CHAPTER V
ROSSINI AT THE ITALIAN OPERA OF PARIS
THE ingenious Berton, in his anti-Rossinian pamphlet entitled “De la Musique mécanique et de la Musique philosophique,” relates how he once asked Maelzel, the metronomist, whether he could construct a machine to compose music; to which Maelzel replied that he could, but that the music so composed would be like that of Rossini, and not up to the mark of Sacchini, Cimarosa and Mozart.
Somehow Maelzel abstained from proving his terrible power; but Berton boasted that his friend possessed it, and argued therefrom that Rossini’s music could not be anything very sublime, but on the contrary, must be essentially mechanical.
But Berton ceased this folly when Rossini arrived in Paris, and even showed a disposition to treat him with civility and respect. He is said to have secretly endeavoured to keep up the national cry against the composer; but the verses about “Signor Vacarmini” and “Signor Crescendo” were written while Rossini was still in Italy.
Paer, too, saw that the time had gone by for describing Rossini’s operas as “works of secondary importance.” He was accused long afterwards of doing his best to undermine Rossini’s reputation as a great musician, but, as it seems to me, without sufficient proof. In these musical feuds, in which perhaps the opposing parties are irreconcileable in proportion as the ground of difference between them is incapable of being defined, every sort of meanness is attributed by one side to the other as a matter of course.
Rossini made Berton’s acquaintance in Paris, and must have had frequent relations with Paer at the Italian Opera, of which he at last assumed the direction.
In this matter Rossini behaved with great consideration towards his jealous rival. He positively declined to displace Paer, and on being pressed to accept the post of director, consented to do so only on condition of Paer’s remaining at the theatre without a diminution of salary, but, on the contrary, with a slight increase.
The salary payable to Rossini from the Civil List, in virtue of his office as Director of the Italian Theatre, was twenty thousand francs a year. The engagement was for eighteen months.
Rossini not only knew his work well and practically as director of an orchestra, but was also thoroughly versed in all the duties of manager. He began his artistic life as conductor. When he was a boy at the Lyceum of Bologna, he got up a quartet of stringed instruments, and superintended the production of some important orchestral pieces.
“You should have been present,” he once said, “when I directed the performance of the ‘Creation’ at the Liceo; I did not let the executants miss a single point, for I knew every note by heart.”
As for the details of management, though M. Fétis thinks Rossini must have been incapable of descending to such things, he assured Hiller that when he was at the San Carlo he attended to all Barbaja’s affairs, great and small, so that not a bill was paid until he had countersigned it.
In Paris so much could scarcely have been required of him. But it seems so improbable that a composer like Rossini should also be a good manager, that many persons, with that comprehensively inaccurate writer, M. Fétis, among the number, have at once concluded that he must have neglected his work.
He was, of course, not expected to wait “in the front of the house” to see that the public were provided with proper accommodation. His business was to bring out new singers, to produce new operas, and especially his own; and there was, naturally, no one in Europe who could discharge these duties in so advantageous a manner as Rossini.
In fact, he engaged his old friend, Esther Mombelli, the first of his prima donnas, for “La Cenerentola,” in which her success surpassed that of the original heroine, Madame Giorgi-Righetti; he brought over from Italy two of the most celebrated tenors of the day, Donzelli and Rubini; he appointed Herold maestro al piano; he produced Meyerbeer’s “Crociato,” his own “Otello,” and “Donna del Lago;” and finally he composed specially for the theatre “Il Viaggio a Reims,” the chief portion of which was afterwards reproduced in that charming work, “Le Comte Ory.”
“Il Viaggio a Reims,” an occasional piece composed in honour of Charles X.’s coronation, was, nominally, in only one act, but the act was a long one. It lasted three hours; it contained fifteen or sixteen pieces, including a ballet; and it was divided into three parts. The execution must have been admirable, the characters being assigned to Mesdames Pasta, Esther Mombelli and Cinti; MM. Donzelli, Zuchelli, Levasseur, Bordogni, Pellegrini, and Graziani.
The music of “Il Viaggio a Reims,” if we except the numerous important pieces transferred to “Le Comte Ory,” is now only known by report. In the ballet music a duet for two clarinets was particularly remarked. There were two elaborate finales (for a piece in one act a fair supply!), and in the second finale the national airs of nearly all the countries in Europe were introduced. Prominent among them was, of course, the French royalist air, “Vive Henri Quatre,” which was harmonised in the most varied manner, and presented finally with an elaborate and quasi-religious accompaniment for the harp.
“Il Viaggio a Reims,” having been written for the coronation of a king in 1825, was revived, with some necessary alterations in the libretto, to celebrate the proclamation of a republic in 1848. It was a droll idea, but it seems to have been adopted and carried out without the slightest satirical intention. “Andiamo a Parigi” the piece was called.
In “Il Viaggio a Reims,” some people in an inn are talking about the coronation, and arrange to make a journey to Reims to see the ceremony.
In “Andiamo a Parigi” some people in an inn are talking about the Revolution, and arrange to make a journey to Paris to see the barricades.
The Viscount de la Rochefoucauld, as director of the “Civil List,” offered Rossini the present of a large sum of money; but the composer, considering himself already sufficiently well paid, and wishing perhaps that the opera should be looked upon as a homage from him to the French nation and sovereign, declined to accept it. Thereupon a service of Sèvres china was sent to him on the part of the king.
Rossini, too, caused Malibran to be re-engaged (she had appeared at Paris some years previously, before the full development of her talent, in “Torwaldo e Dorliska”), and introduced to the French public Sontag and Pisaroni, who appeared together in “Tancredi;” Galli, Lablache, and Tamburini. It was Rossini, too, who discovered and brought out Giulia Grisi.
In fact, he raised the Théâtre Italien of Paris to the position of the first Italian Opera in Europe.
Soon after the production of “Il Viaggio,” Rossini brought out “Semiramide” and “Zelmira.” Indeed, during the eighteen months over which his contract extended, he made the French acquainted with all his greatest works. Add to this that he wrote an entirely new opera for Paris, and that he was the means of introducing Meyerbeer, both through his works and in person, and the sum total of Rossini’s doings at the Théâtre Italien will not seem insignificant.
The French public knew nothing of Meyerbeer’s music; it is true he had not written much besides “Emma di Rosburgo” and “Il Crociato,” when Rossini undertook the production of the latter work at the Théâtre Italien. As soon as the opera was nearly ready, he asked the Viscount de la Rochefoucauld to invite the composer to attend the last rehearsals; and it was really in consequence of Rossini’s express recommendation that Meyerbeer came to Paris.
Rossini was equally the means of bringing Bellini, Donizetti and Mercadante to France. To Bellini in particular he was the kindest possible friend, as may be judged from the following letter, addressed to Rossini by Bellini’s father, just after the young man’s death.
“You always encouraged the object of my eternal regret in his labours,” wrote the unhappy father; “you took him under your protection; you neglected nothing that could increase his glory and his welfare. After my son’s death, what have you not done to honour his memory and render it dear to posterity! I learnt this from the newspapers; and I am penetrated with gratitude for your excessive kindness, as well as for that of a number of distinguished artistes, which also I shall never forget. Pray, sir, be my interpreter, and tell these artistes, that the father and family of Bellini, as well as our compatriots of Catania, will cherish an imperishable recollection of this generous conduct. I shall never cease to remember how much you did for my son; I shall make known everywhere in the midst of my tears what an affectionate heart belongs to the great Rossini; and how kind, hospitable, full of feeling are the artistes of France.”
CHAPTER VI
ROSSINI AT THE ACADÉMIE
ROSSINI’S engagement as director of the Théâtre Italien came to an end in 1826; but he continued to take part in its management, and rendered great services by his recommendations of singers and composers.
He continued, also, to receive twenty thousand francs a year from the Civil List; and as it was necessary this pension, for such it really was, should be assigned to him in consideration of certain official duties, he was named “Inspector of Singing.”
One would have thought “auditor” a better word; but the appointment was chiefly a pretext for keeping Rossini in France, where it was understood that he was to compose a series of works for the French Opera.
Looking back, it is from the date of this new contract that Rossini’s French career would seem to commence. As director of the Théâtre Italien, he had already produced one work; but all the principal pieces in that opera were afterwards transferred to the “Comte Ory” composed for the Académie.
Without thoroughly changing his style, Rossini certainly modified it in writing for the French stage. He became more simple in his musical phrases, which he presented entirely without ornament, and more complex in his vocal and instrumental combinations. M. Azevedo points to Rossini’s unsuccessful opera of “Ermione” as an example of what in Rossini’s notion, conceived some years before he wrote anything for the French theatre, a dramatic opera should be. But Rossini himself did not entertain any high opinion of that work, and told Ferdinand Hiller that in his endeavour to be exceedingly dramatic, he had only succeeded in being dull – a common result when the composer neglects or is unable to cultivate with felicity the essential lyrical element in opera.
“And your opera, ‘Ermione,’ which one of your biographers informs us you preserve mysteriously to bequeath to posterity – what has become of that?” asked Hiller; to which Rossini replied, that it was with his other scores, lost or left at some theatre, he knew not where. To the question whether Rossini had not once said that he had treated “Ermione” too dramatically, and that it was in consequence damned, the maestro replied that the public had judged his work fairly enough, and that it was in truth very tedious. “There was really nothing,” he continued; “it was all recitative and declamation.”
In fact, so-called dramatic operas, in which the characters, instead of comporting themselves lyrically, instead of singing melodies, declaim recitative in alleged imitation of the language of real life, are about as interesting as tragedies without poetry, or comedies without wit.
In composing for the French stage, Rossini adopted no new theory of the lyric drama. He made his style less ornate, more expressive, and, in doing so, probably did not forget that his ordinary Italian manner would suit neither French singers nor French audiences. A taste, moreover, for simple, expressive music seems to have grown upon him, and he held, justly no doubt, that with advancing years this taste generally manifested itself.
But wherever we have seen Rossini at work he has always adopted a compromise; he subjects circumstances to himself, but he is also obliged to subject himself a little to circumstances. At many of the Italian theatres he had an indifferent orchestra and chorus – sometimes, as at the San Mosè, no chorus at all; and his only means of success lay in writing attractive airs for the principal singers.
At the San Carlo, where he found the finest orchestra in Italy, he paid particular attention to the instrumentation of his operas.
At the Académie, where the superiority of the orchestra and chorus was still more remarkable, he thought more than ever of orchestral and choral writing, and was not tempted by special excellence on the part of his singers to sacrifice anything to the vocal solos.
At the same time the Académie was really the first theatre at which Rossini found himself free to pursue his ideal of an opera, if any such ideal possessed him. There, too, he could work at his leisure, and instead of scrambling through the rehearsals, have just as many as he required. That is one of the numerous advantages presented by a State theatre. A private speculator cannot afford to delay very long the production of a new piece, for by doing so he delays the return of the money he has invested. Such considerations are not important at a Government institution, where singers and instrumentalists are all engaged for a long period and permanently. Besides, at a theatre supported by the Government, the reputation of the establishment is the first thing to be considered.
At Rossini’s recommendation, two French artistes, Levasseur and Mademoiselle Cinti, of the Théâtre Italien, were now engaged at the Académie, where the principal tenor was the great dramatic singer, Adolphe Nourrit. Here, then, already was the nucleus of an admirable company. Levasseur and Mademoiselle Cinti were accustomed to the Italian school of vocalisation. Nourrit was less Italianised, but he is said to have profited greatly by the counsels of the great Italian maestro during the production of the works which Rossini now composed or arranged for the French stage.
The first of this series was “Le Siège de Corinthe,” based on “Maometto Secondo.” Soumet, the French dramatic poet, and Balocchi, the author of “Il Viaggio a Reims,” arranged the libretto of the new work, Soumet occupying himself with the dramatic, Balocchi with the lyrical portion.
Although Rossini borrowed for the “Siège de Corinthe” a number of pieces which had already figured in “Maometto,” he remodelled many of them. He moreover altered some of the principal airs in a very significant manner, cutting out his Italian fioriture, either because he thought them unsuited to the French taste, or to the capacity of the French singers, or because he considered them absolutely undramatic; perhaps for all these reasons.
Although “Le Siège de Corinthe” is often spoken of as a mere French adaptation of “Maometto Secondo,” it does not include more than half the pieces contained in the latter work; while, on the other hand, Rossini composed specially for it the magnificent overture, the recitative, “Nous avons triomphé,” the allegro of the finale to the first act, the ballad “L’Hymen lui donne,” the recitative “Que vais-je devenir?” the allegro of the duet in the second act, “La Fête d’Hyménée,” the whole of the ballet music, the chorus “Divin Prophète,” the trio “Il est son Frère,” the finale to the second act “Corinthe nous défie,” the entre-acte preceding the third act, the recitative “Avançons!” the air “Grand Dieu,” the recitative of the trio “Cher Cléomène,” the scene of the Blessing of the Standards, and the finale to the third act.
The scene of the Blessing of the Standards is conceived in Rossini’s grandest and broadest dramatic style, – a style which he did not adopt absolutely for the first time in writing for the French stage, since we had already an example of it in the magnificent finale to the first act of “La Donna del Lago,” but which he nevertheless carried out more consistently and with more success in France than he could possibly have done in Italy, where it will be remembered “La Donna del Lago” was not by any means appreciated.
The production of “Le Siège de Corinthe” was accompanied by one rather important incident in Rossini’s life, in which, indeed, it may be said to form an epoch. It was the first opera that he sold to a music publisher. His thirty-four Italian works had been left absolutely at the disposition of every publisher or manager who chose to take them, to engrave or represent, with or without additions, in no matter what form; the one thing clear and certain in the matter being that no profit from the sale or representation of his works could by any possibility reach the composer.
The composer received from twenty to one hundred pounds for writing an opera, and was allowed the privilege of keeping a copy of his work, which, if he could manage it, he might sell to a publisher not less than one year after its first performance. Only, as the copyright expired altogether two years after the first performance, the privilege granted by the managers was practically of no value. In short, he received nothing for the right of engraving his works, and only one very moderate payment for the right of representing them.
The one Italian opera for which Rossini obtained two hundred pounds was thought to be shamefully overpaid. It was “Semiramide,” and Rossini himself said that he was looked upon as little better than a pickpocket when he asked and obtained five thousand francs for it. The admirable legislation on behalf of dramatists and their works, introduced in France by the author of “Le Barbier de Séville,” was of no profit to the composer of “Il Barbiere.” The representation of that work alone, if the French system of securing to writers and composers for the stage a certain fixed proportion of the receipts derived from the performance of their pieces had been adopted throughout Europe, would have given Rossini at least one hundred thousand pounds. As it was, it never brought him a farthing beyond the eighty pounds paid to him by the manager of the Argentina theatre for writing it and superintending the rehearsals.33 In France alone, if “Il Barbiere” had been originally brought out in that country, Rossini’s profits must have amounted to something like one million francs.
Certainly, if it was in Italy that Rossini the composer made his reputation, it was in France that he made his fortune. In England it was not so much Rossini the composer, as Rossini the singer, Rossini the accompanyist, Rossini the man of European reputation, and the friend of George IV., who in four months, aided by his wife, made seven thousand pounds. Two hundred and forty pounds was all the manager of the Italian Opera of London had offered Rossini for the work he never completed. Indeed, if a composer in England is to make money at all – as a composer – it must be through music publishers, not managers, who, as a rule, pay no more for the right of representation than Rossini received in Italy for copyright.
For although we have not many composers in England, the number is at least much greater than that of our opera managers; so that, when by some rare accident a new opera is produced in this country, it is the manager who seems to benefit, and who really does benefit, the composer. Naturally then he does not give him a sum of money into the bargain. Sometimes quite the contrary.
But the whole of our operatic system is absurd. In fact, at this moment we have no operatic system, the custom still prevalent in other countries of producing original operas having in England died out.
The sum received by Rossini for the copyright of “Le Siège de Corinthe” was not a large one. At least in these days of international treaties, when, moreover, the sale of music has everywhere increased, it would not be so considered. Troupenas, the afterwards well-known publisher, had then just gone into business, and thought with reason that he could not make a better beginning than by bringing out Rossini’s new work, the first of the series of operas which he was to compose for the French stage.
Injudicious friends advised him not to invest his money in an opera only half new; but he was not to be dissuaded from his intention, and ended by purchasing the copyright of “Le Siège de Corinthe” for six thousand francs. If this opera had been produced thirty years later, the music would have been worth to a publisher at least sixty, eighty, perhaps one hundred thousand francs.
But Rossini was never exorbitant in his demands, and seems to have been quite contented with the comparatively moderate payment made to him by M. Troupenas, remembering, no doubt, that in Italy he would have received nothing.
The next of his Italian works which Rossini proposed to arrange for the French stage was “Mosè.” M. Balocchi and M. de Jouy, one of the future librettists of “Guillaume Tell,” prepared the “book,” and added to the original opera several scenes and one or two personages of their own invention. The pieces composed specially by Rossini for the French version of “Mosè,” are the introduction to the first act, the quartet with chorus, “Dieu de la Paix,” “Dieu de la Guerre,” the chorus “La douce Aurore,” the march with chorus and recitations in the third act, “Reine des Cieux,” a portion of the ballet music, the finale “Je réclame la foi promise,” and the air of the fourth act, “Quelle horrible destinée.”
The finale, however, is said to be that of “Ciro in Babilonia,” remodelled, while most of the dance music came from “Armida.”
“Moïse,” highly successful on its first production, was revived in 1852, and again in 1863. An Italian version of the work was produced in London some twenty years ago at the Royal Italian Opera. It was, of course, found necessary to reconstruct the drama, which in England became “Zora,” as the Italian “Mosè,” five-and-twenty years before, had become “Pietro l’Eremita.” Notwithstanding the magnificence of the music, the piece, as adapted to the requirements of the English stage and English society, did not prove generally successful. It was admirably represented, like the rest of the later works by Rossini, which but for the Royal Italian Opera would never have been heard in this country at all.
Having now produced two serious operas at the Académie, Rossini proposed to write for the same theatre a comic opera, or opera “di mezzo carattere,” for which the music of “Il Viaggio a Reims,” or a good portion of it, was found serviceable. The libretto of “Le Comte Ory,” the third work contributed by Rossini to the repertory of the French opera, is founded on a vaudeville of the same name, of which the original subject is taken from an old French song. This time, Rossini had a librettist of some brains. It was M. Scribe, the future author of all Auber’s best libretti, and the inventor of several universally known operatic subjects (those, for instance, of “La Sonnambula” and “L’Elisir d’Amore”). Certainly nothing more ingenious, or more perfectly suited in the half character style to musical purposes has ever been produced than Scribe’s “book” of “Le Comte Ory,” in which Nourrit, who afterwards gave some valuable hints for “Les Huguenots,” is said to have assisted him.
The librettist, or librettists, for there were two, M. Scribe and M. Poirson, had rather arduous labours to perform; for contrary to the usual practice, they had to supply words to music already composed. The writer of a criticism on “Le Comte Ory,” published just after its production, says that Messieurs Scribe and Poirson were two months fitting French words to the pieces which Rossini borrowed from “Il Viaggio,” while Rossini set the whole of the second act to original music in a fortnight.
Rossini is said not to have been over-pleased with Scribe, whose business-like manner of apportioning his time did not leave him enough to devote to the composer of “Le Comte Ory.” It is to be regretted all the same, that Rossini did not apply to Scribe when he was meditating his opera of “Guillaume Tell,” which though it contains Rossini’s grandest music, is, through the poorness of the libretto, by no means the most perfect work that bears Rossini’s name.
“Le Comte Ory,” like “Le Siège de Corinthe,” “Moïse,” and “Guillaume Tell,” belongs to the repertory of the Royal Italian Opera, the only theatre in Europe which includes all the great works written for the Académie. In “Le Comte Ory,” as in all Rossini’s French operas, considerable prominence is given to the orchestral parts. “There is not only much harmony, there is also much melody in the accompaniment,” wrote a critic of the period. “The composer,” he ingeniously but absurdly adds, “has put the pedestal on the stage and the statue in the orchestra, so that there is more singing in the latter than on the former.”
In transferring to “Le Comte Ory” the best things he could find in “Il Viaggio a Reims,” Rossini did not forget the piece for fourteen voices, which constitutes one of the great features in the latter, as it did in the former work. Another important piece in “Il Viaggio,” which was originally set to a narrative of the battle of Trocadero, became in “Le Comte Ory” a description of the riches contained in the cellars of the Sire de Formoutiers. For the names of the different corps which took part in the battle, names of celebrated wines have been substituted, and the adaptation has been so well managed, and the intrinsic significance of music is really so very small, that the piece seems to have been originally conceived for the situation which it now occupies in “Le Comte Ory.”
This opera, the last but one that Rossini composed, contains the first example of a brief instrumental introduction in lieu of a regular overture. The introduction to “Le Comte Ory” is based on the melody of the old French song from which the subject of the piece is taken.