Italian opera

“ If the Italians have a genius for music above the English, the English have a genius for other performances of a much higher nature, and capable of giving the mind a much nobler entertainment. Would one think it was possible (at a time when an author lived that was able to write the Phedra and Hippolitus) for a people to be so stupidly fond of the Italian opera as scarce to give a third day's hearing to that admirable tragedy? Music is, certainly, a very agreeable entertainment ”

“ But henceforward we have art for its own sake; the truthfulness of the subject-matter is of no account; the sole canon of art is beauty of form; its purpose not instruction but pleasure.
I know no episode in the history of art that is more instructive than the birth of the Italian opera. It was typically a product of the Renaissance, but it came at the very end of that movement, when the freshness of its early vigour was past, when learning had declined into pedantry, and its graceful art was lost in barocco. ”

“ It was no wonder that Italian opera became fashionable. Italian singers have always been unrivalled in popular favour, and in Handel's days they were not only something new to England, but were the exponents of a vocal art which admittedly has never been surpassed. The theatre was new and sumptuous; society was wealthy and at the same time exclusive; at the opera the great world met together as in a sort of club. People went to talk and to be seen as well as to see and hear; they do so in certain opera-houses still. ”

“ Doubtless ninety-nine out of every hundred musicians and music-lovers still believe that Italy has no art-song, that her composers are still devoting their energies to turning out those delectable morceaux in ballad-style which Italian opera singers have sung in the past, and still do, to an extent, when they are called upon to take part in a concert. ”

“ My evening closed with the Italian Opera. Here you find the most select audience; it is the fashionable house. The theatre is prettily decorated, the lighting brilliant, and the singing exceeds expectation. Still it is curious, that even with a company composed entirely of Italians the singing is never the same,—there is never that complete and inimitable whole, which you find in Italy: their fire seems chilled in these colder regions,—their humour dried up; they know that they shall be applauded, but that they no longer form one family with the audience ”

“ English Opera has no history, no unbroken line of traditions; it has no regular sequence of operatic weeks by native composers; but at our Italian Opera Houses, the whole history of dramatic music has been exemplified, and from Gluck to Verdi is still exemplified in the present day. ”

“ The opera music of the Italian school, in its entirety, is marked by greater floridity than that of other schools. The superficial, sensuous charms of the human voice have always appealed powerfully to the Italian race, and its composers have catered to this taste. An honorable ambition for a fame wider than the limits of their own country has led Italian composers to select from other schools their most immediately popular elements. The present Italian opera is eclectic. Its excellence lies largely in the fact that it does not run to extremes in any direction. ”

“ The reason lies in the prestige of Italian opera. Englishmen care little in what language it is performed, so they can have their favourite singers. It is music—it is a fine voice that the public flock to hear; and so the soprano’s notes soar clear and bird-like, and the tenor’s voice attains the perfection of a musical instrument, they can shrug their shoulders both at the sentiments and the phraseology. Insipid verses uttered in the fervour of operatic rapture by a Patti or a Piccolomini, are more palatable to the ear than the finest drama indifferently performed ”

“ Remarks a young lady near us, who is dressed with much wealth of contrasting colors:—"This isn't half so nice as the Italian opera. Miss RICHINGS can't dress half so nicely as Miss KELLOGG, and then you don't see any fashionable people here. The DAVIDS, the ABRAHAMS, the AARONS, the NOAHS, that handsome Mr. JACOBS, and that delightful Mr. MOSES,—all these elegant young men with beautiful eyes and curly hair that dress in velvet coats and diamond studs—there isn't one of them here. Our best society never goes to any opera but the real Italian opera." ”

“ No one will dispute but that understanding Italian would render our entertainment at an opera more rational and more complete; but without that advantage, let it be remembered by the lovers of Music, that an opera is the completest concert to which they can go; with this advantage over those in still life, that to the most perfect singing, and effects of a powerful and well-disciplined band, are frequently added excellent acting, splendid scenes and decorations, with such dancing as a playhouse, from its inferior prices, is seldom able to furnish. ”

“ Let the Opera be of either the French or Italian School, so that it be of one, alone. There is sufficient love for music with us, to make us liberal to either school, so that it be well represented. So far as our own taste is concerned, the Italian school is the more pleasing. The French vocalization is too exaggerated, we think. It is a mere matter of taste, however, and we will be content to listen to either, so that we have an Opera.
In the early part of the summer of ’47, an Italian Opera Troupe, from Havana, tarried a few weeks in Philadelphia. ”

“ The introduction of base voices into the serious opera, the execution of the bold and brilliant passages, written for them in comic parts, has regenerated the Italian Opera, which was simply a concert dramatized; while the Italian singers, feeling how much the effect of music may be aided by scenic illusion, have, for the most part, become excellent actors. In short, we may say, that to hear such an opera as La Gazza Ladra performed by such singers as Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, Graziani, Malibran, and Mariano, is the perfection of dramatic music. ”

“ What must those Strangers say, when they see that we leave so reasonable and so instructive an Entertainment as Tragedy, for one so pernicious and so extremely absurd; for there is something in the Italian Opera, which is Barbarous and Gothick, and so contrary to a true Taste, that an Opera in any Country can be only advanc’d by the same Degrees that the Taste of Men is debauch’d for more generous Arts. Thus in Italy, where an Opera is most advanc’d, there is no one who can write either Verse or Prose, nor any one who can judge of them. ”

“ At not infrequent intervals, however, when a strongly emotional situation demands sustained expression, the restless play of orchestral depiction and the brief exchange of vocal phrases merge into eloquent melody for voice with significant instrumental accompaniment. Thus beautiful vocal melody, fluently sung, remains, in spite of all tendency toward the much vaunted effect of verismo, the heart and soul, as ever, of Italian opera. ”

“ Italian Opera Since Verdi CHIEF among Italian opera composers of the present day are Puccini, Mascagni, and Leoncavallo. Others are Giordano, Wolf-Ferrari, Zandonai, Montemezzi, and Leoni.
Modern Italian opera differs from Italian opera, old style, largely through the devotion of the moderns to effects of realism—the Italian verismo, of which we hear so much. These effects of realism are produced largely by an orchestral accompaniment that constantly adapts itself descriptively to what is said and done on the stage. ”

“ If the music of our country does indeed possess the excellence, so fondly asserted by its numerous admirers, we might naturally expect, amid the general demand in Europe for musical entertainments, that its beauties should not be entirely neglected and unknown. But while the Italian opera has found its way over nearly the whole of Europe, and is absolutely naturalized in England, France, and Spain, our musical productions are unknown beyond the limits of their native shores. ”

“ So closely identified is Italy with all that pertains to opera, that the question of the future of Italian opera in America is one that interests me immensely. It has been my privilege to devote a number of the best years of my life to singing in Italian opera in this wonderful country, and one cannot help noticing, first of all, the almost indescribable advance that America has made along all lines. It is so marvelous that those who reside continually in this country do not stop to consider it. ”

“ Italian opera had of late become the fashion in the musical world of London, but so much dissatisfaction had been aroused by the manner in which it was produced that it needed all the genius and power of such a master as Handel had shown himself to be to restore it to popular favour. ”

“ Throughout the eighteenth century, we find the great Italian singers travelling to all parts of Europe and carrying with them the operas of the best Italian masters. In each of the countries where the opera has been cultivated, it has had a different history, but from the beginning until the end of the eighteenth century, the Italian Opera flourished in Italy, and also in Germany and in England ”

“ The charge most frequently laid against Italian opera is that its composers have been too subservient to the singers, and have sacrificed dramatic truth and depth of expression, as well as the musicianship which is required of a well-written and well-balanced score, as between the vocal and instrumental portions, to the vanity of those upon the stage—in brief, that Italian opera consists too much of show-pieces for its interpreters. ”

“ For some years I have been interested in the new musical development that is going on in Italy. There had been a period when her church music led the world in the variety and beauty of its form. Later on, especially in the eighteenth century, she had produced many composers of distinction in instrumental music, but from then on and until very recent times, opera had almost completely monopolized her writers. The splendid opera-houses which are to be found in her smallest towns are eloquent testimony to the important place which that form of art occupies in the hearts of the Italian people. ”

“ But how comes it that audiences, whose ear is severely fastidious to instrumental music, relax and lower their standard of requirement for the Song? Whatever other reasons may be adduced for this inequality of taste, it can at all events be explained in a large degree by the action of the Italian Opera on the English vocal school. From Handel's time until a very recent date, Italian operas and Italian songs reigned supreme in England; Italian singers and Italian teachers were masters of the situation to the exclusion of all others. ”

“ Spread of Italian Opera.—The fame of Italian opera soon spread to other countries. Princes and kings, eager to hear the new style of music, held out golden inducements to Italian composers and singers to come to their courts; it was generally thought that none but an Italian could compose an opera or sing an aria. The consequence was that in almost all countries during the 18th century the prevailing musical influence was Italian; native composers and singers were obliged to study Italian models if they wished to attain to popular favor. ”

“ That the Italian Operas consist of effeminate Musick. Though it must be acknowledged that the Language of Italy is smooth and flowing, and therefore very much adapted to musical Sounds, and though those Songs which are picked out of Operas, and sung by Ladies at Home, are generally the Love Songs in the Opera, being such as best suit the Tastes and Geniussses of such amiable Performers; yet, it is equally an Error to say that Operas are effeminate, or that all the Songs in them are Love Songs. ”

“ Italian opera and the higher intellectual diversions were later additions to the pleasures of the rich, but the masses rarely shared in such amusements, and the old-fashioned ballads, and the splendidly developed hymnal Music furnished our only relief for emotional disturbance. ”

“ One night, at the Royal Italian Opera, when Mario was playing the part of the "Duke of Mantua" in Rigoletto, and was singing the commencement of the duet with "Gilda," a man dressed in black and white like every one else, said to me gravely, "I do not understand Italian. Can you tell me what he is saying to her?"
"He is telling her that he loves her," I answered briefly. ”

“ Handel appears to me to have done far greater service to English Opera than Arne or any of our English and pseudo-English operatic composers whose works are now utterly forgotten, except by musical antiquaries; for Handel established Italian Opera among us on a grand artistic scale, and since then, at Her Majesty's Theatre, and subsequently at the comparatively new Royal Italian Opera, all the finest works, whether of the Italian, the German, or the French school, have been brought out as fast as they have been produced abroad, and, on the whole, in very excellent style. ”

“ The Italian refers everything to himself. It is neither the action nor the characters that interest him. It is the passions; he embraces them all; he experiences them all in his own person. Hence the frenzied exaltation into which the opera throws him at certain moments. In no other country has the love of the opera this passionate quality, because no other nation displays this personal and egoistical character. The Italian does not go to the opera-house to see the heroes of opera, but to see himself, to hear himself, to caress and inflame his passions. All else is indifferent to him. ”