Out of context, the idea of this aria might seem uninteresting. Juliet is enjoying her youth so what? However, the lines preceding the aria expand Juliet’s meaning. Her nurse has just remarked that she herself, at Juliet’s age, was already married. This hint precipitates an outburst from Juliet: “No, no I won’t listen anymore! Let my soul have its springtime!” Juliet is insisting that she be allowed to hold onto her youth, despite an adult world that is threatening to take it away from her. From this we can infer that the opening cadenza, with its bold leap of a seventh, may be a cry of protest. It is easy to get lost in a chromatic scale, but the following formula may help: any chromatic scale divided into groups of three will outline a diminished seventh chord. Here, singing the notes on each first beat will help fix this cadenza in the memory. The rests and little grace-notes in the main theme are consistent with breathless pleading, as are the frequent little surges of crescendo and diminuendo. The text following the words “qui m’enivre” should be, according to the orchestra score, “ce jour encore” twice, and then, “longtemps encore.” There is no reason to regard this as inconsistent and try to regularize it, as some editions do: Juliet’s first reaction is only to protect her youth at this happy moment, but following her reflections on the impermanence of youth, she revises her demand. She wants to maintain her carefree period “for a long time still.”
Many singers find intonation difficult in the recurring theme. The problem notes are the E natural in “vivre” and the F sharp in “réve” (and the same notes in parallel passages, of course). The E is a lower appoggiatura resolving to the F which begins the next bar, and similarly, the F sharp is a lower appoggiatura resolving to the G which begins the next bar. I recommend singing just these notes E, F, F sharp, G over the given chords, and stressing the two appoggiaturas. Attention to the function of the two notes as appoggiaturas may work where trying to hear exclusively by interval fails.
Two bars before the A minor episode (“Cette ivresse…”) the bass notes on the second and third beats of the accompaniment do not exist in the orchestra score; their removal means that the singer need not take this bar strictly in time.
The episode beginning “Loin de l’hiver…” is marked “un peu moins vite, mais trés peu.” This seems pretty clear! Why is there such a universal tendency to exaggerate the slower tempo? I think it stems from a misconception about the text. Juliet is not describing slumbering far from the winter and inhaling the scent of roses, she is pleading. Note the repeated imperative form “laisse-moi, laisse-moi…” We know the passage is metaphorical when she says that she wants to inhale the rose “before it withers” the rose being, of course, her girlhood. This passage, unlike the rest of the aria, directly addresses to her nurse the refrain of the aria is “I want to…” The first episode is a general explanation, but this episode is “allow me…” Slower, yes, but with intensity; more, perhaps, here than elsewhere. This episode ends with the sad thought of the rose eventually withering, and the following modulating fioritura passage can be used to express Juliet’s gradual transition from reflection to enjoyment of the present.
The aria was originally composed not in F, but in G. Those who would like to explore the original can obtain a copy from Classical Vocal Reprints. The transposition (down a step) found in standard piano/vocal scores begins seven bars before the aria, on the third beat: if the original key is to be restored, the second syllable of “j’è étais” would be C, and the chord C major, etc.
