H. Sutherland Edwards

“ A libretto is sometimes so bad that the best music in the world will not carry it off: in vain the composer gives it wings, it will not fly. In such a case as that, it was Rossini’s practice to disunite his living music from the dead body of the drama to which it had been attached, and to present it again to the public in what he thought would prove a happier alliance. ”

“ We hear a great deal of the decay of singing as an art; but that art was thought so much of when Rossini began to write that more important things—dramatic propriety and music itself—were sacrificed to it. What would Italian singers of the year 1813 have thought of “William Tell?” and how would their highly-decorative style have suited that simple, energetic, thoroughly dramatic music? The development of Rossini’s dramatic faculty was, no doubt, delayed by his having often to write for singers so accomplished, that they could think of nothing but the exhibition of their own voice. ”

“ Indeed, “Guillaume Tell” is full of melody, in the simplest solos as in the most massive choral writing. Rossini said of the compositions of his old professor, Mattei, that “the solo passages were not prominent, but that the pleni were admirable.” In “Guillaume Tell” the solo passages and the pleni are admirable alike. The music, whatever it may have to express, never ceases to be beautiful, and there is in every piece a clear current of melody, which the richest and most varied harmony never obscures.
“Guillaume Tell,” Rossini’s latest, is also his finest opera. ”

“ But he is also a singer full of warmth, verve, expression, energy, and musical sentiment; alone he can fill up and give life to a scene; it is impossible for another singer to carry away an audience as he does, and when he will only be simple he is admirable; he is the Rossini of song. He is a great singer; the greatest I have ever heard. Doubtless the manner in which Garcia sings and plays the part of Otello is preferable, taking it altogether, to that of Davide. It is purer, more severe, more constantly dramatic ”

“ For a “lazy” man it was severe; but Rossini did all that was expected of him to perfection, and ended by marrying the prima donna—which Barbaja had not bargained for at all.
Mademoiselle Colbran, the future Madame Rossini, was a great beauty, in the queenly style—dark hair, brilliant eyes, imposing demeanour. One would think she must already have seen her best days when Rossini first met her at Naples in 1815; for she was born at Madrid in 1785. But only women of the happiest organisation succeed as great dramatic singers ”

“ Rossini had found la Marcolini, la Malanotte, la Manfredini, the Mombelli family, why should he not endeavour to give prominence to the singing, he who is such a good singer, and who when he sits down to the piano to sing one of his own airs, seems to transfer the genius we know him to possess as a composer, into that of a singer? ”

“ On the subject of Madame Rossini-Colbran’s voice Carpani writes like a Neapolitan royalist. “She has,” he says, “a very sweet, full, sonorous quality of voice, particularly in the middle and lower notes; a finished, pure, insinuating style. She has no outbursts, but a fine portamento, perfect intonation, and an accomplished method. The Graces seem to have watered with nectar each of her syllables, her fioriture, her volate, her shakes. She sings with one breath a series of semitones, extending to nearly two octaves, in a clear, pearly manner, and excels in all the other arts of singing. ”

“ One young man in the pit—a student of music, and a pupil of Rolla, the leader of the orchestra—went almost into convulsions on hearing the drums, and wished to take summary vengeance on the composer who had ventured to introduce such instruments into an operatic orchestra. The youthful conservative, with all the ardour of an Italian revolutionist, swore that he would have Rossini’s blood, and went about with a stiletto in the hope of meeting him. ”

“ Here the operatic composer had an opportunity,{318} turned by Rossini to magnificent advantage, of going to the heart of a grand dramatic situation, and bringing out its full significance.
The trio, independently of its wonderful melodic and harmonic beauty, is a fine example of the power of music to give a simultaneous presentation of various and conflicting emotions. But on the mere beauty of the “Guillaume Tell” music, whether for the solo voices or for the orchestra, for the chorus or for the ballet, it would be vain to dwell. ”

“ On the other hand, many of Rossini’s friends, taking perhaps an unduly serious view of a piece of pleasantry, thought that M. Scribe had treated the great composer with too much levity.
A great deal has been said about the intrigues against Rossini, and the attacks made upon his music in the newspapers on his first arrival in Paris. Writers in the present day are astonished that writers in that day should have been so unjust. Musicians are not astonished that writers at any time should have been so ignorant. ”

“ Much has been said about the failure, or incomplete success, of Rossini’s masterpiece in the serious style; and Rossini’s long silence is often attributed to the coldness with which it was received. It was at once appreciated, however, by the critical public, and the applause at the first representation was most enthusiastic. But an opera cannot live by its music alone, and the drama of “Guillaume Tell” is very imperfect. ”

“ Not knowing how to make men speak, they made gods and devils, instead of heroes and shepherds, sing. Thus magic and marvels became speedily the stock-in-trade of the lyrical theatre; yet, in spite of every effort to fascinate the eyes whilst multitudes of instruments and voices bewildered the air, the action of every piece remained cold, and all its scenes were totally devoid of interest. ”

“ It contains enough to furnish not one, but four operas. In this work Rossini, by the new riches which he draws from his prodigious imagination, is no longer the author of ‘Otello,’ ‘Tancredi,’ ‘Zoraide,’ and all his preceding works; he is another composer—new, agreeable, and fertile, as much as the first, but with more command of himself, more pure, more masterly, and, above all, more faithful to the interpretation of the words. The forms of style employed in this opera, according to circumstances, are so varied, that now we seem to hear Gluck, now Traetta, now Sacchini, now Mozart, now Handel ”

“ But the Italian Rossinists,{270} and Rossini himself, are more just. He has no need of that to raise himself; his great talent will always put him in his proper place. If people would be reasonable, they would do in musical matters what is done in literature and in painting; it is possible to have Dante, and Tasso, and others, in the same library, and to admire Rubens and Raphael in the same gallery. Honour to Rossini, but honour also to Mozart, Glück, Cimarosa, &c. Rossini, with whom I have conversed a great deal, is quite of the same way of thinking. ”

“ The libretto has not to contend with the impression left by an unapproachable masterpiece on the same subject, as in the case of “Otello.” Finally, the comedy on which it is founded is not only a masterpiece in a purely dramatic sense, it is moreover essentially a drama for music, and for just such music as Rossini loved to write, and wrote to perfection. There is nothing more felicitous in all operatic setting than Basilio’s air, the crescendo of which exists as much in Beaumarchais’s prose as in Rossini’s music. ”

“ The beauty of Lord Mount Edgcumbe’s criticism is that his bare facts, however absurdly he may qualify them, do in themselves possess a certain amount of truth. It is only his feelings and opinions that are erroneous. It is observable, too, that though he does not like the new composer himself, he never attempts to deny Rossini’s great success with the public.
Mr. Ebers is equally explicit as to the popularity of Rossini just at the time when he was expected in London. ”

“ The heroine of each of these dramas is the victim of a slight mistake. Whether ‘tis nobler to be suspected of carrying on an intrigue with a village count or of stealing a silver spoon, may be left to the decision of those prima donnas who have represented both Ninetta and Amina; but the story of “La Sonnambula” is certainly both more probable, and more pleasing, than that of “La Gazza Ladra,” which Rossini does not seem to have been able to treat seriously. The plot is so badly woven in “La Gazza Ladra” that it scarcely hangs together at all. ”

“ The chorus of the plague of darkness, in the first act, was found one of the most impressive pieces when the work was first produced; and this was quite surpassed at subsequent representations by the admirable preghiera of the passage of the Red Sea,{193} where the same melody, with just one significant shade of difference, is heard, first in the minor, as a plaintive supplication, afterwards in the major, as a joyous thanksgiving. Nothing is more simple, nothing can be more perfect. The music thoroughly beautiful, the effect thoroughly dramatic. ”

“ Seriously, the two great musical capitals of Germany were Vienna and Prague, and the dilettanti of Naples thought more than ever that the supremacy of their opera in all Europe was not to be questioned.
When Rossini’s fame, thanks to “Tancredi” and “L’Italiana in Algeri,” was spreading all over Italy,{101} the impresario of the San Carlo at Naples, who had also undertaken the management of the Teatro del Fondo in the same city, was the celebrated Barbaja, a personage to whom an important place belongs in operatic history. ”

“ Two hundred and forty pounds was all the manager of the Italian Opera of London had offered Rossini for the work he never completed. Indeed, if a composer in England is to make money at all—as a composer—it must be through music publishers, not managers, who, as a rule, pay no more for the right of representation than Rossini received in Italy for copyright. ”

“ The main incidents of Rossini’s life are all connected directly or indirectly with music. As a youth, when Prince Eugene was Viceroy of Italy, he would have fallen a victim to the conscription but for the proofs he had already given of rare musical genius. When, at the age of 30, he took a wife, he married a singer for whom he had written some of his greatest parts. As a young man he was constantly travelling from one Italian city to another to superintend the production of his works. ”

“ The danger of my unfortunate music is the more imminent in so much as there are no more singing schools in Italy. The theatres are full of artists who have picked up music from singing-masters about the country. This style of singing violin concertos, endless variations, will not only destroy all talent for singing, but will also vitiate the public taste. All the singers will be imitating Velluti, each according to his means. ”

“ He never leaves you cold, and when he does not move you he astonishes you; in a word, before hearing him, I did{155} not know what the power of singing really was. The enthusiasm he excites is without limits. In fact, his faults are not faults for Italians, who, in their opera seria, do not employ what the French call the tragic style, and who scarcely understand us when we tell them that a waltz or quadrille movement is out of place in the mouth of a Cæsar, an Assur, or an Otello. ”

“ Before “Tancredi” the bass took no part in tragic{50} opera. Then, in addition to the new distribution of parts, the new arrangement of the dramatic scenes, the elaborate finale, the bright sonorous instrumentation, there were the charming melodies, there was the animation of the style, which, whatever the plan of the work, would certainly have sufficed to ensure it a large measure of success. All who heard the opera must, consciously or unconsciously, have felt the effect of Rossini’s admirable innovations; but what chiefly excited the enthusiasm of the public was the beauty of the melodies. ”

“ The Roman theatres were badly built, chiefly of wood; but the Argentina and the Valle theatres, where “Il Barbiere” and “Cenerentola” were produced, may be remembered in the history of art when many magnificent edifices in stone are forgotten. For the Argentina theatre not only Rossini’s masterpiece in the comic style, but also (as for the Alberti) many of the best works of Pergolese, Cimarosa, and Paisiello were composed. ”