This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is “Andrea Chenier”, Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She’s saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died, saving her. “The place that cradled me is burning.” Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings and it changes everything. The music fills with a hope, and that’ll change again. Listen. Listen. “I bring sorrow to those who love me.” Oh, that single cello. “It was during this sorrow that love came to me.” A voice filled with harmony. It says, “Live still, I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god that comes down from the heavens, and makes of the Earth a heaven. I am love! I am love.”
