Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

THE scene is laid in the early part of the eleventh century. Robert, Duke of Normandy, has earned
for himself the title of " Robert the Devil," owing to his wild and reckless life and also because he
is supposed to be the son of a fiend who took on human shape and married the Princess Bertha of
Normandy, whose child was Robert. The young Dukes wild extravagances are all incited by his
constant companion, a mysterious and strange knight named Bertram, who finally entices him to
such excesses that he is at last driven forth from his State by his indignant subjects.
When the opera opens he is discovered at Palermo taking part in a grand tournament being held
there, the prize for the victor being the hand of Isabella, Princess of Sicily, with whom Robert is
desperately in love, and who returns his passion. Isabella, however, is alarmed and offended by the
wild conduct of her strange lover, for Robert recklessly indulges his passion for gambling with the
assembled cavaliers, to whom he finally loses all his possessions, his folly being always
encouraged by his constant companion, Bertram, who is in reality his demon-father, who is thus
dogging his steps in the hope of securing his soul. A great struggle is shown throughout the opera
between the evil which Robert inherits from his fiend-father and the good which he has received
from his mother. His better nature is aroused and encouraged by the influence of Alice, a simple
peasant maiden, who is his foster-sister, and who appears at Palermo in company with a minstrel
named Raimbaud, who is her sweetheart, and who brings for Robert a message from his dead
mother. In the presence of the gentle Alice, Roberts better nature prevails, and at his entreaties she
intercedes for him with the offended Princess, to whom she reconciles him. However, the evil
Bertram will not leave his hoped-for victim in peace, and on the day of the tournament he prevents
Robert from attending and taking his part in the contest for the hand of the Princess by luring him
away by means of a phantom, which takes the form of his great rival, the Prince of Granada.
Robert, being now once more under the influence of Bertram, the latter takes him to a cavern,
where he calls up demons and evil spirits to assist him in securing the mastery of the young man;
and afterwards he persuades him to visit the Abbey of St. Irene, where the Princess Bertha is
buried, and to pluck from thence a magic bough which will give him marvellous powers. In this
latter place the fiends call up the spirits of the departed nuns, giving them the shapes and
allurements of enticing nymphs, and Robert, though saved from the dangers of the cavern by
Alice, who has come there to meet her beloved Raimbaud, is so overcome by the promise of
magical powers in his second temptation that he seizes the enchanted bough and seeks to make use
of it at once. By means of this charm he enters, unseen, the apartments of the Princess Isabella,
and putting her attendants into a magical slumber, rushes forward to seize his beloved one in his
arms, passionately declaring that he has come to claim her as his own, and means to carry her
away by force. Isabella, however, pleads so piteously for him to resist his ungovernable passion,
and to have mercy upon her unprotected state, that his better nature prevails once more, and
breaking his talisman he flies from her presence. Once again Bertram decoys him away and
endeavours to make him sign a contract binding him to the demon for ever, but in this struggle
Alice also appears and seeks to overcome the evil influence which endangers her foster-brother.
The struggle between good and evil is a very severe one, but in the end good triumphs, when Alice
produces a letter from Roberts dead mother, in which the sorrowing and repentant Princess warns
her son against the allurements of the demon who is seeking to obtain his soul. Robert now finally
repudiates the baleful influence of his dark companion, and seeing that he is defeated in the
struggle the fiend-father vanishes into the earth and molests him no more. Robert then returns
repentant to the Princess Isabella, who gladly receives him, rejoicing at his victory over the evil
influences which had dragged him down; and the opera ends with the union of the now happy