voice, provoked a real enthusiasm among the lovers of music in the town.
For three weeks Fiovaranti had been achieving a brilliant success in "Les Huguenots." The first act, interpreted according to the tastes of the Quiquendonians, had occupied an entire evening of the first week of the month. Another evening in the second week, prolonged by infinite andantes, had elicited for the celebrated singer a real ovation. His success had been still more marked in the third act of Meyerbeer's masterpiece. But now Fiovaranti was to appear in the fourth act, which was to be performed on this evening before an impatient public. Ah, the duet between Raoul and Valentine, that pathetic love-song for two voices, that strain so full of crescendos, stringendos, and piu crescendos—all this, sung slowly, compendiously, interminably! Ah, how delightful!
At four o'clock the hall was full. The boxes, the orchestra, the pit, were overflowing. It was customary for the Quiquendonians, while awaiting the rise of the curtain, to sit silent, some reading the paper, others whispering low to each other, some making their way to their seats slowly and noiselessly, others casting timid looks towards the bewitching beauties in the galleries.
But on this evening a looker-on might have observed that, even before the curtain rose, there was unusual animation among the audience. People were restless who were never known to be restless before. The ladies' fans fluttered with abnormal rapidity. All appeared to be inhaling air of exceptional stimulating power. Everyone breathed more freely. The eyes of some became unwontedly bright and seemed to give forth a light equal to that of the candles, which themselves certainly threw a more brilliant light over the hall. It was evident that people saw more clearly, though the number of candles had not been increased. Ah, if Doctor Ox's experiment were being tried! But it was not being tried, as yet.
The musicians of the orchestra at last took their places. The first violin had gone to the stand to give a modest la to his colleagues. The stringed instruments, the wind instruments, the drums and cymbals, were in accord. The conductor only waited the sound of the bell to beat the first bar.
The bell sounds. The fourth act begins. The allegro appassionato of the inter-act is played as usual, with a majestic deliberation which would have made Meyerbeer frantic, and all the majesty of which was appreciated by the Quiquendonian dilettanti.
An Opera at Express Speed
But soon the leader perceived that he was no longer master of his musicians. He found it difficult to restrain them, though usually so obedient and calm. The wind instruments betrayed a tendency to hasten the movements, and it was necessary to hold them back with a firm hand, for they would otherwise outstrip the stringed instruments; which, from a musical point of view, would have been disastrous. The bassoon himself, the son of Josse Lietrinck the apothecary, a well-bred young man, seemed to lose his self-control.
Meanwhile, Valentine has begun her recitative, "I am alone," etc.; but she hurries it.
The leader and all his musicians, perhaps unconsciously, follow her in her cantabile, which should be taken deliberately, like a 12-8 as it is. When Raoul appears at the door at the bottom of the stage, between the moment when Valentine goes to him and that when she conceals herself in the chamber at the side, a quarter of an hour does not elapse; while formerly, according to the traditions of the Quiquendone theater, this recitative of thirty-seven bars was wont to last just thirty-seven minutes.
Saint Bris, Nevers, Cavannes, and the Catholic nobles have appeared, somewhat prematurely, perhaps, upon the scene. The composer has marked allegro pompose on the score. The orchestra and the lords proceed allegro indeed, but not at all pompose, and at the chorus, in the famous scene of the "benediction of the poniards," they no longer keep to the enjoined allegro. Singers and musicians break away impetuously. The leader does not even attempt to restrain them. Nor does the public protest; on the contrary, the people find themselves carried away, and see that they are involved in the movement, and that the movement responds to the impulses of their souls.
"Will you, with me, deliver the land,
From troubles increasing, an impious band?"
They promise, they swear. Nevers has scarcely time to protest, and to sing that "among his ancestors were many soldiers, but never an assassin." He is arrested. The police and the aldermen rush forward and rapidly swear "to strike all at once." Saint Bris shouts the recitative which summons the Catholics to vengeance. The three monks, with white cowls, hasten in by the door at the back of Nevers's room, without taking any account of the stage directions, which enjoin on them to advance slowly. Already all the artists have drawn sword or poniard, which the three monks bless in a trice. The sopranos, tenors, bassos, attack the allegro furioso with cries of rage, and of a dramatic 6-8 time they make it 6-8 quadrille time. Then they rush out, bellowing:
"At midnight,
Noiselessly,
God wills it
Yes,
At midnight."
The Audience in a Frenzy
At this moment the audience start to their feet. Everybody is agitated—in the boxes, the pit, the galleries. It seems as if the spectators are about to rush upon the stage, the Burgomaster van Tricasse at their head, to join with the conspirators and annihilate the Huguenots, whose religious opinions, however, they share. They applaud, call before the curtain, make loud acclamations! Tatanemance grasps her bonnet with feverish hand. The candles throw out a lurid glow of light.
Raoul, instead of slowly raising the curtain, tears it apart with a superb gesture and finds himself confronting Valentine.
At last! It is the grand duet, and it starts off allegro vivace. Raoul does not wait for Valentine's pleading, and Valentine does not wait for Raoul's responses.
The fine passage beginning, "Danger is passing time is flying," becomes one of those rapid airs
