ACT II
Scene 1 A month later, in that dreary room of Magda’s, the same song, Tu reviendras, sounds through the window. The mother and Magda discuss the chances of securing a visa; and when Magda has left, the mother tries to cheer the ominously quiet child with another lullaby. Magda returns weary; she falls asleep in a chair; and she has a frightful dream in which John introduces the Secretary as his sister, and a dead child is somehow mixed up in it.
Suddenly a stone hurtles through the window, and Magda immediately telephones for Assan. Once more the Police Agent comes for an interview: if only Magda will give him the names of some of John’s friends, she may be able to join him. Magda becomes hysterical and threatens to kill the Police Agent if he comes back again.
Before the Agent has left, Assan is in the room repairing the window. He informs Magda that John is waiting for her, hiding in the mountains, and that he refuses to leave the country till he knows that she has a visa and can join him. They agree that John had better be told that the visa has been secured, even though it has not, so that he will leave and save his own life at least.
It is only after Assan has left that Magda sees her child has died in its grandmother’s arms. She is too much stunned to cry as yet, but the mother weeps softly for John.
Scene 2 A few days later we are again in the waiting room of the consulate. Again the Secretary is frustrating everyone with her red tape. Again Magadoff tries his conjuring tricks; only, this time he hypnotizes them all so that they engage in a blissful dance. The Secretary makes him bring them out of it, and then Magda demands, once more, to see the Consul. Once again she is refused, whereupon she has her great scene, a tragic satire on official forms: Name? My name is woman … Color of eyes? The color of tears … Occupation? Waiting … and so forth. Even the Secretary is moved. With a petulant “You’re being very unreasonable, Mrs. Sorel,” she promises to see what can be done and a moment later reports that the Consul will see her. But just then his shadow is seen on the glazed glass door panel, shaking hands with another man. And when this other man emerges, he turns out to be the Police Agent. Magda faints at the sight.
ACT III
Scene 1 Once more at the waiting room, Magda is hoping to see the Consul even though the Secretary tells her that the office will close in ten minutes. One of the other applicants comes in, and this time there is good news for her: her application has been approved. As she and the Secretary sing a happy duet, Assan comes in with bad news for Magda. John has heard that his baby and his mother are now dead, and he is planning to return over the frontier to get his wife. Hurriedly she writes a note for Assan to take to him. She does not say what is in it, though we can deduce its contents from the happenings in the final scene.
When the Secretary is finally alone and preparing to leave, she has a little aria to show that underneath her cold, businesslike exterior she is really moved by the plight of the unfortunates she must deal with. Suddenly John rushes in, looking for Magda. He is followed almost at once by the police; his gun is knocked out of his hand; and the Secretary is politely told that he will come along quietly. The moment they leave she begins to dial the telephone.
Scene 2 The Secretary’s call is sounding in Magda’s home, but it stops before she comes in. Drearily she turns on the gas stove, pulls up a chair to it, covers her head with a shawl, and leans over. The walls dissolve and show all the people in the consulate, who, with John and his mother (in a wedding dress), perform a strange ballet. Magda tries to talk to them, but they do not answer. Slowly they disappear, and we hear Magda’s deep breathing as she inhales the gas. The telephone begins its ringing once more, and Magda instinctively begins to reach for it. It is too late. She falls over in the chair. The ringing continues.
LE COQ D’OR
(Zolotoy Pyetushok—The Golden Cockerel)
Opera in three acts by Nikolai Andreevich
Rimsky-Korsakoff with libretto in Russian by
Vladimir Ivanovich Byelsky, based on a fairy
tale by Alexandre Sergevich Pushkin, which he,
in turn, had heard from his nurse
KING DODON Bass
his sons
PRINCE GUIDON Tenor
PRINCE AFRON Baritone
GENERAL POLKAN Bass
AMELFA, the royal housekeeper Contralto
THE ASTROLOGER Tenor
THE QUEEN OF SHEMAKHA Soprano
THE GOLDEN COCKEREL Soprano
Time: unspecified
Place: a mythical kingdom
First performance at Moscow, October 7, 1909
Two days before he died, in 1908, Rimsky-Korsakoff wrote to his publisher, B. P. Jürgenson, as follows: “As regards Le coq d’or, there is trouble ahead. The Governor-General of Moscow is opposed to the production of this opera and has informed the censor about it. I think that they will be against it in St. Petersburg for the same reason.”
The composer was right. Even though Jürgenson had already published part of the score without molestation, it was sixteen months before the opera finally reached the stage, and then only after certain changes had been made. The composer, therefore, never saw it.
It has sometimes been thought that objections were raised because a phenomenally silly king has a leading part, and the Czar’s employees were still nervous on account of the 1905 revolutionary crisis. Perhaps a better guess is that it was a way of hobbling Rimsky himself, who had been effectively active at the time in wresting some of the control of the St. Petersburg Conservatory away from the bureaucrats and the police. For the tale, coming from the pen of the nationally honored poet Pushkin, could scarcely have been taken exception to. Nor, for that matter, is there anything—revolutionary or otherwise—that can be read into the engaging but utterly obscure symbolism of the libretto.
Ideally, the opera should be performed by a cast that can move bodies and limbs with the same grace and virtuosity as it can sing. Diaghilev, in Paris, put on a production with the singers sitting still, in boxes by the side of the stage, while a ballet troupe mimed the action. The idea was exported, with success, to both England and the United States. More recently it has been given generally with a single cast; and when that cast included such enticing figures as those of Lily Pons and Ezio Pinza, it was certainly worth going to see as well as to hear.
PROLOGUE
The most famous tune from the opera is, of course, the Hymn to the Sun, which the Queen of Shemakha sings in Act II. The introduction to the hymn, following immediately upon a muted trumpet call, is almost the first music heard. Then, before the curtain, comes the Astrologer. In a high, thin voice, almost like the xylophone that accompanies him, he tells the audience that he will conjure up a fairy tale with an edifying moral.
ACT I
King Dodon sits on his throne in the magnificent council room of some mythical kingdom in fairy-tale land. He is getting old, he says; the army isn’t much good (the guards, as a matter of fact, can be seen sleeping at their posts); and he doesn’t like making war. What can he do about all those enemies who are making nuisances of themselves? Just keep everyone at home and not think about it, says his elder son, Guidon. Disband the army, says the younger son, Afron, and have them re-form behind the enemy for an attack. Old General Polkan points out that both these plans are pretty idiotic, but he has nothing more practicable to offer.
The Astrologer happens by conveniently at this moment, and he offers the only solution that could be regarded as sensible in a fairy tale. He gives the King a golden cockerel which will be quiet when there is no danger but will warn everyone by crowing when there is. The delighted Dodon offers anything he wants in exchange for the cockerel, and the Astrologer says he will decide later on what that may be. Thus everyone can go to sleep again for the time being; and the King retires, attended by his housekeeper Amelfa, to sweet dreams graphically described in the orchestra.
The first warning from the cockerel causes the King to be awakened and order off his sons and an army to meet the enemy a
nd come home as soon as possible. Once more everyone else goes to sleep. The cockerel’s second summons, however, is more emphatic. General Polkan advises the King that this time he must be off to the wars himself. Grumbling about the inconvenience and the deplorable state of his armor, Dodon gets ready for battle and is cheered off to the wars by his court.
ACT II
Early in the morning, in a narrow mountain pass, it is evident that Dodon’s forces have met disaster. There lie the bodies of many soldiers, including his two sons; and when he comes upon them, accompanied by General Polkan, he utters a sad and deeply Slavic lamentation.
As the mists on the scene begin to disperse, a tent comes into view, frightening the King. He orders up some ineffective artillery, but before the soldiers can make the cannon go off, there emerges from the tent a ravishingly beautiful young woman. This is the Queen of Shemakha, and her rendition of the Hymn to the Sun rivets the favorable attention of Dodon, Polkan, and the entire surviving army. At its close she identifies herself, saying that she has come to conquer Dodon’s kingdom, not by force, but by her beauty. Dodon orders away the soldiery (who exeunt, bearing bodies); the Queen’s slaves bring out some cushions for her visitors; and a very unusual exercise in international diplomacy ensues.
Polkan represents his country in the initial questioning period, but his gambits are so undiplomatic and personal that the Queen asks Dodon to dismiss him. (Polkan suggests, for example, that a mysterious voice heard by the Queen during the night was a man under her bed.) With the General in forced retirement behind the tent, whence he occasionally takes a surreptitious peek, the Queen goes to work in earnest on the foolish old King. She sidles up to him; she sings him a frankly voluptuous song about her own beauties when she is completely unclothed; she invites him into her tent (an invitation he does not feel up to accepting); and she asks him to entertain her with a song. When Dodon has obliged with a foolish little ditty, she goes on to describe her own homeland, and to say how much she needs a masterful man in her life.
Overcome by her beauty and her not very subtle suggestions, Dodon is enticed into making a complete fool of himself by dancing for her, and his conquest is completed when she orders out her slave girls to do a slow, suggestive dance for him in return. He offers her his hand, his heart, his kingdom, and the head of the offending General Polkan. With complete cynicism the Queen accepts. Her golden chariot is ordered out, and the two start out on a triumphal march home while her slaves sing a satirical chorus in praise of the king who walks like a camel and has the face of an ape.
ACT III
At home the weather is bad, and the crowd gathered outside King Dodon’s palace considers this ominous. Amelfa, however, assures them that Dodon has won a great victory (albeit he has lost his two sons), he has saved a beautiful princess from a dragon, and he is bringing her home to reign by his side.
A great procession arrives, at its close the golden chariot carrying the King and Queen. Everyone greets them with devotion and fervor, but the Queen continues to act disdainfully.
But now the Astrologer comes back and demands his reward. He wants nothing less than the Queen herself. First the King offers almost anything as a substitute, even half his kingdom; but when the Astrologer sticks to his price, the King, in a rage, kills him with his sword. The Queen is cynically interested and not much moved, but the King is afraid that this may be a bad omen for his wedding, especially as a clap of thunder punctuated his fatal blow.
He does not have long to wait before his fears are realized. As the two descend from the chariot, the golden cockerel suddenly leaves his perch, where he has been beneficently quiet all during the act, hovers for a moment over Dodon’s head, and then darts down to peck him dead. A crash of thunder; sudden darkness; an evil laugh out of the dark from the Queen; and when the lights go on again, she and the Astrologer have disappeared. The crowd is bewildered and feels lost It sings a despairing lament.
EPILOGUE
Once more the Astrologer appears before the curtain. Don’t let the tragic ending bother you too much, he tells us. After all, only the Queen and he were real people; the others were figures in a fairy tale.
COSÌ FAN TUTTE
Opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
with libretto in Italian by Lorenzo Da
Ponte, possibly inspired by a court incident
two wealthy sisters
FIORDILIGI Soprano
DORABELLA Soprano or Mezzo-soprano
DESPINA, their maid Soprano
two officers
FERRANDO, engaged to Dorabella Tenor
GUGLIELMO, engaged to Fiordiligi Baritone or Bass
DON ALFONSO, man-about-town Bass or Baritone
Time: about 1790
Place: Naples
First performance at Vienna, January 26, 1790
Mozart’s score for Così fan tutte has been sung under more names than any other opera in history. For example, the Metropolitan Opera has called it Women Are Like That. In England it was once called Tit for Tat. In Germany it has had a dozen different names, including such unlikely ones as Who Won the Bet?, The Girls’ Revenge, and even The Guerrillas. In Denmark it appeared as Flight from the Convent, and in France—believe it or not—as The Chinese Laborer and, fifty years later, Love’s Labour’s Lost. This last version was produced by the firm of Barbier et Carré, libretto manufacturers who specialized in transforming the literary works of the great into musical shows. They discarded the original libretto completely and adapted Mozart’s music to their own mutation of Shakespeare’s early comedy.
There was reason for so much tampering. Così fan tutte has never been so popular as Figaro and Don Giovanni, yet its music, most critics agree, is just as fine. Therefore, it was thought, the trouble must be with the libretto. It was alternately criticized as too immoral, too slight, too artificial. Maybe so, maybe so. The fact is that none of the alterations has ever been more popular than the original. So let us be satisfied with that. I, personally, think it a very fine libretto. As for its meaning, we can take a hint from the original subtitle, which was The School for Lovers.
The story goes that the plot is modeled on something that had recently happened among the courtiers of the Emperor Joseph II. Be that as it may, the commission did come from the Emperor to Da Ponte and Mozart to write a comedy, possibly because a revival of The Marriage of Figaro had proved highly successful. Così fan tutte was the delightful fulfillment of the commission.
OVERTURE
The overture is short and unpretentious, and it is specifically related to the story only in so far as it quotes the tune to which the three male principals, in Act II, Scene 3, announce that così fan tutte (“all women act like that”).
ACT I
Scene 1 The comedy itself begins at a Neapolitan café at the end of the eighteenth century. Two young officers are arguing with a cynical old man of the world named Don Alfonso. He says that their fiancées will never prove faithful—no women ever do. They insist the idea is unthinkable. Finally Don Alfonso offers to prove his point for a bet of one hundred sequins. (That comes to about $225—as much as a young officer would earn in a year.) The terms are simply these: for twenty-four hours the young men must faithfully act out whatever Don Alfonso tells them to do. And the scene ends in the third of three trios, as the officers decide what they will do with their money when they win it (if they do!).
Scene 2 introduces us to the two young heroines—Fiordiligi and Dorabella. The two sisters are in a garden overlooking the Bay of Naples, and together they sing about the beauty of their fiancés, the officers Guglielmo and Ferrando. They are expecting the young men, but instead old Alfonso arrives to tell them dreadful news. Their fiancés, says he, have suddenly been ordered away, to active duty. A moment later these gentlemen enter, already in traveling clothes. Naturally, a fine quintet develops out of this, the four affianced youngsters expressing their sorrow over parting, while Don Alfonso assures the boys that it’s too early in the game
to collect their bets. Scarcely is the quintet over when soldiers and townfolk arrive to sing the joys of a soldier’s life. For now it is really time for the young men to go—though not so fast that they cannot take part in one final quintet of farewell. A repetition of the soldiers’ chorus, and off they do go, leaving their girls with Alfonso to wish them bon voyage in a tuneful little trio. The scene closes with some cynical remarks delivered to the audience by Don Alfonso. You may as well, he says in effect, plow the sea or sow the sand as put your faith in women.
Scene 3 brings on at once the sixth and most engaging member of the cast. She is the maid Despina, a coloratura soprano. In a recitative she complains about how bad it is to have to be a maid, and, while complaining, she tastes her mistresses’ chocolate. The sisters now enter their drawing room, and Dorabella has a tremendous mock-heroic aria, Smanie implacabili. She cannot bear, she says, having fresh air. Shut the windows! She cannot live through her grief! When Despina learns what all the grief is about—that is, the girls’ lovers have gone to war—she gives some real Don Alfonso advice: have a good time while they are gone, for they won’t prove faithful. Soldiers never do. Indignantly the girls storm from the room.
Enter now Don Alfonso. With a half-dollar bribe he persuades the maid to help in his plan, which is to get the girls to look with favor on two new suitors. Ferrando and Guglielmo appear almost at once, disguised in beards and dressed like Albanians. When the girls return, Alfonso makes believe that the Albanians are old friends, and the two young men try making love to their own fiancées. But the girls will have none of it. In an aria (Come scoglio) Fiordiligi violently declares her eternal faithfulness. Maybe, like the lady in Hamlet, she protests too much. At any rate, her aria has the most astounding range and huge skips—peculiar, exaggerated difficulties especially composed by Mozart for Da Ponten’s talented mistress, who was the first to sing it. Guglielmo tries to plead his suit with a fine tune—but again without any luck. The girls walk out on him—much to the delight of their fiancés. These (in the ensuing trio) try to get Don Alfonso to settle up, but he says it’s still too early. Ferrando, the tenor of the team, then sings of his happiness in his love, and the scene ends with Don Alfonso and Despina making further plans to win the girls over.
100 Great Operas and Their Stories Page 10