Maggie's Farm

A quote from an essay on forgiveness in literature, Why Mephistopheles had to work overtime, by Michael Dirda:

Perhaps the most striking musical expression of forgiveness occurs in Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. Caught pursuing a servant girl, Count Almaviva pleads for forgiveness for his duplicity and attempted infidelity. The countess, in a supreme moment of charity, grants him his tearful wish, even as she half-knows that he’s sure to betray her again. Mozart’s music at this point shifts its whole tonal character, and immediately achieves a kind of hushed holiness. It’s just breathtaking when heard. Similarly, Leonard Bernstein’s music to Candide concludes with a general forgiveness of sins and injuries. In a beautiful last chorus all the characters admit that they have been “neither pure, nor wise, nor good.” But from now, “We’ll do the best we know. We’ll build our house and chop our wood. And make our garden grow.”

Read the whole thing. I forgive because I constantly need forgiveness - even though holding grudges is much more fun. However, I never forget.

Here's "Contessa, perdono:"