Sapho: "O ma lyre immortelle", Sapho's air (Kate Aldrich/Orchestre National de France) 

The mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich sings Sapho's air "Ô ma lyre immortelle", from the 3rd act of "Sapho", composed by Charles Gounod in 1851, accompanied by the Orchestre National de France conducted by Jesko Sirvend. Excerpt from the Gounod Gala on 16 June 2018.
Essential to Meyerbeer's Le Prophète, Pauline Viardot confirmed her return to the Opéra de Paris with the creation of a literary work for which Gounod would write the music: "A short and serious subject, with a female role for the main subject." The libretto by Emile Augier, drawing upon the confusion between the poetess and another Sappho famous for her fatal passion, ends with the suicide of the heroine. For her farewell, Gounod used a melody from 1841 based upon the Lamento by Théophile Gautier ("Ma belle amie est morte"). Berlioz, moved to tears, wrote: "It is a broken heart beating its last; it is outraged love that breathes its final moan; it is the roar of the sea awaiting its prey; it is all the mysterious sounds of deserted beaches, all the cruel harmonies of a smiling nature, insensitive to the pains of the human being. It is beautiful, very beautiful, miraculously beautiful!"
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