LITMIR.BIZ

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however, was the name popularly given to it; and wherever the first idea came from, the melody, as it now exists, is eminently Rossinian in form and style. How many great singers have sung this lovely air, beginning with the celebrated Pasta, who played the part of Tancredi as long as she remained on the stage, and whose favourite piece, after she had left it, to appear only at concerts, was still “Di tanti palpiti?” It has been seen that Madame Malanotte was the original Tancredi at Venice; Madame Pasta was the first representative of the character in France and England, and Pisaroni, Malibran, and Madame Viardot-Garcia afterwards distinguished themselves in the same part.

      The most brilliant Amenaide ever heard was probably Madame Sontag, who appeared in that character in 1829 to Malibran’s Tancredi.

      CHAPTER VI

      ROSSINI’S REFORMS IN COMIC OPERA

      AS Rossini found the opera seria of his day too serious, so he found the opera buffa too broadly comic. He was accused of treating tragic subjects melodramatically – which meant that he made them interesting. In dealing with comic subjects he took care to keep above the level of farce, his general tone being that of comedy, into which he now and then, but not often, introduced a touch of sentiment (“Languir per una bella” in “L’Italiana,” “Ecco ridente il cielo” in “Il Barbiere”).

      The old opera buffa, with its separate set of characters and singers, and its own separate style, musical as well as dramatic, died out under the influence of Rossini’s innovations. It is said to have been very fine, by those who liked it; but apparently Rossini did not like it, for after trying his hand at a few specimens (of which the notorious little operetta or farza with the lamp-shade accompaniment seems to have been the last) he abandoned it, as after a single trial (Velluti in “Aureliano in Palmira”) he abandoned the sopranists.

      If Rossini ever wrote an opera seria in the old style, it must have been that work of his early youth, “Demetrio e Polibio,” of which all that seems to be known is, that it was composed in 1809 for the Mombellis, and produced at Rome in 1812.

      It must have seemed strange and rather awful to some obstinate habitués (and habitués are often as obstinate as habit itself) that the same singer should come before them one night as Moses, and the next as Doctor Bartholo, one night as Figaro, and the next as Assur in “Semiramide.” At the same time they appear to have been annoyed with Rossini both because in his serious works he was not more severe, and because in his comic works he was not more grotesque.

      The fact is, Rossini rendered both styles more natural, more like life, as far as life can be represented in opera, and certainly more dramatic.

      In “L’Italiana in Algeri” we see only the first essay in the style which was to be brought to perfection in “Il Barbiere” and “Cenerentola;” but “L’Italiana” was the forerunner of these works, just as “Tancredi,” in the serious style, was the forerunner of “Otello” and “Semiramide.”

      “L’Italiana in Algeri,” like “Tancredi,” was composed for Venice; this time neither for the San Mosè nor the Fenice, but for the San Benedetto. The principal part was written for Madame Marcolini, who again, as in “L’Equivoco Stravagante,” and “La Pietra del Paragone,” was provided with a brilliant rondo finale.

      In the concerted finale of the first act the prolonged crescendo was found as effective as the same device had proved in “Tancredi.” Rossini had now adopted his crescendo, never to forsake it; and if he was faithful to it, it certainly was faithful to him, and never once deceived him.

      The recitatives in “L’Italiana in Algeri,” as in “Tancredi,” are still rather long. The dramatic progress, too, in “L’Italiana” is slow, and the acts, as in all Rossini’s two-act operas – that is to say, all his important Italian operas, with the exception of “Otello” – last a prodigious time.

      It must be remembered that when these operas were written it was the custom in Italy to give a divertissement, or even a long ballet, between the acts. As to the lengthiness of the recitatives, that was an affair of very little importance. No one was obliged to listen to them, and private conversation took place between the pieces, as public dancing took place between the acts.

      Not only recitatives, but inferior airs, were neglected in this manner. If Tancredi’s air was called “Aria dei rizzi,” because it was composed while rice was being cooked, Berta’s air in “Il Barbiere” got to be known as the “Aria di sorbetto,” because people used to eat ices while it was being sung.

      Rossini, no doubt, effected a reform in the conduct of his audiences as well in that of his dramas. The public were quite right not to listen to interminable recitatives; and when Rossini shortened his, and gave them a more dramatic character, at the same time increasing the number and variety of musical pieces in each act, he soon gained the full attention of his audience; after which, one excuse at least for being tedious had disappeared.

      The worst of it was that, almost as soon as Rossini had brought the Italian public to listen to his operas from beginning to end, he ceased to write. “Il Barbiere” was composed in 1816, and he never gave Italy a note after “Semiramide” in 1823.

      The moment has now arrived for recording an anecdote. It is not pleasant to tell it for the five hundredth time; but a place for the most celebrated of all the Rossini anecdotes must somewhere be found, and it belongs to the year 1813, of which we take leave with the present chapter.

      It was in the eventful year, then, of 1813 – the year of “Il Figlio per Azzardo,” with its obbligato accompaniment for lamp-shades, of “Tancredi,” and of “L’Italiana in Algeri” – that Rossini was writing one morning in bed, when the duet on which he was engaged fell from his hands.

      “Nothing easier,” an ordinary composer would say, “than to pick it up again.”

      “Nothing easier,” said Rossini, “than to write a new one in its place.”

      Rossini would not get out of bed for a mere duet. He set to work and composed another, which did not resemble the original one in the least.

      A friend called. “I have just dropped a duet,” said Rossini, “I wish you would get it for me. You will find it somewhere under the bed.”

      The friend felt for the duet with his cane, fished it out, and handed it to the composer.

      “Now which do you like best?” asked Rossini; “I have written two.”

      He sang them both. The friend thought the character of the first was most in keeping with the dramatic situation. Rossini was of the same opinion, and decided to turn the second duet into a trio.

      He finished his trio, got up, dressed, sent the two pieces to the theatrical copyist, and went out to breakfast.

      This anecdote is often told in illustration of Rossini’s laziness, as if a really active man would have got out of bed to pick up the fallen duet rather than set to work, lazily, to compose a new one.

      Many volumes might be written on this question. It will be sufficient, however, to point out that activity is mere liveliness of the body, as liveliness is activity of the mind. So laziness is dulness of the body, dulness laziness of the mind. Rossini had a lively mind in a lazy body. He could not have walked a thousand miles in a thousand hours; but he wrote the “Barber of Seville” in thirteen days.

      CHAPTER VII

      ROSSINI’S REFORMS IN WRITING FOR THE VOICE

      ROSSINI encountered no serious obstacles in his career. He was never crossed in love like Beethoven – indeed, in his numerous affairs of the heart, he seems always to have been met half way; nor did his works ever remain unappreciated for more than about twenty-four hours at a time.

      He was never lamentably poor, like Schubert; for though in the earlier part of his career he was badly paid, he could always earn twenty or thirty pounds, the price of an opera, by working for two or three weeks.

      To tell the truth, he seems never to have been depressed or elevated by the aspirations of Mozart; and he had (to

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