In front moved a detachment of the body-guard, behind these the Cardinal’s hat was carried upon a sword; then came the Cardinals, and lastly the Pope seated upon a richly decorated sedan or throne borne by eight priests; on either side of him two large fans of white ostrich feathers; then all the clergy, and lastly the remainder of the body-guard and Swiss guards. During the procession, the Pope, a venerable old man of 75, on whose pale and interesting face the exhausting influence of frequent fast and of the long fatiguing service were very distinctly visible, bestowed with a feeble motion of the hand his blessing upon the people. But the latter shewed during this no sign of devotion; not a knee was bent; there was laughing and loud talking during the whole service. The procession passed out through a side chapel into the Vatican. The immense size of the church could be first rightly seen to-day, from the mass of human beings which it held. It was full half an hour before they could make their exit through three large doors.
December 27.
Yesterday, at last the theatres were once more opened, after being closed six months. At the Argentino theatre, the largest and handsomest, Rossini’s “Tancredi” was performed, at the theatre Valle, a new Opera buffa by Signor Pietro Romano, called “Il Quiproquo.” As “Tancredi” is an old opera, the first night of which is not more interesting than the succeeding ones, Meyerbeer easily persuaded me to go with him to the Valle theatre, while my wife and the children, with Madame Beer, went to the Argentino theatre. Before the opera a farce in prose was given, imitated from our German “Proberollen.” Then came the first act of the opera, the text of which we soon recognised as an adaptation of the “Nouveau Seigneur de Village.” The subject, though spun out somewhat too much, was neither so stupid nor so wearisome as those of most Italian operas. But so much the more insipid and common-place is the music. Signor Romano has taken the now so much admired Rossini as his model, and so closely imitated him, or rather copied him outright, that the pit called out every moment “Bravo Rossini!” With that his music is so incorrect, that an ear accustomed to a pure harmony cannot hear it without disgust. Nevertheless that was no injury to it here, but much more so its want of fire and noise, the last of which the Italians are as fond of as the French and Germans. Once only, after a duet, the pit called out the encouraging and joyful “Bravo Maestro!” for which he immediately made a most profound bow. All the rest was listened to with coldness, and at the conclusion of the opera neither approval nor displeasure was expressed. The singers were by no means sure of their parts, and were continually making mistakes. Madame Georgi, the prima donna, who in the previous carnival had been the favorite of the public, did not please much yesterday, and had the annoyance of seeing the seconda donna, who certainly did not sing badly, called forward after her aria in the second act, an honour which had not fallen to her lot all the evening. She shewed her displeasure at this by singing the rest of her part with the utmost indifference and with half-voice only, by which however she injured the last finale very much, and was perhaps the cause of the opera’s going off so coldly, and of the report which prevails in the town to-day, that she had not given satisfaction. The orchestra, composed for the most part of the professors (!) who had played at my concert, played crudely, incorrectly and without any sort of difference between piano and forte.
This morning there was another private music party at Count Apponyi’s. Nothing else scarcely was sung but things from Rossini’s operas, of which a terzette, from “Elisabetha,” if I am not mistaken, pleased me most, on account of the excellent treatment of the voices. The more I hear of Rossini’s compositions, the more I am disposed to join in part with the general opinion, which pronounces him the most distinguished of modern Italian composers, and as a reformer of the taste in operatic style. Mayer may nevertheless with propriety be excepted, who has, if not so much imagination as Rossini, yet, certainly, more knowledge and æsthetic feeling. That the latter is wanting in knowledge of harmony, delineation of character, sense of the difference between the serious and comic style, and of propriety, I observed already in Florence, after hearing the “Italiana in Algeria.” Rossini, however, has devised some quite new things, although they are not necessarily good because they are new: for instance his “flowery song,” as Meyerbeer very characteristically calls it, which in reality is nothing more than that the passages hitherto sung on one vowel are sung with a series of syllables, as in an aria in the “Italiana”:
or in a duet between a tenor and a bass in the same opera, where the part for the second voice is very unsingable and more like an orchestral bass than a singing bass:[24]
Every time such little tricky passages occur, and are well executed by the singers, as to-day by Moncade especially, the auditory breaks out into an ecstasy of applause which causes Italian music to degenerate more and more into a mere tickling of the ears and both singers and composer; become every day less capable in use of working upon the feelings; so that I may say without exaggeration, that of all the compositions we have yet heard in Italy, I have not experienced the least emotion, with the exception of one or two passages in the “Testa di bronzo”; and of all the singers we have yet heard, Madame Häser alone, in a duet from the old “Passione” of Paisiello moved me for a few seconds.
Likewise new, and first introduced by Rossini, is the way in which the speaking passages in the Opera buffa, hitherto usually written in one tone, or at least at very close intervals only, and formerly always given legato, are provided with syllables, as for instance in the beginning of the above duet:
