History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time Part 12

But to return to my short anecdotal biographies of a few of these singers.[33] Carlo Broschi, then, called "Farinelli," first distinguished himself, at the age of seventeen, in a bravura with an _obligato_ trumpet accompaniment, which Porpora, his master, wrote expressly for him, and for a German trumpet-player whose skill on that instrument was prodigious. The air commenced with a sustained note, given by the trumpet. This note was then taken up by the vocalist, who held it with consummate art for such a length of time that the audience fell into raptures with the beauty and fulness of his voice. The note was then attacked, and held successively by the player and the singer, _pianissimo_, _crescendo_, _forte_, _fortissimo_, _diminuendo_, _ smorzando_, _perdendosi_--of which the effect may be imagined from the delirious transports of the lady who, on hearing this one note several times repeated, hastened to proclaim in the same breath the unity of the Deity and the uniqueness of Farinelli. This trumpet song occurs originally in Porpora's _Eomene_; and Farinelli sang it for the first time at Rome, in 1722. In London, in 1734, he introduced it in Ha.s.se's _Artaserse_, the opera in which he made his _debut_, at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, under the direction of Porpora, his old preceptor.

[Sidenote: FARINELLI'S ONE NOTE.]

I, who have heard a good many fine singers, and one or two whose voices I shall not easily forget, must confess myself unable to understand the enthusiasm caused by Farinelli's one note, however wonderful the art that produced it, however exquisite the gradations of sound which gave it colour, and perhaps a certain appearance of life; for one musical sound is, after all, not music. Bilboquet, in Dumersan and Varin's admirable burlesque comedy of _Les Saltimbanques_, would, perhaps, have understood it; and, really, when I read of the effect Farinelli produced by keeping to one note, I cannot help thinking of the directions given by the old humorist and scoundrel to an incompetent _debutant_ on the trombone. The amateur has the instrument put into his hands, and, with great difficulty, succeeds in bringing out one note; but, to save his life, he could not produce two. "Never mind," says Bilboquet, "one note is enough. Keep on playing it, and people who are fond of that note will be delighted." How little the authors of _Les Saltimbanques_ knew that one note had delighted and enchanted thousands!

Not only is truth stranger than fiction, but reality is more grotesque even than a burlesque fancy.

Farinelli visited Paris in 1737, and sang before Louis XV., who, according to Riccoboni, was delighted, though His Majesty cared very little for music, and least of all for Italian music. It is also said that, on the whole, Farinelli was by no means satisfied with his reception in Paris, nor with the general distaste of the French for the music of his country; and some writers go so far as to maintain that the ill-will he always showed to France during his residence, in a confidential position, at the Court of Madrid, was attributable to his irritating recollections of his visit to the French capital. In 1752, the Duke de Duras was charged with a secret mission to the Spanish Court (concerning an alliance with France), which is supposed to have miscarried through the influence of Farinelli; but there were plenty of good reasons, independently of any personal dislike he may have had for the French, for advising Ferdinand VI. to maintain his good understanding with the cabinets of Vienna, London, and Turin.

[Sidenote: FARINELLI AT MADRID.]

Ferdinand's favourite singer remained ten years in his service; soothing and consoling him with his songs, and, after a time, giving him valuable political advice. Farinelli's quasi-ministerial functions did not prevent him from continuing to sing every day. Every day, for ten years, the same thing! Or rather, the same things, for His Majesty's particular collection included as many as four different airs. Two of them were by Ha.s.se, _Pallido il sole_ and _Per questo dulce amplesso_. The third was a minuet, on which Farinelli improvised variations. It has been calculated that during the ten years he sang the same airs, and never anything else, about three thousand six hundred times. If Ferdinand VI.

had not, in the first instance, been half insane, surely this would have driven him mad.

Caffarelli, hearing of Farinelli's success at Madrid, is said to have made this curious observation: "He deserves to be Prime Minister; he has an admirable voice."

[Sidenote: AN OPERATIC DUEL.]

Caffarelli was regarded as Farinelli's rival; and some critics, including Porpora, who had taught both, considered him the greatest singer of the two. This sopranist was notorious for his intolerable insolence, of which numerous anecdotes are told. He would affect indisposition, when persons of great importance were anxious to hear him sing, and had engaged him for that purpose. "Omnibus hoc vitium cantoribus;" but it may be said Caffarelli was capricious and overbearing to an unusual extent. Metastasio, in one of his letters, tells us that at a rehearsal which had been ordered at the Opera of Vienna, all the performers obeyed the summons except Caffarelli; he appeared, however, at the end of the rehearsal, and asked the company with a very disdainful air, "What was the use of these rehearsals?" The conductor answered, in a voice of authority, "that no one was called upon to account to him for what was done; that he ought to be glad that his failure in attendance had been suffered; that his presence or absence was of little consequence to the success of the opera; but that whatever he chose to do himself, he ought, at least, to let others do their duty." Caffarelli, in a great rage, exclaimed "that he who had ordered such a rehearsal was a solemn c.o.xcomb." At this, all the patience and dignity of the poet forsook him; "and getting into a towering pa.s.sion, he honoured the singer with all those glorious t.i.tles which Caffarelli had earned in various parts of Europe, and slightly touched, but in lively colours, some of the most memorable particulars of his life; nor was he likely soon to come to a close; but the hero of the panegyric, cutting the thread of his own praise, boldly called out to his eulogist: 'Follow me, if thou hast courage, to a place where there is none to a.s.sist thee, * * * * * The bystanders tremble; each calls on his tutelar saint, expecting every moment to see poetical and vocal blood besprinkle the harpsichords and double ba.s.ses. But at length the Signora Tesi, rising from under her canopy, where, till now, she had remained a most tranquil spectator, walked with a slow and stately step towards the combatants; when, O sovereign power of beauty! the frantic Caffarelli, even in the fiercest paroxysm of his wrath, captivated and appeased by this unexpected tenderness, runs with rapture to meet her; lays his sword at her feet; begs pardon for his error; and generously sacrificing to her his vengeance, seals, with a thousand kisses upon her hand, his protestations of obedience, respect and humility. The nymph signifies her forgiveness by a nod; the poet sheathes his sword; the spectators begin to breathe again; and the tumultuous a.s.sembly breaks up amid the joyous sounds of laughter."

Of Caffarelli a curious, and as it seems to me fabulous, story is told to the effect that for five years Porpora allowed him to sing nothing but a series of scales and exercises, all of which were written down on one sheet of paper. According to this anecdote, Caffarelli, with a patience which did not distinguish him in after life, asked seriously after his five years' scale practice, when he was likely to get beyond the rudiments of his art,--upon which Porpora suddenly exclaimed:--"Young man you have nothing more to learn, you are the greatest singer in the world." In London, however, coming after Farinelli, Caffarelli did not meet with anything like the same success.

At Turin, when the Prince of Savoy told Caffarelli, after praising him greatly, that the princess thought it hardly possible any singer could please after Farinelli, "To night," exclaimed the sopranist, in the fulness of his vanity, "she shall hear two Farinellis."

What would the English lady have said to this, who maintained that there was but "_one_ Farinelli?"

At sixty-five years of age, Caffarelli was still singing; but he had made an enormous fortune--had purchased nothing less than a dukedom for his nephew, and had built himself a superb palace, over the entrance of which he placed the following modest inscription:--

"Amphion THEBAS, ego domum."

"Ille eum, sine tu!"

wrote a commentator beneath it.

Guadagni was the "creator" of the parts of _Telemacco_ and _Orfeo_, in the operas by Gluck, bearing those names. He sang in London in 1766, at Venice the year afterwards, when he was made a Knight of St. Mark; at Potsdam before the King of Prussia, in 1776, &c. Guadagni ama.s.sed a large fortune, though he was at the same time noted for his generosity.

He has the credit of having lent large sums of money to men of good family, who had ruined themselves. One of these impoverished gentlemen said, after borrowing the sum of a hundred sequins from him--

"I only want it as a loan, I shall repay you."

"That is not my intention," replied the singer; "if I wanted to have it back, I should not lend it to you."

[Sidenote: GABRIELLI.]

Gabrielli (Catarina) is described by Brydone, in his tour through Sicily, in a letter, dated Palermo, July 27, 1770. She was at this time upwards of thirty, but on the stage appeared to be scarcely eighteen; and Brydone considers her to have been "the most dangerous syren of modern times," adding, that she has made more conquests than any woman living. "She was wonderfully capricious," he continues, "and neither interest nor flattery, nor threats, nor punishment, had any power to control her. Instead of singing her airs as other actresses do, for the most part she hums them over _a mezza voce_, and no art whatever is capable of making her sing when she does not choose it. The most successful expedient has ever been found to prevail on her favourite lover (for she always has one) to place himself in the centre of the pit or the front box, and if they are on good terms, which is seldom the case, she will address her tender airs to him, and exert herself to the utmost. Her present inamorato promised to give us this specimen of his power over her. He took his seat accordingly, but Gabrielli, probably suspecting the connivance, would take no notice of him, so that even this expedient does not always succeed. The viceroy, who is fond of music, has tried every method with her to no purpose. Some time ago he gave a great dinner, and sent an invitation to Gabrielli to be of the party. Every other person came at the hour of invitation. The viceroy ordered dinner to be put back, and sent to let her know that the company had all arrived. The messenger found her reading in bed. She said she was sorry for having made the company wait, and begged he would make her apology, but really she had entirely forgotten her engagement. The viceroy would have forgiven this piece of insolence, but when the company went to the Opera, Gabrielli repeated her part with the utmost negligence and indifference, and sang all her airs in what they call _sotto voce_, that is, so low that they can scarcely be heard. The viceroy was offended; but as he is a good tempered man, he was loth to enforce his authority; but at last, by a perseverance in this insolent stubbornness, she obliged him to threaten her with punishment in case she any longer refused to sing. On this she grew more obstinate than ever, declaring that force and authority would never succeed with her; that he might make her cry, but never could make her sing. The viceroy then sent her to prison, where she remained twelve days; during which time she gave magnificent entertainments every day, paid the debts of all the poor prisoners, and distributed large sums in charity. The viceroy was obliged to give up struggling with her, and she was at last set at liberty amidst the acclamations of the poor."

[Sidenote: GABRIELLI.]

Gabrielli said at this time that she should never dare to appear in England, alleging as her reason that if, in a fit of caprice, which might at any time attack her, she refused to sing, or lost her temper and insulted the audience, they were said to be so ferocious that they would probably murder her. She a.s.serted, however, and, doubtless, with truth, that it was not always caprice which prevented her singing, and that she was often really indisposed and unable to sing, when the public imagined that she absented herself from the theatre from caprice alone.

Mingotti used to say that the London public would admit that any one might have a cold, a head-ache, or a fever, except a singer. In the present day, our audiences often show the most unjustifiable anger because, while half the people in a concert room are coughing and sneezing, some favourite vocalist, with an exceptionally delicate larynx, is unable to sing an air, of which the execution would be sure to fatigue the voice even in its healthiest condition.

To Brydone's anecdotes of Gabrielli we may add another. The amba.s.sador of France at the court of Vienna was violently in love with our capricious and ungovernable vocalist. In a fit of jealousy, he attempted to stab her, and Gabrielli was only saved from transfixion by the whalebone of her stays. As it was, she was slightly wounded. The amba.s.sador threw himself at the singer's feet and obtained her forgiveness, on condition of giving up his sword, on which the offended _prima donna_ proposed to engrave the following words:--"_The sword of----, who on such a day in such a year, dared to strike La Gabrielli._" Metastasio, however, succeeded in persuading her to abandon this intention.

In 1767 Gabrielli went to Parma, but wearied by the attentions of the Infant, Don Philip ("her accursed hunch back"--_gobbo maladetto_--as she called him), she escaped in secret the following year to St.

Petersburgh, where Catherine II. had invited her some time before. When the empress enquired what terms the celebrated singer expected, the sum of five thousand ducats was named.

"Five thousand ducats," replied Catherine; "not one of my field marshals receives so much."

"Her majesty had better ask her field marshals to sing," said Gabrielli.

Catherine gave the five thousand ducats. "Whether the great Souvaroff's jealousy was excited, is not recorded.

At this time the composer Galuppi was musical director at the Russian court. He went to St. Petersburgh in 1766, and had just returned when Dr. Burney saw him at Venice. Among the other great composers who visited Russia in Catherine's reign were Cimarosa and Paisiello, the latter of whom produced his _Barbiere di Siviglia_, at St. Petersburgh, in 1780.

Most of the celebrated Italian vocalists of the 18th century visited Vienna, Dresden, London and Madrid, as well as the princ.i.p.al cities of their own country, and sometimes even Paris, where both Farinelli and Caffarelli sang, but only at concerts. "I had hoped," says Rousseau, "that Caffarelli would give us at the 'Concert Spirituel' some specimen of grand recitative, and of the pathetic style of singing, that pretended connoisseurs might hear once for all what they have so often p.r.o.nounced an opinion upon; but from his reasons for doing nothing of the kind I found that he understood his audience better than I did."

[Sidenote: THE OPERA IN PRUSSIA AND RUSSIA.]

It was not until the accession of Frederick the Great, warrior, flute player, and severe protector of the arts in general, that the Italian Opera was established in Berlin; and it had been reserved for Catherine the Great to introduce it into St. Petersburgh. In proportion as the Opera grew in Prussia and Russia it faded in Poland, and its decay at the court of the Elector of Saxony was followed shortly afterwards by the first signs of the infamous part.i.tion.

Frederick the Great's favourite composers were Ha.s.se, Agricola, and Graun, the last of whom wrote a great number of Italian operas for the Berlin Theatre. When Dr. Burney was at Berlin, in 1772, there were fifty performers in the orchestra. There was a large chorus, and a numerous ballet, and several princ.i.p.al singers of great merit. The king defrayed the expenses of the whole establishment. He also officiated as general conductor, standing in the pit behind the chef d'orchestre, so as to have a view of the score, and drilling his musical troops in true military fas.h.i.+on. We are told that if any mistake was committed on the stage, or in the orchestra, the king stopped the offender, and admonished him; and it is really satisfactory to know, that if a singer ventured to alter a single pa.s.sage in his part (which almost every singer does in the present day) His Majesty severely reprimanded him, and ordered him to keep to the notes written by the composer. It was not the Opera of Paris, nor of London, nor of New York that should have been called the Academy, but evidently that of Berlin.

The celebrated Madame Mara sang for many years at the Berlin Opera. When her father Herr Schmaling first endeavoured to get her engaged by the king of Prussia, Frederick sent his princ.i.p.al singer Morelli to hear her and report upon her merits.

[Sidenote: AN OPERATIC MARTINET.]

"She sings like a German," said the prejudiced Morelli, and the king, who declared that he should as soon expect to receive pleasure from the neighing of his horse as from a German singer, paid no further attention to Schmaling's application. The daughter, however, had heard of the king's sarcasm, and was determined to prove how ill-founded it was.

Mademoiselle Schmaling made her _debut_ with great success at Dresden, and afterwards, in 1771, went to Berlin. The king, when the young vocalist was presented to him, after a few uncourteous observations, asked her if she could sing at sight, and placed before her a very difficult bravura song. Mademoiselle Schmaling executed it to perfection, upon which Frederick paid her a mult.i.tude of compliments, made her a handsome present, and appointed her _prima donna_ of his company.

When Madame Mara in 1780 wished to visit England with her husband, (who was a dissipated violoncellist, belonging to the Berlin orchestra) the king positively prohibited their departure, and on their escaping to Vienna, sent a despatch to the Emperor Joseph II., requesting him to arrest the fugitives and send them back. The emperor, however, merely gave them a hint that they had better get out of Vienna as soon as possible, when he would inform the king that his messenger had arrived too late. Afterwards, as soon as it was thought she could do so with safety, Madame Mara made her appearance at the Viennese Opera and sang there with great success for nearly two years.

According to another version of Madame Mara's flight, she was arrested before she had pa.s.sed the Prussian frontier, and separated from her husband, who was shut up in a fortress, and instead of performing on the violoncello in the orchestra of the Opera, was made to play the drum at the head of a regiment. The tears of the singer had no effect upon the inflexible monarch, and it was only by giving up a portion of her salary (so at least runs this anecdote of dubious authenticity) that she could obtain M. Mara's liberation. In any case it is certain that the position of this "_prima donna_" by no means "_a.s.soluta_," at the court of a very absolute king, was by no means an agreeable one, and that she had not occupied it many years before she endeavoured to liberate herself from it by every device in her power, including such disobedience of orders as she hoped would entail her prompt dismissal. On one occasion, when the Caesarevitch, afterwards Paul I., was at Berlin, and Madame Mara was to take the princ.i.p.al part in an opera given specially in his honour, she pretended to be ill, and sent word to the theatre that she would be unable to appear. The king informed her on the morning of the day fixed for the performance that she had better get well, for that well or ill she would have to sing. Nevertheless Madame Mara remained at home and in bed. Two hours before the time fixed for the commencement of the opera, a carriage, escorted by a few dragoons, stopped at her door, and an officer entered her room to announce that he had orders from His Majesty to bring her alive or dead to the theatre.

"But you see I am in bed, and cannot get up," remonstrated the vocalist.

"In that case I must take the bed too," was the reply.

It was impossible not to obey. Bathed in tears she allowed herself to be taken to her dressing room, put on her costume, but resolved at the same time to sing in such a manner that the king should repent of his violence. She conformed to her determination throughout the first act, but it then occurred to her that the Russian grand duke would carry away a most unworthy opinion of her talent. She quite changed her tactics, sang with all possible brilliancy, and is reported in particular to have sustained a shake for such a length of time and with such wonderful modulations of voice, that his Imperial Highness was enchanted, and applauded the singer enthusiastically.

[Sidenote: THE MARATISTES AND TODISTES.]