Opera Books
THE OPERA
EDITED BY
ALBERT HILLERY BERGH
VOLUME III.
1909
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Bruneau.
Alfred Bruneau was
born in Paris on March 2, 1857. He inherited musical ability from his
parents, both of whom were musicians. Bruneau entered the Paris
Conservatoire, studied composition with Massenet, and in 1881 won the
Prix de Rome with his cantata Geneviève de Paris. Kérim,
Brunean’s first opera, presented in Paris, was only a moderate success,
but in 1891 Le Rêve, the libretto by Emil Zola, was well received
by the audiences of the Opéra Comique.
There followed a series of operas written to librettos by Zola,
among them L’Attaque du Moulin, produced with great success in
1893; Messidor, 1897; L’Ouragan, 1901; L’Enf- ante
Roi, and La Faute de L’Abbé Mouret.
In Le Rêve Bruneau produced an opera that is constructed
entirely upon a number of representative themes. There is a practically
complete absence of set pieces, the work running its course
uninterruptedly without a break. Bruneau has in fact treated his setting
of Zola’s book in a form that might be best described as “speech in song,”
accompanied by an orchestral commentary. It is doubtful, though, whether
the word “accompany” can be used at all in connection with his music,
seeing that the most important part is allotted to the orchestra.
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Bruneau received the decoration of the Legion d’Honneur in 1895.
Although severely criticized by conservative musicians, many of the
newer composers who seek for individuality and realism in opera follow
his lead, and credit him with the establishment of a distinctly new
school of French composition.
Opera in four acts by
Bruneau. Libretto by Gallet from the story by Emile Zola.
Characters: Père Merlier, proprietor of the Mill; Françoise, his
daughter; Dominique Penquer, a Flemish laborer; Marceline, a servant;
the Captain; soldiers and villagers.
Place, the French frontier. Time, the Eighteenth Century. First
produced at Paris in 1893.
When the opera opens the brave old Père Merlier, proprietor of the
mill, is celebrating the betrothal of his daughter Françoise to an
honest youth, Dominique Penquer, a Flemish laborer, who has come to the
frontier to work. Joy is in the heart of everyone and beaming in their
faces, when the roll of a drum is suddenly heard. It is the unexpected
and menacing announcement of a declaration of war. Marceline, the
servant of the mill, is particularly frightened by the approaching
hostilities, and loudly expresses her fear.
In the second act the scene is laid in the interior of the mill,
already devastated by shells, where a detachment of French soldiers has
withstood the assault of the enemy, bravely helped by Dominique. The
French are repulsed, the enemy returns in force, and, taking
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possession of the mill, discover Dominique, his gun still warm. The
captain of the conquering force declares that as Dominique is a
foreigner he is outside the laws of combat, and must be shot. He is
arrested and confined in the mill.
The distress of Françoise may be imagined. She finds a way of
communicating with Dominique by a window, begs him to escape, and
indicates the road he should follow. She sees an obstacle to his flight
in the sentinel who will be detailed to guard him, and gives her lover a
sharp knife, saying, “If the soldier speaks,—if he cries out, kill him!”
The third act transpires before the mill, where the soldiers of the
enemy are encamped. By a singular aberration of the librettist, the
sentinel of the opposing force is a sympathetic and attractive
individual who deplores the war that has so long exiled him from his
country and his loves. Stranger still, the servant Marceline, whom we
have seen execrating the horrors of war, in which her two sons were
killed, takes pity upon the hostile soldier, whom she should
instinctively hate. The soldier, although on guard, apparently has no
scruples against entering into conversation with the peasant woman, in a
manner almost affectionate.
At last Marceline goes out, at the moment when Dominique, escaping
from .the window, falls to earth. The sentinel sees him and runs up, but
Dominique plunges the knife in his breast and flies. At the cry set up
by the sentinel, before he falls dead, his comrades run up with their
officer, who perceives that the prisoner has escaped. The assailant can
be no other than Dominique. “Where is he?” the officer asks the
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miller. Very naturally, the latter replies that he does not know. The
captain then declares that if the murderer is not found the miller will
be shot in his place.
In the last act Dominique returns secretly to see Françoise, who is
full of trouble and anguish, not knowing which to sacrifice, her lover
or her father. The situation is pathetic. It becomes more so through the
heroism of Père Merlier, who generously sacrifices himself for his
daughter. He tells her that the captain has granted him a pardon, and
that he is the complete master of his liberty and acts. But nevertheless,
he says, Dominique must quickly fly, to return leading a column of the
French army, which will drive the enemy from the mill.
Françoise cries out in joy at the deliverance, which changes to a
scream of horror when she hears the captain of the enemy before his
flight give orders for the execution of Merlier. They hurry off the
brave old miller, the sound of firing is heard, and Françoise falls
senseless, while the French, led by Dominique, attack the mill, and the
curtain falls.
Last updated March 14, 2007