The mute girl of Portici, Librettolezing #14 Auber’s opera unraveled, for opera lovers and opera newbies
Story in short
Naples, 1638. The Neapolitan people suffer under the tyranny of the Spanish Viceroy.
When the fisherman Masaniello learns that his sister Fenella has been seduced and heartlessly abandoned by a Spaniard, he’s had enough. It’s time to cast off the Spanish yoke once and for all.
But what if love proves stronger than jealousy and the thirst for revenge?
What if the heart triumphs over rational principles?
What if a justified social uprising spirals into blind and ruthless fanaticism?
Fun Fact
When the audience at the Royal Theatre of La Monnaie heard the duet “Amour sacré de la patrie” on August 25, 1830, they spontaneously sparked an uprising that very evening against King William I—a moment that would go down in history as the Belgian Revolution.
