The art of singing had marched side by side with dramatic music and attained its height almost at once. A famous soprano, Vittori, threw the public into almost inconceivable transports. "Many persons were suddenly forced to loosen their garments in order to breathe, so suffocated were they with emotion."
Everywhere musical theatres were erected. The large cities built several; Venice alone had five, and this number was not sufficient. The opera was given in palaces and private salons; "Bologna possessed more than sixty private theatres, without mentioning the convents and colleges." The clergy were caught in the whirlwind; monks and nuns chanted operas, cardinals became stage managers of scenes, a future pope wrote librettos. It was an epidemic, a frenzy, and Italy did not go mad with impunity. In its beginning, the opera is responsible for grave disorders, both nervous and moral; it became too much of a passion. Mazarin already possessed this taste before his establishment in France. He wished to initiate his adopted country into the joys, almost to be dreaded, which had so suddenly enriched human life, and he brought from Italy one after the other four Italian troupes, the first in 1645, the last a short time before his death.
The result was easy to predict. A spectacle patronised by the Cardinal became a matter of politics. Applauded by the partisans of the minister, derided by his adversaries, the Italian opera met with so strong an opposition that it was necessary to renounce it for the time, but the lesson was not lost.
French composers heretofore devoted to ballets and masquerades had not received unheedingly the revelation of the dramatic style; their ambition was also aroused to express the tempests of the soul, and they began to grope along the new path.
The attempt was not at once successful; but their efforts familiarised the public with the idea of a musical language of passion. In 1664, the song was considered the natural interpreter of love. Molière fixes the date in his Princesse d'Elide, in which Moron does not succeed in gaining the ear of Philis because he speaks, instead of singing his declaration. Philis flees and Moron cries out: "Behold how it is: if I had been able to sing, I should have done better. Most women of to-day only let themselves be courted through the ears; this is the reason that the entire world has become musical, and one can succeed with the fair only by making them listen to little songs and verses. I must learn to sing like others."
It was indeed somewhat different in 1671, when French opera arrived on the scene.[188] It had hardly seen the light when it became, as a result of the association of Quinault with Lulli, a counsellor of voluptuousness.
JEAN BAPTISTE DE LULLI
After a contemporary print by Bonnart
While the decorations and the dances charmed the eyes, as the "machines" amused by their complications, the words and music, outdoing the Princesse d'Elide,[189] murmured unceasingly with the same caressing languor that no youthful beings have the right, for any motive whatever, to deny to themselves the duty of loving. "Yield, give yourselves up to transports," chants a chorus of Amadis. The thirteen "lyrical tragedies" given by Quinault and Lulli from 1673 to 1686 are all constructed upon this one theme. They gave expression to the one single idea; "Yield! surrender yourselves!" and resulted in producing a certain eloquence from their monotony. When these lyrics are played on the piano,[190] a better means of hearing them failing, one cannot but feel that in spite of their insipidity the continuous appeal to the senses might produce in the end, particularly in the atmosphere of a theatre, a strong effect.