Anne Sofie von Otter sings "Marietta's song"

Achingly beautiful:

"Glück, das mir verblieb" from Die tote Stadt (E. W. Korngold)
Recorded live at the Théâtre Musical De Paris - Châtelet, 2000

Here are the lyrics, in German and English:

Glück, das mir verblieb,
rück zu mir, mein treues Lieb.
Abend sinkt im Hag
bist mir Licht und Tag.
Bange pochet Herz an Herz
Hoffnung schwingt sich himmelwärts.

Wie wahr, ein traurig Lied.
Das Lied vom treuen Lieb,
das sterben muss.
Ich kenne das Lied.
Ich hört es oft in jungen,
in schöneren Tagen.
Es hat noch eine Strophe --
weiß ich sie noch?

Naht auch Sorge trüb,
rück zu mir, mein treues Lieb.
Neig dein blaß Gesicht
Sterben trennt uns nicht.
Mußt du einmal von mir gehn,
glaub, es gibt ein Auferstehn.


Happiness that has stayed with me,
move up close beside me, my true love.
In the grove evening is waning,
yet you are my light and day.
One heart beats uneasily against the other,
[while] hope soars heavenward.

How true, a mournful song.
The song of the true love
bound to die.
I know this song.
I often heard it sung
in happier days of yore.
There is yet another stanza -
have I still got it in mind?

Though dismal sorrow is drawing nigh,
move up close beside me, my true love.
Turn your wan face to me
death will not part us.
When the hour of death comes one day,
believe that you will rise again.

About:

"Glück das mir verblieb" (German for My happiness that remained) is an aria from the opera Die tote Stadt by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. It is written for aspinto soprano. The aria appears in act 1, approx. 25 minutes into the opera.

The 'dead city' in question is Bruges, identified in the opera with Marie, the dead wife of Paul. At the start of act 1, Paul confides in a friend the extraordinary news that he has seen Marie, or her double, in the town and that he has invited her to the house. She arrives, and Paul addresses her as Marie, but she corrects him: she is Marietta, a dancer from Lille. He is enchanted by her, especially when she accepts his request for a song, "Glück das mir verblieb". The lyric tells of the joy of love, but there is a sadness in it also because its theme is the transitoriness of life. Their voices combine in the verse which extols the power of love to remain constant in a fleeting world.^[1]

HT RSM, who continually points to the most exquisite music.

(Perhaps German was originally a sung language....?)

Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites: Finale

Here's another Salve Regina from Poulenc, recommended by the Red State Mystic on the previous post.



From the YouTube page:

Finale to Poulenc's Opera Dialogues of the carmetiles as perormed by the metropolitan opera in the late 80's early 90's (not sure)

To this day, this is one of the most popular Met productions and unfortunately this telecast is not likely to be released on DVD.

It boasted the talents of Jessye Norman, Regin Crespin (in her Met farewell), Betsy Norden, Maria Ewing and Florence Quivar among others.

Here's a different version; very Euro. No info blurb, though:

La Traviata (Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazon, Renato Bruson; Marta Domingo, James Conlon, 2007)

The whole thing, it looks like.

"Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour"

Kenneth Lonergan set the final moments of his 2011 film, Margaret, in the orchestra section at the Metropolitan Opera, during Act 3, Scene 1 of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman - a scene that opens with the lovely duet, "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour."

I think this was another of Longeran's long-and-dramatically-drawn-out movie-release events.  From what I know and remember, there's always some huge drama with Lonergan's production process; it takes forever to settle on rights or editing or something before his work gets out there.  All that is to say that I'm not exactly sure when this film was originally made or released; 2011 is the date given at IMDB (I know it had a short theater release sometime last year - like, 2 weeks or something, and then it died), and I saw it on streaming video last night.

For me, this last scene was one of the most compelling in the movie - primarily, I think, because of the sheer beauty of the music, but also because of the way it was staged and shot.  I'm still working out what I think and feel about this film overall; Lonergan is brilliant at packing just a ton of stuff into movies, some of which you don't fully absorb and can't articulate at first. My test of a great movie these days is:  does it stay with you?    Do you still think about it months and years later?   Does all that stuff you can't articulate still whisper to your heart, even when you're not quite sure what it's saying?   That's a good movie - but it takes some time to evaluate.  (Lonergan's 2000 movie, You Can Count on Me, was like that - and was terrifically entertaining as well; it's one of my all-time favorite films.)

My immediate interpretive takeway from Margaret is that it's an enacted parable about "the return of the repressed."   (Yes, that's right.)  I will have more to say about this later, I think - but this post is about the  song in particular.

I believe that in this last scene in Margaret, Rene Fleming sings the role of Giulietta (I'm not sure about this); I don't know who the other woman was, nor do I understand at all what is happening in the scene - and Wikipedia hasn't been much help so far.   Certainly you could see what's going on as strong "lesbian subtext" - or, really, as "lesbian surtext"!   However you view it, though, it was all pretty wonderful, and beautifully and expertly filmed.   The movie was great to look at in other parts as well.

I don't know Tales of Hoffman, but the video below is another perfectly exquisite rendering of the duet; the singers are Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca.   The song is a "barcarole" - "a folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers, or a piece of music composed in that style" - and "characterized by a rhythm reminiscent of the gondolier's stroke, almost invariably a moderate tempo 6/8 meter."  Yes, indeed.



Here are the French lyrics:

Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour,
Souris à nos ivresses,
Nuit plus douce que le jour,
Ô belle nuit d'amour!

Le temps fuit et sans retour
Emporte nos tendresses,
Loin de cet heureux séjour
Le temps fuit sans retour.

Zéphyrs embrasés,
Versez-nous vos caresses,
Zéphyrs embrasés,
Donnez-nous vos baisers!
Vos baisers! vos baisers! Ah!
Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour,
Souris à nos ivresses.

And here is how I would translate that (seeing as how I speak French, more or less):

Lovely night, O night of love
Smiles at our intoxication,
Night sweeter than the day
O lovely night of love!

Time flees and does not return
And carries our tendernesses
Far from this happy moment.
Time flees and does not return.

Burning breezes
Pour on us us your caresses,
Burning breezes
Give us your kisses!

Your kisses, your kisses!  Ah!
Lovely night, O night of love
Smiles at our intoxication.

The film's title, BTW, is taken from one of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poems, "Spring and Fall":

MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving   
Over Goldengrove unleaving?   
Leáves, líke the things of man, you   
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?   
Áh! ás the heart grows older   
It will come to such sights colder   
By and by, nor spare a sigh   
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;   
And yet you wíll weep and know why.   
Now no matter, child, the name:   
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.   
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed   
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:   
It ís the blight man was born for,   
It is Margaret you mourn for.