There are many wonderful recordings of the Liebestod from Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. Leontyne Price, in a recording conducted by Henry Lewis, gives the aria a sense of lyrical grandeur.
Leontyne Price - Liebestod ~ TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
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"How softly and gently
he smiles,
how sweetly
his eyes open -
can you see, my friends...
do you not see it?
How he glows
ever brighter,
raising himself high
among the stars?
Do you not see it?
How his heart
swells with courage,
gushing, full and majestic,
in his breast?
How in tender bliss
the sweet breath
gently wafts
from his lips -
Friends! Look!
Do you not feel and see it?
Do I alone hear
this melody
so wondrously
and gently
sounding from within him?
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In bliss lamenting,
all-expressing,
gently reconciling...
piercing me,
soaring aloft,
its sweet echoes
resounding about me?
Are they gentle
aerial waves
ringing out clearly,
surging around me?
Are they billows
of blissful fragrance?
As they seethe
and roar about me,
shall I breathe,
shall I give ear?
Shall I drink of them,
plunge beneath them?
Breathe my life away
in sweet scents?
In the heaving swell,
in the resounding echoes,
in the universal stream
of the world-breath...-
to drown -
sink down -
unconscious -
highest bliss!"
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