AS Rossini found the opera seria of his day too serious, so he found the opera buffa too broadly comic. He was accused of treating tragic subjects melodramatically—which meant that he made them interesting. In dealing with comic subjects he took care to keep above the level of farce, his general tone being that of comedy, into which he now and then, but not often, introduced a touch of sentiment (“Languir per una bella” in “L’Italiana,” “Ecco ridente il cielo” in “Il Barbiere”).
The old opera buffa, with its separate set of characters and singers, and its own separate style, musical as well as dramatic, died out under the influence of Rossini’s innovations. It is said to have been very fine, by those who liked it; but apparently Rossini did not like it, for after trying his hand at a few specimens (of which the notorious little operetta or farza with the lamp-shade accompaniment seems to have been the last) he abandoned it, as after a single trial (Velluti in “Aureliano in Palmira”) he abandoned the sopranists.
If Rossini ever wrote an opera seria in the old style, it must have been that work of his early youth, “Demetrio e Polibio,” of which all that seems to be known is, that it was composed in 1809 for the Mombellis, and produced at Rome in 1812.
It must have seemed strange and rather awful to some obstinate habitués (and habitués are often as obstinate as habit itself) that the same singer should come before them one night as Moses, and the next as Doctor Bartholo, one night as Figaro, and the next as Assur in “Semiramide.” At the same time they appear to have been annoyed with Rossini both because in his serious works he was not more severe, and because in his comic works he was not more grotesque.
The fact is, Rossini rendered both styles more natural, more like life, as far as life can be represented in opera, and certainly more dramatic.
In “L’Italiana in Algeri” we see only the first essay in the style which was to be brought to perfection in “Il Barbiere” and “Cenerentola;” but “L’Italiana” was the forerunner of these works, just as “Tancredi,” in the serious style, was the forerunner of “Otello” and “Semiramide.”
“L’Italiana in Algeri,” like “Tancredi,” was composed for Venice; this time neither for the San Mosè nor the Fenice, but for the San Benedetto. The principal part was written for Madame Marcolini, who again, as in “L’Equivoco Stravagante,” and “La Pietra del Paragone,” was provided with a brilliant rondo finale.
In the concerted finale of the first act the prolonged crescendo was found as effective as the same device had proved in “Tancredi.” Rossini had now adopted his crescendo, never to forsake it; and if he was faithful to it, it certainly was faithful to him, and never once deceived him.
The recitatives in “L’Italiana in Algeri,” as in “Tancredi,” are still rather long. The dramatic progress, too, in “L’Italiana” is slow, and the acts, as in all Rossini’s two-act operas—that is to say, all his important Italian operas, with the exception of “Otello”—last a prodigious time.
It must be remembered that when these operas were written it was the custom in Italy to give a divertissement, or even a long ballet, between the acts. As to the lengthiness of the recitatives, that was an affair of very little importance. No one was obliged to listen to them, and private conversation took place between the pieces, as public dancing took place between the acts.