Bisbee daily review., 1919-05-28
Thoughts On the HaIian
 Grand Opera M Bisbee

search everywhere for a sign of his missing child. At last, unable longer to dissemble. he implores the cour. tiers, who jeer at his misery, to have mercy, to speak. They whisper among themselves, but give no reply. Desperate, at his wits end, forgetful at last, of caution and the flattery due his masters, the poor misshapen jest CT with a cry of rage, denounces the rabble, who have so cruelty humili. ated him and, in sheer unfeelingness, are breaking his heart. 'Vile race of courtiers," he mathematics them, a good song for many places and all time.
 The courtiers leave, discomfited, as Gilda entering throws herself into her fathers arms and confesses all, even her pitiable love for the Duke, bewitchment over her still in spite of his Napoleonic Yiolences.
 The last act of the opera, which contains the immortal quartet, takes place in a lonely spot on the shores of the river Mincio. On one side is seen the hut of the assassin, Spara- fucile. With this man Rigaletto has struck a terrible bargain Through the sister of Sparafucile, the wanton Maddalena, the Duke is to be lured to the hut and there murdered. His body to be delivered to 1Rigoletto, who will wait outside at midnight.
 Cilda, loving her betrayer, i'm plores her father to reconsider his projected crime. For answer he bids her approach the hut, where Gilda sees the Duke, tickle, dallying amor ous, coquetting with the vulgar and interruptions Maddalena.
 Such is the situation when the Duke sings his aria, beloved of all tenors, La donna mobile" (Wom- an is fickle).
 This aria was not shown to the tenor Nitrate until a few hours be- fore the premiere. Verdi then gave him the music, commanding him not to sing, whistle or think the melody outside the theatre. The composer exacted similar promises of orches- tra, chorus, and every one present at rehearsal.
 The reception of the air proved his wisdom in taking these precautions. The house burst into applause before tn tenor had finished the first verse, and, when the audience filed from the theatre, La Donna Mobile" could be heard whistled and sung through out Venice.
 There are few ensemble passages in all opera which equal the succeed ing quartette in beauty and dramatic power. Here are four people each an- imated by different emotion, each part strongly 1ndividual, and all the voices combining to make a heaven ly harmony. Gilda is desperate with the discovery of the Dukes infidel- fly. The Duke, meanwhile, is casting languishing eyes on Maddalena Mad dalena is laughing in his arms, and Rigoletto, crouching outside the door of the hut, is plotting vengeance. Here we have a musical and one might say comical picture of Life it. self. A perfect art or philosophy or even perfect world itself, would in evitably fall pail upon our appetite. Music and life both require disso- nance to relieve the accordances, or as the Cardinal in John Inglesant ob- serves, "I have heard, you, too, doubtless, fin convert of viols ex- descant upon a thorough bass in the Italian manner, when each person in turn plays such a va riety of descant, in concordance to the bass, as his skill and the present invention may suggest to him. In this manner of play, the consonances invariably fall true upon a given note, and every succeeding note of the ground is met, now in the unison or octave, now in the concords, pre- serving the melody throughout by the laws of motion and of sound. I have thought that this is life"
 To solemn bass of mystery and of the unseen, each man plays his own descant, as his taste and fate ou66colB 'Oul Iul5 mduQoT or play lb so governed and controlled by what seems fatal necessity, that all melts into a species of harmony; and even the very discords and dissonanees, the wild passions and deeds of men. are so attempered and adjusted that without them the entire piece would be incomplete"
 In this way we may see in the Ital- ian opera the same spectacle as in life, or the mirror of Nature
 A storm rages; the hour of. mid night strikes. A. body, enclosed in sack is thrown through the door. Rigoletto is exulting in his veng- canoe when he hears what seems to him a ghostly echo, the careless song of the Duke, La Donna Mobile" He opens the sack and beholds the face of his own daughter. Gilda has offered her life to save the man who betrayed her. "The curse" he shrieks, and the curtain falls.