Wednesday, November 8, 2017

"Tu sei morta"

A few years ago I linked to a video of an aria from Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo. I linked to it because I couldn't embed it. Now I can, so here it is. Monteverdi was, depending on how you look at it, either a late Renaissance composer or an early Baroque composer. He died before any of the Baroque composers we all know and love were even born, but he was clearly developing music beyond Renaissance concepts. L'Orfeo is about the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the aria below is after Eurydice has died and Orpheus vows to go to the underworld and sing to Hades to try to convince him to let her return to the land of the living. I chose a video that translates his words, but for some reason doesn't translate the last line Orpheus sings before leaving for the underworld: "Goodbye earth, goodbye sky, and sun, goodbye." I find it heartbreaking.

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