Giovanna d'Arco

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Work data
Title: Giovanna d'Arco
Title page of the piano reduction, around 1846

Title page of the piano reduction, around 1846

Shape: Dramma lirico in a prologue and three acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto : Temistocle Solera
Literary source: The Maiden of Orléans by Friedrich Schiller
Premiere: February 15, 1845
Place of premiere: Teatro alla Scala , Milan
Playing time: about 2 hours
Place and time of the action: France at the time of the Hundred Years War
people

Giovanna d'Arco is an opera (original name: "Dramma lirico") in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi , which was premiered on February 15, 1845 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan . The libretto by Temistocle Solera is based on the tragedy The Maiden of Orléans by Friedrich Schiller and is based on the life of Joan of Arc .

action

prolog

First image: Domrémy , in a large hall of a castle, 1429 ( Hundred Years War )

The situation of the Armagnacs , here equated with France, seems hopeless: Orléans , the ancestral seat of the dynasty, is besieged by the English and is about to fall. The assembled people of Domrémy and royal officials curse the English (“Qual v'ha speme? - Maledetti cui spinge rea voglia”). The king appears and announces his resignation to the people. He justifies this with a dream in which he is asked to put down his helmet and sword at a precisely described place in the middle of the forest by an oak, near a portrait of Mary, so that France may be saved. After he has learned that there is such a place in the immediate vicinity of the village ("Dipinta imago, e simile loco fra noi qui v'è"), he wants to leave immediately, but is stopped by the people, because at that place Evil rule ("Allor che i flebili - nell'orribile foresta"). But Carlo doesn't let that hold him back and goes into the forest.

Second picture: At night in the forest near Domrémy; a chapel on a rock next to an oak tree, underneath a stone bench. The sky is dark and stormy

Giacomo alone: ​​he fears that Giovanna often sleeps under this oak on stormy nights and is therefore in league with evil. Now he wants to find out the truth and is hiding in a cave.

Giovanna enters and kneels in front of the chapel. She firmly believes that she has been chosen to save France, but doubts whether the burden of this divine mission is too heavy for her. Then tiredness overcomes her and she falls asleep.

Carlo enters the scene. He realizes that he is in the right place, puts down his helmet and sword and begins to pray. Then there is a choir of evil and good spirits that can only be heard by Giovanna. The demons mock Giovanna with a kind of waltz ("Tu sei bella, tu sei bella! Pazzerella, che fai tu?"), While the angels remind them of their divine commission. Giovanna is evidently awakened by the choirs. Carlo and Giovanna see each other. She immediately recognizes the king and introduces herself as the future fighter for Orléans. Carlo sees the flame of God in her gaze.

The two go off, now confident. But Giacomo, who saw this, believes he has recognized the truth: Giovanna gave herself to demons “out of crazy love for the king” ( per folle amor del re! )!

first act

First image: English fortress in a remote location; in the distance you can see the city of Reims. English soldiers in various groups

The English soldiers demand that their leader Talbot retreat to England, as Orléans is lost and many brave soldiers have perished. They always fought bravely against a "normal" opponent, but against "legions of demons" they are powerless.

Giacomo appears in a mentally confused state ("i suoi atti dimostrano il disordino della mente") and declares that he can get them prisoners who are responsible for their debacle. When asked who he is, Giacomo explains that he is indeed “Franconian”, that is, French, but that his first home in his heart is his honor; and now that Carlo had brought shame on him, he wanted to fight with the English against the unworthy. The English are given new wings and declare that a blazing pyre will burn the shameful ones. Then Giacomo feels fatherly again, he cries in “memory of a daughter who betrayed her father” (“È memoria d'una figlia che tradiva il genitor”). Finally, however, the English soldiers leave with Talbot and Giacomo to take revenge on the "cowardly seducer" (Carlo).

Second picture: garden in the courtyard of Reims

Giovanna alone: ​​She knows that her job is done; nevertheless she has feelings that she would rather not question (“Le mie fiber scuote un senso, un turbamento, che interrogar pavento”). In conflict with her feelings, she finally decides to go back home. Then Carlo appears. He doesn't understand why she wants to leave him now, especially since he loves her. At first Giovanna sticks to her decision to return home, but finally she confesses her love for Carlo and reveals it to him. Exactly at this moment she again hears angelic voices warning her to allow “earthly” feelings (“Guai se terreno affetto accoglierai nel cor!”). She also has an apparition and hears her father's voice: “Die, wicked woman !” (“Muori, o Sacrilega!”). Delil appears with his entourage to lead the king to the coronation. Giovanna is to come and go ahead of the king. Giovanna leads Carlo, who paints her future in rosy colors, but now she wishes she had died pure and innocent on the battlefield. For the rest of her life she only sees days of pain ("Ogni giorno di mia vita sia pur giorno di dolor!"). In the background, again audible only to Giovanna, the evil spirits triumph ("Vittoria, vittoria! Plaudiamo a Satàna").

Second act

Reims, square in front of the cathedral

The people celebrate the impending coronation and especially Giovanna, who is referred to as “our Redeemer” (“nostra redentrice”). ("Like the very highest event when man was redeemed, be holy the day on which a people rose from the mud.")

Giacomo enters the scene ("Ecco il luogo e il momento!"). He sheds the role of father and becomes the "lightning bolt of the crucified Lord" ("Io qui di padre tutte fiber detergo, e del Signor crucciato or fulmine divento").

At the end of the coronation ceremony, Giovanna apparently wants to escape the hustle and bustle, but Carlo emphasizes it in front of the people by kneeling in front of her and calling her the second mistress of France next to him. At this moment Giacomo steps in ("La bestemmia oh sperda Iddio! Di chi mai tu cadi al piè!") And accuses Giovanna of making a pact with the demons. Everyone is deeply affected (“Un gel trascorrere sento per l'ossa”). Giovanna is silent on three questions from her father (in the name of God, her parents and her mother). The third question thunders and flashes, so that your guilt seems proven (“Si, la colpa è manifesta”). The people cursed Giovanna and chased the “witch” out of town (“Via la strega! - Fuggi, o donna maledetta”).

Third act

In an English camp, a staircase leads to a tower from which the nearby battlefield can be overlooked

Giovanna waits in chains for the execution, in the background the pyre has already been erected. You can hear the noise of battle and shouts: “The French!” Giovanna prays: She has loved, but only for a single moment, and she is still pure. Her only thoughts and emotions went to God. Giacomo, hidden from Giovanna, hears this and realizes the injustice he has done his daughter. He sets her free and she goes into battle. The English are defeated, but Giovanna is fatally injured.

They bring Giovanna on a stretcher and mourn her death. Then she straightens up again. After a moment of confusion, she asks for the flag that Carlo gives her. When she dies, a starlight suddenly spreads across the sky ("una siderea luce").

layout

Instrumentation

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Social order

The lower origins of Giovanni are rarely discussed in the opera. The chorus of evil spirits refers to Giovanna's background (first act, sixth scene): “Vedete stoltezza di questa villana che nunzia è del cielo, che dicesi pura!” (“This silly peasant girl claims that she is pure and a messenger of Heaven. ”) Carlo himself admits that he loved her from the very first moment, her origins don't seem to matter to him. When they first met, he even submitted to her: “Parla, imponi al tuo suddito!” (“Speak, command over me!”) The people finally suggest that Giovanna should go ahead with Carlos' coronation. This honor ignores their origins, and whether this ascent was made possible through their charisma or fame gained in battle is unclear. Verdi does not paint a hierarchically typical picture of the Middle Ages in his opera, although there is enough space for such a picture; the gender category is hardly mentioned either. In the prologue it becomes clear that Giovanna as a woman should not actually be a warrior, but her divine calling makes this plausible too.

Characteristic

In addition to the choirs, the opera lives from the three main characters: Giovanna, Carlo and Giacomo. The most important dramaturgically is Giacomo. In the opera, it is always he who drives the plot forward, and he also represents the most interesting character: His change from father, who is worried about his daughter, to one obsessed by religious fanaticism and superstition, is shown in detail.

Conflicts

  • Giacomo versus Giovanna, Giacomo versus Carlo;
  • Giovanna's internal conflict: religious versus earthly feelings (faith versus love);
  • On a higher level: war between France and England.

libretto

Temistocle Solera relies clearly on the literary model of Friedrich Schiller in the libretto, although on the one hand the plot is immensely shortened (from prologue and five acts in the romantic tragedy to prologue and three acts in the opera) and on the other hand the number of people is reduced from 27 to 5 . Despite Solera's assurances that he did not use Schiller's drama as a basis, the opera's unhistorical ending clearly indicates the opposite. Another departure from Schiller's tragedy is the role of Giovanna's father Giacomo. Although he suspects Giovanna in Schiller's drama of making a deal with the devil, his leading role as an antagonist comes from Verdi and Solera. Delil, the officer Carlos, does not appear at Schiller, he seems to be an invention of the composer. Schiller's drama was based on the files of the Inquisition Tribunal, to which he had access as a history professor. To what extent Solera and Verdi found out about sources is unknown.

Deviations from historical reality

Charles VII never met Joan of Arc in Domrémy. Rather, he had fled from his ancestral home in Orléans because of the English threat to Chinon , where Joan of Arc was brought.

The role of Jeanne's father in this form is a complete invention of the authors. Moreover, little is known about Jacques Darc.

Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians and handed over to the English. After a first conviction for heresy, she was initially pardoned because she withdrew her testimony, only to be cremated six days later (mainly for putting on men's clothes, which she was apparently forced to wear by taking away her women's clothes).

The idea that a shepherd's daughter is spoken by the king as patron saint is rather absurd; about this in the libretto (second act, third scene): “Omai / Due patroni ha la Francia. - / Al gran Dionigi / Fean sorger monumento i padri nostri; / Ne imiterem l'esempio […] / Diva donzella, avrai tu pure un tempio. "

In the opera the patria is mentioned and praised several times , although this word was not yet in use in this sense in the 15th century. The fighting was more for the king than for home. The deliberate use of this term could be interpreted as a reference to the uprisings at the time of the Risorgimento .

reception

Even then, the reaction to Verdi's seventh opera was divided: the music, with its rousing choir scenes and some moving solo parts, was described as brilliant. The libretto, on the other hand, was rejected, especially since the plot had been reduced to a few features and alienated from historical truth; the opera does not have the drama, logic and concentration of other Verdi operas written in that creative period.

Werner Herzog's 1989 production of the opera was recorded for television and then released on DVD. Renato Bruson (Giacomo), Susan Dunn (Giovanna) and Vincenzo La Scola (Carlo) will sing the main roles .

Web links

Commons : Giovanna d'Arco  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to the libretto dedicata a S. Dionigi
  2. ↑ The following sentence of the people is informative: “What will history say about us? Who is going to give us back the honor? "(" Che dirà di noi la storia? Or chi rende a noi la gloria? ")
  3. ^ Anselm Gerhard: Giovanna d'Arco. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 6: Works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , p. 404.
  4. ^ Giovanna d'Arco in the Internet Movie Database (English).