History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time Part 37

The old gentleman, however, was quite right in impressing upon the bearer of his name, that having once resolved to be a composer, he had better make up his mind to produce as little rubbish as possible.

The first signs of the dreadful malady to which Donizetti ultimately succ.u.mbed, manifested themselves during his last visit to Paris, in 1845. Fits of absence of mind, followed by hallucinations and all the symptoms of mental derangement followed one another rapidly, and with increasing intensity. In January, 1846, it was found necessary to place the unfortunate composer in an asylum at Ivry, and in the autumn of 1847, his medical advisers recommended as a final experiment, that he should be removed to Bergamo, in the hope that the air and scenes of his birth-place would have a favourable influence in dispelling, or, at least, diminis.h.i.+ng the profound melancholy to which he was now subject.

During his journey, however, he was attacked by paralysis, and his illness a.s.sumed a desperate and incurable character.

Donizetti was received at Bergamo by the Maestro Dolci, one of his dearest friends. Here paralysis again attacked him, and a few days afterwards, on the 8th of April, 1848, he expired, in his fifty-second year, having, during the twenty-seven years of his life, as a composer, written sixty-four operas; several ma.s.ses and vesper services; and innumerable pieces of chamber music, including, besides arias, cavatinas, and vocal concerted pieces, a dozen quartetts for stringed instruments, a series of songs and duets, ent.i.tled _Les soirees du Pausilippe_, a cantata ent.i.tled _la Morte d'Ugolino_, &c., &c.

Antoine, Donizetti's attendant at Ivry, became much attached to him, and followed him to Bergamo, whence he forwarded to M. Adolphe Adam, a letter describing his ill.u.s.trious patient's last moments, and the public honours paid to his memory at the funeral.

[Sidenote: DONIZETTI'S DEATH.]

"More than four thousand persons," he relates, "were present at the ceremony. The procession was composed of the numerous clergy of Bergamo; the most ill.u.s.trious members of the community and its environs, and of the civic guard of the town and suburbs. The discharges of musketry, mingled with the light of three or four hundred large torches, presented a fine effect--the whole was enhanced by the presence of three military bands, and the most propitious weather it was possible to behold. The service commenced at ten o'clock in the morning, and did not conclude until half-past two. The young gentlemen of Bergamo insisted on bearing the remains of their ill.u.s.trious fellow-citizen, although the cemetery in which they finally rested lay at a distance of a league-and-a-half from the town. The road there was crowded along its whole length by people who came from the surrounding country to witness the procession--and, to give due praise to the inhabitants of Bergamo, never, hitherto, had such great honours been bestowed upon any member of that city."

Bellini, who was Donizetti's contemporary, but who was born nine years after him, and died thirteen years before, was a native of Sicily. His father was an organist at Catania, and under him the future composer of _Norma_ and _La Sonnambula_, took his first lessons in music. A Sicilian n.o.bleman, struck by the signs of genius which young Bellini evinced at an early age, persuaded his father to send him to Naples, supporting his arguments with an offer to pay his expenses at the celebrated Conservatorio. Here one of Bellini's fellow pupils was Mercadante, the future composer of _Il Giuramento_, an opera which, in spite of the frequent attempts of the Italian singers to familiarize the English public with its numerous beauties, has never been much liked in this country. I do not say that it has not been justly appreciated on the whole, but that the grace of some of the melodies, the acknowledged merit of the orchestration and the elegance and distinction which seem to me to characterize the composer's style generally, have not been accepted as compensating for his want of pa.s.sion and of that spontaneity without which the expression of strong emotion of any kind is naturally impossible. Mercadante could never have written _Rigoletto_, but, probably, a composer of inferior natural gifts to Verdi might, with a taste for study and a determination to bring his talent to perfection, have produced a work of equal artistic merit to _Il Giuramento_. And here we must take leave of Mercadante, whose place in the history of the opera is not a considerable one, and who, to the majority of English amateurs, is known only by his _Bella adorata_, a melody of which Verdi has shown his estimation by borrowing it, diluting it, and re-arranging it with a new accompaniment for the tenor's song in _Luisa Miller_.

[Sidenote: RUBINI.]

I should think Mercadante must have written better exercises, and pa.s.sed better examinations at the Conservatorio than his young friend Bellini, though the latter must have begun at an earlier age to compose operas.

Bellini's first dramatic work was written and performed while he was still a student. Encouraged by its success, he next composed music to a libretto already "set" by Generali, and ent.i.tled _Adelson e Salvino_.

_Adelson_ was represented before the ill.u.s.trious Barbaja, who was at that time manager of the two most celebrated theatres in Italy, the St.

Carlo at Naples, and La Scala at Milan,--as well as of the Italian opera at Vienna, to say nothing of some smaller operatic establishments also under his rule. The great impresario, struck by Bellini's promise, commissioned him to write an opera for Naples, and, in 1826, his _Bianca e Fernando_ was produced at the St. Carlo. This work was so far successful, that it obtained a considerable amount of applause from the public, while it inspired Barbaja with so much confidence that he entrusted the young composer, now twenty years of age, with the libretto of _il Pirata_, to be composed for La Scala. The tenor part was written specially for Rubini, who retired into the country with Bellini, and studied, as they were produced, the simple, touching airs which he afterwards delivered on the stage with such admirable expression.

_Il Pirata_ was received with enthusiasm by the audiences of La Scala, and the composer was requested to write another work for the same theatre. _La Straniera_ was brought out at Milan in 1828, the princ.i.p.al parts being entrusted to Donzelli, Tamburini, and Madame Tosi. This, Bellini's third work, appears, on the whole, to have maintained, but scarcely to have advanced, his reputation. Nevertheless, when it was represented in London soon after its original production, it was by no means so favourably received as _Il Pirato_ had been.

Bellini's _Zaira_, executed at Parma, in 1829, was a failure--soon, however, to be redeemed by his fifth work, _Il Capuletti ed i Montecchi_, which was written for Venice, and was received with all possible expressions of approbation. In London, the new operatic version of _Romeo and Juliet_ was not particularly admired, and owed what success it obtained entirely to the acting and singing of Madame Pasta in the princ.i.p.al part. It may be mentioned that the libretto of Bellini's _I Montecchi_ had already served his master, Zingarelli, for his opera of _Romeo e Julietta_.

[Sidenote: LA SONNAMBULA.]

The time had now arrived at which Bellini was to produce his master-pieces, _La Sonnambula_ and _Norma_; the former of which was written for _La Scala_, in 1831, the latter, for the same theatre, in the year following. The success of _La Sonnambula_ has been great everywhere, but nowhere so great as in England, where it has been performed in English and in Italian, oftener than any other two or perhaps three operas, while probably no songs, certainly no songs by a foreign composer, were ever sold in such large numbers as _All is lost_ and _Do not mingle_. The libretto of _La Sonnambula_, by Romani, is one of the most interesting and touching, and one of the best suited for musical ill.u.s.tration in the whole _repertoire_ of _libretti_. To the late M. Scribe, belongs the merit of having invented the charming story on which Romani's and Bellini's opera is founded; and it is worthy of remark that he had already presented it in two different dramatic forms before any one was struck with its capabilities for musical treatment. A thoroughly, essentially, dramatic story can be presented on the stage in any and every form; with music, with dialogue, or with nothing but dumb action. Tried by this test, the plots of a great number of merely well written comedies would prove worthless; and so in substance they are. On the other hand, the vaudeville of _La Somnambula_, became, as re-arranged by M. Scribe, the ballet of _La Somnambule_, (one of the prettiest, by the way, from a ch.o.r.egraphic point of view ever produced); which, in the hands of Romani, became the libretto of an opera; which again, vulgarly treated, has been made into a burlesque; and, loftily treated, might be changed (I will not say elevated, for the operatic form is poetical enough), into a tragedy.

The beauties of _La Sonnambula_, so full of pure melody and of emotional music, of the most simple and touching kind, can be appreciated by every one; by the most learned musician and the most untutored amateur, or rather let us say by any play-goer, who, not having been born deaf to the voice of music, hears an opera for the first time in his life. It was given, however, to an English critic, to listen to this opera, as natural and as unmistakably beautiful as a bed of wild flowers, through a special ear-trumpet of his own; and in number 197 of the most widely-circulated of our literary journals, the following remarks on _La Sonnambula_ appeared. With the exception of one or two pretty _motivi_, exquisitely given by Pasta and Rubini, the music is sometimes scarcely on a level with that of _Il Pirata_, and often sinks below it; there is a general thinness and want of effect in the instrumentation not calculated to make us overlook the other defects of this composition, which, in our humble judgment, are compensated by no redeeming beauties. Bellini has soared too high; there is nothing of grandeur, no touch of true pathos in the common place workings of his mind. He cannot reach the _Opera semi-seria_; he should confine his powers to the lowest walk of the musical drama, the one act _Opera buffa_."

Equally ill fared _Norma_ at the hands of another musical critic to whose "reminiscences" I have often had to refer, but who tells us that he did not hear the work in question himself. He speaks of it simply as a production of which the scene is laid in _Wales_, and adds that "it was not liked."

Yet _Norma_ has been a good deal liked since its first production at Milan, now nearly thirty years ago; and from Madame Pasta's first to Madame Grisi's last appearance in the princ.i.p.al part, no great singer with any pretension to tragic power has considered her claims fully recognised until she has succeeded in the part of the Druid priestess.

[Sidenote: I PURITANI.]

_Beatrice di Tenda_, Bellini's next opera after _Norma_, cannot be reckoned among his best works. It was written for Venice, in 1833, and was performed in England for the first time, in 1836. It met with no very great success in Italy or elsewhere.

In 1834, Bellini went to Paris, having been requested to write an opera for the excellent Theatre Italien of that capital. The company at the period in question, included Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini and Lablache, all of whom were provided with parts in the new work. _I Puritani_, was played for the first time in London, for Grisi's benefit, in 1835, and with precisely the same distribution of characters as in Paris. The "_Puritani_ Season" is still remembered by old habitues, as one of the most brilliant of these latter days. Rubini's romance in the first act _A te o cara_, Grisi's _Polonaise_, _Son vergin vezzosa_ and the grand duet for Tamburini and Lablache, produced the greatest enthusiasm in all our musical circles, and the last movement of the duet was treated by "arrangers" for the piano, in every possible form. This is the movement, (destined, too soon, to find favour in the eyes of omnibus conductors, and all the worst amateurs of the cornet), of which Rossini wrote from Paris to a friend at Milan; "I need not describe the duet for the two ba.s.ses, you must have heard it where you are."

_I Puritani_ was Bellini's last opera. The season after its production he retired to the house of a Mr. Lewis at Puteaux, and there, while studying his art with an ardour which never deserted him, was attacked by a fatal illness. "From his youth up," says Mr. J. W. Mould, in his interesting "Memoir of Bellini;" "Vincenzo's eagerness in his art was such as to keep him at the piano day and night, till he was obliged forcibly to leave it. The ruling pa.s.sion accompanied him through his short life, and by the a.s.siduity with which he pursued it, brought on the dysentery, which closed his brilliant career, peopling his last hours with the figures of those to whom his works were so largely indebted for their success. During the moments of delirium which preceded his death, he was constantly speaking of Lablache, Tamburini and Grisi, and one of his last recognisable impressions was, that he was present at a brilliant representation of his last opera, at the Salle Favart. His earthly career closed on Wednesday, the 23rd of September, 1835."

[Sidenote: BELLINI'S DEATH.]

Thus died Bellini, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. Immediately after his death, and on the very eve of his interment, the Theatre Italien re-opened with the _Puritani_. "The work," says the writer from whom I have just quoted, "was listened to throughout with a sad attention, betraying evidently how the general thoughts of both audience and artists were pre-occupied with the mournful fate of him so recently amongst them, now extended senseless, soulless, and mute, upon his funeral bier. The solemn and mournful chords which commence the opera, excited a sorrowful emotion in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of both those who sang and those who heard. The feeling in which the orchestra and chorus partic.i.p.ated, ex-tended itself to the princ.i.p.al artists concerned, and the foremost amongst them displayed neither that vigour nor that neatness of execution which Paris was so accustomed to accept at their hands; Tamburini in particular, was so broken down by the death of the young friend, whose presence amongst them spurred the glorious quartett on the season before, to such unprecedented exertions, that his magnificent organ, superb vocalisation were often considerably at fault during the evening, and his interrupted accent, joined to the melancholy depicted on the countenances of Grisi, Rubini, and Lablache, sent those to their homes with an aching heart who had presented themselves to that evening's hearing of _I Puritani_, previously disposed, moreover, to attend the mournful ceremony of the morrow."

A committee of Bellini's friends, including Rossini, Cherubini, Paer, and Carafa, undertook the general direction of the funeral of which the musical department was entrusted to M. Habeneck the _chef d'orchestre_ of the Academie Royale. The expenses of the ceremony were defrayed by M.

Panseron, of the Theatre Italien. The most remarkable piece for the programme of the funeral music, was a lacrymosa for four voices, without accompaniment, in which the text of the Latin hymn was united to the beautiful melody (and of a thoroughly religious character), sung by the tenor in the third act of the _Puritani_. This lacrymosa was executed by Rubini, Ivanoff, Tamburini, and Lablache. The service was performed in the church of the Invalides, and Bellini's remains were interred in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise.

Rossini had always shown the greatest affection for Bellini; and Rosario Bellini, a few weeks after his son's death, wrote a letter to the great composer, thanking him for the almost paternal kindness which he had shown to young Vincenzo during his lifetime, and for the honour he had paid to his memory when he was no more. After speaking of the grief and despair in which the loss of his beloved son had plunged him, the old man expressed himself as follows:--

"You always encouraged the object of my eternal regret in his labours; you took him under your protection; you neglected nothing that could increase his glory and his welfare. After my son's death what have you not done to honour his memory and render it dear to posterity! I learnt this from the newspapers; and I am penetrated with grat.i.tude for your excessive kindness, as well as for that of a number of distinguished artistes, which also I shall never forget. Pray, sir, be my interpreter, and tell these artistes that the father and family of Bellini, as well as our compatriots of Catana, will cherish an imperishable recollection of this generous conduct. I shall never cease to remember how much you did for my son; I shall make known everywhere, in the midst of my tears, what an affectionate heart belongs to the great Rossini; and how kind, hospitable, and full of feeling are the artistes of France."

[Sidenote: BELLINI AND DONIZETTI.]

If we compare Bellini with Donizetti, we find that the latter was the more prolific of the two, judging simply by the number of works produced; inasmuch as Donizetti, at the age of twenty-eight, had already produced thirteen operas; whereas the number of Bellini's dramatic works, when he died in his twenty-ninth year, amounted only to nine. But of the baker's dozen thrown off by Donizetti at so early an age, not one made any impression on the public, or on musicians, such as was caused by _I Capuletti_, or _Il Pirata_, or _La Straniera_, to say nothing of _I Puritani_, which, in the opinion of many good judges, holds forth greater promise of dramatic excellence than is contained in any other of Bellini's works, including those masterpieces in two such different styles, _La Sonnambula_ and _Norma_. When Donizetti had been composing for a dozen years, and had produced thirty one operas (_Anna Bolena_ was his thirty-second), he had still written nothing which could be ranked on an equality with Bellini's second-rate works, such as _Il Pirata_ and _I Capuletti_; and during the second half of Donizetti's operatic career, not one work of his in three met with the success which (_Beatrice_ alone excepted) attended all Bellini's operas, as soon as Bellini had once pa.s.sed that merely experimental period when, to fail, is, for a composer of real ability, to learn how not to fail a second time. I do not say that the composer of _Lucrezia_, _Lucia_, and _Elisir d'Amore_ is so vastly inferior to the composer of _La Sonnambula_ and _Norma_; but, simply, that Donizetti, during the first dozen years of his artistic life, did not approach the excellence shown by the young Bellini during the nine years which made up the whole of his brief musical career. More than that, Donizetti never produced a musical tragedy equal to _Norma_, nor a musical pastoral equal to _La Sonnambula_; while, dramatic considerations apart, he cannot be compared to Bellini as an inventor of melody. Indeed, it would be difficult in the whole range of opera to name three works which contain so many simple, tender, touching airs, of a refined character, yet possessing all the elements of popularity (in short, airs whose beauty is universally appreciable) as _Norma_, _La Sonnambula_, and _I Puritani_.

The simplicity of Bellini's melodies is one of their chief characteristics; and this was especially remarkable, at a time when Rossini's imitators were exaggerating the florid style of their model in every air they produced.

[Sidenote: BELLINI'S SINGERS.]

Most of the great singers of the modern school,--indeed, all who have appeared since and including Madame Pasta, have gained their reputation chiefly in Bellini's and Donizetti's operas. They formed their style, it is true, by singing Rossini's music; but as the public will not listen for ever even to such operas as _Il Barbiere_ and _Semiramide_, it was necessary to provide the new vocalists from time to time with new parts; and thus "Amina" and "Anna Bolena" were written for Pasta; "Elvino,"

&c., for Rubini; "Edgardo," in the _Lucia_, for Duprez; a complete quartett of parts in _I Puritani_, for Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache. Since Donizetti's _Don Pasquale_, composed for Grisi, Mario (Rubini's successor), Tamburini, and Lablache, no work of any importance has been composed for the Italian Opera of Paris--nor of London either, I may add, in spite of Verdi's _I Masnadieri_, and Halevy's _La Tempesta_, both manufactured expressly for Her Majesty's Theatre.

I have already spoken of Pasta's and Malibran's successes in Rossini's operas. The first part written for Pasta by Bellini was that of "Amina"

in the _Sonnambula_; the second, that of "Norma." But though Pasta "created" these characters, she was destined to be surpa.s.sed in both of them by the former Marietta Garcia, now returned from America, and known everywhere as Malibran. This vocalist, by all accounts the most poetic and impa.s.sioned of all the great singers of her period, arrived in Italy just when _I Capuletti_, _La Sonnambula_, and _Norma_, were at the height of their popularity--thanks, in a great measure, to the admirable manner in which the part of the heroine in each of these works was represented by Pasta. Malibran appeared as "Amina," as "Norma," and also as "Romeo," in _I Capuletti_. She "interpreted" the characters (to borrow an expression, which is admissible, in this case, from the jargon of French musical critics) in her own manner, and very ingeniously brought into relief just those portions of the music of each which were not rendered prominent in the Pasta versions. The new singer was applauded enthusiastically. The public were really grateful to her for bringing to light beauties which, but for her, would have remained in the shade. But it was also thought that Malibran feared her ill.u.s.trious rival and predecessor too much, to attempt _her_ readings. This was just the impression she wished to produce; and when she saw that the public had made up its mind on the subject, she changed her tactics, followed Pasta's interpretation, and beat her on her own ground. She excelled wherever Pasta had excelled, and proved herself on the whole superior to her. Finally, she played the parts of "Norma" and "Amina" in her first and second manner combined. This rendered her triumph decisive.

Now Malibran commenced a triumphal progress through Italy. Wherever she sang, showers of bouquets and garlands fell at her feet; the horses were taken from her carriage on her leaving the theatre, and she was dragged home amid the shouts of an admiring crowd. These so-called "ovations"[100] were renewed at every operatic city in Italy; and managers disputed, in a manner previously unexampled, the honour and profit of engaging the all-successful vocalist.

[Sidenote: MALIBRAN.]

The director of the Trieste opera gave Malibran four thousand francs a night, and at the end of her engagement pressed her to accept a set of diamonds. Malibran refused, observing, that what she had already received was amply sufficient for her services, and more than she would ever have thought of asking for them, had not the terms been proposed by the director himself.

"Accept my present all the same," replied the liberal _impresario_; "I can afford to offer you this little souvenir. It will remind you that I made an excellent thing out of your engagement, and it may, perhaps, help to induce you to come here again."

"The actions of this fiery existence," says M. Castil Blaze, "would appear fabulous if we had not seen Marietta amongst us, fulfilling her engagements at the theatre, resisting all the fatigue of the rehearsals, of the representations, after galloping morning and evening in the Bois de Boulogne, so as to tire out two horses. She used to breakfast during the rehearsals on the stage. I said to her, one morning, at the theatre:--'_Marietta carissima, non morrai. Che far, dunque? Nemica sorte! Creperai._'

"Her travels, her excursions, her studies, her performances might have filled the lives of two artists, and two very complete lives, moreover.

She starts for Sinigaglia, during the heat of July, in man's clothes, takes her seat on the box of the carriage, drives the horses; scorched by the sun of Italy, covered with dust, she arrives, jumps into the sea, swims like a dolphin, and then goes to her hotel to dress. At Brussels, she is applauded as a French Rosna, delivering the prose of Beaumarchais as Mademoiselle Mars would have delivered it. She leaves Brussels for London, comes back to Paris, travels about in Brie, and returns to London, not like a courier, but like a dove on the wing. We all know what the life of a singer is in the capital of England, the life of a dramatic singer of the highest talent. After a rehearsal at the opera, she may have three or four matinee's to attend; and when the curtain falls, and she can escape from the theatre, there are soirees which last till day-break. Malibran kept all these engagements, and, moreover, gave Sunday to her friends; this day of absolute rest to all England, was to Marietta only another day of excitement."

[Sidenote: MALIBRAN.]

Malibran spoke Spanish, Italian, French, English, and a little German, and acted and sang in the first four of these languages. In London, she appeared in an English version of _La Sonnambula_ (1838), when her representation of the character of "Amina" created a general enthusiasm such as can scarcely have been equalled during the "Jenny Lind mania,"--perfect vocalist as was Jenny Lind. Malibran appears, however, to have been a more impa.s.sioned singer, and was certainly a finer actress than the Swedish Nightingale. "Never losing sight of the simplicity of the character," says a writer in describing her performance in _La Sonnambula_, "she gave irresistible grace and force to the pathetic pa.s.sages with which it abounds, and excited the feeling of the audience to as high pitch as can be perceived. Her sleep-walking scenes, in which the slightest amount of exaggeration or want of caution would have destroyed the whole effect, were played with exquisite discrimination; she sang the airs with refined taste and great power; her voice, which was remarkable, rather for its flexibility and sweetness than for its volume, was as pure as ever, and her style displayed that high cultivation and luxuriance which marked the school in which she was educated, and which is almost identified with the name she formerly bore."

Drury Lane was the last theatre at which Madame Malibran sang; but the last notes she ever uttered were heard at Manchester, where she performed only in oratorios and at concerts. Before leaving London, Madame Malibran had a fall from her horse, and all the time she was singing at Manchester, she was suffering from its effects. She had struck her head, and the violence of the blow, together with the general shock to her nerves, without weakening any of her faculties, seemed to have produced that feverish excitement which gave such tragic poetry to her last performances. At first, she would take no precautions, though inflammation of the brain was to be feared, and, indeed, might be said to have already declared itself. She continued to sing, and never was her voice more pure and melodious, never was her execution more daring and dazzling, never before had she sung with such inspiration and with a pa.s.sion which communicated itself in so electric a manner to her audience. She was bled; not one of the doctors appears to have had sufficient strength of mind to enforce that absolute rest which everyone must have known was necessary for her existence, and she still went on singing. There were no signs of any loss of physical power, while her nervous force appeared to have increased. The last time she ever sang, she executed the duet from _Andronico_, with Madame Caradori, who, by a very natural sympathy, appeared herself to have received something of that almost supernatural fire which was burning within the breast of Malibran, and which was now fast consuming her. The public applauded with ecstacy, and as the general excitement increased, the marvellous vocalisation of the dying singer became almost miraculous. She improvised a final cadence, which was the climax of her triumph and of her life. The bravos of the audience were not at an end when she had already sunk exhausted into the arms of Madame Alessandri, who carried her, fainting, into the artist's room. She was removed immediately to the hotel. It was now impossible to save her, and so convinced of this was her husband, that almost before she had breathed her last, he was on his way to Paris, the better to secure every farthing of her property!

[Sidenote: RUBINI.]

Rubini, though he first gained his immense reputation by his mode of singing the airs of _Il Pirata_, _Anna Bolena_, and _La Sonnambula_, formed his style in the first instance, on the operas of Rossini. This vocalist, however, sang and acted in a great many different capacities before he was recognised as the first of all first tenors. At the age of twelve Rubini made his debut at the theatre of Romano, his native town, in a woman's part. This curious _prima donna_ afterwards sat down at the door of the theatre, between two candles, and behind a plate, in which the admiring public deposited their offerings to the fair beneficiare.

She is said to have been perfectly satisfied with the receipts and with the praise accorded to her for her first performance. Rubini afterwards went to Bergamo, where he was engaged to play the violin in the orchestra between the acts of comedies, and to sing in the choruses during the operatic season. A drama was to be brought out in which a certain cavatina was introduced. The manager was in great trouble to find a singer to whom this air could be entrusted. Rubini was mentioned, the manager offered him a few s.h.i.+llings to sing it, the bargain was made, and the new vocalist was immensely applauded. This air was the production of Lamberti. Rubini kept it, and many years afterwards, when he was at the height of his reputation, was fond of singing it in memory of his first composer.

In 1835, twenty-three years after Rubini's first engagement at Bergamo, the tenor of the Theatre Italien of Paris was asked to intercede for a chorus-singer, who expected to be dismissed from the establishment. He told the unhappy man to write a letter to the manager, and then gave it the irresistible weight of his recommendation by signing it "Rubini, _Ancien Choriste_."