“I breathe more freely; I find myself in the elegant circle of a gallant court; I hear Isabella’s charming phrases, fresh, but almost melancholy, and the female chorus in two divisions, and in imitation, with a suggestion of the Moorish coloring of Spain. Here the terrifying music is softened to gentler hues, like a storm dying away, and ends in the florid prettiness of a duet wholly unlike anything that has come before it. After the turmoil of a camp full of errant heroes, we have a picture of love. Poet! I thank thee! My heart could not have borne much more. If I could not here and there pluck the daisies of a French light opera, if I could not hear the gentle wit of a woman able to love and to charm, I could not endure the terrible deep note on which Bertram comes in, saying to his son: ‘Si je la permets!’ when Robert had promised the princess he adores that he will conquer with the arms she has bestowed on him.
“The hopes of the gambler cured by love, the love of a most beautiful woman,—did you observe that magnificent Sicilian, with her hawk’s eye secure of her prey? (What interpreters that composer has found!) the hopes of the man are mocked at by the hopes of hell in the tremendous cry: ‘A toi, Robert de Normandie!’
“And are not you struck by the gloom and horror of those long-held notes, to which the words are set: ‘Dans la foret prochaine’? We find here all the sinister spells of Jerusalem Delivered, just as we find all chivalry in the chorus with the Spanish lilt, and in the march tune. How original is the alegro with the modulations of the four cymbals (tuned to C, D, C, G)! How elegant is the call to the lists! The whole movement of the heroic life of the period is there: the mind enters into it; I read in it a romance, a poem of chivalry. The exposition is now finished; the resources of music would seem to be exhausted; you have never heard anything like it before; and yet it is homogeneous. You have had life set before you, and its one and only crux: ‘Shall I be happy or unhappy?’ is the philosopher’s query. ‘Shall I be saved or damned?’ asks the Christian.”
With these words Gambara struck the last chord of the chorus, dwelt on it with a melancholy modulation, and then rose to drink another large glass of Giro. This half-African vintage gave his face a deeper flush, for his passionate and wonderful sketch of Meyerbeer’s opera had made him turn a little pale.
“That nothing may be lacking to this composition,” he went on, “the great artist has generously added the only buffo duet permissible for a devil: that in which he tempts the unhappy troubadour. The composer has set jocosity side by side with horror—a jocosity in which he mocks at the only realism he had allowed himself amid the sublime imaginings of his work—the pure calm love of Alice and Raimbaut; and their life is overshadowed by the forecast of evil.
“None but a lofty soul can feel the noble style of these buffo airs; they have neither the superabundant frivolity of Italian music nor the vulgar accent of French commonplace; rather have they the majesty of Olympus. There is the bitter laughter of a divine being mocking the surprise of a troubadour Don-Juanizing himself. But for this dignity we should be too suddenly brought down to the general tone of the opera, here stamped on that terrible fury of diminished sevenths which resolves itself into an infernal waltz, and finally brings us face to face with the demons.
“How emphatically Bertram’s couplet stands out in B minor against that diabolical chorus, depicting his paternity, but mingling in fearful despair with these demoniacal strains.
“Then comes the delightful transition of Alice’s reappearance, with the ritornel in B flat. I can still hear that air of angelical simplicity—the nightingale after a storm. Thus the grand leading idea of the whole is worked out in the details; for what could be more perfectly in contrast with the tumult of devils tossing in the pit than that wonderful air given to Alice? ‘Quand j’ai quitte la Normandie.’
“The golden thread of melody flows on, side by side with the mighty harmony, like a heavenly hope; it is embroidered on it, and with what marvelous skill! Genius never lets go of the science that guides it. Here Alice’s song is in B flat leading into F sharp, the key of the demon’s chorus. Do you hear the tremolo in the orchestra? The host of devils clamor for Robert.
“Bertram now reappears, and this is the culminating point of musical interest; after a recitative, worthy of comparison with the finest work of the great masters, comes the fierce conflict in E flat between two tremendous forces—one on the words ‘Oui, tu me connais!’ on a diminished seventh; the other, on that sublime F, ‘Le ciel est avec moi.’ Hell and the Crucifix have met for battle. Next we have Bertram threatening Alice, the most violent pathos ever heard—the Spirit of Evil expatiating complacently, and, as usual, appealing to personal interest. Robert’s arrival gives us the magnificent unaccompanied trio in A flat, the first skirmish between the two rival forces and the man. And note how clearly that is expressed,” said Gambara, epitomizing the scene with such passion of expression as startled Andrea.