"De Paris à Pékin, de Japon jusqu'à Rome,"
at least, in a great many other equally distant cities, and which Boileau never heard of; as, for instance, from St. Petersburgh to Philadelphia, and from New Orleans to Melbourne. But for the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars, the universality of Opera would have been attained long since. The directors of the French Opera, after producing the works of Gluck and Piccinni, found it impossible, as we shall see in the next chapter, to attract the public by means of the ancient répertoire, and were obliged to call in the modern Italian composers to their aid. An Italian troop was engaged to perform at the Académie Royale, alternately with the French company, and the best opera buffas of Piccinni, Traetta, Paisiello, and Anfossi were represented, first in Italian, and afterwards in French. Sacchini and Salieri were engaged to compose operas on French texts specially for the Académie. In 1787, Salieri's Tarare (libretto by Beaumarchais),[55] was brought out with immense success; the same year, the same theatre saw the production of Paisiello's Il re Teodoro, translated into French; and, also the same year, Paisiello's Marchese di Tulipano was played at Versailles, by a detachment from the Italian company engaged at our own King's Theatre.
OPERA AT VERSAILLES.
This is said to have been the first instance of an Italian troop performing alternately in London and in Paris. A proposition had been made under the Regency of Philip of Orleans, for the engagement of Handel's celebrated company;[56] but, although the agreement was drawn up and signed, from various causes, and principally through the jealousy of the "Academicians," it was never carried out. The London-Italian company of 1787 performed at Versailles, before the Court and a large number of aristocratic subscribers, many of whom had been solicited to support the enterprise by the queen herself. Storace, the prima donna assoluta of the King's Theatre, would not accompany the other singers to Paris. Madame Benini, however, the altra prima donna went, and delighted the French amateurs. Lord Mount Edgcumbe, in his interesting volume of "Musical Reminiscences," tells us that she "had a voice of exquisite sweetness, and a finished taste and neatness in her manner of singing; but that she had so little power, that she could not be heard to advantage in so large a theatre: her performance in a small one was perfect." Among the other vocalists who made the journey from London to Paris, were Mengozzi the tenor, who was Madame Benini's husband, and Morelli the bass. "The latter had a voice of great power, and good quality, and he was a very good actor. Having been running footman to Lord Cowper at Florence," continues Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "he could not be a great musician." Benini, Mengozzi, and Morelli, again visited Paris in 1788, but did not make their appearance there in 1789, the year of the taking of the Bastille. The répertoire of these singers included operas by Paisiello, Cimarosa, Sarti, and Anfossi, and they were particularly successful in Paisiello's Gli Schiavi per Amore. When this opera was produced in London in 1787 (with Storace, not Benini, in the principal female part), it was so much admired that it ran to the end of the season without any change. Another Italian company gave several series of performances in Paris between 1789 and 1792, and then for nine years France was without any Italian Opera at all.
Storace was by birth and parentage, on her mother's side, English; but she went early to Italy, "and," says the author from whom I have just quoted, "was never heard in this country till her reputation as the first buffa of her time was fully established." Her husband was Fisher, a violinist (whose portrait has been painted by Reynolds); but she never bore his name, and the marriage was rapidly followed by a separation. Mrs. Storace settled entirely in England, and after quitting the King's Theatre accepted an engagement at Drury Lane. Here English Opera was raised to a pitch of excellence previously unknown, thanks to her singing, together with that of Mrs. Crouch, Mrs. Bland, Kelly, and Bannister. The musical director was Mrs. Storace's brother, Stephen Storace, the arranger of the pasticcios entitled the Haunted Tower, and the Siege of Belgrade.
MADAME MARA.
Madame Mara made her first appearance at the King's Theatre the year before Storace's début. She had previously sung in London at the Pantheon Concerts, and at the second Handel Festival (1785), in Westminster Abbey. I have already spoken of this vocalist's performances and adventures at the court of Frederick the Great, at Vienna, and at Paris, where her worshippers at the Concerts Spirituels formed themselves into the sect of "Maratistes," as opposed to that of the "Todistes," or believers in Madame Todi.[57]
Lord Mount Edgcumbe, during a visit to Paris, heard Madame Mara at one of the Concerts Spirituels, in the old theatre of the Tuileries. She had just returned from the Handel Commemoration, and sang, among other things, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," which was announced in the bills as being "Musique de Handel, paroles de Milton." "The French," says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, "had not the taste to like it."
The first opera in which Madame Mara appeared at the King's Theatre was Didone, a pasticcio, in which four songs of different characters, by Sacchini, Piccinni, and two other composers, were introduced. She afterwards sang with Miss Cecilia Davies (L'Inglesina) in Sacchini's Perseo.
At this period Handel's operas were already so much out of fashion, though esteemed as highly as ever by musicians and by the more venerable of connoisseurs, that when Giulio Cesare was revived, with Mara and Rubinelli (both of whom sang the music incomparably well), in the principal parts, it had no success with the general public; nor were any of Handel's operas afterwards performed at the King's Theatre. Giulio Cesare, in which many of the most favourite songs from Handel's other operas ("Verdi prati," "Dove sei," "Rendi sereno il ciglio," and others) were interpolated, answered the purpose for which it was produced, and attracted George III. two or three times to the theatre. Moreover (to quote Lord Mount Edgcumbe's words), "it filled the house, by attracting the exclusive lovers of the old style, who held cheap all other operatic performances."