from Act I of the Italian opera
Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano
Libretto: Luigi Illica
Role: Charles Gérard, a servant, later a revolutionary leader
Voice Part: baritone Fach: dramatic baritone
Setting: The Ballroom in the Coigny's château.
Synopsis: Gérard, along with his fellow servants, have been setting up for a party. Observing his father, an older crippled man struggling with cumbersome furniture, Gérard decries the class system that keeps them in virtual slavery. He denounces the guilded house and hypocratic aristocrats that condemn him to the life he is living.