O Carlo Ascolta – Don Carlo

*Includes prior recitative.

Rodrigo

It’s me, dear Carlo.

Don Carlo
O Rodrigo, I am so grateful to you
For coming to Carlo in prison.

Rodrigo

Dear Carlo!

Don Carlo
Well you know it! I have abandoned myself to the current!
For Isabella’s love, I torture and kill myself...
No, it’s not worth going on living!
But you can save them yet;
The Flanders are no longer oppressed.

Rodrigo

Ah! I can see clearly your affection!
Get out of this ghastly tomb.
I am happy just because I can embrace you!
I will save you!

Don Carlo
What are you saying?

Rodrigo

We’d better say farewell!

Don Carlo
Why do you speak of death?

Rodrigo

Listen, time is running out,
I have already turned the tremendous lightning to me!
You are no longer the rival of the King now…
The proud agitator of the Flanders…is me!

Don Carlo
Who would believe it?

Rodrigo

The evidence is tremendous!
Your papers were found in my possession...
The rebellion testimonies are clear
And this head already had a certain price set on it.

Don Carlo
I want to expose everything about the King.

Rodrigo

No, you side with Flanders,
You are for the great Serbian work.
You must do it. A new golden age
You will be reborn; you must reign

And I must die for you.

Don Carlo
Heavens! Death! Whoever for?

Rodrigo

For me!
The vendetta of the King could not delay!
Oh God!

O Carlo, listen, your mother awaits you
At San Giusto tomorrow; she knows everything...
Ah! I’m leaving the earth... dearest Carlo;
Give me your hand...!
I will die, but glad in heart,
That I could keep
Such a saviour for Spain!
Ah! ... don’t... forget... me...!

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Posa's two arias from the last act of Verdi's Don Carlo.

Joseph Volpe Galla, 2006.

Ah, per sempre – I puritani

Ah, I’ve lost you forever,
My flower of love, oh my hope;
Ah! The life ahead of me
Will be full of sorrow!
When I wandered for years and years
Under the power of misfortune,
I defied grief and disaster
In the hope of your love.

Lovely, blessed dream,
Of peace and contentment,
Change my fate,
Or change my heart.
Oh! What a torment
On the day of my grief,
The sweet memory
Of a tender love.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings an aria from Bellini's I Puritani.

Moscow, 1991.

O del mio dolce ardor – Paride ed Elena

Oh my sweet ardor
Coveted object,
The air that you breathe,
I breathe at last.

Everywhere I turn, I see
Your vague semblance
Painting in me love:
My thought imagines
The most joyful of hopes;
And with this desire

Filling my heart
I’m looking for you, calling you, I hope and I sigh.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings this aria from Gluck's opera Paride ed Elena.

Moscow, 1991.