Last performed in 2004
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Synopsis
France, Late Eighteenth Century — Act I
As the domestic staff prepares for a party at the château of the Countess de Coigny, Carlo Gérard, a rebellious servant, laments the servile condition of himself and his aged father and proclaims the hour of doom for the gilded château and its inhabitants. The Countess enters with her daughter Maddalena and Maddalena's servant Bersi. While Maddalena contemplates the approaching evening, Gérard muses over his secret love for her. Before leaving to dress for the party, Maddalena bewails the tortures of being a fashionable woman. The guests arrive, among them the novelist Fléville with his friends, the poet Andrea Chénier and Fiorinelli, the musician. The Abbé also arrives with the latest gossip from Paris. Following a pastoral masque, the Countess asks Chénier to recite some of his poetry. When he refuses, Maddalena tells her friends that she can make him speak of love. Chénier is incensed by the falseness of the aristocrats and improvises a rhapsodic ode rebuking both priesthood and aristocracy for their avarice and indifference to suffering. Chénier leaves after rebuking Maddalena for her shallow treatment of love. After the guests begin a gavotte, Gérard brings in a band of starving peasants. After the furious Countess orders them out, Gérard strips off his livery and leads his father from the château. The scene ends as the Countess vainly tries to recapture the gaiety of the gavotte.
Act II
The Revolution has begun, and France is held in the grip of Robespierre. Chénier sits at the Café Hottot. L'Incredible, a spy, questions Bersi, who has now become the sole protector of Maddalena. Chénier is soon joined by his friend Roucher, who urges him to leave Paris—but letters from an unknown woman have inspired Chénier to remain. The officials of the Revolution pass across the square, among them Carlo Gérard—now a popular hero. He glowingly describes Maddalena to the spy, who promises to find her. At evening she emerges from the shadows and reveals her identity to Chénier, begging his protection. The spy runs off to inform Gérard as Chénier and Maddalena affirm their love. When Gérard returns, he fails to recognize Chénier and tries to seize Maddalena. The poet wounds him in a duel and flees. Gérard conceals the name of his assailant from the mob.
Act III
In the courtroom of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Mathieu begs money for the bankrupt treasury. The mob ignores his pleas but responds when Gérard, fully recovered from his wounds, describes the wretched plight of France. Madelon, an old, blind woman, offers the last surviving member of her family, her fifteen-year-old grandson, for the army. Gérard is left alone with the spy, who suggests that Chénier's arrest will bring Maddalena to plead for his release. Composing a fraudulent charge of treason against his rival, Gérard feels sickened by his own hypocrisy and lust. After the spy leaves, Maddalena comes to Gérard to plead for Chénier's life. Moved by her selfless love, Gérard promises to intercede on Chénier's behalf. The courtroom fills for the daily trials. Chénier defends himself eloquently, but not even Gérard's confession of treachery can save him.
Act IV
Awaiting death in the courtyard of St. Lazare prison, Chénier reads Roucher his last poem. Maddalena enters with Gérard and bribes the jailer to let her take the place of Idia Legray, a condemned mother, and thereby die with Chénier. Gérard leaves to try once more to get a pardon from Robespierre. The lovers are reunited, and as the jailer summons them to the guillotine, they welcome the fate that will unite them forever.