Back To Times Of Splendor

Well, when listening to the album, I am actually at several times reminded of the opera "La Wally" by Alfredo Catalani, with a male protagonist instead of Wally. <br /> <br /> There are some parts of it, like a kind of sheltered, bucolic, happy life that is someday suddenly interrupted by a harsh event, then there is sadness and anger as well. The leaving of a loved one and sadness, the betrayal and the decision to kill someone. Phrases like "Longing far away, away from here" remind me of "ne andrò, ne andrò sola e lontana!" <br /> <br /> In the novel that the opera was based upon ("Die Geierwally"), the protagonist also starts a fire to take revenge for being abused and to flee in the confusion caused by it.<br /> <br /> It doesn't fit exactly, but there are certain parallels I think.<br /> <br /> For those who are interested, here's a summary of the novel:<br /> <br /> The novel is about a girl nicknamed Wally, who lives with a harsh father who is the richest farmer in a small village. The girl is as beautiful as she is stubborn and brave. One day at a feast, she falls in love with a boy from the neighbored village (who doesn't notice that), who's father has been at enmity with her father for years. Her father starts an argument with the boy and leaves the feast, taking her with him. She cries and in his rage he promises her to another guy named Gellner whom she thinks is disgusting and terrifying. He forces her to go shepherding up upon the "high alp", that lies between rock and ice and is isolated from the rest of the world. She spends the summer there, but when she returns, she finds her father lying sick and Gellner running the farm. He has chased away the farmgirl that had been like a mother to her and he is brutally abusing the senile farm servant. She looses her selfcontrol and strikes him down with the blunt side of an axe. <br /> <br /> In the following tumult, they try to put her in the dungeon, but she puts the haystack to flames and flees in the confusion. After a long journey she returns home and finds Joseph seeming happy with another girl. She shames them at a religious feast and swears that she will only give her love to the one who will get a kiss from her by force. <br /> <br /> Then he some day he suprisingly invites her to a feast. When she arrives, dressed up like a bride on her wedding day, he tells her he will only dance with her, if she kisses him first. They start to fight then, and she, though better than him, lets him win. He kisses her, then walks away to the other girl, so Wally looks like a complete fool. In despair, she promises to herself to marry the one who kills Joseph. Unfortunately, Gellner has heard that. He shoots Joseph. Wally, who heard the shots runs to him. She finds Joseph wounded but still alive and saves him.<br /> <br /> She wants to die but doesn't want to kill herself because her priest forbid. One day, when she is nearly starved to death, her beloved Joseph finds her. He tells her that the other girl was his bastard sister, a secret he had to keep save from his mother. He was really sorry for the cruel jape and had went to Wally that night to excuse for that when he had been wounded by Gellner. The two of them forgive each other and together spend the rest of their lives. They die early, because "the storms that had shaken them had loosened the roots of their lives".

The whole album tells a story actually.