Vitarelli, the representative of Don Basilio, had "made up" admirably for the part; and his entry would possibly have been effective but that a trap having been left open on the stage he stumbled over it, fell, damaged his face, and on rising had to begin his admirable dramatic air on the efficacy of calumny with his handkerchief to his nose. A portion of the public is said to have imagined that the fall, the injuries to the face, the handkerchief to the nose, were all in the business of the part, and thinking it savoured of buffoonery, expressed their disapproval accordingly. The duet of the letter was objected to by reason of certain incidents afterwards left out; but the music must have been liked for its own sake had it only been heard. As if the untuned guitar, the broken string, the newly-placed cavatina, the open trap, the fall of Don Basilio, and the necessity under which Rosina's music-master found himself of singing "La Calunnia" with a handkerchief in front of his mouth had not been enough, the opening of the finest concerted finale which had yet been given to the Italian stage was the signal for the appearance of a cat, which was chased in one direction by Figaro, in another by Bartholo, and which, in a wild endeavour to escape from an attack made upon it by Basilio, ran into the skirt of Rosina's dress. The self-introduction of the cat among the principal characters, grouped together for the finely built concerted piece which brings the first act to an end, disarranged as a matter of course all the master's combinations. During the performance of the opening movement the attention of the public was concentrated entirely on the cat, and general laughter went on increasing until the long, elaborate, constantly varied, and, on all other occasions, highly interesting finale was brought to an end.
With something like a just appreciation of his own merit and with profound contempt for the injustice and insolence of the public, Rossini, on the fall of the curtain, turned round and applauded. He was the only person in the theatre who did so; and the audience indignant at the presumption of this interested minority of one, was at the same time so astonished that it forgot at the time to manifest its resentment.
The moment of vengeance arrived when the curtain rose for the second act. The public showed what it thought of Rossini's having ventured to show what he thought of his own music, by hissing and hooting in such a manner that not a note of the second act was heard. The composer, while this organised noise was being kept up, remained perfectly calm at the orchestral piano. At the end of the performance he went home to bed; and when the principal singers called upon him soon afterwards to condole with him he was fast asleep.
The only change that Rossini next day found it necessary to make in his work was to substitute a new air for the unfortunate Spanish song which Garcia had been allowed to introduce. This gave him no trouble. He simply transcribed for the solo voice the melody of the celebrated chorus which had already figured first in Ciro in Babilonia, and afterwards in Aureliano in Palmira. Such was the origin of the beautiful "Ecco ridente il cielo" which he handed to Garcia as he wrote it, and which was sung the same evening. Those who believe in the absolute significance of music apart from words, may be interested to hear that Almaviva's charming love song was, as first composed, a prayer—as a love song after all may well be.
At the second representation the Barber was comparatively well received. Being heard, it was naturally admired. Indeed, a certain number of connoisseurs are said to have appreciated it from the very first, though on the opening night the difficulty must have been not to understand the work—which appeals alike to the simplest, and to the most cultivated, musical intelligence—but merely to hear it. After a few performances Rossini's new work began to excite enthusiasm; and it had not been before the public for more than a week when it was received nightly with frantic applause.
Garcia's Spanish melody was, after some years, reintroduced into the Barber by Rubini; the trio which, in the music lesson scene, occupied the place now filled by no matter what fancy air that the Rosina of the evening thinks fit to introduce, is known to have been lost: and it has been seen that, according to some authorities, a like fate attended the overture written specially for the work. Stendhal, on the unacknowledged authority of Carpani, states that at the first representation the opera was preceded by the overture to Aureliano in Palmira and to Elisabetta, which, though heard in connection with the former work at Milan and in connection with the latter at Naples, had never been heard at Rome. Besides borrowing from himself, Rossini, in more than one "number" of the Barber of Seville, was indebted to the invention of others. The melody of the trio "Zitti zitti" is taken, note for note, from Simon's air in Haydn's Seasons—a work, it will be remembered, of which Rossini in his early youth had directed the performance at the Lyceum of Bologna. The very lively tune sung by the Duenna Berta is adapted without much alteration from a Russian dance, which Rossini had heard played by a Russian lady of his acquaintance. It soon became the custom not to listen to Berta's air, which is always assigned to an inferior singer; and it acquired the name of the "Ice tune;" not in allusion to its place of origin, but because, during its performance, the people in the boxes called for ices. The part of Rosina, which in the present day is usually given to the soprano, was composed for the mezzo-soprano voice. Mme. Giorgi-Righetti sang it, of course, in its original key; that of F. Many a soprano has sung it in G. According to an account given by M. Castil-Blaze in his Histoire du Théâtre Italien of the different keys in which the principal airs of Il Barbiere have been sung, Figaro's "Largo al fattotum," written for Zamboni in the key of C, is generally sung in B flat; Tamburini, however, sang it in B natural. Basilio's "La calunnia," written in D, is for the most part sung in C. Lablache used to sing in D flat the air for Bartholo, written in E flat.
Whatever may be said as to the character belonging absolutely to this or that key, it would be difficult to allow that the music of Rosina, of Figaro, of Basilio, or of Bartolo has either lost or gained by these frequent transpositions.
CHAPTER IX.
ROSSINI AND THE COMIC IN MUSIC.
NO composer has written more lively, more graceful comedy music than Rossini. But, except Il Figlio per Azzardo, with its high notes for low voices, its low voices for high notes, its ludicrous accompaniments, and its grotesque instruments of percussion in the shape of metal lamp-shades tapped with violin bows, Rossini never wrote music which, comic or serious, was not charming; and Il Figlio per Azzardo was nothing but a practical joke played for the benefit of an unreasonable and impolite manager. It may be interesting to consider in what the musical comic really consists.
The æsthetics of music have been much neglected; and no one, so far as I know, has yet attempted to explain or even to define the comic in music. Everything, it may be roughly said, is comic that makes one laugh; and if this be the case, then, between comic music and music so utterly bad as to be ludicrous and absurd, there should be no great difference. The intention, however, of the composer must count for something, and one cannot accept as comic music which is simply played or sung very much out of tune. Many persons disbelieve altogether in comic music. Lively, brilliant music is admirable, and commends itself to every taste. But comic music is for the most part as objectionable as comic women, than which nothing much more objectionable can well be imagined. It is the province of music to charm, to fascinate, to call up visions of delight, but not to cause fits of laughter. It may be questioned, moreover, whether laughter, or even the least tendency to laugh, can be provoked by music, so long as it is composed and executed according to the rules of art. A comic poem, a comic picture, may be a masterpiece of artistic expression, but it is difficult to imagine a perfect musical composition which would afford matter for merriment. Gounod's Funeral March for a Marionette is a graceful, melodious piece of music, in which there is nothing comic but the title. No one would find it in the slightest degree amusing but for the description of the incidents it is supposed to illustrate, which is usually printed in the programmes of concerts where the said funeral march is to be performed. In the old-fashioned Italian operas of the buffo type there are plenty of chattering songs in which the humour, such as it is, consists in the words being uttered so rapidly that any greater rapidity of utterance would seem to be impossible. Here some little amusement may be caused by witnessing the efforts of the buffo singer or singers—for there are often two or three of them chattering at once—to overcome such difficulties as have been deliberately put forward for that purpose by the composer. If this, however, be humour, it is humour of a very mean order, on a par with that of "Peter Piper pecked a peck of pepper," and other verbal devices for testing the power of a speaker to speak rapidly and at the same time distinctly. In Paisiello's Barber of Seville there was a comic piece for two fantastic and quite episodical characters, borrowed from Beaumarchais' comedy (where, as already mentioned, Rossini took good care to leave them), of whom one, La Jeunesse, sneezed, while the other, L'Eveillé, yawned, in the presence of old Bartolo. It may be very funny to sneeze and to yawn, but such fun as therein lies can scarcely be said to be of a musical character.