History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time

LULLI A BUFFOON

Fortunately, Molière was at Versailles. Lulli asked him at the conclusion of the ballet to announce a performance of M. de Pourceaugnac, a piece which never failed to divert Louis; and it was arranged that just before the rise of the curtain Molière should excuse himself, on the score of a sudden indisposition, from appearing in the principal character. When there seemed to be no chance of M. de Pourceaugnac being played, Lulli, that the king might not be disappointed, nobly volunteered to undertake the part of the hero, and exerted himself in an unprecedented manner to do it justice. But his majesty, who generally found the troubles of the Limousin gentleman so amusing, on this occasion did not even smile. The great scene was about to begin; the scene in which the apothecaries, armed with their terrible weapons, attack M. de Pourceaugnac and chase him round the stage. Louis looked graver than ever. Then the comedian, as a last hope, rushed from the back of the stage to the foot lights, sprang into the orchestra, alighted on the harpsichord, and smashed it into a thousand pieces. "By this fall he rose." Probably he hurt himself, but no matter; on looking round he saw the Great Monarch in convulsions of laughter. Encouraged by his success, he climbed back through the prompter's box on to the stage; the royal mirth increased, and Lulli was now once more reinstated in the good graces of his sovereign.

Molière had a high opinion of Lulli's facetious powers. "Fais nous rire, Baptiste," he would say, and it cannot have been any sort of joke that would have excited the laughter of the greatest of comic writers. Nevertheless, he fell out with Lulli when the latter attained the "privilege" of the Opera, and, profiting by the monopoly which it secured to him, forbade the author of Tartuffe to introduce more than two singers in his interludes, or to employ more than six violins in his orchestra. Accordingly, Molière entrusted the composition of the music for the Malade Imaginaire, to Charpentier. The songs and symphonies of all his other pieces, with the exception of Mélicerte, were composed by Lulli.

The story of Lulli's obtaining letters of nobility through the excellence of his buffoonery in the part of the Muphti, in the Bourgeois Gentilhomme has often been told. This was in 1670, but once a noble, and director of the Royal Academy of Music, he showed but little disposition to contribute to the diversion of others, even by the exercise of his legitimate art. Not only did he refuse to play the violin, but he would not even have one in his house. To overcome Lulli's repugnance in this respect, Marshal de Gramont hit upon a very ingenious plan. He used to make one of his servants who possessed the gift of converting music into noise, play the violin in Lulli's presence. Upon this, the highly susceptible musician would snatch the instrument from the valet's hands, and restore the murdered melody to life and beauty; then, excited by the pleasure of producing music, he forgot all around him, and continued to play to the great delight of the marshal.

Many curious stories are told of Lafontaine's want of success as a librettist; Lulli refused three of his operas, one after the other, Daphné, Astrée, and Acis et Galathée– the Acis et Galathée set to music by Lulli being the work of Campistron. At the first representation of Astrée, of which the music had been written by Colasse (a composer who imitated and often plagiarised from Lulli), Lafontaine was present in a box behind some ladies who did not know him. He kept exclaiming every moment, "Detestable! detestable!"

LAFONTAINE'S IMPARTIALITY

Tired of hearing the same thing repeated so many times, the ladies at last turned round and said, "It is really not so bad. The author is a man of considerable wit; it is written by M. de la Fontaine."

"Cela ne vaut pas le diable," replied the librettist, "and this Lafontaine of whom you speak is an ass. I am Lafontaine, and ought to know."

After the first act he left the theatre and went into the Café Marion, where he fell asleep. One of his friends came in, and surprised to see him, said – "M. de la Fontaine! How is this? Ought you not to be at the first performance of your opera?"

The author awoke, and said, with a yawn – "I've been; and the first act was so dull that I had not the courage to wait for the other. I admire the patience of these Parisians!"

Compare this with the similar conduct of an English humourist, Charles Lamb, who, meeting with no greater success as a dramatist than Lafontaine, was equally astonished at the patience of the public, and remained in the pit to hiss his own farce.

Colasse, Lafontaine's composer, and Campistron, one of Lulli's librettists – when Quinault was not in the way – occasionally worked together, and with no very favourable result. Hence, mutual reproaches, each attributing the failure of the opera to the stupidity of the other. This suggested the following epigram, which, under similar circumstances, has been often imitated: —

"Entre Campistron et Colasse, Grand débat s'émeut au Parnasse,Sur ce que l'opéra n'a pas un sort heureux.De son mauvais succès nul ne se croit coupable.L'un dit que la musique est plate et misérable,L'autre que la conduite et les vers sont affreux;Et le grand Apollon, toujours juge équitable,Trouve qu'ils ont raison tous deux."

Quinault was by far the most successful of Lulli's librettists, in spite of the contempt with which his verses were always treated by Boileau. Boileau liked Lulli's music, but when he entered the Opera, and was asked where he would sit, he used to reply, "Put me in some place where I shall not be able to hear the words."

THE FIDDLE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Lulli must have had sad trouble with his orchestra, for in his time a violinist was looked upon as merely an adjunct to a dancing-master. There was a king of the fiddles, without whose permission no cat-gut could be scraped; and in selling his licenses to dancing-masters and the musicians of ball-rooms, the ruler of the bows does not appear to have required any proof of capacity from his clients. Even the simple expedient of shifting was unknown to Lulli's violinists, and for years after his death, to reach the C above the line was a notable feat. The pit quite understood the difficulty, and when the dreaded démanchement had to be accomplished, would indulge in sarcastic shouts of "gare l'ut! gare l'ut!"

The violin was not in much repute in the 17th, and still less in the 16th, century. The lute was a classical instrument; the harp was the instrument of the Troubadours; but the fiddle was fit only for servants, and fiddlers and servants were classed together.

"Such a one," says Malherbe, "who seeks for his ancestors among heroes is the son of a lacquey or a fiddler."

Brantôme, relating the death of Mademoiselle de Limeuil, one of the Queen's maids of honour, who expired, poor girl, to a violin accompaniment, expresses himself as follows: —

"When the hour of her death had arrived, she sent for her valet, such as all the maids of honour have; and he was called Julien, and played very well on the violin. 'Julien,' said she, 'take your violin and play to me continually, until you see me dead, the Defeat of the Swiss,5 as well as you are able; and when you are at the passage All is lost, sound it four or five times as piteously as you can; which the other did, while she herself assisted him with her voice. She recited it twice, and then turning on the other side of her pillow said to her companions, 'All is lost this time, as well I know,' and thus died."

These musical valets were as much slaves as the ancient flute players of the Roman nobles, and were bought, sold, and exchanged like horses and dogs. When their services were not required at home, masters and mistresses who were generously inclined would allow their fiddlers to go out and play in the streets on their own account.

Strange tales are told of the members of Lulli's company. Duménil, the tenor, used to steal jewellery from the soprano and contralto of the troop, and get intoxicated with the baritone. This eccentric virtuoso is said to have drunk six bottles of champagne every night he performed, and to have improved gradually until about the fifth. Duménil, after one of his voyages to England, which he visited several times, lost his voice. Then, seeing no reason why he should moderate his intemperance at all, he gave himself up unrestrainedly to drinking, and died.

OPERATIC ORTHOGRAPHY

Mdlle. Desmâtins, the original representative of Armide was chiefly celebrated for her beauty, her love of good living, her corpulence, and her bad grammar. She it was who wrote the celebrated letter communicating to a friend the death of her child, "Notre anfan ai maure, vien de boneure, le mien ai de te voire." Mlle. Desmâtins took so much pleasure in representing royal personages that she assumed the (theatrical) costume and demeanour of a queen in her own household, sat on a throne, and made her attendants serve her on their knees. Another vocalist, Marthe le Rochois, accused of grave flirtation with a bassoon, justified herself by showing a promise of marriage, which the gallant instrumentalist had written on the back of an ace of spades.

The Opera singers of this period were not particularly well paid, and history relates that Mlles. Aubry and Verdier, being engaged for the same line of business, had to live in the same room and sleep in the same bed.

Marthe Le Rochois was fond of giving advice to her companions. "Inspire yourself with the situation," she said to Desmâtins, who had to represent Medea abandoned by Jason; "fancy yourself in the poor woman's place. If you were deserted by a lover, whom you adored," added Marthe, thinking, no doubt, of the bassoon, "what should you do?" "I should look out for another," replied the ingenuous girl.

But by far the most distinguished operatic actress of this period was Mlle. de Maupin, now better known through Théophile Gauthier's scandalous, but brilliant and vigorously written romance, than by her actual adventures and exploits, which, however, were sufficiently remarkable. Among the most amusing of her escapades, were her assaults upon Duménil and Thévenard, the before-mentioned tenor and baritone of the Academie. Dressed in male attire she went up to the former one night in the Place des Victoires, caned him, deprived him of his watch and snuff-box, and the next day produced the trophies at the theatre just as the plundered vocalist was boasting that he had been attacked by three robbers, and had put them all to flight. She is said to have terrified the latter to such a degree that he remained three weeks hiding from her in the Palais Royal.

Mlle. de Maupin was in many respects the Lola Montes of her day, but with more beauty, more talent, more power, and more daring. When she appeared as Minerva, in Lulli's Cadmus, and taking off her helmet to the public, showed all her beautiful light brown hair, which hung in luxuriant tresses over her shoulders, the audience were in ecstacies of delight. With less talent, and less powers of fascination, she would infallibly have been executed for the numerous fatal duels in which she was engaged, and might even have been burnt alive for invading the sanctity of a convent at Avignon, to say nothing of her attempting to set fire to it. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that Lola Montes was the Mlle. Maupin of her day; a Maupin of a century which is moderate in its passions and its vices as in other things.

A COMPOSER OF SACRED MUSIC

Moreau, the successor of Lulli, is chiefly known as having written the music for the choruses of Racine's Esther, (1689). These choruses, re-arranged by Perne, were performed in 1821, at the Conservatoire of Paris, and were much applauded. Racine, in his preface to Esther, says, "I cannot finish this preface without rendering justice to the author of the music, and confessing frankly that his (choral) songs formed one of the greatest attractions of the piece. All connoisseurs are agreed that for a long time no airs have been heard more touching, or more suitable to the words." Nevertheless, Madame de Maintenon's special composer was not eminently religious in his habits. The musician whose hymns were sung by the daughters of Sion and of St. Cyr sought his inspiration at a tavern in the Rue St. Jacques, in company with the poet Lainez and with most of the singers and dancers of the period. No member of the Opera rode past the Cabaret de la Barre Royale without tying his horse up in the yard and going in for a moment to have a word and a glass with Moreau. Sometimes the moment became an hour, sometimes several. The horses of Létang and Favier, dancers at the Académie, after being left eight hours in the court-yard without food, gnawed through their bridles, and, looking no doubt for the stable, found their way into a bed-room, where they devoured the contents of a dilapidated straw mattrass. "We must all live," said Lainez, when he saw a mattrass charged for among the items of the repast, and he hastened to offer the unfortunate animals a ration of wine.

FRENCH MUSIC IN ENGLAND

When Cambert arrived in London he found Charles II. and his Court fully disposed to patronise any sort of importation from France. Naturally, then, the founder of French Opera was well received. Even Lock, in many of his pieces, had imitated the French style; and though he had been employed to compose the music for the public entry of Charles II., at the Restoration, and was afterwards appointed composer in ordinary to His Majesty, Cambert, immediately on his arrival, was made master of the king's band; and two years afterwards an English version of his Ariadne was produced. "You knew Cambert," says de Vizé, in Le Mercure Galant; "he has just died in London (1677), where he received many favours from the King of England and from the greatest noblemen of his Court, who had a high opinion of his genius. What they have seen of his works has not belied the reputation he had acquired in France. It is to him we owe the establishment of the operas that are now represented. The music of those of Pomona, and of the Pains and Pleasures of Love, is by him, and since that time we have had no recitative in France that has appeared new." In several English books, Grabut, who accompanied Cambert to England, is said to have arranged the music of Ariadne, and even to have composed it; but this is manifestly an error. This same Grabut wrote the music to Dryden's celebrated political opera Albion and Albanius, which was performed at the Duke's Theatre in 1685, and of which the representations were stopped by the news of Monmouth's invasion. Purcell, who was only fifteen years of age when Ariadne was produced, was now twenty-six, and had written a great deal of admirable dramatic music. Probably the public thought that to him, and not to the Frenchman, might have been confided the task of setting Albion and Albanius, for in the preface to that work Dryden says, as if apologetically, that "during the rehearsal the king had publicly declared more than once, that the composition and choruses were more just and more beautiful than any he had heard in England." Then after a warm commendation of Grabut Dryden adds, "This I say, not to flatter him, but to do him right; because among some English musicians, and their scholars, who are sure to judge after them, the imputation of being a Frenchman is enough to make a party who maliciously endeavour to decry him. But the knowledge of Latin and Italian poets, both of which he possesses, besides his skill in music, and his being acquainted with all the performances of the French operas, adding to these the good sense to which he is born, have raised him to a degree above any man who shall pretend to be his rival on our stage. When any of our countrymen excel him, I shall be glad, for the sake of Old England, to be shown my error: in the meantime, let virtue be commended, though in the person of a stranger."

Neither Grabut nor Cambert was the first composer who produced a complete opera in England. During the Commonwealth, in 1656, Sir William Davenant had obtained permission to open a theatre for the performance of operas, in a large room, at the back of Rutland House, in the upper end of Aldersgate Street; and, long before, the splendid court masques of James I. and Charles I. had given opportunities for the development of recitative, which was first composed in England by an Italian, named Laniere, an eminent musician, painter and engraver. The Opera had been established in Italy since the beginning of the century, and we have seen that in 1607, Monteverde wrote his Orfeo for the court of Mantua. But it was still known in England and France only through the accounts, respectively, of Evelyn and of St. Evrémond.

THE FIRST ENGLISH OPERA

The first English opera produced at Sir William Davenant's theatre, the year of its opening, was The Siege of Rhodes, "made a representation by the art of perspective in scenes, and the story sung in recitative music." There were five changes of scene, according to the ancient dramatic distinctions made for time, and there were seven performers. The part of "Solyman" was taken by Captain Henry Cook, that of "Ianthe" by Mrs. Coleman, who appears to have been the first actress on the English stage – in the sense in which Heine was the first poet of his century (having been born on the 1st of January, 1800)6 and Beaumarchais the first poet in Paris (to a person entering the city from the Porte St. Antoine).7 The remaining five parts were "doubled." That of the "Admiral" was taken by Mr. Peter Rymon, and Matthew Lock, the future composer of the music to Macbeth; that of "Mustapha," by Mr. Thomas Blagrave, and Henry Purcell, the father of the composer of King Arthur, and himself an accomplished musician. The vocal music of the first and fifth "entries" or acts, was composed by Henry Lawes; that of the second and third, by Captain Henry Cook, afterwards master of the children of the Chapel Royal; that of the fourth, by Lock. The instrumental music was by Dr. Charles Coleman and George Hudson, and was performed by an orchestra of six musicians.

The first English opera then was produced, ten years later than the first French opera; but the Siege of Rhodes was performed publicly, whereas, it was not until fifteen years afterwards (1671) that the first public performance of a French opera (Cambert's Pomone) took place. Ordinances for the suppression of stage plays had been in force in England since 1642, and in 1643, a tract was printed under the title of The Actor's Remonstrance, showing to what distress the musicians of the theatre had been already reduced. The writer says, "But musike that was held so delectable and precious that they scorned to come to a tavern under twenty shillings salary for two hours, now wander with their instruments under their cloaks (I mean such as have any) to all houses of good fellowship, saluting every room where there is company with 'will you have any musike, gentlemen.'" In 1648, moreover, a provost-marshal was appointed with power to seize upon all ballad singers, and to suppress stage plays.

Nevertheless, Oliver Cromwell was a great lover of music. He is said to have "entertained the most skilful in that science in his pay and family;" and it is known that he engaged Hingston, a celebrated musician, formerly in the service of Charles, at a salary of one hundred a-year – the Hingston, at whose house Sir Roger l'Estrange was playing, and continued to play when Oliver entered the room, which gained for this virtuoso the title of "Oliver's fiddler." Antony à Wood, also tells a story of Cromwell's love of music. James Quin, one of the senior students of Christ Church, with a bass voice, "very strong and exceeding trouling," had been turned out of his place by the visitors, but, "being well acquainted with some great men of those times that loved music, they introduced him into the company of Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, who loved a good voice and instrumental music well. He heard him sing with great delight, liquored him with sack, and in conclusion, said, 'Mr. Quin, you have done well, what shall I do for you?' To which Quin made answer, 'That your highness would be pleased to restore me to my student's place,' which he did accordingly." But the best proof that can be given of Oliver Cromwell's love for music is the simple fact that, under his government, and with his special permission, the Opera was founded in this country.

CROMWELL'S LOVE OF MUSIC

We have seen that in Charles II's reign, the court reserved its patronage almost exclusively for French music, or music in the French style. When Cambert arrived in London, our Great Purcell (born, 1659) was still a child. He produced his first opera, Dido and Æneas, the year of Cambert's death (1677); but, although, in the 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.

PURCELL

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.