THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.
This time Rossini sent his mother a picture of a fiaschetto (little bottle).
The motive of the allegro in the trio of the last act of (to return for a moment to) the Barber of Seville, is, as most of my readers are probably aware, simply an arrangement of the bass air sung by "Simon," in Haydn's Seasons. The comic air, sung by "Berta," the duenna, is a Russian dance tune, which was very fashionable in Rome, in 1816. Rossini is said to have introduced it into the Barber of Seville, out of compliment to some Russian lady.
Rossini's first opera la Pietra del Paragone, was written when he was seventeen years of age, for the Scala at Milan, where it was produced in the autumn of 1812. He introduced the best pieces out of this work into the Cenerentola, which was brought out five years afterwards at Rome. Besides la Pietra del Paragone, he laid il Turco in Italia, and la Gazzetta under contribution to enrich the score of Cinderella. The air Miei rampolli, the duet un Soave non so chè, the drinking chorus and the burlesque proclamation of the baron belonged originally to la Pietra del Paragone; the sestett, the stretta of the finale, the duet zitto, zitto, to the Turco in Italia, (produced at Milan in 1814), Miei rampolli had also been inserted in la Gazzetta.
The principal female part in the Cenerentola, though written for a contralto, has generally, (like those of Rosina and Isabella, and also written for contraltos), been sung by sopranos, such as Madame Fodor, Madame Cinti, Madame Sontag, &c. When sung by Mademoiselle Alboni, these parts are executed in every respect in conformity with the composer's intentions.
ROSSINI'S INNOVATIONS.
Rossini's first serious opera, or at least the first of those by which his name became known throughout Europe, was Tancredi, written for Venice in 1813, the year after la Pietra del Paragone. In this opera, we find indicated, if not fully carried out, all those admirable changes in the composition of the lyric drama which were imputed to him by his adversaries as so many artistic crimes. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, in his objections to Rossini's music, strange and almost inexplicable as they appear, yet only says in somewhat different language what is advanced by Rossini's admirers, in proof of his great merit. The connoisseur of a past epoch describes the changes introduced by Rossini into dramatic music, for an enemy, fairly enough; only he regards as detestable innovations what others have accepted as admirable reforms. It appeared to Rossini that the number of airs written for the so-called lyric dramas of his youth, delayed the action to a most wearisome extent. In Tancredi, concerted pieces in which the dramatic action is kept up, are introduced in situations where formerly there would have been only monologues. In Tancredi the bass has little to do, but more than in the operas of the old-school, where he was kept quite in the back ground, the ultima parte being seldom heard except in ensembles. By degrees the bass was brought forward, until at last he became an indispensable and frequently the principal character in all tragic operas. In the old opera the number of characters was limited and choruses were seldom introduced. Think, then, how an amateur of the simple, quiet old school must have been shocked by a thoroughly Rossinian opera, such as Semiramide, with its brilliant, sonorous instrumentation, its prominent part for the bass or baritone, its long elaborate finale, and above all its military band on the stage! Mozart had already anticipated every resource that has since been adopted by Rossini, but to Rossini belongs, nevertheless, the merit of having brought the lyric drama to perfection on the Italian stage, and forty and even thirty years ago it was to Rossini that its supposed degradation was attributed.
"So great a change," says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "has taken place in the character of the (operatic) dramas, in the style of the music and its performance, that I cannot help enlarging on that subject before I proceed further. One of the most material alterations is, that the grand distinction between serious and comic operas is nearly at an end, the separation of the singers for their performance, entirely so.[83] Not only do the same sing in both, but a new species of drama has arisen, a kind of mongrel between them called semi seria, which bears the same analogy to the other two that that nondescript melodrama does to the legitimate tragedy and comedy of the English stage."
And of which style specimens may be found in Shakespeare's plays and in Mozart's Don Giovanni! The union of the serious and the comic in the same lyric work was an innovation of Mozart's, like almost all the innovations attributed by Lord Mount Edgcumbe to Rossini. Indeed, nearly all the operatic reforms of the last three-quarters of a century that have endured, have had Mozart for their originator.
ROSSINI'S INNOVATIONS.