Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen
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Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (Hell's vengeance boils in my heart) is the second aria of the Queen of the Night (Die Königin der Nacht) character in Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte).
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[edit] 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, in a naturally ongoing debate. There are, however, a few facts commonly agreed upon.
First, the aria is highly memorable, fast paced and grandiose. Slower arias always tend to be less publically adored than their fast counterparts, which is perhaps the reason why the abovementioned first aria of the Queen is less known.
Secondly, the aria is widely renowned for being an extremely difficult piece to execute at all, not to say gracefully and artfully. It requires the singer not only to carry very long phrases with stable or even increasing intensity and not only requires flexibility even greater than that of a regular feminine voice, it requires a range not possessed by the majority of singers. The aria's range is two octaves, from F4 to a stunning F6. The piece requires an extremely high tessitura of B4 to B5, and therefore singers with a lower natural tessitura may damage their voice by repeatedly singing this part over a long period. Basically all contraltos and mezzo-sopranos cannot reach this note, at least not singably if at all, and even most sopranos cannot produce it at all, not to mention clearly and musically. Most sopranos who were previously able to reach this note, lose it at a later point in their career.
Lastly, even if the singer is able to produce the notes with the agility and range required, it needs to be done very gracefully and musically, otherwise ruining the piece. The high notes (especially G5-Bb5) need either a very fine voice or a highly developed piano in order to be produced singably, in contrast to a screech. The singer has to be able to change the effect of her voice to emphasize the meaning behind the words, which is very difficult in this kind of trickily composed pieces. Furthermore, this is a vengeful aria in which the Queen of the Night is asking her daughter to commit murder and needs to be sung with a great deal of force and thrust to be effective.
The libretto for this aria was written by Mozart's close friend, Emanuel Schikaneder, who also played Papageno in the first performances. The first singer to perform it onstage was none other than Mozart's sister-in-law, Anna Hofer née Webber, when she was only 19.
Famous singers of this aria include Cristina Deutekom, Erika Miklósa, Lucia Popp, Edita Gruberova, Edda Moser, Sumi Jo, Natalie Dessay and Diana Damrau.
[edit] Lyrics
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[edit] Links
- The Aria's Lyrics
- The Original Score
- Performance by Diana Damrau
- Performance by Diana Damrau, another version
- Performance by Nathalie Dessay
- Performance by Luciana Serra
