(MUSIC)
GK: I grew up among sensible Lutheran people in Minnesota, and they gave me so much, and yet there were some things that were left out entirely, and one of them was.....raw passion. (TOREADOR SONG) We learned about driving on snow, and about how to raise sweet corn, and how to put on storm windows, and we had some cooked passion, usually with canned tomato sauce on it, but we didn't learn too much about raw passion. (TOREADOR SONG)
TR (ITALIAN): Ha! How could you know about that! You're from Minnesota!! A state of farmers and peasants! Passion?? Ha! Not raw Passion. (TOREADOR SONG) (OPERATIC LAUGHTER) In your dreams, Minnesotan! (ITALIAN OUTBURST)
GK: Just because I'm from the flat country doesn't mean I'm insensate or incapable of emotion! Choose a rapier, sir! I'll show you what we midwesterners are made of! Deep down inside us, beneath our very becoming modesty and good manners is -- raw passion!
(TOREADOR SONG EXCERPT)
(SWORDPLAY)
(RUNNING FOOTSTEPS)
SS: No, Guido! No! Please! Don't fight him! I love him! (SWORDPLAY STOPS)
TR: But Rosalita!!! How can you love him? He is from Minnesota!!!
SS: I love him with all my heart. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot bathe, I cannot blow my nose --
GK: You love me???
SS: I love you!! I would die without you!!!
GK: I can see why your brother is so jealous! You're beautiful beyond the power of words to describe!! And your name. Rosalita. You make my heart pound.
(RITE OF SPRING MOTIF)
TR: You must never speak her name! I forbid it!! She is my sainted sister! I have vowed that no man will ever touch her!!
GK: I love her, and you cannot keep the two of us apart, sir. Nothing can separate us. Ever.
SS: Oh! be still, my beating heart.
(RITE OF SPRING MOTIF)
TR: Go away, Lutheran. Forget her.
GK: I can never forget her. I am helpless to change my fate, I am in the hands of love! Of raw passion! (TOREADOR MOTIF) (SWORDPLAY RESUMES) I fight for honor!!! I fight for her love!
SS: Oh Mother of Heaven!! Why must I suffer so??
TR: Why??? Because it is our fate!!! And it is his fate to die! (HE THRUSTS, GK REACT)
SS: Ohhhhh!!!! (SHE SCREAMS) You have killed him!!! Look!!! The blood!! (SHE SHUDDERS) Now I must take poison. I will join you in death, my darling. We will be married for all eternity. Oh! but wait---- I hear him breathe. (RITE OF SPRING) And I hear his heart.
GK: It is only a wound. And this wound has only made me love you more!
SS: I love you. You are a gift from heaven----
TR: And I am going to send him back where he came from!
(SWORDPLAY, AND OFFENBACH GALOP UNDER....)
SS: Oh heaven, have mercy!
GK: Put up your sword! Before I harm you!
TR: Me?? Ha!!! It is you who should surrender!!
SS: Why can't they let me make my own choices in life? Why must they be so controlling?
TR: There are no choices in life. Can't you see that? All is fate! (TR THRUSTS, GK THRUSTS, TR CRY OF PAIN, FALLS)
SS: My brother---- he has fallen----
TR (DYING): Farewell, Rosalita (VIOLIN UNDER.....)----- and you---- stranger from Minnesota----- I forgive you----- and I give you my blessing---- take her---- be happy ----- and always----- live-----live with----- passion. (HE DIES)
GK SINGS HABANERA
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor