La rondine synopsis
THE SETTING IS PARIS AND THE RIVERIA IN THE 19th CENTURY
Act I
A salon in Magda's home
Magda, mistress of the wealthy banker Rambaldo, entertains a group of friends. The poet Prunier tells Yvette, Bianca, Suzy, and his hostess that sentimental love is the rage of Paris. However, Lisette, Magda’s maid, says that Prunier’s observation is nonsense. Prunier announces he has written a new song in which the heroine, Doretta, has a dream of happiness. The women want to hear it but Rambaldo, along with his friends Perichaud, Gobin, and Crebillon, agree that the song’s theme of love is stale. Declaring his work unfinished, Prunier asks Magda to supply the end of the story. Magda describes how Doretta, after being kissed by a student, discovers her deepest desire: passion.
The maid announces to Rambaldo that a gentleman has returned seven times looking for him. After giving Rambaldo permission to receive the visitor, a son of one of his childhood companions, Magda reminisces about a night long ago when she ran away from her old aunt. At the nightclub Bullier she met a stranger who asked her name. Magda wrote it on the table top and the man likewise wrote his. Although Magda fled the scene, it was an unforgettable time of joy.
As Rambaldo speaks to his friend’s son, Ruggero Lastouc, in one part of the room, Prunier reads the palms of the women in the other. The poet predicts that Magda, like a swallow, will migrate toward love. Ruggero explains that this is his first trip to Paris. The guests suggest different nightclubs where the young man should spend the night, but all agree when Lisette says that he must go to Bullier.
After the guests leave, Lisette reminds her mistress that it is her evening off. Magda thinks about Prunier’s prediction that, like a swallow, she will migrate toward love. After she reads a piece of paper left behind by Ruggero on which he had written the names of different nightclubs, Magda decides to go to Bullier. Lisette and Prunier rendezvous: they are secretly lovers and, with Lisette dressed in Magda’s clothes, will spend the evening together. Dressed as the working girl she once was, Magda departs for a night of adventure, convinced that no one will see through her disguise.
INTERMISSION
Act II
Bullier, a nightclub in Paris
Bullier is filled with flower sellers, working girls, students, artists, dancers, and onlookers. Ruggero sits alone at one of the tables. Magda, dressed in her working-girl disguise, is immediately accosted by some students. The young men believe she is there to meet Ruggero and take her to him. Ruggero tells Magda, whom he did not meet earlier at her apartment, that she reminds him of the girls from his town. They begin to fall in love.
Prunier and Lisette arrive and immediately join the festivities. Magda finds herself reliving with Ruggero the night years ago when she found happiness at Bullier. Ruggero asks Magda her name, and she writes “Paulette” on the table top. Lisette cries out when she sees her employer, but the poet skillfully convinces her that Magda is someone else. Ruggero drinks a toast to Magda, and Lisette and Prunier exchange words of love.
Seeing Rambaldo enter the nightclub, Prunier warns Magda of the situation. As the crowd begins to leave, Prunier asks Ruggero to take Lisette to the garden. Rambaldo questions his mistress about what is happening, and Magda confesses to Rambaldo that she cannot go with him because she loves Ruggero. The banker expresses the hope that Magda will not regret her decision. As dawn breaks, Magda and Ruggero leave together.
INTERMISSION
Act III
A summer house on the Riviera
Later that spring, Magda and Ruggero live together happily on the Riviera. Ruggero tells his lover that three days ago he wrote to his father asking for money to solve the couple’s financial trouble. In addition, he has requested permission to marry her. Left alone, Magda ponders if she should tell Ruggero the truth about her scandalous past life or if she should just continue her deceit in silence.
Lisette and Prunier arrive. The night before in Nice, Prunier introduced Lisette to the public as a singer. However, Lisette’s debut was greeted with nothing but the audience’s disapproval. Now her only wish is that Magda will rehire her as a maid. Magda willingly takes on the girl as her servant again.
Ruggero announces he has received a letter from his mother and makes the trembling Magda read it. Ruggero’s mother welcomes her son’s choice of a wife if the woman is virtuous. Magda cannot continue deceiving Ruggero and tells him that she can be his mistress but never his wife. Because of her true love for him, Magda knows she must abandon Ruggero in order to prevent ruining him. She leaves to return to her previous life.