Metropolitan Opera Archives

A vivid, stirring, brilliant drama of the Renaissance period in Florence, as revealed with impressive results in the production in which John and Lionel Barrymore appeared in 1919 - "The Jest" - is the foundation of the opera, "La Cene delle Beffe," (The Jesters Supper), by Sem Benelli, the Italian poet and dramatist, with music by Umberto Giordano, who had its first presentation in this country at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York on Saturday afternoon of last week, and which was given here at the Academy of Music last evening. It was an evening notable for the brilliance of the audience, the novelty of the presentation and the enthusiasm which this performance aroused, even if this enthusiasm was due to the dramatic forcefulness of the drama, felt and made manifest in its unfolding against elaborate and picturesque Urban settings, which were massive and magnificent, and, and the work of several members of the cast that included Beniamino Gigli, Titta Ruffo and Frances Alda - with Tullio Serafin as the distinguished conductor - rather than for any great potency of appeal revealed by the work itself, as "opera."

The story of "The Jest," in a play that justly has been adjudged a masterpiece and which scored an emphatic success when the Barrymores acted in it, is one of passion, jealousy, revenge, murder and madness told, in the original, with the skill and finesse of a true poet and facile dramatist. It is a story which, when transformed into an opera libretto, should have served as an inspiration to one of the greatest of modern composers. But it fell into the hands of Giordano, whose setting of Sardou's "Fedora" was ineffectual enough, and the result is not inspiring or impressive so far as his part of "La Cene delle Beffe" in concerned. It does not seem wholly fair, however, to condemn Giordano's score unqualifiedly, for there may be discovered in it something in the way of effective instrumentation, revealed at times in colorful orchestral effects, and an occasional suggestion of melody.

The tale in its operatic version is told in four acts, with the fair Ginerva, frail Florentine maiden of many lovers, inspiring her favored patron, Neri Charamantesi, to kill Giannetto Malespini because he thought him to have won her favor. Giannetto had been seized and dunked in the Arno by Neri and his brother Gabriello, and desire for revenge burned in his bosom. It came with the opportunity to spread the report that Neri was insane - this being 'the jest' - and grew in magnitude when Neri was confined in a vault in the Medici palace, taunted and mocked and literally driven almost to madness.

In the last act free, Neri goes to the house of Ginerva, intending to murder Giannetto, whom he believes to be with Ginerva, who, wrapped in a voluminous red cloak, is in her chamber, and whom he kills. Coming from the room beholding Giannetto standing before him, and learning what he has done, Neri then goes mad indeed, and his enemy escapes him in the powerlessness of his gibbering insanity. These details only suggest the plot of Benelli's drama, sordid, gruesome, horrible, but, as drama, powerful and thrilling - requiring, as opera, for adequate musical elucidation and enhancement, a score much more fluent, colorful and distinguished than Giordano has proved himself able to write.

The voice parts mostly are in the form of tiresome recitative and fervent declamation, taxing vocal resources and giving little opportunity for melodious or expressive utterance. But there are, as already stated, occasional glimpses of effective musical elucidation and now and then a passage of tonal appeal and value, perhaps the most effectual part of the orchestration being the brief prelude to the fourth act, the others beginning abruptly, the curtain rising on the first scene without overture or introduction.

There was evidence last night that a Philadelphia audience was glad to welcome back Mr. Ruffo, who began his American career in Philadelphia, at the Metropolitan Opera House, and who, during the memorable Hammerstein regime, won plentiful honors in a number of roles splendidly acted and magnificently sung. The part of Neri in "La Cena delle Beffe," gives Ruffo ample opportunity to exert his robust powers, both dramatically and vocally. He is stouter, more imposing than when last previously seen here, but as energetic and sonorous, rich and well nigh limitless in it volume and power. He roared and raged and went mad with a vengeance in his strenuous part last night, and if there was the exaggeration of melodrama in his acting, he fairly took the audience by storm. His reception was in the nature of an ovation.

As Gianncetto, Mr. Gigli also worked hard; too hard, in fact, for his own good. The Giordano music was written for a mere dramatic tenor than he, and in singing it he is compelled to sacrifice much of the natural lyric beauty of his voice in the effort to sing like the robust tenor that he is not. Frances Alda was the Ginerva, blonde and lovely and striving her best - not altogether unsuccessfully. But there are sopranos in the Metropolitan Company better suited to the role, though Alda perhaps, should not be too critically judged in so ungrateful a part. Ellen Dalossy, a brilliant young soprano, did a small part well, as Lisabetta, and among numerous others, Angelo Bada, as Gabriello Chiaramantesi; Louis D'Angelo as Tornaquinci, and Henreietta Wakefield, Cintia, seemed also to do as well as could be expected.

Search by season: 1925-26

Search by title: La Cena delle Beffe,

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