FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS
Opera in four acts by Virgil Thomson with libretto
in English by Gertrude Stein
ST. TERESA I Soprano
ST. TERESA II Contralto
ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA Baritone
ST. CHAVEZ Tenor
ST. SETTLEMENT Soprano
COMPÈRE Bass
COMMÈRE Mezzo-soprano
Time: no particular time
Place: Spain, most likely
First performance at Hartford, February 8, 1934 by the Society of Friends and Enemies of Modern Music
The music of Four Saints in Three Acts is by a now reformed music critic, Virgil Thomson, and its libretto is by a never reformed modernist, the late Gertrude Stein. It was written over thirty years ago—in 1928—and it makes absolutely no sense. It isn’t supposed to, really. Mr. Thomson himself told us how best to understand the libretto when he said: “You know, Miss Stein’s words make perfectly good sense—if you take them one at a time.”
I cannot tell you the story of the opera, for there isn’t any. Miss Stein wrote the libretto and gave it to Mr. Thomson. He liked it so much that he set all of it to music—even the stage directions. Then when that was done, a friend of his named Maurice Grosser tried to give it a scenario, a shape of some sort. The result is that Four Saints in Three Acts has many more than four saints—and one more than three acts.
The opera is clearly about saints, and it probably takes place in Spain. Some of the saints are Spanish ones—for example, St. Teresa (there are two St. Teresas, a soprano and a contralto) and St. Ignatius Loyola. Other saints are ones no one ever heard of before—like St. Settlement and St. Plot. And there are two characters—named Commère and Compère—who are supposed to explain things, somewhat like a Greek chorus. Of course, they explain nothing.
Clearly—all this is something that could have been produced only in the mad 1920’s. As for the music—that reflects Mr. Thomson’s early life. He was brought up in Missouri, where he was a church organist, and much of the music reflects the tunes and harmonies of Southern Baptist hymns. It is all charming, innocent, and wilfully naïve.
The prelude—in heavy waltz time—has a chorus that begins with these words:
To know to know to love her so
Four saints prepare for Saints,
Four saints make it well fish.
Act I, which follows immediately, is called “St. Teresa half indoors and half out of doors.” It seems to have to do with seven aspects of St. Teresa’s life, but it is inadvisable to try to follow them too carefully.
Act II is called “Might it be mountains if it were not Barcelona.” Toward its close, the two Sts. Teresa look through a telescope and see a heavenly mansion, and the chorus asks: “How many doors how many floors and how many windows are there in it?” The ladies do not answer.
Act III is called “St. Ignatius and one of two literally.” It contains the one famous aria in the opera. That occurs when St. Ignatius describes his vision of the Holy Ghost. It goes: “Pigeons on the grass alas, and a magpie in the sky.” And then the chorus sings, “Let Lucy Lily Lily Lucy Lucy let Lucy Lucy Lily Lily Lily Lily Lily,” etc. That’s genuine Gertrude Stein, and it is followed soon after by a charming dance in Spanish style, which is genuine Virgil Thomson.
Act IV is called “The sisters and saints reassembled and re-enacting why they went away to stay.” It is quite short, and it closes with the only two lines I completely understand. Compère (one of the Greek-chorus characters) announces: “Last Act.” And the chorus answers loudly: “Which is a fact.”
DER FREISCHÜTZ
(The Free-Shooter)
Opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber
with libretto in German by Johann Friedrich
Kind based on a story by Johann August Apel
MAX, a forester Tenor
CASPAR, another Bass
KILIAN, a rich peasant Tenor
CUNO, the head forester Bass
AGATHE, his daughter Soprano
AENNCHEN, her cousin Soprano
PRINCE OTTOKAR Baritone
A HERMIT Bass
SAMIEL, the wild huntsman Speaking part
Time: middle of the 17th century
Place: Bohemia
First performance at Berlin, June 18, 1821
It is a little hard today to imagine the storm created by the first performance, some 140 years ago, of Weber’s romantic opera, Der Freischütz. For it meant—in Germany, at least—the end of the predominance of Italian opera. The leading lights of Germany—Heine, Mendelssohn, Hoffmann, and others—seemed to understand this, and the reign of Spontini and classical tragedy was soon over. The way was really paved for all the later German romantics, and above all for Richard Wagner. For Der Freischütz (which means “The Free-Shooter”) is a story of romantic love between commoners, of supernatural evil, with a devil for one of the characters, and a scene in the mysterious Wolf’s Glen.
OVERTURE
The music, too, is highly romantic, and its essence is contained in the familiar overture, the only portion of the work with which most modern music-lovers can be counted on to be familiar. It is full of drama, of sweeping melodies, and wonderful effects with tremolo strings and a clarinet solo. It is also just about the first operatic overture to make use of whole tunes from the vocal score–especially of the great joyous outcry made by the heroine when her lover comes to her in Act II.
ACT I
The action of Der Freischütz is carried on almost entirely in spoken dialogue punctuated by set musical numbers to paint the emotional situation at the moment. Thus, the first sounds heard after the curtain goes up are a shot and a shout. A shooting contest, held in an open space before a tavern, has just been won by a peasant named Kilian. A male chorus is sung in his praise, while the professional forester, Max (who is the hero of the tale) sits by disconsolately, for he has been defeated. When a rustic march is played in honor of Kilian, Max can stand it no longer and attacks the man who defeated him.
Cuno, the head forester, comes in and stops the brawl; and it soon becomes clear why Max is so much out of sorts. It seems that there is to be a shoot the next day before the Prince Ottokar. If Max wins (as had been fully expected, for he is a famous shot), he will also win his beloved Agathe, who is Cuno’s daughter, and the assured succession to the old man’s job. Now, the fact is that the reason Max has shot badly is that his rival for Agathe’s hand, Caspar (the villain of the piece), had invoked the supernatural help of a devil named Samiel. When Caspar, an unpopular brute, suggests that Max may need some magical assistance the next day, Cuno quickly shuts him up. He then proceeds to relate the history of the shooting match. It began with his own great-great-grandfather, who had saved a man’s life with so remarkable a shot at one time that he had been accused of using a “free,” or magic, bullet. A free bullet was one supplied by the devil, and it could not miss. Since then the Prince’s foresters have had to prove their competence in contests run without supernatural aid. Kilian adds the important detail that the devil, when he grants a man free shots, gives him seven of them. The first six hit whatever the mortal aims at, but the seventh goes wherever the devil directs.
After a short ensemble number, in which everyone comments on the situation, Kilian makes it up with Max, and our hero is left alone to sing his melodious aria, Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen (“Through the forests, through the meadows”), in which he bewails the loss of his once-carefree life.
It is now pretty dark, and Caspar joins Max, inviting him to several drinks. He sings a rough drinking song (and twice Samiel makes a discreet appearance in the foliage, frightening both Caspar and the audience). Finally, Caspar thrusts his gun into Max’s hand and asks him to shoot at a distant eagle. Miraculously the bird falls to the ground. Caspar explains that this has been a “free” bullet, and he knows where to get more. Tomorrow night Max must meet him at the mysterious Wolf’s Glen. Max knows that this may be a disastrous thing
to do; but he is desperate by this time, and a little affected by drink, and he agrees. When he has left, Caspar closes the act with a triumphant aria of revenge, full of long and difficult scales that modern basses find pretty hard to negotiate.
ACT II
Scene 1 All the soloists in the first act were men. Weber made up for this in the beginning of the second act, which is populated exclusively by two sopranos. One of them is Agathe, daughter of the head forester and the betrothed of Max. At the moment, Agathe is not too happy about the probable outcome of the shooting match, and her state of mind has not been helped by the framed picture that has mysteriously turn-bled off the wall and onto her head. Her cousin, Aennchen, is of a much more cheerful disposition. When the act starts, in Cuno’s hunting lodge, she is tacking back the picture on the wall, and Agathe presently joins her in a pretty duet. Briefly, in spoken dialogue, they discuss the absence of Max (who is expected shortly), and then Aennchen sings another cheerful ditty on the ever-engrossing subject of boy-meets-girl.
Now Agathe, left alone, has what used to be one of the most famous of soprano arias, Leise, leise, fromme Weise, a prayer for her beloved. At its end she sees Max himself approaching, and she sings a brilliant closing to the aria, expressing her joy.
In the spoken dialogue that follows Max mentions his approaching visit to the Wolf’s Glen, and the scene ends as Aennchen joins the two lovers in a trio: the two women try in vain to dissuade Max from visiting so evil a place, while he, for his part, insists upon going.
Scene 2 is the famous scene in the Wolf’s Glen. It was originally designed, I believe, to scare the living daylights out of its nineteenth-century German audience, for it is filled with such scary things as a skull with a dagger thrust through it, an eerie off-stage chorus of fiends, weird moonlight playing over a scene of desolate rocks and trees, and a devil who appears and disappears mysteriously and threatens in a high, menacing voice. To a modern audience much of this looks like child’s play, yet Weber’s score makes it sound remarkably effective.
The scene opens with the villain, Caspar, going through an interesting rigmarole designed to summon the devil, Samiel. Caspar has sold himself to the devil completely, and now he begs for three more years of freedom in exchange for delivering Max to him. Musically it is a strange scene. Caspar sings, and the devil speaks; and the bargain they strike is this: Max is to have seven magical bullets, six to go unerringly to whatever mark Max aims at, but the seventh Samiel may direct to Agathe’s heart. The devil coldly agrees; but should Caspar fail in seducing Max into the bargain, his own soul will be the forfeit.
Now Max appears on the scene. First he sees a vision of his mother, then one of Agathe, and he is so badly upset by these visions that he readily agrees to do whatever Caspar demands. Caspar thereupon brews a wicked brew. It begins to boil and hiss; huge birds fly about; a boar crashes through the underbrush; a storm rages; shadowy figures utter a strange chantand eventually the bullets are molded. Together the two men call upon Samiel; and as the Demon appears, Caspar falls over in a dead faint, while Max finds, to his terror, that he has grasped the Devil’s own hand in the shape of a dead branch! And if all this sounds faintly improbable, please remember that this is a romantic fairy tale. Anything can happen in a fairy tale.
ACT III
Scene 1 of the last act is given over exclusively to attempts to cheer up our lugubrious heroine, Agathe. She is being dressed for her wedding to Max, but she has various misgivings of a superstitious nature. One of these misgivings—as we shall see in the final scene—is well justified by events. She says she dreamed she was a white dove, that Max fired at her, and that she fell to the ground in her natural form as a maiden. In the first aria of the scene Agathe prays to heaven for protection, and in the second she relates her dream. It takes two arias by her cheerful cousin, Aennchen, as well as a chorus of bridesmaids, to give Agathe the courage to complete her nuptial preparations.
Scene 2 is introduced by a jolly hunting prelude, followed by a chorus. It is the big day, and Max is to demonstrate to his prince, Ottokar, and to his prospective father-in-law, Cuno, that he is a good enough shot to be worthy of marrying Agathe. The Prince points to a white dove and tells Max to shoot, but just as he takes aim, Agathe appears and calls for him not to shoot, for she herself is the white dove! But it is too late. Max fires; Agathe falls, and everyone thinks he has slain his bride. But at the same time the villain Caspar falls. With his dying breath he curses the Demon Samiel-and his soul is consigned to perdition.
Now Agathe revives, and Max explains how he went astray in dealings with Caspar and Samiel. Everyone pleads that he should be forgiven, but the Prince sternly decides to banish the young forester. Fortunately, a wise old hermit appears and the Prince leaves the final decision up to him. In a long and solemn aria the hermit gives his advice, which is to let Max be given a year’s probation. If at the end of that time he is again his old virtuous self, let him marry the lovely Agathe. And henceforth, let there be an end to such shooting contests as these.
Everyone agrees that this is a fine idea, and the opera ends on a chorus of jubilation, using one of the most familiar tunes from the famous overture.
GIANNI SCHICCHI
Opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini with
libretto in Italian by Giovacchino Forzano
GIANNI SCHICCHI Baritone
LAURETTA, his daughter Soprano
Relations of Buoso Donati:
ZITA, his cousin Contralto
RINUCCIO, her nephew Tenor
GHERARDO, nephew of Buoso Tenor
NELLA, his Wife Soprano
GHERARDINO, their son Contralto
BETTO DI SIGNA, brother-in-law of Buoso Baritone or Bass
SIMONE, BUOSO’S cousin Bass
MARCO, his son Baritone
LA CIESCA, his wife Mezzo-soprano
SPINELLOCCIO, a doctor Bass
AMANTIO DI NICOLAO, a lawyer Baritone or Bass
Time: 1299
Place: Florence
First performance at New York, December 14, 1918
Gianni Schicchi is the last and most successful of the three one-act operas that make up Puccini’s Triptych, the other two being Il tabarro and Suor Angelica. It is based on an incident that is actually supposed to have happened in Florence, in the year 1299, pretty much as given in the libretto. Dante, who may well have known the jolly swindler Schicchi personally, put him, in the thirtieth canto of the Inferno, into the eighth circle of Hell among thieves, panders, and other such. His perpetual companion there is the incestuous Princess of Cyprus, who loved her father. But Puccini was probably not thinking of this literary detail when he composed the aria, O mio babbino caro (“Oh, My Beloved Daddy”).
When the opera opens, the wealthy Buoso Donati has just died, and a gang of his relatives is hanging vulturously about his bed. For their names and the relationships they bear to the corpse let me refer you to the cast of characters above. Ostensibly they are there to mourn; but their avariciousness soon gets the better of their manners, and they start to search for the will. It is Rinuccio who finds it and Zita who first reads it. Their worst fears are realized: Buoso has left everything to the monks of a monastery.
Now it happens that young Rinuccio is in love with Lauretta, the daughter of Gianni Schicchi, and Gianni is a shrewd peasant of infinite resourcefulness. Secretly Rinuccio has sent for Gianni Schicchi, and the artful young fellow urges his relatives to consult his prospective father-in-law. He ends his argument with an eloquent paean in praise of Florence (Firenze è come un albero fiorito), but they protest right up to the arrival of Schicchi himself.
Lauretta, whom her father loves very much, urges him to find a solution to the troubles of the Donati so that she may marry Rinuccio (O mio babbino caro), and, thus inspired, Schicchi contrives a plot. He has the body of old Buoso removed and he himself takes its place in the bed. He fools the doctor when he comes by imitating Buoso’s voice and saying he is better. Then he listens to what e
ach relative wishes to have of Buoso’s riches, and he promises to dictate a new will accordingly.
A notary is summoned, and Schicchi dictates the new will. However, in this will he leaves everything—to himself! The relatives are wild when the notary leaves, but there is nothing they can do. For Schicchi has pointed out to them that whoever helps falsify a will must, according to the laws of Florence, lose one hand and be forever banished. The maddened flock steal whatever they can, and Schicchi chases them out of the house. Only the lovers remain to sing a happy duet; and when Schicchi returns, he presents them with the stolen articles he has managed to recapture.
Then, as the opera closes, Schicchi addresses the audience in spoken words: he asks whether Buoso’s money could serve a better purpose and suggests that though Dante consigned him to Hell, perhaps the amusement he has afforded the audience will make them reach a verdict of Extenuating Circumstances. And he starts the applause himself.
LA GIOCONDA
(The Ballad Singer)
Opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli with
libretto in Italian by “Tobio Gorria” (anagram
for Arrigo Boito) based on a play by Victor
Hugo entitled Angelo, tyran de Padoue
LA GIOCONDA, a ballad singer Soprano
LA CIECA, her blind mother Contralto
DUKE ALVISE, one of the heads of the State Inquisition Bass
LAURA, his wife Mezzo-soprano
ENZO GRIMALDO, a Genoese noble Tenor
BARNABA, a spy of the Inquisition Baritone
ZUÀNE, a boatman Bass
ISÈPO, a public letter-writer Tenor
100 Great Operas and Their Stories Page 19