History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time Part 27

Danton, Hebert, Chaumette, Henriot, Robespierre, all administrators of the Opera; Dubuisson, Fabre d'Eglantine, librettists writing for the Opera, and both republicans had been executed during the Reign of Terror. Chamfort, a republican, killed himself to avoid the same fate.

Coqueau, architect, musician, and writer, the author of a number of musical articles produced during the Gluck and Piccinni contests, was guillotined in the year II. of the republic.

The musician, Edelman, after bringing a number of persons to the scaffold, including his patron and benefactor, the Baron de Dietrich, arrived there himself in 1794, accompanied by his brother.

In the same year Despreaux, leader of the first violins at the opera in 1782, and member of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1793, killed himself from remorse.

Altogether, sixteen persons belonging to the opera in various ways killed themselves, or were executed in 1792, '93, and '94.

After the fall of Robespierre, the royalists for a time ruled the theatres, and avenged themselves on all actors who had made themselves conspicuous as revolutionists. Trial, a comic tenor, who had made a very serious accusation against Mademoiselle Buret, of the Comedie Italienne, which led to her execution, was forced to sing the _Reveil du Peuple_ on his knees, amid the execrations of the audience. He sang it, but was thrown into such a state of agitation that he died from the effects.

Lays, whose favourite part was that of "Oreste," in _Iphigenie en Tauride_, had, in the course of the opera, to declaim these verses:--

"J'ai trahi l'amitie, J'ai trahi la nature; Des plus noirs attentats J'ai comble la mesure."

The audience of the Bordeaux theatre considered this confession so becoming in the mouth of the singer who had to utter it, that Lays took care not to give them an opportunity a second time of manifesting their views on the subject. Lays made his next appearance in _dipe a Colone_. As in this opera he had to represent the virtuous Theseus, he felt sure that the public would not be able to confound him in any manner with the character he was supporting; but he had to submit to all sorts of insults during the performance, and at the fall of the curtain was compelled to begin the _Reveil du Peuple_. After the third verse, he was told he was unworthy to sing such a song, and was driven from the stage.

[Sidenote: MADELEINE GUIMARD AGAIN.]

On the 23rd of January, 1796, Mademoiselle Guimard re-appeared at a performance given for the benefit of aged and retired artists. A number of veteran connoisseurs came forward on this occasion to see how the once charming Madeleine looked at the age of fifty-nine. After the ballet an old _habitue_ of Louis the Fifteenth's time called for a coach, drove to his lodging, and on getting out, proceeded naturally to pay the driver the amount of his fare.

"You are joking, my dear Count," said the coachman. "Whoever heard of Lauragais paying the Chevalier de Ferriere for taking him home in his carriage?"

"What! is it you?" said the Count de Lauragais.

"Myself!" replied the Chevalier.

The two friends embraced, and the Chevalier de Ferriere then explained that, when all the royalists were concealing themselves or emigrating, he had determined to do both. He had a.s.sumed the great coat of his coachman, painted a number over the arms on his carriage, and emigrated as far as the Boulevard, where he found plenty of customers, and pa.s.sed uninjured and unsuspected through the Reign of Terror.

"Where do you live?" said the Count.

"Rue des Tuileries," replied the Chevalier, "and my horses with me. The poor beasts have shared all my misfortunes."

"Give me the whip and reins, and get inside," cried de Lauragais.

"What for?" inquired the Chevalier.

"To drive you home. It is an act which, as a gentleman, I insist on performing; a duty I owe to my old companion and friend. Your day's work is over. To-morrow morning we will go to Sophie's, who expects me to breakfast."

"Where?"

"At the Hotel d'Angivillier, a caravansary of painters and musicians, where Fouche has granted her, on the part of the Republic, an apartment and a pension of two thousand four hundred francs--we should have said a hundred _louis_ formerly. This is called a national reward for the eminent services rendered by the _citoyenne_ Arnould to the country, and to the sovereign people at the Opera. The poor girl was greatly in need of it."

[Sidenote: SOPHIE ARNOULD AGAIN.]

Fouche had once been desperately in love with Sophie Arnould, and now pitied her in her distress. Thanks to her influence with the minister, the Chevalier Ferriere obtained an order, authorizing him to return to France, though he had never left Paris, except occasionally to drive a fare to one of the suburbs.

The natural effect of Napoleon's campaigns in Italy was to create among the French army a taste for Italian music. The First Consul and many of his generals were pa.s.sionately fond of it; and a hint from the Tuileries in 1801 was sufficient to induce Mademoiselle Montansier to engage an Italian company, which performed for the first time in Paris on the 1st of May in the same year. The enterprise, however, was not successful; and in 1803 the directress, who had been arrested before because money was owing to her, was put in prison for owing money.

If, by taking his troops to Italy, Napoleon was the means of introducing a taste for Italian music among the French, he provided his country with Italian singers in a far more direct manner. At Dresden, in 1806, he was delighted with the performance of Brizzi and Madame Paer in the opera of _Achille_, composed by the prima donna's husband.

"You sing divinely, Madame Paer," said the emperor. What do they give you at this theatre?"

"Fifteen thousand francs, Sire."

"You shall receive thirty. M. Brizzi, you shall follow me on the same terms."

"But we are engaged."

"With me. You see the affair is quite settled. The Prince of Benevento will attend to the diplomatic part of it."

[Sidenote: NAPOLEON AND PAER.]

Napoleon took away _Achille_, and everything belonging to it; music, composer, and the two princ.i.p.al singers. The engagement by which the emperor engaged Paer as composer of his chamber music, was drawn up by Talleyrand, and bore his signature, approved by Napoleon, and attested by Maret, the secretary of state. Paer, who had been four years at Dresden, and who, independently of his contract, was personally much attached to the king of Saxony, did all in his power to avoid entering into Napoleon's service. Perhaps, too, he was not pleased at the prospect of having to follow the emperor about from one battle-field to another, though by a special article in the engagement offered to him, he was guaranteed ten francs a post, and thirty-four francs a day for his travelling expenses. As Paer, in spite of the compliments, and the liberal terms[72] offered to him by Napoleon, continued to object, General Clarke told the emperor that he had an excellent plan for getting over all difficulties, and saving the maestro from any reproaches of ingrat.i.tude which the king of Saxony might otherwise address to him. This plan consisted in placing Paer in the hands of _gens d'armes_, and having him conducted from camp to camp wherever the emperor went. No violence, however, was done to the composer. The king of Saxony liberated him from his engagement at the Dresden opera, and, moreover, signified to him that he must either follow Napoleon, or quit Saxony immediately. It is said that Paer was ceded by a secret treaty between the two sovereigns, like a fortress, or rather like a province, as provinces were transferred before the idea of nationality was invented; that is to say, without the wishes of the inhabitants being in any way taken into account. The king of Saxony was only too glad that Napoleon took nothing from him but his singers and musicians.

Brizzi, the tenor, Madame Paer, the prima donna, and her husband, the composer, were ordered to start at once for Warsaw. In the morning, the emperor would attend to military and state affairs, and perhaps preside at a battle, for fighting was now going on in the neighbourhood of the Polish capital. In the evening, he had a concert at head quarters, the programme of which generally included several pieces by Paisiello.

Napoleon was particularly fond of Paisiello's music, and Paer, who, besides being a composer, was a singer of high merit, knew a great deal of it by heart.

Paisiello had been Napoleon's chapel-master since 1801, the emperor having sent for him to Naples after signing the Concordat with the Pope.

On arriving in Paris, the cunning Italian, like an experienced courtier, was no sooner introduced to Napoleon than he addressed him as 'sire!'

"'Sire,' what do you mean?" replied the first consul; "I am a general, and nothing more."

"Well, General," continued the composer, "I have come to place myself at your majesty's orders."

"I must really beg you," continued Napoleon, "not to address me in this manner."

"Forgive me, General," answered Paisiello, "but I cannot give up the habit I have contracted in addressing sovereigns who, compared with you, seem but pigmies. However, I will not forget your commands, sire; and if I have been unfortunate enough to offend, I must throw myself upon your Majesty's indulgence."

[Sidenote: EXPRESSION IN MUSIC.]

Paisiello received ten thousand francs for the ma.s.s he wrote for Napoleon's coronation. Each of the ma.s.ses for the imperial chapel brought him one thousand francs. Not much, certainly; but then it must be remembered that he produced as many as fourteen in two years. They were for the most part made up of pieces of church music, which the maestro had written for Italy, and when this fruitful source failed him, he had recourse to his numerous serious and comic operas. Thus, an air from the _Nittetti_ was made to do duty as a _Gloria_, another from the _Scuffiera_ as an _Agnus Dei_. Music depends so much upon a.s.sociation that, doubtless, only those persons who had already heard these melodies on the stage, found them at all inappropriate in a church. Figaro's air in the _Barber of Seville_ would certainly not sound well in a ma.s.s; but there are plenty of love songs, songs expressive of despair (if not of too violent a kind), songs, in short, of a sentimental and slightly pa.s.sionate cast, which only require to be united to religious words to be at once and thereby endowed with a religious character. Gluck, himself, who is supposed by many to have believed that music was capable of conveying absolute, definite ideas, borrowed pieces from his old Italian operas to introduce into the scores he was writing, on entirely different subjects, for the Academie Royale of Paris. Thus, he has employed an air from his _Telemacco_ in the introduction to the overture of _Iphigenie en Aulide_. The chorus in the latter work, _Que d'attraits que de majeste_, is founded on the air, _Al mio spirto_, in the same composer's _Clemenza di t.i.to_. The overture to Gluck's _Telemacco_ became that of his _Armide_. Music serves admirably to heighten the effect of a dramatic situation, or to give force and intensity to the expression of words; but the same music may often be allied with equal advantage to words of very different shades of meaning. Thus, the same melody will depict equally well the rage of a baffled conspirator, the jealousy of an injured and most respectable husband, and various other kinds of agitation; the grief of lovers about to part, the joy of lovers at meeting again, and other emotions of a tender nature; the despondency of a man firmly bent on suicide, the calm devotion of a pious woman entering a convent, and other feelings of a solemn cla.s.s. The signification we discover in music also depends much upon the circ.u.mstances under which it is heard, and to some extent also on the mood we are in when hearing it.

[Sidenote: TWO PASTICCIOS.]

Under the republic, consulate, and empire, music did not flourish in France, and not even the imperial Spontini and Cherubini, in spite of the almost European reputation they for some time enjoyed, produced any works which will bear comparison with the masterpieces of their successors, Rossini, Auber, and Meyerbeer. During the dark artistic period which separates the fall of the monarchy from the restoration, a few interesting works were produced at the Opera Comique; but until Napoleon's advent to power, France neglected more than ever the music of Italy, and did worse than neglect that of Germany, for, in 1793, the directors of the Academy brought out a version of Mozart's _Marriage of Figaro_, in five acts, without recitative and with all the prose dialogue of Beaumarchais introduced. In 1806, too, a _pasticcio_ by Kalkbrenner, formed out of the music of Mozart's _Don Juan_, with improvements and additions by Kalkbrenner himself, was performed at the same theatre. Both these medleys met with the fate which might have been antic.i.p.ated for them.

CHAPTER XIV.

OPERA IN ITALY, GERMANY AND RUSSIA, DURING AND IN CONNECTION WITH THE REPUBLICAN AND NAPOLEONIC WARS. PAISIELLO, PAER, CIMAROSA, MOZART. THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO. DON GIOVANNI.