The Complete Opera Book Part 76

But relief is nigh. Two boys enter. They bring provisions and fuel.

After them comes _Schaunard_. He tosses money on the table. The boys leave. In vain _Schaunard_ tries to tell his friends the ludicrous details of his three-days' musical engagement to an eccentric Englishman. It is enough for them that it has yielded fuel and food, and that some money is left over for the immediate future.

Between their noise in stoking the stove and unpacking the provisions, _Schaunard_ cannot make himself heard.

_Rudolph_ locks the door. Then all go to the table and pour out wine.

It is Christmas eve. _Schaunard_ suggests that, when they have emptied their gla.s.ses, they repair to their favourite resort, the Cafe Momus, and dine. Agreed. Just then there is a knock. It is _Benoit_, their landlord, for the rent. They let him in and invite him to drink with them. The sight of the money on the table rea.s.sures him. He joins them. The wine loosens his tongue. He boasts of his conquests of women at shady resorts. The four friends feign indignation. What! He, a married man, engaged in such disreputable proceedings! They seize him, lift him to his feet, and eject him, locking the door after him.

The money on the table was earned by _Schaunard_, but, according to their custom, they divide it. Now, off for the Cafe Momus--that is, all but _Rudolph_, who will join them soon--when he has finished an article he has to write for a new journal, the _Beaver_. He stands on the landing with a lighted candle to aid the others in making their way down the rickety stairs.

With little that can be designated as set melody, there nevertheless has not been a dull moment in the music of these scenes. It has been brisk, merry and sparkling, in keeping with the careless gayety of the four dwellers in the garret.

Re-entering the room, and closing the door after him, _Rudolph_ clears a s.p.a.ce on the table for pens and paper, then sits down to write.

Ideas are slow in coming. Moreover, at that moment, there is a timid knock at the door.

"Who's there?" he calls.

It is a woman's voice that says, hesitatingly, "Excuse me, my candle has gone out."

_Rudolph_ runs to the door, and opens it. On the threshold stands a frail, appealingly attractive young woman. She has in one hand an extinguished candle, in the other a key. _Rudolph_ bids her come in.

She crosses the threshold. A woman of haunting sweetness in aspect and manner has entered Bohemia.

She lights her candle by his, but, as she is about to leave, the draught again extinguishes it. _Rudolph's_ candle also is blown out, as he hastens to relight hers. The room is dark, save for the moonlight that, over the snow-clad roofs of Paris, steals in through the garret window. _Mimi_ exclaims that she has dropped the key to the door of her room. They search for it. He finds it but slips it into his pocket. Guided by _Mimi's_ voice and movements, he approaches. As she stoops, his hand meets hers. He clasps it.

"Che gelida manina" (How cold your hand), he exclaims with tender solicitude. "Let me warm it into life." He then tells her who he is, in what has become known as the "Racconto di Rodolfo" (Rudolph's Narrative), which, from the gentle and solicitous phrase, "Che gelida manina," followed by the proud exclamation, "Sono un poeta" (I am a poet), leads up to an eloquent avowal of his dreams and fancies. Then comes the girl's charming "Mi chiamano Mimi" (They call me Mimi), in which she tells of her work and how the flowers she embroiders for a living transport her from her narrow room out into the broad fields and meadows. "Mi chiamano Mimi" is as follows:--

[Music]

Her frailty, which one can see is caused by consumption in its early stages, makes her beauty the more appealing to _Rudolph_.

His friends call him from the street below. Their voices draw _Mimi_ to the window. In the moonlight she appears even lovelier to _Rudolph_. "O soave fanciulla" (Thou beauteous maiden), he exclaims, as he takes her to his arms. This is the beginning of the love duet, which, though it be sung in a garret, is as impa.s.sioned as any that, in opera, has echoed through the corridors of palaces, or the moonlit colonnades of forests by historic rivers. The theme is quoted here in the key, in which it occurs, like a premonition, a little earlier in the act.

[Music]

The theme of the love duet is used by the composer several times in the course of the opera, and always in a.s.sociation with _Mimi_.

Especially in the last act does it recur with poignant effect.

Act II. A meeting of streets, where they form a square, with shops of all sorts, and the Cafe Momus. The square is filled with a happy Christmas eve crowd. Somewhat aloof from this are _Rudolph_ and _Mimi_. _Colline_ stands near the shop of a clothes dealer.

_Schaunard_ is haggling with a tinsmith over the price of a horn.

_Marcel_ is chaffing the girls who jostle against him in the crowd.

There are street venders crying their wares; citizens, students, and work girls, pa.s.sing to and fro and calling to each other; people at the cafe giving orders--a merry whirl, depicted in the music by s.n.a.t.c.hes of chorus, bits of recitative, and an instrumental accompaniment that runs through the scene like a many-coloured thread, and holds the pattern together.

_Rudolph_ and _Mimi_ enter a bonnet shop. The animation outside continues. When the two lovers come out of the shop, _Mimi_ is wearing a new bonnet trimmed with roses. She looks about.

"What is it?" _Rudolph_ asks suspiciously.

"Are you jealous?" asks _Mimi_.

"The man in love is always jealous."

_Rudolph's_ friends are at a table outside the cafe. _Rudolph_ joins them with _Mimi_. He introduces her to them as one who will make their party complete, for he "will play the poet, while she's the muse incarnate."

_Parpignol_, the toy vender, crosses the square and goes off, followed by children, whose mothers try to restrain them. The toy vender is heard crying his wares in the distance. The quartet of Bohemians, now a quintet through the accession of _Mimi_, order eatables and wine.

Shopwomen, who are going away, look down one of the streets, and exclaim over someone whom they see approaching.

"'Tis Musetta! My, she is gorgeous!--Some stammering old dotard is with her."

_Musetta_ and _Marcel_ have loved, quarrelled, and parted. She has recently put up with the aged but wealthy _Alcindoro de Mittoneaux_, who, when she comes upon the square, is out of breath trying to keep up with her.

Despite _Musetta's_ and _Marcel's_ attempt to appear indifferent to each other's presence, it is plain that they are not so. _Musetta_ has a chic waltz song, "Quando me'n vo soletta per la via" (As through the streets I wander onward merrily), one of the best-known numbers of the score, which she deliberately sings at _Marcel_, to make him aware, without arousing her aged gallant's suspicions, that she still loves him.

[Music]

Feigning that a shoe hurts her, she makes the ridiculous _Alcindoro_ unlatch and remove it, and trot off with it to the cobbler's. She and _Marcel_ then embrace, and she joins the five friends at their table, and the expensive supper ordered by _Alcindoro_ is served to them with their own.

The military tattoo is heard approaching from the distance. There is great confusion in the square. A waiter brings the bill for the Bohemians' order. _Schaunard_ looks in vain for his purse. _Musetta_ comes to the rescue. "Make one bill of the two orders. The gentleman who was with me will pay it."

The patrol enters, headed by a drum major. _Musetta_, being without her shoe, cannot walk, so _Marcel_ and _Colline_ lift her between them to their shoulders, and carry her through the crowd, which, sensing the humour of the situation, gives her an ovation, then swirls around _Alcindoro_, whose foolish, senile figure, appearing from the direction of the cobbler's shop with a pair of shoes for _Musetta_, it greets with jeers. For his gay ladybird has fled with her friends from the _Quartier_, and left him to pay all the bills.

Act III. A gate to the city of Paris on the Orleans road. A toll house at the gate. To the left a tavern, from which, as a signboard hangs _Marcel's_ picture of the Red Sea. Several plane trees. It is February. Snow is on the ground. The hour is that of dawn. Scavengers, milk women, truckmen, peasants with produce, are waiting to be admitted to the city. Custom-house officers are seated, asleep, around a brazier. Sounds of revelry are heard from the tavern. These, together with characteristic phrases, when the gate is opened and people enter, enliven the first scene.

Into the small square comes _Mimi_ from the Rue d'Enfer, which leads from the Latin Quarter. She looks pale, distressed, and frailer than ever. A cough racks her. Now and then she leans against one of the bare, gaunt plane trees for support.

A message from her brings _Marcel_ out of the tavern. He tells her he finds it more lucrative to paint signboards than pictures. _Musetta_ gives music lessons. _Rudolph_ is with them. Will not _Mimi_ join them? She weeps, and tells him that _Rudolph_ is so jealous of her she fears they must part. When _Rudolph_, having missed _Marcel_, comes out to look for him, _Mimi_ hides behind a plane tree, from where she hears her lover tell his friend that he wishes to give her up because of their frequent quarrels. "Mimi e una civetta" (Mimi is a heartless creature) is the burden of his song. Her violent coughing reveals her presence. They decide to part--not angrily, but regretfully: "Addio, senza rancor" (Farewell, then, I wish you well), sings _Mimi_.

[Music]

Meanwhile _Marcel_, who has re-entered the tavern, has caught _Musetta_ flirting with a stranger. This starts a quarrel, which brings them out into the street. Thus the music becomes a quartet: "Addio, dolce svegliare" (Farewell, sweet love), sing _Rudolph_ and _Mimi_, while _Marcel_ and _Musetta_ upbraid each other. The temperamental difference between the two women, _Mimi_ gentle and melancholy, _Musetta_ aggressive and disputatious, and the difference in the effect upon the two men, are admirably brought out by the composer. "Viper!" "Toad!" _Marcel_ and _Musetta_ call out to each other, as they separate; while the frail _Mimi_ sighs, "Ah! that our winter night might last forever," and she and _Rudolph_ sing, "Our time for parting's when the roses blow."

Act IV. The scene is again the attic of the four Bohemians. _Rudolph_ is longing for _Mimi_, of whom he has heard nothing, _Marcel_ for _Musetta_, who, having left him, is indulging in one of her gay intermezzos with one of her wealthy patrons. "Ah, Mimi, tu piu" (Ah, Mimi, fickle-hearted), sings _Rudolph_, as he gazes at the little pink bonnet he bought her at the milliner's shop Christmas eve. _Schaunard_ thrusts the water bottle into _Colline's_ hat as if the latter were a champagne cooler. The four friends seek to forget sorrow and poverty in a.s.suming mock dignities and then indulging in a frolic about the attic. When the fun is at its height, the door opens and _Musetta_ enters. She announces that _Mimi_ is dying and, as a last request, has asked to be brought back to the attic, where she had been so happy with _Rudolph_. He rushes out to get her, and supports her feeble and faltering footsteps to the cot, on which he gently lowers her.

She coughs; her hands are very cold. _Rudolph_ takes them in his to warm them. _Musetta_ hands her earrings to _Marcel_, and bids him go out and sell them quickly, then buy a tonic for the dying girl. There is no coffee, no wine. _Colline_ takes off his overcoat, and, having apostrophized it in the "Song of the Coat," goes out to sell it, so as to be able to replenish the larder. _Musetta_ runs off to get her m.u.f.f for _Mimi_, her hands are still so cold.

_Rudolph_ and the dying girl are now alone. This tragic moment, when their love revives too late, finds expression, at once pa.s.sionate and exquisite, in the music. The phrases "How cold your hand," "They call me Mimi," from the love scene in the first act, recur like mournful memories.

_Mimi_ whispers of incidents from early in their love. "Te lo rammenti" (Ah! do you remember).

[Music]

_Musetta_ and the others return. There are tender touches in the good offices they would render the dying girl. They are aware before _Rudolph_ that she is beyond aid. In their faces he reads what has happened. With a cry, "Mimi! Mimi!" he falls sobbing upon her lifeless form. _Musetta_ kneels weeping at the foot of the bed. _Schaunard_, overcome, sinks back into a chair. _Colline_ stands dazed at the suddenness of the catastrophe. _Marcel_ turns away to hide his emotion.

Mi chiamano Mimi!

TOSCA

Opera in three acts by Puccini; words by L. Illica and G.

Giacosa after the drama, "La Tosca," by Sardou. Produced, Constanzi Theatre, Rome, January 14, 1900; London, Covent Garden, July 12, 1900. Buenos Aires, June 16, 1900.