Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

lineage, they are desperately poor and shabby, and the Duke is about to form himself into a limited
company in order to retrieve his fallen fortunes. They have come to interview the Grand
Inquisitor, Don Alhambra; and Gasilda is now informed by her parents that the object of their
present visit is to discover the young Prince of Barataria, who is her husband, she having been
married by proxy to the royal heir when they were both infants. Soon after the contract was
completed, the King of Barataria, having suddenly become a Wesleyan Methodist, the Grand
Inquisitor managed to steal away the baby Prince, and has kept him hidden in Venice ever since,
so that he might be kept from a similar fate. The Methodist King having recently died, the throne
now awaits the hidden Prince, and the Duke is anxious to find him and introduce Gasilda as his
Queen. Casilda, however, is not pleased at this prospect; for she and Luiz, the Dukes sole
attendant, are secret lovers, and are filled with dismay at the thought of their coming parting.
When the Grand Inquisitor presently appears, they learn that he is not sure which of the two
gondoliers, Marco and Guiseppe, is the real King, since he gave the royal child into the charge of a
merry gondolier, who was such a roystering "tippler " that he was never able to tell the adopted
baby from his own son of the same age. The only person who could now identify the Prince is his
own old nurse, Inez, who happens to be the mother of Luiz; and she is at once sent for. The Grand
Inquisitor then decides that until her arrival Marco and Guiseppe shall both reign jointly, and they
are promptly separated from the two contadini they have just married, and conveyed to Barataria.
Here, in Act 2, the two ex-gondoliers are seen in the palace, seated upon the throne, feeling very
awkward and uncomfortable in their unaccustomed grandeur; hut they soon regain their merry
spirits once more on the arrival of Tessa and Gianetta, who, unhappy at the absence of their
husbands, have come to look them up. Whilst they are engaged in revels and dancing the Cachuca,
the Grand Inquisitor appears, and tells the two girls that they can neither of them be Queen, since,
whichever gondolier is presently proved to be the real King, he is already married to the Lady
Casilda, to whom he was united in infancy. The Duke and Duchess now arrive with Casilda and
Luiz and the three pairs of lovers are in the direst dumps when the old nurse, Inez, arrives, and
settles all the complications most unexpectedly and satisfactorily. She states that when the baby
Prince was put into her charge, she was so afraid that he might be stolen that she substituted her
own baby boy for him, and allowed the royal child to be regarded as hers. She therefore now
declares that the real Prince is Luiz, greatly to the delight of Casilda, who rushes joyfully into his
arms; and the now happy pair mount the throne as King and Queen. Marco and Guiseppe very
gladly discard their royal trappings and irksome grandeur, and, taking their pretty contadini wives
with them, they step into a gondola, and merrily sail back to their beloved Venice.
156. HADDON HALL
Romantic Opera in Three Acts By Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan
Libretto By Sidney Grundy
First Produced London, 1892
Chief Characters Dorothy Vernon, Lady Vernon, Dorcas, John Manners, Sir George Vernon,
Oswald, Rupert Vernon, The MacCrankie
THE plot of this charming opera is adapted from the famous story of Dorothy Vernon of Haddon
Hall; but several liberties have been taken with the actual events, time, etc., with the object of