It is my design in this paper to deliver down to posterity a faithful
account of the Italian opera, and of the gradual progress which it has
made upon the English stage; for there is no question but our
great-grandchildren will be very curious to know the reason why their
forefathers used to sit together like an audience of foreigners in their
own country, and to hear whole plays acted before them in a tongue which
they did not understand.
_Arsinoe_ was the first opera that gave us a taste of Italian music. The
great success this opera met with produced some attempts of forming
pieces upon Italian plans, which should give a more natural and
reasonable entertainment than what can be met with in the elaborate
trifles of that nation. This alarmed the poetasters and fiddlers of the
town, who were used to deal in a more ordinary kind of ware; and
therefore laid down an established rule, which is received as such to
this day, "That nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not
nonsense."
This maxim was no sooner received, but we immediately fell to translating
the Italian operas; and as there was no great danger of hurting the sense
of those extraordinary pieces, our authors would often make words of
their own which were entirely foreign to the meaning of the passages they
pretended to translate; their chief care being to make the numbers of the
English verse answer to those of the Italian, that both of them might go
to the same tune. Thus the famous swig in Camilla:
"_Barbara si t' intendo_," &c.
"Barbarous woman, yes, I know your meaning,"
which expresses the resentments of an angry lover, was translated into
that English lamentation,
"Frail are a lover's hopes," &c.
And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined persons of the British
nation dying away and languishing to notes that were filled with a spirit
of rage and indignation. It happened also very frequently, where the
sense was rightly translated, the necessary transposition of words, which
were drawn out of the phrase of one tongue into that of another, made the
music appear very absurd in one tongue that was very natural in the
other. I remember an Italian verse that ran thus, word for word:
"And turned my rage into pity;"
which the English for rhyme's sake translated:
"And into pity turned my rage."
By this means the soft notes that were adapted to pity in the Italian
fell upon the word rage in the English; and the angry sounds that were
turned to rage in the original, were made to express pity in the
translation. It oftentimes happened, likewise, that the finest notes in
the air fell upon the most insignificant words in the sentence. I have
known the word "and" pursued through the whole gamut; have been
entertained with many a melodious "the;" and have heard the most
beautiful graces, quavers, and divisions bestowed upon "then," "for," and
"from," to the eternal honour of our English particles.
The next step to our refinement was the introducing of Italian actors
into our opera; who sang their parts in their own language, at the same
time that our countrymen performed theirs in our native tongue. The king
or hero of the play generally spoke in Italian, and his slaves answered
him in English. The lover frequently made his court, and gained the
heart of his princess, in a language which she did not understand. One
would have thought it very difficult to have carried on dialogues after
this manner without an interpreter between the persons that conversed
together; but this was the state of the English stage for about three
years.
At length the audience grew tired of understanding half the opera; and
therefore, to ease themselves entirely of the fatigue of thinking, have
so ordered it at present, that the whole opera is performed in an unknown
tongue. We no longer understand the language of our own stage; insomuch
that I have often been afraid, when I have seen our Italian performers
chattering in the vehemence of action, that they have been calling us
names, and abusing us among themselves; but I hope, since we put such an
entire confidence in them, they will not talk against us before our
faces, though they may do it with the same safety as if it were behind
our backs. In the meantime, I cannot forbear thinking how naturally an
historian who writes two or three hundred years hence, and does not know
the taste of his wise forefathers, will make the following reflection:
"In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Italian tongue was so
well understood in England, that operas were acted on the public stage in
that language."
One scarce knows how to be serious in the confutation of an absurdity
that shows itself at the first sight. It does not want any great measure
of sense to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice; but what makes
it the more astonishing, it is not the taste of the rabble, but of
persons of the greatest politeness, which has established it.
If the Italians have a genius for music above the English, the English
have a genius for other performances of a much higher nature, and capable
of giving the mind a much nobler entertainment. Would one think it was
possible, at a time when an author lived that was able to write the
_Phaedra and Hippolitus_, for a people to be so stupidly fond of the
Italian opera, as scarce to give a third day's hearing to that admirable
tragedy? Music is certainly a very agreeable entertainment: but if it
would take the entire possession of our ears; if it would make us
incapable of hearing sense; if it would exclude arts that have a much
greater tendency to the refinement of human nature; I must confess I
would allow it no better quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out
of his commonwealth.
At present our notions of music are so very uncertain, that we do not
know what it is we like; only, in general, we are transported with
anything that is not English: so it be of a foreign growth, let it be
Italian, French, or High Dutch, it is the same thing. In short, our
English music is quite rooted out, and nothing yet planted in its stead.
When a royal palace is burnt to the ground, every man is at liberty to
present his plan for a new one; and, though it be but indifferently put
together, it may furnish several hints that may be of use to a good
architect. I shall take the same liberty in a following paper of giving
my opinion upon the subject of music; which I shall lay down only in a
problematical manner, to be considered by those who are masters in the
art.