Opera Books
THE OPERA
EDITED BY
ALBERT HILLERY BERGH
VOLUME IV.
1909
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Furst.
William Wallace Furst was born in Baltimore in 1852. He was educated by the Christian Brothers at Calvert Hill, Baltimore, and at Rock Hill College, Maryland. He is a composer of popular light operas, among the best known of which are The Isle of Champagne, A Normandy Wedding, Prineess Nicoline, Fleur-de-Lis, The Little Trapper, and Fleurette. He has also written a grand opera, Theodora, and numerous instrumental and vocal pieces.
Opera in three acts by
Furst. Libretto by J. Cheever Goodwin. and Charles Alfred Byrne.
Characters: Papa Campistrat; Denise; Griolette; Muscadel; Farandol;
Simone; Hochepot; Jean; Margotte; Jervaise; Claudine; Eloise; Laurie;
Angele.
Place, Normandy. Time, the Eighteenth Century. First produced at
Boston, Mass., in 1898.
Papa Campistrat believes that Denise, who is married to Raymond
Gargar, is his daughter. Raymond, who does not appear upon the stage,
tells his father-in-law by letter that he is as poor as himself,
destroying Papa Campistrat’s belief that his supposed daughter
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had marries a rich man. Cousin Farandol now arrives. He has had a
fortune left him by his father, Campistrat’s brother, with the provision
that he must marry Campistrat’s daughter or forfeit the fortune to his
uncle.
Campistrat plays off Griolette as his daughter. She is to comport
herself in such a shocking manner that Farandol, notwithstanding that he
is lately from Borneo, will shudder at the mere idea of marrying her,
and thus forfeit- the fortune to Campistrat. Farandol shudders, but also
falls in love with Denise and she with him. Raymond, still behind the
scenes, has a fit and dies, and Papa Campistrat is happy. It then turns
out that Griolette is his daughter and that Denise is not. So he gains a
daughter and a fortune on the same day.
Opera in three acts by
W. W. Furst. Libretto by Charles A. Byrne and Louis Harrison.
Characters: King Pommery Second; Apollinaris Frappé; Prince
Kissengen; Moet; Chandon; Marquis Mumm; Baron Heidsic; Duc Monopole; Sam
Binnacle; Priscilla; Abigail Peck; Diana; Brigitte; Artea; Sophie;
Charmantine; Chic; Petite; Jolie.
Place, Isle of Champagne. First produced at Buffalo in 1892.
The Isle of Champagne, unmapped, has inhabitants whose main
characteristic is inebriety. Water is unknown to them, and champagne
flows ad libitum. King Ponunery Second rules, and is himself a
type of his people. Appollinaris Frappé, a rascally Prime Minister,
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much of his power, when a favoring wind blows a New Bedford schooner
upon the coast with a cargo of portable water. This is a strange drink
here, but the monarch seizes the cargo, and by decreeing water as a
beverage realizes enough upon it to replenish his treasury.
The King’s. lot is not at any time a happy one, however. From the
first he appears as the most picturesque victim of indulgence on
the island, he is beset at every turn and in every emergency by some
embarrassing provision of the constitution, which seems to contain
provisions to defeat his every plan and to strengthen the Prime Minister
and assist conspiracy. He is compelled to marry the New England spinster
who was on the vessel wrecked upon his island in order to get legal
possession of the water; and be is cast into the mausoleum of his race
as a prisoner when most he wishes his liberty. But a comical justice and
a humorous vengeance are both satisfied at last.
Last updated April 20, 2007