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 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, 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 admirers of old Haydn, by some of the best members of his company.
The music is truly Haydn'ish, simple, naïve, fresh and clear as crystal, and it forms an oasis of repose and pure enjoyment to modern ears, accustomed to and tired of the astonishing oddities of modern orchestration.
The plot is simple but amusing. A young man, Mengino, has entered the service of the apothecary Sempronio, though he does not possess the slightest knowledge of chemistry. His love for Sempronio's ward Grilletta has induced him to take this step and in the first scene we see him mixing drugs, and making melancholy reflections on his lot, which has led him to a master, who buries himself in his newspapers instead of attending to his business, and letting his apprentices go on as best they may.
Sempronio entering relates that the plague is raging in Russia; and another piece of news, that an old cousin of his has married his young ward, is far more interesting to him than all his drugs and pills, as he intends to act likewise with Grilletta. This young lady has no fewer than three suitors, one of whom, a rich young coxcomb enters to order a drug. His real intention is to see Grilletta. He is not slow to see, that Mengino loves her too, so he sends him into the drug kitchen, in order to have Grilletta all to himself. But the pert young beauty only mocks him, and at Mengino's return Volpino is obliged to retire.
Alone with Mengino, Grilletta encourages her timid lover, whom she likes very much, but just when he is about to take her hand Sempronio returns, furious to see them in such intimacy. He sends Mengino to his drugs and the young girl to her account books, while he buries himself once more in the study of his newspapers. Missing a map he is obliged to leave the room. The young people improve the occasion by making love, and when Sempronio, having lost his spectacles, goes to fetch them, Mengino grows bolder and kisses Grilletta. Alas, the old man returns at the supreme moment, and full of rage, sends each to his room.
Mengino's effrontery ripens the resolution in the guardian's breast to marry Grilletta at once, he is however detained by Volpino, who comes to bribe him by an offer from the Sultan to go into Turkey as apothecary at court, war having broken out in that country. The wily young man insinuates, that Sempronio will soon grow stone-rich, and offers to give him 10,000 ducats at once, if he will give him Grilletta for his wife. Sempronio is quite willing to accept the Sultan's proposal, but not to cede Grilletta. So he sends Mengino away, to fetch a notary, who is to marry him to his ward without delay. The maiden is quite sad, and vainly tortures her brain, how to rouse her timid lover into action. Sempronio, hearing her sing so sadly, suggests that she wants a husband and offers her his own worthy person. Grilletta accepts him, hoping to awaken Mengino's jealousy and to rouse him to action. The notary comes, in whom Grilletta at once recognizes Volpino in disguise. He has hardly sat down, when a second notary enters, saying that he has been sent by Mengino and claiming his due. The latter is Mengino himself, and Sempronio, not recognizing the two, bids them sit down. He dictates the marriage contract, in which Grilletta is said to marry Sempronio by her own free will besides making over her whole fortune to him. This scene, in which the two false notaries distort every word of old Sempronio's, and put each his own name instead of the guardian's, is overwhelmingly comical. When the contract is written, Sempronio takes one copy, Grilletta the other and the whole fraud is discovered.—Volpino vanishes, but Mengone promises Grilletta to do his best in order to win her.
In the last scene Sempronio receives a letter from Volpino, telling him, that the Pasha is to come with a suite of Turks to buy all his medicines at a high price, and to appoint him solemnly as the Sultan's apothecary. Volpino indeed arrives, with his attendants, all disguised as Turks, but he is again recognized by Grilletta. He offers his gold, and seizes Grilletta's hand, to carry her off, but Sempronio interferes. Then the Turks begin to destroy all the pots and glasses and costly medicines, and when Sempronio resents this, the false Pasha draws his dagger, but Mengino interferes and at last induces the frightened old man, to promise Grilletta to him, if he succeeds in saving him from the Turks. No sooner is the promise written and signed, than Grilletta tears off the Pasha's false beard and reveals Volpino, who retires baffled, while the false Turks drink the young couple's health at the cost of the two defeated suitors.