Physiology of The Opera Part 2

"There never was a man so notoriously abused.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

"But whispering words can poison truth."

COLERIDGE.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We should be much grieved were we to let a chance of immortality at our hands go by, for our great friend the prompter--the suggeritore of the Italians. The prompter is to the opera, what the fifth wheel is to a wagon; everything rubs, grates and abrades it, yet the whole concern turns on it. He is the most abused (not hated--that is reserved for the Impresario,) man in the company. But he does not care for it. That is what he is hired for. He is paid to be of a good temper, and he does it.

He returns docility for dollars; and suavity for salary. He is the true philosopher; just enough in the company to be part of it, and sufficiently detached to avoid all the squabbles and bickerings. He, however, is the victim of all the caprices of the company, from the prima donna, who in a miff kicks about _his part.i.tion_ in a very piano cavatina, to each of the bandy-legged choristers. True, he has his little revenge. This he accomplishes by using his voice too much and too loudly in the _sotto voce_ parts, so that all the duos become trios and the quintettes, choruses. This is little enough to sweeten the embitterments of a _suggeritore's_ life, but such it is, and he is contented. The _suggeritore_ must be a thin man. It does not require a Paxton to know that a hole in the stage two feet square, will not hold Barnum's obesities. He must also be short and supple-necked, to allow the green fungus which excresces from the stage to cover him; and he must be the fortunate owner of a right arm as untiring as a locomotive crank or the sails of a windmill. It is a prevalent but mistaken idea, that the prompter is an impolite man; we happen to know that it is a matter of the deepest concern with him to be obliged to sit with his back to the audience. But he is like the angels and St. Cecilia, "_Il n'avait pas de quoi_" to do otherwise. Operas must be, Singers must have, a lead horse--(N. B. How can delicate females and tenors be expected to recollect "_les paroles_;")--and there he is, with a little hole in the back of his calash for the leader of the orchestra to stir him up when the excitement becomes very strong, and the time is irrecoverably lost. As to the social habits of the suggeritore, the naturalist is at a loss, for he immediately disappears after rehearsal, and remains in close retirement till the performance, after which he is again lost till the next day.

CHAPTER VII.

Before the Curtain.

"A neat, snug study on a winter's night; A book, friend, single lady, or a gla.s.s Of claret, sandwich, and an appet.i.te, Are things which make an English evening pa.s.s, Though _certes_ by no means so grand a sight, As is a theatre, lit up with gas."--BYRON.

The night is a cold one; the snow is falling in large, heavy flakes, and those who are fond of the frigid, but exhilarating amus.e.m.e.nt of sleighing, are in hopes that by the morrow they will be able to pa.s.s like lightning from one part of the city to the other; in a sleigh decked with warm, gaily trimmed furs; filled with a merry company, and drawn by two high-headed, das.h.i.+ng trotters. The gas lights are just discernible from corner to corner. The number of people in the streets is steadily decreasing, and the sound of their foot-fall is m.u.f.fled in the snow. About the theatres and the opera house, however, crowds of the idle and curious, gaping at those who are entering these buildings, make it necessary for the police to pace to and fro, ordering back the more presumptuous loiterers, who press forward and obstruct the approach to the doors.

Query? Why does the crowd always stare at those who are going into a theatre or opera? The latter are attired somewhat strangely to be sure, but still they don't look _exactly_ like Choctaws.

The cab and chaise-men m.u.f.fled up in their cold-defying great-coats and woolen comforters, are opening the doors of their several vehicles, out of which ladies enveloped in cloaks and hoods are dismounting under cover of umbrellas, held probably by the "best of brothers," but more probably by gentlemen in no way related to them. In the opera house all is bustle and commotion. The officials are selling tickets, receiving tickets, and directing to their places bevies of ladies and gentlemen bewildered in a maze of pa.s.sages. The audience is impatiently preparing itself for a delightful evening's entertainment. The dandies, who are so unfortunate as not to have accompanied ladies have already brought themselves up to the attack, and have levelled their opera-gla.s.ses on all the points where they know well-established objects of admiration are likely to be found. Now and then they bow their recognition in a reserved inclination, or in a careless smiling way that bespeaks the freedom of familiar intimacy.

The fast-men are standing at the doors in knots of three and four, talking over the last trot of Suffolk, or the probable chance of victory in the next day's dog-fight, and making a few, no doubt _very fast_, but not very proper allusions to the shoulders of some rather sparingly habited _belles_. The Cubans in the parquette, who, by the by, during their sojourn in this country will best preserve their liberty by remaining north of Mason and Dixon's line, are clearing their voices in very doubtful Spanish, for those animated bravos, which we must admit they always administer in the very best taste, both as to time and quant.i.ty. Here and there, some lone young man, desolate in a crowd, who has seldom before been exposed to the full blaze of the all-discovering gas light, not exactly knowing what to do with himself, is endeavouring, with a fict.i.tious indifference, to fill up the vacancies of attention by smoothing down the stubborn folds of badly selected white _kids_. Five collegians just escaped from the studious universities for a high week in town, have established themselves all together, and commenced a running commentary, carried on chiefly in the Virginia dialect, on men, women, and things, much to the annoyance of a very foreign gentleman behind them--so foreign that he is almost black--who looks stilettos at his cheerful but over-loquacious neighbours. One youth in an excessively white, though unpleasantly stiff cravat, is a.s.sisting an equally stiff old chaperon into her place, at the expense of great physical efforts, till his cheeks are thereby suffused with a tint strongly resembling the color of a juvenile beet, while the distended veins of his forehead would make a fine anatomical study for the laborious medical student, if that fabulous biped were still extant. The chaperon being disposed of, four young ladies under her _surveillance_, two in opera cloaks and hoods, and two in antediluvian mantles and pre-adamitic head-gear, a.s.suring the existence of rural cousins.h.i.+p, by four minor efforts of the same gentleman, are at length safely landed in their places. But now commences a new round of confusion. Each of the four young ladies discovers that she has placed herself on some article of clothing belonging to her companion.

Whereupon she half rises, and having drawn forth the disturbing habiliment, resumes her former position: and as this movement is performed by each one of them without regard to the order in which they have placed themselves, and is repeated half a dozen times in as many minutes, the unconscious fair ones become the subjects of the allusions of the fast-men, who immediately inst.i.tute comparisons between them and various animate and inanimate objects. One of these gentlemen observing that their motions remind him of a flock of aquatic fowl, known by the name of divers, a facetious friend replies that probably he means diving bells; which being considered an extremely happy pun, it meets with a hearty laugh of approbation. But an ambitious fast wit, fearing that his reputation is likely to be lost forever, if he remain silent, says that the whole group of uneasy females recalls the line of Coleman,

"For what is so gay as a bag full of fleas."

This being regarded as the acme of brilliancy, there is no telling what might be the consequences if their attention were not drawn into another channel by the entrance of a distinguished belle, who is immediately p.r.o.nounced to be a "stunner" and the question is raised as to who the man is who acts as "bottle holder," reference thereby being had to the gentleman who is so polite as to hand the lady to her place, and aid her in disposing of her divers little appliances of operatic necessity. The _belle_ scarcely takes her seat before she commences to hum s.n.a.t.c.hes of Italian airs, in a very careless indifferent way, just to show how much she is at home in such a place, and probably to attract a little more attention.

Query? Why do the handsomest women at an opera _always_ talk and laugh the loudest?

That portion of the audience comprised in the gentler s.e.x is here in all the attraction of natural loveliness and advent.i.tious ornament, putting to flight a notion once prevalent, that beauty when unadorned is then adorned the most.

The noise of conversation which now lulls, now swells out in gentle crescendos, is chiefly the production of this taciturn part of the audience. All at once the gas is let on in a gush of light, the buzz of voices, which up to this time has been carried on in a subdued tone, bursts out into full force, with a suddenness that seems to render it probable that the conversation has been issuing all the while from the gas jets. The augmented light brings down another volley from the foci of a thousand _lorgnettes_. At this moment the musicians begin to enter the orchestra which has been void of occupants all the evening, with the exception of one meaningless old fellow, who has been attempting to restore order among the stands, seats, and books, but whose laudable efforts have ended in what every single gentleman at lodgings knows all endeavours to "set things to rights," are sure to effect--a state of affairs in which confusion is considerably worse confounded. But after all a music-stand must be adjusted by the performer himself; no one can put the hat of another on the head of the latter so as to be comfortable to him. The latter must pose it for himself. This law applies with peculiar force to music-stands.

The violinists proceed to tighten or slacken the hair of their bows, to throw back the coat collar, or stuff a white handkerchief under it, in order to adjust the violin to the peculiar crook of each neck, with as much apparent anxiety as if they had not been doing the same thing for the last thirty years, and some of their heads had not become bald over the sound-post. In the meantime, the other members of this well-bearded corps are streaming in with their instruments under the arm, and are placing their music books and lamps at the proper elevation on the stands, all the while talking, nodding, and smiling as if rehearsing half the day, and playing half the night, were a mighty good joke.

And then ascend to the highest parts of the house--to the regions of the operatic "paradise," those most singular of all instrumental sounds, those fifty or sixty antagonistic voluntaries with which all the audience would voluntarily dispense, consisting of chromatics in twenty different keys, violin octaves, harmonics, thirds and fifths, clarionet shakes, flute staccatos, horn growlings, ophicleide rumblings, triangular vibrations, and drum concussions.

"See to their desks Apollo's sons repair-- Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair!

In unison their various tones to tune, Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoa.r.s.e ba.s.soon.

In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tw.a.n.g goes the harpsicord, too too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French horn, and tw.a.n.gs the tingling harp."

About the time that the observer has made up in his mind an answer to the following mental queries--how many nights the first violinist could play without getting a crick in the neck--whether the flutist may not sometime blow his eyes so far out of his head that he may never be able to get them back again--how long it would take the operator on the _cornet a piston_ to learn to play on the magnetic telegraph--why such a small man should be suffered to perform on such a big thing as an ophicleide, and how a person with such a huge moustache can get the piccola up to lips defended by such a bulwark of hair, a fermentation is observable in the midst of this musical whirlpool, which indicates the presence of some higher power. Place is given by the humble members of the orchestra, and the director is seen to stand forth in the att.i.tude of mounting the tribunal from whence he guides his submissive subjects with despotic sway. He is a neat figured little man, with a profusion of methodically adjusted curls, a moustache that would render his physiognomy excessively ferocious, if an occasional smile playing over the distinguishable parts of his face, did not modify this expression.

He is attired in the costume of the ball room, bearing in his b.u.t.ton hole the most delicate rosebud of the conservatory, and in his perfectly gloved hand, an amber headed baton, the sceptre of command. At his appearance a wave of applause floats up from the audience, and the head and breast of the director bend down to meet it in a graceful and reverential bow, accompanied by a smile expressing the highest possible amount of inward gratification. This little acknowledgment of a becoming respect for the good opinion of the house is repeated once or twice, and then with the air of a man who has important business on hand, he mounts his elevated seat. He gives one or two magical taps on the stand, and the chaos of sounds is annihilated with the exception of the lamentations of one refractory violin, over which the owner has been for the last half hour repeatedly, first inclining his head in a horizontal position, and then tugging away at the screws. At this the director seems to be much annoyed, and the poor violinist, more annoyed, mutters to a companion that he wishes himself an _unspeakably_ long way hence--probably in Italy where he could procure some good strings.

The resisting violin having been brought to subjection, the director casts an eye over the whole body of musicians, and having thrown back his head and lifted up both arms, very much in the supposed att.i.tude of Ajax defying the thunder, he remains perfectly motionless for an instant, and then brings forward the whole of his body from the hips upwards, with a rapid and powerful jerk, which introduces his forehead into close proximity with the musical score which he pretends to be reading, the baton strikes the stand with a loud clap, and one old drummer proceeds to touch the drum, but in so gentle a manner, that it sounds as if, instead of using the sticks he were tossing some grains of shot on it. You now tremble for the safety of the director, and you enter into an arithmetical calculation with yourself, the basis of which is, that if the director by such a dangerous inclination of the person can only bring one poor drummer into movement, what amount of bodily labour he will be compelled to undergo, in order to operate on all that concourse of musicians. But your fears are dissipated in a few moments, for you discover that great sounds and little sounds are accompanied with about the same degree of gesticulatory emphasis. In the meantime some horns have commenced to blow on a very small scale, not hard enough, you would suppose, to drive the dust out of them, and if the piston of the cornet did not rattle so, you would p.r.o.nounce its playing all a sham. The violins and flutes begin to be audible and the violinists are suddenly struck with a simultaneous desire to pick the strings, just as if that would make any music. All the other instruments are now doing duty in very feeble tones, and you take a look round the house to see who are there; and you wonder why that particular family of Smiths, with whom you have the pleasure of an acquaintance has not yet appeared. You think Miss Julia Brown's hair arranged with the usual want of elegance, and then call to mind the fact that at Newport, the previous summer, you complimented her so many times on the peculiar taste which her coiffure always displayed. The aforesaid drummer is now giving the drum considerable ill usage, and then for the first time, you observe that he has two of them which he appears to beat alternately.

The director is casting his head from one side to the other, flashes of disapprobation dart from his eyes upon the dilatory violinists, who from time to time, stop as it were, to catch breath, and fail to "come to the scratch" in due season. Every now and then a frown, dark as Erebus, spreads over his brow, as some poor laggard is astray in the mazes of sound, and can't find his place, or turns two pages instead of one, and consequently loses the thread of his harmonious discourse. The music grows so powerful that the conversation of the most enthusiastic and vociferous fast man no longer meets the ear. The orchestra is going as if they were riding an instrumental steeple chase, and the director looks more and more involved in doubt, as to which of his followers is to be left most in the rear.

At length when you have concluded that every musician has exhausted his last resource in the general attempt to make a noise, you are knocked into a start of astonishment by the introduction of a _corps de reserve_, in the clash of cymbals, which sounds as if a careless servant had stumbled in coming up stairs and mashed an entire set of Sevres china. In the midst of this carnage of crotchets and quavers, the director is obviously the controlling spirit who "rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." There he sits producing no one sound except an occasional rap of his baton on the desk, and yet rousing to frenzy or lulling into tranquillity the instruments of all this tumult, every now and then, as Mr. Macaulay would say, "hurling foul scorn" at the heaps of little black dots that are crowded over the leaves of his score.

When the intensity of the tones has been diminished and augmented some half dozen times, the overture is concluded in four grand crashes, in which the cymbals make the most conspicuous figure. During the overture, however, there seems to be occasional seasons when there is a cessation of hostilities, and a soft plaintive air is taken up by one clarionet, violincello or oboe, with which air the audience must be very much delighted, for they laugh and talk with the greatest earnestness, and never turn their eyes towards the orchestra.

And now there is a new commotion among the musicians, while arranging every thing for the more serious undertaking, the opera itself. The director goes about like a general on the eve of battle, reconnoitres his forces, and marshals them for the attack. He mounts the elevated seat, gives another contortion to his frame, similar to that which was necessary to put the overture in movement, and then the curtain rises.

Heads are slightly projected from the boxes at this movement, and many an alabaster neck is curved forward till the lowered drapery reveals the snowy bosom. The noise of conversation ceases, and the opera commences in earnest.

CHAPTER VIII.

Of the Opera in the Concrete.

"Lord! said my mother, what is all this story about?

"A c.o.c.k and a bull, said Yorick--and one of the best of its kind I ever heard."--TRISTRAM SHANDY.

_Prince Henry._ "'Wilt thou rob this leather-jerkin, crystal-b.u.t.ton, nott-pated, agate-ring, puke stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch,--"

_Francis._ "O Lord, sir, who do you mean?"

_P. Hen._ "Why then, your brown b.a.s.t.a.r.d is your only drink: for, look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully; in Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much." FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV.

"If this were played upon a stage, now, I would condemn it as an improbable fiction." TWELFTH NIGHT.

When the curtain rises the scene represents a dark forest, where some quite well dressed, but desperate, foreign-looking gentlemen are engaged at a game of cards, which, from the abandoned appearance of the players, we are warranted to believe, must be some such low pastime as "all fours," or a hand at poker. The desperate gentlemen cantatorially inform the audience that their profession is that of outlaws, and remark that having no particular business then to engage them, they are staking quite extravagant sums on some cards, which the curious observer will discover to have a very unctuous appearance. How the outlaws ever came to be reduced to such straightened circ.u.mstances as to put up with these "lodgings upon the cold ground," or how they ever fell into such an improper course of life, we are not told, but we remember once hearing a fast man suggest that they were evidently "n.o.bs who had overdrawn the badger by driving fast cattle, and going it high"--the exact signification of which words we did not understand, but supposed them to refer to scions of n.o.bility who had squandered their patrimonies in riotous living. That these men are lost beyond the hope of redemption, is clear from the fact that they express their determination to employ themselves in no more useful or moral way; and how long they would persist in this pernicious amus.e.m.e.nt is rendered uncertain, by the entrance of their leader or chieftain--who, it is needless to say, is the tenor. From, the first moment that the spectator casts his eye on this obviously unfortunate individual, he is at once interested in his case, observing to himself, that if the fellow is somewhat addicted to low company, still he's a very gentlemanly character, and to all appearance

"The mildest manner'd man That ever sculled s.h.i.+p or cut a throat."

His looks are sad and melancholy, and would indicate that he is either suffering from a cold in the head, or that his outlaws had been a little more successful at "all fours" than himself. The "dejected haviour of his visage" seems to touch the audience, for they immediately give him several rounds of applause, no doubt with the intention of raising his spirits. This kind manifestation of their feelings is responded to by one or two low bows, and then he turns towards his outlaws to obtain a becoming reception from them.

He is greeted by his followers with the greatest enthusiasm; though, to their inquiries after his health, he makes no reply, but walks languidly down to the foot-lights, and relates to both audience and outlaws, how deplorable will be his condition unless he receive the a.s.sistance of the latter in carrying out his designs. He goes on to state that the "voice of a certain damsel of Arragon has slid into his heart like dew upon a parched flower"--a simile which the reader will observe to be equally felicitous as novel. He adds, however, that a great old villain and tyrant (who of course must be the ba.s.so,) has carried off the Spanish maiden, and is about to compel her to marry him. The bandits become at once highly indignant, and with one accord seize their arms and declare that they will follow their chief to the castle of the old phylogynist, and _boulverse_ all his designs by some insinuating digs of the poignard. The despondent chief seems comforted by this a.s.surance of their "most distinguished consideration," and remarks that the young lady will no doubt be a consoling angel amidst the griefs of exile.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

While he has been informing the audience and his friends of the state of his feelings, he has from time to time indulged in gestures about as strong as we can well conceive of, but now and then when an extraordinarily deep sentiment, and a very high note, choose the same moment for their expression, he is obliged to poise himself on one foot, extend the other behind him, elevating the heel and depressing the toe, fold his hands over his breast, throw back the head and shake his body like a newfoundland dog just issuing from the water--the refractory note and the hidden emotion are always brought to light by these gesticulatory expedients.

Immediately after this, the scene having changed to the castle of the tyrant, the "Aragonese vergine" (the prima donna), is discovered reclining on an old box covered with green baize, which long-continued acquaintance with theatrical properties, enables the audience to recognize as a velvet _lounge_. This lady seems to be in great affliction, for which, however, we can discover no adequate cause, except that she is in such an unbecoming place for an unprotected female. The applause of the audience is overwhelming, and three very low, but extremely graceful and lady-like curtsies which she rises "to do," are the consequence.

The beaux are now in all the excitement that dandies dare permit themselves to yield to, alternately exclaiming, "how grand she is! how beautiful! heavens, but isn't she beautiful!" and then bringing down the focus of the opera-gla.s.s on the peerless woman.