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

This threat was not quite so vain as it might seem. A list of twenty-two persons engaged at the Opera (twenty-two – the fatal number during the Reign of Terror), had been already drawn up by Hébert, as a sort of executioner's memorandum. When he was in a good humour he would show it to the singers and dancers, and say to them with easy familiarity; "I shall have to send you all to the guillotine some day. Two reasons have prevented me hitherto; in the first place you are not worth the trouble, in the second I want you for my amusement." These reasons were not considered quite satisfactory by the proscribed artists, and Beaupré, a comic dancer of great talent, contrived by various humorous stratagems (one of which, and doubtless the most readily forgiven, consisted in intoxicating Hébert), to gain possession of the fatal list; but the day afterwards the republican dilettante was always sufficiently recovered from the effects of his excessive potations to draw up another one exactly like it.

DANGEROUS MELODIES

At the head of the catalogue of suspected ones figured the name of Lainez, whom the republicans could not pardon for the energy and expression with which he had sung the air Chantez, célébrez votre reine, at the last performances of Iphigénie en Aulide; and that of Mademoiselle Maillard, whose crime has been already mentioned. At this period it was dangerous not only to sing the words, but even to hum or whistle the music of such airs as the aforesaid Chantez, célébrez votre reine, O Richard o mon roi! Charmante Gabrielle, and many others, among which may be mentioned Pauvre Jacques– an adaptation of Dibdin's Poor Jack, in which allusions had been discovered to the fate of Louis XVI. Indeed, to perform any kind of music might be fatal to the executant, and thus Mesdemoiselles de Saint Léger, two young ladies living in Arras, were executed for having played the piano the day that Valenciennes fell into the hands of the enemy.

Mademoiselle Maillard, much as she detested the republicans, was forced, on one occasion, to sing a republican hymn. When Lainez complimented her on the warmth of her expression, the vigour of her execution, she replied, "I was burning with rage at having to sing to such monsters."

Vestris, the Prince de Guéméné of the Vestris family, he who had been accused by his father of wishing to produce a misunderstanding between the Vestrises and the Bourbons, had to dance in a pas de trois as a sans culottes, between two nuns!

Sophie Arnould, accused (and not quite unreasonably), of aristocratic sympathies, pointed indignantly to a bust of Gluck in her room, and asked the intelligent agents of the Republic, if it was likely she would keep the bust of Marat were she not a true republican?

The vocalists of a revolutionary turn of mind would have succeeded better if they had possessed more talent; but the Parisian public, even in 1793, was not prepared to accept correctness in politics as an excuse for inaccuracy in singing. Lefèvre, a sixth tenor, but a bloodthirsty republican, insisted on being promoted to first characters, and threatened those whom he wished to replace with denunciations and the guillotine, if they kept him in a subordinate position any longer. Lefèvre had his wish gratified in part, but not altogether. He appeared as primo tenore, but was violently hissed by his friends, the sans culottes. He then came out as first bass, and was hissed again. In his rage he attributed his fiasco to the machinations of the counter-revolution, and wanted the soldiers to come into the theatre, and fire upon the infamous accomplices of "Pitt and Coburg."

AN ATROCIOUS TENOR

This bad singer, and worse man, was one of the twelve chiefs of the National Guard of Paris, and on certain days had the command of the city. As his military rule was most oppressive, the Parisians used to punish him for his tyranny as a soldier, by ridiculing his monstrous defects as a vocalist.

Though the Reign of Terror was a fearful time for artists and art, the number of playhouses in Paris increased enormously. There were sixty-three theatres open, and in spite of war, famine, and the guillotine, they were always full.

In 1794, the opera was transferred to the Rue de la Loi (afterwards Rue de Richelieu), immediately opposite the National Library. With regard to this change of locality, let us hear what M. Castil Blaze has to say, in his own words.

"How was it that the opera was moved to a building exactly opposite the National Library, so precious and so combustible a repository of human knowledge? The two establishments were only separated by a street, very much too narrow: if the theatre caught fire, was it not sure to burn the library? That is what a great many persons still ask; this question has been re-produced a hundred times in our journals. Go back to the time when the house was built by Mademoiselle Montansier; read the Moniteur Universel, and you will see that it was precisely in order to expose this same library to the happy chances of a fire, that the great lyrical entertainment was transferred to its neighbourhood. The opera hung over it, and threatened it constantly. At this time enlightenment abounded to such a point, that the judicious Henriot, convinced in his innermost conscience that all reading was henceforth useless, had made a motion to burn the library. To move the opera to the Rue Richelieu – the opera, which twice in eighteen years had been a prey to the flames – to place it exactly opposite our literary treasures, was to multiply to infinity the chances of their being burnt.'

Mercier, in reference to the literary views of the Committee of Public Safety, writes in the Nouveau Paris, as follows: —

"The language of Omar about the Koran was not more terrible than those uttered by the members of the committee of public safety when they expressed their intentions formally, as follows: – 'Yes, we will burn all the libraries, for nothing will be needed but the history of the Revolution and its laws.'" If the motion of Henriot had been carried, David, the great Conventional painter was ready to propose that the same service should be rendered to the masterpieces in the Louvre, as to the literary wealth of the National Library. Republican subjects, according to David, were alone worthy of being represented.

THE OPERA AND THE NATIONAL LIBRARY

At one of the sittings of the very council in which Henriot had already brought forward his motion for burning the Library, Mademoiselle Montansier was accused of having built the theatre in the Rue Richelieu with that very design. On the 14th of November, 1793, Chaumette at the sitting of the Commune of Paris, said —

"I denounce the Citoyenne Montansier. The money of the Englishman⁷¹ has been largely employed in raising this edifice, and the former queen gave fifty thousand crowns towards it. I demand that this theatre be closed on account of the dangers which would result from its catching fire." Adopted.

Hébert. "I denounce la demoiselle Montansier, personally; I have information against her. She offered me a box at her new theatre to procure my silence. I demand that la Montansier be arrested as a suspicious person." Adopted.

Chaumette. "I demand, moreover, that the actors, actresses and directors of the Parisian theatres be subjected to the censorship of the council." Adopted.

After deciding that the theatre in the Rue de la Loi could not be kept open without imperilling the existence of the National Library, and after imprisoning Mademoiselle Montansier for having built it, the Commune of Paris deliberately opened it as an opera house! Mademoiselle Montansier was, nevertheless, still kept in prison, and remained there ten months, until after the death of Robespierre.

Mademoiselle Montansier's nocturnal assemblies in the Palais Royal were equally renowned before and after her arrest. Actors and actresses, gamblers, poets, representatives of the people, republican generals, retired aristocrats, conspicuous sans culottes, and celebrities of all kinds congregated there. Art, pleasure, politics, the new opera, the last execution were alike discussed by Dugazon and Barras, le père Duchesne and the Duke de Lauzun, Robespierre and Mademoiselle Maillard, the Chevalier de Saint Georges and Danton, Martainville and the Marquis de Chanvelin, Lays and Marat, Volange and the Duke of Orleans. From the names just mentioned, it will be understood that some members of this interesting society were from time to time found wanting. Their absence was not much remarked, and fresh notorieties constantly came forward to fill the places of those claimed by the guillotine.

After Mademoiselle Montansier's liberation from prison, Napoleon Bonaparte was introduced to her by Dugazon and Barras. His ambition had not yet been excited, and Barras – who may, nevertheless, have looked upon him as a possible rival, and one to be dreaded – wished to get up a marriage between him and the fashionable but now somewhat antiquated syren of the Palais Royal. Everything went on well for some time. Then a magnificent dinner was given with the view of bringing the affair to a conclusion; but Bonaparte was very reserved, and Barras now saw that his project was not likely to succeed. At a banquet given by Mademoiselle Montansier, to celebrate the success of the thirteenth Vendémiaire, Bonaparte proposed a toast in honour of his venerable "intended," and soon afterwards she married Neuville.

MADEMOISELLE MONTANSIER

Mademoiselle Montansier who had been shamefully cheated, indeed robbed, by the Convention, hoped to have her claims recognised by the Directory. Barras offered her one million, six hundred thousand francs. She refused it, the indemnity she demanded for the losses which she had sustained by the seizure of her theatre at the hands of the Convention amounting to seven millions. Napoleon, when first consul, caused the theatre to be estimated, when its value was fixed at one million three hundred thousand francs. After various delays, Mademoiselle Montansier received a partial recognition of her claim, accompanied by an order for payment, signed by the Emperor at Moscow.

Some readers have, probably, been unable to reconcile two facts mentioned above with respect to the Opera under the Convention: – 1. That the performers were not paid; and 2. That the public attended the representations in immense numbers. The explanation is very simple. The money was stolen by the Commune of Paris. Gardel, the ballet-master, required fifty thousand francs for the production of a work composed by himself, on the subject of William Tell. Twice was the sum amassed from the receipts and professedly set apart for the unfortunate William Tell, and twice the money disappeared. It had been devoted to the requirements of patriots in real life.

Danton, Hébert, Chaumette, Henriot, Robespierre, all administrators of the Opera; Dubuisson, Fabre d'Eglantine, librettists writing for the Opera, and both republicans had been executed during the Reign of Terror. Chamfort, a republican, killed himself to avoid the same fate.

Coquéau, architect, musician, and writer, the author of a number of musical articles produced during the Gluck and Piccinni contests, was guillotined in the year II. of the republic.

The musician, Edelman, after bringing a number of persons to the scaffold, including his patron and benefactor, the Baron de Diétrich, arrived there himself in 1794, accompanied by his brother.

In the same year Despréaux, leader of the first violins at the opera in 1782, and member of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1793, killed himself from remorse.

Altogether, sixteen persons belonging to the opera in various ways killed themselves, or were executed in 1792, '93, and '94.

After the fall of Robespierre, the royalists for a time ruled the theatres, and avenged themselves on all actors who had made themselves conspicuous as revolutionists. Trial, a comic tenor, who had made a very serious accusation against Mademoiselle Buret, of the Comédie Italienne, which led to her execution, was forced to sing the Réveil du Peuple on his knees, amid the execrations of the audience. He sang it, but was thrown into such a state of agitation that he died from the effects.

Lays, whose favourite part was that of "Oreste," in Iphigénie en Tauride, had, in the course of the opera, to declaim these verses: —

 
"J'ai trahi l'amitié,
J'ai trahi la nature;
Des plus noirs attentats
J'ai comblé la mesure."
 

The audience of the Bordeaux theatre considered this confession so becoming in the mouth of the singer who had to utter it, that Lays took care not to give them an opportunity a second time of manifesting their views on the subject. Lays made his next appearance in Œdipe à Colone. As in this opera he had to represent the virtuous Theseus, he felt sure that the public would not be able to confound him in any manner with the character he was supporting; but he had to submit to all sorts of insults during the performance, and at the fall of the curtain was compelled to begin the Réveil du Peuple. After the third verse, he was told he was unworthy to sing such a song, and was driven from the stage.

MADELEINE GUIMARD AGAIN

On the 23rd of January, 1796, Mademoiselle Guimard re-appeared at a performance given for the benefit of aged and retired artists. A number of veteran connoisseurs came forward on this occasion to see how the once charming Madeleine looked at the age of fifty-nine. After the ballet an old habitué of Louis the Fifteenth's time called for a coach, drove to his lodging, and on getting out, proceeded naturally to pay the driver the amount of his fare.

"You are joking, my dear Count," said the coachman. "Whoever heard of Lauragais paying the Chevalier de Ferrière for taking him home in his carriage?"

"What! is it you?" said the Count de Lauragais.

"Myself!" replied the Chevalier.

The two friends embraced, and the Chevalier de Ferrière then explained that, when all the royalists were concealing themselves or emigrating, he had determined to do both. He had assumed the great coat of his coachman, painted a number over the arms on his carriage, and emigrated as far as the Boulevard, where he found plenty of customers, and passed uninjured and unsuspected through the Reign of Terror.

"Where do you live?" said the Count.

"Rue des Tuileries," replied the Chevalier, "and my horses with me. The poor beasts have shared all my misfortunes."

"Give me the whip and reins, and get inside," cried de Lauragais.

"What for?" inquired the Chevalier.

"To drive you home. It is an act which, as a gentleman, I insist on performing; a duty I owe to my old companion and friend. Your day's work is over. To-morrow morning we will go to Sophie's, who expects me to breakfast."

"Where?"

"At the Hotel d'Angivillier, a caravansary of painters and musicians, where Fouché has granted her, on the part of the Republic, an apartment and a pension of two thousand four hundred francs – we should have said a hundred louis formerly. This is called a national reward for the eminent services rendered by the citoyenne Arnould to the country, and to the sovereign people at the Opera. The poor girl was greatly in need of it."

SOPHIE ARNOULD AGAIN

Fouché had once been desperately in love with Sophie Arnould, and now pitied her in her distress. Thanks to her influence with the minister, the Chevalier Ferrière obtained an order, authorizing him to return to France, though he had never left Paris, except occasionally to drive a fare to one of the suburbs.

The natural effect of Napoleon's campaigns in Italy was to create among the French army a taste for Italian music. The First Consul and many of his generals were passionately fond of it; and a hint from the Tuileries in 1801 was sufficient to induce Mademoiselle Montansier to engage an Italian company, which performed for the first time in Paris on the 1st of May in the same year. The enterprise, however, was not successful; and in 1803 the directress, who had been arrested before because money was owing to her, was put in prison for owing money.

If, by taking his troops to Italy, Napoleon was the means of introducing a taste for Italian music among the French, he provided his country with Italian singers in a far more direct manner. At Dresden, in 1806, he was delighted with the performance of Brizzi and Madame Paer in the opera of Achille, composed by the prima donna's husband.

"You sing divinely, Madame Paer," said the emperor. What do they give you at this theatre?"

"Fifteen thousand francs, Sire."

"You shall receive thirty. M. Brizzi, you shall follow me on the same terms."

"But we are engaged."

"With me. You see the affair is quite settled. The Prince of Benevento will attend to the diplomatic part of it."

NAPOLEON AND PAER

Napoleon took away Achille, and everything belonging to it; music, composer, and the two principal singers. The engagement by which the emperor engaged Paer as composer of his chamber music, was drawn up by Talleyrand, and bore his signature, approved by Napoleon, and attested by Maret, the secretary of state. Paer, who had been four years at Dresden, and who, independently of his contract, was personally much attached to the king of Saxony, did all in his power to avoid entering into Napoleon's service. Perhaps, too, he was not pleased at the prospect of having to follow the emperor about from one battle-field to another, though by a special article in the engagement offered to him, he was guaranteed ten francs a post, and thirty-four francs a day for his travelling expenses. As Paer, in spite of the compliments, and the liberal terms⁷² offered to him by Napoleon, continued to object, General Clarke told the emperor that he had an excellent plan for getting over all difficulties, and saving the maestro from any reproaches of ingratitude which the king of Saxony might otherwise address to him. This plan consisted in placing Paer in the hands of gens d'armes, and having him conducted from camp to camp wherever the emperor went. No violence, however, was done to the composer. The king of Saxony liberated him from his engagement at the Dresden opera, and, moreover, signified to him that he must either follow Napoleon, or quit Saxony immediately. It is said that Paer was ceded by a secret treaty between the two sovereigns, like a fortress, or rather like a province, as provinces were transferred before the idea of nationality was invented; that is to say, without the wishes of the inhabitants being in any way taken into account. The king of Saxony was only too glad that Napoleon took nothing from him but his singers and musicians.

Brizzi, the tenor, Madame Paer, the prima donna, and her husband, the composer, were ordered to start at once for Warsaw. In the morning, the emperor would attend to military and state affairs, and perhaps preside at a battle, for fighting was now going on in the neighbourhood of the Polish capital. In the evening, he had a concert at head quarters, the programme of which generally included several pieces by Paisiello. Napoleon was particularly fond of Paisiello's music, and Paer, who, besides being a composer, was a singer of high merit, knew a great deal of it by heart.

Paisiello had been Napoleon's chapel-master since 1801, the emperor having sent for him to Naples after signing the Concordat with the Pope. On arriving in Paris, the cunning Italian, like an experienced courtier, was no sooner introduced to Napoleon than he addressed him as 'sire!'

"'Sire,' what do you mean?" replied the first consul; "I am a general, and nothing more."

"Well, General," continued the composer, "I have come to place myself at your majesty's orders."

"I must really beg you," continued Napoleon, "not to address me in this manner."

"Forgive me, General," answered Paisiello, "but I cannot give up the habit I have contracted in addressing sovereigns who, compared with you, seem but pigmies. However, I will not forget your commands, sire; and if I have been unfortunate enough to offend, I must throw myself upon your Majesty's indulgence."

EXPRESSION IN MUSIC

Paisiello received ten thousand francs for the mass he wrote for Napoleon's coronation. Each of the masses for the imperial chapel brought him one thousand francs. Not much, certainly; but then it must be remembered that he produced as many as fourteen in two years. They were for the most part made up of pieces of church music, which the maestro had written for Italy, and when this fruitful source failed him, he had recourse to his numerous serious and comic operas. Thus, an air from the Nittetti was made to do duty as a Gloria, another from the Scuffiera as an Agnus Dei. Music depends so much upon association that, doubtless, only those persons who had already heard these melodies on the stage, found them at all inappropriate in a church. Figaro's air in the Barber of Seville would certainly not sound well in a mass; but there are plenty of love songs, songs expressive of despair (if not of too violent a kind), songs, in short, of a sentimental and slightly passionate cast, which only require to be united to religious words to be at once and thereby endowed with a religious character. Gluck, himself, who is supposed by many to have believed that music was capable of conveying absolute, definite ideas, borrowed pieces from his old Italian operas to introduce into the scores he was writing, on entirely different subjects, for the Académie Royale of Paris. Thus, he has employed an air from his Telemacco in the introduction to the overture of Iphigénie en Aulide. The chorus in the latter work, Que d'attraits que de majesté, is founded on the air, Al mio spirto, in the same composer's Clemenza di Tito. The overture to Gluck's Telemacco became that of his Armide. Music serves admirably to heighten the effect of a dramatic situation, or to give force and intensity to the expression of words; but the same music may often be allied with equal advantage to words of very different shades of meaning. Thus, the same melody will depict equally well the rage of a baffled conspirator, the jealousy of an injured and most respectable husband, and various other kinds of agitation; the grief of lovers about to part, the joy of lovers at meeting again, and other emotions of a tender nature; the despondency of a man firmly bent on suicide, the calm devotion of a pious woman entering a convent, and other feelings of a solemn class. The signification we discover in music also depends much upon the circumstances under which it is heard, and to some extent also on the mood we are in when hearing it.

TWO PASTICCIOS

Under the republic, consulate, and empire, music did not flourish in France, and not even the imperial Spontini and Cherubini, in spite of the almost European reputation they for some time enjoyed, produced any works which will bear comparison with the masterpieces of their successors, Rossini, Auber, and Meyerbeer. During the dark artistic period which separates the fall of the monarchy from the restoration, a few interesting works were produced at the Opera Comique; but until Napoleon's advent to power, France neglected more than ever the music of Italy, and did worse than neglect that of Germany, for, in 1793, the directors of the Academy brought out a version of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, in five acts, without recitative and with all the prose dialogue of Beaumarchais introduced. In 1806, too, a pasticcio by Kalkbrenner, formed out of the music of Mozart's Don Juan, with improvements and additions by Kalkbrenner himself, was performed at the same theatre. Both these medleys met with the fate which might have been anticipated for them.