Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

Act 5 takes place in the palace, Vesuvius being seen in the background on the verge of eruption;
and during the revels of Pietro and his friends a company of fishermen enter with the woeful news
that the Duke's soldiers are overcoming the revolutionaries, that the volcano is in eruption, and
that their self-crowned King, Masaniello, has fallen into a state of madness. Masaniello himself
appears, singing snatches of his old fisherman songs, and proving the story of his frenzy to be true;
but he is once more roused to action by Fenella, and rushes forth into the fray, where he is quickly
slain. Fenella is in despair at the death of her brother; and waiting only to bring Alphonso and
Elvira together, she leaps into the molten lava river which flows from the burning mountain.
10. THE MASON
Opera in Three Acts By Daniel François Esprit Auber
Libretto By Scribe
First Produced Paris, 1825
Chief Characters Henrietta, Mistress Bertrand, Irma, Roger, Merinville, Abdallah
THE scene of this opera is laid in Paris, towards the end of the eighteenth century. A popular
young mason, Roger, is celebrating his marriage with Henrietta, the sister of a locksmith, the
proceedings being greatly to the chagrin of Mistress Bertrand, an interfering old busybody, who is
jealous of Henrietta's happiness, having had a fancy for the young mason herself. During the
festivities an aristocratic young nobleman, Léon de Merinville, loins the company, declaring that
Roger has recently saved his life, but would take no reward for his bravery, and that he has now
sought him out for this same purpose. Roger declares he needs no further reward, since the
grateful young noble had surreptitiously filled his pockets with gold pieces, with which he had
been able to buy necessary requirements for his marriage. Henrietta is presently led away to the
marriage chamber by her maidens, and Roger being left alone a few moments meets with an
unexpected adventure. He is suddenly seized from behind, blindfolded, and forced into a carriage,
which conveys him to a place unknown to him, where he is ordered by his captors to do some
masonry work for them. This is a plot of Abdallah, the Turkish Ambassador, who, having
conceived a passion for a fair Greek maiden, named Irma, and learning that she is that night
eloping with a French officer, has determined on revenging himself on the pair by kidnapping and
walling them up alive in a cave adjoining his grounds. The lovers, though warned by a friendly
servant, fail to escape their enemy, whose myrmidons capture them, and, bringing them to the
cave, thrust them within, bidding Roger, on pain of death, to wall it up. Roger, though blindfolded,
recognises the voice of the captive officer, and knows that it is his new friend and benefactor, De
Merinville, whom he is about to incarcerate; but knowing that his only chance of saving this
young man later on is by carrying out his abductors' orders he proceeds with the work at once,
singing the while a song, by which De Merinville, recognising his voice, learns that he has a friend
at hand. Immediately his work of walling up the captives is completed, however, Roger is
snatched away by the strangers, who hurry back to a spot near to his own house; and by the time
he has removed the bandages from his eyes his abductors have van-ished, and he has therefore
nothing to take as a clue for the whereabouts of his midnight adventure, and despairs of saving his
benefactor. He hurries to his house, where he finds all in confusion because of his disappearance,
Henrietta having been goaded into suspicions of her truant husband by the taunts of Mistress