100 Great Operas and Their Stories: Act-By-Act Synopses (54 page)

The noise outside is a group of the courtiers who have come to abduct Gilda, thinking she is Rigoletto’s mistress, not his daughter. To make the joke better, they secure Rigoletto’s help, blindfolding him and making him hold the ladder. It is only after the men have left with Gilda that Rigoletto tears off the blindfold. He rushes into the house, crying
“Gilda, Gilda!”
and the act ends as he recalls in fear and trembling the father’s curse—
La maledizione
.

ACT II

The morning after the girl’s abduction the Duke, in the antechamber to his bedroom, sings of his beloved Gilda. His aria,
Parmi veder
, is so sweet that one almost believes him to be truly in love. And when the courtiers tell him, in a jolly chorus, how they abducted the girl and brought her to his
palace, he is overjoyed and dashes from his anteroom to greet her.

Now comes one of the most moving and dramatic scenes Verdi ever wrote, Rigoletto, heartbroken, enters, pitifully singing,
“La-ra, la-ra, la-ra, la-ra,”
as a court jester should. He looks everywhere for his daughter; and when a boy enters briefly with a message for the Duke, he realizes, from what is said, that his daughter is with the Duke. With intense fury he turns on the men, crying,
Cortigiani, vil razza!
—“Foul race of courtiers!” He tries to break through them to get to the door; he falls weeping to the floor; he pleads piteously—but all in vain. Only when his daughter appears and throws herself into his arms, are the courtiers shamed into leaving. The tearful duet of father and daughter is interrupted as Monterone is brought through, under guard and on his way to execution. Rigoletto swears that the old man shall be avenged on the Duke, and the act closes powerfully as Rigoletto sternly repeats his oath and his daughter pleads for mercy on her lover.

ACT III

At night, outside a desolate inn on the bank of a river, stands Rigoletto, still swearing vengeance on the Duke while Gilda still pleads for him. The inn is owned by Sparafucile, the assassin, and his guest for the night is none other than the Duke—this time disguised as an officer. Presently he sings the most popular tune in the opera
(La donne è mobile
—“Woman is fickle”), and then he starts to make love to Maddalena, the pretty sister of Sparafucile. Now comes the great
Quartet
. Inside the inn, the Duke gives Maddalena a very smooth line to which she replies coquettishly. At the same time, on the outside, Gilda bewails her lover’s falseness, while Rigoletto tries to comfort her.

Then things happen quickly. Gilda is sent off to change into traveling clothes, for her father plans to leave for other parts that same night. He then, for twenty scudi (about nineteen dollars), hires Sparafucile to murder the Duke, and he too
departs. After the nobleman retires to bed, Maddalena persuades her brother to spare the handsome stranger and substitute the body of any late visitor who happens along. The night grows stormy, and Gilda, who has overheard these arrangements, knocks on the door of the inn. She has decided to sacrifice herself for her faithless lover. With merciful speed Sparafucile strikes her down and stuffs her into a bag, and when Rigoletto comes back and receives the heavy bundle, he begins to gloat over his victim. Not for long, though. Inside the inn, he hears the familiar voice of the Duke singing, once more,
La donna è mobileHimself—a
most ironic touch. Rigoletto tears open the bag and finds his daughter. With her last breath she sings a farewell, as he begs her not to die. And when she is silent—forever—he shakes his fist at heaven and cries, once more,
“Ah! la maledizione!”
The curse is fulfilled.

DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN

(The Ring of the Nibelung)

The Ring of the Nibelung
is the greatest work of art ever produced by a single man, or the most colossal bore, or the work of a supreme megalomaniac. It has been called all three repeatedly—and the epithets are by no means mutually exclusive.

Its entire production, words, music, and first stage production, took twenty-eight years, though, to be sure, there was an interval of eight, part way through the work on the score of
Siegfried
, when Wagner took a breather and wrote those two tiny
jeu d’esprit—Tristan
and
Die Meistersinger
.

In 1848 he began the libretto for an opera to be called
Siegfrieds Tod
(“The Death of Siegfried”), which ended with Brünnhilde leading Siegfried into Valhalla. But before he set a note of the score to paper, he realized that he ought to preface this work with one detailing the history of the hero, and accordingly he wrote the libretto for another opera to be called
Der junge Siegfried
(“The Young Siegfried”). These two, of course, eventually became Die
Götterdämmerung
and
Siegfried
respectively, the fourth and third work in the tetralogy,
Götterdämmerung
being provided with a far more significant and tragic ending.

Then, having dug back that far into the tale and observed ever greater social and ethical significance in it, he wrote
Die Walküre
as a preface to
Siegfried
, and finally
Das Rheingold
as a general preface to the three larger works.

It was only after the four librettos (or “poems,” as he called them) had been written and printed that consistent work on the musical composition began, this time in forward order rather than in reverse. Even some of his good friends, when they read the poem, tried to discourage Wagner from attempting to complete so grandiose a scheme. Undeterred by
friends, by enemies, by a series of dramatic marital, financial, even political crises, he persisted not only in completing the great work but in having a theater built especially to produce it—the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth.

Nor does the story end with the triumphant premiere in 1876. That first production was only the beginning of a war of aesthetics. More words were spilled, pro and con, on the subject of the
Ring
than, probably, on any single work of art in the history of man. Despite the vigorous attacks, despite the obvious difficulties and great expense of producing it, it made its way triumphantly through most of the great opera houses of the world, not only in Wagner’s original German but in Hungarian, French, Swedish, English, Italian, Flemish, and Polish as well. Nevertheless, the attacks continued; but none, perhaps, was so damaging as Hitler’s vigorous espousal of the work. For the generation of World War II this, outside of Germany, was a kiss of death. Of the four operas only
Die Walküre
, always the most popular of them, remained in the repertory of many of the great houses that used to give annual productions of the complete
Ring
. As for the younger critics and musicians, many of them began to look at the work as an interesting historical phenomenon no longer worth the trouble of serious study.

Then in 1953 came the notable revivals at the Festspielhaus itself, with new ideas of staging under the supervision of the composer’s grandsons. Immediately the critical battle and the public interest started raging all over again. Opera houses in other countries began to revive the entire series, and the battle of the
Ring
raged still more vigorously. It still rages.

DAS RHEINGOLD

(The Rhinegold)

Opera in one act
^*
by Richard Wagner with libretto
in German by the composer. (Wagner
intended this opera to be regarded as a prologue
to the trilogy of three operas to follow; but as
the four operas are usually given as a series,
they are referred to in the discussion as a
“tetralogy.”)

Time: mythological

Place: in and about the Rhine

First performance at Munich, September 22, 1869

Scene 1
The remarkable prelude consists of nothing more than 136 bars of rising sequences in an undulating 6/8 rhythm based entirely on the E-flat tonic chord, yet presenting two of the most important themes to appear again and again through the four operas. Before it is quite over, the curtain rises to disclose the depths of the river Rhine with Woglinde, one of the three Rhinemaidens, swimming about and singing happily. (These girls are remarkable natators, accomplishing—with the aid of invisible wires—graceful swings across the width of the stage while employing their breath in full-voiced harmonizing.) She is presently joined by her two sisters, and the three of them play girlish games, all the time conscious that they ought really to be guarding the hoard of gold that gives its name to the opera—the Rhinegold.

A hairy and otherwise repulsive gnome named Alberich is attracted by this display of femininity and tries, in crude and awkward fashion, to seize one after another of the maidens. At once repelled by the gnome and attracted by the sport of teasing, they arouse and frustrate his desires to a point where he curses with ungentlemanly gestures.

At that moment a change in the light reflects the beams from the Rhinegold near the top of the stage. The delighted maidens, in neighborly fashion, tell Alberich about it. They have been instructed by their father to guard it; yet who would want to steal it? For while it is true that anyone who can fashion a ring from it may rule the whole world, yet, in order to do so, the ambitious smithy must forswear love forever. Certainly it is safe from this would-be seducer. But they have reckoned wrongly. Alberich climbs up, frightens the girls away, reaches out for the gold, and with a curse on love, wrenches it from the rocks and plunges into the depths.

The whole stage grows dark as the gold disappears. The Rhinemaidens plunge down hopelessly after the mocking Alberich; the waters seem to rise, then change into clouds, and a mist covers everything.

Scene 2
Through that mist we slowly perceive the new scene. Wotan, the ruler of gods, is asleep with his wife, Fricka, on a mountainside; and back of them, across a narrow valley,
rises an imposing castle. When Fricka awakens, she sees it and, wakening her husband, points it out. It is the great fortress that has been some time in the building and is to be their new home. Instead of rejoicing, domestic bickering ensues, one of the principal points of irritation being the agreed-upon price tag—nothing less than Fricka’s sister Freia, the goddess of youth and beauty, to be paid to Fafner and Fasolt, giant builders. Fricka thinks the price is too high—and this leads to all sorts of recriminations, especially concerning Wotan’s frequent extramarital affairs.

The quarrel is interrupted by Freia herself, running from the giants, who now want their bill paid. Wotan, who had entered into this agreement on the advice of Loge, the god of fire, expects this same shifty character to get him out of paying somehow or other. Freia calls on two absent brothers for help—Donner, the god of thunder, and Froh, the god of fruitfulness. The two giants now come in to demand their payment, and Wotan tries to temporize, saying that he had never intended to give up Freia. The giants point out that the contract is written in runes on Wotan’s own spear, and that disaster will rule the world if he should go back on a solemn treaty. Froh and Donner arrive just as the giants are about to take Freia forcibly, and Donner, with his huge hammer, stands before her threateningly.

Finally Loge joins the unhappy family gathering, fresh from his travels around the world looking for some substitute for Freia as payment to the giants. He is a thoroughly untrustworthy fellow—especially in the eyes of Fricka—and now that he reports failure in his mission, he is more unpopular than ever. But he does tell them about the Rhinegold—how Alberich had stolen it from the Rhinemaidens, how they had asked him to get Wotan’s help in restoring it, and what its potentialities are when fashioned into a ring. This last detail immediately attracts both the giants and Wotan, and even Fricka is attracted to the idea that such a ring might have the power to make a husband faithful.

But when Loge tells them that by this time Alberich has already forged the Ring, they realize that the gods themselves
are threatened. As for the giants, they have a private conference and then tell Wotan that if he can deliver the gold to them by nightfall, they will accept it in exchange for Freia. Meantime, they will hold onto her as a pledge, and they drag her, shrieking, off the stage.