(Should be sung):
[[Listen]]
It is the clashing of the Musical and Verbal phrasings that often makes translations of lyric works unsatisfactory. The two phrases are independent, not welded together. So far from being “Music wedded to immortal Verse,” these instances resemble those ménages wherein each unit leads a separate existence. When this is the case, the singer must decide as to whether the musical phrase, or the poetic phrase, demands the greater prominence.
The following Phrasing and Colouring would be good and effective if the passage were played on an instrument:
[[Listen]]
But if sung thus, as it sometimes is by careless artists who pay little attention to the verbal significance of what they are singing, it would sound absurd, because the poetic phrasing is entirely ignored. The correct way of performing the passage (from the aria “Voi che sapete,” in Act II of Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro) is the following:
