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

HANDEL AND OUR ITALIAN OPERA.

During the period of Handel's presidency over our Italian Opera, works not only by Handel and his colleagues, but also by Scarlatti, Hasse, Porpora, Vinci, Veracini, and other composers were produced at the King's Theatre, at Covent Garden, and at Porpora's Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. After Handel's retirement, operas by Galuppi, Pergolese, Jomelli, Gluck, and Piccinni, were performed, and the most distinguished singers in Europe continued to visit London. In 1741, when the Earl of Middlesex undertook the management of the King's Theatre, Galuppi was engaged as composer, and produced several operas: among others, Penelope, Scipione, and Enrico. In 1742, the Olimpiade, with music by Pergolese (a pupil of Hasse, and the future composer of the celebrated Serva Padrona) was brought out. After Galuppi's return to Italy, in 1744, the best of his new operas continued to be produced in London. His Mondo della Luna was represented in 1760, when the English public were delighted with the gaiety of the music, and with the charming acting and singing of Signora Paganini. The year afterwards a still greater success was achieved with the same composer's Filosofo di Campagna, which, says Dr. Burney, "surpassed in musical merit all the comic operas that were performed in England till the Buona Figliola." Not only were Gluck's earlier and comparatively unimportant works performed in London soon after their first production at Vienna, but his Orfeo, the first of those great works written in the style which we always associate with Gluck's name, was represented in London in 1770, four years before Gluck went to Paris. Indeed, ever since the arrival of Handel in this country, London has been celebrated for its Italian Opera, whereas the French had no regular continuous performances of Italian Opera until nearly a hundred years afterwards. Handel did much to create a taste for this species of entertainment, and by the excellent execution which he took care every opera produced under his direction should receive, he set an example to his successors of which the value can scarcely be over-estimated, and which it must be admitted has, on the whole, been followed with intelligence and enterprise.

CHAPTER VII.
GENERAL VIEW OF THE OPERA IN EUROPE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY UNTIL THE APPEARANCE OF GLUCK.

Great Italian Singers.—Ferri in Sweden.—Opera in Vienna.—Scenic decorations.—Singers of the Eighteenth Century.—Singers' nicknames.—Farinelli's one note.

QUEEN CHRISTINA AND FERRI.

HANDEL, by his great musical genius, conferred a two-fold benefit on the country of his adoption. He endowed it with a series of Oratorios which stand alone in their grandeur, for which the English of the present day are deeply grateful, and for which ages to come will honour his name; and before writing a note of his great sacred works, during the thirty years which he devoted to the production and superintendence of Italian Opera in England, he raised that entertainment to a pitch of excellence unequalled elsewhere, except perhaps at the magnificent Dresden Theatre, which, for upwards of a quarter of a century was directed by the celebrated Hasse, and where Augustus, of Saxony, took care that the finest musicians and singers in Europe should be engaged.

Rousseau, in the Dictionnaire Musicale, under the head of "Orchestra," writing in 1754[27], says:—

"The first orchestra in Europe in respect to the number and science of the symphonists, is that of Naples. But the orchestra of the opera of the King of Poland, at Dresden, directed by the illustrious Hasse, is better distributed, and forms a better ensemble."

Most of Handel's and Porpora's best vocalists were engaged from the Dresden Theatre, but the great Italian singers had already become citizens of the world, and settled or established themselves temporarily as their interests dictated in Germany, England, Spain, or elsewhere, and at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were Italian Operas at Naples, Turin, Dresden, Vienna, London, Madrid, and even Algiers—everywhere but in France, which, as has already been pointed out, did not accept the musical civilisation of Italy until it had been adopted by every other country in Europe, including Russia. The great composers, and above all, the great singers who abounded in this fortunate century, went to and fro in Europe, from south to north, from east to west, and were welcomed everywhere but in Paris, where, until a few years before the Revolution, it seemed to form part of the national honour to despise Italian music.

As far back as 1645, Queen Christina of Sweden sent a vessel of war to Italy, to bring to her Court Balthazar Ferri, the most distinguished singer of his day. Ferri, as Rousseau, quoting from Mancini, tells us in his "Musical Dictionary," could without taking breath ascend and descend two octaves of the chromatic scale, performing a shake on every note unaccompanied, and with such precision that if at any time the note on which the singer was shaking was verified by an instrument, it was found to be perfectly in tune.