maria padilla - i

GAETANO DONIZETTI
MARIA PADILLA
ORC 6
in association with
Box cover: Portrait of a Woman, Palazzo Rosso, Genoa, Italy
Bridgeman Art Library
Booklet cover: Eugenia Tadolina as Maria Padilla, Naples 1842
Opposite: Gaetano Donizetti
CD face and page 17: Don Ruiz destroys Maria’s marriage contract: a scene from
Ancelot’s play, Paris 1838
Inlays: Section of Maria’s Act 1 Scene 2 aria re-instated for this recording
–1–
GAETANO DONIZETTI
MARIA PADILLA
Melodramma in three acts
Libretto by Gaetano Rossi
Maria Padilla..........................................................................Lois McDonall
Ines Padilla...................................................................................Della Jones
Don Ruiz di Padilla, their father...............................................Graham Clark
Don Pedro, Prince of Castile.............................................Christian du Plessis
Ramiro, Duke of Albuquerque..................................................Roderick Earle
Don Luigi, Count of Aguilar............................................................Ian Caley
Don Alfonso di Pardo.......................................................Roderick Kennedy
Francisca, Maria’s duenna.............................................................Joan Davies
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir
Chorus master: Geoffrey Mitchell
London Symphony Orchestra
conducted by
Alun Francis
–2–
Producer and Artistic Director: Patric Schmid
General Administrator: Don White
Musical preparation: Robert Roberts
Assistant conductors: Rosemary Barnes, David Parry
Italian coach: Gabriella Bullock
English libretto: Brian Thornton
Notes: Jeremy Commons
Recording engineer: Bob Auger
Recorded at Henry Wood Hall, London, June 1980
ORC 6
–3–
CONTENTS
Maria Padilla by Jeremy Commons......................................................Page 9
The story.............................................................................................Page 53
Argument............................................................................................Page 58
Die Handlung.....................................................................................Page 63
La trama..............................................................................................Page 68
Libretto...............................................................................................Page 73
–4–
CD1
ACT ONE
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
Page
73
Coro: Di queste ridente
Scena, aria: Ines
Al vostro puro omaggio
Sola tue comprender puoi
Sorridi, oh sposo amato
Ad affrettar vo il sacro riti
Aria: Maria
Diletta suora!
Il più tenero suon d’arpa
Ah! Non sai qual prestigio
Scena, aria, ensemble
Don Alfonso di Pardo
Lieto fra voi ritorno (Pedro)
Coro: Oh coppia diletta!
Duetto: Maria, Pedro
Diletta suora…Ella è fecile
Ecco! Lancià le corde!
Core innocente e giovane
Oh, mio padre! Tu lontano
A te, oh caro, m’abbandono
73
74
75
75
77
78
79
80
81
83
84
86
87
89
90
–5–
CD2
ACT TWO
Page
92
[1]
Coro: Nella reggia dell’amore
Scena, aria: Ruiz
[2] Quale dopo tant’anni
[3] Il sentiero di mia vita
[4] Una gioja ancor mi resta
Duetto: Maria Ines
[5] Ines! Mia dolce suora!
[6] A figlia incauta
[7] Ah si! suora! Ah!….
Scena, duetto: Ruiz/Pedro
[8] Alla Regina madre
[9] Io Io vedo alla fin quest’augusto
[10] Sovra il vil che m’ha insultato
Finale secondo
[11] Vada, soffra quel protervo
[12] Mio padre...?
94
94
95
97
98
100
101
104
106
108
110
–6–
CD3
00’00
ACT THREE
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
Page
114
115
E quiete profonda
Oh figlia!…
Duetto: Maria/Ruiz
Su quella fronte dal dolor
Padre… Oh rio dolore…
Attendi! Eccola… senti…
Prova si tenti estrema…
Uno sguardo, un detto…
Coro: Come rosa che s’apre
Aria: Pedro
Ora fatal
Ah! quello fu per me
Vedi, la regina s’avanza!
Lasciar Maria…
Finale terzo
Coro: Qual’astro novello
Don Pedro, alto sovrano
Giurata innanzi a Dio…
Ah1 Sento ad ogn’ora estinguersi
Il silenzio in che d’ostini
O padre, tu l’odi?
117
119
120
122
125
127
127
127
128
129
130
130
131
134
136
137
–7–
SOPHIE LÖWE
Donizetti’s first Maria
MARIA PADILLA
‘THE SUBJECT here is Maria Padilla, favourite of Pedro the Cruel of
Castile… The libretto, as it has been put together, is most beautiful. A girl is
seduced by a king, who swears to marry her; but she has to live for a long
time as his mistress, and pass as such in the sight of all, while she alone knows
that she is his lawful wife. Through grief, her father goes mad. She tears the
crown from the head of Blanche of France, in the very moment when Pedro
is betraying her, and cries: “This crown is mine”… and then she kills
herself… See what situations it offers!’
So wrote Donizetti to his brother-in-law, Antonio Vasselli, on 10 October
1841, a little over two months before Maria Padilla received its first
performance at La Scala, Milan, on 26 December, the first day of Carnival.
Somewhat ironically, we may be thankful that the subject did not,
apparently, appeal to Vasselli, for on 24 October Donizetti was provoked into
expounding more fully the reasons for his enthusiasm:
‘The subject doesn’t appeal to you? How so? A girl seduced? A
father for whom the disgrace is too much, who throws his glove in
challenge in the face of the king, who is beaten with rods, who goes
mad from grief? A king who, in the moment when he is to marry
Blanche of France, sees Maria tearing the crown from her rival’s head,
then killing herself, while [he], acknowledging his fault, offers her
the throne?’
–9–
Even now, Vasselli continued to be a doubting Thomas, apparently
compounding his errors by confusing François Ancelot, author of the French
tragedy from which the subject was drawn, with his wife, Virginie Ancelot,
author of sentimental vaudevilles and comedies. On 5 November Donizetti
remonstrated yet again, opening his letter with an imaginary dialogue
between his sceptical brother-in-law and his testy self, all based on an
extended word-play on the Italian exclamation Accidenti! (‘The deuce!’, ‘The
devil!’, ‘A plague upon you!’).
‘Ah…ah… (Are you yawning? – No, sir) a… ac… acc… (Ah! you’ve
caught a cold? Good health to you! – No, not that either!) acc… acci... ci…
denti. (Are you suffering from toothache1? By now I’ve scarcely any teeth left
to ache. But it’s not that!) Acci… accid… accidenti… The devil! What a
letter, and what reflections on Pedro the Cruel! For all of which, though, I
couldn’t give a damn! The piece is taken from a drama by Monsieur and not
Madame Ancellot [sic]; Monsieur, you understand? And if he has [departed
from history and] invented a father who defies a king and goes mad; if Maria
kills herself, etc etc, I couldn’t give a damn about that either! All credit to
him: the situations are magnificent; of my own invention there’s only a single
scene at the end.
The music is bella, bella, arcibella, bellissima, worthy of Mercadante and
Bellini; if it doesn’t please, I shall accept the verdict in holy silence, and if it’s
__________________________________
1
There is a pun here, since denti, the last two syllables of accidenti, is also the Italian word
for ‘teeth’.
–10–
successful, it will have served its purpose and won’t have deceived its poor
Father Creator.’
Was Vasselli convinced? We do not know. But the least we can do is to feel
grateful to him for his temerity. Donizetti was such a reticent composer,
rarely betraying his opinion of his own music, that even if Vasselli’s
scepticism did bring coals of wrath heaping on his head, we, 150 years later,
may feel it was worth it to have provoked these revealing statements.
Thank you, Antonio Vasselli!
* * * * *
This was not the first time that Donizetti had based an opera on a play by
François Ancelot, that Frenchman whose head was said to resemble a carp
(according to Fontaney) or a calf (according to Mérimée). Roberto Devereux
(Naples, 1837) had been drawn from his Elisabeth d’Angleterre (Paris, 1829).
Both this, and the present play, Maria Padilla, which had enjoyed a succès
d’estime when produced at the Théâtre Français in 1838, show that their
author, even if overshadowed by Victor Hugo, had a sure sense of theatre,
and an ability to depict those heightened emotions which are the very
pith and marrow of both romantic drama and romantic opera. Historical
veracity was not one of his strong points: Ruiz’s challenge to King Pedro the
Cruel is pure invention; and the historical Maria di Padilla did not commit
suicide when Pedro married Blanche of France, but remained his mistress
–11–
Mlle BROBAN
as Maria Padilla
in Ancelot’s play
Théâtre du Vaudeville
Paris
right up until her death eight years later. But these departures from fact, as
Donizetti realised, were neither here not there. What mattered were the
situations, and the musical and dramatic opportunities they offered. Maria
Padilla, however inadequate it may have been as history, was taut, wellconstructed drama that needed minimal pruning to turn into a libretto. It
was admirable material on which to base an opera.
William Ashbrook, in his Donizetti and his Operas (1982), traces in detail
the mistrustful relations which existed between the composer, who had not
been invited to write for La Scala since the troubled premiere of Maria
Stuarda in December 1836, and Bartolomeo Merelli, in the days of his youth
Donizetti’s first librettist, but now the impresario both of La Scala and the
Kärntnertortheater in Vienna. The coolness in relations was finally brought
to an end in September 1840, when Donizetti, following a visit to Milan,
received an offer to write operas for both La Scala and Vienna. The first
contract was eventually to lead to Maria Padilla, the second to Linda
di Chamounix.
It would seem to have been Donizetti himself who chose Ancelot’s play as
the subject for Milan. In late April 1841, at which time he was in Paris, he
sent Merelli an outline of the plot. But a month later, much to his concern,
he had heard nothing in reply. Consequently, on 23 May he wrote to his
publisher, Giovanni Ricordi, asking him to intercede urgently on his behalf:
‘It is already a month since I sent the outline [of the plot] to Sig.
Merelli or whoever is acting for him, so that, on the basis of this, I
–13–
might have the poem for the Carnival at La Scala written here; and I
asked nothing but the favour of having it read to the censorship, since
where the subject is concerned I’m very certain they will find nothing
to object to. But, perhaps because Merelli isn’t there, or because
they’ve forgotten it or lost it, I am waiting for an answer to no
purpose. You can imagine that I await it with the most lively
impatience. Try, then, to see someone in Merelli’s office and ask them
to solicit a reply, since there’s nothing, absolutely nothing that can’t be
accepted by the censorship, and in the meantime I’m left hanging in
a state of suspension. Let them tell me, too, what sum they pay so that
I may tell the poet here. All this weighs upon me very, very much,
because I won’t be staying much longer in Paris, and I should like to
leave with the book in my bag, and that needs time.’
What the immediate outcome of this appeal to Ricordi may have been we
do not know. Presumably the subject was approved, but although the
scenario was certainly sketched out in detail in Paris, the actual writing, both
of this libretto and of Linda di Chamounix, was entrusted to Gaetano Rossi
(1775–1855), a writer who, born in Verona, had spent most of his life in
Venice. His career had been a long one. As early as 1798 he provided
Giovanni Simone Mayr, Donizetti’s teacher, with the text of Che Originali!;
at the other end of his working life Linda di Chamounix was not actually
produced until May 1842. Among his well over a hundred libretti, particular
mention should be made of Tancredi and Semiramide, both written for
Rossini, Il Crociato in Egitto for Meyerbeer, and Le Due Illustri Rivali and Il
Bravo, both for Mercadante.
–14–
Rossi’s besetting sin was his long-windedness, but in writing Maria Padilla
he for once avoided this fault. He did not, after all, have responsibility on this
occasion for the number and layout of the musical items; all he had to do was
follow the scenario forwarded from Paris, and versify the various items in
accordance with Donizetti’s specific instructions. That there were plenty of
these we know from a letter the composer wrote to him from Baden on 17
August. Consider, for example, the following suggestions for the duet for
Maria and Ruiz in Act III, and the evidence they supply of Donizetti’s
involvement in the preparation of the texts he set in his later years:
‘In Act III I leave the big duet entirely to you [to treat] as you wish.
It seems to me, though, that Maria should begin the story of her life
from the time she became [the King’s] mistress, and that her father
should listen distractedly – then from his broken words, in no way
connected with what she has said, Maria can become aware of his
madness. But the first time, that is to say in the middle of Maria’s
narrative, it is necessary that he give a reply that can be interpreted as
being relevant to what she has been saying, so that she may continue.
Then finally, instead of replying to his daughter, with a tearful phrase
he can (if it’s wished) begin an adagio, where he reproves her for her
conduct without seeing her, without looking at her, etc; and [then],
stopping suddenly in the middle of the last phrase, he can become
aware that he sees his daughter (or a woman) at his feet, and can begin
to rage, etc. – but then he finishes with both Maria and himself in
tears. [Finally,] (since he hears the coronation announced either by
–15–
bells or cannon, not by the band, notice), he bursts into curses on the
king, on the kingdom, etc etc, or else will say “I shall wreak such a
vengeance that posterity will quake in hearing of it”.’
Other passages in this same letter allow us to be fairly certain of the stage
of composition the opera has reached at this point: Donizetti was working on
the duet for Ruiz and the king in Act II, and parts of Act III were already
crystallising in his head. Referring to the scene in which Ruiz awakes from
his long sleep, he wrote:
‘Make it possible for Ines’ husand, too, to be on stage during the
Father’s Romanza – with his wife and Maria – because from the words
“Ah! No per noi dei vivere” etc, I’m making a terzettino for
unaccompanied voices… to avoid composing a duettino for the
women alone. Bravo, Rossi, the Romanza [Ruiz’s “Sento ad ogn’ora
estinguersi”] is touching, bravo, bravo, bravo.’
Clearly the opera was shaping up well. Donizetti was engrossed in his
work; his creative imagination had caught fire. And the music of the finished
work justifies his enthusiasm, for Act II and Act III, Scene 1 are the
highpoints of the work, though startlingly different in character. Act II is
tense drama, moving like the wind, whereas Act III, Scene 1 – at least up
until the destruction of the attestation of marriage – moves much more
slowly, and is more expansive and lyrical: a sustained stretch of imaginative
writing where, Donizetti’s sympathy clearly stirred by Ruiz’s madness, the
music rides on a high and unfaltering level of emotional expressiveness.
–16–
Only a little earlier, before he left Paris, his enthusiasm had been less
buoyant, partly because he had learned that Erminia Frezzolini, the prima
donna he had hoped would be his first Maria, was pregnant and could not
possibly sing. On 31 July he had written to Vasselli: ‘The opera for Milan
proceeds heavily, [but] not badly; who knows!’; and on 10 August, rather
more explicitly:
‘As for the opera for Milan, I’m sufficiently advanced, but I’m
dragging my cock on the ground because Frezzolini is pregnant and
is due to have her baby in December or January. Imagine the mood
I’m in… having already written half the opera. They’re offering me a
Spaniard who is in Turin, and of whom much is hoped, but… God
knows… But what can I do?’
A few days after writing this letter, Donizetti left Paris. He went first to
Baden, then on to Italy, reaching Milan towards the end of September. There
he found that the proposed cast had undergone a further change. The
‘Spaniard’ was spoken of no more; instead it was the German soprano Sophie
Löwe who was to sing Maria. Luigia Abbadia was engaged as Ines. Donizetti
described both women as ‘good’: Sophie Löwe, he said later, was an ‘excellent
actress besides the merit of her singing’, and had ‘a large figure and looks
extremely well on stage’. Ruiz was to be sung by Domenico Donzelli,
Donizetti’s fellow Bergamasque and a veteran tenor who had already created
roles in Zoraida di Granata (Rome, 1822) and Ugo, Conte di Parigi (Milan,
1832). And Don Pedro was to be one of the composer’s favourite baritones,
–18–
Giorgio Ronconi, for whom he had already written Il Furioso nell’Isola di
S. Domingo (Rome, 1833), Torquato Tasso (Rome, 1833), Il Campanello
(Naples, 1836), Pia de’ Tolomei (Venice, 1837) and Maria de Rudenz (Venice,
1838), and for whom two years later he was to compose Maria di Rohan
(Vienna, 1843).
The cast was thus finalised. But does this mean that all problems were now
at an end, and that the last two months leading up to the premiere were a
period of comparative calm? This is where one enters upon the most
fascinating mystery concerning this opera, for there are two possible ways –
two very divergent ways – of reading the evidence at our disposal. Basically
the two readings stem from how one interprets a key letter that Donizetti
wrote on 2 November to his friend Antonio Dolci. With typical eagerness he
pours clauses onto the page, separating them only with commas, and so
risking ambiguity. Both William Ashbrook, in his books on Donizetti, and
the present writer, in the essay that accompanied the first release of this
recording, believed that he wrote with heavy irony when he referred to the
Milanese censors as ‘sweet-tempered’, and that he really meant that they had
proved most difficult and carping. The passage which is here presented with
some clarification of punctuation, may be construed as follows:
‘As for the opera for Milan, it is finished (but not yet orchestrated).
I must confess that the censorship this time has been most sweettempered, not because there’s anything [in the libretto] that runs into
trouble, but because of their usual habit of putting a spoke in the
wheels over something. It has had me passing bad moments.’
–19–
Intriguingly, however, it is possible to read the passage in a very different
sense. David Lawton, in one of the most interesting and perceptive reviews
this recording received upon its first release – a review which appeared in The
Opera Quarterly, 3, no 1 (Spring 1985) – pointed out that the statement
could be taken at its face value, as an admission that the censorship, however
unexpectedly, had on this occasion proved most amenable. Again we modify
the punctuation in the interest of clarity:
‘As for the opera for Milan, it is finished (but not yet orchestrated).
I must confess that the censorship this time has been most sweettempered. Not because there’s anything [in the libretto] that runs into
trouble, but because of their usual habit of putting a spoke in the
wheels over something, they were able to make me pass bad
moments.’
According to the first reading, it is the censorship that has had Donizetti
passing bad moments; according to the second reading, the blame belongs
with his own apprehensions born of experience.
Both these interpretations deserve to be followed up further. If we accept
the first, we assume that Donizetti, arriving in Milan confident that there was
nothing in the plot that would offend the censors, discovered to his surprise
that they had found a great deal to object to. It is not difficult to imagine that
the principal point of contention was the ending of the opera: they would
have taken exception to the manner in which Ancelot had ended his play:
–20–
with Maria’s stabbing herself. Suicide, we may assume, was unacceptable – a
denial of that life which is a gift of God – and especially unacceptable when
committed by a person of quasi-regal status. And so on 9 December
Donizetti not only reported to Vasselli that the ending of the opera differed
from that of Ancelot’s play – had, presumably, been changed at the censors’
insistence – but also imagined his incredulous reaction: ‘Padiglia [sic] will die
of joy… [Go and] get killed… This does not please me!!! And I wash my
hands of it, Signor Toto…’ As David Lawton points out, ‘[Go and] get
killed…. This does not please me!!!’ is Vasselli’s imaginary interpolated
reaction. His incredulity, in fact, was probably the same as ours. Of joy?
How can anyone die of joy? It is not difficult to imagine Vasselli’s incredulity,
and it comes as no surprise that, writing again on the night of 24–25
December, almost on the eve of the first performance, Donizetti should have
tried to spell it out rather more clearly and convincingly:
‘Yes, sir! Padilla will die from an accession of blood, on the spot; she
will not sing, no sir…! And if it goes badly, at least I shall be the first
to have tried it!’
He is, according to this first hypothesis, wryly making the best of a bad
job: even if such an ending has nothing else to recommend it, it will at least
have novelty.
But now let us follow up the second hypothesis. To understand this, we
must go back even further, and realise that the ending of Ancelot’s play was,
–21–
in itself, rather less than satisfactory. As in the opera, Ancelot’s Maria snatches
the crown and asserts her rights. But though she wishes to be acknowledged
as queen, she has no expectation that Pedro will willingly accept her. Her
moment of triumph comes when he confirms the truth of what she has said,
but when he goes on to reproach her for breaking her oath of secrecy, his
words seem only to confirm her in her belief that he will never set her upon
the throne. It is at this point, therefore, when she sees herself as justly
punished for breaking her oath, that she stabs herself, declaring that
her honour, which has been restored to her, is more important to her than
life. And it is the sight of her suicide, of course, that completely melts Pedro,
so that, as she dies, he offers her his heart, his life, and his crown.
The unsatisfactory element in this ending lies in the fact that Maria must
stab herself in the very moment of her triumph. Her suicide seems
gratuitous: a perverse act of revenge. Did Donizetti entertain these or similar
doubts about it? Did he wish to find a simpler, better solution? This second
hypothesis would suggest so.
This second reconstruction is, furthermore, compatible with another part
of the letter that Donizetti had written to Gaetano Rossi from Baden on 17
August. There he made tantalisingly cryptic reference to the ending.
Discussing the order of events up to the moment when Ruiz repeats his
romanza from the previous scene, ‘Sento ad ogn’ora estinguersi’, he went on:
–22–
‘Don’t write anything for what’s left [after that].
Within days I shall be leaving here – I shall write and tell you where
I go – if I come to Italy then we can reach an understanding for the
rest, because I have an idea for the stretta of joy… Oh! The Devil [I
can hear you exclaiming]… What’s this? She must work herself up
and you speak of joy? Yes, dear Rossi, and you’ll see that though she
has to kill herself, we can make her die with… but you’ll learn the rest
[in due course].’
The implication is now that this unlikely manner of death – by an
accession of blood caused through an excess of joy – was not foisted upon the
opera by the censors, but was, in fact, Donizetti’s own conception: his own
idea of how to avoid the confused motivation of Maria’s having to take her
own life in the very moment when she had gained all she wished.
This second hypothesis is also compatible with his statement to Vasselli of
5 November, already quoted, to the effect that ‘of my own invention there’s
only a single scene at the end’. It may be reconciled, too, with his statement
to Vasselli on the night of 24–25 December, in which he tried to spell out
the ending more convincingly. Rather than wryly trying to make the best of
an unwelcome ending, he is now, according to this reading, making every
effort to justify it since it is his own invention. We may go even further:
perhaps he is trying to convince himself – to quieten his own private doubts
– by convincing others…
–23–
Neither of these hypotheses is free from difficulties. The first necessitates
our believing that, at one stage during the composition of the opera,
Donizetti had some third way of ending the opera in his head – neither
Ancelot’s death by stabbing, nor the eventual death through an excess of joy
– and that it was this intermediate suggestion that was rejected by the
censorship. It also fits uneasily with the fact that, though suicides were
certainly forbidden on the stage in Rome and the Papal States, there are
examples of their being shown on the stage in Milan. William Ashbrook cites
Lucia di Lammermoor, which reached La Scala two years before Maria
Padilla; the present writer would point to Donizetti’s own earlier Ugo, Conte
di Parigi of 1832.
To entertain the second hypothesis, we have to accept that Donizetti seems
to have used – and used not once but in a series of letters – the verb uccidersi,
‘to kill oneself ’, very loosely, to mean simply ‘to die’. For to drop dead from
excessive joy is, apparently, to ‘kill oneself ’ quite as much as, for example,
stabbing oneself. This second hypothesis is, however, the simpler of the two,
and it has the advantage of fitting well with Donizetti’s surviving statements.
It is certainly the one to which the present writer now inclines, and for which
he gratefully expresses his indebtedness to David Lawton.2
__________________________________
2
David Lawton believes that I mistranslated the last clause of the passage – ‘Potea farmi passar
dei cattivi momenti’ – when I originally rendered it: ‘It [the censorship] has had me passing bad
moments’. He himself would translate it: ‘They [the censors] could have made me pass
bad moments’. On this we must agree to differ. ‘Potea’ (imperfect: poteva) implies that
Donizetti,
–24–
Rehearsals began on 10 December. With more than 60 operas behind him
and a cast of fine singers at his command, one might have expected Donizetti
to face the premiere with a degree of confidence and even indifference to
fortune. But it was not so. For several weeks he lived through alternating
hopes and fears, a prey to acute nervous tension. ‘What will be, will be,’ he
exclaimed to Vasselli on 6 December, ‘but, per bacco, a complete fiasco, no!’
And then, referring to his recent nomination as a Knight of the Pontifical
Order of St Sylvester, he went on: ‘This time the Cavaliere Silvestriano has a
great chance of faring well, do you know? We’ll see.’ With this guarded
optimism we may compare a letter written to Antonio Dolci on 18
December: ‘I am scourged by the rehearsals. I write to you now, after the
second with orchestra (midnight). Tomorrow I start the second act, then
the third… then St Stephen’s Day – pray for me.’
Inexorably the day of the first performance approached. The dress
rehearsal, he told Vasselli, was a mixture of some things that promised well
and others that did not. Ronconi’s first-act costume was bad – ‘but it will be
changed’ – and the set for Act II was ‘horrid’. As for the shorter of the two
ballets with which the opera was coupled, it would provoke ‘the wrath of
______________________________________
however unnecessarily, did indeed pass bad moments – hence my original translation. ‘Could
have made me pass’, on the other hand, implies a possibility that did not eventuate. Had
Donizetti intended this meaning, I believe he would have written ‘avrebbe potuto’ rather
than ‘Potea’.
–25–
LUIGIA ABBADIA
Ines in la Scala
1841 production
God’. In the event, both ballets proved resounding failures.
For the opera, fortunately, it was a different story. On 27 December, the
morning after the first performance, Donizetti summarised the outcome in a
letter to his Paris agent, Michele Accursi:
‘The two cavatinas of the women (Löwe and Abbadia), Ronconi’s
entrance, duet but not the stretta, duet of the two women, duet
Donzelli and Löwe, Ronconi’s romance, and the last finale applauded
– the rest no. Called out twice – for St Stephen’s Day that’s an
achievement. Tonight will go even better, I hope. La Löwe you say is
exaggerated, but [she has] many merits, [moves] well on stage, [and
has] much agility, Ronconi good, Donzelli so-so, the other woman
[Abbadia] a great favourite with the public.’
Such a reception, with a number of items applauded but ‘the rest no’
constituted a semi-success, a qualified success. But there was nothing new in
this. The Milanese public, and more particularly the Milanese critics, had
always been so reserved towards Donizetti’s operas on their first nights that
his naturally warm feeling towards the city had long since become mixed
with bitterness. Six months later, in June 1842, he wrote from Vienna:
‘And my Milan? Oh, I would abandon all [my commitments in
Vienna and Paris] for that ungrateful Milan, which pulled a sour face
at the birth of Anna, Elisir, Lucrezia, Gemma, Padilla… And yet if
I’ve laboured with gusto it has been for Milan… Still I yearn for
–27–
Milan… and still Milan does not want me…’
The second performance (actually on 28 December) did, as he hoped, go
better. The tide was turning. Indeed the performance was sufficiently warmly
greeted for him to wish to send Antonio Vasselli a dramma storico of
the evening:
Historic drama of the second performance of Maria Padilla at the
Royal Theatre of La Scala, Milan, 28 December 1841.
Maestro [called] on stage.
Cavatina Ines – Maestro called out once.
Cavatina Maria – Maestro called out once.
Entrance of D. Pedro – Applause; maestro called out once.
Duet D. Pedro and Maria – Much applause. Artists called out, not
the maestro.
Act II
Chorus – Applause.
Cavatina Ruiz – Donzelli called out.
Duet Maria and Ines – Maestro called out twice.
Duet Ruiz and D. Pedro – Much applause.
Stretta finale – Little applause.
Act III
Terzettino two women and second tenor – Applauded.
Duet Ruiz and Maria – Maestro called out after the adagio and, all
at the end.
Chorus – nothing.
–28–
GIORGIO RONCONI
Pedro in the 1841
La Scala production
Romanza Ronconi (or D. Pedro) – Maestro called out once.
Final piece – Maestro called out at the adagio, and all at the end.
Maestro twice on his own and twice with the artists.
This record of the manner in which each item was greeted should be
considered with care, for already it sets a pattern for later performances. The
opera as a whole was well received, except for the finale of Act II and the
chorus at the beginning of Act III, Scene 2. On the other hand, the item
the audience particularly liked, since they called for the composer twice, was
the Act II duet for Maria and Ines, ‘A figlia incauta’. The verdict was just, for
this was always to be the most popular item in the score, and was also to
enjoy a considerable vogue on the concert stage. Filippo Cicconetti,
Donizetti’s first biographer, described it as ‘a work of rare beauty, and of
incomparable spontaneity’. Even if it does not represent such a sustained
flight of the imagination as the first scene of Act III, the first section is
dramatic in content (and will be mentioned again in this article for this
reason), while the cabaletta, which was actually first written as a sopranobaritone duet in Donizetti’s unfinished French opera, L’Ange de Nisida, is
buoyant and brilliant in execution.
Subsequent performances continued to go well, although the composer, his
health already showing early signs of the venereal disease which within four
years was to result in physical degeneration and mental collapse, was unable
to attend the third. On 31 December he reported to Michele Accursi:
–30–
‘Third performance – (I was ill: headache). At the duet for the
women the Callboy heard it said [in the audience] that the maestro
was not in the theatre – but [even so], every piece was well received.
‘Fourth performance – applause for the women, for the men – I,
too, was called out, and at the end of the opera twice on my own, and
twice with the singers. [The journal] La Fama, which after the first
performance hesitated… criticised… yesterday with a general
confession declared that it had been mistaken and ranged itself on the
side of the public – that public which has called me out so many,
many times.’
In the course of this first season, Maria Padilla received 23 performances.
Despite Donizetti’s apprehensions, despite the ‘novel’ ending, despite a less
than triumphant first night, despite a less than unanimous press, the opera
was a success.
As a footnote to the history of this first production, it should be added that
the original text of the opera was slightly shorter than that recorded here.
The ending, of which we have spoken so much, was not, as we shall soon see,
the ending that survives today. Moreover Don Pedro’s Act III romanza, ‘Ah!
quello fu per me’, did not have its cabaletta, ‘Lasciar Maria, sempre adorata’,
which appears only in French scores3 and which was almost certainly
__________________________________
3
The original title is ‘Quitter Marie, toujours chérie’. The present Italian translation was
prepared for Opera Rara by Michael Aspinall.
–31–
DOMENICO DONZELLI
Don Ruiz in the 1841
La Scala production
composed as part of a French version of the opera prepared by Donizetti and
Hippolyte Lucas in 1842. In Act I, finally, it is virtually certain that Sophie
Löwe did not sing the slow section of her cavatina ‘Il più tenero suon d’arpa
morente’. This exists (but in cancelled form) in Donizetti’s autograph,
preserved in the archives of Ricordi in Milan. It does not appear in any
printed score or libretto, and was probably cut out during rehearsals, possibly
because Löwe was having difficulty lasting the course of her taxing part.
* * * * *
We must return, albeit briefly, to the two hypotheses concerning the
ending of the opera. If Maria’s dying of ‘joy’ was the brainchild of the censors,
it should come as no surprise that Donizetti was unhappy with it. If, on the
other hand, it was his own invention, the very eagerness with which he
sought to justify it may, as already suggested, betray an uncertainty, and
should prepare us for his having second thoughts. That he did have such
second thoughts is beyond all doubt, for in fact he took the very first possible
opportunity of changing it. The very first time that the opera was performed
elsewhere, at Trieste on 1 March 842, he presented it with a new ending4.
__________________________________
4
This statement is made on the evidence of a letter Donizetti wrote to Michele Accursi at the
end of January 1842 (Studi Donizettiani I, letter 88, pp 78–80), where he states: ‘Padilla during
Lent is being given by Tadolini at Trieste. I have written a cabaletta at the end, because it is not
[any longer] tragic.’ Notwithstanding this letter, doubts have been raised as to when the new
cabaletta was actually introduced. The present writer believes that the weight of evidence rests
with this March 1842 production in Trieste, but if not then, it was certainly performed in
Naples in August 1842.
–33–
Interestingly, he made no attempt to revert to Ancelot’s original, but
instead turned his back on a tragic denouement entirely, and instead gave the
opera the lieto fine – the happy ending – which is heard on this recording. ‘I
have written a cabaletta at the end, because it is not [any longer] tragic,’ he
wrote to Accursi. As will be seen in the plot-synopsis and libretto, the
Castilian and French nobles are left muttering ominously, but Maria mounts
the throne beside Pedro.
Is this any more satisfactory than the first, Milanese, ending? In dramatic
terms, it would be difficult to argue so, for if Maria is ultimately to be Pedro’s
acknowledged wife and queen, there is no longer any point to the episode
where Ruiz destroys the evidence of her marriage. The whole nature and
movement of the drama clearly presuppose tragedy. In musical and theatrical
terms, on the other hand, the inclusion of a final cabaletta was a gain, for any
audience may be guaranteed to respond to a final showpiece. In its final form
Maria Padilla thus provides us with a fascinating conundrum: it is an opera
where a change of ending has compromised dramatic integrity, but enhanced
popular appeal.
Donizetti in this instance opted for theatrical effectiveness. Not only did
he give his opera a happy ending and a final cabaletta, but he would seem to
have suppressed the earlier tragic version with singular and regrettable
efficiency, at least if our own researches are anything to judge by. The
autograph contains a tantalising fragment: a single page in which, as Pedro
urges Maria ‘Torna, torna a questo seno’, he sings a reprise of the duet they
–34–
sang together at the end of Act I. Clearly at this moment when Pedro
acknowledged the truth of Maria’s claims, Donizetti deliberately recalled the
first impetuous, reckless abandon of their love for each other. The last 16 bars
of the original version are also still to be found in the autograph, the last
nine of them the same as the last nine bars of the opera as recorded here, with
its later cabaletta ending. But all in between these opening and closing
fragments would seem to be irretrievably lost, since all other known scores of
the opera, both manuscript and printed, contain the happy ending
performed on this recording.
If we have only fragments of the music of the original ending of the
opera, we do, on the other hand, have the libretto, and, as a coda to this
account, we reproduce it here. It is the same as that printed to accompany
this recording up to and including the exclamations ‘Quel eccesso!’, ‘Oh
estrema gioia!’ and ‘L’ira mia frenar non so!’. From that point on it reads:
PEDRO
deliberately, with rapture
Torna, ah torna a questo seno:
Return, ah return to my heart:
Meco al trono ascendi omai;
Now at last ascend the throne with me
Ti tradia, soffristi assai,
I betrayed you, you have suffered
Alta merita mercè.
Enough, you deserve high reward.
Ceda omai ragion di stato
Let state interests now give way
Alla fè ch’io t’ho giurato;
To the faith I swore you;
La mia sposa, la Regina
Let the universe adore in you
–35–
L’universo adori in te.
My wife, my Queen.
leading her towards the throne
MARIA
turning ecstatically to Don Ruiz
L’odi, o padre? Egli è mio sposo…
You hear him father? He is
my husband…
A me rende e fama e trono:
He restores me reputation and throne;
Qual credesti io rea non sono,
I am not guilty as you believed,
Sempre degna io fui di te.
I was always worthy of you.
Al piacer che il cor m’inonda
Let your joy at last correspond
La tua gioja alfin risponda.
To the pleasure that floods my heart.
INES
D’esultar fra le sue braccia,
Father, allow me
Padre mio concedi a me.
To rejoice in her arms
Maria, overcome with joy, falters, collapses, and dies at the feet of her father
Ella è morta!
Morta?… Ah figlia!
L’infelice più non è.
PEDRO
She is dead!
RUIZ
suddenly jolted into recognising her
Dead?… Ah daughter!
PEDRO
The unhappy woman is no more.
–36–
CHORUS
Ah! La gioja il cor le oppresse!
Ah! Her joy oppressed her heart!
Infelice! Più non è.
Unhappy woman! She is no more.
Tableau, as they stand in groups indicative of love and commiseration.
* * * * *
Despite its contradictory ending, Maria Padilla held the stage for longer
last century than one might expect. Research so far has revealed well over 50
productions. Apart from 1848 (the year of revolutions) and 1855, there was
not a single year between 1841 and 1859 in which it was not performed
somewhere in Europe, and generally twice or thrice rather than once.
After 1859 it disappeared from regular performance, but isolated revivals
can still be found in the 1860s: there is a report, as yet unconfirmed, of a
production in 1861 in Odessa; it was definitely seen at Valencia in 1865; and
the last 19th-century production so far traced was at Foggia in 1869. It thus
enjoyed a healthy life of 18 years and a total life of 28 years.
The productions that have been traced were by no means confined to Italy.
Donizetti himself prepared a French version for a projected production in
Paris in 1842. In his letters he claims that he was himself the author of the
translation, although this is generally ascribed to Hippolyte Lucas;
presumably they worked on it together. Although the production in Paris did
not take place, this French version was heard in Versailles (1845), Nantes
–37–
(1850) and Marseille (1854). In its original Italian, Maria Padilla was also
heard widely in Spain and Portugal: in Lisbon (1845), Barcelona (1846),
Madrid (1846 and 1849), Seville (1848), Cadiz (1849 and 1850), Gibraltar
(1850), Alicante (1850), Valencia (1850 and 1865), Malaga (1852) and
Oporto (1853). Other productions outside Italy included Malta (1847),
Vienna (1847, with Eugenia Tadolini, Raffaele Mirate and Felice Varesi; and
in German in 1849), Odessa (1850; as well as the unconfirmed production
of 1861), and Corfu (1856). The only productions so far traced outside
Europe were at Lima in 1848, and Rio de Janeiro in 1856.
Surprisingly, the singers who had originally created the opera do not seem
to have remained associated with it for very long. Sophie Löwe again sang
Maria at Venice in 1843 (but without success – only three performances were
given), and Donzelli repeated his interpretation of Ruiz at Naples in 1844;
otherwise their names do not reappear in the annals so far compiled. Neither
Luigia Abbadia nor Ronconi ever seems to have sung in the opera again. On
the other hand, numbers of famous singers did appear on it. The interpreters
of Maria included Eugenia Tadolini, Rosina Penco and Carolina Alajmo.
The tenors who sang Ruiz included Giovanni Basadonna (in four Italian
cities), Raffaele Mirate, Napoleone Moriani (in three cities), Gaetano
Fraschini, and Enrico Tamberlick (Rio de Janeiro, 1856). Among the
baritones who sang Don Pedro appear the names of Filippo Coletti, Filippo
Colini, Felice Varesi and Achille de Bassini.
-38-
Of all these singers, the one who most significantly influenced the
subsequent history of the opera was undoubtedly Eugenia Tadolini. She was,
of course, one of Donizetti’s favourite sopranos, and created his two Viennese
operas for him: Linda di Chamounix (1842) and Maria di Rohan (1843). ‘She
is a singer, she is an actress, she is everything!’ he wrote of her. Not only was
she the first to sing Maria Padilla’s final cabaletta – probably at Trieste in
March, 1842 – but when she was with Donizetti in Vienna in May of the same
year, to create Linda di Chamounix, they worked together on further versions
to Maria Padilla in preparation for its first production in Naples, at the Teatro
S. Carlo in August. On 30 June Donizetti wrote to Salvatore Adamo, the S.
Carlo prompt and copyist, alerting him to expect Tadolini to bring him her
part, containing ‘changes both in the voice and in the orchestra’. He went on
to list the changes in detail: minor cuts, additions, possible key changes,
alterations in cadenzas. Some were of greater note. In the duet of Maria and
Pedro at the end of Act I, the adagio was cut to half its length, and the stretta,
which had failed to please in Milan, was rewritten. In Act II the beginning of
the stretta finale was also revised; and in Act III the ritornello preceding Ruiz’s
off-stage romanza, originally for English horn, was now to be given to the flute
and the terzettino for Maria, Ines and Luigi, originally accompanied by an
English horn, was now to be accompanied by a cello5. Donizetti’s final
instructions to Adamo are of particular interest:
__________________________________
5
The explanation may possibly be that no English horn was available in the Naples orchestra that
season. In both instances the present recording preserves Donizetti’s original intentions, and gives
the passage to the English horn.
-39-
‘Above all let Basadonna [Ruiz] appear with a grey wig: he is
[playing] a 50-year-old man; for the love of God! [let him remember
he is] mad as a result of a melancholy fixation. [Recommend] to
Trimarchi [the chorus master] that the first chorus of Act II should be
very gay, then murmured in the middle [at the words] ‘una vile di
sangue pasciuta’, then gay once more with the re-entry of the band. If
the woman who doesn’t sing [ie: Blanche of France] gives trouble,
insert two lines of recitative for her first, and let her be a secondary
singer. For goodness’ sake, urge this, since it’s the most interesting
point [in the opera]. If I arrive and don’t find everything done, pity
help you!’
Presumably Adamo proved a good and faithful servant, for the production
was well received, and Donizetti was able to record that all his alterations
were successful, except for ‘that whore of a finale to Act II’. This success in
Naples was all the more remarkable since the censors went out of their way
to botch the dramatic credibility of the story. Writing to Giovanni Ricordi on
28 August 1842, Donizetti reported:
‘Padilla, though massacred in a horrendous manner by the
censorship so that it cannot be recognised, draws audiences… Let it
suffice to know that in Act I, when Maria sees Don Pedro at her
window and says with a terrible voice “Don Pedro di Castiglia”, and
he, seeing her with the dagger in her hand, replies “Oh! Ciel che
miro?” (Oh heavens! What do I see?), they have substituted: “M’è
–40–
dolce il riverderti” (I’m delighted to see you again) – and he: “Idolo
mio” (My idol)!’
In this same letter he also records that Blanche of France was not even
allowed to appear. And yet, all this notwithstanding, he is able to add in
a postscript:
‘Last night the Court applauded Tadolini very warmly in every
piece, and she was called back many times. She is truly tireless: after
the duet with her father she seems absolutely fresh right to the last
cabaletta, which she sang with a voice like a cannon.’
To which it only remains to add that, having sung the opera with such
success on two occasions, Tadolini went on to sing it twice more: at the first
Viennese production in 1847, and in Bologna the same year.
* * * * *
Maria Padilla may not be a flawless work, but that is not to say that it is
not an interesting one. In writing it Donizetti, by now an international
composer who had lived for three years in Paris, was making one of several
return visits to Italy. In the summer of 1840 he had returned to Milan to
adapt La Fille du Régiment for the Italian stage; he had returned to Rome to
produce Adelia in February 1841; and now he was back in Milan once more,
the first time he had produced a new opera there since Gemma di Vergy
(December 1834) and Maria Stuarda (December 1835).
–41–
He brought with him the fruits of his three years’ residence in the musical
capital of the world. Not only had he assimilated the several ‘kinds’ of French
opera – grand opera and opéra-comique – but he had welcomed, at least
while he was there, their freer forms and the escape they offered from the
besetting conventions of Italian opera: the endless cabalettas and cadenzas,
and those noisy rinforzando and accelerando passages that existed only to
rouse audiences to applause. In Paris, moreover, he had found orchestras of a
standard that eclipsed any he had known in Italy, so that, like Rossini before
him, he had welcomed the opportunity to enrich his orchestration, not in
terms of volume, but in delicacy of figuration, and variety and richness of
colour. This is not to suggest that any sudden revolution took place in his
style, for there is already many an example of a complex ostinato figure and
thoughtful instrumentation in his earlier Italian operas (the prelude to the
prison scene in Roberto Devereux, for example). But in the operas written
after 1838 – those operas in which the French influence is felt – such
attention to detail becomes the rule rather than the exception.
Maria Padilla is thus an Italian opera written in his international period,
and it represents the best of both worlds. It is a return to the familiar forms
– an unashamed return to the conventions – and Donizetti plays to the
gallery, tossing off brilliant cabalettas for Ines and Maria in Act I, revelling in
an old-fashioned vendetta cabaletta for Ruiz in Act II, and later in the same
act ending the duet for Ruiz and Pedro with a ‘challenge to a duel’ fast section
which comes out of the same stable as ‘Suoni la tromba’ from I Puritani or
‘O sole più ratto’ from Lucia di Lammermoor. All of these are items which,
–42–
30 years ago, would have been condemned as ‘vulgar’. Nowadays, in an era
which once again stands to applaud Donizetti, we recognise them as
‘popular’, but also note the supreme confidence, the mastery and panache
which Donizetti brings to them.
At the same time that he obviously enjoyed his return to the Italian forms
and conventions, he also brought to his work the enhanced technique of a
composer accustomed to working with the world’s best theatre orchestras.
Consequently the preludes, the ritornelli, and the ostinati of the
accompaniments are all interesting musically, and generally noteworthy
for their dramatic relevance. The prelude to Act II, Scene 1 is a supreme
example, but there is scarcely a prelude or ritornello, from the first entry of
Don Pedro onwards, which is not remarkable for the care and skill with
which it is turned.
On one occasion the orchestral writing even shows subtle dramatic
suggestion of a well-nigh anachronistic kind. Don Pedro’s recitative upon his
first entry is suave and disarming as befits his character, but the pizzicato
accompaniment is a ‘heartbeat’ figure we already associate, from her own
earlier entry, with agitation on Maria’s part. While one character establishes
himself in sustained arioso lines, therefore, the accompaniment tells us of the
very different emotions taking place in the breast of another. It is the kind of
psychological use of the orchestra that is common enough in Mussorgsky or
Puccini or Massenet, yet here is the same technique – less sophisticated in its
use, no doubt, but still the same – in the music of Donizetti.
–43–
In Paris, finally, Donizetti had learned a sparing use of local colour. In his
earlier operas this scarcely exists. Any attempts to find Scottish colouring in
Lucia di Lammermoor, for instance – and there have been such attempts – are
special, and specious, pleading, for Lucia is Italian through and through. But
in Maria Padilla the chorus at the beginning of Act II, ‘Nella reggia
dell’amore’, places us unmistakably in the Spanish court. It is brittle and
pleasure-bent, and makes use of a quasi-jota rhythm which is startlingly and
excitingly Spanish. It is exactly right in context, and deserves, we believe, a
place among the very finest of Donizetti’s choruses. The only pity is that this
Spanish flavour is not more widespread.
So much for the general textures. What can one say about the particular
drama that takes place within these textures? In his L’Opera di Donizetti
nell’Età Romantica, one of the landmarks of 20th-century Donizetti
scholarship, Guglielmo Barblan compared the two libretti Gaetano Rossi
wrote for the composer: Maria Padilla and Linda di Chamounix. In both, he
pointed out, a girl falls in love with a man above her in social station, quits
her father’s roof to follow her lover, and incurs her father’s anger and curse.
Madness occurs in both operas, and in both a snatch of popular song is
sung in an attempt to dispel that madness. But having made these points,
Professor Barblan then went on to condemn Maria Padilla:
‘An opera written for voices and not for human beings, a score laid
out for the sorceries of famous uvulae and the magniloquence of
ample ensemble scenes, and not to depict emotions, Padilla is
–44–
saturated with virtuosistic canary-fodder, with trills and arpeggios, in
a word with every gasconade of the bel canto [arsenal]. It is weighed
down with choruses and ensembles. The charm of the good melodic
moments is dissipated by the intrusion of chattering cabalettas.’
A round condemnation indeed! But as Professor Barblan was the first to
admit, at the International Donizetti Conference held in Bergamo in 1975,
ideas have changed, and much that his book contains is now out of date.
It was published in 1948: he was writing at a period when floridity was
regarded as a sign that Donizetti’s inspiration was nodding, and that he
was padding his pages with clichés. In 1948 it was still too early for Maria
Callas to have shown the world that such florid writing could be dramatic:
that trills and arpeggios could in themselves convey heightened emotion.
With this in mind, we should like to suggest a different interpretation of
the heavily decorated lines of Maria Padilla. They belong particularly to the
heroine, and must be linked first of all, with the performers Donizetti was
writing for. He composed the first half of the opera, as we have seen, with
Erminia Frezzolini in mind, a soprano with a dazzling ability to negotiate
florid passages and invest them with impact and dramatic meaning.
Similarly, when he came to write the final cabaletta for Eugenia Tadolini, he
was writing for a soprano with ‘a voice like a cannon’, and her capacities find
direct reflection in the music. Sophie Löwe, on the other hand, even though
he credited her with agility, must have had a different voice – possibly her
stamina was less marked, or her strengths may have lain in a different register
–45–
of the voice – for in his autograph he has cancelled many of the fioriture
written for Frezzolini. In this recording these embellishments have been
restored, not simply because they make the music more brilliant, but because
they correspond, we believe, to Donizetti’s conception of the character and
role of Maria. He gave us his clue to this concept when he wrote that ‘she has
to live…as [Pedro’s] mistress, and pass as such in the sight of all’. From the
first Maria is ambitious, and obsessed by her vision of regality, but her
peculiar tragedy is that, though truly entitled to recognition as Pedro’s wife,
she must live out in public the pretence that she is only his mistress. From
the moment she quits her father’s house, she is exposed to the public gaze. It
is not for nothing that in Act II she is hostess at a reception given in her
capacity as favorita: the King’s acknowledged mistress. It is not for nothing
that she is surrounded by courtiers who in one breath celebrate the brilliance
of her circle, and in the next whisper slander her behind her back. Her
reputation, her past history, her present role – all are public property. And
Donizetti’s way of conveying this was to externalise her music: to render it
brilliant and embellished.
We may contrast Linda di Chamounix. Apart from ‘O luce di quest’anima’
– a later addition for Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani – Linda’s music is
melodious, sometimes dramatic, but more often affecting and sentimental.
She is a peasant girl, a farmer’s daughter. Maria, on the other hand, is an
aristocrat. Not only is there elevation and regality in her florid line, but the
prelude to the whole opera is significantly given to trumpets: trumpets
similarly betray the identity of ‘Mendez’ in the ritornello preceding his
–46–
cavatina con pertichini, ‘Lieto fra voi ritorno’. Trumpets (and hunting
horns for most of the rather more bucolic first scene), brilliant fioriture,
the gaiety if not the happiness of a court – this is the ostentatious world of
Maria Padilla.
Standing in contrast to Maria, we have the three other principals: Ines, a
distinctly domestic ‘harmless, household dove’ by comparison: Don Pedro,
haughty and quick-tempered, but first and foremost the disarming ladykiller; and – most interesting of all – Don Ruiz. Don Ruiz, too, is aristocratic,
the very embodiment of stiff, old-fashioned honour; and like Maria’s, his
role, too, is public, at least until the moment when he insults and challenges
the King. Then subjected to the shame of the bastinado – beating with rods
– he goes insane and retreats into a remote internal world of his own.
Don Ruiz is a most difficult role to sing. His very first aria calls for two
different voices, for the cavatina is lyrical and reflective, and the cabaletta
heroic. To a great extent this dichotomy, of course, is part and parcel of the
form itself, but here it is extremely marked. And, moreover, it persists. For
the rest of Act II Ruiz continues in heroic vein, only to revert, in Act III, to
an extreme form of his reflective mode. Maria Callas once said of the sleepwalking scene in Macbeth that the singer must convey Lady Macbeth’s
disturbed state of dreaming by giving the impression of singing in the back
of her head; and the same may be said of Ruiz here. Mentally he is alienated
and isolated, and he must produce singing which, unfailingly delicate and
sensitive, must seem remote, ruminatory, cerebral. To sing this role correctly
is to convey all the inner suffering and loneliness of schizophrenia.
–47–
Surprise has often been expressed that Donizetti cast Pedro, the lover, as a
baritone, and Ruiz, the father, as a tenor. It is the opposite of what we should
expect. But again we must look at the original cast. Giorgio Ronconi, the
baritone, was aged 31, in the full flush of manhood; Domenico Donzelli, on
the other hand, was 51, and already in 1835 Donizetti had been complaining
that he was too old to play the appassionato. The allocation of roles was thus
not only right, but it resulted in a most unusual feature: a mad-scene for
tenor. It goes without saying that mad-scenes for soprano abound in
Donizetti’s operas; and he had earlier written such scenes for baritone – in Il
Furioso and Torquarto Tasso (both, as it happens, for Ronconi) – and for a
bass, in L’Esule di Roma (Naples, 1828). But at this late date, with his own
insanity only four years away, he gives us his one and only sensitive essay in
the genre for tenor.
Besides this approach through characterisation, there is another, equally
revealing way of viewing Maria Padilla, and that is through examining
Donizetti’s command of dramatic pace. Each scene has a character and pace
of its own. Act I, Scene 1, with its succession of arie d’entrata, is largely
expository, and brilliant in the manner of a concert; dramatic subtleties really
begin only with then entry of Don Pedro. Scene 2, by contrast, despite the
deceptive serenity of its opening, is highly dramatic, and that drama
continues and reaches its climax in Act II. What is particularly fascinating is
to note the means by which Donizetti achieves this feeling of speed and
excitement. He virtually omits conventional slow movements. Ruiz’s cavatina
(‘Il sentiero di mia vita’) is the only such movement in the whole of Act II.
–48–
The slow section of the duet for Maria and Ines, ‘A figlia incauta’, is anything
but what we should expect, since, instead of being a set piece with a
recognisable form, it freely advances a changing dramatic situation. The
melody never returns upon itself, and the voices scarcely join together until
the cadenza. The equivalent section of the duet for Ruiz and Pedro, ‘Io lo
vedo alla fin quest’augusto’, is similar, again eschewing formal shape in favour
of free development, and this time beginning as declamatory recitative. In
both duets the voices really join only in the final fast movements, and even
these form a contrast, with those of the women buoyant and effervescent,
and the men heroic. But it is when we reach the finale that we are in for our
greatest surprise. It contains not even the semblance of a slow concertato (the
opera, be it noted, is not as weighed down with ensembles as Barblan
suggested), and the result is at first disconcerting. To an ear that is alert to
form and awaits a concertato, it sounds like short measure. Early audiences
did not like it, and Donizetti himself described it as ‘that whore of a finale’
and promised Ricordi that he would revise it. An alternative version does,
indeed, exist in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (and also in one of two
scores in the Milan Conservatorium), but it turns out to be only an
abbreviated version of what we already have. This in itself may be significant.
A revision that is a further abbreviation is certainly not a concession to public
taste: it should probably be seen as yet a further deliberate step towards
concision, tension and pace.
Act III, Scene 1, as pointed out earlier, forms a contrast with Act II. It is a
moment of rest and lyrical expansion – a moment of sentiment – until the
–49–
point when Don Ruiz destroys the evidence of Maria’s marriage, when we are
precipitated back into fast-moving drama.
The last movement of the Maria-Don Ruiz duet also precipitates us into
the final scene of the opera. This last scene contains fine moments: Pedro’s
Bellinian romanza, ‘Ah! Quello fu per me’, and the magnificently expansive
ensemble (the ‘largo’ as it is called in the score) that begins with Ruiz
repeating his romanza, ‘Sento ad ogn’ora estinguersi’. It has interest, too,
from the point of view of form, since it fuses two kinds of finale: the twopart aria finale for the prima donna (‘Giurata innanzi a Dio’ and ‘O padre,
tu l’odi’), and the ensemble finale such as we normally find halfway through
an opera, at the end of Act II (the concertato or largo, ‘Sento ad ogn’ora
estinguersi’; there is naturally no stretta). But the chorus of welcome that
accompanies the entrance of Blanche of France is surprisingly glib and
trumpery for the Donizetti who was capable of producing such a rousing
chorus as that at the beginning of Act II. The dramatic temperature gauge is
low, in fact, throughout the opening of the scene, and rises only with the
coup de théâtre of Maria’s entrance and her declaration ‘This crown is mine!’.
Recovery at this point is instantaneous: the opera never again looks back.
And if Donizetti jettisoned the original tragic ending, he plastered over
the dramatic cracks in masterly fashion and brought the curtain down
in a way he knew would delight the audience: with a scintillating,
show-stopping cabaletta.
–50–
After more than a century of neglect, Maria Padilla was given a concert
performance by Opera Rara in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, on 8
April 1973, the 125th anniversary of Donizetti’s death. It was the first time
it had ever been performed in England. Two members of the cast of that
revival re-create their roles on this present recording: Christian du Plessis
(Don Pedro) and Ian Caley (Don Luigi). The other singers in 1973 were
Janet Price (Maria), Margreta Elkins (Ines), Gunnar Drago (Don Ruiz),
Malcolm King (Albuquerque and Don Alfonso) and Patricia Sabin
(Francisca). The Opera Rara Chorus and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta
Orchestra were conducted by Kenneth Montgomery.
The ‘pirate’ recording of that performance – issued in the United States
some time later – earned the distinction of being one of the three best-selling
unofficial opera recordings of all time, sharing this dubious honour with the
Callas Berlin Lucia di Lammermoor and the La Scala L’Assedio di Corinto with
Beverly Sills and Marilyn Horne.
Perhaps it was the success of that and this present recording which helped
encourage several revivals of the opera during the 1980s. A production
directed by Lorenzo Arruga and conducted by Antonio Bacchelli was staged
at the Teatro Carcano in Milan in November 1982, and was subsequently
seen in Parma and Ravenna. In April 1983, Pocket Opera of San Francisco
staged the opera, using a reduced orchestra, and the Long Island Opera
Society presented a concert performance at Stony Brook with full orchestra.
–51–
The first staged performance in England was given by Dorset Opera at
Sherborne in August 1988. The most recent performance was given by Omaha
Opera in September 1990.
© Jeremy Commons
–52–
THE STORY
The action is set in Castile, in the middle of the 14th century, at the end of
the reign of Alfonso XI and the beginning of that of Pedro I, known to history
as ‘Pedro the Cruel’.
ACT I
SCENE ONE
The tenants of the Padilla estates bring bouquets of flowers to Ines, who is
about to marry Don Luigi, Count of Aguilar. After she has thanked them and
they have retired, she is joined by her sister Maria, who is absorbed in thoughts
of a recurrent dream that constantly haunts her. In it she sees a cherub, wearing
a royal sash, who leads her from the altar to the throne. Ines is horrified to
realise her sister’s ambitions, but before either can say more they are
interrupted by the sound of hunting horns, announcing the arrival of their
cousin, Don Alfonso di Pardo, and his friend Mendez, the favourite of Prince
Pedro. Maria confesses to Ines that Mendez is always fused in her mind with
her dream, even though he is not of royal blood.
After Alfonso and Mendez have appeared and paid their respects, all move
towards the castle chapel for the wedding ceremony. Mendez takes the
opportunity of whispering to Maria that he loves her, and asks whether he may
hope for her love in return. With deliberate equivocation, she simply echoes
Luigi’s cry: ‘To the altar’.
-53-
SCENE TWO
Maria is alone in her bedroom, late that night after the wedding festivities have
ended, when Francisca, her old duenna, hurries in and urges her to hide. She
has overheard that Mendez, who is none other than Don Pedro, is about to try
to abduct her. Maria draws a dagger; then, as Pedro scales her balcony and
enters her bedroom, she greets him by his proper name, accuses him of wishing
to dishonour her, and tries to kill herself. Pedro manages to prevent her, calling
her his wife and swearing to marry her. She holds up the hilt of the dagger in
the form of a cross and makes him repeat his oath; then, with her vision of the
throne materialising before her, she abandons herself to his arms. He warns her
that for the moment their marriage must be kept secret, since his mother is
trying to force him into a political match; then leads her towards the balcony
and the garden where Don Alfonso is awaiting them.
ACT II
Two years later. Pedro is now king. He and Maria are married, but Maria has
sworn to keep the marriage secret and consequently lives in the palace at Seville
as his mistress.
The courtiers, who are attending a splendid reception she is giving in the
King’s honour, are divided in their sympathies. Some praise her beauty and
piety, while others regard her as an obstacle in the way of the plans of the
queen mother and the prime minister, Duke Ramiro d’Albuquerque, to marry
Pedro to the French princess, Blanche, who is already approaching Seville.
Albuquerque ushers in an old man, who proves to be Don Ruiz di Padilla,
the father of Ines and Maria. Since he believes that Maria has brought disgrace
-54-
upon her family, he is easily goaded by the scheming Albuquerque into a
determination to be revenged on the king. Awaiting their moment, they make
their way into the gardens.
Maria now appears, accompanied by Ines; the one sumptuously attired, with
a portrait of Don Pedro suspended from her necklace, the other dressed
modestly and simply. Maria’s tears betray her unhappiness at court, and the
two sisters decide to seek their father together, to beg his forgiveness, as soon
as the reception is over.
As they, too, go out into the gardens, Don Pedro arrives, determined to put
aside the cares of state and enjoy the festivities. Don Ruiz, returning in the
same moment, expresses a desire to see the king. When Pedro declares himself,
it is only to be denounced as a scoundrel and a coward, and to have a glove
thrown in his face. Unaware who it is who is insulting him, he orders that the
old man be subjected to the ignominious bastinado, or beating with rods.
Only when Ruiz has been dragged away do Maria and Ines return, attracted
by the commotion. Unwilling that the success of her reception should be
marred, Maria pleads for mercy for the offender. Then, when Albuquerque
reveals that it was her father, she is so horrified that she tears off the jewels
Pedro has given her and throws them at his feet. He, for his part, promises that
Ruiz will be restored to his honours. But Maria will not listen. She curses the
day she fell in love, and she and Ines hasten away in search of their father.
-55-
ACT III
SCENE ONE
From the delirium of rage and tears in which Maria and Ines had found him,
Don Ruiz has sunk into a deep sleep and has not stirred for three days. Now,
however, as the two sisters and Don Luigi pray for his recovery, he is heard
calling for Maria, wishing to embrace her once more before he dies. Maria asks
to be left alone with him.
He enters, dressed in a long nightgown, and Maria falls at his feet. But she
soon realises that the shame of being beaten has driven him mad. She tries to
make him recognise her, but without success. In a supreme attempt to get
through to him – even though this means breaking her oath of secrecy – she
produces a document and reads to him Pedro’s solemn attestation that she is
his wife. But at the sound of Pedro’s name and the sight of his signature, Ruiz
burns the document.
Outside a chorus of welcome is heard as Blanche of France enters Seville. In
fury, Maria determines to assert her rights. Dragging the bemused Ruiz with
her, she leaves for the palace.
SCENE TWO
In the throne room of the palace, the court is assembled for the coronation of
Blanche as Queen of Castile. Pedro has decided to go through with the
wedding as a means of revenging himself on Maria, but now that the moment
has arrived, he is filled with misgivings.
Trumpets announce the entry of Blanche. Albuquerque, the objective of his
schemes almost secured, is in the very act of handing the crown to Pedro,
-56-
telling him to place it on the brow of his bride, when Maria, closely followed
by Ines, Luigi and Don Ruiz, suddenly appears and snatches it from him. She
places it on her own head, and claims her right to be recognised as Pedro’s wife.
There is general consternation and Blanche faints.
Pedro is suitably appalled to see the state to which Ruiz has been reduced,
and increasingly incensed as the courtiers reproach him for not arresting
Maria. Then suddenly he asserts himself, and proclaims openly that she is his
wife, his queen, and the sole object of his affections.
Maria, beside herself with joy, throws herself into her father’s arms. But
though Pedro, Ines and Luigi herald her as queen, the courtiers murmur
among themselves, predicting reprisals on the part of France.
-57-
ARGUMENT
L’action se situe en Castille, au milieu du XIVe siècle, à la fin du règne
d’Alphonse XI et au début de celui de Pierre Ier, dit « Pierre le Cruel ».
ACTE I
SCÈNE 1
Les métayers du domaine de Padilla apportent des bouquets de fleurs à Ines, à
l’occasion de ses noces avec Don Luigi, comte d’Aguilar. Elle les remercie et ils
se retirent. Arrive alors sa sœur Maria. Hantée par un rêve qu’elle a déjà fait
plusieurs fois, Maria est absorbée dans ses pensées. Dans ce rêve, elle voit un
angelot portant une écharpe royale la conduire de l’autel au trône. Ines se dit
horrifiée par les ambitions de sa sœur, mais leur conversation est interrompue
par le son des cors de chasse annonçant l’arrivée de leur cousin Don Alfonso
di Pardo, en compagnie de son ami Mendez, le favori du prince Pedro. Maria
avoue à Ines que, bien qu’il ne soit pas de sang royal, Mendez est associé, dans
son esprit, à son rêve.
Alfonso et Mendez arrivent et présentent leurs respects ; tout le monde se
dirige ensuite vers la chapelle du château pour la cérémonie de mariage.
Mendez profite de l’occasion pour murmurer son amour à Maria et lui
demander s’il peut espérer être aimé en retour. Jouant sur l’équivoque, elle se
contente de répéter l’appel de Luigi : « À l’autel. »
-58-
SCÈNE 2
Maria se retrouve seule dans sa chambre, tard dans la nuit, après que les
festivités ont pris fin. Francisca, sa vieille duègne, entre précipitamment en la
pressant de se cacher. Elle a entendu dire que Mendez, qui n’est autre que Don
Pedro, s’apprête à l’enlever. Maria s’arme d’un poignard ; lorsque Pedro entre
dans sa chambre après avoir escaladé le balcon, elle l’appelle par son vrai nom,
l’accuse de vouloir la déshonorer et essaie de se donner la mort. Pedro parvient
à l’en empêcher, lui parle comme à une épouse et lui promet le mariage.
Élevant alors le poignard comme s’il s’agissait d’une croix, elle lui fait répéter
sa promesse ; puis, à la perspective de voir se réaliser son rêve, elle s’abandonne
dans ses bras. Il la prévient que leur union doit rester provisoirement secrète,
car sa mère essaie de l’obliger à un mariage politique ; puis il la conduit vers le
balcon et le jardin où les attend Don Alfonso.
ACTE II
Deux ans plus tard. Pedro est sur le trône. Il a épousé Maria, qui a promis de
garder leur mariage secret et vit par conséquent comme sa maîtresse dans un
palais de Séville.
Les courtisans qui assistent à une splendide réception, donnée par Maria en
l’honneur du roi, sont partagés. Certains louent sa beauté et sa piété ; d’autres
la considèrent comme un obstacle aux plans de la reine mère et du premier
ministre, le duc Ramiro d’Albuquerque, qui projettent de marier Pedro à une
princesse française, Blanche, qui arrivera prochainement à Séville.
Albuquerque fait entrer un vieillard – en fait le père d’Ines et de Maria, Don
Ruiz di Padilla. Persuadé que Maria a déshonoré sa famille, il entre facilement
-59-
dans les machinations d’Albuquerque et se laisse convaincre de se venger du
roi. Ils attendent ensemble le bon moment pour pénétrer dans les jardins.
Maria apparaît accompagnée d’Ines ; la première, somptueusement habillée,
porte un collier orné d’un portrait de Don Pedro, tandis que la seconde est
vêtue avec simplicité et modestie. Les pleurs de Maria disent combien elle est
malheureuse à la cour et les deux sœurs décident d’aller voir ensemble leur père
dès la fin de la réception pour obtenir son pardon.
Au moment où elles rejoignent les jardins, arrive Don Pedro bien décidé à
oublier ses soucis de monarque et à profiter de la fête. Don Ruiz apparaît à ce
moment-là et demande à parler au roi. Lorsque Pedro se présente, il se fait
accuser de scélérat et de lâche, et reçoit un gant au visage. Ignorant tout de
l’identité du vieillard qui l’insulte, il ordonne qu’on lui inflige une bastonnade,
châtiment ignominieux s’il en est.
Don Ruiz est emmené de force avant même que Maria et Ines ne fassent leur
apparition, attirées par le bruit et l’agitation. Ne voulant pas que sa réception
soit gâchée, Maria demande pitié pour l’offenseur. Quand Albuquerque lui
révèle qu’il s’agit en fait de son père, elle est tellement horrifiée qu’elle ôte les
bijoux dont Pedro l’a parée et les jette à ses pieds. En réponse, il promet
de rendre à Ruiz sa dignité. Mais Maria ne l’écoute plus. Elle maudit le jour
où elle s’est éprise de lui et, accompagnée d’Ines, se précipite à la recherche
de son père.
-60-
ACTE III
SCÈNE 1
Maria et Ines ont trouvé leur père en pleurs, en proie au délire. Sa fureur a fait
place ensuite à un profond sommeil et Don Ruiz est inerte depuis trois jours.
Tandis que les deux sœurs et Don Luigi prient pour sa guérison, on l’entend
appeler Maria et dire vouloir l’embrasser une dernière fois avant de mourir.
Maria demande à rester seule avec lui.
Lorsqu’il apparaît, vêtu d’une longue robe de chambre, Maria tombe à ses
pieds. Elle s’aperçoit vite que la honte de la bastonnade l’a rendu fou. Elle
essaie de faire en sorte qu’il la reconnaisse, mais en vain. Dans un suprême
effort pour se faire comprendre de lui – et bien que cela signifie rompre le
secret juré – elle produit un document où Pedro atteste solennellement qu’elle
est sa femme. Elle le lit à son père qui, en attendant le nom de Pedro et en
voyant sa signature, brûle le document.
À l’extérieur, on entend des cris de bienvenue à l’arrivée de Blanche de
France à Séville. Furieuse, Maria décide de faire valoir ses droits. Entraînant
son père abasourdi à sa suite, elle se rend au palais.
SCÈNE 2
Dans la salle du trône du palais, la cour s’est rassemblée pour assister au
couronnement de la future reine de Castille, Blanche. Pedro a décidé de
l’épouser afin de se venger de Maria, mais maintenant que le moment arrive,
il est assailli par le doute.
Des trompettes annoncent l’entrée de Blanche. Albuquerque, qui voit ses
machinations près de réussir, tend la couronne à Pedro en lui disant de la
-61-
placer sur le front de sa future femme, mais il est interrompu dans son geste
par la brusque arrivée de Maria, suivie de près par Ines, Luigi et Don Ruiz,
qui la lui arrache des mains. Elle la place sur sa propre tête et exige
d’être reconnue comme l’épouse de Pedro. C’est la consternation générale et
Blanche s’évanouit.
Pedro est bien sûr épouvanté de voir l’état auquel Ruiz a été réduit et de plus
en plus furieux envers les courtisans qui lui reprochent de ne pas avoir arrêté
Maria. Puis brusquement, il se reprend et proclame ouvertement que Maria est
sa femme, sa reine et l’unique objet de son affection.
Maria, folle de joie, se jette dans les bras de son père. Mais bien que Pedro,
Ines et Luigi la considèrent comme la reine, les courtisans accueillent la
nouvelle par des murmures et prédisent des représailles de la part de la France.
-62-
DIE HANDLUNG
Die Oper spielt Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts in Kastilien, zu Ende der
Herrschaft Alfonsos XI. und zu Anfang der Pedros I., der als „Pedro der
Grausame” in die Geschichte einging.
1. AKT
1. SZENE
Die Pächter des Guts Padilla bringen Ines, die an diesem Tag Don Luigi, Graf
von Aguilar heiraten wird, Blumen. Sie dankt ihnen, die Pächter ziehen wieder
davon, und Ines’ Schwester Maria kommt zu ihr. Sie ist in Gedanken
versunken und hängt einem Traum nach, den sie immer wieder träumt. Darin
sieht sie einen Cherub, der eine königliche Schärpe trägt und sie vom Altar
zum Thron führt. Mit Entsetzen wird Ines bewusst, welches Ziel ihre
Schwester verfolgt, doch bevor die beiden weiterreden können, erklingt der
Ruf der Jagdhörner, der die Ankunft ihres Cousins Don Alfonso di Pardo und
seines Freundes Mendez ankündigt, dem Vertrauten von Prinz Pedro. Maria
erzählt Ines, dass sie Mendez immer mit ihrem Traum in Verbindung bringt,
obwohl er nicht von königlichem Geblüt sei.
Nachdem Alfonso und Mendez den Damen ihre Aufwartung gemacht
haben, gehen alle zur Trauungszeremonie in die Schlosskapelle. Mendez
nimmt die Gelegenheit wahr, Maria zuzuflüstern, dass er sie liebe, und fragt,
ob er auch auf ihre Liebe hoffen dürfe. Bewusst zweideutig wiederholt sie nur
Luigis Ruf: „Zum Altar.”
-63-
2. SZENE
Spät am selben Abend, nach Ende der Hochzeitsfeierlichkeiten, ist Maria
alleine in ihrem Schlafgemach, als Francisca, ihre alte Anstandsdame,
hereineilt und sie drängt, sich zu verstecken. Zufällig hat sie gehört, dass
Mendez – der kein anderer ist als Don Pedro – sie zu entführen gedenkt. Maria
zieht einen Dolch, und als Don Pedro über den Balkon in ihr Gemach
eindringt, begrüßt sie ihn mit seinem wahren Namen, beschuldigt ihn, sie
entehren zu wollen, und versucht, sich zu töten. Doch Pedro hält sie davon ab,
nennt sie seine Gemahlin und gelobt, sie zu heiraten. Sie hält den Dolch in
Form eines Kreuzes vor sich und zwingt ihn, den Schwur zu wiederholen.
Dann, während ihre Vision des Throns vor ihr aufsteigt, überlässt sie sich
seiner Umarmung. Er beschwört sie, ihre Hochzeit geheim zu halten, da seine
Mutter ihn zu einer politisch vorteilhaften Partie drängen will. Dann führt er
sie über den Balkon in den Garten, wo Don Alfonso sie erwartet.
2. AKT
Zwei Jahre später. Pedro ist mittlerweile König, und er und Maria haben
geheiratet, doch Maria hat gelobt, die Trauung geheim zu halten, und lebt
deshalb als seine Geliebte im Palast in Sevilla.
Die Höflinge, die an einem prachtvollen Empfang teilnehmen, den Maria
zu Ehren des Königs ausrichtet, sind in ihrer Meinung geteilt. Einige
schwärmen von Marias Schönheit und Frömmigkeit, andere sehen sie als
Hindernis bei den Plänen der Königinmutter und des Premierministers
Herzog Ramiro d’Albuquerque, Pedro mit der französischen Prinzessin
Blanche zu vermählen, die bereits auf dem Weg nach Sevilla ist.
-64-
Albuquerque führt einen alten Mann herein, der sich als Don Ruiz di
Padilla erweist, der Vater von Ines und Maria. Da er glaubt, dass Maria
Schande über ihre Familie gebracht hat, lässt er sich vom Ränke
schmiedenden Albuquerque leicht aufstacheln, sich am König zu rächen. Um
eine günstige Gelegenheit abzuwarten, gehen die beiden in den Garten.
Maria erscheint in Begleitung ihrer Schwester. Sie ist prächtig gekleidet, um
ihren Hals hängt ein Porträt von Don Pedro, während Ines schlichte,
bescheidene Gewänder trägt. Marias Tränen verraten, wie unglücklich sie am
Hof ist, und die beiden Schwestern beschließen, gleich nach Ende des
Empfangs gemeinsam ihren Vater aufzusuchen und ihn um Vergebung
zu bitten.
Als auch sie in den Garten gehen, tritt Don Pedro hinzu, entschlossen, die
Last seines Amtes zu vergessen und sich an der Geselligkeit zu erfreuen. Im
selben Moment kommt Don Ruiz herbei und verlangt, den König zu sehen.
Als Pedro sich als dieser zu erkennen gibt, beschimpft Don Ruiz ihn als
Schurken und Feigling und schleudert ihm einen Handschuh ins Gesicht.
Nicht wissend, wer ihn da beleidigt, befiehlt Pedro, den alten Mann mit der
schmählichen Bastonade zu bestrafen.
Vom Aufruhr angelockt, eilen Maria und Ines herbei, aber erst, nachdem
Ruiz abgeführt wurde. Um zu verhindern, dass der Empfang durch diesen
Vorfall gestört wird, bittet Maria um Gnade für den Schuldigen. Doch als
Albuquerque offenbart, dass es sich um ihren eigenen Vater handelte, reißt sie
im Zorn die Juwelen ab, die Pedro ihr schenkte, und schleudert sie ihm zu
Füßen. Zwar verspricht er ihr, Ruiz’ Ehre wieder herzustellen, doch sie hört
-65-
nicht auf ihn und verflucht den Tag, an dem sie sich verliebte. Dann eilen sie
und Ines davon, um ihren Vater zu suchen.
3. AKT
1. SZENE
Don Ruiz ist von dem Delirium der Wut und Tränen, in dem Maria und Ines
ihn vorfanden, in einen tiefen Schlaf gesunken und seit drei Tagen nicht
aufgewacht. Doch als die beiden Schwestern und Don Luigi um seine
Genesung beten, ruft er nach Maria und verlangt, sie vor seinem Tod
ein letztes Mal in die Arme zu schließen. Maria bittet, mit ihm allein gelassen
zu werden.
In ein langes Nachtgewand gekleidet, tritt er ein, und Maria sinkt ihm zu
Füßen. Doch rasch wird ihr klar, dass die Schande der Bastonade ihn in den
Wahnsinn getrieben hat. Vergeblich versucht sie, ihn dazu zu bringen, sie zu
erkennen. Im letzten Bemühen, ihn in die Realität zurückzuholen – auch
wenn sie damit ihren Schwur bricht, liest sie ihm das Dokument vor, in dem
Pedro sie feierlich zu seiner Gemahlin erklärt. Doch sobald Ruiz Pedros
Namen hört und seine Unterschrift sieht, verbrennt er das Schriftstück.
Von draußen sind Rufe des Willkommens zu hören: Blanche von Frankreich
ist in Sevilla eingetroffen. Wütend beschließt Maria, ihre Rechte zu
behaupten. Sie zieht ihren verwirrten Vater mit sich zum Palast.
2. SZENE
Der Hof hat sich zur Krönung Blanches zur Königin von Kastilien im
Thronsaal versammelt. Aus Rache an Maria hat Pedro beschlossen, die
-66-
Trauung vollziehen zu lassen, doch nun, im entscheidenden Moment,
kommen ihm Bedenken.
Trompeten verkünden das Erscheinen Blanches. Albuquerque, der sein Ziel
zum Greifen nah sieht, reicht Pedro gerade die Krone und fordert ihn auf, sie
seiner Braut aufzusetzen, als Maria, gefolgt von Ines, Luigi und Don Ruiz,
erscheint und sie ihm entreißt. Sie setzt sich die Krone selbst aufs Haupt und
verlangt, offiziell als Pedros Gemahlin anerkannt zu werden. Bestürzung macht
sich breit, Blanche schwinden die Sinne.
Pedro ist erschrocken über den Zustand, in dem Ruiz sich befindet, und
wird noch zorniger, als die Höflinge ihn vorwurfsvoll drängen, Maria zu
verhaften. Er ermannt sich und erklärt sie öffentlich zu seiner Gemahlin,
seiner Königin und der Frau seines Herzens.
Außer sich vor Freude wirft Maria sich in die Arme ihres Vaters. Aber
während Pedro, Ines und Luigi sie als ihre Königin hochleben lassen, tuscheln
die Höflinge über die Vergeltungsmaßnahmen, die Frankreich sicherlich
ergreifen wird.
-67-
LA TRAMA
La vicenda si svolge in Castiglia a metà del XIV secolo, nel periodo tra la fine
del regno di Alfonso XI e l’inizio di quello di Pietro I, passato alla storia con il
nome di “Pietro il Crudele”.
ATTO I
SCENA PRIMA
I fittavoli dei possedimenti dei Padilla portano fiori a Ines nel giorno delle sue
nozze con Don Luigi, Conte di Aguilar. Ines li ringrazia e, quando sono andati
via, viene raggiunta dalla sorella Maria, che medita su un sogno ricorrente che
la perseguita. Nel sogno un cherubino con una fascia reale l’accompagna
dall’altare al trono. Rendendosi conto delle ambizioni impossibili di sua
sorella, che non è di sangue reale, Ines inorridisce, ma non ha il tempo di
replicare: il suono dei corni da caccia annuncia l’arrivo del cugino, don Alfonso
di Pardo, e del suo amico Mendez, favorito del Principe Pedro. Maria confessa
a Ines di pensare sempre a Mendez durante il sogno.
Al loro ingresso, Alfonso e Mendez porgono i loro omaggi e poi tutti si
dirigono verso la cappella del castello per la cerimonia nuziale. Mendez coglie
l’opportunità per sussurrare a Maria che l’ama e chiederle se può sperare di
essere ricambiato. In maniera deliberatamente equivoca, la donna ripete
semplicemente l’esclamazione di don Luigi: “All’altare”.
-68-
SCENA SECONDA
È notte tarda e i festeggiamenti per le nozze si sono conclusi. Maria è sola nella
sua camera, quando entra di corsa Francisca, l’anziana governante, e le chiede
di nascondersi. Ha saputo che Mendez, sotto le cui mentite spoglie si cela Don
Pedro, sta per cercare di rapirla. Maria estrae una spada; poi, mentre Pedro si
arrampica sul balcone ed entra nella camera da letto, lo saluta con il suo vero
nome, lo accusa di volerla disonorare e cerca di uccidersi. Pedro riesce a
impedirglielo, dichiara che lei è sua moglie e giura che la sposerà. La donna gli
chiede di ripetere il giuramento sulla croce formata dall’impugnatura
dell’arma: il sogno del trono si è avverato e lei si abbandona tra le sue braccia.
Pedro l’avverte che per il momento le loro nozze devono rimanere segrete
perché la madre di lui intende obbligarlo a un’unione politica; poi la conduce
verso il balcone e il giardino, dove li attende Don Alfonso.
ATTO II
Sono passati due anni e Pedro è ormai re. È sposato con Maria, ma la donna
ha giurato di tenere segrete le nozze e abita nel palazzo di Siviglia ufficialmente
come sua amante.
I cortigiani presenti a uno splendido ricevimento da lei organizzato in onore
del re sono divisi. Alcuni elogiano la sua bellezza e la sua religiosità, altri la
considerano un ostacolo per i piani della regina madre e del primo ministro, il
duca Ramiro d’Albuquerque, i quali desiderano che Pedro sposi la principessa
francese Blanche, in procinto di arrivare a Siviglia.
Albuquerque fa entrare un vecchio: si tratta di don Ruiz di Padilla, padre di
Ines e Maria, convinto che Maria abbia disonorato la famiglia. Per vendicarsi
-69-
del re, lo scaltro Albuquerque riesce facilmente a provocarlo e farlo andare su
tutte le furie. In attesa del momento propizio, i due si allontanano
nel giardino.
Entra Maria, accompagnata da Ines: indossa un abito sfarzoso e porta un
ritratto di don Pedro appeso alla collana, mentre la sorella è in abbigliamento
modesto e semplice. Le lacrime di Maria tradiscono la sua infelicità a corte e
le due sorelle decidono di cercare insieme il padre per chiedergli perdono, al
termine della festa.
Mentre anche loro escono in giardino arriva Don Pedro, deciso a
dimenticare le preoccupazioni del regno e godersi i festeggiamenti. Don Ruiz,
rientrato allo stesso tempo, esprime il desiderio di vedere il re. Pedro si fa
riconoscere, ma il vecchio lo insulta, definendolo un vile furfante e gli scaglia
un guanto in volto. Ignaro dell’identità dell’uomo, Pedro ordina che il vecchio
sia ignominiosamente bastonato.
Maria e Ines rientrano solo quando Ruiz è già stato trascinato via, richiamate
dal trambusto. Per non rovinare la festa, Maria chiede pietà per il colpevole.
Quando Albuquerque rivela che si tratta di suo padre, rimane talmente
inorridita da strapparsi i gioielli che le ha donato Pedro e scagliarli ai suoi piedi.
Il re, dal canto suo, promette di riabilitare Ruiz. Ma Maria non l’ascolta.
Maledice il giorno in cui si è innamorata e corre via con Ines, in cerca
del padre.
ATTO III
SCENA PRIMA
Dal delirio d’ira e di lacrime in cui Maria e Ines l’hanno trovato, don Ruiz è
piombato in un profondo sonno e non si sveglia da tre giorni. Adesso però,
-70-
mentre le due sorelle e Don Luigi pregano per la sua salute, chiama Maria per
riabbracciarla ancora una volta prima di morire. Maria chiede di essere lasciata
sola con lui.
Il vecchio entra, indossando una lunga camicia da notte e Maria cade ai suoi
piedi. Ma si rende presto conto che la vergogna per le bastonate lo ha fatto
uscire di senno. Prova a farsi riconoscere, ma invano. In un estremo tentativo
di fargli recuperare il senno, anche se questo comporta infrangere il
giuramento di segretezza, estrae un documento e gli legge la solenne
dichiarazione di Pedro: è sua moglie. Ma a sentir nominare il sovrano e alla
vista della sua firma, Ruiz brucia il documento.
Dall’esterno si ode un coro di benvenuto: Blanche di Francia fa ingresso a
Siviglia. Furibonda, Maria decide di far valere i propri diritti. Trascinando con
sé Ruiz, in preda alla confusione, esce, diretta al palazzo.
SCENA SECONDA
Nella sala del trono la corte è riunita per l’incoronazione di Blanche, Regina di
Castiglia. Pedro ha deciso di accettare le nozze per vendicarsi di Maria, ma ora
che il momento è arrivato è tormentato dai dubbi.
Le trombe annunciano l’ingresso di Blanche. Albuquerque ormai ha quasi
raggiunto il suo obiettivo; consegna la corona a Pedro e gli chiede di poggiarla
sulla fronte della sposa quando all’improvviso entra Maria, seguita da Ines,
Don Luigi e Don Ruiz, e gliela strappa via, si incorona e dichiara di avere il
diritto di essere riconosciuta moglie di Pedro. Tra la costernazione generale,
Blanche sviene.
-71-
Pedro inorridisce nel vedere lo stato in cui è ormai ridotto Ruiz e la sua ira
cresce quando i cortigiani lo rimproverano di non aver arrestato Maria. Poi
all’improvviso si impone e proclama apertamente che la donna è sua moglie, la
sua regina e l’unico oggetto del suo amore.
Fuori di sé dalla gioia, Maria si getta tra le braccia del padre. Pedro, Ines e
Luigi salutano la loro regina, mentre i cortigiani mormorano e prevedono
rappresaglie da parte della Francia.
-72-
CD1
ACT ONE
SCENE 1
A Moorish-style courtyard in the castle of Padilla. Stairs lead to the apartments. Beyond
the terrace at the rear, the sea can be seen. Servants are preparing for the wedding feast of
Ines and Don Luigi. Voices are heard in the distance.
[1]
VILLAGERS
Di queste ridente pacifiche valli
Come, vassals, maids and shepherds
V’unite vassalli, donzelle, pastor!
Of these bright peaceful valleys!
feasting!
Venite al castelle v’è festa!
Come to the castle where there’s
joy and
Bel nodo s’appresta d’Imene e d’Amor
The bond of Hymen and Love will
be tied.
Villagers enter carrying garlands of flowers
Coppia eletta, noi t’offriamo
Honoured couple, chaste homage
Pur’omaggio in questi fior’.
We offer with these flowers.
Tutto esulta in queste arene
All here rejoice with you
Alla festa dell’Imene.
At this feast of Hymen.
Voti ardenti al cielo offriamo
We offer up to heaven our
ardent prayers
Che a te gioje alterni Amor.
That love may bring you a succession
of joys.
[2]
INES
Al vostro puro omaggio,
We are truly grateful for your homage
A que’ voti sinceri,
And your sincere prayers,
–73–
Oh! Come è grato, fidi vassalli,
Faithful servants,
E gode il nostro core.
And our hearts rejoice.
She turns smiling to Luigi, who takes her hand
Ah sì… tutto, tutto mel dice;
Ah yes… everything tells me so;
Tutto sperar mi fa, sarò felice.
Everything makes me hope
for happiness.
Eran già create in cielo
Le nostr’alme a equale ardore
Qui due fior’ su d’uno stelo,
Crebber esse per l’amore,
Innocente e cara speme
Questo amore lusingò… ah!
Ecco il ciel ne torna insieme,
E nostr’alme consolò.
[3]
Sola tue comprender puoi
Il supreme mio contento.
Il mio sguardo e non l’accento
A te esprimere lo può!
Giusto il cielo a tal contento
Così puro amor serbò… si!
Sposo mio, il cielo, il cielo
Le nostr’alme consolò
It was ordained in heaven
That the ardour of our hearts should
be equal.
As two flowers on one stem
They grew together in love,
Such innocent and dear hope
Nurtured this love… ah!
Now heaven brings us together
And has consoled our hearts.
Luigi embraces her
LUIGI
Only you can understand
The great joy I feel.
My eyes can tell you so
More than any words I can say.
VILLAGERS
Heaven is just to shower such
Happiness on faithful hearts!
INES
Heaven, my husband, heaven
Has brought solace to our souls…
–74–
[4]
Sorridi, oh sposo amato,
All’avvenir beato
Che vedo a noi serbato
Dal cielo e dall’amore…
Di gioje a tanto eccesso
Angusto io sento il petto!
Dividi, oh mio diletto,
L’ebbrezza del mio cor.
Smile, oh beloved husband,
At the blessed future
I see waiting for us
Granted by heaven and by love…
I feel so happy
I can barely contain it!
Share, oh my darling,
The rapture of my heart.
LUIGI
Qual avvenir beato
Dal ciel è noi serbato.
Io tutto già divido
L’ebbrezza del tuo cor.
Heaven has granted us
A blessed future, indeed.
I already share all
The rapture of your heart.
VILLAGERS
Qual avvenir beato
Heaven has granted you
Dal cielo è voi serbato!
A blessed future!
Felici dividiamo
Happily we share
L’ebbrezza di quel cor!
The rapture in your hearts!
[5]
LUIGI
Ad affretta vo sil sacro riti. Giunti
I go to hasten the holy ceremony.
You see
Vedi amici e congiunti.
That our friends and relations have
arrived.
Il cugin nostro, Alfonso,
Our cousin, Alfonso, is bringing
Condurrà della caccia il favorito
Mendez, the favourite of the Prince
Del Prence Mendez l’ospite gradito
From the hunt. He has always been
Altre fiate fra noi.
A welcome guest among us.
–75–
Lois McDonall,
INES
Ci onora.
Ah! Pochi istanti ancor…
Poi mia!
Per sempre... e così fia compita
Allora la mia felicità
He honours us.
Ah! Just a few moments more…
LUIGI
kissing her hand
Until you are mine!
INES
Forever… and thus will my
Happiness be complete.
SCENE II
Luigi goes into the castle. Dreamily, Ines looks after him, then turns to find her younger
sister, Maria, holding out a bouquet for her.
[6]
Diletta suora!
INES
Beloved sister!
MARIA
Abbracciami. Qui… senti.
Embrace me. Here… feel.
She holds Ines’ hand to her breast
Come il tuo balza questo core,
My heart is beating as fast as yours,
Intesi que’concenti, que’voti;
I was listening to those prayers
and vows;
Giubilava alla tua gioja. Assorta
How glad I was for your happiness.
Io, là pensava al mio sogno diletto…
I was alone here thinking of
my dream…
Ei mi promise un trono!
That promised me a throne!
–77–
INES
E tu ci pensi ancora?
You’re still thinking about that?
MARIA
Ei mi persegue ognora qual cenno
Del destino e ne accarezzo con
Voluttà il pensier. M’odi…
Un amore cinto di regal serto,
Me, dall’ara al suo trono guidava…
It haunts me constantly like a sign
Of destiny and I cherish the thought
Of it with ecstasy. Listen…
A cherub dressed with a royal sash,
Was leading me from the altar to
his throne…
Oh! what loving glances he gave me!
His hand trembled in mine.
The pathway was all strewn
with flowers;
Melodious choruses echoed
around us…
At the sound of heralds’ trumpets,
Amid the applause and the shouts
of the
People of the court, my name
was heard:
Hailed as Queen!…
Oh! quai dolci sguardi mi volgea!
Tremava la sua nella mia mano.
Era il sentier tutto sparso di fiori;
Echeggiavan melodiosi cori…
Delle araldi che trombre allo squillar;
Del popol, della corte fra i plausi
Fra gli evviva il nome mio s’udiva:
Salutata Regina!…
INES
Regina? Tu deliri!
[7]
Il più tenero suon d’arpa morente
Canto d’angelo in estasi rapito…
Queen? You are raving!
MARIA
The sweetest sound of a distant harp,
Or the song of an angel rapt
in ecstasy…
–78–
La voce istessa dell’amore cui
Or the voice of love itself as you yield
to it
Cedi non incanta, non agita e seduce
Does not enchant, or move, or
tempt me
Quanto quel nome di Regina!
As does the name Queen!
Io vedo quel trono ognor…
I can see that throne before me still…
Quella corona!
That crown!
The sound of hunting horns is heard
INES
Oh! Senti… senti!
Oh! Listen… listen!
Della caccia i segnali!
The hunting horns!
Arriveranno Alfonso e Mendez!
Alfonso and Mendez are on their way!
MARIA
Ah, Mendez! Mendez!
Ah, Mendez! Mendez!
Qual turbamento è il mio!
How disturbed I am!
INES
Quel Mendez t’ama.
Mendez loves you.
MARIA
Ah suora, l’amo anch’io…L’amo!
Ah, sister, I love him too…
I love him!
[8]
Ah! Non sai qual prestigio si cela
Ah! You don’t know what nobility
there is in
In quel giovin si altero, si vago
That proud, handsome man, I see
Veggo in esso parlante l’imago
In him the very image
Dell’amor che a me in sogno s’offri.
Of that love my dream promised me.
Ha uno sguardo, un si dolce
His glance and his sweet smile
leave my
–79–
Sorriso che al destino il mio core
S’abbandona… Egli cinto non è
Di corona, ma par nato per
Cingerla un di.
Heart vulnerable to fate…
He wears no crown, yet seems
Born to wear one
One day.
INES
Ah, no! Non t’illudere a sogno fallace.
Ah, no! Do not let a false dream
delude you.
Curb your ardent heart.
You are raving with ambition
and love.
And can only make yourself unhappy.
Frena l’ardente tuo core.
Tu deliri d’orgoglio, d’amore,
E ti rendi infelice così.
SCENE III
Francisca enters, followed by Don Luigi.
[9]
Don Alfonso di Pardo e il Conte
Mendez nel castello inoltraro!
Don Luigi ad accorglierli mosse.
FRANCISCA
Don Alfonso of Pardo and the Count
Mendez have entered the castle!
Don Luigi has gone to meet them.
INES
Maria!
Maria!
MARIA
Sorella! Come il cor si scosse!
Sister! How my heart is beating!
INES
Eccoli!
Here they are!
Don Alfonso and his friend, Count Mendez, enter the courtyard on horseback,
dismount, and approach the two sisters
–80–
ALFONSO
To this joyful wedding
I have hastened, dearest cousins…
And Mendez too.
PEDRO
Sì. anch’io vengo voti ad unir a
Yes, I want to offer my good wishes
Quei del mio fido Alfonso, oh bell’Ines.
Along with those of my good friend
Ed a voi… adorabil Maria. Quanto
Alfonso, fair Ines. And to you…
Anelavo questo istante. Ah, volava
Adorable Maria. How I’ve yearned
for
Già il mio core della gioja al
This moment. Ah, my heart flew
in advance
Soggiorno e dell’amore.
To this house of joy and love.
[10]
Lieto fra voi ritorno
Happily I return to you
Vostri piacer divido,
To share in your contentment,
Al ben pensier sorrido
And in the happiness
Di consolato amor.
Such love brings.
Di meritata gioja
Your hearts are full
Il vostro core è pieno
With well-deserved joy
Splende per me sereno
And make this beautiful day
Questo bel giorno ancor.
Even brighter for me.
INES/MARIA/LUIGI
Felice voi rivede
Padilla is happy to see you again
Padilla in questo giorno.
On this day.
Di gioja a voi soggiorno.
May this always be a place of
Esser ei possa ognor.
Joy for you.
Al vostro fortunato imene giulivo,
Accorro, oh dolci miei congiunti…
E Mendez pur.
–81–
ALFONSO/FRANCISCA
May such a beautiful day
Console each heart and prayer,
May the moments hasten
Which love desires.
PEDRO
Ah, sì… qual voce d’angelo
Ah, yes… like an angel’s voice
Che segna il mio contento...
That proclaims my happiness…
INES
Sorella!
Sister!
LUIGI
Ti calma!
Be calm!
PEDRO
Mi scese al cor l’accento
The words that announced
my happiness
Che gioja m’annunziò…
Descended into my heart…
LUIGI
Come il mio cor si scosse!
How my heart is beating!
PEDRO
Un solo è il voto mio…
I have only one wish…
Celeste ben desio!
I desire a heavenly treasure!
gazing ardently at Maria
Allora il più felice
Then I shall be
D’ogni mortal sarò
The happiest of men.
LUIGI
Ora al tempio moviam, diletti amici.
Now to the church, dear friends.
Consoli sì bel giorno
D’ogni alma i voti ardenti,
S’affrettino i momenti
Sperati dall’amor.
–82–
ALFONSO
Never has a knot been tied
Under happier auspices.
INES
E più lieti, se all’ara col
And it will be even happier,
dear sister,
Nostro gentil ospite, oh sorella
If you, with our noble guest, will
accompany me
Pronuba m’accompagni.
to the altar as my bridesmaid.
PEDRO
Di sì bella sorte ben pago
I am pleased and proud
Altero io sono.
With such a happy task.
As the group moves off Mendez takes Maria’s hand and they walk behind
MARIA
Io l’amo tanto, e felice
I love her so much and long
La mia suora io bramo.
for her to be happy.
PEDRO
E anch’io v’adoro, oh cara Maria
And I adore you, beloved Maria.
Sperar mi lice?
Is there a chance for me?
LUIGI
All’ara!
To the altar!
ALL
All’ara!
To the altar!
VILLAGERS
leaving
[11]
Oh coppia diletta! Benigna deh accetta
Happy couple! Deign to accept
our prayers
Mai con più lieti auspici
Nodo si strinse.
–83–
I voti… l’omaggio di fè, di candor.
And sincere homage of faith.
May heaven
Grant the wishes of those who
love you.
And fill your hearts with unending
joy.
Il ciel di chi t’ama secondi la brama.
Costanti le gioje alterni al tuo cor!
SCENE IV
Maria’s bedchamber in the castle. It is late at night after the wedding feast. Francisca lights
the candles and helps Maria undress, then kisses her goodnight and leaves the room. Maria
walks to the window and gazes at the moon.
[12]
MARIA
Diletta suora… Ella è felice e vede
Happy sister… She sees such a
Pinto di rose l’avvenire… E il mio?
Rosy future ahead… And mine?
E qual Mendez? Qual dio, o propizio,
And Mendez? What god, propitious
O fatal, quì lo condusse? Qual dai
Or fatal brought him here? How
Suoi modi appar denso mistero…
Mysterious his manner is…
Francisca bursts into the room
FRANCISCA
Ah! Signora.
Ah! My Lady.
MARIA
Francisca!
Francisca!
FRANCISCA
Ohimè, nefando tradimento!
Alas, what a wicked betrayal!
Celatevi… Rapirvi pel cerone
You must hide… There is a plot
Si tenta! Il guardiano del castel
To abduct you! The castle guard
Fu sedotto dall’oro o dal timore!
Has been bribed by gold of fear!
–84–
Fra l’ombre io tutto intesi…
Just now, in the shadows,
I overheard it…
MARIA
E il rapitore?
And the abductor?
FRANCISCA
Tremo in normarlo… è Don Pedro!
I tremble to name him… it is
Don Pedro!
MARIA
Chi?
Who?
FRANCISCA
Il figlio del re!
The son of the king!
MARIA
Del re?
Of the king?
FRANCISCA
Sì, sotto il nome ascoso
Yes, but using the false name,
Di quel Mendez.
Mendez.
MARIA
Ah! Mendez? Ei… la gioja de’
Ah! Mendez? Him… the joy of
Miei sogni! E destino fia dunque?
My dreams! Is this then my destiny?
FRANCISCA
Nel giardino d’incerti
I hear sounds of cautious steps
Passi odo rumor.
In the garden.
MARIA
Va!.. Taci!..
Go!.. Be silent!..
FRANCISCA
E sola?
But alone?
MARIA
Qual mai t’agita timore?
What are you afraid of?
–85–
Ho meco un ferro e de’ Padilla
Il core!
I have a dagger with me and
The heart of a Padilla!
SCENE V
She takes a dagger from a drawer. Francisca hesitates for a moment, then with a look of
exasperation, leaves the room. Maria positions herself by the windows, hidden by
the curtain.
[13]
MARIA
Ecco! Lanciàr le corde!
There! They have thrown a rope!
Si ascende!
Someone is climbing up!
Pedro climbs over the sill into the room but does not notice Mara standing behind him
with her dagger raised
PEDRO
Eccomi alfine nel cielo
Here I am at last in the heaven
A cui sospiro!
I sigh for!
MARIA
Don Pedro di Castiglia!
Don Pedro of Castile!
He turns around
PEDRO
Oh ciel! Che miro! Ah, Maria!
Heavens! What’s this! Ah, Maria!
MARIA
Non un sol passo!
Not another step!
PEDRO
Quel pugnal?
But why the dagger?
MARIA
Salva l’onore.
To save my honour.
–86–
PEDRO
Non temete, perdonate all’amore.
Have no fear, forgive my love.
MARIA
Oh, quale amore?
[14]
Core innocente e giovane
Contaminar credesti.
Come il tuo nome, infingere
Ardente amor sapesti,
E poi lasciar la vittima
Oh, what love?
You thought to take advantage
Of a young and innocent heart.
You knew how to feign love
As well as your name,
And then you would leave
your victim
Sobbing in disgrace.
But innocence has an angel
Who is always watching over her!
Believing you worthy of love
I would have loved you well.
But now that I see you for what
You are, I hate and despise you!
Fra lagrime al rossor.
Ma l’innocenza ha un angelo
Che veglia ognor su lei!
Degno d’amor credendoti,
Amato io ben t’avrei.
Or che la benda quarciasi
T’odia, ti spregia il cor!
PEDRO
Ah! No, mio ben! Non credere
Ah! No, beloved! Do not
give credence
To an innocent mistake.
I practised the deception… Ah,
forgive me,
As a result of loving too much!
As Mendez was truly tender,
So is the heart of the prince.
Calm yourself, my beautiful angel,
A un innocente errore.
L’inganno… Ah tu perdonami,
Finsi per troppo amore!
Quale di Mendez tenero,
Tale del prence è il cor.
Placati omi, bell’angelo,
–87–
Christian
du Plessis
Serena i mesti rai!
Banish that look from your eyes!
Tu sempre il dolce, l’unico
You will always be the sweet, the
Affetto mio sarai.
Only object of my affections.
Vita ridona a un misero…
Give life back to an unhappy man…
Vivi per lui d’amor.
Live for the love of him.
[15]
MARIA
Oh, mio padre! Tu lontano…
Oh, father! So far away…
Quando l’onta mia saprai,
When you hear of my shame,
Tu vendetta ne vorrai!
You will wish to avenge it!
E il tuo sangue forse… oh Dio!
And your blood perhaps… oh God!
Quel di lui che indegno..?
Or that of him who basely..?
Il mio, prima il mio si versi…
Mine, first mine should spill…
She goes to stab herself, but Pedro holds her
PEDRO
T’arresta! Sposa mia…
Stop! Be my wife…
MARIA
Ah!..
Ah!..
PEDRO
releasing her
Viva per me.
Live for me.
MARIA
Io… tua sposa?
I… your wife?
PEDRO
Si… il giuro!
Yes… I swear it!
MARIA
Il giuri?.. E a Dio lo ripeti sovra
You swear?.. Before God upon this
Questo symbol sacro della fè.
Sacred symbol of our faith, repeat it.
Grasping the dagger, she holds up the cross of the handle between them
–89–
PEDRO
Si! Lo giuro a Dio!
Yes! I swear before God!
MARIA
(Oh gioja!)
(What joy!)
PEDRO
E già l’alba… Don Alfonso
Là n’attende… Vieni.
It is dawn already… Don Alfonso
Is waiting for us… Come.
MARIA
(Al trono!)
[16]
A te, oh caro, m’abbandono
Sempre. Ah sempre mio tu sei!
(To the throne!)
To you, beloved, I give myself
Forever. Forever you are mine!
PEDRO
A me, oh cara, t’abbandono
Sempre. Ah sempre mai tu sei!
Si compì de’ voti miei
Il più tenero e fedel.
Ah, felice troppo io sono!
E delirio il mio contento!
Si… Rapito è tal momento
Ad un’estasi del ciel…
Ma… tu… se il re, Maria…
Oh beloved, give yourself to me
Forever. Forever you are mine!
MARIA/PEDRO
The most fervent and faithful of
my prayers
Has at last been answered.
Ah, I am too happy!
I am delirious with joy!
Yes… This moment brings
A heavenly ecstasy…
PEDRO
Concerned
But… you… what if the king,
Maria…
–90–
MARIA
Che mai t’agita?
What’s wrong?
PEDRO
Non sia or palese il nostro imene…
We must keep our marriage
a secret…
They want to force me into
another match.
Vonno impormi altre catene.
MARIA
Ma tu mio!
But you are mine!
PEDRO
Si!… e la tua fama?
Yes!… But your reputation?
MARIA
After a moment’s hesitation
Vedi quanto Maria t’ama!
See how much Maria loves you!
Tu per me sei l’universo.
You are the universe to me.
Fama e onor t’immolerò.
My honour and reputation lie
with you.
A te, oh caro, m’abbandono, ecc.
To you, beloved, I give myself, etc.
PEDRO
A me, oh cara, t’abbandona, ecc.
Oh beloved, give yourself to me, etc.
–91–
CD2
ACT TWO
SCENE I
A room in the palace in Seville given to Maria by Don Pedro, now King of Spain.
Through windows at the rear can be seen a splendid garden, where a party is in progress.
[1]
Nella reggia dell’amore,
Nel soggiorno del piacer,
Canti sciogli, trovatore!
Fate plausi, oh cavalier!
La Padilla celebrate,
Ella è l’astro di beltà.
Ma più l’alma n’esaltate
Sempre vôlta alla pietà.
Alla Spagna in civil guerra
Ella pace ridonò;
Ell’è un angelo che in terra
Dio pei miseri inviò.
Ma nemici, e pur tanti a lei sono
COURTIERS
Within this court of love,
This abode of pleasure,
Sing to us, troubadour!
Applaud him, cavaliers!
Toast La Padilla,
The star of beauty.
But rather praise her
For her compassion.
She brought back peace to a
Spain torn by civil war;
She is an angel sent to earth
by God to help the afflicted.
But enemies – and she has many
– their numbers
Che le accresce il fulgore del trono.
Increase as the throne shines
upon her.
La regina, il ministro geloso,
The queen mother, the jealous
–92–
Offron segni d’un fremito ascoso…
Dalla Senna, regal fidanzata
Bianca è già vêr Castiglia inviata.
Prime Minister, mask their anger…
From the Seine, the royal fiancée
Bianca is already on her way
to Castile.
Don Pedro cannot make a decision
He thinks only of the love of
La Padilla.
For her along he delays the moment
That promises glory for the country!
Watch out!.. Take care!..
Let us not talk about it
But keep our scorn to ourselves…
with disdain
This woman with her airs and graces
Is making her way towards
Pedro’s throne!
Silence!
This woman who is scarcely worthy
To kiss the dust from our feet!
Beware, if Pedro does not come to
his senses,
If disgrace should fall upon him,
If he tramples on the glory of
his ancestors,
If the spectre and the altar are defiled!
Beware! Pedro! Beware! Silence!
Toast La Padilla, etc.
Viva!
E indeciso Don Pedro tuttora
Di Padilla sol pensa all’amor.
Per lei sola ritarda quell’ora
Che promette alla patria splendor!
Tremi!.. Guai!..
Deh silenzio in suo tetto
Il dispetto freniamo nel cor…
Una vile di fango pasciuta
Dunque al trono di Pedro s’avvia!
Silenzio!
Una vile che appena potria
De’ piè nostri la polve baciar.
Guai se Pedro la mente non muta,
Se quest’onta sul capo gli gravi,
Se calpesta la gloria degli avi,
Se deturpa lo scettro e l’altar!
Guai! Pedro! Guai! Silenzo!
La Padilla celebrate, ecc.
Viva!
–93–
SCENE II
Ruiz enters in conversation with Ramiro.
[2]
Quale dopo tant’anni, oh Duca, mi
Rivedi. Sconosciuto, nel mistero
M’inoltro… Ecclisato è il
Sole dei Padilla è lacerato il cor
Di padre da una serpe orrenda.
Tacita, inseparabile, una larva
M’angoscia i dì, le notti mi funesta.
L’idea dell’onta mia, di quell’iniqua
RUIZ
After so many years, Duke, you see
Me thus. I appear here unrecognised,
Cloaked in mystery… The sun of
Padilla is eclipsed and a father’s
Heart is torn by an awful serpent.
A silent, tenacious ghost haunts
My days, embitters my nights.
The thought of my shame, of
that guilty
Woman I tremble to name…
My favourite!
She, the joy of her father… Traitress!
And my eternal shame.
Che fremo dì nomar… La prediletta!
La delizia colei del genitore…
Perfida!.. Ed or l’eterno mio rossore.
[3]
Il sentiero di mia vita
Sparso avea il ciel di fiori.
Mi cingeva il crin d’allori,
Era amato dal mio re.
E il suo indegno successore
Mi rapisce figlia e onore!
Questa, amico, è la mercede
Del mio sangue di mai fè.
(Più s’irriti!)
The path of my life was once
Strewn with flowers from heaven.
My brow was crowned with laurels
And I was beloved by my king.
Now his unworthy successor steals
Both my daughter and my honour!
This, my friend, is the thanks I
Receive for my blood and my fidelity.
RAMIRO
(May his anger increase!)
–94–
Vedi, ammira la sua reggia.
Look about you, admire her palace.
RUIZ
Reggia infame!
Ella festeggia Pedro amante…
Taci, taci! Non resisto al disonor!
Gronda sangue questo cor!
[4]
Una gioja ancor mi resta;
E l’estrema mio sorriso.
Fra i piaceri di lor festa…
Mia vendetta io compirò!
Sul reale seduttore
L’onta mia cader farò.
Si! Quell’indegno nel rossore
A’ miei piè cader vedrò!
Ah! Deh placa i fieri accenti!
Qui vi alcuno intender può.
(Più s’irriti!)
Vendetta!
Taci!
Infamous palace!
RAMIRO
She’s giving this party for her lover…
RUIZ
Enough! Enough! I cannot stand
the dishonour!
My heart is weeping blood!
There is only one joy left to me;
One last smile to enjoy.
Amid the pleasures of their fiesta…
I shall have my revenge!
On the head of that royal seducer
I shall heap my shame.
Yes! I shall see my faithless daughter
Fall at my feet in shame!
RAMIRO
Ah! Be careful what you say!
We can be overheard here.
(May his anger increase!)
RUIZ
Revenge!
RAMIRO
Be silent!
–95–
Graham Clark
SCENE III
Maria enters richly costumed. She is wearing a jewelled diadem and a pearl necklace from
which hangs a miniature of Don Pedro. She is followed by Ines, plainly dressed.
[5]
Ines! Mia dolce suora! Qui,
Lontano da una folla importuna.
E il tuo consore?..
MARIA
Ines! My beloved sister! Here,
Far from the insistent crowd.
Where is your husband?..
INES
Ei s’arrestò alle porte di tua reggia.
Non osa. Tu lo sai che sua vita è in
Periglio da che uccise l’indegno
Don Alfonso, complice reo di quel
Mendez. Don Pedro giurò vendetta
Dello spento amico.
Waiting at the door of your palace.
He dares not to enter. You know his
Life is in danger since he killed
Don Alfonso, that guilty accomplice of
Mendez. Don Pedro swore vengeance
For his dead friend.
MARIA
Il re gli perdonò.
The king has pardoned him.
INES
Come?..
What?..
MARIA
Il tuo sposo succeed al capitano
Delle Guardie Reali.
Your husband is to be made captain
Of the Royal Guards.
INES
Embracing Maria
Ognor la mia generosa Maria…
Ever my generous Maria…
MARIA
Dimmi… Ah, non oso…
Tell me… Ah, dare I ask…
–97–
E mio padre?..
My father?..
INES
Compreso nel perdon che ottenesti
A’ reali parenti ch’ei seguia.
Nella rivolta, ritornò.
He was included in the pardon you
Obtained for the royal relations he
Supported in the revolt, and
has returned.
MARIA
Parlasti a lui… di me?
Did you speak to him… about me?
INES
Parlai. Piansi… ma!..
Yes. I wept too… but!..
MARIA
Oh Dio! T’intendo. Oh, padre mio,
Sei vendicato già…
Oh God! I understand. Oh, father,
You have been avenged…
INES
Maria, che veggo! Una lagrima!
Maria, what do I see! A tear!
MARIA
E quante, sola, non confortata
How many, alone and without
comfort
I have shed…
Io ne versai…
INES
Tu sei dunque infelice?
You are unhappy then?
MARIA
Nell’ ambito splendore d’una corte,
In braccio dell’amore, ho in cor
La morte…
[6]
A figlia incauta di reo trascorso
Il cielo vindice manda il rimorso,
In love’s embrace, in the coveted
Splendours of the court,
I have death in my heart…
To a daughter, guilty of error,
Heaven in retribution sends
–98–
me remorse
And the memory of lost innocence…
E la memoria di suo candor…
INES
Ah! Tu la delizia del padre allor.
Ah! You were our father’s delight.
MARIA
Quel padre in lagrime s’affaccia:
D’onta nel fremito ei mi minaccia.
Par che una folgore m’annienti allor.
That father appears in tears before me:
In a shudder of shame he threatens me.
It feels as if a thunderbolt were
annihilating me.
Ah, my blind love has cost too much…
Ah, troppo costami un cieco amor…
INES
Oh, trista e misera è ben tua sorte.
Ah, your fate is indeed sad
and wretched.
Bagni di lagrime vili ritorte,
You bathe with tears vile bonds
which you
Che non puoi sciogliere, e baci ognor.
Cannot break and yet you continue
your kisses.
Del tuo destino quest’è l’orror.
This is the horror of your fate.
They embrace as Maria sobs on Ines’ shoulder
MARIA
Toglimi a estrema orribil tema…
Help me through this awful fear…
Di… Nel furore di sua vendetta…
Tell me… In his vengeful fury…
Dal geniore fui maledetta?
Did father curse me?
INES
In suo trasporto all’anatema
In his uncontrolled anger his lips
Sciogleva il labbro, io lo baciai…
Began to speak against you, but
I kissed
–99–
Pronuppe in pianto… io lo calmai,
Him… he burst into tears… I calmed
him,
I still hope he will forgive you.
Il suo perdono io spero ancor.
MARIA
Ah! Grazie, oh Dio consolator!
Ines… verderlo.
Ah! Thank God for this consolation!
Ines… I want to see him.
INES
E vuoi…
You want to…
MARIA
Prostrarmi a’ piedi suoi…
To fall on my knees before him…
INES
Fia vero? E quando?
You mean it? When?
MARIA
Attendimi, dopo la festa.
Wait for me, after the party.
[7]
MARIA/INES
Ah si, suora! Ah!..
Ah yes, sister! Ah!..
Di pace a noi bell’iride
May peace come to us as a rainbow
Brilla dal ciel sereno,
Glows in the serene sky,
Conforta omai quest’anima.
And brings us comfort.
Dal lungo sospirar,
After so much suffering,
Di pure gioje ai palpiti
May our hearts be glad
Ritorni il cor nel seno,
Once again, and may heaven
E il ciel vorrà sorriderci,
Smile on us again and
E i voti secondar!
Answer our prayers!
The sound of a band is heard
INES
Qual suon?
What is that?
–100–
MARIA
T’accheta, annunziano le
Trombe il re
Don’t worry, they’re announcing
The arrival of the king.
INES
Ah! Maria!
Ah! Maria!
MARIA
Non dubitar, abbracciami,
Fissa è la sorte mia.
Have no doubts, embrace me,
My destiny is decided.
INES
Degna di noi, degna di te?
Worthy of us, worthy of you?
MARIA
Si!
Yes!
INES
Dopo la festa?
After the party?
MARIA
Voliam del padre al piè.
Di pace a noi bell’iride, ecc.
Let’s run to our father.
May peace come to us, etc.
SCENE IV
Maria leads Ines through a door at the side as Pedro enters talking with Ramiro.
[8]
Alla regina madre, oh Duca,
Rispondete che domani a lei
Mi recherò.
PEDRO
Inform the queen mother, oh Duke,
That I will attend her
Tomorrow.
RAMIRO
Nuovi son guinti messi da Francia.
New messengers from France
have arrived.
–101–
Della Jones
PEDRO
How you pester me! We’ll
hear them…
Andate intanto, e riedete…
Leave me alone now, come
back later…
Ramiro leaves, Pedro searches for Maria
Oh, Maria… Mi richiami alla gioja!
Oh, Maria… You summon me back
to joy!
Ruiz enters and moves through the crowd
RUIZ
(Egli là fia.)
(He will be here.)
NOBLEMEN
Ma chi s’inoltra? Vecchio ignoto
Who is that? That strange old man
Altero agli atti…?
With such proud bearing…?
RUIZ
Cavalieri, in questa giovin corte
Gentlemen, to this youthful court
I come
Giungo stranier, desio vedere il re.
As a stranger, and wish to see the king.
NOBLEMEN
T’avanza!
Come forward!
RUIZ
Qual?..
Which?..
PEDRO
Son io.
It is I.
RUIZ
Voi… Don Pedro?
You are Don Pedro?
E quanto importuni! Li udremo…
–103–
PEDRO
Che bramate? A che in me così
What do you want? And why do you
Il guardo fissate?
Stare at me like that?
[9]
RUIZ
Io lo vedo alla fin quest’augusto,
At last I behold this august man,
Degno figlio d’Alfonso il re giusto.
Worthy son of the just Alfonso.
Degli oppressi ecco il forte sostegno,
Here is the champion of the
oppressed,
La speranza, l’orgoglio del regno!
The hope and pride of the kingdom!
To the noblemen
Se d’un Dio sulla terra è l’imago,
If he is God’s representative on earth,
Vendicarmi egli deve e lo può.
He can and must avenge me.
NOBLEMEN
(Quali accenti…)
(Such strange words…)
PEDRO
Don Pedro sa come si punisca.
Don Pedro knows how to punish.
Chi siete? Qual nome?
Who are you? What is your name?
RUIZ
Il mio nome? Più nome non ho!
My name? I no longer have one!
PEDRO
Qual parlar?
What do you mean?
RUIZ
Ma so il vostro e posso
But I know yours and can remind you
Rammentarvelo… oh re!
Of it… oh king!
PEDRO
Il nome mio?
My name?
In Castiglia v’ha un sol che l’ignori?
Is there anyone in Castile who does
not
–104–
Il mio nome è ‘Flagello dei Mori’.
Know it? My name is ‘Scourge of
the Moors’.
Ask the world and you will hear
of Pedro’s
Bravery told in awe!
Only cowards, afraid of me,
Call me a cruel king.
Chiedi all’orbe e di Pedro il valore
Udrai l’orbe stupito narrar!
Solo i vili, cui sono terrore,
Me crudele fra i regi nomar.
RUIZ
Pure il nome che solo vi spetta…
Tal non è.
Yet the name you deserve…
Is not that.
PEDRO
Qual fia dunque?.. Parlate!
What might it be then? Speak!
RUIZ
Vile!.. Infame!
Coward!.. Villain!
PEDRO
Tant’osi..?
You dare..?
NOBLEMEN
Drawing their swords
Vendetta!
Vengeance!
RUIZ
Oh qual nobil furor! Vi calmate.
Oh such noble fury! Calm down.
Tante braccia a scavare una tomba!
So many arms to dig one grave!
Sono inerme, alti prodi, mirate.
See, valiant warriors, I am unarmed.
La mia spada alle soglie deposi…
I left my sword at the door…
PEDRO
E qui osasti…
You have dared to…
RUIZ
E più ancora oserò!
And will dare much more!
–105–
Dell’oltraggio la macchia nefanda,
Vuol che il sangue d’un vile si spanda.
Re! S’hai core, una gelida mano
T’offre il guanto!
Una spada all’insano!
S’uccida!
Oh mia gioja!
Vendetta farò!
S’uccida!
The black stain of an outrage
Demands a coward’s blood.
King! If you have the courage, the
hand of an
Old man offers you this gauntlet!
He throws his glove in Pedro’s face
PEDRO
Give the madman a sword!
NOBLEMEN
Let him die!
RUIZ
Oh joy!
PEDRO
I’ll have my revenge for this!
NOBLEMEN
seizing Ruiz
Let him die!
PEDRO
No! A sword!
No! Una spada!
[10]
Sovra il vil che m’ha insultato
Tutto irrompa il mio furore!
Questo brando nel tuo core
Colpi a colpi addoppierà!
Ti vedrò cader spirante,
N’è placarmi tu potrai…
Senza prece e tomba, errante
Il tuo cenere n’andrà!
All my wrath will fall upon
This wretch who has insulted me!
This sword will rain
Blow upon blow to his heart!
I shall see you fall dying,
You cannot placate me now…
Your ashes will be scattered
Without a tomb, without a prayer!
–106–
RUIZ
All’orchè dal ciel guidato
Il mio brando punitore,
Nel ferir quell’empio core
La sua rabbia spegnerà,
Solo allor dirò il mio nome;
Nell’undirlo agghiaccerai!
Sulle fulgide tue chiome
Onta eternal allor cadrà.
La tua vita è sacra al regno!..
Noi punir saprem l’indegno!
Ei morrà…
Ma non insulto! Lava or tu,
Se il puoi, l’insulto…
Sciagurato! Sien le verghe
Il supplizio del demente!
Vile! Un ferro tu paventi?
Date un ferro!
Olà!
E la folgore del cielo
When my avenging blade,
Guided by heaven,
Expands its anger as it pierces
Your evil heart, only then
Will I tell you my name;
You will freeze when you hear it!
For then eternal shame will
Bow your head.
NOBLEMEN
to Pedro
Your life is sacred to this realm!..
It is for us to punish this offender!
He will die…
RUIZ
But not unavenged! Wash away
The insult, if you can…
PEDRO
Wretch! Let the bastinado be
This madman’s punishment!
RUIZ
Coward! Does a sword frighten you?
A weapon!
PEDRO
calling the guards
Take him!
RUIZ
Why does not heaven’s lightening
–107–
Te primiero non colpisce;
Ed ancora non punisce
De’ regnanti il disonor?
Strike you down?
Why does it not yet punish
This man who brings disgrace
on kings?
Go, this soul is greater
Than your barbarous revenge.
May your life be cursed
With infamy and shame…
Va, quest’anima è maggiore
Di tua barbara vendetta.
Sia tua vita maledetta
Nell’infamia, nel rossor…
PEDRO
L’ira già d’un rege offeso
Se tu piomba e ti colpisce…
Sempre il cielo ai re s’unisce
Contro i vili, traditor.
Sol per piangere vivrai,
Su quell’onta che t’aspetta.
Tu vorrai dal ciel vendetta
Ma fia sordo il ciel allor!
Now let the wrath of an offended
Monarch strike you down…
Heaven always sides with kings
Against cowards and traitors.
You will live only to weep
For the disgrace that awaits you.
PEDRO/NOBLEMEN
You will ask heaven for revenge
But heaven will be deaf to you!
SCENE VI
Ruiz is dragged, raving, though a door. Maria enters with Inez. Both are distraught.
[11]
Vada, soffra quel protervo
Degna pena a tanto ardire!
De’ piaceri ch’ha turbato
Ora tornisi a gioire.
NOBLEMEN
Go, let the impudent fellow suffer
Punishment for his audacity!
PEDRO
Now let us return to the pleasures
He interrupted.
–108–
COURTIERS
Here she is, the queen
Of the fiesta!
PEDRO
Maria!..
Maria!..
MARIA
Mio sire, odo atroce grida intorno;
My lord, I heard a terrible cry in here;
Chi funesta un sì bel giorno?
Who is it that spoils such a happy day?
A quei mesti lunghi gemiti
Hearing such anguished cries
Agghiacciarmi. Intesi il cor…
Freezes my heart…
Grazia chiedo!
I beg pardon for him!
INES
Grazia, grazia!
Please pardon him!
PEDRO
Un veglio altero sconosciuto…
An unknown, conceited old man…
Tu non sai…
You cannot know…
MARIA/INES
Ve ne prego!
I beg you!
RAMIRO
Tardi omai, figlia incauta, per tuo
It is too late, incautious daughter, for
Padre la pietà ti parla in cor.
Your heart to speak of pity for your
father.
ALL
Cielo!
Heavens!
RAMIRO
Troppo tardi.
Too late.
MARIA/INES
Padre?.. Che mai dice?
Father?.. What are you saying?
Della festa la regina,
Ecco a noi!
–109–
PEDRO
Him!
RAMIRO
Egli è vittima infelice di supplizio
He is the unhappy victim of a
Infame e rio…
Cruel, infamous punishment…
MARIA/INES
Oh, padre mio!
Oh, my father!
PEDRO
(Che mai feci in mio furor?)
(What have I done in my anger?)
MARIA
Pedro, al suol le luci hai fisse…
Pedro, you fix your eyes on
the floor…
Dunque il vero? Il vero ei disse?
Is it true then? Does he tell the truth?
PEDRO
Nol conobbi… e m’insultava…
I didn’t know him… he insulted me…
[12]
MARIA
Mio padre?..
My father?..
PEDRO
Si…
Yes…
MARIA
Mio padre! Sorella… il padre!
Father! Sister… our father!
PEDRO
Maria!
Maria!
MARIA
Todo ancor?
Do I still listen to you?
Ah! Scatena sul mio capo
Ah! Hurl down upon me,
Giusto Dio, la tua vendetta!
Just God, all your wrath!
A me sola, a me s’aspetta
For me alone such infamy
Egli!
–110–
Tanta infamia e tanto orror.
Da mio padre flagellato,
No perdon sperar non lice…
Già la figlia ei maledice.
Ah! Ch’io moro di dolor…
And horror waits.
No pardon can be expected
From my father, once he is beaten…
Already he is cursing his daughter.
Ah! I shall die of grief…
INES
to Pedro
Maledetto sia quel giorno
Che ti vide, e a te cedea!
Obbliava per te rea cielo,
Fama e genitor!
Io vendetta invoco a Dio
Del suo pianto, del mio duolo…
Sien tuoi giorni un giorno solo
Di rimorso e di terror!
Cursed be the day when she
Met you and yielded to you!
For you she has given up heaven,
Reputation and father!
I invoke God to avenge her tears
And my sorrow…
May the rest of your days
Be filled with terrible remorse!
PEDRO
Calma, calma que’ trasporti…
M’acciecava estremo sdegno.
Il tuo padre del mio regno
Torni, torni al primi onor…
E mentr’io gl’insulti obblio
Tu dimentica il furor.
Pagherei col sangue mio
Quest’istante di dolor…
Fosco già tramonta il giorno
De’ piaceri, della festa;
Calm your ravings…
Extreme anger blinded me.
Your father shall return to
The highest honours of my realm…
As I forget his insults to me
I ask you to forgive my anger.
I would give my blood to
Pay for this unhappy moment…
RAMIRO
This day of pleasures and festivity
Sinks into gloom;
–111–
E vicenda sì funesta
Presagita aveva il cor…
I knew in my heart
It would end this way…
COURTIERS
Fosco già tramonta il giorno
This day of pleasures and festivity
De’ piaceri, della festa;
Sinks into gloom;
A vicenda sì funesta
The heart beats uncertainly
Ansio pende incerto il cor.
At this event.
MARIA
Ah, sorella! Vieni!
Ah, sister! Come!
She strips off her jewels and hurls them at Pedro’s feet
Ite a terra, infausti doni
To the dust I hurl these
Dell’amore d’un tiranno!
Treacherous gifts of a tyrant’s love!
Rie memore a me d’affanno,
Bitter memories of torment,
Pegni vili di rossor!
Vile emblems of shame!
Io ti fuggo o rio soggiorno
I am leaving this hateful abode
Dell’infamia e del terror.
Of infamy and of terror.
Ah si! Vieni! Andiam!
Ah, yes! Come! Let’s go!
INES
Meco vieni, oh sventurata;
Come away, unfortunate girl;
L’egro padre assisterem.
Let us go to assist our father.
Ah! Maledetto sia quel giorno
Ah! Cursed be the day
Che per lui t’accese amor!
You were inflamed by love for him!
Ah fuggi! Fuggi! Ah, sorella,
Ah, leave! Leave! Ah, sister,
Fuggi dal soggiorno del terror.
Leave this abode of terror.
Maria and Ines run from the room as the courtiers stand bewildered, looking
at the stunned Pedro
–112–
Ian Caley
CD3
ACT THREE
SCENE I
Don Luigi’s modest apartments. Maria, simply dressed, paces anxiously in front of a closed
chamber door.
[1]
MARIA
E quiete profonda… Fors’ei riposa
It’s so quiet in there… Maybe he’s
Ancora… Povero padre mio! E
Still resting… Poor father! Perhaps
Scorda intanto i suoi dolor. Non io
He’s forgotten his sorrow for a while.
Istante di riposo giungo a trovar…
I cannot rest… but do I deserve any...
E il merito?.. Non oso là inoltrar…
I dare not go in there…
Ebben?
Well?
Ines enters from the chamber, holding a towel. Luigi follows in his shirt sleeves, closing
the door behind him
INES
Lo stesso… dal furibondo eccesso
The same… though he has recovered
Che minacciò rapircelo ei rinvenne.
From that raging fever that
threatened
Dopo lungo sopor, calmato appieno.
To take him from us.
After a long sleep
Il suo viso è sereno.
He is quiet. His face is serene.
MARIA
Grazie, pietoso Iddio!
Thank you, merciful God!
–114–
LUIGI
Ma un accento ancora non ha
Profferto da tre giorni.
But it has been three days now
He has not uttered a word.
MARIA
E pensi che s’io mi presentassi…
Do you think that if I went
in, repentant
And tearful at his feet, he would be
Harsh with me?
A’ piedi suoi pentita, fra le lagrime,
Feroce ei mi sarebbe?
[2]
RUIZ
from behind the door
Oh figlia!..
Oh daughter!..
MARIA
Ah!.. La sua voce… L’udiste?
Ah!.. His voice… Did you hear him?
INES
E col tuo nome agli accenti,
And with your name
L’ha sciolta…
He has broken his silence…
MARIA
Col mio?.. Lo credi?
Mine?.. Do you think so?
RUIZ
Ove sei, figlia?
Where are you, daughter?
INES
Ascolta.
Listen.
RUIZ
Sento ad ogn’ora estinguersi
I feel my sad life ebbing with
La vita mia dolente…
Each passing hour…
MARIA
Per me lamenta il misero.
The poor man laments because of me.
–115–
RUIZ
Fa che una volta stringere…
Let me hold you once more…
INES
Ei ti perdono e chiama.
He pardons and calls for you.
RUIZ
Figlia… ti possa al cor!
Daughter… hold you to my heart!
MARIA
Le sue ginocchia stringere…
I will throw myself at his feet…
RUIZ
D’un bacio tuo confortisi…
With one kiss…
MARIA
Perdon…
Forgive me…
RUIZ
Il genitor morente…
Let your dying father be
comforted…
INES
L’odi? Ancor t’ama.
Do you hear him? He still loves you.
RUIZ
E in pace spiri l’anima
Che visse nel dolor…
Let this soul that lived in sorrow
Expire in peace…
MARIA
Ah, padre mio, perdono!
Ah, father, forgive me!
INES
Ancor t’ama.
He still loves you…
MARIA
Perdon… perdon…
Forgive me… forgive me…
–116–
RUIZ
Ah, sì, vieni…
Ah, yes, come…
MARIA/INES/LUIGI
Ah, tu per noi dei vivere,
You must live, father, for us
Padre, felice ancor.
And be happy again.
MARIA
Tace!..
He is silent!..
LUIGI
Si scosse…
He’s moving…
INES
A questa parte ei mouve…
He’s coming in here…
MARIA
Oh! Come tremo!
Oh! How I’m trembling!
INES
Vuoi ch’io teco resti?
Shall I stay with you?
MARIA
No… sola mi lasciate…
No… leave me alone…
In tal punto solenne, che decide
In this solemn moment which will
Per sempre il destin mio, fra
Forever decide my fate, only God
Il padre e me non deve star che Iddio.
Should stand between me and
my father.
Ines and Luigi leave
SCENE II
Ruiz enters from the chamber, bandaged and weak. Maria falls sobbing at his feet.
[3]
Su quella fronte dal dolor chinata,
MARIA
Oh that brow, bowed in sorrow,
–117–
Nelle pupille sue torbide e meste,
Minacciosa vegg’io l’ira celeste…
And in those troubled eyes, I see
The wrath of heaven…
RUIZ
A’ piedi miei? V’alzate. Che volete?..
At my feet? Rise. What do you
want?..
MARIA
Perdono…
Forgiveness…
RUIZ
Voi?
You?
MARIA
Qual mi credete io rea non sono…
I am not as guilty as you
believed me…
RUIZ
Chi ti parlò di verghe?.. Che?..
Battuto?.. Io?.. Non’è ver.
Who spoke of rods?.. What?..
Beaten?.. I?.. It isn’t true.
MARIA
Padre! Che ascolto? Quale sguardo!
Father! What do I hear? Such a look!
RUIZ
Prence codardo! In tal modo ti
Vendichi? Vuoi sangue?..
Vieni! Te l’offro!
Cowardly prince! You avenge yourself
Thus? Do you want blood?..
Come then! I offer it to you!
MARIA
Oh ciel!
Oh heavens!
RUIZ
Timor ti prende?
Are you afraid?
MARIA
Padre, son io!
Father, it is I!
–118–
RUIZ
T’avanza!
Come forward!
MARIA
Non m’intende.
He doesn’t hear me.
RUIZ
Oh gioja, a vil timore il coraggio
Succede… Squillin le trombe,
Cavalierei! A voi, oh giudici del
Campo… è Dio con noi…
Good, courage overcomes your
Cowardly fear… Sound the trumpets
Knights! Judges of the jousting field,
Do your duty… and God be with us…
MARIA
Misero!
Poor man!
RUIZ
Ah! chi m’afferra? Indietro! Aita!
Ah! Who holds me! Stand off! Help!
MARIA
E fia dunque smarrita per sempre
Sua ragion! Oh fa, Grand Dio, che
Un lampo di tua luce a lui sorrida
Can it be that he has permanently
Lost his reason? Oh Great God, send
A ray of your light to shine upon
him so
That he recognise me and then
kills me!
Mi riconosca ancora e poi m’uccida!
[4]
Padre, padre… Oh rio dolore…
Ravvisate vostra figlia…
Deh calmate quel furore,
Serenate omai le ciglia.
Si riapra il vostro core
Alla voce sua gemente…
Vendicatevi! Ah, uccidetela…
Father, father… Oh bitter sorrow…
Remember your daughter…
Calm your fury,
Smooth your brow.
Reopen your heart
To this agonised voice…
Revenge yourself! Kill her then,
–119–
Ma la misera è innocente.
Though she is miserable
and innocent.
She lived with her shame, it’s true,
But she had sworn a secret.
My heart yielded to love;
But remained faithful to honour…
Yes, I swear to God,
I am worthy of you still!
Sopportò l’obbrobrio, è vero,
Ma giurato avea un misero.
All’amor cede il cor mio;
Ma fedel restò all’onor…
Si, lo giuro innanzi a Dio,
Di voi degna io sono ancor!
RUIZ
Com’è bella… Il sai, si bella
Era un dì mia figlia anch’ella.
Tale il guardo… Sin la voce
Così dolce. La ricordo
Allorchè in soave accordo,
Sul lìuto armonioso,
Mi cantava l’amoroso
D’Andalusia pescator…
How beautiful… You know,
My daughter was just as lovely once.
Her features were such… Even her
Voice was as beautiful. I remember
It as she played the lute,
And sang me
A love song
Of an Andalusian fisherman…
MARIA
Padre!
Father!
[5]
RUIZ
Attendi! Eccola… Senti…
Wait! I remember it… Listen...
‘Della sera la brezza leggera
‘The breezes of evening are wafting,
Spira, oh Rita, m’invita sull’onda.
Oh Rita, calling me to the waves.
A me pensa… a me… a me…’
Think of me… of me… of me…’
He cannot remember the words
MARIA
Oh cielo! S’io potessi…
Oh heavens! If I could only…
‘…Della sera la brezza leggera
‘…The breezes of evening
–120–
are wafting,
Oh Rita, calling me to the waves.
Think of me and send a sigh from
the shore,
Cast me a glance of love…’
Spira, oh Rita, m’invita sull’onda.
A me pensa e un sospir dalla sponda,
Uno sguardo a me volgi d’amor…’
RUIZ
Si, così… Prosegui…
Yes, that’s it…Go on…
MARIA
‘Di là, oh cara, udrai tenera l’eco…’
‘From there, beloved, you will hear a
tender echo…’
My heart is breaking!..
Scoppia il cor!..
RUIZ
Piangi! Perchè tu piangi?
Ah, se ti restan lagrime
Misera appien non sei,
Ed io, che vorrei piangere.
Le mie s’inardir.
Sappi… Arrossisco in dirtelo,
Io l’amo ognor colei, ah,
Questo amor… delirio!..
Perdonami, grand Dio!
Più amarla non degg’io,
No! Se l’ho da maledir…
Tears! Why are you crying?
Ah, if you still have tears
You are not as wretched as I
Who would like to weep.
All mine have dried up.
Listen… I blush to tell you,
But I still love that girl, ah,
This love… madness!..
Forgive me, dear Lord!
I must not love her any more,
No! Not if I have to curse her…
MARIA
Amare son le lagrime
Serbate a’ figli rei…
E mai qual basti piangere
Bitter are the tears
Reserved for guilty children…
I will never be able to shed
–121–
enough tears
Over my transgression…
Potrò sul mio fallir…
RUIZ
No, no, non piangere!
No, no, do not cry!
MARIA
Sempre a me caro, credilo,
Or più che mai lo sei…
Believe me, beloved, you will
Always be dear to me, now more
than ever…
(And it is I who am the cause
Of his madness…)
(E dì quel suo delirio
La rea cagion son io…)
RUIZ
Quella voce! Lo ricordo!
That voice! I know it!
MARIA
M’uccidi, oh padre mio,
Ma non mi maledir!
[6]
Prova si tenti estrema…
Kill me then, oh father,
But do not curse me!
Let me try one last desperate
attempt…
She removes a parchment from her bodice
Leggete questo scritto.
Read this document.
Prova leal vi sia
It is legal proof
Dell’innocenza mia.
Of my innocence.
Io so che in palesarvela
I know that by making it known
to you
Tradisco un sacro giuro;
I betray a sacred oath;
Ma almen che il mio spergiuro
But if only by this betrayal
Vi possa, (oh Dio!) calmar.
I may, (oh God!) calm you.
–122–
RUIZ
Che foglio è quello?
What is this document?
MARIA
Udite: ‘Attesto avanti Iddio che
Giurai la mia fede all’onorata
Donna Maria Padilla, mia
Consorte legitima.’ Segnato qui,
Vedete, ‘Don Pedro di Castiglia’.
Listen: I attest before God that
I swore my faith to the honourable
Donna Maria Padilla, my
Legitimate consort.’ It is signed here,
Look, ‘Don Pedro of Castile’.
RUIZ
Don Pedro hai pronunziato?
Did you say Don Pedro?
MARIA
Eccolo…
Here it is…
He snatches the document from her
RUIZ
Pedro? Ah, come? E foglio…
Pedro? Ah, how? His paper…
E cifre… E nome! Vorrei
His seal… His name! I should like
Scempio qui far del perfido!
To annihilate the faithless man!
He holds the document in the flame of the candles
MARIA
Le prove! I dritti mieli!..
The proof! My rights!..
She tries to snatch it from him
RUIZ
Lascia!.. Ogni rea memoria
Stop it!.. Let every guilty memory
D’amor, d’inganni e infamie
Of love, intrigue and shame be
Distruggasi così…
Destroyed so…
MARIA
Cielo…
Heavens…
–123–
Roderick Earle
RUIZ
Don Pedro, contento or sono!
Don Pedro, now I am happy!
MARIA
Ah! Padre…
Ah! Father…
RUIZ
Che volete? Che fate voi costi?
[7]
Uno sguardo, un detto ancora…
Per pietà non mi scacciate.
Vostra figlia che v’implora.
Che v’assista deh lasciate.
Se non calmo il vostro duolo,
Voglio almen con voi morir.
Ah! La pentita all’ora estrema
Vorrà il cielo benedir…
What do you want? What are you
doing here?
MARIA
Just one look, one word more…
For pity’s sake do not reject me.
It is your daughter imploring you.
Let me try to help you.
If I cannot calm your sorrow,
I want at least to die with you.
This penitent will bless heaven
At that final hour…
RUIZ
Ite omai… non vi conosco…
Leave now… I don’t know you…
La mia mente si smarrisce.
My mind wanders, my heart burns.
M’arde il core, il ciglio è fosco;
My head grows heavy; everything
Tutt’omai per me finisce.
Is now at an end for me.
Oh, lasciatemi qui solo…
Oh, leave me here alone…
Solo io voglio qui morir.
I wish to die here alone.
No, non tema, all’ora estrema
No, do not fear, at this last hour
Non sa un padre maledir…
A father is not able to curse…
Cannons are heard outside
–125–
TOWNSPEOPLE
Long live Bianca!.. the pride of
France!
Che Don Pedro a sua sposa innalzò!
Whom Don Pedro elevates as his
bride!
MARIA
Che mai sento! Quai grida!
What are they saying! Those shouts!
Oh furore! Bianca sposa?..
Oh fury! Bianca, his wife?
E soffrirlo dovrò? Bianca! No!
And must I suffer this? Bianca! No!
Vieni, oh padre! Non scacciarmi!
Come, father! Don’t turn me away!
Questa è l’ultima preghiera.
This is my last prayer.
Il mio pianto ti disarmi
Let my tears overcome your hostility
Ed avrai vendetta intera.
And you will have your full revenge.
La tua figlia no non trema
Your daughter does not tremble
All’aspetto del morir…
At the prospect of death…
La pentita all’ora estrema
At that final hour, this penitent
Vorrà il cielo benedir…
Will bless heaven…
RUIZ
Ah! Mi lasciate! No, qui voglio
Ah! Leave me alone! No, I want
Qui morir. No non tema, all’ora
To die here. No, do not fear, at that
Estrema, non sai il padre maledir.
Last hour a father is not able to curse.
Maria runs to the next room and returns with two cloaks, then pulling Ruiz after her,
she makes her way towards the street
Viva Bianca!.. di Francia l’onore!
–126–
SCENE IV
The throne room of the royal palace. Two magnificent staircases lead to the throne.
Courtiers, heralds, deputies of Castile and Leon in grand costume stand at attention. On
the balcony the royal band plays. Don Pedro, in royal robes, looks on.
[8]
COURTIERS
Come rosa che s’apre al mattino,
The noble bride appears as a rose,
E simile la sposa gentile.
Opening to the morning light.
Qual lo sposo non v’ha cavaliero
No cavalier outshines her bridegroom
Più prestante, nel ludo guerriero.
In the parade of knights.
Sfavillante, del nuovo destino,
Sparkling with her bright new
destiny,
Plaude il regno alla coppia regal.
The kingdom salutes the royal
couple.
[9]
PEDRO
Ora fatal, giungesti! Lo che di lei
The fatal hour has come! I, who
Vendicarmi credei… E l’amo or più
Thought to avenge myself on her…
Che mai! E il foglio che in quel giorno
Now I love her more than ever! The
Io le segnai, io gliel dovea. Rapito
Paper I signed for her that day, I
In ebbrezza ineffabile premiava
Owed to her. Entranced by ineffable
bliss,
Giusto allora il mio core la fè più
My heart justly rewarded the loveliest
Bella, il più sublime amore…
Faith, the most sublime love…
[10]
Ah! quello fu per me
Ah, that was a day
Di paradiso un dì.
Of paradise for me.
Un’anima non v’e
Not a soul knows
Che sappia amar così.
How to love like that.
–127–
Io la rammento allor
Che a me s’abbandonò,
Che tutto m’immolò.
Si… Amore, dovere, e onor…
Ah! più non verrà per me
D’amor, di gioje il dì.
Ah, un’anima non v’e
Che sappia amar così… Non v’e…
E l’ho tradita… cielo! E s’ella osasse,
I remember how
She abandoned herself to me,
Sacrificed all.
Yes... Love, duty and honour…
Ah! such a day of love and joy, for me
Will never come again.
Ah, there is no one
Who knows how to love like that…
And I betrayed her… God! Would
she dare,
Disperata… e ad altra adesso?
In desperation… now that I belong to
another?
The doors open and Count Ramiro approaches
RAMIRO
Sire, col suo real cortèo la regina
Sire, the queen is approaching with
S’avanza…
Her entourage…
PEDRO
Ricevasi.
We will receive her.
RAMIRO
(Io trionfo!)
(I have triumphed!)
PEDRO
(Alma, costanza!)
(Have courage, heart!)
[11]
NOBLEMEN
Vedi, la regina s’avanza!
See, the queen is advancing!
Il suo corteggio s’avanza…
The cortege is moving…
Quest nobil figlia di Francia
This noble daughter of France
S’è portata, portata la pace.
Brings peace with her. Yes,
–128–
Sì, la nobil figlia di Francia
S’è portata la pace con lei.
This noble daughter of France
Brings peace to the country.
PEDRO
Crudel venuta! Mio dolore.
Sì! All’altra sposo divenir.
Cruel arrival! What misery. Yes,
To become the husband of another.
NOBLEMEN
Basta guerra, sì, basta tema,
Enough of war, no more fear,
Di cielo l’ira calma già.
Heaven’s wrath is now calmed.
Un imene giammai più sacro di
There will never be a marriage of
Due sposi uniti sarà…
Husband and wife more sacred
than this…
PEDRO
Ah! Cor mio! Cessa il tuo pianto,
Ah! My heart! Cease your weeping,
L’accoglienza sia degna d’un re.
Let my reception of her be worthy of
a king.
[12]
Lasciar Maria, sempre adorata,
To leave Maria, adored forever,
Ah, patria mia, sorte fatal!
Ah, my country, you deal me a
sad fate!
Il ciel mi dona invan un trono,
Heaven grants me a throne in vain,
La Spagna aspetta mia morte ognor!
For Spain ever looks to my death!
Lasciar Maria, sempre adorata,
To leave Maria, adored forever,
Ah, patria mia, sorte fatal!
Ah, my country, it is a cruel fate!
NOBLEMEN
Squilla la tromba! Vieni, oh re!
Sound the trumpets! Come, oh king!
Accorri tosto giurar tua fè!
Proclaim your oath!
PEDRO
Fatal dovere mi fa tacere;
Fatal duty keeps me silent;
–129–
Il mondo intero mi guarderà.
The whole world is watching me.
Lasciar Maria, sempre adorata!
To leave Maria, adored forever!
Ah, patria mia! Sorte fatal!
Ah, my country! It is a cruel fate!
Ah, sì, la vita me fu rapita,
Ah, yes, life has been stolen from me,
Almen poss’io morir da re…
But at least let me die like a king…
Royal Guards, pages, French noblemen and ladies enter and ascend the staircase on the
left. The Queen Mother enters followed by the President and Marshal of Castile, each
carrying a cushion. On one rests a crown, on the other a sceptre. Now Bianca, dressed in
white, is escorted into the throne room.
Pedro takes her arm and leads her to the throne
[13]
PEDRO
Qual’astro novello, si puro, si bello,
What new star, so pure, so lovely,
Sull’Ebro scintilla di tanto fulgor?
Shines on the Ebro with such
brightness?
E l’astro di Bianca, è l’astro d’amor!
Every heart honours, adores you,
lovely star.
Diffonde le gioje tuo raggio vivace,
Everywhere your radiance spreads joy,
A te consolata sorride la pace…
And peace smiles happily upon you…
E l’aura nel molle più dolce suo spiro
The breeze, in its gentlest, sweetest
breath,
Or sembra sospiro di tenero amor.
Now seems a sign of tender love.
Bell’astro di Bianca, t’adora ogni cor.
Fair star of Bianca, every heart
adores you.
[14]
RAMIRO
Don Pedro, alto sovrano di Castiglia
Don Pedro, highest sovereign of
Castile
E Leone, a Bianca di Borbone, vostra
and Leon, crown the brow of your
bride,
–130–
Spose, della real corona cingete il
Bianca of Bourbon, with the royal
crown,
And may heaven bless you.
Fronte, e fausto il ciel vi sia.
SCENE V
Pedro rises and steps forward. Bianca kneels before him. The prime minister holds the
crown over her head. Suddenly, Maria enters, runs to the throne and addressing the
assembly, points accusingly at the crown.
MARIA
Fermate! Olà!.. Questa corona è mia!
Stop there!.. That crown is mine!
COURTIERS
Ah! La Padilla! Oh, eccesso!
Ah! La Padilla! Oh, what a scandal!
PEDRO
Maria!
Maria!
MARIA
Tu tremi adesso? Tremi?
You tremble now? You tremble?
PEDRO
Io fremo al tuo delitto.
I shudder at what you have done.
MARIA
Sostengo il mio diritto!
I uphold my right!
RAMIRO
Soldati! Si discacci!
Soldiers! Take her away!
MARIA
Sai tu con chi minacci?
Do you know whom you threaten?
[15]
Giurata innanzi a Dio…
It has been sworn before God…
La sposa sua son io!
I am his wife!
–131–
PEDRO
(Ah! Tutto è omai svelato…)
(Ah! All is now revealed…)
MARIA
Scacciar la sua regina
Who among you will dare
Di voi chi osar potrà?
Move against your queen?
She snatches the crown from the cushion and places it upon her own head.
Bianca faints.
LADIES
Vanne!
Leave this place!
PEDRO
Vedi che festi, incauta…
See what you have done,
bold woman…
COURTIERS
L’oltraggio soffresi!
Insufferable outrage!
Ines and Luigi approach with Ruiz
MARIA
Mira opra tua, spietato!
Behold your work, ruthless man!
COURTIERS
Quel vecchio egro…
That poor old man…
PEDRO
Ciel…
Heaven…
MARIA
Guardalo!
Look at him!
INES/LUIGI
Oh istante…
What a moment…
PEDRO
Traveggo?..
Am I seeing things?..
–132–
Alun Francis,
conductor
RUIZ
Ove son io?..
Where am I?..
PEDRO
E ver sarà?..
Ah, che sarà?..
Ravvisa la tua vittima.
Ragion per te ha smarrita.
Oh, ciel!
Chiama la figlia in lagrime
Dolente genitor…
[16]
Ah! Sento ad ogn’ora estinguersi
La vita mia dolente…
Vien che una volta stringere
Figlia, ti possa al cor…
D’un bacio tuo confortisi
Il genitor morente
E in pace spiri l’anima
Che visse nel dolor.
Ah, sì, sulla trista vittima
Il ciglio alzar non oso…
De’ giusti suoi rimproveri
Sento la forza al cor
Can this be happening?
COURTIERS
What is happening?..
MARIA
Recognise your victim.
You have driven him mad.
PEDRO
Oh, God!
MARIA
In tear, this sorrowing father
Calls for his daughter…
RUIZ
Ah! I feel that my wretched life
Is slipping away each moment…
Come to me, my daughter, that I may
Hold you to me once more…
With one kiss, let your dying father
Be comforted
And let his soul that lived in sorrow
Die in peace.
PEDRO
Ah, yes, I cannot bear to look upon
This unfortunate victim…
I now feel in my heart the weight
Of her rebuke.
–134–
INES/LUIGI
The unfortunate victim
Has gone mad from shame.
In tears the sorrowing father
Calls for his daughter…
Reminding her how she has
Ruined his life.
Perhaps fate has yet
More horror in store.
MARIA
La figlia ch’ora, oh perfido,
The daughter you betrayed, faithless
Da te venia tradita; che
one; she who silently and obediently
A te sommessa e tacita,
Suffered dishonour at your hand.
L’onta soffrì fin’or.
Uphold your sworn faith now
La fè giurata or serbami
And restore to me the honour
E rendimi all’onor!
That is mine!
PEDRO
Più fiero intanto straziami
Tormenting remores fiercely tears
Rimorso tormentoso,
At me even more now,
D’uno spergiuro arrestami,
That broken vow haunts me,
Spaventami l’orror…
The horror that appalls me…
RAMIRO
Ah, l’esecrata vittima
Ah, the cursed victim
Ancor non è colpita…
Is still unscathed…
Incerto ancora fremere
My heart still beats
Sento il cor.
Uncertainly within.
RAMIRO/COURTIERS
Del re nel contrastono
A terrible conflict wages
Dell’onta trista vittima
Ha la ragion smarrita.
Chiama la figlia in lagrime
Dolente genitor…
Rimorda a chi del misero
Si funestò la vita.
E forse qui riserbane
Il fato a nuovo orror.
–135–
Cure angosciose estreme.
In the king’s heart.
Cimento fier, terribile
A fierce battle of love,
D’amor, di fè, d’onor
Faith, honour.
[17]
FRENCH CAVALIERS
Il silenzio in che t’ostini
Your continued silence
Per la Francia è insulto audace!
Is an audacious insult to France!
Il tuo regno avrà la pace
To punish this outrage, oh king,
Se costui punisci, oh re.
Is the only recourse for a peaceful
reign.
PEDRO
Troppo ardire, oh cavalieri,
Your presumption, gentlemen,
Voi spiegate innanzi a me.
Is getting out of hand.
RAMIRO/CASTILIAN CAVALIERS
Lo comanda a te l’onore,
The honour and safety of
your kingdom
La salvezza del tuo regno.
Demand that you punish her.
Può temprare il nostro sdegno
Only her death can appease
Solamente il suo morir.
Our indignation.
PEDRO
Con superbi e vani detti
Do you think you can cower me
Tema in me destar pensate?
With contemptuous, vain words?
Questa donna che insultate
This woman whom you insult
E il desio de’ miei desir.
Is the desire of my whole being.
Le giuari dell’ara al piede
At the foot of the altar I swore
Santo amore, eternal fede.
Holy love and eternal faith to her.
Or dal trono ov’io l’alzai
Who among you would pull her from
Chi di voi balzar la può?
The throne on which I have
placed her?
–136–
Se la Francia, o la Castiglia
Sa tentarlo… aspetterò!
If either France or Castile should
Attempt it… be warned!
MARIA
Oh, gioja!
Oh, joy!
RAMIRO/FRENCH AND CASTILIAN KNIGHTS
Oh, qual eccesso!
Oh, this is too much!
L’ira mia frenar non so!
My anger knows no bounds!
INES/LUIGI
Oh, estrema gioja!
A joyous decision!
[18]
MARIA
Oh padre, tu l’odi?
Oh father, do you hear him?
Sua sposa mi chiama!
He calls me his wife!
Mi rende la fama,
He swears his faith to me,
Mi serba la fè…
And clears my name…
Le braccia mi stendi,
Open your arms to me,
L’affetto mi rendi.
Give me again your love.
Ah, padre! Ancor degna
Ah, father! Again I
Io sono di te.
Am worthy of you.
PEDRO
to Maria
A te la Castiglia
To you Castile
Sommessa s’inchina,
Will kneel in submission,
Mi sposa e regina
My wife and queen
T’adora con me.
They will adore you as I do.
Del mio più felice
No heart could be happier
Un core non v’è!
Than mine!
INES
A lei la Castiglia
To her Castile
–137–
Sommesa s’inchina.
Ridente ora il cielo
Si schiude per te.
Del tuo più felice
Un core non v’è!
Will kneel in submission.
No heaven smiles
On you again.
No heart could be happier
Than yours!
RUIZ
Che fu? Si dirada terribile velo;
What has happened? A terrible
curtain has
Been drawn aside, heaven smiles
again, etc.
Ridente ora il cielo, ecc.
LUIGI
Per te si dirada terrible velo;
Ridente ora il cielo, ecc.
La Francia oltraggiasti!
Paventa per te!
Ah, sì! Padre… Sposo!
Di tante mie pene,
D’amare vicende,
Il cielo mi rende
Soave mercè!
Rapita mi sento
D’amor di contento!
Oh, figlia!
For you a terrible curtain has been
drawn
Aside, and heaven smiles again, etc.
RAMIRO/KNIGHTS
This is an affront to France!
You will pay for this!
MARIA
Ah, yes! Father… Husband!
After all my suffering,
Love is restored to me,
And heaven has had
Sweet mercy on me!
I am overcome with
Love and happiness!
RUIZ
Oh, daughter!
–138–
PEDRO
Regina!
My queen!
MARIA
Del mio più felice
Un core non v’è!
No heart could be
Happier than mine!
THE END
–139–
Sir Peter Moores, CBE