Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

has dogged him all day also recognises Madeleine, and hurries with the news of his discovery to
Gérard, who has now risen to a very high position under the Revolution and has long sought the
fugitive Madeleine, since his love for her has not changed, and he longs to possess her. Meanwhile
Madeleine and Chenier are declaring their love for one another, and the former is imploring the
latter to protect her from the spies who constantly dog her path; and they are presently interrupted
by the arrival of Gérard, who has been brought thither by his spy, and he chal-lenges and fights
with Chenier, who wounds him. Chenier and Madeleine escape from the gendarmes; but the
former is afterwards captured and brought before the Revolutionary tribunal. Gérard writes out an
indictment against his rival, and when Made-leine presently appears before him to plead for the
life of her lover he refuses her request, and announces that she is in his power, and that he means
to satisfy his own passion for her at last. Madeleine, in her desperation, declares herself willing to
yield to him, if, in return, he will save her lover; and when Gérard thus realises how real and
beautiful a thing her love for his rival is, his better nature triumphs, and renouncing all thought for
himself, he promises to do what he can to rescue Chenier. His efforts, however, are of no avail;
and Chenier is condemned to death. Finding that all hope of sav-ing her lover is now at an end,
Madeleine resolves to perish with him; and to this end she bribes one of the warders to allow her
to take the place of a young woman who has also been condemned to the guillo-tine, and who is
thus, unexpectedly, saved from death. When, therefore, the dawn breaks, and the prisoners are
called one by one to the guillotine, Chenier and Madeleine step forth calmly to meet their fate,
joyful in the thought that in death they will at last be united.
53. FEDORA
Opera in Three Acts By Umberto Giordano
Libretto Adapted from Sardou's play by Arturo Colautti
First Produced Milan, 1898
Chief Characters Princess Fedora R omazoff, Countess Olga Sukarefi, Count Loris Ipanoff, De
Sirieux, Gretch, Borofi, Lazinski
THE first act takes place in St Petersburg at the house of Count Vladimir Andrejevreh, whose
servants are awaiting the return of their master at night. His betrothed, the Princess Fedora
Romazoff, arrives, looking for her lover, who has failed to keep his appointment with her at the
theatre; and pres-ently Count Vladimir is carried in, fatally wounded, accompanied by Fedora's
friend, De Sirieux, who states that he found him in this condition lying in a lonely pavilion. The
police-officers appear, headed by their chief, Gretch, who makes many searching inquiries, which
end in suspicion falling on Count Loris Ipanoff, who lives in the house opposite, and who is
known to have had an altercation with the dying Count recently, and is also suspected of being a
Nihilist. The officers at once make a raid on Ipanoff's house, and in the meantime Fedora is summoned
into the chamber of her betrothed, who breathes his last in her presence. At this moment
Gretch returns with the news that Ipanoff has escaped their hands; and Fedora, taking a beautiful
Byzantine jewelled cross from her breast, swears that she will avenge the death of her betrothed,
and track his murderer until she can deliver him to justice. Act 2 takes place in Paris, in the salon
of the Princess Fedora, who is living there ostensibly as a political exile, but in reality in
pursuance of her vow. Count Loris Ipanoff is an exile in Paris, the suspicion which fell upon him
as the murderer of Count Vladimir having resulted in his having been declared guilty and