The Great Musicians: Rossini and His School

by H. Sutherland Edwards

CHAPTER VI.
ROSSINI AT NAPLES.

BARBAJA, the ex-waiter at the Ridotto of the San Carlo Theatre, was director of the San Carlo itself, and almost at the height of his glory, which Rossini was so much to increase, when Tancredi was brought out at Venice and L'Italiana in Algeri at Milan.

The year following was not for Rossini a very brilliant one; and neither Aureliano in Palmira, nor a cantata called Egle e Irene, written for the Princess Belgiojoso, nor Il Turco in Italia—all of the year 1814—did much to increase his reputation. But the success of Tancredi and of L'Italiana in Algeri was enough for Barbaja, who accordingly invited Rossini in 1814 to come to Naples and compose something for the San Carlo. On his arrival Rossini signed a contract with Barbaja for several years; binding himself to write two new operas annually, and to re-arrange the music of any old works the manager might wish to produce, either at his principal theatre or at the second Neapolitan opera-house, the Teatro del Fondo, of which also Barbaja was lessee. Rossini's emoluments were to be 40l. (200 ducats) a month with a share in the profits of the gambling saloon. Such an engagement would not seem very magnificent to a second or third rate composer of our own time. But it was better than 40l. an opera, at which rate Rossini had hitherto been paid. Provided, moreover, that he supplied Barbaja with his two new operas every year he was at liberty to write for other managers.

In the present day it is not uncommon to find an operatic manager of enterprise directing two lyrical theatres in two different countries. Mr. Lumley was manager at the same time of Her Majesty's Theatre in London and of the Théâtre des Italiens in Paris. The late Mr. Gye entered into an arrangement (which however was not carried out) for directing the Imperial Opera House of St. Petersburg, while he was at the same time managing the Royal Italian Opera of London. Mr. Mapleson directs simultaneously Her Majesty's Theatre in London, and the Italian Opera which he has recently established at the so-called Academy of Music in New York. But these feats are nothing compared with the performances of Barbaja in the managerial line. It is much easier at the present time to get from London to New York or from London to St. Petersburg, than it was in the days of Barbaja to move from Naples or even from Milan to Vienna; and a manager must have possessed great administrative ability who could direct three operatic enterprises in three different capitals at the same time.

Barbaja had in his employment all the great composers and all the best singers of his native Italy. So numerous was his company that he scarcely knew who did and who did not belong to it; and a story is told of his meeting one day a singer of some celebrity, and offering him an engagement—when, to his consternation and horror, the vocalist informed him that he had been drawing a regular salary from the theatre for the last three months. "Go to Donizetti," cried Barbaja, "and tell him to give you a part without a moment's delay."

On one occasion Donizetti, engaged at that time as accompanist at the Scala Theatre, had been requested to try the voice of a lady who had come to Barbaja with a letter of recommendation. Donizetti asked her to go through a few exercises in solfeggio; on which Barbaja, mistaking do, re, mi, &c., for the words of some outlandish tongue, exclaimed that it would be useless to sing in a foreign language, and that the postulant for an engagement had better carry her talents elsewhere. Another time, when a favourite vocalist complained that the piano, to whose accompaniment she had been rehearsing her part, was too high, Barbaja at once promised that before the next rehearsal he would have it lowered. The following morning the instrument was, as before, half a note above the requisite pitch. It was pointed out to Barbaja that the piano still wanted lowering; upon which he flew into a violent passion and, summoning one of the stage carpenters, asked him why, when he had been told that the piano was too high, he had not shortened it by two or three inches instead of doing so only by one.

When his singers were genuinely successful he would take their part under all circumstances, and defend them against every attack. A popular prima donna told him one day, on arriving at the San Carlo Theatre, whither she had been borne in a sedan-chair, that one of the carriers had been very negligent in his duty, and had allowed her several times to be bumped on the ground. Barbaja called the porters to his room and, giving each a box on the ears, exclaimed, "Which of you two brutes was in fault?"

For the sake of teasing Barbaja, a few of the subscribers to the Scala Theatre agreed one night to hiss Rubini in one of his best parts. Barbaja, perfectly aghast, looked from his box, shook his fist at the seeming malcontents, and, alike indignant and enthusiastic, called out to the universally-admired tenor: "Bravo, Rubini, never mind those pigs! It is I who pay you, and I am delighted with your singing."

In spite of his long-continued success, Barbaja ended, like so many managers, by failing; and but that he stood well with the Austrian Government, who gave him a contract for building barracks at Milan, he might have died in poverty. There is nothing, however, to show that his collapse was due to ignorance of music. It would be probably nearer the truth to attribute it to that loss of energy and tact by which advancing years are generally accompanied.

Among the prime donne of the San Carlo Theatre Barbaja's favourite, in the fullest sense of the word, was Mademoiselle Colbran, who, after studying under Crescentini and Marinelli, made her first appearance with brilliant success at Paris in 1801. She was then but sixteen years of age, having been born at Madrid in 1785. When Rossini, then, first met her at Naples in 1815, she was already thirty. Her voice began to deteriorate soon afterwards, if we are to believe Stendhal—who, much as he had in common with the Abbé Carpani (including nearly the whole of the materials for his Life of Rossini), did not share that writer's admiration for a singer whom it was the fashion for royalists to laud, for republicans to decry. Stendhal, though he feared that opera, accustomed to subventions and to patronage of all kinds, could not flourish under republican institutions, was nevertheless inclined towards republicanism.