歌剧剧本
Gabriella di Vergy is an opera seria in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti (1826, revised 1838), from a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on the tragedy Gabrielle de Vergy (1777) by Dormont De Belloy. The play was itself inspired by two French medieval legends, Le châtelain de Coucy et la dame de Fayel and Le Roman de la chastelaine de Vergy.
The story had already been the subject of an opera by Michele Carafa (1816) and had previously been used by Johann Simon Mayr (Raul di Créqui, Milan, 1809), Morlacchi (Raoul de Créqui, Dresden, 1811) and Coccia (Fayel , Florence, 1817). It was also subsequently used as Gabriella di Vergy by Mercadante in 1828.
Parts of the original version of the opera were re-used by Donizetti in his other operas Otto mesi in due ore (Naples, 1827), L’esule di Roma (Naples 1828), Il paria (Naples 1829) and Anna Bolena. For the revised version, Donizetti revisited Gabriella di Vergy and incorporated into the opera parts of Ugo, conte di Parigi (Milan 1832), Rosmonda d'Inghilterra (Florence 1834) and Maria de Rudenz (Venice 1838).
Place: Burgundy
Time: Middle Ages
Gabriella has married Fayel under pressure from her father and the reported death of Raoul, the man she really loves on his return from the Crusades. She discovers too late that she had been deceived and that Raoul is alive. Raoul returns and accuses her of perfidy. Meanwhile, he is under pressure from the Emperor to marry Fayel's sister, Almeide. The story has a tragic and macbre end. Raoul is killed by Fayel in a duel. Fayel cuts out his heart and brings it to Gabriella in an urn. She goes mad and dies of a broken heart. Her final words to Fayel, and the final words of the opera are her wish for the foaming blood in the urn to rise up and cover Fayel's face and for Raoul's ghost to rise from its tomb to embed in Fayel's heart the knife he had used to cut out Raoul's.
Scellerato, quel sangue fumante
si sollevi e ti spruzzi sul viso!
Da quel petto squarciato e grondante
si riversi in tuo petto il dolor!
Dal sepolcro l'ucciso risorga
qual fantasma d'orribile aspetto,
e t'immerga nel cor maledetto
il pugnal che strappavagli il cor!
