History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time. Edwards Henry Sutherland
meanwhile, he wrote a quantity of vocal and instrumental music of all kinds, and especially for the stage, it was not until after the death of Charles that he associated himself with Dryden in the production of those musical dramas (not operas in the proper sense of the word) by which he is chiefly known.
In 1690, Purcell composed music for The Tempest, altered and shamefully disfigured by Dryden and Davenant.
In 1691, King Arthur, which contains Purcell's finest music, was produced with immense success. The war-song of the Britons, Come if you Dare, and the concluding duet and chorus, Britons strike Home, have survived the rest of the work. The former piece in particular is well known to concert-goers of the present day, from the excellent singing of Mr. Sims Reeves. Purcell died at the age of thirty-six, the age at which Mozart and Raphael were lost to the world, and has not yet found a successor. He was not only the most original, and the most dramatic, but also the most thoroughly English of our native composers. In the dedication of the music of the Prophetess to the Duke of Somerset, Purcell himself says, "Music is yet but in its nonage, a forward child, which gives hope of what it may be hereafter in England, when the masters of it shall find more encouragement. 'Tis now learning Italian, which is its best master, and studying a little of the French air to give it somewhat more of gaiety and fashion." Here Purcell spoke in all modesty, for though his style may have been formed in some measure on French models, "there is," says Dr. Burney, "a latent power and force in his expression of English words, whatever be the subject, that will make an unprejudiced native of this island feel more than all the elegance, grace and refinement of modern music, less happily applied, can do; and this pleasure is communicated to us, not by the symmetry or rhythm of modern melody, but by his having tuned to the true accents of our mother tongue, those notes of passion which an inhabitant of this island would breathe in such situations as the words describe. And these indigenous expressions of passion Purcell had the power to enforce by the energy of modulation, which, on some occasions, was bold, affecting and sublime. Handel," he adds, "who flourished in a less barbarous age for his art, has been acknowledged Purcell's superior in many particulars; but in none more than the art and grandeur of his choruses, the harmony and texture of his organ fugues, as well as his great style of concertos; the ingenuity of his accompaniments to his songs and choruses; and even in the general melody of the airs themselves; yet, in the accent, passion and expression of English words, the vocal music of Purcell is, sometimes, to my feelings, as superior to Handel's as an original poem to a translation."
CHAPTER III.
ON THE NATURE OF THE OPERA, AND ITS MERITS AS COMPARED WITH OTHER FORMS OF THE DRAMA
Opera admired for its unintelligibility. – The use of words in opera. – An inquisitive amateur. – New version of a chorus in Robert le Diable. – Strange readings of the Credo by two chapel masters. – Dramatic situations and effects peculiar to the Opera. – Pleasantries directed against the Opera; their antiquity and harmlessness. —Les Opéras by St. Evrémond. – Beaumarchais's mot. – Addison on the Italian Opera in England. – Swift's epigram. – Béranger on the decline of the drama. – What may be seen at the Opera.
WHEN Sir William Davenant obtained permission from Cromwell to open his theatre for the performance of operas, Antony à Wood wrote that, "Though Oliver Cromwell had now prohibited all other theatrical representations, he allowed of this because being in an unknown language it could not corrupt the morals of the people." Thereupon it has been imagined that Antony à Wood must have supposed Sir William Davenant's performances to have been in the Italian tongue, as if he could not have regarded music as an unknown language, and have concluded that a drama conducted in music would for that reason be unintelligible. Nevertheless, in the present day we have a censor who refuses to permit the representation of La Dame aux Camélias in English, or even in French,8 but who tolerates the performance of La Traviata, (which, I need hardly say, is the Dame aux Camélias set to music) in Italian, and, I believe, even in English; thinking, no doubt, like Antony à Wood, that in an operatic form it cannot be understood, and therefore cannot corrupt the morals of the people. Since Antony à Wood's time a good deal of stupid, unmeaning verse has been written in operas, and sometimes when the words have not been of themselves unintelligible, they have been rendered nearly so by the manner in which they have been set to music, to say nothing of the final obscurity given to them by the imperfect enunciation of the singers. The mere fact, however, of a dramatic piece being performed in music does not make it unintelligible, but, on the contrary, increases the sphere of its intelligibility, giving it a more universal interest and rendering it an entertainment appreciable by persons of all countries. This in itself is not much to boast of, for the entertainment of the ballet is independent of language to a still greater extent; and La Gitana or Esmeralda can be as well understood by an Englishman at the Opera House of Berlin or of Moscow as at Her Majesty's Theatre in London; while perhaps the most universally intelligible drama ever performed is that of Punch, even when the brief dialogue which adorns its pantomime is inaudible.
Opera is music in a dramatic form; and people go to the theatre and listen to it as if it were so much prose. They have even been known to complain during or after the performance that they could not hear the words, as if it were through the mere logical meaning of the words that the composer proposed to excite the emotion of the audience. The only pity is that it is necessary in an opera to have words at all, but it is evident that a singer could not enter into the spirit of a dramatic situation if he had a mere string of meaningless syllables or any sort of inappropriate nonsense to utter. He must first produce an illusion on himself, or he will produce none on the audience, and he must, therefore, fully inspire himself with the sentiment, logical as well as musical, of what he has to sing. Otherwise, all we want to know about the words of Casta diva (to take examples from the most popular, as also one of the very finest of Italian operas) is that it is a prayer to a goddess; of the Druids' chorus, that it is chorus of Druids; of the trio, that "Norma" having confronted "Pollio" with "Adalgisa," is reproaching him indignantly and passionately with his perfidy; of the duet that "Norma" is confiding her children to "Adalgisa's" care; of the scene with "Pollio," that "Norma" is again reproaching him, but in a different spirit, with sadness and bitterness, and with the compressed sorrow of a woman who is wounded to the heart and must soon die. I may be in error, however, for though I have seen Norma fifty times, I have never examined the libretto, and of the whole piece know scarcely more than the two words which I have already paraded before the public – "Casta Diva."
One night, at the Royal Italian Opera, when Mario was playing the part of the "Duke of Mantua" in Rigoletto, and was singing the commencement of the duet with "Gilda," a man dressed in black and white like every one else, said to me gravely, "I do not understand Italian. Can you tell me what he is saying to her?"
"He is telling her that he loves her," I answered briefly.
"What is he saying now?" asked this inquisitive amateur two minutes afterwards.
"He is telling her that he loves her," I repeated.
"Why, he said that before!" objected this person who had apparently come to the opera with the view of gaining some kind of valuable information from the performers. Poor Bosio was the "Gilda," but my horny-eared neighbour wondered none the less that the Duke could not say "I love you," in three words.
"He will say it again," I answered, "and then she will say it, and then they will say it together; indeed, they will say nothing else for the next five minutes, and when you hear them exclaim 'addio' with one voice, and go on repeating it, it will still mean the same thing."
What benighted amateur was this who wanted to know the words of a beautiful duet; and is there much difference between such a one and the man who would look at the texture of a canvas to see what the painting on it was worth?
Let it be admitted that as a rule no opera is intelligible without a libretto; but is a drama always intelligible without a play-bill? A libretto, for general use, need really be no larger than an ordinary programme; and it would be a positive advantage if it contained merely a sketch of the plot with the subject,