UN' AURA AMOROSA

A breath of love
From our treasures
Will afford our hearts
Sweet sustenance.
A heart nourished
On the hope of love
Has no need
Of greater inducement.

Just as Oblonsky dreamed of Don Ottavio's aria Il Mio Tesoro from Mozart's Don Giovanni in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, so, too, I find myself day dreaming with the aria Un' Aura Amorosa from the same composer's comic opera Cosi Fan Tutte playing in the background. Day dreaming is essential for the imagination and sometimes music is the quickest way to inspire it.

It's also the fastest form of travel.

When you haven't been on holiday for awhile sometimes I find simply by shutting my eyes and listening to a piece of music I can be instantly whisked away to a place of total escapism and relaxation as miraculously the gentle breezes of the Mediterarean sea can be instantly felt without even being physically in the place. Music is magic to me so it doesn't surprise me in the least that one can be transported to a place just by listening to a certain arrangement of notes by ingenious composers.

I have this same feeling with the film soundtracks to both Avanti and Chinatown, where Ischia and California are easily accessed within a few bars of the main themes and the closing of my eyes. This form of fantasy musical teleportation continues with Debussy's 'Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune', where a sun dappled forest appears before me, Bax's Tintagel where the sparkling blue and silver Cornish sea emerges on the horizon and last, but definitely not least, Cosi Fan Tutte by Mozart where I find myself near the bay of Naples in languid rapture - possibly lying in a hammock and watching distant boats on the horizon.

And if forced to choose one single piece from Mozart's Cosi to transport me instantly to Naples around the time of 1790, it would be a toss up between the famous trio Soave Sia Il Vento,  the tenor aria Un'Aura Amorosa, the sublime Act 2 male duet Secondate, Aurette Amiche or soprano Fiordiligi's showpiece aria Per Pieta, Ben Mio, Perdone.

But I think it is Ferrando's Act 1 aria Un Aura Amorosa which most perfectly distills the sublime essence of Cosi at its most serene. Something about this positively elysian music lifts my heart and soul, creating a near zen-like level of focused bliss as I listen to it.

It's somewhat of a paradox, therefore, that at this point in the opera Ferrando's meditation on the transportive power of love is somewhat disingenuous and marginally insincere (although no betrayal has yet taken place in the story) which makes it amusing to me who listens to it as a literal appreciation of love. Possibly in this way I have been just as easily hoodwinked and seduced as a listener by Mozart as are the two sisters, Dorabella and Fiordiligi by their two lovers' disguises who are competing to duplicitously test their lovers' fidelity.

Nevertheless, Ferrando does not yet at this stage of the story have any reason to doubt his Dorabella's loyalty so it is only he and Guglielmo who are knowingly  deceiving at this point. And perhaps it is because the young man has no sufficient reason yet to believe that his heart will be broken by Dorabella's unfaithfulness that he is able to sing such pure and sweet music.

But I digress. This aria is all about atmosphere for me (as so many things are) and it creates a moment of such rare perfection that it can seem as if nothing else in the world exists when it is being sung. I imagine this might be what the Gods listen to above the clouds when they dream of the ever expanding cosmos unrolling before them.

And for mere mortals like me on earth, it helps us dream beyond the chaos of the crazy world.

Dedicated to Heinrich Heine