Operas Every Child Should Know Part 25

"To those who love you!" Turiddu pledged, lifting his gla.s.s and looking at Lola. She nodded and answered:

"To your good fortune, brother!" And while they were speaking Alfio entered.

"Greeting to you all," he called.

"Good! come and join us," Turiddu answered.

"Thank you! but I should expect you to poison me if I were to drink with you, my friend," and the wagoner looked meaningly at Turiddu.

"Oh--well, suit yourself," Turiddu replied, nonchalantly. Then a neighbour standing near Lola whispered:

"You had better leave here, Lola. Come home with me. I can foresee trouble here." Lola took her advice and went out, with all the women following her.

"Well, now that you have frightened away all the women by your behaviour, maybe you have something to say to me privately," Turiddu remarked, turning to Alfio.

"Nothing--except that I am going to kill you--this instant!"

"You think so? then we will embrace," Turiddu exclaimed, proposing the custom of the place and throwing his arms about his enemy. When he did so, Alfio bit Turiddu's ear, which, in Sicily, is a challenge to a duel.

"Good! I guess we understand each other."

"Well, I own that I have done you wrong--and Santuzza wrong.

Altogether, I am a bad fellow; but if you are going to kill me, I must bid my mother good-bye, and also give Santuzza into her care. After all, I have some grace left, whether you think so or not," Turiddu cried, and then he called his mother out, while Alfio went away with the understanding that Turiddu should immediately follow and get the fight over.

"Mama," Turiddu then said to old Lucia when she hobbled out, "that wine of ours is certainly very exciting. I am going out to walk it off, and I want your blessing before I go." He tried to keep up a cheerful front that he might not frighten his old mother. At least he had the grace to behave himself fairly well, now that the end had come.

"If I shouldn't come back----"

"What can you mean, my son?" the old woman whispered, trembling with fear.

"Nothing, nothing, except that even before I go to walk, I want your promise to take Santuzza to live with you. Now that is all! I'm off.

Good-bye, G.o.d bless you, mother. I love you very much." Before she hardly knew what had happened, Turiddu was off and away. She ran to the side of the square and called after him, but he did not return.

Instead, Santuzza ran in.

"Oh, Mama Lucia," she cried, throwing her arms about her.

Then the people who had met Alfio and Turiddu on their way to their encounter began to rush in. Everybody was wildly excited. Both men were village favourites in their way. A great noise of rioting was heard and some one shrieked in the distance.

"Oh, neighbour, neighbour, Turiddu is killed, Turiddu is killed!" At this nearly every one in the little village came running, while Santuzza fell upon the ground in a faint.

"He is killed! Alfio has killed him!" others cried, running in, and then poor old Lucia fell unconscious beside Santuzza, while the neighbours gathered about her, lifted her up and carried her into her lonely inn.

MEYERBEER

Genius seems born to do stupid things and to be unable to know it.

Probably no stupider thing was ever said or done than that by Wagner when he wrote a diatribe on the Jew in Art. He called it "Das Judenthum in der Musik" (Judaism in Music). He declared that the mightiest people in art and in several other things--the Jews--could not be artists for the reason that they were wanderers and therefore lacking in national characteristics.

There could not well have been a better plea against his own statement. Art is often national--but not when art is at its best. Art is an emotional result--and emotion is a thing the Jews know something about. Meyerbeer was a Jew, and the most helpful friend Richard Wagner ever had, yet Wagner was so little of a Jew that he did not know the meaning of appreciation and grat.i.tude. Instead, he hated Meyerbeer and his music intensely. Meyerbeer may have been a wanderer upon the face of the earth and without national characteristics--which is a truly amusing thing to say of a Jew, since his "characteristics" are a good deal stronger than "national": they are racial! But however that may have been, Meyerbeer's music was certainly characteristic of its composer. As between Jew and Jew, Mendelssohn and he had a petty hatred of each other. Mendelssohn was always displeased when the extraordinary likeness between himself and Meyerbeer was commented upon. They were so much alike in physique that one night, after Mendelssohn had been tormented by his attention being repeatedly called to the fact, he cut his hair short in order to make as great a difference as possible between his appearance and that of his rival.

This only served to create more amus.e.m.e.nt among his friends.

Rossini, with all the mean vanity of a small artist, one whose princ.i.p.al claim to fame lay in large dreams, declared that Meyerbeer was a "mere compiler." If that be true, one must say that a good compilation is better than a poor creation. Rossini and Meyerbeer were, nevertheless, warm friends.

Meyerbeer put into practice the Wagnerian theories, which may have been one reason, aside from the const.i.tutional artistic reasons, why Wagner hated him.

Meyerbeer was born "to the purple," to a properly conducted life, and yet he laboured with tremendous vim. He outworked all his fellows, and one day when a friend protested, begging him to take rest, Meyerbeer answered:

"If I should stop work I should rob myself of my greatest enjoyment. I am so accustomed to it that it has become a necessity with me." This is the true art spirit, which many who "arrive" never know the joy of possessing. Meyerbeer's father was a rich Jewish banker, Jacob Beer, of Berlin. It is pleasant to think of one man, capable of large achievements, having an easy time of it, finding himself free all his life to follow his best creative instincts. It is not often so.

Meyerbeer's generosity of spirit in regard to the greatness of another is shown in this anecdote:

Above all music, the Jew best loved Mozart's, just as Mozart loved Haydn's. Upon one occasion when Meyerbeer was dining with some friends, a question arose about Mozart's place among composers. Some one remarked that "certain beauties of Mozart's music had become stale with age." Another agreed, and added, "I defy any one to listen to 'Don Giovanni' after the fourth act of 'Les Huguenots'!" This vulgar compliment enraged Meyerbeer. "So much the worse then for the fourth act of 'The Huguenots'!" he shouted. Of all his own work this Jewish composer loved "L'Africaine" the best, and he made and remade it during a period of seventeen years. In this he was the best judge of his own work; though some persons believe that "Le Prophete" is greater.

Among Meyerbeer's eccentricities was one that cannot be labelled erratic. He had a wholesome horror of being buried alive, and he carried a slip about in his pocket, instructing whom it might concern to see that his body was kept unburied four days after his death, that small bells were attached to his hands and feet, and that all the while he should be watched. Then he was to be sent to Berlin to be interred beside his mother, whom he dearly loved.

THE PROPHET

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA

Count Oberthal, Lord of the manor.

John of Leyden, an innkeeper and then a revolutionist (the Prophet).

Jonas } Mathison } Anabaptists.

Zacharia } Bertha, affianced to John of Leyden.

Faith, John's mother.

Choir: Peasants, soldiers, people, officers.

Story laid in Holland, near Dordrecht, about the fifteenth century.

Composer: Meyerbeer.

Author: Scribe.

ACT I

One beautiful day about four hundred years ago the sun rose upon a castle on the Meuse, where lived the Count Oberthal, known in Holland as Lord of the Manor. It was a fine sight with its drawbridge and its towers, its mills and outbuildings, with antique tables outside the great entrance, sacks of grain piled high, telling of industry and plenty. In the early day peasants arrived with their grain sacks, called for entrance, and the doors were opened to them; other men with grain to be milled came and went, and the scene presented a lively appearance.

Sheep-bells were heard in the meadows, the breezes blew softly, and men and women went singing gaily about their work. Among them was a young girl, more beautiful than the others, and her heart was specially full of hope. She was beloved of an innkeeper, John, who lived in a neighbouring village. He was prosperous and good, and she thought of him while she worked. She longed to be his wife, but John had an old mother who was mistress of the inn--in fact, the inn was hers--and it had been a question how they should arrange their affairs. John was too poor to go away and make a separate home, and the old mother might not care to have a daughter-in-law take her place as mistress there, carrying on the business while the active old woman sat idly by.

Upon that beautiful day, Bertha was thinking of all of these things, and hoping something would happen to change the situation. Even while she was thinking thus fate had a pleasant surprise in store for her, because the old mother, Faith, was at that very moment approaching the manor where Bertha lived. Like others of her cla.s.s she owed va.s.salage to some petty seigneur, and while that meant oppression to be endured, it included the advantage of safety and protection in time of war.

Bertha, looking off over the country road, saw Faith, John's mother, coming. Her step was firm for one so aged, and she was upheld on her long journey by the goodness of her mission. When Bertha saw her she ran to meet and welcome her.

"Sit down," she cried, guiding the old woman's steps to a seat, and hovering over her. "I have watched for your coming since the morning--even since sunrise," the young woman said, fluttering about happily. "I was certain thou wert coming."

"Yes, yes. John said: 'Go, go, mother, and bring Bertha home to me,'