100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (9 page)

OVERTURE

Music lovers who have never heard
The Bartered Bride
in its entirety must still be quite familiar with the overture, as it has long been a standard part of the orchestral repertoire. Its themes are all heard a second time during the finale of Act II.

ACT I

On the main square of a small Bohemian village a chorus of countryfolk sets the tone of the whole opera by singing gaily in praise of spring and of youthful love—with an added note of warning about the dangers of marriage. The two young lovers, Marie and Hans, alone are feeling sad, and when the villagers leave, their reasons become clear in a duet. Marie is bothered for two reasons. First, she knows that her parents are arranging a wedding for her with some unknown. Second, she knows nothing about the life of Hans before he recently came to this village. Hans is of a more sanguine nature. He assures Marie that all she needs to do is to remain steadfast to him, and no unknown suitor can take her away. As for the second point, he tells her that he came of a wealthy home, but his father’s second wife did not like him, and so he has come away to seek his own fortune. The two lovers swear eternal faith very prettily, but they are interrupted when three
older characters occupy the stage. These are Marie’s parents—Kruschina and Katinka—and a comic marriage broker named Kezal. Their conversation reveals the fact that the parents are practically ready to give away Marie in marriage to the son of a rich man named Misha. Only the mother has some reservations. She thinks that Marie ought to be consulted.

When Marie hears of these plans, she firmly puts her foot down, announcing that she has already promised to marry Hans. The older folk are scandalized, and Father Kruschina goes off to talk the matter over with Misha, while Kezal decides to tackle Hans.

Once more the countryfolk gather on the stage, and the act closes with the very jolly
Polka
.

ACT II

The second act begins with a drinking song at the local inn. It is punctuated with solos by the marriage broker, Kezal, in praise of gold, and by the young lover, Hans, toasting (of course) love. Then everyone joins in a dance.

Now, for the first time, we meet Wenzel, a pathetic figure of a young man—the son of the wealthy Misha and the candidate for Marie’s hand. The poor fellow stutters and is dreadfully shy. He has never met Marie, but Marie knows who he is. And so, in a duet, she persuades him to give up the unknown Marie. That young woman, she says, has no use for Wenzel, no respect for him; she will make his life miserable; and, furthermore, there is a very pretty young girl in the village who is sighing her heart out for love of Wenzel. Finally Marie makes Wenzel swear that he will never even come near Marie. This number is followed by another long duet, a very comic one, in which Kezal tries to persuade Hans to give up Marie. Hans, he says, is too inexperienced to know that you must have money to marry. Nor does he know how dreadful women can become once they have caught their men. Better to remain singlel And then, with complete lack of logic, he offers Hans a girl who has everything under the sun. He lists each item, and Hans repeats every detail after him. Furthermore,
Kezal is prepared to offer 100 … 200 … no—300 gulden for giving up Marie. Give her up—to whom? asks Hans. Why, to the son of Misha, of course.

Now, Hans himself is really a son of Misha by Misha’s first marriage, but Kezal does not know this. Therefore, Hans is prepared to sign an agreement. He is to receive 300 gulden with the understanding that Marie must marry no one but the son of Misha. Everyone comes in to witness the signing of this document, and everyone is shocked that Hans should be willing to sell his fiancée. Only Hans knows that he will have the last laugh and that Marie will never be a “bartered bride.”

ACT III

Alone on the town square, Wenzel bewails his failure to make love successfully in a comic aria marked
lamentoso
. Suddenly, with trumpets and drums, a circus troupe appears at the inn. Wenzel is childishly delighted. He hears Springer, the leader of the troupe, announce a performance that very afternoon, and he is enchanted—as is every audience—with the
Dance of the Comedians
. He also falls in love at first sight with Esmerelda, the pretty tightrope walker. But Muff, another member of the troupe, rushes in to announce that the fellow who plays the bear is hopelessly drunk. No one else of the right size can be found, and so Springer and the pretty Esmerelda persuade Wenzel to join the troupe—to learn to dance—and to be the bear!

Before he can go off with them, his parents interrupt. Agnes, Misha, and the marriage broker Kezal try to persuade Wenzel to sign the contract to marry Marie. But for once the boy knows his own mind: he absolutely refuses—and he runs off. Now it is Marie’s turn to be persuaded to agree to the marriage. Even her own parents join in, and when they show her the paper that her lover Hans has signed, her heart is broken. Pitifully she asks a few minutes to think it over. In a lovely sextet, the older people agree to give her some time, but they will soon return.

Marie now has a mournful aria, and she is not at all cheered up by Hans, who joins her in an annoyingly cheerful frame of mind. He, of course, knows that everything will turn out all right, but he does not have time to explain it to his girl. In fact, he only makes matters rather worse in their brief duet. So, when Kezal offers him his money (according to the contract), he agrees readily, and everyone in the village is sure that Marie will make a lovely bride for Wenzel. At this point Wenzel’s parents enter, see Hans for the first time, and greet him as Misha’s long lost son. Thus everything is cleared up for the lovers, for the contract calls for Marie to marry Misha’s son, and it doesn’t say
which
son. Marie chooses Hans, and Kezal is laughed off the scene.

Now there are shouts: “Save yourselves! A bear’s got loose!” But it is only Wenzel, disguised in his bear’s suit. His mother drags him off; Misha blesses the happy young couple; and the opera ends as everyone joins in a chorus:
Hurray for the bartered bride!

BASTIEN UND BASTIENNE

Light opera in one act by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart with libretto in German by F. W.
Weiskern, based on Marie Justine Benoîte
Favart’s parody of Jean Jacques Rousseau’s
Le devin du village

Time: 18th century

Place: outside a European village

First performance at Vienna, probably in September 1768

    Mozart, as everyone knows, was a child prodigy. He composed
Bastien und Bastienne
at the age of twelve. It was commissioned by no less a personage than Dr. Anton Mesmer, the inventor of mesmerism—a kind of hypnotism used for curing people of all sorts of diseases. Later on his mesmerism came to be generally regarded as something like quackery, but in 1768 the good doctor was a highly respected and wealthy practitioner in Vienna, and
Bastien und Bastienne
was presented at a garden party he gave that fall. Its libretto was a parody of another famous little musical work—
Le devin du village
, by Jean Jacques Rousseau. Apparently
Bastien und Bastienne
was not too great a success, for it was not given a second performance till Mozart had been in his grave almost a century. It was, therefore, impossible for Ludwig van Beethoven, born two years after Mesmer’s party, to have heard the overture. I mention this fact because the main theme of
Mozart’s little opening music is almost note for note the same as the main theme of the great
Eroica
symphony. Just one of those amusing accidents.

The story of
Bastien und Bastienne
is about as simple as anything can be. Bastienne is a shepherdess in love with Bastien, a shepherd. She tells us about it in two short opening arias. Then there is some bagpipe-like music, and in comes the fortuneteller Colas. In a long scene she complains of Bastien’s interest in a wealthy girl, while Colas advises her to act uninterested in Bastien’s defection and to make believe she has other admirers. When Bastien appears on the scene, the shepherdess hides while Colas tells him of Bastienne’s new interests. The shepherd, of course, really wants only his shepherdess, and in a couple of short arias Colas promises help through reading aloud from his book of magic. This is nothing but a lot of nonsense, and consists of magic words like
Diggi-daggi
and
Schurry-murry
.

And so, when Bastien and Bastienne meet again, there is a lover’s quarrel which ends in a duet of reconciliation. Then the little opera closes with a trio in praise of the beautiful weather and the arts of the magician Colas. Nothing could be more innocent or charming.

LA BOHÈME

(The Bohemians)

Opera in four acts by Giacomo Puccini with
libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Giacosa and
Luigi Illica with considerable assistance from
Giulio Ricordi and the composer, based on incidents
from Henri Murger’s novel
Scènes de la
vie de Bohème

Time: about 1830

Place: Paris

First performance at Turin, February 1, 1896

    It is the evening of February 1, 1896, in the opera house at Turin. A brilliant audience has gathered to hear the world premiere of the new opera by Giacomo Puccini, whose
Manon Lescaut
was a nationwide success. The conductor is Arturo Toscanini, aged twenty-eight, whose repute is already such that an American critic had written, after hearing him conduct
Die Götterdämmerung
, that he “was the only artist the city of New York should be proud to invite to conduct.”

Under such auspices one might have expected the premiere of the most lovable of all Italian operas to be a resounding success. It wasn’t. It wasn’t a failure, either, but the public reception was little better than lukewarm, while the critics were far from unanimous in liking it. One of them went so far as to call it “empty and downright infantile.” The Metropolitan premiere, in 1900, elicited some even worse epithets.
“La Bohème,”
said the
Tribune
, “is foul in subject and fulminant and futile in its music … Silly and inconsequential …”

By no means all the critics were this wide of the mark. Despite the opinions of many musicians, professional critics are proved far more often right than wrong by the general opinion of posterity. But in this particular case no one was so exactly right as Puccini’s publisher, Giulio Ricordi. After working and worrying with the composer and his librettists for the entire three years that the opera was in the making, he wrote to Puccini three months before the premiere: “Dear Puccini, if this time you have not succeeded in hitting the nail squarely on the head, I will change my profession and sell salami!”

ACT I

The first act takes place in Paris on a Christmas Eve in the 1830’s. It is in the attic apartment of Rodolfo and Marcello, members of a quartet of happy-go-lucky, poverty-stricken Bohemians. As the scene opens, Marcello, an artist, is complaining to his friend Rodolfo, a poet, of the terrible cold. The fireplace having long been without fuel, Rodolfo gets a brilliant idea: he will use for kindling the paper on which he has written a five-act tragedy. Presently Colline, the philosopher member, enters, and warms himself at the meager grate. And lastly we meet the fourth member, Schaunard, the musician, who has mysteriously come by the means to buy food and wine. The four are reveling and at the height of joy, when Benoit, the landlord, makes his appearance and demands some
rent. He is, however, plied with wine and is soon pushed out rather roughly—and without his money. Schaunard, Marcello, and Colline thereupon depart for the Café Momus, leaving Rodolfo, who explains that he has an article to write.

A few moments later there is a timid knock at the door. It is a pretty young neighbor, whose candle has gone out. Rodolfo invites her to come in. Racked by a coughing spell, she sits down and has a sip of wine. Rodolfo relights her candle, and she leaves but returns a moment later because she seems to have dropped her key. Rodolfo gallantly searches for it; and as they grope in the darkness, the candles having gone out, Rodolfo grasps Mimi’s hand. This is the signal for the beautiful aria
Che gelida manina
—“Thy tiny hand is frozen,” in which he tells about his way of life and his work. When he has finished, the girl answers in her equally celebrated aria,
Mi chiamano Mimi
—“They call me Mimi,” and goes on to describe her simple life as a seamstress. Rodolfo and Mimi are now quite in love, and when they hear their friends shouting to them from below, Rodolfo ceremoniously takes Mimi’s arm, and they leave to join the others at the Café Momus.