THE FOURTH PERIOD (Continued). THE LYRIC DRAMA-THE "LIBRETTO"-ITALIAN OPERA— GERMAN OPERA-WEBER-FRENCH OPERA-LULLY- THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE. THE FOURTH PERIOD (Continued). Or the great masters of the Symphonic School, nine in all, with whom my last lecture was exclusively occupied, only one, Mozart, can be said to have succeeded in the Lyric Drama; and the instances in which even he has done so perfectly must be reduced to two, perhaps even to one, "Don Giovanni;" so many conditions, over and above and beside musical genius and culture, must be fulfilled to make a successful opera; not the least of these being that most despised and most rare literary product, a good libretto. The absence of this no amount of genius, science, or tact in a composer has ever been found able to supply. A thousand failures could be brought in evidence of this truth, which however is better and more easily proved by one fact; that the history of Opera centres itself, neither in Italy, nor in Germany,-but in France. Not that the best or most popular operas of modern times are all the works of Frenchmen, though some of them assuredly are, but that of those which are the works even of Italians or Germans the majority have been set to French librettos, and produced on the French stage. Of the last century of Italian opera one single composer survives, Cimarosa; and he in one single work, "Il Matrimonio Segreto." This survival of a single production, out of eighty by the same master, would be unaccountable did we not know that the music is happily married, possibly to very mortal verse, but to verse which is 194 manner. Italian Opera. made to unfold interesting events in an orderly and intelligible I believe "Il Matrimonio Segreto" was adapted directly from Our Colman and Garrick's "Clandestine Marriage." Its Italian costume sits as easily upon it as though it had never worn another. Perhaps, after all, its bib and tucker were Italian. Let me, in passing, direct your attention to the fact that this opera, generally regarded and spoken of as an antiquated work, was composed and produced in Vienna in the year 1793-two years after the death of Mozart. Cimarosa died (ætat. 47) in 1801. But of Cimarosa's immediate predecessors, Guglielmi, Sacchini, Salieri; of his contemporaries, Paisiello, Zingarelli, Sarti, who, in the present generation, knows anything? Fragments from the structures they raised, to contemporary eyes so substantial and enduring, are exhumed from time to time, for the gratification of the curious; but the Elgin marbles are as little likely to look down again on the worship of Minerva, as these fragments to be restored to their places, within the walls of any existing theatre. Let us see what has been done on the lyric stage of these three peoples, the Italian, the German, and the French, since we last quitted it. Italian opera in the Fourth Period begins with Piccinni, of whom I shall have to speak presently in his connexion with the French stage. I will only note for the moment that in his opera "La buona Figliuola" is to be found the first example and subsequent type of the modern Finale of more than one movement. Of his contemporaries and immediate successors, those at least who attained the greatest success, I have already mentioned some of the most distinguished, as being utterly forgotten. Of the numerous and generally successful operas of Fernando Paer (an Italian, his name notwithstanding) one, "Agnese," lives in the recollection of aged amateurs through the transcendent presentation of the principal character by the eminent singer and actor Ambrogetti. Another, "I Fuorusciti," may also be remembered through an English adaptation given in London not many years ago. For the rest, they and their author, whose "Laodicea" was not brought to an end, on the night of its first production, because of the numerous encores, live only in the speech made to the latter by Beethoven, in relation to one of them, "Fidelio." "I like your opera very much, and I mean to set it to music," said the truculent master; which he did, as we all know. Italian opera still lives, but lives only through four composers, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi. The early works of Rossini, born at Pesaro in 1792, notwithstanding their enticing tunefulness, the variety and strength of their orchestration and a vivacity too enjoyable in itself to allow the hearer to question its fitness for the situation, have already, in many instances been relegated to the limbo of forgotten things. Of upwards of forty, the first bearing date 1810, the last 1829, how few have kept the stage! "Il Barbiere" (1816), "Otello" (1816), "La Gazza Ladra" (1817), and "Semiramide" (1823), are the only ones, I think, that can fairly be called current. And the permanent success of the first in this short list is not altogether due to the music, fresh and captivating as it still is. The libretto is based on a French comedy, the scheme and development of which rank it among the masterpieces of dramatic construction. Admirable and admired as these and perhaps others of his works unquestionably are, Europe is gradually accepting the decision of Paris, and accustoming itself to look upon Rossini as "The composer of Guillaume Tell;" and this notwithstanding the amazing want of interest, and the loose construction of the poet's share in that great work. Strange that the most skilful theatrical artificers in Europe should have found nothing better than this inane production for the greatest composer they have ever sought to naturalize to employ his talents upon. More strange, if true, that the composer himself should have chosen ! |