Anecdotes of Great Musicians/Anecdote 263
263.—STAGE CENSORSHIP.
It seems strange that at this age of the world a composer should have to ask the police what characters and incidents he may use in the plot of his opera. Yet within a short time the Italian, Leoncavallo, in putting his "I Medici" on the stage in Vienna, has had to make serious alterations in the text at the "suggestion" of the censor of that city. He had to change a scene in the last act because two priests are there depicted as murderers of Giuliano Medici. The composer, unwilling to have his work forbidden, replaced the priests by two young courtiers. Also the Credo sung in Latin in a church scene was given with German words, and each time the name of the Pope had to be uttered during the course of the piece a nobleman's name was to be substituted.
This reads like the days in 1847, when republican sentiment was rampant in Italy, and the supervision of what was given to the public in print or on the stage was very strict. When, at that time, Verdi brought out "I Masnadieri," Schiller's great tragedy of "The Robbers" arranged to a string of Italian melodies, he was obliged to cut and slash his libretto in all directions at the bidding of the police authorities for fear there would be allowed to remain in the work some reference to liberty or republicanism.
The "Masked Ball" was not at first permitted a representation because it dealt with the assassination of King Gustavus III, of Sweden; so Verdi offered to turn his king into a duke; but finally, to give satisfaction, he metamorphosed the monarch into the "Governor of Massachusetts" and allowed him to be killed in sedate old Boston! The tenor, Mario, was to appear in this first presentation, and when he came to don the sombre garb of the Puritan governor, he decidedly objected to its lack of color and ornamentation. So Verdi obligingly allowed the sober Puritan to strut the stage in Spanish mantle, high boots, spurs, and a helmet with waving plume!
Rossini's "William Tell" has also come under the ban of governmental displeasure in monarchical Europe. At various times the libretto has undergone change for political reasons.
At the Royal Opera, Berlin, in 1830, for example, the title "William Tell" was altered to "Andreas Hofer," the hero of the Tyrolese insurrection against the French and Bavarians, who was shot at Mantua in 1810; while the tyrant Gessler was, of course, replaced by a French general. In Russia the piece was some sixty years ago rechristened "Charles the Bold," and instead of William Tell another hero was invented, called Rodolphe Doppelguggel.