OPERATIC CUSTOMS IN ROSSINI'S TIME.
The year after the production of _Tancredi_, Rossini, in 1814, brought
out _Aureliano_, which was not successful. It contained, however, at
least one piece of music which the composer, with due regard to
economy, was determined not to waste. This was the introduction itself,
borrowed from _Ciro in Babilonia_, which, when Rossini afterwards
adapted its melody to words written for Count Almaviva in the _Barber of
Seville_, obtained lasting success in the form of the charming cavatina
"Ecco ridente il cielo."
The overture, moreover, to _Aureliano in Palmira_, after serving as
instrumental introduction to _Elisabetta_, produced a year later at
Naples, found ultimately a permanent position as musical preface to the
_Barber of Seville_. The failure of _Aureliano in Palmira_, which
Rossini attributed in a great measure to the liberties taken with the
music by at least one of the performers, caused him to adopt the
practice of writing for the singers the very notes he intended them to
sing. Strange innovation! But, until Rossini's time, the vocalists were
really the composer's masters, and regarded his airs merely as so much
canvas for embroidery.
To Rossini belongs the honour of having helped greatly to expel the
sopranists from the operatic stage. The Church, with a view to soprano
voices in choirs, from which women were excluded, had introduced them;
and ultimately the Church pronounced against them. But nothing could
have had a greater effect in putting them down than Rossini's absolute
refusal to write for them, or to allow them to sing in those of his
operas performed under his direct superintendence.
The circumstances under which Rossini broke with the most celebrated
sopranist of his time--that Velluti, whom a wit described as "_non vir
sed veluti_"--are worth relating. Rossini had written for this
personage a part in his _Aureliano in Palmira_ (1814), the most
celebrated of his very few failures; and the composer soon found that
the singer had no respect for his music, which he treated as so much
substance for elaboration and pretended adornment; while the singer
discovered that the composer was so narrow-minded as to require his
melodies to be sung as he had thought fit to write them. In those days
dramatic propriety and music itself were sacrificed to the vocalists,
who, far from studying parts, do not seem, in any true spirit, to have
mastered airs. We read of singers having been kept to scales and
passages for years at a time; and every one who takes an interest in
musical history must remember the burlesque exclamation of Porpora, who,
when Caffarelli had practised nothing but exercises with him for no less
than five years, cried out: "You have nothing more to learn! Caffarelli
is the first singer in the world!"
_Aureliano_ was not played after the first night: and Rossini had the
satisfaction of hearing that though his opera had failed, Velluti had
made a brilliant success in the principal part. Velluti had, in fact,
astonished and delighted the public by his vocal gymnastics. But it was
not Rossini's music, it was really his own music, suggested by
Rossini's, that he had sung.
Unable--perhaps even unwilling--to run altogether counter to the
prevailing taste, Rossini continued to write highly florid music. But he
supplied his own decorations, and made them so elaborate that the most
skilful adorner would have found it difficult to add to them.
Writing for a French public Rossini showed, in _William Tell_, that he
was as much a master of the simple dramatic style in which the singer
has not to display vocal agility, but to express human emotion, as he
was already known to be of the highly decorative style admired by the
Italians. "Rossini," says Stendhal, in his interesting account of the
first representation of _Aureliano in Palmira_, which he claims to have
witnessed, "followed in his first works the style of his predecessors.
He respected the voices, and only thought of bringing about the triumph
of singing. Such is the system in which he composed _Demetrio e
Polibio_, _L'Inganno felice_, _La Pietra del Paragone_, _Tancredi_, &c.
Rossini had found La Marcolini, La Malanotte, La Manfredini, the
Mombelli family, why should he not endeavour to give prominence to the
singing--he who is such a good singer, and who when he sits down to the
piano to sing one of his own airs, seems to transform the genius we know
him to possess as a composer into that of a singer? The fact is, a
little event took place which at once changed the composer's views....
Rossini arrived at Milan in 1814, to write _Aureliano in Palmira_. There
he met with Velluti, who was to sing in his opera; Velluti, then in the
flower of his youth and talent, one of the best-looking men of his time,
and much given to abuse his prodigious resources. Rossini had never
heard this singer. He wrote a cavatina for him. At the first rehearsal,
with full orchestra, he heard Velluti sing it, and was struck with
admiration. At the second rehearsal Velluti began to embroider
(_fiorire_). Rossini found some of his effects admirable, and still
approved; but at the third rehearsal, the richness of the embroidery was
such that it quite concealed the body of the air. At last the grand day
of the first representation arrived. The cavatina, and all Velluti's
part, was enthusiastically applauded; but Rossini could scarcely
recognise what Velluti was singing; he did not know his own music.
However, Velluti's singing was very beautiful and wonderfully successful
with the public, which, after all, does no wrong in applauding what
gives it so much pleasure. The pride of the young composer was deeply
wounded; the opera failed, and the sopranist alone succeeded. Rossini's
lively perception saw at once all that such an event could suggest. 'It
is by a fortunate accident,' he said to himself, 'that Velluti happens
to be a singer of taste, but how am I to know that at the next theatre I
write for I shall not find another singer, who, with a flexible throat
and an equal mania for _fioriture_, will not spoil my music so as to
render it not only unrecognisable to me, but also wearisome to the
public, or at least remarkable only for some details of execution? The
danger to my unfortunate music is the more imminent, insomuch as there
are no more singing schools in Italy. The theatres are full of artists
who have picked up music from singing-masters about the country. This
style of singing violin concertos, endless variations, will not only
destroy all talent for singing, but will also vitiate the public taste.
All the singers will be imitating Velluti, each according to his means.
We shall have no more cantilenas; they would be thought poor and cold.
Everything will undergo a change, even to the nature of the voices,
which, once accustomed to embroider and overlay a cantilena with
elaborate ornaments, will soon lose the habit of singing sustained
_legato_ passages, and be unable to execute them. I must change my
system then. I know how to sing; every one acknowledges that I possess
that talent; my _fioriture_ will be in good taste; moreover, I shall
discover at once the strong and weak points of my singers, and shall
only write for them what they will be able to execute. I will not leave
them a place for adding the least _apoggiatura_. The _fioriture_, the
ornaments, must form an integral part of the air, and be all written in
the score.'"
The sopranists might, at an earlier period, have been sent with
advantage to Berlin, where, as Dr. Burney tells us, Frederick the Great,
taking up his position in the pit of his opera-house immediately behind
the conductor of the orchestra, on whose score he kept his eye, would
never allow a singer to alter a single passage in his part. The
conductor's authority does not seem to have been sufficient, for,
according to Burney, it was the king who, when the vocalist took
liberties with the score, called upon him to keep to the notes as
written by the composer. "The sopranists," says M. Castil-Blaze,[2]
"were at all times extremely insolent. They forced the greatest masters
to conform to their caprices. They changed, transformed everything to
suit their own vanity. They would insist on having an air or a duet
placed in such a scene, written in such a style, with such an
accompaniment. They were the kings, the tyrants of theatres, managers,
and composers; that is why, in the most serious works of the greatest
masters of the last century, there occur long cold passages of
vocalisation which had been exacted by the sopranists for the sake of
exhibiting, in a striking manner, the agility and power of their
throats. 'You will be kind enough to sing my music and not yours,' said
the venerable and formidable Guglielmi, to a certain _virtuoso_,
threatening him at the same time with his sword. In fact the vocal
music, and the whole Italian lyrical system of the eighteenth century,
was much more the work of the singers than of the composers."
After the production of _Aureliano in Palmira_, Rossini for about
eighteen months was comparatively idle; for during this period he only
produced two operas, _Il Turco in Italia_, and _Sigismondo_, of which
the former has long ceased to-be played, while the latter was never at
any time much performed. _Il Turco in Italia_ was a pendant to
_L'Italiana in Algeri_, but it obtained no greater amount of public
favour than continuations usually meet with. The hero of the work was
supposed to have been wrecked on the Italian coast, and a like fate
awaited the work itself. Rossini, according to his custom, saved what he
could from the wreck, and the overture to the _Turk in Italy_ was, some
years later, when _Otello_ was brought out, made to do duty as
introduction to the story of the Moor of Venice.
As for _Sigismondo_, the story of its failure was graphically recorded
by Rossini himself; who, writing to his mother the same night, enclosed
her the outline of a small bottle or fiasco.
Rossini's increasing fame had, among other effects, that of making him
visit all the principal cities in Italy. As in his youth he had moved
about in his character of conductor from one little town in the Romagna
to another, so now, when he had attained his full powers, he was called
upon to travel from Bologna to Venice, from Venice to Milan, from Milan
to Naples, from Naples to Rome. The two leading theatres of the
Peninsula were then, as now, the San Carlo of Naples, and the Scala of
Milan. The former received a subvention of 12,000_l_. from the King of
Naples, the latter one of 8,000_l_. from the Emperor of Austria. These
opera-houses, at that time the first in the world, received additional
support from public gambling saloons adjoining them; and it was as a
waiter at one of these auxiliary establishments that Barbaja, the most
illustrious impresario of his own or of any other time--Barbaja, who is
mentioned in one of Balzac's novels, and introduced by Scribe in his
libretto of _La Sirene_--commenced his career. Besides the cities
already named, Turin, Florence, Bergamo, Genoa, Leghorn, Sienna,
Ferrara, had all their opera-houses; some of which were supported by
state grants, others by grants from the municipality. Occasionally, too,
the necessary operatic subvention was furnished by some local magnate,
who either made a liberal donation or constituted himself director of
the theatre. The chief towns maintained several opera-houses. There were
three at Venice--the Fenice, the San Benedetto, and the San Mose; and
five at Rome--the Argentina, the Valle, the Apollo, the Alberto, and the
Tordinona. Next to San Carlo and La Scala ranked the Fenice, and next
to the Fenice the Court Theatre of Turin where, inasmuch as it formed
part of the king's palace, it was considered 'disrespectful to appear in
a cloak, disrespectful to laugh, and disrespectful to applaud till the
queen had applauded.'
From 1815 to 1823 Rossini wrote principally for Naples. But we have seen
that he also worked for Bologna, Venice, and Milan; and he composed for
the opera-houses of Rome, _Il Barbiere_, brought out at the Argentina
Theatre, _La Cenerentola_, produced at the Valle Theatre, and _Matilda
di Sabran_, performed for the first time at the Apollo Theatre. At the
Fenice of Venice, Rossini's first opera in the serious style, _Tancredi_
(1813), and also his last in that style, _Semiramide_ (1823), were
produced. For the Court Theatre of Turin Rossini wrote nothing.
Each of the great Italian opera-houses made a point of bringing out at
least two new operas every year; and as the minor theatres were also
frequently supplied with new works there was no lack of opportunity for
composers anxious to place themselves before the public. The composers
were not liberally paid by managers--40_l_. was considered a fair price
for an opera; while from the publishers they received absolutely nothing
for the right of engraving. It has already been mentioned that Rossini
never troubled himself about the publication of his works, and that he
profited by the fact of their not having been engraved to borrow from
his failures pieces which, had the scores been before the public, he
must have hesitated to re-adopt.
The operas of that day were in two acts; a division which, when the
subject was an important one, scarcely conduced to the maintenance of
dramatic interest. It was the custom of the time, however, to separate
these two acts by a ballet; and thus kept apart they were not found so
long, so interminable, as, performed one after the other without a
break, our modern audiences would find them.