L’Arlesiana

Best known for its poignant tenor aria, Federico’s Lament –‘È la solita storia del pastore’ – L’Arlesiana is a tragic story of love, frustration and obsession. The young Enrico Caruso sang the role of the Provençal farmer Federico at the opera’s premiere in Milan in 1897. Adriana Lecouvreur, Francesco Cilea’s most famous work, followed five years later. As in L’Arlésienne, the Alphonse Daudet play that forms its source, the titular ‘girl from Arles’, never appears. It is Federico’s fixation with her, and his relationship with his forceful mother, that lie at the heart of the drama.