Operas Every Child Should Know Part 4

When coldness or deceit shall slight The beauty now they prize, And deem it but a faded light Which beams within your eyes; When hollow hearts shall wear a mask 'Twill break your own to see: In such a moment I but ask That you'll remember me.

The song only added to Arline's distress. She could not let Thaddeus go.

"You must never leave me, Thaddeus," she cried.

"Then will you fly with me?" he begged.

"It would kill my poor father; he has only now found me. I would go if it were not for love of him, but how can I leave him?" And while the lovers were in this unhappy coil Devilshoof, who had been watching at the window to warn them if any one was coming, called out:

"Your doom is sealed in another moment! You must decide: people are coming. There is no escape for you, Thaddeus."

"Come into this cabinet," Arline cried in alarm. "No one can find you there! and you, Devilshoof, jump out of the window." No sooner said than done! Out Devilshoof jumped, while Thaddeus got into the cabinet.

The great doors were thrown open and the company streamed in to congratulate Arline on being restored to her father. The old Count then took Arline by the hand and presented her to the company, while Florestein, as the suitor who expected to be given her hand in marriage, stood beside her, smiling and looking the c.o.xcomb. Everybody then sang a gay welcome, and Florestein, who seemed born only to do that which was annoying to other people, picked up the forgotten gipsy dress, declaring that it was not suitable to such a moment, and that he would place it in the cabinet.

That was the worst possible thing he could do, and Arline watched him with horror. If he should go to the cabinet, as she was now certain he would, he could not possibly help finding Thaddeus. She watched with excitement every moment; but in the midst of her fears there was a great noise without, and the gipsy Queen forced her way in, to the amazement of the company. She went at once to the old Count, who it seemed was never to have done with surprises.

"Who art thou, intruder?" he asked angrily. Upon this the Queen lifted her veil, which till then had concealed her face.

"Behold me!" she cried, very dramatically, "heed my warning voice!

Wail and not rejoice!" A nice sort of caution to be injected into a merrymaking. "The foe to thy rest, is the one you love best. Think not my warning wild, 'tis thy refound child. She loves a youth of the tribe I sway, and braves the world's reproof. List to the words I say, he is now beneath thy roof!" This was quite enough to drive the entire company into hysterics.

"Base wretch," the Count cried, "thou liest!"

"Thy faith I begrudge, open that door and thyself be the judge," she screamed, quite beside herself with anger. Of course everybody looked toward the door of the cabinet, and finally the Count opened it, and there stood Thaddeus.

He staggered back, the Queen was delighted, but everybody else was frightened half to death.

Everybody concerned seemed then to be in the worst possible way.

Arline determined to stand by Thaddeus, and she was quite appalled at the wickedness of the Queen.

"Leave the place instantly," the Count roared to Thaddeus.

"I go, Arline," Thaddeus answered sorrowfully.

"Never!--unless I go with thee," she declared, quite overcome by the situation. "Father, I love thee, but I cannot give up Thaddeus," she protested sorrowfully to the Count. Then the Count drew his sword and rushed between them.

"Go!" he cried again to Thaddeus, and at the same time the Queen urged him to go with her. Then Arline begged to be left alone with her father that she might have a private word with him. Everybody withdrew except Thaddeus, wondering what next, and how it would all turn out.

"Father," Arline pleaded when they were alone, "I am at your feet. If you love me you will listen. It was Thaddeus who restored me to you; who has guarded me from harm for twelve years. I cannot give him up, and to send him away is unworthy of you." The Count made a despairing gesture of dismissal to Thaddeus.

"But, father, we are already united," she urged, referring to the gipsy marriage. At that the Count was quite horrified.

"United?--to a strolling fellow like this?" This was more than Thaddeus could stand, knowing as he did that he was every bit as good as the Count--being a Polish n.o.ble. True, if he revealed himself, he might have to pay for it with his life, because he was still reckoned at large as the enemy of the Emperor, but even so, he decided to tell the truth about himself for Arline's sake.

"Listen," he cried, stepping nearer to the Count. "I am not what you think me. Let this prove to you my birth," and he took the old commission from his pocket where he had carried it for years, and handed it to the Count. "This will prove to thee, though I am an exile, that I am a n.o.ble like thyself; and my birth does not separate me from thy daughter." The Count read the paper tremblingly and then looked long at Thaddeus. Tears came to his eyes.

"The storms of a nation's strife should never part true lovers," he said softly, at last: "Thy hand!"--and taking Thaddeus's hand he placed it tenderly in that of Arline. As they stood thus united and happy, the Queen appeared at the window, pointing him out to a gipsy beside her. The gipsy was about to fire upon Thaddeus at the Queen's command, when Devilshoof knocked up the gipsy's arm, and the bullet meant for the lover killed the revengeful Queen.

"Guard every portal--summon all the guests!" the Count cried. "Suspend all festivities," at which the music which had been heard in the distant salon ceased, and the guests began to a.s.semble. Arline rushed to the arms of Thaddeus. The Count explained all that had occurred, the danger Thaddeus had just been in, that he had been given the Count's daughter, and that congratulations were in order.

As you may believe, after so much fright and danger, everybody was overjoyed to find that all was well--everybody but Florestein, and he was certain to be satisfied presently when the banquet began, and he got some especially fine t.i.t-bit on his own plate!

BEETHOVEN

The most complete, at the same time picturesque, story of Beethoven and his "Fidelio" is told in "Musical Sketches," by Elise Polko, with all the sentimentality that a German writer can command. Whole paragraphs might be lifted from that book and included in this sketch, but the substance of the story shall be told in a somewhat inferior way.

"Leonora" (Fidelio) was composed some time before it was produced.

Ludwig van Beethoven had been urged again and again by his friends to put the opera before the public, but he always refused.

"It shall never be produced till I find the woman in whose powers I have absolute confidence to sing 'Leonora.' She need not be beautiful, change her costume ten times, nor break her throat with roulades: but she must have _one_ thing besides her voice." He would not disclose what special quality he demanded; and when his friends persisted in urging the production of his first, last, and only opera, Beethoven went into a great rage and declared if the subject were ever mentioned again, he would burn the ma.n.u.script. At one time friends begged him to hear a new prima donna, Wilhelmina Schroder, the daughter of a great actress, believing that in her he would find his "Leonora."

This enraged him still more. The idea of entrusting his beloved composition to a girl no more than sixteen years old!

His appearance at that time is thus described:

"At the same hour every afternoon a tall man walked alone on the so-called Wa.s.serglacis (Vienna). Every one reverentially avoided him.

Neither heat nor cold made him hasten his steps; no pa.s.ser-by arrested his eye; he strode slowly, firmly and proudly along, with glance bent downward, and with hands clasped behind his back. You felt that he was some extraordinary being, and that the might of genius encircled this majestic head with its glory. Gray hair grew thickly around his magnificent brow, but he noticed not the spring breeze that played sportively among it and pushed it in his eyes. Every child knew: 'that is Ludwig van Beethoven, who has composed such wondrously beautiful music.'"

One day, during one of these outings a fearful storm arose, and he noticed a beautiful young woman, whom he had frequently seen in his walks, frightened but standing still without protection from the weather. She stared at him with such peculiar devotion and entreaty that he stopped and asked her what she did there in the storm.

She had the appearance of a child, and great simplicity of manner. She told him she waited to see him. He, being surprised at this, questioned her, and she declared she was Wilhelmina Schroder, who longed for nothing but to sing his Leonora, of which all Vienna had heard. He took her to his home, she sang the part for him, and at once he accepted her.

It was she who first sang "Fidelio," and she who had the "quality"

that Beethoven demanded: the quality of kindness. It is said that her face was instinct with gentleness and her voice exquisitely beautiful.

It was almost the last thing that Beethoven heard. His deafness was already upon him, but he heard her voice; heard his beloved opera sung, and was so much overcome by the beauty of the young girl's art that during the performance he fainted.

Of all temperamental men, Beethoven was doubtless the most so, and the anecdotes written of him are many. He was especially irascible. His domestic annoyances are revealed freely in his diary: "Nancy is too uneducated for a housekeeper--indeed, quite a beast." "My precious servants were occupied from seven o'clock till ten, trying to light a fire." "The cook's off again--I shied half a dozen books at her head."

"No soup to-day, no beef, no eggs. Got something from the inn at last." These situations are amusing to read about, decades later, but doubtless tragic enough at the time to the great composer!

That in financial matters Beethoven was quite practical was ill.u.s.trated by his answer to the Prussian Amba.s.sador at Vienna, who offered to the musician the choice of the glory of having some order bestowed upon him or fifty ducats. Beethoven took the ducats.

Beautiful as the production of "Fidelio" was, it did not escape criticism from an eminent source. Cherubini was present at the first performance at the Karnthnerthor Theatre in Vienna, and when asked how he liked the overture (Leonora in C) he replied:

"To be honest, I must confess that I could not tell what key it was in from beginning to end."

FIDELIO

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA

Marcelline (jailer's daughter).

Leonora (under name of Fidelio).

Florestan (her husband and a state prisoner).

Jaquino (porter of the prison).