"Your Majesty," rejoined Ronconi, "when I sing Maria de Rohan to-morrow night I will do myself the honour of showing you."
And, accordingly, the next evening he managed to turn one side of his face, grim as the Tragic Mask, to the audience, while the other, which could be seen from only the Imperial Box, was excessively humorous and cheerful. The Czar was greatly amused and delighted with the exhibition.
Once in London, Santley was talking with me about this great baritone and said:
"Ronconi did something with a phrase in the sextette of Lucia that I have gone to hear many and many a night. I never could manage to catch it or comprehend how he gave so much power and expression to
Ronconi was deliciously amusing, also, as the Lord in Fra Diavolo. He sang it with me the first time it was ever done here in Italian, when Theodor Habelmann was our Diavolo. Though he was a round-faced German, he was so dark of skin and so finely built that he made up excellently as an Italian; and he had been thoroughly trained in the splendid school of German light opera. He was really picturesque, especially in a wonderful fall he made from one precipice to another. We were not accustomed to falls on the stage over here, and had never seen anything like it. Ronconi sang with me some years later, as well, when I gave English opera throughout the country, and I came to know him quite well. He was a man of great elegance and decorum.
"You know," he said to me once, "I'm a sly dog—a very sly dog indeed! When I sing off the key on the stage or do anything like that, I always turn and look in an astounded manner at the person singing with me as if to say 'what on earth did you do that for?' and the other artist, perfectly innocent, invariably looks guilty! O, I'm a very sly dog!"
Don Pasquale was another of our "opéra comique" ventures, as well as La Dame Blanche and Masaniello. It was a particularly advantageous choice at the time because it required neither chorus nor orchestra. We sang it with nothing but a piano by way of accompaniment; which possibly was a particularly useful arrangement for us when we became short of cash, for we—editorially, or, rather, managerially speaking—were rather given in those early seasons to becoming suddenly "hard up," especially when to the poor operatic conditions, engendered spasmodically by the war news, was added the wet blanket of Lent which, in those days, was observed most rigidly.
Of the three rôles, Zerlina, Rosina, and Annetta, I always preferred that of Rosina. It was one of my best rôles, the music being excellently placed for me. Il Barbiere had led the school of "opéra comique" for years, but soon, one after the other, the new operas—notably Crispino—were hailed as the legitimate successor of Il Barbiere, and their novelty gave them a drawing power in advance of their rational value. In addition to my personal liking for the rôle of Rosina, I always felt that, although the other operas were charming in every way, they musically were not quite in the class with Rossini's masterpiece. The light and delicate qualities of this form of operatic art have never been given so perfectly as by him. I wish Il Barbiere were more frequently heard.
Yet I was fond of Fra Diavolo too. I was forever working at the rôle of Zerlina or, rather, playing at it, for the old "opéra comique" was never really work to me. It was all infectious and inspiring; the music full of melody; the story light and pretty. Many of the critics said that I ought to specialise in comedy, cut out my tragic and romantic rôles, and attempt even lighter music and characterisation than Zerlina. People seemed particularly to enjoy my "going to bed" scene. They praised my "neatness and daintiness" and found the whole picture very pretty and attractive. I used to take off my skirt first, shake it well, hang it on a nail, then discover a spot and carefully rub it out. That little bit of "business" always got a laugh—I do not quite know why. Then I would take off my bodice dreamily as I sang: "To-morrow—yes, to-morrow I am to be married!"