Libretto

Rued Langgaard: Antichrist [final version, BVN 192]

© Edition SAMFUNDET (The Society for the Publication of Danish Music).

English translation by James Manley.
The libretto exists in several variants. The below version includes allmost all of Langgaard's latest corrections which are found in the manuscript piano reduction and in a typewritten copy of the text book (both in the Rued Langgaard Collection at The Royal Library in Copenhagen). Bible references are not included in this translation.
The translation is not intended for performance.

Prologue

"The Beast from the Pit" is given power by Lucifer and rises from the pit. Freely grouped after Luca Signorelli's group "Antichrist and Lucifer" in the fresco "Antichrist" in Orvieto.

Lucifer

Christ of Darkness: Antichrist, arise! I grant thee human power in "the Church Ruin of Noise"! - Thou: - "the Lamb", the real: "Light of the Wilderness"! - Thou: - "Truth", the real: "Vainglory"! - Thou: - "the Crucified", the real: "Despondency"! - Thou: - "the resurrected", the real: "Beast"! - Thou: - the revealed, the real: "He who shall judge the quick and the dead": The last son of mankind: the "perdition" of all. whore-hater, - whore-bearer: "Every man's strife with every man": Rise from the bottomless pit!

The Voice of God

My will alone be done: Antichrist! Then for a time be manifest!

First scene

"THE LIGHT OF THE WILDERNESS"

Spirit of Mystery. Echo of Spirit of Mystery. Veil. Sphere. Mist. Light. Unsteady gas flames. Drapes freely after Renard's painting "Dawn".

Echo of Spirit of Mystery

Gentle summer is feasting!

Spirit of Mystery

In the desert the dew falleth. Morning come with the time of song. Blind days, with scent of flowers, and rain-shining street and vines! How still! Let us get out and wander in the summer evening. Let us catch the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines. Our vineyards are in bloom. But the heavens are a garden enclosed; a well enclosed....

Echo of Spirit of Mystery

Where is "the Lamb": the dawn mind of all in one? Mist dreams: is thy "light of mystery" now lit yonder: Dawn mind of all in one?

Spirit of Mystery

Ask me not, thou star of mist, dove of dusk! O Nephéle! Thou art the angel of spirit, thou art the flower among flowers: Follow me thither where the wild roses of summer slumber.

Echo of Spirit of Mystery

Summer's peace I love and understand! All its whispers and hushes and twittering joy I love!

Spirit of Mystery

The day is waning. - Evening-tired the sun sinketh, - lamenting is the rustle from the far woods ... When the stars glimmer, I will be still. - I will not speak, surely the morning will come. - The day waneth, the night cometh ...

Echo of Spirit of Mystery

Hear how the grove trembleth in silence. Ah, I will go in there where the dome of the spirit shineth: where "vox celesta" sigheth in the time of longing. - In I go to the solitude of the moon.

Spirit of Mystery

Morning dove: "wandering stars" wink coldly over "the Church Ruin of Noise" - : over the "eternal misery" flickering from far gaslights.

Echo of Spirit of Mystery

O my heart: it is tired, - the mist cometh ... Some day we will meet in the spirit-dome. The world! Beneath the vault a drop falleth silently, a clear and hopeless tear of grief...

Spirit of Mystery

Up to dancing pleasure on reddening coasts: The grapes of our gardens wave, each rose branch is a hymn to the land of the living: Indeed, the morning will come! And then the sun will beam with joy and rosy clouds will sail forth. O morning light! Towards far suns we will then go again.

Echo of Spirit of Mystery

Up my dove! Flowers breathe their scent, entwine, adorn us in life and death.

Spirit of Mystery

Bright dreams of mystery capture the flow of the soul. – Beating of wings! Listen! Angels sing, dance silently on bridge of mist. O my morning! We will sing, - we will dance as angels: Rejoicing! Like blessed laugh!

Echo of Spirit of Mystery (with raised hand)

The Nevsky Church is pealing, - A cloud passeth over the sun. Heavily lie the leaves against the waters of Lethe. My brother, my child: my flowers wither, are cast away. The night cometh - : Far suns are shining ...

Second scene

VAINGLORY

The "mouth speaking great things" (metonymically = Antichrist's delusions of grandeur). The people. Ram's horn. Sphere. Darkness. Wide gas flames. Group after Signorelli's fresco in Orvieto.

The Mouth Speaking Great Things

"Progress" is the byword. "Growth" is the ground of life. "Adversity" strengthens the will. "Struggle" prepares the victory. "Plans" further the work. "Objectives" awaken deeds. Clarity here and clarity there. Firm resolutions – slave of society. One life – : one law: Power defeats power. Anthropomorphically, the mammon smiles upon us – ennobling the slave in our mind. "Personality"! "Independence"! "Humanity"! The great school of "Life": "My" and "mine" "develops", - "matures" - ! Great life shines, whirls, revolves in hubbub, hallelujah! "Enriching" it rocks there: the surf of great life, blustering, struggling: "We ourselves can!". Great life is striving and coaxing: "Thou shalt, thou shalt" ye young and old, great and small in the Church Ruin of Noise! Great life pities, mocks, - lights, extinguishes altar flames, - bursts all bonds that check the wing-beats of desire: Hail greatness! Strength, enterprise: the banner of vainglory-pleasure flies in the city by day and by night: Grandeur: "truth": all in one; thunder on the roadsteads - living in me -!

Third scene

DESPAIR

"Despondency". Sphere. Cross. Darkness. Rain. Bare tree. Gaslight blown in the wind. Group after Dürer's "Melancholy".

Despondency

Life is grief, pain and torment in "the Church Ruin of Noise". Everywhere distress: Everyone's agony in one: "the inner Crucifixion".
(A shadowy cross appears behind Despondency).
O troublesome life! - Time of fog, – futility, - hopeless nights with the poor Purgatory flames of gaslights. The sick smell of lies rising from the deep, where nothing is good, where nothing is evil - : the Kingdom of the Dead. - - Oh, "spirit of mystery": autumn melancholy, summer vanishing over the meadow: Hour after hour gliding away in the madness-sound of death - : bottomless deep: fog of ruin - : Is it my fault that this holdeth me back? I understand it not. I will think my spirit out of the night of "Despondency" - : Oh, "every man's strife" leadeth me ever a prisoner in the night of "madness-grandeur". - Thought, now and ever, liveth, suffereth, riseth from the darkness of the void: "The Beast" crusheth, seizeth the power and the glory, but understandeth not the "something" that driveth with the rain, like the false hints of fate-runes - : the "something" that is whirled up with the dead ashes of memory - : Behind all I stagger, but find no way out. To my sight all is but the lightning of thought that rusheth towards an unknown bright-dark God.
(Stretches out his arms and stands crucified on the shadow cross).

Fourth scene

LUST

"The Scarlet Beast". Babel: The Great Whore. The People. Sphere. Bulls and ram's horn. Darkness. Flaming gas flames. Group after Signorelli.

The Great Whore

"Queen am I, not a widow. Sorrow I shall not see. - The kings of the earth have whored greatly with me". "The Beast" lifts me up in the "Church Ruin of Noise". - Wine I pour, wine! All drain my cup. My need is pleasure, - pleasure! I rule, tempt, glitter: " I, and none else beside me".

The Scarlet Beast

Praise and adore the sound of this world. Praise be to "the living". The possible, - desire, - "the strong liveth"! Rushing, enjoying life, always desiring, - embracing in secret night: murdering while dancing. Brewing living life, always bubbling, - rejoicing, groaning wildly intoxicating. Powerful, fierce life, always noisy, - praising the wine of fornication; never satisfying. "Living", glowing life, all-consuming, - lifts its Babel sign, soul-mocking. Selah.

Mankind (kneeling around "the Beast")

"Who is like unto the Beast?" "Who is able to make war with him?"

The Scarlet Beast

"They who sing, they who dance, they shall say: "Who is like unto me?" - The adornment of the vines on the trunk of life. Sons of man: come! Come! Eye-attracting come! Step forth as gods, victory-proud, world-swallowing: Look towards "resurrection": the quick and the dead living in me! "I" and ever "I" – I will make a path in "the Church Ruin of Noise". Life arises from the dead: Lust of all, - flesh of all in one - !

Mankind

Amen.

Fifth scene (Double scene)

EVERY MAN'S STRIFE WITH EVERY MAN

1. "The Lie", "The Great Whore", "Hate". ("The Lie" and "Hate" must both be understood as "The Scarlet Beast" or the Beast seen from its two sides. That is, one sees "the Beast" both from its lying and its hateful side, represented in two versions struggling with the Whore). Demons. Sphere. Sword. Darkness. Flickering gas flames.
2. Tension among "The Lie", "Hate" and "the Whore", that is "the Beast" ("The Great Whore", "The Lie" and "Hate"), all struggling. Symbol of "Every man's strife".

The Lie

One is the God of delusion: the revealed in the "Church-Ruin of Noise". Life-lie is sickness: We smile innocently in inscrutability: Enterprise seeketh wisdom, hideth the wandering thought of the people which sucketh dry, tormenteth, revealeth the things of the night: the secret mockery of the eye: the lie of the fulness of life...

The Great Whore (Babel)

With the "lie" of life thou hidest thyself. Wherefore takest thou pleasure in "the fulness of life"??!

The Lie

O thou sick for profit: knowest thou "truth"? Thus do I judge: "My knowledge is enough".

The Great Whore

Not "enough" thou knowest. Thou shalt know more: I open thine eye. See me: Adore!

The Lie (as the Whore adopts coquettishly impatient postures).

Thee I must see: must "bear thee", - and yet thou art in my path, for always more of me thou cravest. If I say "enough", thou sayest "not enough" - then thou awakenest anger: every man's strife in one: I will be obeyed – as "God"!

The Great Whore

"Obeyed as God" – ha, I must laugh! Thou! Man! Slave of a whore!

The Lie

"Man" I am not, but "power" I am: thy being is mine and every man's strife.

The Great Whore

My being is mine: Of thee I think: drunken in secret, thou knowest not why!

The Lie

Thou dazzlest joy-wrath with lies.

The Great Whore

Do I so! Much was spoken against me: "Sphinx" they called me!

The Lie

Whore! Begone with thy Sphinx! Rather taste the wine of the wrath of thy fornification. Thou "secret"!: What do words say? What meaneth thy white arm? What knowest thou?

The Great Whore

Thou "great man", thou ragest blindly. Not enough thou knowest - ! Wherefore should I not know??

The Lie

What is knowledge! - Control thy spirit. Wherefore these sounds, these words thou sayest?

The Great Whore

Ha! Fearest thou me? - I fear not thee, mankind-ant, born of woman!

The Lie

Empty gestures.

The Great Whore

"Opportunities"!

The Lie

Lies of delusion! My knowledge is "enough". Thou wilt not see it: in the lie of life, thou awakenest hate.
(Hate steps forth, accompanied by demons).

Hate

Here i stand in the darkness of hate.

The Lie

Against whorish lust, the fire of thy wrath!
(Flames, which flare up more and more towards the end of the scene).

The Great Whore

Fire and hate shall not touch me. His hour cometh. "He" who standeth against me: he shall bow to me. My beauty and wisdom shall entrap him. My "secret" shall enrage him...!

Hate

What knowest thou thereof. - He is thy lord, him shalt thou honour. Thou honourest him not. That awakened me: his burning hate, that craveth: My fire shall torment thee.

The Great Whore

Prove that "he" is my lord, that thou canst not. If thou wilt torment me, I shall confound thee and him that standeth against me!

Hate

"He that standeth against thee", he is thy lord, for he is strong. Righteously he commandeth. Every man's life arose in him: praised him. Praised "the Church Ruin of Noise". Thither he went to see thee, to stand before thee as master and god. Thou wouldst not see. Slaves thou soughtest here and there, stood in his path, always more of him thou cravedest. If he said "enough", thou saidst "not enough". His work was to command: thou wouldst not hear, and therefore the glory of they selfhood shall now be riven to dust. (Breaks the staff. Demons rip holes in her garment).

Hate

"Stand thou silent – and get thee into darkness, O queen"!
(Hate and demons suddenly disappear).

The Lie (hypocritically)

Ave Maria gratia plena ora pro nobis: pray for her whose destiny was to sin. (To the Whore) Pray to the Virgin, pray for thy salvation, pray for me, for all ... for the poor souls of Purgatory. (Kneels). Sancta dei genitrix, ora pro nobis peccatoribus nunc et in hora mortis nostrae.
(Far off, a sound of frantically ringing church bells).

The Great Whore

No, I will not pray: the bells of madness are ringing.

The Lie

Thou - - - ! They ring for thee, peal for me. Ring for lie, peal for blood.

The Great Whore

The bells of Lucifer are ringing!

The Lie

Babylon! Whore! They ring over thy grave.

The Great Whore

The bells swell. Enjoy! Enjoy. Joy-wrath! Lust-torment! Blood - Joy!

The Lie (enraptured)

Spasms of the world: bloody lies: Ragnarok-bells: the sound of ruin.

The Great Whore

Lucifer's organ swells: I will! I will! Descend! Descend! Life! Life! Life! Death! Death! Death! Life is mine.

Voices

The stars are falling! .... (silence)

The Lie

Hearest thou! The star-falling time! Thy kingdom falls, Queen! No more must I bear thee, and sorrow shalt thou see.

The Great Whore

Rain of stars! Ha! Bridal torches rush across the firmament!

The Lie

The storm whirls up the stars: twinkling, sweeping, encompassing, dancing, making rings, burning, dazzling, flashing - ! Suddenly quenched in the night of the pit.

The Great Whore

As mother of the world, in trembling flame
I light up the planets and sparkling lights.

Sixth scene

PERDITION (Antichrist)

A white marble sarcophagus. Sphere. Ship of Death. Night. Storm. Bluish gas flames. Dark-burning fire.

A Voice (inside the marble sarcophagus)

God is dead -. Every man's mind within me opened my eye: Accursed the desert waste, accursed the sick vanity of grandeur, accursed the hopeless futility of despondency, accursed the powerful noise of the Beast, accursed the barren show of the lie, accursed every man's strife over nothing. Thus do I judge the quick and the dead:

The Voice of God

"Ephphatha!" Against Antichrist the eternal lightning!

Ephphatha chorus

Only when God's ephphatha* strikes
like lightning and enters the mind,
does the light shine over the valleys;
then the river of life refreshes our spirit,
then the lips unloose the bonds of the tongue
and can speak of the joy of heaven.

* Aramaic: "Be opened"

[The text of the ephphatha chorus is the last verse of T.W. Oldenburg's hymn Et suk igennem verden går (A sigh throughout the world doth go) (Den danske salmebog No. 139).]

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