Operas Every Child Should Know

"Who's there?" again he called.

"A stranger, caught in the storm. Will you give me shelter?" Gilda could hardly speak, with terror. Maddalena and the murderer looked at each other significantly. They knew well what they would do the moment the door was opened. The lightning flashed, the thunder rolled and broke above them, and the scene became terrifying. Sparafucile placed himself behind the door and motioned to Maddalena to open it.

"Thou art welcome," she said, throwing the door back suddenly; and as Gilda stumbled in, Maddalena ran out and closed the gateway. The candle went out in the gust of wind, and all was dark. Gilda stood an instant in the blackness of the room. With one blow of the knife, which could not be seen for the darkness, Sparafucile killed her, and then all was silent. After a moment the storm broke away, the moon came forth, and Rigoletto could be seen coming up the river bank.

"It is the time of my vengeance, now," he muttered to himself. He tried the inn door and found it locked. "He cannot have done the deed yet," he muttered. After waiting a little he knocked.

"Who's there?"

"I am known to thee," he whispered back; at this Sparafucile came out, dragging behind him a sack.

"Bring a light," Rigoletto called, "that I may see him."

"That's all right – but you pay my money first," the cut-throat insisted. Rigoletto impatiently paid him.

"I'll throw him into the river, myself," Rigoletto said triumphantly.

"The tide is shallow here – go farther on – and be sure no one surprises you," Sparafucile advised. "Good night," he said shortly, and went inside the inn. Then Rigoletto stood in the dripping road looking gloatingly at the sack.

"I've got you at last," he chuckled, diabolically, "I have revenge for your treatment of my daughter. My dear daughter! The child of my heart!" At the very thought of what she had suffered the dwarf sobbed. "I'll put my foot upon you, you noble vermin," he cried, kicking the body in the sack. At that moment he heard a song —La Donna è Mobile– The voice! Was he going mad? He knew the voice. He had heard it only a few hours ago, in the inn – he had heard it daily at court —La Donna è Mobile! He looked toward the windows of the inn. La Donna è Mobile! As he looked he saw the Duke and Maddalena step from the window to the terrace that ran by the river bank. "La Donna è Mobile," the Duke sang gaily. With a frightful cry, Rigoletto dragged the sack open and the body of his murdered daughter rolled out upon the road. She moved ever so little.

"Father?" and she gasped out the truth, with a dying breath, while the dwarf shrieked and tore his hair.

"The curse, the curse! Monterone's curse!" he screamed, and went raving mad.

IL TROVATORE

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA, WITH THE ORIGINAL CAST AS PRESENTED AT THE FIRST PERFORMANCE

The story belongs to the fifteenth century in Spain, and tells of the border wars of northern Spain, carried on in the provinces of Arragon and Biscay.

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi.

Author: Cammarano.

First sung in Rome, Teatro Apollo, January, 19, 1853; Paris, Théâtre des Italiens, December 23, 1854 (in Italian); at the Opéra, January 12, 1857 (in French); London, Covent Garden, May 17, 1855; New York, Academy of Music, April 30, 1855.

ACT I

[Listen]

There you are, prepared for almost anything in the way of battle, murder, or sudden death, to the accompaniment of beautiful music; opera in true Italian style, at its second best.

Soldiers and servants were gathered about the beautiful columns of a porch of the Aliaferia palace just before midnight awaiting the return of the Count di Luna. Among them was Ferrando, the captain of the Count's guard. All were lounging in the vestibule of the palace gossiping till it was time to go on duty within.

"Hey, wake up! You'll be caught napping," Ferrando called to his comrades. "It is time for the Count to come. I suppose he has been under the Lady Leonora's windows. Ah, he is madly in love with her – and so jealous of that troubadour who sings beneath her windows that some day they will meet and kill each other."

This was an old story to the men, and in their effort to keep awake they clamoured for the story of the Count di Luna's brother, which all had heard told with more or less of truth; but Ferrando knew the whole horrible tale better than any one else; besides, it was a good story to keep awake on.

"Ah, that was a great tragedy for the House of Luna," Ferrando began with a shiver. "I remember it as if it were but yesterday:"

When the good Count di Luna here resided,
Two children fair he numbered;
One to a faithful nurse was once confided,
By the cradle she slumbered.

At morning when she woke and gazed about her,
Sorely stricken was she,
And what sight do ye think did so confound her?
Cho. … What, oh tell us did she see?

[Listen]

Ferrando

Swarthy and threatening, a gipsy woman,
Bearing of fiendish art, symbols inhuman
Upon the infant fiercely she gazes,
As if to seize him her arm she raises!
Spellbound the nurse watch'd at first the beldame hoary
But soon her shrieking was answer'd in the distance,
And quicker than now I can tell you the story,
The servants of the

The frightful story was sung in a deep bass voice, by Ferrando. He sang of how the cry of the nurse on that morning years before had brought the servants running and they had put the gipsy out; but almost at once the baby grew ill, and the Count and his people believed the old hag had put a spell upon it, so that it would die. They sought wildly for her, and, when they finally found her, they burned her alive.

While that frightful scene was being enacted, the baby was stolen, outright, and the di Luna family saw it thrown upon the fire which had consumed the gipsy.

This deed was done by the daughter of the gipsy whom they had burned alive. There were those who believed that the child burned had not been the Count's, but a young gipsy baby – which was quite as horrible. The name of the young woman who had done this fiendish thing was Azucena, and the di Lunas searched for her year after year without success.

It was believed that the spirit of the hag they had burned had entered into the younger woman's body. The gossiping soldiers and servants sang:

Anon on the eaves of the house-tops you'll see her,
In form of a vampire; 'tis then you must flee her;
A crow of ill-omen she often is roaming,
Or else as an owl that flits by in the gloaming.

While they were talking of this tragedy for the hundredth time, it approached the hour of midnight. The servants, through fear, drew closer together, and the soldiers formed a rank across the plaza at the back.

Each recalled some frightful happening in relation to witches; how one man who had given a witch a blow, had died, shrieking and in awful agony. He had been haunted. It was at the midnight hour that he had died! As they spoke of this, the castle bell tolled the midnight hour. The men, wrought up with fright, yelled sharply, and the face of the moon was hidden for a moment.

Scene II

When the cloud which had hidden the moon's rays cleared away, a beautiful garden belonging to the palace was revealed. The place was very silent, the soldiers and servants, excepting those on guard, having gone within.

The Lady Leonora, whom the Count di Luna loved, was one of the suite of the Princess of Arragon, and when all in the palace were sleeping it was her custom to steal into the lovely gardens with her friend, Inez. Of late, when she came there, she had hoped, secretly, to find a mysterious young troubadour, who sang almost nightly beneath her windows. She loved this troubadour and not the Count.

The first time she had met the handsome youth was at a tournament. There he had come, dressed in a suit of black, and all unknown; wearing a sweeping sable plume in his helmet; and when the jousting took place, he had vanquished all the nobles. It was Leonora, herself, who had placed the wreath of the victor upon his brow. From that very moment they had loved. He had worn no device upon his shield by which he could be known, but she had loved him for a gallant knight.