“I have never yet played in Naples; you know my terms, monsieur; are you willing to pay me what I have been in the habit of receiving at Munich?”
“Of course, Mademoiselle, your price is my price.”
“Then I shall be happy to sing, monsieur.”
“All is agreed then, and I shall be happy to see you at rehearsal to morrow, ladies, when we will run through the opera, and cast your parts,” and the polite Frenchman bowed himself out of our presence.
I omit the rehearsals, the confusion of preparation, and getting ready the costumes for the occasion, and pass to the night when this beautiful opera was produced for the first time on the Neapolitan boards.
It was a tragedy; the plot is a singular one: Ajesha, the Maid of Kars, is a Circassian, as her name denotes; she is sold into slavery from her native land, and carried to the town of Kars, where she becomes the property of a Turkish Emir; he loves her intensely, and of course is most intensely jealous. She, a beautiful, spiritual creature, does not love this illiterate Turk, distinguished for nothing, but his immense wealth and brutality.
A noble and handsome Englishman is taken prisoner by this Turkish commander, the English and Turks then being at war; he is imprisoned in a house opposite the harem of Ajesha; news of his youth and beauty is brought to the lady; he becomes ill from the severity of his treatment, and Ajesha, in the disguise of a page, visits, and nurses him. The consequence is, they conceive a mutual and desperate love for each other.
At first their meetings are undetected by the jealous Mussulman, but Ajesha dreading future discovery, appoints the cemetery, the city of the silent, as their rendezvous. A treacherous slave betrays her confidence to the Emir; he surprises them one evening, and stabs her in the arms of her lover; then attempting to punish the Englishman, he himself is killed by the enraged lover, and dies by the side of his fair slave.
This is the outline, as well as I remember it, of one of the most exquisite things I ever saw performed. The character of Nina I was cast for, voluntarily resigning the principal character in favor of my friend; and oh, how beautiful, beyond the power of description, did she look the night she played it.