R.A. Streatfeild - The Opera

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Weber's last opera, 'Oberon,' is one of the few works written in recent
times by a foreign composer of the first rank for the English stage. The
libretto, which was the work of Planche, is founded upon an old French
romance, 'Huon of Bordeaux,' and though by no means a model of lucidity,
it contains many scenes both powerful and picturesque, which must have
captivated the imagination of a musician so impressionable as Weber. The
opera opens in fairyland, where a bevy of fairies is watching the
slumbers of Oberon. The fairy king has quarrelled with Titania, and has
vowed never to be reconciled to her until he shall find two lovers
constant to each other through trial and temptation. Puck, who has been
despatched to search for such a pair, enters with the news that Sir Huon
of Bordeaux, who had accidentally slain the son of Charlemagne, has been
commanded, in expiation of his crime, to journey to Bagdad, to claim the
Caliph's daughter as his bride, and slay the man who sits at his right
hand. Oberon forthwith throws Huon into a deep sleep, and in a vision
shows him Rezia, the daughter of the Caliph, of whom the ardent knight
instantly becomes enamoured. He then conveys him to the banks of the
Tigris, and giving him a magic horn, starts him upon his dangerous
enterprise. In the Caliph's palace Huon fights with Babekan, Rezia's
suitor, rescues the maiden, and with the aid of the magic horn carries
her off from the palace, while his esquire Sherasmin performs the same
kind office for Fatima, Rezia's attendant. On their way home they
encounter a terrific storm, raised by the power of Oberon to try their
constancy. They are ship-wrecked, and Rezia is carried off by pirates to
Tunis, whilst Huon is left for dead upon the beach. At Tunis more
troubles are in store for the hapless pair. Huon, who has been
transported by the fairies across the sea, finds his way into the house
of the Emir, where Rezia is in slavery. There he is unlucky enough to
win the favour of Roshana, the Emir's wife, and before he can escape
from her embraces he is discovered by the Emir himself, and condemned to
be burned alive. Rezia proclaims herself his wife, and she also is
condemned to the stake; but at this crisis Oberon intervenes. The lovers
have been tried enough, and their constancy is rewarded. They are
transported to the court of Charlemagne, where a royal welcome awaits
them.

Although written for England, 'Oberon' has never achieved much
popularity in this, or indeed in any country. The fairy music is
exquisite throughout, but the human interest of the story is after all
slight, and Weber, on whom the hand of death was heavy as he wrote the
score, failed to infuse much individuality into his characters. 'Oberon'
was his last work, and he died in London soon after it was produced.
During the last few years of his life he had been engaged in a desultory
way upon the composition of a comic opera, 'Die drei Pintos,' founded
upon a Spanish subject. He left this in an unfinished state, but some
time after his death it was found that the manuscript sketches and notes
for the work were on a scale sufficiently elaborate to give a proper
idea of what the composer's intentions with regard to the work really
were. The work of arrangement was entrusted to Herr G. Mahler, and under
his auspices 'Die drei Pintos' was actually produced, though with little
success.

At the present time the only opera of Weber which can truthfully be said
to belong to the current repertory is 'Der Freischuetz,' and even this is
rarely performed out of Germany. The small amount of favour which
'Euryanthe' and 'Oberon' enjoy is due, as has been already pointed out,
chiefly to the weakness of their libretti, yet it seems strange that the
man to whom the whole tendency of modern opera is due should hold so
small a place in our affections. The changes which Weber and his
followers effected, though less drastic, were in their results fully as
important as those of Gluck. In the orchestra as well as on the stage
he introduced a new spirit, a new point of view. What modern music owes
to him may be summed up in a word. Without Weber, Wagner would have been
impossible.

Louis Spohr (1784-1859) is now almost forgotten as an operatic composer,
but at one time his popularity was only second to that of Weber. Many
competent critics have constantly affirmed that a day will come when
Spohr's operas, now neglected, will return to favour once more; but
years pass, and there seems no sign of a revival of interest in his
work. Yet he has a certain importance in the history of opera; for, so
far as chronology is concerned, he ought perhaps to be termed the
founder of the romantic school rather than Weber, since his 'Faust' was
produced in 1818, and 'Der Freischuetz' did not appear until 1821. But
the question seems to turn not so much upon whether Spohr or Weber were
first in the field, as whether Spohr is actually a romantic composer at
all. If the subjects which he treated were all that need be taken into
account, the matter could easily be decided. No composer ever dealt more
freely in the supernatural than Spohr. His operas are peopled with
elves, ghosts, and goblins. Ruined castles, midnight assassins, and
distressed damsels greet us on every page. But if we go somewhat deeper,
we find that the real qualities of romanticism are strangely absent from
his music. His form differs little from that of his classical
predecessors, and his orchestration is curiously arid and unsuggestive;
in a word, the breath of imagination rarely animates his pages. Yet the
workmanship of his operas is so admirable, and his vein of melody is so
delicate and refined, that it is difficult to help thinking that Spohr
has been unjustly neglected. His 'Faust,' which has nothing to do with
Goethe's drama, was popular in England fifty years ago; and 'Jessonda,'
which contains the best of his music, is still occasionally performed in
Germany. The rest of his works, with the exception of a few scattered
airs, such as 'Rose softly blooming,' from 'Zemire und Azor,' seem to be
completely forgotten.

Heinrich Marschner (1796-1861), though not a pupil of Weber, was
strongly influenced by his music, and carried on the traditions of the
romantic school worthily and well. He was a man of vivid imagination,
and revelled in uncanny legends of the supernatural. His works are
performed with tolerable frequency in Germany, and still please by
reason of their inexhaustible flow of melody and their brilliant and
elaborate orchestration. 'Hans Heiling,' his masterpiece, is founded
upon a sombre old legend of the Erzgebirge. The king of the gnomes has
seen and loved a Saxon maiden, Anna by name, and to win her heart he
leaves his palace in the bowels of the earth and masquerades as a
village schoolmaster under the name of Hans Heiling. Anna is flattered
by his attentions, and promises to be his wife; but she soon tires of
her gloomy lover, and ends by openly admitting her preference for the
hunter Conrad. Her resolution to break with Hans is confirmed by an
apparition of the queen of the gnomes, Hans Heiling's mother, surrounded
by her attendant sprites, who warns her under fearful penalties to
forswear the love of an immortal. Hans Heiling is furious at the perfidy
of Anna, and vows terrible vengeance upon her and Conrad, which he is
about to put into execution with the aid of his gnomes. At the last
moment, however, his mother appears, and persuades him to relinquish all
hopes of earthly love and to return with her to their subterranean home.
There is much in this strange story which suggests the legend of the
Flying Dutchman, and, bearing in mind the admiration which in his early
days Wagner felt for the works of Marschner, it is interesting to trace
in 'Hans Heiling' the source of much that is familiar to us in the score
of 'Der Fliegende Hollaender.' Of Marschner's other operas, the most
familiar are 'Templer und Juedin,' founded upon Sir Walter Scott's
'Ivanhoe,' a fine work, suffering from a confused and disconnected
libretto; and 'Der Vampyr,' a tale of unmitigated gloom and horror.

Weber and Marschner show the German romantic school at its best; for the
lesser men, such as Hoffmann and Lindpaintner, did little but reproduce
the salient features of their predecessors more or less faithfully. The
romantic school is principally associated with the sombre dramas, in
which the taste of that time delighted; but there was another side to
the movement which must not be neglected. The Singspiel, established by
Hiller and perfected by Mozart, had languished during the early years
of the century, or rather had fallen into the hands of composers who
were entirely unable to do justice to its possibilities. The romantic
movement touched it into new life, and a school arose which contrived by
dint of graceful melody and ingenious orchestral device to invest with
real musical interest the simple stories in which the German
middle-class delights. The most successful of these composers were
Kreutzer and Lortzing.

Conradin Kreutzer (1782-1849) was a prolific composer, but the only one
of his operas which can honestly be said to have survived to our times
is 'Das Nachtlager von Granada.' This tells the tale of an adventure
which befell the Prince Regent of Spain. While hunting in the mountains
he falls in with Gabriela, a pretty peasant maiden who is in deep
distress. She confides to him that her affairs of the heart have gone
awry. Her lover, Gomez the shepherd, is too poor to marry, and her
father wishes her to accept the Croesus of the village, a man whom she
detests. The handsome huntsman--for such she supposes him to
be--promises to intercede for her with his patron the Prince, and when
her friends and relations, a band of arrant smugglers and thieves,
appear, he tries to buy their consent to her union with Gomez by means
of a gold chain which he happens to be wearing. The sight of so much
wealth arouses the cupidity of the knaves, and they at once brew a plot
to murder the huntsman in his sleep. Luckily Gabriela overhears their
scheming, and puts the Prince upon his guard. The assassins find him
prepared for their assault, and ready to defend himself to the last
drop of blood. Fortunately matters do not come to a climax. A body of
the Prince's attendants arrive in time to prevent any bloodshed, and the
opera ends with the discomfiture of the villains and the happy
settlement of Gabriela's love affairs. Kreutzer's music is for the most
part slight, and occasionally borders upon the trivial, but several
scenes are treated in the true romantic spirit, and some of the
concerted pieces are admirably written. Lortzing (1803-1852) was a more
gifted musician than Kreutzer, and several of his operas are still
exceedingly popular in Germany. The scene of 'Czar und Zimmermann,'
which is fairly well known in England as 'Peter the Shipwright,' is laid
at Saardam, where Peter the Great is working in a shipyard under the
name of Michaelhoff. There is another Russian employed in the same yard,
a deserter named Peter Ivanhoff, and the very slight incidents upon
which the action of the opera hinges arise from the mistakes of a
blundering burgomaster who confuses the identity of the two men. The
music is exceedingly bright and tuneful, and much of it is capitally
written. Scarcely less popular in Germany than 'Czar und Zimmermann' is
'Der Wildschuetz' (The Poacher), a bustling comedy of intrigue and
disguise, which owes its name to the mistake of a foolish old village
schoolmaster, who fancies that he has shot a stag in the baronial
preserves. The chief incidents in the piece arise from the humours of a
vivacious baroness, who disguises herself as a servant in order to make
the acquaintance of her _fiance_, unknown to him. The music of 'Der
Wildschuetz' is no less bright and unpretentious than that of 'Czar und
Zimmermann'; in fact, these two works may be taken as good specimens of
Lortzing's engaging talent. His strongest points are a clever knack of
treating the voices contrapuntally in concerted pieces, and a humorous
trick of orchestration, two features with which English audiences have
become pleasantly familiar in Sir Arthur Sullivan's operettas, which
works indeed owe not a little to the influence of Lortzing and Kreutzer.

Inferior even to the slightest of the minor composers of the romantic
school was Flotow, whose 'Martha' nevertheless has survived to our time,
while hundreds of works far superior in every way have perished
irretrievably. Flotow (1812-1883) was a German by birth, but his music
is merely a feeble imitation of the popular Italianisms of the day.
'Martha' tells the story of a freakish English lady who, with her maid,
disguises herself as a servant and goes to the hiring fair at Richmond.
There they fall in with an honest farmer of the neighbourhood named
Plunket, and his friend Lionel, who promptly engage them. The two
couples soon fall in love with each other, but various hindrances arise
which serve to prolong the story into four weary acts. Flotow had a
certain gift of melody, and the music of 'Martha' has the merit of a
rather trivial tunefulness, but the score is absolutely devoid of any
real musical interest, and the fact that performances of such a work as
'Martha' are still possible in London gives an unfortunate impression of
the standard of musical taste prevailing in England. Otto Nicolai
(1810-1849) began by imitating Italian music, but in 'Die lustigen
Weiber von Windsor,' a capital adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Merry Wives
of Windsor,' which was only produced a few months before his death, he
returned to the type of comic opera which was popular at that time in
Germany. He was an excellent musician, and the captivating melody of
this genial little work is supplemented by excellent concerted writing
and thoroughly sound orchestration.

To this period belong the operas written by three composers who in other
branches of music have won immortality, although their dramatic works
have failed to win lasting favour.

Mendelssohn's (1809-1847) boyish opera 'Die Hochzeit des Camacho' is too
inexperienced a work to need more than a passing word, and his
Liederspiel 'Heimkehr aus der Fremde' is little more than a collection
of songs; but the finale to his unfinished 'Lorelei' shows that he
possessed genuine dramatic power, and it must be a matter for regret
that his difficulties in fixing on a libretto prevented his giving
anything to the permanent repertory of the stage.

Schubert (1797-1828) wrote many works for the stage--romantic operas
like 'Fierrabras' and 'Alfonso und Estrella,' operettas like 'Der
haeusliche Krieg,' and farces like 'Die Zwillingsbrueder.' Most of them
were saddled by inane libretti, and though occasionally revived by
enthusiastic admirers of the composer, only prove that Schubert's talent
was essentially not dramatic, however interesting his music may be to
musicians.

Schumann's (1810-1856) one contribution to the history of opera,
'Genoveva,' is decidedly more important, and indeed it seems possible
that after many years of neglect it may at last take a place in the
modern repertory. It is founded upon a tragedy by Hebbel, and tells of
the passion of Golo for Genoveva, the wife of his patron Siegfried, his
plot to compromise her, and the final triumph of the constant wife. The
music cannot be said to be undramatic; on the contrary, Schumann often
realises the situations with considerable success: but he had little
power of characterisation, and all the characters sing very much the
same kind of music. This gives a feeling of monotony to the score, which
is hardly dispelled even by the many beauties with which it is adorned.
Nevertheless 'Genoveva' has been revived in several German towns of late
years, and its music has always met with much applause from
connoisseurs, though it is never likely to be generally popular.

CHAPTER VII

ROSSINI, DONIZETTI, AND BELLINI

While Weber was reconstructing opera in Germany and laying the
foundations upon which the vast structure of modern lyrical drama was
afterwards reared by the composers of our own day, reforms, or at any
rate innovations, were being introduced into Italian opera by a musician
scarcely less gifted even than the founder of the romantic school
himself. Rossini (1792-1868) owed but little of his fame to instruction
or study. As soon as he had been assured by his master that he knew
enough of the grammar of music to write an opera, he relinquished his
studies once for all, and started life as a composer. In this perhaps he
showed his wisdom, for his natural gifts were of such a nature as could
scarcely have been enhanced by erudition, and the mission which he so
amply fulfilled in freeing his national art from eighteenth-century
convention was certainly not one which depended upon a profound
knowledge of counterpoint. Nature had fortunately endowed him with
precisely the equipment necessary for the man who was to reform Italian
opera. The school of Paisiello, notwithstanding its many merits, had
several grievous weaknesses, of which the most prominent were
uniformity of melodic type, nerveless and conventional orchestration,
and intolerable prolixity. Rossini brought to his task a vein of melody
as inexhaustible in inspiration as it was novel in form, a natural
instinct for instrumental colour, and a firm conviction that brevity was
the soul of wit. He leapt into fame with 'Tancredi,' which was produced
in 1813 and established his reputation as a composer of opera seria. In
opera buffa, a field in which his talents shone even more brilliantly,
his earliest success was made with 'L'Italiana in Algeri' (1813), which
was followed in 1815 by the world-famous 'Barbiere di Siviglia.' This
was originally produced in Rome under the name of 'Almaviva,' and
strangely enough, proved an emphatic failure. For this, however, the
music was scarcely responsible. The people of Rome were at that time
devotees of the music of Paisiello, and resented the impertinence of the
upstart Rossini in venturing to borrow a subject which had already been
treated by the older master. 'Il Barbiere' soon recovered from the shock
of its unfriendly reception, and is now one of the very few of Rossini's
works which have survived to the present day. The story is bright and
amusing and the music brilliant and exhilarating, but it is to be feared
that the real explanation of the continued success of the little opera
lies in the opportunity which it offers to the prima donna of
introducing her favourite _cheval de bataille_ in the lesson scene. The
scene of the opera is laid at Seville. Count Almaviva has fallen in
love with Rosina, a fascinating damsel, whose guardian, Bartolo, keeps
her under lock and key, in the hope of persuading her to marry himself.
Figaro, a ubiquitous barber, who is in everybody's confidence, takes the
Count under his protection, and contrives to smuggle him into the house
in the disguise of a drunken soldier. Unfortunately this scheme is
frustrated by the arrival of the guard, who arrest the refractory hero
and carry him off to gaol. In the second act the Count succeeds in
getting into the house as a music-master, but in order to gain the
suspicious Bartolo's confidence he has to show him one of Rosina's
letters to himself, pretending that it was given him by a mistress of
Almaviva. Bartolo is delighted with the news of the Count's infidelity
and hastens to tell the scandal to Rosina, whose jealousy and
disappointment nearly bring Almaviva's deep-laid schemes to destruction.
Happily he finds an opportunity of persuading her of his constancy while
her guardian's back is turned, and induces her to elope before Bartolo
has discovered the fraud practised upon him. The music is a delightful
example of Rossini in his gayest and merriest mood. It sparkles with wit
and fancy, and is happily free from those concessions to the vanity or
idiosyncrasy of individual singers which do so much to render his music
tedious to modern ears. Of Rossini's lighter works, 'Il Barbiere' is
certainly the most popular, though, musically speaking, it is perhaps
not superior to 'La Gazza Ladra,' which, however, is saddled with an
idiotic libretto. None of his tragic operas except 'Guillaume Tell,'
which belongs to a later period, have retained their hold upon the
affections of the public. Nevertheless there is so much excellent music
in the best of them, that it would not be strange if the course of time
should bring them once more into favour, provided always that singers
were forthcoming capable of singing the elaborate _fioriture_ with which
they abound. Perhaps the finest of the serious operas of Rossini's
Italian period is 'Semiramide' a work which is especially interesting as
a proof of the strong influence which Mozart exercised upon him. The
plot is a Babylonian version of the story of Agamemnon, telling of the
vengeance taken by Arsaces, the son of Ninus and Semiramis, upon his
guilty mother, who, with the help of her paramour Assur, had slain her
husband. Much of the music is exceedingly powerful, notably that which
accompanies the apparition of the ghost of Ninus (although this is
evidently inspired by 'Don Giovanni'), and the passionate scene in which
the conscience-stricken Assur pours forth his soul in tempest. More
thoroughly Italian in type is 'Mose in Egitto,' a curious though
effective version of the Biblical story, which is still occasionally
performed as an oratorio in this country, a proceeding which naturally
gives little idea of its real merits. In 1833 it was actually given
under the proper conditions, as a sacred opera, strengthened by a
generous infusion of Handel's 'Israel in Egypt,' under the direction of
Mr. Rophino Lacy. It would be an idle task to give even the names of
Rossini's many operas. Suffice it to say that between 1810 and 1828 he
produced upwards of forty distinct works. In 1829 came his last and
greatest work, 'Guillaume Tell,' which was written for the Grand Opera
in Paris. The libretto was the work of many hands, and Rossini's own
share in it was not a small one. It follows Schiller with tolerable
closeness. In the first act Tell saves the life of Leuthold, who is
being pursued by Gessler's soldiers; and Melchthal, the patriarch of the
village, is put to death on a charge of insubordination. His son Arnold
loves Matilda, the sister of Gessler, and hesitates between love and
duty. Finally, however, he joins Tell, who assembles the men of the
three forest cantons, and binds them with an oath to exterminate their
oppressors or perish in the attempt. In the third act comes the famous
archery scene. Tell refuses to bow to Gessler's hat, and is condemned to
shoot the apple from his son's head. This he successfully accomplishes,
but the presence of a second arrow in his quiver arouses Gessler's
suspicions. Tell confesses that had he killed his son, the second arrow
would have despatched the tyrant, and is at once thrown into prison. In
the last act we find Arnold raising a band of followers and himself
accomplishing the rescue of Tell; Gessler is slain, and Matilda is
united to her lover.

'Guillaume Tell' is not only indisputably Rossini's finest work, but it
also give convincing proof of the plasticity of the composer's genius.
Accustomed as he had been for many years to turning out Italian operas
by the score--graceful trifles enough, but too often flimsy and
conventional--it says much for the character of the man that, when the
occasion arrived, he could attack such a subject as that of Tell with
the proper seriousness and reserve. He took what was best in the style
and tradition of French opera and welded it to the thoroughly Italian
fabric with which he was familiar. He put aside the excessive
ornamentation with which his earlier works had been overladen, and
treated the voices with a simplicity and dignity thoroughly in keeping
with the subject. The choral and instrumental parts of the opera are
particularly important; the latter especially have a colour and variety
which may be considered to have had a large share in forming the taste
for delicate orchestral effects for which modern French composers are
famous. 'Guillaume Tell' was to have been the first of a series of five
operas written for the Paris Opera by special arrangement with the
government of Charles X. The revolution of 1830 put an end to this
scheme, and a few years later, finding himself displaced by Meyerbeer in
the affections of the fickle Parisian public, Rossini made up his mind
to write no more for the stage. He lived for nearly forty years after
the production of 'Guillaume Tell,' but preferred a life of ease and
leisure to entering the lists once more as a candidate for fame. What
the world lost by this decision, it is difficult to say; but if we
remember the extraordinary development which took place in the style and
methods of Wagner and Verdi, we cannot think without regret of the
composer of 'Guillaume Tell' making up his mind while still a young man
to abandon the stage for ever. Nevertheless, although much of his music
soon became old-fashioned, Rossini's work was not unimportant. The
invention of the cabaletta, or quick movement, following the cavatina or
slow movement, must be ascribed to him, an innovation which has affected
the form of opera, German and French, as well as Italian, throughout
this century. Even more important was the change which he introduced
into the manner of singing _fioriture_ or florid music. Before his day
singers had been accustomed to introduce cadenzas of their own, to a
great extent when they liked. Rossini insisted upon their singing
nothing but what was set down for them. Naturally he was compelled to
write cadenzas for them as elaborate and effective as those which they
had been in the habit of improvising, so that much of his Italian music
sounds empty and meaningless to our ears. But he introduced the thin
edge of the wedge, and although even to the days of Jenny Lind singers
were occasionally permitted to interpolate cadenzas of their own, the
old tradition that an opera was merely an opportunity for the display of
individual vanity was doomed.

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