100 Great Operas and Their Stories

by Henry W. Simon

  A few moments later there is a timid knock at the door. It is a pretty young neighbor, whose candle has gone out. Rodolfo invites her to come in. Racked by a coughing spell, she sits down and has a sip of wine. Rodolfo relights her candle, and she leaves but returns a moment later because she seems to have dropped her key. Rodolfo gallantly searches for it; and as they grope in the darkness, the candles having gone out, Rodolfo grasps Mimi’s hand. This is the signal for the beautiful aria Che gelida manina—“Thy tiny hand is frozen,” in which he tells about his way of life and his work. When he has finished, the girl answers in her equally celebrated aria, Mi chiamano Mimi—“They call me Mimi,” and goes on to describe her simple life as a seamstress. Rodolfo and Mimi are now quite in love, and when they hear their friends shouting to them from below, Rodolfo ceremoniously takes Mimi’s arm, and they leave to join the others at the Café Momus.

  ACT II

  The second act takes place outside the Café Momus, where our Bohemian friends have taken a sidewalk table. A large part of the opening of this act is given over to a musical depiction of Gay Paree in the Latin Quarter on a Christmas Eve. Everyone is in a festive mood, and people are buying things they don’t really want. Rodolfo introduces his new girl friend to his friends, and presently a rich gentleman, named Alcindoro, and his gaily overdressed companion enter and occupy a table nearby. Now, the girl Alcindoro has brought is Musetta, and Musetta is the ex-girl-friend of Marcello, the painter. She is bored to tears with her rich, elderly admirer and tries desperately to pick up her old companion. First he will have none of her, but then she sings her famous waltz song, Quando m’en vo’ soletta per la via—a frankly self-adulatory bit—and Marcello is lost.

  Suddenly Musetta screams: her shoe, she says, is pinching her—which is her device to get rid of Alcindoro for a few minutes. When he has hustled off to find another pair of shoes, she joins the Bohemians and has a fine time. Now a patrol marches by; street urchins follow behind them; and last of all, the procession is joined by the Bohemians and their two girlfriends. And so, when Alcindoro returns, he finds he has lost a girl and has inherited, in her place, the enormous bill the others have run up at the café.

  ACT III

  It is a bitter cold February morning at one of the gates of Paris, Workers demand—and finally get—admission from the police, and Puccini’s excellent atmospheric music almost makes one shiver with the cold. Poor Mimi, very ill, summons Marcello from the inn where he lives with Musetta. She tells the painter piteously about her constant bickering with the jealous Rodolfo, who even now is in the tavern, having left Mimi after a quarrel. When he emerges, she hides behind a tree and overhears her lover tell Marcello how desperately ill Mimi is, and how it would be wise for them to separate. Suddenly he hears her cough and turns to her compassionately, while Marcello rushes indoors, for he hears Musetta laughing and suspects she is again flirting with another man. In her touching aria Addio, senza rancor Mimi bids Rodolfo farewell; and in the heartbreaking duet that follows they think that in the springtime they can be together again. But the duet grows into a quartet as Marcello and Musetta bring their quarrel out of doors. The contrasting notes of the quarreling couple and the sentimental one are worked up into a marvelous ending for the act—one of the finest quartets in all of Italian opera. And before it is over, Rodolfo and Mimi have decided to remain together, while the other couple is definitely separated.

  ACT IV

  In the final act we are once more in the attic studio of Marcello and Rodolfo. The painter is trying to paint, the poet to write. But it is no use. They cannot get their minds off Musetta and Mimi, from whom they are again separated, as they sing the duet Ah, Mimi tu più non torni. The whole atmosphere changes when their friends Colline and Schaunard turn up with a windfall of food. The four of them now act just like children: they play they are at a banquet; they dance comical dances; and two of them engage in a mock duel. But the merriment is just as suddenly stopped when Musetta enters. She has with her their old friend Mimi, and Mimi, she tells them, is obviously dying. Quickly the poor girl is brought in and laid gently on the bed. As she speaks quietly to Rodolfo, saying how cold she is, the others do their best to help. Musetta tells Marcello to sell her earrings to get a cordial and the services of a doctor. Colline, in a touching little aria (Vecchia zimarra), bids farewell to his overcoat, which he goes out to sell.

  At last the two lovers are left alone, and they sing sadly of their former happiness. Mimi, weakening, goes to sleep, and when the others return, Musetta prepares some medicine and breathes a quiet, intense prayer. As Rodolfo goes to hang Mimi’s cloak over the window to keep out the light, Schaunard examines her more closely and notes, horror-struck, that she is already dead. At first no one dares tell Rodolfo. But he sees the expressions on their faces, and with a despairing cry of “Mimi, Mimi!” he rushes across the room and flings himself down beside the body of the girl he had loved desperately.

  Postscript for the historically curious: In an engaging essay entitled “The Original Bohemians,” George Marek has identified the originals of the characters in the opera. Most of the following details are based on this essay.

  Rodolfo–This was Henri Murger, author of the autobiographical novel Scènes de la vie de Bohème, which was published in 1848 and served as the source of the libretto. He was, as a young man, an unsuccessful scribbler very much like Rodolfo, who, at one point, shared not only his room with a fellow-Bohemian, but also a single pair of trousers. A play, written in collaboration with Barrière, on the basis of the novel, was so successful that Murger could afford to stop being a Bohemian, and did.

  Mimi—The principal model was a sickly grisette named Lucile. As a matter of fact, Mimi in the opera tells us her real name is Lucia. She was pretty, had a rather unpleasant character, and died of consumption. The death occurred not in a garret but in a hospital, and Rodolfo-Murger did not hear of it in time to claim the body. It was dissected by medical students.

  Marcello—He was a composite of two close friends of Mur-ger’s, both artists, one named Lazare and one Tabar. Lazare was very prosperous (for a Bohemian) and Tabar very talented. Maybe there is some moral in this.

  Colline–Another merger of two characters, philosophical writers named Jean Wallon and Trapadoux. The latter was the one who went around in the costume usually affected on the stage by Colline–a tall hat and a long green surtout. But it was Wallon who was always carrying books, as Colline does in Act II of the opera.

  Schaunard—His real name was Alexandre Schanne, part painter, part writer, part musician. (In the second act of the opera he buys a French horn.) His own autobiography, Souvenirs de Schaunard, identifies his Bohemian friends. By the time he wrote it, however, he had ceased being a Bohemian and had become a prosperous toy manufacturer.

  Musetta—Modeled largely on a somewhat exhibitionistic model who, to quote Mr. Marek, “left the Latin Quarter and led an irregular life in regular fashion.” Later on she was drowned in a ship crossing the Mediterranean.

  Benoit was a landlord’s real name. His house was in the Rue des Cannettes. Mimi-Lucile, not Rodolfo-Murger, was his tenant just before the girl died.

  Café Momus was the real name of the favorite haunt of the real Bohemians. Its address was 15 Rue des Prêtres, St. Germain l’Auxerrois.

  BORIS GODOUNOFF

  Opera in prologue and four acts by Modest

  Moussorgsky with libretto in Russian based on

  Alexandre Sergevich Pushkin’s play of the same

  name and passages from Nikolai Mikhailovich

  Karamzin’s History of the Russian Empire

  BORIS GODOUNOFF, the Czar Bass

  FEODOR, his son Mezzo-soprano

  XENIA, his daughter Soprano

  NURSE Mezzo-soprano

  TCHELKALOFF, clerk of the Duma Baritone

  PIMEN, an old monk Bass

  GRIGORI, the false Dmitri Tenor

  PRINCE SHUISKI, adviser to Boris Tenor

  MARINA, da
ughter of the Voivode of Sandomir Mezzo-soprano

  HOSTESS OF THE INN Mezzo-soprano

  Vagabond monks

  VARLAAM Bass

  MISSAIL Tenor

  RANGONI, a jesuit priest Baritone or Bass

  POLICE OFFICER Bass

  IDIOT Tenor

  Time: 1598–1601;

  Place: Russia and Poland

  First performance at St. Petersburg, February 8 (Russian-style January 27), 1874

  There are half a dozen versions of this opera. Moussorgsky himself made two; his friend Rimsky-Korsakoff made two; Shostakovich made one a few years ago for Russian opera houses; and John Gutman and Karol Rathaus made still another for the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1953. Each of them differs from the others in which scenes are and are not included, and in the order of the scenes; and the last two versions discarded Rimsky-Korsakoff’s changes in orchestration and general slicking up of Moussorgsky’s original. But as the second Rimsky version is the one that is still most often heard in opera houses and on recordings, I shall follow that in my description.

  Actually, for the purpose of telling the story, it does not make too much difference which one we follow. For, whatever way the events are told, this is not a tight tragedy. Rather, it is like a chronicle play—one of the Richard or Henry dramas of Shakespeare. It is a series of scenes from Russian history, and the Russian people themselves, as we see them in the great choral scenes, make up one of the two principal characters, the other being, of course, Boris himself.

  PROLOGUE

  Scene 1 Russian history tells us that Czar Ivan the Terrible died in 1584 and that of his two sons one was a teen-age half-wit and the other a small child. Boris Godounoff had been the Czar’s closest friend and adviser, and he was made Regent while his sister married the half-wit. The little boy, placed in a monastery, soon died, while Boris’s feeble-minded brother-in-law, for whom he was acting as regent, died seven years later without having any children. Now the members of the nobility, as well (some historians claim) as the people themselves, wished the ablest man in the country—Boris—to become Czar. Faithful to the memory of his friend, he at first refused. The first scene of the prologue shows the people, outside the monastery of Novodevichy, being ordered to pray that Boris take on the crown. The police order them to do this, and so does Tchelkaloff, the clerk of the Duma—that is, Russia’s seventeenth-century equivalent of a parliament. Not that the people are very clear about what they are supposed to do: they have to be prompted by knouts and the example of some passing monks. But it all doesn’t work. Tchelkaloff has to come out on the steps of the monastery and tell them, at the end of the scene, that Boris remains obdurate.

  Scene 2 But Boris did not remain obdurate forever, and the second scene of the prologue is devoted to his coronation. Here the libretto departs rather importantly from history, as many great dramatic chronicles (including Shakespeare’s) frequently do. Boris, it now appears, has only made believe that he does not want to be crowned Czar of Russia. Like Shakespeare’s King Richard III before him, he has plotted for this very end. Like Richard, he has created an artificial demand for his coronation; and, also like Richard, he has had the rightful monarch (the little boy) murdered for this purpose. Now he is about to be crowned. But, unlike Richard, his conscience bothers him. The scene takes place in Moscow in the courtyard of the Kremlin between the two great cathedrals of the Assumption and the Archangels. The people, urged on by Prince Shuiski, acclaim their hero. “Long live the Czar!” they cry. In a somber mood Boris appears. He prays to God for help, for he knows he is unworthy. (I should add here that Boris may not have ordered the murder of that little boy, but for the purpose of the opera we must assume, like Moussorgsky and Pushkin before him, that he did.) Anyway, the great bells acclaim him, the people join in a magnificent folk chorus, and the procession moves into the cathedral.

  ACT I

  Scene 1 takes place five years later in the monastery of Chudovo. A good old monk named Pimen is sitting in his cell, completing the chronicle of the Czars of Russia. A novice of the monastery lies near him, asleep. Presently Grigori, the novice, awakes. They converse a while, Grigori asking questions, Pimen answering them. Grigori’s last question is: How old was the little Czarevitch Dmitri, whom Boris had murdered? And the answer is that he would have been exactly the age of Grigori had he lived. Just then a bell summons the monks to prayer. Off-stage, chanting is heard, and Pimen leaves to join in the prayers. But Grigori remains. He has conceived a desperate idea: he will leave the monastery, and he will proclaim himself as the rightful heir to the throne—the Czarevitch Dmitri!

  Scene 2 Grigori has now started on his way to mount the throne of Russia. On the border of Lithuania the jolly hostess of an inn sings a folk song about a dove-colored drake. Presently two vagabond monks come in—Varlaam and Missail—and young Grigori, dressed as a peasant, follows hard on their heels. Already somewhat drunk, Varlaam sings a boisterous song about how Czar Ivan had once killed 83,000 Tartars by exploding mines in their midst. As Varlaam drinks more and more, Grigori questions the hostess. She tells him that the border of Lithuania is very close, and that the police are searching for a man who has escaped. Soon the policemen come in, bearing a warrant for the arrest of someone or other. But, like any Russian police officer of the seventeenth century, the chief one cannot read. Therefore Grigori offers to read the warrant for him, and in doing so deliberately makes the description of the fugitive fit Varlaam. That drunken fellow insists there must be some mistake. With great effort, he himself spells out the description in the warrant, and, of course, it is found to fit, not Varlaam, but Grigori. However, by that time, in the general confusion, Grigori has escaped through a window. They all chase out after him but are too late to catch up.

  ACT II

  In the Kremlin at Moscow, where the Czars of Russia always lived, we find the two children of Boris with their old nurse. The daughter is mourning the death of her fiancé, and the nurse vainly tries to comfort her by singing a fable about a couple of young lovers. Then she turns her attention to the little boy, Feodor. She sings a song to him, too—about a gnat who threw a stick at a flea and hurt himself so badly that he died. Nurse and Feodor then play games together, clapping their hands in time. But when Czar Boris comes in, the games have to stop. Boris turns to the map of Russia that Feodor has been studying from, and it saddens the aging man. Here he has a great monologue. Things are going badly in Russia, both politically and economically. Everyone blames the Czar, who feels guilty, for he still remembers the murdered body of the little Czarevitch. A nobleman enters to whisper to Boris about dangerous intrigues at court, but the Czar dismisses him, turns once more to his son, and gets some comfort and pleasure from the silly story about a parrot that the boy tells him.

  The comfort does not last long. Prince Shuiski now enters. He tells Boris about the growing success of a pretender, who is raising an army. Boris demands to know whether it was really little Dmitri who had been murdered by his orders. The crafty Shuiski tells him that it was, but that the body did not decay, and that a smile continued to play on its face. The Czar dismisses Shuiski. Then, left alone, he is prey to all his superstitions. His conscience bothers him, and he imagines he sees the bloodstained body of the murdered boy. In an agony of fear, he cries for it to leave him in peace. And the act ends as he pitifully begs for God’s forgiveness.

  ACT III

  Much of the music of this act—called “the Polish act”—was added by Moussorgsky in his second version. The criticism had been made that there wasn’t enough music for a good leading lady. Moussorgsky agreed.

  Scene 1 Dmitri has been making progress in his effort to overthrow Boris and supplant him. He has reached Poland; he has begun to raise an army of followers; and he has the support of certain Polish nobles, including the Voivode (roughly—Governor) of Sandomir. The Voivode’s beautiful daughter Marina has ambitions to become the Czarina; and in the first scene, after being entertained by her ladies-in-waiting
with songs about love, she tells them that tales of derring-do suit her better. After dismissing them, she sings an aria, in the rhythm of the Polish mazurka, indicating quite clearly that it is through Dmitri that she expects to realize her ambitions. Suddenly there appears in her apartment the rather sinister figure of Rangoni, a Jesuit priest, who lectures her sternly on her duty to convert Russia to the true church of Rome once she is Czarina. Marina is terrified.

  Scene 2 takes place by a fountain in the romantic garden of the castle of Sandomir. The false Dmitri awaits a rendezvous with his beloved Marina, for whom he once thought of giving up his ambitions. Rangoni appears to strengthen these ambitions, to assure him that Marina loves him despite certain snubs she has had to endure for his sake, and to ask only to be allowed to accompany them to Moscow and be his spiritual guide.

  And now the garden is filled with fashionable guests, who dance a polonaise, paying court to and even flirting with Marina, as Dmitri jealously watches. The scene concludes with a long and melodious duet in which Marina alternately repulses and encourages the pretender. The false Dmitri ends by vowing to lead an army to Moscow, and to make Marina his Czarina. As they embrace, Rangoni steps out from behind his hiding place, while the music in the orchestra—no longer on the famous love theme-seems to signify that this victory will be, not Dmitri’s or Marina’s, but that of the Roman Catholic Church.