“Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen” (“Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart”), commonly abbreviated to “Der Hölle Rache”, is an aria sung by the Queen of the Night, in the second act of Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte). It depicts a fit of vengeful rage in which the Queen of the Night places a knife into the hand of her daughter Pamina and exhorts her to assassinate Sarastro, the Queen’s rival, else she will disown and curse Pamina.
Memorable, fast-paced, and menacingly grandiose, “Der Hölle Rache” (also known as the Queen of the Night) is one of the most famous of all opera arias. A coloratura soprano part (coloratura is a type of operatic soprano voice that specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs, leaps and trills. The aria is written in D Minor, and is scored for pairs of for all the players from the opera as a whole, except the clarinets and trombones.
The aria is renowned as a demanding piece to perform well. The vocal range covers two octaves, from F4 to F6 and requires a very high tessitura, A4 to C6. The first singer to perform the aria onstage was Mozart’s sister-in-law Josepha Hofer, who at the time was 32. By all accounts, Hofer had an extraordinary upper register and an agile voice and apparently Mozart, being familiar with Hofer’s vocal ability, wrote two blockbuster arias to showcase it.
Since then, many sopranos have performed it but the question remains; of those we have recorded: Who’s Performance is the Best? Today I hope to enlist your wisdom to resolve this question. We begin with Cristina Deutekom in Hamburg in 1971. Deutekom sings the piece without emotion perhaps as befits an ice queen. The video provides the music if you like to sing along.
Next up is Natalie Dessay, performing at the Palais Garnier in Paris in 2001. Perhaps softer and more sentimental treatment of the role.
And now Diana Damrau at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2003. Certainly the most dramatic rendition of the three.
Finally, whilst researching this post I came across a a truly remarkable version sung by Mica Becerro on The Voice Teens Phillippines, Blind Audition in 2017 at the age of 17. The video is quite long because it coveres the judging etc, but the first few minutes when she is singing is well worth watching, especially because of how long it takes the judges to identify the aria.
