Act III. Gallery in an Italian castle, to which Wilhelm has brought Mignon and Lothario. Mignon has been dangerously ill. A boating chorus is heard from the direction of a lake below. Lothario, standing by the door of Mignon's sick-room, sings a lullaby, "De son cœur j'ai calmé la fièvre" (I've soothed the throbbing of her aching heart). Wilhelm tells Lothario that they are in the Cipriani castle, which he intends to buy for Mignon. At the name of the castle Lothario is strangely agitated.
Wilhelm has heard Mignon utter his own name in her aberrations during her illness. He sings, "Elle ne croyait pas" (She does not know). When she enters the gallery from her sick-room and looks out on the landscape, she is haunted by memories. There is a duet for Mignon and Wilhelm, "Je suis heureuse, l'air m'enivre" (Now I rejoice, life reawakens). Filina's voice is heard outside. The girl is violently agitated. But Wilhelm reassures her.
In the scenes that follow, Lothario, his reason restored by being again in familiar surroundings, recognizes in the place his own castle and in Mignon his daughter, whose loss had unsettled his mind and sent him, in minstrel's disguise, wandering in search of her. The opera closes with a trio for Mignon, Wilhelm, and Lothario. In it is heard the refrain of "Connais-tu le pays."
"Hamlet," the words by Barbier and Carré, based on Shakespeare's tragedy, is another opera by Ambroise Thomas. It ranks high in France, where it was produced at the Grand Opéra, March 9, 1868, with Nilsson as Ophelia and Faure in the title rôle; but outside of France it never secured any approach to the popularity that "Mignon" at one time enjoyed. It was produced in London, in Italian, as "Amleto," Covent Garden, June 19, 1869, with Nilsson and Santley. In America, where it was produced in the Academy of Music, March 22, 1872, with Nilsson, Cary, Brignoli, Barré, and Jamet, it has met the fate of practically all operas in which the principal character is a baritone—esteem from musicians, but indifference on the part of the public. It was revived in 1892 for Lasalle, and by the Chicago Opera Company for Ruffo.
The opera contains in Act I, a love duet for Hamlet and Ophelia, and the scene between Hamlet and his father's Ghost; in Act II, the scene with the players, with a drinking song for Hamlet; in Act III, the soliloquy, "To be or not to be," and the scene between Hamlet and the Queen; in Act IV, Ophelia's mad scene and suicide by drowning; in Act V, the scene in the graveyard, with a totally different ending to the opera from that to the play. Hamlet voices a touching song to Ophelia's memory; then, stung by the Ghost's reproachful look, stabs the King, as whose successor he is proclaimed by the people.
Following is the distribution of voices: Hamlet, baritone; Claudius, King of Denmark, bass; Laertes, Polonius's son, tenor; Ghost of the dead King, bass; Polonius, bass; Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Hamlet's mother, mezzo-soprano; and Ophelia, Polonius's daughter, soprano.
Ambroise Thomas was born at Metz, August 5, 1811; died at Paris, February 12, 1896. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where, in 1832, he won the grand prix de Rome. In 1871 he became director of the Conservatory, being considered Auber's immediate successor, although the post was held for a few days by the communist Salvador Daniel, who was killed in battle, May 23d.