Nessun dorma and other tenor arias

What a tenor is

A tenor is the highest male chest-voice type, lying between the countertenor and the baritone. Opera tenors typically sing from about B-flat in the second octave to the C in the fifth, and their voices carry a bright, ringing quality. Composers often give lyric tenors the parts of lovers, among them Rodolfo in La bohème and Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. That is why a tenor concert feels romantic and heroic at once, and why the best-known tenor arias are the moments when a lover stops to sing alone.

Nessun dorma, from Turandot

Nessun dorma means let no one sleep. Calaf, the unknown prince in Puccini's Turandot, sings it in the last act, alone in a moonlit garden, sure that he will win the princess by dawn. Puccini died in 1924 with the opera unfinished, and it premiered at La Scala on 25 April 1926, completed by Franco Alfano. Luciano Pavarotti took the aria beyond opera houses in 1990, when he sang it for the World Cup, and the Three Tenors sang it at three later finals.

Read next: The 1990 Three Tenors concert in Rome

E lucevan le stelle, from Tosca

Puccini set Tosca in Rome in June 1800, and the opera was first staged at the city's Teatro Costanzi on 14 January 1900. E lucevan le stelle is the tenor's best-known aria, sung by the painter Cavaradossi in the third act, as he waits for execution and remembers his lover. In the story, Tosca finally throws herself from the parapet of Castel Sant'Angelo. Hearing the aria in Rome, the city where the opera is set, gives the music a local anchor.

La donna è mobile, from Rigoletto

The Duke of Mantua sings La donna è mobile in the third act of Verdi's Rigoletto, a cheerful tune about the fickleness of women, sung by a character who is anything but admirable. Rigoletto was first staged in Venice, at La Fenice, on 11 March 1851. Verdi kept the aria secret until a few hours before the premiere, revealing it to the cast and orchestra and forbidding them to sing or whistle it outside the theatre.

Una furtiva lagrima, from L'elisir d'amore

Una furtiva lagrima is the quiet centre of Donizetti's comic opera. Nemorino, an innocent young man, buys a love potion that turns out to be cheap red wine, and when he sees Adina weeping he assumes the potion has worked. The aria is his tender response, set in a dark key that gives the piece pathos. The opera was first staged at the Canobbiana theatre in Milan, on 12 May 1832. After the loud arias, it is often the piece that listeners remember.

How to listen

Read the programme on the booking page once, then put it away. Each aria is a self-contained scene, and the plot matters less than the feeling the singer carries. Listen for the moment when the voice climbs to its highest note, and notice how the instruments leave space for it. A concert hands you the peaks of several operas in a single evening, minus the long stretches of plot that surround them in a theatre, and that concentration is the appeal.

Who this isn't for

A concert of arias is a different thing from an opera production. Nothing is staged, nobody is in costume and no plot runs from beginning to end, so it suits listeners who want the famous melodies and not a full story. If you want a production, look for a performance at an opera house. And if you want one specific aria, remember that the organiser may change the programme, and no single piece is guaranteed for your date.