Piccinni, after accepting the invitation to dispute the prize of popularity in Paris with Gluck, resolved to commence a new opera forthwith, and had no sooner reached the French capital than he asked one of the most distinguished authors of the day to furnish him with a libretto. Marmontel, to whom the request was made, gave him his Roland, which was the Roland of Quinault cut down from five acts to three. Unfortunately, Piccinni did not understand a word of French. Marmontel was therefore obliged to write beneath each French word its Italian equivalent, which caused it to be said that he was not only Piccinni's poet, but also his dictionary.
Gluck was in Germany when Piccinni arrived, and on hearing of the manœuvres of Madame du Barry and the Marquis Caraccioli to supplant him in the favour of the Parisian public, he fell into a violent passion, and wrote a furious letter on the subject, which was made public. Above all, he was enraged at the Academy having accepted from his adversary an opera on the subject of Roland, for he had agreed to compose an Orlando for them himself.
"Do you know that the Chevalier is coming back to us with an Armida and an Orlando in his portfolio?" said the Abbé Arnaud, one of Gluck's most fervent admirers.
"But Piccinni is also at work at an Orlando?" replied one of the Piccinnists.
"So much the better," returned the Abbé, "for then we shall have an Orlando and also an Orlandino."
Marmontel heard of this mot, which caused him to address some unpleasant observations to the Abbé the first time he met him in society.
But the Abbé was not to be silenced. One night, when Gluck's Alceste was being played, he happened to occupy the next seat to Marmontel. Alceste played by Mademoiselle Lesueur, has, at the end of the second act, to exclaim—
"Il me déchire le cœur."
"Ah, Mademoiselle," said the Academician quite aloud, "vous me déchirez les oreilles."
"What a fortunate thing for you, Sir," said the Abbé, "if you could get new ones."
Of course the two armies had their generals. Among those of the Piccinnists were some of the greatest literary men of the day—Marmontel, La Harpe, D'Alembert, &c. The only writers on Gluck's side were Suard, and the Abbé Arnaud, for Rousseau, much as he admired Gluck, cannot be reckoned among his partisans. Suard, who wrote under a pseudonym, generally contrived to raise the laugh against his adversaries. The Abbé Arnaud, as we have seen, used to defend his composer in society, and constituted himself his champion wherever there appeared to be the least necessity, or even opportunity, of doing so. Volumes upon volumes were written on each side; but of course no one was converted.
The Gluckists persisted in saying that Piccinni would never be able to compose anything better than concert music.
The Piccinnists, on the other hand, denied that Gluck had the gift of melody, though they readily admitted that he had this advantage over his adversary—he made a great deal more noise.
In the meanwhile the rehearsals of Piccinni's Orlando, or Orlandino, as the Abbé Arnaud called it, were not going on favourably. The orchestra, which had been subdued by the energetic Gluck, rebelled against Piccinni, who was quite in despair at the vast inferiority of the French to the Italian musicians.
"Everything goes wrong," he said to Marmontel; "there is nothing to be done with them."
Marmontel was then obliged to interfere himself. Profiting by Piccinni's forbearance, directors, singers, and musicians were in the habit of treating him with the coolest indifference. Once, when Marmontel went to rehearsal, he found that none of the principal singers were present, and that the opera was to be rehearsed with "doubles." The author of the libretto was furious, and said he would never suffer the work of the greatest musician in Italy to be left to the execution of "doubles." Upon this, Mademoiselle Bourgeois had the audacity to tell the Academician that, after all, he was but the double of Quinault, whose Roland (as we have seen) he had abridged. One of the chorus singers, too, explained, that for his part he was not double at all, and that it was a fortunate thing for M. Marmontel's shoulders that such was the case.
At last, when all seemed ready, and the day had been fixed for the first representation, up came Vestris, the god of dancing, with a request for some ballet music. It was for the thin but fascinating Madeleine Guimard, who was not in the habit of being refused. Piccinni, without delay, set about the music of her pas, and produced a gavot, which was considered one of the most charming things in the Opera.
When Piccinni started for the theatre, the night of the first representation, he took leave of his family as if he had been going to execution. His wife and son wept abundantly, and all his friends were in a state of despair.
"Come, my children," said Piccinni, at last; "this is unreasonable. Remember that we are not among savages. We are living with the politest and kindest nation in Europe. If they do not like me as a musician, they will, at all events, respect me as a man and a stranger."
Piccinni's success was complete. It was impossible for the Gluckists to deny it. Accordingly they said that they had never disputed Piccinni's grace, nor his gift of melody, though his talent was spoiled by a certain softness and effeminacy, which was observable in all his productions.
Marie Antoinette, whom Madame du Barry and her clique had looked upon as the natural enemy of Piccinni, because she was the avowed patroness of Gluck, astonished both the cabals by sending for the Italian composer and appointing him her singing-master. This was, doubtless, a great honour for Piccinni, though a very unprofitable one; for he was not only not paid for his lessons, but incurred considerable expense in going to and from the palace, to say nothing of the costly binding of the operas and other music, which he presented to the royal circle.
Beaumarchais had found precisely the same disadvantages attaching to the post of Court music-master, when, in his youth, he gave lessons to the daughters of Louis XV.
When Berton assumed the management of the Opera, he determined to make the rival masters friends, and invited them to a magnificent supper, where they were placed side by side. Gluck drank like a man and a German, and before the supper was finished, was on thoroughly confidential terms with his neighbour.
"The French are very good people," said he to Piccinni, "but they make me laugh. They want us to write songs for them, and they can't sing."
The reconciliation appeared to be quite sincere; but the fact was, the quarrel was not between two men, but between two parties. When the direction of the Opera passed from the hands of Berton into those of Devismes, a project of the latter, for making Piccinni and Gluck compose an opera, at the same time, on the same subject, brought their respective admirers once more into open collision. "Here," said Devismes to Piccinni, "is a libretto on the story of Iphigenia in Tauris. M. Gluck will treat the same subject; and the French public will then, for the first time, have the pleasure of hearing two operas founded upon the same incidents, and introducing the same characters, but composed by two masters of entirely different schools."
"But," objected Piccinni, "if Gluck's opera is played first, the public will think so much of it that they will not listen to mine."
"To avoid that inconvenience," replied the director, "we will play yours first."
"But Gluck will not permit it."
"I give you my word of honour," said Devismes, "that your opera shall be put into rehearsal and brought out as soon as it is finished, and before Gluck's."
Piccinni went home, and at once set to work.
He had just finished his two first acts when he heard that Gluck had come back from Germany with his Iphigenia in Tauris completed. However, he had received the director's promise that his Iphigenia should be produced first, and, relying upon Devismes's word of honour, Piccinni merely resolved to finish his opera as quickly as possible, so that the management might not be inconvenienced by having to wait for it, now that Gluck's work, which was to come second, was ready for production.
Piccinni had not quite completed his Iphigenia, when, to his horror, he heard that Gluck's was already in rehearsal! He rushed to Devismes, reminded him of his promise, reproached him with want of faith, but all to no purpose. The director of the Opera declared that he had received a "command" to produce Gluck's work immediately, and that he had nothing to do but to obey. He was very sorry, was in despair, &c.; but it was absolutely necessary to play M. Gluck's opera first.
Piccinni felt that he was lost. He went to his friends, and told them the whole affair.
"In the first place," said Guinguenée, the writer, "let me look at the poem?" The poem was not merely bad, it was ridiculous. The manager had taken advantage of Piccinni's ignorance of the French language to impose upon him a libretto full of absurdities and common-places, such as no sensible schoolboy would have put his name to. Guinguenée, at Piccinni's request, re-wrote the whole piece—greatly, of course, to the annoyance of the original author.
In the meanwhile the rehearsals of Gluck's Iphigenia were continued. At the first of these, in the scene where Orestes, left alone in prison, throws himself on a bench saying "Le calme rentre dans mon cœur," the orchestra hesitated as if struck by the apparent contradiction in the accompaniment, which is still of an agitated character, though "Orestes" has declared that his heart is calm. "Go on!" exclaimed Gluck; "he lies! He has killed his mother!"
The musicians of the Académie had a right, so many at a time, to find substitutes to take their places at rehearsals. Not one profited by this permission while Iphigenia was being brought out.
The Iphigenia in Tauris is known to be Gluck's masterpiece, and it is by that wonderful work and by Orpheus that most persons judge of his talent in the present day. Compared with the German's profound, serious, and admirably dramatic production, Piccinni's Iphigenia stood but little chance. In the first place, it was inferior to it; in the second, the public were so delighted with Gluck's opera that they were not disposed to give even a fair trial to another written on the same subject. However, Piccinni's work was produced, and was listened to with attention. An air, sung by Pylades to Orestes, was especially admired, but on the whole the public seemed to be reserving their judgment until the second representation.
The next evening came; but when the curtain drew up, Piccinni discovered, to his great alarm, that something had happened to Mademoiselle Laguerre, who was entrusted with the principal part. Iphigenia was unable to stand upright. She rolled first to one side, then to the other; hesitated, stammered, repeated the words, made eyes at the pit; in short, Mdlle. Laguerre was intoxicated!
"This is not 'Iphigenia in Tauris,'" said Sophie Arnould; "this is 'Iphigenia in Champagne.'"
That night, the facetious heroine was sent, by order of the king, to sleep at For-l'Evèque, where she was detained two days. A little imprisonment appears to have done her good. The evening of her re-appearance, Mademoiselle Laguerre, with considerable tact, applied a couplet expressive of remorse to her own peculiar situation, and, moreover, sang divinely.
While the Gluck and Piccinni disputes were at their height, a story is told of one amateur, doubtless not without sympathizers, who retired in disgust to the country and sang the praises of the birds and their gratuitous performances in a poem, which ended as follows:—
The contest between Gluck and Piccinni (or rather between the Gluckists and Piccinnists) was brought to an end by the death of the former. An attempt was afterwards made to set up Sacchini against Piccinni; but Sacchini being, as regards the practice of his art, as much a Piccinnist as a Gluckist, this manœuvre could not be expected to have much success.
The French revolution ruined Piccinni, who thereupon retired to Italy. Seven years afterwards he returned to France, and, having occasion to present a petition to Napoleon, was graciously received by the First Consul in the Palace of the Luxembourg.
"Sit down," said Napoleon to Piccinni, who was standing; "a man of your merit stands in no one's presence."
Piccinni now retired to Passy; but he was an old man, his health had forsaken him, and, in a few months, he died, and was buried in the cemetery of the suburb which he had chosen for his retreat.
In the present day, Gluck appears to have vanquished Piccinni, because, at long intervals, one of Gluck's grandly constructed operas is performed, whereas the music of his former rival is never heard at all. But this, by no means, proves that Piccinni's melodies were not charming, and that the connoisseurs of the eighteenth century were not right in applauding them. The works that endure are not those which contain the greatest number of beauties, but those of which the form is most perfect. Gluck was a composer of larger conceptions, and of more powerful genius than his Italian rival; and it may be said that he built up monuments of stone while Piccinni was laying out parterres of flowers. But if the flowers were beautiful while they lasted, what does it matter to the eighteenth century that they are dead now, when even the marble temples of Gluck are antiquated and moss-grown?
I cannot take leave of the Gluck and Piccinni period without saying a few words about its principal dancers, foremost among whom stood Madeleine Guimard, the thin, the fascinating, the ever young, and the two Vestrises—Gaetan, the Julius of that Cæsar-like family, and Auguste its Augustus.
One evening when Madeleine Guimard was dancing in Les fêtes de l'hymen et de l'amour, a very heavy cloud fell from the theatrical heavens upon one of her beautiful arms, and broke it. A mass was said for Mademoiselle Guimard's broken arm in the church of Notre Dame.[52]
Houdon, the sculptor, moulded Mademoiselle Guimard's foot.
Fragonard, the painter, decorated Mademoiselle Guimard's magnificent, luxuriously-furnished hotel. In his mural pictures he made a point of introducing the face and figure of the divinity of the place, until at last he fell in love with his model, and, presuming so far as to show signs of jealousy, was replaced by David—yes Louis David, the fierce and virtuous republican!
David, the great painter of the republic and of the empire was, of course, at this time, but a very young man. He was, in fact, only a student, and Madeleine Guimard, finding that the decoration of her "Temple of Terpsichore" (as the danseuse's artistic and voluptuous palace was called) did not quite satisfy his aspirations, gave him the stipend he was to have received for covering her walls with fantastic designs, to continue his studies in the classical style according to his own ideas.
This was charity of a really thoughtful and delicate kind. As an instance of simple bountiful generosity and kindheartedness, I may mention Madeleine Guimard's conduct during the severe winter of 1768, when she herself visited all the poor in her neighbourhood, and gave to each destitute family enough to live on for a year. Marmontel, deeply affected by this beneficence, addressed the celebrated epistle to her beginning—
"Not yet Magdalen repentant, but already Magdalen charitable," exclaimed a preacher in allusion to Madeleine Guimard's good action, (which soon became known all over Paris, though the dancer herself had not said a word about it); and he added, "the hand which knows so well how to give alms will not be rejected by St. Peter when it knocks at the gate of Paradise."
Madeleine Guimard, with all her powers of fascination, was not beautiful nor even pretty, and she was notoriously thin. Byron used to say of thin women, that if they were old, they reminded him of spiders, if young and pretty, of dried butterflies. Madeleine Guimard's theatrical friends, of course, compared her to a spider. Behind the scenes she was known as L'araignée. Another of her names was La squelette des grâces. Sophie Arnould, it will be remembered, called her "a little silk-worm," for the sake of the joke about "la feuille," and once, when she was dancing between two male dancers in a pas de trois representing two satyrs fighting for a nymph, an uncivil spectator said of the exhibition that it was like "two dogs fighting for a bone."
Madeleine Guimard is said to have preserved her youth and beauty in a marvellous manner, besides which, she had such a perfect acquaintance with all the mysteries of the toilet, that by the arts of dress and adornment alone, she could have made herself look young when she was already beginning to grow old. Marie-Antoinette used to consult her about her costume and the arrangement of her hair, and once when, for insubordination at the theatre, she had been ordered to For-l'Evèque, the danseuse is reported to have said to her maid, "never mind, Gothon, I have written to the Queen to tell her that I have discovered a style of coiffure; we shall be free before the evening."
I have not space to describe Mademoiselle Guimard's private theatre,[53] nor to speak of her liaison with the Prince de Soubise, nor of her elopement with a German prince, whom the Prince de Soubise pursued, wounding him and killing three of his servants, nor of her ultimate marriage with a humble "professor of graces" at the Conservatory of Paris. I must mention, however, that in her decadence Madeleine Guimard visited London (a dozen Princes de Soubise would have followed her with drawn swords if she had attempted to leave Paris during her prime); and that Lord Mount Edgcumbe, the author of the interesting "Musical Reminiscences," saw her dance at the King's Theatre in the year 1789. This was the year of the taking of the Bastille, when a Parisian artist might well have been glad to make a little tour abroad. The dancers who had appeared at the beginning of the season had been insufferably bad, and the manager was at last compelled to send to Paris for more and better performers. Amongst them, says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "came the famous Mademoiselle Guimard, then near sixty years old, but still full of grace and gentility, and she had never possessed more." Madeleine Guimard had ceased to be the rage in Paris for nearly ten years, ("Vers 1780," says M. A. Houssaye, in his "Galerie du Dix-huitième Siècle", elle tomba peu à peu dans l'oubli"), but she was not sixty or even fifty years of age when she came to London. M. Castil Blaze, an excellent authority in such matters, tells us in his "Histoire de l'Académie Royale de Musique," that she was born in 1743.
By way of contrast to Madeleine Guimard, I may call attention to Mademoiselle Théodore, a young, pretty and accomplished danseuse, who hesitated before she embraced a theatrical career, and actually consulted Jean Jacques Rousseau on the subject; who remained virtuous even on the boards of the Académie Royale; and who married Dauberval, the celebrated dancer, as any respectable bourgeoise (if Dauberval had not been a dancer) might have done. Perhaps some aspiring but timid and scrupulous Mademoiselle Théodore of the present day would like to know what Rousseau thought about the perils of the stage? He replied to the letter of the danseuse that he could give her no advice as to her conduct if she determined to join the Opera; that in his own quiet path he found it difficult to lead a pure irreproachable life: how then could he guide her in one which was surrounded with dangers and temptations?
Vestris, I mean Vestris the First, the founder of the family, was as celebrated as Mademoiselle Guimard for his youthfulness in old age. M. Castil Blaze, the historian of the French Opera, saw him fifty-two years after his début at the Académie, which took place in 1748, and declares that he danced with as much success as ever, going through the steps of the minuet "avec autant de grâce que de noblesse." Gaetan left the stage soon after the triumphant success of his son Auguste, but re-appeared and took part in certain special performances in 1795, 1799 and 1800. On the occasion of the young Vestris's début, his father, in court dress, sword at side, and hat in hand, appeared with him on the stage. After a short but dignified address to the public on the importance of the art he professed, and the hopes he had formed of the inheritor of his name, he turned to Auguste and said, "Now, my son, exhibit your talent to the public! Your father is looking at you!"
The Vestris family, which was very numerous, and very united, always went in a body to the opera when Auguste danced, and at other times made a point of stopping away. "Auguste is a better dancer than I am," the old Vestris would say; "he had Gaetan Vestris for his father, an advantage which nature refused me."
"If," said Gaetan, on another occasion, "le dieu de la danse (a title which he had himself given him) touches the ground from time to time, he does so in order not to humiliate his comrades."
This notion appears to have inspired Moore with the lines he addressed in London to a celebrated dancer.
The Vestrises (whose real name was Vestri) came from Florence. Gaetan, known as le beau Vestris, had three brothers, all dancers, and this illustrious family has had representatives for upwards of a century in the best theatres of Italy, France and England. The last celebrated dancer of the name who appeared in England, was Charles Vestris, whose wife was the sister of Ronzi di Begnis. Charles Vestris was Auguste's nephew. His father, Auguste's brother, was Stefano Vestris, a stage poet of no ability, and Mr. Ebers, in his "Seven Years of the King's Theatre,"[54] tells us (giving us therein another proof of the excellent esprit de famille which always animated the Vestrises) that when Charles Vestris and his wife entered into their annual engagement, "the poet was invariably included in the agreement, at a rate of remuneration for his services to which his consanguinity to those performers was his chief title."
We can form some notion of Auguste Vestris's style from that of Perrot (now ballet-master at the St. Petersburgh Opera), who was his favourite pupil, and who is certainly by far the most graceful and expressive dancer that the opera goers of the present day have seen.
END OF VOL. I.
from its Origin in Italy to the present Time.
WITH ANECDOTES
OF THE MOST CELEBRATED COMPOSERS AND VOCALISTS OF EUROPE.
BY
SUTHERLAND EDWARDS,
AUTHOR OF "RUSSIANS AT HOME," ETC.
"QUIS TAM DULCIS SONUS QUI MEAS COMPLET AURES?"
"WHAT IS ALL THIS NOISE ABOUT?"
VOL. II.
LONDON:
WM. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE.
——
1862.
[The right of translation and reproduction is reserved.]
LONDON: LEWIS AND SON, PRINTERS, SWAN BUILDINGS, (49) MOORGATE STREET.
| PAGE | |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
| The Opera in England at the end of the Eighteenth and beginning of the Nineteenth Century | 1 |
| CHAPTER XII. | |
| Opera in France after the departure of Gluck | 34 |
| CHAPTER XIII. | |
| The French Opera before and after the Revolution | 46 |
| CHAPTER XIV. | |
| Opera in Italy, Germany and Russia, during and in connection with the Republican and Napoleonic Wars.—Paisiello, Paer, Cimarosa, Mozart.—The Marriage of Figaro.—Don Giovanni | 86 |
| CHAPTER XV. | |
| Manners and Customs at the London Opera half a century since | 121 |
| CHAPTER XVI. | |
| Rossini and his Period | 140 |
| CHAPTER XVII. | |
| Opera in France under the Consulate, Empire and Restoration | 178 |
| XVIII. | |
| Donizetti and Bellini | 226 |
| XIX. | |
| Rossini—Spohr—Beethoven—Weber and Hoffmann | 282 |
| Index to Both Volumes | |
THE OPERA IN ENGLAND AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
HITHERTO I have been obliged to trace the origin and progress of the Opera in various parts of Europe. At present there is one Opera for all the world, that is to say, the same operatic works are performed every where, if not,
at least, in a great many other equally distant cities, and which Boileau never heard of; as, for instance, from St. Petersburgh to Philadelphia, and from New Orleans to Melbourne. But for the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars, the universality of Opera would have been attained long since. The directors of the French Opera, after producing the works of Gluck and Piccinni, found it impossible, as we shall see in the next chapter, to attract the public by means of the ancient répertoire, and were obliged to call in the modern Italian composers to their aid. An Italian troop was engaged to perform at the Académie Royale, alternately with the French company, and the best opera buffas of Piccinni, Traetta, Paisiello, and Anfossi were represented, first in Italian, and afterwards in French. Sacchini and Salieri were engaged to compose operas on French texts specially for the Académie. In 1787, Salieri's Tarare (libretto by Beaumarchais),[55] was brought out with immense success; the same year, the same theatre saw the production of Paisiello's Il re Teodoro, translated into French; and, also the same year, Paisiello's Marchese di Tulipano was played at Versailles, by a detachment from the Italian company engaged at our own King's Theatre.
This is said to have been the first instance of an Italian troop performing alternately in London and in Paris. A proposition had been made under the Regency of Philip of Orleans, for the engagement of Handel's celebrated company;[56] but, although the agreement was drawn up and signed, from various causes, and principally through the jealousy of the "Academicians," it was never carried out. The London-Italian company of 1787 performed at Versailles, before the Court and a large number of aristocratic subscribers, many of whom had been solicited to support the enterprise by the queen herself. Storace, the prima donna assoluta of the King's Theatre, would not accompany the other singers to Paris. Madame Benini, however, the altra prima donna went, and delighted the French amateurs. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, in his interesting volume of "Musical Reminiscences," tells us that she "had a voice of exquisite sweetness, and a finished taste and neatness in her manner of singing; but that she had so little power, that she could not be heard to advantage in so large a theatre: her performance in a small one was perfect." Among the other vocalists who made the journey from London to Paris, were Mengozzi the tenor, who was Madame Benini's husband, and Morelli the bass. "The latter had a voice of great power, and good quality, and he was a very good actor. Having been running footman to Lord Cowper at Florence," continues Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "he could not be a great musician." Benini, Mengozzi, and Morelli, again visited Paris in 1788, but did not make their appearance there in 1789, the year of the taking of the Bastille. The répertoire of these singers included operas by Paisiello, Cimarosa, Sarti, and Anfossi, and they were particularly successful in Paisiello's Gli Schiavi per Amore. When this opera was produced in London in 1787 (with Storace, not Benini, in the principal female part), it was so much admired that it ran to the end of the season without any change. Another Italian company gave several series of performances in Paris between 1789 and 1792, and then for nine years France was without any Italian Opera at all.
Storace was by birth and parentage, on her mother's side, English; but she went early to Italy, "and," says the author from whom I have just quoted, "was never heard in this country till her reputation as the first buffa of her time was fully established." Her husband was Fisher, a violinist (whose portrait has been painted by Reynolds); but she never bore his name, and the marriage was rapidly followed by a separation. Mrs. Storace settled entirely in England, and after quitting the King's Theatre accepted an engagement at Drury Lane. Here English Opera was raised to a pitch of excellence previously unknown, thanks to her singing, together with that of Mrs. Crouch, Mrs. Bland, Kelly, and Bannister. The musical director was Mrs. Storace's brother, Stephen Storace, the arranger of the pasticcios entitled the Haunted Tower, and the Siege of Belgrade.
Madame Mara made her first appearance at the King's Theatre the year before Storace's début. She had previously sung in London at the Pantheon Concerts, and at the second Handel Festival (1785), in Westminster Abbey. I have already spoken of this vocalist's performances and adventures at the court of Frederick the Great, at Vienna, and at Paris, where her worshippers at the Concerts Spirituels formed themselves into the sect of "Maratistes," as opposed to that of the "Todistes," or believers in Madame Todi.[57]
Lord Mount Edgcumbe, during a visit to Paris, heard Madame Mara at one of the Concerts Spirituels, in the old theatre of the Tuileries. She had just returned from the Handel Commemoration, and sang, among other things, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," which was announced in the bills as being "Musique de Handel, paroles de Milton." "The French," says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "had not the taste to like it."
The first opera in which Madame Mara appeared at the King's Theatre was Didone, a pasticcio, in which four songs of different characters, by Sacchini, Piccinni, and two other composers, were introduced. She afterwards sang with Miss Cecilia Davies (L'Inglesina) in Sacchini's Perseo.
At this period Handel's operas were already so much out of fashion, though esteemed as highly as ever by musicians and by the more venerable of connoisseurs, that when Giulio Cesare was revived, with Mara and Rubinelli (both of whom sang the music incomparably well), in the principal parts, it had no success with the general public; nor were any of Handel's operas afterwards performed at the King's Theatre. Giulio Cesare, in which many of the most favourite songs from Handel's other operas ("Verdi prati," "Dove sei," "Rendi sereno il ciglio," and others) were interpolated, answered the purpose for which it was produced, and attracted George III. two or three times to the theatre. Moreover (to quote Lord Mount Edgcumbe's words), "it filled the house, by attracting the exclusive lovers of the old style, who held cheap all other operatic performances."
In 1789 (the year in which the supposed sexagenarian, Madeleine Guimard, "still full of grace and gentility," made her appearance) the King's Theatre was burnt to the ground—not without a suspicion of its having been maliciously set on fire, which was increased by the suspected person soon after committing suicide. Arrangements were made for carrying on the Opera at the little theatre in the Haymarket, where Mara was engaged as the first woman in serious operas, and Storace in comic. The company afterwards moved to the Pantheon, "which," says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "in its original state was the largest and most beautiful room in London, and a very model of fine architecture. It was the chef-d'œuvre of Wyatt, who himself contrived and executed its transformation, taking care not to injure any part of the building, and so concealing the columns and closing its dome, that it might be easily restored after its temporary purpose was answered, it being then in contemplation to erect an entirely new and magnificent opera-house elsewhere, a project which could never be realised. Mr. Wyatt, by this conversion, produced one of the prettiest, and by far the most genteel and comfortable theatres I ever saw, of a moderate size and excellent shape, and admirably adapted both for seeing and hearing. There the regular Opera was successfully carried on, with two very good companies and ballets. Pacchierotti, Mara, and Lazzarini, a very pleasing singer with a sweet tenor voice, being at the head of the serious; and Casentini, a pretty woman and genteel actress, with Lazzarini, for tenor, Morelli and Ciprani principal buffos, composing the comic. This was the first time that Pacchierotti[58] had met with a good prima donna since Madame Lebrun, and his duettos with Mara were the most perfect pieces of execution I ever heard. The operas in which they performed together were Sacchini's Rinaldo and Bertoni's Quinto Fabio revived, and a charming new one by Sarti, called Idalide, or La Vergine del Sole. The best comic were La Molinara, and La bella Pescatrice, by Guglielmi. On the whole I never enjoyed the opera so much as at this theatre."
The Pantheon enterprise, however, like most operatic speculations in England, did not pay, and at the end of the first season (1791) the manager had incurred debts to the amount of thirty thousand pounds. In the meanwhile the King's Theatre had been rebuilt, but the proprietor, now that the Opera was established at the Pantheon, found himself unable to obtain a license for dramatic performances, and had to content himself with giving concerts at which the principal singer was the celebrated David. It was proposed that the new Opera house should take the debts of the Pantheon, and with them its operatic license, but the offer was not accepted, and in 1792 the Pantheon was destroyed by fire—in this case the result, clearly, of accident.
At last the schism which had divided the musical world was put an end to, and an arrangement was made for opening the King's Theatre in the winter of 1793. There was not time to bring over a new company, but one was formed out of the singers already in London, with Mara at their head and with Kelly for the tenor.
Mara was now beginning to decline in voice and in popularity. When she was no longer engaged at the Italian Opera, she sang at concerts and for a short time at Covent Garden, where she appeared as "Polly" in The Beggars' Opera. She afterwards sang with the Drury Lane company while they performed at the King's Theatre during the rebuilding of their own house, which had been pulled down to be succeeded by a much larger one. She appeared in an English serious opera, called Dido, "in which," says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "she retained one song of her Didone, the brilliant bravura, Son Regina. It did not greatly succeed, though the music was good and well sung. This is not surprising," he adds, "the serious opera being ill suited to our stage, and our language to recitative. None ever succeeded but Dr. Arne's Artaxerxes, which was, at first, supported by some Italian singers, Tenducci being the original Arbaces." It is noticeable that in the aforesaid English Dido Kelly was the tenor, while Mrs. Crouch took the part of first man, which at this time in Italy was always given to a sopranist.
Madame Mara's husband, the ex-violinist of the Berlin orchestra, appears never to have been a good musician, and always an idle drunkard. His wife at last got disgusted with his habits, and probably, also, with his performance on the violin,[59] for she went off with a flute-player named Florio to Russia, where she lived for many years. When she was about seventy she re-appeared in England and gave a concert at the King's Theatre, but without any sort of success. Her wonderful powers were said to have returned, but when she sang her voice was generally compared to a penny trumpet. Madame Mara then returned to Moscow, where she suffered greatly by the fire of 1812. She afterwards resided at some town in the Baltic provinces, and died there at a very advanced age.
The next great vocalist who visited England after Mara's début, was Banti. She had commenced life as a street singer; but her fine voice having attracted the attention of De Vismes, the director of the Académie, he told her to come to him at the Opera, where the future prima donna, after hearing an air of Sacchini's three times, sang it perfectly from beginning to end. De Vismes at once engaged her; and soon afterwards she made her first appearance with the most brilliant success. Although Banti was now put under the best masters, she was of such an indolent, careless disposition, that she never could be got to learn even the first elements of music. Nevertheless, she was so happily endowed by nature, that it gave her no trouble to perfect herself in the most difficult parts; and whatever she sang, she rendered with the most charming expression imaginable. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who does not mention the fact of her having sung at the French Opera, says that Banti was the most delightful singer he ever heard (though, when she appeared at the King's Theatre in 1799, she must have been forty-two years of age[60]); and tells us that, "in her, genius supplied the place of science; and the most correct ear, with the most exquisite taste, enabled her to sing with more effect, more expression, and more apparent knowledge of her art, than many much better professors."
It is said of Banti, that when she was singing in Paris, though she never made the slightest mistake in concerted pieces, she sometimes executed her airs after a very strange fashion. For instance: in the allegro of a cavatina, after singing the principal motive, and the intermediary phrase or "second part," she would, in a fit of absence, re-commence the air from the very beginning; go on with it until the turning point at the end of the second part; again re-commence and continue this proceeding, until at last the conductor warned her that next time she had better think of terminating the piece. In the meanwhile the public, delighted with Banti's voice, is said to have been quite satisfied with this novel mode of performance.
Banti made her début in England in Bianchi's Semiramide, in which she introduced an air from one of Guglielmi's oratorios, with a violin obbligato accompaniment, played first by Cramer, afterward by Viotti, Salomon, and Weichsell, the brother of Mrs. Billington. This song was of great length, and very fatiguing; but Banti was always encored in it, and never omitted to repeat it.
At her benefit in the following year (1800) Banti performed in an opera, founded on the Zenobia of Metastasio, by Lord Mount Edgcumbe, the author of the interesting "Reminiscences," to which, in the course of the present chapter I shall frequently have to refer. The "first man's" part was allotted to Roselli, a sopranist, who, however, had to transfer it to Viganoni, a tenor. Roselli, whose voice was failing him, soon afterwards left the country; and no other male soprano made his appearance at the King's Theatre until the arrival of Velluti, who sang twenty-five years afterwards in Meyerbeer's Crociato.
Banti's favourite operas were Gluck's Alceste, in which she was called upon to repeat three of her airs every night; the Iphigénie en Tauride, by the same author; Paisiello's Elfrida, and Nina or La Pazza per Amore; Nasolini's[61] Mitridate; and several operas by Bianchi, composed expressly for her.
Before Banti's departure from England, she prevailed on Mrs. Billington to perform with her on the night of her benefit, leaving to the latter the privilege of assuming the principal character in any opera she might select. Merope was chosen. Mrs. Billington took the part of the heroine, and Banti that of "Polifonte," though written for a tenor voice. The curiosity to hear these two celebrated singers in the same piece was so great, that the theatre was filled with what we so often read of in the newspapers, but so seldom see in actual life,—"an overflowing audience;" many ladies being obliged, for want of better places, to find seats on the stage.
Banti died at Bologna, in 1806, bequeathing her larynx (of extraordinary size) to the town, the municipality of which caused it to be duly preserved in a glass bottle. Poor woman! she had by time dissipated the whole of her fortune, and had nothing else to leave.