The Faber Pocket Guide to Opera (47 page)

Andrea Chénier

Four acts. First performed Milan, 1896.

Libretto by Luigi Illica

This costume drama emulates the torrid intensity of Puccini’s
Manon
Lescaut
and verismo operas such as
Cavalleria
Rusticana
and
Pagliacci.
There was a real André Chénier, a fine poet guillotined during the French Revolution, but the opera’s plot, based on a novelette, bears no other relation to historical actualities.

Plot

Just before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the aristocratic Maddalena de Coigny is smitten with the idealistic poet Andrea Chénier, who speaks out on behalf of the poor and oppressed in the hope of a better world.
Gérard, a retainer in the service of Maddalena’s mother, nurses both amorous feelings for Maddalena and revolutionary sentiments.

Five years pass, and the revolution is in full swing.
Chénier is advised to flee the increasingly dangerous situation, but he is held back by an arrangement to meet a woman who has been sending him impassioned anonymous letters.
It is Maddalena, and the two of them are soon ardently in love.
Gérard, now one of Robespierre’s cronies, continues to be infatuated with Maddalena.

Chénier is arrested as ‘an enemy of the people’ and Gérard is asked to sign the indictment.
Conscience pricks him, but his desire for Maddalena is overwhelming and he signs the paper.
Maddalena offers Gérard her body in exchange for Chénier’s freedom.
When he hears how Maddalena has suffered from the horrors of the revolution, Gérard has a change of heart: at the trial he supports Chénier’s self-defence and publicly admits that the indictment is fraudulent.
But Chénier is sentenced to death.

In the prison of Saint-Lazare, Chénier awaits execution.
With Gérard’s connivance, Maddalena gains admittance.
The jailor agrees to let Maddalena substitute herself for another condemned female prisoner.
Chénier and Maddalena are rapturously but briefly reunited before they are summoned to the guillotine.

What to listen for

Giordano’s melodies seem to promise much more than they deliver, and he doesn’t rate highly as a composer for the orchestra.
The score nevertheless offers great vocal opportunities for the three principals, in arias which have narrative rather than lyrical shape: for Chánier (tenor), the idealistic ‘Un dì, all’azzurro spazio’, in which he contrasts the glory of nature with the selfishness of mankind; for Maddalena (soprano), ‘La mamma morta’ (made famous by its inclusion in the movie
Philadelphia
) in which she describes the horrible circumstances of her mother’s death; for Gérard (baritone), ‘Nemico della patria’, in which he asks himself whether he can denounce Chénier.
Best of all is the barnstorming duet in Act IV: it reaches a frenzied climax as Chénier and Maddalena mount the tumbril together sharing a triumphant high B – although heavier, more baritonal tenors often transpose this high-lying episode down a semitone.

In performance

Like
Pagliacci,
this is an opera which primarily offers a great vehicle for a dramatic tenor, preferably one with matinée-idol good looks – Franco Corelli, Placido Domingo and José Cura, for example.
Although the score and libretto are both overheated melodramatic hokum and the modern school of producers find it quite uninteresting, the opera can still pack a punch.

Recording

CD: Placido Domingo (Chénier); James Levine (cond.).
RCA GD82046

Giacomo Puccini

(1858–1924)

Manon Lescaut

Four acts. First performed Turin, 1893.

Libretto by Domenico Oliva and Luigi Illica

Based on the novel of 1731 by Abbé Prévost.
The composition of this, Puccini’s third opera, was long and tortured, complicated by the recent success of Massenet’s version of the same text (see p.
262–4).

Plot

Mid-eighteenth-century France.
Outside a coaching inn in Amiens, the susceptible young Chevalier des Grieux is captivated by the teenage beauty Manon Lescaut as she passes on her way to a convent.
An old lecher, Geronte, plans to abduct her, but Manon and des Grieux thwart him by eloping in Geronte’s own coach.
Geronte’s fury is assuaged when Manon’s sinister and manipulative brother assures him that Manon will soon need a rich protector.

Sure enough, Manon is soon set up as Geronte’s mistress.
She confesses to her brother, however, that the pleasures of being a fine lady fail to satisfy her and she yearns for the romance and simple life that she shared with des Grieux.
Lescaut agrees to fetch des Grieux, and the lovers are passionately reunited.
When Geronte unexpectedly returns to find the pair in each other’s arms, Manon taunts him and he leaves, outraged.
To des Grieux’s disappointment, Manon now proves reluctant to abandon her life of luxury.
But then the police, summoned by the furious Geronte, arrive to arrest her as a prostitute.

At the harbour of Le Havre, Manon awaits deportation to Louisiana.
Lescaut’s plan to help her escape fails, and des Grieux begs the captain of the convict ship to allow him to make the crossing and follow Manon to America.

Once arrived in New Orleans, Manon and des Grieux manage to escape the authorities.
They wander out into the
desert and there, starving, delirious and despairing, Manon dies in des Grieux’s arms.

What to listen for

A badly proportioned work – Acts I and II seem too long compared to Acts III and IV, and for all the outbursts of ardour, Puccini fails to convince us that Manon and des Grieux are ever happy with one another, thus reducing the pathos.
There’s too much doom and gloom, not enough sweetness and tenderness (an imbalance Puccini corrected in
La
Bohème
).
Manon is presented here not as the fragile and flirtatious teenager that she is in Massenet’s opera, but as a passionate, worldly woman best interpreted by the sort of soprano who also sings Tosca – there are some big high Cs and heavy climaxes to negotiate.
The attraction of the role is a pair of strongly expressive arias, ‘In quelle trine morbide’ and ‘Sola, perduta, abbandonata’, the latter in effect an electrifying death scene.
The tenor doesn’t have it easy either: many of Puccini’s roles for this voice (Cavaradossi, Rodolfo and Pinkerton, for example) are relatively easy to sing, but des Grieux demands stamina and a wide range – his finest moment coming at the end of Act III as he pleads to be allowed to board the deportees’ ship.

In performance

An awkward piece to direct, and one which does not happily move out of the rococo period; the best scene, theatrically speaking, is the brief but gripping Act III, in which the dockside parade of deported prostitutes provides an opportunity for members of the chorus to overact.
Designers have a problem with Act IV, set in the Louisiana ‘desert’, and often present it as though the lovers remain in Paris as pariahs, the city’s glamour turned bleakly hostile and imprisoning.

Recording