Zampa
In three acts by HEROLD.
Text by MELLESVILLE.
This opera has met with great success both in France and elsewhere; it
is a favorite of the public, though not free from imitating other
musicians, particularly Auber and Rossini. The style of the text is
somewhat bombastic, and only calculated for effect. Notwithstanding
these defects the opera pleases; it has a brilliant introd
as well as nice chorus-pieces and cavatinas.
In the first act Camilla, daughter of Count Lugano expects her
bridegroom Alfonso di Monza, a Sicilian officer, for the wedding
ceremony. Dandolo, her servant, who was to fetch the priest, comes
back in a fright and with him the notorious Pirate-captain, Zampa, who
has taken her father and her bridegroom captive. He tells Camilla who
he is, and forces her to renounce Alfonso and consent to a marriage
with himself, threatening to kill the prisoners, if she refuses
compliance.--Then the pirates hold a drinking-bout in the Count's
house, and Zampa goes so far in his insolence, as to put his
bridal-ring on the finger of a marble statue, standing in the room. It
represents Alice, formerly Zampa's bride; whose heart was broken by her
lover's faithlessness; then the fingers of the statue close over the
ring, while the left hand is upraised threateningly. Nevertheless
Zampa is resolved to wed Camilla, though Alice appears once more, and
even Alfonso, who interferes by revealing Zampa's real name and by
imploring his bride to return to him, cannot change the brigand's
plans. Zampa and his comrades have received the Viceroy's pardon,
purposing to fight against the Turks, and so Camilla dares not provoke
the pirate's wrath by retracting her promise. Vainly she implores
Zampa to give her father his freedom and to let her enter a convent.
Zampa, hoping that she only fears the pirate in him tells her, that he
is Count of Monza, and Alfonso, who had already drawn his sword,
throws it away, terrified to recognize in the dreaded pirate his own
brother, who has by his extravagances once already impoverished him.
Zampa sends Alfonso to prison and orders the statue to be thrown into
the sea. Camilla once more begs for mercy, but seeing that it is
likely to avail her nothing, she flies to the Madonna's altar, charging
him loudly with Alice's death. With scorn and laughter he seizes
Camilla, to tear her from the altar, but instead of the living hand of
Camilla, he feels the icy hand of Alice, who draws him with her into
the waves.
Camilla is saved and united to Alfonso, while her delivered father
arrives in a boat, and the statue rises again from the waves, to bless
the union.
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