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Allen J. Koppenhaver
WITTENBERG UNIVERSITY
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“The Cask of Amontillado” is the second of three one-act operas Robert J. Haskins of Wilmington College and I have based on the works of 19th century American authors. The first is “Cassandra Southwick,” derived from Whittier's narrative poem and performed first by the Springfield (Ohio) Civic Opera Company, January 24-25, 1964. “The Cask” was commissioned for the opening of Krieg Hall on the Wittenberg campus, April 8, 1967. It was given its second performance at Wilmington College on March 31, 1968. The third opera, “Young Goodman Brown,” will premier in the spring of 1972 at Wilmington College.
Musically “The Cask” employs a chamber orchestra with pre-recorded tapes. The leads are sung by a baritone and a bass. It is a set piece with interspersed dialogue, essentially a tableau opera. The musical idiom is modern.
Poe by nature was introspective, dealing with the inner horrors and fears we all hesitate to name, telling us what we think and feel. This kind of world almost demands a tableau nature to reveal it in musical terms. We do not see what Montresor does to Fortunato but rather hear Montresor tell his hatred, his desire for revenge, underscored horribly in the ambiguous last line, “May these bones find peace.” We know that he is speaking about the transgressor as well as the transgressed, and only then do we really feel the “pastness” of the [page 77:] event and the ever-present torture of its remembrance. The irony comes, as the text and score try to reveal, in that at one and the same moment, again and again as the act unfolds, Montresor wants to get his vengeance for the unnamed insult, and yet hopes deep within himself that he can persuade Fortunato to go back before he completes the act from which there is no return. Here is no vengeance, no peace.
MONTRESOR I would be avenged. Of that, knowing my nature, you could rest assured.
Injury upon injury Fortunato heaped upon my soul
I bore the weight of it as I best could.
But insult I would not bear.
I would be avenged — and richly!
Fortunato would know to his very heart that I knew, that I knew that vengeance — was mine!
He would see in my very eyes — the rejoicing.
But lest you misunderstand
He would never know beforehand.
My smile, which had become my sign,
Remained the same —
The inviting color of a capsule of death.
Fortunato was a man of strength!
Respected — even feared —
But I knew where his weakness lay.
I knew where his pride could be touched.
Fortunato knew wines like an old man knows seasons.
(Pause. Then with a nonchalance)
I too had a skill in this matter.
I myself understood the power of time carefully turned in the cask.
The carnival was upon us.
The season of supreme madness rolled through the air surging through the blood of us all like a benign cancer.
I stumbled through the streets (Begins to move into playing area) half caught up in the catacombs of my thought.
MONTRESOR Fortunato! [page 78:]
FORTUNATO Montresor!
MONTRESOR Indeed, we are well met. How marvelously you fill out the day today.
FORTUNATO Thank you.
MONTRESOR And fortunate I should find you, for I need help.
FORTUNATO Oh? (Slightly disdainful) And how?
MONTRESOR I have purchased a cask of Amontillado — at least it passes
For that. I have my doubts.
FORTUNATO Amontillado? In carnival time? I have my doubts.
FORTUNATO Amontillado?
MONTRESOR I was silly to pay in full without consulting you. A whole cask?
MONTRESOR You were not to be found — I didn't want to lose a bargain.
FORTUNATO Amontillado.
MONTRESOR I have my doubts ... and I must satisfy them.
FORTUNATO It seems impossible at this time.
MONTRESOR Since you are engaged, I will have Luchresi see it. If anyone has a critical turn ...
FORTUNATO Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.
MONTRESOR (With careful delicacy) Yet some think his taste a match for your own.
FORTUNATO Come, let us go!
MONTRESOR Go? Where?
FORTUNATO Why, to your vaults — obviously.
MONTRESOR My friend, no. That would be to use your good nature.
It is clear someone is waiting for you. Luchresi will ...
FORTUNATO No one is waiting. I am master of my own time. Come!
MONTRESOR My friend, no. You are not well. The vaults are dreadfully cold and damp — nitre hangs from the walls like strange bony structures. It would not be pleasant.
FORTUNATO Let us go nevertheless.
The cold is nothing. Amontillado!
You have received an insult — Luchresi would not be able to set it right. Let us go.
MONTRESOR (Narrating) With a firm grip upon my arm, Fortunato hurried me toward my palazzo.
Where, I knew we should be alone.
The servants having long since departed,
Caught up in the fever of the season. [page 79:]
The house stood darkly before us.
Taking up the torches at the gate
We passed through the darkening empty rooms
To the arch — that led — to the vaults!
Down we began
Down the long and winding stone staircase
Down into the darker darkness
Down into the vaults
Until
We stood together on the gloomy ground of the vaults of my past.
FORTUNATO Where is this cask?
MONTRESOR Farther on.
FORTUNATO What is that web-work, that white that gleams on the walls?
MONTRESOR Nitre.
FORTUNATO (Coughs, starts small, gets violent)
MONTRESOR How long have you had that?
FORTUNATO (Still coughing, finally) It is nothing.
MONTRESOR Come, (Decisively) we will go back.
We should not play with your health.
You are rich and respected, admired, beloved.
FORTUNATO It is nothing. Proceed.
MONTRESOR You are happy as I was happy, once.
You are a man to be missed.
FORTUNATO (Coughing) It is nothing.
MONTRESOR We will go back. You will be ill and I should not wish to be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi ...
FORTUNATO Enough! (Pause)
This cough is no more than a scratch.
I shall not die of a cough.
MONTRESOR True enough.
I did not wish to alarm you
But you should exercise care.
(He knocks off bottle neck —)
Will you have a draught of Medoc?
FORTUNATO I drink to the dead that inhabit this depth.
I drink to the dead that own this place.
MONTRESOR And I drink to your long life.
FORTUNATO These vaults extend forever. [page 80:]
MONTRESOR The Montresors were a great and numerous family, (Pause) And I am the last.
FORTUNATO And this? What is this?
MONTRESOR The family coat of arms.
FORTUNATO The figures are hard to distinguish.
The nitre has covered it over.
Tell me what I should see there.
MONTRESOR There in the center a huge human foot of gold.
On a field of blue.
Notice, the foot crushes the wild serpent
(Pause)
Whose fangs are imbedded in the heel. (This with real strength)
And the words — they are now indistinguishable. “No one injures me with impunity.”
FORTUNATO Ah, it is a good motto.
MONTRESOR Look the nitre. It begins to cover the whole of this underground world.
We are below the river's bed. See, the water trickles down the bones.
Come! We must go back. Your health ...
FORTUNATO It is nothing. Get on with it.
But first, another draft of that Medoc.
MONTRESOR (Narrating) He emptied the bottle I handed him.
In a breath it was gone.
What a fierce fire burned to the roots of his eyes.
Then he gestured — I did not understand.
He repeated it.
FORTUNATO Do you not know the sign?
MONTRESOR Not I, no.
FORTUNATO You are not of the brotherhood?
MONTRESOR Brotherhood?
FORTUNATO Brotherhood of men — the masons.
MONTRESOR Yes, yes. I am of the masons.
FORTUNATO (Condescendingly) How? You? A mason? Impossible!
MONTRESOR I am. I am.
FORTUNATO A sign then. Show me a sign.
MONTRESOR (Pulls a trowel from beneath his cloak)
This trowel.
FORTUNATO (Startled by this, then) Ah, you jest. [page 81:]
Come. Let us move on.
MONTRESOR (Narrating, with a special sadness) Be it so.
Now he leaned more heavily upon me.
Down again we began to descend
Down through the arches
Down to the depths in which even the flame seemed to burn falsely.
FORTUNATO What is that — there — just beyond the light?
MONTRESOR It is just another crypt. Less spacious perhaps.
FORTUNATO Why, it is like the catacombs of Paris.
The dead are piled to the roofs.
You have many dead.
MONTRESOR The whole of my past
And perhaps ... of my future.
FORTUNATO But that ... what is that on the floor?
MONTRESOR Bones. Someone in the past has moved them aside
So that the path would be finally unobstructed.
FORTUNATO Hold your light here.
I cannot see — my light has almost gone out.
MONTRESOR Proceed.
Herein is what we have come for.
MONTRESOR (Narrating) Stumbling he moved forward into this recess,
I at his heels.
He stopped.
He could go no further.
The wall of his end confounded him.
Stupidly ... bewildered ... drunken.
In a moment
I had the metal bonds around his wrists
Shackled to the stone.
Stupidly ... bewildered ... drunken.
(Different tone now to Fortunato)
Fortunato, pass your hand over the wall.
Is it not damp, very damp?
Once more, I implore you to return.
No? But I will have to leave you.
FORTUNATO (Uncomprehending still) The Amontillado!
MONTRESOR True. The Amontillado.
MONTRESOR (Narrating) Now I began in earnest to do that for which I had so long prepared. [page 82:]
The bones I brushed aside. There was mortar, stone.
Here, the sign of our brotherhood, the trowel.
Carefully I laid the first row of bricks across the entrance.
Then the second. Fortunato was not so drunk anymore.
I could hear the low animal moan echoing from the deepest corners of the crypt.
I paused; there was a long silence, (This quietly — slowly)
(Then more forceful) An obstinate silence!
(Quickly) I laid the second tier, the third and the fourth!
A low shuddering laugh began that set my hair on end.
FORTUNATO Ha, Ha, he, he! A very good joke, indeed.
How many times we shall laugh over this.
An excellent jest,
He, he, he.
At the palazzo,
he, he,
Over the wine, he, he, he.
MONTRESOR Over the Amontillado.
FORTUNATO Yes, yes. The Amontillado.
But it is late. The Lady Fortunato, the rest,
Will they not be waiting? Let us be gone.
MONTRESOR Yes. Let us be gone.
FORTUNATO (Great panic) For the love of God, Montresor! Yes. (Sadly) For the love of God. (Silence. Struggling with chains feebly)
(Narrating) I resumed my work. Another row, another and another.
I was soon to the level of my eyes.
I held the torch to where I might see
But beheld only the ghostly shadows rushing about the tomb.
And then, suddenly,
He began to scream.
Not a simple scream but the scream of a man drowning whose sound would be lost in the waves of night.
I jumped back a moment,
Drew my rapier from its sheath
And began to grope over the wall with it.
The clamoring grew.
It seemed never to have an end [page 83:]
Until I too began to scream back at him.
Aloud he cried and I screamed back
Cry for cry redoubling his pitch
Until my temples beat with intensity.
And then ... just as suddenly ...
The clamor ceased. (Pause)
Nothing. (Longer)
I waited.
I picked up the brick and continued.
Tenth row. Eleven. Twelve. (Sound of distant chime)
It was now midnight.
There remained but one stone to be fitted and plastered in.
Suddenly there came from within
A terrible shaking like unto the earth about to spill forth its terror.
It was his final desperate effort to wrench himself free. (Silence)
And then nothing.
Not a sound.
Fortunato! (Silence)
Fortunato!
He spoke no more.
I thrust the torch through the small hole
Let it drop.
— only the half sound of the chain —
And then my heart grew sick (Pause — unconvincing, even to himself) because of the dampness — of my catacombs.
I rushed to complete the work,
Forced the last stone, sealed into position.
There, against the new wall, I rebuilt the bones, one upon the other, upon the other, until, I had walled in my insult.
(Decisively told)
No mortal soul has been there.
May these bones find peace.
— end —
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - POP72, 1972] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - Papers on Poe (Allen J. Koppenhaver)