Pandora ist tot (UA/World Premiere)
Composer | Horst Lohse
Librettist | Michael Herrschel
(Lyrics: https://www.librettist.de/-/texte/pan... )
Publisher | Edition Gravis
Mezzo soprano | Solgerd Isalv
Piano | Neil Valenta
Production | Benjamin Weber (DOP) , Sebastian Franke (Music Editor)
– Staatstheater Darmstadt
English translation:
Pandora is dead*
*This rough translation is not to be sung!
It is meant as an aid to understand the original German text.
Do not believe in a fairy
that always reads you
from your eyes
You don’t know
her reckoning arts
She will demand a price
you would begrudgingly pay
No matter how high
you won’t deduce it
from her smile
You still don’t know
her name or
her role model
Tinkerbell perhaps
with a commanding
voice of whispering breeze
or Pandora
who gives everything
so that nothing will remain
Tinkerbell
disappeared
dissolved into
glittering dust
And the other one
Pandora
She is dead
they say
Only her box remains
somewhere forgotten
It has replenished
itself and is
soon to overflow
It just needs something
to strike the lid
the wing of a bat
and it begins again
and becomes wishes
be fulfilled en masse
We just could not
keep our eyes
our thoughts under control
could not foresee
the consequences
which are insane
Think about
how it was
with the time loop
where you catch up on everything
with the clock
always chasing you
when at last
for once it stands still
Now it’s done
everything on hold
the clock is still running
but nobody
looks at it any more
calendars have
become useless
We stand at a safe
distance from each other
in a gigantic
hall of fortune
All doors closed
On the streets prowl
nerve-wracked patrols
We open windows
make plans
and ask not
who will carry them out
smiling
we make bets
curious
who may go
outside tomorrow
on the streets
on the squares
where you are astonished
and don’t recognize
anything,