The monologue comes from Canto XXXIII of Inferno and, whereas not well-known like Canto V’s Paolo and Francesca, is nonetheless probably the most in style segments of the poem. Ugolino, a politically ruthless rely from thirteenth century Pisa, is condemned as a “traditore di famiglia” and in a grisly episode narrates how on the finish of his life he was imprisoned along with his younger sons in a tower. (The speech is itself a break from his countless gnawing on the cranium of the bishop that imprisoned him.) All of them famished, the sons — shortly earlier than dying — provide themselves as a meal for the Rely and Dante implies that Ugolino takes them up on the provide, saying, “Poscia, più che ‘l dolor, poté ‘l digiuno.” (Starvation did what sorrow couldn’t do.) The Romantics of Donizetti’s stripe cherished (and liberally reappropriated) Dante and this monologue was written for the very well-known Luigi Lablache.
I take pleasure in this latest efficiency from the Italian baritone Luca Micheletti who does a wonderful job suggesting the completely different voices (Dante’s, Ugolino’s, and people of the kids) that the monologue encompasses. There’s one thing propulsive, Erlkönig-esque about how Donizetti units this second, however it additionally maintains the horrifying expansiveness of Dante’s unique. (By the point I get to this a part of Inferno, one canto away from the top, I’m at all times able to be completed.) Aside from its macabre subject material, one wonders why extra baritones/basses don’t embody this of their recitals.
