100 Great Operas and Their Stories

by Henry W. Simon

  ACT I

  Scene 1 After a thoroughly gay overture, sometimes performed as a concert piece, the curtain rises on the eighteenth-century drawing room of Geronimo, a wealthy merchant of Bologna with social ambitions but somewhat deaf. The social ambitions he hopes to realize through the marriage of both his daughters with members of the nobility, but he is not aware that Carolina, the younger of the two, is already married to Paolino, his business assistant. That young couple opens the proceedings with a couple of duets. In the first of these—and the recitative passages between them—we learn the state of things. Carolina urges her husband to reveal the clandestine marriage to Geronimo. After all, she says, despite his gruff exterior he is basically a kind man and is sure to forgive them after a day or two. Paolino, however, is for waiting a bit longer. He has arranged a visit from Count Robinson, an English milord, who, for a dowry of 100,000 scudi, is ready to marry the elder sister, Elisetta. If that comes to pass, Geronimo should be so grateful to Paolino that he will forgive him. He shows her a letter from Robinson announcing his imminent arrival, and Carolina agrees that it might be better to wait. The second duet is a lighthearted leave-taking between the lovers.

  When Geronimo blusters onto the stage, he finds Paolino alone and receives the letter from Robinson. He is beside himself with joy to learn that a count is coming to make a countess of his elder daughter; and when, a moment later, the two daughters enter with their aunt Fidalma, who runs the house for her brother, he announces the good news in a typical eighteenth-century basso-buffo aria (Un matrimonio nobile). Carolina comes in for some scolding because she shows envy of her sister’s good luck.

  The three ladies of the cast then have an amusing trio in which Carolina pretends jealousy of her sister’s prospective elevation, kneeling to her in mock subservience, Elisetta complains of Carolina’s bad behavior, and Fidalma tries to placate them both. At its close Carolina exits in a huff and Fidalma confides to Elisetta that she too hopes to be married soon. She won’t tell the girl to whom, but she lets the audience know, in an aside, that she is in love with Paolino.

  In a brief scene Geronimo tells his younger daughter, to her consternation and mystification, that he is arranging a noble wedding for her as well as for Elisetta. He does not have time to give her any details before Count Robinson arrives. This gentleman turns out to be a fatuous fool, full of meaningless compliments to everyone; and he proceeds to assume first that Carolina is to be his bride, then Fidalma, and only lastly Elisetta. And when he finds out that it is Elisetta, he is patently upset, for Carolina’s bright eyes have already captured his fancy. The scene ends in a quartet sung by Robinson and the three women in which they are in full agreement on only one thing: the situation is not developing the way it had been planned and no one knows what will happen next.

  Scene 2 Paolino visits Robinson in Geronimo’s study, hoping to get his help in breaking the news of his own marriage to the old man. Robinson, however, forestalls him with the announcement that he does not like Elisetta and that he proposes instead to marry Carolina. In fact, he is willing to take only 50,000 scudi as dowry if the exchange is made; and he sends Paolino off to make the proposal to Geronimo. He could not have chosen a more unwilling agent.

  Carolina now wanders into the study, and the Count takes the opportunity to propose. At first Carolina pretends to be outraged by his lack of honor and then, in one of the best arias in the opera (Questa cosa accordar), tells him how unsuited she is to marry into the nobility. She is too humble, she says, she lacks poise, she is too small, she doesn’t know how to behave, and she has no command of French, English, or German. In short, she’s nothing but a silly little girl—and she runs off with an utterly unconvinced Count in pursuit.

  The other four members of the cast then come into the room, Elisetta tearfully complaining about the Count’s lack of attention to her and Geronimo trying to excuse the man. Paolino speaks up—but not to deliver the Count’s message. He merely tells them that everything’s been got ready in the banquet hall for a celebration, and they all leave to inspect the festive board.

  This leaves the room free for the Count to resume his pursuit of Carolina, and she is still trying to fend him off when Elisetta discovers them together. She immediately sets up a great cry about her sister’s trying to ensnare her man. Everyone else hurries in; and in the grand finale to the act, both sisters try to explain their positions at once, Paolino and Fidalma say they are greatly mystified by what’s going on, and the Count and Geronimo are fairly reduced to singing gibberish, so inadequate are they to dealing with the women.

  ACT II

  Scene 1 The second act, like the first, begins with a pair of duets, but not between the same two principals. The Count finds his prospective father-in-law in his study and attempts, in the first duet, to tell him that he refuses to marry Elisetta as she does not please him. Between his own addlepatedness and Geronimo’s deafness, he has some difficulty in getting over the idea; and when he succeeds, it is met with indignation and a determination on Geronimo’s part to keep him to his bargain. But in the second duet the Count proposes to marry Carolina instead, taking 50,000 scudi less in settlement. This proposal appeals to the old merchant much better, and he accepts on condition that Elisetta agrees.

  Geronimo’s study must be in a magically central location in his house; for as soon as he has left it, Paolino conveniently passes through, and Robinson tells him of the new agreement, suggesting that he himself bear the glad tidings to the lucky Carolina. The young fellow, left in despair, resolves to consult Fidalma about what he should do. As she conveniently happens by at this moment, he begins hesitantly to explain; but she, misinterpreting his emotions, tells him not to worry, and she promises to marry him out of hand. This is too much for him, and he faints dead away. Now it is Carolina’s turn to happen by conveniently, and she, too, misinterprets the situation. When Fidalma goes and then quickly returns with smelling salts, Paolino fails to convince Carolina of his innocence; but when Fidalma finally leaves them alone, Paolino, in one of the few genuinely serious arias in the opera (Ah! No, che tu così morir), persuades his wife of his fidelity and proposes that they elope together.

  Elisetta and Fidalma are now both the sworn enemies of Carolina and, in a short duet, decide that she had better be packed off to a convent. And when Geronimo comes on the scene, prepared to persuade Elisetta to give up the Count, both women turn on him and get him, in a swiftly paced trio, to agree to the plan. Therefore, when Carolina comes to her father intending to tell him finally of her clandestine marriage, he brutally announces that she must go to a convent the next morning and then leaves her. She expresses her sorrow and confusion in the aria E possono mai nascere; and when the Count presses his suit once more by swearing that he will do anything for her in his power, she is about to take him literally at his word. However, they are interrupted by the other members of the family; and in the ensuing quintet her elders all insist that Carolina must go to a convent, Carolina tries in vain to tell them that she has not been encouraging her noble suitor, and the Count resolves to run out on the whole mess.

  Scene 2 That night Paolino and Carolina are about to elope when they hear someone moving and they quickly retire to her room. It is Elisetta who has heard their whispering and who immediately decides that her sister is entertaining the Count in her room. She summons first her aunt and then her father, and the three of them demand loudly, outside Carolina’s room, that the Count open the door. This he does—but it is his own door he opens, on the other side of the stage, where he has been awakened by all the noise. (Apparently he has decided not to leave after all.) Thereupon everyone shouts for Carolina to come forth and explain. The door opens, and Paolino and his wife throw themselves on their knees before Geronimo, admit that they have been married for two months, and beg for forgiveness. The old blusterer does not want to give in; but in the final sextet everyone else—even Fidalma and Elisetta—is so eloquently inspired by the romance of a clandestine marriage
, that Geronimo finally gives in. The most improbable plea of all comes from Count Robinson. He says that he is a man of the world and must be listened to. He is so much in love with Carolina, he says, that she ought to be forgiven, and to promote that end, he will marry Elisetta. If one gives the matter any thought at all (as one shouldn’t), it is hard to foresee a jolly future for the Count and Countess Robinson, but his generous offer gives the occasion for a suitably joyous finale to the opera.

  THE MEDIUM

  Opera in two acts by Gian-Carlo Menotti with

  libretto in English by the composer

  MADAME FLORA (BABA), a medium Contralto

  her clients

  MRS. GOBINEAU Soprano

  MR. GOBINEAU Baritone

  MRS. NOLAN Mezzo-soprano

  MONICA, her daughter Soprano

  TOBY, a mute Dancer

  Time: the present

  Place: Italy, or the U.S.A., or practically anywhere in Western civilization

  First performance at New York, May 8, 1946

  Long before he wrote The Medium, Mr. Menotti had already had two one-act operas produced at the Metropolitan Opera House—Amelia Goes to the Ball and The Island God. Neither of them lasted very long in the repertoire (the standard fate for American operas in that institution); and The Old Maid and the Thief, written for radio production, has not lasted too well either. The Medium, however, despite poor attendance during its first few weeks in a Broadway theater, slowly gathered momentum and developed into a big hit. With The Telephone as a curtain-raiser (for it is too short to be a full evening’s entertainment), its success convinced many American composers that they should write operas not for the big repertory houses but for less ambitious productions which could be made to pay off by running night after night. Subsequently The Medium showed another possible outlet for the wares of opera composers: it was the first American opera to be shown commercially in movie houses.

  Mr. Menotti himself has recorded how he came to think of writing The Medium:

  “Although the opera was not composed until 1945, the idea of The Medium first occurred to me in 1936 in the little Austrian town of St. Wolfgang near Salzburg. I had been invited by my neighbors to attend a séance in their house. I readily accepted their invitation but, I must confess, with my tongue in my cheek. However, as the séance unfolded, I began to be somewhat troubled. Although I was unaware of anything unusual, it gradually became clear to me that my hosts, in their pathetic desire to believe, actually saw and heard their dead daughter Doodly (a name, incidentally, which I have retained in the opera). It was I, not they, who felt cheated. The creative power of their faith and conviction made me examine my own cynicism and led me to wonder at the multiple texture of reality.”

  ACT I

  The entire action takes place in the parlor of a spiritualist medium known either as Madame Flora or simply as Baba. It is a lower-middle-class, stuffily furnished room, with a lamp that may be raised and lowered for séances and a puppet theater with a large curtain in one corner. Through this theater Madame Flora produces the crude supernatural phenomena with which she deludes her happily gullible customers.

  Baba’s two assistants, her daughter Monica and a graceful waif named Toby, who is a mute, both teen-agers, are happily playing with some of Baba’s property costumes when they hear her slam the door and coming upstairs. She is angry with them because they are fooling around when they should have been getting things ready for an imminent séance. As they hurriedly prepare, Monica (who in some ways seems to be more mature than her middle-aged mother) soothes Baba into a better humor.

  Presently the three clients wander in—Mr. and Mrs. Gobineau and Mrs. Nolan, who is there for the first time. The Gobineaus, in their shabby-genteel way, tell Mrs. Nolan how good are the ministrations of Madame Flora, and presently, in a semi-darkened room, the séance begins. As they sit about the table, hands touching, Baba begins to moan, Monica appears in the puppet theater in a faint blue light, and her voice is heard singing, “Mother, mother, are you there?” Mrs. Nolan, who has lost her daughter Doodly, asks various simple questions; but when she begins to ask specifically about a gold locket (which Monica cannot answer confidently) the blue light disappears. Mrs. Nolan rises to run toward the theater, and the séance is interrupted.

  The Gobineaus long ago lost a child, who had been drowned in the fountain of their garden in France. When the séance is resumed, Monica, from behind the curtain, imitates the laughing of a little child, which is the comfort for which the bereaved parents come regularly to this place and pay their fees. But suddenly Madame Flora cries out hysterically: someone, she thinks, has touched her. She turns up the lights and will not be appeased even when the three clients sing a perfectly reasonable question: “Why be afraid of our dead?” She shoos them out as fast as she can get rid of them, turns on Toby, and accuses him of having played some tricks.

  Obviously, Baba is much more put out than she would be by some innocent diversion of Toby’s. Monica has to comfort her with a long, soothing lullaby that develops into a duet, as Toby accompanies the melody on a tambourine (“O black swan, where oh where is my lover gone?”). Even at its close Baba is still nervous. She thinks she hears voices; she sends Toby downstairs to look; and when he reports, in sign language, that no one is there, Baba falls on her knees and prays.

  ACT II

  It is a few days later when Act II, like Act I, begins with Toby and Monica playing together. This time, however, the play is more extended and ends as the mute does a dance for the attractive girl. He is obviously in love with her.

  When Madame Flora drags her tired body upstairs, Monica goes to her own room and the medium begins to question the boy about what happened the other day. Did he touch her on the throat? Repeatedly he denies it, and finally she picks up a whip and lashes him unmercifully.

  But the Gobineaus and Mrs. Nolan arrive once more: it is the regular evening for a séance. Thoroughly unnerved, Baba tries to tell them that the séances were all faked. She shows them the props, she has Monica imitate the voices; but the believers will not be convinced and even refuse to have their money returned. Driven to fury, Baba virtually chases them downstairs and, despite Monica’s pleadings, sends Toby after them into permanent banishment.

  She then locks Monica into her room, takes a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard, and sits soddenly by the table. She thinks she hears the voices once more; she thinks of all the dreadful experiences she has had during a hard life; she is overcome by nameless fears; she tries to allay them by singing the lullaby; she prays; and finally, emotionally and physically exhausted, she falls asleep. It is a powerful scene.

  Toby steals upstairs, tries to get into the locked room, and hides behind the sofa when the sleeping Baba knocks over the bottle. Coming out once more, he looks for something in the prop trunk and wakes Baba by accidentally dropping the lid. Quickly he hides behind the curtain of the puppet theater and, naturally, cannot answer Baba’s shout of “Who’s there?” She takes a revolver from the drawer and shoots directly at the curtain. Blood begins to stain it, and it is torn down with the falling body of Toby.

  As Monica frantically pounds on the door, Baba mutters, “I’ve killed the ghost.”

  MEFISTOFELE

  (Mephistopheles)

  Opera in prologue, four acts, and epilogue by

  Arrigo Boito with libretto in Italian by the

  composer, based on the drama by Johann Wolfgang

  von Goethe

  MEPHISTOPHELES, the Devil Bass

  FAUST, a philosopher Tenor

  WAGNER, his favorite student Tenor

  MARGHERITE, a peasant girl Soprano

  MARTHA, her mother Contralto

  HELEN OF TROY Soprano

  PANTALIS, her companion Contralto

  NEREO, an attendant Tenor

  Time: medieval and ancient

  Places: Heaven, Germany, and Greece

  First performance at Milan, March 5, 1868

  Of making
Fausts there is no end. Between the time that Marlowe wrote his great play (itself based on a dubiously historical account of the medieval philosopher and probably on some lost stage pieces) and the time that Goethe’s masterpiece first saw the stage, some thirty German dramas on the subject are said to have been written and produced. And once Goethe’s work discouraged other dramatists from trying to surpass him, the operas began. Besides the three represented in this book (Boito’s, Gounod’s, and Berlioz’s), there have been operas on the subject by Spohr, Bertin, Brüggemann, Busoni, and Lutz. Beethoven considered an opera on the subject; Schumann composed some of the music for one; Wagner got as far as an overture; Liszt wrote a Faust Symphony, some choruses, and a song; and many other composers have written cantatas, individual scenes, songs, and incidental music inspired by Goethe. One composer, Florimond Hervé, even wrote a highly successful French operetta called Le petit Faust, which held the stage in France, on and off, for sixty-five years and was exported to many European countries and New York.

  Boito, who wrote his own libretto, was the highly literary composer who supplied the first-rate books for Verdi’s Otello and Falstaff, and the less literary but more popularly successful one for Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. He was one of the few composers to tackle the second as well as the first part of Goethe’s huge philosophical drama. As a result, the premiere in 1868 took six hours and was a failure—too much philosophy, not enough action. Boito, always a careful worker, took seven years to shorten and revise it for a new production, and then another year to work it into final shape. The following brief description is based on this final version.