2-791-411 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene from Costa's opera of "Don Carlos", 1844. The 'tragic denouement, which is supposed to take place in the Huerta Reale, or royal garden, at midnight. After singing a parting duet of exquisite tenderness, the guilty lovers, Carlos and Isabella, are surprised by the enraged monarch, Philip, attended by the brothers of the Holy Inquisition...Escape is hopeless - so after outpouring with passionate fervor a story of his wrongs to the King, Carlos snatches a dagger from Philip's side and plunges it in his own. The consternation, produced by this tragic deed, is...immense, and the effect very imposing. The guilty and wretched Isabella, having indulged for some time in a paroxysm of musical sorrow, is rudely laid hold of and borne away to either death or that lingering life which the tender mercies of the sacred fraternity might provide for her, in some convent cell or dungeon'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I.