"The sight of death does not terrify me," replied His Majesty, "and I have a duty to perform." After begging that his murderer might be forgiven, and entreating the duchess not to give way to despair, the Duke de Berri breathed his last in the arms of the king, who closed his eyes at half-past six in the morning.
Opera was now to be heard no more in the Rue Richelieu. The holy sacrament had crossed the threshold of a profane building, and it was necessary that this profane building should be destroyed; indeed, a promise to that effect had been already given. All the theatres were closed for ten days, and the Opera, now homeless, did not re-commence its performances until upwards of two months afterwards, when it took possession for a time of the Théâtre Favart. In the August of the same year the erection of the theatre in the Rue Lepelletier was commenced. The present Théâtre de l'Opéra, (the absurd title of Académie having recently been abandoned), was intended when it was first built, to be but a temporary affair. Strangely enough it has lasted forty years, during which time it has seen solidly constructed opera-houses perish by fire in all parts of Europe. May the new opera-house about to be erected in Paris, under the auspices of Napoleon III., be equally fortunate.
I am here reminded that both the Napoleons have proved themselves good and intelligent friends to the Opera. In the year eleven of the French republic, the First Consul and his two associates, the Minister of the French republic, the three Consuls, the Ministers of the interior and police, General Junot, the Secretary of State, and a few more officials occupied among them as many as seventeen boxes at the opera, containing altogether ninety-four places. Bonaparte had a report drawn up from which it appeared that the value of these boxes to the administration, was sixty thousand four hundred francs per annum, including fifteen thousand francs for those kept at his own disposition. Thereupon he added to the report the following brief, but on the whole satisfactory remark.
"A datter du premier nivose toutes ces loges seront payées par ceux qui les occupent."
The error in orthography is not the printers', but Napoleon Bonaparte's, and the document in which it occurs, is at present in the hands of M. Regnier of the Comédie Française.
A month afterwards, Napoleon, or at least the consular trio of which he was the chief, assigned to the Opera a regular subsidy of 600,000 francs a year; he at the same time gave it a respectable name. Under the Convention it had been entitled "Théâtre de la République et des Arts;" the First Consul called it simply, "Théâtre des Arts," an appellation it had borne before.[90]
Hardly had the new theatre in the Rue Lepelletier opened its doors, when a singer of the highest class, a tenor of the most perfect kind, made his appearance. This was Adolphe Nourrit, a pupil of Garcia, who, on the 10th of September, 1821, made his first appearance with the greatest success as "Pylade" in Iphigénie en Tauride. It was not, however, until Auber's Muette de Portici was produced in 1828, that Nourrit had an opportunity of distinguishing himself in a new and important part.
LA MUETTE DE PORTICI.
La Muette was the first of those important works to which the French Opera owes its actual celebrity in Europe. Le Siège de Corinthe, translated and adapted from Maometto II., with additions (including the admirable blessing of the flags) written specially for the Académie, had been brought out eighteen months before, but without much success. Maometto II. was not one of Rossini's best works, the drama on which it was constructed was essentially feeble and uninteresting, and the manner in which the whole was "arranged" for the French stage, was unsatisfactory in many respects. Le Siège de Corinthe was greatly applauded the first night, but it soon ceased to have any attraction for the public. Rossini had previously written Il Viaggio a Reims for the coronation of Charles X., and this work was re-produced at the Academy three years afterwards, with several important additions (such as the duet for "Isolier" and the "Count," the chorus of women, the unaccompanied quartett, the highly effective drinking chorus, and the beautiful trio of the last act), under the title of le Comte Ory. In the meanwhile La Muette had been brought out, to be followed the year afterwards by Guillaume Tell, which was to be succeeded in its turn by Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, Les Huguenots and Le Prophète, (works which belong specially to the Académie and with which its modern reputation is intimately associated), by Auber's Gustave III., Donizetti's la Favorite, &c.
La Muette de Portici had the great advantage of enabling the Académie to display all its resources at once. It was brought out with magnificent scenery and an excellent corps de ballet, with a première danseuse, Mademoiselle Noblet as the heroine, with the new tenor, Nourrit, in the important part of the hero, and with a well taught chorus capable of sustaining with due effect the prominent rôle assigned to it. For in the year 1828 it was quite a novelty at the French Opera to see the chorus taking part in the general action of the drama.