History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time Part 17

Gluck was forty-six years of age when he brought out his _Alcestis_, the first work composed in the style which is now regarded as peculiarly his own. _Alcestis_, and _Orpheus_, by which it was followed, created a great sensation in Germany, and when the Chevalier Gluck composed a work "by command," in honour of the Emperor Joseph's marriage, it was played, not perhaps by the greatest artists in Germany, but certainly by the most distinguished, for the princ.i.p.al parts were distributed among four arch-d.u.c.h.esses and an arch-duke. Where are the dukes and d.u.c.h.esses now who could play, not with success, but without disastrous failure, in an opera by Gluck?

[Sidenote: GLUCK AT VIENNA.]

It so happened that at Vienna, attached to the French emba.s.sy, lived a certain M. du Rollet, who was in the habit of considering himself a poet. To him Gluck confided his project of visiting Paris, and composing for the French stage. Du Rollet not only encouraged the musician in his intentions, but even promised him a libretto of his own writing. The libretto was not good--indeed what _libretto_ is?--except, perhaps, some of Scribe's _libretti_ for the light operas of Auber. But it must be remembered that the _Opera Comique_ is only a development of the vaudeville; and in the entire catalogue of serious operas, with the exception of Metastasio's, a few by Romani and Da Ponte's _Don Giovanni_ (with a Mozart to interpret it), it is not easy to find any which, in a literary and poetical sense, are not absurd. However, Du Rollet arranged, or disarranged, Racine's _Iphigenie_, to suit the requirements of the lyric stage, and handed over "the book" to the Chevalier Gluck.

_Iphigenia in Aulis_ was composed in less than a year; but to write an opera is one thing, to get it produced another. At that time the French Opera was a close borough, in the hands of half a dozen native composers, whose nationality was for the most part their only merit.

These musicians were not in the habit of positively refusing all chance to foreign compet.i.tors; but they interposed all sorts of delays between the acceptance and the production of their works, and did their best generally to prevent their success. However, the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette, had undertaken to introduce the great German composer to Paris, and she smoothed the way for him so effectually, that soon after his arrival in the French capital, _Iphigenia in Aulis_ was accepted, and actually put into rehearsal.

Gluck now found a terrible and apparently insurmountable obstacle to his success in the ignorance and obstinacy of the orchestra. He was not the man to be satisfied with slovenly execution, and many and severe were the lessons he had to give the French musicians, in the course of almost as many rehearsals as Meyerbeer requires in the present day, before he felt justified in announcing his work as ready for representation. The young Princess had requested the lieutenant of police to take the necessary precautions against disturbances; and she herself, accompanied by the Dauphin, the Count and Countess of Provence, the d.u.c.h.esses of Chartres and of Bourbon, and the Princess de Lamballe, entered the theatre before the public were admitted. The ministers and all the Court, with the exception of the king (Louis XV.) and Madame Du Barry were present. Sophie Arnould was the Iphigenia, and is said to have been admirable in that character, though the charming Sophie seems to have owed most of her success to her acting rather than to her singing.

The first night of _Iphigenia_, Larrivee, who took the part of Agamemnon, actually abstained from singing through his nose. This is mentioned by the critics and memorialists of the time as something incredible, and almost supernatural. It appears that Larrivee, in spite of his nasal tw.a.n.g, was considered a very fine singer. The public of the pit used to applaud him, but they would also say, when he had just finished one of his airs, "That nose has really a magnificent voice!"

[Sidenote: IPHIGENIA IN AULIS.]

The success of _Iphigenia_ was prodigious. Marie Antoinette herself gave the signal of the applause, and it mattered little to the courtiers whether they understood Gluck's grand, simple music, or not.

All they had to do, and all they did, was to follow the example of the Dauphiness.

Never did poet, artist, or musician have a more enthusiastic patroness than Marie Antoinette. She not only encouraged Gluck herself, but visited with her severe displeasure all who ventured to treat him disrespectfully. And it must be remembered that in those days a _Grand Seigneur_ paid a great artist, or a great writer, just what amount of respect he thought fit. Thus, one _Grand Seigneur_ had Voltaire caned (and afterwards from pride or from cowardice refused his challenge), while another struck Beaumarchais, and, after insulting him in the court of justice over which he presided, summoned him to leave the bench and come outside, that he might a.s.sa.s.sinate him.

The first person with whom Gluck came to an open rupture was the Prince d'Hennin, the "Prince of Dwarfs," as he was called. The chevalier, in spite of his despotic, unyielding nature, could not help giving way to the charming Sophie Arnould, who, with a caprice permitted to her alone, insisted on the rehearsals of _Orpheus_ taking place in her own apartments. The orchestra was playing, and Sophie Arnould was singing, when suddenly the door opened, and in walked the Prince d'Hennin. This was not a grand rehearsal, and all the vocalists were seated.

"I believe," said the _Grand Seigneur_, addressing Sophie Arnould in the middle of her air, "that it is the custom in France to rise when any one enters the room, especially if it be a person of some consideration?"

Gluck leaped from his seat with rage, rushed towards the intruder, and with his eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire, said to him:--

"The custom in Germany, sir, is to rise only for those whom we esteem."

Then turning to Sophie, he added:--

"I perceive, Mademoiselle, that you are not mistress in your own house.

I leave you, and shall never set foot here again."

When the story was told to Marie Antoinette, she was indignant with the Prince, and compelled him to make amends to the chevalier for the insult offered to him. The Prince's pride must have suffered terribly; for he had to pay a visit to the composer, and to thank him for having a.s.sured him in the plainest terms, that he looked upon him with great contempt.

This Prince d'Hennin was a favourite b.u.t.t for the wit of the vivacious Count de Lauragais, who, as the reader, perhaps, remembers, was one of Sophie Arnould's earliest and most devoted admirers. One day when the interesting Sophie was unwell, the Count asked her physician whether it was not especially necessary to think of her spirits, and to keep away everything that might tend to have a depressing effect upon them.

The doctor answered the Count's sagacious question in the affirmative.

[Sidenote: THE PRINCE D'HENNIN.]

"Above all," continued De Lauragais, "do you not consider it of the greatest importance that the Prince d'Hennin should not be allowed to visit her?"

The physician admitted that it would be as well she should not see the prince; but De Lauragais was not satisfied with this, and he at last persuaded the obliging doctor to put his opinion in the form of a direct recommendation. In other words, he made him write a prescription for Mdlle. Arnould, forbidding her to have any conversation with the Prince d'Hennin. This prescription he sent to the prince's house, with a letter calling his particular attention to it, and entreating him, for the sake of Mdlle. Arnould's health, not to forget the injunction it contained.

The consequence was a duel, which, however, was attended with no bad results, for, in the evening, the insultor and the insulted met at Sophie Arnould's house.

It now became the fas.h.i.+on at the Court to attend the rehearsals of _Orpheus_, which took place once more in the theatre. On these occasions, the doors were besieged long before the performance commenced; and numbers of persons were unable to gain admission. To see Gluck at a rehearsal was infinitely more interesting than to see him at one of the ordinary public representations. The composer had certain habits; and from these he would not depart for any one. Thus, on entering the orchestra, he would take his coat off to conduct at ease in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves. Then he would remove his wig, and replace it by a cotton night-cap of the remotest fas.h.i.+on. When the rehearsal was at an end, he had no necessity to trouble himself about the articles of dress which he had laid aside, for there was a general contest between the dukes and princes of the Court as to who should hand them to him.

_Orpheus_ is said to have been quite as successful as _Iphigenia_. One thing, however, which sometimes makes me doubt the completeness of this success, in a musical point of view, is the recorded fact, that "_the ballet_, especially, was very fine." The _ballet_ is certainly not the first thing we think of in _William Tell_, or even in _Robert_. It appears that Gluck himself objected positively to the introduction of dancing into the opera of _Orpheus_. He held, and with evident reason, that it would interfere with the seriousness and pathos of the general action, and would, in short, spoil the piece. He was overruled by the "_Diou_ de la Danse." What could Gluck's opinion be worth in the eyes of Auguste or of Gaetan Vestris, who held that there were only three great men in Europe--Voltaire, Frederick of Prussia, and himself. No! the dancer was determined to have his "_Chacone_," and he was as obstinate, indeed, more obstinate, than Gluck himself.

"Write me the music of a _chacone_, Monsieur Gluck," said the G.o.d of dancing.

"A chacone!" exclaimed the indignant composer; "Do you think the Greeks, whose manners we are endeavouring to depict, knew what a chacone was?"

[Sidenote: GLUCK AND VESTRIS.]

"Did they not!" replied Vestris, astonished at the information; and in a tone of compa.s.sion, he added, "Then they are much to be pitied."

_Alcestis_, on its first production, did not meet with so much success as _Orpheus_ and _Iphigenia_. The piece itself was singularly uninteresting; and this was made the pretext for a host of epigrams, of which the sting fell, not upon the author, but upon the composer.

However, after a few representations, _Alcestis_ began to attract the public quite as much as the two previous works had done. Gluck's detractors were discomfited, and the theatre was filled every evening with his admirers. At this juncture, the composer of _Alcestis_ was thrown into great distress by the death of his favourite niece. He left Paris, and his enemies, who had been unable to vanquish, now resolved to replace him.

I have said that Madame Du Barry did not honour the representation of Gluck's operas with her presence. It was, in fact, she who headed the opposition against him. She was mortified at not having some favourite musician of her own to patronize when the Dauphiness had hers, and now resolved to send to Italy for Piccinni, in the hope that when Gluck returned, he would find himself neglected for the already celebrated Italian composer. Baron de Breteuil, the French amba.s.sador at Rome, was instructed to offer Piccinni an annual salary of two thousand crowns if he would go to Paris, and reside there. The Italian needed no pressing, for he was as anxious to visit the French capital as Gluck himself had been. Just then, however, Louis XV. died, by which the patroness of the German composer, from Dauphiness, became Queen. Madame Du Barry's party hesitated about bringing over a composer to whom they fancied Marie Antoinette must be as hostile as they themselves were to Gluck. But the Marquis Caraccioli, the Neapolitan amba.s.sador at the Court of France, had now taken the matter in hand, and from mere excess of patriotism, had determined that Piccinni should make his appearance in Paris to destroy the reputation of the German at a single blow. As for Marie Antoinette, she not only did not think of opposing the Italian, but, when he arrived, received him most graciously, and showed him every possible kindness. But before introducing Piccinni to our readers as the rival of Gluck in Paris, let us take a glance at his previous career in his native land.

[Sidenote: NICOLAS PICCINNI.]

Nicolas Piccinni, who was not less than fifty years of age when he left Naples, for Paris, with the avowed purpose of outrivalling Gluck, was born at Bari, in the Neapolitan territory, in 1728. His father was a musician, and apparently an unsuccessful one, for he endeavoured to disgust his son with the art he had himself practised, and absolutely forbade him to touch any musical instrument. No doubt this injunction of the father produced just the contrary of the effect intended. The child's natural inclination for music became the more invincible the more it was repressed, and little Nicolas contrived, every day, to devote a few hours in secret to the study of the harpsichord, the piano of that day. He knew nothing of music, but guided by his own instinct, learnt something of its mysteries simply by experimenting (for it was nothing more) on the instrument which his father had been imprudent enough, as he would have said himself, to leave within his reach.

Gradually he learnt to play such airs as he happened to remember, and, probably without being aware himself of the process he was pursuing, studied the art of combining notes in a manner agreeable to the ear; in other words, he acquired some elementary notions of harmony. And still his father flattered himself that little Nicolas cared nothing for music, and that nothing could ever make him a musician.

One day, old Piccinni had occasion to visit the Bishop of Bari. He took his son with him, but left the little boy in one room while he conversed on private business with His Eminence in another. Now it chanced that in the room where Nicolas was left there was a magnificent harpsichord, and the temptation was really too great for him. Harpsichords were not made merely to be looked at, he doubtless thought. He went to the instrument, examined it carefully, and struck a note. The tone was superb.

Next he ventured upon a few notes in succession; and, then, how he longed to play an entire air!

There was no help for it; he must, at all events, play a few bars with both hands. The harpsichord at home was execrable, and this one was admirable--made by the Broadwood of harpsichord makers. He began, but, carried away by the melody, soon forgot where he was, and what he was doing.

The Bishop, and especially Piccinni _pere_, were thunderstruck. There was a roughness and poverty about the accompaniment which showed that the young performer was far from having completed his studies in harmony; but, at the same time, there was no mistaking the fire, the true emotion, which characterised his playing. The father thought of going into a violent pa.s.sion, but the Bishop would not hear of such a thing.

"Music is evidently the child's true vocation," said the worthy ecclesiastic; "He must be a musician, and one day, perhaps, will be a great composer."

[Sidenote: PICCINNI AT NAPLES.]

The Bishop now would not let old Piccinni rest until he promised to send his son to the Conservatory of Music, directed by the celebrated Leo.

The father was obliged to consent, and Nicolas was sent off to Naples.

Here he was confided to the care of an inferior professor, who was by no means aware of the child's precocious talent. The latter was soon disgusted with the routine of the cla.s.s, and conceived the daring project of composing a ma.s.s, being at the time scarcely acquainted even with the rudiments of composition. He was conscious of the audacity of the undertaking, and therefore confided it to no one; but, somehow or other, the news got abroad that little Nicolas had composed a grand ma.s.s, and, before long, Leo himself heard of it.

Then the great professor sent for the little pupil, who arrived trembling from head to foot, thinking apparently that for a boy of his age to compose a ma.s.s was a species of crime.

Leo was grave, but not so severe as the young composer had expected.

"You have written a ma.s.s?" he commenced.

"Excuse me, sir, I could not help it;" said the youthful Piccinni.

"Let me see it?"

Nicolas went to his room for the score, and brought it back, together with the orchestral parts all carefully copied out.

After casting a rapid glance at the ma.n.u.script, Leo went into the concert-room, a.s.sembled an orchestra, and distributed the orchestral parts among the requisite number of executants.