CHAPTER VII
“GUILLAUME TELL.”
BEFORE attacking “Guillaume Tell,” Rossini retired into the country; and this time devoted, not thirteen days to the production of the entire work, as in the case of that comic masterpiece “Il Barbiere,” but six months to the pianoforte score alone. It was at the château of M. Aguado, the well-known banker, that Rossini wrote the whole of “Guillaume Tell,” with the exception of the orchestral parts. These he added after his return to Paris, where he completed the work among visitors and friends, talking and laughing with them the whole time, as if engaged in some ordinary and not very important pursuit.
Different versions have been given of the engagement which bound Rossini to write so many operas for the Académie. Rossini’s salary, as Inspector of Singing, was, according to M. Azevedo, twenty thousand francs a year. M. Azevedo, in stating this amount, says nothing about any additional engagement in direct connection with the Académie.
M. Castil Blaze, on the other hand, without saying anything about the inspectorship of singing, speaks of a contract, by which Rossini was to write three operas for the Académie in the course of six years, during which period he was to receive ten thousand francs a year in addition to his composer’s fees.
M. Guizot, who, as Minister of the Interior in the year 1830, was brought officially into communication with Rossini, tells us in his “Memoirs” that Rossini’s salary as Inspector-General of Singing was seven thousand francs a year; and that after the success of “Guillaume Tell” he signed a new contract with the Civil List, by which he engaged to compose two more operas for the Académie – conditions not stated.
However, in the first instance, all Rossini had to go to work upon was the libretto of “Guillaume Tell,” as prepared by M. de Jouy. He was accustomed to bad librettos; but the badness of M. de Jouy’s book seems to have been something exceptional.
The preparation of the libretto must have occupied a considerable time, and caused the author or authors infinite trouble. M. de Jouy had, in the first instance, brought Rossini a poem of seven hundred verses, written without any particular view to the one purpose for which librettos should exist. It being impossible for Rossini to do anything with M. de Jouy’s libretto as it stood, M. Bis was called in; and to him the whole of the second act, by far the best of the five, is said to be due.
M. Bis, however, found himself placed in rather a delicate position. The composer wished him to turn and return the libretto until he got it into something like shape for the music. M. de Jouy, on the other hand, desired above all to save the honour of his too academical verses; and the result, as usual in such cases, was a compromise which satisfied no one – not even the public.
The authors having at last finished the libretto, but not until they had nobly sacrificed their poetry to the wants of the composer, printed it with a sort of apology in the form of a preface.
“We might have offered,” they said, “a more regular work to the reader; it would have been only necessary to publish it as it was first conceived; but then we should have had to restore several scenes which have been suppressed; to put in their original place others, the order of which has been inverted; and to cut out some passages which owe their existence to the requirements of the music alone. Thus the printed piece would have been quite different from the piece performed; and as the spectators desire above all to find in the libretto what the instrumentation does not permit them distinctly to hear, the words, for the first time, perhaps, have been sent to press in exact conformity with those of the score. If, on the one hand, the natural result of this step is to offer a larger field to criticism, on the other, the public will no doubt be grateful to us for a slight sacrifice of self-love made in the interest of its pleasures. We also, it must be confessed, wished to pay an indirect homage to our illustrious associate. It would have been repugnant to our feelings to strike out even the defective verses which the musical rhythm – sometimes fixed upon beforehand – obliged us to arrange as they are; there are some chords, too, so powerful that they seem to consecrate the words to which they lend their magic. In the midst of this immense and completely new creation which makes Rossini a French composer, ‘Guillaume Tell’ seems to be the work of one alone – of Rossini.”
From this preface it must be concluded, not that Rossini is answerable for the badness of the “Guillaume Tell” libretto as it now stands, but that it would have been much worse if he had not caused numerous alterations to be made. In fact, the preface clearly shows, that in its original form it must have been altogether useless for musical purposes.
Much has been said about the failure, or incomplete success, of Rossini’s masterpiece in the serious style; and Rossini’s long silence is often attributed to the coldness with which it was received. It was at once appreciated, however, by the critical public, and the applause at the first representation was most enthusiastic. But an opera cannot live by its music alone, and the drama of “Guillaume Tell” is very imperfect. After the first few weeks, in spite of the well-merited eulogiums of the critical press, the opera ceased, in theatrical parlance, to draw. It was represented fifty-six times in its original form, and was then cut down to three acts; the original third act being entirely omitted, and the fourth and fifth acts compressed into one.
At last the second act was given alone – often as a mere lever de rideau, with inferior performers; and it was not until Duprez made his début in the part of Arnold that the success of the opera was renewed. For three years before the arrival of Duprez the public heard nothing of “Guillaume Tell” but the celebrated second act.
One day Rossini met the director of the Opera on the boulevard, who said to him, —
“Well, Maestro, you are in the bills again to-night. We play the second act of “Guillaume Tell.”
“What! the whole of it?” inquired Rossini, who was naturally much hurt by the mutilation of his work. That alone did not cause him to lay down his pen; but it did not prevent his doing so.
It is to be eternally regretted that Rossini, in composing his last and greatest work for the stage, did not select some drama better suited for musical treatment than “William Tell.” Nevertheless, Schiller’s play contains fine situations, and Rossini was never more nobly inspired than in writing the duet for Tell and Arnold; the trio of the Oath, and the scene of the meeting of the Cantons; all of which owe a great portion of their effect to their position in the drama. The charming air of Mathilde, “Sombre forêt,” would be equally charming for Lucia, or any other sentimental light soprano, waiting for her lover in a wood, or elsewhere; the passionate duet for Mathilde and Arnold might be sung by any pair of lovers; the enchanting ballet music would make the fortune of any opera. But the pieces first named are of those which belong to “Guillaume Tell,” and “Guillaume Tell” alone, and which would, by comparison, fall flat if dissociated from the words, and above all, the dramatic situations to which the composer has attached them.
Whatever we may think of the drama itself, the music which Rossini has composed for it is the most dramatic that has come from his pen; and while thoroughly dramatic, it is at the same time thoroughly melodious – a combination not to be met with except in the works of the very greatest masters. Indeed, “Guillaume Tell” is full of melody, in the simplest solos as in the most massive choral writing. Rossini said of the compositions of his old professor, Mattei, that “the solo passages were not prominent, but that the pleni were admirable.” In “Guillaume Tell” the solo passages and the pleni are admirable alike. The music, whatever it may have to express, never ceases to be beautiful, and there is in every piece a clear current of melody, which the richest and most varied harmony never obscures.
“Guillaume Tell,” Rossini’s latest, is also his finest opera. It is written throughout in a higher and more dramatic style than any of his previous works. It exhibits more sustained power, and is the only one of his operas for the French stage in which every piece of music is new and written specially for the situation. The distinctive feature in “Guillaume Tell,” as regards form, is the avoidance of the conventional cavatina. It is right and necessary that a libretto should be constructed with a view to musical as well as dramatic effect; but it is not necessary that each principal singer, on coming before the public, should sing a “cavatina;” nor is it desirable, when a cavatina does happen to fall in with the situation (the opera has its soliloquies as well as the spoken drama), that it should be of a certain recognised pattern, with a few bars of recitative, or slow movement and a cabaletta.
We feel in “Guillaume Tell” that the characters do not appear on the stage merely to sing airs, duets, &c., but as personages in a musical drama. The custom in Italian opera was that each character should sing an air, and sing it as soon as possible after entering. Hence, indeed, the very word “cavatina,” from cavare, to issue forth. This custom has shown itself far more tenacious than all the others which Rossini broke through. It, indeed, seems to bear the force of an irremissible law; and we find that Rossini’s successors, who follow his example as well as they can in all other respects, avoid doing so in this particular one. Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi have all accepted the inevitable cavatina; and Rossini himself, if he had returned to Italy, would doubtless have returned to the cavatina at the same time, – in which there can be nothing to object to, provided only that it be not dragged in, as is often the case, without the least reference to dramatic propriety.
Of the grand vocal and instrumental combinations, so admirably treated in “Guillaume Tell,” Rossini had previously given an example in “La Donna del Lago.” But the scene of the meeting of the Cantons in “Guillaume Tell” is far grander. It may, indeed, be cited as the grandest operatic scene that exists – and, moreover, the grandest of all dramatic scenes in regard to the treatment of masses, which in the spoken drama can only be employed as a means of spectacular effect. The opera is the only form of drama in which a crowd, an army, a deliberative assembly, can effectually join with voice as well as with gesture in the action of the piece, as it is the only form of drama in which three or four persons, uttering similar or diverse sentiments, can be made to give expression to them at the same time.
The scene of Vasco di Gama before the Inquisition, in Meyerbeer’s “Africaine,” would have a very poor effect in ordinary drama. The prelates and other members of the tribunal, instead of singing, would of course have to speak; and as they could not speak all at once, they would have to address the unhappy Vasco through a single representative instead of crushing him, as in the opera, beneath the weight of their unanimous condemnation. Such a scene, again, as the Market-scene in “Masaniello,” in which the chattering of the dealers and the hurry and bustle of the crowd are made, through beautiful and appropriate music, to form one harmonious whole, could only be faintly and imperfectly imitated on the non-operatic stage by a representation in dumb-show, for spoken words would be worse than useless. Similarly, the meeting of the Cantons, in “Guillaume Tell,” is a magnificent subject for an operatic scene, which, treated otherwise than operatically, would be as flat and dull as a procession of the Reform League.
How, indeed, could the descent of the various bands from the mountains, and their gathering together in one vast agitated flood, be suggested and impressed upon the mind so forcibly as through music? Here the operatic composer had an opportunity, turned by Rossini to magnificent advantage, of going to the heart of a grand dramatic situation, and bringing out its full significance.
The trio, independently of its wonderful melodic and harmonic beauty, is a fine example of the power of music to give a simultaneous presentation of various and conflicting emotions. But on the mere beauty of the “Guillaume Tell” music, whether for the solo voices or for the orchestra, for the chorus or for the ballet, it would be vain to dwell. It would be useless to speak of it to those who have heard it – impossible to give any idea of it to those who have not.
CHAPTER VIII
ROSSINI AFTER “WILLIAM TELL.”
THE reason why Rossini, after producing “Guillaume Tell,” ceased finally to write for the stage is still a mystery, which has been rendered only more mysterious by the various and often contradictory explanations given of the composer’s silence.
In the first place, the coldness with which “Guillaume Tell” was received, and the successive mutilations to which that work was subjected, are said to have checked Rossini’s ardour.
Secondly, Rossini himself is reported to have declared that a new work, if successful, would not add to his reputation; while, unsuccessful, it might injure it.
Thirdly, Rossini has been accused of feeling annoyed at the success of Meyerbeer.
Fourthly, Rossini’s forty years’ abstinence from dramatic writing is explained by “laziness,” as though he had not written in the most industrious manner for the stage from the age of seventeen to that of thirty-seven, when, after taking six months to compose an opera (an age for Rossini), we suddenly find him abandoning dramatic composition for ever.
Some of these pretended explanations may be disposed of at once. As for Rossini’s alleged jealousy of Meyerbeer, it must be remembered that Rossini was the means of bringing Meyerbeer to Paris; that the two composers were always excellent friends; and that one of Rossini’s last productions, probably the very last composition he ever put to paper, was a pianoforte fantasia it pleased him to write on motives from “L’Africaine,” after attending the last rehearsal of that work.
As to the laziness with which Rossini is so often charged, it is curious to remark that this habit of mind or body, or both, was somehow compatible with the production of the thirty-four operas which Rossini wrote between the years 1810 and 1823. After he had settled in Paris, from 1824 to 1829, he still worked with prodigious activity, and did not produce less than one opera every year, – “Il Viaggio a Reims” in 1825, “Le Siège de Corinthe” in 1826, “Moïse” in 1827, “Le Comte Ory” in 1828, and “Guillaume Tell” in 1829.
Rossini must at this time have been richer by some two or three thousand a year than when he was working in Italy, and that without counting his “author’s rights” from the Opera, and reckoning only the capital of seven thousand pounds which he had brought back from London, the four hundred a year from his wife’s dowry, the eight hundred a year which he received from the Civil List and the sums for which he sold his scores year by year to Troupenas, the publisher. One reason, then, for Rossini’s inactivity may have been that one great stimulus to activity, poverty, urged him no longer.
But as Heine says of a composer whose friends had boasted that he was “not obliged to write,” – a windmill might as well say that it is not obliged to turn. If there is wind, it must turn; and when it ceases to turn, we know that the wind has gone down.
What makes the puzzle of Rossini’s silence puzzling indeed, is, that he does not seem quite to have known why he was silent himself. It is astonishing how many persons had the coolness, not to say impertinence, to ask Rossini why he never composed anything for the stage after “Guillaume Tell;” and it is amusing, though also provoking, to find that to most of these inquisitive persons he returned very evasive answers.
But, from Rossini’s recorded conversations with his friend Ferdinand Hiller, it is evident that it was not one cause alone which made him determine to produce no more operas. It struck Hiller, with reference to the maestro’s physical condition in the year 1854, that, “when a man has composed operas during twenty entire years, and been worshipped during five-and-forty, it is really not surprising that he should feel somewhat worn out.” “But a nabob is a nabob,” he continues, “even after losing two or three thousand thalers, and in the same manner Rossini’s mind is still what it always was; his wit, his memory, his lively powers of narration, are undiminished. And as he has written nothing for twenty years, he has at least not given any one the right of asserting that his musical genius has deteriorated, – the last work he wrote was ‘Guillaume Tell.’”
It was just at this time that Rossini exchanged some remarks with the Chevalier Neukomm on the subject of industry and idleness, which again throw a little light on the much vexed and certainly most interesting question of Rossini’s prolonged silence. “You are still indefatigable,” he observed to Neukomm.
“Whenever I am no longer able to work,” replied the latter, “you may place me between six planks and nail me down, for I shall not desire to have anything more to do with life.”
“You have a passion for industry; I always had a passion for idleness,” exclaimed Rossini.
“The forty operas you have composed are not a proof of that,” answered Neukomm.
“That was a long time ago. We ought to come into the world with packthread instead of nerves,” said the maestro, somewhat seriously; “but let us drop the subject.”
On several occasions Ferdinand Hiller seems to have asked Rossini point blank the great question – why, after “William Tell,” he ceased to write.
“Is it not one of the greatest of all wonders that you have not written anything for twenty-two years – what do you do with all the musical ideas which must be welling about in your brain?” asked Hiller, who was thinking perhaps of Heine’s windmill.
“You are joking,” replied the maestro, laughing.
“I am not joking in the least,” returned Hiller; “how can you exist without composing?”
“What!” said Rossini, “would you have me without motive, without excitement, without a definite intention, write a definite work? I do not require much to be excited into composition, as my opera texts prove, but still, I do require something.”
At another time Ferdinand Hiller succeeded in obtaining far more explicit reasons for Rossini’s premature retirement, which neither the want of a libretto, nor the plea of constitutional idleness, nor shaken nerves, sufficed to explain.
“Had you not the intention,” Hiller asked, “of composing an opera on the text of ‘Faust?’”
“Yes,” answered Rossini, “it was for a long period a favourite notion of mine, and I had already planned the whole scenarium with Jouy; it was naturally based upon Goethe’s poem. At this time, however, there arose in Paris a regular “Faust” mania; every theatre had a particular “Faust” of its own, and this somewhat damped my ardour. Meanwhile, the Revolution of July had taken place; the Grand-Opera, previously a royal institution, passed into hands of a private person; my mother was dead, and my father found a residence in Paris unbearable, because he did not understand French – so I cancelled the agreement, which bound me by rights to send in four other grand operas, preferring to remain quietly in my native land, and enliven the last years of my old father’s existence. I had been far away from my poor mother when she expired; this was an endless source of regret to me, and I was most apprehensive that the same thing might occur again in my father’s case.”
The choice of a subject afterwards looked upon as unsuitable, the Revolution of July, the appointment of a private person to the direction of the Opera, the desire of Rossini not to be separated from his father in Italy during the last years of the old man’s life – here is a whole catalogue of reasons given by Rossini himself for producing no more operas, in which we find no mention of the mutilation of “Guillaume Tell,” nor of the composer’s determination to rest on his laurels – a piece of conceit by no means in keeping with the character of Rossini, who, if he had had anything more to say would certainly not have been prevented from saying it by his own admiration for “Guillaume Tell.”
Nor was there anything in the fate of “Guillaume Tell” to frighten him, and we have seen that his supposed laziness did not prevent his setting to work on a new opera, which he must have commenced immediately after “Guillaume Tell” had been produced.
Rossini went to live with his father in Bologna, it is true; but he did not go there until 1836, so that this could have had little influence in making him determine to send back his librettos six years before.
Rossini is neither a greater nor a smaller man, because, having produced thirty-nine operas when he was thirty-seven years of age, it did not, for no matter what reason, suit him to complete the fortieth. He was destined to write thirty-nine operas, of which he wrote thirty-four during the first thirteen years of his career. Ferdinand Hiller was no doubt right in saying that a man cannot go on perpetually writing operas with impunity for twenty years – and such operas as Rossini’s, and at such a rate of production! Even when he had become comparatively inactive, Rossini produced four operas at the Académie in four successive years. Meyerbeer, his immediate successor at the Académie, brought out no more than three works at that establishment, and one at the Opera Comique, in twenty years: (“Robert le Diable,” 1831, “Les Huguenots,” 1836, “Le Prophète,” 1849, “L’Etoile du Nord,” 1851).
Of course, a composer is finally to be judged by his works, and not by the time it takes him to produce them. I am only considering whether the excessive labours of Rossini in the midst of his alleged idleness may not, after twenty years’ continuance, have thoroughly fatigued him.
No one seems to know what Rossini’s precise agreement with the Académie was. M. Castil-Blaze states that Rossini had engaged to write three operas, of which “Guillaume Tell” was the first. According to Ferdinand Hiller, he had undertaken to write four operas in addition to “Guillaume Tell;” and it is certain that immediately after “Guillaume Tell,” he seriously meditated a “Faust.” M. Castil-Blaze says positively that M. Scribe had, in execution of a contract, furnished to Rossini, and received back from him, the libretto of “Gustave III.,” the foundation of one of Auber’s greatest works, and the “Duc d’Albe,” on which Donizetti was engaged when he was attacked by the terrible malady to which he succumbed.
Whatever influence the Revolution of 1830 may have exercised on Rossini’s productive powers, it had a certain effect upon his pecuniary position. The Civil List of the dethroned king was abolished, and with it the pension of eight hundred a year, payable to Rossini. After going to law, the composer succeeded in getting a retiring pension of six thousand francs a year allowed him; and if one more reason for Rossini’s abandoning dramatic composition be required, it may be looked for in the litigation to which he was now obliged to have recourse.
About this time, and in reference to the subject of this very lawsuit, Rossini had occasion to see M. Guizot, who, in his Memoirs has left a very interesting account of the interview. M. Guizot was not a dilettante, and judged Rossini as a man of the world. His general estimate of his visitor is perhaps for that reason all the more valuable; and the minister’s statement as to Rossini’s position with regard to the Civil List in the year 1830, must be accepted as unimpeachable.
“The same day,” writes M. Guizot,34 “M. Lenormant brought to breakfast with me M. Rossini, to whom the revolution of July had caused some annoyances, which I wished to make him forget. King Charles X. had treated him with well-merited favour; he was inspector-general of singing, and received, in addition to his author’s rights, a salary of seven thousand francs; and some months previously, after the brilliant success of “Guillaume Tell,” the Civil List had signed a treaty with him, by which he undertook to write two more great works for the French stage. I wished the new government to show him the same good will, and that he in return should give us the promised masterpieces. We talked freely, and I was struck by the animation and variety of his wit, open to all subjects, gay without vulgarity, and satirical without bitterness. He left me after half-an-hour’s agreeable conversation, but which led to nothing; for it was not long before I resigned. I remained with my wife, whom M. Rossini’s person and conversation had much interested. My little girl Henrietta, who was just beginning to walk and to chatter, was brought into the room. My wife went to the piano and played some passages from the master who had just left us, from ‘Tancredi’ among other works. We were alone; I passed I cannot say how long in this manner, forgetting all external occupations, listening to the piano, watching my little girl, who was trying to walk, perfectly tranquil and absorbed in contemplation of these objects of my affection. It is nearly thirty years since, – it seems as though it were yesterday. I am not of Dante’s opinion,
‘Nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordasi tempo felice
Nella miseria.’
“A great happiness is, on the contrary, in my opinion, a light, the reflection of which extends to spaces which are no longer brightened by it. When God and time have appeased the violent uprisings of the soul against misfortune, it can still contemplate with pleasure in the past the charming things which it has lost.”