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Lyric Duet For Azucena and Her Mother From the Musical HYPATIA
Azucena and her Mother are central characters in "IL TROVATORE" (The Troubadour), an opera by Guiseppe Verdi (1853). Azucena's Mother, a Spanish gypsy, is deemed guilty of placing a curse on Count Di Luna's son by glancing at him and is burnt at the stake. Azucena vows to revenge her mother and in the end, when the Count's son kills his brother that she has brought up as her own, she succeeds.
Azucena is one of the great opera heroines in my musical HYPATIA. When an Old Diva wanders the grand opera stage where she performed during her career, her deepest wish is that the Heroines she portrayed be set free from their tragic plots. After she trips on a trap door, she is visited in a dream by Hypatia, Crown Priestess of Destiny, who proclaims, "Souls born from man's imagination, challenge the premise of your creation. Stop you can be free - You can change your destiny."
In HYPATIA, Azucena sings a lament, confronts her composer, Verdi, and at the end has a chance to visit her mother and save her.
Scene - Azucena's Mother, a ragged gypsy, is on stage bound to a tall stake. Behind her is a threatening mound of smoldering fire. Azucena enters, her blue veil blowing in the wind. She carries a water vessel filled with wine.
AZUCENA
Mother, it is I, Azucena, your daughter. How I've longed to see you alive.
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
You are here at last, but it is too late.
AZUCENA
No, No. I will put out the fire before it burns you at the stake.
(Sings from her Lament.)
Oh waters of the world
Quench the embers before they burn
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
Wine is in your vessel, not water. Now the fire grows. Put out the fire in your heart. Forgive. Drink the wine and rejoice. Forget your revenge.
AZUCENA
No... No... You asked me to avenge you with your dying breath.
(Sings from her Lament.)
Why the gypsy's gaze
As innocent as yours
Men think an omen
Fate is left to gorge
And woman's intuition
Her most powerful gift
Men believe bears evil
That tears their world adrift
In this thought alone
My sad fate was borne
If that thought was gone
Mother, you would not have burned
(Azucena unties her Mother who collapses in her arms.)
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
Hold me now and forever...I felt the fire burning, burning my legs - the smoke in my eyes...
AZUCENA
Mother, I am here, you will not die.
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
It was my destiny to die
I accept the tragedy of my life
You cannot untie the threads of fate
But you can save your own life's waste
If you give up the revenge in your heart
Have faith - we will never part
The water in your vessel is now wine
A miracle - the first sign
Your death does not have to follow mine
AZUCENA and MOTHER (Sing Duet)
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
My darling daughter
Do not grieve
Here we share eternity
AZUCENA
How could I let you leave me
Without you my life is empty
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
Hold me now and forever
All our lives we are together
AZUCENA
When I saw the fire burn your dress
I felt the pain, then your last breath
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
Let me die, it was foretold
But share the secret that I hold
AZUCENA
How could I let you leave me
Without you my life is empty
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
We are one mind and one body
Our love has no end - no boundaries
AZUCENA
We are one life without end
Mother and child in one womb we blend
AZUCENA'S MOTHER
Accept my death, Azucena
Revenge is a bloodbath Azucena
Live your life forgetting me
We'll have this moment for eternity
AZUCENA
No... No...
(Sings from her Lament.)
I Azucena
In my opera
Il Trovatore
I was led to avenge
My mother's tragic death
They claim her gypsy's gaze
Caused a noble infant's death
(Azucena's Mother gets up looking young and transformed.)
AZUCENA and MOTHER (Sing Duet)
WINGS
If you have wings, you can walk on water
If you have wings, you can fly through the trees
If you have wings, you can run over mountains
If you have wings, you can glide through the sea
Our bodies - two hands the wings of a prayer
Together one life -We fly through the air
(Azucena and her Mother meld in one winged body, then ascend and fade into a blue sky.)
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