Operas Every Child Should Know - Mary Eddy 4 стр.

"Behold me!" she cried, very dramatically, "heed my warning voice! Wail and not rejoice!" A nice sort of caution to be injected into a merrymaking. "The foe to thy rest, is the one you love best. Think not my warning wild, 'tis thy refound child. She loves a youth of the tribe I sway, and braves the world's reproof. List to the words I say, he is now beneath thy roof!" This was quite enough to drive the entire company into hysterics.

"Base wretch," the Count cried, "thou liest!"

"Thy faith I begrudge, open that door and thyself be the judge," she screamed, quite beside herself with anger. Of course everybody looked toward the door of the cabinet, and finally the Count opened it, and there stood Thaddeus.

He staggered back, the Queen was delighted, but everybody else was frightened half to death.

Everybody concerned seemed then to be in the worst possible way. Arline determined to stand by Thaddeus, and she was quite appalled at the wickedness of the Queen.

"Leave the place instantly," the Count roared to Thaddeus.

"I go, Arline," Thaddeus answered sorrowfully.

"Never!  unless I go with thee," she declared, quite overcome by the situation. "Father, I love thee, but I cannot give up Thaddeus," she protested sorrowfully to the Count. Then the Count drew his sword and rushed between them.

"Go!" he cried again to Thaddeus, and at the same time the Queen urged him to go with her. Then Arline begged to be left alone with her father that she might have a private word with him. Everybody withdrew except Thaddeus, wondering what next, and how it would all turn out.

"Father," Arline pleaded when they were alone, "I am at your feet. If you love me you will listen. It was Thaddeus who restored me to you; who has guarded me from harm for twelve years. I cannot give him up, and to send him away is unworthy of you." The Count made a despairing gesture of dismissal to Thaddeus.

"But, father, we are already united," she urged, referring to the gipsy marriage. At that the Count was quite horrified.

"United?  to a strolling fellow like this?" This was more than Thaddeus could stand, knowing as he did that he was every bit as good as the Count being a Polish noble. True, if he revealed himself, he might have to pay for it with his life, because he was still reckoned at large as the enemy of the Emperor, but even so, he decided to tell the truth about himself for Arline's sake.

"Listen," he cried, stepping nearer to the Count. "I am not what you think me. Let this prove to you my birth," and he took the old commission from his pocket where he had carried it for years, and handed it to the Count. "This will prove to thee, though I am an exile, that I am a noble like thyself; and my birth does not separate me from thy daughter." The Count read the paper tremblingly and then looked long at Thaddeus. Tears came to his eyes.

"The storms of a nation's strife should never part true lovers," he said softly, at last: "Thy hand!" and taking Thaddeus's hand he placed it tenderly in that of Arline. As they stood thus united and happy, the Queen appeared at the window, pointing him out to a gipsy beside her. The gipsy was about to fire upon Thaddeus at the Queen's command, when Devilshoof knocked up the gipsy's arm, and the bullet meant for the lover killed the revengeful Queen.

"Guard every portal summon all the guests!" the Count cried. "Suspend all festivities," at which the music which had been heard in the distant salon ceased, and the guests began to assemble. Arline rushed to the arms of Thaddeus. The Count explained all that had occurred, the danger Thaddeus had just been in, that he had been given the Count's daughter, and that congratulations were in order.

As you may believe, after so much fright and danger, everybody was overjoyed to find that all was well everybody but Florestein, and he was certain to be satisfied presently when the banquet began, and he got some especially fine tit-bit on his own plate!

BEETHOVEN

THE most complete, at the same time picturesque, story of Beethoven and his "Fidelio" is told in "Musical Sketches," by Elise Polko, with all the sentimentality that a German writer can command. Whole paragraphs might be lifted from that book and included in this sketch, but the substance of the story shall be told in a somewhat inferior way.

"Leonora" (Fidelio) was composed some time before it was produced. Ludwig van Beethoven had been urged again and again by his friends to put the opera before the public, but he always refused.

"It shall never be produced till I find the woman in whose powers I have absolute confidence to sing 'Leonora.' She need not be beautiful, change her costume ten times, nor break her throat with roulades: but she must have one thing besides her voice." He would not disclose what special quality he demanded; and when his friends persisted in urging the production of his first, last, and only opera, Beethoven went into a great rage and declared if the subject were ever mentioned again, he would burn the manuscript. At one time friends begged him to hear a new prima donna, Wilhelmina Schröder, the daughter of a great actress, believing that in her he would find his "Leonora."

This enraged him still more. The idea of entrusting his beloved composition to a girl no more than sixteen years old!

His appearance at that time is thus described:

"At the same hour every afternoon a tall man walked alone on the so-called Wasserglacis (Vienna). Every one reverentially avoided him. Neither heat nor cold made him hasten his steps; no passer-by arrested his eye; he strode slowly, firmly and proudly along, with glance bent downward, and with hands clasped behind his back. You felt that he was some extraordinary being, and that the might of genius encircled this majestic head with its glory. Gray hair grew thickly around his magnificent brow, but he noticed not the spring breeze that played sportively among it and pushed it in his eyes. Every child knew: 'that is Ludwig van Beethoven, who has composed such wondrously beautiful music.'"

One day, during one of these outings a fearful storm arose, and he noticed a beautiful young woman, whom he had frequently seen in his walks, frightened but standing still without protection from the weather. She stared at him with such peculiar devotion and entreaty that he stopped and asked her what she did there in the storm.

She had the appearance of a child, and great simplicity of manner. She told him she waited to see him. He, being surprised at this, questioned her, and she declared she was Wilhelmina Schröder, who longed for nothing but to sing his Leonora, of which all Vienna had heard. He took her to his home, she sang the part for him, and at once he accepted her.

It was she who first sang "Fidelio," and she who had the "quality" that Beethoven demanded: the quality of kindness. It is said that her face was instinct with gentleness and her voice exquisitely beautiful. It was almost the last thing that Beethoven heard. His deafness was already upon him, but he heard her voice; heard his beloved opera sung, and was so much overcome by the beauty of the young girl's art that during the performance he fainted.

Of all temperamental men, Beethoven was doubtless the most so, and the anecdotes written of him are many. He was especially irascible. His domestic annoyances are revealed freely in his diary: "Nancy is too uneducated for a housekeeper indeed, quite a beast." "My precious servants were occupied from seven o'clock till ten, trying to light a fire." "The cook's off again I shied half a dozen books at her head." "No soup to-day, no beef, no eggs. Got something from the inn at last." These situations are amusing to read about, decades later, but doubtless tragic enough at the time to the great composer!

That in financial matters Beethoven was quite practical was illustrated by his answer to the Prussian Ambassador at Vienna, who offered to the musician the choice of the glory of having some order bestowed upon him or fifty ducats. Beethoven took the ducats.

Beautiful as the production of "Fidelio" was, it did not escape criticism from an eminent source. Cherubini was present at the first performance at the Karnthnerthor Theatre in Vienna, and when asked how he liked the overture (Leonora in C) he replied:

"To be honest, I must confess that I could not tell what key it was in from beginning to end."

FIDELIO

Marcelline (jailer's daughter).

Leonora (under name of Fidelio).

Florestan (her husband and a state prisoner).

Jaquino (porter of the prison).

Pizarro (governor of the prison).

Hernando (the minister).

Rocco (the jailer).

Chorus of soldiers, prisoners and people.

Scene is laid in Spain.

Composer: Beethoven.

Marcelline, the jailer's daughter, had been tormented to death for months by the love-making of her father's porter, Jaquino. In short, he had stopped her on her way to church, to work, to rest, at all times, and every time, to make love to her, and finally she was on the point of consenting to marry him, if only to get rid of him.

"Marcelline, only name the day, and I vow I'll never make love to you again," said the soft Jaquino. This was so funny that Marcelline thought he was worth marrying for his drollery; but just as she was about to make him a happy man by saying "yes," some one knocked upon the door, and with a laugh she drew away from him:

Quite disheartened, Jaquino went to open the door.

There had been a time before a certain stranger named Fidelio had come to the prison when Jaquino's absurd love-making pleased Marcelline, but since the coming of that fine youth Fidelio, she had thought of little but him. Now, while Jaquino was opening the door, and she watched his figure (which was not at all fascinating), she murmured to herself:

"After all, how perfectly absurd to think of it! I shall never marry anybody but Fidelio. He is quite the most enchanting fellow I know." At that moment Jaquino returned.

"What, not a word for me?" he asked, noting her change of mood.

"Well, yes, and that word is no, no, no! So go away and let me alone," she answered petulantly.

Now Fidelio was certainly a most beautiful youth, but quite different from any Marcelline had ever seen. Fidelio observed, with a good deal of anxiety, that the jailer's daughter was much in love with him, and there were reasons why that should be inconvenient.

Fidelio, instead of being a fine youth, was a most adoring wife, and her husband, Florestan, was shut up in that prison for an offence against its wicked governor, Pizarro. He had been placed there to starve; and indeed his wife Leonora (Fidelio) had been told that he was already dead. She had applied, as a youth, for work in the prison, in order to spy out the truth; to learn if her dear husband were dead or alive.

There was both good and bad luck in the devotion of the jailer's daughter. The favourable part of the affair was that Leonora was able, because of her favouritism, to find out much about the prisoners; but on the other hand, she was in danger of discovery. Although the situation was tragic, there was considerable of a joke in Marcelline's devotion to the youth Fidelio, and in the consequent jealousy of Jaquino.

Love of money was Rocco's (the jailer) besetting sin. He sang of his love with great feeling:

Rocco was also a man of heart; and since hiring Fidelio (Leonora) he had really become very fond of the young man. When he observed the attachment between Fidelio and Marcelline, he was inclined to favour it.

Don Pizarro had long been the bitterest enemy of Don Florestan, Leonora's husband, because that noble had learned of his atrocities and had determined to depose him as governor of the fortress prison.

Hence, when Pizarro got Florestan in his clutches, he treated him with unimaginable cruelties, and falsely reported that he was dead.

Now in the prison there had lately been much hope and rejoicing because it was rumoured that Fernando, the great Minister of State, was about to pay a visit of investigation. This promised a change for the better in the condition of the prisoners. But no one knew better than Don Pizarro that it would mean ruin to himself if Fernando found Don Florestan in a dungeon. The two men were dear friends, and so cruelly treated had Florestan been that Pizarro could never hope for clemency. Hence, he called Rocco, and told him that Florestan must be killed at once, before the arrival of Fernando.

Rocco refused point blank to do the horrid deed; but as a dependent he could not control matters, and hence he had to consent to dig the grave, with the understanding that Pizarro, himself, should do the killing.

Thus far, Fidelio had been able to find out nothing about her beloved husband, but she had become more and more of a favourite with the unfortunate old jailer, and was permitted to go about with a certain amount of freedom.

Upon the day when Pizarro had directed Rocco to kill a prisoner in a certain dungeon, she overheard a good deal of the plot, and she began to fear it might be her husband.

She went at once to Rocco:

"Rocco, I have seen very little of the prison. May I not go into the dungeon and look about?"

"Oh, it would never be allowed," Rocco declared. "Pizarro is a stern and cruel governor, and if I should do the least thing he did not command, it would go hard with me. I should not dare let you do that," he said, much troubled with the deed that was in hand.

"But wilt thou not ask him, Rocco?" Fidelio entreated so determinedly that Rocco half promised.

"Fidelio, I will tell thee. I have a bad job to do. It is to dig a grave in one of the dungeons." Fidelio could hardly conceal her horror and despair. Her suspicions were confirmed. "There is an old well, covered by a stone, down there, far underground, and if I lift the stone that covers it, that will do for the grave. I will ask Pizarro if I may have thee to help me. If he consents, it will be thy chance to see the dungeons, but if not, I shall have done all I can about it." So he went away to discuss the matter with Pizarro, while Fidelio waited between hope and despair.

Meantime, Pizarro was gloating over his triumph. Soon his revenge would be complete, and he sang of the matter in a most savage fashion:

The words mean little, but Beethoven's music to them means much:

The guards told one another that they had better be about their business, as some great affair seemed afoot.

Rocco entered again.

"I do not see the need for this killing," he urged. "The man is nearly dead as it is. He cannot last long; but at least, if I must dig the grave, I shall need help. I have a youth in my service who is to marry my daughter thus I can count upon his faithfulness; and I had better be permitted to take him into the dungeon with me, if I am to do the work. I am an old man, and not so strong as I used to be."