Rehearsing with the music director for my performance as Mozart's Idomeneo, the title role of the opera, starting today (3/26/2015)

Shipwrecked, Idomeneo promised Neptune to sacrifice the first human that he met on Neptune's altar if he was saved from the shipwreck. He is indeed saved but imagines how the ghost of the sacrificed person will haunt him for his entire life.

Recitative:
We are here, safe at last!
(to his followers)
O you who, braving the wrath
of Mars and Neptune,
followed me loyally
in victory and hardship,
leave me here alone a while to breath,
and to confide to my native sky
the anguish I have suffered.

The ocean is calm, the sweet breeze blows gently,
and the blond god
gilds the shores of the blue sea. Wherever I look,
everything is pleasant and peaceful.
I alone on these barren shores,
faint with anguish and want,
o Neptune, only I do not feel within me
that calm I attained in your kingdom.

O insane, hateful vow!
Cruel oath! Ah, which of the gods
preserved my life?
Which of you will help me?

Aria:
I shall see about me
a lamenting shade
which night and day
will cry to me " I am innocent."
The blood spilt
from his pierced breast,
his pale corpse
will point out to me
my crime.

What horror,
what grief!
How many times
this heart
will die
of torment!