RARE! Franco Corelli - Meco all'altar di Venere LIVE original 1953 Trieste (Bellini: Norma) IT/EN

Pollione: Franco Corelli, tenor
Flavio: Raimondo Botteghelli, tenor

November 19, 1953 Trieste, Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi
Conductor: Antonino Votto
Chorus master: Adolfo Fanfani

Other singers in this performance (not heard here):
Norma: Maria Callas
Adalgisa: Elena Nicolai
Oroveso: Boris Christoff
Clotilde: Bruna Ronchini

Music by Vincenzo Bellini
Libretto by Felice Romani

Digitized from vinyl LP: Historical Recording Enterprises HRE-283-2 (You can see the LP box cover and label at the end of the video)
With on screen Italian and English text.
The pictures I used (except for the one in the thumbnail) are from the very same performance.

I tried to dampen the overbearing static noise from the original radio broadcast while preserving as much as possible from the singing, but the audio quality is still pretty bad with occasional slight pitch shifts throughout. Anyway this is a historical document so it should be enjoyed as such.

This is the "lost and found" original Pollione aria from November 19, 1953 Trieste.
Corelli is two years into his career here, aged 32.

In the '90s Melodram issued this Norma on CD, but for some strange reason they decided to "patchwork" together a complete performance using portions from the original as well as sections from other Norma performances featuring Callas and Corelli.
This aria with Corelli was for example inserted from the January 4, 1958 Cerquetti-Norma.
Other publishers kept replicating Melodram's Frankenstein-edition, like the Istituto Discographico/IDIS and Line/Cantus Classics 2004 editions - so if you want to buy this on CD, avoid those. As far as I know, the one by Divina Records is the only genuine edition on CD.

For a very long time, the vinyl LP issue I used for this video was the only existing source where purely the original radio broadcast material was published (with some parts missing, like for example the overture and the introductory recitative-duet to this aria).

Read more on this subject:
https://www.francocorelli.nl/home/reviews/21-the-qlostq-1953.html
https://www.divinarecords.com/articles/trieste_norma.html

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POLLIONE
Meco all'altar di Venere
Era Adalgisa in Roma,
Cinta di bende candide,
Sparsa di fior la chioma;
Udia d'Imene i cantici,
Vedea fumar gl'incensi,
Eran rapiti i sensi
Di voluttade e amore.
Quando fra noi terribile
Viene a locarsi un'ombra
L'ampio mantel druidico
Come un vapor l'ingombra;
Cade sull'ara il folgore,
D'un vel si copre il giorno,
Muto si spande intorno
Un sepolcrale orror.
Più l'adorata vergine
Io non mi trovo accanto;
N'odo da lunge un gemito
Misto de' figli al pianto …
Ed una voce orribile
Echeggia in fondo al tempio
Norma così fa scempio
D'amante traditor!

FLAVIO
Odi? I suoi riti a compiere Norma,
Norma dal tempio move.

DRUIDI
lontani
Sorta è la Luna, o Druidi.
Ite, profani, altrove,
Ite altrove, ite altrove!

FLAVIO
Vieni …

POLLIONE
Mi lascia.

FLAVIO
Ah, m'ascolta!

POLLIONE
Barbari!

FLAVIO
Fuggiam …

POLLIONE
Io vi proverrò!

FLAVIO
Vieni … Fuggiam …
Scoprire alcun ti può.

POLLIONE
Traman congiure i barbari,
Ma io li preverrò!

FLAVIO
Ah! Vieni, fuggiam …
Sorprendere alcun ti può.

POLLIONE
Me protegge, me difende
Un poter maggior di loro
È il pensier di lei che adoro,
È l'amor che m'infiammò.
Di quel Dio che a me contende
Quella virgine celeste,
Arderò le rie foreste,
L'empio altare abbatterò.

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