characterised the Greeks. With them songs and accompaniments were things
apart from poetry. We know that the Atellanæ were composed of farces,
pantomimes, dances and music. Many of their plays must greatly have
resembled our modern comic operas or, rather perhaps, those pieces which
once were called _interludes_ in Italy, and are known to-day as _opera
buffa_. In antiquity this name of _interlude_ was given to all pieces
that were played or sung during the intervals in the main performance.
The tragic or comic chori would come upon the proscenium between every
two acts. Little by little these chori were replaced by mimes, buffoons
or dancers, and then by short pieces mingled with songs to sustain the
patience of the spectators during the wait.
“After the fashion of the ancients,” says M. Castil-Blaze,
in his _Histoire de l’Opéra Italienne_, “who brought on the
chorus during the entr’actes of their dramas, the Italians
gave madrigals and songs to fill up the same spaces. These
interludes, unconnected by any dialogue, did not long retain
the suffrages of the public. _La Flora_ by Alamanni, _Il
Granchio_ by Salviati, and _La Cofanaria_ by Ambra, which
were performed and published in Florence in 1566, with the
concert interludes written by Lori, Nerli and Cini for these
gay comedies, led the public to exact something better. _Il
Mogliazzo_ and _La Cattrina (atto scenico rusticale)_, by
Francesco Berni, produced in Florence in 1566 were extremely
successful because a remarkable dramatic action with two or
three characters was unfolded in these harmonious interludes.
This was the dawn of the _opera buffa_, a happy prelude to the
_Gallina Perduta_ of Francesco Escolani, which soon took Italy
by storm, and to _La Serva Padrona_ which was greeted with
enthusiasm, by the whole of Europe.”
The Président de Brosses, writing of this little masterpiece of
Pergolese’s, says:
“There are a male and a female buffoon who play a farce in the
entr’actes in a manner so natural, and with an expression so
comical, that it is impossible to conceive the like. It is not
true that it is possible to die of laughter, for if so I should
now be dead, notwithstanding that the pain I experienced in the
expansion of my spleen hindered me from hearing as well as I
desired the celestial music of this farce.”
In the nineteenth century, between the lowering and raising of the
curtain, the entr’acte existed in all its tiresomeness. The boredom
begotten of these long waits was frequently a source of ill-will on the
part of the public, who spent half the evening yawning. It was necessary
that a piece should be very good to survive these entr’actes. It was
generally deplored in France that the custom of filling these gaps as in
the eighteenth century should have passed from fashion. It was in these
interludes that the Italians showed, more even than in their dramas and
tragedies, how great they are as composers, as actors, as mimes and as
singers.
“The Italians” (says the Président de Brosses) “have cultivated
a taste for the theatre which is above that of any other
nation; and as they are no less gifted in the matter of music,
they never divorce the one from the other; thus most often
tragedy, comedy and farce are all opera in Italy.”
The first _opera buffa_ was performed in Rome at the beginning of the
sixteenth century on the occasion of the fêtes given by Giuliano de’
Medici, the brother of Leo X. The comedy of Plautus, _Pœnulus_, was set
to music and performed on two consecutive days in an immense theatre
expressly built in the square of the Capitol.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were no pieces, whether
scenarii for improvisors or fully written plays, that did not conclude
with dancing or singing, either of a popular character or else drawn
from tragedies set to music by such famous composers as Peri, Crosi,
Monteverde, Soriano, Emilio del Cavaliere, Marco Antonio Cesti and
Giovanelli, Cavalli; these did then for the theatre what was done in the
following century by Scarlatti, Pergolese, Jomelli, Piccinni, Paesiello,
Cimarosa, and, in the nineteenth century, by Cherubini, Rossini, etc.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century—in 1526—La Barbera created a
sensation in Italy. She was a Florentine, and she travelled from city
to city at her own charges, accompanied by a chorus, with the support
of which she gave those interludes, for which the taste amounted then
to a veritable passion. Macchiavelli has a deal to say of her in his
letters. “La Barbera should be at this moment in Modena,” he writes to
Guicciardini, at the end of a long political letter, “and if you can
serve her in any way I recommend her to you, for she engages my thoughts
a deal more than does the emperor.”
Florence, Turin, Venice, Bologna, Rome and Naples were the first
cities in which the Italian opera was established, and in which fame
was achieved for the beauty of their voices by the _Signore_ Catarina
Martinella, Franceschina Caccini, Giulia and Vittoria Lulle, La Moretti,
Adriana Baroni, Checca della Laguna, Margherita Costa, Petronilla
Massimi, and Francesca Manzoni. All these _virtuose_, in addition to
being singers, were actresses and performers upon several instruments:
for in the _Farsa_ or _Festa Teatrale_ of Jacopo Sannazaro, performed
in Naples at the palace of the Prince of Calabria, in 1492, an actress
representing Joy sang, to her own accompaniment on a viol, whilst her
three followers played the flute, the fiddle and the pipe. This custom
of combining talents and of a singer’s sometimes being his or her own
accompanist, continued in Italy down to the end of the eighteenth century.
The greater part of these operas were intermingled with improvised
scenes, and farces performed by the characters of the Commedia dell’Arte.
In _L’Anfiparnasso_—a harmonic opera by Orazio Vecchi, performed in
Modena in 1594—Brighella, Pantaloon, a lackey named Pirolino, and the
Captain, move as freely as in their own improvised farces.
“Pantaloon calls Pirolino. The greedy servant answers him from
afar with his mouth full. Pantaloon cries: ‘Holla, Pirolino!
Where are you then? Pirolino! Pirolino! Ah! thief, what are you
doing in the kitchen?’ ‘I am filling my stomach with birds,’
says Pirolino, ‘with birds which used to sing: _Pipiripi!
cucurucu!_’”
On the 14th December 1645, Cardinal Mazarin commanded a performance to
be given in Paris at the Petit-Bourbon Theatre, of _La Finta Pazza_ of
Giulio Strozzi, with music by Francesco Socrati, and machinery by Torelli.
Margarita Bartolazzi was the CANTATRICE in this troupe. Her voice, says a
contemporary author, was so charming that it would be impossible worthily
to praise her.
Luigia Gabriella Locatelli and Giulia Gabrielli were also included as
Cantatrices in this same company, which continued its performances down
to 1652.
In 1658, at the Petit-Bourbon, a great performance was held of _La
Rosaura_, a lyric tragedy by Antonio Arcoleo, with music by Antonio
Perti, originally given in Venice. The interludes were filled by Fiurelli
(Scaramouche).
The word _opera_ was then used in its true sense of “work.” It was
customary to say _opera musicale_, _opera tragica_, _sacra_, _comica_,
_scenica_, _armonica_, etc. Works such as _La Rosaura_, _Orfeo_, _Ercole
Amante_ and _Serse_ were announced with the word _Machines_ at the head
of the bill, and the room in the Louvre where these Italian operas were
performed bore the name of the _Salle des Machines_. The opera _Serse_
(Xerxes), first given in November, 1660, was so long that it took more
than eight hours to perform.
The players in this piece were Signora Anna Bergerotti, Signor Melone,
who was an abbé, and who played feminine rôles, Bordignone, Atto,
Tagliavacca, Zanetto, Chiarini, Piccinni, Assalone, Rivani and Augustino.
In the interludes, “Scaramouche (Tiberio Fiurelli) appeared in disguise,
and danced between two Doctors; he was recognised by his companions,
Trivelino and Pulcinella, who stripped and beat him.”
To the company of Italian singers Louis XIV. united for these
performances that of the Italian buffoons as well as the French dancers
and musical performers. Of these royal fantasies were soon born the
French opera and the permanent installations of the French and Italian
comedies.
After the demolition of the Petit-Bourbon, Louis XIV. lent the hall of
the Palais-Royal to Molière and to the troupe of Italian comedians who
also sang, but whose singing was confined to couplets.
In Gherardi’s collection we see that at the end of the seventeenth
century some of the airs fitted to the comedies are Italian and others
French. They are mostly melodies drawn from the old Italian operas of the
beginning of the century, and from French rigadoons and Italian couplets,
many of which have a deal of _maestria_. In the case of some pieces,
however, like _Les Originaux_ (1693), the music of which was written by
M. Masse, the airs were specially composed for the occasion.
The rôle of La Chanteuse or Cantatrice was really a very limited one and
demanded no more than a pretty voice and a pretty face. Such attributes
were supplied by Elisabeth Danneret, known then under the name of _Babet
la Chanteuse_, who made her début at the Italian comedy on 8th July 1694,
in _La Fontaine de Sapience_. She was short of stature, but extremely
well made and very pretty. Her duties consisted in appearing dressed as a
shepherdess—as shepherdesses were dreamed of in those days—to proffer a
cup of a miraculous water whilst singing:
“Qui goûte de ces eaux ne peut pas plus se méprendre
Quand l’amour lui demande un choix;
Buvons-en mille et mille fois;
Quand on prend de l’amour, on n’en saurait trop prendre.”
And, at the end of the piece, when shepherds and shepherdesses have
chosen one another with _sapience_ and are dancing together, the
cantatrice shepherdess returns, and sings:
“Amanti, ci vuole costanza in amor’,
Amando,
Penando,
Si speri, si, si;
Che basta sol un di,
Un’ hor’, un momento,
Per render contento
Un misero cuor’.”
In _Le Départ des Comédiens_ (1694), Gherardi, as Harlequin, says to the
Doctor: “As for you, sir, you are going to live on your rents. I should
like to associate myself with you, but it is forbidden to an Italian
comedian to go into retirement before the age of a hundred and twenty,
and it was only out of kindness that Scaramouche was permitted to retire
at ninety-four.”
Then, turning to Babet: “And you, mademoiselle, what are you going to
do?” he would inquire. Babet answered him in song:
“Quand une fille,
Jeune et gentille,
Voudra,
Bientôt elle parviendra.
J’en connais une,
Que la fortune
Jusques aux cieux élèvera ...
Dans un nuage, à l’Opéra.”
Babet hardly realised the truth of the fiction which she sang. After the
death of Gherardi, with whom she had lived as a wife, and by whom she had
had a son, she did indeed join the opera.
Sometimes Babet was dressed as a sibyl, as an ancient priestess, as
Bellona, the goddess of war, as a Naïad, as an Egyptian, etc.
Some wits on the subject of the Cantatrice announced that an abbé
formed part of the new company in the capacity of almoner. “They have a
Cantatrice, a Doctor and an Almoner; therefore the company is complete.”
We do not know whether an abbé did indeed accompany the comedians, but
if so that would not have been the first case of its kind in an Italian
troupe. The Italians frequently mingled religious practices with the most
profane things. The first register of the new troupe was conceived as
follows:—
“In the name of God, of the Virgin Mary, of Saint Francis, of
Paul, and of the souls in Purgatory, we start our performances
on this eighteenth of May, 1716, with _L’Inganno Fortunato_.”
A story related by the Président de Brosses, in speaking of a performance
in the amphitheatre of Verona, in 1740, is no less curious.
“Let me not forget to tell you of a singular surprise I
experienced at the comedy, on the first occasion that I went
there. A bell in the city having sounded, there was so sudden
a movement about me that I thought the amphitheatre was
tumbling into ruins, particularly as I saw that the actresses
were running away, and one of them notwithstanding that at
the moment, in accordance with the prescriptions of her rôle,
she was in a swoon. The real cause of all this was that the
_Angelus_ had just sounded, and that the whole assembly had
knelt down facing the East, whilst the actors vanished into the
wings and an _Ave Maria_ was sung. After this, the swooning
actress returned, very properly performed the usual obeisance
after the _Angelus_, resumed her condition of unconsciousness,
and the piece continued.”
In the performance of the company of 1716 we find _Les Stratagèmes_,
music by Plagliardi (1716); _Alcyone_, a parody (1741), music by M.
Blaise; _La Serva Padrona_ (1756), music by Pergolese. Other musical
composers of the Italian comedy were: Tarade, Kohot, Philidor, Gibert,
Sodi, Monsigni, Chardini, Lamette, Duni, Clément, Grétry, Le Chevalier
d’Herbain, Bambini, Gossec, Garnier, Desbrosses, etc.
Rosalia Astraudi made her début on the 30th April 1744. She was eleven
years of age at the time, and she was engaged to sing in parodies and
interludes, to play lovers and soubrettes and to dance in the ballet. She
discharged all these offices to the satisfaction of the public, married a
nobleman, and left the theatre in 1755.
Justine-Benoîte du Ronceray, known as Mademoiselle Chantilly, born at
Avignon in 1727, was the daughter of Du Ronceray, sometime musician of
the chapel of the King of France, and later choir-master to Stanislas,
King of Poland. In 1744 she was a dancer in the service of this monarch,
when she obtained leave to visit France, accompanied by her mother,
Claudine Bied, who was also in the employ of the King of Poland as a
musician. She made her début in the theatre of the Opéra-Comique at
the fair of Saint-Laurent, under the management of Favart. Favart fell
seriously in love with her, and married her at the end of that year.
He was summoned later on by the Maréchal de Saxe, to undertake the
management of the theatre which was to follow the French army into the
Low Countries.
The marshal’s camp was never without its comic opera. It was from its
stage that the battle orders were issued. In the interval between two
pieces the principal actress—a part long filled by Madame Favart—would
come to make such an announcement as: “Gentlemen, there will be no
performance to-morrow as M. le Maréchal is delivering battle. On the next
day we shall give _Le Coq du Village, Les Amours Grivois_.”
From principles both of taste and of system, the Maréchal de Saxe
insisted upon gaiety in his armies. He said that the French never
conducted themselves so well as when they were gaily led, and that what
they most feared in time of war was boredom. Mademoiselle Chantilly,
therefore, followed her husband to headquarters in Brussels. It was there
that the Maréchal de Saxe fell in love with her (1746).
“Mademoiselle de Chantilly” (he wrote one day), “I take my
leave of you. You are a more dangerous enchantress than the
lady Armida. Now as Pierrot, now as Love, now as a simple
shepherdess, you bear yourself so charmingly that you enchant
us all. I, too, have beheld myself at the point of succumbing,
I whose sinister art affrights the universe. What a triumph
for you had you been able to subject me to your laws! I am
grateful to you for not having exerted all your arts. For a
young sorceress you contrive very well with your crook, which
is no less, I think, than the wand by which that poor Prince
Renaud was stricken. Already I have beheld myself surrounded
by blossoms and petals, sinister equipment for a favourite
of Mars. I tremble to think of it. And what would the King
of France and Navarre have said if he had found me grasping
a garland instead of the torch of vengeance? Notwithstanding
the danger to which you have exposed me, I cannot bear you any
grudge for my error; it is charming! But it is only by flight
that so great a peril is to be eluded:
“Adieu, divinité du parterre adorée;
Faites le bien d’un seul et les désirs de tous;
Et puissent vos amours égaler la durée
De la tendre amitié que mon cœur a pour vous!”
“Forgive, Mademoiselle, this rhymed prose which your talents
inspire from the lingering remains of my intoxication; the
liquor I have drunk lasts, it is said, often longer than we
think.
“MAURICE DE SAXE.”
Madame Favart made her début at the Comédie-Italienne on the 5th August
1749. “There is no other instance of so great a success.” Grimm says that
her celebrity was the result of the passion she had inspired in the hero
of Fontenoy.
Her talents were variously appreciated. She had, we are assured, a frank
and natural gaiety, an agreeable and piquant manner. Fitted for any
character, she rendered all with a surprising truth: soubrettes, leading
ladies, peasant girls, naïve parts, character parts, she made them all
her own; in a word, she could multiply herself without end, and audiences
were amazed to see her play on the same day, in four several pieces,
four entirely different rôles. She was able so perfectly to imitate the
various dialects that people whose accent she borrowed imagined her their
compatriot.
“We emphatically assert,” wrote the brothers Parfait, in 1769,
“notwithstanding the sentiments of those who are always greedy
of novelty, that this amiable actress has not yet been equalled
in these rôles; and to convince all who might doubt it there
is no need to do more than to send them to witness the first
performance of _La Fée Urgèle_, which is about to be given.”
In June of 1771 the first symptoms of the disease that was to kill her
made their appearance; and although she was well aware of her desperate
case she continued to play until the end of the same year, out of
interest for her comrades. Of her death in 1772 Grimm wrote as follows,
very harshly disparaging her talents:—
“The theatre of the Comédie-Italienne has just lost a
celebrated actress in Madame Favart. Throughout all her
protracted sufferings she showed a great deal of fortitude
and patience. Upon recovering one day from a long swoon she
perceived, among those whom her danger had hastily brought
about her, one of her neighbours in grotesque accoutrements.
She smiled, and said that she had thought to behold the Clown
of Death (_le Paillasse de la Mort_)—a jest full of character
from the lips of a dying actress. The priests were never able
to induce her to renounce the theatre. She said that she would
not be forsworn; that the theatre was her state; that if she
were to recover she would be compelled to play again, and
that consequently it was impossible for her to renounce her
profession in good faith; she preferred to die without the
sacraments. When, however, she felt herself to be expiring she
exclaimed: ‘_Oh! pour le coup, j’y renonce._’ Those were her
last words. Madame Favart was somewhere about fifty years of
age. She was a bad actress. Her voice was harsh and her manner
coarse and ignoble. She was only endurable in exaggerated
characters and not long in those; she was very superior in
the part of the _Savoyard Montrant la Marmotte_: that was her
great talent, and it made her fortune in the theatre at the
time of her début in 1749. She was then called Mademoiselle de
Chantilly; she danced and sang and her dancing sabots turned
the head of all Paris.”
Between August 1752 and March 1754, Monelli, Guerrieri, Lazzari and the
Signore Anna Tonelli, Catarina Tonelli and Rosa Lazzari were seen as
singers on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne. They presented Pergolese’s
_La Serva Padrona, Il Maestro di Musica_ by Scarlatti, _Serpilla et
Bajocco_ by Ristorini, and other interludes set to music by Cocchi,
Selleti, Rinaldo di Capua, Latilla, Jomelli, Ciampi and Leo. As these
Italians sang only in _opera buffa_, the name of _buffoons_ came to be
given them. Hence it is that still to-day we speak of _buffi_ in the
Italian companies, although there is usually nothing of the buffoon in
their performances.
In the middle of the eighteenth century war was declared between
French music and Italian music. French music, with the King and
Madame de Pompadour at its head, carried the day. The Italian singers
quitted Paris, but the Comédie-Italienne seized upon their repertory,
appropriated subjects and music, and translated all their pieces, such,
for instance, as _La Serva Padrona_, which became a French comic opera
under the title of _La Servante Maitresse_.
Laruette, Rochard, Bouret, Mesdames Favart, Rosalie Astraudi, Foulquier
(_Catinon_), and Superville sang in French, and bolstered up the weakness
of their singing by the liveliness and dash of their performances. This
was the true cause of the failure in Paris of the Signora Deamicis on the
20th June 1758, when she made an attempt to restore to the esteem of the
French public the Italian music which five years before had yielded so
many comic operas.
After only one performance lasting four hours, and consisting of _La
Serva Padrona_ and _Gli Raggieri della Femina Scaltra_, the Signora
Deamicis and her father understood that further efforts would be useless.
She crossed to England, where she abandoned the line of _prima comica_
and took up the serious music of Bach.
Mademoiselle Foulquier made her first appearance in 1753, in the rôles
of Angélique, and was seen later on in those of Silvia. She added
to circumspection of behaviour and natural graces in singing and in
declamation, a superlative degree of talent as a dancer. Her elder
sister, Madame Bognoli, was seen as Silvia in 1758.
On the 6th May 1761, Mademoiselle Piccinelli made her début as an Italian
Cantatrice. Favart, in a letter to the Count of Durazzo, relates as
follows the history of Mademoiselle Piccinelli:—
“Here is what is said: One day a poor village woman found a
new-born child abandoned in a field; this was our Signora. The
peasant woman took charge of her out of charity, fostered her,
and brought her up as best she could as her own child until the
age of eight. Then one of those women who seek in the youth
and beauty of members of their own sex a means to their own
fortunes chanced to pass through the village, saw the little
one, was impressed by her natural graces, and proposed her
purchase for a moderate sum. The bargain was concluded. This
third mother spared nothing to give her adopted daughter an
education suitable to the state of life which she had in view
for her. The child profited beyond all the hopes that had been
entertained. Already the _matrone_ entertained visions of
fortune; she caused the girl to enter the theatre; she arranged
to procure for her an opulent protector; but the young actress,
whose tastes did not incline to these dispositions, decided
to choose for herself. This of course was opposed. To the end
that she might have peace, the girl then left her third mother
and voluntarily placed herself under the protection of another
adoptive one, so that she might appear becomingly in the world;
this last conducted her to Paris. There Mademoiselle Piccinelli
was well received at the Comédie-Italienne, and her success
was everywhere proclaimed. Thereupon the various mothers of
the cantatrice sought her out and each one claimed her. The
first one said: ‘She is mine, I gave her life.’ The second one
said: ‘I saved that life; I fostered her; she belongs to me.’
The third one: ‘I bought her; I educated her; who can dispute
my rights?’ The fourth one added: ‘She gave herself freely to
me, and I am working daily to make her fortune, which is the
best claim of all. I will tear out the eyes of any one of you
that disputes her with me.’ Our Cantatrice, to make the peace
amongst them, gave an equal sum of money to each. The first
three withdrew; the fourth remained with her as her counsellor.
La Piccinelli, fatigued by these little family vexations, ended
by renouncing all her mothers, and placed herself under the
authority of a husband. She chose M. Vezian, the brother of a
very pretty girl who was with us at the Comédie-Italienne, and
to whom he owes the considerable position which he fills.”