ANNA BOLENA
Premièr at Teatro Carcano, Milan – 20 December 1830
Chorus master: Roberto Benaglio
Giovanna Seymour her lady-in-waiting GIULIETTA SIMIONATO mezzo-soprano
Lord Rochefort Anne Boleyn’s brother SILVIO MAJONICA bass
Lord Riccardo Percy ALDO BERTOCCI tenor
Smeaton the Queen’s page ANNA MARIA ROTA contralto
Hervey Official at the Court MARIO CARLIN tenor
RADIOCORRIERE.TV
Third Programme. Anna Bolena (May 28)
Anna Bolena, Donizetti's first great success, must be reckoned an early work, although it had nearly three dozen predecessors. It was produced at Milan in December 1830, ten weeks before Bellini's Sonnambula came out at the same theatre. Anna Bolena, though inferior in melody, is far stronger in dramatic power and more enterprising in orchestration. Bellini was to regain some of this ground in I Puritani, while Donizetti later threw off melodies nearly as beautiful as Bellini's and much more varied and rhythmic-ally vital. Yet neither quite fulfilled his potentialities, Bellini because he died too soon, Donizetti because he wrote too much and too uncritically. During the decade 1825-35, which embraces Bellini's entire output of ten operas, Donizetti uttered no fewer than thirty-three. Had he taken more pains, he might have left masterpieces of the quality of Rigoletto. As it is, his tragic operas contain a great deal of splendid music, though it is unevenly distributed and marred by lapses into triviality.
The libretto of Anna Bolena, by Felice Romani, is an excellent piece of work. The characters deviate less from history than was usual at that period. and their behaviour is consistent and convincing. Two of them at least come to life in the music. Ann herself, to whom all the best solos fall, is a sympathetic figure and not just the suffering soprano of convention. Henry VIII has no aria, but his cruel and suspicious nature emerges vividly from the ensembles, especially the trio with Ann and Percy in the second scene of Act 2 (Act 3 as broadcast), and in his recitatives. Jane Seymour - whom friend and foe alike insist on addressing by her surname throughout is less successful. Donizetti evidently had in mind a sort of Eboli; but her initial cavatina fails to suggest her feelings of guilt, and the big aria in Act 2, an appeal to Henry for Ann's life, scarcely rises to the occasion. Smeton, the travesty page, and the tenor Percy are conventional types.
It is however in the ensembles, not the arias, that the best music is concentrated. Donizetti seems to have been stirred by the conflict of emotions, while unable to invest the solo music with more than a routine grace. The opera has little to offer till the big quintet at the end of the second scene, in which Ann, despite the warnings of her brother, reveals her love for Percy while Henry orders Hervey to spy on them. There is a forecast of the Lucia sextet here, especially in the beautiful slow section in A flat. The finale of the act, where Henry, his suspicions confirmed by Smeton's well-meant intrusion, has Ann and her party arrested, also contains some splendid music, far more dramatic than anything Bellini was writing at this stage or indeed later. Act 2 preserves a higher average level and strikes a note of tragic grandeur at the opening of the scene in the Tower. The women's chorus Chi può vederla' is a fine piece, most imaginatively scored: it is time our superior persons ceased to repeat the twaddle they learned in the nursery about Donizetti's feeble orchestration. Ann's recitative opens with a lovely orchestral phrase of a markedly Verdian flavour with a span of an eleventh and presently throws up the seed and half the flower of a famous passage in Macbeth - and in the same key. Until quite late in his life Verdi was continually echoing Donizetti's serious operas. The ensuing aria has an expressive part for solo coranglais and a dramatic interruption by the side-drum introducing the march that is to take Ann to the scaffold. Her final outburst, though less distinguished, might be a first shot at Queen Elizabeth's superb aria at the end of Roberto Devereux, likewise inspired by an execution in the Tower.
The performance under Gavazzeni was adequate; but this opera requires something more to carry full conviction. Leyla Gencer sang Ann's music in an erratic and breathless manner, but did project the pathos of the character, at moments very movingly. This no doubt is the legacy of Callas. Plinio Clabassi's dark voice suited Henry's music, and Giulietta Simionato sang well without being able to find much individuality in the part of Jane. Incidentally, this was written for a soprano; the choice of a mezzo perhaps accentuated its deficiencies. There were a great many cuts, often justified; but it seemed a pity to remove so much of the choral background to the second act, as well as the whole penultimate scene. [Winton Dean]
Opera di Gaetano Do nizetti (Lunedi 3 giugno, ore 19,55, Secondo)
Anna Bolena verra trasmessa testimana in un'edizione radiofonica realizzata a Milano con l'orchestra e il coro della Radiotelevisione italiana e con un gruppo di eccellenti interpieti: Leyla Gencer, nella parte della protagonist a Giulietta Simionato (Giovanna Seymour). Plinio Clabassi (Enrico VIII) e Aldo Bertocci (Lord Riccardo Percy). Sul podio dell'Auditorium milanese, Gianandrea Gavazzeni al quale quest'opera donizettiana, come si ricorderà, è strettamente legata. Infatti la straordi naria partitura (che segna peraltro, nella carriera artistica di Donizetti, una svolta capitale) fu restituita al nostro secolo da una memorabile rappresentazione scaligera dell'aprile 1957. Lo spettacolo (che faceva seguito a quello del teatro Donizetti di Bergamo) era cu rato per la regia da Lu chino Visconti. La protagonista era Maria Callas. Sul podio. Gianandrea Gavazzeni
La prima rappresentazione della Bolena ebbe luogo invece al teatro Carcano di Milano, la se ra del 26 dicembre 1830. Il pubblico accolse l'opera con entusiasmo infrenabile, applaudi oltre al l'autore cantanti che avevano dato vita ai personaggi, scolpiti espertissima mano da Felice Romani: Giuditta Pasta, Filippo Galli, Elisa Orlandi, Lorenzo Biondi, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Enrichetta Laroche, Antonio Crippa. Il poeta Romani, denominato dai contemporanei addirittura il «Metastasio redivivo», aveva apprestato in effetto un libretto d'indub bio vigore drammatico. Da parte sua il musicista, sollecitato da una materia poetica valida. profuse la ricchezza del la sua invenzione musi cale, delle sue te melodiche, della sua – trovate - scienza, e i personaggi ebbero carattere spiccante: vive umanissime creature sulle quali s'innalza la figura dell'infelice e travagliata regina.
Dopo la prima rappre sentazione, un critico della Gazzetta di Milano scriveva: «In quanto all'esecuzione bisogna avere udito la Pasta e Rubini nelle due arie di genere e fattura diversi per potersi fare un'idea sin dove può giungere la potenza del canto declamato e l'incantesimo del suoi perfetti».
L'Anna Bolena è suddivisa in due atti. Dopo la sinfonia e l'introduzione «Ne venne il re?», si susseguono sedici «numeri». Citerò, tra questi, la «Cavatina» di Anna «Come innocente giovane», la scena e cavatina «Da quel di che lei perduta», la scena e quintetto «Voi regina!» e «Fia pur vero», la scena e duetto «S'ei t'abborre, io t'amo ancora» e il finale primo. Nel secondo atto, rammentiamo la scena e duetto «Sul suo capo s'aggravi un Dio» la scena e aria «Per questa fiamma indomita»; il recitativo, scena e aria «Vivi tu, te ne scongiuro»; il coro «Chi può vederia a ciglio asciutto» e, infine, la scena ed aria finale «Al dolce quidami castel natio» ch'è la pagina più famosa.
LA VICENDA
Caduta in disgrazia dello sposo Enrico VIII, Anna Bolena attende di conoscere i veri pensieri del sovrano, non sospettando che la sua dama e confidente, Giovanna Seymour, è la nuova fiamma che l'ha sostituita nel cuore di Enrico. Questi infatti non ha mai perdonato ad Anna di aver amato e di continuare ad amare in segreto lord Riccardo Percy. II giovane, di ritorno dall'esilio, è sorvegliato per ordine del re da sir Harvey il quale segue attentamente ogni sua mossa. Cosi, quando Anna, cedendo alle insistenze del proprio fratello lord Rochefort, accetta d'incontrare Percy. i due sono sorpresi insieme e imprigionati. Prima del giudizio ultimo, Giovanna Seymour scongiura Anna di dichiararsi colpevole per aver salva la vita, ma Anna rifiuta e affronta Enrico al quale proclama apertamente d'essere innocente. Il volere del re tuttavia si comple: Anna, Rochefort e Percy vengono giustiziati nel momento stesso in cui Enrico VIII conduce a nozze Giovanna Seymour.
Anna Bolena
Welcome though further Gencer releases always are, this one presents less cause for excitement than is often the case. Given that the performance at La Scala from 14 April 1957 is widely available on EMI, and that it has Gavazzeni and Simionato in common with the RAI performance, as well as the bass Plino Clabassi albeit in a different role, comparisons are inevitable, and one may as well wade right in with the two Annas. Callas had one of the single greatest triumphs of her whole career at the premiere of the Visconti Anna Bolena, and it is this performance which EMI has issued. There is an often-repeated story about Callas using a situation in the opera to win over the famously merciless La Scala loggionisti with great success, and what comes over on the recording is absolutely white heat. It represents Callas at her very finest from all points of view – pure singing, musicianship, interpretation and dramatic engagement.
Gencer has proven herself to be capable of equally gripping operatic art, for instance in her 1965 La Scala Norma which is so arresting that I am never able to listen to just excerpts from it – one’s attention is seized from the outset and retained for the considerable length of the piece. But this Anna was not one of those occasions for her. The fact that she was in a radio studio and may not have had an audience probably partly explains it, stage animal that she was, as may the fact that she was relatively near the beginning of her career and was still some years off her prime. Gencer gives a well sung, idiomatic account of Donizetti’s heroine and proves herself the match for all of its vocal challenges, but it never quite catches fire. The famous Gencer glottal is not in evidence, and although some may consider it an undesirable mannerism, it always seemed to feature in her singing when she was so involved and she had so much to express that she was almost seeking to get beyond the boundaries of her own voice. There is no such feeling here and the whole lacks excitement as a result.
The effect of Callas on both Gavazzeni and Simionato, or perhaps the effect of the general atmosphere on all three of them, is palpable in the La Scala recording. Everybody appears to rise to the occasion and give about as inspired a performance as it was possible to give. So whilst Gavazzeni and Simionato with Gencer are high quality, displaying intimate knowledge of the style and rock solid commitment, with Callas they raise their games and the result is electrifying, with the audience unable to resist breaking out into tumultuous applause before the music has ended in each act.
There is very little to choose between the orchestral playing and chorus when comparing La Scala in 1957 to RAI in 1958. Similarly, given that Gavazzeni is at the helm on both occasions, the cuts are, if not identical, virtually so. The remaining cast is broadly superior at La Scala. Clabassi was entrusted the small role of Lord Rochefort in the opera house, but was promoted to Enrico VIII in the radio studio. He suffers from comparisons with Nicola Rossi Lemeni who sang Enrico opposite Callas.
All of which leaves the question of sound. The radio performance is, unsurprisingly, superior, but not to a degree that should make a significant difference. I would venture that those who think the live EMI set has intolerable sound would not be satisfied with the RAI set either. It surprises me that the radio recording is as boxed in and opaque as it is, but for those of us who got over the typical sound quality on many of these 1950s releases long ago, it isn’t in the least problematic.
Any Gencer aficionado will not want to be without this recording. And of course, there are many opera lovers who cannot get along with Callas, but who may still wish to own an account of the great Simionato in one of her finest roles, for whom this release will be ideal. But this is not representative of Gencer at her most inspired, and those in the market for a live Anna Bolena who are neutral or positive about Callas would do far better to get the 1957 EMI set.
COMPLETE RECORDING
Recording Excerpts [1965.06.11]
In a world dominated by singers from the countries with the most deep-rooted operatic cultures, Turkish soprano Leyla Gencer (b. 1928) seemed an exotic quantity to many Western audiences, and her career remained somewhat at the fringes; but a cadre of fans has always rooted for her devotedly, and their numbers have only been growing as more people are exposed to her passionate artistry through recordings.
Donizetti was fascinated with England, and several of his best operas (e.g. Lucia, Maria Stuarda, Roberto Devereux) are concerned with British historical subjects. "Anna Bolena" is merely an Italianization of Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII's many unfortunate wives. Though the facts of history are treated quite cavalierly, the heroine is one of Donizetti's most sharply drawn characters; and hardly less can be said for Jane Seymour and Henry himself. The opera succeeds not by fidelity to the facts, but on account of its excellent construction and orchestration, several noble and powerful arias, and an unusual amount of accompanied dialogue which contains attractive melody and moves swiftly along.
The Story
In the castle courtyard, Anna's brother Lord Rochefort greets Lord Percy, who has been inexplicably recalled by Enrico from exile. He admits that he still loves Anna and soon takes heart when the royal hunting party enters, and Anna is visibly flustered by his presence. Enrico directs his confidante Hervey to keep an eye on Percy's behaviour around the Queen.
Smeton gazes rapturously upon a miniature of Anna which he carries in a locket. He hides as she approaches with her brother. He is urging her to give an audience to Lord Percy, who soon arrives to protest his continuing love. Though tempted, she refuses him in the name of honour. Percy threatens suicide; when Anna screams, Smeton rushes from hiding, thinking she is being attacked. As the agitated men unsheathe their swords, Enrico enters and conveniently accuses them of plotting armed treason against him. The King also discovers Smeton's locket and interprets it as evidence of the Queen's infidelity. All are hailed off to prison, and Anna told she must defend herself in court. Act II. Anna, held in detention, deprived even of her attendants, prays for God's mercy. Giovanna advises her to plead guilty in order to save her life, eventually revealing that it is she whom the King now loves, and begging Anna to forgive her. After the Queen's initial shock subsides, she agrees, perceiving that it is Enrico who is really to blame for all that is happening. As the Council of Peers deliberates, Hervery reveals to the courtiers that Smeton, tricked by Enrico, has compromised Anna's reputation, enabling Enrico to dismiss Percy's insistence on her innocence. Anna denounces Enrico's cruelty and deceit and regrets ever having left Percy for him. This only gives Enrico more "evidence" of her infidelity, and she and Percy are led away in disgrace. Giovanna begs Enrico to spare Anna, but too late- Hervey announces that the Peers have unanimously passed a sentence of death on Anna and all her alleged accomplices, by now including her brother Rochefort.
Hervey comes to Percy and Rochefort in the Tower of London to offer the King's clemency, but the men refuse to live if Anna must die. By now Anna is slipping from depression into delusion, imagining it is her happy wedding instead of execution. She recovers briefly upon joining her brother and lover for the trip to the scaffold but lapses again into delirium when Smeton reveals his betrayal. In the distance, booming cannon and pealing bells announce the acclamation of Giovanna as Queen. Anna denounces the royal couple but determines to go to her death with pardon on her lips.
FROM LP BOOKLET
Come bis finale dei suoi concerti, raffinatamente liederistici, Leyla Gencer ama spesso concedere l'aria più famosa di quest'opera: "Al dolce guidami - castelnatio." Arriva con sguardo già complice, annuncia Donizetti, Anna Bolena col tipico "sostenuto" alle sillabe finali per difendere le parole preziose dell'applauso che già si scatena. Perchè volevano proprio questo, dopo le delizie della serata: un attimo di palcoscenico, con la Regina, la voce inconfondibilmente stravolta nella dolce follia.
THE OPERA [English]
This aria, which was composed for Giuditta Pasta in 1830, and cited by Fogazzaro as being in the mood of "an early miniature Lombardo-Veneto vignette," has almost become a trademark for Leyla Gencer, of the royal characters she so prefers, and of the Donizetti revival of which, for years, she has been the most important and most successful explorer.
And yet, in 1957 it was Maria Callas who resuscitated Anna Bolena at La Scala in a dazzling operation which also included conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni, stage director Luchino Visconti, the "English" sets of Nicola Benois, with Giulietta Simionato, Nicola Rossi Lemeni, Gianni Raimondi, and Gabriella Carturan. For that particular production Leyla Gencer, who had just debuted at La Scala in Poulenc's Les Dialogues des Carmelites, was Callas' understudy, by contract without any right to any of her own performances, as was the custom at that time. But she did work with the same maestros and a year later, in July of 1958, it was she who was chosen for the radio performance, together with Gavazzeni and Simionato.
This edition of Anna Bolena (1958) also has a ritual value: it marks Gencer's first true encounter with her beloved Donizetti, following the lightening, unexpected impact with Thus Anna Bolena, the youthful bride of Henry VIII, enters marriage not as an intriguer but as a victim, requiring a timbre of innocence and lyric placement, even though there are often moments of dramatic impact. In her search for an instrument-like and psychological vocal timbre, Ms Gencer adheres to the contemporary concept of what vocal style was like in the early Ottocento, as well as recuperating a certain technique, insofar as what she intends as fidelity to the score is a precise musical scansion, limpid to the point of transparency, within which flows her interpretive pathos. As far as her ad libitum bel canto ornamentation is concerned, today Gencer considers this a form of artificial coquetry which can easily deform Donizetti's precise dramatic line. For these reasons, and encouraged at that moment by her various maestros, enhanced by performances in concert form, this Bolena offers an almost virginal vocal style, pure, devoid of effects, with great facility in the high register and purposely lightened with respect to her RAI Trovatore of the preceding year: a point of departure for her Donizettian itinerary which will eventually take her to the fiery tempers and abysmal melancholy of Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux (64), to the angelic ambiguity of Lucrezia Borgia (66), to the regal torment of Maria Stuarda (67), of Caterina Cornaro ('72), to the torbid passions of Antonia in Belisario (69), to the palpitations and emotions of Poliuto (60) and Les Martyrs ('75).
This edition is even different than her own Bolena at Glyndebourne ('65), again with Gavazzeni, where the voice, in its maturing process and on a real stage, reveals a more corporeal complexity and a shadow of mystery. And yet we cannot fail to recognize the basic
characteristics of Ms Gencer's Donizetti roles. Most important is her adhesion to the personage by way of the psychological space which Donizetti reveals to his interpreter through his music; the rhythmic and theatrical action which follows as a result, with the thrust of the faster tempos or the always "in action" entrances; the use of vocal colour. From the start, when the Queen enters foreboding an incumbent destiny, she knows she cannot count on a penetrating Callaslike timbre, nor on the weight of her authority; therefore, she seeks out her own colour from within the musical context and the emotivity of her character, but according to her own logic and her own method. Her feeling for musical phrasing, which emerges as she so desires, arching with intervals and portamentos to enrich the significance of everything, places particular value upon each word, which is always a filter of emotion, the shadow of an image, sweetened with affection or laden with authority or disdain. She draws this out from an intelligent but agitated breathing technique for which each phrase moves in a dynamic curve of rinforzandos and smorzandos, at once seemingly coloured with anxiety, then suddenly languishing in pain, as though confronting some secret zone or imposing itself upon space. Strengthened by this prodigious use of breath and interminable arching, of almost imperceptible intervals, she then reaches the final expressive shattering climax. The "a parte" device so dear to Donizetti offers her a play of pianissimos that is not an expedient, but rather, a very delicate enriching of her personage and gives the discourse a sort of "cantilena" or undulation which bestows a natural quality to the operatic metaphor. It is an art of chiaroscuro, of an introspection which is a sort of acrobatic exercise up in the realm of high C, touched upon ever so lightly. Lucia of the previous year and illustrates Gencer's originality in comparison with the powerful Callas example, which she refused to imitate because of her awareness of the difference in vocal styles and because of her own clear-cut and obstinate ideas about Italian bel canto.
There is a two-directional basic determination: not to allow the declamation to yield, and therefore, sustain it with motivation, with prominent phrase endings, with sustaining accents which are not really accents, but almost imperceptible shadings of each word; a precise form of scansion that manages to coincide exactly with expressive immediacy. The secret? I was wondering the same thing as regards certain vertiginous and perfectly defined groups of four notes (Ah! Se mai di regio soglio ti seduce lo splendore"). I finally discovered it among the markings in Ms Gencer's working score, in which the difficulty is stylistically motivated and documented even before it is assailed with impetus or with fear: "Linger on the first (note), then use rubato on the others," followed by her choice of Garcia's variant which breaks various triplets into thirty second notes.
The ability to concentrate acts on the Continuing discourse; certain important moments bring to mind Callas, who was the first to reveal certain accents, but when we listen as they emerge from Leyla's laboured, emotive discourse, we are particularly gripped by their self-contained power. "Io senti sulla mia mano" was an unforgettable moment in the La Scala performances, particularly because of an apparent detachment and interior solitude of both the voice and the image. The result here is different, but no less magical, elaborated on "piano" and "marcato", with the suddenness of someone who has discovered something inside of one's self, and the marked rhythmic precision which follows. Thus the "Ove sono?" in order to find a vibrant colour which would be difficult to repeat, or the "Giudici! - ad Anna!" between the "sostenuto" of the attack and the "forte" with the "piano soffocato" in the repeat, which draws its characteristic from a less brilliant timbre because of an irresistible "breaking" effect of the voice and the agitated tempo that emerges from an aggressive Gencer who will eventually become so familiar to us.
Giulietta Simionato is the same splendid Jane Seymour as in the La Scala production, with her usual Firey thrust. Plinio Clabassi (Lord Rochefort at La Scala) in the role of the tyrannic Enrico is both authoritative and sharply defined; Aldo Bertocci confers both intelligence and warmth to the pathetically heroic role of Percy.
Comme bis final de ses concerts qui appartiennent avec raffinement au domaine musical des lieder, Leyla Gencer aime souvent accorder l'air le plus célèbre de cet opéra: "Al dolce guidami castel natio" (Conduismoi au doux château natal). Elle arrive avec un regard déjà complice et annonce Donizetti, Anna Bolena avec le "sostenuto" typique aux syllabes finales pour défendre les paroles précieuses des applaudissements qui déjà se déchaînent. Parce qu'ils voulaient justement cela, après les délices de la soirée: un instant de scène avec la Reine, la voix particulièrement bouleversée dans la douce folie. Cet air écrit en 1830 pour Giuditta Pasta, évoqué par Fogazzaro comme le climat d'un "piccolo mondo antico" (petit monde antique) lombard-vénitien, est presque devenu un sigle de Leyla Gencer, des personnages royaux pour lesquels elle a une prédilection, du revival de Donizetti dont elle est depuis des années la principale et victorieuse exploratrice. Cependant, en 1957 ce fut Maria Callas qui fit revivre Anna Bolena par une opération fulgurante à la Scala, avec la participation du chef d'orchestre Gianandrea Gavazzeni et du metteur en scène Luchino Visconti, scènes "anglaises" de Nicole Benois avec Giulietta Simionato, Nicola Rossi Lemeni, Gianni Raimondi, Gabriella Carturan. Dans cette édition Leyla Gencer, débutante à la Scala dans les Dialogues des Carmélites de Poulenc, était la dou- Elure de Maria Callas, par contrat de son opéra et sans droit de représentations, comme c'était alors l'usage. Elle travailla avec ces maîtres et l'année suivante, en juillet 1958, elle fut choisie pour l'enregistrement radiophonique, avec le même chef d'orchestre et avec Giulietta Simionato.
FROM LP BOOKLET
Donizetti e Bellini compongono pel teatro Carcano di Milano. Il poeta Romani ed i suoi nuovi libretti. - Donizetti in men d'un mese scrive un capolavoro. - Anna Bolena (1830). - Il successo della nuova creazione Donizettiana suscita la gelosia di Vincenzo Bellini. La fortuna teatrale. - Giudizi dei vari pubblici sull'Anna Bolena. Giudizi critici di Felice Romani e di Giuseppe Mazzini. La celebre cantante Giuditta Grisi e suo interessamento per Donizetti Fausta (1832). Ugo Conte di Parigi (1832). Spirito di Donizetti. - L'Elisir d'amore (1832).
Era l'Ernani, melodramma scelto di comune accordo fra Bellini e Romani - il quale aveva tolto il soggetto dalla nota tragedia di Vittor Hugo che doveva porsi in iscena nel carnevale 1831, ed il Bellini aveva scritta già molta parte della musica, quando venne il trionfo dell'Anna Bolena a fargli cambiare idea.
FROM LP BOOKLET
LA VICENDA
Atto primo. Enrico VIII, re d'Inghilterra, si è invaghito di una dama di corte, Giovanna Seymour, ed intende ripudiare la moglie Anna Bolena, così come si era a suo tempo liberato di Giovanna d'Aragona, da lui sposata in prime nozze. Anna appare in preda a tristi presentimenti, come se avvertisse la propria futura, tragica sorte (« Come, innocente giovane... »); ignorando chi sia la rivale, è portata a confidarsi con Giovanna ed a rivelarle il penoso stato in cui versa (« Non v'ha sguardo a cui sia dato... »). Giovanna sente vivissimo il rimorso per il male causato alla regina, ma quando Enrico la raggiunge e le rinnova la promessa di unirsi a lei, è pronta ad accantonare ogni scrupolo, incapace di opporsi alla volontà regale. Alla ricerca di un pretesto per disfarsi della moglie, Enrico ha fatto subdolamente richiamare dall'esilio Lord Riccardo Percy, che un tempo lontano aveva intensamente amato Anna. Il suo sentimento verso di lei non è venuto meno durante la lunga separazione, ed intensissimo è pertanto il desiderio di incontrarla (« Da quel dì che, lei perduta... Ah! così ne' dì ridenti... »); alla vista del giovane, Anna non riesce a nascondere un indefinito senso di inquietudine, mentre il re, che vede realizzarsi man mano il suo piano, ordina ai suoi uomini di spiare ogni passo della regina e di Percy (« Io sentii sulla mia mano... Or che reso ai patrii lidi... Questo dì per noi spuntato... »). Questi ha finalmente ottenuto un incontro con Anna: se la regina rivela l'amarezza per il proprio attuale stato, il giovane continua a sperare nel suo sentimento e rievoca con parole struggenti gli anni del loro amore. Ma Anna non può ascoltarlo: anzi gli ingiunge, anche per non suscitare la collera del re, di abbandonare per sempre l'Inghilterra, provocando in tal modo la risoluta reazione di Percy, che snuda la spada per trafiggersi (« S'ei t'abborre, io t'amo ancora... Per pietà del mio spavento... »). Anna lancia un grido: da una porta laterale esce all'improvviso il paggio Foto di scena da Anna Bolena (Comunale di Bologna, 1978-79) Smeton, anch'egli segretamente e senza speranza innamorato della sovrana, armigeri e lo stesso re, che si dimostra sorpreso ed indignato nello scorgere due estranei negli appartamenti regali. Il giovane Smeton è il primo a gettarsi ai piedi di Enrico implorando la grazia sovrana, ma per un gesto maldestro gli scivola a terra un'immagine di Anna da lui conservata gelosamente; è per il re, che vede così coronati dal successo gli sforzi compiuti per liberarsi della moglie, la prova inequivocabile del tradimento di Anna. Ella verrà quindi giudicata e con lei saranno processati Percy e Smeton, ritenuti corresponsabili dell'accaduto («In quegli sguardi impresso... Ah! segnata è la mia sorte... »).