100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (58 page)

ACT II

Outside the hall of the Gibichungs, with the flowing Rhine on one side of the stage and the entrance to the hall on the other, sits Hagen, still on guard, and apparently half asleep. Through the night slinks his father, Alberich. He tells him of the absolute necessity to get hold of the Ring before Brünnhilde gives it back to the Rhinemaidens. Hagen, in his own gruff way, tells his father not to worry: he will lay hands on it, all right.

With Alberich gone, the sun begins to rise, and Siegfried comes out of a clump of bushes by the riverside, now once more unmistakably himself. Hagen summons his half sister, and Siegfried reports the success of his expedition, omitting the wrestling with the bride but including his exemplary behavior in the cave. The rest of the party is sighted coming along in a boat, and Hagen summons all the vassals to help celebrate the wedding. Their rough, joyful chorus is the only choral passage in the entire
Ring
.

But when Brünnhilde arrives with Hagen and sees not only Siegfried but the Ring on his finger, she becomes wild with anger and despair. She cries that Siegfried, not Gunther, is her husband; that Gunther, if he is her husband, should take the Ring; and finally that Siegfried’s sword did not lie between them when he won her, but that it hung in its sheath on the wall. Finally, when she has succeeded in filling the Gibichungs with doubt as to Siegfried’s honorable behavior, he swears a
mighty oath on Hagen’s spear, offering up his life on that very spear if Brünnhilde’s accusation is true. But Brünnhilde steps forward too and swears in the same solemn notes that Siegfried is forsworn; and she goes on to bless the point of the spear so that it may sink into “that man.”

Siegfried, honestly bewildered, suggests that Brünnhilde be given time to compose herself, and with all the grace he can summon, he takes Gutrune into the hall to prepare for the wedding. Brünnhilde, Gunther, and Hagen are left alone, and the last develops plans for getting rid of Siegfried. He learns from Brünnhilde that the hero is impregnable in battle, but his back is vulnerable. In giving him this supernatural protection, as she had done, she felt confident that he would never turn his back on an enemy. Gunther has some initial compunctions about murdering Siegfried, both on account of the oath of blood-brotherhood (which Hagen points out has already been broken) and on account of Gutrune’s possible reaction. Thereupon Hagen suggests that Siegfried be murdered the next day on a hunt and that Gutrune be told it was a boar that did it.

Barely is the plan agreed to by all three when the wedding procession begins to issue from the hall. Gunther takes Brünnhilde by the hand to join it, and Hagen remains alone outside, no member of the wedding.

ACT III

Scene 1
In a mountain-ringed valley of the Rhine, the three Rhinemaidens sing sweetly about their lost gold and the hero who they hope will give it back. And speaking of the devil, in comes Siegfried, who has wandered away from the hunting despite the identifying horn calls that have been sounding back and forth. First by teasing and then by warning him of the curse that falls on the possessor of the Ring, they try to get it from him. Good-naturedly he laughs at their warnings, telling them how he got it in the first place and also that he has not yet learned the meaning of fear. When they have swum away, giving him up as a bad job, he looks after them
admiringly, thinking that if it weren’t for Gutrune, he wouldn’t mind having one of the charming creatures for himself.

There the rest of the hunting party finds him. Gunther’s conscience is apparently bothering him, and, to cheer him up, Siegfried amiably tells the party of his childhood with Mime and the affair of Fafner, the dragon. In the midst of his recital Hagen offers him a drink, which restores the memory he had lost before the expedition to Brünnhilde’s rock. He then goes on to tell how he originally won Brünnhilde. At this, Gunther starts up in amazement. Hagen points out two black ravens who are circling over Siegfried’s head and asks whether he can understand their language. As the hero turns to look after the birds, Hagen thrusts his spear deep into his back. Siegfried turns and tries to crush Hagen with his shield, but he falls back upon it himself. With his dying breath he calls upon Brünnhilde, the heavenly bride who beckons him now. As for Hagen, with a contemptuous “I have avenged perjury” he stalks off.

With night falling, the vassals take up Siegfried’s body on his shield and begin to carry it off. The moon breaks through the clouds; mists rise from the Rhine and cover the stage; and while the scene is changed, the orchestra plays the grand, gruff, and moving
Siegfried’s Funeral March
.

Scene 2
Back in the Gibichungs’ hall, Gutrune, uneasy, comes from her room and meets Hagen. He is in time to tell her of the procession that is bringing her back her husband, victim, he says, of a wild boar. When the body is brought in, Gutrune, in an agony of grief, throws herself upon it and denounces Gunther. Her brother, however, tells her that Hagen was the boar who destroyed the hero. Hagen admits it, justifies himself, and claims the Ring. This precipitates a most unseemly fight between the two half brothers, which ends with Hagen striking Gunther dead. He turns then to seize the Ring, when the dead arm of Siegfried raises itself menacingly, and they all recoil in horror.

At this moment Brünnhilde enters the hall and commands peace. She now understands what has happened, and she shows
generous pity for Gutrune, who huddles over the body of her brother. Then she orders a huge funeral pyre to be built by the side of the river to consume the greatest of heroes. For a while she stands and muses on the face of Siegfried, and then, in a long solo, often performed at orchestral concerts, she sings of the tragic ending of Wotan’s plans; she seizes the Ring; and she takes a firebrand and addresses the two ravens who fly overhead: Let them know that at last the twilight of the gods is come. Then she throws the flame onto the pyre; the ravens fly off; and, mounting her horse, Grane, she rides directly into it.

The fire blazes up and begins to consume the whole hall; the river Rhine rises in back; the Rhinemaidens appear. Hagen, suddenly rousing himself, jumps into the river after the Ring which the Rhinemaidens have seized; but Flosshüde bears it away, while the other two twine their arms around Hagen’s neck and drag him down into the depths.

Meantime, the fire from the burning hall of the Gibichungs has reached up into the clouds, and by its light one can see the gods and heroes sitting in Valhalla. The flames catch on there too; and as they cover it, the full orchestra softly sings the motive of
Redemption by Love
. The whole world, Wagner seems to say, shall have a new birth, a new order, through Brünnhilde’s noble love.

ROMEO AND JULIET

(Roméo et Juliette)

Opera in five acts by Charles Gounod with libretto
in French by Jules Barbier and Michel
Carré, based on Shakespeare’s play

Time: 14th century

Place: Verona

First performance at Paris, April 27, 1867

    Of all the masterpieces of literature on which the team of Barbier & Carré, libretto manufacturers extraordinary, operated, the one they treated with greatest respect was Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet
. Though the scenario is considerably condensed, especially in Act I, and though the low-comedy servant Peter is omitted and a charming page boy named Stephano substituted, the outlines of the story are faithfully followed, the principal characters retain their Shakespearean vitality, and even many of the lines are directly translated
or
at least paraphrased. One major concession to operatic requirements these industrious workmen did have to make: they permitted Juliet to awaken soon enough to indulge in a duet with Romeo before he died of his poison. But even here there was the justification of literary history: Brooke, the author of the poem that was one of Shakespeare’s principal sources, had done the same thing.

Adelina Patti, the most famous of Juliets, also followed at least one portion of the story with faithfulness to the spirit of the text. In the 1880’s, when she was married to (but separated from) the Marquis de Caux, she sang the role at the Paris Opéra with a French tenor named Nicolini. (His real name was Ernest Nicolas, but he changed it out of respect for Italy, which appreciated his singing more than did his native country.) The principals were as much in love, apparently, as the characters they were representing; and one heartless observer (could he have been a critic?) tallied twenty-nine genuine kisses that passed between them during the balcony scene. When Patti was finally divorced from the Marquis, this operatic couple was married—and lived lyrically together for twelve years, at the end of which the tenor died and the soprano returned to the aristocracy as the Baroness Cederström.

PROLOGUE

Shakespeare’s play is prefaced with a prologue in the form of a sonnet spoken by a single actor denominated “Chorus.” Its well-known lines begin:

Two houses, both alike in dignity
,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene …

and goes on to speak of the “star-cross’d lovers.” Gounod’s opera begins with the same sonnet, but the lines of “Chorus” are sung by the full chorus.

ACT I

Act I begins with the ballroom scene, which, in Shakespeare’s play, is Scene 5. However, the librettists manage to
tell us all the important things that happen in the earlier scenes—and even a few that don’t! The curtain rises to the music of a waltz being danced to at a party given by the Capulets. Tybalt discusses his cousin Juliet’s forthcoming marriage with the Count Paris. (Incidentally, no one has bothered to tell Juliet that she has been betrothed. Parents did things in a rather highhanded way in those days.)

Pretty soon, along comes that pompous old bore Lord Capulet, Juliet’s father. He introduces his daughter to the company, and she obliges with a very nice little aria. It shows her to have at least one very marked talent—a fine coloratura.

It appears, however, that there are some unwanted guests at the ball—a group of the hated Montagues. One of them is Romeo, and he naturally has fallen in love with Juliet at first sight. Mercutio teases him about it a bit, and he sings a light baritone aria—a French paraphrase of the famous Queen Mab speech. Next there is a scene between the nurse and Juliet, and when marriage is hinted at to our heroine, she claims she wants none of it. It is then that she has her most famous aria—the well-known
Waltz Song
. Ironically, she meets a moment later the man she is to marry. Juliet and Romeo have the first of the series of love duets that characterize this opera, and at its end Juliet is just as much in love as Romeo is.

But Cousin Tybalt believes he recognizes the voice of a Montague. He is not certain, for the guests are wearing masks. However—hotheaded fellow that he is—he is ready to cause trouble and is restrained with some difficulty by the host, Lord Capulet, who insists that there be no trouble at his party. He urges everyone to dance, and so the act ends as it began—with a waltz chorus.

ACT II

Act II is the familiar balcony scene. It begins—as does Shakespeare’s balcony scene—with Romeo escaping from his jolly companions, and finding himself beneath Juliet’s balcony. “He jests at scars that never felt a wound,” he mutters to himself (in French, of course), and then he sings his big aria,
Ah! lève-toi, soleil!
The balance of the act is an exceptionally fine love duet. As in Shakespeare, it is Juliet who proposes marriage—and a very speedy one—and Romeo eagerly agrees. Twice during the course of tie long duet they are interrupted. Once it is a party of Capulets who are still searching for the Montagues, and once it is the nurse, who urges Juliet to go to bed. Toward the close there is the famous couplet about “parting is such sweet sorrow”; and then, after Juliet has followed the nurse indoors, Romeo breaths a few more ecstatic phrases.

ACT III

Scene 1
is very brief, consisting largely of the secret marriage of Romeo and Juliet. They come to the cell of the good old Friar Lawrence; Romeo explains that they wish to be married quickly and secretly; the friar decides such a marriage may end the bitter feud between the Montagues and the Capulets; and the ceremony is performed. At the end there is a quartet of rejoicing, in which they are joined by the nurse.

Scene 2
contains a good deal of action and one brand-new, non-Shakespearean character. This is the page Stephano. He is an elegant, gay, and fearless young Montague-so young, in fact, that his part is sung by a soprano. He opens the scene by singing a pert and insulting serenade to the Capulets,
Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle?
Gregory, a Capulet, starts to attack him with a sword. But a group of Montagues arrives, and very quickly there is serious trouble. Tybalt challenges Romeo, and Romeo, who has just been married to Tybalt’s cousin, refuses the challenge. The hotheaded Mercutio takes it up instead, and when he is slain by Tybalt, Romeo can no longer restrain himself. He attacks Tybalt and slays him in turn. Now older and wiser heads appear, Lord Capulet and the Duke of Verona among them. The Duke, properly shocked by the bloodshed, banishes Romeo from the city. This is the worst possible fate for the tragic newlywed, and he leads the ensemble in a fine concerted number bewailing his misfortune.