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The Mapleson Cylinders - Program Notes

Libretti

Mozart: IL FLAUTO MAGICO (Die Zauberflöte)

Mozart: IL FLAUTO MAGICO (Die Zauberflöte)

Mozart's Singspiel had its first Metropolitan production, a lavish affair using designs from a successful Munich staging, on March 30, 1900, with an all-star cast including Marcella Sembrich (Queen of the Night), Emma Eames (Pamina), Zélie De Lussan (Papagena), Andreas Dippel (Tamino), Giuseppe Campanari (Papageno), Pol Plançon (Sarastro), Milka Ternina, Eugenia Mantelli, and Carrie Bridewell (Three Ladies), Suzanne Adams, Eleanore Broadfoot, and Rosa Olitzka (Three Genii); Luigi Mancinelli was the conductor. Five performances during what remained of the season attest to its success, though it did not return the following season. There were three performances in 1901-02 (at the first of which Mapleson made his single surviving cylinder from a Mozart work), and two the following season. Although the casts included a number of singers of German background, in these years Die Zauberflöte was always sung as Il Flauto Magico.

Band 8

Act II: Queen of the Night's second aria excerpt : "[alle] Bande der Natur" ... to end of aria

Marcella Sembrich (s), Queen of the Night

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra--Walter

Damrosch

January 27, 1902

[Glackens 80.]

The Queen of the Night orders her daughter Pamina to kill the high priest Sarastro, who has taken Pamina away to protect her from her mother's evil influence.

[original]

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

[Paventa il mio furore
se] non osi esser crudel.
Ti lascio, ti lascio, t'abbandono,
se non osi esser crudel,
esser crudel! ah!
esser crudel, esser crudel.
Svelga al fellon,
Pamina, svelga il core!
Ciel! ciel! l'orrendo mio voto,
ah! ascolta, oh ciel!

[translation]

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

Fear my great anger
if you dare not be cruel.
I will leave you, leave you, abandon you
if you dare not be cruel,
be cruel! ah!
be cruel, be cruel.
Strike the traitor,
Pamina, strike his heart!
Heaven! heaven! heal, o heaven,
my fearsome vow!