100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (12 page)

It is not hard to see why it is popular. It has so many good tunes! It is so dramatic! It is so bright and clear! And all these characteristics can be heard in the prelude. It starts bright and clear—like a sunny day in Spain; it continues with the famous tune of the Toreador Song; and it becomes suddenly dramatic with the Fate theme—the one that suggests Carmen and her violent death.

ACT I

The prelude ends on a dramatic, dissonant chord, and the curtain rises on a midday scene in a public square in the city of Seville, 130-odd years ago. Soldiers, at rest, are commenting on the scene, which is just outside a cigarette factory. A country girl, Micaela, comes in search of her boy friend, the corporal Don José; and when she finds he isn’t there, she gracefully resists the blandishments of his comrades-in-arms and retires. Now there is a change of the guard, during which a group of urchins imitates the soldiers. The new guard includes Don José and his commanding officer, Captain Zuniga, who briefly discuss the attractions of the factory girls. Apparently these young ladies have a fascinating reputation; for a group of young men (today we would call them drugstore cowboys) gathers outside the factory for the midday recess. The girls come out, smoking cigarettes—a pretty bold thing to do in the twenties of the last century! But the men are waiting primarily for the most attractive of all the girls—Carmen.

Heralded by a quick little version of her Fate theme, she makes her entrance, flirts with the boys, and then sings her famous
Habanera
. It is a frank warning that to love Carmen is a dangerous business. Don José (a bit of a prig, I always thought) pays her no attention—and so, at the end of her song, she wantonly throws a flower at him. Everyone laughs at his embarrassment as the girls return to work.

Micaela returns to give Don José greetings from his mother, which is the occasion for a very sweet duet. It is barely over before a terrific din breaks out among the factory girls and they come swarming from the factory. Captain Zuniga, trying to restore order, discovers that Carmen has caused the trouble by attacking one of the other girls. He orders Don José to arrest the culprit and leaves her in his charge while he makes up his mind, in the guardhouse, what should be done with her. Left alone with José, Carmen completes her conquest of the young soldier by singing the seductive
Seguidilla
. In it she promises to sing and dance for him—and to love him–at a certain disreputable inn run by her friend Lillas Pastia. And so it happens that when Zuniga comes out to order Carmen to prison, she is able to push Don José aside and make good her escape. As for the young corporal, he is placed under arrest.

ACT II

Each of
Carmen’s
four acts is prefaced by a prelude or entr’acte of its own. The one that introduces Act II is based on a little soldier’s song which, later in the act, is sung by Don José. When the curtain goes up, there is a lively party going on at the inn of Lillas Pastia as Carmen leads the merriment in a wild and swirling song known as the
Chanson Bohème
. Don José’s old commanding officer, Captain Zuniga, is prominent among the guests, trying to ingratiate himself with Carmen. He does not have much luck, for, on the whole, she prefers less respectable company. However, she is delighted to hear that Don José has now served his sixty-day sentence for helping her escape.

Suddenly a popular athlete appears on the scene. He is Escamillo, the toreador; and, of course, he sings his
Toreador Song
, with everyone joining in the chorus. Like Zuniga, he is smitten with Carmen’s bright eyes; and she, for her part, plays up to his opening gambits.

But it is late, and time for closing. Soon no one is left but Carmen and a quartet of gypsy smugglers: two girls named Frasquita and Mercédès, and a couple of ruffians called El
Dancairo and El Remendado. They join in a delightful patter quintet, which celebrates the usefulness of girls in carrying out smuggling raids—for smuggling is their business. But off-stage sounds the voice of Don José singing the soldier’s song,
Halte là!

Carmen shoos the others out and warmly welcomes Don José back from jail. As she had promised, she begins to sing and dance for him. In the midst of her dance the trumpet sounds retreat in the distance, calling Don José to his duty. He begins to depart, only to arouse Carmen’s angry contempt. “Is this a way to treat a girl?” she cries. “You canary!” Stung by her taunts, he brings out the flower she had flung him, and, in the very moving
Flower Song
, tells her how it inspired him throughout his days in prison. Impressed and mollified, Carmen again begins to woo him. José’s conscience, however, is getting the better of him, when Zuniga saves the day for romance by coming in unbidden and ordering Don José to the barracks. This is too much for the youngster. He draws his sword and is about to attack his superior officer when the gypsies rush in and politely disarm the Captain. Now José doesn’t have much choice: he is practically forced to give up his military career and join the smuggling gypsies—just as Carmen had planned. And the act ends with a stirring chorus in praise of the free life. It is sung enthusiastically by everyone but Zuniga.

ACT III

The flute solo that begins the entr’acte before Act III sounds as if it were going to be “The Minstrel Boy,” but it turns into an even better tune–better for opera, anyway. The act opens with a chorus of smugglers—the gang that Don José has been forced to join. They are in a lonely spot in the mountains on professional nefarious business, and Carmen, who is already growing tired of Don José, tells him he might be better off with his mother. A lighter note is introduced after their quarrel, when Frasquita and Mercédès start telling their fortunes with cards. I must say that they deal themselves very
attractive fortunes: one is to find a passionate lover, the other a rich oldster intent on marriage. But Carmen joins in the pastime on a much more somber note, for she turns up the ace of spades, the card of death. “It is useless to try to escape one’s fate,” she mutters in her famous
Card
aria. But now the smugglers are called to duty—that is, to try to smuggle their goods over the border. (Their chorus at this point has always struck me as being remarkably noisy for criminals bent on so secretive a job.)

When they are gone, the village girl Micaela comes in search of Don José. She is very much frightened, and she asks the protection of the Lord in a touching aria
(Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante)
. Suddenly José, who has been left on guard, fires a shot, and Micaela is frightened away. However, it is not Micaela he has aimed at, but Escamillo, who is there in search of Carmen. When José discovers what Escamillo is after, the two men start a fight with knives. José is getting the better of it, when Carmen gets back just in time to save the toreador. Gallantly thanking Carmen, he invites everyone to his next performance in Seville. As he starts down the mountainside, Micaela is found. She delivers her message: José’s mother is dying and wishes to see him once more. Carmen contemptuously tells him he had better go. But before he goes, he turns furiously on her and warns her that they shall meet again—that only death can part them. Off-stage, the toreador’s song is heard, and Carmen tries to rush to him. But José, turning back once more, hurls her violently to the ground—and finally leaves, as the orchestra quietly and ominously repeats the toreador’s melody.

ACT IV

The last act is introduced by some of the most brilliant and pulse-beating music in the whole score. Everyone is in his best clothes; everyone is getting ready to watch the great Escamillo perform in the arena at Seville. A large and impressive parade of dignitaries enters the theater—all of it duly described by the chorus. Finally, in comes the toreador himself,
and on his arm is Carmen, dressed in such finery as only a successful bullfighter could afford. They sing a brief and rather banal love duet, and then Escamillo disappears into the theater, everyone except Carmen following him. She is warned by her friends, Frasquita and Mercédès, that Don José has been lurking about. Defiantly she remains outside alone, saying she does not fear him.

Then Don José comes on, tattered and ragged, a pitiful contrast to Carmen in her holiday best. Pitifully he pleads to be taken back, but she shows him only contempt. The more pressingly he pleads, the more contempt she shows; and finally she throws the ring he had given her directly in his face. Off-stage the chorus is cheering the toreador, José’s successful rival. Maddened by this and by Carmen’s behavior, he threatens her with his knife. Desperately she attempts to rush past him into the theater; but just as the crowd shouts that Escamillo is victorious, he plunges the knife into his lost beloved. The crowd pours out, while Don José, brokenly cries: “You can arrest me … Oh, my Carmen!”

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA

(Rustic Chivalry)

Opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni with
libretto by Guido Menasci and Giovanni
Targioni-Tozzetti based on a play by Giovanni
Verga which is in turn based on his own prose
tale of the same title

Time: an Easter Day in the late 19th century

Place: a village in Sicily

First performance at Rome, May 17, 1890

    The title
Cavalleria rusticana
is usually translated as
Rustic Chivalry
. This is half ironic, as the behavior of most of the characters is anything but chivalrous. In fact, as Giovanni Verga originally wrote the story, it is downright barbarous—far more violent than in Mascagni’s opera.

It is this quality—stark, naked passion, expressed in unabashed violence—that may partly account for the immediate success of the work. It is essentially, of course, a literary quality. Verga’s novelette is regarded as a minor literary classic, and Duse and other actresses used to have great success with the tale given as a spoken drama. It was one of the first and most prominent successes, in both literature and music, of the school of
verismo
—“the theory that in art and literature
the ugly and vulgar have their place on the grounds of truth and aesthetic value,” to quote Webster.

The little work was the first of three winners in a prize contest held by the publisher Sonzogno, and it catapulted its completely unknown composer, then aged twenty-seven, into overnight fame. It was not a local fame. Even in New York there was a bitter fight for its premiere performance. Oscar Hammerstein, years before he built his great Manhattan Opera House, paid $3000 for the rights only to be anticipated by a rival manager named Aronson, who gave a so-called “public rehearsal” of the work on the afternoon of October 1, 1891. Hammerstein’s performance took place the same evening. That was less than eighteen months after its Roman premiere. But before that all Italy had heard it, not to mention Stockholm, Madrid, Budapest, Hamburg, Prague, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Vienna, Bucharest, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen, and Chicago, in the order named.

For well over half a century Mascagni lived on the fame and royalties won by this little masterpiece. He never composed another opera remotely approaching the success of
Cavalleria
, but he died in 1945 full of fame and honors.

PRELUDE

The story takes place in a Sicilian village at the end of the last century. The time is Easter Sunday, and the prelude begins with quiet music, like a prayer. Soon it becomes more dramatic, and in the middle of it is heard the voice of the leading tenor, off-stage, singing a love serenade—the
Siciliana
. He is the recently returned soldier Turiddu, and he is serenading his mistress, Lola.

THE OPERA

After the prelude, the orchestra and chorus set the scene for us by describing a fine Easter Sunday morning on the principal square of a Sicilian village. Presently the village girl, Santuzza, asks old Mamma Lucia about her son Turiddu.
Santuzza is badly worried because she is engaged to Turiddu, and some of his recent behavior has not been very fitting. The two women, however, are interrupted by the entrance of Alfio, a bluff, hearty, and popular young teamster, who sings a jolly song about his jolly life, as he cracks his whip
(Il cavallo scalpita)
. He does not yet know that Turiddu has been making love to his pretty wife, Lola. A brief exchange with Mamma Lucia, in which he mentions that he had seen her son that morning near his house, makes Santuzza even more suspicious.

But now some organ music issues from the church. Off-stage, the choir sings. The villagers all kneel, and with Santuzza contributing a fine solo, they join in a beautiful prayer, the
Regina coeli
. A religious procession enters the church and the villagers follow, but Santuzza keeps old Lucia outside to tell her story. In the aria
Voi lo sapete
she tells how Turiddu, before he went to the Army, promised to marry her, how he returned and deserted her, and how he is now paying court to Lola. Lucia is shocked but promises no help. Therefore, when Turiddu himself comes in, Santuzza appeals to him directly. He offers unconvincing excuses, and he is growing very angry, when they are interrupted by the subject of the quarrel. Lola, very prettily dressed, comes in, on her way to church, singing a ditty about love; and when she has gone, the quarrel breaks out again with renewed violence. Finally, Turiddu will stand no more of it. He hurls Santuzza to the ground and storms into the church as she cries a curse after him.