IU Opera presents a collegiate premiere!
THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA
July 31 and August 1, 7, and 8 |
8:00 p.m.
Opera Insights at 7:00 p.m.
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SYNOPSIS
Act I
The Light in the Piazza tells the story of Margaret Johnson, a middle-aged woman from North Carolina, who takes her daughter, Clara, to Florence, Italy for a vacation in the spring of 1953.
On their first day there, a breeze carries Clara’s hat off her head and across the square where a young Italian man, Fabrizio, catches it and returns it to her.
The two are instantly smitten. But Margaret steers her daughter away from the encounter, bringing her next to the Uffizi Galleries. Fabrizio appears, hoping to arrange a meeting with Clara, but once again Margaret intervenes.
Alone, Fabrizio sings in Italian his declaration of love for Clara.
At the Duomo, Fabrizio once again catches up with Margaret and Clara, and this time Fabrizio’s father, Signor Naccarelli, is able to help penetrate Margaret’s resistance to any further involvement. They all agree to meet at sunset to take a walk and admire the view of the city from above at the Piazzale Michelangelo.
Margaret and Clara are invited to have tea at the Naccarelli home. Giuseppe’s wife, Franca, takes Clara aside, and alone, warns Clara about ever trusting a husband. Though the Naccarellis are impressed with Clara, Margaret tries without success to share her deep reservations.
When she looks in Fabrizio’s eyes and sees the love there, she can’t bring herself to disappoint him, as much as she feels she must; for there is something about Clara that none of these people knows. Clara secretly makes plans to meet Fabrizio at midnight near the hotel.
Margaret calls her husband, Roy, who is back in the states. She tries to tell him what is happening, but he is not very understanding, cutting short the conversation. Margaret, alone in her hotel room, sings of her disappointment in the marriage.
On her way to meet Fabrizio, Clara becomes lost in the streets of Florence, becoming hysterical. Her mother takes her back to the hotel and, as Clara sleeps, Margaret shares the source of her disquiet. When Clara was a young girl, she was kicked in the head by a Shetland pony, and the accident has caused her mental and emotional abilities to develop abnormally.
Margaret feels that she must take Clara away from Florence at once, and she steps down into the lobby to have a drink. While she is away, Fabrizio comes to the room, distraught; he cannot find the right words to propose marriage to Clara.
Clara accepts Fabrizio’s proposal and the two are embracing as Margaret walks in on them.
Act II
Act Two begins in Rome. Margaret has taken Clara there to distract her and put an end to the affair. Back in Florence, Fabrizio rails and weeps, once again singing entirely in Italian. No matter what Margaret tries, her daughter refuses to give her an inch, culminating in a painful confrontation. Clara erupts with a torrent of feeling, centered on Fabrizio and the nature of love. This causes Margaret to relent and to no longer stand in the way of the wedding.
The two return to Florence.
Clara is instructed in the Latin catechism in preparation for converting to Catholicism while around her everyone in the extended family sings of their feelings, stirred up by the immediate presence of such intense, young love. Franca, in an attempt to arouse her husband’s jealousy, kisses Fabrizio right on the mouth, and Clara witnesses it, breaking into a furious rant.
At the wedding rehearsal, Clara and Fabrizio are filling out the necessary forms when Signor Naccarelli sees something on Clara’s form that causes him to call off the wedding and take his family away at once.
Clara wants to know what is wrong with her, but her mother says there is nothing at all wrong. With Clara sobbing and broken, alone in one of the pews of the church, Margaret reveals her worst fears and her shame at having been the source of her daughter’s lifelong suffering.
She resolves to do whatever it takes to give to Clara a chance for happiness. Margaret tries to reason with Signor Naccarelli. He admits that he saw Clara write her age on the forms – 26 – and that this makes her an unsuitable bride for his son who is only 20.
Relieved that he has not discovered their secret, Margaret begs him to change his mind, but he will not. She invites him to take a walk with her. By giving him time to mull things over, Margaret succeeds in putting the wedding back on track; Signor Naccarelli says he will meet them at the church the following morning.
From the hotel room, Margaret calls Roy to tell him about the wedding. As might be predicted, he insists that Clara cannot handle the responsibilities of marriage. Clara, in her wedding dress, stands in the shadows, overhearing her mother’s side of the conversation.
Shattered, Clara slips out of the hotel room and runs once more through Florence, meeting Fabrizio at the church in order to tell him that she will not marry him. Fabrizio assuages all of her fears. Moments before the wedding, Clara tells Margaret she can’t leave her; Margaret assures her she can.
Left alone, Margaret gives in to all the pent-up doubts and yearnings that she has carried for years on end about love, realizing at last that the chance of love somehow outweighs the terrible risks. She joins the wedding ceremony.
