SENESINO.
Either singers were very different then from what they are now, or Durastanti could not have understood these lines, which, strangely enough, are said to have been written by Pope at the desire of her patron, the Earl of Peterborough. Surely Anastasia Robinson, the future Countess, would not have thanked the earl for such a compliment, in however perfect a style it might have been expressed. Madame Durastanti appears to have been much esteemed in England, and I read in the Evening Post of March 7th, 1721, that "Last Thursday, His Majesty was pleased to stand godfather, and the Princess and the Lady Bruce godmothers, to a daughter of Mrs. Durastanti, chief singer in the opera house. The Marquis Visconti for the king, and the Lady Lichfield for the princess."
Senesino, successor to Nicolini, and the second of the noble order of sopranists who appeared in England, was the principal contralto singer ("modo vir, modo fœmina") in Handel's operas, until 1726, when the state of his health compelled him to return to Italy. He came back to England in 1730, and resumed his position at the King's Theatre, under Handel. In 1733, when the rival company was formed at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, Senesino joined it, but retired after the appearance of Farinelli, who at once eclipsed all other singers.
Steele's journal, The Theatre, entertains us with a brief account of the vanity of one Signor Beneditti, who appears to have performed principal parts, at least for a time, at the Opera in 1720. The paper, which is written by Sir Richard Steele's coadjutor, Sir John Edgar, commences with a furious onslaught on a company of French actors, who were at that time performing in London, and of whose opening representation we are told that "if we are any longer to march on two legs, and not be quite prone, and on all four like the other animals" we must "assume manhood and humane indignation against so barbarous an affront. But I foresee," continues Sir John,[23] "that the theatre is to be utterly destroyed, and sensation is to banish reflection as sound is to beat down sense. The head and the heart are to be moved no more, but the basest parts of the body to be hereafter the sole instruments of human delight. A regular, orderly, and well-governed company of actors, that lived in reputation and credit and under decent settlement are to be torn to pieces and made vagabond, to make room for even foreign vagrants, who deserved no reception but in Bridewell, even before they affronted the assembly, composed of British nobility and gentry, with representations that could introduce nothing of even French except, &c. ....Though the French are so boisterous and void of all moderation or temper in their conduct, the Italians are a more tractable and elegant nation. If the French players have laid aside all shame, the Italian singers are as eminently nice and delicate, which the reader will observe from the following account I have received from the Haymarket.
CAPRICES OF SINGERS.
"'Sir,—
"'It happened in casting parts for the new opera, Signor Beneditti conceived he had been greatly injured, and applied to the board of directors for redress. He set forth in the recitative tone, the nearest approaching to ordinary speech, that he had never acted anything in any other opera below the character of a sovereign, and now he was to be appointed to be captain of a guard. On these representations, we directed that he should make love to Zenobia, with proper limitations. The chairman signified to him that the board had made him a lover, but he must be content to be an unfortunate one, and be rejected by his mistress. He expressed himself very easy under this, and seemed to rejoice that, considering the inconstancy of women, he could only feign, not pursue the passion to extremity. He muttered very much against making him only the guard to the character he had formerly appeared in,'" &c.
A small and not uninteresting volume might be written about the caprices of singers and their behaviour under real or imaginary slights. One of the best stories of the kind is told of Crescentini, who, three-quarters of a century later, at the first representation of Gli Orazi e Curiazi, observed immediately before the commencement of the performance, that the costume of Orazio was more magnificent than his own. He sent for the stage manager, and burning with rage, addressed him as follows:—
"Perche," he commenced, "avez vous donné oun habit blanc à ce mossiou; et che vous m'en avez gratifié d'oun vert?"
It was explained to the singer that there was a tradition at the Comédie Francaise by which the costume of the principal Horatius was white and that of the chief of the Curiatii, green.