In questa reggia

Dame Montserrat Caballé (Catalan: [munsəˈrat kəβəˈʎe], Spanish: [monseˈrat kaβaˈʎe]) (born 12 April 1933) is a Spanish operatic soprano. She has sung a wide variety of roles, but is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi. Caballé's international breakthrough came in 1965 when she substituted for an indisposed Marilyn Horne in a semi-staged performance of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at New York's Carnegie Hall, which earned her a 25-minute standing ovation...

Lyrics & English Translation

In this palace, thousands of years ago,
a desperate cry rang out.
And that cry, passing down the generations
found refuge here in my soul!
Princess Lo-u-Ling,
sweet and serene ancestress, you who reigned
in your deep silence in pure joy
and defied, unyielding and confident,
the harsh domination (of men),
today you live again in me!

(It was when the King of the Tartars unfurled his seven banners.)

And yet in the time that everyone remembers,
there was dismay and terror and the roar of arms.
The kingdom was conquered!
And Lo-u-Ling, my ancestress, dragged away
by a man like you, like you,
stranger, there in the terrible night
where her young voice was stifled!

(For ages she has slept in her vast tomb.)

O Princes, who in long caravans
from every part of the world
come here to try your fortune,
I avenge upon you, upon you
that purity, that cry and that death!
No man will ever possess me!
Horror of the man who killed her
remains alive in my heart.
No, no! No man will ever possess me!
Ah, in me is reborn the pride
of such great chastity!
Stranger! Do not tempt fortune!
The riddles are three, death is one!


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I send my kind and warm regards,