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, and 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-honored 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.
Mme. Colbran, afterward Rossini's wife, sang Desdemona, and Davide,
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 honorably 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
characterized 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 afterward 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 toward the public for their conduct toward 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 favorable reception
of the piece, and entirely spoiled the final effects. The manager was at
his Avit'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 hello!_', 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 afterward produced "Mosé" as an oratorio in London,
and it failed. A new libretto, however, "Pietro L'Eremito,"* again
transformed the music into an opera.
* The same music was set to a poem founded on the first
crusade, all the most effective situations being
dramatically utilized for the Christian legend.
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 favor. 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 favorite _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
Bologne 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 coloring." 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 clamoring 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 probablv accounts for the inability of his earlier public to
appreciate its merits. Mme. Rossini made her last public appearance in
this great work.