This happy moment did not last, and the hisses recommenced with the duet between Figaro and Rosina. The noise increased, and it was impossible to hear a note of the finale. When the curtain fell Rossini turned towards the public, shrugged his shoulders and clapped his hands. The audience were deeply offended by this openly-expressed contempt for their opinion, but they made no reply at the time.
The vengeance was reserved for the second act, of which not a note passed the orchestra. The hubbub was so great, that nothing like it was ever heard at any theatre. Rossini in the meanwhile remained perfectly calm, and afterwards went home as composed as if the work, received in so insulting a manner, had been the production of some other musician. After changing their clothes, Madame Giorgi-Righetti, Garcia, Zamboni, and Botticelli, went to his house to console him in his misfortune. They found him fast asleep.
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.
The next day he wrote the delightful cavatina, Ecco ridente il cielo, to replace Garcia's unfortunate Spanish air. The melody of the new solo was borrowed from the opening chorus of Aureliano in Palmira, written by Rossini in 1814, for Milan, and produced without success; the said chorus having itself figured before in the same composer's Ciro in Babilonia, also unfavourably received. Garcia read his cavatina as it was written, and sang it the same evening. Rossini, having now made the only alteration he thought necessary, went back to bed, and pretended to be ill, that he might not have to take his place in the evening at the piano.
At the second performance, the Romans seemed disposed to listen to the work of which they had really heard nothing the night before. This was all that was needed to ensure the opera's triumphant success. Many of the pieces were applauded; but still no enthusiasm was exhibited. The music, however, pleased more and more with each succeeding representation, until at last the climax was reached, and Il Barbiere produced those transports of admiration among the Romans with which it was afterwards received in every town in Italy, and in due time throughout Europe. It must be added, that a great many connoisseurs at Rome were struck from the first moment with the innumerable beauties of Rossini's score, and went to his house to congratulate him on its excellence. As for Rossini, he was not at all surprised at the change which took place in public opinion. He was as certain of the success of his work the first night, when it was being hooted, as he was a week afterwards, when every one applauded it to the skies.
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.
In Paris, more than three years afterwards, with Garcia still playing the part of "Almaviva," and with Madame Ronzi de Begnis as "Rosina," Il Barbiere was not much better received than on its first production at Rome. It was less astonishing that it should fail before an audience of Parisians (at that time quite unacquainted with Rossini's style) than before a highly musical public like that of Rome. In each case, the work of Paisiello was made the excuse for condemning that of Rossini; but Rossini's Barber was not treated with indignity at the Italian Theatre of Paris. It was simply listened to very coldly. Every one was saying, that after Paisiello's opera it was nothing, that the two were not to be compared, &c., when, fortunately, some one proposed that Paisiello's Barber should be revived. Paer, the director of the music, and who is said to have been rendered very uneasy by Rossini's Italian successes, thought that to crush Rossini by means of his predecessor, was no bad idea. The St. Petersburgh Barber of 1788 was brought out; but it was found that he had grown old and feeble; or, rather, the simplicity of the style was no longer admired, and the artists who had already lost the traditions of the school, were unable to sing the music with any effect. Rossini's Barber has now been before the world for nearly half a century, and we all know whether it is old-fashioned; whether the airs are tedious; whether the form of the concerted pieces, and of the grand finale, leaves anything to be desired; whether the instrumentation is poor; whether, in short, on any one point, any subsequent work of the same kind even by Rossini himself, has surpassed, equalled, or even approached it. But the thirty years of Paisiello's Barber bore heavily upon the poor old man, and he was found sadly wanting in that gaiety and brilliancy which have given such celebrity to Rossini's hero, and after which Beaumarchais's sparkling epigrammatic dialogue appears almost dull.[82] Paisiello's opera was a complete failure. And when Rossini's Barbiere was brought out again, every one was struck by the contrast. It profited by the very artifice which was to have destroyed it, and Rossini's enemies took care for the future not to establish comparisons between Rossini and Paisiello. Madame Ronzi de Begnis, too, had been replaced very advantageously by Madame Fodor. With two such admirable singers as Fodor and Garcia in the parts of "Rosina" and "Almaviva," with Pellegrini as "Figaro," and Begnis as "Basil," the success of the opera increased with each representation: and though certain musical quid-nuncs continued to shake their heads when Rossini's name was mentioned in a drawing-room, his reputation with the great body of the theatrical public was now fully established.
The tirana composed by Garcia Se il mio nome saper voi bramate, which he appears to have abandoned after the unfavourable manner in which it was received at Rome, was afterwards re-introduced into the Barber by Rubini.
The whole of the Barber of Seville was composed from beginning to end in a month. Ecco ridente il cielo (the air adapted from Aureliano in Palmira) was, as already mentioned, added after the first representation. The overture, moreover, had been previously written for Aureliano in Palmira, and (after the failure of that work) had been prefixed to Elizabetta regina d'Inghilterra which met with some success, thanks to the admirable singing of Mademoiselle Colbran, in the principal character.
Rossini took his failures very easily, and with the calm confidence of a man who knew he could do better things and that the public would appreciate them. When his Sigismondo was violently hissed at Venice he sent a letter to his mother with a picture of a large fiasco, (bottle). His Torvaldo e Dorliska, which was brought out soon afterwards, was also hissed, but not so much.