The Lamentations of Morgana Neri,
Soprano, late of the
Metropolitan Opera
Morgana Neri
“Chi sono? che faceste Che debbo
fare ancora?
Tomba essausta fra le tenebere?”
Not on you life!
No, No giammai.
From this day forth, nessunm’m’ avra
Tutto questo e finito
No, not on your life, and not on my
life neither.
My life, my life. You want my story
– they all do, but unlike the others
Morgana non mente. Io sono l’umile
ancella del geni creator, and that’s it.
Except to say confession behooves the
soul – and here we come to my
“confession” and all the mendatrici tell-
alls referred to above. As my confessor
Dom Gesualdo Svelato put it, “Remember,
Madame, there are saints called
confessors, not because they told their
sins to the priest – of course they did –
but because they were examples of the
higher sense of the word confession, –
which anybody could look up in the
Catholic Encyclopedia – for a Confessor
of the Church is that one who bears
witness to the truth of the one true
religion – ours – and you, as a Confessor
of the highest art, music – to whose
condition somebody once said all the
others must aspire, do the same.
How foolishly we think we have all
the time in the world.”
