The same year (1816) was produced at Naples the opera of "Otello,"
which was an important point of departure in the reforms introduced by
Rossini on the Italian stage. Before speaking further of this
composer's career, it is necessary to admit that every valuable change
furthered by him had already been inaugurated by Mozart, a musical
genius so great that he seems to have included all that went before,
all that succeeded him. It was not merely that Rossini enriched the
orchestration to such a degree, but, revolting from the delay of the
dramatic movement, caused by the great number of arias written for
each character, he gave large prominence to the concerted pieces, and
used them where monologue had formerly been the rule. He developed the
basso and baritone parts, giving them marked importance in serious
opera, and worked out the choruses and finales with the most elaborate
finish.
Lord Mount-Edgcumbe, a celebrated connoisseur and admirer of the old
school, wrote of these innovations, ignoring the fact that Mozart had
given the weight of his great authority to them before the daring
young Italian composer:--
"The construction of these newly-invented pieces is essentially
different from the old. The dialogue, which used to be carried on in
recitative, and which, in Metastasio's operas, is often so beautiful
and interesting, is now cut up (and rendered unintelligible if it were
worth listening to) into _pezzi concertati_, or long singing
conversations, which present a tedious succession of unconnected,
ever-changing motives, having nothing to do with each other; and if a
satisfactory air is for a moment introduced, which the ear would like
to dwell upon, to hear modulated, varied, and again returned to, it is
broken off, before it is well understood, by a sudden transition in an
entirely different melody, time, and key, and recurs no more, so that
no impression can be made, or recollection of it preserved. Single
songs are almost exploded.... Even the _prima donna_, who formerly
would have complained at having less than three or four airs allotted
to her, is now satisfied with having one single _cavatina_ given to
her during the whole opera."
In "Otello," Rossini introduced his operatic changes to the Italian
public, and they were well received; yet great opposition was
manifested by those who clung to the time-honoured canons. Sigismondi,
of the Naples Conservatory, was horror-stricken on first seeing the
score of this opera. The clarionets were too much for him, but on
seeing third and fourth horn-parts, he exclaimed, "What does the man
want? The greatest of our composers have always been contented with
two. Shades of Pergolesi, of Leo, of Jomelli! How they must shudder at
the bare thought! Four horns! Are we at a hunting-party? Four horns!
Enough to blow us to perdition!" Donizetti, who was Sigismondi's pupil,
also tells an amusing incident of his preceptor's disgust. He was
turning over a score of "Semiramide" in the library, when the _maestro_
came in and asked him what music it was. "Rossini's," was the answer.
Sigismondi glanced at the page and saw 1. 2. 3. trumpets, being the
first, second, and third trumpet parts. Aghast, he shouted, stuffing
his fingers in his ears, "One hundred and twenty-three trumpets! _Corpo
di Cristo!_ the world's gone mad, and I shall go mad too!" And so he
rushed from the room, muttering to himself about the hundred and
twenty-three trumpets.
The Italian public, in spite of such criticism, very soon accepted the
opera of "Otello" as the greatest serious opera ever written for their
stage. It owed much, however, to the singers who illustrated its
rôles. Mdme. Colbran, afterwards Rossini's wife, sang Desdemona, and
David, Otello. The latter was the predecessor of Rubini as the finest
singer of the Rossinian music. He had the prodigious compass of three
octaves; and M. Bertin, a French critic, says of this singer, so
honourably linked with the career of our composer, "He is full of
warmth, _verve_, energy, expression, and musical sentiment; alone he
can fill up and give life to a scene; it is impossible for another
singer to carry away an audience as he does, and, when he will only be
simple, he is admirable. He is the Rossini of song; he is the greatest
singer I ever heard." Lord Byron, in one of his letters to Moore,
speaks of the first production at Milan, and praises the music
enthusiastically, while condemning the libretto as a degradation of
Shakespeare.
"La Cenerentola" and "La Gazza Ladra" were written in quick
succession for Naples and Milan. The former of these works, based on
the old Cinderella myth, was the last opera written by Rossini to
illustrate the beauties of the contralto voice, and Madame
Georgi-Righetti, the early friend and steadfast patroness of the
musician during his early days of struggle, made her last great
appearance in it before retiring from the stage. In this composition,
Rossini, though one of the most affluent and rapid of composers,
displays that economy in art which sometimes characterised him. He
introduced in it many of the more beautiful airs from his earlier and
less successful works. He believed on principle that it was folly to
let a good piece of music be lost through being married to a weak and
faulty libretto. The brilliant opera of "La Gazza Ladra," set to the
story of a French melodrama, "La Pie Voleuse," aggravated the quarrel
between Paer, the director of the French opera, and the gifted
Italian. Paer had designed to have written the music himself, but his
librettist slyly turned over the poem to Rossini, who produced one of
his masterpieces in setting it. The audience at La Scala received the
work with the noisiest demonstrations, interrupting the progress of
the drama with constant cries of "_Bravo! Maestro!_" "_Viva Rossini!_"
The composer afterwards said that acknowledging the calls of the
audience fatigued him much more than the direction of the opera. When
the same work was produced four years after in London, under Mr.
Ebers's management, an incident related by that _impresario_ in his
_Seven Years of the King's Theatre_, shows how eagerly it was received
by an English audience:--
"When I entered the stage door, I met an intimate friend, with a long
face and uplifted eyes. 'Good God! Ebers, I pity you from my soul.
This ungrateful public,' he continued. 'The wretches! Why! my dear
sir, they have not left you a seat in your own house.' Relieved from
the fears he had created, I joined him in his laughter, and proceeded,
assuring him that I felt no ill towards the public for their conduct
towards me."
Passing over "Armida," written for the opening of the new San Carlo
at Naples, "Adelaida di Borgogna," for the Roman Carnival of 1817, and
"Adina," for a Lisbon theatre, we come to a work which is one of
Rossini's most solid claims on musical immortality, "Mosé in Egitto,"
first produced at the San Carlo, Naples, in 1818. In "Mosé," Rossini
carried out still further than ever his innovations, the two principal
rôles--_Mosé_ and _Faraoni_--being assigned to basses. On the first
representation, the crossing of the Red Sea moved the audience to
satirical laughter, which disconcerted the otherwise favourable
reception of the piece, and entirely spoiled the final effects. The
manager was at his wit's end, till Tottola, the librettist, suggested
a prayer for the Israelites before and after the passage of the host
through the cleft waters. Rossini instantly seized the idea, and,
springing from bed in his night-shirt, wrote the music with almost
inconceivable rapidity, before his embarrassed visitors recovered from
their surprise. The same evening the magnificent _Dal tuo stellato
soglio_ ("To thee, Great Lord") was performed with the opera.
Let Stendhall, Rossini's biographer, tell the rest of the story--"The
audience was delighted as usual with the first act, and all went well
till the third, when, the passage of the Red Sea being at hand, the
audience as usual prepared to be amused. The laughter was just
beginning in the pit, when it was observed that Moses was about to
sing. He began his solo, the first verse of a prayer, which all the
people repeat in chorus after Moses. Surprised at this novelty, the
pit listened and the laughter entirely ceased. The chorus, exceedingly
fine, was in the minor. Aaron continues, followed by the people.
Finally, Eleia addresses to Heaven the same supplication, and the
people respond. Then all fall on their knees and repeat the prayer
with enthusiasm; the miracle is performed, the sea is opened to leave
a path for the people protected by the Lord. This last part is in the
major. It is impossible to imagine the thunders of applause that
resounded through the house; one would have thought it was coming
down. The spectators in the boxes, standing up and leaning over,
called out at the top of their voices, '_Bello, bello! O che bello!_'
I never saw so much enthusiasm nor such a complete success, which was
so much the greater, inasmuch as the people were quite prepared to
laugh.... I am almost in tears when I think of this prayer. This state
of things lasted a long time, and one of its effects was to make for
its composer the reputation of an assassin, for Dr. Cottogna is said
to have remarked--'I can cite to you more than forty attacks of
nervous fever or violent convulsions on the part of young women, fond
to excess of music, which have no other origin than the prayer of the
Hebrews in the third act, with its superb change of key.'" Thus, by a
stroke of genius, a scene which first impressed the audience as a
piece of theatrical burlesque, was raised to sublimity by the solemn
music written for it.
M. Bochsa some years afterwards produced "Mosé" as an oratorio in
London, and it failed. A new libretto, however, "Pietro L'Eremito,"[G]
again transformed the music into an opera. Ebers tells us that Lord
Sefton, a distinguished connoisseur, only pronounced the general
verdict in calling it the greatest of serious operas, for it was
received with the greatest favour. A gentleman of high rank was not
satisfied with assuring the manager that he had deserved well of his
country, but avowed his determination to propose him for membership at
the most exclusive of aristocratic clubs--White's.
"La Donna del Lago," Rossini's next great work, also first produced at
the San Carlo during the Carnival of 1820, though splendidly
performed, did not succeed well the first night. The composer left
Naples the same night for Milan, and coolly informed every one _en
route_ that the opera was very successful, which proved to be true
when he reached his journey's end, for the Neapolitans on the second
night reversed their decision into an enthusiasm as marked as their
coldness had been.
Shortly after this Rossini married his favourite _prima donna_, Madame
Colbran. He had just completed two of his now forgotten operas,
"Bianca e Faliero" and "Matilda di Shabran," but did not stay to watch
their public reception. He quietly took away the beautiful Colbran,
and at Bologna was married by the archbishop. Thence the
freshly-wedded couple visited Vienna, and Rossini there produced his
"Zelmira," his wife singing the principal part. One of the most
striking of this composer's works in invention and ingenious
development of ideas, Carpani says of it--"It contains enough to
furnish not one but four operas. In this work, Rossini, by the new
riches which he draws from his prodigious imagination, is no longer
the author of 'Otello,' 'Tancredi,' 'Zoraide,' and all his preceding
works; he is another composer, new, agreeable, and fertile, as much as
at first, but with more command of himself, more pure, more masterly,
and, above all, more faithful to the interpretation of the words. The
forms of style employed in this opera, according to circumstances, are
so varied, that now we seem to hear Gluck, now Traetta, now Sacchini,
now Mozart, now Handel; for the gravity, the learning, the
naturalness, the suavity of their conceptions, live and blossom again
in 'Zelmira.' The transitions are learned, and inspired more by
considerations of poetry and sense than by caprice and a mania for
innovation. The vocal parts, always natural, never trivial, give
expression to the words without ceasing to be melodious. The great
point is to preserve both. The instrumentation of Rossini is really
incomparable by the vivacity and freedom of the manner, by the variety
and justness of the colouring." Yet it must be conceded that, while
this opera made a deep impression on musicians and critics, it did not
please the general public. It proved languid and heavy with those who
could not relish the science of the music and the skill of the
combinations. Such instances as this are the best answer to that
school of critics, who have never ceased clamouring that Rossini
could write nothing but beautiful tunes to tickle the vulgar and
uneducated mind.
"Semiramide," first performed at the Fenice theatre in Venice on
February 3, 1823, was the last of Rossini's Italian operas, though it
had the advantage of careful rehearsals and a noble caste. It was not
well received at first, though the verdict of time places it high
among the musical masterpieces of the century. In it were combined all
of Rossini's ideas of operatic reform, and the novelty of some of the
innovations probably accounts for the inability of his earlier public
to appreciate its merits. Mdme. Rossini made her last public
appearance in this great work.