Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment: Sailing the High Cs
b"Singing even one high C can be an event for the tenor and his audience. Everyone in the room knows how easily it could go wrong. Multiply that pressure by nine? You get \\u201cAh, mes amis.\\u201d Gaetano Donizetti wrote this high-stakes aria for his opera La Fille du R\\xe9giment. The young hero Tonio has just enlisted in the army and received permission to marry the girl of his dreams. \\u201cAh, mes amis\\u201d is his celebration: Tonio\\u2019s bursting with so much joy that the guy sings nine \\u2013 count \\u2018em, NINE \\u2013 high C's. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens considers the sheer athleticism it takes to pull off \\u201cAh, mes amis\\u201d with a singer, a vocal coach and a former NFL player. And once they've surveyed this Mount Everest of tenor arias, you'll hear tenor Javier Camarena scale its heights from his base camp on the Metropolitan Opera stage."