Deceit of another kind is at the core of the equally charming American operatic comedy, Jack Beeson’s 1975
Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. The story is set in the 1870s, in New York City. Soprano Aurelia Trentoni -- in reality, Aurelia Johnson of Trenton, NJ -- is about to make her U.S. operatic debut as Violetta in
La Traviata. Colonel Mapleson, a genuine impressario of that era, hypes her to the press as having had an international string of high-born lovers. Jonathan Jinks bets $500 that he will kiss her...and another $500 that he’ll succeed in spending the night with her. After all, opera singers are almost like actresses, and actresses in those days were almost prostitutes. As soon as she arrives, in fact, two society women go so far as to demand Aurelia drop
La Traviata from her repertoire, whipping out a petition signed by seven hundred women who protest that its leading character is a "fallen woman"; however, the soprano impresses them by her graceful reception. As they sweep out, one of the haughty pair pays Aurelia the amusing backhanded compliment of saying, "We disapprove of actresses in general, but we don’t consider singers actresses"!
In truth, the reality of Aurelia's situation couldn't be farther from the scandalous biography Mapleson has cooked up for her: She is an orphan who has had a sheltered upbringing by her Italian uncle, Belliarte, and is actually quite a lonely woman who has lived only for her art. Jinks’s romantic overtures appear sincere to this innocent creature, and make a deep impression upon her...while, regretting his bet, he begins to fall genuinely in love with Aurelia. In a riotously funny turn on the second act of
La Traviata, his imperious mother suddenly turns up, demanding that this loose woman give up her son for the sake of his family's reputation. When the news comes out that Jinks had placed a bet upon Aurelia’s supposèd immorality, it would appear that the singer's trust in
Jinks's morals is irreparably shattered. At this moment there is a wonderful trio in which her uncle pleads with her to remember her public; Mapleson in a rather Dr. Miracle mode envisions Aurelia throwing over her career in favor of being a wife and mother; all while Aurelia herself insists that she is so heartbroken that she will never sing again. Beaten down by the two men's arguments, though, she agrees to go through with her debut, and gives the performance of her life, pouring into it all the pain of Jinks's betrayal. She becomes an instant success or, as a policeman who had been posted outside the theater enthusiastically tells her in Act III, on the next day, "Even with the doors shut tight...your high notes came clean through the wood! They fairly set my teeth on edge. 'Twas grand...grand...the best I ever heard!" However, her greatest theatrical triumph is yet to come. The policeman is there to arrest Jinks, whom Aurelia has just forgiven about that bet, for having bribed a Customs official to rush her luggage through upon her arrival in New York in Act I. To prevent Jinks from being taken away, Aurelia feigns Violetta's fatal lung condition so convincingly that the policeman cannot bear to separate the lovers. Jinks is permitted to remain free (well, until his court date, anyway) and the opera concludes with a tribute to music, which "remind[s] us of kindness, love and compassion." One might well add, "and of the operatic potentials of the human comedy."
