“Guillaume Tell,” Rossini’s latest, is also his finest opera. It is written throughout in a higher and more dramatic style than any of his previous works. It exhibits more sustained power, and is the only one of his operas for the French stage in which every piece of music is new and written specially for the situation. The distinctive feature in “Guillaume Tell,” as regards form, is the avoidance of the conventional cavatina. It is right and necessary that a libretto should be constructed with a view to musical as well as dramatic effect; but it is not necessary that each principal singer, on coming before the public, should sing a “cavatina;” nor is it desirable, when a cavatina does happen to fall in with the situation (the opera has its soliloquies as well as the spoken drama), that it should be of a certain recognised pattern, with a few bars of recitative, or slow movement and a cabaletta.
We feel in “Guillaume Tell” that the characters do not appear on the stage merely to sing airs, duets, &c., but as personages in a musical drama. The custom in Italian opera was that each character should sing an air, and sing it as soon as possible after entering. Hence, indeed, the very word “cavatina,” from cavare, to issue forth. This custom has shown itself far more tenacious than all the others which Rossini broke through. It, indeed, seems to bear the force of an irremissible law; and we find that Rossini’s successors, who follow his example as well as they can in all other respects, avoid doing so in this particular one. Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi have all accepted the inevitable cavatina; and Rossini himself, if he had returned to Italy, would doubtless have returned to the cavatina at the same time,—in which there can be nothing to object to, provided only that it be not dragged in, as is often the case, without the least reference to dramatic propriety.
Of the grand vocal and instrumental combinations, so admirably treated in “Guillaume Tell,” Rossini had previously given an example in “La Donna del Lago.” But the scene of the meeting of the Cantons in “Guillaume Tell” is far grander. It may, indeed, be cited as the grandest operatic scene that exists—and, moreover, the grandest of all dramatic scenes in regard to the treatment of masses, which in the spoken drama can only be employed as a means of spectacular effect. The opera is the only form of drama in which a crowd, an army, a deliberative assembly, can effectually join with voice as well as with gesture in the action of the piece, as it is the only form of drama in which three or four persons, uttering similar or diverse sentiments, can be made to give expression to them at the same time.
The scene of Vasco di Gama before the Inquisition, in Meyerbeer’s “Africaine,” would have a very poor effect in ordinary drama. The prelates and other members of the tribunal, instead of singing, would of course have to speak; and as they could not speak all at once, they would have to address the unhappy Vasco through a single representative instead of crushing him, as in the opera, beneath the weight of their unanimous condemnation. Such a scene, again, as the Market-scene in “Masaniello,” in which the chattering of the dealers and the hurry and bustle of the crowd are made, through beautiful and appropriate music, to form one harmonious whole, could only be faintly and imperfectly imitated on the non-operatic stage by a representation in dumb-show, for spoken words would be worse than useless. Similarly, the meeting of the Cantons, in “Guillaume Tell,” is a magnificent subject for an operatic scene, which, treated otherwise than operatically, would be as flat and dull as a procession of the Reform League.
How, indeed, could the descent of the various bands from the mountains, and their gathering together in one vast agitated flood, be suggested and impressed upon the mind so forcibly as through music? Here the operatic composer had an opportunity, turned by Rossini to magnificent advantage, of going to the heart of a grand dramatic situation, and bringing out its full significance.
The trio, independently of its wonderful melodic and harmonic beauty, is a fine example of the power of music to give a simultaneous presentation of various and conflicting emotions. But on the mere beauty of the “Guillaume Tell” music, whether for the solo voices or for the orchestra, for the chorus or for the ballet, it would be vain to dwell. It would be useless to speak of it to those who have heard it—impossible to give any idea of it to those who have not.
CHAPTER VIII.
ROSSINI AFTER “WILLIAM TELL.”
THE reason why Rossini, after producing “Guillaume Tell,” ceased finally to write for the stage is still a mystery, which has been rendered only more mysterious by the various and often contradictory explanations given of the composer’s silence.
In the first place, the coldness with which “Guillaume Tell” was received, and the successive mutilations to which that work was subjected, are said to have checked Rossini’s ardour.
Secondly, Rossini himself is reported to have declared that a new work, if successful, would not add to his reputation; while, unsuccessful, it might injure it.