Lodoletta, a young girl, who lives in a little Dutch village, is a foundling, who has been brought up by old Antonio. He discovered her as an infant in a basket of flowers at the lakeside. When she has grown up to be sixteen, she is eager for a pair of red wooden shoes, but Antonio cannot afford to buy them. Flammen, a painter from Paris, offers him a gold piece for a roadside Madonna he owns. Antonio takes it, and with it buys the shoes for Lodoletta. Soon afterwards the old man is killed by a fall from a tree. Lodoletta is left alone in the world.
Flammen, who has conceived a deep affection for her, persuades her to be his model. This makes the villagers regard her with suspicion. She begs him to go. He returns to Paris, only to find that absence makes him fonder of the girl than ever. He returns to the village. Lodoletta has disappeared. His efforts to find her fail. On New Year's his friends gather at his villa to celebrate, and make him forget his love affair in gayety. The celebration is at its height, when Lodoletta, who, in her turn, has been searching for Flammen, reaches the garden. She has wandered far and is almost exhausted, but has found Flammen's house at last. She thinks he is expecting her, because the villa is so brilliantly illuminated. But, when she looks through the window upon the gay scene, she falls, cold, exhausted, and disillusioned, in the snow just as midnight sounds. Flammen's party of friends depart, singing merrily. As he turns back toward the house he discovers a pair of little red wooden shoes. They are sadly worn. But he recognizes them. He looks for Lodoletta, only to find her frozen to death in the snow.
It may be that "Lodoletta's" success at its production in Rome was genuine. Whatever acclaim it has received at the Metropolitan Opera House is due to the fine cast with which it has been presented. There is little spontaneity in the score. A spirit of youthfulness is supposed to pervade the first act, but the composer's efforts are so apparent that the result is childish rather than youthful. Moreover, as Henry T. Finck writes in the N.Y. Evening Post, "Lodoletta" seems to have revived some of the dramatic inconsistencies of the old-fashioned kind of Italian opera. For instance, in the last act, the scene is laid outside Flammen's villa in Paris on New Year's eve—it is zero weather to all appearances, although there is an intermittent snowstorm—but Flammen and Franz, and later all his guests, come out without wraps, and stay for quite awhile. Later Lodoletta, well wrapped (though in rags), appears, and is quickly frozen to death.
The scene of the first act is laid in the village in April. Lodoletta's cottage is seen and the shrine with the picture of the Madonna. It is in order to copy or obtain this that Flammen comes from Paris. In the background is the tree which Antonio climbs and from which, while he is plucking blossom-laden branches for the spring festival, he falls and is killed—a great relief, the character is so dull. There is much running in and out, and singing by boys and girls in this act. The music allotted to them is pretty without being extraordinarily fetching. An interchange of phrases between Flammen and Lodoletta offers opportunity for high notes to the tenor, but there is small dramatic significance in the music.
In the second act the stage setting is the same, except that the season is autumn. There is a song for Lodoletta, and, as in Act I, episodes for her and the children, who exclaim delightedly when they see the picture Flammen has been painting, "È Lodoletta viva, com'è bella" (See! Lodoletta, and so pretty!). But there is little progress made in this act. Much of it has the effect of repetition.
In the third act one sees the exterior of Flammen's villa, and through the open gates of the courtyard Paris in the midst of New Year's gayety. The merriment within the villa is suggested by music and silhouetted figures against the windows. Some of the guests dash out, throw confetti, and indulge in other pranks, which, intended to be bright and lively, only seem silly. As in the previous acts, the sustained measures for Lodoletta and for Flammen, while intended to be dramatic, lack that quality—one which cannot be dispensed with in opera. "The spectacle of Flammen, in full evening dress and without a hat, singing on his doorstep in a snowstorm, would tickle the funny bone of any but an operatic audience," writes Grenville Vernon in the N.Y. Tribune.
ISABEAU
With Rosa Raisa in the title rôle, the Chicago Opera Company produced Mascagni's "Isabeau" at the Auditorium, Chicago, November 12, 1918. The company repeated it at the Lexington Theatre, New York, February 13, 1918, also with Rosa Raisa as Isabeau. The opera had its first performances on any stage at Buenos Aires, June 2, 1911. The libretto, based upon the story of Lady Godiva, is in three acts, and is the work of Luigi Illica. The opera has made so little impression that I restrict myself to giving the story.
In Illica's version of the Godiva story, the heroine, Isabeau, is as renowned for her aversion to marriage as for her beauty. Her father, King Raimondo, eager to find for her a husband, arranges a tournament of love, at which she is to award her hand as prize to the knight who wins her favour. She rejects them all. For this obstinacy and because she intercedes in a quarrel, Raimondo dooms her to ride unclad through the town at high noon of the same day. At the urging of the populace he modifies his sentence, but only so far as to announce that, while she rides, no one shall remain in the streets or look out of the windows. The order is disobeyed only by a simpleton, a country lout named Folco. Dazed by Isabeau's beauty, he strews flowers for her as she comes riding along. For this the people demand that he suffer the full penalty for violation of the order, which is the loss of eyesight and life. Isabeau, horrified by Folco's act, visits him in prison. Her revulsion turns to love. She decides to inform her father that she is ready to marry. But the Chancellor incites the populace to carry out the death sentence. Isabeau commits suicide.