Unsure at first how to pursue her desire to sing, it was not until she was 14 that Emma met a teacher who could help realise her dreams. "She was a little old lady, about 70, and in her day she had been a great singer. She surrounded herself with candles and cats and her piano and I loved the whole atmosphere,” Emma remembers. “I touched these great scores for the first time and read the Italian words which seemed to have a mystery and romance." She also told Emma that she was a soprano coloratura. “Singing was still like playing with a toy to me. She found my voice and slowly started to bring it out."
Emma took lessons with her for two years and was convinced she had found her purpose in life. But she was also approaching an age when her parents were concerned about career prospects and her future. "They didn't think singing could ever be a proper job," Emma recalls. "My father was a policeman and thought that maybe I should follow in his footsteps. My mother was a secretary and she thought that would be a good job for me. I understand why they wanted me to concentrate on my other studies. But to me singing is an affirmation of being alive."
She continues to pay tribute to her early teacher but has never seen her since. “I still feel guilty about stopping,” she explains. All great singers will tell you that the voice is a gift, and not being able to use that gift left Emma feeling hollow. "I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I felt I had done something wrong. I felt all bottled up. If I don’t sing I explode," she says.
Her desire to sing did not go away and was soon to re-emerge in a radically different form when she joined a heavy metal band. "Some guys in my class were forming a rock group and they were actually looking for a male singer," Emma recalls. "They wanted someone who could scream, so I said I could do that." Her offer was gratefully accepted and for the next two years she abandoned her operatic scales and exercises and smoked two packets of cigarettes a day to give her voice a rougher, rock inflection.
Yet although she enjoyed the screaming, she began to miss the music of the opera. One day a friend of her mother's took the young rock singer to a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at a Parisian opera house. It was the first time she had ever seen an opera on stage and she was entranced. "I thought after hearing something so beautiful I had to die," she recalls. "We had seats on the balcony and I remember wanting to jump off it and fly."
She began once again looking for a teacher and enrolled at a music school. Yet she found the style of teaching cold and formal, and soon took off with a friend for New York. "While I was there I sang some r&b, which in a way has a similar power to opera. It's very earthy and it's contributed a lot to the way I approach singing today," she says.
When she eventually returned to France, she again resumed singing lessons. But by now she had decided she didn't want to go into opera, particularly after one teacher had accused her of introducing a groove into her delivery of a famous aria. "That set me thinking I should find my own ways of expression and use my voice to invent something of my own."
A chance meeting at a party with the French composer and pop star Jean-Patrick Capdvielle gave her the opportunity. They had met before but with an audacity she still wonders at, she asked him to write an album for her. "But I'm not Verdi," he told her. "And I'm not a proper opera singer so we should do something together," she replied.
Her boldness clearly made an impression for a week later, he rang her and they began working together. "There was this perfect moment when it was so evident it was going to work," Emma says. Indeed it worked so well that the resulting album Carmine Meo, released in 1997, has now sold in excess of two million copies. The album roared to the top of the French album charts, selling 100,000 copies in its first three months and earning Emma her first of many gold discs. That success was soon echoed on the international market, as Carmine Meo rose to the top of the charts worldwide, often overtaking albums by the likes of Céline Dion and Madonna.
But whereas most of the writing on Carmine Meo had been done by Capdvielle, for her second album Emma was determined to write her own material. Signed to a new label, Ark 21, she began to look around for a new musical collaborator. Miles Copeland, head of her new label, recommended Graeme Revell, a composer whose work had appeared on the soundtrack to the Red Planet movie. It proved to be a perfect fit. "In his music I found an echo of what I was looking for," Emma says.
Miserere
Emma Shapplin Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Par che tutta notte
La dolcezza tua m'accompagne
É mi rammente la mia sorte
Venere
Ô diva Venere
Or ti prego al fin'...
Miserere del mio affano
Miserere, or volge tanti anni
Che io sotto il fascio mio vivo
Diva Venere, perche di' me
Tutta notte
Par che tutta notte ò paura'
Riveggio quelli ch'uccido io
Oime devo, per vivir uccidere !
Venere
Ô diva Venere
Or ti prego al fin'...
Miserere del mio affano ( etc... )
Alma felice
Che non torni piu...
Miserere del mio affano
Miserere, or volge tanti anni
Che io sotto il fascio mio vivo
Dime Diva perche vivo
The lyrics in Emma Shapplin's song "Miserere Venere" depict the singer's thoughts and feelings as they anticipate confronting Diva Venere, the goddess of love and beauty, after living a life of great hardships. The singer recalls how the sweetness of love and companionship have been present with them throughout the night, but only serve as a reminder of their unfortunate circumstances. They then continue to plead to Diva Venere for mercy, asking for relief from the agony they have been suffering for years. The singer seems to torture and kill others as a means of survival, and they express deep regret over their actions.
As the song progresses, the singer shifts their focus to another person, someone who is no longer alive, and they describe this person's happy soul that will never return. The singer ends by repeating the plea to Diva Venere for mercy and asking why they are still alive, despite leading such a miserable existence.
Overall, the song is a powerful and emotional portrayal of someone who has endured immense suffering and seeks answers and redemption from the goddess of love and beauty.
Line by Line Meaning
Tutta notte
All night long
Par che tutta notte
It seems like all night long
La dolcezza tua m'accompagne
Your sweetness accompanies me
É mi rammente la mia sorte
And reminds me of my fate
Venere
Venus
Ô diva Venere
Oh divine Venus
Or ti prego al fin'...
Now I beg of you...
Miserere del mio affano
Have mercy on my affliction
Miserere, or volge tanti anni
Have mercy, it has been so many years
Che io sotto il fascio mio vivo
That I live under my burden
Diva Venere, perche di' me
Divine Venus, why do you speak of me?
Tutta notte
All night long
Par che tutta notte ò paura'
It seems like all night long there is fear
Riveggio quelli ch'uccido io
I see again those whom I kill
Oime devo, per vivir uccidere !
Alas, I must kill to live!
Venere
Venus
Ô diva Venere
Oh divine Venus
Or ti prego al fin'...
Now I beg of you...
Miserere del mio affano ( etc... )
Have mercy on my affliction (etc...)
Alma felice
Happy soul
Che non torni piu...
That will never return...
Miserere del mio affano
Have mercy on my affliction
Miserere, or volge tanti anni
Have mercy, it has been so many years
Che io sotto il fascio mio vivo
That I live under my burden
Dime Diva perche vivo
Tell me Divine why I live
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: CAPDEVIELLE, JEAN-PATRICK, JONATHAN
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Burak Demiral
Tutta notte
Par che tutta notte
La dolcezza tua m'accompagne
É mi rammente la mia sorte
Venere
Ô diva Venere
Or ti prego al fin'...
Miserere del mio affano
Miserere, or volge tanti anni
Che io sotto il fascio mio vivo
Diva Venere, perche di' me
Tutta notte
Par che tutta notte ò paura'
Riveggio quelli ch'uccido io
Oime devo, per vivir uccidere!
Venere
Ô diva Venere
Or ti prego al fin'...
Miserere del mio affano
Miserere, or volge tanti anni
Che io sotto il mio fascio vivo
Diva Venere, di' me perche
Alma felice
Che non torni piu...
Miserere del mio affano
Miserere, or volge tanti anni
Che io sotto il fascio mio vivo
Dime Diva perche vivo
Türkçe diline çevir
john jay
Celestial singing and music from the heavens... Amazing and awesomely beautiful. Thank you.
Mario Fica
Tiene angel. .es muy hermoso escucharle ❤. Es transportarse a otro 🌎 o a otra dimensión ❤
miro226 Mirosław
Przepiękny, kryształowy głos i cudowne wykonanie.
Stasis Brinza 001
Великолепно! Лучше не слышал...
Wkowjsh Bwhsjuw
Me he paseado por mi patio antes de que anochezca escuchando esta canción. Ni el frio pudo cortar la magia! Es perfecta.
Fernando Soledispa
Nada mejor que Emma Shapplin para embellecer una noche en el campo a la luz de la luna.
Daniela
Hermosa voz, hace casi 20 años que no la escuchaba.
MIGUEL ANGEL BRANDAN FERNANDEZ
Emma Shapplin ,es una del as voces más bellas del Mundo, es un Angel en la Tierra, su tslento traciende las fronteras del Espacio.
São Banza
Excelente voz !!
Mieczysław W
Świetny eliksir zdrowia i radości z Piękną Damą w wysłuchanie perfekcyjnie wykonanej pięknej melodii Dziękuję i Pozdrawiam serdecznie wszystkich zainteresowanych.