100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (39 page)

ACT III

Before the act opens, there is a short but very eloquent orchestral
Intermezzo
. When the curtain goes up, that busy conniver, Lescaut, is telling Des Grieux that through bribery he has arranged an interview with Manon, and that soon he will have her free. The scene is at the harbor of Le Havre, where the ship waits to deport Manon and other girls like her. Manon appears at her prison window, and there is a brief, passionate love scene. But Lescaut’s plans—as usual—miscarry. He has brought some men to carry Manon off from the guards, but a noise off-stage tells us that they have been routed. Now the Sergeant calls the roll of the girls to be deported, and they come onto the ship, one by one, as the crowd comments on them. Manon is among them, and in desperation Des Grieux appeals to the Captain of the ship to let him come along—as a servant or any other way—so long as he may be with his beloved. The Captain is touched by the aristocratic young fellow and gives his permission. Des Grieux rushes up the gangplank into the arms of his Manon, and the act closes.

ACT IV

Puccini’s librettists placed the last act in a rather startling location. They wrote it like this:
“Una landa sterminata sui confini del territorio della Nuova Orleans.”
In brief—a desert in New Orleans. But if we remember that the story takes place before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and that the territory included, roughly, all the land between the Mississippi and the Rockies, it is not quite so startling. Anyway—
the geography of this act is rough and rugged. Manon and Des Grieux have arrived in America, and they have become lost in some desolate spot. Manon is clearly too ill to go much farther, and she tells Des Grieux so. She urges him to leave her and find help, which he does, and she sings her despairing aria
Tutto dunque è finito
—“All is now over.”

When Des Grieux returns without help, he finds a dying Manon. Tenderly he takes her into his arms, and tenderly they sing of their love. But Manon only grows weaker, and with a last effort she bids him farewell and dies.

THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
(Le nozze di Figaro)

Opera in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart with libretto in Italian by Lorenzo Da
Ponte, based on the French comedy of thevsame name by Pierre Augustin Caron de
Beaumarchais

Time: 18th century

Place: near Seville

First performance at Vienna, May 1, 1786

    If Mozart’s
Don Giovanni
is the greatest of operas, as many musicians have testified,
The Marriage of Figaro
is surely the best-beloved of musicians. And not only of musicians, either, for it has the distinction of being the oldest opera in the permanent repertoire of virtually every lyric stage in the Western world (Gluck’s masterpieces being given more intermittently) and it has won the affections of countless thousands who do not greatly admire the standard fare of
Faust
,
Aïda, La Bohème
but make an exception for
Figaro
. Who, indeed, could fail to love Cherubino and Susanna or to relish a Figaro so much more elegant though no whit less vital than Rossini’s bumptious barber?

It is a little difficult, then, to remember that this adorable work was thoroughly revolutionary. The portrait of a group of servants mocking their aristocratic master, lightheartedly overthrowing his cherished
droit du seigneur
(the right to sleep with a nubile servant before turning her over to her servant husband), and making him beg for mercy at the end was something to frighten rulers at a time when the French Revolution was brewing. Beaumarchais’s play was in print a long time before it was permitted on the Paris stage, and Emperor Joseph sanctioned the operatic version only after the librettist, Da Ponte, had assured him that the more scandalously revolutionary lines had been deleted.

But the opera is no less revolutionary musically than it is politically. The famous finale of Act II (not to mention the one of Act IV) is the first example in operatic history of a long, complex development in plot and character entirely set to expressive music throughout. No recitatives, no set arias, no stalling with the action and character while some prima donna exhibits her wares or some tenor titillates with
tessitura
. It is all straight musical storytelling, such as Wagner strove after and sometimes managed to achieve, such as is still the ideal of virtually every modern opera composer. And what music!

But it is completely unnecessary to understand how revolutionary the work once was in order to love it. It was a smash hit from the beginning with audiences who doubtless did not appreciate its revolutionary characteristics either. Michael Kelly, Mozart’s Irish friend who created both tenor roles (singing under the Italian-looking name of Ochelli), reports its instantaneous hit in his
Memoirs:
every single number was encored, and a ruling had to be made in subsequent performances that only arias, not concerted numbers, could be repeated. When Mozart visited Prague the following year, he wrote to his father that he heard
Figaro
tunes wherever he
went; they were the top numbers on the hit parade. And so it has been ever since.

OVERTURE

Originally, Mozart had considered an overture for this opera in the conventional Italian form, that is, a slow section sandwiched between two fast ones. But he discarded the slow section—even a slow introduction—and presented a swiftly moving, scampering little masterpiece just as tuneful as the opera itself and consistently high-spirited. It is a perfect piece of mood-setting.

ACT I

The opera begins with a duet between Figaro and Susanna. These are the two who are going to be married-according to the title of the opera. Both servants in the household of the Count Almaviva, they are preparing the room they are to occupy after the wedding. Figaro, it seems, is delighted with the room. But Susanna points out to him that the Count has shown her some interesting attentions—and that the room is very close to his. Thus challenged, the witty Figaro sings his aria
Se vuol ballare, Signor Contino
, that is, “If you wish to go dancing, my little Count, go right to it; but
I’ll
play the tune.”

Now a new pair of characters comes on—Dr. Bartolo and his housekeeper Marcellina. The doctor does not like Figaro on account of some past disfavors received; Marcellina, on the other hand, wants to marry the young man even though she is old enough to be his mother. In fact, she has lent him money and received in exchange a guarantee that he will marry her if it is not repaid. The dialogue between them ends with an aria by Dr. Bartolo
(La vendetta)
in which the old fellow swears to get even with Figaro. But before Marcellina leaves, she meets her rival, Susanna, and gets roundly trounced in a polite exchange of unpleasantries.

When the defeated Marcellina retires, we are introduced to one of the most charming characters in any opera. This is
the young page Cherubino, who is perpetually in love with one girl or another—and it has got him into quite a mess, the Count having threatened him with dismissal for overzealous flirtation. He confides in Susanna and then sings his quick little aria
Non so più cosa son
. This expresses perfectly the breathless delights and bewilderments of half-baked crushes, his latest being on the Countess herself.

But now the Count comes on, and Cherubino must hide himself. The Count’s advances to Susanna are, in turn, interrupted by Don Basilio, the music master, and the Count also hides. Basilio is little better than a common gossip, and what the Count overhears makes him step forward from his hiding place, for Basilio has been saying that Cherubino is too attentive to the Countess. As the Count relates Cherubino’s recent adventures with Barbarina, the gardener’s daughter, he discovers the young flirt himself—and a fine concerted number follows.

Presently Figaro re-enters with a group of peasants, singing a song in praise of the Count. The Count, of course, must receive them graciously, and peace is at least temporarily restored. Then, when the peasants have left, the Count gives Cherubino a commission in his regiment. This, he hopes, is a way to get rid of the young nuisance. And the act closes as Figaro, in the mock military aria,
Non più andrai
, ironically congratulates Cherubino on his impending military career.

ACT II

In her room the Countess Almaviva is singing unhappily of the lost love of her husband, the Count. The aria is the lovely
Porgi amor
. This is followed by a sort of conference between the Countess, Susanna, and Figaro, all of whom wish to make the Count behave better-that is, to leave Susanna in peace and to pay more attention to his wife. Susanna, they decide, is to write a note to the Count inviting him to meet her alone at night in the garden. But the page boy Cherubino, disguised as a woman, is to keep the appointment. Then the Countess is to surprise them, and thus they hope to embarrass
the Count into behaving more to their liking. Cherubino himself comes in (for he has not yet joined his regiment) and sings an utterly charming song he himself has written. It is
Voi che sapete—a
love song, of course—and Susanna accompanies him on the guitar.

Susanna starts to dress Cherubino up as a woman, but she has difficulties because the young jackanapes tries continually to make love to the Countess.

Suddenly they hear the Count approaching, and Cherubino is hidden in the next room and the door locked. Unfortunately, he stumbles over something; the Count hears the noise; and he demands to know who is in there. When the Countess refuses to open the door, he goes for some tools to break it down, but Susanna saves the day by taking the place of Cherubino, who has jumped out of the window. Thus, when the Count and Countess return, they are dumfounded to find the servant girl behind the door, especially as the Countess has already admitted that Cherubino was there. A moment later Figaro enters to invite the Count to the wedding festivities but is temporarily nonplussed by the Count’s asking him who wrote the anonymous letter. With some dexterous help he manages to extricate himself, but things grow more complicated when the gardener, Antonio, arrives to complain about someone who jumped into his garden from the window of the Countess. The quick-thinking Figaro again almost manages to explain everything with a series of complicated fibs, but the Count is still suspicious.

Finally, to cap the complexities, in come Dr. Bartolo, Don Basilio, and Marcellina. The old woman insists that Figaro must marry her, not Susanna, and the Count announces that he himself will decide this matter later on. The act closes with a remarkable ensemble in which everyone comments at the same time on this very complicated situation.

ACT III

Scene 1
finds the Count badly confused by everything that has happened. But Susanna soon comes in and, in an exquisite
duet
(Crudel, perchè finora)
, assures him that she will do exactly as he wishes. (Of course, she does not really mean this, but the Count does not know it—yet.) Then there follows a sort of comic trial scene. Don Curzio, a local man of the law, has decided that Figaro must marry Marcellina on account of the promise he made in writing at the time he borrowed money from her. Figaro, of course, protests, saying that he needs the consent of his unknown parents. In the course of the argument he mentions a birthmark on his right arm. And the trial ends in a triumph of comedy, for that birthmark proves who the parents of Figaro really are. His mother is none other than—Marcellina herself! And the father? Marcellina’s co-conspirator, Dr. Bartolo! In the midst of the family reunion, Susanna enters to find her fiancé, Figaro, in the arms of her supposed rival. At first she is furious; but when she is told that Marcellina is no longer a rival, but her own future mother-in-law, there is a delightful sextet to end the scene.

Scene 2
begins with a brief and jolly discussion, in which it is decided that Marcellina and Dr. Bartolo shall be wedded the same day as Figaro and Susanna.

The whole tone of the music changes as the Countess Almaviva sings her second sad soliloquy, the beautiful
Dove sono
, in which she again laments the lost days of her love. But when her maid Susanna enters, she brightens up and dictates a letter for Susanna to write. This confirms the maid’s assignation in the park with the Count which the disguised Cherubino is to keep instead of Susanna. This
Letter Duet
, with the two feminine voices first echoing each other, and then joining together, is of a sweetness that with any lesser composer must have descended into saccharinity.

Now everyone comes on the stage—including the chorus-to prepare for the marriage festivities of the evening. A group of peasant girls offers flowers to the Countess, and in the group is the page boy Cherubino, disguised as a girl. The irate gardener, Antonio, spots him and pulls off his wig. He is about to be punished, when the peasant girl Barbarina steps forward. She reminds the Count that he promised her anything
she wished—and she now wishes to be married to Cherubino. Now there is dancing to some stately Spanish ballet music, and in the middle of it the Count receives and opens Susanna’s letter. Figaro, who does not know about this part of the plot, notices this and becomes suspicious too. But the whole scene ends with rejoicing by everyone as the happy couples are about to be married.