Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

must spend a year in absolute solitude and silence in a far-off barren land; and the goatherd is
compelled to set off on his quest immediately, without seeing his sweetheart again. Dinorah, on
learning that her affianced has disappeared, imagines that he has wilfully abandoned her, and loses
her reason; and when the opera opens she is found wandering through the woods with her pet goat,
seeking her lost lover. She visits the cottage of Corentin, a bagpiper, who has himself just returned
from three months wandering in uncanny regions, where he has been terror-stricken by the pranks
of gnomes and elves; and being attracted by his music, she entices him to continue. Corentin,
believing her to be connected with the supernatural folk he has just seen, dares not refuse her
request, and the half-witted Dinorab accompanies his music with her own wild singing, now gay
and now plaintive. They are interrupted by the entrance of a stranger, and the easily-startled
Dinorah makes her escape through the low window. The newcomer is Höel, who has just returned
from his year of solitude, and is now anxious to secure the treasure; but having further learnt that
whoever first touches the magic gold will die, he has planned that he will persuade Corentin to
fetch it from the weird Korigan folk. He therefore relates the story of the treasure to the bagpiper,
omitting to mention the fate in store for the seizer of it, and Corentin gladly agrees to take the
magic gold and share it with Höel, who sends for wine to put heart into his somewhat scared
accomplice. In Act 2 Höel and Corentin appear in the wild and rocky district where the treasure is
to be found, and here Corentin, at the thought of the unearthly beings he is about to encounter, and
alarmed by the wild aspect of the place, is afraid to venture further. He is further determined to
give up the quest by hearing a female voice in the distance singing the story of the legend, and
revealing the fact that whosoever first touches it shall die; and then a violent altercation takes
place between the pair, which is interrupted by the sudden appearance of Dinorah with her goat. It
is she whose voice they heard singing the story of the treasure, and Höel, at the moment believing
her to be a supernatural messenger sent to warn him against sending Corentin to his death, is filled
with awe and shame for the deed he was about to do. As Dinorah approaches over a narrow
unguarded bridge he recognises her as his beloved one, and at that moment the distraught girl,
startled at the presence of the pair, loses her balance, and falls into the rushing torrent below. Höel
dashes into the stream and rescues her with great difficulty, and bearing her to a place of safety
sings to her the old familiar songs they had sung together in the old days. The intensity of his
singing, and the tones of his well-remembered voice, aided by the shock of her fall, has the effect
of restoring Dinorah to her reason once more; and Höel, allowing her to believe that she has just
awakened from a troubled dream, determines to renounce his quest, since he is now satisfied that
love is better than gold. Just as he has made this resolve, the chant of the Ploermel pilgrims again
wending their way to the Virgins shrine is heard in the distance; and the reunited lovers depart
hand in hand to join them in the chapel, and to celebrate their interrupted nuptials.
103. THE HUGUENOTS
Grand Opera in Five Acts By Giacomo Meyerbeer
Libretto By Scribe and Deschamps
First Produced Paris, February, 1836
Chief Characters Valentina, Marguerite de Valois, Raoul de Nangis, Count de St Bris, Count de
Nevers, Urbane, Marcel
THE scene is laid in Tourairie and Paris during the August of 1572, when the patched-up truce