Music Monday: Opera

I love opera.

Although, I am not too familiar with whole operas, I am in love with soprano arias. They move me to trembling.


This one is from Madame Butterfly. Butterfly is telling her servant that her American lover will return to her and this is how she imagines it will happen. Of course, she is very wrong.

One good day, we will see
Arising a strand of smoke
Over the far horizon on the sea
And then the ship appears
And then the ship is white
It enters into the port, it rumbles its salute.
Do you see it? He is coming!
I don't go down to meet him, not I.
I stay upon the edge of the hill
And I wait a long time
but I do not grow weary of the long wait.

And leaving from the crowded city,
A man, a little speck
Climbing the hill.
Who is it? Who is it?
And as he arrives
What will he say? What will he say?
He will call Butterfly from the distance
I without answering
Stay hidden
A little to tease him,
A little as to not die.
At the first meeting,
And then a little troubled
He will call, he will call
"Little one, dear wife
Blossom of orange"
The names he called me at his last coming.
All this will happen,
I promise you this
Hold back your fears -
I with secure faith wait for him.


This is from the opera Gianni Schicchi. I don't know much about it, but this is a fairly well-known song in it's own right. I think the daughter/soprano is trying to convince her father to make a choice that others could not persuade him to do. He sends her away so she won't know what choice he makes.

Oh dear daddy
Oh dear daddy
I love him, he is so handsome
I want to go to Porta Rossa
to buy the ring
Yes, yes, I want to go there
And if my love were in vain
I would go to Ponte Vecchio
and throw myself in the Arno
I fret and suffer torments
Oh God, I would rather die
Daddy, have pity, have pity