Duration: 5 min.
The material for this piece derives entirely from "Scène et Légende de la fille du Paria,"" also known as "Air des Clochettes" or "The Bell Song" from Léo Delibes’ 1883 opera Lakmé. I have electronically cut up and reassembled snippets of this Romantic song, one of the most famous coloratura arias in the opera repertoire, to create both a serious and humorous meditation on the context of this orientalist fantasy. Like much European fiction of the period, this libretto indulged in the fascination with the exotic, as the title character in colonial India falls in love with an English soldier, Gerald. Suspecting this intercultural affair, Lakmé's father forces her to publicly sing, hoping that the song will entice her so-far secret lover to reveal himself. She sings about the legend of a low-caste girl who saves the son of the god Vishnu. The son in the story is charmed by the tinkling sound of her magic jingle bells ("tinte la clochette"), just as Gerald is entranced by the sound of his Indian lover belting out stratospheric arpeggios. I have used computer analysis to repeat and overlay clips from a very early, now public domain recording of Delibes' song, so that we can experience a similarly hypnotic effect of colonialist legacy. Of course Gerald does reveal himself, setting into motion the opera’s tragic finale, when he realizes that his duty to British imperialism is more important than love, leading to her inevitably long-winded suicide.