100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (46 page)

Time: 9th century, if any

Places: Fairyland, Bagdad, Tunis, the court of Charlemagne

First performance at London, April 12, 1826

    James Robinson Planché, who concocted the dreamlike, romantic semi-drama which forms the libretto of
Oberon
, was an antiquary of some distinction, a successful playwright, and an important innovator in the London theater. He was the first man in the history of the English stage to costume a historical play in something like the clothes the characters might actually have worn. (The play was Shakespeare’s
King John
,
the producer Charles Kemble.) He also developed a form of theatrical entertainment, part music, part dancing, part acting, all romantic, which is now known as “the pantomime,” a peculiarly British institution to which English mamas in huge numbers still take their children in still larger numbers every Christmas.

Oberon
is very much like a pantomime: most of its characters sing, but others don’t; there is opportunity for spectacle and ballet; there is magic; there is a joyful ending. Yet its nature is not so different from that of
Der Freischütz
as to have caused Weber any feeling of oddness when he received the book. Kemble, who had been much impressed by that opera, traveled to Germany to persuade Weber to compose an opera especially for Covent Garden, and the subject of Oberon was one of the two he suggested, the other being Faust. Weber chose Oberon, and Kemble chose Planché to write the book.

Both librettist and composer were highly conscientious men. When Planché had written it in English (he was an Englishman, despite his name), he translated it into French especially for Weber and sent it to him. But Weber had, in the meantime, gone to the trouble of learning English, and wrote his collaborator the following charming acknowledgment: “I thank you obligingly for your goodness of having translated the verses in French; but it was not so necessary, because I am, though yet a weak, however, a diligent student of the English language.”

It was this very conscientiousness of Weber’s which puts a sad ending to our story. Not yet forty, he was a very sick man when he undertook Kemble’s commission. Nevertheless, he wrote the music in six weeks, went to London to supervise every one of the fifteen rehearsals, conducted a round dozen performances of it as well as several concerts, and then quietly died. He knew perfectly well that he stood little chance of surviving, but he forced himself to the effort. The $5355 he earned from his three months in London were a godsend to his impoverished wife and children.

The spectacular nature of the opera and the severe demands
it makes on the leading soprano and tenor have given pause to many an imaginative impresario who has thought of reviving it, and many revivals of the past have severely modified the work in one way or another. Even then they have failed as often as not But in the mid 1950’s the Paris Opéra mounted it as a spectacle so grand that the wonderful score was, apparently, the smallest attraction for the huge crowds that went to see it. Maybe there really is no way to rescue the music from the rest of the show, excepting to play the overture and to sing the one great soprano aria at concerts. That is practically all that most of us ever hear of it

OVERTURE

Experienced concert-goers are so accustomed to the
Oberon Overture
as standard fare that they seldom think of the music as made up out of specific dramatic ingredients. Yet, on looking into the score of the opera itself or hearing it performed in its entirety, one finds that each of the thrice-familiar themes is associated with some dramatically significant part of the tale. Thus, the soft opening horn call is the tune played by the hero’s own magical horn; the quickly descending chords in the woodwinds are used to paint the background of the fairy kingdom; the excited upclimbing violins that open the
allegro
are used to accompany the lovers’ flight to the ship; the beautiful, prayer-like melody played first by a solo clarinet and then the strings turns out indeed to be the hero’s prayer; while the triumphant theme with a kind of gulpy effect, played quietly at first and then with a joyous fortissimo, reappears as the climax of the great soprano aria Ocean,
thou mighty monster
.

ACT I

Scene 1
In the bower of King Oberon of the Fairies, the monarch lies sleeping while a group of his supernatural attendants sings for him. That handy fairy-of-all-work, Puck, tells us that Oberon and his Queen Titania have quarreled,
and the King has sworn never to be reconciled till he has found a pair of mortal lovers who will be faithful unto death or the next thing to it

When Oberon awakens, repentant over this arrangement, Puck tells him about a young knight of legend named Huon of Bordeaux. This hero has, in fair fight, killed a son of Charlemagne’s, and that great monarch has sentenced Huon to go to Bagdad, kill whoever is sitting on the Caliph’s right-hand side, and marry the Caliph’s daughter. Oberon sees this as a opportunity for fulfilling his vow and, with his supernatural powers, magically produces Huon and his squire Sherasmin, both of them sound asleep. In their sleep, Oberon shows them a vision of the Caliph’s daughter, Rezia by name, who calls for help. When the vision has disappeared, Huon is awakened, told to rescue the girl, and given a magical horn to help him when there is need. The scene closes as Huon, musically assisted by the chorus, joyfully accepts the assignment. Oberon wafts him off to Bagdad.

Scene 2
In a purely dramatic episode—that is, the lines are spoken and there is no accompanying music—Sir Huon rescues an unknown dark gentleman from a lion. When the danger is over, the stranger turns out to be a Saracen prince named Babekan, who is engaged to marry the lovely Rezia. Babekan, a nasty fellow, attacks Huon, calling on his followers for assistance, but our doughty hero and his squire defeat the unthankful villain.

Scene 3
Huon meets an old crone named Namouna, who is the grandmother of Rezia’s pretty attendant, Fatima. Thus Namouna is in a position to know all the court gossip, and she tells him that Rezia and Babekan are to be married the very next day. However, it appears that the bride has seen Huon in a vision and has sworn to belong to no one but him. The scene, like the previous one, has been carried on in spoken dialogue up to this point; but when Huon is left alone, he has a long aria, and a very difficult one, in which he strengthens his resolution to win the girl.

Scene 4
In her chamber in the palace of Haroun el Rashid, Rezia tells her handmaiden Fatima that she will never
marry anyone but Sir Huon, and that she will die before being wed to Babekan. Fatima tells her that help is at hand; the two girls sing a duet; a march, sung off-stage, is heard; and Rezia sings joyfully over it.

ACT II

Scene 1
In the throne room of Haroun el Rashid a chorus is sung in praise of the fabled Caliph. Babekan asks that there be no more delay in his marriage to Rezia, and the fair bride, preceded by dancing girls, comes sorrowfully in. But outside one hears the sound of the rescuers. They fight their way in; Huon finds Babekan sitting at the Caliph’s right-hand side and slays him; he blows on his magical horn, thus temporarily paralyzing everyone else; and then he and Sherasmin run off with Rezia and Fatima.

Scene 2
Outside the palace the guards try to hinder the four fugitives, but Huon’s horn solves this problem for them too—though, in the confusion, he manages somehow to lose that valuable musical instrument. Fatima and Sherasmin find that they are falling in love, like their master and mistress, and sing a love duet, and there is also a quartet for all four of the lovers. They then board a ship.

Scene 3
To make sure that his chosen sample of lovers-unto-death is the genuine article, Oberon has prepared another severe test. Puck and his fairy band raise a huge storm, causing the ship on which the lovers are fleeing to sink. Huon, however, manages to drag an exhausted Rezia to shore, where she recovers after a touching prayer sung by her lover. He then goes off in search of Sherasmin and Fatima, and Rezia is left alone to sing the most famous aria in the opera
(Ocean, thou mighty monster)
, a long, varied, and very dramatic address to the ocean. At its close (which is like the close of the even more famous overture), she sights a ship. This, alas, turns out to be a pirate ship. The pirates land and are bundling up Rezia for an abduction when Huon rushes back and attacks. However, he is outnumbered; and as he has lost his trusty
horn, he also loses the battle and is left on the shore for dead as the pirates embark with their captive.

But the act closes on a softer note. Puck returns, bringing the fairies and Oberon with him. The two principals sing a duet; the fairies sing a chorus; everyone on the stage is satisfied with the way the machinations are going; and everyone in the audience is enchanted with the fairylike atmosphere projected by the music.

ACT III

The pirates have sold Rezia into slavery in Tunis, where Fatima and Sherasmin have undergone the same fate. The two junior lovers are, fortunately, working for a good-natured North African named Ibrahim (who never appears on the stage), and their duet indicates that they are not too unhappy in their captivity.

Puck, according to plan, brings Huon in to them. He learns that Rezia is said to be somewhere in the same town, and so they plan to get him into Ibrahim’s service so that he may look around. (The whole situation here, as well as some of what follows, is strikingly similar to the happenings in Mozart’s
Abduction from the Seraglio.)

Scene 2
Rezia’s new master turns out to be the Emir of Tunis himself, whose name is Almanzor. At his palace Rezia is sorrowfully bemoaning her fate, when Almanzor comes in to tell her that, though he loves her, he will not force his attentions on her.

Scene 3
In a brief scene, back at Ibrahim’s, Huon receives a message couched in the flower-language of the East, which Fatima has to interpret for him. It is from Rezia, who summons him to come to her. Ecstatically he goes.

Scene 4
But at the Emir’s palace he is met not by Rezia but by Roshana, the Emir’s justly jealous wife. Roshana offers him herself and her throne if he will kill Almanzor, but not even the seductive dancing of the Emiress and her female attendants can mislead our faithful hero. He starts to rush from the room, but just then the Emir comes in with his guard
and Huon is made captive. When Roshana tries, hereupon, to stab her husband, things look very black. She is led away, and Huon is condemned to be burned alive. Rezia tries desperately to plead for him, but Almanzor, who has now turned stern, only condemns her to the same horrid death.

But somehow and somewhere Sherasmin has found the good old horn still in working order. He arrives on the scene at the critical moment, bringing Fatima with him; he sounds the horn; all the Africans are paralyzed; and the four lovers decide it is time to call upon Oberon for help. (After all, he is to blame for all their discomforts.)

Oberon graciously appears, like the god out of the machine at the end of a Greek tragedy, and immediately transports them to the court of Charlemagne. Huon reports his mission accomplished; he is duly forgiven; and the opera closes with a grand chorus of rejoicing.

    
Postscript for the historically curious:
The only unquestionably historical figures among the
dramatis personnae are
Charlemagne, who flourished in the ninth century, and Haroun, who flourished in the eighth. No early Victorian like Planché could, unaided, have dreamed up anything quite so wildly romantic as the plot of
Oberon
. Most of its main incidents may be found in the thirteenth-century
chanson de geste
of Huon
de Bordeaux
, where our hero is an even more wildly improbable figure than he is here. A summary of the history of this hero of romance may be conveniently found in Bulfinch.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE

(Orfeo ed Euridice)

Opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald von
Gluck with libretto in Italian by Raniero da
Calzabigi based on Greek mythology

Time: Mythological antiquity

Places: Greece and Hades

First performance at Vienna, October 5, 1762

    Orpheus was the greatest human musician of Greek mythology. In fact, he was so great that a religion—Orphism—was founded, and Orpheus was worshiped as a god some twenty-five hundred years ago. Naturally, therefore, his story has always been a logical one for opera composers. In fact, the oldest operatic score in existence is based on the story—Jacopo Peri’s
L’Euridice
. It dates from 1600, and several more operas on the same subject were written soon after. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers continued to deal with it, and so has the modernist Darius Milhaud.

But the only version often heard nowadays is Gluck’s—
Orfeo ed Euridice
. It is also the oldest opera in the standard repertoire, dating from 1762. On October 5 of that year the composer conducted the world premiere in Vienna. The language was Italian, and the role of Orpheus was sung by Gaetano Guadagni, a castrato—that is, a male alto. When, later on, the opera was given in France, where
castrati
were not acceptai on
the stage, Gluck rewrote the part for a tenor. But in modern times, outside of France, the Italian version is usually used, and the role of Orpheus is sung by a contralto—a female contralto, of course.