100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (37 page)

Scene 2
takes us to the palace of Sarastro. He is the head of a secret and powerful Egyptian religious order, and it is he who has Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, in his power. At the moment she is under the care of a blackface comic villain named Monostatos. This Moorish gentleman drags in Pamina, threatening her with death if she refuses to love him. At the critical moment the birdcatcher Papageno wanders in. He and Monostatos are terribly frightened of each other—but it is the sort of fright that is really comic. No child of eight would be taken in by it. Monostatos finally flees, and when Pamina and Papageno find themselves alone together, he assures her that someone who loves her will come to the rescue, while she assures him that he too will find someone to adore. It is a charming duet in praise of tenderness
(Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen
—“The man who loves possesses a kindly heart”).

Scene 3
And then the scene changes once more—this time to a grove outside the Temple of Sarastro. Tamino is led there by three boys, the genii of the temple, who encourage him but will answer no questions. Left alone, he tries to enter three different doors. From two he is warned away by a voice offstage, but from the third appears a priest. In a rather long (and, I must admit, slightly dull) exchange Tamino learns that Sarastro is not the villain he had thought, and that Pamina is
somewhere around and still safe. In his gratitude for this information Tamino plays a fine tune on his magic flute, and then sings the same tune himself
(Wie stark ist nicht dein Zauberton
—“O voice of magic melody”). Suddenly he hears Papageno’s little pipes, and he rushes off to find them. If only he had stayed, he should have met both Pamina and Papageno coming in. They are pursued by the comic villain Monostatos, who summons slaves to bind them in chains. At the last moment Papageno thinks of his magic bells. He plays them (they sound like a child’s music box), and the delightful magical tune makes the slaves and Monostatos both dance harmlessly away. Pamina and Papageno then have another short and charming duet, when they are interrupted by the arrival of the dread Sarastro and his court in a solemn march. Pamina begs Sarastro’s forgiveness for having tried to flee, which is granted with kindly understanding. Prince Tamino is then brought in by Monostatos, who demands a reward from Sarastro. He gets the reward he deserves—a sentence of seventy-seven strokes from the bastinado for his impudence; and as the act ends, Tamino and Pamina are solemnly prepared to undergo the rites of initiation, which may or may not prove them worthy of each other;

ACT II

Scene 1
The second half of the opera has more swift changes of scene than the first. It also has more serious music in it. For example, the very first scene is a meeting of the priests of Isis and Osiris in a palm grove. Sarastro informs the priests that Tamino has been chosen to marry the captive Pamina, but first the couple must prove itself worthy of entering the Temple of Light. He then intones his magnificent invocation O
Isis und Osiris
. Of this grand, simple, and dignified aria with male chorus George Bernard Shaw said: “It is the only music which might be put into the mouth of God without blasphemy.”

Scene 2
Outside the temple Tamino and Papageno undergo some elementary religious instruction. Two priests (who
sing in octaves—possibly to make their instructions quite clear) warn the Prince and the birdcatcher to be on guard against women, the root of most of man’s troubles. Sure enough, right on their heels come the three ladies from the Queen of the Night. These, in turn, warn the men against priests. Papageno is inclined to discuss the matter with the ladies, but the high-minded Tamino will have nothing to do with such temptations. A lucky thing, too. For a moment later an off-stage chorus of priests sends the girls right back where they came from—the kingdom of the nether regions!

Scene 3
Once more the scene changes, this time to a garden. Monostatos rather horridly gloats over the lovely Pamina as she lies asleep, practically at his mercy. Just in time, her mother, the Queen of the Night, interferes. In her terrific
Revenge Aria
she demands that her daughter murder Sarastro. She hurls a dagger to Pamina for the purpose and swears that, should she fail, her daughter shall be disowned. This
Revenge Aria
, with its two high F’s, has defeated dozens of otherwise quite able coloratura sopranos.

Immediately after her departure Monostatos returns, threatens to reveal the plot, and demands the love of Pamina as the price for silence. But she is again saved, this time by the entrance of Sarastro. When Pamina begs forgiveness for her mother, he explains that within the sacred halls of this temple there is no such thing as revenge and that only love binds man to man. It is an aria of extraordinary beauty and dignity
(In diesen heil’gen Hallen
—“Within these sacred halls”).

Scene 4
In some productions there is an intermission at this point, and the next scene is given as the first of Act III. In most printed scores, however, it is simply the next scene in Act II—a hall, and a pretty bare one. Two priests continue their instruction of Tamino and Papageno, enforcing on them the oath of silence and threatening punishment with lightning and thunder if the oath is broken. Tamino is a very good boy about this, but the birdcatcher cannot hold his tongue, particularly when a sprightly old crone appears and tells him two startling bits of gossip—one, that she is just eighteen years
and two minutes old, and, two, that she has a sweetheart a little bit older named Papageno. But just when she is about to tell her own name, that thunder and lightning come, and off she goes as fast as she can. Immediately after, the three boys enter once more and, in a charming trio, present Tamino and Papageno, not only with food and drink, but also with the magic flute and the bells that had been taken from them. As the birdcatcher solaces himself with the comestibles and the Prince with his flute, Pamina comes in and runs confidently up to her lover. She does not know about his oath of silence and, misinterpreting his actions, sings a mournful aria
(Ach, ich jühl’s, es ist verschwunden
—“Ah, I feel it all is vanished”). At its close the trombones sound out, calling the men to the test.

Scene 5
In the following scene, outside the temple gates, Pamina is fearfully afraid that she will never again see her beloved Prince Tamino. Sarastro, in his most comforting tones, assures her that all will be well, but in the trio that follows, with Tamino, she is far from reassured. As Tamino is led off, the two lovers utter a prayer that they may meet again.

Scene 6
And now—as a sort of change of pace from the serious goings-on—we switch again to the birdcatcher Papageno. He is told that he may have one wish granted, and after drinking a glass of wine he sings a delightful little aria that makes a single request: Please, he says, let me have a sweetheart or, at any rate, a wife! Promptly the little old woman reappears, demands a vow of faithfulness, and then reveals herself as a young and feathery counterpart of Papageno. Her name—Papagena! But before they can do much about it, she is dragged off by the Orator.

Scene 7
The next scene takes place in a garden, where the three boys of Sarastro’s temple are looking forward to the triumph of goodness. But poor, distracted Pamina wanders in, dagger in hand. She is convinced that she will never see Tamino again, and she prepares to kill herself. Just in time, the boys stop her and promise to take her to Tamino.

Scene 8
The boys are as good as their word. For in the next scene Tamino is about to endure the tests of the four
elements—fire, water, earth, and air—and is brought in by the priests and the two men in armor, who again give instructions in octaves. Just before he enters the dread gates, Pamina rushes in. She wishes only to share the Prince’s fate, and the two men in armor give their permission gladly. Tamino takes up his magic flute; he plays upon it; the two lovers stroll unharmed through the tests of the elements; and a joyous chorus welcomes them as they come through.

Scene 9
But what of our friend Papageno? Why, he is still looking for his sweetheart, his Papagena. He calls and calls throughout the garden, and finding no one, he decides, like Pamina, to commit suicide. With great reluctance he throws a rope over the bough of a tree, ready to hang himself. But those three boys who saved Pamina save him too. They advise him to play his magic bells, and he does. The sweet little bird-girl appears, and in a delightfully comic stuttering duet,
Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-Papageno
, they decide to raise a simply huge family.

Scene 10
And finally—still one more change of scene. Monostatos is now in league with the Queen of the Night, who has promised him Pamina. They invade Sarastro’s temple, together with the three ladies-in-waiting. But the power of Sarastro is too great for them. There is thunder and lightning, and the villainous quintet disappears into the bowels of the earth. The Temple of Isis and Osiris appears, and a chorus of triumph of the forces of good ends this fairy opera.

MANON

Opera in five acts by Jules Massenet with libretto
in French by Henri Meilhac and Philippe
Gille, based on Antoine François Prévost’s novel
Les aventures du Chevalier des Grieux
et de Manon Lescaut

Time: 18th century

Places: Amiens, Paris, and Le Havre

First performance at Paris, January 19, 1884

    The Abbé Antoine François Prévost’s semi-autobiographical novel
Les aventures du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut
supplied the inspiration for stage works by a number of distinguished composers. Before Massenet, Auber had made an opera of it and Halévy a ballet. And after the present work, Puccini wrote an opera on the subject described in this book, and still later Massenet himself came back to the same theme in
Le portrait de Manon—a
one-act sequel that has never been very popular.

There is no question, however, about the popularity of
Manon
(a title which Massenet claimed he had copyrighted: the other operas are called
Manon Lescaut)
. After
Faust
and
Carmen
it is the most popular French opera there is, both in and outside of France. It is also Massenet’s most durable work, and one for which he felt a particular affection. Perhaps one reason is the lively personal attraction he seemed to feel for the character of the attractive and unfortunate heroine.

In his memoirs the composer tells two stories that seem to be to the point. The first has to do with the time when he was composing the score. On a walk, one day, he saw a florist’s assistant with sparkling eyes who, he imagined, was yearning for rich pleasures beyond her station. “There she is,” he said to himself. “That is Manon.” And he goes on to tell how he kept the image of that girl in his mind during the entire composition of the score, even though he had never seen her before and never saw her again.

The other story has to do with casting the production. His first thought was of Mme. Miolan-Carvalho, the wife of his impresario and a fine artist. (She was the original Marguerite in Gounod’s
Faust.)
However in 1884 she was fifty-six, too old to undertake the role of a fifteen-year-old girl. The gallant Massenet, intent on getting her into the picture somehow, dedicated the score to her.

Next he thought of a young soprano named Vaillant, to whom he showed parts of the score. Unfortunately, when the time came, she was appearing in an operetta, and her manager would not release her. But even while he was talking to the manager in the lobby of the theater, a familiar figure kept passing by, newly arrayed in a gorgeous hat (a gray one, with lots of roses on it).

“Heilbronn!” I cried (so go the memoirs).

“Herself.”

“You still sing?” I asked her.

“No, I am rich; and yet, shall I admit it to you? I miss the theatre. It haunts me. Ah, if I found a good part—!”

“I have one: Manon.”

“Manon Lescaut?”

“No, just Manon. That tells the entire story.”

“Can I hear the music?”

“Whenever you like.”

That very night Massenet played and sang the score for her, finishing at half-past four in the morning. At its close the widely experienced but still youthful soprano was moved to very real tears. “It is my life,” she said. “But it is my life—that!”

That is how Marie Heilbronn happened to be engaged to create the role. Her performance, like the opera itself, was an enormous success, but the soprano died after appearing in it some eighty times. Massenet was deeply grieved. “I preferred,” he wrote, “to stop the performance rather than to see Manon sung by another.”

The stoppage at the Opéra Comique was of considerable duration, for the theater burned down shortly afterward and did not revive
Manon
till ten years later. Meanwhile, it became a hit pretty much all over the world, and when the Opéra Comique did finally get back to it, it did so with a will. It has now had some two thousand performances at that theater alone and is still a staple of the repertoire.