Notes on Viardot

Composer: Michael Ching
Librettist: Michael Ching
Company: Buffalo Opera Unlimited

Synopsis

Prologue and Act I. The opera starts with a brief prologue. We are in 1905, and the young
female reporter arrives at Pauline’s apartment. Before Madame Viardot comes into the room,
the Reporter recalls a conversation she had with her Editor, encouraging her to get past
Pauline’s illustrious career in order to ask about her possibly scandalous relationship with the
late, great Russian writer, Turgenev. Pauline enters; the Reporter is a bit nervous, but Pauline
sets her at ease. The first question launches Pauline into recollections. Amongst her first
memories are the family’s trip to America as an operatic troupe (Characters) and then their trip
to Mexico, where they were waylaid by bandits. She remembers her Voice Lessons with her
father–gentle with her but strict and fiery with her sister. When her sister–who became the
famous La Malibran–dies in an accident, Pauline must switch from studying to be a pianist to
become a singer and to follow in Malibran’s shadow. Although there are skeptics, she is
recognized as a major talent. Pauline makes her debut (Paris Debut/Musset’s Review). An
early reviewer, Musset, is infatuated by her and tries and fails to sleep with her. She meets and
is brought under the wing of the talented and influential writer, Georges Sand. Sand idolizes her
and insists that Pauline must sacrifice everything for her phenomenal artistic talent. Pauline
begins to tour (The Road to Success) and goes from success to success. This first act ends
with her great success in Petersburg. During this scene, we incidentally learn that she has
married her husband, Louis who introduces her to a young writer, Ivan Turgenev.

As the second act begins, we now see Pauline and the Reporter sitting side by side looking at
scrapbooks of calling cards (cartes de visite) and boxes of letters she has saved from famous
correspondents (Calling Cards). Their relationship is now friendlier, less formal. The Reporter
finds a letter from Clara Schuman and reads it. The letter congratulates Pauline on the birth of
her first child, Louise. The next is a letter from Charles Dickens congratulating Pauline for her
performance of ORPHEUS AND EURIDICE in Paris. This time, Dickens appears and reads
(sings) the letter. Next the Reporter finds a letter from Turgenev and again, he appears and
takes over the reading/performing of the letter. It is a gloomy, yet humorous letter sent from his
family estate in Russia in the 1850s. He clearly misses her and the recollection has clearly
moved Pauline. The Reporter tries to find out more, but Pauline moves on to recollections of
working with Berlioz on Gluck’s ORPHEUS AND EURIDICE. The ensemble of furies singing
“Chi mai del erebo” starts as it did, blocking Orpheus (played by Younger Pauline) from entering
Hades. But it quickly also comes to symbolize forbidding the reporter to get more truth from
Pauline about Turgenev. The Reporter becomes like Orpheus, begging Pauline to talk to her,
but as in the Gluck, they and the two Paulines firmly and resolutely shout “No! No!” Her
boss/editor appears demanding that she find out about Pauline’s personal life, saying that “I’ve
been told by reliable sources that there was a menage a trois.” This is told salaciously and
viciously by the two Parisian rivals from the first act; they gossip nastily, pondering about how
the relationship between Pauline, her husband, Louis, and Turgenev works, with all three in the
same house. During this, the Furies–who have disappeared–come back as guests and
dignitaries to Pauline’s salon, crossing the stage and entering the parlor. The two rivals are
greeted at the entrance to the VIardot salon by Pauline, and they suddenly become fawning and
friendly. They take their seats in the salon.

Pauline welcomes everyone to the salon and says they are gathered to hear Saint-Saens’ new
opera. Looking at the music, (Older) Pauline begins to sing “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” which
morphs into a summation of the joys of her career of performing, creating, and collaborating.
During this, she invites the Reporter to sit in the salon, thereby melding the timelines of present
and past. As Pauline reaches the end of the aria, the Reporter “gets it” and realizes her duty is
to help her readers understand the importance of this historic female singer and composer, and
not be obsessed with the gossip of the past.

The salon memory fades and the guests disappear. The Reporter gently asks more about
Turgenev. Pauline briefly summarizes how they met and goes on to say how much fun he was
as part of family gatherings. She recalls the “Portrait Game” he invented and we see a round of
the game with the family. The Reporter asks about Turgenev and her husband Louis and
Pauline tells her that they were great friends and we see Louis telling everyone a hunting story.
As the Reporter continues to gently prod, Pauline recalls how she read all of Turgenev’s work

and he always solicited her opinion about it. And they worked together–we see a fragment from
their operetta “The Last Sorcerer.”

Act III (which can be combined with Act II)

Knowing that she is about to break the taboo, the reporter asks a more prying question about
Turgenev. Pauline refuses to answer on the record, ending the interview, but then goes on to tell
the Reporter, now her friend, about the relationship.

Pauline recalls her life with Louis Viardot and Ivan Turgenev, both who have been dead now for
25+ years. First, with very good reasons, her mother and Georges Sand encourage her to marry
the older Louis Viardot. He has connections, can manage her career, and he will be faithful. A
single female opera singer would be pursued relentlessly and assumed to be of easy virtue.
Love with Louis Viardot? It may grow later. Pauline recalls Louis fondly and remembers an
incident where Louis may have learned that Ivan and Pauline were more than friends. In that
scene, Turgenev and Pauline (portrayed by their younger selves) were reading Goethe together
under a tree in the gardens together. It was an intimate moment emotionally, and perhaps
physically (we leave for the director to decide how intimate). When Pauline returns to the house
she realizes that Louis may have been watching them from the house. We come back to the
present (1905). Pauline looks at an old envelope from Turgenev with the instructions “Do not
read until I am gone.” She opens it and he appears–it is his last prose poem to her. The older
Turgenev, Pauline, and their younger selves sing a quartet that encapsulates their strong
feelings for each other. Pauline is briefly lost in a reverie about the past. A knock at the door
draws her back. It is a student, arrived for their voice lesson. The opera ends as the lesson
begins, with Pauline enthusiastically training the next generation, echoing the advice she got
from her father sixty years in the past. The opera ends with the two Paulines downstage center.