People who have to die willingly, courageously, triumphantly, sorrowfully, leaving love in this lifetime behind: Ah! se un giorno da queste ritorte

What if you were told that you had to die soon, not from illness, but because of the way you are, and the way people are, people who have misunderstood or mistrusted you. What if it was someone else's decision that you should die, and that person wasn't sure it was the right decision, and anguished over it, but decided against you. And then you had to walk to your violent death, let's say to be beheaded by axe like Mary Queen of Scots. How might you feel? In his opera "Maria Stuardi", Gaetano Donizetti imagines it expressed in this way, with the help of Joan Sutherland as Mary Stuart:




courtesy of goopera