Sapho's O Ma Lyre Immortelle: Soaked in Sound and Drowned in Sorrows

In the still of the quiet night a solo flute gives flight to a lone firefly, its night prowling under the full moon is brought to a watchful pause by an approaching presence.

"Où suis-je? ...... Where am I?"

Sapho startles herself out of the daze that had masked the steepness of the obscure foot path that she had taken up to this lonely seaside cliff. The surf grows quiet as the double bass answers her musing...

"Ah, oui. Je me rappelle.......Ah, yes, I now remember."

'Of course you do remember', chide the double basses...

"Tout ce qui m'attachait à la vie est brisé...All that bound me to life is broken
il ne me reste plus que la nuit éternelle,...All that's left for me is eternal night,
pour reposer mon coeur, de douleur épuisé...that will give my grieving heart its rest."

A pause, how long has it been since this sheer patch of rock had seen its last victim? The air is thick with the sound of the rumbling timpani as the gust of orchestral wind is hushed by the pizzicato (plucked) double basses as the harp draws her eyes to the dark water below... The lone English horn sings out a reminder of the event that got her here this evening. The encroaching silence is menacingly encouraging... even the surf is restraining its strokes of the orchestral strings;

"Ô ma lyre immortelle......O my immortal lyre,
qui dans les tristes jours,..who, in trying times,
à tous mes maux fidèle,... has always been
les consolais toujours......my faithful consolation,

En vain ton doux murmure...In vain is your murmured effort
veut m'aider à souffrir;......to ease my suffering;
Non tu ne peux guérir ma derrière blessure;..No You cannot heal my latest wound;
Ma blessure est au coeur ..............The wound is to my heart
Seul le trépas peut finir ma douleur...Only death can end my suffering!"

That diabolical sea of strings and brass lend its agreement, her pulse quickens with the rumble of the timpani as the English horn mercilessly repeats its melody... The air grows suffocating with the monstrous show of sympathy.

"Adieu, flambeau du monde,...... Farewell, worldly light,
descends au sein des flots....... descend into the flood
Moi, je descends sous l'onde...Me, I shall sink beneath the waves
dans l'éternel repos.............. into eternal rest."

The surf crashes more insistently onto the sheer face of the cliff now...

"Le jour qui doit éclore, Phaön,...The dawning day, Phaön,
luira pour toi,....................will shine for you,
Mais sans penser à moi..... But, spare no thought of me
tu reverras l'aurore..............as you greet the sun!"

Encouraged by the orchestra, the monstrously sympathetic beast that listens when Phaön wouldn't, there is only one path for her to thread:

"Ouvre-toi, gouffre amer ........... Open up, watery abyss!
Je vais dormir pour toujours dans la mer..I shall sleep forever under the sea."

A step closer to the edge as the double basses betray the hungry waves' morbid excitement. The woodwinds murmurs from the surrounding woods. But, before any doubt can reclaim her, the angry surf assaults the boulder at the base of the cliff with its clash of the cymbals, successfully recapturing her focus. Her command to the waves is all too happily seconded by the obliging brass....

"Ouvre-toi, gouffre amer ........... Open up, watery abyss
Je vais dormir pour toujours dans la mer...I shall sleep forever under the sea."

Her feet no longer touch the ground as the orchestra descend with the fallen poetess - both hungrily swallowed up by the crashing tumult of the grotesquely victorious sea.

And that... is what Charles François Gounod conjures up for me musically when I listen to this aria (click here for a Youtube sample clip), the final moments of Sappho of Lesbos, the Greek poetess whose name (and ...virtue?) gave the mythical root to the words sapphic and lesbian).

And Vesselina Kasarova, the Sapho in the sample clip, is more than just an entertainer. I've heard cleaner and more beautiful renditions of Sapho's final aria, Ô ma lyre immortelle, than this one.... But most are recordings of wonderful singers singing one of the most depressingly beautiful songs Gounod penned. This performance, though, is different. It is nothing less than a vocal reincarnation of that legendary poetess probably at the moment she would like to remember the least. And though we'll never know what Sappho was really like in real life, whatever inspired Kasarova to intone her like this is truly a force to be reckon with.

This clip is from her 2007 concert in Athens with Teodor Currentzis conducting. And if ya' want a piece of it, Kasarova has the aria on her French Arias CD with RCA Red Seal.