Andrea Chénier

In his libretto for Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier, Luigi Illica gave the character of Carlo Gérard—once a lackey, now a revolutionary hero—a phrase taken from the Girondist Vergniaud, who was executed in 1793: "The revolution devours its own children." This prominent quote reflects the core of the opera's plot, which premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1896: In a powerful historical narrative, it demonstrates how the French Revolution, in the c...