Theatre / I Lombardi Alla Prima Crociata

I Lombardi alla prima crociata (The Lombards at the First Crusade, premiered at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala on February 11, 1843) is an opera in four acts with music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an epic poem of the same name by Tommaso Grossi.

The opera by and large follows the Folco family, a very messed-up Milanese Christian family including the patriarch Lord Folco, his sons Arvino and Pagano, Arvino’s wife Viclinda (with whom Pagano is desperately and unrequitedly in love), and Arvino and Viclinda’s daughter Giselda. They end up dealing with everything from internal conflicts to murder, kidnapping, true love, supernatural occurences, and of course, going on the First Crusade—which broadens the scope to include a Seljuk Muslim family whose path crosses with the Folco family’s in an unexpected way. By the end, pretty much no one comes out of this opera doing well, except maybe the larger Crusading force. But hey, at least we have some fantastic music and one of Verdi’s most moving tenor-soprano couples here.

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Tropes in this opera include:

• Action Prologue: Right off the bat, the opera begins with the ceremony marking Pagano’s return from exile and his “reconciliation” with his family, while the chorus discusses it and provides Musical Exposition about what caused Pagano to go into exile.

• Actual Pacifist: Giselda.

• Adapted Out: In the original poem, Giselda has a brother named Gulfiero, who eventually discovers his sister’s dead body in the desert (although she is Spared by the Adaptation). However, Gulfiero is cut from the opera, and it is implied that Giselda is an only child.

• Afterlife Welcome: Giselda tells Pagano in the final scene that Oronte and Viclinda will be waiting to give him this.

• All-Loving Hero: Giselda tries to be this.

• All of the Other Reindeer: Giselda being mocked by the other women of the harem in Act II.

• A Match Made in Stockholm: While it’s Oronte’s father Acciano who is responsible for Giselda’s kidnapping, not Oronte, Oronte and Giselda still fall madly in love while the latter is in captivity.

• As the Good Book Says...: sort of. The papal justification of ‘Deus vult!’ {"God wills it!") is used by the Crusaders constantly to justify their actions. Subverted by Giselda, who emphatically declares at the end of Act II that God does not will it.

• The Atoner: Pagano.

• Bad Habits: subverted: Pagano not only dresses up like a hermit, but actually becomes The Hermit. His actions re: the Crusade are still morally dubious at best, however.

• Beta Couple: Arvino and Viclinda, and Acciano and Sofia.

• Big Damn Reunion: Giselda and Oronte in Act III.

• Big, Screwed-Up Family: and how!

• Bittersweet Ending: if you’re viewing this from the POV of the Crusaders, who took Jerusalem like they wanted to the entire opera, the ending is this. If you’re viewing this from the POV of Giselda or anyone on the other side of the conflict…this is more of a Downer Ending.

• Bodyguard Betrayal: Pirro is the gatekeeper of Antioch but ultimately decides to let the Crusaders into the city in order to obtain his own forgiveness.

• Break the Cutie: poor, poor Giselda.

• BSoD Song: “Se vano è il pregare” (Giselda’s Act II aria).

• Cain and Abel: Arvino and Pagano, although their actions later on in the opera (y’know, the Crusading and such) make Arvino in particular much more morally iffy, particularly to modern-day audiences.

• Celestial Paragons and Archangels: Giselda is granted a vision of them at the beginning of Act IV.

• The Chosen People: the Lombard Crusaders fancy themselves to be this.

• Christianity is Catholic: see the entire opera.

• Church Militant: the Crusaders.

• Churchgoing Villain: some productions portray Pagano as this early on by setting his first aria inside a church. Arvino is arguably a Churchgoing Villain.

• Coming of Age Story: Giselda does a lot of growing up throughout the opera, transforming from a sheltered, naive, optimistic girl in Act I to a broken woman who has undergone trauma, true love, loss, and the horrors of war by the end of the opera.

• Converting for Love: Oronte.

• Crapsack World: pretty much the entire opera operates on Murphy’s Law.

• Crowd Song: this opera is HEAVY on the Crowd Songs.

• Cruel Mercy: the people of Milan choose, at Giselda’s behest, to spare Pagano at the end of Act I, but with the explicit purpose of letting his conscience torment him for the rest of his days.

• Culture Clash: and how!

• Culture Police: the Catholic Church in Milan raised objections to the Milanese police about certain aspects of the work, most notably the setting of the Ave Maria and the onstage depiction of baptism. However, for the most part the Catholic Church didn’t get its way and the piece was presented virtually exactly how Verdi and Solera wrote it.

• Curiosity Causes Conversion: at some point before the opera started, Sofia underwent this and converted to Christianity. Partly because of her and partly because of Giselda, Oronte later does the same thing.

• Cycle of Revenge: and how. Thankfully it is eventually broken.

• Death by Adaptation: In the opera, Viclinda is dispatched offstage between Acts I and II; however, she survives to the end of Grossi’s poem…although unlike in the opera, her daughter Giselda does not. See Spared by the Adaptation on this page.

• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Viclinda, after Act I.

• Defends Against Their Own Kind: Giselda standing up for the human rights of the Muslims of Antioch against the Crusaders at the end of Act II, thus becoming a Defector from Decadence.

• Desert Bandits: a group of these kidnap Giselda in between Acts I and II.

• Desert Warfare: given the setting, there is a lot of this.

• Deus Angst Machina: I mean…yeah. Just yeah.

• Died Happily Ever After: Oronte, more or less.

• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Oronte usually dies in Giselda’s arms; Pagano usually dies in Arvino and/or Giselda’s arms.

• Doting Parent: Sofia.

• Driven to Madness: The Crusaders believe that Giselda has gone mad at the end of Act II.

• Dwindling Party: the characters gradually either disappear or are killed off, so that by the end of the opera, out of nine individual characters, only two (Arvino and Giselda) aren’t dead or disappeared from the story several acts earlier.

• Easily Forgiven: Giselda is extremely good at doing this for others, although she doesn’t get the same treatment back.

• Egocentrically Religious: arguably Pagano.

• Elopement: what Giselda and Oronte decide to do after the Big Damn Reunion. Unfortunately, it does not go particularly well.

• Equivalent Exchange: During her condemnation of the Crusaders at the end of Act II, Giselda predicts that this will happen: according to her, the vanquished Muslim kingdoms of the Middle East will someday rise up, invade Europe, and take horrible revenge in much the same way the Crusaders have done.

• Ethereal Choir: the Nuns’ Chorus in Act I and the Angels’ Chorus in Act IV.

• Evil Sounds Deep: played straight at first but later arguably subverted with Pagano, played straight with Pirro, arguably subverted with Arvino (a tenor) as the opera goes on.

• Evil Stole My Faith: Giselda briefly undergoes this in the final scene of Act III.

• The Exile: Pagano, twice (before the opera starts and after Act I).

• Faint in Shock: In the Met 1993 production, both Pagano and Giselda do this, respectively at the ends of Acts I and II.

• Fair for Its Day: Despite some iffy aspects to the story, the work does condemn Islamophobia and genocide on the basis of religious bigotry and gives a more complicated portrayal of the Crusades than even a lot of more recent media.

• Fantastic Catholicism: the opera contains several examples of this, mostly pertaining to The Church Has a Direct-Line to Jesus! and The Church Is Full of Badasses!

• Final Love Duet: Giselda and Oronte sing one of these in Act III before the Elopement.

• The Ghost: Lord Folco never sings or even really appears onstage. Well, except sometimes his dead body ends up onstage at the end of Act I.

• Gilded Cage: Giselda is in more or less one of these in Act II. see Royal Harem on this page.

• Give Me a Sign: Giselda asks the Celestial Paragons and Archangels to do this at the beginning of Act IV. It works.

• Give My Regards in the Next World: Arvino and Giselda to Pagano at the end of the opera.

• Go and Sin No More: the people of Milan to Pagano at the end of Act I. However, it should be noted that there is a heavy element of Cruel Mercy injected into this.

• Go Mad from the Revelation: Giselda’s condemnation of the Crusaders at the end of Act II debatably has an element of this, strengthened by her subsequent prophecies about future retribution.

• Grey-and-Gray Morality: the opera is debatably an example of this in its mixed portrayals of both sides of the First Crusade.

• Heal It with Water: the Crusaders are revived from near death by dehydration thanks to the revelation of a miraculous fountain of water (thank you, Giselda).

• Healthy Country Air: Giselda states that part of her reason for escaping the Lombard tent camp in Act III is because she needs fresh air after being stifled in the camp. This is also quite lille a metaphor for being emotionally, psychologically, and ideologically suffocated around the Crusaders, who are not exactly fans of her.

• Heaven Seeker: Giselda, who is almost constantly expressing a wish to die from Act II on, is a classic example, thankfully without any of the potentially damaging-for-others effects.

• Here We Go Again!: the Milanese public is suspicious that Pagano will once again attempt to kill Arvino following his return from exile. They are soon proven correct.

• Hiding in a Hijab: The stage directions specify that Sofia, Acciano’s wife, is wearing a veil in all her appearances, even though she has actually converted to Christianity, albeit secretly.

• Historical Domain Character: while most of the characters are fictional, Acciano (Yagisyan, Governor of Antioch) and Pirro (Firouz, Gatekeeper of Antioch) were both real people involved with the Siege of Antioch.

• Holy City: Jerusalem, the end goal for the Crusaders.

• Holy Hand Grenade: and how! There’s even a major plot point around Antioch and everything.

• Holy Pipe Organ: the Nuns’ Chorus in Act I is backed up by this.

• Holy Water: this from the River Jordan comes in handy when Oronte asks to be baptized into Christianity before his imminent death in Act III.

• Homesickness Hymn: “O Signore, dal tetto natio”.

• I Have No Son!: Arvino about Giselda in Act III.

• I Want My Mommy!: played seriously with Giselda from Act II onwards. Since her mother cannot come back from the dead, Giselda wants to die and rejoin her mother in heaven.

• I Wished You Were Dead: Arvino about Giselda in Act III. He goes on about this for some time in quite horrible fashion, going so far as to state that he wishes she had died in her cradle and then that he wishes she had never been born in a twisted sort of "Better if Not Born" Plot.

• Innocent Soprano: Giselda starts off as a classic example of this, but as the opera goes on and she suffers more and more trauma, her music accordingly becomes more and more wild and fiery.

• Inside Job: how the Crusaders get into Antioch.

• Instant Oracle: Just Add Water!: inverted. Giselda is given a vision in which she is told where to get water to save the Lombards from death by dehydration.

• Interrupted Suicide: Pagano attempts to kill himself at the end of Act I but depending on the production is stopped either by guards or by Giselda.

• Irrelevant Act Opener: the opening of Act III is a Crowd Song/Setting Introduction Song about the history of Jerusalem and its Holy Ground with no relation to the actual plot whatsoever.

• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Giselda may have divine prophecies and visions revealed to her (in Acts II and IV respectively), but boy oh boy she suffers a lot for it.

• Karma Houdini: despite everything, Arvino gets through this story by and large unscathed.

• Killed Offscreen: Viclinda, Acciano, and Sofia all befall this fate.

• Kill It with Fire: as part of his Act I revenge plan, Pagano orders his men to set Arvino’s palace on fire.

• Knight Templar: while not actually being the Knights Templar themselves, let’s just say there’s a reason this trope gets its name from the Crusades.

• Last of His Kind: the last Seljuk ruling family of Antioch dies with Oronte.

• Lost in Medias Res: There’s a lot of stuff that happened in between Acts I and II, and the opera does a rather haphazard job of explaining said stuff.

• Love-Obstructing Parents: Arvino, and how!

• Mad Oracle: While probably not insane, Giselda a) definitely can see the future and supernatural beings and b) partly as a result of this is not exactly doing well mentally.

• Maligned Mixed Marriage: while technically they don’t get married until the latter is on his deathbed (on account of being stabbed by the former’s father’s soldiers), Giselda and Oronte are a classic case of this being unaccepted by the people around them.

• Mark of Shame: At the end of Act I, the whole company declares that Pagano has been branded with the mark of Cain.

• Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number: there are several of these, most notably two in Act I.

• Missing Mom: subverted, sort of. Both Viclinda (Giselda’s mother) and Sofia (Oronte’s mother) are present in the opera. However, both of them are later killed off between acts (Viclinda after Act I and Sofia after Act II) with no explanation given as to how either of them died. However, we can assume that Sofia was likely murdered as the Crusaders took Antioch.

• Murder by Mistake: Pagano accidentally commits Patricide by killing his own father at the end of Act I while trying to kill his brother.

• Murder, Inc.: more or less the group Pagano gets to help carry out his revenge plot in Act I.

• Murder the Hypotenuse: Pagano tried to kill Arvino before the opera began in order to get Viclinda. He tries again in the last scene of Act I. It does not go well.

• Musical Exposition: occurs several times throughout the opera, most notably in the Opening Chorus, which explains Arvino and Pagano’s entire history in about two minutes.

• My God, What Have I Done?: Pagano after discovering he has accidentally killed his own father (“Mostro d’averno orribile”).

• "No More Holding Back" Speech: “No!... giusta causa - non è d'Iddio!” (Giselda’s condemnation of the Crusades at the end of Act II.) Also more or less a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.

• Not Good with Rejection: Pagano, and how.

• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: Oronte appearing to Giselda in Act IV, Scene 1 from the afterlife, having died at the end of the previous act.

• Offing the Offspring: Arvino attempts this at the end of Act II, but Pagano (as the Hermit) intervenes to save Giselda’s life.

• Opening Chorus: you got it!

• Paper-Thin Disguise: inexplicably, absolutely no one recognizes Pagano as the Hermit for well over a year, even after several of the Crusaders report that Pagano is in the area.

• Parental Issues: Giselda, and how!

• Parental Substitute: Sofia does her darndest to be this for Giselda, but it never really works.

• Paying Evil Unto Evil: Arvino tries to kill Pagano multiple times in order to get revenge for Pagano accidentally killing their father while trying to kill Arvino.

• Playing the Heart Strings: The violin solo before and during the final scene of Act III is a perfect example of this.

• The Power of Hate: I mean…

• Prayer of Malice: these happen on both sides of the conflict against the other.

• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: the Crusaders engage in quite a bit of this, as Acciano points out in the opening of Act II.

• Redemption Equals Death: Pagano.

• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Oronte is presumed killed at the end of Act II, but suddenly reappears towards the beginning of Act III, leading to his Big Damn Reunion with Giselda. Unfortunately, soon after this he is mortally wounded and dies for real.

• Revenge Ballad: Pagano’s “O speranza di vendetta” in Act I and Arvino’s “Sì!... del ciel che non punisce” in Act III.

• Revenge Before Reason: both Pagano and Arvino are guilty of this. However, while Pagano tries to carry it through (with disastrous results) in Act I, Arvino never quite fulfills his revenge plans against either Pagano, or later, his daughter Giselda. Thank goodness.

• Revenge Is Not Justice: Giselda invokes this at the end of Act I in order to stop Arvino from killing Pagano. Arvino and the Milanese people are sufficiently convinced.

• Rivals Team Up: Acciano teams up with several rivals and has them all combine their forces against the Crusaders. It still does not work. Also, Arvino and Pagano unknowingly team up in Acts II-IV.

• Rivers of Blood: No literal flood of blood ever appears in the opera, but Giselda accuses the Crusaders of shedding “rivers of blood” in the Act II finale.

• Royal Harem: where Giselda ends up in Act II after being kidnapped.

• Sibling Murder: attempted but unsuccessful. It turns out much worse.

• Sibling Rivalry: and how! Thank you, Sibling Triangle.

• Small Role, Big Impact: there are a lot of these, most notably Viclinda.

• Song of Prayer: there are many.

• Soul-Saving Crusader: the entire Lombard Crusading force, particularly Arvino.

• Sound Off: The Crusaders apparently use a lot of military music and songs, as written by Verdi to be played by an offstage band.

• Spared by the Adaptation: In Tommaso Grossi’s poem, Giselda dies brutally of thirst before the capture of Jerusalem—she does find the fountain of Siloam but is so wasted away that she is physically unable to swallow the water. In the opera, she survives.

• Star-Crossed Lovers: Giselda and Oronte.

• Tenor Boy: played straight with Oronte, subverted with Arvino, who was once likely a Tenor Boy but while still a tenor is now a middle-aged dad who does…many morally questionable things.

• Thirsty Desert: the desert outside of Jerusalem in Acts III and IV. This presents a bit of a problem for the Crusaders until Giselda saves the day. See Heal It with Water on this page.

• That Was Not a Dream: Giselda after her vision in Act IV, Scene 1. Hell, the cabaletta she sings about it is literally called “Non fu sogno!” (“It was not a dream!”).

• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Giselda is a massive proponent of this, which does not exactly make her popular with the people from home.

• Time Skip: there’s a big one between Act I and Act II (3 years), with a lot of exposition that needs filled in. there’s a shorter one between Acts II and III (1 year).

• Together in Death: subverted. Despite Giselda’s fervent wishes that either he be able to live or she be able to die with him, Oronte dies and leaves her alive, but Pagano tells her that someday the two of them will be this and they will be happy again.

• To Hell and Back: In Act III, Arvino says that he would even go into hell itself in order to find and kill Pagano.

• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: both Oronte and Giselda fit this trope, although Giselda survives the opera while Oronte does not.

• Took a Level in Badass: Giselda at the end of Act II, when she calls out not only her murderous father but the whole concept of the Crusade itself, a move which nearly costs her her life.

• Turncoat: Pirro switches sides several times, both in terms of Arvino vs. Pagano and in terms of Christians vs. Muslims.

• Villainous Crush: Pagano for Viclinda. This will cause a lot of problems and at least one death.

• Villainous Lament: ”Ma quando un suon” (Pagano’s Act II aria).

• War Is Glorious: the Lombards for basically the entire opera. They sing a couple of Crowd Songs about it.

• Warrior Monk: Pagano as the Hermit.

• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Arguably, the opera is an example of this because Verdi and Solera were trying to write an opera about people coming together in spite of all obstacles and past feuding to gain freedom as a metaphor for the burgeoning Risorgimento Italian liberation movement…but there’s still some Values Dissonance as a result.

• What Happened to the Mouse?: Pirro is never mentioned again following his vow to open the gates of Antioch to the Crusaders, on which he obviously followed through.

• Widowed at the Wedding: depending on interpretation, it can be argued that the Hermit blesses the marriage of Oronte and Giselda at the end of Act III, only for Oronte to summarily die of his wounds.

• With Catlike Tread: Pagano and his conspirators singing loudly about their murder plans in Act I.

• The Woobie: Giselda and Oronte are both classic woobies.

• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: a lot of this gets thrown around by various characters in the opera.