Part 24
The last act opens with a siege of the castle by the rebellious peasants. Damian shows himself a coward. In the last extremity they are relieved by Werner, who drives the peasants back with his soldiers. He is wounded in the fray, and while the wound is being dressed, a mole detected on his {335} arm proclaims him the stolen child of Countess Wildenstein. All now ends in joy and happiness; the Baron is willing enough to give his daughter to the brave young nobleman and very glad to be rid of the cowardly Damian.
UNDINE.
Romantic Opera in four acts by ALBERT LORTZING.
Text after FOUQUE'S tale.
With this opera Lortzing for the first time tried his genius in another field. Until then he had only composed comic operas, which had met with a very fair measure of success, but in this opera he left the comic for the romantic and was peculiarly happy both in his ideas and choice of subject which, as it happened, had previously had the honor of being taken up by Weber. The first representation of Undine at Hamburg in the year 1845 was one of the few luminous moments in Lortzing's dark life.
His melodies are wonderfully captivating and lovely and the whole charm of German romance lies in them.
The contents of the libretto are:
The gallant Knight, Hugo von Ringstetten has been ordered by the Duke's daughter, Berthalda, to go in search of adventures, accompanied by his attendant Veit. Being detained for three months in a little village cut off from communication with the outer world by an inundation, he sees Undine, the adopted daughter of an old fisherman, named {336} Tobias, and falling in love with her he asks for her hand. In the first act we see the priest uniting the young couple. The Knight recognizes in the old man a traveller, whom he once saved from robbers, and is glad to see him. Undine behaves most childishly and finally says that she has no soul. She is herself grieved, and the others do not believe her. Hugo now tells them of the proud and beautiful Berthalda, whose scarf he received in a tournament, and who sent him away on this adventure. He then returns to the Capital with his young wife, in order to present her at the Ducal court. Meanwhile Veit has met Kühleborn, the mighty King of the water-fairies, and is asked by him, whether his master has quite forgotten Berthalda. The valet gives as his opinion that the poor fisher-maiden is deceived, and will soon be abandoned by her husband. This excites Kühleborn's wrath, for Undine is his daughter, and he forthwith resolves to protect her.
In the second act Undine confesses to her husband, that she is a water-fairy, one of those, whom men call "Undinas". They have no soul, but if they are loved faithfully by man, they are able to gain a soul and through it immortality. Though he shudders inwardly, Undine's purity and loveliness conquer Hugo's fright, and he once more swears to be eternally true to her.
The proud Berthalda, who loves Hugo, has heard with feelings of mingled anger and despair of the knight's marriage. She determines to honor {337} the King of Naples with her hand; but before her wedding takes place, a sealed document has to be opened, which says that Berthalda, instead of being a Duke's daughter, is a poor foundling. Kühleborn, who is present, declares that she is the real child of Undine's fosterparents. Berthalda is now obliged to leave the palace. She loathes her fate and curses her low-born parents. Then Kühleborn derides her and the attendants are about to seize him, in order to turn him out-of-doors, when the statue of the water-god breaks into fragments, while Kühleborn stands in its place, the waters pouring down upon him. All take flight, but Undine raises the prostrate Berthalda, promising her protection in her husband's castle.
In the third act Berthalda succeeds in again drawing Hugo into her nets. Though warned by the waterfairies not to perjure himself, he neglects their advice and Undine finds him in the arms of her rival. He repels his wife, and Kühleborn takes her back into his watery kingdom. But Undine has lost her peace of mind for ever, she cannot forget her husband.
In the fourth act Hugo has given orders to close the well with stones, to prevent all possible communication with the waterfairies. Undine's pale face pursues him everywhere, he continually fancies to hear her soft voice and touching entreaties and to stifle his remorse he appoints the day of his wedding with Berthalda.
His attendant Veit, however, unable to forget {338} his sweet mistress, removes the stones, which cover the well. Undine rises from it and appears at midnight at the wedding. Hugo, forgetting Berthalda, and drawn towards his lovely wife against his will, falls into her arms and dies at her feet. The castle comes crashing down, floods penetrate everywhere, and carry Hugo and Undine into Kühleborn's crystal palace.
Undine obtains pardon for Hugo, and his only punishment is that he must forever stay with his wife in her fairy domains.
URVASI.
Opera in three acts by WILHELM KIENZL.
Text after the Indian legend of KALIDASA.
This opera is so brilliantly supplemented by decorations and poetic enchantment of every kind, that it would be worth while to see those triumphs of modern machinery alone. But not only on account of external effect is Urvasi admired, the music is in itself well worth hearing, though it contains many reminiscences of other well-known composers. It is pleasing and graceful, and the orchestration is so brilliant, that it may even deceive the hearer as to the poverty of invention.
The subject, arranged by Kienzl himself, is highly romantic.
The Apsares, (virgins of heaven), who are sometimes allowed to visit earth and its inhabitants, have just made use of this permission.
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Urvasi, their Princess, isolates herself from their dances and is with two sisters caught by the wild Prince of the Asures, their enemy. They cry for help, when the King of Persia, hunting in those grounds, appears with his suite and saves Urvasi.
They fall in love with each other, though Brahma has prophesied to the King, that he will die poor and unknown, if he does not wed the last Princess of the Persian kingdom, Ausinari, to whom he is already betrothed.
Urvasi tells him, that not being a daughter of earth, she can only be allowed to see him from time to time. The King swears eternal faith to her; and she in return promises to be his in heaven. But should he prove false, nothing can save them both from fearful punishment.
Then she bids him farewell, promising to send a rose every time she is allowed to descend from heaven.
In the second act Ausinari, walking in the moonshine, mourns for the King's love which she has lost. Mandava, priest of the moon, consoles her, designing [Transcriber's note: designating?] the present night, that of the full-moon, as the one, in which the King's heart shall again turn to her.
After his departure Ausinari first prays to the good and mild god of the moon, but afterwards invokes Ahriman, the Spirit of Night, lest the moon-god should prove too weak. When she has left the park, the King walks in dreamily. His whole soul is filled by Urvasi; he fervently calls for her, {340} and a rose, her love-token, falls at his feet. But he waits in vain for her, she does not come and as the priests of the moon appear, to celebrate the festival of their god, he retires disappointed into a bower.
Now follows a sort of ballet. All the maidens and their lovers, who desire to be united, sacrifice to the god; the young men throw a blooming rose into the flame, the girls a palm-branch.
Ausinari appears and is greeted, with joyous acclamations, while Manava enters the bower to conduct the King to the sacrifice. He vainly strives against Ausinari and the priests, who urgently demand the sacrifice of the red rose, which he still carries in his hand. After a long resistance he abandons himself to despair and throws the rose into the blaze, thinking himself forsaken by Urvasi. But hardly has he done so, than Urvasi's form rises from the flame, solemnly reminding him of the oath which he has broken. She has only been testing his firmness and finding him weak, she is obliged to disappear forever as Urvasi and to live in another form, while only deepest contrition and ardent love can ever help him to find her again. Urvasi vanishes, and the King leaves Ausinari, his throne, and his land, to seek as a poor pilgrim for his beloved.
In the last act we find Urvasi's friend, the Apsare Tschitralekha, watering a rose-bush, into which her Princess has been transformed.
The King enters in the garb of an Indian {341} penitent. His strength is nearly exhausted, he has sought his bride all over the earth, and he now demands her from the spirit of the rock and from that of the cataract, but all tell him, that she is only to find where glowing life grows. Tired to death, he draws his sword to end his life, when Tschitralekha laying her hand on his arm, points out the rose-bush. The King kisses it, and falling on his knee beside the virgin who joins in his devotions, fervently prays to Indra, that at last his love may be given to him again. Slowly Urvasi rises from the rose-bush. A long and exalted love-duet follows, then the Indian heaven opens and the King dies at Urvasi's feet, struck by a ray from the celestial sun.
THE VAMPIRE.
Romantic Opera in two acts by HEINRICH MARSCHNER.
Text by W. A. WOHLBRÜCK.
This opera had long fallen into oblivion, when Hofrath Schuch of Dresden was struck with the happy idea of resuscitating it. And indeed its music well deserves to be heard. It is both beautiful and characteristic and particularly the drinking-scenes in the second act, the soft and graceful airs sung by Emma and Edgar Aubry belong to the best of Marschner's work. He is, it is true, not quite original and often reminds one of Weber, but that cannot well be called a fault, almost every genius having greater prototype. This opera was so long neglected on account of its libretto, the {342} subject of which is not only unusual, but far too romantic and ghastly for modern taste. It is taken from Lord Byron's tale of the same name and written by Marschner's own brother-in-law. The scene is laid in Scotland in the seventeenth century and illustrates the old Scottish legend of the Vampire, a phantom-monster which can only exist by sucking the heart-blood of sleeping mortals.
Lord Ruthven is such a Vampire. He victimizes young maidens in
## particular. His soul is sold to Satan, but the demons have granted him
a respite of a year, on condition of his bringing them three brides young and pure. His first victim is Janthe, daughter of Sir John Berkley. She loves the monster and together they disappear into a cavern. Her father assembles followers and goes in search of her. They hear dreadful waitings, followed by mocking laughter proceeding from the ill-fated Vampire, and entering they find Janthe lifeless. The despairing father stabs Ruthven, who wounded to death knows that he cannot survive but by drawing life from the rays of the moon, which shines on the mountains. Unable to move, he is saved by Edgar Aubry, a relative to the Laird of Davenant, who accidentally comes to the spot.
Lord Ruthven, after having received a promise of secrecy from Aubry, tells him who he is and implores him to carry him to the hills as the last favor to a dying man.
Aubry complies with the Vampire's request and then hastily flies from the spot. Ruthven {343} revives and follows him, in order to win the love of Malwina, daughter of the Laird of Davenant and Aubry's betrothed.
His respite now waxing short, he tries at the same time to gain the affections of John Perth's the steward's daughter Emma.
Malwina meanwhile greets her beloved Aubry, who has returned after a long absence. Both are full of joy, when Malwina's father enters to announce to his daughter her future husband, whom he has chosen in the person of the Earl of Marsden. Great is Malwina's sorrow, and she now for the first time dares to tell her father, that her heart has already spoken and to present Aubry to him. The Laird's pride however does not allow him to retract his word, and when the Earl of Marsden arrives, he presents him to his daughter. In the supposed Earl, Aubry at once recognizes Lord Ruthven, but the villain stoutly denies his identity, giving Lord Ruthven out as a brother, who has been travelling for a long time. Aubry however recognizes the Vampire by a scar on his hand, but he is bound to secrecy by his oath, and so Ruthven triumphs, having the Laird of Davenant's promise that he will be betrothed before midnight to Malwina, as he declares that he is bound to depart for Madrid the following morning as Ambassador.
In the second act all are drinking and frolicking on the green, where the bridal is to take place.
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Emma awaits her lover George Dibdin, who is in Davenant's service. While she sings the ghastly romance of the Vampire, Lord Ruthven approaches, and by his sweet flattery and promise to help the lovers, he easily causes the simple maiden to grant him a kiss in token of her gratitude. In giving this kiss she is forfeited to the Evil One. George, who has seen all, is very jealous, though Emma tells him that the future son-in-law of the Laird of Davenant will make him his steward.
Meanwhile Aubry vainly tries to make Ruthven renounce Malwina. Ruthven threatens that Aubry himself will be condemned to be a Vampire, if he breaks his oath, and depicts in glowing colors the torments of a spirit so cursed. While Aubry hesitates as to what he shall do, Ruthven once more approaches Emma and succeeds in winning her consent to follow him to his den, where he murders her.
In the last scene Malwina, unable any longer to resist her father's will, has consented to the hateful marriage. Ruthven has kept away rather long and comes very late to his wedding. Aubry implores them to wait for the coming day, but in vain. Then he forgets his own danger and only sees that of his beloved, and when Ruthven is leading the bride to the altar, he loudly proclaims Ruthven to be a Vampire. At this moment a thunder-peal is heard and a flash of lightning destroys Ruthven, whose time of respite has ended at midnight. The old Laird, witnessing Heaven's {345} punishment, repents his error and gladly gives Malwina to her lover, while all praise the Almighty, who has turned evil into good.
THE WALKYRIE.
First day of the Nibelungen Ring by WAGNER.
In the first scene we are introduced into the dwelling of a mighty warrior, Hunding, in whose house Siegmund, a son of Wotan and of a mortal woman, has sought refuge, without knowing that it is the abode of an enemy. Sieglinda, Hunding's wife, who, standing alone and abandoned in the world, was forced into this union against her will, attracts the guest's interest and wins his love.
When Hunding comes home from the fight, he learns to his disgust, that his guest is the same warrior, who killed his kinsmen and whom they vainly pursued. The laws of hospitality forbid him to attack Siegmund under his own roof, but he warns him that he shall only await the morrow to fight him.
Sieglinda, having fallen in love with her guest mixes a powder with her husband's potion, which sends him into profound sleep. Then she returns to Siegmund, to whom she shows the hilt of the sword, thrust deep into the mighty ash-tree's stem, which fills the middle space of the hut. It has been put there by an unknown one-eyed wanderer, (Wotan, who once sacrificed one of his eyes to Erda, wishing to gain more knowledge for the sake of mankind). No hero has succeeded {346} until now in loosening the wondrous steel. Siegmund reveals to Sieglinda, that he is a son of the "Waelsung" and they recognize that they are twin brother and sister. Then Sieglinda knows that the sword is destined for Siegmund by his father, and Siegmund, with one mighty effort draws it out of the ash-tree. Sieglinda elopes with him and the early morning finds them in a rocky pass, evading Hunding's wrath.
In the second scene we see Wotan, giving directions to the Walkyrie Brünnhilde, who is to shield Siegmund in his battle with Hunding. Brünnhilde is Wotan's and Erda's child and her father's favorite. But Fricka comes up, remonstrating violently against this breach of all moral and matrimonial laws; she is the protector of marriages and most jealous of her somewhat fickle husband, and she forces Wotan to withdraw his protection from Siegmund and to remove the power of Siegmund's sword.
Wotan recalls Brünnhilde, changing his orders with heavy heart and sending her forth to tell Siegmund his doom. She obeys, but Siegmund scorns all her fine promises of Walhalla. Though he is to find his father there, and everything besides that he could wish, he prefers foregoing all this happiness, when he hears that Sieglinda, who has been rendered inanimate by grief and terror, cannot follow him, but must go down to "Hel" after her death, where the shadows lead a sad and gloomy existence.--He wins Brünnhilde by his {347} love and noble courage, and she for the first time resolves to disobey Wotan's orders given so unwillingly, and to help Siegmund against his foe.
Now ensues the combat with Hunding, Brünnhilde standing on Siegmund's side. But Wotan interferes, breaking Siegmund's sword; he falls, and Wotan kills Hunding too by one wrathful glance.
Then he turns his anger against the Walkyrie, who dared to disobey his commands and Brünnhilde flies before him, taking Sieglinda on her swift horse Grane, which bears both through the clouds.
In the third scene we find the Walkyries, arriving through the clouds on horseback one after the other. Every-one has a hero lying before her in the saddle. It is their office to carry these into Walhalla, while the faint-hearted, or those of mankind, not happy enough to fall in battle, are doomed to go to "Hel" after their death.
There are eight Walkyries without Brünnhilde, who comes last with Sieglinda in her saddle, instead of a hero. She implores her sisters to assist her and the unhappy woman. But they refuse, fearing Wotan's wrath. Then she resolves to save Sieglinda and to brave the results of her rash deed alone. She first summons back to the despairing woman courage and desire to live, by telling her, that she bears the token of Siegmund's love; then sends her eastward to the great forest with Grane, where Fafner the giant, changed into a dragon, guards the Rhinegold and the ill-fated ring, a spot which Wotan avoids.
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She gives to Sieglinda the broken pieces of Siegmund's sword, telling her to keep them for her son, whom she is to call Siegfried and who will be the greatest hero in the world.
Wotan arrives in thunder and lightning. Great is his wrath, and in spite of the intercession of the other Walkyries, he deprives Brünnhilde of her immortality changing her into a common mortal. He dooms her to a long magic sleep, out of which any man, who happens to pass that way may awaken her and claim her as his property.
Brünnhilde's entreaties, her beauty and noble bearing at last prevail upon him, so that he encircles her with a fiery wall, through which none but a hero may penetrate.
After a touching farewell the God, leading her to a rocky bed, closes her eyes with a kiss, and covers her with shield, spear and helmet. Then he calls up Loge, who at once surrounds the rock on which Brünnhilde sleeps, with glowing flames.
ZAMPA.
Opera in three acts by HEROLD.
Text by MELLESVILLE.
This opera has met with great success both in France and elsewhere; it is a favorite of the public, though not free from imitating other musicians, particularly Auber and Rossini. The style of the text is somewhat bombastic, and only calculated for effect. Notwithstanding these defects {349} the opera pleases; it has a brilliant introduction, as well as nice chorus-pieces and cavatinas.
In the first act Camilla, daughter of Count Lugano expects her bridegroom Alfonso di Monza, a Sicilian officer, for the wedding ceremony. Dandolo, her servant, who was to fetch the priest, comes back in a fright and with him the notorious Pirate-captain, Zampa, who has taken her father and her bridegroom captive. He tells Camilla who he is, and forces her to renounce Alfonso and consent to a marriage with himself, threatening to kill the prisoners, if she refuses compliance.--Then the pirates hold a drinking-bout in the Count's house, and Zampa goes so far in his insolence, as to put his bridal-ring on the finger of a marble statue, standing in the room. It represents Alice, formerly Zampa's bride; whose heart was broken by her lover's faithlessness; then the fingers of the statue close over the ring, while the left hand is upraised threateningly. Nevertheless Zampa is resolved to wed Camilla, though Alice appears once more, and even Alfonso, who interferes by revealing Zampa's real name and by imploring his bride to return to him, cannot change the brigand's plans. Zampa and his comrades have received the Viceroy's pardon, purposing to fight against the Turks, and so Camilla dares not provoke the pirate's wrath by retracting her promise. Vainly she implores Zampa to give her father his freedom and to let her enter a convent. Zampa, hoping that she only fears the pirate in him tells her, that he is Count of Monza, {350} and Alfonso, who had already drawn his sword, throws it away, terrified to recognize in the dreaded pirate his own brother, who has by his extravagances once already impoverished him.
Zampa sends Alfonso to prison and orders the statue to be thrown into the sea. Camilla once more begs for mercy, but seeing that it is likely to avail her nothing, she flies to the Madonna's altar, charging him loudly with Alice's death. With scorn and laughter he seizes Camilla, to tear her from the altar, but instead of the living hand of Camilla, he feels the icy hand of Alice, who draws him with her into the waves.
Camilla is saved and united to Alfonso, while her delivered father arrives in a boat, and the statue rises again from the waves, to bless the union.
THE APOTHECARY.
(LO SPEZIALE.)
Comic Opera by JOSEF HAYDN (1768).
After a sleep of 125 years in the dust of Prince Esterhazy's archives at Eisenstadt, Dr. Hirschfeld received permission from Prince Paul Esterhazy of Galantha to copy the original manuscript.
It is Dr. Hirschfeld's merit to have revived and rearranged this charming specimen of the old master's genius. And again it was Ernst Schuch, the highly gifted director of the Dresden opera who had it represented on this stage in 1895, and st the same time introduced it to the Viennese {351} admirers of old Haydn, by some of the best members of his company.