Just in Time, Part 2
Another opera that involves the gathering of townspeople at eleven P.M., in Wagner's 1868 Die Meistersinger, set in sixteenth-century Nürnberg. Act II develops into a magnificent brawl when a private argument begun between Hans Sachs, Sixtus Beckmesser, and David escalates into a very physical confrontation between all the residents of the town, who come out in their nightshirts to beat at each other, grouping into battalions by trade! But suddenly, they all flee the scene, leaving only the Nightwatchman (a role of all four lines) to survey the situation. To the empty stage, he calls, "Hört ihr Leut', und laast euch sagen: die Glock' hat Elfe geslchlagen" - "Hark, good people: eleven strikes on the steeple," calling upon the Lord to keep everyone safe; and he walks off to continue his rounds. While this might seem anticlimactic in the extreme, it creates a kind of catharsis to all the turbulence that immediately preceded it, allowing the audience to tumble forth into their intermission with a sense of restored peace.
Of course, the ultimate opera to concern clocks is Ravel's comic 1911 L'Heure Espagnol, which is set in the shop of a Spanish clockmaker, Torquemada. It is essentially a slamming-door farce conducted with clocks! Concepcíon sends her husband Torquemada away to check the time of every clock in town, to be sure that she may have the time to met with her suitor, Gonsalve (with whom she has been, to date, in an unconsummated affair). But if Nedda's life was complicated by one jealous rival, consider the mess Concepcíon finds herself in: Her husband has left a customer in their at-home shop, to wait for him (Ramiro has stopped by to have his watch fixed, as he is in charge of the delivery of the town's mail, and must be absolutely on time). So that she may meet with Gonsalve unobserved, Concepcíon instructs the strapping young man to carry a large clock upstairs.
Inigo Gomez, a wealthy admirer who has waited for Torquemada's absence to steal a visit with the clockmaker's wife, arrives, and to save her reputation Concepcíon hides Gonsalve in a second clock -- and telling the ever-willing Ramiro to bring down the first clock and to move the one containing Gonsalve upstairs, into her bedroom. She accompanies him...and while she is out of the room, Gomez playfully hides inside the first clock, which is again downstairs. Concepcíon returns, exasperared with Gonsalve,
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