Act II
Act II chronicles the disintegration of Baby and Horace's riches. Augusta warns of the gold standard, but Horace doesn't listen. Horace politically backs William Jennings Bryan for president. When Bryan loses, Horace is abandoned by his party.
In the final scene, Horace asks to see the opera house he built so long ago, though he no longer owns it. On the stage, he hallucinates and sees people from his past. Augusta both taunts and pleads with him. He is told that his one daughter will decry the name Tabor and that his other will become a prostitute. Distraught, he collapses. Baby Doe enters. After he is convinced that she is not a hallucination, he tells her nothing will come between them and begs her to remember him. He dies in her arms and she finishes the opera with "Always Through the Changing."
Read more about this topic: The Ballad Of Baby Doe
Famous quotes containing the word act:
“Remember how often you have postponed minding your interest, and let slip those opportunities the gods have given you. It is now high time to consider what sort of world you are part of, and from what kind of governor of it you are descended; that you have a set period assigned you to act in, and unless you improve it to brighten and compose your thoughts, it will quickly run off with you, and be lost beyond recovery.”
—Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121–180)