Astrid Varnay: Strauss - Elektra, 'Allein! Weh, ganz allein!'

Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay (25 April 1918 -- 4 September 2006) was an American dramatic soprano of Hungarian heritage and Swedish birth, who did most of her work in the United States and Germany. She was one of the best-known Wagnerian heroic sopranos of her generation. Her voice on record is readily recognisable by its seemingly limitless upper register... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrid_V...



Lyrics & English Translation

Alone! Woe! Quite alone! My father gone
To dwell affrighted in the tomb's chill darkness!
Agamemnon! Agamemnon!

Where art thou, Father? Hast thou not the strength
To lift thy countenance to me, thy daughter?
(Softly)

The hour approacheth, sacred to us twain,
The very hour, when thou wert foully slaughtered,
By her, thy queen, and him who now supplants thee,
And on thy royal couch doth toy with her.

There in the bath they murdered thee. Thine eyes
With thy red blood were deluged. From the bath
The steam of blood arose. Then took he thee,
The craven, by the shoulders dragging thee,
Headforemost from the hall, thy feet the while
Behind thee trailing on the ground, thine eyes
Distended open, glaring at the house.
So thou return'st, with slow relentless step
Unlooked for, stand'st thou there, with vengeful eyes,

Wide-open: on thy royal brow a round
Of crimson gleams, that groweth aye more dark.
From the blood thy wound distilleth.
Agamemnon! Father!

Let me behold thee, leave me not this day
Alone! But as thy wont is, like a shadow,
From the wall's recesses come to greet thy child!
Father! Agamemnon! Thy day approacheth. As the
seasons all

From the stars rain down, so will an hundred throats
Of victims rain their life-blood on thy tomb.
And, as from vessels overturned, blood
Will from the fettered murderers flow
And in one wild wave, one torrent
From them will rain their very life's red life-blood,
And drench the altars.

(With solemn pathos.)

And we slay for thee
The chargers that are housed here We drive them
All to the tomb together, and they know,
'Tis death, and neigh in the death-laden breeze,
And perish. And we slaughter all the hounds
That once did lick thy sandals,
That went with thee to hunt, and fawned on thee
For dainty morsels. Therefore must their blood
Descend to do thee homage meet; and we,
Thy son Orestes and thy daughters twain,
We three, when all these things are done, and steam

Of blood has veiled the murky air with palls
Of crimson, which the sun sucks upwards,
Then dance we, all thy blood, around thy tomb

(In ecstatic pathos.)

And o'er the corpses piled, high will I lift,
High with each step, my limbs; and all the folk
Who see me dance Yea all who from afar
My shadow see, will say: "For a great King
All of his flesh and blood high festival
And solemn revel hold; and blessed he
That children hath who round his holy tomb
Will dance such royal dance of Victory!"


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