If Verdi studied his press notices at all attentively—Press Cutting Agencies were not institutions of those days—he could have been under no apprehension as to what two at least of the English journals thought of his endeavours. Yet, here was the opera containing among other beautiful music that really fine piece of declamatory song-writing, the recitative and romanza "Quando le sere al placido." Any one fortunate enough to have heard the late Gardoni sing this beautiful song—neighbours in Duke Street, Portland Place, where Gardoni several years back lodged in the same house with Pinsuti, often heard it—would assuredly apply to it some better epithet than "wine-bottle rinsings" or "sweepings." Thousands of pounds in royalties are to-day being paid on maudlin, semi-religious, and other songs which, for sterling musical worth and merit, are no more to be compared with this one song by Verdi than a rush-light is to be likened to the illumining power of the glorious mid-day orb.
Not even in his Recollections was Mr. Chorley able to forget his bête noir. Speaking of the 1858 season, he says: "Also there was presented a third work, new to our Italian stage, Signor Verdi's Luisa Miller.... It has seemed to me that, as one among Signor Verdi's operas, Luisa Miller, taken on its own terms, of fire, faggot, and rack, is the weakest of the weak. There are staccato screams in it enough to content any lover of shocking excitement; but the entire texture of the music implies (I can but fancy) either a feeble mistake, or else a want of power on the part of an artificer who, obviously (as Signor Verdi does) demanding situation and passion and agony to kindle the fire under his cauldron, has, also, only one alphabet, one grammar, one dictionary, whatsoever the scene, whatsoever the country—one cantabile, one spasmodic bravura, one feverish crescendo, as the average tools, by pressure of which the stress on the public is to be strained out."[35]
Feeble criticism, indeed, so far as the genius of penetration is concerned, but powerful enough in all conscience in its egotism and exuberance of etymology.
It was given on the 7th December 1852 at the Théâtre Italien in Paris, when Mademoiselle Sophie Cruvelli (La Baronne Vigier) took the title rôle, but neither Cruvelli, nor, a few weeks later, the admirable Bosio, could give wings to the work. As recently as 1874 Madame Adelina Patti achieved a genuine success with the part, albeit she was badly supported by her colleagues in the cast. During the London Italian Opera season of that year, Madame Patti, much to her credit, added this work to her already extensive répertoire.
Two operas—one Stiffelio, produced unsuccessfully at Trieste on the 16th November 1850, the other, Il Finto Stanislas, belonging to the same year—require mentioning only, before we pass to the period of those successful operas which brought Verdi universal fame.
[19] Reminiscences of the Opera, p. 180.
[20] The Life and Works of Verdi (Pougin—Matthew), p. 92.
[21] Reminiscences of the Opera (Lumley), p. 214.
[22] Illustrated London News, 18th March 1848.
[23] Athenæum, 18th March 1848.