100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (24 page)

Leonora No. 3
is often played between the two scenes of Act II. To many critics its anticipation of the musical and dramatic effects in the following scene makes this practice abhorrently inartistic. I must say that I agree with them. This overture is so strong, so dramatic, so effective with its off-stage trumpet call (repeated, of course, in the opera) that it needs no stage action to convey, in essence, the musical message of the entire opera. Perhaps that is why Beethoven, having learned from experience in the intervening years, wrote the more modest
Fidelio Overture
for the final revision; and perhaps that is why this great orchestral poem should be reserved exclusively for the concert hall.

ACT I

Sometimes this act is divided into two scenes; sometimes, as in the score, it remains undivided. In either case, the action takes place in the home of Rocco, jailer of the prison at Seville. (In the divided productions it begins inside the house and ends in the courtyard; in the undivided ones, it all takes place in the courtyard).

There is a one-sided romance going on between Rocco’s
daughter Marcellina and Rocco’s assistant, Jacquino. The young man proposes insistently without any encouragement whatsoever from the girl, and also under considerable difficulties. Not only does Marcellina stick to her ironing, but the poor fellow is repeatedly interrupted at his wooing by summonses to open the door he is supposed to be attending. When he has finally left, Marcellina utters a sigh of relief and a very pleasant little aria (
O wär ich schon mit dir vereint
—“Oh, were we only married now”). Quite frankly she tells us that the man she would like to be married to is Fidelio. What she does not know is that Fidelio is a woman in disguise. She is Leonora, the wife of Florestan, a political prisoner of Pizarro’s, the tyrannical Governor of the fortress of Seville. No one knows just where Florestan has been put; but Leonora, suspecting it may be right here, has disguised herself as a man, taken the name of Fidelio, and secured herself a job as first assistant to Rocco. She has been on this job for six months now without finding Florestan, but has won the devoted admiration of both her master and his daughter.

Rocco, accompanied by Jacquino, comes in and says that he is expecting Fidelio back from the city with some new chains; and when Fidelio shows up with a particularly sturdy set, he is congratulated. An enchanting quartet is sung, in the form of a canon or round, in which Marcellina shows that she thinks Fidelio likes her, Fidelio notes Marcellina’s affections but cannot approve of them, Rocco thinks they would make a fine couple, and Jacquino fears he may be frozen out. And in simple song Rocco gives some worldly advice to the couple he believes to be virtually engaged: “He who hasn’t laid up gold cannot expect a happy life.”

In the ensuing dialogue Leonora learns of a prisoner kept so secret that no one but the jailer is allowed to visit him. She is overjoyed when Rocco tells her that, on account of the way work is getting a bit too heavy for him, she may be permitted to help. A trio follows.

It is at this point that many productions change from the inside to the outside of Rocco’s house, and a martial tune in the orchestra gives time for the change of scene. Pizarro enters
with a troop of guards and gets his mail from Rocco. One of the letters (as he obligingly informs us by reading it aloud) is a secret warning of a surprise visitation from Don Fernando, the Prime Minister of Spain, who has heard that Pizarro has been misusing his powers at the expense of others. He summons Rocco and orders the secret prisoner murdered forthwith but secretly, and he offers the gold-loving jailer a bribe. Rocco, accepting it, soothes his conscience by remarking that death is probably better anyway than the slow starvation the poor fellow has been suffering on orders from Pizarro.

Leonora has been eavesdropping on the latter part of this scheming, and she now sings her great aria
Abscheulicher! wo eilst du hin!
(“O! thou monstrous fiend!”) and follows it with another one in which she expresses her hope and her faith that God and her love will yet see them through.

After a brief scene in which Marcellina makes it clear to Jacquino that she is not going to marry him, but Fidelio, Rocco is persuaded, in the Governor’s absence, to give the prisoners some fresh air—a luxury they are very seldom accorded. The wretched men, fearful of the guard on the wall, yet ecstatically happy to breathe the air of heaven, file in slowly and sing the
Prisoners’ Chorus
, a deeply moving projection of the emotions of bewildered sufferers given a temporary taste of freedom.

Rocco returns from his interview with Pizarro and tells Fidelio that he has permission for him to marry Marcellina, but that now they must prepare to dig the grave of the secret prisoner. Leonora is aghast at this news and asks whether he is already dead or whether Rocco is supposed to murder him. Neither, says Rocco: Pizarro will do his own murdering; all they need do is to dig the grave. He offers to let her off this rather dismal assignment, but Leonora insists on helping the old man even though, in her heart, she feels it must be intended for her husband, Florestan.

Pizarro, having heard of the unauthorized liberty accorded the prisoners, returns to denounce the jailer; but Rocco succeeds in mollifying him through a reference to the man who is about to die. The prisoners are then herded back into their
cells; the doors are locked and bolted; and the act ends with soft and ominous sounds in the kettledrums.

ACT II

Scene 1
In his gloomy dungeon Florestan, chained to a stone, comments, even after two years of uninterrupted tenancy, on the dismal aspect of his apartment. Behind him is a long flight of steps leading to the door that gives entry to that part of the prison. He then sings his moving aria
In des Lebens Frühlingstagen
(“In the springtime days of life”), in which he mourns his lost and courageous youth, resigns himself to a death that cannot be far off, and imagines he sees an angel, in the shape of Leonora, leading him up to heaven. Then he sleeps.

Rocco and Fidelio come in, prepared to dig the grave in a cistern by the side of the cell. The scene is composed in what is technically and literally “melodrama”: that is, spoken dialogue is carried on, and the orchestra plays snatches of music. As they work, Leonora tries to catch a glimpse of the prisoner’s features, but she cannot be sure that it is her husband, even when Rocco speaks with him and offers him a drink of wine. A few moments later, however, she is sure; and when she offers him a crust of bread, she can barely stand it that even her beloved Florestan does not recognize her. Pitifully, in a sweet melody, he thanks the assistant jailer for the deed of mercy.

Now Rocco gives a whistle, the agreed-upon signal to Pizarro, and Florestan, having at last learned who has sent him to this place, suspects that his life is threatened. Pizarro descends the stairs, throws back his cloak, and gloats for a moment over Florestan, who prepares for his own death with consummate dignity and courage. But just as Pizarro, dagger drawn, is about to hurl himself at Florestan, Leonora throws herself between them, crying, “First kill his wife!” Everyone is astonished; and when Pizarro prepares to do a double murder, Leonora pulls a pistol from her doublet and covers him.

At that moment, off-stage, is heard the trumpet call which
everyone remembers from the frequent performances of the
Leonora No. 3
overture. A moment of silence, another snatch from the overture music, and the trumpet call rings out again, nearer this time. Jacquino rushes down to bring the news that the Prime Minister is at the gates. There is a short quartet; Pizarro and Rocco leave; and the scene usually closes with the joyful duet in which husband and wife are reunited.

In the score and the libretto there is a short spoken scene after the duet in which Rocco returns and tells of the list of prisoners submitted to the Prime Minister, which does not contain Florestan’s name, showing that he was a victim of the private vengeance of Pizarro. As this scene is not strictly necessary for the drama, and as the spoken dialogue makes a much tamer scene ending, the curtain customarily is lowered after the Leonora-Florestan duet.

Scene 2
In the brief final scene, the Prime Minister, Don Fernando, addresses the assembled prisoners and townspeople on the mercy of the King, recognizes Florestan and Leonora as old friends, and orders Pizarro led away in chains. The opera closes with a general chorus in praise of Leonora and of conjugal love, which is the theme of the whole work.

DIE FLEDERMAUS

(The Bat)

Operetta in three acts by Johann Strauss with
libretto in German by Carl Haffner and Richard
Genée, based on a French comedy,
Le
réveillon
by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy

Time: about 1870

Place: probably Vienna

First performance at Vienna, April 5, 1874

    Usually Johann Strauss did not seem to care much whether his libretto was a good one or a bad one. He was renowned as the Waltz King, and he wrote fine waltzes—and other good tunes—almost equally well for stupid books and for good ones.
Die Fledermaus
happens to be a good one. That means—for an operetta—that it has brightness throughout, it has characters who are quickly recognized as types and yet are strongly individualized, and it has a story at once amusing and yet so preposterous that no one can feel bad when anyone gets into trouble.

The story was over twenty years old when Strauss got it It had first been a German play by Roderich Benedix entitled
The Prison
. Then it became a French play by Meilhac and Halévy (the librettists of
Carmen)
. Finally, it came back into the German language when Carl Haffner and Richard Genée made an operetta libretto of it expressly for Strauss. Genée, incidentally, was himself a composer, but he wrote a number of excellent librettos for Strauss. In this sense he was to Strauss just what Boito was to Verdi.

It is the most successful and widely loved of all of the Strauss operettas. And its music is so good—and offers so many opportunities to fine singers—that it is often (as with our own Metropolitan) the only operetta in the repertoire of a great opera house.

OVERTURE

The overture—the most famous one Strauss composed—is made up of several tunes from the operetta itself. Most of these come from the last act, which takes place in the prison. But the one tune that predominates—the one everyone remembers—is the great waltz, which is heard in the extremely festive Act II.

ACT I

The scene is an empty room in the home of the well-to-do Gabriel von Eisenstein, and the first sounds heard are the dulcet, off-stage notes of a tenor serenading one Rosalinda. Adele, the maid, enters on a cadenza. She reads a letter from her sister, a ballet girl, telling her that the entire ballet company has been invited to a fine party that night. Can Adele get an evening dress and come? Adele sadly wishes she could, but she fears she will not be allowed to. She is right. Her mistress, Rosalinda, will not hear of it, even though Adele tearfully pleads the excuse of a sick aunt. The trouble is that Rosalinda’s husband must begin a five-day sentence in prison that very night. Rosalinda is duly distracted, but she shows considerable interest when that tenor is heard again, singing his
serenade. He enters a moment later and turns out to be Alfred, who once had loved Rosalinda and now, soon after her marriage, has returned, hoping for better luck this time. He promises to leave only if Rosalinda will see him when her husband is safely in jail. Unable to resist the thrill of his high C’s, the young lady consents.

Her husband, the master of the house, now storms in with his lawyer, Dr. Blind. Blind has made a mess of things at court with the result that Eisenstein will now have to serve eight days instead of only five. A trio develops in which the Eisensteins blame the lawyer, and the lawyer tries to excuse himself.

While Rosalinda is off finding some old clothes for her husband to wear in prison, enter one Dr. Falke. He is an old friend of Eisenstein’s, but he bears him a grudge. Once—as a practical joke—Eisenstein had forced Falke to walk through town, in broad daylight, in a carnival costume. He had been dressed as a bat—which is the reason for the title of the operetta. Falke now invites Eisenstein to go to a big party that night, with lots of girls. He can give himself up at the prison in the morning—and Rosalinda will never know. Eisenstein is delighted. He asks for evening clothes to go to prison in, explaining, lamely, that it is a most distinguished prison. As for Rosalinda, she is too much concerned about her old lover’s coming back to query this change of costume. In fact, she has given Adele the night off after all for the same reason. And so there is a fetching trio of farewell between Rosalinda, Eisenstein, and Adele.