okay so, as promised in the liveblog today, the post about why Lombardi as “trying to make a point” doesn’t really work:
it’s because while I don’t really like saying “oh the creators would have wanted this” or something like that, I will go ahead and say this: I think Verdi and Solera were trying to do two different things that are...not necessarily incompatible, but in this case they were.
number one: they were trying to create a Risorgimento allegory
number two: they were trying to make a point about why religious violence is not very cash money
unfortunately, they used the Crusades for the purposes of the former, and they thought they could somehow maneuver to also do the second, but it didn’t really work at all.
Verdi and Solera had had an absolutely massive triumph with Nabucco, and they tried to do more of the same here. however, unlike in Nabucco, this time they made the oppressors—the Catholic Lombards and other associated Crusaders—their stand-ins, with the concept of leading a difficult, underdog-esque movement of “liberation”. now, though I am a scholar of history, I am not a medievalist nor do I have a specialist’s level of understanding about intercontinental relations during the time period. however, I can tell you two things:
number one: it is fundamentally unacceptable to invade a place that isn’t yours and murder and rape and pillage the inhabitants already living there.
number two: tragically, religion that is designed to be a source of love and hope and all things good in the world is often twisted into an instrument of hate. the Crusades were no exception.
Verdi, as many of you know, had...extremely complicated feelings about religion, a perception which I share. and he was also intensely anticlerical, which comes through in many of his operas, including this one. it is to Verdi’s credit, however, that his operas portray exceptionally nuanced portrayals of people wrestling with religion. take Don Carlos, for example, which portrays religion both at its best—the welcoming of the auto-da-fé victims into heaven in spite of what men may say, the solace characters seek—and its worst (the Grand Inquisitor, the auto-da-fé itself). and Verdi is always sure to make it clear when he is roundly condemning the worst of it.
even Lombardi gets in on this action: Giselda wrestles with her faith and comes to the brink of losing it completely, Pagano strives to find redemption through becoming a hermit (though his subsequent actions are...questionable at best).
so it no doubt comes as a bit of a shock when there is a chorus with the opening words “Stolto Allhà!” (literally “Stupid Allah”) or that Act IV in particular portrays the Crusaders’ victory in a positive manner. the former, I believe, is not intended to portray the Crusaders in a good light: this is just how they are.
I’ll come back to the latter in a bit.
there is plenty of that wholehearted condemnation of the worst of religion in this opera, most notably in one of my absolute favorite moments of the opera, the Act II finale. Giselda’s grand cabaletta leaves no stone unturned, blunts absolutely no edges. here’s my translation:
No! To flood the earth with human blood is not the just cause of God!
It is because of vile insanity, not pious direction, that now you are driven to seize the Muslims’ gold!
This was not the word of heaven...no, God does not will it!
... (other characters cut in)
A divine force has torn the dark cloth from my eyes!
The vanquished people arise—soon, horrible revenge from the shadows!
None of your souls will be granted the right to die on your native soul!
The God of humanity always scorned the evil slaughter of human bodies!
... (other characters cut in again)
I already see your heads hanging by their hair, the playthings of the wind;
I see barbarians rising up in torrents...barbarians who conquer Europe and enslave its people!
These were never the words of God, to let waves of blood flow!
No! God does not will it!
He only came down to earth to speak of peace!
so we can say pretty well confidently that Verdi and Solera did not really condone the horrors of the Crusades, least of all the religious justification for them.
but if they do not condone it...then what? why does Giselda suddenly rejoin the Crusaders in Act IV? and what about the “liberation” Risorgimento narrative?
for the former, there are two possible explanations: Solera’s libretto includes a passage seemingly cut and unused by Verdi at the beginning of Act IV in which Pagano rescues Giselda, who is now otherwise alone in the world, from certain death by dehydration and exposure and returns her to her father, convincing Arvino (her father) to forgive her. however, as is, Giselda has a clear motive for rejoining her people: she has a vision informing her that her people are on the brink of death by dehydration and since the vision also tells her of a magical water source, she is the only person who is able to save them. and because Giselda is a fundamentally decent human being, she rejoins them, gives them the news, and saves them all. however, her joining in in the Crusaders’ chorus at the end of Act IV, Scene 2, is not clear. perhaps it is that she simply has no one else left in the world besides these people she’s known all her life.
but the wrench is in the nature of using the Crusades as a Risorgimento allegory, particularly in light of all this. the liberation/unification of Italy, which is definitely something to be celebrated, I believe, is equated to the “liberation” of Jerusalem, which is obviously much more problematic. we are expected to root for the accomplishment of this goal. however, this fails to account for the very real human side of the equation and the whole “maybe genocide isn’t good” factor, which as just discussed, is itself a major point in the opera.
ergo, particularly as we in the 21st century are beginning to look at history with a much more critical eye that relies less on “great man/event” history and traditionally dominant forces (such as those that drove the Christian side of the Crusades), this duality makes the work feel far too fractured and uneven. it was really just a bad choice of historical allegory: I fully believe that had Verdi and Solera picked a different sort of conflict, or hell, had even taken a different angle with the Crusades, this could have been much more consistent and successful in its messages. however, things are as they are, and so it is not.
anyway, that’s my two cents.
