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Knights at the Opera, Part 10 - Putting on the Spectacles

© Iris Bass

In Act IV, a forest scene fraught with stagecraft flames and thunder, Esclarmonde has a confrontation with her furious father. He demands that she either renounce Roland, or the knight must die. Roland stumbles in and Esclarmonde makes her choice. She declares she will no longer love him, which annuoncement causes her and Phorcas to be whisked away by a magical cloud that clears the skies. Roland joins a band of knights on their way to a tournament, wishing only to die because he has lost her. In the final act, in an appearance we will now recognize as a typical element of operas of chivalry, a mysterious knight is declared the victor at a tournament in Byzantium, where Phorcas has reassumed his old title as Emperor. When asked his name, the knight replies, "Mon nom est Désespoir! Je m'appelle Douleur!" - "My name is Despair! I am called Sorrow!" Phorcas, typical male patriarch, offers the champion his (re-veiled)daughter's hand -- but the knight refuses all honors, saying he is bound to another. Esclarmonde joyously recognizes his voice, and Phorcas himself demands that her veil be removed, so that the knight -- Roland, of course -- may recognize her as the mysterious being to whom he had pledged himself without having even known her name. In an ending anticipating that of Turandot by some 37 years, she declares, "Je m'appelle l'Adorée! Je m'appelle le Bonheur!" - "My name is the adored one! My name is happiness!" and the vast chorus concludes with gloriously poetic line denoting a happy ending for them: "L'univers vous acclame en frémissant d'amour" - "The universe acclaims you, trembling with love."

Premiering several decades earlier, Meyerbeer's 1831 Robert le Diable also relies upon the supernatural to support its medieval-era romance. There was a genuine Robert le Diable, who was father of William the Conquerer and grandfather of the real Countess Adèle referred to in last week's article; her brother, Robert of Normandy, was named for him. A cruel man, as might be imagined from his nickname, the real Robert died on a pre-Crusades mission to the Holy Land.

The opera is set in 11th-century Sicily, which at that time was ruled by the Normans. The fictitious Robert, exiled from Normandy for his misdeeds, has fallen in love with Princess Isabelle. Crucial to the story is the poetic license that Robert had been sired by a demon, Bertram. The seduction of Robert's mother is recounted by knights who have gathered to enter a tournament sponsored by the Duke of Messina. The victor -- no surprises here -- will win the hand of the Duke's daughter -- none other than Isabelle. Bertram interferes with Robert's participation in thematch by sending him off on a wild goose chase, and so the Prince of Granada wins the right to marry her instead. As the wedding is about to take place, Robert agrees to sell his soul to the devil to prevent Isabelle's marriage to the prince. The lucky catch is, if he doesn't actually sign Bertram's contract by midnight, it will become invalid -- and Bertram feels sure enough of his powers that he goes ahead and magically bars the prince and his wedding party from entering the church. Only then does he ask that Robert complete his side of the bargain. Robert's half-sister Alice bursts in, in the nick of time to hand Robert a deathbed testament written by their late mother, which demands he defy Bertram's counsels. Torn between the testament's insistance that his mother is watching over him from heaven, and his demonic father's rhetoric there beside him, Robert just can't make up his mind. Midnight strikes before he can sign the contract. Bertram vanishes back down to hell, and Robert gets to marry the princess presumably still waiting at the church for a bridegroom to show up at that altar.