Italian composer, Alfredo Catalani and librettist Luigi Illica, created one of opera’s most beautiful
and most famous arias. And like so many sublimely beautiful arias, it’s contrasted by its subject
matter — one that pervades operas: Wally, the heroine, refuses to marry the man her father has chosen
and basically says, “If I can’t marry the man I am in love with, I shall do myself in.”