[CHAPTER IV]
SUCCESS AND INTRODUCTION INTO ENGLAND
Verdi's position assured—Selected to compose an opera d'obbligo—The terms—I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata—Its dramatis personæ and argument—Reception at La Scala—A new triumph for Verdi—I Lombardi in London, 1846—Ernani—Political effect of Ernani—Official interference—Verdi first introduced into England—Mr. Lumley's production of Ernani at Her Majesty's Theatre—The reception of the opera—Criticism on Ernani—Athenæum and Ernani.
Now, at the age of twenty-nine years, was Verdi's future practically assured. His ambition had been to produce an opera that would win the applause of his countrymen. This was attained sooner, perhaps, than Verdi expected it. With this desire more than fulfilled, the son of the obscure innkeeper of Roncole was being talked of in the same breath as the maestri Donizetti, Mercadante, and Pacini. Would that his beloved wife and children could have been with him to have shared this success!
A great honour was now to be his. By the vote of the La Scala Theatre direction, Verdi was chosen to be the composer of the opera d'obbligo for the Carnival time—that new opera which an impresario is bound, by the terms of his agreement with the municipality, to find and produce during each season. Merelli conveyed the news to Verdi, tendering him a blank agreement form and saying, "Fill it up; all that you require will be carried out."
Verdi consulted Signora Giuseppina Strepponi, the young and attractive tragédienne who had performed so admirably as Abigail in Nabucco (she afterwards became Madame Verdi). Her advice to the composer was to "look out for himself," but to be reasonable, suggesting similar terms to those paid to Bellini for Norma. Verdi asked, therefore, eight thousand Austrian liri (£272 sterling), and the bargain was struck.
Within eleven months Verdi was on La Scala boards with his fourth opera, a work which deserves lengthy notice because of the hold it has always had over English audiences. Signor Solera had prepared what, from an Italian point of view, was an excellent libretto, based upon a poem by Grossi, covering the epoch of the First Crusade. The dramatis personæ of I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata ran:
Pagano, Arvino, sons of Pholio, the Prince of Rhodes; Viclinda, wife of Arvino; Griselda, daughter of Arvino; Acciano, tyrant of Antioch; Sofia, his wife; Oronte, his son; Prior of the city of Milan; Pirro, armour-bearer to Arvino; monks, priors, people, armour-bearers, Persian ambassadors, Medes, Damascenes, and Chaldeans, warriors, crusaders, ladies of the harem, and pilgrims.
The scene of the first act is laid in Milan; the second in and near Antioch; the third and fourth near Jerusalem.
Briefly, its story or argument is this. Pagano and Arvino are the sons of one of the Lombard conquerors of Rhodes. Pagano, deeply enamoured with Viclinda, and enraged at her preference for his brother, attacked, wounded him, and then fled his country. As the curtain rises, the monks and the people are seen assembled before the Church of Ambrose, in the island of Rhodes, to celebrate the return of the pardoned culprit. He arrives, and his injured brother cordially forgives and embraces him. But in the heart of the latter the same unquenchable feelings still rankle. He once more meditates the destruction of his brother and the possession of his sister-in-law. At night he invades, with an armed band, his abode; but in the dark he mistakes his victim, and kills his own father instead of his brother. Remorse takes possession of his heart, and he flies to a wilderness in Palestine to expiate his crime, and under the garb of a hermit he acquires a great reputation for sanctity. Years of repentance have elapsed; it is the moment when all Christian knights and princes have been summoned to the First Crusade, and Arvino and his followers have landed in Palestine, obedient to the call of Peter the Hermit. Here he soon hies to the holy recluse (Pagano) in his mountain retreat, seeking from the hermit counsel and consolation in his sorrows, for the Saracen chief of Antioch, in the conflict, has carried away his daughter. Pagano, concealed by his garb, promises a termination to his brother's sorrows which he knows he can effect; for Pirro, formerly his squire and confidant, now a repentant renegade, has promised to yield Antioch, where he holds a command, to the Christian bands. In that city Griselda is immured; she is in the harem of Oronte, but protected by his mother, Sofia (secretly a Christian), and passionately loved by her son, who, under the double influence of love and conviction, determines to become a convert to her faith. Griselda forgets her Christian friends, and listens but too fondly to the vows of her Saracen lover; but Antioch is betrayed to the Christians, led by Arvino and Pagano; all the Saracens are put to death; and Griselda, by her lamentations over the fate of her true lover, brings down on her head the wrath of her father. In the retreat where she has taken refuge from his anger, her lover, Oronte, who has escaped from his enemies, reappears in the disguise of a Lombard. The lovers fly together, but being pursued by the Christians, Oronte receives a fatal wound; Pagano comes and takes him to his cell, and there the Saracen prince dies a Christian convert; whilst Griselda in her despair, through divine interposition, is consoled by a vision of Paradise. Pagano, who has become the guardian spirit of his injured brother, accompanies him to the siege of Jerusalem, and is wounded to death in defending him. As he dies, he removes his cowl and reveals his name. His death forms the final catastrophe of the opera.