And I am afraid that it must be said that, contrary perhaps to the general belief, Italian suffers no less than any other language from misguided attempts of this kind. The idea is commonly entertained that Italian is “easy” to speak, but of course this is not the case if it is really to be properly spoken.
To which I may add that few peoples seem to experience more difficulty in mastering its subtleties than the English. It may be recalled, too, that this was also the view of Lamperti. Of all the European nations, he declared, the English, and especially Londoners, pronounced Italian worst. The sounds that they produce, he remarked, are nearly all guttural, the vowels being excessively weak, while their accent was entirely wrong—the men, he added, being even worse than the women.
The Scotch, on the other hand, were not quite so bad in his judgment, while the Irish were best of all. Indeed, he agreed that the latter with study could learn to speak Italian quite wonderfully—as is illustrated, I may say, at the present time by Mr. John McCormack, who has a most admirable Italian diction. But it certainly is not often that one can speak in similar terms of the average English artist.
If anyone doubts this, let him read and ponder over some caustic remarks once made on this very point by the late Sir Charles Santley. Nothing was more deplorable, he said, than to hear the atrocious manner in which the beautiful Italian language was murdered at times by untrained English singers, and if, he added, they had any notion of the effect which they produced by such attempts upon such of their hearers as happened to be really familiar with the language, they would assuredly never make themselves so ridiculous again. Better a thousand times, he concluded, to sing all your life in your own tongue rather than make yourself a laughing-stock by attempting a task beyond your power.
To which I need hardly add that the same applies no less to French and German, though I am myself less qualified to speak concerning those languages.
It is not for me, perhaps, to say much about Wagner singing, which is so far removed from my own chosen province, but I may be permitted, perhaps, while on the subject of diction, to point to the appalling manner in which the divine art of singing has been perverted by Wagnerian singers under the mistaken notion that they were in this way carrying out the wishes of the sublime master.
I say “under the mistaken notion” because it is well known by those acquainted with the fact that the so-called “Bayreuth method” was as far removed as possible from Wagner’s actual ideas. It is true that he attached the utmost importance to clear and emphatic enunciation of the words so that the course of the drama might be quite clearly understood, and therein he was quite right. But there is little reason to suppose that he was in reality satisfied with the actual results achieved by the German singers by whom his works were originally presented.
It is, indeed, an utter mistake to suppose that the harsh and strident singing of the average German vocalist was of a kind to commend itself to Wagner. On the contrary, it was one of his pet schemes, if I have not been misinformed, in connection with Bayreuth, to institute a School of Singing which might lead to better things; and the kind of singing at which he aimed may be gathered from the fact that the teacher whom he wished to secure to carry out his views was none other than that famous exponent of Bel Canto, the late Señor Manuel García!
In the same connection, too, may be recalled the remark made by the composer after hearing a performance of “Lohengrin” (with the great Italian Wagnerian tenor Borgatti) on one occasion at Bologna. Almost for the first time, he said, he had heard his music really sung. All of which suggests how far they are from actually fulfilling the wishes of the master in continuing at Bayreuth the horrible vocal methods which had become so unfortunately associated with his name.