United States or Czechia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The lovers renew their pledges, and agree to meet at the Chapel of the Virgin if their plans are thwarted. The second act introduces us to a merrymaking at Arles, where Mireille is informed by Tavena that Vincenzo has a rival in Urias, a wild herdsman, who has openly declared his love for her, and asked her hand of her father. Mireille repulses him when he brings the father's consent.
The first scene opens in a mulberry grove, where Mireille is rallied by the village girls upon her attachment to Vincenzo, the basket-maker, and is also warned by Tavena, the fortune-teller, against yielding to her love, as she foresees that her father, Raimondo, will never consent to the union. In the next scene she meets Vincenzo, and the warning of Tavena is soon forgotten.
Nevertheless it is a charming trifle, and has survived many of Gounod's more pretentious works. 'La Reine de Saba' and 'La Colombe' are now forgotten, but 'Mireille' , one of the composer's most delightful works, still enjoys a high degree of popularity. The story, which is founded upon Mistral's Provençal romance 'Miréio, is transparently simple.
On all sides one hears the language of Mistral, and recognizes the music of Mireille sung by these pilgrims to an artistic Mecca, where a miracle is to be performed—and classic art called forth from its winding-sheet.
"Philémon et Baucis" appeared in 1860, and "La Reine de Saba," which was afterwards performed in English as "Irene," in 1862. In 1863 he brought out the pretty pastoral opera "Mireille." This was succeeded in 1866 by "La Colombe," known in English as "The Pet Dove," and in 1867 by "Roméo et Juliette." In 1877 he produced "Cinq Mars," and in 1878 his last opera, "Polyeucte."
He has affected the French too; I trace him in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette and we don't gain by it; we have a poor remuneration for the melody gone; think of the little shepherd's pipeing in Mireille; and there's another in Sapho-delicious. I held out against Wagner as long as I could. The Italians don't much more than Wagnerize in exchange for the loss of melody.
Without desiring to discredit the beauties of 'Mireille' or 'Roméo et Juliette, one cannot help thinking that it would have been better for Gounod's reputation if he had written nothing for the stage after 'Faust. Very soon after its production Gounod's masterpiece began to exert a potent influence upon his contemporaries.
Her declaration throws him into such a rage that he is about to strike her, but she disarms his anger by appealing to the memory of her mother. The last act opens on a barren, sunburnt plain. Andreluno appears, singing a pastoral song to the accompaniment of his bagpipe, followed by Mireille, who is toiling across the hot sands to meet her lover at the Chapel of the Virgin.
Then he recalled the beautiful duet, Siegmund's and Sieglinde's May Time, and turning from sublimity suddenly into triviality he chanted the somewhat common but expressive duet in Mireille, and the superficiality of its emotion pleased him at the moment and he hummed it until he arrived at the farm-house. Mrs.
Vincent, a young basket-maker, loves the fair Mireille, who is the daughter of a rich farmer named Raymond. Raymond will have nothing to say to so humble a suitor, and favours the pretensions of Ourrias, a herdsman. While making a pilgrimage to a church in the desert of Crau, Mireille has a sunstroke, and her life is despaired of.
Word Of The Day