Volpone Comic Opera in Two Acts by John Musto Voice - Sheet Music

SKU: PR.622962650

UPC: 680160568918.

The events of Volpone unfold in 17th-century Venice, where the nobleman Volpone (The Fox) has contrived an elaborate scam with his aide Mosca (The Fly) to swindle their greedy countrymen. Volpone feigns a fatal illness, and his household puts on a show of grief, attracting the phony sympathies of the lawyer Voltore (The Vulture), the socialite Corvina (The Raven), and the businessman Cornaccio (The Crow), who each hope to inherit his wealth. Volpone and Mosca have prolonged the master’s “illness” to extract ever more extravagant displays of sympathy from the supplicants, usually in the form of gold, before absconding to distant Genoa. As the day of their departure nears, Volpone’s ambitions for their plot continue to grow. Seeing the obsequiousness of the three petitioners, he plans to humiliate them in ways that go beyond simple robbery. Knowing that Corvina has a son, Bonario, Mosca will persuade her to will her estate to Volpone as a sign of good faith, cutting her son out of his inheritance. From Cornaccio, Volpone plans to take his young new bride, Celia, a pious girl raised in a convent, by having Mosca imply that her presence might excite him so much that it shocks him to death. When all four are arrested, Mosca manipulates Voltore into defending Volpone to the court. Volpone takes sadistic delight in showing the lengths to which they will go for money. Volpone at last feigns his own death: returning to his mansion, he adds a neat coup de grace to the plot, signing his fortune over to Mosca, so that they may flee to Genoa as planned. Before the ink is even dry, though, Mosca turns on him, throwing Volpone out of his own home. Volpone wanders the streets, brooding, until he encounters a woman, Erminella, wandering the streets looking for her long-lost son. Realizing that Mosca is the child she seeks, Volpone enlists her help in a final scheme. Once again before the court, the three wronged supplicants decry Mosca and his master, but the will is clear, and the judges are distrustful of their shifting stories. Just when his victory seems complete, Erminella enters with a disguised Volpone, claiming to be Volpone’s widow and her lawyer. She produces a superseding will, which indicates that she should inherit the estate. When the judges express their scepticism at this convoluted turn of events, she approaches the bench; Erminella is a successful brothel-owner, and she implies that the judges have been clients at her establishment. In return for her discretion, the judges agree to recognize the new will, and to let Mosca go free. The others are sentenced to a short prison sentence, but Erminella has arranged for Bonario and Celia to share a cell. As the curtain drops, Volpone accompanies the reunited Mosca and Erminella on a ship to Genoa, already dreaming up new mischief.