Ernani

As in any true Romantic opera, Ernani begins with love. The classic operatic triangle – soprano and tenor versus baritone – is here transformed into a quartet by the addition of a bass. A brigand, a king and an old nobleman vie for the heart of a single woman. Despite their differences, these rivals share aristocratic blood and fiery temperaments. Yet it is not love alone that drives them – honour, perhaps even more so, fuels their passions.
The word onor (“honour”) – resounds fourteen times throughout the libretto; disonor (“dishonour”) – another four. In this world honour is a fate-bound law, as ruthless and inevitable as destiny itself. It is no accident that Verdi, ever sensitive to the spirit of his age, wove one of the opera’s rare leitmotifs around the quintessentially Romantic idea of fate. Within this moral cosmos the loss of honour is tantamount to social death. And if reclaiming it demands real death, the hero is willing to sacrifice both love and life on its altar.
Vengeance for dishonour must be paid in blood. Blades are drawn with alarming frequency: men threaten to stab each other; the heroine contemplates suicide at the altar; and the title character ultimately takes his own life – albeit against his will.
Based on Victor Hugo’s 1830 drama, Ernani is a scenographer’s dream. The action sweeps from a rugged Aragonese gorge to ancient Spanish castles and the soaring vaults of Aachen Cathedral – all set in 1519, at the dawn of Spain’s Golden Age. The opera provided Verdi with the perfect vehicle to consolidate the success of Nabucco (1842) and I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843) and to step beyond the borders of Italy. Premiered in 1844 in Venice, Ernani remained one of the composer’s most frequently performed operas throughout the 19^th century.
Today Verdi’s fifth opera is a relative rarity on stage, though its music continues to live on in concert halls and vocal competitions. The opera’s glorious arias, ensembles and choruses are no less compelling than the composer’s later masterpieces. In Ernani the elegance of bel canto meets the intense drama of Verdi in his thirties. Its appeal lies in the sheer beauty of its melodies, the rhythmic energy of its dance and march-like figures, the vibrant colour of its orchestration, and the thrilling momentum of its tempo surges, which never fail to ignite ovations at the close of each scene.
W. H. Auden once observed that no matter how much an operatic heroine may suffer, “we never doubt that both she and we are having a good time.” So it is with Ernani: for all the cries of sangue! and vendetta! echoing from the stage, what the opera truly offers is the rare and timeless pleasure of great theatre. The appearance of Verdi’s “cloak and sword opera” on the Mariinsky Theatre’s playbill gives to all connoisseurs of the art form a reason to have a good time. Khristina Batyushina