L'ORACOLO (The Oracle)

A music drama in one act by Franco Leoni (1864-1949) after a play, 'The Cat and the Cherub' by C.B. Fernald.

First performance 1905.

Location: The Chinese quarter in San Francisco on the fifth hour of the Chinese New Year's day.

Synopsis

With the coming of the dawn, straggling revellers from the Chinese quarter in San Francisco make their way home from the opium dens, where they have been spending their time, the more devout members of the revellers going to the temple instead. Chim-Fen, the proprietor of one of the opium dens, pretends to be in love with Hua-Quee, nurse to Hoo-Chee, the son of a rich merchant named Hoo-Tsin. His real purpose, however, is to persuade Hua-Quee to steal a fan from Hoo-Chee's father, and to obtain access to his house. Meanwhile, Win-San-Luy, the son of the learned doctor Win-Shee, a man able to see into the future, has fallen in love with Hoo-Tsin's niece, Ah-Yoe. They meet and declare their love to an early morning background of temple hymns and street songs.

The rich merchant Hoo-Tsin consults the oracle, Win-Shee, as to the future of his son, Hoo-Chee. The book of stars that Win-Shee consults for this purpose, indicates that tragic events are in store. The villian, Chim-Fen, overhearing this prediction, abducts Hoo-Tsin's son when his nurse's back is turned and hides him in his opium den. He then goes to the child's father and asks for his niece's hand in marriage, should he succeed in 'finding' the missing child. Hoo-Tsin accepts this offer, apparently unaware of the nature of the man he is dealing with. The niece, Ah-Yoe, is, as we have already heard, in love with another, Win-Shee's son, Win-San-Luy, who also indicates to the merchant, Hoo-Tsin, that he too will seek Ah-Yoe's hand in marriage, should he find the missing boy. Indeed Win-San-Luy suspects what has happened, and after a fierce struggle, enters Chim-Fen's opium den. Finding Hoo-Tsin's son there, he rescues him, but Chim-Fen follows and kills him, recapturing the little boy and hiding him in a room under a trap-door. Ah-Yoe is distraught at the death of her lover, Win-San-Luy, as is his father, the oracle, Win-Shee, who determines to discover his murderer.

The action now moves to the following night, and we witness the oracle, Win-Shee, burning his sacred papers and begging the gods to come to his aid. By way of answer, perhaps, a cry of distress reaches his ears and he discovers Hoo-Tsin's little boy, Hoo-Chee, hidden beneath a trap-door. After rescuing Hoo-Chee, and returning him to his father, Hoo-Tsin, Win-Shee now waits near the trap-door for the suspect to reveal himself. Chim-Fen, after some heavy drinking, eventually turns up and the oracle beckons him to sit beside him on a wooden bench. And not too much time passes before Win-Shee, convinced of Chim-Fen's guilt, both of the murder of his son and the kidnapping of Hoo-Chee, strangles him with his pigtail.

In the distance the step of an approaching policeman is heard. Win-Shee hastily props up Chim-Fen's body on the bench beside him, and, as the policeman passes, appears to be talking to the now dead man. As soon as the policeman is out of sight, Win-Shee lets the body fall to the ground with a thud.

The next two installments later - I hope I've got all the Chinese characters right in this rather gory story! My source is The International Library of Music published in 1925 and a section therein entitled Stories of Modern operas. By the way in my Gugliemo Ratcliff synopsis I should have written 'daughter's' in the last sentence rather than 'daughter'.