Truth and Reality in Operatic Librettos (part one)

I used to feel about librettists rather as Samuel Butler felt about historians: 'It has been said that although God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.' Certainly I tolerated their existence: and as a passionate opera lover, I had every reason to feel that they had been most useful in many respects, providing splendid (and frequently absurd) words for my heroes and heroines to sing, magnificent (and at the same time often ludicrous) words for my composers to launch. But I did have this God-like historian's belief that no libretto of a rcal incident or character could in fact add any conceivable particle of knowledge to our greater understanding of that incident or character in the historical sense. This was because God-like truth was always abandoned, if indeed it was ever sought, in the interests of dramatic tension, simplification of story, or even the straightforward demands of singing. And without truth, what insight towards reality could be provided?

Recently however the most welcome revival of Donizetti's Tudor operas, if I may so term the trio of Anna Bolena, Roberto Devereux and Maria Stuarda, with the latter currently at the Coliseum, has led me to modify this view, or at least replace it with one much less pedantic and more sympathetic to the aims of the librettist. It is not a total coincidence of course that it is the impact of these three particular operas which caused a change of heart: all three are set in periods which I know well, where the documents, historical arguments and received historical opinions are familiar to me. Nevertheless my compliments to Donizetti's trio are most emphatically not based on their historical accuracy as such, which in any case, as I will try to show, varies among the operas. Nor, as a l6th-and l7th-century specialist, do I necessarily feel fascinated, historically speaking, by any opera which is based on a period I have studied.
On the contrary, I find absolutely no historical illumination to be derived from Meyerbeer and A. E. Scribe's Les Huguenots or Le prophete, enjoyable as they may be on another level, and obsessed as I may be equally on another level by Catholic-Protestant relationships at the time of the Massacre of St Bartholomew or the problems of John of Leyden. Verdi's Don Carlos, my personal favourite opera and another l6th-century candidate, totally twists the character, to say nothing of the appearance of the hero, via Schiller's play which formed the basis for the libretto. The dashing liberal-minded hero, not to mention his even more liberal minded friend, the Marquis of Posa, to whose dramatic Sentiments of brotherhood, coupled with the name of liberty, we have all thrilled to in time, have very little connection with the feeble-minded twisted-bodied Don Carlos and his governor Ruy Gomez of history, But what of that? Let the (stage) Inquisition roll, and let the Emperor Charles V do his Demon King appearance and let us all forget about the tiresome historical realities.

Leaping to the 17th-century, what can Bellini’s I Puritani possibly contribute to one’s knowledge of the English Civil War, although it may contribute much to one’s enjoyment of Billini? Based partly Francois Ancelet’s play Tetes Rondes et Cavaliers, it is sometimes alleged to have traces of Scott’s Old Mortality (which I have never been able to detect). But the general historical flavour is probably best given by the fact that its full title is I Puritani di Scozia, whereas the action takes place firmly at Plymouth – a situation which mite surprise anyone with a firm hold on geography of the British Isles. Of course one recognizes some of the names of the history of the period. The main family consists of the Waltons, and a Colonel Valentine Walton was in fact both Oliver Cromwell’s brother-in-law and a prominent Puritan; nevertheless the character of Gualtiero Valton, even when translated into Lord Walter Walton, seems to have very little to do with history and very little to tell us about it.

Why then should this particular Donizetti trio be of any different caliber? First of all, I should admit that Anna Bolena, the first preformed in 1830, is the least satisfactory historically – although having just had first hand experience of seeing it preformed at the city centre New York with Beverley Sills I find it a most moving and satisfying operatic theme. Of course the basic story of Felice Romani’s libretto id not an issue – that Henry VIII (Enrico) had a wife called Anne Boleyn (Anna), had her executed for treasonable adultery, and subsequently and rapidly married Jane Seymour (Giovanna) – this is the sort of knowledge which one might describe as being at the fingertips of any British schoolchild today and any Italian librettist in the 19th century.

Furthermore, many of the colorful aspects of Donizetti’s opera have more foundation in fact than one might suppose from seeing them dramatically brought to life. For example, Anne Boleyn did actually have a youthful romance with a Percy, Henry (not Richard) subsequently the Earl of Northumberland, when Percy and Anne were both in attendance at the court of Cardinal Wolsey. There was even a suggestion of a pre-contract which the Cardinal insisted on breaking off: in 1532 Percy's own wife. With whom he was extremely unhappy, pleaded (admittedly unsuccessfully a) pre-contract with Anne Boleyn to put the marriage to an end. The same possibility was raised at Anne's trial, in order to invalidate her subsequent marriage to the King, and it was only after the suggestion had been dismissed once more, that the King's men had recourse to the novel idea of Henry's relationship with Anne's sister Mary as a source of invalidity. Of course Percy never appeared in front of Henry VIII as he does to such effect in the opera, reminding him that long ago the Queen had been promised to him. Nevertheless the trio of Act 2 of Amru Bolena,' Fin dall' eta piti tenera,' in which Percy tells Anna that from her earliest years she has always been his, does have some historical basis to it.

Likewise it would be wrong to regard Anna's great mad scene as pure fabrication, or simply as evidence of Donizetti's strong predilection for sopranos in the grip of hysterical if tuneful delusions.' Piangete voi' Anna asks her ladies-in-waiting, as she wanders about her prison distractedly, her clothes in disorder, her head bare. 'This is my wedding day. The King awaits me.' she continues somewhat over optimistically in true Ophelia vein. lt comes almost as a surprise to find that Anne Boleyn was indeed hysterical for much of her tirne in prison, and there were many contemporary suggestions that she had in tact gone mad