ACT I

The Winter Garden at the Château Coigny, 1789

During preparations for a party at the Château, Carlo Gérard, one of the Contessa’s footmen, who has long been in love with her daughter Maddalena, watches his elderly father struggling to help and looks forward to the end of the aristocracy’s privileged lives. Maddalena and her servant Bersi arrive, closely followed by the guests. Everyone is alarmed by tales of political unrest in Paris. The Contessa and Maddalena insist that Chénier recite a poem. He improvises verses that contrast patriotic love and compassion with the indifference of the aristocracy to the suffering of the people. Moved and shamed, Maddalena leaves, as does Chénier. Gérard lets in the starving peasants who interrupt the music and dancing. The Contessa orders them to be thrown out. In defiance Gérard throws off his servant’s livery, and leaves with his father and the mob.

ACT II

The Café Hottot, by the Perronet bridge, Paris, 1794

France has been in the throes of Revolution for five years. The King and Queen have been executed and the government, dominated by Robespierre’s Jacobin party, have imposed ‘The Terror’. Show-trials and executions take place daily. A Jacobin spy (an incroyable, or ‘Incredibile’) observes Chénier, Mathieu and Bersi closely. The spy is suspicious of Bersi’s connection to a mysterious fair-haired woman he is seeking. Once a leading Revolutionary, Chénier has fallen from favour for his outspoken criticism of the Jacobins. His friend Roucher has procured a passport for him and urges him to leave France. But Chénier is intrigued by letters he has received from a mysterious woman signing herself ‘Hope’. Gérard arrives – he has prospered in the Revolution and is now a popular Jacobin. The spy draws him aside; it is Gérard who has set him the task of finding the fair-haired woman. Bersi tells Chénier that ‘Hope’ will meet him that evening. When ‘Hope’ appears Chénier discovers it is Maddalena, and they realize that they love each other. The couple are surprised by Gérard and the Incredibile. Gérard and Chénier fight, and Gérard is wounded. Recognizing the poet whose words inspired him five years ago, Gérard urges Chénier to flee with Maddalena: his name is on the list of the Public Prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville.

INTERVAL

ACT III

The Hall of the Revolutionary Tribunal, a few months later

France is in danger, threatened by foreign invasion and internal rebellion. First Mathieu then Gérard stir the people, asking the women of France to offer their sons and jewels to the Revolution. Old Madelon offers up her grandson. Outside, news spreads of the arrest of Andrea Chénier. Gérard reflects on his hypocrisy in denouncing Chénier. Maddalena arrives and offers to give herself to Gérard to save Chénier. Gérard is affected by the force of Maddalena’s love and swears to do all he can to save him. The public swarms into the hall for the latest show-trial. When Fouquier-Tinville reads out the indictment against Chénier, Gérard testifies against his own false accusations. Nonetheless, the jury condemns Chénier to the guillotine.

ACT IV

The courtyard of the St Lazare Prison, the next morning, before dawn

Chénier reads his final poem to Roucher, comparing the sunset of his life to the end of a fine spring day. Gérard arrives with Maddalena and they bribe the gaoler into letting her take the place of a woman condemned to die that same morning. Alone together, Chénier and Maddalena prepare fearlessly for death. The lovers go to the guillotine.