CHAPTER II
ELISABETTA – ROSSINI’S DÉBUT AT NAPLES
IN Elisabetta Mademoiselle Colbran obtained the first of the numerous triumphs for which she was to be indebted to Rossini. The work was founded on the subject of “Kenilworth,” and it is satisfactory to know that the libretto was from the pen of Signor Smith, a gentleman of unmistakable origin settled at Naples. Amy Robsart loses her beautiful name in the opera and is called Matilda; but then Signor Smith had not taken his story direct from Sir Walter’s novel. He had adapted it from a French melodrama.
The cast of the opera was admirable, the principal parts being assigned to Mademoiselle Colbran, Mademoiselle Dardanelli, Nozzari, and Garcia. An English dilettante, a great admirer of Mademoiselle Colbran, obtained correct copies from London for the costume of Queen Elizabeth; and the success of the prima donna, both as an actress and as a singer, was most remarkable.
The Neapolitans had not heard a note of Rossini’s music. The stories of his great success in the north of Italy had reached them from time to time; but there was nothing to prove that this success was deserved. The composer, of whose merits the Milanese and the Venetians were so full, had not been tested at Naples, and the composer who has not been tested at Naples has yet to make a name. If the Neapolitan public was not prepared to applaud Rossini merely on the recommendation of the Milanese, the professors of the Conservatories, where he had never studied, were quite ready to criticise him very severely, and had made up their minds beforehand that he was not a musician of any learning.
Rossini treated the Neapolitan audience to the overture he had written the year before at Milan for “Aureliano in Palmira,” and which was to be presented to the public of Rome the year afterwards as fit preface to “Il Barbiere.” The brilliant symphony was naturally liked, though if the Neapolitans had known that it was originally written for “Aureliano in Palmira,” they, perhaps, would not have applauded it quite so much.
The first piece in the opera was a duet for Leicester and his young wife in the minor, described by Stendhal as “very original.” The effect of the duet was to confirm the audience in the good opinion they had already formed of the composer, who, so far as Naples was concerned, was now only making his début. The finale to the first act, in which the principal motives of the overture occur, raised the enthusiasm of the audience to the highest pitch. “All the emotions of serious opera with no tedious interval between,” such was the phrase in which the general verdict of the Neapolitan public was expressed.
Mademoiselle Colbran’s great success, however, was yet to come. It was achieved in the first scene of the second act, when an interview between Elizabeth (in her historical costume from London) and Matilda is made the subject of a grand scene and duet; and again in the finale to the second, described by the critics of the period as one of the finest Rossini ever wrote.
Mademoiselle Colbran’s solo, “Bell’ alme generose,” in which she forgives and unites the lovers, is a brilliant show-piece, written for the display of all the best points in the prima donna’s singing. “A catalogue of the qualities of a fine voice” it was called, and Mademoiselle Colbran’s voice was at that time magnificent.
It was objected to the solo that it was not in keeping with the situation, being very grand, but entirely devoid of pathos. Such remarks, however, as these were not made until after the performance. Rossini had aimed at success through a very successful prima donna, and he had attained it.
“Elisabetta,” though it contained much beautiful music, was not one of Rossini’s best operas, and owing perhaps to the distribution of parts it has not been much played out of Italy, nor elsewhere than at Naples. For instance, the parts of Leicester and Norfolk are both given to tenors. If Rossini had been distributing the characters according to his own ideas, as he was afterwards able to carry them out, he would certainly have made the treacherous Norfolk a baritone or a bass; the position of the lover, Leicester, as tenor being of course quite unassailable. But Rossini had to write for a particular company, and there was no bass singer at the San Carlo capable of taking first parts.
Indeed it was still a conventional rule that in opera seria leading personages should not be represented by the bass, who was kept systematically in the background. Rossini was the basso’s friend, not only in regard to opera seria, but also as to operas of mezzo carattere, such as “La Cenerentola,” “La Gazza Ladra,” and “Torvaldo e Dorliska.” It is entirely to Rossini and his music that Galli, Lablache, and so many distinguished baritones and basses, owe their reputation.
The company at the San Carlo, though without a leading basso, included at this time three admirable tenors – Davide, Nozzari, and Garcia; and the two latter appeared together in “Elisabetta.” This opera is the first in which Rossini accompanies recitative with the stringed quartet in lieu of the piano and double bass of former Italian composers. The score of “Otello” is the one usually cited (by M. Fétis, M. Castil Blaze, among other writers) as first exhibiting this important substitution.
CHAPTER III
ROSSINI VISITS ROME – TORVALDO E DORLISKA
AFTER the success of “Elisabetta,” Rossini went to Rome, where he was engaged to write two works for the carnival of 1816. On the 26th of December, 1815, he produced at the Teatro Valle, “Torvaldo e Dorliska;” composed for Remorini and Galli, the two best bass singers of the day, Donzelli, the celebrated tenor, and Madame Sala, a prima donna of great reputation, who, it is interesting to know, was the mother of our distinguished author and journalist, Mr. George Augustus Sala.
But though the singers were excellent, the orchestra was composed of very indifferent musicians, most of whom were workmen and petty shopkeepers engaged during the day in the pursuit of their trade. The first clarinet was a barber, who habitually shaved Rossini. In proof of the composer’s admirable presence of mind, it is narrated that, annoyed and irritated as he was at the rehearsals by the inability of the band to execute his music correctly, he never once said a severe thing to the first clarinet. He remonstrated with him very gently the next morning after the operation of shaving had been safely performed.
Altogether it is not astonishing that the opera was received rather coldly, or at least not with sufficient warmth to satisfy Rossini. On “Sigismondo” being hissed at Venice, Rossini had sent his mother a drawing of a fiasco; this time he forwarded her a sketch of a little bottle or fiaschetto.
“Torvaldo e Dorliska,” however, must have been an opera of some mark even among the operas of Rossini. It was received at Paris, in 1825, for the début of Mademoiselle Marietta Garcia, the future Malibran, and the composer borrowed from it the motive of the magnificent letter duet in “Otello.” The moderate success of the work is partly to be explained by the poorness of the libretto – the production, however, of a man who, immediately afterwards, furnished Rossini with one of the best opera books ever written.
“Torvaldo e Dorliska” and “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” were produced simultaneously; and the little attention paid to the former, may partly no doubt be explained by the immense, though not in the first instance uncontested, success of the latter.
CHAPTER IV
BEAUMARCHAIS, PAISIELLO, AND ROSSINI
AT Rome, where no opera reflecting directly or indirectly on the Roman Catholic religion and the rights of princes, or inculcating patriotism, or trifling with morality, or touching in any way upon anything that concerns the Papal Court, is permitted; where, consequently, neither “Les Huguenots,” nor “Guillaume Tell,” nor “Lucrezia Borgia,” nor “La Traviata,” can be played in the dramatic shape naturally belonging to them; the authorities were as scrupulous with regard to the choice of subjects in Rossini’s time as they are now.
If the natural instincts of despotic governments have always led them to favour operatic performances, they have done so on the very reasonable condition that nothing against themselves or their allies, the priesthood, should be introduced into the works represented. Thus “Le Prophète” becomes “L’Assedio di Gand” at St. Petersburgh, “Lucrezia Borgia” “La Rinegata” at Rome, where the Italians at the Court of Pope Alexander the Sixth are metamorphosed into Turks.
Auber’s “Muette de Portici” and Donizetti’s “Martiri” were both proscribed at Naples (the “Muette” above all!). Even at Paris the performances of “Gustave,” after the first production of the work, were suddenly stopped; and Verdi, treating the same subject for the San Carlo, was forced by the Neapolitan censorship to make the action of the piece take place at Boston in the United States.
Several dramas had been suggested to the Roman censorship, when at last the unpolitical plot of the “Barber of Seville” was proposed and accepted. The censor (who could have known little of Beaumarchais) thought it impossible such a subject could be made a vehicle for the introduction of political allusions.
All, however, that Rossini wanted was a well-planned “book” for musical purposes, and he found precisely what suited his genius in the “Barber of Seville.”
In a literary point of view, the “Marriage of Figaro” is no doubt superior to its predecessor the “Barber;” but notwithstanding the eminently lyrical character of the page in the former work, the “Barber of Seville” is the best adapted for musical setting. It was as a pamphlet, rather than as a comedy, that “Le Mariage de Figaro” obtained its immense success in Paris, and Figaro’s wit cannot be reproduced in music. Gaiety, however, is as much a musical as a literary quality, and the gaiety of Beaumarchais’ versatile irrepressible hero is admirably expressed, with even increased effect, in Rossini’s “Barbiere.”
It would be rendering no service to Rossini to compare him with Mozart, whom he himself regarded as the greatest of dramatic composers.12 But Rossini’s genius is very much akin to that of Beaumarchais; whereas that of Mozart (to the disadvantage certainly of Beaumarchais) was not. Rossini is Beaumarchais in music; Beaumarchais is not Mozart in literature.
No wonder that “Le Barbier de Séville” has been found so eminently suitable for musical treatment. Beaumarchais, who had strong views on the subject of the musical drama, and who was himself a good musician,13 had in the first instance designed it as a libretto.
The subject of “Le Barbier de Séville” is manifestly taken from Molière’s “Sicilien;” but the bare skeleton of the drama, as Beaumarchais himself points out, is common to innumerable works.
“An old man14 is in love with his ward, and proposes to marry her; a young man succeeds in forestalling him, and the same day makes her his wife under the very nose and in the house of the guardian.” That is the subject of the “Barber of Seville,” capable of being made with equal success into a tragedy, a comedy, a drama, an opera, &c. What but that is Molière’s “Avare”? – what but that is “Mithridates”? The genus to which a piece belongs depends less upon the fundamental nature of the subject than upon the details and the manner in which it is presented.
Beaumarchais goes on to say what his original intention had been in regard to the simple subject of a ward carried away by her lover from beneath the nose of her guardian. “How polite of you,” a lady had said to him, “to take your piece to the Théâtre Français, when I have no box except at the Italian Theatre! Why did you not make an opera of it? They say it was your first idea. The piece is well suited to music.”
The author of “Le Barbier de Séville” explains why he abandoned his original intention. He had doubts on the subject of the form and general treatment of opera which, to the neglect of the melodic portion of the work, ought, he considered, to be assimilated to the spoken drama of real life; (the end of which theory, carried out to its extreme consequences, would be to substitute recitative for singing, speaking for recitative – annihilation of the musical drama, in short).
Five years afterwards, in the year 1780, Paisiello proved practically how well Beaumarchais’ “Barbier de Séville” was adapted to musical setting. Beaumarchais heard it, and was much pleased. What would his delight have been could he have listened to the “Barbiere” of Rossini – and with Adelina Patti in the part of Rosina!
Rossini was not one of those unconscious men of genius who are unable to judge of the merit of their own works. He Certainly never expressed too high an opinion of them, and latterly used to say that his music had grown old – as if the “Barber of Seville” could grow old. But he knew the “Barber” to be one of his happiest, as it certainly was one of his most spontaneous, productions; and whichever of his works he may have considered the best, he thought the “Barber” the most likely to endure.
“The third act of ‘Otello,’” he once said, “the second act of ‘Guillaume Tell,’ and the whole of ‘Il Barbiere,’ will perhaps live;”15 and there are reasons why, independently of its musical worth, the “Barber” will in all probability still be played when the few other operas of Rossini which still keep the stage are no longer represented. It is composed on a firm scaffolding, unlike that of “Guillaume Tell,” which very soon broke down, and has never been put together again in a durable dramatic form. The libretto has not to contend with the impression left by an unapproachable masterpiece on the same subject, as in the case of “Otello.” Finally, the comedy on which it is founded is not only a masterpiece in a purely dramatic sense, it is moreover essentially a drama for music, and for just such music as Rossini loved to write, and wrote to perfection. There is nothing more felicitous in all operatic setting than Basilio’s air, the crescendo of which exists as much in Beaumarchais’s prose as in Rossini’s music.
Indeed, Don Basile’s little essay on the efficacy of calumny, read for the first time by any one already acquainted with Rossini’s musical version, would seem to have been directly suggested by the music. The elegance and distinction of Almaviva are the same in the opera as in the comedy; and all the gaiety of Beaumarchais’s “Figaro” lives again in Rossini’s music, in a sublimated form.
Rossini was not so fond of writing prefaces as Beaumarchais; but he departed from his ordinary rule in the case of “The Barber,” and has told us the exact circumstances under which it occurred to him to take for his subject an admirable comedy which Paisiello had already made into an opera thirty-five years before.
Paisiello’s opera had been played all over Europe, and it has been mentioned that the curious in musical antiquities may from time to time hear it even now at the Fantaisies Parisiennes. It is not nearly so full of music as Rossini’s work, but it contains seven very interesting pieces, —Almaviva’s solo; Don Basile’s air – a setting of the passage on calumny, as in the modern “Barbiere;” an air for Bartholo; a comic trio, in which two fantastic and episodical characters (wisely omitted by Rossini), La Jeunesse and L’Eveillé, respectively sneeze and yawn in presence of Rosina’s guardian; a very ingenious trio, based on the incidents of the letter; a duet, in which the disguised Almaviva, on arriving to give his music lesson, is received by Don Bartholo; and a quintet, in which Don Basilio, accused of fever, is sent hastily to bed – the buona sera scene, which Rossini took good care to preserve.
Rossini is said to have felt rather embarrassed when the impresario of the Argentina opera told him that the governor of Rome saw no objection to his setting “The Barber of Seville” to music. Not that any rule of etiquette forbade him to take a subject already treated by another composer; Metastasio’s best libretti have been set over and over again by innumerable composers. From the very beginning of opera, the legend of Orpheus, the story of Dido’s abandonment, have been treated by almost all composers, including Rossini himself, who composed cantatas on both these subjects. Piccinni and Sacchini had both composed music twice to the “Olimpiade;” and Paisiello did not enjoy, probably did not claim, any special right of property in Beaumarchais’ “Barbier de Séville.”
Nevertheless, Paisiello had put his mark on the work. His “Barbiere” was celebrated throughout Italy, and Rossini thought it only polite on his part as a young beginner (he was then twenty-three years of age) to write to the venerable maestro (Paisiello was seventy-four years of age), to ask his permission to re-set “The Barber.”
The venerable maestro, who had not been over-pleased at the success of “Elisabetta,” thought it would be a good plan to let his youthful rival attack a subject which, according to Paisiello, had already received its definite musical form, and wrote to him from Naples, giving him full permission to turn Beaumarchais’ “Barbier de Seville” once more into an opera.
CHAPTER V
“THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.”
ROSSINI had engaged to supply two operas for Rome, both to be produced during the carnival of 1816. The first, “Torvaldo e Dorliska,” was duly finished and brought out at the commencement of the carnival. The same day, December 26th, 1815, Rossini signed an agreement with the manager, Cesarini, by which he bound himself to furnish the second work on the 20th of January following. The brothers Escudier, in their valuable “Life of Rossini,”16 have published this agreement, which is worth reproducing, if only to show under what pressure Rossini was sometimes obliged to write – under what pressure he was able to write.
Here, then, is the contract in compliance with which Rossini produced, almost improvised, his masterpiece, “The Barber of Seville.”
“Nobil teatro di Torre Argentina.“Dec. 26, 1815.
“By the present act, drawn up privately between the parties, the value of which is not thereby diminished, and according to the conditions consented to by them, it has been stipulated as follows: —
“Signor Puca Sforza Cesarini, manager of the above-named theatre, engages Signor maestro Gioachino Rossini for the next carnival season of the year 1816; and the said Rossini promises and binds himself to compose, and produce on the stage, the second comic drama to be represented in the said season at the theatre indicated, and to the libretto which shall be given to him by the said manager, whether this libretto be old or new. The maestro Rossini engages to deliver his score in the middle of the month of January, and to adapt it to the voices of the singers; obliging himself, moreover, to make, if necessary, all the changes which may be required as much for the good execution of the music as to suit the capabilities or exigencies of the singers.
“The maestro Rossini also promises and binds himself to be at Rome, and to fulfil his engagement, not later than the end of December of the current year, and to deliver to the copyist the first act of his opera, quite complete, on the 20th of January, 1816. The 20th of January is mentioned in order that the partial and general rehearsals may be commenced at once, and that the piece may be brought out the day the director wishes, the date of the first representation being hereby fixed for about the 5th of February. And the maestro Rossini shall also deliver to the copyist at the time wished his second act, so that there may be time to make arrangements and to terminate the rehearsals soon enough to go before the public on the evening mentioned above; otherwise the maestro Rossini will expose himself to all losses, because so it must be, and not otherwise.
“The maestro Rossini shall, moreover, be obliged to direct his opera according to the custom, and to assist personally at all the vocal and orchestral rehearsals as many times as it shall be necessary, either at the theatre or elsewhere, at the will of the director; he obliges himself also to assist at the three first representations, to be given consecutively, and to direct the execution at the piano; and that because so it must be, and not otherwise. In reward for his fatigues the director engages to pay to the maestro Rossini the sum and quantity of four hundred Roman scudi as soon as the three first representations which he is to direct at the piano shall be terminated.17
“It is also agreed that in case of the piece being forbidden, or the theatre closed by the act of the authority, or for any unforeseen reason, the habitual practice, in such cases, at the theatres of Rome and of all other countries, shall be observed.
“And to guarantee the complete execution of this agreement, it shall be signed by the manager, and also by the maestro Gioachino Rossini; and, in addition, the said manager grants lodging to the maestro Rossini, during the term of the agreement, in the same house that is assigned to Signor Luigi Zamboni.”
Rossini, then, for composing the “Barber of Seville,” received not quite eighty pounds, together with a lodging in the house occupied by Signor Luigi Zamboni – the future Figaro.
It may be thought that he at least got something for the copyright of the music? He got nothing for the copyright of the music. He did not even take the trouble to get it engraved; and two of the pieces, the overture (for which the overture to “Aureliano in Palmira” was afterwards substituted), and the scene of the music lesson (originally treated as a concerted piece), were lost.
Rossini wrote his operas for stage representation, and thought no more of their publication by means of the press than did Shakspeare and Molière of the publication of their plays. Indeed, the first appearance of a complete edition of Rossini’s operas was to Rossini himself a surprise, and by no means an agreeable one.
He had, in fact, enough to do in producing his works; and, practically, had obtained for them all he could get when he had once been paid by the theatre. What he sold to the manager was the right of representation for two years; after which he had no right of any kind in his works. Any one might play them, any one might engrave them.
One year after the production of a new opera, the composer had the right to take back the original score from the theatre; and this Rossini sometimes neglected to do, or, in the case of the “Barber,” the two missing pieces would not have been lost.
From the publishers who engraved his works, and made large sums of money by selling them, he never, as long as he remained in Italy, received a farthing.
When Rossini signed his agreement with Cesarini he had not the least idea what the libretto furnished to him would be. The manager had to arrange that matter with the censor before consulting the composer at all. Rossini had bound himself to set whatever was given to him, “new or old;” and it was, perhaps, fortunate that he had not left himself the right of refusing the admirable subject which Cesarini proposed to him a few days afterwards.
The statement that Rossini wrote the whole of the “Barber of Seville” in thirteen days belongs originally to Stendhal. Castil-Blaze18 says one month. It is certain the work did not occupy the composer near a month, and he really seems to have completed it in about a fortnight.
On the 26th December, when the agreement was signed, there was no libretto, and Rossini had not yet finished with “Torvaldo e Dorliska,” which was produced on the evening of the 26th. On that evening, and the two following ones, Rossini had to direct the execution of his new work. He was not free then until the 29th; but he was not bound to supply the first act – more than half the opera, allowing for the length and musical importance of the finale – before Jan. 20th. The second act was to be furnished to the manager “at the time wished,” and he certainly would not have desired to have it many days later than Jan. 20th, inasmuch as the opera had to be presented to the public on Feb. 5th.
Rossini, then, may have worked at the “Barber of Seville” from December 29th to January 24th, which would allow for the rehearsals just the time ordinarily required at the Italian theatres – twelve days. He must have composed the opera in less than a month, and he may, as Stendhal says, and as M. Azevedo repeats, apparently on Stendhal’s authority, have finished it in thirteen days’ time, for it is certain that some days were lost in choosing a subject, or rather in getting the choice approved by the Roman authorities.
At last, when the “Barber of Seville” had been decided upon by the manager and the censor, Rossini would only consent on condition that an entirely new libretto should be prepared for him. The construction of the new libretto was entrusted to Sterbini, the poet of “Torvaldo e Dorliska,” and as no time was to be lost, the composer suggested that he should take up his quarters in “the house assigned to Luigi Zamboni.”
In this remarkable establishment, the composer, the librettist, and the original Figaro lived together for, say a fortnight, while the masterpiece was being manufactured.
For materials Rossini and his poet had Beaumarchais’ comedy and the libretto of Paisiello’s opera; and this time, by way of exception, instead of composing the music piece by piece as the words were furnished to him, Rossini commenced by asking Sterbini to read to him Beaumarchais’ comedy from beginning to end.
“Il Barbiere” has quite the effect of an improvisation corrected and made perfect; and it was, indeed, produced under the most favourable circumstances for unity and completeness. Rossini had made Sterbini promise to remain with him until the opera was finished, and as rapidly as the latter wrote the verses the former set them to music.
Paisiello’s distribution of scenes was not adopted – was purposely avoided; though the great situations in the comedy are of course reproduced in both the operas. In the new version of the “Barber” the grotesque episodical figures of “la Jeunesse” and “l’Eveillé” which Paisiello had retained, are very properly omitted. Where recitative would have been employed by the old master, Rossini has substituted dialogue sustained by the orchestra, the current of melody which flows throughout the work being here transferred from the voices to the instruments. There are more musical pieces, and there is twice or three times as much music in the new “Barber” as in the old.
Fortunately Sterbini was an amateur poet unburdened with literary pride, and prepared to carry out the composer’s ideas. Rossini not only kept up with the librettist, but sometimes found himself getting in advance. He then suggested words for the music which he had already in his head. Some of the best pieces in “Il Barbiere,” notably that of “La Calunnia,” seem to have been directly inspired by Beaumarchais’ eloquent, impetuous prose.
On the other hand, the famous “Largo al Fattotum,” though equally replete with the spirit of Beaumarchais, may be said to owe something of its rhythm, and therefore something of its gaiety, to Sterbini’s rattling verses. The librettist was in a happy vein that morning, and thought he had over-written himself. He told Rossini to take what verses suited him and throw the rest aside. Rossini took them all and set them to the rapid, elastic light-hearted melody, which at once stamps the character of Figaro.
In the room where the two inventors were at work a number of copyists were employed, to whom the sheets of music were thrown one by one as they were finished. Doubtless the chief lodger, Luigi Zamboni, looked in from time to time to see how the part of Figaro was getting on. Probably too the spirited impresario called occasionally to inquire how the work generally was progressing.
But whether or not Rossini received visits he certainly did not return them. Without taking it for granted, as M. Azevedo does, that the joint authors for thirteen days and nights had scarcely time to eat: and slept, when they could no longer keep their eyes open, on a sofa (they would have saved time in the end by taking their clothes off and going to bed), we may be quite sure that “Il Barbiere” is the result of one continuous effort – if to an act of such rapid spontaneous production the word effort can be applied.
Rossini is said to have told some one, that during the thirteen days which he devoted to the composition of the “Barber” (if Rossini really said “thirteen days” there is of course an end to the question of time), he did not get shaved.
“It seems strange,” was the rather obvious reply, “that through the ‘Barber,’ you should have gone without shaving.”
“If I had got shaved,” explained Rossini, very characteristically, “I should have gone out, and if I had gone out I should not have come back in time.”
While Rossini was working and letting his beard grow, Paisiello was quietly taking measures to insure a warm reception for the new opera.
According to Stendhal, Rossini had received a distinct permission from Paisiello to reset “Il Barbiere,” though, as a mere matter of etiquette, no such permission was necessary. M. Azevedo denies that Rossini wrote to Paisiello at all, though he also represents the old maestro as perfectly well informed on the subject of Rossini’s labours, and very anxious to frustrate them.
One thing is certain, that Rossini, in sending his libretto to press, prefixed to it the following —
“ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PUBLIC
“Beaumarchais’ comedy, entitled the ‘Barber of Seville, or the Useless Precaution,’19 is presented at Rome in the form of a comic drama, under the title of ‘Almaviva, or the Useless Precaution,’ in order that the Public may be fully convinced of the sentiments of respect and veneration by which the author of the music of this drama is animated with regard to the celebrated Paisiello, who has already treated the subject under its primitive title.