I played this video for my son and explained a little bit about what was happening to Klaus Nomi as he was singing it. Open spoiler, within 2 weeks, he would be the first major performer to die of AIDS.
I know the song is from Purcell’s King Arthur when the Cold Genius is awoken but what exactly is going on? Does it hurt him to be awaken outside of winter or is he just grumpy in the morning? The talk about stiff and not being able to bear the cold, is that the Genius singng? If so it doesn’t make sense. When he talks about death, is it Winter as the personification dying?
I am not even remotely an expert, so have your salt ready-to-hand.
The masque is set in Iceland, and the Cold Genius is the genius loci of that place, meaning more the embodiment of the reason for the frost and the cold. He is there and sleeping, so the coldness isn’t waxing and waning so much as constant. When Cupid forces him to awake, it’s disturbing him from that constancy and rest, so he’s all “Damn, it’s cold up here and I’m old and tired and let me go back to sleep so things are returned to normal.” It’s like Douglas Adams’s rain god who is just as affected by rain as anyone else, but causes the rain by his very being.
So, Cupid forces him awake and eases the power of the cold through the power of love, as if a rain god were suddenly confronted by a more-powerful drought god.
The masque, from what I’m gathering, is supposed to be a seductive exploration of the power of love to transform even the hostile climes of Iceland to something warm and welcoming. The Cold Genius is just old and cold and tired, not malevolent.