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

"I will not speak to you of the music; you know it. But you can form no idea of the frightful cries, the long bellowings with which the theatre resounds daring the representation. One sees actresses nearly in convulsions, tearing yelps and howls violently out of their lungs, closed hands pressed on their breasts, heads thrown back, faces inflamed, veins swollen, and stomachs panting. I know not which of the two, the eye or the ear, is most agreeably affected by this ugly display; and, what is really inconceivable, it is these shriekings alone that the audience applaud. By the clapping of their hands they might be taken for deaf people delighted at catching some shrill piercing sound. For my part, I am convinced that they applaud the outcries of an actress at the Opera as they would the feats of a tumbler or a rope-dancer at a fair. The sensation produced by this screaming is both revolting and painful; one actually suffers whilst it lasts, but is so glad to see it all over without accident as willingly to testify joy. Imagine this style of singing employed to express the delicate gallantry and tenderness of Quinault! Imagine the muses, the graces, the loves, Venus herself, expressing themselves in this way, and judge the effect! As for devils, it might pass, for this music has something infernal in it, and is not ill-adapted to such beings.

THE AUDIENCE

"To these exquisite sounds those of the orchestra are most worthily married. Conceive an endless charivari of instruments without melody, a drawling and perpetual rumble of basses, the most lugubrious and fatiguing I have ever heard, and which I have never been able to support for half an hour without a violent headache. All this forms a species of psalmody in which there is generally neither melody nor measure. But should a lively air spring up, oh, then, the sensation is universal; you then hear the whole pit in movement, painfully following, and with great noise, some certain performer in the orchestra. Charmed to feel for a moment a cadence, which they understand so little, their ears, voices, arms, feet, their entire bodies, agitated all over, run after the measure always about to escape them; while the Italians and Germans, who are deeply affected by music, follow it without effort, and never need beat the time. But in this country the musical organ is extremely hard; voices have no softness, their inflections are sharp and strong, and their tones all reluctant and forced; and there is no cadence, no melodious accent in the airs of the people; their military instruments, their regimental fifes, their horns, and hautbois, their street singers, and guinguette violins, are all so false as to shock the least delicate ear. Talents are not given indiscriminately to all men, and the French seem to me of all people to have the least aptitude for music. My Lord Edward says that the English are not better gifted in this respect; but the difference is, that they know it, and do not care about it; whilst the French would relinquish a thousand just titles to praise, rather than confess, that they are not the first musicians in the world. There are even those here who would willingly regard music as a state interest, because, perhaps, the cutting of two chords of the lyre of Timotheus was so regarded at Sparta.—But to return to my description.

"I have yet to speak of the ballets, the most brilliant part of the opera. Considered separately, they form agreeable, magnificent, and truly theatrical spectacles; but it is as constituent parts of operatic pieces that I now allude to them. You know the operas of Quinault. You know how this sort of diversion is there introduced. His successors, in imitating, have surpassed him in absurdity. In every act the action is generally interrupted at the most interesting moment, by a dance given to the actors who are seated, while the public stand up to look on. It thus happens that the dramatis personæ are absolutely forgotten. The way in which these fêtes are brought about is very simple: Is the prince joyous? his courtiers participate in his joy, and dance. Is he sad? he must be cheered up, and they dance again. I do not know whether it is the fashion at our court to give balls to kings when they are out of humour; but I know that one cannot too much admire the stoicism of the monarchs of the buskin who listen to songs, and enjoy entrechats, and pirouettes, while their crowns are in danger, their lives in peril, and their fate is being decided behind the curtain. But there are many other occasions for dances: the gravest actions in life are performed in dancing.

THE BALLET

"Priests dance, soldiers dance, gods dance, devils dance; there is dancing even at interments,—dancing àpropos of everything.

"Dancing is there the fourth of the fine arts constituting the lyrical scene. The three others are imitative; but what does this imitate? Nothing. It is then quite extraneous when employed in this manner, for what have minuets and rigadoons to do in a tragedy? I will say more. It would not be less misplaced, even if it imitated something, because of all the unities that of language is the most indispensable; and an action or an opera performed, half in singing and half in dancing, would be even more ridiculous than one written half in French and half in Italian.

"Not content with introducing dancing as an essential part of the lyrical scene, the Academicians have sometimes even made it its principal subject; and they have operas, called ballets, which so ill respond to their title, that dancing is just as much out of its place in them as in the others. Most of these ballets form as many separate subjects as there are acts, and these subjects are linked together by certain metaphysical relations, which the spectator could never conceive, if the author did not take care to explain them to him in the prologue. The seasons, the ages, the senses, the elements, what connexion have these things with dancing? and what can they offer, through such a medium, to the imagination? Some of the pieces referred to are even purely allegorical, as the Carnival, and Folly; and these are the most insupportable of all, because, with much cleverness and piquancy they have neither sentiments nor pictures, nor situations, nor warmth, nor interest, nor anything that music can take hold of, to flatter the heart or to produce illusion. In these pretended ballets, the action always passes in singing, whilst dancing always interrupts the action. But as these performances have still less interest than the tragedies, the interruptions are less remarked. Thus defect serves to hide defect, and the great art of the author is, in order to make his ballet endurable, to make his piece as dull as possible....

"After all, perhaps, the French ought not to have a better operatic drama than they have, at least, with respect to execution; not that they are not capable of appreciating what is good, but because the bad amuses them more. They feel more gratification in satirising than in applauding; the pleasure of criticising more than compensates them for the ennui of witnessing a stupid composition, and they would rather mockingly pelt a performance after they have left the theatre, than enjoy themselves while there."

LE DEVIN DU VILLAGE.