DONIZETTI

MARIA PADILLA

ACT ONE

It is not unusual for an opera to end with a wedding -- in fact, for a comic opera, it is almost mandatory. But when an opera like tonight’s, far from comic, starts with one, and furthermore a marriage wished for and approved by all, one that gives every promise of joy and fulfillment, the signs are ominous.

Farmers, shepherds, neighbors, friends, relatives all flock to the castle to rejoice with Inez Padilla, foreseeing an abundance of happiness in store:

Leave flocks to their grazing,

Leave fields and their labors;

Come, shepherds, fair neighbors!

Lay duties aside.

In time for the wedding

We head for the castle

Where master and vassal

Both honor the bride . . .

The future beckons brightly. But Inez has a sister named Maria, who appears to be cut out for a different destiny. More high strung, more restless, more imaginative than her happy sister, Maria is haunted by a strange and improbable fantasy that she will one day be seated on a royal throne, crowned Queen of Spain -- a wild notion that her more sensible sister urges her to abandon. Not only is it farfetched and unrealistic -- sheer delusion! -- but it would seem to be contradicted already. For Maria has fallen madly in love with one of the wedding guests who returns her passion -- a certain Mendez, a man of great magnatism and charm, but of unknown origin, introduced somewhat evasively by their cousin Don Alfonso. Whatever claims upon her heart he may exert, one thing is clear enough -- he is not wearing a crown:

MARIA:

Proud and bold, with a look so majestic,

All his features so handsome and splendid,

Surely he is the promise intended

By that vision I cannot erase.

Strong yet sweet, with a smile so contageous,

Zeus and Mars are combined in his bearing.

Though a crown he’s indeed not wearing,

Royal blood shines forth on his face . . .

Despite the recently awakened passion that has enraptured Maria, she is troubled by the air of mystery that surrounds the magnetic stranger, about whom she knows nothing whatsoever. Is he an emissary from heaven, or from hell?

His identity she is soon to discover under shocking and threatening circum-stances. She is alone in her bedroom, late at night, when her maid Anina rushes in to warn her of danger -- no less than a kidnapping plot overheard in the garden -- a challenge that will call upon the full resource and courage of a Padilla, and will also bring her unexpectedly closer to the fulfillment of her improbable dream.

Why should I fear?

I have a dagger.

I also have the heart of a Padilla!

ACT TWO

The scene changes to the palace of Don Pedro, the new king of Spain, known to us heretofore as Mendez. These are the luxurious chambers where Maria now lives apparently as his kept mistress, despite the hasty marriage that took place in strictest secrecy -- a secrecy that must be maintained for who knows how long.

In this tenuous role, she is exposed to the highly ambivalent attitude of the court that pays hypocritical homage to her transient glory while nursing a not-too-secret contempt for this scandalous romance, flavored with a spiteful glee at the prospect of her inevitable fall. There is already talk of a royal bride arriving from France.

COURTIERS:

But she has many foes that oppose her;

They increase as the throne gets closer.

There’s the Queen and the proud Prime Minister,

Looking on from the side, discreet and sinister.

And from France soon the royal bride’s arriving;

She will find here an awkward position.

Don Pedro evades, still conniving,

In the grip of the scandalous romance.

Conspicuously absent from the wedding in the first act, for reasons that need not detain us, Maria’s father Don Ruiz now appears on the scene -- a man of the military, a gentleman of the old school, whose values are firmly wrapped in family honor and pride, values that have been harshly violated by his daughter’s defiant behavior:

Ill fortune stalks Padilla,

And leaves him torn to shreds,

A prey to bitter sorrow.

There’s a serpent, ever gnawing away at my heart,

A grim, tenacious phantom,

Pitiless, that haunts my days and nights,

Even present in my sleep . . .

She! Whom I cannot bear to name!

My daughter, the comfort and joy once of a father,

Turned harlot!

Oh, source of endless shame!

Now embittered and humiliated, he comes seeking not reconciliation but revenge on her abducter, son of the former king that he has spent his life serving.

Ramirez, the prime minister, and clearly a trouble maker, uneasy about Don Pedro’s obvious infatuation with Maria, fearful that it may jeopardize the marriage of state that is being negotiated, seizes the opportunity to bring matters to a crisis by goading on the hot-tempered old man.

Maria, though pampered and petted, is unhappy in her isolated splendor, the target of gossip and intrigue, surrounded by courtiers who barely conceal their hostility, remorseful at the pain she has inflicted upon her estranged family, no doubt uneasy about her own future, but above all eager for reconciliation with her father, whom she has hurt so deeply. Inez, her happily married sister, ever supportive, ever sympathetic, eager to restore harmony, comes to pay her a visit, bringing with her a ray of hope:

Of pearl and gossamer, borne on air,

Tinted in rainbow ray of light,

Peace, like an angel pure and white,

Comes after long despair . . .

Don Pedro, the king, impatient for a tete-a-tete with his adored Maria, is detained, to his great annoyance, by an elderly man -- a rude, insolent stranger who seems deliberately intent upon provoking him to retaliate:

What delays the wrath of heaven

From the bolt of retribution?

Should a scoundrel be forgiven

That degrades a sacred trust?

Have your way, my will is greater

Than the bluster of a lecher.

Cruel libertine and traitor,

Flaunt your title, do your worst!

The old man, in his naivete, believes that the king would deign to accept a challenge from an anonymous subject, when clearly his behavior calls for a public flogging.

ACT THREE

Though Don Ruiz, Maria’s father, had foolishly expected to provoke a duel with the king that would vindicate his lost honor, he has instead been treated to a brutal and ignominious flogging. Beaten unconscious, now doubly violated, following the disgrace inflicted by his own daughter, added to the secret grief at their alienation that has been constantly gnawing at his heart -- all of this has left the old man shattered in both mind and body.

Maria, appalled at the assault upon her father, ordered however unwittingly by Don Pedro, has left her royal lover and her glittering life in the palace, to join her sister and her brother-in-law in watching over her father’s slow and uncertain recovery, hoping above all that he will come to and forgive her.

Give a gesture, a look to show me

Hope is not entirely over.

I’m your daughter -- don’t you know me? --

True and loving now as ever.

If to comfort were in my power

I would die without regret.

In that final solemn hour

I might earn your blessing yet.

Because Don Ruiz in his madness has destroyed the only proof that Maria has of her valid claim upon Don Pedro, she now has only his somewhat shaky sense of honor to fall back upon. In truth , he is in a quandary. Although deeply enamoured of Maria, he knows full well that the secret marriage was rash, reckless, self-indulgent, that its disclosure would lead to serious trouble. First and foremost, he is king, less free than the least of his subjects to follow the dictates of his own heart. Maria’s claims can be easily denied and dismissed; the claims of the throne demand a political alliance. Maria’s initial fears appear all too well founded. Bianca of France, with regal retinue, arrives at the palace to be crowned Queen of Spain, joined in holy matrimony with Don Pedro.

Don Pedro has his regrets, but life, after all, has to go on . . . Duty is duty.

You know how it is . . .

Brief day of paradise,

Gone now and past recall!

An angel beyond compare,

For love she ventured all.

Dear was the price she paid

Of honor and of pride.

Valiant and unafraid,

She cast the world aside.

Nor shall I find again

That perfect joy we share.

Long shall I search in vain

For that lost paradise I must forswear . . .