Overture Lyrics - Irving Berlin

[On a late night in the spring of 1827 

The city of Vienna is experiencing the largest lightning storm in its long history. 

Within a large disheveled room, 

Ludwig Von Beethoven is slumped over his piano 

And on the piano sits the just completed manuscript for his tenth symphony. 

It is his final, and he is certain, his greatest work.] 

Since the time when ra and isis 

Raised the sphinx out of the sand 

And apollo dreamed athena 

And men began to understand 

That when darkness folds on darkness 

In the restless tides of night 

And lightning raises shadows 

And for moments gives them life 

It's been said by those who ponder 

That it surely is a sign 

That a life touched by the stars 

Is now running out of time 

And that somewhere in that darkness 

In the heart of that great storm 

The world returns a soul 

That the gods caused to be born 

And this was such a storm 

The kind one rarely sees in life 

For in a room now filled with shadows 

The great Beethoven was spending 

His last night 

[From the shadows a beautiful spirit, fate, 

And her deformed dwarf son, twist, 

Emerge to inform Beethoven of what he has already deeply suspected, 

That this is to be his last night on earth. 

They are accompanied by numerous spirits and ghosts from his past.]