Songfacts®:

• South Korean lyric coloratura soprano Sumi Jo is the performer of this operatic song, which is heard at the end of the 2015 Michael Caine-starring movie Youth.
• The song was written by American composer David Lang, who also composed the score for the Paolo Sorrentino-directed film. He wrote the tune before the screenwriting was completed. "I would have early copies of the script and dream about the emotional arc of the [Michael Caine] character and what was going on in his life at the end," Lang explained to Billboard magazine." I would ask Paolo a specific question and he'd go, 'Oh I need to cry.'"
  
  "He just wanted to feel at the end as if some emotional barrier had been crossed," he continued. "I felt like the music was revealing something about this character that the script or acting couldn't get to. I think all the praise has to go to Paolo. He build this world and he decided that composers are interesting enough to make a movie about."