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The aria
"Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen", commonly abbreviated "Der Hölle Rache", is often referred to as "The Queen of the Night Aria", despite the fact that the Queen of Night character sings another distinguished aria earlier in the opera, "O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn". It is considered to be one of the most famous opera arias, highly memorable, fast paced and menacingly grandiose.
The aria forms part of the second act of the opera. It depicts a fit of vengeful rage, in which the Queen of the Night puts a knife into the hand of her daughter Pamina and exhorts her to assassinate Sarastro, her rival, on pain of denying and cursing her if poor Pamina does not comply.
Music
The aria is written in D minor, and is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, along with timpani and the string section. This is a larger orchestra than for "O zittre nicht" and comprises all the players from the opera as a whole, other than the trombones.
The aria is widely renowned for being a demanding piece to perform well. The aria's range is two octaves, from F4 to a stunning F6. The piece requires a high tessitura — even for sopranos — of B4 to B5. The artistic demands of the dramatic context, a vengeful demand for murder, put a heavy demand on even the well-qualified voice.
Lyrics
The words were written (in German) by Mozart's friend Emanuel Schikaneder, who also played Papageno in the first performances.
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German
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Translation in English
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Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen, |
Hell's vengeance boileth in mine heart, |
Metrically, the text consists of a quatrain in iambic pentameter (exceptional for this opera, which is mostly in iambic tetrameter), followed by a quatrain in iambic trimeter, then a final pentameter couplet. The rhyme scheme is [ABAB][CCCD][ED].
Sopranos who have sung the aria
The first singer to perform the aria onstage was Mozart's sister-in-law Josepha Hofer, who at the time was 33. By all accounts, Hofer had an extraordinary upper register and an agile voice and apparently Mozart, being familiar with Hofer's vocal capability, wrote the two blockbuster arias to showcase it.
An anecdote from Mozart's time suggests that the composer himself was very impressed with his sister-in-law's performance. The story comes from an 1840 letter from composer Ignaz von Seyfried, and relates an event from the last night of Mozart's life--December 4, 1791, five weeks into the opera's initial (very successful) run. According to Seyfried, the dying Mozart whispered the following to his wife Constanze:
- Quiet, quiet! Hofer is just taking her top F;--now my sister-in-law is singing her second aria, 'Der Hölle Rache'; how strongly she strikes and holds the B-flat: 'Hört! hört! hört! der Mutter Schwur!'.[1]
In modern times a great number of notable sopranos have performed and recorded the aria, including Edda Moser, Natalie Dessay, Cristina Deutekom, Edita Gruberova, Sumi Jo, Diana Damrau, Roberta Peters, Lucia Popp, Luciana Serra, Beverly Sills, Rita Streich, Cheryl Studer, Dame Joan Sutherland, and Barbara Hendricks.
June Anderson sings the aria in the film Amadeus. The aria was also a favorite of the famous incompetent singer Florence Foster Jenkins.
Media
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Queen of the Night's second aria, Der Hölle Rache Live recording Der Hölle Rache - Problems playing the files? See media help.
Notes
- ^ Quoted from Deutsch (1965, 556). The B-flat to which Mozart referred is a long, powerful note, sung on the third repetition of "Hört!," to unexpected Neapolitan harmony in the orchestra and forming the climax of the aria.
References
- Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965) Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford University Press.
External links
- Edda Moser performs "Der Holle Rache"
- The Aria's Lyrics
- Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen: Score in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe
- Direct comparison of the high F's by eight great modern sopranos who have recorded them
