Beware what you wish for. Connie Morton wanted more than anything to be the soprano soloist in the Verdi Requiem. Little did she know that it would be her requiem.
But before her end, Connie does really get to shine as the only soloist in the “Libera me.” In case you don’t know the words:
| Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda: Quando cæli movendi sunt et terra. Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem. Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira. Quando cæli movendi sunt et terra. Dies illa, dies iræ, calamitatis et miseriæ, dies magna et amara valde. Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. |
Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal on that fearful day, when the heavens and the earth shall be moved, when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire. I am made to tremble, and I fear, till the judgment be upon us, and the coming wrath, when the heavens and the earth shall be moved. That day, day of wrath, calamity, and misery, day of great and exceeding bitterness, when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon them. |
Here at EroticMadScience, so gloomy and medieval a sentiment might best be illustrated by Giotto.
Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), "Hell," detail from Last Judgment, a fresco in the Capella degli Scrovegni in Padua (1304-6)
All sorts of interesting fetishes are indulged in hell, apparently.
Obviously I cannot cite all this stuff without coming up with a real example of the music. Here is one of the best I can find, with Renée Fleming as the soprano soloist. The excerpt isn’t quite complete, I think due to clip-length limitations imposed by YouTube.
One might just think that art like this would be worth giving one’s life for.