The scene was very appropriate to the position of the singer who was about to be succeeded by Duprez. The public felt this equally with Nourrit himself, and testified their sympathy for the departing Renaud, by the most enthusiastic applause.
Nourrit took his farewell of the French public on the 1st of April, 1837, and on the 17th of the same month Duprez made his début at the Académie, as "Arnold," in William Tell. The latter singer had already appeared at the Comédie Française, where, at the age of fifteen, he was entrusted with the soprano solos in the choruses of Athalie, and afterwards at the Odéon, where he played the parts of "Almaviva," in the Barber of Seville, and Ottavio," in Don Juan. He then visited Italy for a short time, returned to Paris, and was engaged at the Opéra Comique. Here his style was much admired, but his singing, on the whole, produced no great impression on the public. He once more crossed the Alps, studied assiduously, performed at various theatres in a great number of operas, and by incessant practice, and thanks also to the wonderful effect of the climate on his voice, attained the highest position on the Italian stage, and was the favourite tenor of Italy at a time when Rubini was singing every summer in London, and every winter in Paris. Before visiting Italy the second time, Duprez was a "light tenor," and was particularly remarkable for the "agility" of his execution. A long residence in a southern climate appears to have quite changed the nature of his voice; a transformation, however, which must have been considerably aided by the nature of his studies. He returned to France a tenore robusto, an impressive, energetic singer, excelling in the declamatory style, and in many respects the greatest dramatic vocalist the French had ever heard. As an actor, however, he was not equal to Nourrit, whose demeanour as an operatic hero is said to have been perfection. Guillaume Tell, with Duprez, in the part of "Arnold," commenced a new career, and Rossini's great work now obtained from the general public that applause which, on its first production, it had, for the most part, received only from connoisseurs.
NOURRIT.
In the meanwhile, Nourrit, after performing with great success at Marseilles, Toulouse, Lyons, and elsewhere, went to Italy, and was engaged first at Milan, and afterwards at Florence and Naples. At each city fresh triumphs awaited him, but an incident occurred at Naples which sorely troubled the equanimity of the failing singer, whose mind, as we have seen, had already been disturbed by painful presentiments. Nourrit, to be sure, was only "failing" in this sense, that he was losing confidence in his own powers, which, however, by all accounts, remained undiminished to the last. He was a well-educated and a highly accomplished man, and besides being an excellent musician, possessed considerable literary talent, and a thorough knowledge of dramatic effect.[98] He had prepared two librettos, in which the part adapted for the tenor would serve to exhibit his double talent as an actor and as a singer. One of these musical dramas was founded on Corneille's Polyeucte, and, in the hands of Donizetti, became I Martiri; but just when it was about to be produced, the Neapolitan censorship forbade its production on the ground of the unfitness of religious subjects for stage representation. Nourrit was much dejected at being thus prevented from appearing in a part composed specially for him at his own suggestion, and in which he felt sure he would be seen and heard to the greatest advantage. A deep melancholy, such as he had already suffered from at Marseilles, to an extent which alarmed all his friends, now settled upon him. He appeared, and was greatly applauded, in Mercadante's Il Giuramento, and in Bellini's Norma, but soon afterwards his despondency was increased, and assumed an irritated form, from a notion that the applause the Neapolitans bestowed upon him was ironical.
Nothing could alter his conviction on this point, which at last had the effect of completely unsettling his mind—unless it be more correct to say that mental derangement was itself the cause of the unhappy delusion. Finally, after a performance given for the benefit of another singer, in which Nourrit took part, his malady increased to such an extent that on his return home he became delirious, threw himself out of a window, at five in the morning, and was picked up in the street quite dead. This deplorable event occurred on the 8th of March, 1889.
The late "Académie Royale de Musique," the Théatre Italien of Paris, and all the chief opera houses of Italy are connected inseparably with the history of Opera in England. All the great works written by Rossini and Meyerbeer for the Académie have since been represented in London; the same singers for nearly half a century past have for the most part sung alternately at the Italian operas of Paris and of London; finally, from Italy we have drawn the great majority of the works represented at our best musical theatres, and nearly all our finest singers.
GERMAN OPERA.
German opera, in the meanwhile, stands in a certain way apart. Germany, compared with Italy, has sent us very few great singers. We have never looked to Germany for a constant supply of operas, and, indeed, Germany has not produced altogether half a dozen thoroughly German operas (that is to say, founded on German libretti, and written for German singers and German audiences), which have ever become naturalized in this country, or, indeed, anywhere out of their native land. Moreover, the most celebrated of the said thoroughly German operas, such as Fidelio and Der Freischütz, exercised no such influence on contemporary dramatic music as to give their composers a well-marked place in the operatic history of the present century, such as clearly belongs to Rossini. Beethoven, with his one great masterpiece, stands quite alone, and in the same way, Weber, with his strongly marked individuality has nothing in common with his contemporaries; and, living at the same time as Rossini, neither affected, nor was affected, by the style of a composer whose influence all the composers of the Italian school experienced. Accordingly, and that I may not entangle too much the threads of my narrative, I will now, having followed Rossini to Paris, and given some account of his successors at the French Opera, proceed to speak of Donizetti and Bellini, who were followers of Rossini in every sense. Of Weber and Beethoven, who are not in any way associated with the Rossini school, and only through the accident of birth with the Rossini period, I must speak in a later chapter.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DONIZETTI AND BELLINI.
SIGISMONDI, the librarian of the Neapolitan Conservatory, had a horror of Rossini's music, and took care that all his printed works in the library should be placed beyond the reach of the young and innocent pupils. He was determined to preserve them, as far as possible, from the corrupt but seductive influence of this composer's brilliant, extravagant, meretricious style. But Donizetti, who at this time was studying at Naples, had heard several of the proscribed operas, and was most anxious to examine, on the music paper, the causes of the effects which had so delighted his ear at the theatre. The desired scores were on the highest shelf of the library; and the careful, conscientious librarian had removed the ladder by means of which alone it seemed possible to get to them.