Part 10

“Then comes the wonderful air in C major, supported by the chorus in C minor, so expressive of the subject. ‘Je suis Robert!’ he immediately breaks out. The wrath of the prince, insulted by his vassal, is already more than natural anger; but it will die away, for memories of his childhood come to him, with Alice, in the bright and graceful allegro in A major.

“Can you not hear the cries of the innocent dragged into this infernal drama,--a persecuted creature? ‘Non, non,’” sang Gambara, who made the consumptive piano sing. “His native land and tender emotions have come back to him; his childhood and its memories have blossomed anew in Robert’s heart. And now his mother’s shade rises up, bringing with it soothing religious thoughts. It is religion that lives in that beautiful song in E major, with its wonderful harmonic and melodic progression in the words:

“Car dans les cieux, comme sur la terre, Sa mère va prier pour lui.

“Here the struggle begins between the unseen powers and the only human being who has the fire of hell in his veins to enable him to resist them; and to make this quite clear, as Bertram comes on, the great musician has given the orchestra a passage introducing a reminiscence of Raimbaut’s ballad. What a stroke of art! What cohesion of all the parts! What solidity of structure!

“The devil is there, in hiding, but restless. The conflict of the antagonistic powers opens with Alice’s terror; she recognizes the devil of the image of Saint Michael in her village. The musical subject is worked out through an endless variety of phases. The antithesis indispensable in opera is emphatically presented in a noble recitative, such as a Gluck might have composed, between Bertram and Robert:

“Tu ne sauras jamais à quel excès je t’aime.

“In that diabolical C minor, Bertram, with his terrible bass, begins his work of undermining which will overthrow every effort of the vehement, passionate man.

“Here, everything is appalling. Will the crime get possession of the criminal? Will the executioner seize his victim? Will sorrow consume the artist’s genius? Will the disease kill the patient? or, will the guardian angel save the Christian?

“Then comes the finale, the gambling scene in which Bertram tortures his son by rousing him to tremendous emotions. Robert, beggared, frenzied, searching everything, eager for blood, fire, and sword, is his own son; in this mood he is exactly like his father. What hideous glee we hear in Bertram’s words: ‘Je ris de tes coups!’ And how perfectly the Venetian barcarole comes in here. Through what wonderful transitions the diabolical parent is brought on to the stage once more to make Robert throw the dice.

“This first act is overwhelming to any one capable of working out the subjects in his very heart, and lending them the breadth of development which the composer intended them to call forth.

“Nothing but love could now be contrasted with this noble symphony of song, in which you will detect no monotony, no repetitions of means and effects. It is one, but many; the characteristic of all that is truly great and natural.

“I breathe more freely; I find myself in the elegant circle of a gallant court; I hear Isabella’s charming phrases, fresh, but almost melancholy, and the female chorus in two divisions, and in imitation, with a suggestion of the Moorish coloring of Spain. Here the terrifying music is softened to gentler hues, like a storm dying away, and ends in the florid prettiness of a duet wholly unlike anything that has come before it. After the turmoil of a camp full of errant heroes, we have a picture of love. Poet! I thank thee! My heart could not have borne much more. If I could not here and there pluck the daisies of a French light opera, if I could not hear the gentle wit of a woman able to love and to charm, I could not endure the terrible deep note on which Bertram comes in, saying to his son: ‘Si je le permets!’ when Robert had promised the princess he adores that he will conquer with the arms she has bestowed on him.

“The hopes of the gambler cured by love, the love of a most beautiful woman,--did you observe that magnificent Sicilian, with her hawk’s eye secure of her prey? (What interpreters that composer has found!) the hopes of the man are mocked at by the hopes of hell in the tremendous cry: ‘A toi, Robert de Normandie!’

“And are not you struck by the gloom and horror of those long-held notes, to which the words are set: ‘Dans la forêt prochaine’? We find here all the sinister spells of Jerusalem Delivered, just as we find all chivalry in the chorus with the Spanish lilt, and in the march tune. How original is the allegro with the modulations of the four cymbals (tuned to C, D, C, G)! How elegant is the call to the lists! The whole movement of the heroic life of the period is there: the mind enters into it; I read in it a romance, a poem of chivalry. The exposition is now finished; the resources of music would seem to be exhausted; you have never heard anything like it before; and yet it is homogeneous. You have had life set before you, and its one and only crux: ‘Shall I be happy or unhappy?’ is the philosopher’s query. ‘Shall I be saved or damned?’ asks the Christian.”

With these words Gambara struck the last chord of the chorus, dwelt on it with a melancholy modulation, and then rose to drink another large glass of Giro. This half-African vintage gave his face a deeper flush, for his passionate and wonderful sketch of Meyerbeer’s opera had made him turn a little pale.

“That nothing may be lacking to this composition,” he went on, “the great artist has generously added the only buffo duet permissible for a devil: that in which he tempts the unhappy troubadour. The composer has set jocosity side by side with horror--a jocosity in which he mocks at the only realism he had allowed himself amid the sublime imaginings of his work--the pure calm love of Alice and Raimbaut; and their life is overshadowed by the forecast of evil.

“None but a lofty soul can feel the noble style of these buffo airs; they have neither the superabundant frivolity of Italian music nor the vulgar accent of French commonplace; rather have they the majesty of Olympus. There is the bitter laughter of a divine being mocking the surprise of a troubadour Don-Juanizing himself. But for this dignity we should be too suddenly brought down to the general tone of the opera, here stamped on that terrible fury of diminished sevenths which resolves itself into an infernal waltz, and finally brings us face to face with the demons.

“How emphatically Bertram’s couplet stands out in B minor against that diabolical chorus, depicting his paternity, but mingling in fearful despair with these demoniacal strains.

“Then comes the delightful transition of Alice’s reappearance, with the ritornel in B flat. I can still hear that air of angelical simplicity--the nightingale after a storm. Thus the grand leading idea of the whole is worked out in the details; for what could be more perfectly in contrast with the tumult of devils tossing in the pit than that wonderful air given to Alice? ‘Quand j’ai quitté la Normandie.’

“The golden thread of melody flows on, side by side with the mighty harmony, like a heavenly hope; it is embroidered on it, and with what marvelous skill! Genius never lets go of the science that guides it. Here Alice’s song is in B flat leading into F sharp, the key of the demon’s chorus. Do you hear the tremolo in the orchestra? The host of devils clamor for Robert.

“Bertram now reappears, and this is the culminating point of musical interest; after a recitative, worthy of comparison with the finest work of the great masters, comes the fierce conflict in E flat between two tremendous forces--one on the words ‘Oui, tu me connais!’ on a diminished seventh; the other, on that sublime F, ‘Le ciel est avec moi.’ Hell and the Crucifix have met for battle. Next we have Bertram threatening Alice, the most violent pathos ever heard--the Spirit of Evil expatiating complacently, and, as usual, appealing to personal interest. Robert’s arrival gives us the magnificent unaccompanied trio in A flat, the first skirmish between the two rival forces and the man. And note how clearly that is expressed,” said Gambara, epitomizing the scene with such passion of expression as startled Andrea.

“All this avalanche of music, from the clash of cymbals in common time, has been gathering up to this contest of three voices. The magic of evil triumphs! Alice flies, and you have the duet in D between Bertram and Robert. The devil sets his talons in the man’s heart; he tears it to make it his own; he works on every feeling. Honor, hope, eternal and infinite pleasures--he displays them all. He places him, as he did Jesus, on the pinnacle of the Temple, and shows him all the treasures of the earth, the storehouse of sin. He nettles him to flaunt his courage; and the man’s nobler mind is expressed in his exclamation:

“Des chevaliers de ma patrie L’honneur toujours fut le soutien!

“And finally, to crown the work, the theme comes in which sounded the note of fatality at the beginning. Thus, the leading strain, the magnificent call to the deed:

“Nonnes qui reposez sous cette froide pierre, M’entendez-vous?

“The career of the music, gloriously worked out, is gloriously finished by the allegro vivace of the bacchanalian chorus in D minor. This, indeed, is the triumph of hell! Roll on, harmony, and wrap us in a thousand folds! Roll on, bewitch us! The powers of darkness have clutched their prey; they hold him while they dance. The great genius, born to conquer and to reign, is lost! The devils rejoice, misery stifles genius, passion will wreck the knight!”

And here Gambara improvised a fantasia of his own on the bacchanalian chorus, with ingenious variations, and humming the air in a melancholy drone as if to express the secret sufferings he had known.

“Do you hear the heavenly lamentations of neglected love?” he said. “Isabella calls to Robert above the grand chorus of knights riding forth to the tournament, in which the motifs of the second act reappear to make it clear that the third act has all taken place in a supernatural sphere. This is real life again. This chorus dies away at the approach of the hellish enchantment brought by Robert with the talisman. The deviltry of the third act is to be carried on. Here we have the duet with the viol; the rhythm is highly expressive of the brutal desires of a man who is omnipotent, and the Princess, by plaintive phrases, tries to win her lover back to moderation. The musician has here placed himself in a situation of great difficulty, and has surmounted it in the loveliest number of the whole opera. How charming is the melody of the cavatina ‘Grâce pour toi!’ All the women present understood it well; each saw herself seized and snatched away on the stage. That part alone would suffice to make the fortune of the opera. Every woman felt herself engaged in a struggle with some violent lover. Never was music so passionate and so dramatic.