[8/20/2011] Preview: Preparing for the culmination of our "Andrea Chenier" series -- Recap No. 2, Chénier's "Improvviso" (continued)

AGAIN, OUR "PREVIEW PERFORMANCE" --


GIORDANO: Andrea Chénier: Act I, Fléville, "Commosso, lusingato" . . . "Passiamo la sera allegramente" . . . Maddalena, "Al mio dire perdono" . . . Chénier, "Colpite qui m'avete" . . . "Un dì all'azzurro spazio" (Improvviso)

1. The first important guest arrives (with entourage), soon eclipsed by the really important guest

Fléville, "Commosso, lusingato"

Among the guests (the COUNTESS has told MADDALENA) are two notables: a distinguished writer coming from Italy and an Abbé coming from Paris. The writer, FLÉVILLE, arrives first, with two fellow artists in tow, a composer and a young poet, and is touched by the effusiveness of his reception -- only to be better-dealed as soon as the really important guest, the Abbé coming from Paris, arrives.

2. The Abbé brings alarming news from Paris

Abbé, "Devole è il rè"

I adore this little scene, which it seems to me we've somehow touched on. (I really should try to dig up the link if there is one.) The lines I love in particular are the Countess's in response to the Abbé's news of the (unspecified) abuse of the statue of Henri IV, first asking where it will all end, then wailing: "They no longer fear God."

ABBÉ [graciously flattered by this demonstration, kisses numerous hands and makes bows that resemble genuflections; meanwhile the COUNTESS personally serves him some jam]: The king is debilitated.
FLÉVILLE: Has he given in?
ABBÉ: He was badly advised.
COUNTESS: Necker?*
[*Jacques Necker was Louis VXI's finance minister, who was pressing serious reforms on the king, including the formation of the Third Estate in the 1789 Estates General, representing the populace other than the clergy ( the First Estate) and the nobility (the Second Estate). Later that year the Third Estate would be reconstituted as the National Assembly.]
ABBÉ: Let's not speak of him! [Tastes the jam, sighing in a gesture of supreme affliction.]
THE OTHERS: That Necker!
We're dying of curiosity!
ABBÉ [this time resolutely attacks the jam, digging into it with the whole spoon]: We have the Third Estate!
THE OTHERS: Ah! Ah!
ABBÉ: And I've seen abused . . .
THE OTHERS: Who?
ABBÉ: The statue of Henri IV.
THE OTHERS: Horror!
COUNTESS: Where will it all end?
ABBÉ: I was wondering that too.
COUNTESS: They no longer fear God!
ABBÉ [handing his cup to a young man]: Indeed, fair ladies, I'm desolate to bring you such news.

3. Fléville successfully changes the subject

Fléville, "Passiamo la sera allegramente"

"Let's spend the evening merrily," says the novelist, and he introduces a pastoral entertainment based on his new novel, in which regretful bands of shepherds and shepherdesses bid each other farewell.

4. Attention turns to the junior member of Fléville's party, the young poet Andrea Chénier

Contessa, "Signor Chénier?"; Chénier, "Madama la Contessa?"

"Your muse is silent?" the Countess says to the young poet, who tells her his muse as "retiring" and wishes to be silent. Other guests poke fun at him, and Maddalena bets her friends that she can get the poet to poeticize.

5. Maddalena proceeds to set the young poet up

Maddalena, "Al mio dire perdono" . . . Chénier, "Il vostro desio è commando gentil"

FIORINELLI, the musician brought by FLÉVILLE, sits at the harpsichord and begins to play. MADDALENA goes up to CHÉNIER.

MADDALENA: Pardon my words and my boldness!
I'm a woman, and I'm curious.
I long to hear
an eclogue of yours, a poem
for a nun or for a wife.
HER FRIENDS: For a nun or for a wife.
CHÉNIER: Your wish is a kind command.
But, alas, the imagination
is not amenable to command or to humble prayer.
Poetry is indeed capricious,
in the manner of love.
[MADDALENA and her friends burst out laughing.]

6. Maddalena explains the joke

Contessa, "Perchè ridete voi?"

The Countess wants to know why the girls are laughing. Maddalena explains that she bet her friends she could get the poet to use the word "love," which she herself had had thrust at her in the course of the evening by assorted leches among her mother's guests, singling out (according to the stage directions) "a ridiculous old man," an abbé, "a fat old marquis," and "a young man remarkable for his ugliness."

7. And Chénier defends his use of the word "love"

Chénier, "Colpito qui m'avete" . . . "Un dì all'azzurro spazio" (Improvviso)

Which brings us to the exact point where our second group of recordings of Chénier's Improvviso, the ones that included the lead-in "Colpito qui m'avete," picked up last night. Buried in the applause afterward

CHÉNIER: You've wounded me here where I jealously
conceal the purest beating of my soul.
Now see, dear girl, what poetry
there is in the word "Love," which rouses such ridicule.

One day into the blue sky
I gazed deeply,
and on the meadows heaped with violets
the sun rained down gold,
and with gold
the world shone;
the earth appeared an immense treasure,
and serving as its coffer was the firmament.
From the earth to my brow
came a living caress, a kiss.
I cried out, conquered by love: I love y ou,
you who kiss me, divinely
beautiful, o my fatherland!
And I wanted, full of love,
to pray!
I crossed the threshold of a church;
there a priest, in the niches
of the saints and the Virgin
accumulated gifts . . . and to his deaf ear
a trembling old man vainly
pleaded for bread and in vain reached out his hand!
I crossed the entrance of a humble abode;
a man there was cursing, slandering
the soil that barely covered his taxes,
and against God
and against men
hurled the tears of his children.
[With the exception of GÉRARD, who stands listening entranced, everyone is completely scandalized.]
In the face of such misery
what do the ranks of the nobility do?
[To MADDALENA] Only your eyes express humanly
here a look of pity,
and so I looked at you as if at an angel.
And I said: "Here is the beauty of life."
But then, at your words,
a new sorrow wounded me full in the breast.
O beautiful maiden,
do not disparage the words of a poet.
Love, divine gift -- do not scorn it.
The world's soul and life -- that's love.

MADDALENA: Pardon me.

Dino Mantovani (bs), Fléville; Maria Tersa Mandalari (ms), Contessa di Coigny; Renata Tebaldi (s), Maddalena di Coigny; Angelo Mercuriali (t), the Abbé; Mario del Monaco (t), Andrea Chenier (t); Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Gianandrea Gavazzeni, cond. Decca, recorded 1957


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

We finish up a bit of Act I business, then proceed to the Madelon scene of Act III.


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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