The Complete Opera Book Part 62

Opera in five acts. Music by Berlioz. Words by the composer.

Produced, Paris, November 4, 1863, when it failed completely. Revived, 1890, in Karlsruhe, under the direction of Felix Mottl. Mottl's performances in Karlsruhe, in 1890, of "La Prise de Troie" and "Les Troyens a Carthage"

const.i.tuted the first complete production of "Les Troyens."

CHARACTERS

DIDO _Soprano_ ANNA _Contralto_ aeNEAS _Tenor_ ASCANIUS _Soprano_ PANTHEUS _Ba.s.s_ NARBAL _Ba.s.s_ JOPAS _Tenor_ HYLAS _Tenor_

_Time_--1183 B.C.

_Place_--Carthage.

Act I. In the summer-house of her palace _Dido_ tells her retainers that the savage Numidian King, Jarbas, has asked for her hand, but she has decided to live only for the memory of her dead husband. Today, however, shall be devoted to festive games. The lyric poet _Jopas_ enters and announces the approach of strangers, who have escaped from the dangers of the sea. They arrive and _Ascanius_, son of _aeneas_, begs entertainment for a few days for himself and his companions. This _Dido_ gladly grants them. Her Minister, _Narbal_, rushes in. The Numidian king has invaded the country. Who will march against him?

_aeneas_, who had concealed himself in disguise among his sailors, steps forth and offers to defend the country against the enemy.

Act II. A splendid festival is in progress in Dido's garden in honour of the victor, _aeneas_. _Dido_ loves _aeneas_, who tells her of Andromache, and how, in spite of her grief over _Hector_, she has laid aside her mourning and given her hand to another. Why should _Dido_ not do likewise? Night closes in, and under its cover both pledge their love and faith.

Has _aeneas_ forgotten his task? To remind him, Mercury appears and strikes resoundingly on the weapons that have been laid aside, while invisible voices call out to _aeneas_: "Italie!"

Act III. Public festivities follow the betrothal of _Dido_ and _aeneas_. But _Dido's_ faithful Minister knows that, although _aeneas_ is a kingly lover, it is the will of the G.o.ds that the Trojan proceed to Italy; and that to defy the G.o.ds is fatal.

Meanwhile the destiny of the lovers is fulfilled. During a hunt they seek shelter from a thunderstorm in a cave. There they seal their love compact. (This scene is in pantomime.)

Act IV. The Trojans are incensed that _aeneas_ places love ahead of duty. They have determined to seek the land of their destiny without him. Finally _aeneas_ awakes from his infatuation and, when the voices of his ill.u.s.trious dead remind him of his duty, he resolves, in spite of _Dido's_ supplications, to depart at once.

Act V. Early morning brings to _Dido_ in her palace the knowledge that she has lost _aeneas_ forever. She decides not to survive her loss. On the sea beach she orders a huge pyre erected. All the love tokens of the faithless one are fed to the flames. She herself ascends the pyre.

Her vision takes in the great future of Carthage and the greater one of Rome. Then she throws herself on her lover's sword.

LA d.a.m.nATION DE FAUST

THE d.a.m.nATION OF FAUST

In its original form a "dramatic legend" in four parts for the concert stage. Music by Hector Berlioz. Words, after Gerald de Nerval's version of Goethe's play, by Berlioz, Gerard, and Gandonniere. Produced in its original form as a concert piece at the Opera Comique, Paris, December 6, 1846; London, two parts of the work, under Berlioz's direction, Drury Lane, February 7, 1848; first complete performance in England, Free Trade Hall, Manchester, February 5, 1880. New York, February 12, 1880, by Dr. Leopold Damrosch. Adapted for the operatic stage by Raoul Gunsberg, and produced by him at Monte Carlo, February 18, 1893, with Jean de Reszke as _Faust_; revived there March, 1902, with Melba, Jean de Reszke, and Maurice Renaud. Given in Paris with Calve, Alvarez, and Renaud, to celebrate the centennial of Berlioz's birth, December 11, 1903. New York, Metropolitan Opera House, December 7, 1906; Manhattan Opera House, November 6, 1907, with Dalmores as _Faust_ and Renaud as _Mephistopheles_.

CHARACTERS

MARGUERITE _Soprano_ FAUST _Tenor_ MePHISTOPHeLeS _Ba.s.s_ BRANDER _Ba.s.s_

Students, soldiers, citizens, men and women, fairies, etc.

_Time_--Eighteenth Century.

_Place_--A town in Germany.

In the first part of Berlioz's dramatic legend _Faust_ is supposed to be on the Plains of Hungary. Introspectively he sings of nature and solitude. There are a chorus and dance of peasants and a recitative.

Soldiers march past to the stirring measures of the "Rakoczy March,"

the national air of Hungary.

This march Berlioz orchestrated in Vienna, during his tour of 1845, and conducted it at a concert in Pesth, when it created the greatest enthusiasm. It was in order to justify the interpolation of this march that he laid the first scene of his dramatic legend on the plains of Hungary. Liszt claimed that his pianoforte transcription of the march had freely been made use of by Berlioz, "especially in the harmony."

In the operatic version Gunsbourg shows _Faust_ in a mediaeval chamber, with a view, through a window, of the sally-port of a castle, out of which the soldiers march. At one point in the march, which Berlioz has treated contrapuntally, and where it would be difficult for marchers to keep step, the soldiers halt and have their standards solemnly blessed.

The next part of the dramatic legend only required a stage setting to make it operatic. _Faust_ is in his study. He is about to quaff poison, when the walls part and disclose a church interior. The congregation, kneeling, sings the Easter canticle, "Christ is Risen."

Change of scene to Auerbach's cellar, Leipsic. Revel of students and soldiers. _Brander_ sings the "Song of the Rat," whose death is mockingly grieved over by a "Requiescat in pace" and a fugue on the word "Amen," sung by the roistering crowd. _Mephistopheles_ then "obliges" with the song of the flea, in which the skipping about of the elusive insect is depicted in the accompaniment.

In the next scene in the dramatic legend, _Faust_ is supposed to be asleep on the banks of the Elbe. Here is the most exquisite effect of the score, the "Dance of the Sylphs," a masterpiece of delicate and airy ill.u.s.tration. Violoncellos, _con sordini_, hold a single note as a pedal point, over which is woven a gossamer fabric of melody and harmony, ending with the faintest possible pianissimo from drum and harps. Gunsbourg employed here, with admirable results, the aerial ballet, and has given a rich and beautiful setting to the scene, including a vision of _Marguerite_. The ballet is followed by a chorus of soldiers and a students' song in Latin.

The scenic directions of Gounod's "Faust" call _Marguerite's_ house--so much of it as is projected into the garden scene--a pavilion. Gunsbourg makes it more like an arbour, into which the audience can see through the elimination of a supposedly existing wall, the same as in _Sparafucile's_ house, in the last act of "Rigoletto." Soldiers and students are strolling and singing in the street. _Marguerite_ sings the ballad of the King of Thule. Berlioz's setting of the song is primitive. He aptly characterizes the number as a "Chanson Gothique." The "Invocation" of _Mephistopheles_ is followed by the "Dance of Will-o'-the-Wisps." Then comes _Mephistopheles's_ barocque serenade. _Faust_ enters _Marguerite's_ pavilion. There is a love duet, which becomes a trio when _Mephistopheles_ joins the lovers and urges _Faust's_ departure.

_Marguerite_ is alone. Berlioz, instead of using Goethe's song, "Meine Ruh ist hin" (My peace is gone), the setting of which by Schubert is famous, subst.i.tutes a poem of his own. The unhappy _Marguerite_ sings, "D'Amour, l'ardente flamme" (Love, devouring fire).

The singing of the students and the soldiers grows fainter. The "retreat"--the call to which the flag is lowered at sunset--is sounded by the drums and trumpets. _Marguerite_, overcome by remorse, swoons at the window.

A mountain gorge. _Faust's_ soliloquy, "Nature, immense, impenetrable et fiere" (Nature, vast, unfathomable and proud). The "Ride to h.e.l.l"; moving panorama; pandemonium; redemption of _Marguerite_, whom angels are seen welcoming in the softly illumined heavens far above the town, in which the action is supposed to have transpired.

The production by Dr. Leopold Damrosch of "La d.a.m.nation de Faust" in its original concert form in New York, was one of the sensational events of the concert history of America. As an opera, however, the work has failed so far to make the impression that might have been expected from its effect on concert audiences; "... the experiment, though tried in various theatres," says Grove's _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, "has happily not been permanently successful." Why "happily"? It would be an advantage to operatic art if a work by so distinguished a composer as Berlioz could find a permanent place in the repertoire.

Gounod's "Faust," Boto's "Mefistofele," and Berlioz's "La d.a.m.nation de Faust" are the only settings of the Faust legend, or, more properly speaking, of Goethe's "Faust," with which a book on opera need concern itself. Gounod's "Faust," with its melodious score, and full of a sentiment that more than occasionally verges on sentimentality, has genuine popular appeal, and is likely long to maintain itself in the repertoire. "Mefistofele," nevertheless, is the profounder work.

Boto, in his setting, sounds Goethe's drama to greater depths than Gounod. It always will be preferred by those who do not have to be written down to. "La d.a.m.nation de Faust," notwithstanding its brilliant and still modern orchestration, is the most truly mediaeval of the three scores. Berlioz himself characterizes the ballad of the King of Thule as "Gothic." The same spirit of the Middle Ages runs through much of the work. In several important details the operatic adaptation has been clumsily made. Were it improved in these details, this "Faust" of Berlioz would have a chance of more than one revival.

F. von Flotow

MARTHA

Opera in four acts, by Friedrich von Flotow; words by Wilhelm Friedrich Riese, the plot based on a French ballet pantomime by Jules H. Vernoy and Marquis St. Georges (see p.

559). Produced at the Imperial Opera House, Vienna, November 25, 1847. Covent Garden, London, July 1, 1858, in Italian; in English at Drury Lane, October 11, 1858. Paris, Theatre Lyrique, December 16, 1865, when was interpolated the famous air "M'appar," from Flotow's two-act opera, "L'ame en Peine," produced at the Grand Opera, Paris, June, 1846. New York, Niblo's Garden, November 1, 1852, with Mme. Anna Bishop; in French, at New Orleans, January 27, 1860. An opera of world-wide popularity, in which, in this country, the t.i.tle role has been sung by Nilsson, Patti, Gerster, Kellogg, Parepa-Rosa, and Sembrich, and _Lionel_ by Campanini and Caruso.

CHARACTERS

LADY HARRIET DURHAM, Maid of Honor to Queen Anne _Soprano_ LORD TRISTAN DE MIKLEFORD, her cousin _Ba.s.s_ PLUNKETT, a young farmer _Ba.s.s_ LIONEL, his foster-brother. Afterwards Earl of Derby _Tenor_ NANCY, waiting-maid to Lady Harriet _Contralto_ SHERIFF _Ba.s.s_ THREE MAN SERVANTS _Tenor_ and two _Ba.s.ses_ THREE MAID SERVANTS _Soprano_ and two _Mezzo-Sopranos_

Courtiers, pages, ladies, hunters and huntresses, farmers, servants, etc.

_Time_--About 1710.

_Place_--In and near Richmond.

The first act opens in _Lady Harriet's_ boudoir. The second scene of this act is the fair at Richmond. The scene of the second act is laid in _Plunkett's_ farmhouse; that of the third in a forest near Richmond. The fourth act opens in the farmhouse and changes to _Lady Harriet's_ park.

Act I. Scene 1. The _Lady Harriet_ yawned. It was dull even at the court of Queen Anne.

"Your Ladyship," said _Nancy_, her sprightly maid, "here are flowers from _Sir Tristan_."

"Their odour sickens me," was her ladyship's weary comment.