Poe and Astra

Astra's libretto is inspired by and based upon dark themes from Edgar Allan Poe's short stories "Metzengerstein" and "Ligeia."

Metzengerstein

This Poe story, from an earlier century than "Astra," introduces the hereditary rivalry of the families of Metzengerstein and Berlifitzing, and makes Berlifitzing "the less ancient and less wealthy" house.

Date of story: The Berlifitzings have a "Saracen ancestor," and the general location at that time as "the interior of Hungary" and"in a vast wilderness": given these facts, while the time of Poe's story cannot be fixed precisely, it must lie between the late 16th and the early 18th century.

Wealth: Poe's story says of the Baron Metzengerstein of that day "His castles were without number. The chief in point of splendor and extent was the 'Palace Metzengerstein.' The boundary line of his dominions was never clearly defined; but his principal park embraced a circuit of fifty miles."

Contiguity: Not only are their estates "contiguous," but the inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of the Palace Metzengerstein," the inhabitants of the Palace Metzengerstein could hear the uproar when the Berlifitzing stables burned, and see "the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the flaming stables [of Berlifitzing] upon the windows of the [Baron Metzengerstein's] apartment."

Fire motif: at the beginning of the story, the then count Wilhelm von Berlifitzing dies in the fire that consumes his stables; at the end, the then Baron Frederick von Metzengerstein dies in the fire that engulfs his palace.

All these elements of Poe's "Metzengerstein" are preserved in "Astra von Berlifitzing."

Ligeia

While Poe's metempsychosis in "Metzengerstein" turns the dead Count Wilhelm von Berlifitzing into a horse, in "Ligeia" the narrator's dead first wife Ligeia seizes control of, and reanimates, the body of the second wife Rowena. Ligeia's return is the model for the return of Astra von Berlifitzing, who takes possession of her successor Amalia.

The epigraph to "Ligeia" is:

"And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
- Joseph Glanvill

Ligeia's appearance constantly brings Glanvill's lines to the mind of the narrator. "An intensity in thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition which, during our long intercourse, failed to give other and more immediate evidence of its existence. Of all women whom I have ever known she, the outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me, by the almost magical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very low voice, and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her manner of utterance) of the words which she uttered." The intensity of Ligeia's will to live, and of her love for the anonymous narrator, are the implicit explanation for her return.. The Glanvill epigraph is quoted in part in "Astra von Berlifitzing," where it serves to underline the extreme intensity of will of both Dion and Astra, a force of will that maintains Dion in life and allows Astra to return to possess Amalia. Dion refuses to die (until his purpose is accomplished); Astra refuses to stay dead (until her purpose, and Dion's, are accomplished).