Vedrai, Carino is sung by the character Zerlina, a peasant girl and the fiancée of Masetto. It is from Act II, scene 1 of the two act Italian opera ‘Don Giovanni’ the music by the famous composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who composed over 600 works, and the libretto was created by the Venetian Lorenzo da Ponte, who wrote the libretto for 28 operas including three of Mozart’s greatest operas, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte.
The opera ‘Don Giovanni’ premièred in 1787 it was billed as drama giocoso a mixture of serious and comic action.
The main character roles are:
Don Giovanni, a young, promiscuous nobleman; performed by a baritone
Leporello, Don Giovanni’s servant; bass
Il Commendoratore (Don Pedro); bass
Donna Anna, the Commendatore’s daughter, betrothed to Don Ottavio; soprano
Don Ottavio; tenor
Donna Elvira, a lady abandoned by Don Giovanni; soprano
Masetto, a peasant; bass
Zerlina, Masetto’s fiancée; soprano
In a very brief synopsis in the first act during Masetto and Zerlina’s marriage procession Don Giovanni having admired several of the girls in the party is immediately attracted to Zerlina and he tries to remove the jealous Masetto by offering to host the wedding celebrations at his castle, Masetto is forced to leave on a pretext by Leporello and Don Giovanni’s seductive wooing of Zerlina is foiled when Elvira arrives and warns the girl against the rake, Elvira leaves with Zerlina. In a garden outside Don Giovanni’s palace Zerlina tries to pacify Masetto singing Batti, Batti” to him (beat me beat me, handsome Masetto as long as we make up) she manages to persuade her husband of her innocence but just then Don Giovanni from off-stage frightens her, Masetto hides to watch how they are together. Don Giovanni renews his flirtation and tries to take Zerlina aside but goes to the place Masetto is hiding, he recovers quickly and persuades Masetto that Zerlina was just missing him.
Later that evening when all the guests dance Don Giovanni continues his advances to Zerlina, he tries to drag her away, when her screams are heard Don Giovanni tried to blame Leporello but Don Ottavio, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira threaten Don Giovanni and reveal the truth.
In the second Act Don Giovanni (disguised as Leporello) is trying to seduce Elvira’s maid serenading her with his mandolin. Before he can complete his seduction Masetto and his friends arrive searching for Don Giovanni intent on killing him. Don Giovanni still in disguise convinces the gang that he also hates Don Giovanni and joins in the hunt. He then cunningly gets rid of Masetto’s friends and manages to take Masetto’s weapons away, he then beats him and runs off laughing.
The scene is a dark courtyard in front of an Inn, Masetto has been badly bruised and beaten when Zerlina finds him and asks what happened. He explains and Zerlina promises to heal him with her love if he’s good (Vedrai, Carino), lovingly tending his bruises, admonishing him for his jealousy and takes him home to comfort him.
If you want to know what happens to the young, arrogant Don Giovanni who abuses and outrages everyone else in the cast then I don’t want to spoil it for you, you’ll have to go to watch. 🙂
This video was recorded on Valentines Day 2014 in Bury, Lancashire and is also the second track on my album Canzoni D’Amore .
Since recording this video I have done quite a lot of work on understanding and interpreting an aria not only through my vocal performance but also by using acting, gestures and working with a partner. This term in performance practice Nathan Jenkins, a tenor from my year lay down on the floor whilst I sang this aria to him and it helped me to visualise the performance of the scene much better and I hope this will help me to portray the characterisation in future performances.
It is always hard to know exactly how much acting,movement and gesturing to use whilst performing operatic arias in a recital, it is a balance that I am developing as I don’t think that dropping down to my knees and singing this aria would have the same impact in a church recital 🙂