O Guarani
O Guarani (contemporary spelling: O Guarany ) is a historical novel by José de Alencar published in 1857 and one of the most important works of Brazilian Romanticism . The opera adaptation by Antônio Carlos Gomes (1870) is considered a milestone in Brazilian music history.
General
He tells the story of the young native Peri and the family of the Portuguese nobleman Dom Antonio de Mariz , who emigrated with his wife Lauriana and his children Diogo and Cecília , as well as his niece Isabel and some entourage to Brazil , which has not yet been fully developed to flee foreign rule in his home country. From 1580 to 1640, Portugal was ruled from Madrid in the personal union of the Spanish and Portuguese kings.
"O Guarani" is the first part of a trilogy about the natives of Brazil, which the author completed in 1865 with the novel " Iracema " and in 1874 with "Ubirajara".
action
The action begins after Dom Antonios ' son , Diogo , accidentally kills a young Indian woman from the Aimorés tribe during the hunt . The Aimorés now seek revenge and have forged a plan to kill the daughter Antonios , Cecília , but Peri gets ahead of them and saves the life of the beautiful Ceci , as he calls her from then on. As if that were n't enough, he made her an unusual promise, but still fitting for the Romantic era : that he would protect her from any danger. So it is inevitable that Peri Ceci will soon have to save her life a second time. When a huge stone rolls towards the defenseless Ceci and threatens to bury her under him, Peri shows his heroic talent again and manages to fend off stone and calamity using superhuman strength.
Such deeds do not go unrewarded at the noble Dom Antonio and so Peri is soon accepted into the noble's house as a kind of “guardian angel” for whom he ( Peri ) feels a deep admiration, against the will of his ( Antonios ) wife, the loathed the natives and, even in Peris' case, seemed unable to differentiate. But no sooner has he settled in at the Mariz house than new danger threatens. The Aimorés , still inexorably contemplating revenge, surround the house of the nobleman, who sees himself unable to avert this danger. Peri sees only one way out: He wants to sacrifice himself to save the Antonios family and above all his lover Cecília from death by the murderous natives. Knowing for sure that the Aimorés as a primitive indigenous people indulge in the morbid desires of cannibalism , he forges the plan to poison himself and then, before the poison takes effect, present himself to the Aimorés as a sacrifice to appease their minds. After his death they are supposed to prepare their own executioner's meal from his poisoned meat. But this time it is Peri himself who is saved.
The young Portuguese Alvaro from Antonio's entourage , who, after everything that has happened up to that point, also owes his life to Peri , full of heroism, snatches the apparently dying Peri from the Indians, who miraculously survives the poisoning that has been specially carried out. When the tireless Aimorés attack again, Dom Antonio instructs Peri to finally bring his daughter Cecília to safety to his ( Antonio's ) sister in Rio de Janeiro . But first, so that Antonio can let them go together, Peri accepts the Christian faith in a hastily organized ceremony. Later, as agreed , Peri loads the sleeping Ceci into a canoe and escapes with her across the Paraíba River into an uncertain future. In the distance, Antonio blows up his property by igniting the powder chamber and using it to blow himself up, his own, but also the natives. Only Ceci and Peri have escaped and with the last lines of the novel the narrator gives the reader the believable impression that the friendship that has united the two from the beginning has developed into a love that is unshakable.
Opera adaptation
In 1870 the opera Il Guarany by Antônio Carlos Gomes was written , based on the novel. It is considered a milestone in Brazilian music history . It premiered at La Scala in Milan and was then played across Europe.
