Gilda Seduced: A Tale Untold

Gilda Seduced: A Tale UntoldAuthor(s): Elizabeth HudsonSource: Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Nov., 1992), pp. 229-251Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/823693 .

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Cambridge Opera Journal, 4, 3, 229-251

Gilda seduced: A tale untold

ELIZABETH HUDSON

... at the moment of its announcement [it] may seem trivial or irrelevant, the secret sense declaring itself only after long delay,

and in circumstances not originally foreseeable.1

A natural starting point for a critical reading of Verdi's Rigoletto might be the protagonist's 'Cortigiani, vil razza dannata' in Act II: an utterance around which much of the emotional intensity of the opera is centred. Rigoletto's outburst can be discussed to great advantage in terms of current musicological fashion, as it alters conventional forms in fascinating and provocative ways, and to great dramatic effect. Yet such an approach presupposes that the key to understanding operas lies in their Great Moments - those passages of intense musical expression that tend to be quoted in movies and television commercials. Of course these moments are a crucial aspect of our delight, and can be a rich source for interpreta- tive ventures. But there is more to opera: various levels of meaning invite our exploration and enjoyment; hermeneutic 'secrets' lurk behind seemingly 'trivial or irrelevant' passages, and can lead to new perspectives on familiar works.

These kinds of meanings, however, confound exegesis through the usual methods of operatic criticism, which focus on demonstrating relationships between opera's multiple systems of words, action and music: for if dramatic meaning can also lie behind masks, peer out from the fissures between systems, then understanding will not emerge from analysing the music as a reflection of the verbal system or stage action. Yet neither can music alone be the locus of dramatic meaning; most of us would agree that music does not often have the semantic specificity to make direct references without the help of words. As some recent work in operatic analysis has shown, attempts to deal with the genre on its own terms should, ideally, account for as many of the various systems of opera as possible.

Embracing conflicts and contradictions is one way to approach this complex interrelationship.2 Looking at gaps and incongruities encourages us to focus neither on the manipulation of individual systems nor on isolated moments, but rather on an elusive field of interaction: on how systems combine in a sophisticated interplay that accrues meaning across an entire opera. Accordingly, I begin this reading of Rigoletto with three rather inconspicuous passages from Act II, moments which have little to connect them in form, function or musical setting, yet which, considered together, reveal a lack - a small mystery that invites further exploration.

Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 1. 2

Carolyn Abbate's recent book, Unsung Voices (Princeton, 1991), has shown how fruitful this approach can be in operatic criticism.



Elizabeth Hudson

An absence exposed Act II of Rigoletto contains three narrative episodes. At first glance, there is nothing remarkable about their musical settings. Each uses a typical method of presenting explanation - as it happens, the three most common ways of articulating narrative in nineteenth-century Italian opera: recitative, narrating chorus and strophic aria.3 But in spite of their generic character, each is peculiar, revealing a rift between its tale on the one hand, and its musical and dramatic function on the other. Generally, in narrative texts set to music, the verbal element is highlighted: to tell a story, the words are important.4 And in Rigoletto, this emphasis is reinforced: because of the opera's famous sense of forward motion, background information tends to be delivered as quickly as possible.5 Thus three narratives in relatively close proximity would be odd unless their texts carried some special message or were furnished with a particular dramatic pretext.

In the first two texts, the Duke's 'Ella mi fu rapita' and the chorus 'Scorrendo uniti remota via', the narrative content seems insignificant, serving the contingen- cies of that nineteenth-century Italian opera convention, the double aria. 'Ella mi fu rapita' takes place at the opening of the second act, when the Duke tells in recitative how he returned to Rigoletto's house after the end of Act I and discovered that Gilda had disappeared. But the story is incidental, functioning merely to set up the slow movement of the Duke's aria, 'Parmi veder le lagrime', which details his response to losing the latest object of his affection.6 The second episode also takes place within the context of the Duke's double aria, as its tempo di mezzo.7 Here, too, narrative serves primarily to set up a lyric musical moment. The courtiers enter to inform the Duke that they have captured 'Rigoletto's mis-

For a useful overview of Verdi's treatment of narrative, see Giles de Van, 'Musique et narration dans les operas de Verdi', Studi verdiani, 6 (1990), 18-54. Carolyn Abbate (see n. 2) refers to this as 'the one technical demand of operatic narrative: that the sung word be comprehensible' (p. 72); see also Abbate's 'Erik's Dream and Tannhauser's Journey', in Reading Opera, ed. Arthur Groos and Roger Parker (Princeton, 1988), 129-67. An obvious example would be the manner in which music retires behind text in recitative, allowing words to speak their message with minimum competition from the musical system. As Abbate also points out, strophic musical settings collaborate with the text's rhythm and metre so that we can focus on the semantic message. At the beginning of the opera, for example, background is filled in through various asides. The only exception is in the first act, when Rigoletto tells Gilda about her mother. This emphasis on the immediate moment is not unusual for Verdi, although it contrasts sharply with II trovatore, Rigoletto's immediate successor in Verdi's oeuvre, in which pre-history overshadows the dramatic present, and the opera bristles with texts that tell us of the past. The musical consequences of the focus on 'action' in Rigoletto was a powerful factor in its reception as a 'forward-looking' opera in the first part of this century; the abundance of narratives in II trovatore, with the conventional language they involve, is one element leading to criticism of its 'old-fashioned' language. The insignificance of the verbal content in this scene is underscored by Verdi's continuity draft of Rigoletto, in which part of this recitative is sketched without words - the text was filled in later. See L'abbozzo del Rigoletto di Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, 1941; rpt. as Rigoletto: Ristampa anastatica dell'abbozzo autografo (Bologna, 1978). The movement interposed between the slow movement and cabaletta in a double aria. The terms come from Abramo Basevi, Studio sulle opere di Giuseppe Verdi (Florence, 1859). A useful discussion of this terminology in English is Harold Powers, "'La solita forma" and the Uses of Convention', Acta musicologica, 59 (1987), 65-90.

230



Gilda seduced; A tale untold

tress', giving their version of Gilda's abduction in the chorus 'Scorrendo uniti remota via'. This passage receives more musical weight than the first; but the music has little to do with the story - even on the most obvious level, the decla- mation makes comprehension of the words difficult.8 What is more, its dramatic significance lies not in the story of abduction, but in the news that Gilda has been brought to the palace by the courtiers; this performs the typical function of the tempo di mezzo, providing motivation for the change of mood to the Duke's cabaletta, 'Possente amor'. Both texts, then, seem primarily to serve a conventional operatic function.9 Moreover, so far as the audience is concerned their narrative aspect is superfluous, as both treat a story that is already known - Gilda's abduction, enacted on stage at the end of Act I.

The third narrative in Act II, Gilda's 'Tutte le feste', differs substantially from the other two, and is separated from them by Rigoletto's 'Cortigiani, vil razza dannata'. Here, textual content is foregrounded. Moreover, Gilda's solo is lent musical weight by its treatment as part of a lyric number, the first section of her duet with Rigoletto,10 This is Gilda's moment of truth: Rigoletto still hopes that the abduction was only a joke, that his fears are groundless. Now Gilda must open her heart to her father, revealing the dishonour she has suffered behind the scene at the hands of the Duke, while Rigoletto has wept and raged on stage. But something curious occurs: she seems at first to tell the wrong story; she begins with love, not betrayal; and then, once again, she tells the tale of her abduction.

This third narrative resonates strangely. Repetition, as film theorist Kristin Thompson has written, can be a form of excess, leading us to recognise 'narrative ... as arbitrary rather than logical',11 and here, the threefold reiteration of abduction narratives seems not only arbitrary but absurd, highlighting an event of only limited significance.12 Even Rigoletto, once he recovers his daughter, is willing to pass over the abduction: he reassures Gilda, 'Fu scherzo! ... non e vero? / lo che pur piansi or rido' (It was a joke, wasn't it? I, who was crying, now laugh). Furthermore, although all three moments can be traced back to episodes in the opera's source, Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'amuse, the play itself engages in no narratives

8 See Julian Budden, The Operas of Verdi, I (London, 1973), 499. Adone Zecchi's 'Choruses and Coryphaei in Rigoletto', Verdi: Bollettino dell'Istituto di studi verdiani, 111/7 (1969), 510-44, makes a similar point. 9 As 'kinetic' sections in the conventional pattern of a double aria, providing motivation for lyrical musical movements, scene and tempi di mezzo are logical places to insert narrative explanation: some action occurs or is reported in order to set off the lyric sections.

10 It is, of course, a critical commonplace that musical weight and formal placement undergo a transition in Verdi's work at this time, the composer increasingly attempting to give emphasis to active moments until, in his last works, the distinction becomes blurred (and, it might be argued, a way of communicating dramatic content in musical terms lost). Here, however, formal function remains clearly articulated, and musical weight is distributed accordingly.

" Kristin Thompson, 'The Concept of Cinematic Excess', in Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, ed. Philip Rosen (New York, 1986), 130-42; here 135-6.

12 The dramatic purpose of the abduction lies in its immediate effect on stage in Act I; once the second act begins, the event matters only because it has put Gilda in the Duke's power, and the drama depends on what happens next - on what the Duke does to Gilda.

231



Elizabeth Hudson

of abduction whatsoever.13 If there is no precedent in the play, and no dramatic justification, why does the opera's second act echo and re-echo the event?

We might, for the moment, allow the first two narratives to be explained away in terms of a critical trope, as dramatic concerns sacrificed on the decaying altar of Italian opera conventions. But 'Tutte le feste' cannot be dismissed so easily. For behind the tale told lies one awaiting exposition. The threefold reiteration of the abduction story exposes the glaring absence of the story of the Duke's seduction of Gilda; this, surely, is the central event of Act II, possibly of the opera - the event that finally pushes Rigoletto to pursue his revenge.

A substitution explained The absence of a seduction narrative is not unique to the opera: even in Hugo's play, Blanche's story is cut short only slightly less abruptly. Triboulet begs his daughter to spare him further details: 'Que je t'epargne au moins l'angoisse de tout dire! / Je devine le reste!' (At least I'll spare you the agony of telling it all! / I guess the rest!)14 A hint of this remains in the first printed libretto, where Rigoletto interrupts Gilda with 'Non dir... non piu, mio angelo. / T'intendo, awerso ciel!...' (Don't say any more, my angel. I understand you, cruel fate!.. .)15 But Verdi did not set those words, choosing instead to let Rigoletto's impassioned musical interruption speak for itself. In the play, of course, Blanche's omission of any mention of seduction is less startling, because the seduction itself was made more explicit earlier. In Hugo's Act III scene 2, she is brought before the King, whom she recognises with some shock. The King swaggers and cajoles in turns; Blanche flees, locking herself in an adjacent room. The King laughs triumphantly - she has fled into the royal bedchamber! Brandishing the key, he goes in after her.

Verdi and Piave knew that the Venetian censors would never allow such a scene. The earliest draft of the libretto (La maledizione) has not survived, but by the second version (II Duca di Vendome), the confrontation was simply left out.'6 In this early version, even though Gilda never appears, Verdi and Piave 13 In Hugo's Act III scene 1, the King (the Duke in the opera) does not even mention Blanche's

(Gilda's) abduction; and the courtiers refer only to the aftermath, relating events that occurred between the acts. In Act III scene 4, Blanche begins a narrative, but is stopped before she reaches the events witnessed on stage.

14 Victor Hugo, Le Roi s'amuse (III.4) in Anne Ubersfeld, ed., Oeuvres completes: Theatre, I (Paris, 1985), 918.

15 A facsimile of this libretto is published at the back of the Rigoletto volume of a rather bizarre series of libretti illustrated as post-modern cartoons, Le opere a fumetti: I libretti di Giuseppe Verdi illustrati (Parma, 1985).

16 For an account of the genesis of the opera and the accompanying battle with the censors, see Budden, Operas (n. 8); David Kimbell, Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism (Cambridge, 1981), 260-70; and Marcello Conati, La bottega della musica: Verdi e la Fenice (Milan, 1983), 185-265. For the relevant passages from II Duca di Venddme, see Marcello Conati, Rigoletto di Giuseppe Verdi: Guida all'opera (Milan, 1983), 283-4. Both Conati (284) and Mario Lavagetto, Queipizu modesti romanzi (Milan, 1979), 92, suggest that this passage in II Duca di Venddme closely resembled the now-lost version in the first draft of the libretto, La maledizione; they believe, that is, that even in the earliest draft no version of a seduction duet appeared.

232




included the final episode of Hugo's scene, when the Duke produces the key. Mild as this might seem, it was still too explicit. Not only does it establish that the seduction takes place during Rigoletto's ensuing scena and aria; there is also a lewd connection between the Italian chiave (key) and chiavare (to screw). In a letter to Piave dated 25 November 1850, Verdi writes:

Ho esaminato bene il second'Atto, e trovo che sara bene anche per noi trovare una posizione per l'aria di Francesco [the Duke]: pensaci tu che ci pensero anch'io e scrivemene. Bisogner- ebbe trovare qualche cosa di piu pudico e togliere questo fotisterio [bordello] troppo evi- dente. Levare la chiave che suggerisce l'idea chiavare et. et.... Oh Dio! son cose semplici, naturali ma il patriarca non puo piu gustare quest'idea!!17

[I have looked at the second Act carefully, and I think that we need to find a place for Francesco's aria: think it over, as I will, and write to me about it. We need to find something more modest and cut out the too obvious brothel [effect]. Leave out the key, which suggests the idea of screwing, etc., etc. Oh Lord! these are simple, natural things, but the authorities can't enjoy the idea anymore!!]

In the end, Verdi gave up the chiave episode and, in a libretto remarkable for its closeness to the action of the original play, the missing confrontation between the Duke and Gilda remains the only major discrepancy between the libretto and its source.

It seems that Verdi felt the gap: in an oft-quoted letter, written a year after Rigoletto's premiere, he mentioned the 'magnificent duet' he could have made out of a 'bedroom' scene between the Duke and Gilda:

un pezzo nuovo vi sarebbe di piu. Difatti dove trovare una posizione? Dei versi e delle note se ne possono fare, ma sarebbero sempre senza effetto dal momento che non vi e posizione: una ve ne sarebbe, ma Dio ci liberi; saressimo flagellati. Bisognerebbe far vedere Gilda col Duca nella sua stanza da letto!!! Mi capisci? In tutti i casi sarebbe un Duetto. Magnifico Duetto!! Ma i preti, i frati, gli ipocriti griderebbero allo scandalo ...18

[one new piece would be too much. Indeed, where would it go? It would be possible to write the verses and the notes, but they would be completely without effect if they didn't have a place to go [that is, an appropriate dramatic context]: there would be one place, but God help us; we would be scourged. We would need to show Gilda with the Duke in his bedroom!!! You understand me? In any case it would be a duet. A magnificent duet!! But the priests, monks and hypocrites would scream at the scandal...]

Even in the early stages of planning the libretto, Verdi was aware that the scene would probably have to be omitted; he even seemed confident of finding an adequate substitute, writing to Piave that 'converra per noi trovare qualche cosa

17 Published by Evan Baker, 'Lettere di Giuseppe Verdi a Francesco Maria Piave, 1843-1865. Documenti della Frederick R. Koch Foundation Collection e della Mary Flagler Cary Collection presso la Pierpont Morgan Library di New York', in Studi verdiani, 4 (1986-7), 136-66; here, 156-7.

18 Franco Abbiati, Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, 1959), II, 175-6.

233



Elizabeth Hudson

di meglio' (we shall need to find something better) than the key episode.19 Yet their solution seems unremarkable, for in place of the seduction scene they had recourse to the most conventional device in the entire opera: a full scale double aria, cabaletta and all, for the Duke.

From this we can see, then, that all three tales of abduction appear in place of, or as a riask for, the absent seduction - the first two embedded within the Duke's aria (itself a substitute for the seduction scene) and the last in place of the possible, even expected, seduction narrative. They even seem to flaunt this deception through the irrelevance of their stories; because the seduction is such a central element in the plot, however, its effects seep out. To explore these effects further, we will look in turn at each moment behind which seduction lurks - Gilda's aborted tale of seduction ('Tutte le feste') and the substitution scene itself (the Duke's double aria, 'Parmi veder le lagrime') - widening the scope of our enquiry as we go. For if, as Verdi indicates in the letter quoted above, the position of a piece, its musical and dramatic placing, is at least as important as its words or its music, then we need to take account of this context.

A characterisation explored The displacement of narrative content in Gilda's tale - the story of abduction replacing that of seduction - marks an enforced silence that encompasses character and creators alike. But in Hugo's play as well as Verdi's opera, Gilda's text goes beyond mere silence, for she fashions her story into a kind of confession, as if the explanation for her dishonour lay not in the Duke's conduct but in the way she entertained forbidden romantic notions of a handsome stranger.20 The assumption of guilt implied by the act of confession is jarring: any suggestion of a victim's culpability resonates unpleasantly with the continuing tendency in our society to blame the victims of sexual violence. However, Michel Foucault has demonstrated that the concept of confession also carries with it more complex implications, ones that may have certain resonances for our interpretation of Gil- da's tale. We will return to these a little later. But first, one aspect of Foucault's reading of confession invites a digression, a broader perspective on Gilda's musical characterisation.

Foucault discusses the importance of confession not only for producing 'truth', especially sexual truth, but also for defining the terms of a relationship:

The confession is ... a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence ... of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but

19 Abbiati, II, 84: 'se si tratta anche di cambiare la posizione in cui Francesco va colla chiave in camera di Bianca lo puoi anche fare, anzi credo (come ti scrissi nell'ultima mia) che converra per noi trovare qualche cosa di meglio' (If we also want to change the place in which Francesco goes into Bianca's room with the key, you can do it; in fact I believe [as I wrote in my last letter] that we will succeed in finding something better).

20 In Andrew Porter's singing translation for the critical edition, 'Tutte le feste al tempio' becomes 'Let me confess my weakness'. See the vocal score of Rigoletto, ed. Martin Chusid (Chicago and Milan, 1985), 252.

234




the authority who requires the confession, prescribes and appreciates it, and intervenes in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile ...21

Confession, then, reveals a relationship of domination and control. And 'Tutte le feste' clearly typifies this type of power relationship between Gilda and Rigoletto, with Rigoletto as the authority figure: he elicits confession, then soothes and consoles. What is more, this relationship has ramifications not only for our psycho- logical understanding of the characters, but also for our interpretation of the music; indeed, at least in the first act, it determines Gilda's musical presentation. She makes her appearance in two duets rather than in the more usual entrance aria: the first with her father, the second with the Duke; only then does she sing a (single movement) solo aria, the famous 'Caro nome'. Various commentators have observed a general sense of naivete and immaturity, but Verdi also illustrates her undeveloped character in more basic ways. In her two duets, her formal com- petence - her ability to make independent and sustained musical statements - seems to be controlled by men competing for authority over her;22 and her solo piece is remarkable for its strict formal constraints and generally limited range of expression.

Rigoletto precedes the first duet, alone on stage with his scena 'Pari siamo!', focusing attention on him rather than Gilda.23 The ensuing duet proceeds along the conventional outline of tempo d'attacco, slow movement, tempo di mezzo and cabaletta; but Gilda's part is remarkable throughout for its lack of independent musical thought. Even the orchestral passage that underpins her entrance for the tempo d'attacco (Ex. la) stems from a musical idea in Rigoletto's scena, as he thinks ahead to the refuge he finds with his daughter (Ex. lb): in other words, at her entrance we tend to hear Gilda's music as an evocation of an aspect of Rigoletto's character. In the tempo d'attacco proper, musical ideas may seem to alternate freely between father and daughter; yet it is striking that when Gilda starts an idea, Rigoletto tends to finish it 'for her' (Ex. 2). Even when she seems to complete a musical statement at the end of this section (the recapitulation of the opening orchestral idea at 'Se v'ha mistero'), her cadence on C is evaded by the orchestra (Ex. 3) - a vivid illustration of Rigoletto's refusal to answer her questions.24

In the slow movement (the Andante, 'Deh non parlare al misero'), in which one would expect a full lyrical statement from both characters, Gilda's dependence on her father is more explicit. Although she achieves heightened, even passionate

21 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York, 1978), 58 and 61-2.

22 Gilda's musical development has interested several commentators, most notably Wolfgang Osthoff, 'The Musical Characterization of Gilda', in Verdi: Bollettino dell'Istituto di studi verdiani, III/8 (Parma, 1973), 1275-314. However, Osthoff focuses primarily on solo passages (a comparison of 'Caro nome' and 'Tutte le feste'), and does not investigate Gilda's musical role in these two duets.

23 Indeed, this is Rigoletto's first extended solo, famous for the range of aria-like self-expression that extends far beyond the usual bounds of an opening scena. 24 Rigoletto's refusal to reveal his name to his daughter is answered by the Duke's, who offers

Gilda a name, but the wrong one.

235



236 Elizabeth Hudson

A -l t 'tt ?l eF w >: r

1t E E LLD-rr^ C' " cLw^ imfyn f . ? .

Ex. la Rigoletto ~ '

_

^ - I - I -I I IP - ' ,. -, -

~a_Ma_ in al - tr'uo-mo qui mi can-gio...

pp

I #8 _8 A I

Ex. lb 85 Gilda

i r r irr - I- 7 p Oh quan-to a - mo - re! Ohquan - to a-

Rigoletto

: - I - I r 1i r I I Mia vi -ta se i!

- - f:xfF IL I rF iP tL 7f f

, r J ' i - I - I

-mo - re!

f |r lrr:r r I' r'l !F r r I Sen - za te in ter - ra qual be - ne a- vre - i?

'W_ 't lu F_ t J*r 7 7 Ji rr xrf^ l^ riT r

i..- . . .. .... .^ r) Ex. 2




1 0 Gildar J J r

ch'el - la co -no - sca la sua fa Rigolett AS -v I - I - I

\ tN

1 U t dlU 113

-mi - glia.

frr ..)' --? =-To hai.. Tunon ne hai...

-9 -Il "), 7 7,

Ex. 3

expression (anticipating in some respects the passion of Act II), she seems to mirror her father's emotion rather than voice an independent response. Rigoletto begins with a full lyric statement in A flat major; the usual sixteen-bar setting of a double

quatrain is extended in regular fashion so that twenty bars set ten lines of text. Gilda enters with a heart-rending cry in the parallel minor, but her four lines of text are set in small, repeating two-bar patterns. She maintains her solo response for only two bars before Rigoletto joins her, using text from his opening ten lines to form a compelling counterpoint (see Ex. 4). Furthermore, Gilda's music throughout the slow movement is built almost exclusively from repeated notes and descending appoggiaturas, thus bearing a distinct resemblance to the orchestral figure that accompanied her entrance - music 'given to her' by Rigoletto (compare Ex. 5 and Ex. 1). That this inability to sustain lyric expression is not simply ile result of conventional duet dynamics is illustrated in the tempo di mezzo. Just before the words 'Gia da tre lune', the orchestra turns to an enharmonically reinterpreted flat-sixth (from D flat major to A major), and the abrupt shift in key is accompanied by a change in texture and style. As Gilda hesitantly requests

237



Elizabeth Hudson

more freedom, she begins her first full-fledged sixteen-bar period. But she is not allowed to finish: with a great cry, Rigoletto cuts off her plea - and her music (see Ex. 6). Little changes in the duet's final movement, although it is less characteristic simply because it falls squarely within conventional boundaries. As we would expect in a cabaletta, both characters sing the entire melody in turn; after a brief interruption, the two voices join. It is by now no surprise that Rigoletto leads off the cabaletta ('Ah! veglia, o donna'), and that Gilda follows with the repeat and then 'embellishes' her father's vocal line in the final statement.

The musical interaction between voices is decidedly similar in the ensuing duet between Gilda and the Duke. After a brief scena with her servant, Gilda begins the first movement alone.25 Yet she continues to be incapable of a sustained musical statement: her opening passage ('Signor ne principe') builds on repetitive two-bar fragments that copy the orchestral figure; in twenty-one bars of solo music, she does not complete a sustained lyrical idea, and hovers obsessively around the note D throughout. When she finally comes to her private declaration of love, the Duke interrupts her, finishing her musical line, taking charge of the musical direction and sweeping her along to the slow movement - with Gilda protesting helplessly. The Duke opens the lyric movement (as did Rigoletto) with a fully developed musical statement ('E il sol dell'anima'), somewhat extended but completely regular. Again, Gilda responds with repetitive two-bar fragments, and again the Duke joins in (with text from his opening lines) after she has sung only two bars by herself. Here her lack of independence is illustrated even more blatantly than it was with her father: Gilda merely echoes the Duke's 2 + 2 cadential idea (see Ex. 7). She continues to echo the Duke in their cabaletta ('Addio, addio') where, rather than repeating the entire musical form (as in the duet with Rigoletto), she repeats the Duke's individual phrases at closer and closer intervals until they end singing together.

Gilda's relationships with her father and the Duke are thus profoundly similar; and in these opening duets, her immaturity, her lack of self-determination, exists in musical terms. The resulting musical portrait is reinforced vividly when the Duke finally leaves and she sings her solo aria. Here, at last, we might have expected a degree of musical independence. Instead, Verdi creates an extended expression of powerlessness, a unique formal structure in which the simplest of lyric designs is endlessly echoed and embellished.26 Even though Gilda at last achieves a full

25 As David Rosen has pointed out to me, in the scena even the servant gets to prevent Gilda from finishing her musical idea.

26 Budden (see n. 8) evocatively describes 'Caro nome' as 'Gilda weav[ing] fantasies of semiquavers round her lover's name' (I, 497).

238




144 Gilda con agitazionc - 1 __ - r - 3-- 3

Oh quan-to do-lor! quan-to do-lor! che spre - me - re____ si a-ma - ro pian-to

Rigoletto 1*4 - Gila r-3 '-- - 3 ------>-

146 -3 b 3 r3 3r

-.12 B i 1- sa i OR__L-)a P I I _

puo? quan - todo-lor! quan-to do-lor! che spre - me - re si a-ma - ro plan-to ?~~~~~-.?~~ 3 3

Tuso - la,so - la re - stiai mi - sre, so |8! r ^

= --'---'

7 s7 i 3f1 > , 3

Tuso 1a,so -la re sfia mi se-re, so

Ex. 4

sixteen-bar period, her scope of expression remains severely limited: the entire

period consists of the spinning out of a two-bar idea (see Ex. 8); the contrasting 'b' section (at 'col pensier il mio desir') simply plays with an ascending, rather than a descending scale. The opening two-bar figure clearly derives in turn from her first musical idea (prompted by Rigoletto), made up of repeated notes (in the accompaniment, Ex. 8) and an embellished descending scale (cf. Ex. 1).27 The excessive fioritura, itself remarkable in Verdi's style during this period, further

emphasises the aria's strangeness. Although 'Caro nome' has always been popular with sopranos, critics have tended to find it 'empty', an endless, even meaningless embellishment of a limited musical idea.28 Yet that is precisely the point: what 27 The embellished return of the opening phrase, with its descending chain of appoggiaturas,

makes the connection more obvious; see bars 30-3 in the critical edition (n. 20). 28 Gabriele Baldini, for instance, refers to 'Caro nome' as 'that tedious aria based on a hackneyed

cadential formula' in The Story of Giuseppe Verdi, trans. and ed. Roger Parker (Cambridge, 1980), 180.

239



240 Elizabeth Hudson

148 Gilda 3- 3 3

4? ^lf - -

-^r -

r

pub? Pa-dre,nonpii, pa - dre,non pib, pa dre,nonpib, non pit,cal -

Rigoletto , 3' 3 1 r-----------

-la, ah si, tu so - la re - sti al mi - se

I,rn?^ ~---' ^3

i - , 3

" ^ gy 7 > 7 b i- n = ? ^ 7 3 7 r ^ f

L_j3 & 3 7

Ex. 5

makes it seem empty is its exhibition of Gilda's complete passivity, her lack of independence.

A transformation exhibited

We can now return to 'Tutte le feste' (the next piece after 'Caro nome' in which Gilda appears). In its text and dramatic context, it would seem that Gilda is still marked by the powerlessness we observed musically in Act I, both her silence about the seduction and her act of confession to her father implying a spiritless inability to stand up for herself. The strophic text carefully distributes the content: each stanza contains a step in the narrative process; each has a distinct temporal reach and extent. The first stanza reports something before the opera began; it is also iterative, telling once something that happened several times: 'tutte le feste'.29 The second stanza retells the meeting of Gilda and the Duke in Act I, an event within the opera's time frame, and concerns a single event that happened once: 'sol ieri'. The last stanza is transitional: he left; she entertained hopes of love; men appeared; she was abducted and brought 'here' (that is, to the ducal palace, where the action is now unfolding) in great distress:

Tutte le feste al tempio mentre pregava Iddio, bello e fatale un giovine offriasi al guardo mio...

29 I use here the typology of Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Ithaca, 1980); although I have kept technical terms to a minimum, my analysis relies on his distinction between external and internal analepses.



Gilda seduced: A tale untold 241

203,, Gilda

'-- I- i - !tlJ rrrl rrF Gia da tre lu - ne___ son qui ve

dolce

r.._7-rr - r' .O \-oe - -----_ -|f -

2^ rt ,iCLLI J wr 1t I J Iit- -nu - ta. n6 la cit -ta -de hoancor ve -du -ta; se ilcon-e -

t - -- r?#8 P [ "

r

? -?i 1Ir J-- I -

-de - te, far -lo po - trei! Rigolett

,- ._I - _ r _r..P- Mai!... mai!... U - sci -ta, dim -mi, un-qua

rW -de f 2 r -r2 p tri

R

Ex. 6

se i labbri nostri tacquero, dagl'occhi il cor parlo.

Furtivo fra le tenebre sol ieri a me giungeva... Sono studente e povero, commosso mi diceva, e con ardente palpito amor mi protesto.

Partl... il mio core aprivasi a speme piu gradita, quando improvvisi entrarono



Elizabeth Hudson

76 Duca f ----p P

y p y p ir rr p i D If P1 H 7 i 8 -mo - re, sua vo -ceeil pal - pi-to del no - stro co - re...

b 7 7 7 _- 7

^ P

7 7 F F I7 7: 7X::--:-7 7

Ex. 7a

color che m'han rapita, e a forza qui m'addussero nell'ansia piu crudel.

[Every holy day at church / while I prayed to God, / a handsome youth / appeared before my eyes ... / although our lips were silent, / from our eyes our hearts spoke.

Furtively through the shadows / only yesterday he came to me... / I am a student, and poor, / he said to me, deeply moved / and with ardent feeling / he declared his love for me.

He left... my heart opened / to a hope most pleasant, / when abruptly there entered / those men who abducted me, / and brought me here by force / in most cruel apprehen- sion.]

On the local level, Verdi's setting supports this structure. Inevitably, because they share the same music, the first two stanzas are static. Yet while the strophic setting resists the textual progression from one stanza to the next, the setting reflects the progress that takes place within each stanza: the music moves from E minor to C major, and in each case the move to C corresponds to a statement about the Duke's love for Gilda ('Se i labbri nostri tacquero, / Dagl'occhi il cor parlo' and 'E con ardente palpito / Amor mi protesto'),

But the third stanza is different, something immediately evident from the change in accompaniment figure and the omission of the oboe transition. It has new music, departing from the strophic form; it stays in C major; it acts in many respects like a typical coda, yet the continued unfolding of new text runs against one of the standard procedures of Italian opera - that the text be consumed by the time the coda begins. Moreover, the internal division of the stanza and the musical consumption of the text have changed. In the first two stanzas, eight bars of music set four lines of text (in E minor), and four bars of music set two lines of text (in C major); more important, there is an internal division - both musical and verbal - between the fourth and fifth lines (corresponding to the shift into C major in the music).30 In the third stanza, however, the break comes 30 The abbreviation of text (six lines instead of eight) leads to a corresponding abbreviation

in the usual sixteen-bar prototype: the first four lines are set to the usual paired phrases (a + a'); the next two lines are set as the closing cadential phrase (four bars), leaving out the usual intervening four-bar phrase.

242



Gilda seduced: A tale untold 243

106 Gilda ff

1 - _

- _ - h 7- 7 tI

Duca ci (Ah de' miei

d'in - vi - diaa -gl'uo-mi-ni sa -rb per te.

V - - - -mo -.ci,

115 | I 3 3

^ ff r c rg r rc - f rc ge

7f 7b I 7 te - ne-re si ca - re a me!

a -mia - mo - ci,

I n r jj j .1 J >E7 I

Ex. 7b



Elizabeth Hudson

18^ Gida . d

Ca - ro no -me cheilmio cor fe - sti

it' v - - C

9(zzjAWR p 7 7 p 7 7 ?7 7 7

-

Ex. 8

after the first two lines, which are extended to six bars. Further, a sense of stasis is established by the C pedal sustained throughout the six bars. In these first two lines of text, Gilda's emotional state has also been suspended: the Duke has left, but her emotions have not altered - her heart is filled with love and hope. With the third line of text, everything changes: she is torn from her home and stability, her emotional equilibrium shattered. The music changes as well (see Ex. 9): the bass begins a chromatic descent to the dominant of C major; the chromatic pre-dominant chords (the German sixth and diminished seventh that achieve, within the context of the piece, an unprecedented level of chromatic intensification) build to a vocal climax. In all these ways, the musical form would seem explicitly to follow the narrative text - the strophic setting of the first two stanzas establishing a context for the self-contained events that explain Gilda's earlier emotional state, and the third stanza dramatising a wrenching change. Thus, at least on one level, music mimes the narrative progress of the text, conspiring with it to ignore the trail of discontinuities left by the constraints of censorship.

Yet another reading seems possible: one that responds to the larger musical context of the opera and works against the text. As we can see from the discussion of Gilda's first-act musical characterisation, 'Tutte le feste' marks a crucial point in her musical development. A transformation has occurred; she casts aside her childish voice; she has left behind the crinoline trills and furbelows of Act I; her expressive power has deepened, her vocal character matured.31 Indeed, this shift in vocal style is drastic enough to have created a long-lived controversy over whether Gilda is more appropriately cast as a coloratura or a dramatic

31 Budden and Baldini, among others, have remarked on the change in Gilda's character across the first two acts, contrasting the naivete of her vocal style in Act I with the maturity she achieves in Act II. Osthoff (see n. 22) points to the many ways in which 'Caro nome' and 'Tutte le feste' complement each other; he stresses the affective change achieved by the opening instrumental solos - flute in Act I, oboe in Act II. He also discusses a tonal relationship, 'Caro nome' in E major and 'Tutte le feste' in E minor: a point that seemed to carry some weight for Verdi, as both were transposed down from the versions in the continuity draft (in F major and F minor respectively).

244




110 Gilda poco a poco stringendo e crescendo

245

3

+ -r 'n=^ r ? ~ 1 ? quan - do im-prov- vi- sien - tra - ro - no co - lor chem'han ra -

3 3 3 3 3 3

D. h m h m b -

h " M . .

3 3 3 3 3 3

con forza 3

-pi - ta, a for - zaqui m'ad- dus - se - ro nel

Rigoet 3 3 o

470 -

r i? ? P

(Ah!

li$,, 11 ~ 3 3 3

T . . ,.' '1.T

117 3 3 > i

-lan si. p,T del. Rigoletto t':,,

(Ah!

Id,~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ex. 9

soprano.3 Moreover, the level of musical/formal articulation that Gilda achieves in 'Tutte le feste' has moved far beyond the passive reflection of her Act I music:

although she continues to build musical material out of two-bar units, she uses

32 For a brief overview, see Giorgio Gualerzi, 'Stimmfach and musikalische Charakterisierung Gildas', in Rigoletto: Texte, Materialien, Kommentare, ed. Attila Csampai and Dietmar Holland (Hamburg, 1982), 211-20.

3 3

1

4



Elizabeth Hudson

them here to construct long-limbed phrases, spinning out the strophic form to a finely paced vocal climax. The climax itself is intensified by subtle interconnec- tions: the final cadential figure is almost identical to those used to close off the first two strophes, but the longer build-up of the third strophe (eight bars, from 'quando', in comparison to only two in the first two strophes) combines with the repetition of the final figure to create an extraordinary effect (compare Ex. 10 and Ex. 9). The message is clear: something has precipitated a great change in Gilda.

-=. f

100 1 Gilda 3 3 3 - 3 dolcissimo

e conar-dente pal - pi-to a - mor mi pro -te- st6. Par 3 3

?=^ -

W ̂ ^ m J I II 7 7 G 7 4

I z X ..X > **leggerissimo

(+ m 7 tbr 7 ' 7 HSH 3 3

Ex. 10

However, this transformation jars with the textual process mirrored on a more local level. Gilda's narrative deals mainly with the time before her newfound maturity; her story takes us only as far as the abduction at the end of Act I, leaving the all-important events of Act II unmentioned. But her vocal expression is something wholly new, presumably a response to those new events. In other words, her present state overwhelms the past she relates; her music exceeds her words; her text narrates a love story disrupted by an outside event, but her musical transformation tells another story. So: what is this musical tale lurking behind Gilda's narrative, and how does it relate to the untold tale of seduction?

Our interpretation will of course be influenced by what we think actually happened off stage in Act II. Because of the gaps left by censorship, any construction must remain hypothetical. Some might find my use of the word 'seduction' for the situation disturbing: the Duke's violation of Gilda could seem to be a straight- forward case of rape. Certainly her dishevelled, distraught appearance suggests violence. But it is also possible that Gilda's shame and agitation in Act II stem not from any coercion, but rather from the loss of her chastity - the defining aspect of a seduction.33 If that were the case, her distress would not be 'merely' 33 As the Oxford English Dictionary defines it, seduction is 'The action of inducing (a'woman)

to surrender her chastity'. The loss of chastity is central. Today, of course, we are less concerned with this aspect. The result, as Elizabeth Hardwick has written, is that 'the old plot [of seduction and betrayal] is dead, fallen into obsolescence. You cannot seduce anyone when innocence is not a value.' Seduction and Betrayal: Women in Literature (London, 1974), 208.

246




for her own dishonour. Historically, the chastity of a woman 'belonged' to the man in authority over her; thus its loss was commonly viewed as a transgression not against a woman, but against her male authority figure - in Gilda's case, her father.34 This view accounts at least in part for Gilda's subsequent actions: as soon becomes clear, the scene in Act II marks the start of a sexual relationship between Gilda and the Duke - it is revealed at the beginning of the final act (explicitly in the play, implicitly in the opera) that in the month that elapses between Acts II and III, Gilda becomes the Duke's mistress.35 What has happened? Was she or was she not coerced?36 We cannot know, but to view Gilda as seduced rather than raped does not condone sexual violence; rather, it opens the possibility that there was no violence, that she made a choice - a choice that went against society's mores, and, perhaps more important, against her father's wishes.

A confession examined

We saw earlier that the confessional aspect of 'Tutte le feste' revealed a power relationship between Gilda and her father, one with far-reaching effects on her musical characterisation. But confession can do more than simply reveal the domination of the interlocutor. As Foucault points out, it is also: 'a ritual in which the expression alone, independently of its external consequences, produces intrinsic modifications in the person who articulates it: it exonerates, redeems, and purifies him; it unburdens him of his wrongs, liberates him, and promises him salvation'.37 Confession can, in other words, be double-edged - a symptom of domination that also contains the possibility of liberation. In 'Tutte le feste', however, Gilda's story is interrupted by her father: 'true confession' is not allowed. Instead, when she reaches the moment of dishonour - of seduction, of sexual truth - her father silences her: the redemptive role of confession is undermined by the silence imposed by censorship, by the priests and fathers of the patriarchal order.38 34 The Oxford English Dictionary entry on seduction points out that when an unmarried woman

is seduced, English law holds that 'the woman herself has suffered no wrong; the wrong has been suffered by the parent'. As a recent article illustrates, there is a link between this view of women as male property and present attitudes towards female culpability in cases of rape: 'rape is often seen as a man's prerogative or a crime against the honor of a woman's family or husband - not a violation against the woman. In many countries ... one cultural "solution" to rape is to have the young woman marry her rapist, thus legitimizing the union and preserving the family honor.... In parts of Asia and the Middle East, the stain of rape is so great that victims are sometimes killed by family members to cleanse the family honor.' Lori Heise, 'When Women are Prey', The Washington Post, Sunday, 8 December 1991. In the play, on the night before the last act opens she is with the Duke, listening again to his ardent protestations of love; this is one reason Blanche is so determined to believe that he continues to love her.

36 The Duke is not excused in either case: the delicate shifting between seduction and rape affects our judgement of Gilda (especially of her subsequent actions); but as seducer or rapist, the Duke remains a cad.

37 Foucault, The History of Sexuality (see n. 21), 62. 38 This is hardly surprising. As Foucault (p. 83) makes clear, the relationship between power

and sex is primarily repressive: it includes 'the negative relation' of power, in which, 'where sex and pleasure are concerned, power can "do" nothing but say no to them; what it produces, if anything, is absences and gaps; it overlooks elements, introduces discontinuities, separates what is joined, and marks off boundaries. Its effects take the general form of limit and lack.'

247



Elizabeth Hudson

But if we read Gilda's musical expression and development against her text, then the aborted confession denied her in words seems to find voice through music. Here the difference between play and opera is instructive. In the play, Blanche's nine lines of confession give way to a 46-line monologue by Triboulet, completely silencing Blanche. In the opera, however, although Gilda's words are cut off, her music is not. Her newfound musical power and force of expression superposes a telling element on to her confession. What is more, when her father does join in the duet, Gilda's voice is not silenced. As we would expect, Rigoletto first enters with his own, sixteen-bar period ('Solo per me l'infamia'); but when this gives way to a slower tempo and a new key (at 'Piangi, piangi, fanciulla') and Gilda joins him, she sustains her fledgling musical identity: she extends his phrases, eventually carrying the emotional weight of the music in her vocal line.39 Here, then, Gilda continues to 'speak' in music when she has otherwise been silenced: her passionate voice can, in fact, be heard as a moment of 'true confession', in which she reveals sexual truth - 'the self-examination that yields, through a multitude of fleeting impressions, the basic certainties of consciousness'.40 We discover not a terrorised, shuddering girl, but rather a young woman embracing passion and finding the first glimmers of her identity: a moment of self-definition. Read in this way, music acts through the narrative gaps and across the opera as a whole to allow Gilda to disclose her passion - the passion forbidden by her father. Hence her real transgression against Rigoletto is her love for the Duke, and in revealing this passion in her music, she seems to make a choice, resisting her father's claims, however painful that resistance is for her. Her tragedy lies not in the act of choosing, but in the subject of her choice, and in the self-sacrificial love (taught her by her father) that leads her in Act III to give up her short-lived sense of herself in favour of a man who deceived and betrayed her.

In this way, then, music resists the text's repression, offering Gilda a way to affirm her passion, however briefly, even if the plot ensures that this passion can lead only to destruction. Yet if we want to 'read' the opera from a woman's perspective, to view Gilda sympathetically and place our enjoyment of the music outside the repressive system around which it is organised, we need something more substantial than this single moment of self-expression: we need to find a plausible basis for Gilda's passion.41 In fact we need to turn aside from Gilda's music, and look briefly at the locus for those other abduction narratives, the Duke's solo aria from the beginning of Act II - the scene that replaced the seduction itself.

9 To quote Baldini (see n. 28): 'The passion with which she joins Rigoletto in the allegro vivo (con impeto) cabaletta ... demonstrates a mature awareness of her new life' (181).

40 Foucault, I, 60. 41 I respond here to Catherine Clement's assertion that music serves mainly to mask the horrible

acts against women in operatic plots, encouraging a passive acceptance of their murderous stories: Opera, or the Undoing of Women, trans. Betsy Wing (Minneapolis, 1988). Katherine Bergeron's review, this journal, 2/1 (1990), 93-8, argues that Clement's reading presupposes that music merely serves the text, does not have its own voice.

248




A seduction experienced Criticism of the Duke's aria is almost universal, and tends to be heavy handed. Joseph Kerman, for instance, calls the piece 'superfluous and worse'; Gary Tomlin- son refers to it as 'The one dramatic misfire of the opera'.42 Verdi's use of conventional form is one reason for this response: until recently, the appearance of a stock operatic formula was taken to imply insensitivity to, or even an abandonment of, 'true' dramatic concerns.43 But convention-bashing is out of style; and indeed, there is another, more far-reaching reason for criticism of the Duke's aria. The musical content is itself problematic.

The aria is in four sections: an opening scena (recitative, 'Ella mi fu rapita'); a pensive Adagio, 'Parmi veder le lagrime'; a tempo di mezzo (the chorus, 'Scorrendo uniti remota via'); and a triumphant cabaletta, 'Possente anior'. Of these, the peculiarly trivial narrative content - discussed above - of both scena and tempo di mezzo serves to strengthen the traditional focus of the musical expression in Adagio and cabaletta. The cabaletta, however, is banal and brash (and is frequently cut in performance); musical expression mostly resides, not untypically, in the Adagio, which serves as a lyric outpouring by the lovelorn tenor. But in the lkdger context, this also seems strange; the carefully crafted lyricism jars with the picttre of the Duke created in the rest of the opera. As Julian Budden asks, 'why should the Duke be given such a magnificent piece of musical poetry as this?'44

Verdi's characterisation of the Duke centres around his frivolity: in the face of censorship attempts to make him more attractive and responsible, the composer insisted on the Duke's shallowness, stressing that

I1 Duca e un carattere nullo: il Duca deve essere assolutamente un libertino; senza di cio non e giustificato il timore di Triboletto che sua figlia sorta dal suo nascondiglio: impossible il Dramma.45

[The Duke is a nothing: the Duke must absolutely be a libertine; otherwise Triboletto's fear of letting his daughter out of hiding is not justified; [and then] there can be no drama.]

Not surprisingly, Verdi's Duke is an apt counterpart to this assessment: mostly trivial, marked by triple metres, stanzaic forms and simple harmonies. But occasion- ally another voice emerges, ardent and lyrical, in stark contrast to the crass, bouncy tone of his characteristic arias.46 And, strikingly enough, the Duke directs this 42

Kerman, Opera as Drama (1956; rpt. Berkeley, 1988), 127; and Tomlinson, 'Opera and Drame: Hugo, Donizetti, and Verdi', Studies in the History ofMusic. Volume 2: Music and Drama (New York, 1988), 171-92; here, 189.

43 Verdi's reliance on convention disagrees with the standard picture of Rigoletto as marking a 'break with convention', his move towards freedom of dramatic expression. Scholars prefer the more innovative moments in Rigoletto; a full-scale double aria seems like an embarrassing lapse.

44 Budden (see n. 8), Operas, I, 499. 4 Letter dated 14 December 1850; Gaetano Cesari and Alessandro Luzio eds, I copialettere

di Giuseppe Verdi (Milan, 1913), 110. 46 Compare, for example, 'Questa o quella' with his address to the Countess in the Introduzione

(bars 225-8 in the critical edition [n. 20]).

249



Elizabeth Hudson

voice exclusively towards the women he tries to seduce: the Countess Ceprano in Act I and Maddalena in Act III.47 Moreover, dramatic context and musical frame combine to make it obvious that this lyricism is a performance: in both Acts I and III, its emergence follows directly from texts that offer the most straight- forward expressions of his 'real' attitude towards women. In Act I, his flirtation with the Countess is preceded by 'Questa o quella'; and his wooing of Maddalena in the Act III Quartet takes place right after 'La donna e mobile'. In each case, the dramatic situation both determines and elucidates the contrast in musical styles, the more lyrical utterances serving as obvious illustrations of his 'technique' with women: because we see what he is doing, we understand that his lyricism is not sincere.

Not so with 'Parmi veder le lagrime'. In the aria, he addresses no one: we assume we are hearing the outpourings of his inner soul. And yet the musical and verbal style do not fit with the Duke's superficial character: it is too compelling; its expressive power is peculiar. He claims that his love for Gilda is genuine; the music moves us to believe him. Some commentators, in their attempt to reconcile musical and dramatic content, have asked us to believe him as well, claiming that the lyric expression of this aria extends and deepens, rather than contradicts, our picture of the Duke's character. Thus Gabriele Baldini sees the Duke as a 'passionate lover' who reveals his 'most secret depth' in 'Parmi veder le lagrime', and Budden is so convinced by the Duke's seeming sincerity in this aria that he suggests that it has 'a subtle aptness': because the Duke is so successful at deceiving others, he manages to deceive himself, at least momentarily.48

I am unwilling to give the Duke so much credit. Even the aria itself is not without ambiguity. Any interpretation of the Adagio must respond in part to the larger formal context in which it is placed; and the use of a double aria for the Duke is entirely consistent with his musical portrayal throughout the opera. His character is in part determined by the conventional forms that he sings - strophic aria, folk-like canzone:49 a double aria completes the conventional gamut. Moreover, it allows Verdi a wide range of expression: he can give the Duke a lyric voice in the Adagio, while controlling the dramatic effect by undermining its lyricism in the surrounding material. In the cabaletta he can redress the balance, restore our picture of the Duke as incapable of real depth of feeling, leaving us with no doubt as to his intentions towards Gilda.

Most importantly, however, if we remember that this aria replaces Hugo's seduction scene, we can hear the Duke's aria as inscribing the discourse of seduction: in the Adagio, we witness the full persuasiveness of the Duke's voice, something we hear only glimmers of elsewhere; we hear the voice that will persuade Gilda that he loves her so powerfully that she continues to believe it, and to love him, in the face of his betrayal. In Hugo's seduction scene, suasion breaks down and 47 One can also hear aspects of this voice in the Duke's Act I duet with Gilda, where we

might expect the full brunt of the Duke's seductive efforts. 48 Baldini (see n. 21), 179; Budden, Operas (see n. 8), I, 499; see also Budden, Verdi (London,

1985), 218. 49 And the proportion of strophic arias that the Duke sings is itself highly unusual at this

point in Verdi's output.

250




the Duke resorts to force, laughing at Blanche's attempt to escape - making it difficult for an audience to comprehend her continued adoration in the final act. But in Verdi, only the audience witnesses the breaking of the illusion in the cabaletta; the change, in Budden's words, 'from ... poet to ... strutting peacock'.50 We are encouraged to imagine that Gilda does not encounter this breaking of the illusion until the last act, when she is forced by her father to see both sides of the Duke's musical character: the crass, frivolous one (in 'La donna e mobile') and the ardent, lyrical one (in 'Bella figlia dell'amore') - this time, of course, addressed to another woman. Only when she hears his 'sincere' voice used frivo- lously can she comprehend that she was deceived. At that point, of course, she does not react the way we would like her to - for which we find it difficult to forgive her.51

Yet here our response to the Duke's Adagio can be instructive: it points to a relationship between Gilda and ourselves that we might not like to admit. For by listening to the Adagio uncritically, by yielding so easily to the Duke's voice of seduction, we too are deceived.52 It is one thing to acknowledge Gilda's moment of resistance, however brief and ephemeral - we have learned to admire resistance in women. In the end, however, Gilda cannot free herself from the web of depen- dency and self-sacrifice. But we should pause before dismissing her too quickly for her failure; Verdi obliged us to experience the power to which she capitulates - and it seems that we, too, are capable of succumbing.

50 Budden, Operas, I, 499. 1 As Elizabeth Hardwick has written: 'We ask ourselves how the delinquent onesfeel about

their seductions, adulteries, betrayals, and it is by the quality of their feelings that our moral judgements are formed. If they suffer and grieve and regret, they can be forgiven and even supported.' Seduction and Betrayal (see n. 33), 180.

52 The Duke's Act II cabaletta is usually cut in performance. Although this clearly stems in part from misunderstanding the brash, clumsy music's dramatic function, it is tempting to suppose that this omission also reveals a willingness to take the Duke's lyric outpourings at face value.

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Gilda Seduced: A Tale Untold

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