The World's Most Famous Operas - La Gioconda

Music by: Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886)

Rendered into Arabic by: Samir Shikhani

An opera in four acts, adapted from a story by Victor Hugo entitled "Angelo."

First produced in Milan in 1876.

Characters:

• La Gioconda, a strolling singer
• La Cieca, her blind mother
• Enzo Grimaldo: a nobleman of Genoa
• Barnaba, a spy of the Inquisition
• Alvise Badoero, head of the Inquisition
• Laura, his wife
• Zuàne, owner of a gondola
• Isèpo, a public letter-writer
• A monk

Townspeople, sailors, monks, ladies and gentlemen, children, dancers men and women.

Time: the seventeenth century.

Place: Venice (Venezia).

Act One

The scene: a courtyard before the Doge's palace.

It is a feast day, and the people are merrymaking and reveling... Off to one side stands Barnaba, the chief spy of the Inquisition, who works in the service of the ruling Council of Ten, watching glumly without taking part in the festival. After the crowd departs to watch the boat race, Barnaba catches sight of the beautiful strolling singer La Gioconda approaching, accompanied by her blind mother La Cieca. When the singer leaves her mother's arm to look for her beloved, Enzo Grimaldo, Barnaba tries to attract her attention, but she slips away from him and takes flight.

The crowd returns bearing the winner of the boat race, and Barnaba seizes the opportunity to carry out his base designs: he persuades the loser of the race that the blind woman La Cieca is a sorceress who made him lose the race by her witchcraft, and he rouses against her the wrath of the crowd, which drags her down the steps of the church, shouting: "Kill her... burn her!" At that moment La Gioconda returns in the company of Enzo, who tries single-handed to save La Cieca's life. And help comes to her from another quarter as well. For at that instant Alvise Badoero, head of the Council of Ten which rules Venice (Venezia), appears at the top of the stairs, and with him his beautiful wife Laura, who is a singer... and thanks to Laura's warm and sincere intervention, La Cieca's life is saved. Thereupon the blind woman gives the rosary with which she had been praying to the woman who saved her life, singing a beautiful song that begins, "Is it the voice of a woman or of an angel?"

Meanwhile Enzo and Laura recognize one another, and the meaning of her glances is disclosed in a conversation that takes place between Enzo and the villainous Barnaba. The spy Barnaba addresses Enzo by the name of the Prince of Santafior—for he knows his story from A to Z. Enzo is not the seafaring merchant from Dalmatia (as he tries to claim by his disguise), but a nobleman of Genoa, who once loved Laura but could not rival Alvise. Barnaba believed that he could win La Gioconda's affection if he could prove Enzo's betrayal of her. Accordingly he informs Enzo that he can arrange for Laura to visit his ship that very night, for he believes that, despite his attachment to La Gioconda, he still loves Laura.

No sooner has Enzo left the place than Barnaba dictates to one of the public letter-writers a letter addressed to Alvise, exposing the plans of his wife and her former lover. The people return once more to the square, singing with gaiety and delight. And La Gioconda laments her ill fortune, having discovered the plot concerning her beloved Enzo. The bells ring out, announcing the evening prayer, and La Gioconda and her mother withdraw from the stage.

Act Two

The scene: Enzo's ship

Here is Enzo's ship, anchored beside an island near Venice, on that moonlit night. The deck of the ship swarms with sailors, and a good number

of them have spread over the island itself... They are singing a merry song. The spy Barnaba arrives disguised as a fisherman and joins the sailors in their singing. After they withdraw, Enzo comes up on deck and leans upon the rail, gazing at the sea and the sky and singing the famous song "Heaven and the Sea." Before long Laura arrives in a small boat of Barnaba's, and no sooner does she meet her beloved Enzo than the two of them lay their plan of escape together. Enzo goes below to make ready for the flight, and Laura goes ashore and kneels before a simple altar set up on the island. Then La Gioconda arrives—she had known of the plan laid for the escape. Laura, for her part, knows nothing of Enzo's attachment to La Gioconda, who is dressed in black clothes and wears a mask over her face. And as each of the two declares her passionate love for Enzo, the strolling singer tries to kill the aristocratic young woman with her dagger; whereupon the latter takes up her rosary and begins to pray. Suddenly La Gioconda recognizes the rosary—her mother La Cieca's gift to Laura. She realizes that Laura is the lady who saved her mother's life, and the fit of her jealousy subsides at once. Then she catches sight of a boat advancing toward the ship, and she knows that it carries Laura's husband. So she resolves to save her rival's life: she pushes her into a small boat and orders the oarsmen to carry her to a place of safety. When Enzo returns to the deck to meet Laura, he finds La Gioconda before him. She cries out to him:
—Laura has fled... and gone back to her husband Alvise.
—Not another word... I shall follow them.

Then Gioconda points to the approaching ship carrying the furious Alvise. Enzo realizes that he has fallen into the trap Barnaba set for him, and here he is, ringed about by enemies. True, his sailors are ready to fight, but the followers of Alvise and Barnaba outnumber them, and he cannot hope to win the battle. And so he prefers to burn his ship rather than surrender to the avenging husband. And as the tongues of flame leap upward, Enzo slips from the ship into the water...

Act Three

Scene One: a room in Alvise's palace.

Alvise paces the hall back and forth in visible agitation and distress, thinking of washing away the disgrace by poisoning his wife, and repeating that Laura, the night before, fled from the island where she met Enzo, but that today she must die a theatrical death, while a boisterous celebration is held in an adjoining hall.

When Laura enters, dressed in her finest to attend the celebration, her husband treats her with mocking courtesy, but soon reveals to her the fate that awaits her. He flings her violently to the floor, heedless of her entreaties, and hands her the cup of poison, forcing her to drink it before the song rising outside comes to an end.

He leaves her in the hall and goes out; then La Gioconda enters, snatches the cup of poison from Laura, and hands her another cup, saying: "Drink this... it will save you!" At first Laura doubts her rival's intentions, but it is the only hope left to her. So she empties the cup down her throat and hurries to a chamber behind the curtain, where a coffin is supposed to be waiting for her corpse. Alvise returns, sees his wife stretched out in the bier, and announces, with every show of feeling, that she is dead. But before the scene ends, La Gioconda appears once more, declaring that she gives up her beloved to Laura in acknowledgment of the kindness Laura did her when she saved the life of her blind mother.

Scene Two: the ballroom in Alvise's palace.

The guests stream into the sumptuous ballroom, glittering with brilliant lights, and Alvise receives them with all cheerfulness and courtesy, though he knows that the adjoining room holds the corpse of his wife Laura, whom he has killed. For his guests he has prepared a ballet company to present the "Dance of the Hours"—the hours of dawn, the hours of day, the hours of evening, and the hours of night—each of these divisions of the day unfolding in the light appropriate to it.

Hardly has the applause died away after the presentation of this dance when Barnaba enters, dragging La Cieca, whom he found in the room where Laura lies. The blind woman says: "I meant no harm; I was only praying for my benefactress. She is dead!" The guests listen in astonishment; then the death bell tolls, echoing through the halls of the palace.

Everyone is alarmed, but Alvise tries at first to keep up the atmosphere of gaiety. At that moment Enzo enters and reveals his true identity, saying that he is the Prince of Santafior, and Alvise's enemy. He has taken this step so as to be united, in death, with his beloved Laura. And Alvise orders Barnaba, on pain of death, not to allow Enzo to escape—saying that he is in despair over the loss of Laura, but hopes to meet her in heaven.

With a theatrical gesture Alvise draws aside the curtain to display the corpse of his wife laid out upon the bed, shrouded in white garments. And he does not scruple to say that it was he who killed her, in vengeance for his honor. Enzo lunges at him with his dagger, but the guards stop him. And as the curtain falls, Barnaba seizes the blind woman and drags her out through a secret door.

Act Four

The scene: a ruined palace on an island near Venice.

La Gioconda is alone in the room; before long two men arrive, carrying the body of Laura, who is still unconscious under the effect of the drug she drank in place of the poison.

The two men—strolling singers, like La Gioconda—refuse the money she offers them, and promise her to search for her mother, whom Barnaba has carried off.

When she is alone once more, she sings the suicide song, in which she declares her resolve to put an end to her life. But Enzo appears at that moment, and from the dialogue between them we learn that La Gioconda has set him free, and that he desires nothing but to die before Laura's tomb... And Laura, who had been laid in the darkness of the adjoining room, has now awakened—and here she is before him.

Enzo and Laura embrace, acknowledging La Gioconda's kindness to them and her labor for their deliverance, and they kneel before her. La Gioconda declares that she gives up her beloved Enzo to Laura, and she leads the two of them to the boat. After their departure she returns to the thought of suicide, but Barnaba stands between her and death. She had once promised him that she would be his if he helped Enzo to escape, and now he has come to claim his reward. Adorning herself with jewels, she tells him that she will keep her promise; but at the last moment she takes up a dagger and stabs herself with it. Barnaba bends over her, saying: "Yesterday I killed your mother!" But she hears nothing; and the villain gives a shout of rage and rushes off in flight as the curtain falls.