100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (33 page)

When the premiere of the work did finally take place a year later, it had the benefit of the original German language, for it was given for a German audience. It occurred in Weimar in 1850, while Wagner was still in exile. The orchestra boasted only five first violins and six seconds, with thirty-eight pieces in all, while the chorus numbered under thirty. Despite the best efforts of the conductor, who was Wagner’s great champion and father-in-law-to-be, Franz Liszt, the opera was not well received. (How could it have been with such inadequate forces?)

Liszt reported all the details to the absent composer, and the great Richard was very angry. The performance had taken something over four hours, and Wagner decided that Liszt must have played everything too slowly. However, Wagner had never heard the opera even rehearsed with an orchestra, however small; he had only played it for himself on a piano. He therefore did not realize that those long, sustained passages at the beginning of the prelude—as well as many others like them—are best played very, very slowly by an orchestra. On a piano, which cannot sustain a chord evenly for more than a moment, it would have to go faster. Eleven years later, when Wagner heard a full performance for the first time, in Vienna, he agreed that Liszt had been right. A full performance, without cuts and not counting intermissions, takes upwards of three and a half hours. Therefore, many opera houses habitually cut passages here and there which only the genuine
aficionado—and
the inveterate libretto-reader—will notice.

PRELUDE

The well-beloved prelude is based almost entirely upon the theme of the Holy Grail and was romantically and quite accurately described by Wagner himself in these words:

“Out of the clear blue ether of the sky there seems to condense a wonderful yet at first hardly perceptible vision; and out of this there gradually emerges, ever more and more clearly, an angel host bearing in its midst the Holy Grail. As it approaches earth, it pours out exquisite odors, like streams of gold, ravishing the senses of the beholder. The glory of the vision grows and grows until it seems as if the rapture must be shattered and dispersed by the very vehemence of its expansion … The flames die away, and the angel host soars up again to the ethereal heights in tender joy …”

ACT I

Henry the Fowler, tenth-century ruler of Germany, arrives at Antwerp beside the river Scheldt. He addresses the assembled nobles of Saxony and Brabant, telling them of renewed war with the Eastern hordes, and they agree to follow him in battle. But, adds Henry, there is trouble locally, and he calls on Frederick, Count Telramund, to recite his complaint. Telramund steps forward and, with growing excitement, tells a strange story. The boy, Godfrey of Brabant, has disappeared. His sister, Elsa, whom Telramund had once intended to marry, had taken him into the woods, and the boy had never returned. There is but one explanation: she must have murdered him. Telramund has therefore married someone else—Ortrud of Friesland; and now, in the name of his wife, he claims to be the rightful ruler of Brabant. Elsa is then called upon and comes in, the picture of innocence, all dressed in white. She sings her famous aria,
Elsa’s Dream
, in which she tells of having seen a handsome knight who promised to come to her in time of need. The issue, it is agreed, must be tried in the good medieval tradition of trial by combat. But who will fight for Elsa? The Herald solemnly calls for a candidate once, but no one offers. He calls again. Again, no answer. Then Elsa and her handmaidens pray earnestly, and lo, in the distance, appears a knight in a boat, drawn up the river by a swan. The knight in shining armor lands. In a simple aria he thanks the swan, then turns to greet the King and to offer his
services to Elsa. But first she must make two promises: she must agree to marry him, should he prove victorious, and she must agree never to ask his name or where he has come from. To both terms she consents. The fighting ground is measured off by the nobles; the Herald recites the rules of the combat; and the King leads the entire assemblage in an impressive prayer.

The fight itself is very brief. Telramund is struck to the ground; the stranger knight magnanimously spares his life; and the act concludes with general melodious rejoicing—a chorus of praise to the champion with the unknown name. I hardly think I am violating a secret if I say that the name of the unknown knight is Lohengrin.

ACT II

Although Telramund’s life has been spared, both he and his wife, Ortrud, are in disgrace. They have spent the night bickering on the steps of the cathedral of Antwerp, where Elsa and her rescuer are to be married in the morning. Before dawn Elsa appears on the balcony over the square, and Ortrud, pretending friendship, is invited in, and is given an honorable place at the wedding.

Dawn begins to break; the knights and others gather in the courtyard; and the Herald makes two important announces ments: Elsa and her champion are to be married that very morning, and the expedition against the Hungarians is to begin soon after under the new leader of Brabant—that is, of course, Lohengrin.

Then begins the long and beautiful
Bridal Procession
. All the knights and ladies gather and sing their blessings on the handsome couple. But suddenly Ortrud interrupts, taunting Elsa for not knowing the name or origin of her fiancé. Elsa is frightened, but she is rescued by the appearance of the King and her warrior. Ortrud is ordered away, and the procession begins again, only to be interrupted once more, this time by Telramund. Standing on the cathedral steps, and backed by four followers, he presses his charges even more strongly than
Ortrud did. He demands that the King himself put the questions of name and origin to the stranger. Now the knight himself speaks up. He will answer no one, he says, but Elsa herself. Does she wish to question him? Well—Elsa is only human, and very, very feminine. For a longer time than any heroine really should she wavers. Then (but only after a very fine concerted number) she proceeds with the ceremonial without asking the fateful questions. Telramund manages to whisper to her that he will be standing by at night; but she dismisses him, and the procession moves on, joyously, to the cathedral.

Then, just as they are about to enter, Ortrud appears ominously once more. The music always associated with the fatal questions thunders out of the orchestra, and the act closes on a skillfully mixed note of doubt and joy.

ACT III

Scene 1
The exciting prelude to the third act leads, with a few bars of modulation, right into the celebrated
Bridal Chorus
. The attendants sing this to the happy couple on the night of their wedding, and then they leave them in their bridal chamber. Elsa and her still-unnamed knight—now her husband—sing a lovely duet, but then her doubts again begin to assert themselves. Her husband tries to allay them with an aria that compares her to the sweetest fragrances of nature. Yet the doubts will not down. Sternly he reminds her of the trust she owes him, and he repeats his protestations of love. But the poison that Ortrud and Telramund have poured into Elsa’s ear continues to work. She imagines she sees the swan returning to take her husband from her side. A madness seizes upon her, and over the protest of her husband she finally asks the fatal questions: “Tell me thy name … Whence dost thou come? … Where is thy home?”

Before he can answer (for answer he must), Telramund and four knights burst into the chamber. Swiftly Elsa hands over the sword, swiftly Lohengrin slays Telramund—with one supernatural stroke of his sword. “Now all our happiness is gone,”
he sadly sighs, and he orders the corpse to be carried before the King and Elsa herself to appear in the royal presence.

Scene 2
With no pause the scene changes to the kingly presence, as it was in Act I. Telramund’s body is carried in, and his slayer explains what he has had to do. Then Elsa comes in; and now the knight prepares to answer her questions. Quietly, but tensely, he tells of his home on the wondrous Mont Monsalvat, where a band of knights guards and serves the Holy Grail. Once every year a dove descends from heaven to renew its powers, and all its knights are guarded by it in their fights for innocence and truth. His father, says the knight, is Percival, king of all the knights of the Grail, and his own name is—Lohengrin. But now, he adds, since his secret is known, he must return. And however much he regrets it, he must leave, not only his bride, but King Henry.

Suddenly a cry is heard from those nearest the shore. The swan is seen returning, with the boat. Lohengrin goes to greet it and then turns once more to Elsa. Had she but waited a year, her young brother Godfrey would have been restored to her. Now, should he return, she must give him Lohengrin’s sword, horn, and ring; and with a final farewell he turns to the swan. Then a miracle occurs. The swan sinks into the river, and in his place comes the young Duke of Brabant—Godfrey! Bitterly the sorceress Ortrud relates how she had transformed the boy into a swan. Lohengrin, thereupon, falls upon his knees and prays. A dove is seen descending from the sky and, with a chain, carries off the knight in his boat. Elsa cries after him, “My husband, my husband!” and then sinks lifeless into Godfrey’s arms as the curtain falls.

    
Postscript for the historically curious:
Although the story of Lohengrin is legendary, the events may be accurately dated. King Henry the Fowler’s reign is fairly well documented. In 923 he made a peace treaty with the Hungarians to last ten years. In his opening speech in the opera (often drastically cut) he tells the assembled warriors that the ten years have now elapsed.

LOUISE

Opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier with
libretto in French by the composer

Time: 1900

Place: Paris

First performance at Paris, February 2, 1900

    Paris is really the principal character of
Louise
. That is the city where it was first given over half a century ago—on February
2
, 1900, to be exact. And Paris, although it was surprised and somewhat shocked by the work, took the self-portrait to its heart. In April of 1900—two months after the premiere-the leading soprano fell ill during Act II. A totally unknown girl—and a foreigner at that—was the only understudy. Although she had never been on an operatic stage before, she stepped into the role at a few moments’ notice and made her debut, beginning with the principal aria in the opera,
Depuis le jour
. A huge success at once, she became a favorite of the French opera public for over thirty years. Her name was Mary Garden, and she sang
Louise
at the Opéra Comique over two hundred times.

There were several reasons that the opera was a bit of a shocker to Paris at the time. First of all, the music was impressionistic. Its effect is somewhat reminiscent of Debussy;
yet
Louise is
two years older than Debussy’s impressionistic
Pelléas et Mélisande
. Secondly, there are scarcely any old-fashioned arias. Louise’s
Depuis le jour
and the
Lullaby
in the last act are the only passages often sung by themselves. Thirdly, the libretto, by the composer himself, is in prose, not in verse, and this fact made the play seem startlingly realistic for opera. And fourth—and most important of all—the story took place in the time of its audience and deals almost exclusively with the lower classes, with workers. That is, the leading singers looked like, and used the language of, the men and women who worked in the streets and factories of Paris itself. Nothing just like that had ever been seen before on the stage of a Parisian opera house.

ACT I

The first act takes place in the tenement home of a laborer. His daughter, Louise, has fallen in love with a romantic young poet who occupies a neighboring tenement. This fellow, Julien, might almost be a direct descendant of Rodolfo, the poet of
La Bohème
. When the opera opens, he is standing on his balcony making love, through the window, to his Mimi—that is, his Louise. They recall how they met and speak of eloping together if Louise’s parents do not give consent. Her mother, who interrupts them, thinks Julien is a good-for-nothing and doesn’t hesitate to say so. Then the father returns from work. He is overtired, and his wife and daughter try to persuade him to take a rest for a while, to give up work. But he feels he cannot afford it; and besides, he thinks the finest thing in the world is to work for his family, and to keep that family happy and all together. At supper the father reads a letter Julien has left for him proposing marriage with his daughter. He is not unfavorably disposed, but the mother is furious; and when Louise talks up against a particularly insulting remark about her lover, her face is roundly slapped for her. Father, however, is all for peace. He asks his daughter to sit quietly by him and read the paper aloud. The article she
begins on makes mention of springtime in Paris—always a very sentimental subject—and the girl breaks down, weeping.

ACT II

Scene 1
takes place on a street at the foot of Montmartre, right outside the dressmaker’s where Louise has a job. The whole first part of this scene simply pictures life in the Paris streets in the early morning. The prelude is supposed to suggest Paris coming to life at dawn; and when the curtain rises, there are such members of the cast as a milk woman, a newspaper girl, a ragpicker, a junkman, and others plying their trades and commenting, with a sort of Gallic cynicism, on life in general. A character listed as the Noctambulist (he is a reveler in full evening clothes returning home) identifies himself as the spirit of the Pleasure of Paris; and when he has left, a ragman complains about the fellow, saying he had run off with his daughter.