And then as if answering to a would-be master's question of "What can you do?" she said: "I can forget all my dreams of wealth and gold. I can despise all the dross in which artifice and ignoble ambition mask themselves. I can put all these aside and remember only those accents of love and tenderness that I would have fall upon my hearing once more." She raised her eyes pleadingly to Lionel. All that had intervened was swept away. Lionel saw only the girl he loved. And, a moment later, he held his "Martha" in his arms.
"Martha" teems with melody. The best-known airs are "The Last Rose of Summer" and Lionel's "M'apparì" (Like a dream). The best ensemble piece, a quintet with chorus, occurs near the close of Act III.—"Ah! che a voi perdoni Iddio" (Ah! May Heaven to you grant pardon). The spinning-wheel quartet in Act II is most sprightly. But, as indicated, there is a steady flow of light and graceful melody in this opera. Almost at the very opening of Act I, Lady Harriet and Nancy have a duet, "Questo duol che si v'affana" (Of the knights so brave and charming). Bright, clever music abounds in the Richmond fair scene, and Lionel and Plunkett express their devotion to each other in "Solo, profugo, reietto" (Lost, proscribed, a friendless wanderer), and "Ne giammai saper potemmo" (Never have we learned his station). Then there is the gay quartet when the two girls leave the fair with their masters, while the crowd surrounds Sir Tristan and prevents him from breaking through and interfering. It was in this scene that the bass singer Castelmary, the Sir Tristan of a performance of "Martha" at the Metropolitan Opera House, February 10, 1897, was stricken with heart failure and dropped dead upon the stage.
A capital quartet opens Act II, in the farmhouse, and leads to the spinning-wheel quartet, "Di vederlo" (What a charming occupation). There is a duet between Lady Harriet and Lionel, in which their growing attraction for each other finds expression, "Il suo sguardo è dolce tanto" (To his eye, mine gently meeting). Then follows "Qui sola, vergin rosa" ('Tis the last rose of summer), the words a poem by Tom Moore, the music an old Irish air, "The Groves of Blarney," to which Moore adapted "The Last Rose of Summer." A new and effective touch is given to the old song by Flotow in having the tenor join with the soprano at the close. Moreover, the words and music fit so perfectly into the situation on the stage that for Flotow to have "lifted" and interpolated them into his opera was a master-stroke. To it "Martha" owes much of its popularity.
[[Listen]]
'Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone,
There is a duet for Lady Harriet and Lionel, "Ah! ride del mio pianto" (She is laughing at my sorrow). The scene ends with another quartet, one of the most beautiful numbers of the score, and known as the "Good Night Quartet," "Dormi pur, ma il mio riposo" (Cruel one, may dreams transport thee).
Act III, played in a hunting park in Richmond forest, on the left a small inn, opens with a song in praise of porter, the "Canzone del Porter" by Plunkett, "Chi mi dirà?" (Will you tell me). The pièces de résistance of this act are the "M'apparì";
