The Great Musicians: Rossini and His School

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Aureliano was not played after the first night: and Rossini had the satisfaction of hearing that though his opera had failed, Velluti had made a brilliant success in the principal part. Velluti had, in fact, astonished and delighted the public by his vocal gymnastics. But it was not Rossini's music, it was really his own music, suggested by Rossini's, that he had sung.

Unable—perhaps even unwilling—to run altogether counter to the prevailing taste, Rossini continued to write highly florid music. But he supplied his own decorations, and made them so elaborate that the most skilful adorner would have found it difficult to add to them.

Writing for a French public Rossini showed, in William Tell, that he was as much a master of the simple dramatic style in which the singer has not to display vocal agility, but to express human emotion, as he was already known to be of the highly decorative style admired by the Italians. "Rossini," says Stendhal, in his interesting account of the first representation of Aureliano in Palmira, which he claims to have witnessed, "followed in his first works the style of his predecessors. He respected the voices, and only thought of bringing about the triumph of singing. Such is the system in which he composed Demetrio e Polibio, L'Inganno felice, La Pietra del Paragone, Tancredi, &c. Rossini had found La Marcolini, La Malanotte, La Manfredini, the Mombelli family, why should he not endeavour to give prominence to the singing—he who is such a good singer, and who when he sits down to the piano to sing one of his own airs, seems to transform the genius we know him to possess as a composer into that of a singer? The fact is, a little event took place which at once changed the composer's views.... Rossini arrived at Milan in 1814, to write Aureliano in Palmira. There he met with Velluti, who was to sing in his opera; Velluti, then in the flower of his youth and talent, one of the best-looking men of his time, and much given to abuse his prodigious resources. Rossini had never heard this singer. He wrote a cavatina for him. At the first rehearsal, with full orchestra, he heard Velluti sing it, and was struck with admiration. At the second rehearsal Velluti began to embroider (fiorire). Rossini found some of his effects admirable, and still approved; but at the third rehearsal, the richness of the embroidery was such that it quite concealed the body of the air. At last the grand day of the first representation arrived. The cavatina, and all Velluti's part, was enthusiastically applauded; but Rossini could scarcely recognise what Velluti was singing; he did not know his own music. However, Velluti's singing was very beautiful and wonderfully successful with the public, which, after all, does no wrong in applauding what gives it so much pleasure. The pride of the young composer was deeply wounded; the opera failed, and the sopranist alone succeeded. Rossini's lively perception saw at once all that such an event could suggest. 'It is by a fortunate accident,' he said to himself, 'that Velluti happens to be a singer of taste, but how am I to know that at the next theatre I write for I shall not find another singer, who, with a flexible throat and an equal mania for fioriture, will not spoil my music so as to render it not only unrecognisable to me, but also wearisome to the public, or at least remarkable only for some details of execution? The danger to my unfortunate music is the more imminent, insomuch as there are no more singing schools in Italy. The theatres are full of artists who have picked up music from singing-masters about the country. This style of singing violin concertos, endless variations, will not only destroy all talent for singing, but will also vitiate the public taste. All the singers will be imitating Velluti, each according to his means. We shall have no more cantilenas; they would be thought poor and cold. Everything will undergo a change, even to the nature of the voices, which, once accustomed to embroider and overlay a cantilena with elaborate ornaments, will soon lose the habit of singing sustained legato passages, and be unable to execute them. I must change my system then. I know how to sing; every one acknowledges that I possess that talent; my fioriture will be in good taste; moreover, I shall discover at once the strong and weak points of my singers, and shall only write for them what they will be able to execute. I will not leave them a place for adding the least apoggiatura. The fioriture, the ornaments, must form an integral part of the air, and be all written in the score.'"

The sopranists might, at an earlier period, have been sent with advantage to Berlin, where, as Dr. Burney tells us, Frederick the Great, taking up his position in the pit of his opera-house immediately behind the conductor of the orchestra, on whose score he kept his eye, would never allow a singer to alter a single passage in his part. The conductor's authority does not seem to have been sufficient, for, according to Burney, it was the king who, when the vocalist took liberties with the score, called upon him to keep to the notes as written by the composer. "The sopranists," says M. Castil-Blaze,[2] "were at all times extremely insolent. They forced the greatest masters to conform to their caprices. They changed, transformed everything to suit their own vanity. They would insist on having an air or a duet placed in such a scene, written in such a style, with such an accompaniment. They were the kings, the tyrants of theatres, managers, and composers; that is why, in the most serious works of the greatest masters of the last century, there occur long cold passages of vocalisation which had been exacted by the sopranists for the sake of exhibiting, in a striking manner, the agility and power of their throats. 'You will be kind enough to sing my music and not yours,' said the venerable and formidable Guglielmi, to a certain virtuoso, threatening him at the same time with his sword. In fact the vocal music, and the whole Italian lyrical system of the eighteenth century, was much more the work of the singers than of the composers."

After the production of Aureliano in Palmira, Rossini for about eighteen months was comparatively idle; for during this period he only produced two operas, Il Turco in Italia, and Sigismondo, of which the former has long ceased to-be played, while the latter was never at any time much performed. Il Turco in Italia was a pendant to L'Italiana in Algeri, but it obtained no greater amount of public favour than continuations usually meet with. The hero of the work was supposed to have been wrecked on the Italian coast, and a like fate awaited the work itself. Rossini, according to his custom, saved what he could from the wreck, and the overture to the Turk in Italy was, some years later, when Otello was brought out, made to do duty as introduction to the story of the Moor of Venice.

As for Sigismondo, the story of its failure was graphically recorded by Rossini himself; who, writing to his mother the same night, enclosed her the outline of a small bottle or fiasco.

Rossini's increasing fame had, among other effects, that of making him visit all the principal cities in Italy. As in his youth he had moved about in his character of conductor from one little town in the Romagna to another, so now, when he had attained his full powers, he was called upon to travel from Bologna to Venice, from Venice to Milan, from Milan to Naples, from Naples to Rome. The two leading theatres of the Peninsula were then, as now, the San Carlo of Naples, and the Scala of Milan. The former received a subvention of 12,000l. from the King of Naples, the latter one of 8,000l. from the Emperor of Austria. These opera-houses, at that time the first in the world, received additional support from public gambling saloons adjoining them; and it was as a waiter at one of these auxiliary establishments that Barbaja, the most illustrious impresario of his own or of any other time—Barbaja, who is mentioned in one of Balzac's novels, and introduced by Scribe in his libretto of La Sirène—commenced his career. Besides the cities already named, Turin, Florence, Bergamo, Genoa, Leghorn, Sienna, Ferrara, had all their opera-houses; some of which were supported by state grants, others by grants from the municipality. Occasionally, too, the necessary operatic subvention was furnished by some local magnate, who either made a liberal donation or constituted himself director of the theatre. The chief towns maintained several opera-houses. There were three at Venice—the Fenice, the San Benedetto, and the San Mosè; and five at Rome—the Argentina, the Valle, the Apollo, the Alberto, and the Tordinona. Next to San Carlo and La Scala ranked the Fenice, and next to the Fenice the Court Theatre of Turin where, inasmuch as it formed part of the king's palace, it was considered 'disrespectful to appear in a cloak, disrespectful to laugh, and disrespectful to applaud till the queen had applauded.'

From 1815 to 1823 Rossini wrote principally for Naples. But we have seen that he also worked for Bologna, Venice, and Milan; and he composed for the opera-houses of Rome, Il Barbiere, brought out at the Argentina Theatre, La Cenerentola, produced at the Valle Theatre, and Matilda di Sabran, performed for the first time at the Apollo Theatre. At the Fenice of Venice, Rossini's first opera in the serious style, Tancredi (1813), and also his last in that style, Semiramide (1823), were produced. For the Court Theatre of Turin Rossini wrote nothing.

Each of the great Italian opera-houses made a point of bringing out at least two new operas every year; and as the minor theatres were also frequently supplied with new works there was no lack of opportunity for composers anxious to place themselves before the public. The composers were not liberally paid by managers—40l. was considered a fair price for an opera; while from the publishers they received absolutely nothing for the right of engraving. It has already been mentioned that Rossini never troubled himself about the publication of his works, and that he profited by the fact of their not having been engraved to borrow from his failures pieces which, had the scores been before the public, he must have hesitated to re-adopt.

The operas of that day were in two acts; a division which, when the subject was an important one, scarcely conduced to the maintenance of dramatic interest. It was the custom of the time, however, to separate these two acts by a ballet; and thus kept apart they were not found so long, so interminable, as, performed one after the other without a break, our modern audiences would find them.