English: Avril Bardoni © 2015

If you want to dance, my dear little Count,
I’ll play the guitar.
If you want to come to my dancing school,
I’ll teach you how to caper.
I shall know … but wait,
I can better uncover any secret plot
by dissembling.

The art of mocking,
the art of manipulating,
here fighting,
here joking,
I’ll turn all your schemes upside down.

English: Avril Bardoni © 2015

English: Avril Bardoni © 2015

English: Avril Bardoni © 2015

Where are those lovely moments,
Of sweetness and pleasure?
Where have the promises gone
That came from those lying lips?
Why, if all is changed to sorrows
And to tears, for my poor heart
The remembrance of my happiness
Is not departed with them?
Ah! if only my faithfulness,
Which still loves amidst its suffering,
Could bring me the hope

Of changing that ungrateful heart

English: Avril Bardoni © 2015

During my actual wedding ceremony,
he smiled as he read the note:
and watching him I laughed
unknowingly at myself!
O Susanna! Susanna!
How you make me suffer!
Seeing that childlike face,
those seemingly guileless eyes,
who would have believed it?
Ah! To have faith in a woman is always sheer folly.

English: Avril Bardoni © 2015

Aria
Come now, delay not, joyous bliss,
come where love calls you to pleasure.
Night’s torch shines not in heaven;
the air is still dark, the earth silent.
Here the stream murmurs, the breezes play
and with gentle sighing refresh the heart.
Here flowers smile and the grass is cool;
everything beckons to the delights of love.
Come, my dearest, within this hidden grove, and
I shall crown your brow with roses!

Shall I, while I’m sighing,
see one of my servants happy?
And the good thing I want in vain,
shall he have it?
Shall I see the woman who woke in me
a feeling she doesn’t have for me
united to a vile object
by the hand of love?

Ah no! I won’t leave
this happiness in peace,
you weren’t born, rash person,
to torture me,
and maybe to laugh
at my unhappiness.
Now only the hope
of the revenges I’ll have
consoles this soul
and makes me rejoice.

At just the names of love, of pleasure,
My breast is stirred up and changed,
And a desire I can’t explain
Forces me to speak of love.

I speak of love while awake,
I speak of love while dreaming,
To the water, the shade, the hills,
The flowers, the grass, the fountains,
The echo, the air, and the winds
Which carry away with them
The sound of my vain words.

And if there’s nobody to hear me,
I speak of love to myself!

Let me tell you how I feel,
it’s so new to me; I don’t understand it.

I feel so full of desire
that sometimes it is a pleasure, then it is agony.

I’m freezing cold, then on fire;
then in a moment freeze again.

I seek something beautiful outside myself,
I don’t know who has it, I don’t know what it is.

I sigh and I groan without control,
I quiver and tremble without control.

I cannot find any peace night or day,
and yet, I like this strange new pain!

You, ladies, who know what love is,
look to see if it is in my heart!

Susanna: My lord, every woman has her time to say yes.

Count: Then you’ll come to the garden?

Susanna: If it pleases you, I’ll come.

Count: And you won’t fail me?

Susanna: No, I won’t fail you.

Count: Will you come?

Susanna: Yes!

Count: You won’t fail?

Susanna: No!

Count: You won’t fail?

Susanna: I will not fail.

Count: My heart is filled with joy and happiness.

Susanna: (aside) Pardon me if I lie,
all you who understand love.

Count: Then you’ll come to the garden?

Susanna: If it pleases you, I’ll come.

Count: And you won’t fail me?

Susanna: No, I won’t fail you.

Count: Will you come?

Susanna: Yes!

Count: You won’t fail?

Susanna: No!

Count: So will you come?

Susanna: No!

Count: No!

Susanna: Yes! If it pleases you, I’ll come.

Count: You won’t fail?

Susanna: No!

Count: So will you come?

Susanna: Yes!

Count: You won’t fail?

Susanna: Yes!

Count: Yes!

Susanna: No, I won’t fail you.

Count: My heart is filled with joy and happiness.

Susanna: (aside) Pardon me if I lie,
all you who understand love.