Vissi d’Arte—a stage musical reminding us to seek out the beauty the world has to offer.
The world’s biggest celebrities of a century ago come to life—and sing!
The arias in Vissi d’Arte are performed live, but this is no static concert. The music is incorporated by libretti and themes, as if written especially for the play. (Go to Vissi Music for a complete rundown.) The characters and events are based on the lives of real opera personalities of one hundred years ago. Our guides—the ghosts of Enrico Caruso and scrappy diva Frances Alda— escort us from 1906 to 1922 as three love stories unfold, together with comedy, drama, history, and, of course, music.
Imagine such scenes as these—
• The Great Caruso chased by a cop after offending a woman in the Monkey House at the Central Park Zoo—with Rossini’s Barber of Seville overture accompanying his ignoble flight.
• The stormy clash between pretentious Geraldine Farrar and dictatorial Arturo Toscanini, when the soprano informs the conductor that he must follow her lead, because she is a “star.” Soon after, we see their romance bloom during Mozart’s aria of seduction and demurral, “Là ci darem la mano.”
• In a dream sequence while on his death bed, Caruso rises to sing Puccini’s “E lucevan le stelle” as his own farewell to life.
• The stormy clash between pretentious Geraldine Farrar and dictatorial Arturo Toscanini, when the soprano informs the conductor that he must follow her lead, because she is a “star.” Soon after, we see their romance bloom during Mozart’s aria of seduction and demurral, “Là ci darem la mano.”
• In a dream sequence while on his death bed, Caruso rises to sing Puccini’s “E lucevan le stelle” as his own farewell to life.
—and many more!
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT—the synopsis is complete.
Vissi d’Arte is on file with the United States Copyright Office; the registration number is PAu2-909-657. All rights are reserved to the copyright holder(s) or their assignees.
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