7
MUSICAL COURIER
February 22, 1923
FINALE OF THE SECOND ACT OF NISIDA
as given at the Carl Theater, Vienna, in 1880.
arouses the jealousy of the Marquis d’Aubigné and the two men hurry into the garden to settle their quarrel with a duel. The Marquis de Marsillac having noted the serenade begins to sing it also. When the Marquis d’Aubigné returns from the duel, he is asked to clear up the mystery of the song, but before he can a guard enters and arrests Hector, who is wounded and who has refused to tell the name of his opponent.
In the third act, which is laid in the private chapel of Mme. de Maintenon, the abbé is discovered singing the serenade which the Marquis d’Aubigné had sung to her in hymn form. Marsillac appears and receives a pardon for Hector when it is found that the Marquis d’Aubigné was the challenging party. Louis XIV now presents Nanon with the life of Grignon. Both Ninon and Nanon had interceded for the Marquis, and Nanon upon recognizing that both men are the same, she hands the pardon to Ninon, but her generosity stirs the Marquis d’Aubigné to offer her his hand and Mme. de Maintenon, fearing the King’s admiration for Nânon, consents to. her becoming the Marquise d’Aubigné.
Nisida
After Im Wunderlande der Pyramiden (1877) and Die letzten Mohikaner (1878) came Nisida, an operetta in three acts, text by West (Moriz Georg Nitzelberger, 1840-1880) and Zell. It was first produced on October 9, 1880, in Vienna, at the Carl Theater, with a splendid cast, and was well received by the public. The score is full of melody, humor and effectual instrumentation. Two months later the operetta was given in New York City at the Thalia Theater on December 7, and from the date of the first performance there to December 28 inclusive, fifteen performances were given. The work, well mounted and very well played, was a success. The cast was as follows : Frl. Cottrelly as Nisida; Hr. Adolfi as Don Palestro; Fr. Lube as Donna Miguela; Frl. König as Donna Mercedes; Hr. Schnelle as Don Montiel; Hr. Lenoir as Rodrigo; Hr. Meyer as Don Graziano; Hr. Lube as Barnacle; Hr. Schmitz as Rinaldo, and Hr. Bojock as Rinaldini. The operetta was given in an English version under the title Zanina, or The Rover of Cambaye, at Daly’s Theater beginning Tuesday, January 18, 1881; and after a run of thirty-one performances closed on February 12. In the production at this theater the scene was transferred from Havana to Hindustan, enabling a most lavish oriental costuming of the piece and the introducing of some beautiful scenery. Some episodes and scenes of the most lively interest were interwoven, which permitted the dancers and jugglers, which the management had imported from Hindostan, to display their marvelous accomplishments. The operetta, however, in its general dramatic form followed closely the original.
The scene of the operetta is laid in Havana, where the impresario Barnacle, armed with a warrant of arrest and accompanied by Rinaldo and Rinaldini, two sly agents of the theater, who serve in the capacity of detectives, has traveled to, in order to force his prima donna Nisida, the star and attraction of his company, who had broken her contract, to return to Europe to fill the engagement there. The prima. donna has come to Havana in pursuit of her faithless lover, Don Rodrigo, who had promised to marry her, but who had now decided to marry Donna Mercedes, the richest heiress of Cuba. The latter is the niece of the Corregidor Don Palestro and the sister of Don Montiel, a kind of modern pirate, whose ship had made successful raids in the waters of the southern states, but who with his family had been completely ostracized. Summoned by his sister,^ Don Montiel demands of Don Palestro the portion of his inheritance, with the intention of buying a ship and taking part in a war between Chile and Peru. Barnacle succeeds in procuring a warrant for the arrest of Nisida from Don Graziano, Don Palestro’s clerk, while Don Palestro, who has bought up ah o-f the promissory notes of his discredited nephew, Don Montiel, issues another warrant of arrest for the latter, whose legacy he tries to retain, demanding his nephew to renounce his heritage. Don Montiel refuses to do so, because , he has fallen in love with Nisida, whom he has promised to protect against her per-(Continued on Page 14).
it had quite a run. It was revived at this same theater seven years later, on January 12. In 1888 the Carleton English Opera Company opened a week’s engagement on October 8 at the Grand Opera House, 'which stood on the northwest corner of Eighth avenue and Twenty-third street, with this operetta, which is gay and brilliant throughout.
The story of the operetta is laid in Paris in the days of Louis XIV. The first act opens at the inn of the Golden Lamb, near the gates of Paris. The inn is kept by Nanon, famous for her wit and beauty. To this inn the Marquis de Marsillac, director of the Royal Theater, brings his nephew Hector so that the latter may see her. Another visitor to the inn is Ninon d’Enclos, a famous beauty, around whom much of the interest revolves. She has suspected her lover, the Marquis d’Aubigné, of being in love with Nanon but her suspicions are quieted upon learning that Nanon is to be married to the drummer Grignon, who is in reality the Marquis d’Aubigné. When Nanon proposes marriage to Grignon, he agrees but at the same time secures his own arrest, by his colonel, on account of a duel, so as to prevent the ceremony from taking place. Receiving friendly assurances from Gaston, the page of Ninon d’Enclos, Nanon goes to the latter ,to ask for aid in rescuing her lover from death.
The second act is in Ninon’s salon, where there are gathered together the Marquis de Marsillac, Hector, an abbé who is one of Ninon’s lovers and also the confessor of Mme. de Maintenon, and the Marquis d’Aubigné. The latter sings to Ninon the same serenade that he had previously sung to Nanon. When Nanon arrives to seek aid for her lover, the court paid by Hector to the latter and Ninon
Domingos enters bringing all the court as witnesses of Don Lamberto’s lovemaking. Upon the Queen’s unmasking, the courtiers see their error, but nevertheless Don Domingos insists that there is a second lady and that she is concealed in the adjoining room. The Queen orders the door to be opened, and to the surprise of all, but the great relief of Don Lamberto, Fanchette, in the costume of a royal midshipman, appears and announces herself as a young nobleman, sent by his relatives to enter the Naval Academy. Fanchette thus saves Don Lamberto but loses her identity, for she now must remain a man.
The second act is the esplanade in front of the Royal Naval Academy. Owing to circumstances over which she ■has little control, Fanchette is now one of its members. Don Januario, who had fallen in love with her previous to her assumption of the midshipman’s disguise, meets her here in masculine attire and is sorely perplexed to account for the likeness between Don Maurito, which is the name Fanchette had taken, and the pretty gypsy girl. Upon accosting her he receives a blow for which he demands satisfaction by way of a duel, which he later retracts after witnessing a pre-arranged duel between the midshipman and Captain Norbeto, fencing master at the Academy, who has been bribed by Don Lamberto to allow himself to be defeated. The Queen inspects the cadets and promotes Fanchette, who has become her favorite, to the rank of captain. The master of ceremonies has arranged a game of living chess in which the Queen loses, according to the chess experts of the court. Fanchette claims and shows she has not, and plays the Queen’s game, winning in four brilliant moves to the astonishment of the court. •For this the Queen promotes her to the post of royal equerry. The act ends with the Queen being escorted by Don Lamberto to the royal barge. As she goes she casts a long lingering glance at the royal equerry.
In the third act, which is laid in a grand apartment in the Royal Palace, Fanchette by a clever expedient determines to get into her feminine attire again, and in her assumed character of the reckless Don Maurito makes love to the Queen, who hides the midshipman in the adjoining room just before Don Lamberto enters. He accuses ■his wife of ■having given an audience to the dissolute Don Maurito. The entrance of the members of the court interrupts the conjugal squabble, while a noise in the Queen’s apartment attracts universal attention. JDon Lamberto, insisting that the Queen’s honor is involved, orders the door to be opened, and Fanchette appears this time in the dress of a lady of rank, presenting herself as Don Maurito’s sister. The Queen thinks that her officer has done this to save her reputation from being compromised. The Brazilian, upon seeing his lost love, claims her hand and receives the Queen’s consent to the marriage. The Queen upon inquiring of her former officer how he will explain that he is not a woman, the midshipman requests that that be left for her to do. The operetta concludes with the Queen announcing that Don Lamberto is her husband and with an acknowledgment of the King.
Nanon
Nanon, or Die Wirthin vom koldenen Lamm, an operetta, in three acts, text by Zell, founded upon a French vaudeville of the remote past, which was Genée’s next work, was at first refused but later became popular. It was produced in Vienna in 1877, and given for the first time in New York City, on January 2, 1885, at the Thalia Theater, to a crowded house, after having had a run of over three hundred nights in Berlin. The Thalia Theater cast was as follows : Hr. Lube, as Marquis de Marsillac; Hr. Elsbach, as Hector; Hr. Schütz, as Marquis d’Aubigné; Hr. Meyer, as Louis XIV; Hr. Rank, as Abbé la Plâtre; Frl. Raberg, as Ninon d’Enclos; Frl. Meffert, as Nanon; Frl. Delia, as Mme. de Maintenon, and Frl. Schatz, as Mme. de Frontenac.
On March 25, 1885, the operetta had its forty-fifth performance at the Thalia Theater and in the fall, on October 12, it was revived there with the same cast and was as well received as When it had first been given. The first performance of the opera in English, in New York City, was on June 29 of that same year, at the Casino Theater, where
ROYAL MIDDY (DER SEECADETT), New York City, in 1880.
FINALE OF THE SECOND ACT OF THE
as given at Daly’s Theater,