The influence of Rossini was especially noticeable in the work of the group of opéra comique composers, including Auber, Hérold, Halévy, Adam, Victor Massé, Maillard, who were to prepare the way for the lyric drama of Thomas and Gounod. The contributions of Auber, Hérold and Halévy to the ‘historical’ or grand opera repertory have already been mentioned in the review of operatic development in Italy and France. Here we will only consider their work as a factor in transforming the French comic opera of Méhul and Boieldieu into the more sentimental and fanciful type of which the modern romantic French opera was to be born. One fact which furthered the transition from opéra comique to drame lyrique was the frequent absence of the element of farce, with the consequent encouragement of a more poetic and romantic musical development.
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871) uninterruptedly busy from 1840 to 1871,[73] and his name identified with many of the greatest successes of the comic opera stage of his time, has been somewhat unjustly termed ‘a superficial Rossini.’ Auber undoubtedly borrowed from Rossini in his musical treatment of the comic, and he had little idea of powerful ensemble effects or of polyphonic writing; but grace, sweetness, and brilliancy of instrumentation cannot be denied him. ‘The child of Voltaire and Rossini,’ from about 1822 on he wrote operas in conjunction with the librettist Scribe. Fra Diavolo (1830) shows Auber at his best in comic opera. ‘The music is gay and tuneful, without dropping into commonplace; the rhythms are brilliant and varied, and the orchestration neat and appropriate.’ Incidentally, it might be remarked that Auber has written an opera on a subject which since his time has appealed both to Massenet and Puccini, Manon Lescaut (1856), which in places foreshadows Verdi’s ardently dramatic art.
In spite of Auber’s personal and professional success (not only was he considered one of the greatest operatic composers of his day, but also he succeeded Gossec in the Académie (1835), was director of the Conservatory of Music (1842), and imperial maître de chapelle to Napoleon III), he was essentially modest. With more confidence in himself than Meyerbeer he was quite as unpretentious as the latter. Though by no means ungrateful to the artists who contributed to the success of his works he would say: ‘I don’t cuddle them and put them in cotton-wool, like Meyerbeer. It is perfectly logical that he should do so. The Nourrits, the Levasseurs, the Viardot-Garcias, and the Rogers are not picked up at street corners; but bring me the first urchin you meet who has a decent voice and a fair amount of intelligence and in six months he’ll sing the most difficult part I ever wrote, with the exception of that of Masaniello. My operas are a kind of warming-pan for great singers. There is something in being a good warming-pan.’
Hérold’s most distinctive comic operas are Marie and Le Muletier (1848). The last-named is a setting of a rather spicy libretto by Paul de Kock, the novelist whose field was that of ‘middle class Parisian life, of guingettes and cabarets and equivocal adventures,’ and was highly successful. It seems a far cry from an operetta of this style to the romanticism of the drame lyrique. But if an occasional score harked back as regards vulgarity of subject to the equivocal popular couplets which the Comtesse du Barry had Larrivée sing for the entertainment of the sexagenarian Louis XV at Luciennes some sixty years before, it only serves to emphasize by contrast the trend in the direction of a finer expression of sentiment. Halévy’s masterpiece in comic opera is L’Éclair (1835). A curiosity of musical literature, it is written for two tenors and two sopranos, without a chorus; ‘and displays in a favorable light the composer’s mastery of the most refined effects of instrumentation and vocalization.’ Wagner, while living in greatly reduced circumstances in Paris, had been glad to arrange a piano score and various quartets for strings of Halévy’s Guitarrero (1841).
The most famous of Auber’s disciples was Adolphe-Charles Adam (1802-1856). Adam had been one of Boieldieu’s favorite pupils and was an adept at copying Auber’s style. Auber’s music gained or lost in value according to the chance that conditioned its composer’s inspiration; but it was always spiritual, elegant, and ingenious, hiding real science and dignity beneath the mask of frivolity. Adam, on the other hand, was an excellent imitator, but his music was not original. He wrote more than fifty light, exceedingly tuneful and ‘catchy’ light operas, of which Le Châlet (1834); Le postillon de Longjumeau (1836), which had a tremendous vogue throughout Europe; Le brasseur de Preston (1838); Le roi d’Yvetot (1842), and Cagliostro (1844) are the best known. Grisar, another disciple of Auber, furnishes another example of graceful facility in writing, combined with a lack of originality. Maillart’s (1817-1871) Les dragons de Villars, which duplicated its Parisian successes in Germany under the title of Das Glöckchen des Eremiten, was the most popular of the six operas he wrote. Victor Massé (1822-1884) is known chiefly by Galathée (1852), Les noces de Jeanette (1853), and Paul et Virginie (1876).
F. H. M.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] Although Weber was born before Rossini (1786) and his period is synchronous with the present chapter, it has been thought best, because of his close connection with the romantic movement in Germany, to treat him in the next chapter.
[67] Two measures in the tonic, repeated in the dominant, the whole gone over three times with increasing dynamic emphasis, constituted the famous Rossini crescendo.
[68] The recitatives sung by the character of Christ in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion are so accompanied. Bach likewise wrote out the vocal ornaments of all his arias.