History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time / With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe

by H. Sutherland Edwards

The time had now arrived at which Bellini was to produce his master-pieces, La Sonnambula and Norma; the former of which was written for La Scala, in 1831, the latter, for the same theatre, in the year following. The success of La Sonnambula has been great everywhere, but nowhere so great as in England, where it has been performed in English and in Italian, oftener than any other two or perhaps three operas, while probably no songs, certainly no songs by a foreign composer, were ever sold in such large numbers as All is lost and Do not mingle. The libretto of La Sonnambula, by Romani, is one of the most interesting and touching, and one of the best suited for musical illustration in the whole répertoire of libretti. To the late M. Scribe, belongs the merit of having invented the charming story on which Romani's and Bellini's opera is founded; and it is worthy of remark that he had already presented it in two different dramatic forms before any one was struck with its capabilities for musical treatment. A thoroughly, essentially, dramatic story can be presented on the stage in any and every form; with music, with dialogue, or with nothing but dumb action. Tried by this test, the plots of a great number of merely well written comedies would prove worthless; and so in substance they are. On the other hand, the vaudeville of La Somnambula, became, as re-arranged by M. Scribe, the ballet of La Somnambule, (one of the prettiest, by the way, from a choregraphic point of view ever produced); which, in the hands of Romani, became the libretto of an opera; which again, vulgarly treated, has been made into a burlesque; and, loftily treated, might be changed (I will not say elevated, for the operatic form is poetical enough), into a tragedy.

The beauties of La Sonnambula, so full of pure melody and of emotional music, of the most simple and touching kind, can be appreciated by every one; by the most learned musician and the most untutored amateur, or rather let us say by any play-goer, who, not having been born deaf to the voice of music, hears an opera for the first time in his life. It was given, however, to an English critic, to listen to this opera, as natural and as unmistakably beautiful as a bed of wild flowers, through a special ear-trumpet of his own; and in number 197 of the most widely-circulated of our literary journals, the following remarks on La Sonnambula appeared. With the exception of one or two pretty motivi, exquisitely given by Pasta and Rubini, the music is sometimes scarcely on a level with that of Il Pirata, and often sinks below it; there is a general thinness and want of effect in the instrumentation not calculated to make us overlook the other defects of this composition, which, in our humble judgment, are compensated by no redeeming beauties. Bellini has soared too high; there is nothing of grandeur, no touch of true pathos in the common place workings of his mind. He cannot reach the Opera semi-seria; he should confine his powers to the lowest walk of the musical drama, the one act Opera buffa."

Equally ill fared Norma at the hands of another musical critic to whose "reminiscences" I have often had to refer, but who tells us that he did not hear the work in question himself. He speaks of it simply as a production of which the scene is laid in Wales, and adds that "it was not liked."

Yet Norma has been a good deal liked since its first production at Milan, now nearly thirty years ago; and from Madame Pasta's first to Madame Grisi's last appearance in the principal part, no great singer with any pretension to tragic power has considered her claims fully recognised until she has succeeded in the part of the Druid priestess.

I PURITANI.

Beatrice di Tenda, Bellini's next opera after Norma, cannot be reckoned among his best works. It was written for Venice, in 1833, and was performed in England for the first time, in 1836. It met with no very great success in Italy or elsewhere.

In 1834, Bellini went to Paris, having been requested to write an opera for the excellent Théâtre Italien of that capital. The company at the period in question, included Grisi, Rubini, Tamburini and Lablache, all of whom were provided with parts in the new work. I Puritani, was played for the first time in London, for Grisi's benefit, in 1835, and with precisely the same distribution of characters as in Paris. The "Puritani Season" is still remembered by old habitués, as one of the most brilliant of these latter days. Rubini's romance in the first act A te o cara, Grisi's Polonaise, Son vergin vezzosa and the grand duet for Tamburini and Lablache, produced the greatest enthusiasm in all our musical circles, and the last movement of the duet was treated by "arrangers" for the piano, in every possible form. This is the movement, (destined, too soon, to find favour in the eyes of omnibus conductors, and all the worst amateurs of the cornet), of which Rossini wrote from Paris to a friend at Milan; "I need not describe the duet for the two basses, you must have heard it where you are."

I Puritani was Bellini's last opera. The season after its production he retired to the house of a Mr. Lewis at Puteaux, and there, while studying his art with an ardour which never deserted him, was attacked by a fatal illness. "From his youth up," says Mr. J. W. Mould, in his interesting "Memoir of Bellini;" "Vincenzo's eagerness in his art was such as to keep him at the piano day and night, till he was obliged forcibly to leave it. The ruling passion accompanied him through his short life, and by the assiduity with which he pursued it, brought on the dysentery, which closed his brilliant career, peopling his last hours with the figures of those to whom his works were so largely indebted for their success. During the moments of delirium which preceded his death, he was constantly speaking of Lablache, Tamburini and Grisi, and one of his last recognisable impressions was, that he was present at a brilliant representation of his last opera, at the Salle Favart. His earthly career closed on Wednesday, the 23rd of September, 1835."

BELLINI'S DEATH.

Thus died Bellini, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. Immediately after his death, and on the very eve of his interment, the Théâtre Italien re-opened with the Puritani. "The work," says the writer from whom I have just quoted, "was listened to throughout with a sad attention, betraying evidently how the general thoughts of both audience and artists were pre-occupied with the mournful fate of him so recently amongst them, now extended senseless, soulless, and mute, upon his funeral bier. The solemn and mournful chords which commence the opera, excited a sorrowful emotion in the breasts of both those who sang and those who heard. The feeling in which the orchestra and chorus participated, ex-tended itself to the principal artists concerned, and the foremost amongst them displayed neither that vigour nor that neatness of execution which Paris was so accustomed to accept at their hands; Tamburini in particular, was so broken down by the death of the young friend, whose presence amongst them spurred the glorious quartett on the season before, to such unprecedented exertions, that his magnificent organ, superb vocalisation were often considerably at fault during the evening, and his interrupted accent, joined to the melancholy depicted on the countenances of Grisi, Rubini, and Lablache, sent those to their homes with an aching heart who had presented themselves to that evening's hearing of I Puritani, previously disposed, moreover, to attend the mournful ceremony of the morrow."