Durazzo the engagement of Baletti the elder, a son of Silvia and he
spoke at the same time of Mademoiselle Dumalgé:
“Baletti is young, no more than thirty to thirty-three years
of age. He has with him a young dancer, Mademoiselle Dumalgé,
of sixteen to seventeen years old; she is very shapely, though
perhaps a little high in the shoulders, which is but a trivial
fault. After Catinon and Camille, she is the very best of our
first dancers at the Théâtre-Italien. She will follow the
fortunes of Baletti, who has, it is said, secretly married her.”
The dance has changed like the fashions, and yet when we look at the
ancient figures, statues, painting and Etruscan, Greek and Roman
bas-reliefs which preserve for us numerous types of dancers of both
sexes, we are impressed by the fact that the grace of the human body is
above and beyond all transient conventions, and that it has remained the
same throughout the ages in which the art of dancing has been spreading
through the world. One might compare the Ballerina of the Renaissance
with the dancer with the timbrel of Herculaneum, and discover the same
movement of body and the same simplicity of garments. In other paintings
the manner of holding up a corner of the gown, of draping the body in
the _tarentina_ or of raising cymbals or a veil above the head, might
have been created yesterday by the latest brilliant choregrapher from
Italy—Taglioni, Carlotta Grisi, La Rosati or La Ferraris.
The famous Bigottini, the greatest mime of the nineteenth century in
the serious manner, who could draw tears from her audience in her
pathetic scenes, was French. In her day (1809), France was infatuated
with Italian artists to such an extent that several of our composers gave
the first performances of their compositions as if they were the work of
ultramontane artists; an instance of this is afforded by Mohul, with his
comic opera _L’Irato_.
XI
STENTERELLO
STENTERELLO, MENEGHINO and GIANDUJA are what the Italians call
_caratterista_—that is to say, they are character parts interposed; in
other words, they are rôles which, whilst frequently being of no value
to the action of the piece, are nevertheless introduced so as to throw,
even into the darkest melodrama, a little mirth by jests and pleasantries
that are frequently incoherent and quite irrelevant. Whatever the piece
that is performed, the _caratterista_ comes to discharge his own peculiar
part in it—speaking his own dialect, and dressed in his own traditional
costume—among other actors who speak Italian and are dressed according to
the exigencies of the situation and the piece. Stenterello in Tuscany,
Meneghino in the Milanese, and Gianduja in Piedmont are all of them
the same type, modified to suit the particular taste of each province.
Each of these three masks is to-day the sole representative mask of his
country. They have dethroned and replaced throughout northern Italy
Harlequin and Brighella, who survive merely as puppets in the marionette
shows.
“The gentlemen of La Crusca,” says M. Frédéric Mercey, “and
the purists of Florence in general, are the avowed enemies
of poor Stenterello. They cannot bring themselves to speak
of him without scorn and anger, and it is less his conduct
than the incorrectness of his language and his weakness for
dialect which provokes their hatred. Stenterello, in effect, is
Tuscan rather than Florentine. You will find him at Perugia,
at Arezzo, at Pistoia, and at Siena; he is even naturalised
in Lucca, in Pisa and in Bologna, and he speaks perfectly
the accented language of the people of these towns, of which
you would believe him to be a native. But if his language
varies his actions are always the same. In Bologna Stenterello
took some time ago the ways of his companions of Venice,
Milan and Turin, Harlequin, Meneghino and Girolamo, between
whom and himself it is not to be doubted that certain bonds
of relationship exist. The fact is that all these are mere
variants of the same type, various countenances of the same
character, modified by environment and climate.”
The Florentines claim that their Stenterello, a very fantastic personage,
was created in the late eighteenth century by an extremely popular actor
named Il Buono. The cut of this character’s costume, however, does not
tend to prove him of so recent a creation. The showy and variegated
colours of the garb of Stenterello, the three deep parallel lines at
each corner of the mouth—derived from the ancient _rictus_ worn by all
the masks of the Renaissance—seem to us to belong to a sixteenth-century
type, a type no doubt forgotten, but strikingly resuscitated by the actor
Buono.
This opinion that types are no longer improvised, but merely transformed,
is that of M. Frédéric Mercey. “In the days of the republic of Florence,”
he says, speaking of Stenterello, “he dwelt in palaces; he was then in
the very prime of life, and in the fine vigour of his spirit; he was
called Macchiavelli, Boccaccio, L’Aretino or Poggio. Stenterello is the
rather vulgarised descendant of these fine wits, and he has inherited in
particular their vices and their meannesses. I am surprised that instead
of taking the name of _Stenterello_ he should not have retained that of
Poggio. But the name of Stenterello—derived from the verb _stentare_, to
endure—prevailed.”
Stenterello does not deliberately aim either at wit or at malice; when he
achieves one or the other he does so unconsciously, as a result of his
natural ingenuousness. Like all the types of the Italian comedy, he is a
faithful reflection of the people who created him.
During the carnival of Florence, great sheets, upon which were painted
the acts and _gesta_ of Stenterello, were wont to drape the corners of
every street. His performances were held in the little theatres of the
_Piazza Vecchia_ and the _Borgo Ogni Santo_. The lower orders of Florence
encumbered the pit and the aristocracy filled the boxes. Twopence was
the price of a seat in the pit, and the best boxes were to be had for a
florin. At these same prices admission was to be gained also throughout
the remainder of the year when the entertainment consisted of operas
sung by worn-out tenors and young creatures who had discarded the needle
for the pursuit of art. Nevertheless everybody attended when the great
theatres were closed, and one even heard in these places the music of
Cimarosa, of Rossini and of Meyerbeer.
No piece was possible in Florence without Stenterello. He was sometimes
the servant, sometimes the master; sometimes he parodied the hero of
drama, of comedy or of a fashionable romance. Sometimes he personified
passions and political caricatures of a palpitating actuality, and his
popularity was heightened when, under the anger of the censors, he
was sent to spend some days in prison in the person of the actor who
performed him, or even of the impresario who admitted him to the stage.
Apart from the special pieces of which he is the hero, he is to be seen
in a great number of others into which he is introduced even if he has to
be dragged in by the ears; thus, for instance, we have _Robert the Devil,
with Stenterello_; _Don Giovanni, with Stenterello_, etc. Tragedy, drama
and serious opera, all make room for him. From choice he undertakes in
them the rôle of a cowardly and comical servant. He is very amusing when
he is seduced by the nuns in _Robert the Devil_ or when he receives the
statue of the commander to supper in _Don Giovanni_.
He changes his costume freely, according to the exigencies of the piece,
but he preserves immutably his triumphant black wig, which terminates
in a long red queue after the Prussian fashion, his black eyebrows
either in the form of corkscrews or else terminating at the ears like
those of certain ancient masks, his three deep parallel lines at the
corners of his mouth, and finally his white-painted cheeks, on which he
sometimes plasters a daub of rouge, shaped like a cart-wheel. But his
chief characteristic, the seal without which Stenterello’s existence
would be impossible, is the absence of the handsomest of his front teeth.
The actor who is to devote himself to the reproduction of this amusing
character must, to begin with, undergo this sacrifice. The more marked is
the black gap thus made in his upper jaw, the more sure is his success.
Moreover the absence of this middle tooth is of enormous assistance to
the actor in the imitation of the dialect of the Tuscan folk.
Stenterello is addicted to violent colours. He wears a pale blue coat
and a yellow waistcoat, a pair of breeches that are black, or of which
one leg is sometimes of an apple-green. His cotton stockings, one of
which is red, the other striped blue and white, are stretched upon
slightly knock-kneed legs, which bear witness to his Florentine origin.
He leaves high heels to the gentlemen of the court of Louis XIV.; he
parades his great feet in stout shoes adorned with enormous tin buckles.
Stenterello has neither the malice nor the coarseness of most of the
Italian buffoons. We feel that he belongs to a people whose prime
requirement is a black coat, and whose greatest desire is to be addressed
in the third person. The lively pleasantries of Stenterello are never
indecent. His appearance is always in harmony with the proprieties, and
he has a certain naïveté proper to the Tuscan people. He is not brave, he
never wants to kill anyone, but he lives in great fear of being killed
himself. Lean and active, he is always ready to run for it at the first
sign of danger. Extremely susceptible, he is gallant towards all women,
but it does not amuse him to pay them a protracted court; he lacks the
necessary patience. He does not eschew manners which frequently lead
to his being cuffed. After women, life’s chief attraction for him lies
in the table. Greediness will lead him to forget love; to obtain a
good dinner he will perform a thousand knaveries, he will even submit,
perhaps, to be beaten, although he has no love for blows, and is greatly
in dread for their effect upon his health. His laziness is proverbial,
and there is no doubt that if he were possessed of a few halfpence he
would be as avaricious as he is gluttonous; but since he possesses
nothing of his own, he contents himself with coveting the wives and
the dinners of his neighbours, and he loves to lie in the sun like a
lizard, dozing, with one eye on the watch. He is happy if he can find an
indulgent ear into which to speak ill of this person and that; he will
then forget that his belly is empty, and will himself be more amused by
his own quips than will others.
M. Frédéric Mercey, in his _Théâtre en Italie_, speaks of several
scenarii in which Stenterello plays the protagonist part, the entire
action of the piece turning about him. He is the lover of a princess,
and desires to declare to her his passion after having performed an
exaggerated toilet, with his wig nicely curled. He has even borrowed
the travelling satchel of an Englishman of his acquaintance, so as
to be irreproachable in his personability. “This satchel contains a
multitude of objects whose purposes he cannot even guess, besides
fourteen nail-brushes of various patterns. The implied criticism of the
meticulous cleanliness of the English is entirely Italian and very droll.
Stenterello is astonished by the contents of the satchel, and, after
examining each object at length, he attempts to use it. His embarrassment
and his commentaries are extremely amusing. Finally, after a hundred
futile endeavours appropriately to employ this complicated machinery,
he ends by depilating his nose with the corn-razor, and by brushing his
teeth with a soap-box full of soap, which distorts his countenance into
horrible grimaces.”
Here is an episode from the misfortunes of Stenterello, from which it
will be seen that the author has had no scruples about pillaging the
adventures of Falstaff:
A prince surprises Stenterello at the feet of the princess his wife.
Stenterello thinks to escape by pretending that he is seeking a bracelet
which the lady has dropped. The princess, in agreement with her husband,
gives Stenterello an assignation. Intoxicated with fatuity, he forgets
all prudence, and goes, to be flouted in the chamber of the princess. The
prince arrives, Stenterello hides in a coffer. The husband pretends to
have heard a noise in his wife’s room. He feigns jealousy, and beats with
his sword on the coffer. Stenterello, enclosed in it, bounds with fear.
The princess explains that the noise is made by rats. The prince orders
the coffer to be thrown into the River Arno. Stenterello, who is in
terror, and wants to raise the lid, which is crushing his fingers, cries
out and is discovered. The princess pretends to swoon. Four men arrive,
and they seize Stenterello, who leaves his wig in their hands. He begs
for mercy. He says that he was but preparing a surprise for the princess
in the hope of amusing her, “and I mistook this coffer for the door when
I attempted to leave the room.”
“No, no! Don Stenterello,” says the prince. “You are an old debauchee,
and you are going to be punished.” The prince draws an enormous hunting
knife sharp as a razor, and threatens him by a terrible gesture, to the
great applause of the public. Stenterello begs again for mercy, and
swears that he is not guilty.
“And if I were to forgive you, and to restore you to liberty, what should
you do now?”
“I am of agreeable appearance,” says Stenterello, lifting up his bald
scarred head, “and have a voice as lovely as a flute; the impresario
of the theatre of the _Borgo Ogni Santo_ would, I am sure, give me an
engagement as _soprano_.”
Sometimes he imitates the boasts of the captains or of Scaramouche. He
then assumes a military costume, causes his spurs to jingle, and trails
a great sword after him. He swears by bombs and cannons, and he relates
how, at a single sword-stroke, he split in twain a cavalier and his horse.
After having engaged in all professions, after having been a doctor, a
lawyer, a brigand, a porter, without ever making a success of anything,
he returns to Florence. He had left his wife there in misery in a hovel.
He finds her now dressed with great elegance, and occupying a handsome
house.
“Am I really at home?” he inquires.
Upon receiving an affirmative reply from his wife, and having made the
discovery that she is more beautiful than he had ever suspected, he asks
her whence proceeds all this wealth.
“My friend,” says she, “you recommended me to Providence when you
departed, and Providence has not forgotten me.”
Stenterello is enchanted. After he has eaten and drunk, and as he is
reposing in one of the arm-chairs of Providence, his wife enters with
three children who throw themselves upon his neck. Thereupon he protests:
“Per Bacco! I did not leave a single child in Florence. Is it Providence
again that has undertaken to make me a father?”
“Without a doubt,” says Madame Stenterello, “and you shall lose nothing
by it.”
Stenterello accepts his position with an air of comical resignation. No
sooner has he become accustomed to his house and his furniture than he
grows miserly. He will not consent to cut an egg into four, deeming it
wasteful.
“At breakfast,” he says, “an egg ought to be pricked at one of its ends
with a pin. Through this puncture half the contents is sucked, the rest
being left for dinner. In this fashion taste is satisfied, the pleasure
of eating is long-drawn and the purse does not grow empty. Moreover the
egg is not lost, the shell may be taken back to the poultry-keeper, so
that with it she may invite the hens to lay further. That is what I call
eating an egg in a profitable manner.”
Having turned avaricious, he becomes a speculator, and, seeking quickly
to double his capital, he so contrives that he loses everything. But
Stenterello is growing old and his wife with him; with age she can no
longer hope for anything from Providence. Stenterello drives her out,
with reproaches upon her evil conduct, and sends the children to the
devil, calling them bastards.
Stenterello is often oppressed in his home life. In an Italian farce
which shows him as a musician, he has for wife a virago who constantly
scolds and shouts. He decides never to answer her in dangerous moments,
save by a funereal note, drawn from the depths of an enormous hunting
horn, very much larger than himself. A sound and no more; but what a
sound!
[Illustration]
This idea of replying only by a sound is reminiscent of the scene of
Arzigogolo, a Florentine peasant of the sixteenth century, an ancestor of
the more modern Stenterello. Charged with theft, Arzigogolo repairs to
Alesso, a lawyer, to undertake his defence. The affair being explained,
Ser Alesso sees only one way out of it for Arzigogolo, and that is to
feign insanity.
ARZIGOGOLO. Oh! uh! I don’t know how to do it. It is difficult.
If I were wise I should do this. (_He strikes him with his
stick._)
ALESSO. May the devil take you, wretch! You have nearly broken
my shoulder; you will be a fool indeed if you caress the judge
in that fashion.
ARZIGOGOLO. I have heard tell that fools always strike; I had
a brother whose brain was deranged who always behaved like that
to me. (_He advances to strike again._)
ALESSO. Be quiet, animal! Can you think of no other way to play
the fool?
ARZIGOGOLO. I have heard tell that fools throw stones. I will
go and find one and throw it at your head.
The lawyer, having prevailed upon him to be quiet, advises him to answer
all the judge’s questions by a whistle.
Arzigogolo appears before the judge, who asks him: “What is your name,
peasant? Where do you live?” etc. Arzigogolo answers each of these
questions by a sharp whistle. The judge dismisses him acquitted, greatly
pitying him.
Comes the lawyer to claim his fee, and he receives from the peasant no
other answer but the same whistle.
The Stenterello of Bologna does not play parts of an importance equal to
those of the Florentine Stenterello. He is usually a servant, wearing his
livery with negligence and dressed awry. Like his Florentine namesake
he wears stockings of different colours, which is, as we have said, a
tradition of the variegated costumes of the sixteenth century. He is a
poltroon and a dolt, but his most distinctive trait is his preoccupation,
so profound that it sometimes amounts to imbecility. In Bologna
Stenterello is a rather fantastic being. His continual absent-mindedness,
his mania for relating stories which never come to an end, and which he
interrupts at the most interesting point, his jests and his grimaces are
all accepted as drolleries and impertinences by the public. The manner
in which he turns to crave his master’s pardon for having committed a
fresh stupidity disarms the anger of old Tabarino himself, who laughs
and takes the public to witness, with an air of resignation, exclaiming:
“What would you? It is Stenterello!”
It has been said that there never have been, and never will be, two
Stenterelli who resemble one another. He is the most difficult personage
to present of all the masks of the Italian comedy. He is a type full of
fantasy in his jests, and of spontaneity in his improvisation.
Stenterello, having angered his master, who has withdrawn so as not to be
driven to beat him, takes the public into his confidence: “Conceive now——
But then you saw him for yourselves, didn’t you? My master had given me a
letter to get mended and a watch to put in the post, into that big hole
with which you are perfectly acquainted, like the mouth of Gina, who is
a pretty girl with eyes bigger than my nose. Well then, it happened that
I met Signor Birrichino, who said to me: ‘Stenterello!’ ... a droll of
a name that, which comes to me from my father, who married my mother,
so that my mother, who was the daughter of my grandfather, who was the
father of my father, who was the father of his son, who was the father of
my mother, had a husband who was the son of my grandmother. Oh! no, no!”
(He turns a pirouette and is on the point of going out.) “Where is my
master? What a droll master! He is so absent-minded that he has forgotten
to give me a new pair of stockings.” (He thrusts out his leg, loses his
balance, stumbles over his foot and pretends to fall; but he recovers,
and carefully seeks the thing that may have tripped him. He picks up a
hair.) “I am losing them all.” (He takes off his wig and shows his bald
head, a disclosure which never fails to amuse the public. Taking the
hair, he replaces it on his head with care, whereafter he puts on his
wig back to front, and seeks to continue his discourse; but the long
queue which hangs down over his nose, and which he thrusts aside at every
moment, causes him horribly to squint.) “My hair, which was the son of my
wig, which was the grandmother of the watch which I took to the post....
But what the devil’s this?” (And he pulls at the end of the long queue,
which gradually comes undone; he continues to pull, and draws off so many
yards of ribbon that he becomes entangled in it, and ends by running off
shouting: “The devil, the devil!” leaving the public in suspense on the
score of the explanation which he had to offer of the way in which he had
discharged his errand.) It is quite impossible to convey any adequate
notion of his utterance of all these inconsequent ideas, interrupted by
poses and grimaces; the performance must be witnessed if the success of
such a type is to be understood.
“Harlequin is made, but Stenterello is born,” said one who still
laughed twenty years afterwards in relating the jests and postures of
Dominicone, a comic actor of great gifts. He played the parts of father
with Stenterello for his servant. The troupe of Bon and Romagnoli, which
was in the service of the King of Sardinia in 1833, still possessed a
very remarkable Stenterello, who was the cause of a deal of laughter,
particularly when Gattinelli played the rôle of master at the theatre of
the Corso, at Bologna.
In Florence, Ricci was the most famous of the modern Stenterelli. He was
an actor of endowments greatly above those of the buffoon. He played with
great spirit and taste the rôles of Bouffé and Arnal, intermingling them
with Stenterellic jests.
In 1853, at the theatre of San Carlino in Naples, Altavilla was still a
remarkable _caratterista_ in every sense, using always the Neapolitan
dialect. What an extraordinary verve of improvisation must have been
necessary to enable an actor to create a fresh rôle every second or third
day!
ii
The modero MENEGHINO, a character sometimes servant, sometimes master and
sometimes peasant, speaking the dialect of Lombardy, descends in fairly
direct line from the Menego of Ruzzante, and the Menghino of _La Lena_ of
Ariosto.
Whilst it is true that his garments, of a rather modern cut, are
reminiscent of those of Stenterello, but more sober in the matter of
colour, they do not at all resemble those of his ancestor Menego. But why
should Meneghino more than any other mask have been faithful to tradition
in the matter of costume? The modern Brighella, for instance, resembles
but faintly the Brighella of the sixteenth century, whilst about the
Pantaloon of to-day very little remains of the erstwhile Venetian
Pantalone.
Meneghino, the Milanese, wears a short coat and breeches of green
cloth with red buttons and lacings; his waistcoat is flowered, and
his stockings striped. His countenance, jovial of expression with its
tip-tilted nose, is framed in a wig of flat hair gathered into a queue
wrapped in red; and his hat, laced in red, is far more like one of those
enormous castors worn by the sixteenth-century buffoon than a tricorne.
Menego and Menato are, under two different names, one and the same
personage, created by Marco Aurelio Alvarotto, an actor in the Paduan
troupe of Ruzzante. He is a comic type, a sort of simple and poltroon
peasant and sometimes a servant. Under his apparent stupidity, Menego
(Domenico), thinking and speaking in the manner of the peasants,
frequently complains of the customs and vices of the day.
Here is a “very facetious and very comical” dialogue from the plays of
Ruzzante, declaimed at Fossone during the hunt in 1528. (_Recitato a
Fosson alla caccia._)