Regina Valentini, a pupil and domestic at the Convent of the Ursulines, possessed a beautiful voice, but so little taste for household work, that to avoid its drudgery and the ridicule to which her inability to go through it exposed her, she resolved to make what profit she could out of her singing. Old Mingotti, the manager, was willing enough to aid her in this laudable enterprise; and accordingly married her and put her under the tuition of Porpora, the future opponent of Handel, and actual rival of Hasse. In due time Mingotti made her first appearance at the Dresden Opera, when her singing called forth almost unanimous applause; we say "almost," because Hasse and some of his personal friends persisted in denying her talent. The successful débutante was offered a lucrative engagement at Naples, where she created the greatest enthusiasm by her performance of the part of Aristea in the Olimpiade, with music by Galuppi. Mingotti was now the great singer of the day; she received propositions from managers in all parts of Europe, but decided to return to the scene of her earnest triumphs at Dresden. This was in 1748.
Haase was then composing his Demofonte. He knew well enough the strong, and thought he had remarked the weak, points in Mingotti's voice; and, in order to show the latter to the greatest possible disadvantage, provided the unsuspecting singer with an adagio which rose and fell upon the very notes which he considered the most doubtful in her unusually perfect organ. To render the vocalist's deficiencies as apparent as possible, he did the next thing to making her sing the insidious adagio without accompaniment; for the only accompaniment he wrote for it was a pizzicato of violins. Regina at the very first rehearsal, understood the snare, said nothing about it, but studied her adagio till she sang it with such perfection that what had been intended to discover her weakness only served in the most striking manner to exhibit her strength. The air which was to have ruined Mingotti's reputation brought her the greatest success she had ever obtained. Her execution was so faultless that Faustina herself could find nothing to say against it. A story is told of Sir Charles Williams, the English Minister at the Court of Dresden, who had taken a prominent part in the Hasse and Faustina cabal, and had been in the habit of saying that Mingotti was doubtless a brilliant singer, but that in the expressive style and in passages of sustained notes she was heard to disadvantage—a story is told of this candid and gentlemanly critic going to Mingotti after she had sung her treacherous solo, and apologizing to her publicly for ever having entertained a doubt as to the completeness of her talent.
Hasse remained thirty-three years in the service of the Elector and made the Dresden Opera the first in Europe; but in 1763 the troubles of unhappy Poland having begun, he retired with Faustina on a small pension to Vienna and thence to Venice, where they both died in the year 1783, Hasse being then eighty-four years of age and his wife ninety.
The most celebrated of the other singers at the Royal Academy of Music were Durastanti and Senesino, both of whom were engaged by Handel at Dresden, and appeared in London at the opening of the new establishment. In 1723, however, Cuzzoni arrived, and Durastanti, acknowledging the superior merit of that singer, took her departure. At least the acknowledgment was made for her in a song written by Pope, which she addressed to the audience at her farewell performance, and which ended with this couplet:—
Either singers were very different then from what they are now, or Durastanti could not have understood these lines, which, strangely enough, are said to have been written by Pope at the desire of her patron, the Earl of Peterborough. Surely Anastasia Robinson, the future Countess, would not have thanked the earl for such a compliment, in however perfect a style it might have been expressed. Madame Durastanti appears to have been much esteemed in England, and I read in the Evening Post of March 7th, 1721, that "Last Thursday, His Majesty was pleased to stand godfather, and the Princess and the Lady Bruce godmothers, to a daughter of Mrs. Durastanti, chief singer in the opera house. The Marquis Visconti for the king, and the Lady Lichfield for the princess."
Senesino, successor to Nicolini, and the second of the noble order of sopranists who appeared in England, was the principal contralto singer ("modo vir, modo fœmina") in Handel's operas, until 1726, when the state of his health compelled him to return to Italy. He came back to England in 1730, and resumed his position at the King's Theatre, under Handel. In 1733, when the rival company was formed at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, Senesino joined it, but retired after the appearance of Farinelli, who at once eclipsed all other singers.
Steele's journal, The Theatre, entertains us with a brief account of the vanity of one Signor Beneditti, who appears to have performed principal parts, at least for a time, at the Opera in 1720. The paper, which is written by Sir Richard Steele's coadjutor, Sir John Edgar, commences with a furious onslaught on a company of French actors, who were at that time performing in London, and of whose opening representation we are told that "if we are any longer to march on two legs, and not be quite prone, and on all four like the other animals" we must "assume manhood and humane indignation against so barbarous an affront. But I foresee," continues Sir John,[23] "that the theatre is to be utterly destroyed, and sensation is to banish reflection as sound is to beat down sense. The head and the heart are to be moved no more, but the basest parts of the body to be hereafter the sole instruments of human delight. A regular, orderly, and well-governed company of actors, that lived in reputation and credit and under decent settlement are to be torn to pieces and made vagabond, to make room for even foreign vagrants, who deserved no reception but in Bridewell, even before they affronted the assembly, composed of British nobility and gentry, with representations that could introduce nothing of even French except, &c. ....Though the French are so boisterous and void of all moderation or temper in their conduct, the Italians are a more tractable and elegant nation. If the French players have laid aside all shame, the Italian singers are as eminently nice and delicate, which the reader will observe from the following account I have received from the Haymarket.
"'Sir,—
"'It happened in casting parts for the new opera, Signor Beneditti conceived he had been greatly injured, and applied to the board of directors for redress. He set forth in the recitative tone, the nearest approaching to ordinary speech, that he had never acted anything in any other opera below the character of a sovereign, and now he was to be appointed to be captain of a guard. On these representations, we directed that he should make love to Zenobia, with proper limitations. The chairman signified to him that the board had made him a lover, but he must be content to be an unfortunate one, and be rejected by his mistress. He expressed himself very easy under this, and seemed to rejoice that, considering the inconstancy of women, he could only feign, not pursue the passion to extremity. He muttered very much against making him only the guard to the character he had formerly appeared in,'" &c.
A small and not uninteresting volume might be written about the caprices of singers and their behaviour under real or imaginary slights. One of the best stories of the kind is told of Crescentini, who, three-quarters of a century later, at the first representation of Gli Orazi e Curiazi, observed immediately before the commencement of the performance, that the costume of Orazio was more magnificent than his own. He sent for the stage manager, and burning with rage, addressed him as follows:—
"Perche," he commenced, "avez vous donné oun habit blanc à ce mossiou; et che vous m'en avez gratifié d'oun vert?"
It was explained to the singer that there was a tradition at the Comédie Francaise by which the costume of the principal Horatius was white and that of the chief of the Curiatii, green.
"Perché la bordoure rouze à un primo tenore, el la bordoure noire à oun primo virtuoso?" continued the incensed sopranist.
"No one was thinking," replied the stage manager, "of your positions as singers; our only object was to make the costumes as correct as possible."
"Votre ousaze et votre ezatitoude sont des imbéciles," exclaimed Crescentini; "zé mé lagnérai de votre condouite envers moi. Quant à vous, mossiou Brizzi fate-mi il piacere dé vous déshabiller subito et dé mé fairé passer questo vestito in baratto dou mien qué zé vais vous envoyer. Per Bacco! non si dirà qu'oun tenore aura parou miou vétou qu'oun primo oumo, surtout quand ce primo virtuoso est Girolamo Crescentini d'Urbino."
An exchange took place on the spot, and throughout the evening a Curiatius, six feet high, was seen wearing a little Roman costume, which looked as if it would burst with each movement of the singer, while a diminutive Horatius was attired in a long Alban tunic, of which the skirt trailed along the ground.
But the singers are taking us away from the Opera. Let us return to Handel, all of whose vocalists together, admirable as they were, could not save the Royal Academy of Music from ruin. After the final failure of that enterprise in 1728, the directors entered into an arrangement with Heidegger for opening the King's Theatre under their joint management. Handel went to Italy to engage new singers, but did not make a very brilliant selection. Heidegger, nevertheless, did his duty as a manager, and introduced the principal members of the new company to public notice in the following "puff direct," which, for cool unadorned impudence, has not been surpassed even in the present day. "Mr. Handel, who is just returned from Italy, has contracted with the following persons to perform in the Italian Operas, Signor Bernacchi, who is esteemed the best singer in Italy; Signora Merighi, a woman of a very fine presence, an excellent actress, and a very good singer, with a counter-tenor voice; Signora Strada, who hath a very fine treble voice, a person of singular merit; Signor Annibale Pio Fabri, a most excellent tenor, and a fine voice; his wife, who performs a man's part well; Signora Bertoldi, who has a very fine treble voice, she is also a very genteel actress, both in men and women's parts; a bass voice, from Hamburgh, there being none worth engaging in Italy."
I fancy this was an attempt to carry on Italian Opera at a reduced expenditure, for as soon as the speculation began to fail, the popular Senesino was again engaged. Handel had had a serious quarrel with this singer, but when a manager is in want of a star, and a star is tempted with a lucrative engagement, personal feelings are not taken into account. They ought to have been, however, in this particular case, at least by Handel, for the breach between the composer and the singer was renewed, and Senesino left the King's Theatre to join the company which was being formed at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, under the direction of Porpora.
Handel now set out once more for Italy, but again failed to engage any singers of celebrity, with the exception of Carestini, whom he heard at Bologna at the same time as Farinelli. That he should have preferred the former to the latter seems unaccountable, for by the common consent of musicians, critics, and the public, Farinelli, wherever he sang, was pronounced the greatest singer of his time, and it appears certain that no singer ever affected an audience in so powerful a manner. The passionate (and slightly blasphemous) exclamation of the entranced Englishwoman, "One God and one Farinelli," together with the almost magical effect of Farinelli's voice in tranquilising the half demented Ferdinand VI., seems to show that his singing must have been something like the music of patriarchal times; which charmed serpents, and which in a later age throws highly impressionable women into convulsions.
I have already mentioned that in going or returning to Italy this last time, Handel appears to have passed through Paris, and to have paid a contemptuous sort of attention to French music. It is then, if ever, that he should be accused of having stolen for our national anthem, an air left by Lulli—which he did not, and which Lulli could not have composed. The ridiculous story which would make our English patriotic hymn an adaptation from the French, is told for the first time I believe in the Duchess of Perth's letters. But instead of "God save the Queen" being translated from a canticle sung by the Ladies of St. Cyr, the pretended canticle is a translation of "God save the Queen." Here is the French version—
If it could be proved that this "canticle" was sung by the Ladies of St. Cyr, England could no longer claim the authorship of "God save the Queen," as far, at least, as the words are concerned; and it is evident that the words, which are scarcely readable as poetry, though excellent for singing, were written either for or with the music. M. Castil Blaze, however (in Molière Musicien, Vol. I., page 501), points out that "si l'on ignorait que la musique de cet air est, non pas de Handel, comme plusieurs l'ont assuré mais de Henri Carey la version Française prouverait du moins que cette melódie, scandée en sdruccioli ne peut appartenir au siècle de Louis XIV.; nos vers à glissades etaient parfaitement inconnus de Quinault et de Lulli, de Bernard et de Rameau."
Mr. Schœlcher, like many other writers, attributes "God save the King" to Dr. John Bull, but Mr. W. Chappell, in his "Popular Music of the Olden Time," has shown that Dr. John Bull did not compose it in its present form, and that in all probability Henry Carey did, and that words and music together, as we know it in the present day, our national anthem dates only from 1740. Lulli did not compose it, but it was not composed before his time, nor before Handel's either. The air has been so altered, or rather, developed, by the various composers who have handled it since a simple chant on the four words "God save the King" was harmonised by Dr. John Bull, and afterwards converted from an indifferent tune into an admirable one (through the fortunate blundering of a copyist, as it has been surmised), that it may almost be said to have grown. What an interesting thing to be able to establish the fact of its gradual formation, like the political system of that nation to whose triumphs it has long been an indispensable accompaniment! But how humiliating to find that somebody marked in Dr. Bull's manuscript a sharp where there should have been no sharp, and that our glorious anthem owes its existence to a mistake! Mr. Chappell prints three or four ballads and part songs in his work, beginning at the reign of James I., either or all of which may have been the foundation of "God save the King," but it appears certain that our national hymn in its present form was first sung, and almost note for note as it is sung now, by H. Carey, in 1740, in celebration of the taking of Portobello by Admiral Vernon.[24]
Handel did not compose "God save the King;" but he had good reason for singing it, considering the steady and liberal patronage he received from our three first Georges. When, after the expiration of his contract with Heidegger, he removed to Covent Garden, in 1735, still carrying on the war against Porpora (who removed at the same time to the King's Theatre), George II. subscribed £1,000 towards the expenses of Handel's management, and it was the support of the King and the Royal Family that enabled him to combat the influence that was brought to bear against him by the aristocracy. Handel, according to Arbuthnot, owed his failure, in a great measure, the first time, to the Beggars' Opera. The second time, on the other hand, it was the Nobility's Opera that ruined him. Handel, as we have seen, had only Carestini to depend upon. Porpora, his rival, had secured two established favourites, Cuzzoni and Senesino (both members of Handel's old company at the Academy), and had, moreover, engaged Farinelli, by far the greatest singer of the epoch. Nevertheless, Porpora failed almost at the same time as Handel, and at the end of the year 1737, there was no Italian Opera at all in London.
Handel joined Heidegger once more in 1738, at the King's Theatre. In two years he wrote four operas, of which the fourth, Deidamia, was the last he ever produced. After this he abandoned dramatic music, and, as a composer of Oratorios, entered upon what was to him a far higher career. Handel was at this time fifty-six years of age, and since his arrival in England, in 1711, he had written no less than thirty-five Italian operas.
Handel's Italian operas, as such, are now quite obsolete. The air from Admeto is occasionally heard at a concert, and Handel is known to have introduced some of his operatic melodies into his Oratorios, but there is no chance of any one of his operas ever being reproduced in a complete form. They were never known out of England, and in this country were soon laid aside after their composer had fairly retired from theatrical management. I think Mr. Hogarth[25] is only speaking with his usual judiciousness, when he observes, that "whatever pleasure they must have given to the audiences of that age, they would fail to do so now.... The music of the principal parts," he continues, "were written for a class of voices which no longer exists,[26] and for these parts no performers could now be found. A series of recitatives and airs, with only an occasional duet, and a concluding chorus of the slightest kind, would appear meagre and dull to ears accustomed to the brilliant concerted pieces and finales of the modern stage; and Handel's accompaniments would appear thin and poor amidst the richness and variety of the modern orchestra. The vocal parts, too, are to a great extent, in an obsolete taste. Many of the airs are mere strings of dry, formal divisions and unmeaning passages of execution, calculated to show off the powers of the fashionable singers; and many others, admirable in their design, and containing the finest traits of melody and expression, are spun out a wearisome length, and deformed by the cumbrous trappings with which they are loaded. Musical phrases, too, when Handel used them, had the charm of novelty, have become familiar and common through repetition by his successors."
Among the airs which Handel has taken from his Operas and introduced into his Oratorios, may be mentioned Rendi l' sereno al ciglio, from Sosarme, now known as Lord, remember David, and Dove sei amato bene, in Rodelinda, which has been converted into Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. That these changes have been made with perfect success, proves, if any proof were still wanted by those who have ever given a minute's consideration to the subject, that there is no such thing as absolute definite expression in music. The music of an impassioned love song will seem equally appropriate as that of a fervent prayer, except to those who have already associated it intimately in their memories with the words to which it has first been written. A positive feeling of joy, or of grief, of exultation, or of depression, of liveliness, or of solemnity, can be expressed by musical means without the assistance of words, but not mixed feelings, into which several shades of sentiment enter—at least not with definiteness; though once indicated by the words, they will obtain from music the most admirable colours which will even appear to have been invented expressly and solely for them. Gluck arranged old music to suit new verses quite as much, or more, than Handel—even Gluck who maintained that music ought to convey the precise signification, not only of a dramatic situation, but of the very words of a song, phrase by phrase, if not word by word.
During the period of Handel's presidency over our Italian Opera, works not only by Handel and his colleagues, but also by Scarlatti, Hasse, Porpora, Vinci, Veracini, and other composers were produced at the King's Theatre, at Covent Garden, and at Porpora's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. After Handel's retirement, operas by Galuppi, Pergolese, Jomelli, Gluck, and Piccinni, were performed, and the most distinguished singers in Europe continued to visit London. In 1741, when the Earl of Middlesex undertook the management of the King's Theatre, Galuppi was engaged as composer, and produced several operas: among others, Penelope, Scipione, and Enrico. In 1742, the Olimpiade, with music by Pergolese (a pupil of Hasse, and the future composer of the celebrated Serva Padrona) was brought out. After Galuppi's return to Italy, in 1744, the best of his new operas continued to be produced in London. His Mondo della Luna was represented in 1760, when the English public were delighted with the gaiety of the music, and with the charming acting and singing of Signora Paganini. The year afterwards a still greater success was achieved with the same composer's Filosofo di Campagna, which, says Dr. Burney, "surpassed in musical merit all the comic operas that were performed in England till the Buona Figliola." Not only were Gluck's earlier and comparatively unimportant works performed in London soon after their first production at Vienna, but his Orfeo, the first of those great works written in the style which we always associate with Gluck's name, was represented in London in 1770, four years before Gluck went to Paris. Indeed, ever since the arrival of Handel in this country, London has been celebrated for its Italian Opera, whereas the French had no regular continuous performances of Italian Opera until nearly a hundred years afterwards. Handel did much to create a taste for this species of entertainment, and by the excellent execution which he took care every opera produced under his direction should receive, he set an example to his successors of which the value can scarcely be over-estimated, and which it must be admitted has, on the whole, been followed with intelligence and enterprise.
Great Italian Singers.—Ferri in Sweden.—Opera in Vienna.—Scenic decorations.—Singers of the Eighteenth Century.—Singers' nicknames.—Farinelli's one note.
HANDEL, by his great musical genius, conferred a two-fold benefit on the country of his adoption. He endowed it with a series of Oratorios which stand alone in their grandeur, for which the English of the present day are deeply grateful, and for which ages to come will honour his name; and before writing a note of his great sacred works, during the thirty years which he devoted to the production and superintendence of Italian Opera in England, he raised that entertainment to a pitch of excellence unequalled elsewhere, except perhaps at the magnificent Dresden Theatre, which, for upwards of a quarter of a century was directed by the celebrated Hasse, and where Augustus, of Saxony, took care that the finest musicians and singers in Europe should be engaged.
Rousseau, in the Dictionnaire Musicale, under the head of "Orchestra," writing in 1754[27], says:—
"The first orchestra in Europe in respect to the number and science of the symphonists, is that of Naples. But the orchestra of the opera of the King of Poland, at Dresden, directed by the illustrious Hasse, is better distributed, and forms a better ensemble."
Most of Handel's and Porpora's best vocalists were engaged from the Dresden Theatre, but the great Italian singers had already become citizens of the world, and settled or established themselves temporarily as their interests dictated in Germany, England, Spain, or elsewhere, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were Italian Operas at Naples, Turin, Dresden, Vienna, London, Madrid, and even Algiers—everywhere but in France, which, as has already been pointed out, did not accept the musical civilisation of Italy until it had been adopted by every other country in Europe, including Russia. The great composers, and above all, the great singers who abounded in this fortunate century, went to and fro in Europe, from south to north, from east to west, and were welcomed everywhere but in Paris, where, until a few years before the Revolution, it seemed to form part of the national honour to despise Italian music.
As far back as 1645, Queen Christina of Sweden sent a vessel of war to Italy, to bring to her Court Balthazar Ferri, the most distinguished singer of his day. Ferri, as Rousseau, quoting from Mancini, tells us in his "Musical Dictionary," could without taking breath ascend and descend two octaves of the chromatic scale, performing a shake on every note unaccompanied, and with such precision that if at any time the note on which the singer was shaking was verified by an instrument, it was found to be perfectly in tune.
Ferri was in the service of three kings of Poland and two emperors of Germany. At Venice he was decorated with the Order of St. Mark; at Vienna he was crowned King of Musicians; at London, while he was singing in a masque, he was presented by an unknown hand with a superb emerald; and the Florentines, when he was about to visit their city, went in thousands to meet him, at three leagues distance from the gates.
The Italian Opera was established in Vienna under the Emperor Leopold I., with great magnificence, so much so indeed, that for many years afterwards it was far more celebrated as a spectacle than as a musical entertainment. Nevertheless, Leopold was a most devoted lover of music, and remained so until his death, as the history of his last moments sufficiently shows. We have seen a French maid of honour die to the fiddling of her page; the Emperor of Germany expired to the accompaniment of a full orchestra. Feeling that his end was approaching he sent for his musicians, and ordered them to commence a symphony, which they went on playing until he died.
Apostolo Zeno, whom Rousseau calls the Corneille, and Metastasio, whom he terms the Racine of the Opera, both resided for many years at Vienna, and wrote many of their best pieces for its theatre. Several of Zeno's, and a great number of Metastasio's works have been set to music over and over again, but when they were first brought out at Vienna, many of them appear to have obtained success more as grand dramatic spectacles than as operas. During the latter half of the eighteenth century, Vienna witnessed the production of some of the greatest master-pieces of the musical drama (for instance, the Orpheus, Alcestis, &c., of Gluck, and the Marriage of Figaro, of Mozart); but when Handel was in England directing the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, and when the Dresden Opera was in full musical glory (before as well as after the arrival of Hasse), the Court Theatre of Vienna was above all remarkable for its immense size, for the splendour of its decorations, and for the general costliness and magnificence of its spectacles. Lady Mary Wortley Montague visited the Opera, at Vienna, in 1716, and sent the following account of it to Pope.
"I have been last Sunday at the Opera, which was performed in the garden of the Favorita; and I was so much pleased with it, I have not yet repented my seeing it. Nothing of the kind was ever more magnificent, and I can easily believe what I am told, that the decorations and habits cost the Emperor thirty thousand pounds sterling. The stage was built over a very large canal, and at the beginning of the second act divided into two parts, discovering the water, on which there immediately came, from different parts, two fleets of little gilded vessels that gave the representation of a naval fight. It is not easy to imagine the beauty of this scene, which I took particular notice of. But all the rest were perfectly fine in their kind. The story of the Opera is the enchantment of Alcina, which gives opportunities for a great variety of machines, and changes of scenes which are performed with surprising swiftness. The theatre is so large that it is hard to carry the eye to the end of it, and the habits in the utmost magnificence to the number of one hundred and eight. No house could hold such large decorations; but the ladies all sitting in the open air exposes them to great inconveniences, for there is but one canopy for the Imperial Family, and the first night it was represented, a shower of rain happening, the opera was broken off, and the company crowded away in such confusion that I was almost squeezed to death."
One of these open air theatres, though doubtless on a much smaller scale than that of Vienna, stood in the garden of the Tuileries, at Paris, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was embowered in trees and covered with creeping plants, and the performances took place there in the day-time. These garden theatres were known to the Romans, witness the following lines of Ovid:—
I myself saw a little theatre of the kind, in 1856, at Flensburgh, in Denmark. There was a pleasure-ground in front, with benches and chairs for the audience. The stage door at the back opened into a cabbage garden. The performances, which consisted of a comedy and farce took place in the afternoon, and ended at dusk.
I have already spoken of the magnificence and perfection of the scenic pictures exhibited at the Italian theatres in the very first days of the Opera. In the early part of the seventeenth century immense theatres were constructed so as to admit of the most elaborate spectacular displays. The Farnesino Theatre, at Parma, built for dramas, tournaments, and spectacles of all kinds, and which is now a ruin, contained at least fifty thousand spectators.[28]
In the 18th century the Italians seem to have thought more of the music of their operas, and to have left the vanities of theatrical decorations to the Germans.
Servandoni, for some time scene painter and decorator at the Académie Royale of Paris not finding that theatre sufficiently vast for his designs, sought a new field for his ambition at the Opera-House of Dresden, where Augustus of Poland engaged him to superintend the arrangement of the stage. Servandoni painted a number of admirable scenes for this theatre, in the midst of which four hundred mounted horsemen were able to manœuvre with ease.
In 1760 the Court of the Duke of Wurtemburg, at Stuttgardt, was the most brilliant in Europe, owing partly, no doubt, to the enormous subsidies received by the Duke from France for a body of ten thousand men, which he maintained at the service of that power. The Duke had a French theatre, and two Italian theatres, one for Opera Seria, and the other for Opera Buffa. The celebrated Noverre was his ballet-master, and there were a hundred dancers in the corps de ballet, besides twenty principal ones, each of whom had been first dancer at one of the chief theatres of Italy. Jomelli was chapel-master and director of the Opera at Stuttgardt from 1754 until 1773.
In the way of stage decorations, theatrical effects, and the various other spectacular devices by which managers still seek to attract to their Operas those who are unable to appreciate good music, we have made no progress since the 17th century. We have, to be sure, gas and the electric light, which were not known to our forefathers; but St. Evrémond tells us that in Louis the XIV.'s time the sun and moon were so well represented at the Académie Royale, that the Ambassador of Guinea, assisting at one of its performances, leant forward in his box, when those orbs appeared and religiously saluted them. To be sure, this anecdote may be classed with one I have heard in Russia, of an actor who, playing the part of a bear in a grand melodrama, in which a storm was introduced, crossed himself devoutly at each clap of thunder; but the stories of Servandoni's and Bernino's decorations are no fables. Like the other great masters of stage effect in Italy, Bernino was an architect, a sculptor and a painter. His sunsets are said to have been marvellous; and in a spectacular piece of his composition, entitled The Inundation of the Tiber, a mass of water was seen to come in from the back of the stage, gradually approaching the orchestra and washing down everything that impeded its onward course, until at last the audience, believing the inundation to be real, rose in terror and were about to rush from the theatre. Traps, however, were ready to be opened in all parts of the stage. The Neptune of the troubled theatrical waves gave the word,
But in Italy, even at the time when such wonders were being effected in the way of stage decorations, the music of an opera was still its prime attraction; indeed, there were theatres for operas and theatres for spectacular dramas, and it is a mistake to attempt the union of the two in any great excellence, inasmuch as the one naturally interferes with and diverts attention from the other.
Of Venice and its music, in the days when grand hunts, charges of cavalry, triumphal processions in which hundreds of horsemen took part, and ships traversing the ocean, and proceeding full sail to the discovery of America were introduced on to the stage;[29] of Venice and its music even at this highly decorative period, St. Evrémond has given us a brief but very satisfactory account in the following doggrel:—
The operatic chorus, as has already been observed, is an invention claimed by the French[30]; on the other hand, from the very foundation of the Académie Royale, the French rendered their Operas ridiculous by introducing ballets into the middle of them. We shall find Rousseau calling attention to this absurd custom which still prevails at the Académie, where if even Fidelio was to be produced, it would be considered necessary to "enliven" one or more of the scenes with a divertissement—so unchanging and unchangeable are the revolutionary French in all that is futile.
We have seen that in the first years of the 18th century, the Opera at Vienna was chiefly remarkable for its size, and the splendour and magnificence of its scenery. But it soon became a first-rate musical theatre; and it was there, as every one who takes an interest in music knows, that nearly all the masterpieces of Gluck and Mozart[31] were produced. The French sometimes speak of Gluck's great works as if they belonged exclusively to the repertory of their Académie. I have already mentioned that four years before Gluck went to Paris (1774), his Orfeo was played in London. This opera was brought out at Vienna in 1764, when it was performed twenty-eight times in succession. The success of Alceste was still greater; and after its production in 1768, no other opera was played for two years. At this period, the imperial family did not confine the interest they took in the Opera to mere patronage; four Austrian archduchesses, sisters of the Emperor Charles VII., themselves appeared on the stage, and performed, among other pieces, in the Egeria of Metastasio and Hasse, and even in Gluck's works. Charles VII. himself played on the harpsichord and the violoncello; and the Empress mother, then seventy years of age, once said, in conversing with Faustina (Hasse's widow at that time), "I am the oldest dramatic singer in Europe; I made my début when I was five years old." Charles VI. too, Leopold's successor, if not a musician, had, at least, considerable taste in music; and Farinelli informed Dr. Burney that he was much indebted to this sovereign for an admonition he once received from him. The Emperor told the singer that his performance was surprising, and, indeed, prodigious; but that all was unavailing as long as he did not succeed in touching the heart. It would appear that at this time Farinelli's style was wanting in simplicity and expressiveness; but an artist of the intelligence and taste which his correspondence with Metastasio proves him to have possessed, would be sure to correct himself of any such failings the moment his attention was called to them.
The 18th century produced a multitude of great singers. Their voices have gone with them; but we know from the music they sang, from the embellishments and cadences which have been noted down, and which are as good evidence now as when they were first executed, that those virtuosi had brought the vocal art to a perfection of which, in these later days, we meet with only the rarest examples. Is music to be written for the sake of singers, or are singers to learn to sing for the sake of music? Of the two propositions, I decidedly prefer the latter; but it must, at the same time, be remarked, that unless the executive qualities of the singer be studied to a considerable extent, the singer will soon cease to pay much attention to his execution. Continue to give him singable music, however difficult, and he will continue to learn to sing, counting the difficulties to be overcome only as so many opportunities for new triumphs; but if the music given to him is such as can, perhaps even must, be shouted, it is to be expected that he will soon cease to study the intricacies and delicacies of his art; and in time, if music truly vocal be put before him, he will be unable to sing.
The great singers of the 17th century, to judge from the cantilenas of Caccini's, Peri's, and Monteverde's operas, must have cultivated expression rather than ornamentation; though what Mancini tells us about the singing of Balthazar Ferri, and the manner in which it was received, proves that the florid, highly-adorned style was also in vogue. These early Italian virtuosi (a name which they adopted at the beginning of the 17th century to distinguish themselves from mere actors) not only possessed great acquirements as singers, but were also excellent musicians; and many of them displayed great ability in matters quite unconnected with their profession. Stradella, the only vocalist of whom it is recorded that his singing saved his life, composed an opera, La Forza dell Amor paterno, of which the manifold beauties caused him to be proclaimed "beyond comparison the first Apollo of music:" the following inscription being stamped by authority on the published score—"Bastando il dirti, che il concerto di si perfetta melodia sia valore d'un Alessandro, civè del Signor Stradella, riconoscinto senza contrasto per il primo Apollo della musica." Atto, an Italian tenor, who came to Paris with Leonora Baroni, and who had apartments given him in Cardinal Mazarin's palace, was afterwards entrusted by that minister with a political mission to the court of Bavaria, which, however, it must be remembered, was just then presided over, not by an elector, but by an electoress. Farinelli became the confidential adviser, if not the actual minister (as has been often stated, but without foundation) of the king of Spain. In the present day, the only virtuoso I know of (the name has now a more general signification) who has been entrusted with quasi-diplomatic functions is Vivier, the first horn player, and, in his own way, the first humorist of the age; I believe it is no secret that this facetious virtuoso fills the office of secretary to his Excellency Vely Pasha.
Bontempi, in his Historia Musica, gives the following account of the school of singing directed by Mazzocchi, at Rome, in 1620: "At the schools of Rome, the pupils were obliged to give up one hour every day to the singing of difficult passages till they were well acquainted with them; another to the practice of the shake; another to feats of agility;[32] another to the study of letters; another to vocal exercises, under the direction of a master, and before a looking-glass, so that they might be certain they were making no disagreeable movement of the muscles of the face, of the forehead, of the eyes, or of the mouth. So much for the occupation of the morning. In the afternoon, half-an-hour was devoted to the theory of singing; another half-hour to counterpoint; an hour to hearing the rules of composition, and putting them in practice on their tablets; another to the study of letters; and the rest of the day to practising the harpsichord, to the composition of some psalm, motet, canzonetta, or any other piece according to the scholar's own ideas.
"Such were the ordinary exercises of the school in days when the scholars did not leave the house. When they went out, they often walked towards Monte Mario, and sang where they could hear the echo of their notes, so that each might judge by the response of the justness of his execution. They, moreover, sang at all the musical solemnities of the Roman Churches; following, and observing with attention the manner and style of an infinity of great singers who lived under the pontificate of Urban VIII., so that they could afterwards render an account of their observations to the master, who, the better to impress the result of these studies on the minds of his pupils, added whatever remarks and cautions he thought necessary."
With such a system as the above, it would have been impossible, supposing the students to have possessed any natural disposition for singing, not to have produced good singers. We have spoken already of some of the best vocalists of the 18th century; of Faustina, Cuzzoni, and Mingotti; of Nicolini, Senesino, and Farinelli. Of Farinelli's life, however (which was so interesting that it has afforded to a German composer the subject of one opera, to M. M. Scribe and Auber, that of another, La part du Diable, and to M. Scribe the plan of "Carlo Broschi," a tale), I must give a few more particulars; and this will also be a convenient opportunity for sketching the careers of some two or three others of the great Italian singers of this epoch, such as Caffarelli, Gabrielli, Guadagni, &c.
First, as to his name. It is generally said that Carlo Broschi owed his appellation of Farinelli to the circumstance of his father having been a miller, or a flour merchant. This, however, is pure conjecture. No one knows or cares who Carlo Broschi's father was, but he was called "Farinelli," because he was the recognised protégé of the Farina family; just as another singer, who was known to be one of Porpora's favorite pupils, was named "Porporino."
Descriptive nicknames were given to the celebrated musicians as well as to the celebrated painters of Italy. Numerous composers and singers owed their sobriquets
To their Native Country; as—
Il Sassone (Hasse), born at Bergendorf, in Saxony;
Portogallo (Simao);
Lo Spagnuolo (Vincent Martin);
L'Inglesina (Cecilia Davies);
La Francesina (Elizabeth Duparc), who, after singing for some years with success in Italy and at London, was engaged by Handel in 1745, to take the principal soprano parts in his oratorios:
To their Native Town; as—
Buranello, of Burano (Galuppi);
Pergolese, of Pergola (Jesi);
La Ferrarese, of Ferrara (Francesca Gabrielli);
Senesino, of Sienna (Bernardi):
To the Profession of their Parents; as—
La Cochetta (Catarina), whose father was cook to Prince Gabrielli, at Rome:
To the Place they Inhabited; as—
Checca della Laguna, (Francesca of the Lagune):
To the Name of their Master; as—
Caffarelli (Majorano), pupil of Caffaro;
Gizziello (Conti), pupil of Gizzi;
Porporino (Hubert), pupil of Porpora:
To the Name of their Patron; as—
Farinelli (Carlo Broschi), protected by the Farinas, of Naples;
Gabrielli (Catarina), protected by Prince Gabrielli;
Cusanimo (Carestini), protected by the Cusani family of Milan:
To the Part in which they had Particularly Distinguished themselves; as—
Siface (Grossi), who had obtained a triumphant success, as that personage, in Scarlatti's Mitridate.
But the most astonishing of all these nicknames was that given to Lucrezia Aguiari, who, being a natural child, was called publicly, in the playbills and in the newspapers, La Bastardina, or La Bastardella.
Catarina, called Gabrielli, a singer to be ranked with the Faustinas and Cuzzonis, naturally became disgusted with her appellation of la cocchetta (little cook) as soon as she had acquired a little celebrity. She accordingly assumed the name of Prince Gabrielli, her patron; Francesca Gabrielli, who was in no way related to the celebrated Catarina, keeping to that of Ferrarese, or Gabriellina, as she was sometimes called.
But to return to my short anecdotal biographies of a few of these singers.[33] Carlo Broschi, then, called "Farinelli," first distinguished himself, at the age of seventeen, in a bravura with an obligato trumpet accompaniment, which Porpora, his master, wrote expressly for him, and for a German trumpet-player whose skill on that instrument was prodigious. The air commenced with a sustained note, given by the trumpet. This note was then taken up by the vocalist, who held it with consummate art for such a length of time that the audience fell into raptures with the beauty and fulness of his voice. The note was then attacked, and held successively by the player and the singer, pianissimo, crescendo, forte, fortissimo, diminuendo, smorzando, perdendosi—of which the effect may be imagined from the delirious transports of the lady who, on hearing this one note several times repeated, hastened to proclaim in the same breath the unity of the Deity and the uniqueness of Farinelli. This trumpet song occurs originally in Porpora's Eomene; and Farinelli sang it for the first time at Rome, in 1722. In London, in 1734, he introduced it in Hasse's Artaserse, the opera in which he made his début, at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, under the direction of Porpora, his old preceptor.