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

MUSIC AND LANGUAGE.

"This mode of uniting music to poetry sufficed to produce interest and illusion among the Greeks, because it was natural; and, for the contrary reason, it cannot have the like effect on us. In listening to a hypothetical and constrained language, we can hardly conceive what the singers would say, so that with much noise they excite little emotion. Hence the further necessity of bringing physical to the aid of moral pleasure, and of supplying, by the charm of harmony, the lack of distinctness of meaning and energy of expression. Thus, the less the heart was touched the more need there was to flatter the ear, and from sensation was sought the delight which sentiment could not furnish. Hence the origin of airs, choruses, symphonies, and of that enchanting melody which often embellishes modern music at the expense of its poetic accompaniment.

"At the birth of the Opera, its inventors, to elude that which seemed unnatural, as an imitation of human life, in the union of music with speech, transferred their scenes from earth to heaven, and to hell. Not knowing how to make men speak, they made gods and devils, instead of heroes and shepherds, sing. Thus magic and marvels became speedily the stock in trade of the lyrical theatre. Yet, in spite of every effort to fascinate the eyes, whilst multitudes of instruments and of voices bewildered the ear, the action of every piece remained cold, and all its scenes were totally void of interest. As there was no plot which, however intricate, could not be easily unravelled by the intervention of some god, the spectator quietly abandoned to the poet the task of delivering his hero from his greatest dangers. Thus immense machinery produced little effect, for the imitation was always grossly defective and coarse. A supernatural action had in it no human interest, and the senses refused to yield to an illusion, in which the heart had no part. It would have been difficult to weary an assembly at greater cost than was done by these first operas.

But the spectacle, imperfect as it was, was for a long time the admiration of its contemporaries. They congratulated themselves on so fine a discovery. Here, they said, is a new principle added to that of Aristotle; here is admiration added to terror and pity. They were not aware that the apparent riches of which they boasted were but a sign of sterility, like flowers which cover the fields before harvest. It was because they could not touch the heart that they aimed at surprising, and their pretended admiration was, in fact, but a puerile astonishment of which they ought to have been ashamed. A false air of magnificence and enchantments, sorceries, chimeras, extravagances the most insane, so imposed upon them that, with the best faith in the world, they spoke with respect and enthusiasm of a theatre which merited nothing but hisses: as if there were more merit in making the king of gods utter the stupidest platitudes than there would be in attributing the same to the lowest of mortals; or as if the valets of Molière were not infinitely preferable to the heroes of Pradon.

EARLY OPERAS.

"Although the author of these first operas had had hardly any other object than to dazzle the eye and to astound the ear, it could scarcely happen that the musician did not sometimes endeavour to express, by his art, some sentiments diffused through the piece in performance. The songs of nymphs, the hymns of priests, the shouts of warriors, infernal outcries did not so completely fill up these barbarous dramas as to leave no moments or situations of interest when the spectator was disposed to be moved. Thus it soon began to be felt, that independently of the musical declamation, often ill adapted to the language employed, the musical movement of harmony and of songs was not alien to the words which were to be uttered, and that consequently the effect of music alone, hitherto confined to the senses, could reach the heart. Melody, which was at first only separated from poetry by necessity, profited by this independence to adopt beauties absolutely and purely musical; harmony, improved and carried to perfection, opened to it new means of pleasing and of moving; and the measure, freed from the embarrassment of poetic rhythm, acquired a sort of cadence of its own.

"Music, having thus become a third imitative art, had speedily its own language, its expressions, its pictures, altogether independent of poetry. Symphony also learnt to speak without the aid of words; and sentiments often came from the orchestra quite as distinctly and vividly expressed as they could be by the mouths of actors. Spectators then, beginning to get disgusted with all the tinsel of fairy land, of puerile machinery, and of fantastic images of things never seen, looked for the imitation of nature in pictures more interesting and more true. Up to this time the Opera had been constituted as it alone could be; for what better use, at the theatre, could be made of a kind of music which could paint nothing than by employing it in the representation of things which could not exist? But as soon as music learnt to paint and to speak the charms of sentiment, it brought into contempt those of the Wand; the theatre was purged of its garden of mythology, interest was substituted for astonishment; the machines of poets and of carpenters were destroyed; and the lyric drama assumed a more noble and less gigantic character. All that could move the heart was employed with success, and gods were driven from the stage on which men were represented[46]....

OPERATIC SUBJECTS.

"This reform was followed by another not less important. The Opera, it was felt, should represent nothing cold or intellectual—nothing that the spectator could witness with sufficient tranquillity to reflect on what he saw. And it is in this especially that the essential difference between the lyric drama and pure tragedy consists. All political deliberations, all plots, conspiracies, explanations, recitals, sententious maxims—in a word, all which speaks to the reason was banished from the theatre of the heart, with all jeux d'esprit, madrigals, and other pleasant conceits, which suppose some activity of thought. On the contrary, to depict all the energies of sentiments, all the violence of the passions, was made the principal object of this drama: for the illusion which makes its charm is destroyed as soon as the author and actor leave the spectator a moment to himself. It is on this principle that the modern Opera is established. Apostolo Zeno, the Corneille of Italy, and his tender pupil, who is its Racine, [Metastasio] have opened and carried to its perfection this new career of the dramatic art. They have brought the heroes of history on a theatre which seemed only adapted to exhibit the phantoms of fable....

"Having tried and felt her strength, music, able to walk alone, began to disdain the poetry she had to accompany. To enhance her own value, she drew from herself beauties of which her companion had hitherto had a share. She still professes, it is true, to express her ideas and sentiments; but she assumes, so to speak, an independent language, and though the object of the poet and of the musician is the same, they are too much separated in their labours, to produce at once two images, resembling each other, yet distinct, without mutual injury. Thus it happens, that if the musician has more art than the poet, he effaces him; and the actor, seeing the spectator sacrifice the words to the music, sacrifices in his turn theatrical gesture and action to song and brilliancy of voice, which transforms a dramatic entertainment into a mere concert....