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"La donna è mobile" (Template:IPA-it, The woman is fickle) is the Duke of Mantua's canzone from the beginning of act 3 of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto (1851). The inherent irony is that the Duke, a callous playboy, is the one who is mobile ("inconstant"). Its reprise towards the end of the opera is chilling, as Rigoletto realizes from the sound of the Duke's lively voice coming from within the tavern (offstage), that the body in the sack over which he has grimly triumphed is not that of the Duke after all: Rigoletto had paid Sparafucile, an assassin, to kill the Duke but Sparafucile deceived him by killing Gilda, Rigoletto's beloved daughter, instead.

The canzone is famous as a showcase for tenors. Raffaele Mirate's performance of the bravura aria at the opera's 1851 premiere was hailed as the highlight of the evening. Before its first public performance (in Venice), it was rehearsed under tight secrecy: a necessary precaution, because it proved to be catchy and soon after its first public performance every gondolier in Venice was singing it.

Music

The strophic aria is set in the key of B major with a time signature of 3/8 and a tempo indication of Allegretto with a metronome mark of =138. The orchestral introduction states the first seven bars of the theme but the final landing on the dominant is replaced with a lengthened general pause. This is repeated before the second stanza. A performance takes about two 1/2 minutes. In the opera, this is followed by the quartet "Bella figlia dell'amore".

Libretto

References

1. Downes, Olin (1918). The Lure of Music: Depicting the Human Side of Great Composers. Kessinger. p. 38.
2. ^ Piave, Francesco Maria; Verdi, Giuseppe (c. 1930). Rigoletto, piano vocal score, Italian/English. translated by Natalia MacFarren. New York: G. Schirmer Inc. pp. 173ff. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |title= at position 10 (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
3. "La donna è mobile", translated by Randy Garrou, Aria Database

External links

• La donna è mobile on YouTube, sung by Jussi Björling, 1955

• Arias by Giuseppe Verdi
• Opera excerpts
• 1851 compositions
• Compositions in B major