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This is a very popular aria and has been used as background
music in many commercials and movie scores. Some people think of it as a
sentimental love song, but it is about something quite different. In the
opera, Gianni Schicchi is at the deathbed of a rich man, Buoso Donati, with
his daughter Lauretta, who is in love with Rinuccio, the dying man’s nephew.
The opera’s action revolves around a series of deceptions and stratagems.
The rich man’s relatives are asking Gianni to help them make sure the dying
man doesn’t leave his money to a monastery.
In this aria, Lauretta wants to marry Rinuccio and makes her
plea to her father. The sixteen year-old girl is in love and tells him, "I
want to go to Porta Rossa to buy a ring." If her father will not let her
marry Rinuccio, she threatens to "go to Ponte Vecchio and throw myself in
the Arno." The passionate music sounds like a very serious love song, but is
really the manipulative plea of a young girl trying to convince her father,
"Please Daddy, please."
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