My dearest @blightbright … You remember how I promised you a “small selection” of the arias and lieder that reminded me of Solavellan ? Well I lied… just like Solas when asked about the Fade, I simply got a liiittle carried away and so I stitched together A WHOLE ASS FANTASY OPERA on Spotify to share with you, complete with a fake program containing explanatory notes/rough translations of the selected airs… a libretto of sorts. Thank you SO MUCH for igniting the proverbial flame that got me to complete this project I’ve been so passionate about for the past week… I truly hope you make a few interesting musical discoveries if you listen to some of it ! 🥰
So lo and behold :
“Un amour mythologique”
A fantasy Solavellan opera in 3 acts
(from a Spotify playlist by GalacticSparkles)
I’m sorry to keep on rambling, but I was SO thrilled by this project, here are a few highlights I’m particularly excited about :
Although I used pieces from a wide range of musical eras, there is a great deal of baroque arias and duets, and most parts I chose for Solas are sung by countertenors, which I feel suit him perfectly because this particular voice range has kind of an otherworldly quality, and its tessitura is roughly the same as that of a contralto or a mezzo soprano;
I had immense fun selecting instrumental music for Halamshiral… (I am aware that the first few pieces are from Italian composers, but I made up for it later with excerpts form “Les Indes galantes” by Jean-Philippe Rameau, so it more faithfully represents what you would hear in fantasy France Orlais);
An interesting thing is that pretty much all the religious/sacred music is found near the end, and is used to describe Solas’ redemption arc or aspects of his relationship with Mythal… I didn’t necessarily plan it this way but it struck me when I was working on the companion piece;
There are also many different languages in this patchwork fantasy opera… you’ll find Latin, German, Italian, English and French. It’s something you would likely not find in a real opera, but I really love the idea of Solas being a talented polyglot...
If you listen to only one thing, let it be their wedding duet at the end (Monteverdi's Pur ti miro), I saved it for last and it has to be my favourite love duet of all time... 💙😭
And to anyone else who has read this far, if you love Dragon Age AND early music like I do, I say this : PLEASE BE MY FRIEND, I beg of you…! <3
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
