V
Monna Vanna was produced at the Nouveau Théâtre, Paris, May 17, 1902. In the cast were Georgette Leblanc, Jean Froment, Darmont, Lugné-Poé, and others. The drama had an immediate success and has been played over the continent. In London, which will stand any amount of coarseness, so it be forthright and brutal, a public performance was forbidden to Monna Vanna.
The action of this sombre, fascinating drama is laid at Pisa near the close of the fifteenth century. The city is beleaguered by the army of Prinzevalle sent from Florence. Within, the city has made desperate but ineffectual resistance; ammunition and food have given out.
A few hours and the city will be in the hands of the enemy, will be subject to sack, rapine, slaughter. Guido Colonna is at his wits' ends. In the first act we find him in consultation with his lieutenants. His father, Marco Colonna, scholar, virtuoso, and philosopher, has been sent to the camp of Prinzevalle. Thence he returns, and in a scene of power and suspense he informs his son of the terms set forth by the conqueror. There is but one way out of the trouble. With rage, horror, incredulity, Guido Colonna hears that if his wife, the high-born beauty, Giovanna (Monna Vanna), goes to the tent of the barbarian captain, Prinzevalle, the siege will be terminated.
His Vanna? Why? Who is this demon out of the nethermost hell that can formulate such a vile condition? The father calmly explains. Prinzevalle is not a barbarian, but a Hercules in strength and beauty. He is cultivated. He has never seen Vanna. He desires the unknown. He has the thirst for the infinite which characterizes great dreamers, poets, generals, madmen of the ideal. If Monna Vanna is sent to his tent, a living sacrifice, in return he will give bread, meat, wine, gunpowder, arms, to the starving, vanquished city. Guido laughs at such an insane offer. Marco tells him that the city council knows of it—that—yes, Vanna has heard it. She is at that moment coming to speak to her husband. He is stupefied to learn that the council has spurned the offer. But Vanna has to be counted with.
Her decision that, Judith-like, she will go forth to this Holophernes, maddens her husband beyond endurance. In an exciting scene he accuses her of knowing Prinzevalle, of being unfaithful to her marriage vows in thought. He loads his father with opprobrium. The curtain falls on Vanna as she leaves, Guido telling her that she will never return to him the same.
Act II: Tent of Prinzevalle. We have admirable opportunities to study the man's character, virile, upright, fearless, poetic, melancholy, through his interviews with his faithful secretary and Trivulzio, the emissary of the Florentine government. The siege has lasted too long; Prinzevalle has waxed too powerful, a conspiracy has been formed against him. He is to be deposed, assassinated. He finds all this in his conversation with the lying, base Trivulzio. The episode has an antique quality. Trivulzio attempts an attack, but is easily repulsed, though he receives a slight wound in the face, warning Prinzevalle meanwhile that by daybreak he will be deposed, ruined. There is nothing left then but the improbable acceptance by Guido Colonna and his virtuous spouse of the hard condition he has imposed upon them.
She approaches. She has been saluted by the sentries. Prinzevalle is amazed. She is enveloped in a long cloak—beneath it she is a Lady Godiva. The meeting is one of the most curious in dramatic literature. Gustave Flaubert had anticipated it in Salammbô, but the daughter of Hamilcar was a barbarian, after all, and Mâtho's love for her brutal. The souls of Maeterlinck's pair are set before us with clearness, force, and solemnity. The aptitude for dissection of motive displayed by the poet in his previous work is revealed here with splendid results. It is all natural—as natural as such a situation can be—and the dismay of the noble woman is mitigated somewhat when she discovers Prinzevalle has known her, has always loved her, that he means her no harm. By degrees she extorts the truth from him.
He is the playmate of her happiest hours; for her he has moved mountains. Fresh from the insulting insinuations of her husband, her head aflame with her exalted mission, she begins to see her life as it really is. No, she does not precipitate herself into his arms! The transition is infinitely more subtle than could be accomplished by most modern playwrights. It is atmospheric. The dialogue leads us through the avenues of this strangely reunited couple. He is all passion and tenderness. She—curiosity has given way to remembrance. At the end he goes to Pisa with her, her captive; while radiant, unharmed, she hastes to her husband and fellow-countrymen. The promised stores have been sent; Prinzevalle deserts the cause of Florence—he is not a Florentine, and as his life is in danger his defection may be pardoned. And he loves. Stella Hohenfels in this scene quite surpassed herself at the Hofburg Theatre, Vienna, where I witnessed a capital performance of the play in 1903, with Joseph Kainz, Reimers, and others in the cast.