A great artist may feel at times the inadequacy of the phrase as it stands to convey justly the composer’s idea. Take, for instance, the well-known change which every soprano who sings the rôle of Leonora introduces in the Miserere scene of Il Trovatore. The passage occurs four times in succession, and as printed becomes commonplace and monotonous.
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The accepted traditional change certainly conveys the impression of Leonora’s gradually increasing anguish and terror; not the idea that it is introduced merely to exploit a high tone:
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That this departure from the text must have been sanctioned by Verdi, is, I think, proved by the fact that it has always been sung thus, and the composer himself must often have heard the substitution. He would certainly have forbidden its use, had he not approved of it, for he was particularly averse to having changes made in his music. The following anecdote illustrates this trait in his character. It was related by the late Mme. Marie Saxe, better known under her Italianized name of Marie Sasse. This distinguished soprano singer, a member of the Paris Opéra for a number of years, was engaged to give a certain number of performances at the Opera of Cairo. Aida was one of the operas stipulated for in her contract. She had never sung the rôle, and in studying it found the tessitura of the music, at one or two points, a little too high for her natural means. As she was compelled by her contract to sing the opera, she asked Verdi to make some slight changes to bring the music within her reach. But he refused absolutely to make the least alteration.
Madame Saxe was specially selected by Meyerbeer to create the rôle of Sélika in l’Africaine. She studied the part for three months with the composer, and sang it when the work was first given at the Paris Opéra. She was also chosen by Richard Wagner for the part of Elisabeth when Tannhäuser was given its stormy performances, with Niemann in the title-rôle, at the same theatre in 1861.
Madame Saxe possessed a score of Tannhäuser with the inscription in the composer’s handwriting: