night (while being covered in deceptively light-heartedly mild manner lyric) is Richard Strauss' overture to the opera, Der Rosenkavalier... (or, come to think of it, Salome's monologue to Jocanaan's head toward the end of his Salome). It really is a masterpiece of musical satire; so sexually explicit as to make the old fashioned listeners blush like pre-heated tomatoes, and yet so cute and light that it keeps even the most uptight of nuns and peres watching and listening. O well... how dull would a Sunday confession be if not for some guilty pleasures like this little duet to spike up your reverie with, ay?

So, these are a few samples of what loveable fun you and your significant other can have at the opera. Check out the local opera company near you and see if there isn't a good show to drop in on this month. Who knows? Maybe you've been an opera fan all these years without realizing it!