HISTORY OF TIM OPERA.*
Or all the sources of expression, music is the least exhausted, and perhaps the least exhaustible. So far from showing any signs of becoming dried up, fresh fountains are being discovered at every on- ward move, and the horizon in the art may fairly be regarded as a beautiful prospect, bright and cheering with expectation, fascinating and alluring. with the mystery that surrounds all the creations of art. For music, indeed, was reserved a vitality inseparable from, and ema- nating out of, a larger civilization and a humanity of higher and nobler feelings, while classic art, with all its immortality of ideal beauty and grandeur, was doomed to an early and heroic death.
It might even be said that music, especially as we understand it, only began to be developed when it was employed as an important aid in the worship of the Christian Church. All the old musicians were chapel-masters and teachers of music; to them we must attri- bute the conversion of the "mysteries" of the medireval times in Italy and the miracle plays of Germany into musical "mysteries," the words of which were sung instead of spoken. So early as the year 1440, we read in the work before us, the Conversion of St. Pau. was played in music at Rome, and in 1480 the first profane subject treated operatically was the descent of Orpheus into hell, the music of which was by Angelo Poliziano, and the libretto by Cardinal Riario, nephew of Sixtus IV. The Popes then kept an excellent theatre, and Clement IX. was himself the author of some libretti. From this it is easy to see how the lyrical drama, which in our time has got the name of " Opera,"'arose ; the term probably being trace- able to the old Italian custom of writing upon plays of a mixed cha- racter, opera tragica, comica, sacra, &c. ; or, if musical only, per musica, scenica per musica, musicale, &c.
The music of the dramas which formed the early opera could not possibly have had any pretensions to being orchestral. The work of Claudio Merulo, performed at Venice before Henry III. of France, ap- pears to have been aperformance of choruses in the style of madrigals; the recitative not being thought of till some time after, when it is said to have been invented at the meetings of musieians in the _palace of Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, at Florence. Here Emilio del Cavaliere, of Rome ; Caccini and Pen, the composers of Dafxe,,the first complete opera ; Mei, and Vincent Galileo, father of the great Galileo, used to assemble. Dafne was first performed in the Corsi Palace, Florence, 1597, and its success encouraged the same com- posers to write Euridice, an opera chosen to celebrate the marriage of Henri IV. of France with Maria de Medicis, 1600. This piece had five acts, each ending with a chorus; the dialogue was in recita- tive, and Tircis sang an air introduced by a prelude. The orchestra consisted of a harpsichord, a chitarone, or, as the word suggests, a guitar, a lyre, and a lute. Monteverde, who wrote another opera to the story of Orpheus, in 1608, was the Costa of his day, and for his Orfeo had two harpsichords, two lyres, or violas with thirteen strings, ten violas, three bass violas, two doable basses, a double harp, two French violins, guitars, organs, flute, clarions, and trombones. He first adopted the device of making certain instruments accompany each cha- racter, as the bass violas for Orpheus, the violas Eurydice, the trombones Pluto, the small organ Apollo, while Charon was oddly fitted with the guitar. Venice then became the centre of opera music ; Bologna, Rome, Turin, Naples, and Messina having each their theatre by the middle of the seventeenth century. In Germany, opera began a similar course in 1627, with another Dalne by Schutz, and in 1692 came Keiser, who was patronized at the court of Wolfenbfittel, and made this the first home of the opera in Germany. In France, Cardinal Mazarin, and not Lulli, who appears in a picture as being rewarded by Louis XIV. for the service, introduced the Italian opera in 1645, when Lulli was only twelve years old. In England the opera was taken up as a popular entertainment fifteen years before it was in France; and though Cambert, driven from Paris by the success and the court favour shown to Lulli, came to London with Grabut, and was immediately appointed composer to Charles IL, yet it is pointed out by Mr. Edwards that in 1656 the Protector had granted permission to Sir William Davenant to open a theatre in Aldersgate-street, while long before, in the splendid masques of the courts of James I. and Charles, recitative had been sung under the direction of Larriere, the eminent musician, painter, and engraver. The music of the first English opera, the Siege of Rhodes, it is interesting. to know, was the work of no less than five composers, one of whom was Matthew Lock, whom we know so well as the author of the music to Macbeth. He was also one of the singers, and another of the party was Henry Purcell, father of the Purcell whose name is the brightest in the annals of English opera music. The orchestra consisted of six performers only. The composer of Sing Arthur was born three years after this; he was brought up in the musical world of the day, and, heard the Ariadne of Cambert when he was fifteen, jn 1677, becoming himself the com- poser of an opera, Dido and ./Eneas, at twenty-one, the year of Cam- bert's death. Grabut, the other Frenchman, wrote music to Dryden's political opera, Albion and Albanius, performed in 1685, and stopped by the news of Mdnmouth's invasion. So it was that Purcell was influenced by the music about him, as lie -himself says, in dedicating his Prophetess to the Duke of Somerset : "Music, a forward child, is now learniin, Italian, which is its best master, and studying a little of the Frenchair to give it some-
what more of gaiety and fashion." Purcell, however, was truly inspired by the stirring events of his time, and wrote with an energy and force of expression, with a rhythm natural to the Ian-
'History of the Opera, from its Origin in Italy to the Present Sine: with Anecdotes of the most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe. By Sutherland dwards. Two vols. Allen and Co. We must pass over the most amusing portion of these volumes shoulders and clap his hands at the crowded pit. l'slot a note more relating to the opera in Paris, the royal ballets at Versailles, with was listened to. Rossini went home, and when the dismayed singers the dancing Dauphin and Dauphiness and the vagaries of the called to console him he was fast asleep. The next day he replaced Grand Monarque himself as the sun, all of which conspired in the Garcia's air with the celebrated Ecco ridente, which he took from the debasement of art to lead to the disgusting use of the "Acad6mie" chorus of another unsuccessful work, .dureliano, tried in 1814 at for the vilest purposes of French debauchery. Even the witty mots Milan—the said piece having been twice before condemned—such of Sophie Arnould, the most fascinating of the opera singers of her was his confidence in it. The Romans were vanquished, and within day, we must leave to be read in the book, that something may be a week Rossini was exalted into a hero.
said of Handel and the Italian opera in England. Great singers have had to brave similar ordeals. Pasta, who
Addison was ridiculing the opera, with its king commanding in created the grand style of lyric art, completely failed in 1816, and Italian and his slaves answering in English, the lover courting a even retired till 1824, when, in Tancredi, Semiramide, and Medea, she princess in words she could not understand ; Steele was angry at the surpassed all predecessors ; her style, indeed, has ever since been the success of Scarlatti's Pyrrhus; while the fame of the rival vocalists, model of that we admire so much in Grisi and Viardot. Of her first Mrs. Tofts and Margarita l'Epine, was fresh, when Handel arrived in appearance, in 1817, in Cimarosa's Penelope, the Times critic of the 1710. He was met, after he had established the opera under the title of day spoke of her as, "..A subordinate female, named Pasta, came for- Royal Academy of Music, in 1720, by an opposition from the nobility, ward in the character of Telemachus, but her talent did not appear to who got up another company, and engaged Porpora to direct it, at require delineation." Pasta was prevailed upon to sing so late as the theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-fields. We have witnessed in our 1348, when she chose the Anna Bokna, at Her Majesty's Theatre. time a precisely similar thin(' between two rival houses, ending Malibrau appeared first in the .Rosina, in 1825, as Mademoiselle in the same ruin on both side's as in the Handel and Porpora affair. Garcia, and after four years spent in America returned as Madame Baononcini and Handel repeated the contest of Gluck and Piccini, Malibran, and sang in the Otello with Donzelli, Levasseur, Curioni, and the rival vocalists, Cuzzoui and Faustina, had their violent par- and De Angeli, being then only twenty-one years old. Sontag ap- tisans, so that, notwithstauding the enormous expenditure upon the peared in 1828, also in Rosina. Of these two eminent sin,gers
th
opera, it was evidently not as oroughly appreciated as in our day, Mr. Edwards does not give a very fall account, either of their or the audiences would not have submitted to the disgraceful inter- career or their peculiar styles. Nothing, for example, is told of ruptions of cat-calls and hootings which were continually got up by Malibran's remarkable performance in the Ficklio, and this great work the opposite parties. Senesino was the great sopranist of Handel's is barely mentioned, and then only to name Mademoiselle Cruvelli, one operas, but he deserted, like Mario, to the rival house in Lincoln's of the smallest of the Leonoras, than whom even Madame Casten= Inn-fields, and he was completely eclipsed by Fariuelli, who was was superior. We are, for similar reasons, disappointed to find so engaged by Handel at Bologna. then most of the greatest singers very little said of the Mose in Egitto and the Guillaunze Tell, both of were to be heard at the Dresden Opera and at Vienna : indeed they which have been produced with great splendour at the Covent Garden made the tour of Europe as they do now. Mademoiselle Mara had Opera. The Zauberllote, also brought out at the same theatre, is not sung at the Handel Festival in Westminster Abbey, in 1735, but by mentioned. Indeed, the highest position the lyric drama ever at- this time Handel's operas, even when sung by such artistes as Mara tamed was during the last fifteen years, and this period, as yet and Rubinelli, and with his best airs interpolated, failed to attract an scarcely touched by Mr. Edwards, would furnish most interesting audience. Banti, an extraordinary natural genius, and Mrs. Billing- matter for a third volume of his amusing narrative.
ton were rivals about this time ; Banti died in 1806, bequeathing her larynx to the town of Bologna, where it is still preserved. Grassini succeeded and shared an immense popularity with Braham. Then THE DANUBE AND THE ADRIATIC.* came the famous Catalani, who; in passing through Paris in 1806, IF the cause of human and national progress has reason to be sang before Napoleon. "Where are you going ?" said the Emperor. thankful to all those who contribute evidence towards determining "To London, sire," replied the singer. "You must remain in Paris," its limits and conditions, Mr. Paton is a real public benefactor in said Napoleon ; "you will be well paid and better appreciated." But
Catalam contrived to steal away at Morlaix. In London she received • Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic; or, Contributions to the Modern History half the receipts at the opera, and by giving concerts when she left the pawn, F.R.G.S. Two vols. Thilmer. gunge, and a melodic conception of his own. His music for the stage, in 1813, she realized about 10,000/. in the season, and as much Tempest (1690), and his King Arthur, written (1691) the year before more in the provinces. Her voice was a soprano of prodigious compass, his early death, though not operas, bt:t rather dramas with musical ii- front la to the upper sol, with marvellous execution and brio. Catalani, lustmtions, created an immense sensation, and lives to be admired at however, was not esteemed so wonderful in Paris when M. Valabreque, the present day. " Come if you dare," and " Britons, strike home," her husband, took the Italian theatre in 1815. It was then he gave could hardly be surpassed as noble songs, full of manly ardour and out that the best possible company was engaged, and when asked national spirit. Speaking of this music as the offspring of a revolu- who the performers were, gave that delicious answer : "femme et tionary period, it is worth remarking that Oliver Cromwell was a trois ou guatre pouples." The affair proved a desperate failure. great lover of music, and, according to Mr. Edwards, the founder of It was Catalani who first sang in London Mozart's Nozze di Figaro. the opera in England. Amongst many capital anecdotes scattered With Mozart's music, though written very nearly a century ago, we through these pleasant volumes we find the story told by Anthony a come to the music of our own time ; music that is now the very Wood, of the Christchurch student, James Quin, who had a voice touchstone of the true metal in an artist who attempts it, music that " very strong and exceeding trouling." Quin lost his place ; but ap- taxes the resources of our greatest orchestras, and above all music pealing to Oliver, " who loved a good voice and instrumental music that charms and delights with its constant freshness, with its vigour, well, he heard him sing with great delight, liquored him with sack, and with its power over the emotions. While Gluck and Piccini, and and, in conclusion, said, Mr. Quin, you have done well, what can I even Handel, are discarded, Mozart, the rejected of Vienna, whose do for you ?' " Of course he Was reinstated. Nozze and Don Giovanni were positively hissed off the stage there, has All that we have just related about the position of opera in been for half a century the very exemplar of opera music. His Don England shows that, while in Italy, and Germany, and France, opera Giovanni alone has raised the fortunes of many a failing manager. music was being cultivated, Purcell had asserted for us an original With the true faith of a genius Mozart believed in himself, and style, although the art was derived, as in the other countries, from avenged the injustice in a singular way, by actually setting some Italy. In the work before us we find a want of history for the time of the dull airs of his rivals amongst his own gems. In the ball and in Italy from Monteverde to Picinni; yet Leo and Darante have been supper scenes of Don Giovanni, the music which sounds so completely pronounced the fathers of Italian music and the heads of the school rococo is all taken directly from the operas of his envious rivals at at Naples, where young Picinni first distinguished himself. Vienna, Leporello particularly draws attention to it ; and this is all Mr. Edwards renounces the idea of giving a scientific history, it is we are ever likely to know of them. Don Giovanni, composed and per- true, and speaks of his work as a narrative sketch, but we are scarcely formed at Prague, first. in 1787, was not heard in Paris till 1811, nor prepared for the sudden jump from Monteverde to Gluck, who was in London till 1817 ; the troublous times of the Revolution and the learning his art in Italy, under Martini, towards the middle of the Napoleon wars having completely bouleverse the Opera. Tacchi- eighteenth century. Gluck's earliest opera, Artaxerxes, was written nardi, the tenor, was the Don, in Paris, and Ambrogetti, the celebrated at Milan, and several other operas ; indeed, he must have found a good baritone, sang the part in London. Lahlache sang it in 1832, but school of opera as well as a public accustomed to appreciate good when Tamburini appeared, the great basso assumed and created the music. So that it is, we imagine, not quite historical to say that. part of leporello ; and perhaps these two most eminent singers of our " before Gluck's time operatic art was in its infancy." What did not time will be best remembered by those famous parts. To name the Gluck learn in Italy ? Picciui, who became eventually his rival in Zerlinas, the Donna Annas, and the Ottavios would be to mention all Paris, must have formed a style of his own, and one more Italian the greatest singers for the last fifty years. Mr. Edwards says no- than Gluck's, for he had never left Italy, though he had attained all thing of the production of Don Giovanni at the Covent-garden his celebrity there, till he was sent for by Madame du Barry expressly Opera-house, but it should be stated that the masterpiece of Mozart to oppose Gluck, the favourite of Marie Antoinette, and arrived there, had never been heard in such magnificent and complete style before.
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