Andrea Chenier
HE real André Chenier was a poet of somewhat classical style and somewhat conservative views who, after welcoming (in the "bliss was it in that dawn" manner) the French Revolution in its highly conservative beginnings, developed a violent dislike for its democrati¢ and proletarian aspects, and was ultimately guillotined. Not so _ the Andrea. Chenier of Giordano’s opera, recently heard in a 3YA "Music from the Theatre" broadcast; the stock type of the romantic poet, melodramatically accusing the whole life of the eighteenthcentury, he throws in his lot with some rebellious peasantry and inspires them
to: patriotic ardour. Thenceforward losing all relation to reality, he meets his end amid a welter of defiances, flights, mobs thirsting for blood, unfortunate aristocratic maidens, jealousies, betrayals, repentances, fates worse than death, and one thing and another, all culminating in that inevitable fourth act in the condemned cell. Yet the strange thing is that Giordano, in spite of cluttering up his stage with this undeniable drivel, worthy of Hollywood at its worst, managed to insert one or two moments not without historical authenticity. But why is it that we recognise the Revolution as the beginnings of modern democracy and are content that the only works of art inspired by it should be such as this and Baroness Orczy’s, I cannot imagine.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19460125.2.18.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 344, 25 January 1946, Page 8
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218Andrea Chenier New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 344, 25 January 1946, Page 8
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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