All:
How do you get rid of your shadow?
How do you leave everything behind you?
How do you chase your conscience away?
How do you escape your own self?
How can you flee,
if you are standing in your own way?
How can you be free,
if you cannot escape your own shadow?
Baroness of Walstätten and choir:
If the fight is over
and your way has ended,
you are still only who you are.
Then the only thing that matters
is what is indestructible.
But as long as we live,
it's left to us
to ask ourselves,
day and night:
All:
How do you get rid of your shadow?
Leopold:
One has a goal.
All:
How do you say 'no' to your fate?
Cäcilia:
One survives.
All:
How do you crawl out of your own skin?
Schikaneder:
One plays a game.
All:
How can you become someone else?
Constanze:
Somewhere, someone will dance
All:
Whom should you ask...
Nannerl:
Whom should you ask?
All:
...if you cannot understand yourself?
How can you be free,
if you cannot escape your own shadow?
Colloredo:
How can you be free?
All:
How do you get rid of your shadow?
How do you leave everything behind you?
How do you chase your conscience away?
How do you escape your own self?
How can you flee,
if you are standing in your own?
From your fate
you cannot flee!
Wolfgang (simultaneously):
How can we live
as long as we serve
only fate?
Can we then
Can we then never
Ever
Flee from our own
shadow?