sign in sign up
<<
Home , Angeli (cartoonist), La forza del destino, Stiffelio

Program Notes

SYNOPSIS OF SCENES and , 19th Century

ACT I: Spain, at the palace of the Marquis of Calatrava in ACT II, Scene 1: An inn near Hornachuelos Scene 2: The cloister of the Madonna degli Angeli in Spain Intermission ACT III, Scene 1: Italy, near Velletri, ten years later Scene 2: The trenches on a battlefield Scene 3: A ruined village, a few months later Intermission ACT IV: Spain, five years later Scene 1 :Interior of the cloister of the Madonna degli Angeli Sc ene 2 : A hermitage near the cloister

ACT I flight from her vengeful brother, Carlo. In his palace in Seville, the Marquis of The siblings arrive at the same village Calatrava bids goodnight to his inn, but Carlo doesn’t recognize his daughter, Leonora. He warns her against sister. Preziosilla, a lively Gypsy, regales her suitor, Don Alvaro, an Incan prince, the crowd with a hymn to war (“Al suon then departs. Leonora’s maid, Curra, del tamburo”), and Leonora leaves continues preparations for Leonora’s without being discovered (“Padre imminent elopement with Alvaro. Eterno Signor”). After annoying the Leonora is having second thoughts (“Me peddler Trabuco with his persistent pellegrina ed orfana”), but when Alvaro questions, Carlo tells his own story appears he convinces her anew (“Ah! (“Son Pereda”), but pretends that it is Seguirti fino agl’ultimi”). Suddenly, the about someone else. At the end of his marquis storms in. When Alvaro narrative, the company disbands. attempts to make peace by throwing Leonora, seeking refuge at a down his pistol, the weapon goes off Franciscan monastery, prays for forgive- accidentally, mortally wounding the ness (“Madre, pietosa Vergine”); she asks marquis, who dies cursing his daughter. the talkative Friar Melitone if she may The lovers flee. speak with the Father Superior, Padre Guardiano. When she reveals her situa- ACT II tion, the compassionate Padre Separated from Alvaro during their Guardiano offers her sanctuary, and escape, Leonora, in male attire, is now in Leonora goes off to an isolated Program Notes hermitage to spend her life in penitence recruits. Preziosilla breaks the mood by (“La Vergine degli Angeli”). beginning a wild tarantella. In the midst of this drunken merriment Melitone ACT III appears and criticizes their immoral Alvaro has joined the Spanish army behavior (“Toh, toh...Poffare il in Italy, using an alias. Believing Leonora mondo”). They chase him away and join dead, he broods on his past (“Oh tu che Preziosilla in another war song in seno agli angeli”). A noisy quarrel (“Rataplan!”). When the crowd over a card game interrupts his disperses, Carlo seeks out the recovered thoughts, and he rescues a fellow officer Alvaro and reveals his identity, chal- from the ensuing brawl. It is Carlo, also lenging his foe to a duel. Alvaro, learning in disguise. that Leonora is alive, tries to pacify The two pledge undying friendship Carlo, suggesting they search for her and are immediately called to battle, together. When Carlo reveals that he where Alvaro is gravely wounded. intends to kill his own sister, Alvaro When Carlo tells him he has won the readily draws his sword, but they are Cross of Calatrava, Alvaro shudders at separated by a patrol. Alvaro resolves to the name. Believing he is dying, Alvaro enter a monastery. entrusts to his new friend a small folio containing a sealed letter and a medal- ACT IV lion, saying the letter is to be burned A t the monastery, Melitone grudg- unopened at his death. Carlo gives his ingly doles out soup to beggars while word (“Solenne in quest’ora”), and Padre Guardiano reminds him that Alvaro is carried out by the surgeon. humility is a virtue (“Del mondo i disin- Musing on the mysterious folio and his ganni”). Carlo, who has tracked Alvaro friend’s violent reaction to the name of to his sanctuary (“Invano, Alvaro”), Calatrava, Carlo begins to wonder if arrives and sends for his foe. Alvaro, true this could be his enemy Alvaro. After to his monk’s vows, repeatedly refuses to wrestling with his conscience (“Urna fight, until Carlo sparks his anger with fatale”), Carlo rationalizes that the an insult to his heritage. The two rush medallion is not part of his oath and, off to duel. opening it, finds Leonora’s portrait. At the nearby hermitage, Leonora The surgeon returns with word that prays for peace (“Pace, pace, mio Dio!”); Alvaro will live, and Carlo rejoices that she still loves Alvaro and longs for death. he can now confront his enemy (“Egli è At the sound of fighting, she hides. salvo!”). Carlo and Alvaro enter dueling and A few months later in the ruins of a Carlo is dealt a fatal blow. Alvaro rings war-ravaged village, Preziosilla, soldiers, the bell at the hermitage, seeking last and the local peasants sing of the war. rites for the dying man. Finding himself They are interrupted by Trabuco face to face with Leonora, he admits to peddling his goods. Just as he leaves, wounding her brother. She goes to tend starving beggars arrive to ask for bread. him but Carlo, vengeful to the end, stabs They are comforted by homesick her. As she dies, she and Padre Program Notes

Guardiano urge Alvaro to seek salvation sion, the composer shared his thoughts in God (“Non imprecare”). about a trio of vocalists who had little to —Courtesy of NEWS do with the tragic aspects of the drama. “Don’t forget that in Forza three artists with great stage presence are needed to NOTES ON do Preziosilla, Melitone, and Trabuco. Their scenes are comedy, nothing but comedy, therefore good pronunciation a Forza del Destino “is an opera of and aplomb on stage.” The opera’s vast dimensions and needs great mezzo-, Preziosilla, is a young, Lcare”; these are Verdi’s words attractive Gypsy fortune teller. She shortly after the premiere of the work at provides the focal point for the two most the Imperial Theater, St. Petersburg, on extended comic sections: the scene at the November 10, 1862. In the manner of his inn in Act II and the military encamp- beloved Shakespeare, the composer had ment scene mentioned earlier. Friar chosen as the basis for his 24th opera a Melitone, a , is an irascible, drama that included both scenes of sharp-tongued lay brother who momen- tragedy and comedy, written by Spanish tarily lightens the otherwise somber playwright Angel de Saavedra, Duke of monastery scenes of Acts II and IV and Rivas. To ensure an optimum balance delivers a comic sermon in the encamp- between the two, he told his librettist, ment scene of the intervening act. , to add an Trabuco, a , appears twice in the extended comic scene to Act III, which is opera. First he is a muleteer at the inn set in a military camp. The section was to (Act II) where he has some cleverly be based on a colorful interlude in evasive answers for the opera’ s villain, ’s dramatic trilogy the baritone Don Carlo. During the about the Thirty Years War, Wallenstein. encampment scene Trabuco becomes a Verdi had already planned to use peddler with a comic aria of his own. Schiller’s picturesque camp scene more Since Preziosilla acts as a recruiter for than a dozen years before in L’Assedio di a war in Italy during the inn scene, she, Firenze (“The Siege of Florence”), a work Trabuco, and the Spanish peasants and he never completed after it had been servants reappear more or less logically forbidden by the Neapolitan censors and in Act III, joined by Melitone, who is ultimately replaced with now a wandering preacher. The Spanish (first performed in Naples, 1849). And it and Italians are allied in war against the is the comic scenes in Forza, perhaps Germans.“Morte ai tedeschi” (“Death to even more than their tragic counterparts, the Germans”) is a line in the 1862 that require our attention. that was certain to resonate As with , , Simon powerfully for Italian audiences of the Boccanegra, and Don Carlo, at first Forza time inasmuch as the Italians, together was not a box office success, and Verdi with the French, had just fought a felt compelled to revise the opera. While successful war of liberation against the preparing for the premiere of that revi- Austrians in 1859. As a result, for the Program Notes first time since the days of the Romans, tragedy it is “The Power of Destiny” (“La Italy was a free and united nation. The Forza del Destino”) that contrives at specific war referred to in Act III of every turn to frustrate the happiness of Forza is that of the Austrian Succession Leonora and Alvaro. (1740–1747), and the reason the With Verdi directing the rehearsals Spanish were involved is that the ruler of and conducting the earliest perfor- the largest independent region in Italy mances of the revised opera (, during the 18th century, the Kingdom of Milan, February 1869), the work was a the Two Sicilies (Naples and the great success. This was, incidentally, the remainder of southern Italy as well as first time in almost 25 years that the the island of Sicily), was a Spanish composer had allowed a premiere of one nobleman, of Bourbon, a of his at Milan’s leading theater, son of Philip the Fifth of Spain. The scene of his earliest successes: Italian city of Velletri is located in the and I Lombardi. It is characteristic of his region between Rome and Naples. later operas that while he credited fine Because the hero of the opera, Don performances by (Leonora) Alvaro, is an Incan, despite his noble and (Alvaro), he also birth he is still an Indian and therefore attributed a great share of the success of not acceptable to the Spanish aristocrat, Forza that season to what he referred to the Marquis of Calatrava, as a husband as le masse (“ the groups”). In a letter for his daughter, Leonora. It is easy to dated March 1, 1869, he wrote to one of miss, but at one point in the libretto his friends, the Count Opprandino there is a reference to Alvaro’s dark Arrivabene: “Le masse, the choruses and skin—shades of , the Moor of , have performed with preci- Venice. Leonora’s indecision about sion and a fire indescribable. They had whether or not to elope with Alvaro near the devil inside of them.” In the same the beginning of the opera leads not letter he goes on to describe two of the only to her beautiful aria “Me pellegrina most important revisions. “The new ed orfana,” but also to the entry of her pieces [include] an performed infuriated father, who is then killed quite marvelously by the orchestra…and a accidentally when Alvaro throws away Terzetto with which the opera ends.”For his pistol and it fires on striking the the original version of the opera Verdi ground. As with other bizarre operatic had written a much shorter prelude, and events (for example, the incident related at the end of the work, following the in of a distraught Azucena deaths of Don Carlo and Leonora, accidentally throwing her own son on Alvaro committed suicide by leaping the fire in place of the Count di Luna’s from a cliff. In that version the audience child), we must recognize and ultimately actually saw a large puppet thrown from accept the strange event of the pistol as a height at the back of the stage. The the central plot thread of the drama. As suicide, an unforgivable sin for Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists Catholics, probably bothered audiences have taught us, man is not always in in predominantly Catholic countries control of his destiny. In this particular more than the large number of deaths in Program Notes the opera. These countries, which He’s gone completely mad. The solo included Italy, , Spain, , and duet pieces of Colini [Don Austria, Bavaria, and the lands of Latin Carlo], Stolz [Leonora], and Fraschini America, were precisely the areas of the [Verdi’s favorite tenor as Alvaro] went world where Verdi’s operas were most to his head and will end up by putting frequently performed during his life- him in the hospital. But [of] the time. After searching far and wide for a varied scenes, more vast, which fill up new dramatic solution, Verdi finally half of the opera, and which truly settled on the ending we know today: constitute the Music Drama, he, like Alvaro is dissuaded from attempting the public, doesn’t speak at all…. I suicide, and instead allows himself to be believe, and am convinced, that the persuaded to spend the remainder of his musical pieces for solo or [two] solo life repenting for his sins. voices may have been delivered It seems noteworthy that Verdi, who wonderfully, but that the opera, was not a practicing Catholic, wrote understand me well, opera of serious some of his most beautiful religious Musical Theater [Verdi’s term is (though not liturgical) music in La Dramma scenico-musicale], was Forza del Destino. This includes the performed only imperfectly. lovely offstage chorus of pilgrims whose singing momentarily interrupts the In closing, here is a final comment by lively action of the inn scene in Act II, as the composer about the first of what he well as the monks’ chorus in the same described as his “modern operas,” La act. Verdi also composed extraordinarily Forza del Destino. (The others he placed effective music relating well to the reli- in this category were Don Carlo, , gious setting of the monastery for and, of course, later Otello and , Leonora and Padre Guardiano in the although by the time of his last stage same scene. Perhaps most successful of works he no longer used the term all is Leonora’s stunning prayer, “Pace, “modern” to describe his operas.) Late pace, mio Dio,” in Act IV, probably the in the year 1869, Verdi made a remark best known single piece in the opera. that might well serve as a guiding prin- That same serious tone permeates the ciple for all directors of the composer’s final terzet, which begins with the later operas: sympathetic figure of Guardiano, the abbot of the monastery, admonishing A magnificent voice, a sublime artist Alvaro “Non imprecare” (“Do not does not suffice to make comprehen- curse”). sible in all its aspects the Opera-Poem In a letter about a performance of of our times. There must be the Forza in Vicenza shortly after the Scala totality, the singing, the playing, the success, Verdi wrote about the uncon- acting, the costumes, the scenery, trolled enthusiasm of a friend: everything must form the complex.

—Martin Chusid