A Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music. Henry Edward Krehbiel
prelude to another opera which dealt with Queen Elizabeth of England, a monarch who reigned some twelve hundred years after Aurelian. Again, before the melody now known as that of Almaviva's cavatina (which supplanted Garcia's unlucky Spanish song) had burst into the efflorescence which now distinguishes it, it came as a chorus from the mouths of Cyrus and his Persians in ancient Babylon. Truly, the verities of time and place sat lightly on the Italian opera composers of a hundred years ago. But the serenade which follows the rising of the curtain preserves a custom more general at the time of Beaumarchais than now, though it is not yet obsolete. Dr. Bartolo, who is guardian of the fascinating Rosina, is in love with her, or at least wishes for reasons not entirely dissociated from her money bags to make her his wife, and therefore keeps her most of the time behind bolts and bars. The Count Almaviva, however, has seen her on a visit from his estates to Seville, becomes enamoured of her, and she has felt her heart warmed toward him, though she is ignorant of his rank and knows him only under the name of Lindoro. Hoping that it may bring him an opportunity for a glance, mayhap a word with his inamorata, Amaviva follows the advice given by Sir Proteus to Thurio in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona"; he visits his lady's chamber window, not at night, but at early dawn, with a "sweet concert," and to the instruments of Fiorello's musicians tunes "a deploring dump." It is the cavatina "Ecco ridente in cielo." The musicians, rewarded by Almaviva beyond expectations, are profuse and long-winded in their expression of gratitude, and are gotten rid of with difficulty. The Count has not yet had a glimpse of Rosina, who is in the habit of breathing the morning air from the balcony of her prison house, and is about to despair when Figaro, barber and Seville's factotum, appears trolling a song in which he recites his accomplishments, the universality of his employments, and the great demand for his services. ("Largo al factotum dello città.") The Count recognizes him, tells of his vain vigils in front of Rosina's balcony, and, so soon as he learns that Figaro is a sort of man of all work to Bartolo, employs him as his go-between. Rosina now appears on the balcony. Almaviva is about to engage her in conversation when Bartolo appears and discovers a billet-doux which Rosina had intended to drop into the hand of her Lindoro. He demands to see it, but she explains that it is but a copy of the words of an aria from an opera entitled "The Futile Precaution," and drops it from the balcony, as if by accident. She sends Bartolo to recover it, but Almaviva, who had observed the device, secures it, and Bartolo is told by his crafty ward that the wind must have carried it away. Growing suspicious, he commands her into the house and goes away to hasten the preparations for his wedding, after giving orders that no one is to be admitted to the house save Don Basilio, Rosina's singing-master, and Bartolo's messenger and general mischief-maker.
The letter which Rosina had thus slyly conveyed to her unknown lover begged him to contrive means to let her know his name, condition, and intentions respecting herself. Figaro, taking the case in hand at once, suggests that Almaviva publish his answer in a ballad. This the Count does ("Se il mio nome saper"), protesting the honesty and ardor of his passion, but still concealing his name and station. He is delighted to hear his lady-love's voice bidding him to continue his song. (It is the phrase, "Segui, o caro, deh segui così," which sounded so monstrously diverting at the first representation of the opera in Rome.) After the second stanza Rosina essays a longer response, but is interrupted by some of the inmates of the house. Figaro now confides to the Count a scheme by which he is to meet his fair enslaver face to face: he is to assume the rôle of a drunken soldier who has been billeted upon Dr. Bartolo, a plan that is favored by the fact that a company of soldiers has come to Seville that very day which is under the command of the Count's cousin. The plan is promptly put into execution. Not long after, Rosina enters Dr. Bartolo's library singing the famous cavatina, "Una voce poco fà," in which she tells of her love for Lindoro and proclaims her determination to have her own way in the matter of her heart, in spite of all that her tyrannical guardian or anybody else can do. This cavatina has been the show piece of hundreds of singers ever since it was written. Signora Giorgi-Righetti, the first Rosina, was a contralto, and sang the music in the key of E, in which it was written. When it became one of Jenny Lind's display airs, it was transposed to F and tricked out with a great abundance of fiorituri. Adelina Patti in her youth used so to overburden its already florid measures with ornament that the story goes that once when she sang it for Rossini, the old master dryly remarked: "A very pretty air; who composed it?" Figaro enters at the conclusion of Rosina's song, and the two are about to exchange confidences when Bartolo enters with Basilio, who confides to the old doctor his suspicion that the unknown lover of Rosina is the Count Almaviva, and suggests that the latter's presence in Seville be made irksome by a few adroitly spread innuendoes against his character. How a calumny, ingeniously published, may grow from a whispered zephyr to a crashing, detonating tempest, Basilio describes in the buffo air "La calunnia"—a marvellous example of the device of crescendo which in this form is one of Rossini's inventions. Bartolo prefers his own plan of compelling his ward to marry him at once. He goes with Basilio to draw up a marriage agreement, and Figaro, who has overheard their talk, acquaints Rosina with its purport. He also tells her that she shall soon see her lover face to face if she will but send him a line by his hands. Thus he secures a letter from her, but learns that the artful minx had written it before he entered. Her ink-stained fingers, the disappearance of a sheet of paper from his writing desk, and the condition of his quill pen convince Bartolo on his return that he is being deceived, and he resolves that henceforth his ward shall be more closely confined than ever. And so he informs her, while she mimics his angry gestures behind his back. In another moment there is a boisterous knocking and shouting at the door, and in comes Almaviva, disguised as a cavalry soldier most obviously in his cups. He manages to make himself known to Rosina, and exchanges letters with her under the very nose of her jailer, affects a fury toward Dr. Bartolo when the latter claims exemption from the billet, and escapes arrest only by secretly making himself known to the officer commanding the soldiers who had been drawn into the house by the disturbance. The sudden and inexplicable change of conduct on the part of the soldiers petrifies Bartolo; he is literally "astonied," and Figaro makes him the victim of several laughable pranks before he recovers his wits.
Dr. Bartolo's suspicions have been aroused about the soldier, concerning whose identity he makes vain inquiries, but he does not hesitate to admit to his library a seeming music-master who announces himself as Don Alonzo, come to act as substitute for Don Basilio, who, he says, is ill. Of course it is Almaviva. Soon the ill-natured guardian grows impatient of his garrulity, and Almaviva, to allay his suspicions and gain a sight of his inamorata, gives him a letter written by Rosina to Lindoro, which he says he had found in the Count's lodgings. If he can but see the lady, he hopes by means of the letter to convince her of Lindoro's faithlessness. This device, though it disturbs its inventor, is successful, and Bartolo brings in his ward to receive her music lesson. Here, according to tradition, there stood in the original score a trio which was lost with the overture. Very welcome has this loss appeared to the Rosinas of a later day, for it has enabled them to introduce into the "lesson scene" music of their own choice, and, of course, such as showed their voices and art to the best advantage. Very amusing have been the anachronisms which have resulted from these illustrations of artistic vanity, and diverting are the glimpses which they give of the tastes and sensibilities of great prime donne. Grisi and Alboni, stimulated by the example of Catalani (though not in this opera), could think of nothing nobler than to display their skill by singing Rode's Air and Variations, a violin piece. This grew hackneyed, but, nevertheless, survived till a comparatively late day. Bosio, feeling that variations were necessary, threw Rode's over in favor of those on "Gia della mente involarmi"—a polka tune from Alary's "A Tre Nozze." Then Mme. Gassier ushered in the day of the vocal waltz—Venzano's, of amiable memory. Her followers have not yet died out, though Patti substituted Arditi's "Il Bacio" for Venzano's; Mme. Sembrich, Strauss's "Voce di Primavera," and Mme. Melba, Arditi's "Se saran rose." Mme. Viardot, with a finer sense of the fitness of things, but either forgetful or not apprehensive of the fate which befell her father at the first performance of the opera in Rome, introduced a Spanish song. Mme. Patti always kept a ready repertory for the scene, with a song in the vernacular of the people for whom she was singing to bring the enthusiasm to a climax and a finish: "Home, Sweet Home" in New York and London, "Solovei" in St. Petersburg. Usually she began with the bolero from "Les Vêpres Siciliennes," or the shadow dance from "Dinorah." Mme. Seinbrich, living in a period when the style of song of which she and Mme. Melba are still the brightest exemplars, is not as familiar as it used to be when they were children, also found it necessary