Ponchielli's La Gioconda (Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series) [1 ed.] 9781433708053

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La Gioconda

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Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series

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La Gioconda (Literally translated as “The Merry Girl” or “Joyful Girl” or, in the opera, “The Ballad Singer”)

“Dramma lirico” in Italian in four acts

Music by Amilcare Ponchielli

Libretto after Victor Hugo’s play Angélo, Tyran de Padoue (“Angelo, Tyrant of Padua”) (1835) by Arrigo Boito, writing under the pseudonym, Tobia Gorrio

Premiere: Teatro La Scala, Milan, April 1876

Adapted from the Opera Journeys Lecture Series by Burton D. Fisher

Principal Characters in La Gioconda Brief Story Synopsis Story Narrative with Music Examples Commentary and Analysis

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Opera Journeys™ Mini Guide Series Published © Copywritten by Opera Journeys www.operajourneys.com

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Principal Characters in La Gioconda La Gioconda, a ballad singer Soprano La Cieca, her blind mother Contralto Alvise Badoero, an official of the Venetian Inquisition Bass Laura Adorno, Alvise’s wife Mezzo-soprano Enzo Grimaldo, a Genoese nobleman Tenor Barnaba, a spy for the Inquisition Baritone Zuàne, a boatman Bass A singer Bass Isèpo, a public scribe Tenor A monk Baritone or Bass A steersman Baritone or Bass Venetian citizens, sailors, noblemen and ladies TIME: 17th century PLACE: Venice Brief Story Synopsis The action of La Gioconda is set in Venice in the seventeenth century. It is Carnival, the festival celebrating the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of penitence and fasting before Easter. Gioconda, a ballad singer, loves Enzo Grimaldo, a Genoese nobleman traveling incognito in the disguise of a sailor. Enzo was formerly betrothed to Laura Adorno, now the wife of Alvise Badoero, a powerful State Inquisitor. Barnaba, a spy for the Inquisition, has become consumed to possess Gioconda, but she is repulsed by him. But Barnaba is undaunted and intrigues to manipulate Gioconda through her mother, the blind La Cieca. He convinces Zuàne, the loser of the Regatta, that his misfortune was the result of La Cieca’s witchcraft. Barnaba incites the crowd against La Cieca. Enzo tries in vain to protect the old woman from the angry crowd. Suddenly, Alvise Badoero appears with his wife, Laura, just in time to save La Cieca. In gratitude, La Cieca gives Laura her cherished rosary. Barnaba intrigues to win Gioconda by proving that Enzo has betrayed her. He reveals to Enzo that he knows his true identity, and then alleges that he and Laura remain in love: and that Laura reciprocates his love. He promises to deliver Laura to his brigantine this very evening so that they can escape Venice together.

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Barnaba dictates Laura’s escape plan to a scribe, and then places the letter into the “Lion’s Mouth,” the Inquisition’s repository of secret accusations. Gioconda, overhearing Barnaba, becomes horrified to learn that Enzo has betrayed their love. Barnaba ferries Laura to Enzo’s ship. Gioconda emerges from hiding, ready to stab her rival in revenge. Laura raises her rosary in prayer; Gioconda realizes that it was her rival who saved her mother’s life. Filial devotion prevails and Gioconda warns Laura that Alvise’s ships pursue her. She offers Laura her skiff in order for her escape. As Barnaba leads the furious Alvise toward Enzo’s ship, Enzo puts the torch to his ship rather than yield to the vengeful husband; then he dives into the fiery lagoon. Alvise accuses Laura of infidelity. Before leaving, he orders her to drink a fatal poison. He is unaware that Gioconda has stealthily found her way into the palace and bears a substitute sleeping potion to rescue Laura. At a ball for Venice’s nobility, Barnaba drags in La Cieca and accuses her of sorcery in her prayers for the dead. She defends herself, swearing that she was praying for her benefactress, Laura, who she believes to be dead. Enzo too believes that Laura is dead and bitterly addresses her memory. But Gioconda, knowing that Laura lies on her bier asleep, whispers to Barnaba that she will yield to him if he can bring Laura’s body to the Orfano Canal that evening. Barnaba agrees, but seizes La Cieca as hostage. Alvise tears aside the curtains of the funeral chamber and reveals the motionless body of Laura to his horrified guests. The unconscious Laura is brought to the island of Giudecca. Enzo arrives and confronts Gioconda. He is about to stab her when he hears the voice of the awakening Laura. Enzo, now aware of Gioconda’s magnanimity, is overcome by gratitude to the woman who has saved both him and his beloved. Enzo then leads Laura to the waiting skiff. When Barnaba arrives to claim his reward, Gioconda stabs herself. The fiendish Barnaba shouts to the dead Gioconda that he killed her mother.

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Story Narrative with Music Highlights Prelude: The prelude establishes two of the opera’s principal motives: the music associated with the rosary that La Cieca gave Laura Adorno in gratitude for saving her life, and a wavering, fidgeting passage associated with the villainous Barnaba. Act I: The Lion’s Mouth It is Carnival, signaling the beginning of Lent. It is a brilliant spring afternoon. Throngs of sailors, shipwrights, townspeople, foreigners and peasants engage in holiday festivities in the grand courtyard of the Doge’s palace. All eagerly await the regatta. “Feste! Pane!”

Barnaba is a spy of the Inquisition, a sinister looking man with dark hair and ashen face. In order to uncover enemies of Venice, he poses as an affable citizen, mingling habitually with people along the canals so that he can overhear their conversations. He leans against a pillar and observes the crowd cynically, scornfully muttering that he will cause all of them to become victims of the Inquisition. He writes an accusation and drops it into the Lion’s Mouth, the secret letter box of the Inquisition. Trumpets blare. Barnaba steps forward to announce that the regatta is about to begin. Revelers rush to the shore to witness the race. In a grim soliloquy, Barnaba reveals his lust for the beautiful Gioconda, vowing to possess her: a conquest he will achieve with the same ruthlessness that he employs to uncover traitors of the state. Gioconda, a ballad singer, roams the streets of Venice with her blind mother, La Cieca. As they approach the courtyard, Barnaba hides behind a column. Gioconda seats her mother on the steps of the cathedral,

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and then leaves to seek Enzo, her betrothed. Barnaba emerges from hiding and blocks her path, boldly declaring his passion for her. Gioconda scornfully rebuffs him. As he attempts to grasp her, she eludes him and then rushes away, the sinister spy vowing to avenge her cruel rejection of him. La Cieca heard Gioconda’s cries. The blind woman gropes about, vainly seeking her daughter. Then, she totters back to the steps of the church. While Barnaba observes her, he conceives a villainous plan: an intrigue to win the daughter by manipulating the mother. Crowds return from watching the regatta, the winner carried on their shoulders. Barnaba tells Zuàne, the loser of the regatta, that he was defeated because of La Cieca’s sorcery: her prayers invoked evil spells which cursed his rudder three times. The superstitious Zuàne incites his friends into a fury. They drag La Cieca from the church steps, threatening to burn her. Enzo suddenly appears, disguised as a Genoese sea captain; he is an enemy of Venice with a price on his head. He rushes to shield La Cieca from the savage mob and taunts them for attacking a defenseless, blind woman. But he fails to quell their bloodthirsty fury and calls in vain for his Dalmatian sailors to aid in La Cieca’s defense. Suddenly, the palace doors open, revealing Duke Alvise and his wife Laura. The crowd immediately falls silent. Barnaba accuses La Cieca of sorcery. Gioconda defends her mother’s innocence, but Alvise refuses to be dissuaded; he orders the old blind woman arrested and tortured. But after Laura successfully pleads to Alvise for clemency for the old woman, La Cieca is released, much to Barnaba’s chagrin. As a token of her eternal gratitude, La Cieca gives Laura her cherished rosary. “A te questo rosario”

In gratitude, Gioconda pledges that the gracious woman will always be in her prayers. Laura and Enzo, once betrothed, recognize one another, the wily Barnaba observing their telltale

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glances. The doors of St. Mark’s swing open, and the crowd enters the church. Gioconda and La Cieca enter the church, but Enzo remains behind, his thoughts preoccupied with Laura. Barnaba, whose business it is to invade the privacy of his victims, sets a diabolical plan into motion. He confronts Enzo and advises him that he has uncovered his true identity: he is “Enzo Grimaldo, Prince of Santafior!” In a dramatic dialogue, Barnaba cynically challenges Enzo, declaring that Laura — not Gioconda — remains Enzo’s true passion. He adds that Laura reciprocates that love: the reason he risked his life to come to Venice to see her. Enzo refutes the crafty spy, declaring that Gioconda is his true love. Barnaba could arrest Enzo, but the scheming spy decides to deviously manipulate him to serve his own cause of possessing Gioconda: if Gioconda learns that Enzo and Laura still love one another, Enzo’s treachery would improve Barnaba’s chances of luring Gioconda for himself. Barnaba informs Enzo that he will bring Laura to his ship this very evening. Enzo has fallen victim of Barnaba’s deceit. He departs, ecstatically anticipating his forthcoming tryst and reunion with Laura. While Barnaba dictates a letter to Isèpo, the public scribe, Gioconda emerges from the church. She hears Barnaba’s voice and conceals herself so she can overhear his words. Barnaba informs the Inquisition that Laura Adorno is about to meet secretly aboard the Genoese ship and flee Venice with its captain. Gioconda’s heart is crushed upon learning that Enzo has betrayed their love. Barnaba gazes cynically at the marble and gold monument in the imposing courtyard of the Doge’s palace: the “Lion’s Mouth.” “O monumento!”

He muses about Venice’s paradoxes, which define its hypocrisies: the Doge’s opulent chambers stand above the dismal torture chamber of Venice’s wretched police state. Barnaba deposits his accusation the “Lion’s Mouth,” delivering incriminating evidence to the Inquisition.

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The courtyard fills with throngs who joyously dance the “furlana.” An organ from the church signals the Angelus. A monk appears and exhorts the faithful. All fall to their knees in prayer. Gioconda and La Cieca walk amid the kneeling throng. Gioconda longs for death; her heart has become filled with despair after learning of Enzo’s betrayal. “Ah! o cuor! dono funesto!”

La Cieca tries to console her grieving daughter, but it is in vain. Hand in hand, mother and daughter depart, leaving the majestic Cà d’oro palace and St. Mark’s cathedral behind them. Act II: The Rosary Enzo’s ship is moored beside a deserted island in the Fusina lagoon. “Marinesca”

Sailors chant gaily as they bustle about. They are adjusting the ship’s rigging, and will depart for Genoa this very night, as soon as Laura arrives, and the moon sinks behind the clouds. From the hold, other sailors invoke the terrors of the sea, cheerfully answered by younger crew members perched along the rigging. Barnaba, disguised as a fisherman, appears in a skiff, together with the scribe Isèpo. As he hails the Genoese sailors, he dictates intelligence about the Genoese ship: the number of oars, the size of the galley and its crew. He rows to shore. As Isèpo debarks, he orders him to place men on the island in lieu of an assault on the Genoese brigantine. Barnaba returns to Enzo’s ship. Alongside, he jokes joking with the crew in a barcarolle, a hearty fisherman’s chant full of rhythmic dash and melodic appeal; the friendly crew joins him in its refrain.

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“Ah! Pescator, affonda l’esca”

Barnaba leaves, making his way through the lagoon to fetch Laura. Enzo appears on deck. He releases his men from duty and takes over the watch himself. He pensively gazes at the waters of the lagoon, which sparkle from the reflection of the dense starlight, and the light of the moon, which has suddenly appeared from behind a cloud. He has become enraptured by the dazzling ambience, and reveals that his heart beats frantically at the prospect of seeing Laura. “Cielo e mar!”

Barnaba ferries Laura to Enzo’s ship. He casts a rope over the side of the Genoese vessel, secures the skiff, and then helps Laura ascend to the deck to greet Enzo. Afterwards, the spy sneeringly wishes Enzo good luck, and then departs. Laura has become somewhat unnerved by the sinister-looking Barnaba, and expresses anxiety about her escape. Enzo calms her fears, assuring her that they are safe alongside the deserted island, and that they will sail away as soon as the wind rises and the moon hides behind clouds. They embrace passionately. Enzo goes below deck to complete the final details of the voyage. Alone on deck, Laura pauses in bewilderment, overwhelmed by the vastness of sea, sky and night. She notices an altar on the shore, and descends there to offer prayers to the Virgin. “Stella del marinar!”

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A masked figure emerges, unobserved from beneath the prow of the ship, and stealthily moves toward the praying woman with drawn dagger. It is Gioconda. She does not recognize that the praying woman is Laura, but does know that the woman is her rival. The two women engage in a stormy quarrel over Enzo, each claiming him. “L’amo come il fulgor del creato”

Just as Gioconda is about to stab her rival, Alvise’s galleys are seen approaching. In terror, Laura raises the rosary toward the sky in a gesture of prayer. Gioconda recognizes La Cieca’s rosary, which was given in gratitude to her mother’s rescuer. Gioconda becomes overcome by filial devotion: her hatred of her rival vanishes and she resolves to help save her at all costs. She gives Laura her mask and thrusts her into her own boat, enabling Laura to row to safety. Barnaba and Alvise appear, the Duke having learned from the spy of his wife’s infidelity. But to Barnaba’s dismay, his prey has fled; he rages as he vainly orders his oarsmen to overtake the escaping woman. Gioconda, left alone on the island, hides in the shadows as Enzo appears on deck. He calls for Laura, but is astonished to hear the vengeful and reproaching voice of Gioconda, telling him that Laura has fled and returned to Alvise. Enzo declares that he will follow her, but Gioconda urges him to escape, pointing to the Duke’s galleys, which are advancing toward his Enzo’s ship. Enzo now realizes that Barnaba betrayed him and despairs at his loss of Laura and the certainty of imminent defeat. He orders his ship torched rather than surrender it to the Venetians. The sailors plunge into the flaming waters. Enzo leaps from the highest deck, calling our “Laura” as his flaming vessel sinks. Gioconda, hiding on the deserted island, sobs convulsively, unable to cope with Enzo’s rapture with Laura. She contemplates suicide and rushes to the blazing vessel, but the ship collapses beneath the waves, depriving Gioconda of death: her escape from despair.

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Act III – Scene 1: The Cà d’oro (The House of Gold) A chamber in Alvise’s palace. Alvise has become consumed to avenge Laura’s betrayal of him and the ruination of his good name. He has determined that his faithless wife must die, and he fiendishly muses on the manner of her death: not by dagger, but by poison. Alvise has invited the most distinguished aristocrats of Venice to attend a ball at the Cà d’oro (House of Gold); during the festivities, he intends to fulfill his revenge. Alvise sends for Laura. He shows her a catafalque in an adjoining room, and promptly hands her a vial of poison. Singers are heard reveling outside. He scowls contemptuously and orders her to drink the poison before the song ends. Alvise leaves. “La gaia canzone fa l’eco languir”

As Laura glances fearfully at the poison, she hears footsteps behind her. It is Gioconda, who had stolen into the palace because she suspected that Laura would need her help. Gioconda snatches the fatal vial from Laura, and in its place, gives Laura a harmless potion that will produce a deathlike sleep. Laura drinks the potion and then rushes into the adjoining chamber, where she lies down on the catafalque, appearing to be dead. Alone, Gioconda drains Alvise’s poison into her own vial. The singing from the canal outside has ended. As Alvise returns, Gioconda hides in an alcove, leaving the empty vial on the table. Alvise notices the empty vial and then opens the door of the adjoining chamber, beholding Laura lying cold and rigid on her bier. With seeming indifference, he turns and leaves the chamber. Gioconda reemerges, remarking grimly that she saved Laura for the man she loves because of her mother’s rosary. The ballad singer leaves the chamber, weeping convulsively in her despair.

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Act III – Scene 2: The ballroom of Alvise’s palace. Alvise receives guests in the brilliantly lighted reception hall of the Cà d’oro. He is courteous and affable, betraying no trace of the tragedy he has just witnessed, nor does he offer any explanation to his guests for Laura’s absence. Alvise has arranged for a sumptuous ballet to entertain his noble guests: the “Dance of the Hours.” “Dance of the Hours”

The “Dance of the Hours” is an allegory of the triumph of good over evil. In the ballet, faint glimmerings of dawn transform into high noon, the music becoming energetic and rhythmic. As the ballet moves to the brighter “Hours” of day, the music becomes tranquil, but more agitated: twilight and evening are approaching. Finally, after all twenty-four “Hours” have rivaled each other, the “Hours” of light are victorious over those of darkness. A woman’s desperate screams horrify the guests. Barnaba appears, dragging La Cieca into the room, the old and blind woman struggling helplessly to free herself from his grasp. As funeral bells are heard in the distance, Barnaba viciously accuses her of practicing sorcery, but La Cieca refutes him, swearing that she was praying for the soul of her dead benefactress, Laura, whom she believed dead. Barnaba recognizes Enzo among the masqueraded guests. He whispers into his ear that the death knell indeed tolls for Laura. Appalled, Enzo rips off his mask and reveals himself; he curses Alvise for banishing him from Venice and for stealing his bride, daring Alvise to complete his crime and kill him. Alvise orders Enzo’s arrest. Gioconda enters the hall unobserved. She approaches Barnaba stealthily and promises him that she will yield to him if he obtains Enzo’s release and bring Laura’s body to the Orfano Canal. The spy nods, acknowledging his promise. As Gioconda turns away and leaves, Barnaba envelops La Cieca in his cloak, forcefully taking the blind woman hostage to insure that that Gioconda does not betray her promise.

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Alvise now senses the opportune moment for the ghastly climax of his revenge. He announces that his wife brought dishonor to his name, and then flings back the curtains of the funeral chamber, the crowd becoming horrified to see Laura’s body lying motionless on the bier. “ Già ti veggo immota e smorta”

Enzo brandishes his dagger and rushes at Alvise, but he is seized by guards before he can reach him. As all stare in horror at the exultant Alvise, Barnaba silently leads the groping La Cieca from the hall. Act IV: An abandoned palace on the island of Giudecca, in the Adriatic near Venice. Two men carry the unconscious Laura into an abandoned palace on the deserted island and place her on a bed. Gioconda suddenly becomes alarmed about the welfare of her mother. She implores the men to search all of Venice for her; as they depart, they assure her that she can depend on their vigilance. Alone, the despairing Gioconda becomes aroused into a feverish anxiety after noticing a vial of poison on a table. All hope of happiness has vanished. With dramatic fervor, she contemplates suicide: her only escape from the jealousy and betrayal that have been torturing her. “Suicidio!”

As Gioconda raises the vial to her lips, she hears voices from the lagoon eerily recalling the dead victims lying in the depths of the Orfano Canal. Suddenly, she becomes possessed by demonic thoughts: What if Laura — her rival — were to disappear beneath the silent waters of the Canal? Gioconda recoils from her sinister thoughts, but confusion continues to rage in her soul. She sobs convulsively and cries out for Enzo, the man she loves.

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Suddenly, Enzo appears, released from prison by Barnaba, who fulfilled his side of his bargain with Gioconda. He observes Gioconda suspiciously, wondering why she has summoned him to this ruined palace; he is unaware of her magnanimity. Gioconda baffles Enzo by telling him that she summoned him to discuss his future joy and love. She inquires if Enzo is prepared to die for Laura? He responds affirmatively. Gioconda informs Enzo that she has removed Laura’s corpse from her tomb. Enzo becomes appalled. He is convinced that she is lying and forces her to swear on a crucifix. As Enzo brandishes his dagger toward Gioconda, the voice of the awakening Laura is heard, crying out “Enzo!” Laura approaches Enzo, who cannot believe that Laura lives. Suddenly, he rushes to her and embraces her. After Laura reveals that Gioconda saved her life, both fall to their knees and bless her, overcome by gratitude. Enzo leads Laura to his waiting skiff. Gioconda must now pay the price to Barnaba for uniting the lovers and helping them escape. But she would rather die than yield to the sinister fiend. As she reaches for the poison, Barnaba appears, ready to claim his reward. Gioconda courageously and coquettishly pleads with the odious spy, pretending that she needs time to adorn herself with sparkling jewels. Then she announces that she is ready and he can claim his reward. As the demonic Barnaba rushes to embrace Gioconda, she stabs herself with the dagger she had concealed in her clothing. She falls to the floor, dead. Deprived of his prize, Barnaba erupts into a savage rage. In revenge, he bends over the dead Gioconda and shrieks into her ear that yesterday he drowned her mother to death. Raging furiously, the archfiend rushes from the dead Gioconda and disappears into the evening darkness.

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Commentary and Analysis

A

milcare Ponchielli was born in Cremona, Italy, in 1834; he died in Milan, in 1886, at the age of 52. In 1843, the young 9-year-old Ponchielli displayed exceptional musical talents, which facilitated his acceptance in the Milan Conservatory, where he studied through 1854. While a student, he collaborated with three other students for the operetta, Il Sindaco Babbeo. Ponchielli was a well regarded student but spent his early career in virtual obscurity, working primarily in provincial Cremona as a church organist, music teacher, assistant music director of the city’s Teatro Concordia, and later as a bandmaster in Piacenza: local assignments that thwarted his musical ambitions and precluded potential opportunities for wider recognition. Ponchielli’s early operas were considered mediocre and failed to receive critical acclaim: I Promessi Sposi (1856), his first opera, based on Alessandro Manzoni’s classic novel, was produced at the Teatro Concordia and received a cool reception; Bertrando dal Bormeo (1858) was rehearsed at the Teatro Carcano in Milan but was not performed, apparently because Ponchielli was unhappy with the singing cast; La Savoiarda (1861), his third opera, was performed only in Cremona (revised as Lina, 1877); likewise, his fourth opera, Roderico dei Goti (1863), received but one performance at the Piacenza Theater; and La Stella del Monte (1867) failed to arouse critical acclaim. Nevertheless, in 1872, Ponchielli’s fortunes reversed after a much-revised version of I Promessi Sposi was produced at the Teatro dal Verme, Milan; its success brought Ponchielli the support of Giulio Ricordi of Casa Ricordi, at the time, Italy’s most powerful music publisher, and resulted in a commission for Le Due Gemelle (1873), a seven act ballet that was produced at La Scala, and the opera I Lituani (1874) (revised as Alduna, 1884), with a libretto by Ghislanzoni. Both works were well received. Ponchielli’s career reached its apogee with La Gioconda (1876), which became immediately popular in Italy and internationally; it remains his only stage work to have become entrenched in the standard repertory, despite its suffering from a continuing barrage of criticism of its libretto’s supposed vulgarity and crudeness. Ponchielli’s last operas, Il Figliuol Prodigo (1880) and Marion Delorme (1885), both produced at La Scala, were well received, but failed to sustain themselves in the repertory.

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From 1880 until his death six years later, Ponchielli was professor of composition and counterpoint at the Milan Conservatory, a post he won ten years earlier, but for some unknown reason did not accept. He was also music director of S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, for which he composed much sacred music. Other musical works include cantatas, band pieces, ballets, and songs. Ponchielli’s death in 1886 precluded the pride he would have expressed in the success of two of his gifted pupils: Pietro Mascagni, whose Cavalleria Rusticana premiered in 1890 and heralded the new verismo genre; and Giacomo Puccini, whose third opera, Manon Lescaut (1893), virtually earned him Verdi’s mantle, an honor he would bear with distinction for the next thirty years.

P

onchielli’s commission from Ricordi to compose La Gioconda emanated from the huge critical acclaim he received for the revised I Promessi Sposi (1872). Arrigo Boito was designated the librettist for the new opera. Arrigo Enrico Boito (1842–1918) possessed the spirit of a Renaissance man: an aesthete and artistic “man for all seasons,” with exceptional achievements as librettist, composer, poet and critic. Perhaps his most notable accomplishment was writing the text and composing the music for Mefistofele (1868), his celebrated opera based on Goethe’s Faust: a provocative and iconoclastic work that swept away many rules and ‘formulas’ (as Boito decried), and was heavily influenced by Wagner’s theories of music and drama; it inspired heated controversy as well as antagonism between the “Wagnerian” progressives and Italian traditionalists and conservatives. Notably, Boito was the librettist for Giuseppe Verdi’s final operas, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). Boito was born in Venice, the son of a painter of miniatures and a Polish countess. In 1853, at the age of eleven, after displaying exceptional musical talents, he received a grant which enabled him to enroll in the Milan Conservatory. An early success was a cantata he composed for the Conservatory in collaboration with Franco Faccio, a fellow student with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. Boito provided the text and composed half of the music for the cantata, entitled Il Quattro Giugno (“The Fourth of June”), its theme celebrating Napoleon III’s French-Sardinian victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Magenta, June 4,

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1859, the work intended to be a platform that expressed the composers’ shared faith in the nationalistic and patriotic fervor of the Risorgimento (Italian liberation). In 1861, their graduation year, Boito and Faccio collaborated on a second cantata, Le Sorelle d’Italia (“The Italian Sisters”), a mystery. With the support of Alberto Mazzucato, an opera composer and principal conductor at La Scala, Boito and Faccio were awarded grants for a year to study and travel abroad. In 1862, while in Paris, the young twenty yearold music students were honored with an introduction to Rossini and Verdi, Boito’s intellectualism so impressing Verdi that he commissioned him to write the text for Inno delle Nazioni (“The Hymn of the Nations”), a work that received prominence during World War II; Arturo Toscanini performed it copiously as a musical expression of allied opposition to Italian fascism. While still in his early twenties, Boito began writing the text and music for Mefistofele; he also began drafts for Nerone, an opera that would be completed posthumously. As the decade of the 1860s began, much of musical Europe considered contemporary Italian opera an art form in decay. In 1851, Verdi had begun composing in his ‘middle period’ style, introducing a new thrust of heightened emotions and towering passions to the lyric theater: Rigoletto (1851), La Traviata (1853), Un Ballo in Maschera (1859), followed by Don Carlo (1869) and Aida (1871). Verdi continued to mesmerize his audiences with hyper-emotional melodramas composed in the bel canto tradition; he remained virtually the only Italian opera composer capable of capturing the imagination of his audiences. Boito had become a champion of the avant-garde and was rather outspoken about his ambitions to transform and modernize Italian opera by integrating a pan-European – especially German – influence into the art form: he looked across the Alps to Richard Wagner’s theories of music and drama as the panacea and rescuer of what was perceived as Italy’s dying art form. Boito had become prominently associated with the “scapigliati” (“the unconventional ones”), iconoclasts determined to rid Italian art of its stale, outmoded traditions; they used satire and derision to educate the opera public to the art form’s deficiencies. They ennobled Wagner’s theories of the “music of the future” and music drama, launching a clash of opera’s titans that would preoccupy musical Europe for the entire second half of the nineteenth century: Verdi vs. Wagner,

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or Italian opera’s emphasis on lyricism vs. Wagner’s concepts of music drama. The style of Boito’s Mefistofele owes much to Wagner: its chromaticisms, its use of leading motives for their inherent effect, and the importance given the orchestra; there is no doubt that Boito’s opera, the later works of Verdi, and Boito’s own theories of music drama strongly influenced Ponchielli as he composed the music for La Gioconda. In 1863, Boito further vented his dissatisfaction with Italian art by publishing All’arte Italiana (“About Italian Art”), a notorious denunciation of art that cited its prevailing aesthetic decadence, and further advocated “cleansing the altars of Italian art that had been stained like the external walls of a brothel.” Verdi, the icon and living legend of the Italian lyric theater, interpreted Boito’s tirade as a personal affront. He became deeply offended by Boito’s ranting, which immediately developed into a rift between them that almost grounded Ricordi’s dream of a future collaboration of Verdi with Boito as librettist; in hindsight, the Italian opera genre is eternally indebted to Ricordi’s magical diplomacy, which resolved that rift and paved the way for the Verdi-Boito collaboration in Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).

B

oito had many literary achievements: he translated much German lieder into Italian, such as Wagner’s Wesendonk Lieder, and translated Wagner’s Rienzi into Italian. He began the libretto and composition of Ero e Leandro, but then consigned the opera first to Bottesini, and then to Mancinelli. As a librettist, Boito’s primary strength was his keen sense of overall proportion, which enabled him to simplify a complicated plot. He was a master of poetic language, with a brilliant affinity for using obscure polysyllables. Boito’s librettos are consistent with his belief that a libretto should be a solid, integrated drama with fluid action: a drama with a concentration of prose rather than rhymed verse; in effect, the text should possess a naturalism that approached the rhythms of spoken theater. Before writing texts for Verdi, Boito was the librettist for a number of all but forgotten operas, the single exception, of course, Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Nevertheless, Boito had a host of reservations about his gnarled libretto for the opera, which he considered awkward and clumsy. In order to protect the integrity of his reputation, he signed the libretto with an

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anagrammatic nom de plume, Tobia Gorrio; no one was deceived.

G

iulio Ricordi, an avid supporter of Boito, was determined to induce Verdi out of retirement, envisioning the master collaborating in an opera with Boito. After Ricordi learned that Verdi had expressed interest in the subject of Nerone for a new opera, he suggested to Boito that he offer Verdi an olive branch: relinquish his libretto of Nerone to the elder composer. But Verdi refused the offer, still personally hurt and smoldering over Boito’s earlier denunciation of Italian art. Nevertheless, in 1879, through the intercession of Ricordi and Faccio, Boito and Verdi reached a rapprochement, and the idea of a collaboration was developed; not for Nerone, but for Shakespeare’s Othello. To overcome Verdi’s wariness, a trial assignment was devised that would test their possible collaboration: Boito would revise Piave’s libretto for Simon Boccanegra (rev. 1881). In the end, Verdi was extremely satisfied with Boito’s revisions — in particular, the addition of the Council Chamber scene — and he enthusiastically praised Boito for redeeming his opera; their momentous collaboration began. After Boito submitted the complete libretto of Otello to Verdi, the master became overwhelmed by its literary and dramatic qualities: a drama that virtually cried out for music. Verdi began composing immediately, but it progressed spasmodically, only Boito’s patience and willingness to compromise by accommodating Verdi’s insistence on textual changes keeping the project afloat. The triumphant premiere of Otello in February 1887 sealed Boito’s artistic relationship with Verdi, a collaboration and friendship that the librettist regarded as the climax of his artistic life. For Verdi’s final opera, Falstaff, their collaboration proceeded more smoothly than Otello; its premiere in 1893 was a rousing success for both Verdi and Boito. Boito provided an exhilarating and beautifully paced libretto for Falstaff, highlighting his particular fondness for word-play, and his knack for inventing epigrams: those terse, sagacious, and witty phrases that ultimately inspired some of Verdi’s finest musical inventions. Afterwards, Boito began to sketch a libretto for Re Lear, based on Shakespeare’s King Lear, the opera that Verdi contemplated composing during his entire career. However, the project never reached fruition after Verdi realized that age had deprived him of the energy required to undertake such an immense challenge.

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Within a month of Verdi’s death in 1901, Boito published his five-act libretto of Nerone, which was received as a major literary event. Giulio Ricordi urged Boito to complete the score for a production of the opera at La Scala as early as 1904. Boito continued to work on Nerone, but in 1904, heart disease claimed his life. The score was ultimately completed by a committee consisting of Arturo Toscanini, Antonio Smareglia and Vincenzo Tommasini. Nerone, which had engaged Boito’s attention irregularly for nearly 60 years, was finally brought to the opera stage in 1910, six years after the composer’s death. Boito’s sketches and notebooks for Nerone survive and bear eloquent witness to the composer ’s extraordinary capacity for meticulousness in musical invention, but they also reveal his frustration and ineffectiveness in realizing the text through the emotive power of music. All in all, Nerone possesses grandiose spectacle and a degree of originality, but it lacks musical substance. Nevertheless, its libretto faithfully captures those great conflicts of the first century A.D.: the heated rivalry between pagan mysticism, Roman imperial corruption, and the young Christian ideology that was overtaking the Empire. Throughout his entire career, Boito struggled with the conflict of artistic dualism: a tension between expressing his artistic soul in literature, or in music. In the end, it was literature that became his artistic legacy: the faithful expression of his quintessential talent.

A

n obscure Victor Hugo play, Angélo, Tyran de Padoue (1835) (“Angelo, Tyrant of Padua”), provided the basis for Boito’s libretto for Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Hugo’s story was set in 1549, in Padua, Italy. Angelo, the powerful potentate of Padua, is married to Catarina, an aristocrat; his mistress is Tisbe, a celebrated actress. Angelo is unaware that both women are secretly in love with Rodolfo. After a spy informs Angelo that his wife has a lover, he condemns her to death. Tisbe commits suicide after learning that Rodolfo was Catarina’s lover. Boito’s La Gioconda libretto is loosely based on Hugo’s Angélo: the love triangle and its inherent betrayals and passions remain the essence of the drama. Hugo’s Catarina (La Gioconda’s Laura Adorno, forced into a loveless marriage with Alvise) and Tisbe, the actress (Gioconda, a ballad singer) are in love with Rodolfo (Enzo, a Genoese Prince). To replace the

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tyrannical potentate Angelo, Boito created the character of Alvise Badoero, a powerful member of the Inquisition, and he invented Barnaba, the satanic spy for the Inquisition, who he elevated to a sinister archfiend reminiscent of Shakespeare’s villainous Iago. The setting was transferred from Padua to Venice, the romantic city’s canals, plazas and churches providing the opportunity to introduce substantial scenic spectacle: the courtyard of the Doge’s palace, the sumptuous interior of Cà d’oro, St. Mark’s Cathedral, the canals, and the theatrical challenge of burning and sinking Enzo’s brigantine in the lagoon. The timeframe was advanced to the seventeenth century. Alvise Badoero, replacing Angélo, Hugo’s despotic and authoritarian potentate, became the main protagonist in the collective tyranny of State and Church: the Inquisition, which represented a powerful manifestation of the theocratic marriage of throne and altar. Boito’s flamboyant melodramatic characterizations faithfully mirror those of Hugo, although he defines the roles of heroes and villains more emphatically: complex, grotesque and fiendish characters consumed by emotional torment and expressing towering passions. Ironically, Boito entitled his gruesome libretto, La Gioconda (“The Merry Girl”), derived from the heroine’s identification of herself early in Act I: “Mi chiaman La Gioconda” (“They call me the ‘Merry Girl,’ for I sing my happy songs to the whole world”). Gioconda can also be translated as “Joyful” or “Happy,” but considering Gioconda’s conflicts, emotional torment and subsequent fate, her sobriquet represents the quintessence of irony: she should more appropriately be called “La Dolorosa” (“The Suffering One”), or “La Sfortunata” (“The Unfortunate Woman”), not to dismiss “The Vengeful Woman” or “The Self-Sacrificing Woman.” Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, an early sixteenth century portrait of the wife of the well-known Florentine, Francesco del Giocondo, is also known as “La Gioconda,” her name the feminine of her husband’s surname. .

T

he specific genre of French grand opera refers to productions of the Paris Opèra of the second quarter of the nineteenth century, particularly the operas of Meyerbeer — Les Huguenots, Le Prophète, Roberto le Diable, and L’Africaine — with librettos by Eugène Scribe. French grand opera emphasized spectacle, appealing to the eye as well as the ear. The ‘grand’ of the genre described its massive scenery, and its huge casts and chorus. Effects generally had no relevancy to

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the plots: ballets with roller-skating, startling scenic phenomena, and the employment of a veritable army of singers and supernumeraries, prompting Richard Wagner’s notorious condemnation of Meyerbeer’s oeuvre as “effects without causes.” Italian opera adopted many elements of French grand opera, but the term ‘grand opera’ was seldom used in Italy; the genre was generally referred to as ‘opera-ballo’ (literally, opera with dance), although in traditional Italian opera dance was not integrated into the action and was not even considered an essential ingredient of the opera. French grand opera relied heavily on historical subjects to fulfill its underlying philosophical principle that one learns from history, rather than about history. Italian opera-ballo preferred to utilize history — as well as legend — as a secondary element that would serve to fuel the interplay of passions between the characters, as well as create opportunities to include vigorous choruses and ensembles: those ubiquitous parades, marches, processions, conspiracies and uprisings that necessitated lavish scenery and costumes. Effectively, opera-ballo was a masterly fusion of the historic and the melodramatic, which exploited heightened emotions and extremely intense passions, but downplayed the underlying historical elements: Verdi’s Don Carlo (1869) is set against the stifling Draconian marriage of throne and altar of sixteenth century Spain, but it is primarily a domestic drama involving intense passions of love, hate and duty resulting from Philip II’s marriage to his son Don Carlo’s former betrothed; in Verdi’s Aida (1871), a war between Ethiopia and Egypt serves as a backdrop for the towering passions of a love triangle between an Egyptian Princess, Egyptian General and Ethiopian Princess, the conflicts intensified and complicated by the characters’ inherent responsibilities and duties to state and religion. In La Gioconda, the exoticism of the magnificent city of Venice furnishes the breathtaking theatrical ambience of a perfect “grand opera” set: Act I is set in “the grand courtyard of the Doge’s palace, decorated for festivities”; Act III is set in “a magnificent hall in the ‘House of Gold,’ splendidly adorned”; in Act IV, St. Mark’s is visible in the background, “brilliantly illuminated”; and at the conclusion of Act II, Enzo’s ship burns and sinks in a lagoon, its theatrical demands challenging the very essence of grand opera’s “spectacle.”

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The underlying repressive politics of church and state provide historical authenticity for La Gioconda’s plot, and the city of Venice itself, provides the opera with opportunities for extravagant pageantry and spectacle. Nevertheless, a powerful human drama is the engine driving La Gioconda’s plot: Gioconda, its heroine, becomes the loser in a love triangle rivalry that is saturated with intense emotions and uncontrollable passions involving betrayal, love and lust. La Gioconda is an opera-ballo in terms of its genre classification, but at its soul are heated conflicts involving love and passion, which become realized and intensified through the ferocious emotive power of Ponchielli’s music.

C

ertain elements of opera-ballo became de rigeur in order to insure the grandeur of the genre: an effective and enriched orchestration; more free-flowing and dynamic musical forms; declamation, or “parlante,” which served to expand musical numbers (as the characters arrive in Act I, the scene builds through the ‘parlante’ (spoken) participation of the characters, with the orchestra providing thematic support for the vocal line); a harmonic subtlety and more frequent chromatic modulations; recurring, impressionistic motives to symbolize, pre-announce or recall one or more characters, objects, feelings or events (the rhythmical identifying theme associated with Barnaba, or La Cieca’s rosary motive). To insure La Gioconda’s opera-ballo grandeur, Ricordi published a “Disposizione Scenica” (stagingmanual), which, for example, provided specifications for the opera’s extravagant costuming: Venetian noblemen and officials adorned in richly brocaded costumes with fur-trimmed mantles; multicolored peasant costumes made of wool or cotton; sailors in blue pants, red-andwhite striped shirts, blue capes, red caps and leggings; court ladies’ dresses of velvet or brocade, with gold necklaces with stones, and some with velvet mantles; and multicolored, sequined ballet costumes. The lighting necessary to create La Gioconda’s special effects is equally demanding. In Act II, in order to escape Venice under the protection of darkness, Enzo and Laura realize that they must wait until the moon sets behind clouds. As their duet progresses, the moon indeed begins its slow descent below the horizon, that descent perfectly coordinated with the action and music. As such, a La Gioconda production requires sophisticated management of electricity and steam in

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order to simulate the movement of clouds, ripples on the water, and the spectacle at the conclusion of the act when Enzo’s brigantine, Hecate, burns and subsequently sinks into the depths of the lagoon. Opera-ballo translates as “opera with dance,” and certainly dance is indeed an integral element of La Gioconda’s spectacle. In Act I, the carnival masqueraders dance the furlana, an energetic and rapidly moving courtship dance that was a popular favorite among Venetians. At the beginning of Act III, a stately dance, full of pomp and ceremony, accompanies the arrival of Alvise’s guests, their ornate costumes a particularly effective contrast to the relative simplicity of the costuming of the sailors, fishermen, and rustic maidens of the “marinesca” which opened the preceding act. The formal ballet of Act III, the “Dance of the Hours” has become a concert favorite independent of its context in the opera. Off-stage effects in La Gioconda provide dramatic contrast and irony. In Act III – Scene 1, Alvise is consumed by revenge because of Laura’s betrayal and the dishonor she has brought to his name. He orders her to drink a fatal poison before the merrymakers outside the Cà d’oro conclude their song: “La gaia canzone fa l’eco languir” (“Our cheerful song dies to a soft echo,” a dramatic contrast to the gruesome spectacle involving jealousy and death that is taking place inside the palace; a magnificent irony that opera can achieve because it can convey conflicts and tensions in words, action and music simultaneously. La Gioconda remains a fixture in the international opera repertory, even though its extravagant demands limit its production to large theaters possessing equally extensive resources: the opera requires five major singing roles, lavish and sumptuous scenery, a large chorus and equally large orchestra, colorful costuming and extensive ballet resources.

L

a Gioconda is a perfect melodrama, characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization. Its plot is sensational and hyper-emotional: a wellpaced integration of several swiftly moving and fiercely dramatic episodes, Ponchielli’s musical articulation of that action defining opera’s great inherent capability to realize — and intensify — the essence of its text through the emotive, visceral power of music.

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In La Gioconda, there is much lyrical declamation, or “parlante”: literally singing in a declamatory style, usually with short or minimal orchestral accompaniment; the “parlante” provides an almost seamless unity of all of the opera’s elements — Italian opera’s version of Wagner’s ‘endliche melodie’ or ‘continuous music’ that was intended to achieve true music drama by eliminating the void between recitative (narrative action) and set-pieces. Ponchielli was a master of orchestration. His score is sophisticated, subtle, colorful and extremely alluring: a melodically rich score that possesses a sumptuous symphonic texture. The score contains some extremely beautiful, descriptive touches, such as the impressionistic prelude and offstage and onstage chorus that evokes the magnificent starlit night in Act II, the music at times suggesting water splashing against the hold of the brigantine. It is followed by Ponchielli’s beautifully diaphanous musical introduction to Enzo’s aria, “Cielo e mar,” the aria itself a masterpiece of exquisite and strophic musical invention. Ponchielli used leading motives sparingly, and essentially limited them to Barnaba’s instrumental “fidget” theme, the bewitching “Rosary theme,” and the undulating strain associated with Gioconda’s filial love for her mother. Nevertheless, Ponchielli’s leading motives are not integrated symphonically; only Wagner could achieve that symphonic grandeur. Choral elements are substantial in Acts I, II and III. The chorus dominates Act I: the beginning and end of the Regatta, the accusation of witchcraft against La Cieca, the furlana dance, and the conclusion in which Gioconda agonizes about Enzo’s betrayal, which is juxtaposed against the solemnity of the “Angele Dei.” Act II begins with the “Marinesca” chorus of sailors preparing Enzo’s ship for sailing and the crew’s interplay with people on the island, followed by Barnaba’s interchange with the sailors, and later, the description of Alvise’s oncoming galleys. In Act III, the choral elements are powerful, particularly in the poignant final ensemble expressing grief over Laura’s death: “Tu sei morta,” a ‘concertato’ that can rival the best in all of Italian opera. Act IV virtually eliminates the chorus: its focus is Gioconda’s torment, her suffering and suicide.

P

onchielli’s La Gioconda represents a bridge between the hyper-romantic Verdian style, and the emerging verismo school; to some, the violence of La Gioconda

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established the composer as the progenitor of Italian verismo. In France, realism — or verismé — first appeared in opera in Bizet’s Carmen (1875), one year before the premiere of Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Carmen’s firebreathing melodrama, and its intense, heightened emotions and towering passions anticipated the Italian verismo genre looming on the operatic horizon: Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (1890), Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci (1892), Giordano’s Mala Vita (1892), and Puccini’s Tosca (1900) and Il Tabarro (1918). Conceptually, realism’s goal was to provide an accurate representation of natural or real life conflicts and tensions, without the idealization or sentimentalism of Romanticism, its predecessor. La Gioconda represents an early blueprint of the Italian verismo genre, which typically dealt with the tensions of a love triangle and its resulting betrayal, revenge, and ultimate crime of passion. Verismo operas relished the irony of presenting its crimes of passion on religious holidays: Cavalleria Rusticana is set on Easter Sunday; I Pagliacci on the Feast of the Assumption, and La Gioconda at Carnival, the beginning of the Lenten season. Like the verismo operas, La Gioconda’s love triangle, which involves Gioconda, Laura and Enzo, becomes squared by the odious Barnaba, who has become consumed to possess Gioconda; Gioconda’s suicide and Barnaba’s drowning of La Cieca, Gioconda’s mother, provides the violent passions so typical of verismo — that blend of the sordid with the sensational.

L

a Gioconda’s quasi-verismo plot is dominated by impassioned blood-and-thunder confrontations, as well as melodramatic cloak-and-dagger intrigues. Its characterizations represent a catalog of human shortcomings in proportions that are almost Biblical and Shakespearean in scope: weakness, deceit and immorality, lust, acts of revenge, blackmail, denunciations, false accusations, duplicity, rivalry, vicious and violent crimes, poisoning, kidnapping, arson, an attempted murder, and a real murder and suicide: towering passions that inspired some of Ponchielli’s grandest and most eloquent musical inventions; music that is as telling as it is dramatic. There are many spontaneous, uninhibited emotional outbursts, suggesting that the opera is indeed a forerunner of the verismo genre. But the score also contains some magnificent mellifluousness, such as La Cieca’s emotional expression of gratitude to Laura for

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saving her life, “A te questo rosario,” the tessitura of the vocal line ranging between the extreme high G and low B flat of the contralto range. La Gioconda’s ambience of almost total violence suggests that its story and characterizations reflect late nineteenth-century psychological behavioral studies and explorations of the human psyche: the discovery that states of emotional excitement and pathological sensuality were at the core of violent human behavior, far removed from the traditional moral codes involving the hierarchy of father, family and religion. As such, the opera’s lurid and gruesome sensationalism has caused some opera aesthetes to condemn the opera as a mediocre, vulgar melodrama. But after its premiere, Filippo Filippi, at the time Milan’s leading critic, declared that Ponchielli was one of the few remaining contemporary Italian composers — excluding Verdi — who was capable of producing a music drama possessing an integration of words and music that were so truthfully faithful to situation. In that sense, perhaps Ponchielli’s La Gioconda owes some of its provenance to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde: both operas involve almost legendary characters who vent their towering passions through larger-thanlife music; in Wagner, much of the explosive emotional furor is expressed by the orchestra; in La Gioconda, which is an Italian opera to the core, much of the intense passion flourishes and develops in the vocal line.

B

arnaba is typical of a host of malevolent and blatantly evil opera baritones, quintessentially fiendish and sinister villains, in the mold of Shakespeare’s Iago. He is an unscrupulous, lecherous spy for the Venetian Inquisition, who possesses seemingly unlimited power. Like Iago, he is a chameleon, preferring to stalk his prey while masquerading as a nondescript, guitarstrumming minstrel, or as a carefree fisherman: his ditty. in Act II, “Ah! Pescator, affonda l’esca!” (“Ah! Fisherman, cast out your net!”), combines the lilt typical of a Venetian gondolier’s air with the wicked inflections of a sinister deceiver. In Act I, Barnaba confesses his all-consuming lust for Gioconda; in Act IV, he again admits his obsessive craving for her as she adorns herself. Barnaba’s satanic raging about drowning La Cieca after Gioconda’s suicide echoes a finale typical of the Grand Guignol. Likewise, Iago’s ‘Credo’ in Verdi’s Otello is a sordid deprecation of every iota of civilization found in the morality and ethics of Judeo-Christian philosophy.

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To possess Gioconda, Barnaba becomes the architect of the opera’s reign of terror, unleashing ferocious and demonic intrigues to win her. But Gioconda’s repulsion of the sinister lecher ultimately leads to her suffering and misfortune, a destiny she poignantly expresses at the close of Act I: “Il mio destino e questo, o morte e amor!” (“It is my destiny to hover between love and death!”). Barnaba shrewdly manipulates Gioconda through the two people most dear to her: Enzo and La Cieca. In Act I, after La Cieca accidentally escapes his clutches, he redirects his focus to Enzo. The arch-spy, having done his due diligence, identifies the sailor as a Genoese Prince. He knows every detail of Enzo’s life and declares — quite correctly — that Enzo’s love for Gioconda is more platonic than impassioned: that Enzo’s true love is Laura, the reason he risked his life to be in Venice. Barnaba suggests a tryst with Laura aboard the Genoese’s brigantine. Enzo takes the bait. Emotions overpower reason and he agrees to the rendezvous, unaware that Barnaba will betray Laura to the Inquisition: a turning point of the melodrama. Barnaba manipulates his prey in the same mode as his operatic counterpart, Scarpia, in Puccini’s Tosca. However, when Scarpia is about to claim his reward, Tosca murders him; in La Gioconda, the heroine kills herself just before Barnaba is about to claim his reward.

G

ioconda continually finds herself entangled in a vast web of supercharged emotional conflicts, in which the musical expression requires fiendishly impassioned vocal articulation. In Act I, she is forlorn, weak and despairing, a classic betrayed opera heroine, who vacillates whether to kill her rival, herself, or even the man she loved. But in Act II, she is an avenging tigress in her duet with her rival, Laura. In Act IV, she is a ‘veristic’ victim of betrayed love, her ferocious emotional torment expressed in her great aria, “Suicidio!”: a moment in which her descent can seem heroic, or to some, approaching the bathetic. Gioconda’s actual suicide is a crime of passion, a verismo-style exploitation of violence in which the music and orchestral accompaniment deftly and vividly articulate the horror of the event.

T

he libretto indicates that Enzo Grimaldo, a Genoese Prince, was banished from Venice or perhaps persona non grata. One could speculate that the

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powerful Alvise Badoero banished him after learning that he was formerly betrothed to his wife Laura. A less likely possibility was that another war had erupted between Genoa and Venice for control of the rich Eastern Mediterranean trading, and Enzo, a Genoese, was considered an enemy. Ponchielli infused Enzo’s music with the soaring, impassioned lyricism of the bel canto tradition, a style evident when he intervenes to save La Cieca from the crowd accusing her of witchcraft, in his duet with Barnaba after the spy reveals that he recognizes him, when Barnaba proposes a tryst with Laura, in the reunion of Laura and Enzo, in his confrontation with Alvise after learning that Alvise murdered his wife, in the final duet with Gioconda, and the final trio with Laura and Gioconda.

B

oito’s designates Alvise Badoero’s role simply: ‘a leader of the Inquisition.’ But, in the historical context, Alvise would most probably have been a judge in the tribunal of State Inquisitors, after witnessing the inordinate power he wields in the story as a defender of the theocratic marriage of throne and altar. During the seventeenth century, Venice was governed by the Great Council, which included members of the city’s most influential and powerful families; one member of the Great Council was elected “doge,” or duke, the ceremonial head of the city. The Great Council appointed all public officials and elected a Senate of 200 to 300 individuals. In turn, the Senate chose the Council of Ten, a secretive group which held the ultimate power in administering the city. The Council of Ten maintained a balance of power between members of the Great Council, the Doge, and the Senate. Though hierarchy was essential to the Venetian way of life, the aristocracy was a strong advocate of equality and democratic ideology. In effect, the Council of Ten was determined to maintain the oligarchy, but it was resolute and unwavering in preventing a Doge of Venice or any other ambitious member of the Council of Ten from attempting to usurp power. In 1539, the Great Council established a tribunal known as the State Inquisitors specifically assigned to deal with threats to state security; those State Inquisitors comprised three judges chosen from among its members. The Inquisitors shared equal authority with the entire Council of Ten, and could try and convict those accused of treason independently of their parent body. In effect, the Inquisitors were protectors as well

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as defenders of the state: intelligence gatherers who employed a large network of spies. In La Gioconda, Alvise Badoero would most probably have been a member of the Great Council, and in particular, a State Inquisitor: one of the three judges chosen from among its members to deal with threats to Venetian security. Alvise is introduced in Act I as a man of compassion; he accedes to his wife Laura’s plea for clemency for La Cieca and releases her. But Alvise transforms into a relentless, pathological avenger after learning that he is a cuckolded husband, which leads to his crime of passion: forcing Laura to drink a fatal poison. In Act III, Alvise’s flaunting of his murder of Laura is a coup de théâtre. Enzo, one of the masked guests, explodes in outrage at Alvise’s cruelty and brandishes his sword to avenge Laura’s murder, his arrest prompts Gioconda’s fatal offer to yield to Barnaba in exchange for Enzo’s freedom.

I

talian composers of the opera-ballo genre of the late nineteenth century respected tradition, but at the same time they strove for innovation by modifying past forms and conventions. La Gioconda’s Act II is a brilliant example of a gradual building of a large-scale ensemble — ‘concertato’ — with the purpose of achieving greater dramatic impact. The act begins with the musical highlight, Enzo’s great aria, “Cielo e mar.” Afterwards, Barnaba ferries Laura to Enzo’s brigantine, and the two lovers are alone together for the first time. They become enraptured in one another’s arms, Ponchielli’s soaring music the most impassioned in the opera; nevertheless, the touching moments when Enzo allays Laura’s fears and anxieties could perhaps be considered the tenderest in the opera. Gioconda, hiding beneath the ship’s prow, observes the lovers and becomes wild with jealousy. After Enzo goes below to prepare for departure, Gioconda emerges, dagger in hand and ready for battle with Laura, which leads to a magnificently ferocious confrontation between the two rivals: soprano and mezzo-soprano stalking about like two tigresses poised for the kill as they argue about the intensity of their respective love for Enzo. Boito elevated the contest between the rivals by inventing lofty similes, his prose underscored by Ponchielli’s majestic vocal lines that aspire to operatic vocal grandeur as the tessitura crosses two full octaves, from a low C flat to a high C flat.

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Laura: “I love him as the light of Creation; like the air that gives life to my breath; like the blessed heavenly dream which gives birth to my last sigh.” Gioconda: “I love him as the lion craves blood; as the whirlwind loves its flight; as the lightning loves the peaks; as the kingfisher welcomes the plunge into the abyss; as the eagle worships the sun.” But their impassioned contest comes to naught after Gioconda discovers her mother’s rosary in the hands of her rival: her passion for revenge suddenly transforms into melting self-sacrifice, the rivalry now secondary to the heroine’s determination to rescue the woman who saved her mother’s life; that determination again occurring in Act III when Gioconda mysteriously appears in Alvise’s palace at the precise moment Laura is about to swallow the poison, Gioconda substituting a sleeping potion for the poison.

I

n Act IV, Enzo and Gioconda engage in a heated confrontation, Enzo unable to believe that Laura lives; he is unaware of Gioconda’s magnanimity and sacrifice. But Laura indeed lives, saved by Gioconda, the woman who has sacrificed her soul so that the man she loves can love another. The Farewell Trio is a poignant ensemble that can rival the best Verdi ever produced. Gioconda urges the escaping lovers not to forget her, the lovers bless the unselfish Gioconda, and the lovers leave, ostensibly to live happily ever after. The final scene of La Gioconda is terrifying and gruesome; it is the moment in which Gioconda — the Merry One — prepares to keep her promise and yield to Barnaba. But as she adorns herself, she hides a dagger under her clothing. The sinister spy arrives, gloating in victory as the moment of conquest approaches. But Gioconda suddenly brandishes the dagger and stabs herself, her suicide depriving the demon of his victory. Barnaba, who had seized Gioconda’s mother, La Cieca, as a hostage to guarantee his conquest, reveals that he drowned La Cieca, a horror not heard by the dead Gioconda. The “ewige weibliche” (“eternal woman” or “sacrificing woman”) is the idealistic essence of German Romanticism, the “Sturm und Drang” (“Storm and Stress”) emotion-centered ideology that Goethe elevated to nobility. The German Romanticist’s ideal was that man would be redeemed through the sacrifice and unbounded love of “la femme eterne” (the ‘eternal woman’ or ‘woman of the future’). Wagner would later

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anoint that ideal in his characterization of Senta (The Flying Dutchman), Elizabeth (Tannhäuser), and of course, Brünnhilde in the Ring operas. Gioconda is indeed a ‘sacrificing woman,’ a rare character in Italian opera, elevated to operatic saintliness by Boito and Ponchielli: the woman who sacrificed her life so that Enzo, the man she loves, can love another, Laura.

I

ronically, La Gioconda’s great ballet, the “Dance of the Hours,” is an allegory representing the triumph of good over evil, or light conquering darkness. In La Gioconda, good does not triumph over evil. In fact, the opera’s gruesome plot is akin to a Gothic horror story — with a Grand Guignol conclusion — rather than to a morality play. Operas such as La Gioconda, a precursor of Italian verismo, turned to crime not as a solution of the melodrama, but as a means of proving that blood ran hot and red. As the end of the nineteenth century approached, murders were being committed afresh on the opera stage, but with a new savagery and brutality: an affirmation of Darwinian and Freudian discoveries during the era, that man was indeed a creature of instinct. In La Gioconda, each character becomes consumed by towering passions: Gioconda explodes convulsively when she learns that Enzo has betrayed her; Gioconda’s passion to kill Laura suddenly transforms into magnanimity after she sees the rosary in her rival’s hands; Barnaba’s lust to possess Gioconda is allconsuming; Enzo becomes possessed to avenge Laura’s murder; and Alvise becomes brutal and ruthless, consumed by revenge against Laura, the unfaithful woman who dishonored his name. Boito’s text captures the melodramatic conflicts and tensions of La Gioconda’s plot. But its hyper-emotions and passions can only become realized and intensified through the musical language: the music of Ponchielli’s language of passion.

A

fter the death of Donizetti (1848) there was essentially only one important composer in Italy, and that was Verdi, whose final opera was Falstaff (1887). Earlier, Boito’s impressive Mefistofele (1868) premiered; it was a singular success, particularly after its later revision. In 1876, Ponchielli’s La Gioconda premiered: an extremely melodic and impassioned work in the tradition of Verdi’s middle period, with definite echoes

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of Un Ballo in Maschera, and even Otello, which Verdi would compose eleven years after La Gioconda. The end of the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of Leoncavallo, and Ponchielli’s students, Mascagni and Puccini. Generally, most other composers of Italian opera during the latter part of the nineteenth century were unable to establish a footnote in the musical history of the period. Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, which represented the transition from Romanticism to verismo, was a milestone in the history and development of Italian opera. Nevertheless, E. T. A. Hoffmann denounced Ponchielli’s La Gioconda as an opera only for singers, not for audiences. Contrarily, the noted late nineteenthcentury critic, Eduard Hanslick, an impassioned critic of the Wagnerian school, praised Ponchielli’s skill in handling the “excellent energy of its libretto,” and many others have praised the opera’s beautiful melodies, its ballet and dance music, and its ensembles. Boito never considered his libretto for La Gioconda representative of his best literary talents: the reason he signed the work anagrammatically as Tobia Gorrio. In a letter to Ponchielli that accompanied the completed text, Boito punned, “Che La Gioconda ci giocondi entrambi!” (“That the Merry Girl may bring us both joy!”). Boito’s hope has been borne out by the phenomenal success of the opera, which remains a major Italian opera in the international repertory some 150 years after its premiere: text and music that represent an emotional roller-coaster of towering passions and pitiful selfsacrifice — the essence of the opera art form