• Bio
  • Contact Ian

Ian Sidden

Subscribe

  • Email
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Craft
  • My News
  • About the Music
  • The Rest of Life

“Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön”

June 13, 2010 By Ian Sidden

“Dies Bildnis” is Prince Tamino’s first aria of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. After saving Tamino from a giant serpent, the Three Ladies show Tamino a picture of Pamina – the daughter of the Queen of the Night. He is immediately smitten and sings:

Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön
Wie noch kein Auge je geseh’n!
Ich fühl’ es, wie dies Götterbild
Mein Herz mit neuer Regung füllt.

Dies’ etwas kann ich zwar nicht nennen,
Doch fühl’ ichs hier wie Feuer brennen.
Soll die Empfindung Liebe sein?
Ja, ja, die Liebe ist’s allein.

O, wenn ich sie nur finden könnte!
O, wenn sie doch schon vor mir stände!
Ich würde, würde, warm und rein,

Was würde ich?

Ich würde sie voll Entzücken
An diesen heissen Busen drücken
Und ewig wäre sie dann mein

This image is enchantingly lovely,
Like no eye has ever beheld!
I feel it as this divine picture,
Fills my heart with new emotion.

I cannot name my feeling,
Though I feel it burn like fire within me,
Could this feeling be love?
Yes! Yes! It is love alone!

Oh, if only I could find her,
If only she were standing before me,
I would, I would, with warmth and honor …

What would I do?

I would – full of rapture –
Fold her in this glowing bosom,
And then she would be mine forever!

Thoroughly taken with her, he is easily persuaded to rescue her from Sarastro in the next part of the scene.

Poem

The basic poem – written by librettist Emanuel Schikaneder – is set in iambic tetrameter. If one were to read the poem aloud, it would have a “da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM” quality.1 One would never sing it like that, though.

Musical Setting

The structure of the rhyme scheme is [AABB][CCDD][EEF][GGF] except for the “Was würde ich?” lyric. Mozart gives each quatrain and tercet their own discreet musical section. The “Was würde ich?” is used to divide the aria between his initial excitement and his understanding of what he actually wants. Mozart sets this moment with a full measure rest to allow the mental transition.

The Character of the Piece

The Magic Flute – while being fantastical – is about enlightenment and self-restraint.  Tamino exemplifies this and must therefore pull his punches vocally so to speak. Just as Sarastro later mustn’t grind his low notes, Tamino must make singing high look easy and elegant.

That shouldn’t be confused with weakness. The Prince is very determined, and he undergoes rigorous tests of character and passes them all. His strength is that of stability and reliability rather than brute force.

The Mozart singer must find that strength to sing this material. As is typical for Mozart, the orchestration is very light and leaves the singer exposed. The singer is tasked with maintaining clarity of the text while also navigating some tricky vocal passages all while making it all look like the most natural thing in the world.

Time to Listen

Let’s listen to Fritz Wunderlich sing it as a recital piece.

Enjoy!

* Some info taken from Wikipedia’s entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dies_Bildnis_ist_bezaubernd_sch%C3%B6n

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailMozart Month: Day 4 with the Clarinet Concerto Jupiter and its great red spotMozart Month: Day 2 with Symphonies 40 and 41 Mozart Month: Day 1 10 Greatest Composers

Filed Under: About the Music Tagged With: Aria, Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön, Fritz Wunderlich, Mozart, Recording, Tamino

« “Avete torto” from Gianni Schicchi
Some Wonderful Strauss Songs »

Comments

  1. Rebekah says

    June 14, 2010 at 9:15 am

    If Tamino had seen the portrait and thought “Dies Bildnis ist so offensichtlich Photoshopped”, it could have been a one-act opera. There’s a moral here, folks!

About Ian

Ian Sidden is currently a bass member of the Theater Dortmund Opera chorus. Read More…

Latest Posts

Training Singing, Practicing Strength

In the past few years, I’ve begun viewing my singing work in a similar manner to my weight training. And vice versa. The two share obvious similarities. We use time and effort to get better: We want more power. We want more endurance. We want more agility. We want to be more durable. We want […]

Premiere: Fernand Cortez

Tonight we premiere our production of Gaspare Spontini’s Fernand Cortez, ou La conquête du Mexique at Opernhaus Dortmund. This is after a two year delay; originally we were to have premiered this in 2020, but history intervened. There are many versions of this opera floating around, and we are doing a version that has – […]

Premiere: Frédégonde

Here’s one I’ve been looking forward to for awhile. Tonight at Opernhaus Dortmund, we’re premiering Frédegonde for the first time in Germany. It’s a work inspired from the early history of the Merovingians in what is now France and the ongoing feud between two of the queens, Brunhild and Frédegonde. The work was composed by […]

“Ständchen” by Schubert, Guitar and Voice Arrangement

Here is a performance of my self accompanied guitar arrangement of Franz Schubert’s “Ständchen”.

PREMIERE: Tosca

Tonight at Opernhaus Dortmund, we’re premiering our “Tosca”, which is the first premiere including the chorus since March 13, 2020.

Copyright © 2023 · WordPress