Welcome to Litsy!

Joy that true did prove,
Fare you well, my faithful love.
Life and death must part
Heart is torn from heart -
Wait for me in higher sphere -
There is no second life down here.

A dream has dashed my dream to earth,
A dream of crude realities has killed
The dream of phantasy and sweet deception.
Such dreams are sent us by our dead
If we live too much with and in them.
How far should we give way to grief,
How far dare we, without disaster?
Harrowing conflict of the heart!

A poetically translated libretto, and some beautiful music to accompany it. I'm not an opera officianado "but I know what I like", and this is enjoyable. I almost certainly wouldn't have read/listened to it if it wasn't an adaptation of Georges Rodenbach's 'Bruges le Mort', a book I'd recommend to anybody with an interest in decadent literature or the the inner workings of depression, grief and obsession (bearing in mind its historical context).

And now some music!
But not too merry nor too sad a tune—
A strain, as when in dainty dance,
Elves frolic 'neath the Summer-moon,
A measure smiling and beguiling.

#bruges #richarddadd #puck #midsummernightsdream #shakespeare

Be silent, hollow choir of hells,
Harsh sounds that echo through the night!
Ye wept when we stood by her grave —
Now ye reprove my conscience.
Deliver me, ye bronze confessors!
Bitter the pleasures I am tasting;
Grimly two-sided joys.

#bruges

Clouds may loom above,
Hold me fast, my faithful love.
Lie close on my heart,
Dying cannot part.
When the hour comes you must go.
You will rise again, I know.

Watching a recording of Korngold's opera "Die tote Stadt" (The Dead City) while reading the libretto in English, so that I have at least some chance of following the narrative. It's based on George Rodenbach's novel "Bruges le Mort", a decadent classic of 1892, though I've read that the opera has a "Hollywood ending" that Rodenbach might not have approved. We'll see...