"M'APPARI TUTT' AMOR..."
Here in the church
of my father's carpentry
the incense is
of pine
sunlight genuflects
through the window
wood curls
in religious ecstasy
a blue bottle
preaches an iridescent sermon
a choir of dust motes
make this a heaven
as my father hums
"M'appari tutt' amor.."
this my epiphany
of the ordinary
this the everyday
prayer
I bow my head to
the saw as it sings
"....bella si che il mio cor ..."
*
"M'APPARI TUTT' AMOR..."Lionel's aria from from Flotow's Martha
You can see this sung as a charming serenade in the film BREAKING AWAY ! and in the soapuds episode from ***** WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and used here and there in Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW.
There are also two swing versions.
My Da didn't know any of this and it was just a passing air on the radio that got stuck in his head and he would hum or la la la it every now and then as he hammered or sawed without knowing anything about it! It was only years later when he was 90 that I was able to tell him what it was and get him a recording of Domingo singing it.
Of course it features highly in a certain Mr. Joyce book as well. Caruso had made it popular and Joyce always a big Caruso fan( he had hoped to do an interview with the great man when he came to Dublin but that came to nothing.)
‘Singing. Waiting she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume of what perfume does your lilactrees. ***** I saw, both full, throat warbling. First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy eyes. Under a peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in shadow Delores shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring.
—Martha! Ah, Martha!
Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In cry of lionel loneliness that she should know, must martha feel. For only her he waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where. Somewhere.
—Co-ome, thous lost one!
Co-ome, thou dear one!
Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return!
—Come …!
It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don’t spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the etherial *****, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness …….
—To me!
Siopold!
Consumed.’
The Last Rose of Summer was inserted into the opera as well. Caruso made both popular. I only came across it by my Da whistling it with nails clasped in his teeth. Took me about 30 years to find out what it was. Just the opening bars would get to me always. Then it started turning up in Joyce and everywhere. Strange the ways of the world.