Ecstatic Living Room

I’m probably the last person in the United States to see The Shawshank Redemption (I finally got around to Netflixing it, and watched it last night over my favorite meal – a plate of cheese ravioli with home made tomato sauce), but for me it was worth the wait. Obviously, it’s one of the most inspirational films ever made, but for a classical music lover it’s an especially heartening experience to hear music from a Mozart opera take center stage at one of the film’s key moments. Tim Robbins, playing the wrongfully convicted banker who refuses to have his spirit broken by prison life, has briefly barricaded himself in one of the prison offices and decides to treat his cellmates to some music over the Shawshank loudspeaker system. Sitting back in his chair, Robbins’s character, Andy Dufresne, sinks into reverie as Gundula Janowitz (The Countess) and Edith Mathis (Susanna) sing the Duettino (little duet) “Sull’Aria” (“on the breeze”) from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. Andy gets time in solitary confinement for the infraction, but it’s a small price to pay for the transcendent moment he has given himself and his fellow inmates. His unlikely prison friend Red (played by Morgan Freeman) sums up the experience this way:

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

Later, Robbins’s Andy explains that the beauty of music is that no one else can take it away from you. “You need it so you don’t forget,” he tells Red. “Forget what?” is his response, to which Andy replies, “Forget that….there are places in the world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s something inside…they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. That’s yours.”

There are hundreds of postings of “Sull’Aria” on You Tube, including this one featuring Kiri Te Kanawa as the Countess and Ileana Cotrubas as Susanna:

Star mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato takes us deeper into Mozart’s Figaro and points us toward these three other transcendent moments from this timeless masterpiece.

#1: “Non so più” (“I don’t know anymore”). The first time you meet Cherubino [the role Joyce sings in this opera] he sings this wonderful aria. He’s just been caught with a young servant girl, he’s lusting after the countess who’s the head of the household, and distracted by Susannah, who he’s pouring out his heart to. Hormones are racing through his body and we have our introduction to him: he’s hot and cold, up and down – a raging, hormonal adolescent. Towards the end of the aria, Mozart stops the music and the tempo slows down and he sings “And if nobody listens to me, I’ll talk to myself.” This shows the vulnerability and innocence in him. Watch video

#2 “Deh vieni” (“Oh, come”). Susanna sings this aria in the fourth act. She’s putting on a charade. She knows her new spouse Figaro is listening in the bushes, hiding, and she plays that she’s seducing another lover. She’s trying to teach Figaro about jealousy. This scene could be comical, or slightly cynical, but instead, Mozart makes it one of the most heartbreaking arias. She’s really pouring out her heart to Figaro in a theatrical context as a charade. It’s behind this mask that real humanity comes forth. Watch video

#3 “Contessa perdono” (“Countess, forgive me”). The Count sings this aria at the very end of the opera. He’s a lecherous creature and doesn’t deserve forgiveness. Once again, the chaos has stopped. He bends his knee and gives the most heartfelt, sincere pleading for forgiveness. Watch video

Joyce DiDonato recommends the Decca recording conducted by Sir Georg Solti and featuring Kiri Te Kanawa as the Countess, Sam Ramey as the Count and Frederica von Stade as Cherubino.