It is an axiom of 19th-century operas, especially those from Italy, that, if the heroine is a nice girl, she will be expected to die before the final curtain. In this context, of course, "nice" is liable to be open to a variety of interpretations. The woman in question can, and probably does, possess a heart of proverbial gold, but sometimes the acquisition of that precious metal will have come from rather questionable practices.
The archetype, in this respect, is Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata, indisputably a member of the nice girls' club, although also someone whose personal history would not bear close scrutiny. There is, therefore, a certain inevitability - not to mention divine justice - in her death at the end of the opera; for a woman of questionable morals to live beyond the conclusion of the drama would not have been permissible.
Alternative fates have always been available, although opera heroines have rarely availed of them. They could, for instance, follow the example of Massenet's Thais and recant their former ways, although only after audiences have been given the vicarious thrill of seeing just how sin-laden the past has been.
Or, in the manner of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, they could lose their reason without losing the audience's sympathy. The great advantage of madness in 19th-century opera was that it did not need to be a permanent condition; recovery was possible in the closing moments, such as that enjoyed by Elvira in Bellini's I Puritani and another Donizetti heroine who was suspected of straying from the paths of perfect virtue, the eponymous Linda di Chamonix.
And madness possessed (and, on the operatic stage at least, still possesses) all sorts of other advantages, such as the opportunity to demonstrate vocal gymnastics which would scarcely be suitable for someone claiming complete sanity. Women in the throes of death sometimes manage to hang on for an inordinate length of time singing their final farewells, but these departures rarely sound convincing; there will always be something contradictory about a Violetta supposedly suffering from consumption-induced shortage of breath and still able to hold her notes.
But a woman in the convulsions of insanity, whether temporary or permanent, will obviously want to let as many people know - as loudly as possible - about her condition. So, Elvira can dominate the stage for an entire scene as she implores Rendete mi la speme before experiencing a miraculous recovery, once assured that her fiance Arturo is not misbehaving with another woman (speculating about the state of their marital life, given Elvira's psychological vulnerability, becomes an inevitability once the opera concludes).
Madness did not have to be the prelude to death, but it seems to have served as a warning mechanism, a means of informing the woman afflicted that, should she consider wandering outside the social mores, then hideous misfortune lay ahead. Sometimes, however, even bad behaviour was not necessary to merit death. As Desdemona discovers in Verdi's Otello, the mere suspicion of wrongdoing is sufficient to justify her being killed. In the same opera's Un Ballo in Maschera, the heroine, Amelia, is threatened with death for falling in love with a man other than her husband, but then spared so that she can witness murder instead.
Among this year's Wexford Festival Opera productions, Zandonai's Conchita sees the heroine endure not death, but a savage beating from her lover, an experience which convinces her of the depth of his feelings and leads the pair to pledge their troth. Conchita lives, but dying for love is an inordinately common occurrence, as the experiences of a number of Verdi heroines - Leonora in Il Trovatore, the eponymous Aida - proves. These women are entirely blameless of any wrong-doing, but must still see their lives end because the drama demands at least one corpse. Actually, in both the above-mentioned instances, the heroine does not go out alone; she is joined by her lover, in the manner of the protagonists in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Bellini's interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. And the same composer's Norma sees the heroine, who has broken her Druidic vows - and ought, therefore, quite clearly to be placed in the naughty-but-nice category - take her lover with her, in a neat but rare moment of gender reversal, as she goes to her death.
More usually, of course, a woman volunteers to die rather than be separated from her lover, this being the option taken by Maddalena di Coigny in Giordano's Andrea Chenier. Admittedly, the opera is set during the French Revolution when living conditions were less than ideal, but this still appears a rather extreme choice to take. Interestingly, in Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans (another of the present season's operas in Wexford) Joan of Arc seems to go willingly to her death, at least in part because she has fallen in love with a man and must escape from her own emotions.
Another Italian verismo opera from the same period, Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreursees the lead role die for no reason other than that she has inspired envy in another woman. By this stage in Italian operatic history, as an examination of Puccini's oeuvre proves, on-stage death had become almost obligatory for heroines. Few of his principal women last the course, regardless of the state of her morals: Butterfly, Tosca, Mimi, Manon - none of them entirely virtuous, it is true, but all sharing the same vision of love as the ideal source of redemption - die in the closing moments of their respective operas. In Puccini's final opera, Turandot survives but Liu does not; once more, a woman dies for love, this time at her own hand. Maybe this is the logical conclusion to what had been a dramatic leit-motif during the previous century: if you are an Italian operatic heroine and the weakened mental state of your husband/lover/rival does not kill you, then the only remaining option is to strike the blow yourself.
