100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (27 page)

Time: middle of the 17th century

Place: Bohemia

First performance at Berlin, June 18, 1821

    It is a little hard today to imagine the storm created by the first performance, some 140 years ago, of Weber’s romantic opera,
Der Freischütz
. For it meant—in Germany, at least—the end of the predominance of Italian opera. The leading lights of Germany—Heine, Mendelssohn, Hoffmann, and others—seemed to understand this, and the reign of Spontini and classical tragedy was soon over. The way was really paved for all the later German romantics, and above all for Richard Wagner. For
Der Freischütz
(which means “The Free-Shooter”) is a story of romantic love between commoners, of supernatural evil, with a devil for one of the characters, and a scene in the mysterious Wolf’s Glen.

OVERTURE

The music, too, is highly romantic, and its essence is contained in the familiar overture, the only portion of the work with which most modern music-lovers can be counted on to be familiar. It is full of drama, of sweeping melodies, and wonderful effects with tremolo strings and a clarinet solo. It is also just about the first operatic overture to make use of whole tunes from the vocal score–especially of the great joyous outcry made by the heroine when her lover comes to her in Act II.

ACT I

The action of
Der Freischütz
is carried on almost entirely in spoken dialogue punctuated by set musical numbers to paint the emotional situation at the moment. Thus, the first sounds heard after the curtain goes up are a shot and a shout. A shooting contest, held in an open space before a tavern, has just been won by a peasant named Kilian. A male chorus is sung in his praise, while the professional forester, Max (who is the hero of the tale) sits by disconsolately, for he has been defeated. When a rustic march is played in honor of Kilian, Max can stand it no longer and attacks the man who defeated him.

Cuno, the head forester, comes in and stops the brawl; and it soon becomes clear why Max is so much out of sorts. It seems that there is to be a shoot the next day before the Prince Ottokar. If Max wins (as had been fully expected, for he is a famous shot), he will also win his beloved Agathe, who is Cuno’s daughter, and the assured succession to the old man’s job. Now, the fact is that the reason Max has shot badly is that his rival for Agathe’s hand, Caspar (the villain of the piece), had invoked the supernatural help of a devil named Samiel. When Caspar, an unpopular brute, suggests that Max may need some magical assistance the next day, Cuno quickly shuts him up. He then proceeds to relate the history of the
shooting match. It began with his own great-great-grandfather, who had saved a man’s life with so remarkable a shot at one time that he had been accused of using a “free,” or magic, bullet. A free bullet was one supplied by the devil, and it could not miss. Since then the Prince’s foresters have had to prove their competence in contests run without supernatural aid. Kilian adds the important detail that the devil, when he grants a man free shots, gives him seven of them. The first six hit whatever the mortal aims at, but the seventh goes wherever the devil directs.

After a short ensemble number, in which everyone comments on the situation, Kilian makes it up with Max, and our hero is left alone to sing his melodious aria,
Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen
(“Through the forests, through the meadows”), in which he bewails the loss of his once-carefree life.

It is now pretty dark, and Caspar joins Max, inviting him to several drinks. He sings a rough drinking song (and twice Samiel makes a discreet appearance in the foliage, frightening both Caspar and the audience). Finally, Caspar thrusts his gun into Max’s hand and asks him to shoot at a distant eagle. Miraculously the bird falls to the ground. Caspar explains that this has been a “free” bullet, and he knows where to get more. Tomorrow night Max must meet him at the mysterious Wolf’s Glen. Max knows that this may be a disastrous thing to do; but he is desperate by this time, and a little affected by drink, and he agrees. When he has left, Caspar closes the act with a triumphant aria of revenge, full of long and difficult scales that modern basses find pretty hard to negotiate.

ACT II

Scene 1
All the soloists in the first act were men. Weber made up for this in the beginning of the second act, which is populated exclusively by two sopranos. One of them is Agathe, daughter of the head forester and the betrothed of Max. At the moment, Agathe is not too happy about the probable outcome of the shooting match, and her state of mind has not been helped by the framed picture that has mysteriously turn-bled
off the wall and onto her head. Her cousin, Aennchen, is of a much more cheerful disposition. When the act starts, in Cuno’s hunting lodge, she is tacking back the picture on the wall, and Agathe presently joins her in a pretty duet. Briefly, in spoken dialogue, they discuss the absence of Max (who is expected shortly), and then Aennchen sings another cheerful ditty on the ever-engrossing subject of boy-meets-girl.

Now Agathe, left alone, has what used to be one of the most famous of soprano arias,
Leise, leise, fromme Weise
, a prayer for her beloved. At its end she sees Max himself approaching, and she sings a brilliant closing to the aria, expressing her joy.

In the spoken dialogue that follows Max mentions his approaching visit to the Wolf’s Glen, and the scene ends as Aennchen joins the two lovers in a trio: the two women try in vain to dissuade Max from visiting so evil a place, while he, for his part, insists upon going.

Scene 2
is the famous scene in the Wolf’s Glen. It was originally designed, I believe, to scare the living daylights out of its nineteenth-century German audience, for it is filled with such scary things as a skull with a dagger thrust through it, an eerie off-stage chorus of fiends, weird moonlight playing over a scene of desolate rocks and trees, and a devil who appears and disappears mysteriously and threatens in a high, menacing voice. To a modern audience much of this
looks
like child’s play, yet Weber’s score makes it
sound
remarkably effective.

The scene opens with the villain, Caspar, going through an interesting rigmarole designed to summon the devil, Samiel. Caspar has sold himself to the devil completely, and now he begs for three more years of freedom in exchange for delivering Max to him. Musically it is a strange scene. Caspar sings, and the devil speaks; and the bargain they strike is this: Max is to have seven magical bullets, six to go unerringly to whatever mark Max aims at, but the seventh Samiel may direct to Agathe’s heart. The devil coldly agrees; but should Caspar fail in seducing Max into the bargain, his own soul will be the forfeit.

Now Max appears on the scene. First he sees a vision of his mother, then one of Agathe, and he is so badly upset by these
visions that he readily agrees to do whatever Caspar demands. Caspar thereupon brews a wicked brew. It begins to boil and hiss; huge birds fly about; a boar crashes through the underbrush; a storm rages; shadowy figures utter a strange chantand eventually the bullets are molded. Together the two men call upon Samiel; and as the Demon appears, Caspar falls over in a dead faint, while Max finds, to his terror, that he has grasped the Devil’s own hand in the shape of a dead branch! And if all this sounds faintly improbable, please remember that this is a romantic fairy tale. Anything can happen in a fairy tale.

ACT III

Scene 1
of the last act is given over exclusively to attempts to cheer up our lugubrious heroine, Agathe. She is being dressed for her wedding to Max, but she has various misgivings of a superstitious nature. One of these misgivings—as we shall see in the final scene—is well justified by events. She says she dreamed she was a white dove, that Max fired at her, and that she fell to the ground in her natural form as a maiden. In the first aria of the scene Agathe prays to heaven for protection, and in the second she relates her dream. It takes two arias by her cheerful cousin, Aennchen, as well as a chorus of bridesmaids, to give Agathe the courage to complete her nuptial preparations.

Scene 2
is introduced by a jolly hunting prelude, followed by a chorus. It is the big day, and Max is to demonstrate to his prince, Ottokar, and to his prospective father-in-law, Cuno, that he is a good enough shot to be worthy of marrying Agathe. The Prince points to a white dove and tells Max to shoot, but just as he takes aim, Agathe appears and calls for him not to shoot, for she herself is the white dove! But it is too late. Max fires; Agathe falls, and everyone thinks he has slain his bride. But at the same time the villain Caspar falls. With his dying breath he curses the Demon Samiel-and his soul is consigned to perdition.

Now Agathe revives, and Max explains how he went astray
in dealings with Caspar and Samiel. Everyone pleads that he should be forgiven, but the Prince sternly decides to banish the young forester. Fortunately, a wise old hermit appears and the Prince leaves the final decision up to him. In a long and solemn aria the hermit gives his advice, which is to let Max be given a year’s probation. If at the end of that time he is again his old virtuous self, let him marry the lovely Agathe. And henceforth, let there be an end to such shooting contests as these.

Everyone agrees that this is a fine idea, and the opera ends on a chorus of jubilation, using one of the most familiar tunes from the famous overture.

GIANNI SCHICCHI

Opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini with
libretto in Italian by Giovacchino Forzano

Time: 1299

Place: Florence

First performance at New York, December 14, 1918

    
Gianni Schicchi
is the last and most successful of the three one-act operas that make up Puccini’s Triptych, the other two being
Il tabarro
and
Suor Angelica
. It is based on an incident that is actually supposed to have happened in Florence, in the year 1299, pretty much as given in the libretto. Dante, who may well have known the jolly swindler Schicchi personally, put him, in the thirtieth canto of the
Inferno
, into the eighth circle of Hell among thieves, panders, and other such. His perpetual companion there is the incestuous
Princess of Cyprus, who loved her father. But Puccini was probably not thinking of this literary detail when he composed the aria, O
mio babbino caro
(“Oh, My Beloved Daddy”).

When the opera opens, the wealthy Buoso Donati has just died, and a gang of his relatives is hanging vulturously about his bed. For their names and the relationships they bear to the corpse let me refer you to the cast of characters above. Ostensibly they are there to mourn; but their avariciousness soon gets the better of their manners, and they start to search for the will. It is Rinuccio who finds it and Zita who first reads it. Their worst fears are realized: Buoso has left everything to the monks of a monastery.

Now it happens that young Rinuccio is in love with Lauretta, the daughter of Gianni Schicchi, and Gianni is a shrewd peasant of infinite resourcefulness. Secretly Rinuccio has sent for Gianni Schicchi, and the artful young fellow urges his relatives to consult his prospective father-in-law. He ends his argument with an eloquent paean in praise of Florence
(Firenze è come un albero fiorito)
, but they protest right up to the arrival of Schicchi himself.

Lauretta, whom her father loves very much, urges him to find a solution to the troubles of the Donati so that she may marry Rinuccio (O
mio babbino caro)
, and, thus inspired, Schicchi contrives a plot. He has the body of old Buoso removed and he himself takes its place in the bed. He fools the doctor when he comes by imitating Buoso’s voice and saying he is better. Then he listens to what each relative wishes to have of Buoso’s riches, and he promises to dictate a new will accordingly.

A notary is summoned, and Schicchi dictates the new will. However, in this will he leaves everything—to himself! The relatives are wild when the notary leaves, but there is nothing they can do. For Schicchi has pointed out to them that whoever helps falsify a will must, according to the laws of Florence, lose one hand and be forever banished. The maddened flock steal whatever they can, and Schicchi chases them out of the house. Only the lovers remain to sing a happy duet; and when
Schicchi returns, he presents them with the stolen articles he has managed to recapture.