Relayed from The Park Hall, Cardiff

National Orchestra of Wales
(Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Cymru)
(Leader, Louis Levitus)
Conducted by Warwick Braithwaite

Belonging to La Gioconda, the opera from which everybody knows the ballet, 'The Dance of the Hours,' this one aria seems likely also to survive the neglect into which the opera as a whole has fallen. Produced in Milan in 1876, it was first heard in London, at Covent Garden, seven years later. It is full of fine melody in the Italian style, and it is difficult to understand why its popularity did not last. The story is of that blood-thirsty, melodramatic order on which many successful operas are built, and the principal people in the cast come to untimely and unpleasant ends. The libretto is a good one, the work of Boito, known better by the similar work he did for Verdi more than once, than for his own fine music, so that the opera, one would have thought, had every chance of enduring success.
This aria, however, is likely to remain in the repertoire of tenors, offering, as it does, fine opportunities for melodious singing. In the opera it is sung by Enzo, a nobleman now turned mariner. He has just come on deck to take his watch, and sings of the splendour of the scene which meets his eye. The water is calm and moon and stars are shining brightly; he is looking forward, too, to seeing his beloved, so that the beauty of the night seems to him a specially happy omen.

The Choir of the Cardiff University Students' Madrigal Society
Conducted by W.G. Williams