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

BELLINI'S SINGERS

Most of the great singers of the modern school, – indeed, all who have appeared since and including Madame Pasta, have gained their reputation chiefly in Bellini's and Donizetti's operas. They formed their style, it is true, by singing Rossini's music; but as the public will not listen for ever even to such operas as Il Barbiere and Semiramide, it was necessary to provide the new vocalists from time to time with new parts; and thus "Amina" and "Anna Bolena" were written for Pasta; "Elvino," &c., for Rubini; "Edgardo," in the Lucia, for Duprez; a complete quartett of parts in I Puritani, for Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache. Since Donizetti's Don Pasquale, composed for Grisi, Mario (Rubini's successor), Tamburini, and Lablache, no work of any importance has been composed for the Italian Opera of Paris – nor of London either, I may add, in spite of Verdi's I Masnadieri, and Halévy's La Tempesta, both manufactured expressly for Her Majesty's Theatre.

I have already spoken of Pasta's and Malibran's successes in Rossini's operas. The first part written for Pasta by Bellini was that of "Amina" in the Sonnambula; the second, that of "Norma." But though Pasta "created" these characters, she was destined to be surpassed in both of them by the former Marietta Garcia, now returned from America, and known everywhere as Malibran. This vocalist, by all accounts the most poetic and impassioned of all the great singers of her period, arrived in Italy just when I Capuletti, La Sonnambula, and Norma, were at the height of their popularity – thanks, in a great measure, to the admirable manner in which the part of the heroine in each of these works was represented by Pasta. Malibran appeared as "Amina," as "Norma," and also as "Romeo," in I Capuletti. She "interpreted" the characters (to borrow an expression, which is admissible, in this case, from the jargon of French musical critics) in her own manner, and very ingeniously brought into relief just those portions of the music of each which were not rendered prominent in the Pasta versions. The new singer was applauded enthusiastically. The public were really grateful to her for bringing to light beauties which, but for her, would have remained in the shade. But it was also thought that Malibran feared her illustrious rival and predecessor too much, to attempt her readings. This was just the impression she wished to produce; and when she saw that the public had made up its mind on the subject, she changed her tactics, followed Pasta's interpretation, and beat her on her own ground. She excelled wherever Pasta had excelled, and proved herself on the whole superior to her. Finally, she played the parts of "Norma" and "Amina" in her first and second manner combined. This rendered her triumph decisive.

Now Malibran commenced a triumphal progress through Italy. Wherever she sang, showers of bouquets and garlands fell at her feet; the horses were taken from her carriage on her leaving the theatre, and she was dragged home amid the shouts of an admiring crowd. These so-called "ovations"¹⁰⁰ were renewed at every operatic city in Italy; and managers disputed, in a manner previously unexampled, the honour and profit of engaging the all-successful vocalist.

MALIBRAN

The director of the Trieste opera gave Malibran four thousand francs a night, and at the end of her engagement pressed her to accept a set of diamonds. Malibran refused, observing, that what she had already received was amply sufficient for her services, and more than she would ever have thought of asking for them, had not the terms been proposed by the director himself.

"Accept my present all the same," replied the liberal impresario; "I can afford to offer you this little souvenir. It will remind you that I made an excellent thing out of your engagement, and it may, perhaps, help to induce you to come here again."

"The actions of this fiery existence," says M. Castil Blaze, "would appear fabulous if we had not seen Marietta amongst us, fulfilling her engagements at the theatre, resisting all the fatigue of the rehearsals, of the representations, after galloping morning and evening in the Bois de Boulogne, so as to tire out two horses. She used to breakfast during the rehearsals on the stage. I said to her, one morning, at the theatre: – 'Marietta carissima, non morrai. Che farò, dunque? Nemica sorte! Creperai.'

"Her travels, her excursions, her studies, her performances might have filled the lives of two artists, and two very complete lives, moreover. She starts for Sinigaglia, during the heat of July, in man's clothes, takes her seat on the box of the carriage, drives the horses; scorched by the sun of Italy, covered with dust, she arrives, jumps into the sea, swims like a dolphin, and then goes to her hotel to dress. At Brussels, she is applauded as a French Rosìna, delivering the prose of Beaumarchais as Mademoiselle Mars would have delivered it. She leaves Brussels for London, comes back to Paris, travels about in Brie, and returns to London, not like a courier, but like a dove on the wing. We all know what the life of a singer is in the capital of England, the life of a dramatic singer of the highest talent. After a rehearsal at the opera, she may have three or four matinée's to attend; and when the curtain falls, and she can escape from the theatre, there are soirées which last till day-break. Malibran kept all these engagements, and, moreover, gave Sunday to her friends; this day of absolute rest to all England, was to Marietta only another day of excitement."

MALIBRAN

Malibran spoke Spanish, Italian, French, English, and a little German, and acted and sang in the first four of these languages. In London, she appeared in an English version of La Sonnambula (1838), when her representation of the character of "Amina" created a general enthusiasm such as can scarcely have been equalled during the "Jenny Lind mania," – perfect vocalist as was Jenny Lind. Malibran appears, however, to have been a more impassioned singer, and was certainly a finer actress than the Swedish Nightingale. "Never losing sight of the simplicity of the character," says a writer in describing her performance in La Sonnambula, "she gave irresistible grace and force to the pathetic passages with which it abounds, and excited the feeling of the audience to as high pitch as can be perceived. Her sleep-walking scenes, in which the slightest amount of exaggeration or want of caution would have destroyed the whole effect, were played with exquisite discrimination; she sang the airs with refined taste and great power; her voice, which was remarkable, rather for its flexibility and sweetness than for its volume, was as pure as ever, and her style displayed that high cultivation and luxuriance which marked the school in which she was educated, and which is almost identified with the name she formerly bore."

Drury Lane was the last theatre at which Madame Malibran sang; but the last notes she ever uttered were heard at Manchester, where she performed only in oratorios and at concerts. Before leaving London, Madame Malibran had a fall from her horse, and all the time she was singing at Manchester, she was suffering from its effects. She had struck her head, and the violence of the blow, together with the general shock to her nerves, without weakening any of her faculties, seemed to have produced that feverish excitement which gave such tragic poetry to her last performances. At first, she would take no precautions, though inflammation of the brain was to be feared, and, indeed, might be said to have already declared itself. She continued to sing, and never was her voice more pure and melodious, never was her execution more daring and dazzling, never before had she sung with such inspiration and with a passion which communicated itself in so electric a manner to her audience. She was bled; not one of the doctors appears to have had sufficient strength of mind to enforce that absolute rest which everyone must have known was necessary for her existence, and she still went on singing. There were no signs of any loss of physical power, while her nervous force appeared to have increased. The last time she ever sang, she executed the duet from Andronico, with Madame Caradori, who, by a very natural sympathy, appeared herself to have received something of that almost supernatural fire which was burning within the breast of Malibran, and which was now fast consuming her. The public applauded with ecstacy, and as the general excitement increased, the marvellous vocalisation of the dying singer became almost miraculous. She improvised a final cadence, which was the climax of her triumph and of her life. The bravos of the audience were not at an end when she had already sunk exhausted into the arms of Madame Alessandri, who carried her, fainting, into the artist's room. She was removed immediately to the hotel. It was now impossible to save her, and so convinced of this was her husband, that almost before she had breathed her last, he was on his way to Paris, the better to secure every farthing of her property!

RUBINI

Rubini, though he first gained his immense reputation by his mode of singing the airs of Il Pirata, Anna Bolena, and La Sonnambula, formed his style in the first instance, on the operas of Rossini. This vocalist, however, sang and acted in a great many different capacities before he was recognised as the first of all first tenors. At the age of twelve Rubini made his début at the theatre of Romano, his native town, in a woman's part. This curious prima donna afterwards sat down at the door of the theatre, between two candles, and behind a plate, in which the admiring public deposited their offerings to the fair bénéficiare. She is said to have been perfectly satisfied with the receipts and with the praise accorded to her for her first performance. Rubini afterwards went to Bergamo, where he was engaged to play the violin in the orchestra between the acts of comedies, and to sing in the choruses during the operatic season. A drama was to be brought out in which a certain cavatina was introduced. The manager was in great trouble to find a singer to whom this air could be entrusted. Rubini was mentioned, the manager offered him a few shillings to sing it, the bargain was made, and the new vocalist was immensely applauded. This air was the production of Lamberti. Rubini kept it, and many years afterwards, when he was at the height of his reputation, was fond of singing it in memory of his first composer.

In 1835, twenty-three years after Rubini's first engagement at Bergamo, the tenor of the Théâtre Italien of Paris was asked to intercede for a chorus-singer, who expected to be dismissed from the establishment. He told the unhappy man to write a letter to the manager, and then gave it the irresistible weight of his recommendation by signing it "Rubini, Ancien Choriste."

After leaving Bergamo, Rubini was engaged as second tenor in an operatic company of no great importance. He next joined a wandering troop, and among other feats he is said to have danced in a ballet somewhere in Piedmont, where, for his pains, he was violently hissed.

In 1814, he was engaged at Pavia as tenor, where he received about thirty-six shillings a month. Sixteen years afterwards, Rubini and his wife were offered an engagement of six thousand pounds, and at last the services of Rubini alone were retained at the Italian Opera of St. Petersburgh, at the rate of twenty thousand pounds a year.

RUBINI

Rubini was such a great singer, and possessed such admirable powers of expression, especially in pathetic airs (it was well said of him, "qu'il avait des larmes dans la voix,") that he may be looked upon as, in some measure, the creator of the operatic style which succeeded that of the Rossinian period up to the production of Semiramide, the last of Rossini's works, written specially for Italy. The florid mode of vocalization had been carried to an excess when Rubini showed what effect he could produce by singing melodies of a simple emotional character, without depending at all on vocalization merely as such. It has already been mentioned that Bellini wrote Il Pirato with Rubini at his side, and it is very remarkable that Donizetti never achieved any great success, and was never thought to have exhibited any style of his own until he produced Anna Bolena, in which the tenor part was composed expressly for Rubini. Every one who is acquainted with Anna Bolena, will understand how much Rossini's mode of singing the airs, Ogni terra ove, &c., and Vivi tu, must have contributed to the immense favour with which it was received.

Rubini will long be remembered as the tenor of the incomparable quartett for whom the Puritani was written, and who performed together in it for seven consecutive years in Paris and in London. Rubini disappeared from the West in 1841, and was replaced in the part of "Arturo," by Mario. Tamburini was the next to disappear, and then Lablache. Neither Riccardo nor Giorgio have since found thoroughly efficient representatives, and now we have lost with Grisi the original "Elvira," without knowing precisely where another is to come from.

RUBINI'S BROKEN CLAVICLE

Before taking leave of Rubini, I must mention a sort of duel he once had with a rebellious B flat, the history of which has been related at length by M. Castil Blaze, in the Revue de Paris. Pacini's Talismano had just been produced with great success at la Scala. Rubini made his entry in this opera with an accompanied recitative, which the public always applauded enthusiastically. One phrase in particular, which the singer commenced by attacking the high B flat without preparation, and, holding it for a considerable period, excited their admiration to the highest point. Since Farinelli's celebrated trumpet song, no one note had ever obtained such a success as their wonderful B flat of Rubini's. The public of Milan went in crowds to hear it, and having heard it, never failed to encore it. Un 'altra volta! resounded through the house almost before the magic note itself had ceased to ring. The great singer had already distributed fourteen B flats among his admiring audiences, when, eager for the fifteenth and sixteenth, the Milanese thronged to their magnificent theatre to be present at the eighth performance of Il Talismano. The orchestra executed the brief prelude which announced the entry of the tenor. Rubini appeared, raised his eyes to heaven, extended his arms, planted himself firmly on his calves, inflated his breast, opened his mouth, and sought, by the usual means, to pronounce the wished-for B flat. But no B flat would come. Os habet, et non clamabit. Rubini was dumb; the public did their best to encourage the disconsolate singer, applauded him, cheered him, and gave him courage to attack the unhappy B flat a second time. On this occasion, Rubini was victorious. Determined to catch the fugitive note, which for a moment had escaped him, the singer brought all the muscular force of his immense lungs into play, struck the B flat, and threw it out among the audience with a vigour which surprised and delighted them. In the meanwhile, the tenor was by no means equally pleased with the triumph he had just gained. He felt, that in exerting himself to the utmost, he had injured himself in a manner which might prove very serious. Something in the mechanism of his voice had given way. He had felt the fracture at the time. He had, indeed, conquered the B flat, but at what an expense; that of a broken clavicle!

However, he continued his scene. He was wounded, but triumphant, and in his artistic elation he forgot the positive physical injury he had sustained. On leaving the stage he sent for the surgeon of the theatre, who, by inspecting and feeling Rubini's clavicle, convinced himself that it was indeed fractured. The bone had been unable to resist the tension of the singer's lungs. Rubini may have been said to have swelled his voice until it burst one of its natural barriers.

"It seems to me," said the wounded tenor, "that a man can go on singing with a broken clavicle."

"Certainly," replied the doctor, "you have just proved it."

"How long would it take to mend it?" he enquired.

"Two months, if you remained perfectly quiet during the whole time."

"Two months! And I have only sung seven times. I should have to give up my engagement. Can a person live comfortably with a broken clavicle?"

"Very comfortably indeed. If you take care not to lift any weight you will experience no disagreeable effects."

"Ah! there is my cue," exclaimed Rubini; "I shall go on singing."

"Rubini went on singing," says M. Castil Blaze, "and I do not think any one who heard him in 1831 could tell that he was listening to a wounded singer – wounded gloriously on the field of battle. As a musical doctor I was allowed to touch his wound, and I remarked on the left side of the clavicle a solution of continuity, three or four lines¹⁰¹ in extent between the two parts of the fractured bone. I related the adventure in the Revue de Paris, and three hundred persons went to Rubini's house to touch the wound, and verify my statement."

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.