Renée Fleming: Verdi - La Traviata, 'E strano! Ah, forse e lui... Follie! Sempre libera'
Renée Fleming (born February 14, 1959) is an American soprano whose repertoire encompasses Strauss, Mozart, Handel, bel canto, lieder, French opera and chansons, jazz and indie rock. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice. Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano operatic roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also speaks fluent German and French, along with limited Italian. Her signature roles include Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, Violetta in Verdi's La traviata, the title role in Dvořák's Rusalka, the title role in Massenet's Manon, the title role in Massenet's Thaïs, the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, and the title role in Arabella. A Richard Tucker Award winner, she regularly performs in opera houses and concert halls worldwide. In 2008 she was awarded the Swedish Polar Music Prize for her services in music. Conductor Sir Georg Solti said of Fleming, "In my long life, I have met maybe two sopranos with this quality of singing; the other was Renata Tebaldi... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renée_Fl...
Lyrics & English Translation
VIOLETTA
How strange it is ... how strange!
Those words are carved upon my heart!
Would a true love bring me misfortune?
What do you think, o my troubled spirit?
No man before kindled a flame like this.
Oh, joy ...
I never knew ...
To love and to be loved!
Can I disdain this
For a life of sterile pleasure?
Was this the man my heart,
Alone in the crowd,
Delighted many times to paint
In vague, mysterious colours?
This man, so watchful yet retiring,
Who haunted my sickbed
And turned my fever
Into the burning flame of love!
That love,
The pulse of the whole world,
Mysterious, unattainable,
The torment and delight of my heart.
It's madness! It's empty delirium!
A poor, lonely woman
Abandoned in this teeming desert
They call Paris!
What can I hope? What should I do?
Enjoy myself! Plunge into the vortex
Of pleasure and drown there!
Enjoy myself!
Free and aimless I must flutter
From pleasure to pleasure,
Skimming the surface
Of life's primrose path.
As each day dawns,
As each day dies,
Gaily I turn to the new delights
That make my spirit soar.
ALFREDO
(outside the window)
Love is the pulse
VIOLETTA
Oh!
ALFREDO
... of the whole world ...
VIOLETTA
Yes! Love!
ALFREDO
Mysterious, unattainable,
The torment and delight of my heart.
VIOLETTA
It's madness!
Pleasure!
Free and aimless, I must flutter ... etc.
A link to this wonderful artists personal Website: http://www.reneefleming.com/
Please Enjoy!
I send my kind and warm regards,