Song Description

In Rossini's operatic recasting of Shakespeare's Otello, this is the famous "Willow Song." The moment when the audience experiences Desdemona's innocence, utter heartbreak, and collected calm before her violent death. The song stands alone, however, entirely seperated from this context, and tells a simple story of a young woman wounded by cruel love. Desdemona sings a folk song she learned in childhood of a willow tree that was so moved by this woman's crying it wept as well.

Lyrics

Paraphrased from the Italian:

Seated at the foot of a willow tree, immersed in sorrow, sighed the heartbroken Isaura, at the cruelty of such a love... Moved by compassion, the willow repeated her song.