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

"Such are the defects which the absolute perfection of music, and its defective application to language, may introduce into the Opera. And here it may be remarked that the languages the most apt to conform to all the laws of measure and of melody are those in which the duality of which I have spoken is the least apparent, because music, lending itself to the ideas of poetry, poetry yields, in its turn, to the inflections of music, so that when music ceases to observe the rhythm, the accent and the harmony of verses, verses syllable themselves, and submit to the cadence of musical measure and accent. But when a language has neither softness nor flexibility, the harshness of its poetry hinders its subjection to music; a good recitation of verses is obstructed even by the sweetness of the melody accompanying it; and one is conscious, in the forced union of the two arts, of a perpetual constraint which shocks the ear, and which destroys at once the charm of melody and the effect of declamation. For this defect there is no remedy; and to apply, by compulsion, music to a language which is not musical, is to give it more harshness than it would otherwise have....

MUSIC AND PAINTING.

"Although music, as an imitative art, has more connection with poetry than with painting, this latter is not obliged, as poetry is, at the theatre, to make a double representation of the same object; because the one expresses the sentiments of men, and the other gives pictures merely of the places where they are, which strengthens much the illusion of the whole spectacle.... But it must be acknowledged that the task of the musician is greater than that of the painter. The imitation expressed by painting is always cold, because it wants that succession of ideas and of impressions which increasingly kindle the soul, all its portraiture being conveyed to the mind at a first look. It is a great advantage, also, to a musician that he can paint things which cannot be heard, whilst the painter cannot paint those which cannot be seen; and the greatest prodigy of an art which has no life but in movement is, that it is able to give even an image of repose. Sleep, the quietude of night, solitude, and silence, are among the number of music's pictures. Sometimes noise produces the effect of silence and silence the effect of noise, as when one falls asleep at a monotonous reading and wakes up the moment the reader stops.... Further, whilst the painter can derive nothing from the musician, the skilful musician will not leave the studio of the painter without profit. Not only can he, at his will, agitate the sea, excite the flames of a conflagration, make rivulets run and murmur, bring down the rain and swell it to torrents, but he can augment the horrors of the frightful desert, darken the walls of a subterranean prison, calm the storm, make the air tranquil and the sky serene, and shed from the orchestra the freshest fragrance of the sweetest bowers.

"We have seen how the union of the three arts we have mentioned constitute the lyric scene. Some have been tempted to introduce a fourth, of which I have now to speak.

"The question is to know whether dancing, being a language, and consequently capable of becoming an imitative art, should not enter with the other three into the action of the lyrical drama, or whether it would not rather interrupt and suspend this action and spoil the effect and the unity of the whole piece.

"But here, I think, there can be no question at all. For every one feels that the interest of a successive action depends upon the continuance and growing increase of the impression its representation makes on us. But by breaking off a spectacle and introducing other spectacles which have nothing to do with it, the principal subject is divided into independent parts, with no link of connection between them; and the more agreeable the inserted spectacles are, the greater must be the deformity produced by the mutilation of the whole.... It is for this reason that the Italians have at last banished these interludes from their operas. They are, separately considered, a species of spectacle very pleasing, very piquante, and quite natural, but so misplaced in the midst of a tragic action, that the two exhibitions injure each other mutually, and the one can never interest but at the expense of the other."

THE BALLET.

Rousseau then suggests that the ballet should come after the opera, which, as every one knows, is the rule at the Italian Opera houses of London, and which appears to me a far preferable arrangement to that of the French Académie, where no lyrical work is considered complete without a divertissement introduced anyhow into the middle of it, or of the Italian theatres where it is still the custom to perform short ballets or divertissements between the acts of the opera. Italy, the country of the Vestrises, of the Taglionis, and in the present day I may add of Rosati, has always bestowed much care on the production of its ballets. I have mentioned (Chapter I.), that the opera in its infancy owed much to the protection of the Popes. The Papal Government in the present day is said to pay special attention to the ballet, and to watch with paternal solicitude the pirouettes and jetés battus of the danseuses. At least I find a passage to that effect in a work entitled "La Rome des Papes,"[47] the writer declaring that cardinals and bishops attend the Operas of Italy to see that the ballerine swing their legs within certain limits.

Having seen Rousseau's views of the Opera as it might be, let us now turn to his description of the Opera of Paris as it actually was; a description put into the mouth of St. Preux, the hero of his Nouvelle Héloise.

"Before I tell you what I think of this famous theatre, I will tell you what is said here about it; the judgment of connoisseurs may correct mine, if I am wrong.