Read Ebook: The Complete Opera Book The Stories of the Operas together with 400 of the Leading Airs and Motives in Musical Notation by Kobb Gustav

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THE VORSPIEL

The Grail Motive is heard again and then the Motive of Faith is repeated, its severity exquisitely softened, so that it conveys a sense of peace which "passeth all understanding."

"Never has she done you harm. She serves the Grail, and only when she remains long away, none knows in what distant lands, does harm come to us." Then, turning to where she lies, he asks: "Where were you wandering when our leader lost the Sacred Spear? Why were you not here to help us then?"

"I never help!" is her sullen retort, although a tremor, as if caused by a pang of bitter reproach, passes over her frame.

This subtly suggests the Elegiac Motive and the Motive of Amfortas's Suffering, but in greatly intensified degrees. For it is like an outcry of torture that affects both body and soul.

For answer the youth shakes his head.

"Just a fool, after all," exclaims the old knight, as he opens a side door to the hall. "Begone, but take my advice. In future leave our swans alone, and seek yourself, gander, a goose!" And with these harsh words he pushes the youth out and angrily slams the door behind him.

This jarring break upon the religious feeling awakened by the scene would be a rude ending for the act, but Wagner, with exquisite tact, allows the voices in the dome to be heard once more, and so the curtains close, amid the spiritual harmonies of the Prophecy of the Guileless Fool and of the Grail Motive.

The "Good Friday Spell," one of Wagner's most beautiful mood paintings in tone color, is the most prominent episode in these scenes.

"One weapon only serves to staunch your wounded side--the one that struck it."

There are also heard the Motives of Prophecy and of the Sacrament, as the knights on the stage and the youths and boys in the dome chant. The Grail Motive, which is prominent throughout the scene, rises as if in a spirit of gentle religious triumph and brings, with the Sacrament Motive, the work to a close.

Gioachino Antonio Rossini

"Guillaume Tell" not only is written to a French libretto; it is in the French style of grand opera, in which the vocal melody is less ornate and the instrumental portion of the score more carefully considered than in the Italian.

During the remaining thirty-nine years of his life not another opera did Rossini compose. He appears deliberately to have formed this resolution in 1836, after hearing "Les Huguenots" by Meyerbeer, as if he considered it useless for him to attempt to rival that composer. He resided in Bologna and Florence until 1855, then in Paris, or near there, dying at Ruelle.

He presents the strange spectacle of a successful composer of opera, who lived to be seventy-six, abruptly closing his dramatic career at thirty-seven.

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

CHARACTERS

Notary, Constable, Musicians and Soldiers.

followed by "Io sono docile" .

December 26, 1815, Duke Cesarini, manager of the Argentine Theatre, Rome, for whom Rossini had contracted to write two operas, brought out the first of these, "Torvaldo e Dorliska," which was poorly received. Thereupon Cesarini handed to the composer the libretto of "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," which Paisiello, who was still living, had set to music more than half a century before. A pleasant memory of the old master's work still lingered with the Roman public. The honorarium was 400 Roman crowns and Rossini also was called upon to preside over the orchestra at the pianoforte at the first three performances. It is said that Rossini composed his score in a fortnight. Even if not strictly true, from December 26th to the February 5th following is but little more than a month. The young composer had too much sense not to honour Paisiello; or, at least, to appear to. He hastened to write to the old composer. The latter, although reported to have been intensely jealous of the young maestro since the sensational success of the latter's "Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra" , Naples, 1815, replied that he had no objection to another musician dealing with the subject of his opera. In reality, it is said, he counted on Rossini's making a glaring failure of the attempt. The libretto was rearranged by Sterbini, and Rossini wrote a preface, modest in tone, yet not without a hint that he considered the older score out of date. But he took the precaution to show Paisiello's letter to all the music lovers of Rome, and insisted on changing the title of the opera to "Almaviva, ossia l'Inutile Precauzione" .

Nevertheless, as soon as the rumour spread that Rossini was making over Paisiello's work, the young composer's enemies hastened to talk in the caf?s about what they called his "underhand action." Paisiello himself, it is believed, was not foreign to these intrigues. A letter in his handwriting was shown to Rossini. In this he is said to have written from Naples to one of his friends in Rome urging him to neglect nothing that would make certain the failure of Rossini's opera.

"Give her thanks," replied the artiste, "since without her you would not have had occasion to rise from your seat."

At the conclusion of the outrage, for such it was, Rossini left the theatre with as much nonchalance as if the row had concerned the work of another. After they had gotten into their street clothes the singers hurried to his lodgings to condole with him. He was sound asleep!

There have been three historic failures of opera. One was the "Tannh?user" fiasco, Paris, 1861; another, the failure of "Carmen," Paris, 1875. The earliest I have just described.

For the second performance of "Il Barbiere" Rossini replaced the unlucky air introduced by Garcia with the "Ecco ridente in cielo," as it now stands. This cavatina he borrowed from an earlier opera of his own, "Aureliano in Palmira" . It also had figured in a cantata by Rossini, "Ciro in Babilonia" --so that measures first sung by a Persian king in the ancient capital of Nebuchadnezzar, and then by a Roman emperor and his followers in the city which flourished in an oasis in the Syrian desert, were found suitable to be intoned by a lovesick Spanish count of the seventeenth century as a serenade to his lady of Seville. It surely is amusing to discover in tracing this air to its original source, that "Ecco ridente in cielo" figured in "Aureliano in Palmira" as an address to Isis--"Sposa del grande Osiride" .

"Ecco ridente in cielo," it is gravely pointed out by early writers on Rossini, is the "first example of modulation into the minor key later so frequently used by this master and his crowd of imitators." Also that "this ingenious way of avoiding the beaten path was not really a discovery of Rossini's, but belongs to Majo and was used by several musicians before Rossini." What a delightful pother over a modulation that the veriest tyro would now consider hackneyed! However, "Ecco ridente," adapted in such haste to "Il Barbiere" after the failure of Garcia's Spanish ditty, was sung by that artist the evening of the second performance, and loudly applauded. Moreover, Rossini had eliminated from his score everything that seemed to him to have been reasonably disapproved of. Then, pretending to be indisposed, he went to bed in order to avoid appearing at the pianoforte. The public, while not over-enthusiastic, received the work well on this second evening; and before long Rossini was accompanied to his rooms in triumph several evenings in succession, by the light of a thousand torches in the hands of the same Romans who had hissed his opera but a little while before. The work was first given under the title Rossini had insisted on, but soon changed back to that of the original libretto, "Il Barbiere di Siviglia."

The artifices of opera are remarkable. The most incongruous things happen. Yet because they do not occur in a drawing-room in real life, but on a stage separated from us by footlights, we lose all sense of their incongruity. The lesson scene occurs, for example, in an opera composed by Rossini in 1816. But the compositions now introduced into that scene not only are not by Rossini but, for the most, are modern waltz songs and compositions entirely different from the class that a voice pupil, at the time the opera was composed, could possibly have sung. But so convincing is the fiction of the stage, so delightfully lawless its artifices, that these things do not trouble us at all. Mme. Galli-Curci, however, by her choice of the "Magic Flute" aria shows that it is entirely possible to select a work that already was a classic at the time "Il Barbiere" was composed, yet satisfies the demand of a modern audience for brilliant vocalization in this scene.

There is evidence that in the early history of "Il Barbiere," Rossini's "Di tanti palpiti" from his opera "Tancredi" , not only was invariably sung by prima donnas in the lesson scene, but that it almost became a tradition to use it in this scene. In September, 1821, but little more than five years after the work had its premi?re, it was brought out in France with French text by Castil-Blaze, who also superintended the publication of the score.

"I give this score," he says, "as Rossini wrote it. But as several pieces have been transposed to favour certain Italian opera singers, I do not consider it useless to point out these transpositions here.... Air No. 10, written in G, is sung in A." Air No. 10, published by Castil-Blaze as an integral part of the score of "Il Barbiere," occurs in the lesson scene. It is "Di tanti palpiti" from "Tancredi."

Many liberties have been taken by prima donnas in the way of vocal flourishes and a general decking out of the score of "Il Barbiere" with embellishments. The story goes that Patti once sang "Una voce poco fa," with her own frills added, to Rossini, in Paris.

"A very pretty song! Whose is it?" is said to have been the composer's cutting comment.

There is another anecdote about "Il Barbiere" which brings in Donizetti, who was asked if he believed that Rossini really had composed the opera in thirteen days.

"Why not? He's so lazy," is the reported reply.

If the story is true, Donizetti was a very forward young man. He was only nineteen when "Il Barbiere" was produced, and had not yet brought out his first opera.

SEMIRAMIDE

Opera in two acts by Rossini, words by Gaetana Rossi, founded on Voltaire's tragedy, "S?miramis." Produced, February 3, 1823, Fenice Theatre, Venice; London, King's Theatre, July 15, 1824; Paris, July 9, 1860, as S?miramis; New York, April 25, 1826; 1855 ; 1890 .

CHARACTERS

A judge, a servant of Amelia, populace, guards, etc., conspirators, maskers, and dancing couples.

The English libretto of "Un Ballo in Maschera," literally "A Masked Ball," but always called by us "The Masked Ball," has the following note:

Certainly the events in "The Masked Ball" are amazing for the Boston of Puritan or any other time, and it was only through necessity that the scene of the opera was laid there. Now that political reasons for this no longer exist, it is usually played with the scene laid in Naples.

Although the opera is a subject of only occasional revival, it contains a considerable amount of good music and a quintet of exceptional quality.

"O dolcezze perdute!" sings her husband, in a musical inspiration prefaced by harp and flute.

BEFORE AND AFTER "UN BALLO"

Prior to proceeding to a consideration of "A?da," I will refer briefly to certain works by Verdi, which, although not requiring a complete account of story and music, should not be omitted from a book on opera.

The story is a gloomy one. The first act is entitled "Love," the second "Intrigue," the third "Poison."

CHARACTERS

Ladies attending the Duchess, pages, servants, archers, and villagers.

The "Madre pietosa" also is utilized as a theme in the overture.

"Don Carlos," produced at the Grand Op?ra, Paris, March 11, 1867, during the Universal Exposition, was the last opera composed by Verdi before he took the musical world by storm with "A?da." The work is in four acts, the libretto, by M?ry and du Locle, having been reduced from Schiller's tragedy of the same title as the opera.

"La Forza del Destino" and "Don Carlos" lie between Verdi's middle period, ranging from "Luisa Miller" to "Un Ballo in Maschera" and including "Rigoletto," "Il Trovatore," and "La Traviata," and his final period, which began with "A?da." It can be said that in "La Forza" and "Don Carlos" Verdi had absorbed considerable of Meyerbeer and Gounod, while in "A?da," in addition to these, he had assimilated as much of Wagner as is good for an Italian. The enrichment of the orchestration in the two immediate predecessors of "A?da" is apparent, but not so much so as in that masterpiece of operatic composition. He produced in "A?da" a far more finished score than in "La Forza" or "Don Carlos," sought and obtained many exquisite instrumental effects, but always remained true to the Italian principle of the supremacy of melody in the voice.

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