JEWELS OF THE MADONNA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12814, 13 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

JEWELS OF THE MADONNA.

SENSATIONAL OPERA AT COVENT GARDEN. NAPLES NOISES THAT DROWN THE MUSIC. LONDON, May 29. 1 Ermanno Wolf -Ferrari's opera, "The Jewels of the Madonna," was given for , the first time m England at Covent Gar■dent last night, and created a tremen- ] dbus sensation. The opera is as sensuous, passionate, and brutally realistic ; as anything the Sicilians ever gave us. How it is performed m lands without censors is more easily imagined than described. But to think how it could be played were its intentions fully realised makes one's hair stand on end. In fact, "I Giojelli della Madonna," given as a drama, would be just the sort of thing that might make the fortune of any theatre if put up for a rim. As an opera it will undoubtedly be the financial success of the season at Covent Garden. With a wisdom far m excess of that of most of his craft, the composer has centred his energies on the story. He has ' realised its powerful appeal, and everything has been done . to color its situation and increase its popularity. Tragedy is made more lurid, passion more sensuous and brutal, the gaiety is more abandoned, and the religion more profound. REALISTIC CROWD. No opera has ever had such an opening- . scene. No Bernhardt crowd could be more realistic. Every kind of street' cry, noises, and yells, every possible kind of parson, buyers and sellers, that a Naples square at festival time is capable of exhibiting/seem* to be represented m this amazing operatic prelude. Pandemonium reigns supreme. Above the welter of sound- from the orchestra and chorus comes a noise of tin trumpets, rattles, clappers, and pop-guns, to say nothings of tin-whistles and toy kettle-drumS. You think the Babel is never going to stop. Just as the strain upon one's auditory nerves is becoming unbearable the hubbub suddenly dies down, and the people stand still. The music lulls also, and then swells into broad, dignified Gregorian-like strains, as boats bearing a number of little boy John-the : Baptists arrive at the quay side. Later the whole gorgeous festival procession of the Holy Virgin passes, and while it traverses the scene, Rafaele, the young head of the dreaded Camorra, offers to steal the jewels from the Madonna, and give them to Maliella for a kiss. Upon this promise the whole opera hangs. Maliella has rebelled against the restricted ' life she leads with her fostermother and the latter' s pious son, Gennaro, the blacksmith. Like Louise, she becomes almost demented m her longing for life and liberty. In tempestuous abandon she defies Gennaro, who loves her deeply, tears down her lovely hair, and indulges m a scandalous song and dance, calling on the assembled youths to kiss her. CAMORRIST LEADER. When, however, the. handsome Rafaele, at the head of his Camorrists, arrives, and would put the girl's request into practice, he is disdainfully repulsed. Maliella snatches a long stiletto pin from, her liair, and invites Rafaele to a duel for a kiss. Ho consents laughingly. The Camorrists make a ring, and after some fruitless encounters the girl is caught. Rafaele demands the forfeit, and is stabbed m the- arm for his pains, but he merely Akisses the blood as a token of the amorous fire that burns m his veins, and, 'kneeling, restores Maliella her pin. At that moment the great profession passes, and Rafaele makes his "sacrilegious offer. The boast means nothing to him who made it. But to Gennaro, to whom it is repeated by the girl m scorn, as a contrast of the real love of her. new lover and the pure. devotion of the old — it mean's everything. It means his undoing. 'Goaded to despair by Maliella's contempt and defiance, the honest, Godfearing blacksmith takes some tools, creeps away from the house at the dead of night, and steals the priceless jewels from the Madonna. .;- x RIVAL'S SERENADE. In Gennaro' s absence Rafaele serenades Maliella. She descends lightly clad, and a passionate love scene takes place through the iron bars of a locked gate:, After Rafaele's departure Gennaro re- ; turns with the jewels, and the girl is ; for a moment horrified, but while the [ remorseful man is praying for Heaven's [ mercy, Maliella arrays herself with the [ diadem and the .jewels. Her splendour but adds to the intoxication of her recent encounter with her lover, and, murmuring Rafaele's name, she yields as m a trance to Gennaro, who, looking up from his prayers, sees his beloved more radiantly beautiful' than ever. As the saint becomes a sinner, so the sinner becomes a saint m the last act. "Rafaele and all njs /lawless Camorrists, who-ortly the moment before have been indulging m the wildest orgy of pleasure and sensuality m their mountain haunts,' go down on their kriees arid cross themselves with feverish terror when the truth of the sacrilegious theft is known. They fall away from the guilty pair as from something too loathsome to touch. Maliella, after vainly protesting her innocence to Rafaele, rushes out to drown herself, while Gennaro stabs himself before a picture of the Madonna, not, however, before a beam of light irradiates the jewels m token of eternal forgiveness. Although the music is, like the drama, almost wholly sensuous and' passionate throughout, it is rich m tuneful numbers, both of song and dance, and revels m haunting rhythms and catchy phrases. It is splendidly scored, and abounds m telling effects. SUPER.B ..SINGING. Mme. Edvina has found m Maliella another Louise, which is to say she has scored yet another triumph. She made a striking figure^ with her long raven locks, and' emphasised thereby the realfsm of the piece. : Signor Martinelli, the .new tenor, as Gennaro, sang magnificently music for which dramatic tenors such as he must most, soulfully thank the composer, while he gave an appropriately "dour" idea of this operatic Fenton. . • Though Signor, Sammarco's get-up was more suggestive, to us, at least, of " 'Appy 'Ampstead," than Naples, his Rafaele was full of the heedless, heartless gaiety one associates with the part. He sang superbly. . -, >The crowd were by no means the spick-and-span pictorial Italians of conventional opera, but seemed to be .the real thing of a Neapolitan gathering, with its odds and .ends, of, costumes from all countries. ",' The chorus did their business remarkably truthfully, and the success of both the first and last acts was due m a large measure to their lively efforts.