Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Part 3

It is a story from the lips of the maestro.

While his father, the elder Garcia, was at Naples, one of the old Italian composers came to produce a new opera.

At the opening rehearsal the tenor was given his part to read at sight.

When his first aria had been reached he sang it off with perfect phrasing and feeling, but exactly note for note as written. After he had finished the composer said, "Thank you, signer, very nice, but that was not at all what I wanted." He asked for an explanation, and was informed that the melody which had been written down was intended merely as a skeleton which the singer should clothe with whatever his imagination and artistic instinct prompted. The writer of the music asked him to go through it again, and this time to treat it exactly as though it were his own composition.

The elder Garcia was skilful at improvising: consequently, in giving the aria for the second time, he made a number of alterations and additions, introducing runs, trills, roulades, and cadenzas, all of which were performed with the most brilliant execution. This time, when the end of the music was reached, the old composer shook him warmly by the hand.

"Bravo! Magnificent! That was my music, as I wished it to be given."

It may be noted that Lord Mount-Edgc.u.mbe, in his 'Musical Reminiscences'

(published in 1824), refers more than once to the same thing. In speaking of the famous male soprano, Pacchierotti, who made his _debut_ in London in 1778, the following pa.s.sage occurs:--

His voice was an extensive soprano, full and sweet.... His powers of execution were great; but he had too good taste and too good sense to make a display of them where it would have been misapplied, confining it to one _bravura_ song (_aria d'agilita_) in each opera, conscious that the chief delight of singing lay in touching expression and exquisite pathos.... He could not sing a song twice in exactly the same way, _yet never ... introduced an ornament that was not judicious and appropriate to the composition_.

Again Lord Mount-Edgc.u.mbe writes:--

Many songs of the old masters would be very indifferently sung by modern performers, not on account of their difficulty but their apparent facility. Composers when writing for a first-rate singer noted down merely a simple _tema_ with the slightest possible accompaniment, which, if sung as written, would be cold, bald, and insipid. It was left to the singer to fill up the outline, to give it the light and shade and all its grace and expression, which requires not only a thorough knowledge of music but the greatest taste and judgment.

But to return to the elder Garcia and his family.

It was during this stay at Naples that little Maria made her first public appearance, when she was barely five years old. The anecdote was one which Manuel Garcia was very fond of relating.

The opera in which the diminutive vocalist made her _debut_ was Paer's "Agnese," in which there was a child's part.

In the second act there is a scene where the husband and wife have quarrelled and are reunited through the intervention of their daughter.

The tiny Malibran attended the rehearsals and knew the whole opera by heart. On the night of the performance the prima donna either forgot her part or hesitated a moment. Lo! the little girl instantly took up the melody, and sang with such vigour and resonance that the entire house heard her. The prima donna was about to interrupt when the audience shouted, "Bravo! don't stop her. Let her go on."

It was a period in which the public loved infant prodigies, both musical and dramatic, and Marietta was actually permitted to sing the part of Agnese throughout the rest of the scene--a piece of audacity which delighted the hearers and called forth an exhibition of true Italian enthusiasm. Two years after this the tiny musician commenced to study solfeggi with Panseron, while Herold gave her the first instruction on the piano.

In the autumn of the year 1815 an event occurred which brought the Garcia family into a vivid realisation of the changes which had been taking place in European affairs during the earlier part of the year, with the battle of Waterloo.

Scarcely had the news of Napoleon's downfall reached Naples when the townsfolk witnessed the closing scene in the life of his brother-in-law.

The month in which Napoleon landed in France King Murat declared war against Austria, whose queen, it will be remembered, had but recently died. He was defeated at Tolentino, and retired first to France, then to Corsica. In the autumn the brilliant but headstrong ex-king of Naples was mad enough to make an attempt to regain his forfeited throne, on which Ferdinand had been reinstated by the Congress of Vienna. Having landed with about thirty followers on the coast of Lower Calabria, he was almost instantly arrested by a detachment of the Neapolitan troops, by whom he was handed over to a court-martial and sentenced to death.

The closing scene is well described in Colletta's 'History of Naples':--

After the pa.s.sing of the sentence the prisoner was led into the courtyard of the castle of Pizzo, where a double file of soldiers was drawn up, and, as he refused to have his eyes bound, he looked calmly on while their weapons were made ready. Then, placing himself in a posture to receive the b.a.l.l.s, he said to the soldiers, 'Spare my face and aim at my heart.' After these words the muskets were discharged, and he who had been King of the two Sicilies fell dead, holding in his hand the portrait of his family, which was buried with his sad remains in the very church which had owed its erection to his piety. Those who believed in his death mourned it bitterly, but the generality of the Neapolitans beguiled their grief by some invention or other respecting the events of Pizzo.

Manuel Garcia was in his eleventh year when the tragedy took place, and in after years would recall the sensation which the gruesome incident made among the Neapolitans.

Almost immediately after Murat's death the Neapolitans found cause for great affliction and terror in the appearance of the plague, which seemed to them almost a judgment from Heaven.

The epidemic had only ceased a few months in Malta when it broke out again in Dalmatia, spreading thence from place to place, till it attacked the inhabitants of Cadiz at one extremity of the Mediterranean and Constantinople at the other. At the same time it reached Noia, a small city of Puglia, situated on the Adriatic.

Eagerness for gain by men carrying on illicit trade caused its introduction with some goods from Dalmatia.

The first death occurred on November 23, 1815, but a cordon was not placed round the city till six weeks later; traffic went on as usual, people left the city and returned, and merchandise was carried into the provinces and as far as Naples. Fortune, however, or divine providence, saved the kingdom and Italy, for out of the number of men and quant.i.ty of goods leaving Noia, none happened to be infected.

At last, on January 1, precautionary measures were taken, and the unhappy city was surrounded by three circuits of ditches, one at a distance of sixty paces, the next at ninety, and the third, which was rather a boundary-line than a barrier, at ten miles. Sentries were placed along these, and numerous fires lighted up the country at night.

Whoever dared to attempt pa.s.sing the line was punished with death; and more than one case is recorded of a poor wretch, maddened with the horrors of the town, rus.h.i.+ng across the boundary-line, only to fall instantly under the musket-fire of the soldiers.

Throughout the winter the Garcias, in common with the other inhabitants of Naples, lived in constant fear that the plague might break out in the town.

Since, with the coming of spring, the danger showed little sign of ceasing, the elder Garcia determined to leave the country and remove with his family to Paris, from which he had been more than four years absent. It must have been just about the time of their departure that the theatre in which the tenor had been appearing during four successive seasons was destroyed by fire.

The scene which took place is well described by Colletta. The opera company, it appears, were on the spot rehearsing when the fire broke out, and at once fled in consternation. Their cries, with the volumes of smoke issuing from the building, made the danger known, and people hastened from all parts of the city, but too late. The conflagration spread, the king and royal family left the palace which adjoined the theatre, and the fire, catching the whole of the immense structure that composed the roof, sent forth raging and brilliant flames, which were reflected on the Monte St Elmo and in the sea below. The sky, which had been calm, became stormy, and the wind blew the flames in the direction of Castel Nuovo, until they licked the bare walls of the castle.

Happily the danger did not last long, for in less than two hours the n.o.ble structure was burned to ashes; and the mistake of having from financial avarice abolished the company of firemen was now acknowledged too late.

The king ordered the theatre to be rebuilt in the shortest possible time, and in four months it rose more beautiful than ever, though Manuel Garcia was never to see it after its phnix-like reappearance.

CHAPTER IV.

PARIS AND LONDON.

(1816-1825.)

In the spring of 1816 the elder Garcia left Naples, and with his family set out for Paris, which he had decided to make his home once more.

When he had last been in that city, upwards of four years previously, Napoleon had still been all-powerful; when he returned Louis XVIII. was on the throne and Bonaparte in hopeless exile at St. Helena.

After he had settled down he continued the singing lessons of his son, whose general education was looked after by private tutors,--Reicha, Basbereau, and others. As to himself, he was at once engaged as _primo tenore_ at the Theatre Italien, then under the management of Catalani,--a woman whose story we will dwell on for a moment.

At the age of twelve she had been sent to a convent near Rome, being introduced by Cardinal Onorati. Here her voice soon became a great attraction owing to its extraordinary purity, force, and compa.s.s, which extended to G in altissimo. On leaving the convent, where sometimes the congregation had openly applauded her splendid notes in the services, she found herself compelled to perform in public, owing to the sudden poverty of her parents.

At the age of sixteen she obtained her first engagement at the Fenice Theatre in Venice, and thence she went to other opera houses in Italy, meeting everywhere with wonderful success.

In the year of Manuel's birth, Catalani signed her first agreement with the managers of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket at 2000 per annum, and remained in England for seven years. She was, however, a prima donna of the deepest dye, capricious as she was extravagant. Neither would her disposition endure the possibility of rivalry, nor would the size of her increasing demands allow the managers to engage any other singers of position. At last with the close of 1813, having unsuccessfully attempted to purchase the King's Theatre outright, she fell out with the directors and left London.

With the fall of Napoleon she went to Paris, where Louis XVIII. gave her the management of the Theatre Italien, with a subvention of 160,000 francs. Subsequently, during the Hundred Days, she fled before the advance of the despot, fearing his wrath, and paid a tactful visit to Germany and Scandinavia. It was only after the capture of the Emperor that she dared return, and even then she did so by way of Holland, instead of coming direct, lest at the last minute he might somehow free himself and come back into power. However, all was well, Catalani returned to her position at the Theatre Italien, and at once engaged Garcia _pere_ on his arrival in Paris.

In the autumn of the year the tenor and his family paid their first visit to England, but only made a short stay. The little daughter Maria, who was now eight years old, accompanied them, and was left in England for some years, her education being carried on in a convent school at Hammersmith. It was to this fact that in after life she owed her success in this country as a singer of oratorio and English songs.

Upon the elder Garcia's return to Paris, the "Caliph of Bagdad" was revived, as well as another of his operas, "Le Prince d'Occasion." As _primo tenore_ of Catalani's troupe, he appeared as Paolino in Pergolesi's "Matrimonio Segreto," and sang in all the operas which were in vogue at that time,--a very different repertoire to that which audiences are accustomed to hear nowadays.

At last an unfortunate quarrel arose between Catalani and himself, and at the end of 1817 he went once more to England. This was only a few months after "Don Giovanni" had been given in England for the first time at the Italian Opera House, with Mesdames Fodor, Camporese, and Pasta; Signori Crivelli, Ambrogetti, and Agrisani.

His success in London was great during the ensuing season. He made his _debut_ with Mme. Fodor in "The Barber of Seville," his performance of Almaviva being, according to a critic of that time, "commensurate with his transcendent talent," while he appeared in other operas with equal _eclat_. During the same season he created a further sensation by singing at the chapel of the Bavarian Emba.s.sy in Warwick Street, where several ma.s.ses of his own composition were given.

In 1819 he returned to Paris and became once more a member of the company at the Theatre Italien, Catalani having failed and resigned the reins of management during his absence in England. Here he repeated his old success in "Otello" and "Don Giovanni," and also took part, on October 26, in the first performance of "Il Barbiere" ever given in Paris, at the Salle Louvois. It was again received coldly, as had been the case on the original production in Rome three and a half years before. Once more the critics demanded the "Barbiere" of Paisiello, which was accordingly put on the stage at the Theatre Italien, only to meet with dismal failure; and thus in the end Rossini triumphed with it in the French capital, as he had in that of Italy.

The cast of this Parisian _premiere_ was as follows:

_Rosina_ Mme. Ronzi de Begnis.

_Figaro_ Signor Pellegrini.