100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (52 page)

Bad news ends the act. A group of boyars reports that the army has been defeated by the dread Khan Gzak and that Igor and Vladimir are prisoners. Despite the fact that destruction is already threatening the city itself, with flames leaping at the windows and alarm bells ringing, they all swear to defend Yaroslavna to the end.

ACT II

Borodin was a great student of Eastern folk music, and the next two acts are strongly colored with that idiom. In the camp of the Khan Kontchak of the Polovtsians, the girls sing and dance, and Kontchakovna, Kontchak’s daughter, sings a fine, juicy love song. These are a hospitable people, and the Novgorodian prisoners, though well guarded, are also well treated. Night begins to fall; the prisoners return from work; the girls offer them refreshments; and then everyone retires excepting a patrol, which intones a brief occupational chorus before departing on its duties. Young Vladimir wanders into the night and sings the second love song of the act, one clearly indicating that he has fallen classically in love with the daughter of his enemy; and when Kontchakovna joins him, they sing an unexpectedly contented love duet. For her father, the Khan, has no objections to a wedding; it is only Igor who may be opposed.

Igor is much more discontented with his lot than is his son. In a fine aria he bewails his state, the loss of his army, and the certain loneliness of Yaroslavna. Ovlour, a Polovtsian renegade, secretly approaches him and offers to give him a horse to make good his escape. He points to the approaching dawn and suggests that this is a symbol of Russia’s enventual victory.
Igor contemptuously refuses this aid: it would be completely dishonorable, he claims.

Good nature and respect for its noble prisoners seem to characterize the Kontchak family. The Khan most graciously offers Igor practically anything he wants in return for a non-aggression pact. He even offers him an alliance. But Igor refuses to acknowledge defeat and frankly tells Kontchak that one day he will return to the attack stronger than ever. This is an attitude the Tartar warrior not only understands but respects, and he invites Igor to be his personal guest at the entertainment to follow.

It follows at once—the series of Polovtsian dances that are the most familiar music in the score because of a splendid ballet made of them by Michel Fokine and because they are often performed separately in the concert hall (though usually without the choral parts).

ACT III

The Tartar army that had been attacking Igor’s home town at the end of Act I was not the same as the one that had taken him prisoner and was entertaining him so colorfully at the end of Act II. The former was the army of Khan Gzak; and now, at the beginning of Act III, it returns with booty and prisoners to the tune of a vigorous Oriental march. Khan Kontchak, in a grim aria, welcomes and congratulates his brothers-in-arms, and the men look forward to further rapacious raids on Russian cities like Kiev and Poltava.

The Russian prisoners have meantime been watching the proceedings, and they dread the thought of what has been happening to Poutivle. Vladimir even suggests to his father that he had erred in not taking the opportunity to escape while he had it. The Russians, however, are herded back into their tents by a group of guards, and presently the Polovtsi traitor, Ovlour, brings them brandy. As they sing in praise of their intrepid khans, the guards drink themselves to sleep.

It is now night, and Ovlour repeats his offer to Igor. This time it is welcomed. Before everything can be got ready,
Kontchakovna begs Vladimir either to remain with her or to take her along. Igor sternly forbids her to come; and while the young man is torn between love and duty, Kontchakovna precipitates a decision by sounding an alarm on a sheet of iron that hangs near the tents. Igor escapes; Vladimir is taken prisoner; and Kontchak, over the protests of his fellow khans, decides that Vladimir shall, after all, marry his daughter and remain as a hostage. The drunken guards, however, are ordered hanged. This Kontchak is a most interesting fellow: he can be relentlessly brutal in military matters, yet he shows nothing but respect for his noble adversaries. He even says that in Igor’s place he should have done the same thing.

ACT IV

Back in Poutivle, Yaroslavna sings sadly of the absence of her husband, making use of the same melody Igor had sung in Act II lamenting the absence of Yaroslavna. The countryside in the background is a scene of devastation, and a peasant crowd drags itself across the square of the town singing a doleful chorus. But off in the distance Yaroslavna now sees two horsemen approaching, and they turn out to be Igor and Ovlour. Gladly the royal couple embraces, and goes off to the citadel.

Our old friends, Skoula and Eroshka—drunk, as usual—come on the stage, lamenting the disaster that Igor’s leadership has brought to the country; but seeing Igor, they quickly change their tune. They know it is now more politically expedient to change sides; and so they sound the bells that summon everyone and thus are the first to announce the return of their great leader. Ovlour tells the crowd the details of the escape; Skoula and Eroshka are rewarded by the boyars: they now insist that they always hated Galitzky anyway; and everyone joins in a fine Russian chorus of thanksgiving. Finally, Igor and Yaroslavna show themselves on the walls of the citadel, and the opera closes with shouts of “Long live Prince Igor!”

I PURITANI

(The Puritans)

Opera in three acts by Vincenzo Bellini with
libretto in Italian by Count Carlo Pepoli based
on the French drama
Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers
by François Ancelot and Xavier Boniface Saintine,
which was based, in a vague way, on Sir
Walter Scott’s novel
Old Mortality

Time: 1650’s

Place: Plymouth, England

First performance at Paris, January 25, 1835

    For a long time I
Puritani
was standard repertoire for every accomplished singer, and it has been heard all over the world—from Paris (where it had its premiere) to Philadelphia, to Rio de Janeiro, to Sydney, Australia. Recently, in England, it was revived for Joan Sutherland, the great young Australian soprano. But few other vocal virtuosi have the courage to tackle it. It is just too difficult, for it has, among other features, baritone coloratura arias and a tenor role that calls for two D’s above high C, not to mention one F!

As a matter of fact, the opera was composed with four leading singers in mind—Giulia Grisi, soprano; Giovanni Battista
Rubini, tenor; Antonio Tamburini, baritone; and Luigi Lablache, bass. After they sang together in this work, they toured as a team for many years billed as the
“Puritani
Quartet.”

Today the opera is seldom put on outside of Italy, partly, one suspects, on account of its somewhat ridiculous libretto. Count Carlo Pepoli fashioned it for Bellini out of a French play named
Roundheads and Cavaliers
, but Pepoli called his opera
I Puritani di Scozia
, or
The Puritans of Scotland
. And where do these Scottish Puritans live, love, and have their castles? Why, in Plymouth, England, which, as everyone knows, is hundreds of miles from the Scottish border. But everything about the opera is unabashedly Italian; and so in telling the story I shall use the Italian versions of the English names of the characters, as Bellini did. (Even Cromwell is called “Cromvello” in the libretto.)

ACT I

In the seventeenth-century days of Cromwell the Puritans are fighting the Cavaliers, supporters of the Stuarts. The Puritan Governor General, Lord Gualtiero Valton (that is, Walter Walton) has the widow of Charles I as his prisoner. Enrichetta (Henrietta) is her name, and her presence in the castle complicates our plot. Its principal theme is a sort of
Abie’s Irish Rose
, or
Romeo and Juliet
, story: Valton’s daughter, Elvira, is in love with a dashing royalist named Lord Arturo Talbo, and in the opening scenes of Act I, Elvira’s father is persuaded to let her marry Arturo. Unfortunately, she is already engaged to a Puritan warrior named Riccardo—and Riccardo is a baritone to be reckoned with. Nevertheless, preparations are being made for the wedding, when Valton announces that Enrichetta has been summoned to London. At once Arturo realizes that this means she may meet the fate of Charles, who was beheaded. Despite his pending marriage to Elvira, he resolves to save his Queen, and he gallantly offers her his services when the others have departed. After this
duet Elvira enters, accompanied by her beloved uncle Giorgio and others, and sings her happy aria
Son vergin vezzosa
.

When she leaves her bridal veil with Enrichetta, Arturo sees his chance: disguised in the veil, Enrichetta can escape with him. Just as they are about to leave, Riccardo stops them; but when he sees what is happening—his rival for Elvira running away on his wedding day—he helps them to get out. A minute later the escape is discovered, and great excitement ensues as soldiers are sent after them. As for Elvira—she does as any coloratura soprano of the 1830’s would do: she goes completely insane. The act ends with her singing about her imagined wedding while everyone else comments musically on how sad it all is and curses the defaulting Arturo.

ACT II

There is little dramatic action in Act II, but some of the finest Bellini music. In the opening scene Giorgio describes the distressing symptoms of Elvira’s madness to a sympathetic chorus. Presently they are joined by Riccardo, the man she had deserted for Arturo. And then Elvira herself enters to sing the splendid
Qui la voce sua soave
. “Her face,” to quote the stage directions, “her eyes, and every step and gesture reveal her madness.” And so, I might add, does the music. It is quite as fine a mad scene as the more celebrated one in Donizetti’s
Lucia di Lammermoor
, an opera produced the same year as
I Puritani
and also featuring a Scottish maiden who goes mad. Only, this time there is no flute obbligato. Instead Elvira answers questions of her companions, and she identifies her uncle as her father and Riccardo as Arturo.

The balance of the act is given over to a martial duet between Giorgio and Riccardo
(Suoni la tromba)
in which they swear to fight faithfully on the side of the Puritans against the Cavaliers.

ACT III

The fugitive hero, Arturo, has secretly returned to the home of his beloved in Plymouth. He is being hunted by the Puritan
soldiers, who are heard passing by. However, he manages to escape, while off-stage is now heard the voice of the demented heroine singing a plaintive ballad (
A una fonta afflitto)
. Arturo decides to answer, and she responds to his serenade by appearing herself. A long and very difficult duet follows. Arturo explains why he had deserted Elvira on their wedding day: it was only to save his Queen. Reassured, Elvira’s teetering mind begins to regain its balance. Unfortunately, at that moment they are discovered—and she goes mad once more. Practically everyone demands that Arturo be at once arrested and sentenced to death. Only Giorgio and Riccardo try to defend him, for they know that if Arturo should die, the beloved Elvira will not survive him long. It is, I suppose, not a very realistic or sensible dramatic situation. Yet—as everyone expresses his own emotions simultaneously, an extraordinarily fine ensemble number develops.

Then—just ninety seconds before the opera is over—a message is received: the Stuarts have been defeated. And so Arturo is pardoned, Elvira regains her senses, and everyone lives happily ever after.

THE RAKE’S PROGRESS

Opera in three acts by Igor Stravinsky with
libretto in English by Wystan H. Auden and
Chester Kallman suggested by William Hogarth’s
lithographs of the same title

Time: 18th century

Place: England

First performance at Venice, September 11, 1951, in English, the composer conducting

    Mr. Igor Stravinsky is one of the most fascinating, most accomplished, and most varied of modern composers. His early works, like
The Firebird, The Rite of Spring
, and
Petrouchka
—all composed before World War I—have become something like popular classics. Since then he has composed in many other styles, none of them quite so popular, and he has half modeled much of his work on earlier music. “Neoclassical,” he has been called.
The Rake’s Progress
appears to be modeled on late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century opera—anything from Mozart to Rossini, or even Donizetti. Not that you can ever mistake him for these earlier men. It is rather—says one critic—almost as though you were listening to them through
one of those crazy Coney Island distorting mirrors. You do have old-fashioned arias, recitatives, concerted numbers—but with what a difference!