Sulpice, an old sergeant.
Tony, a Tyrolean peasant in love with Marie.
Hortensius, secretary of the Marchioness.
Marie, the adopted Daughter of the Regiment.
Marchioness de Berkenfeld.
Duchesse de Crackenthorpe.
[Villagers, soldiers, gentlemen, guests.]
The scene is laid in the Tyrol; time, about twelve years after the
Battle of Marengo.
At the opening of the opera Marie, the heroine, and vivandière in
Napoleon's Twenty-first Regiment, has been saved from falling over a
precipice by Tony, a Tyrolean peasant, and is ever after the object of
his special admiration and, shortly, of his love. She tells the story of
her life, from which it appears that she was adopted as the Daughter of
the Regiment because she was picked up on the field of battle by Sergeant
Sulpice, who found upon her person a letter written by her father to the
Marchioness de Berkenfeld. Tony's reward for his rescue of Marie is his
arrest as a spy, but not before he has declared his love for her. He
easily clears up his record, and the soldiers decide he may have Marie's
hand if he will join them. He gives joyous assent to this proposition,
but his hopes are suddenly dashed to the ground when the Marchioness de
Berkenfeld appears. Sergeant Sulpice delivers the letter to her, after
reading which she claims Marie as her niece, and carries her off amidst
smothered imprecations by the soldiers and especially by Tony upon the
Marchioness.
In the second act Marie is found in her new home at the castle of
Berkenfeld, and the old sergeant is with her, while she is rehearsing a
romance which she is to sing to a grand company. She and Sulpice suddenly
break out into a rollicking rataplan, and go through military evolutions
to the horror of the Marchioness. While the latter is expostulating with
them, martial music announces the approach of the gallant Twenty-first,
with Tony at their head, for he is now a colonel. He makes another appeal
for Marie's hand, and the appeal is seconded by the soldiers, but the
Marchioness refuses the favor. Tony then proposes an elopement, to which
Marie consents. To thwart this scheme, the Marchioness announces that
early in life she had been secretly married to an army officer of low
rank and that he was Marie's father. Unable to disobey her mother's
wishes, Marie gives up Tony and falls into a melancholy mood. Her sad
plight rouses old associations in the mind of the Marchioness, and she at
last gives her consent to the union.
The music of the first act is very brilliant, and includes among its best
numbers Marie's opening song, "The Camp was my Birthplace"; the duet with
Sulpice, known the world over as "The Rataplan," stirring and martial in
its character and accompanied by the rattling of drums and the sonorous
strains of the brasses; the spirited "Salute to France"; Marie's song of
the regiment, "All Men confess it"; her pretty duet with Tony, "No longer
can I doubt it"; and her touching adieu to the regiment, "Farewell, a
Long Farewell."
In the second act the principal numbers are the "Rataplan" (repeated);
Marie's aria, "By the Glitter of Greatness and Riches"; the soldiers'
spirited choral appeal, "We have come our Child to free"; Tony's romance,
"That I might live in her Dear Sight"; and the effective trio, "Once
again, what Delight," leading to the exultant finale. The music of the
opera is light, but exceedingly brilliant, and the leading rôles have
always been esteemed by great artists. That of Marie was a favorite one
with Jenny Lind, Patti, Sontag, and Albani.
Don Pasquale.
[Opera buffa, in three acts; text and music by Donizetti. First
produced at the Theatre des Italiens, Paris, January 4, 1843.]