by intelligence that the Opera House was divided against itself, and
that melody and grace were about to take flight from the bottom of
the Hay-market to the top of the Garden. In our quality of determined
foes to unnecessary changes and theoretical reforms, we received the
intelligence regretfully, and so, we have reason to believe, did
that very considerable section of the London and provincial public
into whose annual calculations of refined enjoyments the Italian
Opera largely enters. Without going into the merits of the dispute,
which up to this hour we have never heard clearly elucidated, we
plainly discerned one thing--namely, that there was discord in the
operatic camp; that harmony had abandoned its favourite abode; that
managers, musicians, singers, and dancers, were drawing different
ways: in short, that the Opera, taking the lead in a fashion that
soon afterwards became disagreeably prevalent throughout Europe, was
in a state of revolution. With whom the fault lay we knew not, and
little cared: all that concerned us was the unpleasant fact that the
pleasures of the music-loving multitude, _quorum pars sumus_, were
seriously endangered. It is pretty notorious that, with very rare
exceptions, professional votaries of the Muses are capricious, and
difficult to deal with. Painters are accused of unpunctuality and
improvidence; composers are often idle dogs, fretting _impresarios_
into fevers, as Rossini did Barbaja, and fulfilling their engagements
only at the last minute of the eleventh hour, with the _polenta_
smoking on the table;[6] even authors we have heard declared, upon
no mean authority, to be queer cattle to guide; but, of all classes
whose occupation derives from art and poetry, none, assuredly,
are harder to manage and to please than actors and musicians. From
those early days of Opera, when a Lully shivered Cremonas upon the
heads of a refractory orchestra, to the recent ones when a Lumley
in vain essayed to appease the petulance of a prima donna, and calm
the choler of a conductor, the tribulations of managers have been
countless as the pebbles on the shore. To judge, indeed, from their
own account, few of the penalties so picturesquely set forth in Fox's
martyr-book, but would be preferable to ten years' management of a
large lyric theatre. Consult the comedians, and we are presented with
the reverse of the medal. A manager, we shall be told, is a covetous
and Heliogabalian tyrant, fattening upon the toil and talents of
the artist; a sort of vampire in a black coat, sucking the blood of
genius, faring sumptuously on the proceeds of a tenor, squeezing
the cost of his stud out of a soprano, and making large annual
investments on the strength of an underpaid barytone. These things
may be true, but we shall more readily credit them when we less
frequently see managers in the _Gazette_, and when we hear of singers
putting down their carriages, retrenching their suburban villas, and
contenting themselves with salaries less enormous than those they now
unblushingly exact. Upon such matters, however, it is not our purpose
to expatiate. Theatrical quarrels rarely excite much general interest
in this country, except inasmuch as they may exercise an unfavourable
influence on the pleasures of the public--which has not been the
case, we are happy to say, in the most recent and important instance
of disagreement between the lessee of the first London theatre and
certain members of his company.
[6] Rossini's desperate idleness and habits of procrastination
are proverbial. On more than one occasion personal restraint was
resorted to, to compel the fulfilment of his engagements. Thus,
at Milan, sentinels were placed at his door, and no exit allowed
him, until he had completed an opera of which the two first acts
were already in rehearsal. Barbaja, the celebrated _impresario_,
kept him for some time prisoner in his palace on the Naples Toledo,
refusing him liberty until he should have composed the long-promised
opera of Otello. Remonstrances were disregarded by the inflexible
manager, so Rossini set to work, and, with his usual facility, soon
sent down a portion of the score, headed _Introduzione_. This was
transmitted to the copyist; but the same evening Rossini applied
for it again, on pretext of alteration. Next morning another MS.
reached Barbaja, inscribed _Caratina_. It followed its predecessor
to the copyist, and, in like manner, was re-demanded for correction.
Barbaja gleefully rubbed his hands at finding that these revisions
did not delay Rossini, who sent down page after page of copy, to the
extent of an entire act. But the irritable manager was like to go
distracted when, on applying to the copyist for the whole score, he
found the introduction was all that had been composed. It had been
travelling to and fro between Rossini and the theatre, and, at each
journey, the incorrigible composer had headed it with a different
title. The trait is characteristic, and strictly authentic. The same
story is told, at greater length, and with some embellishments, in
one of Alexander Dumas' volumes of Italian travelling sketches.
Managers, however, found compensation in Rossini's rapidity for his
provoking idleness. When he did set to work, he got over the paper
at a gallop; and, when driven to the last minute, his fertility and
invention were wonderful. Some of his finest things were composed
on the spur of the moment, and in breathless haste. The celebrated
air _Di tanti Palpiti_ is one of these. His dinner hour was at hand,
when, driven to the wall by urgent solicitations, he one day sat
down to compose it. His cook, learning that the _Maestro_ was really
about to work--no very common occurrence--thrust his head in at the
door, and ventured a supposition that he had "better not put the
rice to boil." "On the contrary, boil it directly," replied Rossini,
who was hungry. Before the rice, that indispensable preface to an
Italian dinner, was fit for table, the air and its introduction were
composed. _Di tanti Palpiti_ is still familiarly known as the _Aria
dei rizzi_.
At no period, probably, since London has possessed an Italian
Opera, was there more room and a better chance of success for two
establishments of that description than just now. Indeed, even if
the particular circumstances that have caused a second establishment
to be formed had not occurred, it might not improbably have arisen
out of the want of remunerative patronage for high musical talent
upon the Continent, entailed by the revolutionary convulsions of the
last two years. Another circumstance favourable to the Italians is
to be found in the depressed state of the native stage--a depression
which we maintain is to be attributed to bad management and bad
acting, more than to any decline in the public taste for the drama.
Second-rate talent, such as now occupies the high places on our
principal theatres, will no more permanently attract full houses,
than will the burlesque and tinsel that has monopolised the minor
stage. It is our conviction that high tragedy and good comedy will
still draw together discriminating and desirable audiences; but they
must be well acted. Could you bring back Kemble and Siddons, Kean and
Young, rely upon it that the taste for the theatre would revive, and
Drury Lane might be opened with better than a bare chance of success.
And although those masters of their art have disappeared from the
scene, there still are actors who, if they would condescend to pull
together, might do much to prop the declining national drama. In the
provincial towns the Charles Keans, Miss Faucit, or Macready, always
draw full houses; and it is our belief they would do so the year
through at Drury Lane, if they all belonged to its company, under a
judicious management. It is idle to say that the public has lost its
taste for theatres, because it will not encourage mediocrity and bad
taste; and the best proof of the contrary is, that anything really
good in theatricals, no matter in what style, at once draws. We need
not go far for examples. About three years ago, the little French
theatre in St James's had a good working company, besides a constant
flow of still better actors, succeeding each other by twos and threes
from Paris. The consequence was, that the house was nightly crowded;
not only, be it observed, in its more fashionable divisions, but in
those cheaper regions of gallery, pit, and boxes, more accessible
to moderate purses and to the general public. In short, the theatre
was popular, because the performances were good; although it is,
assuredly, but a very limited portion of the English middle classes
that can fully enter into and enjoy the spirit of French plays.
When the management injudiciously changed the system, which, one
would think, must surely have answered its purpose as well as that
of the public, and gave indifferently sung comic operas instead of
well-acted vaudevilles, dramas, and _petites comédies_, popularity
and audience dwindled. It was no longer good of its kind. People will
not be persuaded, for any length of time, that a star and a bundle of
sticks compose a theatrical company worth listening to. We may take
another instance, still nearer home. Under the management of Vestris
and Mathews, and in spite of a deplorable absence of ventilation,
the Lyceum Theatre has for many months past been nightly full to
the roof, whilst nearly every other London manager has been wofully
grumbling at the state of his benches and treasury. It is not that
the performances at the Lyceum have been of a very high class; but
of their kind they have been good, the company pulls well together,
and there is a certain spirit and originality in the conduct of the
theatre. And here, whilst avoiding comparisons with any particular
theatre to which they might be unfavourable, we are yet led to
remark, that an utter want of originality is one of the chief and
most lamentable present characteristics of the London stage. Such a
monotonous set of imitators was surely never beheld. They all follow
each other in a string, like the boors after Dummling's precious
goose. Unfortunately the golden feathers become dross in their grasp.
If one makes a hit, forthwith the others copy; without pausing to
reflect whether the novelty was not the principal charm, which
will evaporate on repetition. Thus, last Christmas, at the theatre
already referred to, a fairy spectacle of extraordinary beauty was
brought out, and "ran," as the phrase is, an unusual number of
nights, long outliving most of the very middling pantomimes and
holiday entertainments elsewhere produced. Easter came, and behold!
half-a-dozen other theatres, taking their cue from the lucky Lyceum,
came out in the same line. Ambitious scenery, gorgeous decoration,
wholesale glitter, and many-coloured fires, dazzled the eye in all
directions. "If your voice were as fine as your feathers," said
the crafty fox to the cheese-bearing crow, "what a bird you would
be!" Were your taste equal to your tinsel, managers of the London
theatres, what an improvement there would be in your receipts! Your
dress-boxes and your cash-boxes would alike be replenished; and you
would no longer have a pretext to indulge in undignified wailings
about want of encouragement to native talent, preference given to
foreigners, and the other querulous commonplaces with which the
public is periodically bored.
To return, however, to the Opera. As we have already observed, about
four years ago its prospects were bad. Discord, the forerunner of
dissolution, had squatted itself in the Green-room. With one or
two exceptions, the artists who for some years had been the chief
pillars of that stage abandoned it for a rival establishment. With
the few hands who stuck by the old ship, it seemed scarcely possible
to make a fight. But at the most gloomy moment, when all seemed
desperate, a good genius came to the rescue. One Swede proved more
than an equivalent for half-a-dozen Italians, and impending ruin
was replaced by triumphant success. London presented the singular
spectacle--unprecedented, we believe, in any capital--of two enormous
theatres simultaneously open for the representation of Italian
operas. How it fares with the more modern establishment, we have
no positive knowledge. Not too well, we fear, judging from the
balance-sheet of a recent lessee. Should the experiment succeed, the
public will doubtless be the gainers. We shall be glad to learn that
all thrive and flourish; but meanwhile we are particularly pleased
to find that the more ancient temple of music and dance, endeared to
us by long habit, old associations, and much enjoyment, has risen,
at the very moment when ill-omened prophets predicted its fall, to
as high a pitch of excellence as, within our recollection, it ever
attained; and has escaped conversion to an equestrian circus, a
shilling concert room, a Radical debating hall, or any other of
the profane and degrading purposes to which of late years it has
been too much the fashion to apply the large London theatres. When
the enthusiasm excited by Jenny Lind, which at one time approached
infatuation, began to subside, and that amiable and charitable,
but--if rumour lie not--somewhat capricious lady, fluctuating between
matrimony and fame, at last took a middle course, and decided to
cross the Atlantic, Her Majesty's Theatre had another stroke of good
fortune. The Swede disappeared, but Germany came to the rescue. A
singer whose name recalls the most glorious days of the Opera, and
who, for nearly twenty years, had exchanged the artist's laurel
wreath for the coronet of a countess--the plaudits of Europe for the
ease and elegance of a court--was induced to return to the profession
of which, during the short time she in her youth had exercised it,
she had been one of the brightest ornaments.
The double interest excited by her brilliant talent as a vocalist,
and by the peculiar circumstances under which she has again sought
the scene of her former triumphs, has been so strong, that by this
time few can be unacquainted with the leading incidents of the
Countess Rossi's career. A humble origin, the precocious development
of an exquisite voice and of extraordinary aptitude for music, the
conquest with almost unexampled rapidity of a place beside the first
singers of the day, a few short years of theatrical triumphs, an
advantageous marriage, loss of fortune, return to the stage--and the
tale is told. Even in this meagre outline there is no slight savour
of the romantic. "The Countess Rossi," it has been truly observed by
a French writer, "has scarcely performed in any lyrical drama fuller
of incident and romance than her own life. For her the line of flame
which in theatres separates the real from the ideal world, has not
existed."[7] Doubtless the details of this accomplished lady's life
would be otherwise interesting than the bare outline of its leading
events with which the world is fain to content itself. Twenty-five
years, divided between the aristocracy of musical talent, and the
aristocracy of diplomacy and high birth, must afford rich materials
for autobiography. Nor would the period of her childhood be without
its strong attraction, were she able to remember, and pleased to
tell, of those days of infantine renown, when Coblenz and the banks
of Rhine rang with praises of the seven-year-old songstress, whose
parents, although they had the good sense to refuse the solicitations
of managers, anxious to produce the prodigy, would yet at times
place her on their table, and bid her sing for the gratification of
admiring friends. Her first appearance in public was at the age of
eleven, on the Darmstadt theatre; and perhaps even now that dullest
of German capitals remains in her memory as a place of brightness
and beauty, associated as it is with her early and complete success.
But little Henrietta was not yet to continue the career she had so
auspiciously begun. Hot theatres and unlimited praise composed a
dangerous atmosphere for one so young, and her next step was to the
Conservatory or great musical school at Prague, to the head of which
she speedily made her way. At the age of fourteen or fifteen her
proficiency in the various branches of her art was so great, that her
cautious parents had scarcely a pretext for withholding her longer
from the stage, which she manifestly was destined to adorn. Still
they hesitated, when accident cast the die. The _prima donna_ of the
Prague opera was taken ill: not of one of those fleeting maladies to
which singers and dancers are proverbially liable--and which appear
an hour or two after noon, to disappear in time for a late breakfast
next morning--but seriously, and without hope of speedy recovery. The
despairing manager appealed to the pity of the Sontags. His only hope
was in Henrietta, and Henrietta was allowed to appear upon the boards
of the Imperial Opera of Prague--a theatre to which immortality
is secured by the first performance of the _Nozze di Figaro_ and
the _Clemenza di Tito_ having taken place within its walls. From
a recently published and authentic sketch of Madame Sontag's
professional life,[8] we extract an account of her entrance.
[7] Theophile Gautier, _L'Ambassadrice. Biographie de la Comtesse
Rossi_. Paris: 1850.
[8] _A Memoir of the Countess de Rossi_, (Madame Sontag.) London:
1850.
"If nothing was wanting in courage, natural gifts of voice,
and intellectual power, on the part of the child, as regards
the height of her person there was a _mancamento_ of several
inches. But the stage-manager was not oblivious of the means
by which the Greeks gave altitude to their scenic heroes and
heroines; and the little _prima donna_, to whom was assigned
for her _début_ the principal female part in a translation of
the favourite French opera _Jean de Paris_, was supplied with
enormous cork heels. There was a time, at the court of Louis
XV., when an inch and a half of red heel was the distinctive
characteristic of a marquis, or of a lady of sufficient quality
to be allowed to sit in the presence of royalty. On the
occasion of the _début_ of Henriette Sontag, four inches of
vermillion-coloured cork foreshadowed the rank of the little
lady, destined to become one of the most absolute mimic queens
of the lyrical world, and afterwards a real and much respected
countess. When the singer who enacted the pompous seneschal in
the opera of _Jean de Paris_ came forward, and said, 'It is no
less a personage than the Princess of Navarre whose arrival
I announce!' the applause and laughter was universal. When
the little prodigy appeared on her cork pedestal, the house
re-echoed with acclamations. As the business of the stage
proceeded, the auditors found there was no longer any indulgence
necessary on the score of age, but that there were claims
on their admiration for a voice which, for purity, peculiar
flute-like tone, and agility, has never been surpassed. The
celebrated tenor, Gerstener, that night surpassed himself,
finding he had to cope with the attraction of a new musical
power. Many nights successively did she thus sing the Princess
of Navarre, with increasing success, to crowded houses. Her next
part was one far more difficult--that of the heroine in Paer's
fine opera, _Sargin_. But the capital of Bohemia was not long
to retain her. The Imperial court heard of her extraordinary
success, and Henriette Sontag was summoned to Vienna, where she
appeared, the very next season, at the German Opera."
Fraulein Sontag had not been long in the Austrian capital when the
eccentric Domenico Barbaja, then lessee of La Scala, the San Carlo,
and of the Italian Opera at Vienna, arrived there, incredulous of the
merits of the new _prima donna_. His incredulity must not be ascribed
to mere prejudice, for at that time Italy was generally believed to
have the monopoly of melodious throats; and even now the exceptions
are only just enough to prove the rule, at least as regards female
singers. Of these, Germany and Scandinavia have produced but three
who have acquired European reputation. The capricious but wonderfully
talented Gertrude Schmeling (La Mara,) who at nine years of age drew
large audiences at Vienna by her performance on the violin, who
afterwards achieved first-rate excellence on the piano, and then, for
nearly forty years, held undisputed sway, as unapproachable _prima
donna_, over the entire musical world--and whose name is almost as
celebrated by reason of the strange adventures and vicissitudes of
her life as on account of her astonishing voice and genius--is the
most ancient of these, and Madame Sontag and Jenny Lind complete
the trio. When at length prevailed upon to visit the German Opera,
Barbaja was astonished, and he immediately offered the young singer
an engagement for the San Carlo. This was declined, her parents
having a wholesome, perhaps an exaggerated, dread of the temptations
and perils that would await their daughter in the luxurious land of
Naples. Nay, so deeply rooted was the aversion of the honest Germans
for things Italian, that it was with the greatest difficulty Barbaja
could obtain their permission for Henrietta to appear at the Italian
Opera at Vienna. There she had colleagues worthy of herself--Rubini,
the prince of tenors, and the evergreen Lablache, with whom, after
an interval of five-and-twenty years, she is now again singing.
There also she heard Madame Mainvielle Fodor, by the study of whose
admirable style she greatly improved herself. Leipzig and Berlin
next witnessed her triumphs, and there she excited great enthusiasm
by her singing in Weber's operas of _Der Freischütz_ and _Euryanthe_.
"The admirers of the genius of that great composer," says
M. P. Scudo, in a lively, but not strictly correct sketch
of Madame Sontag's career, inserted in the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_, "consisted of the youth of the universities, and of
all the ardent and generous spirits who desired to emancipate
Germany intellectually as well as politically from foreign
domination.... They were grateful to Mademoiselle Sontag for
consecrating a magnificent voice, and a method rarely found
beyond the Rhine, to the energetic and profound music of Weber,
Beethoven, Spohr, and the new race of German composers, who had
broken _all compact with foreign impiety_, and given an impulse
to the national genius. Receiving universal homage, celebrated
by wits, serenaded by students, and escorted by the huzzas of
the German press, Mademoiselle Sontag was called to Berlin,
where she made her appearance with immense success at the
Koenigstadt Theatre. It was at Berlin, as is well known, that
the _Freischütz_ was for the first time performed, in 1821. It
was at Berlin, the Protestant and rationalist city, the centre
of an intellectual and political movement which sought to absorb
the activity of Germany at the expense of Vienna--that catholic
capital, where the spirit of tradition, sensuality, the soft
breezes and melodies of Italy reigned--it was at Berlin that
the new school of dramatic music founded by Weber had taken
the firmest hold. With enthusiasm, as the inspired interpreter
of the national music, Mademoiselle Sontag was there welcomed.
The disciples of Hegel took her for the text of their learned
commentaries, and hailed, in her limpid and sonorous voice, _the
subjective confounded with the objective in an absolute unity_!
The old King of Prussia received her at his court with paternal
goodness. There it was that diplomacy had the opportunity to
approach Mademoiselle Sontag, and to make an impression on the
heart of the muse."
With all deference to M. Scudo, who is rather smart than accurate, we
will remark that the applause of the Berliners was elicited less by
the nationality of the music than by the excellence of the singing;
and that they were perfectly satisfied to listen to translations of
Rossini, and to the music then in vogue in the other chief opera
houses of Europe. Doubtless they were proud of their countrywoman;
and their jealousy and indignation were highly excited when, after
a visit to Paris, she came back to Berlin with the avowed intention
of returning to the French capital. This raised a storm, and on her
first appearance at the Koenigstadt, she was received, probably for
the first and last time in her life, with a storm of groans and
hisses. So violent was the tumult that the other actors left the
stage in alarm; but the Sontag remained, strong in her right and
regardless of the unmerited hurricane of censure, and of the almost
menacing adjurations addressed to her by the audience to break off
with the French, and remain in her own country. At last, hopeless
of making an impression on the resolute young lady, the incensed
Prussians calmed themselves, and from that night to the day of her
departure she was as popular as ever.