Verdi's "La Forza del Destino" Quiz

Answer: Russia

"Forza" premiered in St. Petersburg at the Imperial Theater on November 10, 1862. In 1861, while attending a session of the Italian parliament in Turin, Verdi signed a contract to write an opera for the theater's winter season the following year. In anticipation of their sojourn to Russia for the opera's premiere, Verdi's wife Giuseppina ordered wine, pasta, salami, and Italian cheeses to be sent ahead to their hotel in St. Petersburg. In case you were wondering, the other five Verdi operas that premiered elsewhere were "Jerusalem" (actually a reworking of "I Lombardi" in a French translation), "Les Vepres Siciliennes", and "Don Carlos", all of which premiered in Paris, "I Masnadieri", which premiered in England with Jenny Lind, and of course "Aida", which premiered in Cairo, Egypt.

Answer: The death of Wagner.

Verdi secretly married Giuseppina, with whom he had been living for the past twelve years, in August of 1859 in Savoy. The year 1861 saw the unification of Italy, the fruit of the "risorgimento" which had so colored Verdi's early life. In its aftermath, the composer was besieged with requests to run for election as the representative of Busseto in the new Italian parliament.

He adamantly resisted this pressure until the distinguished Italian statesman Count Camillo Cavour, whom Verdi had met and befriended two years before in Turin, encouraged him to run. Verdi won the election, but found little fulfillment in the position and bega to ease himself out of political life after the death of Cavour in June of 1861. The death of fellow composer Richard Wagner affected Verdi greatly, but did not occur until 1883, more than twenty years later (else we would never have had "Die Meistersinger" or "Parsifal").

Answer: Francesco Maria Piave

Piave had previously collaborated with Verdi on "Ernani", "I Due Foscari", "Macbeth", "Il Corsaro", "Stiffelio/Aroldo", "Rigoletto", "La Traviata", and "Simon Boccanegra". "Forza" would be their last collaboration; five years after the opera's premiere, Piave suffered a paralytic stroke and remained completely disabled for the next eight years until his death in 1874. During this period, Verdi was generous in his financial support of his old colleague and his family.

Answer: Friedrich Schiller

Act III, scene 3 is heavily derived from Schiller's play; particularly Melitone's comic speech chastizing the soldiers for their drunkeness. The friar's celebrated quip "Ben piu facenda le bottiglievi dan che battiglie!" ("Bottles give you more trouble than battles!") is a paraphrase of Schiller's "The army cares more about bottles than battles, and moistens its beaks more readily than its swords."

Answer: With the suicide of Alvaro.

The original "Forza", which has had a revival in recent years, had a much darker ending, in which a grief-crazed Alvaro rushes to the cliff side after the death of Leonora. When Padre Guardiano and the monks call him by his monastic name, Rafaele, he replies in a crazed speech that Rafaele does not exist and that he is a messenger from Hell and the spirit of destruction. Calling upon Hell to swallow him up, he throws himself over the cliff.

The revised libretto was adapted from Piave's original by Antonio Ghislanzoni, with whom Verdi would later collaborate on "Aida".

Answer: Leonora's "La vergine degli angeli" from Act II

A number of melodies from the Act II duet between Leonora and Padre Guardiano, in which he exhorts her to seek forgiveness from God and she asks permission to live as a hermitess in a cave near the monastery, appear in the overture. Also quoted prominently is Leonora's great plea "Deh non m'abbandonar" from the aria "Madre pietosa vergine" earlier in that scene.

The plaintive melody of "Le minaccie i fieri accenti" from the great Act IV duet between Alvaro and Don Carlo is also used extensively. Leonora's sublime aria "Le vergine deglie angeli" (with monk's chorus), which ends Act II, is not quoted in the overture, nor elsewhere in the opera.

Answer: Destiny or fate

The overture begins with three somber Es played by the brass, which is reiterated, followed by a restless and inexorable Allegro agitato figure in the lower strings, which is heard throughout the rest of the overture. It is heard again when the Marchese di Calatrava surprises his daughter and Alvaro as they are about to elope, and again before the final scene of the opera when it is interrupted by Leonora's desperate "Pace".

Answer: King Lear

Verdi had entertained the idea of an opera based on "Lear" and had actually obtained a completed libretto from Antoni Somna. However the project never came to fruition and the composer eventually presented Somna's libretto to the young Mascagni (who also failed to make anything of it).

In a moment of candor, the aging composer admitted that Lear's mental collapse at the heart of the play frightened him. Leonora's "Me pellegrina" Would probably have been sung by Cordelia after her banishment by Lear, it echoes similar sentiments.

Answer: Padre Guardiano

In Act II, scene 2, Padre Guardiano informs the monks that a troubled soul (he does not specify the gender) has sought sanctuary from them and will reside in the cave outside the monastery. He strongly exhorts them to maintain a respectful distance and invokes a curse against anyone who would violate the hermit's sanctuary.

In Act IV, scene 2, at the end of "Pace, pace mio Dio", Leonora hears the duelling Carlo and Alvaro approaching the cave (without knowing who they are) and invokes Padre Guardiano's curse.

Inadvertantly, this also recalls her father's curse upon her, which is about to be fulfilled.

Answer: Aida

This phrase occurs in the duet "Rivedrai le foreste imbalsamata". Amonasro, having shamed Aida into agreeing to dupe Rhadames into revealing his army's strategy to her, reassures her that her action will be the salvation of her people. The great soaring phrase "Pensa, che un popolo" bears a marked resemblance to Leonora's "Deh non m'abbandonar". Verdi was known to use certain melodies in different forms more than once, the most celebrated example being Violetta's "Amami, Alfredo" the melody of which had appeared years earlier in the prelude to Medora's aria from "Il Corsaro" and is also quoted by Gilda in the recitative before the love duet "E il sol dell' anima" from "Rigoletto".

Answer: No

Don Carlo suspects, as do the other men at the inn, that Trabuco's "male" companion is actually a woman, and joins in teasing him about the fact. His casual and lighthearted demeanor indicates that he does not suspect that it is Leonora, against whom (along with Alvaro) he has sworn vengeance for the death of his father.

Answer: True

The quality of the music in this scene is not particularly high; Preziosilla's aria "Al suol del tamburro", though lively, is not exactly top-drawer Verdi and Carlo's jaunty aria "Son Pereda, son ricco d'onore", in which he relates the story of his father's death in the second person, as though it happened to a friend of his (a ruse which does not fool the wily Preziosilla), is distinctly mediocre.

The great baritone Tito Gobbi never sang the role of Don Carlo; he once admitted in an interview that he simply couldn't get through "Son Pereda" without laughing.

The best music in the scene is the poignant ensemble which begins when a chorus of pilgrims celebrating Holy Week is heard outside the inn, prompting the revelers inside (along with the wretched and frightened Leonora) to bow momentarily in prayer.

Answer: Carlo's "Urna fatale del mio destino"

The cabaletta here serves a dramatic purpose; in the recitative following the aria, Carlo finds a portrait of Leonora among Alvaro's belongings and realizes that he is the man responsible for his father's death. He then recieves word that Alvaro has recovered from his wounds and is elated, since Alvaro will now die at his hands.

The cabaletta "Egli e salvo, O gioia immensa" ("He is saved, O joy immense") vividly expresses his rather maniacal glee.

Answer: Leonard Warren

On March 4, 1960, Warren, considered by many to be possibly the greatest Verdi baritone of his time, was the Don Carlo in a performance of "Forza" at the Metropolitan opera, which also starred Warren's close friend, tenor Richard Tucker as Alvaro and Renata Tebaldi as Leonora. Warren, who had been undergoing treatment for hypertension, was performing the great scene which, ironically, begins with the words "Morir! Tremenda cosa." ("To die! A tremendous thing!") He had just completed the aria "Urna Fatale del mio destino" ("Fatal urn of my destiny").

In the recitative that follows, his character had just learned of Alvaro's recovery, and sings the words "E salvo? E salvo?? O gioia" ("He is saved? He is saved?? O joy!"). After singing these words, Warren suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died instantaneously while still standing.

He pitched forward and collapsed before the stunned audience and cast. Warren's death was announced by manager Rudolf Bing, and the performance did not continue. (An eerie echo of this incident occurred during a 1996 performance of Janacek's "Vec Makropoulos" at the Metropolitan when tenor Richard Versalle was stricken by a massive coronary and fell dead from an onstage ladder; he had just sung the line "You can only live so long." As with the 1960 "Forza", the performance was discontinued.)

Answer: He refuses the cross of the order of Calatrava.

In the first scene of Act III, Alvaro saves Carlo's life when the latter gets into a violent altercation with some fellow soldiers. The two men swear eternal friendship, each giving the other a false name. A battle ensues in which Alvaro is severly wounded and lies at the point of death. Carlo assures him that he will be awarded the Order of Calatrava for his bravery, but Alvaro recoils in horror at this honor, mindful of his guilt in the death of the Marchese.

In the recitative before the aria "Urna fatale", Carlo wonders at this and speculates that Alvaro may have heard of his family's dishonor. Suddenly, though, a second idea comes to him: perhaps this is the very man responsible for the tragedy.

He resolves to find out and is tempted to read the contents of the package Alvaro had entrusted to him, which he was to have destroyed unopened. Remembering his vow, however, Carlo refuses to violate his solemn oath to the dying man.

He has no compunctions, however, about rifling through the other contents of the casket which Alvaro had given him.

Answer: Tarantella

The Tarantella is a frenzied dance which is said to mimic the movements of someone who has been bitten by a tarantula, hence the name. It is a fitting accompaniment to this chorus about the follies of war.

Answer: Father Rafaele

The beggars to whom Melitone is so cross at the beginning of Act IV reproach him with the fact that Father Rafaele is much kinder to them. In his subsequent conversation with Padre Guardiano, Melitone mentions that, on the previous day, the two men were working together and Melitone had joked to Rafaele that "You're working as hard as a mulatto", whereupon the latter had glowered and clenched his fists menacingly.

Answer: The one from hell.

The juxtaposition of low comedy and grim tragedy in this opera sets it apart from the rest of Verdi's "opere serie". Nowhere in the opera are the two juggled more skillfully than in this scene, in which Melitone's sardonic humor sets off Carlo's grim and inexorable thirst for revenge.

When Carlo asks to see Padre Rafaele, Melitone explains that there are actually two men by that name; one from Porcuna, fat and deaf as a mole, the other thin, swarthy, and "...with eyes...Heavens, what eyes!" When Melitone asks which one he wants, Carlo replies "Quel dell' inferno." ("The one from Hell.") Melitone promptly fetches Don Alvaro.

Answer: Ave Maria

Filippo Filippi, music critic of "La Perseveranza", wrote that "Pace", with its arpeggiated accompaniment and simple vocal lines, was an imitation of Schubert's "Ave Maria" (the two bear a slight superficial resemblance, but nothing more). Verdi replied more in bemusement than anger : "...musically illiterate as I am I couldn't say how many years it has been since I heard Schubert's "Ave Maria".

It would have been difficult for me, therefore, to copy it."

Answer: Franz Werfel

A German-speaking Jew, Werfel was born in Prague in 1890 (Franz Kafka was one of his schoolmates). He first attracted world attention with his 1911 verse cycle "Der Weltfreund"; among his fascinatingly eclectic body of work are the historical novels "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" (concerning the Turkish persecution of ethnic Armenians in 1915), "The Song of Bernadette" (a biographical novel about the French peasant girl who claimed to have recieved a vision of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in the mid-1800s) and the historical play "Juarez und Maxillian" about the ill-fated Hapsburg emperor of Mexico.

His biography of Verdi, entitled "Verdi; a novel of the opera" was published in 1924; like "The Song of Bernadette" it is a biographical novel rather than a formal biography. Werfel's excellent translation of "Forza" appeared in 1926 and was entitled "Die Macht des Schiksals". Werfel treated Act I as a prologue and presented the work as "in einem Vorspiel und drei Akten" ("Prologue and three Acts"). Werfel had emigrated to Austria in the early 20th century, but was forced into exile by the Anschluss in 1938.

He eventually emigrated to America in 1940 and died in Beverly Hills, California in 1945.