At the Vienna Opera House he collected the finest company ever known, including Davide, Nozzari, Donzelli, Rubini, Cicimarra, as tenors; Lablache, Bassi (Niccolo), Ambroggi, Tamburini, Botticelli, as basses; Mesdames Mainvielle-Fodor, Colbran, Féron, Mombelli (Esther), Dardanelli, Sontag, Unger, Grisi (Giuditta), Grimbaun, as sopranos; Mesdames Rubini, Cesar-Cantarelli, Eckerlin, as contraltos.
In the year 1814 Barbaja went to Bologna, called upon Rossini, and, with the liberality of an intelligent speculator dealing with an evidently rising artist, offered him a very much better engagement than had ever been within his reach before.
On his arrival at Naples Rossini signed a contract with Barbaja for several years, by which he agreed to write two new operas annually, and to arrange the music of all old works the manager might wish to produce, either at the San Carlo or at the Teatro del Fondo. For this the maestro was to receive two hundred ducats (nearly forty pounds) a month and a share in the profits of the bank in the San Carlo gambling saloon.
This was not much compared to what Rossini afterwards received as retaining salary, and in the shape of author’s fees, during his engagement at Paris; but it was magnificent considering the paltry sums he had earned at Venice and Milan. In point of fact, Rossini had now something more to do than compose operas; he had undertaken the musical direction of two opera houses, one of which was the most important in Europe. In addition to his own work as composer, he had to do a prodigious amount of transposition to suit the voices of new and old singers; he had to improve, to correct, to reset, to re-score, to fulfil, in short, all the arduous and laborious duties of a musical conductor.
For a “lazy” man it was severe; but Rossini did all that was expected of him to perfection, and ended by marrying the prima donna—which Barbaja had not bargained for at all.
Mademoiselle Colbran, the future Madame Rossini, was a great beauty, in the queenly style—dark hair, brilliant eyes, imposing demeanour. One would think she must already have seen her best days when Rossini first met her at Naples in 1815; for she was born at Madrid in 1785. But only women of the happiest organisation succeed as great dramatic singers; and Mademoiselle Colbran seems to have preserved youthfulness and beauty of voice, and doubtless, therefore, of person, until long afterwards.
Mademoiselle Colbran studied under Pareja, Marinelli, and Crescentini, and made her début with success at Paris in 1801, together with the celebrated violinist, Rode. Rossini wrote as many as ten parts for her, including those of Desdemona, Elcia (“Mosé in Egitto”), Elena (“Donna del Lago”), Zelmira, and Semiramide.
Fortunately and unfortunately for her, Mademoiselle Colbran’s name was constantly mixed up with political questions, and was at one time quite a party word among the royalists at Naples. Those who admired the king made a point of applauding his favourite singer. A gentleman from England asked a friend one night at the San Carlo theatre how he liked Mademoiselle Colbran.
“Like her? I am a Royalist,” was the reply.
Stendhal was not a Royalist, and, in opposition to Carpani, his ordinary unacknowledged authority on all matters connected with Rossini’s name, did not much admire Mademoiselle Colbran’s voice, which, he says, “began to deteriorate about the year 1816”—the year after Rossini’s arrival at Naples.