The World's Most Famous Operas — The Force of Destiny

The World's Most Famous Operas

Music composed by: Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani
An opera in three acts, first produced in St. Petersburg in 1862

The characters:
• The Marquis of Calatrava
• Leonora, his daughter
• Curra, her maid
• Don Alvaro, a young nobleman
• Don Carlo, Leonora's brother
• Father Guardiano
• Brother Melitone, a monk
• Trabuco, a muleteer
• Preziosilla, a gypsy
• An army surgeon
• Soldiers, peasants, beggars, pilgrims, monks, dancers men and women
• An innkeeper and his wife.

The time: the eighteenth century.
The place: Spain and Italy.

The Prologue

The scene: a room in the house of the Marquis of Calatrava in Seville.
When the curtain rises we see the Marquis bidding his daughter Leonora good evening before bed. Hardly has he disappeared when we learn, from Leonora's agitated talk with her maid Curra, that she has promised the young hero Don Alvaro to flee with him that very night. This young man is a stranger; no one knows anything of his origins, and therefore Leonora — aristocratic girl that she is — knew for a certainty that her father would never consent to her marrying him.
Don Alvaro arrives, entering by the balcony window, and while the two lovers stand ready for flight the Marquis returns, his sword in his hand. Don Alvaro takes up his pistol to defend himself, but after a moment's reflection casts it aside. Then the unforeseen happens: a shot goes off from the pistol and strikes the noble Marquis in the heart. He breathes his last, cursing his daughter. Don Alvaro draws Leonora after him through the window, and the curtain falls.

Act One

Scene One: an inn near the Spanish village of Hornachuelos.
In the pursuit and flight by night that follow the killing of the Marquis, Don Alvaro is separated from Leonora, and each believes the other dead. In search of a safe refuge where she may take some measure of rest, Leonora disguises herself in men's clothes, anxious to make her solitary journey less perilous. She soon reaches the great inn in the village of Hornachuelos. There, in the dense crowd, she recognizes her brother Don Carlo. She does not reveal her identity to him, but she listens as he tells the story of his father's death at the hand of her beloved, and hears him swear to avenge him.

Scene Two: the mountain church and the monastery of Our Lady the Virgin.

Leonora at last reaches the place to which a priest named Father Cleto had directed her — a place where she hopes to find refuge and to live out what remains to her of this life as the hermits live. Still in men's clothes, she kneels before the cross that stands before the church and, in all piety and devotion, gives thanks to Heaven, which has led her to that place. She sings a prayer to the Virgin... and from within the monastery rise the sounds of the organ and the choir of priests... This atmosphere fills Leonora's soul with strength and hardens her resolve, and she knocks at the door. It is opened by Brother Melitone, a tall young man rather like a peasant, upon whom the marks of laziness show. He would have liked, had he the courage, to shut the door in her face so as not to be disturbed; but he cannot do so, and calls Father Guardiano. The latter had heard something of Leonora's story from Father Cleto, who had sent her to the monastery. He is moved to pity for the poor girl and consents to admit her into the Franciscan order, and to let her take a nearby cave as a place of hermitage and renunciation. No one shall visit her at the cave save he himself, once each week, bringing her provisions.

Thereupon he summons all the monks and informs them that Leonora will dwell in the cave, but that any person whatsoever is forbidden to approach it. He gives her his blessing. The scene closes with a prayer of protection raised to the Virgin, in which Leonora's voice soars high above the voices of the monks who form the chorus.

Act Two

Scene One: a battlefield near the town of Velletri in Italy.

Don Carlo and Don Alvaro have enlisted, neither knowing the other, in a Spanish company fighting the Germans in Italy. When the curtain rises we see Don Alvaro alone on the stage, wearing a captain's uniform. From his singing we learn that he believes Leonora dead, and that he longs for death in exile rather than life without her.

Sounds of a quarrel are heard offstage, and the clatter of arms; Don Alvaro hurries out to see what is happening. He soon returns in the company of Don Carlo, who had fallen into the grip of a band of adventurers and whom he rescued from their claws. Neither knows the other, for both have taken assumed names in that war,

and they swear everlasting friendship.

The fire of battle rages offstage, and the soldiers, with one of the surgeons, stand upon a rampart reporting its turns. Gunfire is heard, and the din of soldiers running here and there; the Germans are beaten and fall back on their heels. Don Alvaro, who took part in the battle, is carried in on a stretcher, mortally wounded. He is left alone with his new friend Don Carlo. Don Alvaro asks Don Carlo to swear to destroy a letter he carries without looking at its contents, and he does so.

But Don Carlo comes to suspect Don Alvaro's true identity because of a phrase the latter let fall. When the wounded man is carried away, Don Carlo finds it hard to hold to his oath and not break the letter open. What is more, he sets to rummaging among Don Alvaro's effects and comes upon a small portrait of his sister Leonora. His suspicions are confirmed, and he knows that this young man is the very Don Alvaro who killed his father, the Marquis of Calatrava. At that moment the surgeon returns, saying the wounded man will recover. Don Carlo knows that vengeance is now within his grasp, and in the flush of his passion he sings a song in which he says: "Ah, he lives!"

Scene Two: the camp at Velletri.

The colored tents are scattered here and there, stocked with drink. The time is near dawn. Don Alvaro enters and is met by Don Carlo, who asks him whether he has wholly recovered from his wounds. Don Alvaro assures him that he is quite well, but is astonished when Don Carlo asks whether he is in a condition to meet him in single combat. He accuses him of having read the letter he had promised to destroy without opening. Don Carlo denies it, saying that the portrait of his sister Leonora, which he found among his papers, laid the truth bare before him. And he has sworn vengeance. But Don Alvaro reminds him that the two of them pledged a friendship whose bonds he is loath to sever. Don Carlo tells him he has learned that his sister Leonora did not die, but is living with certain kin and relations. Each draws his sword — Don Carlo with intent to attack, Don Alvaro with all deliberation — but some soldiers rush onto the stage and prevent the duel from taking place.

Everyone in the camp awakes... life stirs through it... the gypsy women, the vendors, and everyone coming and going here and there among the soldiers.

Act Three

Scene One: the courtyard of the monastery of Our Lady.

Brother Melitone is ladling out soup to a company of beggars with disgust and clumsiness, and his disgust grows as the number of beggars

crowding around him increases. When the great kettle is empty he kicks it with his foot. The poor wretches depart, but Father Guardiano rebukes him for his ill conduct. The two are soon earnestly discussing the case of a new member of the order, Father Raffaello, the dark-complexioned, mysterious young man. They agree that he is amiable, but neither of them knows who he is or whence he came. In truth — as we learn later — this monk is none other than Don Alvaro, who has come, like Leonora, to end his life in that monastery in renunciation and hermitage.

Don Carlo, who has followed Don Alvaro's steps to the monastery, arrives and asks to see Father Raffaello. Don Alvaro appears, wearing the monks' habit, his head shaven. Carlo challenges him to a duel, giving him his choice between two swords he carries. Don Alvaro does his utmost to avoid the quarrel. He is pained at being branded a coward, and kneels before the adversary whom he does not wish to harm. When Don Carlo insults Alvaro's lineage, Don Alvaro consents to take up the sword for a single moment, then casts it to the ground, preferring to hold fast to his sacred vows. At last Don Carlo strikes him with the sword, and the former soldier can endure it no longer. He draws the sword and rushes out, still in the monks' habit, to duel with Don Carlo, as the curtain falls.

Scene Two: outside Leonora's cave, near the monastery.

Leonora comes out of the cave in which she has passed five years and sings the last of her moving prayers, which opens: "Peace, peace, O Lord God!" In it she confesses that she still abides in her love of Don Alvaro, and asks now for nothing but death. She withdraws swiftly the moment she hears the clash of arms.

Don Carlo and Don Alvaro are dueling fiercely at the back of the stage. The clang of their crossed swords is heard as they vanish behind a great rock. But a moment passes before Don Alvaro appears alone, having dealt the deathblow to his adversary Don Carlo, and come to seek help for him. The terrified Leonora rings the bell whose peal summons Father Guardiano in the hour of danger; then her eye falls upon Don Alvaro. The two lovers, so long parted, know each other again. Don Alvaro explains to her what he has done, and Leonora rushes behind the rock to see her wounded brother. But Don Carlo, who will not forgive her even in his last death-throes, stabs her in the heart as she bends over him. She comes back mortally wounded, supported by Father Guardiano, who has hastened at her cry for help.

Don Alvaro curses fate, and the priest admonishes him with all calm and gentleness. And as Leonora breathes her last she says that Heaven has granted her the strength to promise Don Alvaro pardon and forgiveness. He falls to his knees, broken-hearted, at her side, and the curtain descends little by little while Father Guardiano repeats that she has ascended to her Maker.