100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (59 page)

ACT IV

Act IV begins with the third of the four love duets that melodiously punctuate this sad story. Romeo and Juliet have spent their one night together, and it is now time for Romeo to depart. The Duke has decreed that if he is found within the walls of Verona, he shall forfeit his life. In vain the lovers imagine that it is the nightingale and not the lark who sings (to quote Shakespeare) “so out of tune.” Very much
in
tune, the soprano and the tenor take a tragic farewell.

But worse is in store for poor Juliet. Her father comes in to tell her that she must marry the Count Paris at once. She is utterly distraught, and when she is left alone with Friar Lawrence, she begs for advice. She is ready for anything—even death. The friar conveniently produces a phial. In it, he explains, there is a drug. If she drinks it, she will appear to be dead for forty-two hours. At the end of that time, he promises, he will have brought Romeo back to her. Quickly she takes the drink.

Thereupon, oddly enough, there is a ballet in several movements. I say “oddly enough” because it wasn’t originally in the score. Gounod obligingly supplied it when the opera was first given at the National Opera, a year after its premiere at the Théâtre Lyrique. The fashionable members of the Jockey Club always insisted on a ballet in the middle of any opera given at the big house, and who was a mere composer to object? The ballet makes no dramatic sense at all, but the music is rather pretty.

Now Lord Capulet reappears to urge on the marriage. Wildly Juliet cries that the grave shall be her marriage bed—and she falls in a dead faint as everyone is horror-struck. The drug, apparently, has done the first part of its work during the ballet.

ACT V

The last brief and tragic act is devoted largely to the last of the love duets. It opens, however, with a little tone poem
supposed to describe Juliet’s deathlike sleep in the vault of the Capulets. Romeo (who has heard that she is dead—not that she is only drugged) comes into the vault to sing a last farewell,
O ma femme! o ma bien aimée!
Thereupon he, too, takes a drug—only, his is real poison, not merely a sleeping draught like Juliet’s. A moment later Juliet begins to wake and learns to her horror what Romeo has done. One more duet they have, but the poison works too well, and Romeo is dying. Quickly she seizes her dagger—and the two most famous lovers in literature die in each other’s arms.

DER ROSENKAVALIER

(The Knight of the Rose)

Opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with libretto
in German by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Time: middle of the 18th century

Place: Vienna

First performance at Dresden, January 26, 1911

There is an anecdote about
Der Rosenkavalier
and its composer which, as the Italians say, si
non è vero, è ben trovato
, if not gospel truth, is at least to the point. The opera was produced in 1911, and quite some years later the aging composer was, for the first time, conducting a performance of it himself. In the last act—all the while conducting—he leaned over to his first fiddle and whispered, “Isn’t this awfully long?” “Why, maestro,” objected the concertmaster, “you composed it yourself.” “I know,” said Strauss sadly, “but I never thought I’d have to conduct it.”

A completely uncut version of the opera, without intermissions, would take almost four hours to perform. All the more remarkable is it that a light comedy can sustain its charm so consistently that its length has not prevented its becoming the most popular of all the operas of Richard Strauss, a staple in the repertoire of almost every great opera house in England, the United States, and Central Europe (Latin countries take to it a little less kindly); and, along with Wagner’s
Die Meistersinger
, it is generally regarded as the greatest comic opera to come out of Germany since Mozart. Like
Die Meistersinger
, incidentally, it was originally planned as a very short work, but its composer became so enamored of the idea of reproducing a full-length portrait of a phase in social history, that it gained enormous depth in detail during the writing. No one who loves either of these works wishes to forgo a single one of those details.

ACT I

One of those “details,” which the librettist, Von Hofmannsthal, had not even thought of when he wrote his first synopsis, turned out to be the dominant character in the story. This is the Princess von Werdenberg, who is married to a field marshal and is therefore generally referred to as the Marschallin. Although too often represented on the stage by an overripe soprano, Strauss and Von Hofmannsthal thought of her as a very attractive young woman in her early thirties. When the curtain rises, it is midmorning, and she has been entertaining,
in her husband’s absence on a hunting trip, her current young lover. This is an aristocrat named Octavian, just seventeen years old. With the Marschallin still in bed and Octavian in deshabille, the lovers are bidding each other good-by, a farewell overshadowed with pathos as the Princess realizes that the discrepancy in their ages must soon put an end to the affair.

Before an unwelcome visitor—her cousin, the rather brutish Baron Ochs—can force his way in, Octavian manages to hide behind the bed and disguise himself as a chambermaid. As his part is written for a sylphlike soprano (Hofmannsthal had Geraldine Farrar or Mary Garden in mind), Ochs is quite taken in by the disguise and tries, throughout the scene, to make passes at the “girl” and a date with her. Actually, he has come to request the Marschallin to obtain the services of a Knight of the Rose (a
Roserikavalier)
to fulfill a traditional custom, that is, to present a silvered rose to his fiancée, who turns out to be Sophie, the daughter of a wealthy
nouveau riche
gentleman named Von Faninal. Ochs also wants the services of an attorney, and his distinguished cousin bids him wait so that he may meet her own man of law, who is expected at her levee that morning.

This levee now begins. Not only the attorney, but a hairdresser, a widow with numerous progeny, a couple of Italian busybodies (of whom we shall hear more later), an Italian tenor, and various other odd characters try to get something from the Princess. The tenor shows his wares in a very handsome Italian aria, which is interrupted at its climax by Ochs’s arguing with the attorney about the dowry.

At last the Marschallin is left alone again, and, in the
Mirror aria
, she reflects sadly on the changes wrought in her since the time when she was a blooming young girl like Sophie von Faninal. The return of Octavian, now booted and spurred, does not alter her sadly nostalgic mood. He protests his undying devotion, but the Marschallin knows better. She tells him it must soon be over, and she sends him away. Maybe she will see him later in the day, riding in the park, maybe not. And off the youngster goes. Suddenly she remembers: he has not
even kissed her good-by. She sends some servants off to get him back. But it is too late: he has dashed away from the door. And as the act closes, she scans her face in the mirror. She is a sad lady, but a wise one, too.

ACT II

The second act takes us to the home of Von Faninal. He and his housekeeper, Marianne, are delighted over the prospect of his daughter’s marrying a nobleman, however tarnished his reputation may be. Today is the day when Octavian is expected to bring the silvered rose on behalf of Baron Ochs, and the formal presentation takes place soon after the beginning of the act. It is one of the most beautiful passages in the opera. Octavian is suitably dressed in great grandeur, and he and the lovely Sophie fall in love at once. Soon after, the Baron Ochs arrives with his retinue. His behavior is very coarse indeed. He tries to squeeze and to kiss his young bride-to-be, but she repulses him at every step. This only amuses the old roué. He goes off to another room to draw up the marriage contract with Faninal, and he even suggests that, while he is gone, Octavian might teach Sophie a little something about love-making. This instruction has not proceeded very far when they are interrupted by the wildly angry servants. It seems that the Baron’s men, taking after their master, have tried to make love to one of the Faninal servant girls, who didn’t like it.

Now Octavian and Sophie have a very serious discussion, for both know that the Baron will make her an impossible husband. Meanwhile, as the two fall more and more in love, Octavian promises to save Sophie, The two Italians, briefly met in Act I and named Valzacchi and Annina, suddenly appear from behind a couple of decorative stoves, just in time to discover the lovers in each other’s arms. Loudly they call for Baron Ochs in the hope that he may reward their services as spies. A quite colorful and confusing scene then develops. Sophie insists she will not marry Ochs; Ochs is largely amused; Faninal and his housekeeper insist that Sophic
must
go
through with the marriage; and Octavian grows more and more outraged. Finally he draws his sword on the Baron, who calls for help from his servants. The Baron is slightly wounded in the arm and loudly demands a doctor. When the physician arrives, he declares the wound slight.

At last Ochs is left alone to recover, and as he sips wine, he gets a message signed, “Mariandel.” This is the servant girl he thought he had met in Act I at the Marschallin’s, and the note confirms the date he had tried to make with her. “Mariandel” is none other than Octavian himself, who obviously has some useful mischief in mind in sending Ochs this billet-doux. Meantime, the news that he has a date with a new girl cheers him up. Under this influence-not to mention the wine he has been drinking—he starts to sing waltzes. Snatches of the famous
Rosenkavalier
waltzes have punctuated earlier parts of the score, but now, at the end of the act, they are sung and played irresistibly.

ACT III

The Baron’s two henchmen, Valzacchi and Annina, have deserted him. He did not pay well enough, and they are now in the employ of Octavian, supervising the preparation of the
chambre séparée
of an inn—that is, a private dining room, complete with bed. Here the Baron is to come for his date with the disguised Octavian, and a pretty horrific surprise is in the making. There are to be windows that open suddenly, revealing strange heads, a trap door, and other devices to drive the evil old fellow crazy.

When the Baron arrives, everything seems to start off well enough. There are Viennese waltzes from an off-stage orchestra, and Mariandel acts coy but not too standoffish. Then things begin to happen. Doors spring open, as planned, and a disguised Annina rushes in with four children. She claims the Baron as her husband, while the children address him as “Papa.” The Baron calls for the police, who arrive in due time but fail to be impressed by this pathetic nobleman, who has lost his wig. Next, Faninal is summoned and is duly shocked
at the behavior of his son-in-law-to-be. Sophie, too, descends on the party and becomes involved in a real argument with her father. The Marschallin is the last to appear in all her dignity, and she roundly tells off her kinsman.

At last—thoroughly defeated and threatened with huge bills for the entire party—Ochs is glad to escape. Faninal and the rest also retire, and then comes the climax of the whole opera.

In a beautiful trio the Marschallin finally renounces her late lover, Octavian, and bestows him—sadly but graciously—on her young and beautiful rival, Sophie. Then she leaves them, and the final love duet is interrupted only briefly, as the Marschallin brings back Faninal for a fatherly comment on the ways of youth.

“It is a dream … it can hardly be true.…but it will last forever.” These are the last lines heard from the two young lovers, but the opera is not quite over. When they have left, the little black page, Mahomet, runs in, finds a handkerchief that Sophie has dropped, and quickly disappears.