ROBERT LE DIABLE " Robert le Diable " or " Robert the Devil," a grand opera in five acts (in the English acting edition, three), with music by Giacomo Meyerbeer and words by Scribe and Delavigne, was first presented at the Academie, Paris, Nov.
21 1R31 Robert, Duke of Normandy.
Bertram, his friend.
Raimbault, a peasant.
Alberti.
First Knight.
Second Knight.
Pierre, squire to Robert.
Herald-at-arms.
Isabella, Princess of Sicily.
Alice, Robert's foster-sister.
Mute parts. King of Sicily, Prince of Grenada, Robert's chaplain, Helena, an abbess.
Knights, nobles, soldiers, heralds, monks, nuns and peasants.
The story is founded on the well-known legendary tale of Robert the Devil, Duke of Normandy, who is banished from his dukedom for his evil deeds. He goes to Sicily, where he falls in love with Isabella, daughter of the Duke of Messina, and finds his love returned by the maiden. Robert frequently has as companion one Bertram, of sinister aspect, who in reality is his fiend-father and to whose influence he owes his depravity. He is, however, quite unaware that this Bertram is an inhabitant of hell who deceived his mother. At one time, while Robert is reveling with his knights, the minstrel Raimbault, who does not know him, sings the song of Robert the Devil and his fiend-father and warns the hearers against the man whose face is like his mother's but whose heart reflects his paternity. Robert is about to revenge himself upon the minstrel but the youth is saved by Robert's foster-sister, Alice, who proves to be Raimbault's bride and who implores Robert to forsake his evil ways. Bertram arrives in time to dissipate the influence of her words and tempts his victim to the gaming-table, from which he arises stripped of all his possessions.
A challenge comes from the Prince of Grenada, rival for Isabella's hand, to meet him in mortal combat. Robert hopes, by vanquishing his opponent in this tournament, to win the hand of the princess but while he is pursuing a spectre combatant conjured by Bertram's arts, the real tourney takes place with Robert absent. Bertram hopes that in this hour of bitter disappointment and dishonor he can bring Robert entirely within his power. He lures him to a ruined cloister and, as brother fiends have suggested in a previous orgy, tells him that bride and wealth will be his if he will remove from the abbey a certain cypress branch endowed with supernatural powers. Bertram thereupon pronounces an incantation which calls up from their graves the guilty nuns buried below. They try in various fashions to captivate Robert. Helena, the most beautiful of them, finally suc ceeds in making him remove the branch. As the nuns sink down by their tombs out of which demons start to secure them, a chorus of fiends in the cloisters chant their joy over the enslaving of this newest victim. Robert flies and with
the cypress branch enters unseen the apartments of Isabella, who falls into enchanted sleep like the rest of her court and is at Robert's mercy. When she awakes, powerless to move, he declares he intends to carry her away but she appeals to his honor and he breaks the branch, the spell being broken with it. Bertram is not yet willing to give him up, however, having for him a species of affection and a desire that they be one in motive. Accordingly, he urges him to sign a contract which will get him his desires but which will give his soul to hell. As they stand side by side in the cathedral, Robert hears the chorus of monks singing their sacred music. This combined with the thought of his mother makes him hesitate. As a last resort, Bertram informs him that he is his fiend-father and in view of this the youth is about to yield, when Alice appears with the news that Isabella's hand is free. Knowing Robert's extremity, Alice produces his mother's will, which warns him against Bertram's tempta tions and entreats him to save his soul. As he still wavers, trying to escape the power of Bertram's will, the clock strikes the hour of midnight; the spell is over, and Bertram dis appears swallowed up by flames, while Isabella in her mar riage robes comes to meet her lover, who now is freed forever from evil.
" Robert the Devil " has value in the history of opera, even though the work rarely has presentation nowadays. In it Meyerbeer freed himself from the purely formal in operatic construction and gave to the stage for the first time a work in which the most elaborate stage spectacle, vividly dramatic music, impassioned melodies and romance run riot were combined. Much of the text impressed even in the period of the opera's first popularity as absurd and the music to present-day ears does not ring sincere. But it was a distinct step forward in operatic progress at the time it was com posed and is, therefore, of true significance. Numbers which at one time were regarded as masterly and which represent the best that is in the score are a ballade for Raimbault, " Jadis regnait en Normandie " (" Some time ago in Nor mandy ") ; the romance for Alice, " Va, dit-elle " (" Go, said she "), in which she tells Robert of his mother's love for him, the cavatina for Isabella " En vain j'espere " (" In vain I hope ") ; the duet for Isabella and Robert "Avec bonte voyez ma peine " (" Oh kindly regard my griefs ") ; the famous scene of " The Temptation," in which Meyerbeer employs all his powers in the composing of seductive and diabolical music; Isabella's cavatina, " Robert toi que j'aime " (" Robert whom I love so dearly ") and the great trio in the closing act.