History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time

TAMBURINI

Two other vocalists are mentioned in the history of music, who not only injured themselves in singing, but actually died of their injuries. Fabris had shown himself an unsuccessful rival of the celebrated Guadagni, when his master, determined that he should gain a complete victory, composed expressly for him an air of the greatest difficulty, which the young singer was to execute at the San Carlo Theatre, at Naples. Fabris protested that he could not sing, or that if so, it would cost him his life; but he yielded to his master's iron will, attacked the impossible air, and died on the stage of hæmorrhage of the lungs. In the same manner, an air which the tenor Labitte was endeavouring to execute at the Lion's theatre, in 1820, was the cause of his own execution.

I have spoken of the versatility of talent displayed by Rubini in his youth. Tamburini and Lablache were equally expert singers in every style. In the year 1822 Tamburini was engaged at Palermo, where, on the last day of the carnival, the public attend, or used to attend, the Opera, with drums, trumpets, saucepans, shovels, and all kinds of musical and unmusical instruments – especially noisy ones. On this tumultuous evening, Tamburini, already a great favourite with the Palermitans, had to sing in Mercadante's Elisa e Claudio. The public received him with a salvo of their carnavalesque artillery, when Tamburini, finding that it was impossible to make himself heard in the ordinary way, determined to execute his part in falsetto; and, the better to amuse the public, commenced singing with the voice of a soprano sfogato. The astonished audience laid their instruments aside to listen to the novel and entirely unexpected accents of their basso cantante. Tamburini's falsetto was of wonderful purity, and in using it he displayed the same agility for which he was remarkable when employing his ordinary thoroughly masculine voice. The Palermitans were interested by this novel display of vocal power, and were, moreover, pleased at Tamburini's readiness and ingenuity in replying to their seemingly unanswerable charivari. But the poor prima donna was unable to enter into the joke at all. She even imagined that the turbulent demonstrations with which she was received whenever she made her appearance, were intended to insult her, and long before the opera was at an end she refused to continue her part. The manager was in great alarm, for he knew that the public would not stand upon any ceremony that evening; and that, if the performance were interrupted by anything but their own noise, they would probably break everything in the theatre. Tamburini rushed to the prima donna's room. Madame Lipparini, the lady in question, had already left the theatre, but she had also left the costume of "Elisa" behind. The ingenious baritone threw off his coat, contrived, by stretching and splitting, to get on "Elisa's" satin dress, clapped her bonnet over his own wig, and thus equipped appeared on the stage, ready to take the part of the unhappy and now fugitive Lipparini. The audience applauded with one accord the entry of the strangest "Elisa" ever seen. Her dress came only half way down her legs, the sleeves did not extend anywhere near her wrists. The soprano, who at a moment's notice had replaced Madame Lipparini, had the largest hands and feet a prima donna was ever known to possess.

TAMBURINI

The band had played the ritornello of "Elisa's" cavatina a dozen times, and the most turbulent among the assembly had actually got up from their seats, and were ready to scale the orchestra, and jump on the stage, when Tamburini rushed on in the costume above described. After curtseying to the audience, pressing one hand to his heart, and with the other wiping away the tears of gratitude he was supposed to shed for the enthusiastic reception accorded to him, he commenced the cavatina, and went through it admirably; burlesquing it a little for the sake of the costume, but singing it, nevertheless, with marvellous expression, and displaying executive power far superior to any that Madame Lipparini herself could have shown. As long as there were only airs to sing, Tamburini got on easily enough. He devoted his soprano voice to "Elisa," while the "Count" remained still a basso, the singer performing his ordinary part in his ordinary voice. But a duet for "Elisa" and the "Count" was approaching; and the excited amateurs, now oblivious of their drums, kettles, and kettle-drums, were speculating with anxious interest as to how Tamburini would manage to be soprano and basso-cantante in the same piece. The vocalist found no difficulty in executing the duet. He performed both parts – the bass replying to the soprano, and the soprano to the bass – with the most perfect precision. The double representative even made a point of passing from right to left and from left to right, according as he was the father-in-law or the daughter. This was the crowning success. The opera was now listened to with pleasure and delight to the very end; and it was not until the fall of the curtain that the audience re-commenced their charivari, by way of testifying their admiration for Tamburini, who was called upwards of a dozen times on to the stage. This was not all: they were so grieved at the idea of losing him, that they entreated him to appear again in the ballet. He did so, and gained fresh applause by his performance in a pas de quatre with the Taglionis and Mademoiselle Rinaldini.

LABLACHE

Lablache was scarcely seventeen years of age, and had just finished his studies at the Conservatorio of Naples when he was engaged as "Neapolitan buffo" at the little San Carlino theatre. Here two performances were given every day, one in the afternoon, the other in the evening, while the morning was devoted to rehearsals. Lablache supported the fatigue caused by this system without his voice suffering the slightest injury, though all the other members of the company were obliged to throw up their engagements before the year was out, and several of them never recovered their voices. He had been five months at San Carlino when he married Teresa Pinotti, daughter of an actor engaged at the theatre, and one of the greatest comedians of Italy. This union appears to have had a great effect on Lablache's fate. His wife saw what genius he possessed, and thought of all possible means to get him away from San Carlino, an establishment which she justly regarded as unworthy of him. Lablache, for his part, would have remained there all his life, playing the part of Neapolitan buffo, without thinking of the brilliant position within his reach. There was at that time a celebrated Neapolitan buffo, named Mililotti, who, Madame Lablache thought, might advantageously replace her husband. She not only procured an engagement for Lablache's rival at the San Carlino theatre, but is even said to have packed the house the first night of his appearance (or re-appearance, for he was already known to the Neapolitans) so as to ensure him a favourable reception. Her intelligent love would, doubtless, have caused her to hiss her husband, had not Mililotti's success been sufficiently great to convince Lablache that he might as well seek his fortune elsewhere, and in a higher sphere. He had some hesitation, however, about singing in the Tuscan language, accustomed as he was to the Neapolitan jargon, but his wife determined him to make the change, and procured an engagement for him in Sicily. Arrived at Messina, however, he continued for some time to appear as Neapolitan buffo, a line for which he had always had a great predilection, and in which, spite of the forced success of Mililotti, he had no equal.

Lablache will be generally remembered as a true basso; but, before appearing as "Bartolo" in the Barber of Seville, he for many years played the part of "Figaro." I have seen it stated that Lablache has played not only the bass and baritone, but also the tenor part in Rossini's great comic opera; but I do not believe that he ever appeared as "Count Almaviva." I have said that he performed bass parts (the Neapolitan buffo was always a bass), when he first made his début; and during the last five-and-twenty years of his career, his voice – marvellously even and sound from one end to the other – had at the same time no extraordinary compass; but from G to E all his notes were full, clear, and sonorous, as the tones of a bronze bell. Indeed, this bell-like quality of the great basso's voice, is said on one occasion to have been the cause of considerable alarm to his wife, who, hearing its deep boom in the middle of the night, imagined, as she started from her slumbers, that the house was on fire. This was the period of the great popularity of I Puritani, when Grisi, accompanied by Lablache, was in the habit of singing the polacca three times a week at the opera, and about twice a day at morning concerts. Lablache, after executing his part of this charming and popular piece three times in nine hours, was so haunted by it, that he continued to ring out his sounding staccato accompaniment in his sleep. Fortunately, Madame Lablache succeeded in stopping this somnambulistic performance before the engines arrived.

LABLACHE

Like all complete artists, like Malibran, like Ronconi, like Garrick, the great type of the class, Lablache was equally happy in serious and in comic parts. Though Malibran is chiefly remembered in England by her almost tragic rendering of the part of "Amina" in the Sonnambula, many persons who have heard her in all her répertoire, assure me that she exhibited the greatest talent in comic opera, or in such lively "half character" parts as "Norina" in the Elixir of Love, and "Zerlina" in Don Giovanni. Lord Mount Edgcumbe declares, after speaking of her performance of "Semiramide" ("Semiramide" has also been mentioned as one of Malibran's best parts) that "in characters of less energy she is much better, and best of all in the comic opera. She even condescended," he adds, "to make herself a buffa caricata, and take the third and least important part in Cimarosa's Matrimonio Segretto, that of an old woman (the Mrs. Heidelberg of the Clandestine Marriage), generally acted by the lowest singer of the company. From an insignificant character she raised it to a prominent one, and very greatly added to the effect of that excellent opera." So of Lablache, Lord Mount Edgcumbe, after remarking that his voice was "not only of deeper compass than almost any ever heard, but, when he chose, absolutely stentorian," tells his readers that "he was a most excellent actor, especially in comic operas, in which he was (as I am told) as highly diverting as any of the most laughable comedians." Yet the character in which Lablache himself, and not Lablache's reputation, produced so favourable an impression on this writer – not very favourably impressed by any singers, or any music towards the close of his life – was "Assur" in Semiramide! Who that remembers Lablache as "Bartolo" – that remembers the prominence and the genuine humour which he gave to that slight and colourless part – can deny that he was one of the greatest of comic actors? And did he not communicate the same importance to the minor character of "Oroveso" in Norma, in which nothing could be more tragic and impressive than his scene with the repentant dying priestess in the last act? What a picture, too, was his "Henry VIII." in Anna Bolena! A picture which Lablache himself composed from a careful study of the costume worn by the original, and for which nature had certainly supplied him in the first place with a most suitable form. Think, again, of his superb grandeur as "Maometto," of his touching dignity as "Desdemona's" father; then forget both these characters, and recollect how perfect, how unique a "Leporello" was this same Lablache. One of our best critics has taken objection to Lablache's version of this last-named part – though, of course, without objecting to his actual performance, which he as well, or better than any one else, knows to have been almost beyond praise. But it has been said that Lablache (and if Lablache, then all his predecessors in the same character) indulged in an unbecoming spirit of burlesque during the last scene of Don Giovanni, in which the statue seizes the hero with his strong hand, and takes him down a practicable trap-door to eternal torments. "Leporello," however, is a burlesque character, and a buffoon throughout; cowardly, superstitious, greedy, with all possible low qualities developed to a ludicrous extent, and thus presenting a fine dramatic contrast to his master, who possesses all the noble qualities, except faith – this one great flaw rendering all the use he makes of valour, generosity, and love of woman, an abuse. "Leporello" is always thinking of the bad end which he is sure awaits him unless he quits the service of a master whom he is afraid to leave; always thinking, too, of maccaroni, money, and the wages which "Don Juan" certainly will not pay him, if he is taken to the infernal regions before his next quarter is due. "Mes gages, mes gages," cries the "Sganarelle" of Molière's comedy, and "Sganarelle" and "Leporello" are one and the same person. We may be sure that Molière and Lablache are right, and that Herr Formes, with his new reading of a good old part is wrong. At the same time it is natural and allowable that a singer who cannot be comic should be serious.

In addition to his other great accomplishments, Lablache possessed that of being able to whistle in a style that many a piccolo player would have envied. He could whistle all Rode's variations as perfectly as Louisa Pyne sings them. As to the vibratory force of his full voice, it was such that to have allowed Lablache to sing in a green house might have been a dangerous experiment. Chéron, a celebrated French bass, is said to have been able to burst a tumbler into a thousand pieces, by sounding, within a fragile and doubtless sympathetic glass, some particular note. Equally interesting, in connexion with a glass, is a performance in which I have seen the veteran,102 but still almost juvenile basso, Signor Badiali, indulge. The artist takes a glass of particularly good claret, drinks it, and, while in the act of swallowing, sings a scale. The first time his execution is not quite perfect. He repeats the performance with a full glass, a loud voice, and without missing a note or a drop. To convince his friends that there is no deception, he offers to go through this refreshing species of vocalization a third time; after which, if the supply of wine on the table happens to be limited, and the servants gone to bed, the audience generally declares itself satisfied.

MADAME GRISI

Giulia Grisi, the last of the celebrated Puritani quartett, first distinguished herself by her performance of the part of "Adalgisa," in Norma, when that opera was produced at Milan, in 1832. Giulia or Giulietta Grisi, is the younger sister of Giuditta Grisi, also a singer, but to whom Giulietta was superior in all respects; and she is the elder sister of Carlotta Grisi, who, from an ordinary vocalist, became, under the tuition of Perrot, the most charming dancer of her time. When Madame Grisi first appeared, lord Mount Edgcumbe having ceased himself to attend the opera, tells us that she possessed "a handsome person, sweet, yet powerful voice, considerable execution, and still more expression;" that "she is an excellent singer, and excellent actress;" in short, is described to be as nearly perfect as possible, and is almost a greater favorite than even Pasta or Malibran. In his Pencillings by the Way, Mr. N. P. Willis writes, after seeing Grisi, who had then first appeared at the King's Theatre, in the year 1833; "she is young, very pretty, and an admirable actress – three great advantages to a singer; her voice is under absolute command, and she manages it beautifully; but it wants the infusion of soul – the gushing uncontrollable passionate feeling of Malibran. You merely feel that Grisi is an accomplished artist, while Malibran melts all your criticism into love and admiration. I am easily moved by music, but I come away without much enthusiasm for the present passion of London." The impression conveyed by Mr. N. P. Willis is not precisely that which I received from hearing Grisi fourteen or fifteen years afterwards, and up to her last season. Of late years, at least, Madame Grisi has shown herself above all "a passionate singer," though as "accomplished artists" superior to her, if not in force at least in delicacy of expression, she has, from the time of Madame Sontag to that of Madame Bosio, had plenty of superiors. It seems to us, in the present day, that the "incontrollable passionate feeling of Grisi," is just what we admire her for in "Norma," beyond doubt her best character; but it is none the less interesting, or perhaps the more interesting for that very reason, to know what a man of taste in poetry and the drama, and who had heard all the best singers of his time, thought of Madame Grisi at a period when her most striking qualifications may have been different from what they are now. She was at all events a great singer and actress then, in 1833, and is a great actress and singer now, in 1861 – the year of her final retirement from the stage.

CHAPTER XIX.

ROSSINI – SPOHR – BEETHOVEN – WEBER AND HOFFMANN

ROSSINI

BELLINI and Donizetti were contemporaries of Rossini; so were Paisiello and Cimarosa; so are M. Verdi and M. Meyerbeer; but Rossini has outlived most of them, and will certainly outlive them all. It is now forty-eight years since Tancredi, forty-five since Otello, and forty-five since Il Barbiere di Siviglia were written. With the exception of Cimarosa's Matrimonio Segretto, which at long intervals may still occasionally be heard, the works of Rossini's Italian predecessors have been thrown into utter obscurity by the light of his superior genius. Let us make all due allowances for such change of taste as must result in music, as in all things, from the natural changeableness of the human disposition; still no variation has taken place in the estimation in which Rossini's works are held. It was to be expected that a musician of equal genius, coming after Paisiello and his compeers, young and vigorous, when they were old and exhausted, would in time completely eclipse them, even in respect to those works which they had written in their best days; but the remarkable thing is, that Rossini so re-modelled Italian opera, and gave to the world so many admirable examples of his own new style, that to opera-goers of the last thirty years he may be said to be the most ancient of those Italian composers who are not absolutely forgotten. At the same time, after hearing William Tell, it is impossible to deny that Rossini is also the most modern of operatic composers. That is to say, that since William Tell was produced, upwards of thirty years ago, the art of writing dramatic music has not advanced a step. Other composers have written admirable operas during Rossini's time; but if no Italian opera seria, produced prior to Otello, can be compared to Otello; if no opera, subsequent to William Tell, can be ranked on a level with William Tell; if rivals have arisen, and Rossini's operas of five-and-forty years ago still continue to be admired and applauded; above all, if a singer,103 the favourite heroine of a composer104 who is so boastfully modern that he fancies he belongs to the next age, and who is nothing if not an innovator; if even this ultra modern heroine appears, when she wishes really to distinguish herself in a Rossinian opera of 1813;105 then it follows that of our actual operatic period, and dating from the early part of the present century, Rossini is simply the Alpha and the Omega. Undoubtedly his works are full of beauty, gaiety, life, and of much poetry of a positive, passionate kind, but they are wanting in spiritualism, or rather they do not possess spirituality, and exhibit none of the poetry of romance. It would be difficult to say precisely in what the "romantic" consists; – and I am here reminded that several French writers have spoken of Rossini as a composer of the "romantic school," simply (as I imagine) because his works attained great popularity in France at the same time as those of Victor Hugo and his followers, and because he gave the same extension to the opera which the cultivators and naturalisers in France of the Shakspearian drama gave, after Rossini, to their plays.106 I may safely say, however, that with the "romantic," as an element of poetry, we always associate somewhat of melancholy and vagueness, and of dreaminess, if not of actual mystery. A bright passionate love-song of Rossini's is no more "romantic" than is a magnificent summer's day under an Italian sky; but Schubert's well known Serenade is essentially "romantic;" and Schubert, as well as Hoffmann, (a composer of whom I shall afterwards have a few words to say), is decidedly of the same school as Weber, who is again of the same school, or rather of the same class, as Schubert and Beethoven, in so far that not one of the three ever visited Italy, or was influenced, further than was absolutely inevitable, by Italian composers.

SPOHR

As a romantic composer Weber may almost be said to stand alone. As a thoroughly German composer he belongs to the same class as Beethoven and Spohr. Spohr, greatly as his symphonies and chamber compositions are admired, has yet never established himself in public favour as an operatic composer – at least not in England, nor indeed anywhere out of Germany. I may add, that in Germany itself, the land above all others of scientific music, the works which keep possession of the stage are, for the most part, those which the public also love to applaud in other countries. The truth is, that the success of an opera is seldom in proportion to its abstract musical merit, just as the success of a drama does not depend, or depends but very little, on the manner in which it is written. We have seen plays by Browning, Taylor (I mean the author of Philip Von Artevelde), Leigh Hunt, and other most distinguished writers, prove failures; while dramas and comedies put together by actors and playwrights have met with great success. This success is not to be undervalued; all I mean to say is, that it is not necessarily gained by the best writers in the drama, or by the best composers in the opera; though the best composers and the best writers ought to take care to achieve it in every department in which they present themselves. In the meanwhile, Spohr's dramatic works, with all their beauties, have never taken root in this country; while even Beethoven's Fidelio, one of the greatest of operas, does not occupy any clearly marked space in the history of opera; nor is it as an operatic composer that Beethoven has gained his immense celebrity.

BEETHOVEN

All London opera-goers remember Mademoiselle Sophie Cruvelli's admirable performance in Fidelio; and like Mademoiselle Cruvelli (or Cruwel), all the great German singers who have visited England – with the single exception of Mademoiselle Titiens – have some time or other played the part of the heroine in Beethoven's famous dramatic work: but Fidelio has never been translated into English or French, – has never been played by any thoroughly Italian company, and admired, as it must always be by musicians – nor has ever excited any great enthusiasm among the English public, except when it has been executed by an entire company of Germans, – the only people who can do justice to its magnificent choruses. It is a work apart in more than one sense, and it has not had that perceptible influence on the works which have succeeded it, either in Germany or in other countries, that has been exercised by Weber's operas in Germany, and by Rossini's everywhere. For full particulars respecting Beethoven and his three styles, and Fidelio and its three overtures, the reader may be referred to the works published at St. Petersburgh by M. Lenz in 1852 (Beethoven et ses trois styles), at Coblentz, by Dr. Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries in 1838, and at Munster, by Schindler (that friend of Beethoven's, who, according to the malicious Heine, wrote "Ami de Beethoven" on his card), in 1845. Schindler's book is the sourse of nearly all the biographical particulars since published respecting Beethoven; that of M. Lenz is chiefly remarkable for the inflated nonsense it contains in the shape of criticism. Thus Beethoven's third style is said to be "un jugement porté sur le cosmos humain, et non plus une participation à ses impressions," – words which, I confess, I do not know how to render into intelligible English. His symphonies in general are "events of universal history rather than musical productions of more or less merit." Those who have read M. Lenz's extravagant production, will remember that he attacks here and there M. Oulibicheff, author of the "Life of Mozart," published at Moscow in 1844. M. Oulibicheff replied in a work devoted specially to Beethoven (and to M. Lenz), published at St. Petersburgh in 1854;107 in which he is said by our best critics not to have done full justice to Beethoven, though he well maintains his assertion; an assertion which appears to me quite unassailable, that the composer of Don Juan combined all the merits of all the schools which had preceded him. I have already endeavoured, in more than one place, to impress this truth upon such of my readers as might not be sufficiently sensible of it, and moreover, that all the important operatic reforms attributed to the successors of Mozart, and especially to Rossini, belong to Mozart himself, who from his eminence dominates equally over the present and the past.