Sweet Talking Dad in Puccini's O mio babbino caro
The Best Moments
O mio babbino caro
Hello, I am Giacomo Puccini, and I would love to share the best moments of my aria O mio babbino caro with you. In just thirty-two bars from my comic opera Gianni Schicchi, you will hear how a clever daughter wraps her father around her finger with one sweeping soprano melody. If you want to recognize our music the moment it starts playing, my fellow composers and I can help when you visit the Trainer right here.
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Buttering up Dad
I start O mio babbino caro with five bars of orchestral music before Lauretta begins her gentle, swaying tune to sweet-talk her father Gianni Schicchi, sounding like a daughter who is about to ask for a very expensive favor. I let the first violins, cellos, and harp carry her melody together while the other strings ripple underneath, so the whole room melts before she even mentions buying a wedding ring in Porta Rossa.
Teenage crocodile tears
I build the middle section by stretching that opening tune higher as Lauretta begs to marry Rinuccio and threatens to throw herself off the Ponte Vecchio into the Arno River. It sounds like grand tragedy if you do not know the words, though it is really just a teenager in a fast-paced comedy laying it on thick to get her way.
Wrapped around her little finger
I bring the aria home after just thirty-two bars by letting the soprano float up to a high note and then sink down into a quiet, exhausted sigh. By the time the last chord fades after barely three minutes, poor Gianni Schicchi does not stand a chance of saying no, and neither did the New York audience in 1918 when they demanded an encore.
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I hope you had fun walking through these favorite moments of O mio babbino caro with me. Even though the aria only lasts a few minutes, there is plenty more to discover about how I wrote it in Tuscany and how it fits into the rest of Gianni Schicchi. If you are curious to hear the rest of the story, just follow the links on this page to keep exploring O mio babbino caro.
Recording: Lupita Pérez Arias, CC BY 3.0