Giacomo Puccini

by Wakeling Dry

The action takes place in Flanders in the early fourteenth century. The scene of the first of the three acts shows us a square in a Flemish village, at the back of which is Edgar's house, and before it an almond tree. On the one side is the entrance to a church, on the other an inn.

Over the distant landscape dawn is breaking. With a bell effect, of which Puccini is so fond, the simple prelude begins. The plain and straightforward progression of light chords is French in character, but the bell effect is established musically by the simple leap of a fifth in the bass. The chords continue, with a filagree figure placed above them, and from delicate musical suggestion the effect turns to realism as the bell itself sounds, ushering in the notes of the unseen chorus, as the Angelus rings from the church.

Edgar is asleep on a bench before the inn, and peasants and shepherds cross the stage, greeting each other as they go to their daily toil. Fidelia, the daughter of Gualtiero, then comes on to the balcony and salutes the dawn in a characteristic melody which, although not based on the bell theme in the way of the use of a representative phrase, seems very naturally to grow out of the musical idea. She calls to Edgar and comes down, plucking a branch from the almond tree. Fidelia continues her address to Edgar in a melody which is much more broken in rhythm than her former one; and on her departure a curious chromatic passage, which seems to presage unrest and stress, leads to the entry of the chorus, who repeat, from afar but coming nearer, their greeting to the dawn, while Edgar turns to go after Fidelia.

Strongly dramatic and of distinctive colour is the orchestral passage which accompanies the entrance of Tigrana. She is a gipsy girl, who has been brought up by the villagers. She enters with a species of lute—or guitar, more properly perhaps—called the dembal, a stringed instrument in common use even now by descendants of the Magyar race. She laughs at Edgar with a fine scorn of his tame admiration for the gentle village damsel. "There! I have made Fidelia run away," she sings with a mixture of sarcasm, irony, and hypocrisy. "I am so sorry. I did not know a pastoral love affair was at all in your way."

Gualtiero, Fidelia's father, now comes on, and, with the gathering crowd of villagers, enters the church. The beginning of the voluntary on the organ is heard, and over and above this simple diatonic, ecclesiastical tune, come, in skilful and expressive contrast, the remarks of the gipsy girl to Edgar, by which she reminds him that she has opened to his nature the delights of an intense full-blooded love in place of the mildly inocuous affection of peasant girls. "Trot along, good little boy," she sings, "and go to church." Edgar's feeling about the matter is quickly shown by his emphatic "Silence, demon!" which comes out like the crack of a whip. But Tigrana only laughs at him.

As Tigrana turns to go into the inn she is stopped by Frank, the brother of Fidelia. Frank is in love with the gipsy girl, and from him we learn that fifteen years ago she was abandoned in the village. Questioned as to her doings, Tigrana tells Frank that he is a tiresome bore, while he proceeds with the not very tactful method of reproaching her for her ingratitude. "You were the child of us all," he sings, "and we did not know we were nursing a viper in our midst."

Tigrana, who is not given to wasting much time with preliminaries, tells Frank that if he has any regard for his virtue he had better not be seen talking to her; and she goes towards the inn. Frank bursts out with the confession that he has tried to tear her out of his heart, but although she brings nothing but grief to him she remains there in full possession.

From the church comes the sound of a fragment of a motet, begun by the sopranos and swelling out afterwards in a six-part chorus. Tigrana sits on the table outside the inn and jeers at the piety of those peasants who, not being able to find room in the church, kneel outside and join in the devotion. To her dembal she sings a quaint and springy sort of tune which is thoroughly impudent in character. With a murmur of disapproval, which afterwards grows into a demand, the peasants indignantly ask her to desist from her frivolity. As she proceeds with her melody the peasants threaten to take stronger measures to stop the interruption to their prayers, and Edgar, coming out, rushes at once to Tigrana's defence. This open devotion to her cause apparently surprises the villagers greatly, and Edgar finds himself called upon at once to make up his somewhat vacillating mind. With rather curious and certainly sudden access of ardour, he rails against his lot, and curses the home of his fathers. Egged on to a species of frenzy, he rushes into the house and comes out bearing an ember from the hearth. In spite of the efforts of the villagers to restrain his mad impulse he flings the brand into the house, and clasping Tigrana to him, announces his intention of fleeing with her. Frank then rushes on to prevent their departure, and the two young men draw their daggers. A lull in the fray is caused by the entrance of Gualtiero and Fidelia from the church; and the old man's counsel for peace backed up by pious ejaculations from the crowd, seems likely at first to prevail. But Tigrana puts an end to Edgar's hesitation, and he attacks Frank with fury. Frank is badly wounded, and falls in his father's arms as the chorus curse Edgar for a reprobate, and the curtain falls as the house, now well ablaze, lights up the scene with its lurid glare.

The second act shows us a terrace in a garden with the brilliantly lighted rooms of a sumptuous mansion glimmering in the distance. The stillness of the night is broken by the sounds of revelry, more languorous than strident. The chorus, which sing of the splendour of the night, is made up of two sopranos, an alto, two tenors, and a bass; and the essentially nervous, close harmonies—the light detached phrase begins with a chord of the 13th—establish the atmosphere. There is some fine and characteristic music in this rather long scene between Edgar and Tigrana, who have, it is easy to understand, been partaking too freely of the joys which soon pall. Edgar is weary of his enervating surroundings, and his thoughts turn to the glory of the April dawn and the calm love of Fidelia. Tigrana taunts him with reproaches, and there follow the inevitable mutual recriminations. In vain does she bring her fascinations to bear upon her lover. The sound of drums and the march of soldiers is heard, and Edgar calls out to them as they pass to stay their march and partake of his hospitality. Tigrana at once begins to be suspicious. Frank, as it turns out, is the captain of the band. Edgar hails him with joy as the saviour of the situation. "Frank, forgive me," he cries. "You alone can save me and enable me to redeem my past." Tigrana is distracted, but she is powerless to prevent Edgar's departure, and with a menacing gesture she sees her lover go, a characteristic phrase from the chorus forming the background to the last utterances of the principals concerned in this short and not particularly convincing act.

The third act is prefaced with a short prelude of melancholy mould. The rising curtain discloses a courtyard within a fortress at Courtray. In the battle which raged round this castle, the Flemish, it will be remembered, with very few numbers—and these only armed with agricultural implements for the most part—conquered the French army led by Philip Le Bel. Their opponents were decoyed into a sort of marshy swamp, and were not only hampered by their large retinue, which included carriages, women-kind, and all sorts of paraphernalia, but imagined that they were only to meet a handful of ignorant churls. There is a chapel on one side of the scene, and distant trumpet calls are heard as a funeral cortège proceeds to range itself around a hearse, and the monks in the procession light tapers.