Mme. Patti
Unfortunately I was not there the evening that Patti sang for Rossini the first time. We know that after she had sung the aria from Le Barbier, he said to her, after the usual compliments,
“Who wrote that aria you just sang?”
I saw him three days afterwards and he hadn’t cooled off even then.
“I am fully aware,” he said, “that arias should be embellished. That’s what they are for. But not to leave a note of them even in the recitatives! That is too much!”
In his irritation he complained that the sopranos persisted in singing this aria which was written for a contralto and did not sing what had been written for the sopranos at all.
On the other hand the diva was irritated as well. She thought the matter over and realized that it would be serious to have Rossini for an enemy. So some days later she went to ask his advice. It was well for her that she took it, for her talent, though brilliant and fascinating, was not as yet fully formed. Two months after this incident, Patti sang the arias from La Gaza Ladra and Semiramide, with the master as her accompanist. And she combined with her brilliancy the absolute correctness which she always showed afterwards.
Much has been written about the premature interruption of Rossini’s career after the appearance of Guillaume Tell. It has been compared with Racine’s life after Phèdre. The failure of Phèdre was brutal and cruel, which was added to by the scandalous success of the Phèdre of an unworthy rival. Racine’s friends, the Port Royalists, did not hesitate to make the most of the opportunity. “You’ve lost your soul,” they told him. “And now you haven’t even success.” But later, when he took up his pen again, he gave us two masterpieces in Esther and Athalie.