by Noel D'Arcy, A.B..
Originally published in Belgravia (John Maxwell) vol.4 #15 (Jan 1868).
My earliest recollections of Her Majesty's Theatre date from 1834, the second or third year of the engagement of Giulietta Grisi at the Opera. It was a period of extraordinary excitement in the musical world. The sensation created by the young and accomplished prima donna can hardly now be conceived. Those who estimate Grisi by her singing during the last ten years of her career can form no adequate idea of her vocal powers in her best days. A voice purer and brighter in tone, or of more delicious and sympathetic quality, was never heard. As a vocalist Grisi was highly cultivated, and as an actress possessed of the finest instincts; while in personal appearance she represented one of the fairest specimens of womankind that ever adorned the stage. Thus armed in triple mail of voice, art, and beauty, no wonder she conquered and prevailed. Yet Grisi did not come to England at a time—favourable to many singers—when the public, accustomed to indifferent artists, were ready to proclaim with delight the advent of a débutante of moderate merit. Far from it. Pasta had retired a few years, but the glory of her name still lingered among the echoes of the Opera. Henrietta Sontag had been married a short time previously, and had withdrawn into private life. Lalande and Blasis, two "first ladies" of high reputation, had "held the town" for several seasons; and Miss Stephens and Miss Paton had been sharing between them the laurels of the English operatic stage. But far more inimical to the success of any pretender to the loftiest honours of a dramatic vocalist was the fact that Malibran—"the greatest singer in the roll of fame"—had only seceded a year or two from the Italian Opera, and was performing at Drury Lane, creating a sensation unparalleled in the history of the theatre. Grisi nevertheless sang down all opposition, seemed to challenge all comparison, brought the operatic world to her feet, and was installed reigning favourite at Her Majesty's Theatre—a position she maintained without rivalry, or fear of rivalry, for years whose numbers need not be told.
People complain of the dearth of talent, lyric and histrionic, on the modern boards. Certainly the stage nowadays presents a different aspect from what it did when the writer of this notice first came to London. To show this, let me record the representations I saw in several theatres during my brief visit. My personal recollections of Her Majesty's Theatre are somehow mixed up with them. I came, in the aforesaid year, to London from Edinburgh with a friend. We went to the Opera on the evening of our arrival, and saw Rossini's Gazza Ladra, with Grisi, Brambilla, Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache. A more perfect performance could not be witnessed. Grisi's Ninetta was perhaps her most finished and exquisite achievement; Tamburini literally rioted in the florid music of Fernando, and acted with surpassing tenderness and force; Rubini gave the bewitching strains of the young soldier with consummate taste and expression, and a finesse beyond the compass of all other tenors; and Lablache endowed the part of the Podestà with a vocal power and dramatic significance it had never attained out of his hands. Brambilla too, with her rich, mellow, flexible contralto voice, gave the greatest possible effect to the music of Pippo. Speaking of the Gazza Ladra, I may observe here that this work, as well as almost all the other works of Rossini written in the florid style, has been banished from the modern Opera. We have no baritones now at either the Old or New House—M. Gassier might perhaps be excepted—who could give proper effect to the music of Assur in Semiramide, of Dandini in Cenerentola, of the father
in the Gazza Ladra, &c. In this respect Tamburini's loss, both at Her Majesty's Theatre and the Royal Italian Opera, was irreparable. In fact, singers now are not half educated; and Rossini's music, which demands for its just interpretation every artistic grace and ornament, is out of court, as the saying is. Who hears of tenors or baritones making use of the "shake" which Rubini and Tamburini were wont to introduce with such striking effect? Further, I may mention that prima donnas in the present day treat the author of the Barbiere and Otello rather cavalierly. Time was when, properly to master Rossini's music was of the last consequence to the singer. Pasta made her first appearance before a British audience as Desdemona in Otello; Malibran and Sontag severally as Rosina in the Barbiere; Grisi as Ninetta in Gazza Ladra; Pisaroni as Malcolm Græme in La Donna del Lago; and, to descend nearer to our own times, Alboni as Arsace in Semiramide. On the other hand, modern débutantes seem carefully to avoid the operas of the Swan of Pesaro, and give the preference to those of Verdi, Donizetti, Flotow, or Gounod, as requiring less capacity and less acquirements in the interpretation to gain themselves credit. I am sorry to have to say that Jenny Lind constituted herself no worthy precedent in this respect. She not only eschewed the example of her illustrious predecessors of the last half century, and declined to make her first appearance as a Rossinian singer, but the whole time she was at Her Majesty's Theatre never condescended to perform in one of the Italian master's operas. The inevitable conclusion to be arrived at therefrom is, that the Swedish Nightingale did not choose to provoke comparisons with Malibran, Sontag, and Grisi on their highest grounds.[1]
To return to my first visit to the Opera. After the performance of La Gazza Ladra, I had no great desire to see the ballet. I was, however, induced by my companion to remain. My "recollections" of this part of the evening's entertainment are not particularly vivid. I remember Fanny and Theresa Ellsler, and was much impressed by the natural graces and vigorous boundings of the one, and the queen-like appearance and dignified gestures of the other. What surprised me most was, that a greater amount of applause had been bestowed on either dancer than on Grisi. But these were the imperial days of the ballet and of the terpsichorean enthusiasm, which, a few years after, culminated in the "Pas de Quatre."
On the following Monday I went alone to Drury Lane to see the Sonnambula performed in English—Amina, Madame Malibran. The occurrences of that night have left an indelible impression on my mind. The "prologue" to the entertainment was sufficiently curious. Anxious to secure a good place, I had taken my position early at the pit-entrance, and was soon surrounded by an eager and excited multitude. I was not accustomed to crowds, and this was one that might indeed have struck terror into an older and more accustomed playhouse visitor than myself. After a space of time that seemed interminable, the doors were opened, and the rush was terrific. I was immediately lifted off my feet, and carried forward with the throng. I lost all recollection for a while, and when I recovered, found myself somewhere in the pit, holding the skirt of a man's coat in my hand. How I gained admission, I have no remembrance. I had not paid at the door. I handed the coat-tail to a policeman, and took my seat. When the curtain rose, my attention was soon absorbed in the performance. I thought no more of the difficulties I had encountered. All I saw and heard and felt that night may not be told in these memoranda. Having seen Grisi soon after in the Sonnambula, I may be allowed, however, to say that, while the diva of the Italian Opera left no very strong memories on my mind in the part of Amina, Malibran in the same character created a profounder and more lasting impression on me than any artist I had ever seen in opera or drama.[2]
A night or two afterwards I went to Covent Garden, and saw Macready, Charles Kemble, and Vandenhoff—under Osbaldistone's rule, if I remember rightly—in Othello; later, I adjourned to the Haymarket Theatre, and saw Tyrone Power in the after-piece. The same week I saw—or might have seen—Mrs. Nisbett at the Queen's Theatre,[3] Tottenham-street (now the Prince of Wales's); Jack Reeve, Buckstone, O. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Yates, at the Adelphi; and Miss Romer, in the Sonnambula, at the Lyceum. This last performance, by the way, merits a word of explanation and comment apart. The talent of Miss Emma Romer was undeniable, and her heart was in her work—a quality rare indeed in English singers. In Barnett's Mountain Sylph she had won unanimous applause, and proved herself beyond all doubt the best dramatic singer on the English stage. If so successful in the Sylph, why not in the Sleepwalker? Bellini's music was not so much more difficult than Barnett's as to involve a great difference, and Miss Romer's acting would make ample amends for any vocal deficiency. Besides, the Sonnambula was all the rage, and why should Malibran and Grisi monopolise its triumphs? These were the arguments employed, and the ideas suggested were followed out. The Sonnambula, well and carefully got up, was performed at the Lyceum, or English Opera House, and Miss Romer, as Amina, was exalted by her admirers—or the attempt was made to exalt her—to the high position occupied by the two greatest singers of the period. Miss Romer was lauded to the skies, and a public presentation was made to her on her successful performance. The excitement was well managed, and no doubt answered the purpose intended; but I cannot help thinking that in the end the artiste's reputation suffered, and that it would have been more politic to have held her removed from all comparison with Malibran and Grisi.
During my brief sojourn in London this season, I saw performed at Her Majesty's Theatre—in addition to the Gazza Ladra and La Sonnambula already mentioned—La Donna del Lago, Il Barbiere, and Don Giovanni. The first of these operas had lost one of its principal attractions in Donzelli, whose place in the part of Roderic Dhu was filled by Curioni, a great favourite with the public, but whose best days as an artist were past. Of Donzelli, the most gifted singer as to vocal means I ever heard, I must interpolate a few words. This prince of "robust tenors" made his first appearance at the King's Theatre, on the opening night of the season 1829, as Roderic Dhu, in La Donna del Lago, an opera then in high favour with the subscribers. The time for "sensational" music had not yet arrived. Donzelli came from Italy and Vienna with a great name, but managers in those days had not learned the art, afterwards brought to such perfection, of "preliminary puffing," and establishing a reputation beforehand. This was reserved for the more artistic times of Jenny Lind and Johanna Wagner. From Donzelli, indeed, little was expected, even by those attached to the theatre; therefore the sensation he created was the more surprising. One of the band thus related to me the effect the new tenor produced on the players and the few persons present in the house at the rehearsal of La Donna del Lago. "We had heard," he said, "that the new singer had an extraordinary tenor voice, but gave little heed to the report, as we had been so often deceived before. Roderic Dhu's first entrance occurs at the commencement of the last scene in the first act. When it was time for the great mountain chief to appear, we saw a short, thick-set, good-looking man walk leisurely down the stage towards the orchestra, encased in a huge Spanish cloak, one skirt of which he had doubled over his left shoulder. But what took my attention most was the size of his throat. His neck was more like that of a bull than a man. The celebrated picture of Incledon singing 'The Storm,' in which that great vocalist exhibits an immense circumference of neck, would give only a faint idea of the Italian singer's throat. The leader gave the signal, the band struck up the opening chords, Donzelli advanced two paces, and sang a couple of bars of the recitative. The effect was electrical. A burst of rapture broke forth from every mouth, accompanied by loud clapping of hands and stamping of feet. We fellows in the orchestra, by no means a sensitive set, threw down our instruments, and vociferated and applauded until our voices and hands were tired. In reality, we had never heard a voice at once so powerful, noble, full, clear, resonant, mellow, and of such exquisite quality. I have been identified with the orchestra of the Opera before and since, and have heard all the celebrated singers for I don't know how many years, but never witnessed so sudden and striking an effect produced on the players as in this instance. Of the singer's artistic qualities of course we had then no power of judging, but the effect of such a voice would leave little room for critical consideration." At the performance in the evening the astonishment of the public was commensurate with that of the band and the small audience of the morning, and their enthusiasm was unbounded. Donzelli, however, did not absorb all the interest and excitement of that night. The renowned contralto Madame Pisaroni made her first appearance in England as Malcolm Græme, and created a powerful impression. By all accounts, this lady was the most gifted and accomplished singer of her class whom Italy had produced. Unfortunately, good looks are a stern necessity to the public artist, and Madame Pisaroni was far from being a Venus. Another circumstance made this night memorable. The division of the pit into two compartments, and the erection of new private seats called "stalls" in that half nearest the orchestra, first took place, and gave rise to much disapprobation on the part of the public. What would the audience have thought could they have looked forward some years and seen the whole pit, a few rows of seats excepted, converted into these same "stalls"? As this was one of the most remarkable periods in the history of the Opera, I may be permitted to state—though not included in my "personal recollections"—that, a few nights subsequent to the début of Donzelli and Pisaroni, Malibran made her first appearance, after an absence of four years, as Rosina in the Barbiere, and that Sontag shortly afterwards made her rentrée as Angelina in La Cenerentola, with Donzelli, Zuchelli the celebrated baritone, and Le Vasseur the eminent French bass. What a galaxy of talent is here exhibited! and what a contrast is presented to our modern companies in the fact that every singer was a master of Rossini's music! No wonder that vocal music was in a flourishing condition at this epoch. Indeed, just then, and for some years before and after, there was in London an embarras of vocal talent; for Italy was never so wealthy in singers, and the best came to try their fortunes at the King's Theatre, the great shrine at which the apostles of Art bowed down to Mammon. When the above-named celebrities quitted the Opera, their places did not long remain unoccupied. In a few years they were succeeded by Grisi, Persiani, Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache—in some respects even a more remarkable quintet than that which figured in the Malibran period.
I first heard Donzelli in Edinburgh, in the winter of 1833-4. Signor De Begnis had brought an Italian company from London to give a series of operatic performances at the Theatre Royal. I was attending lectures at the College of Physicians, with an idea of writing myself down M.D. I was young, ardent, and passionately fond of music, though knowing little or nothing about it, and was infinitely pleased at the prospect of the Italian company performing in Edinburgh. About a year or so previously, I had heard the Barbiere, La Gazza Ladra, L'Inganno Felice, and one or two other Italian operas, in Dublin, and looked forward to hearing them again with the greatest interest. I had learned, too, that Donzelli was coming to Edinburgh, and the accounts I had of him from a reliable authority added curiosity to my desire. The series of operas at the Theatre Royal opened with Mozart's Don Giovanni. I knew nothing of the music at the time, nor of the story; so that when I saw Donzelli's name down for the libertine hero, I concluded that the part had been written for a tenor. In such profound ignorance I took my place with a party of ladies in a front box. The overture was played, the curtain rose, and De Begnis, as Leporello, sang his complaint in front of the Commendatore's house, into which Don Giovanni had stolen in pursuit of the daughter. Then there was a noise behind the scenes, and Donzelli as Don Giovanni, and Madame de Meric as Donna Anna, entered. There is no worse entrée for the hero of an opera than that of Don Giovanni. He comes on, muffled in his cloak, struggling to make his escape from an incensed woman; singing under such circumstances is out of the question. The least possible knowledge can be formed of the singer from his vocal snatches with Donna Anna; and even in the trio for basses, after the Commandant is killed, there is no opportunity for isolated display, and generally the performer is unregarded. This is more likely to be the case when a tenor—a rare thing—undertakes the part of the nobleman, as his voice has not depth enough to give effect to the music. I believe not one person in fifty of the audience that night in the Edinburgh Theatre recognised Donzelli; at least, there was scarcely any applause when he came on; and, for my own part, I never supposed it was Donzelli. When Donna Anna appeared with Don Ottavio, hearing a high and rather pleasing tenor voice (I think the singer's name was Arigotti), I concluded it was Donzelli, and listened attentively to catch every note. The duet "Fuggi, fuggi," was well sung, and I tried to persuade myself that I was enchanted, and that all I had heard of the great tenor was unexaggerated. But in truth I was wofully disappointed, and could ill conceal my vexation. I had heard of a voice of unparalleled breadth, power, and sweetness, and nothing could be farther from that than what I was listening to. I took little note of what was passing until the scene before Don Giovanni's castle, where the peasants come on dancing, and Zerlina and Masetto sing their duo. Then I marked the entrance of a finely-dressed cavalier, who, after some parley, dismissed the peasants, and, left alone with Zerlina, accosted her with warmth. I had no notion who the cavalier was, but his voice attracted my attention in a moment. It was then I listened and listened and listened, and took in sounds that indeed, to my young thinking, might have "created a soul under the ribs of death." The sensation I felt when Donzelli—it was of course he—commenced the duet, "La ci darem," was indescribable. I scarcely knew whether I was asleep or awake until the lady seated next me, turning round, said, "Why, what's the matter? There are tears in your eyes." "Who is that singing?" I asked. "Donzelli, to be sure." No doubt the music had something to do with the effect produced on me. I had never before heard "La ci darem," and the charm of voice and melody together was too much for my sensibility, or weakness, or whatever you like to call it. I was a boy, and have no cause to be ashamed of the feeling.
I am not going to write a critical notice of Donzelli's powers; it would not interest the general reader. Of a singer, however, with perhaps the most magnificent organ ever bestowed on man, I may be excused for speaking at some length, more particularly as there were no two opinions about him. My own impressions were corroborated by the very greatest authority. I was in the habit of spending an occasional evening with our own famous Braham a few years before his death. He was never weary talking of Donzelli, comparing him with other tenors, and avouching that, as far as regarded vocal means, he was immeasurably superior to any he had ever heard. I remember asking him to describe the difference between Donzelli's voice and that of Incledon. "You surprise me," he answered, "by this question, as in reality I could not name a singer besides Incledon with whom Donzelli could be compared. Their voices had something of the same grandeur of tone, volume, and richness of quality, and they possessed something of the same natural mode of expression and the same unstudied graces. But the Italian's was the larger and more magnificent organ; and as artists, no comparison could possibly be instituted. Incledon's style was rough and immatured; Donzelli's highly cultivated and polished." Braham's voice, by the way, unequalled in its day for power and manly expression, belonged to the Donzelli school.
To return to the Donna del Lago in 1834. Curioni was quite unequal to Roderic Dhu. In fact, he never could sing the music, his voice being more suited to that of Uberto. Grisi displayed her singing to perfection in the part of Elena, but had no opportunity of showing off her histrionic powers. Rubini I liked better in this opera than in any other by Rossini, except Guillaume Tell. His vocal performance was supremely fine; and the duet by Grisi and him in the first act was one of the most perfect examples of ensemble singing ever listened to. The lovely air, "Oh! mattutini albori," sung by Elena, was, when the opera was first produced, converted and vulgarised into the street-ballad "Oysters, oysters, sir, says she," and had a great success with the tuneful "gents" of the period. I think it was Mdlle. Brambilla who played Malcolm Græme. The performance of the Barbiere was wonderfully good, although Rubini's Count Almaviva left much to be desired. It was a pity, indeed, that Rubini ever appeared in comic opera. He was almost totally deficient in dramatic talent; and, except when instigated by music that involved passion or pathos,—at which time he might be said to be under the effect of inspiration,—he was listless and apathetic to a degree. He was averse to any display of action, and trod the boards as much like an automaton as our own Braham. He seemed to say to himself, "I shall not spoil the effect of my singing by any bodily exertion." His acting the part of Count Almaviva was simply amusing from its want of effort and purpose. Nor did his singing altogether satisfy me in this opera. The music was too broad and large for those "fine feathery" tones, as they were called—that "wailing cry" which produced so surprising an effect in the Pirala, the Puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor, and other operas. The truth is, Rubini's voice was not a true tenor, but a tenorino, and even exceptional in that class; and pure tenor music, like that of Count Almaviva, did not lie well in his register. That he sang the part with wonderful facility and incomparable ease cannot be denied, and in some instances, as in the trio in the last scene, in a manner that made it hopeless for any singer to imitate him. But on the whole, Mario's Almaviva is as far above Rubini's as Rubini's Arturo in I Purilani was above Mario's. Grisi's Rosina was inimitable from every point of view. Rossini himself might have written the music expressly for her, and she honoured the composer by singing every note as he had put it down. Grisi, too, was an excellent comedian, and acted the Spanish maiden with infinite animation, archness, and address. Tamburini sang the music of Figaro as I never heard it sung by any baritone, and was the most mercurial and vivacious of barbers. He wanted, however, the quaint humour and sly intriguing manner of Ronconi, which one cannot help associating with the "factotum" of Beaumarchais. But those to whom the music was the first consideration could not fail to be wonderfully impressed by Tamburini's fine sonorous voice, and singing that almost defied criticism. To such as had never seen Lablache in Dr. Bartolo, it would be vain to strive to convey a notion of that artist's acting. It was said of the celebrated Ambrogetti, the original Don Giovanni at the Opera, that when he had been cast for Dr. Bartolo in the Barbiere, and Figaro given to Naldi, he was wroth, and his friends advised him to decline the part. "No," he exclaimed; "I shall take a surer revenge. I shall make Bartolo the best character in the piece." And he succeeded, as we are told. I have no idea how Ambrogetti impersonated the old guardian, or what specialty of humour he displayed in his performance; but anything more genuinely comic or original than Lablache's Bartolo, in all likelihood, never was witnessed on the stage. I think, notwithstanding, that Lablache was overrated as a tragic artist; the extraordinary volume and grand quality of his voice, and his magnificent presence, contributing to invest him with powers to which he could lay no legitimate claim.
Il Don Giovanni was the last opera I saw at the King's Theatre during my first London visit. It was given on a non-subscription night, and between the acts a long ballet was introduced. Few of the regular subscribers attended, and I fancied the majority of the visitors were not profoundly interested, and that the most attentive were outsiders. They did not look as if accustomed to the place. This part of the audience was, in fact, composed of a different set from the ordinary visitors, including severe musicians and young would-be classical amateurs, who affected to hate Italian operas and Italian composers, and whom Mozart's name alone had power to attract to the theatre. They mostly frequented the pit and gallery, brought with them the deepest reverence for the composer of their choice, and were strangely demonstrative in their indignation at the slightest interruption. It was pitiable to watch their agonies if anyone, at whatever distance, talked while the music was going on. They cried "hush!" and "shame!" and "Mozart!" and hissed, and called for the police, and astonished the habitués, who could not understand how anybody cared to listen to Mozart. The performance of Don Giovanni, indeed, seldom passed off without an émeute of some kind; and this night the Mozartists found two occasions on which they considered themselves called upon emphatically to proclaim their disapprobation. The first occasion was when Mr. Mori, the leader of the band, in playing the violin obbligato accompaniment to Don Giovanni's serenade in the second act, thought proper to introduce certain ingenious filigree tours of his own conceiving. The Mozart party sibilated, groaned, prevented the second verse of the serenade from being heard, and drew upon themselves the opera-glasses of the dandies in "Fops' Alley," who were completely mystified as to what was going forward. The second occasion was more grievous, as it originated with a singer,—and singers with your severe classicists are a race inferior even to fiddlers. Rubini was this time the aggressor. He had sung as well as ever he sang—which means better than anybody else could sing—Ottavio's air, "Il mio tesoro," and had literally, as was his wont, rapt his hearers—his old hearers—in Elysium, when an unexpected and discursive cadenza at the end evoked a storm of noises which seemed for a while to convert the grand salle of the Opera into the interior of a suburban theatre on Boxing-night. There was a terrible row, which it took some time to suppress. The Mozartists, I must say, had right on their side. My most vivid recollection of that night, however, centres in Tamburini's Don Giovanni—one of the most masterly, varied, courtly, and finished performances I ever witnessed on any stage. The modern opera-goer has seen nothing at all comparable to that splendid display of art and innate power, and every new attempt at either Italian house to realise the cavalier of Da Ponte and Mozart is attended with more or less failure. And yet Don Giovanni is played frequently now, where formerly it was played but twice or thrice in the season, and seldom fails to draw a crowded audience, even though the cast in general be worthless, compared to that of the period of which I am writing. This is one of the strongest proofs that the Italian opera is no longer a luxury restricted to the aristocracy, but an entertainment admired and desired by all classes of the community who know and care about music. In fact, it cannot be denied that the public now regulate the opera, the destinies of which were so long in the hands of the upper classes. For my own part, I believe that any work of art which depends on opinion, and is not capable of demonstration, must in the end be decided on its merits by the great majority, and think that Horace had some such notion in his head when he wrote
"Interdum vulgus rectum videt."
Here close my recollections of the Opera during my first stay in the British metropolis. I returned to Edinburgh in less than a fortnight, and came back to London the year but one following—1836. I have since then been a witness of all the remarkable events which took place at Her Majesty's Theatre, from the first performance of I Puritani. I was a spectator of the whole of the famous "Tamburini row;" I witnessed the first appearance of Mario, and heard the last vocal sighs of Rubini; I was present when the gorgeous "amber satin curtains and fittings" were first exhibited at an evening rehearsal; I watched the rise, decline, and fall of the ballet. I marked the dismemberment of the great coalition,—the Vieille Garde, as it was called,—the separation of a company which had gained for itself, the theatre, and the management a world-wide reputation. I "assisted" at the débuts, at various times, of those shining lights of the art, Gardoni, Giuglini, Cruvelli, Piccolomini, and Titiens, which that cunning and indefatigable operatic astronomer Mr. Benjamin Lumley, from his observatory in Fulham, discovered on the musical horizon, and first made visible to the audiences of Her Majesty's Theatre. I officiated at the reopening of the Old House in 1856, after it had been closed for four years. I was an observer of the Jenny-Lind furor from its commencement to its conclusion. I was in the theatre to welcome the return of Henrietta Sontag, after an absence of twenty years. I saw Pasta make her last effort in Anna Bolena, and Grisi her last effort in Lucrezia Borgia—how pitiable in both instances I need not say. I shared in the deep and universal regret when Mr. Lumley, with more disinterestedness than policy, resigned the lease of the theatre to Lord Ward, and the star of Her Majesty's Theatre seemed quenched for ever. I rejoiced when Mr. E.T. Smith reillumed the altar-fires which should have been vestal; I rejoiced again when, after a year's suspension, Mr. Mapleson undertook the reins of government, and promised stability for the future.
To narrate all these matters in detail would fill a volume, and I am only penning a few hurried sketches. As perhaps the most interesting and exciting incident of the period which I have been discussing, I would add a few especial words about the Jenny-Lind fever. With all my profound admiration for the talents of the Swedish Nightingale, I cannot help thinking that she was placed in a false position. Indeed, in one respect she felt this herself most keenly, and knew she was utterly undeserving the fulsome and ridiculous praises lavished on her performance of Norma. It is said that the extravagant panegyrics of a certain journal greatly displeased and irritated her, and prevented her from continuing her representations of the Druid priestess. And after all, may not these extravagant and violent laudations, amounting to idol-worship, and which placed the artist in a position of perilous responsibility, as conducing to the fear that she might not always come up to the highest expectations, have had their influence in urging her to her sudden and unaccountable retirement from the stage, at the moment, too, when she was in the zenith of her popularity? Jenny Lind, indeed, was the most sensitive, as she was the most sensible, of artists. I must own I could never see the vaunted superiority of the Swedish Nightingale. Her Amina was immeasurably inferior to Malibran's; while no unbiassed judge would think of comparing her to Grisi in Norma, or Elvira in the Puritani. But party-spirit ran high in those days, and prejudice was so rampant that argument was entirely out of the question. To prove to what an extent this feeling of partisanship was carried, and to show how wide-spread was that most infectious of all moral diseases, sympathy with proclaimed opinion, I shall relate the following anecdote in re the Swedish Nightingale, with which I shall take leave to conclude all I have to say at present of Her Majesty's Theatre.
A musical amateur, residing at a principal town in Hampshire; had a great desire to hear Jenny Lind. The London newspapers had given him such an idea of the artist's powers as singer and actress, that he was determined to come to town and go to the-Opera on a "Lind" night. He selected the Sonnambula as, according to most authorities, exhibiting the Nightingale's powers to the best advantage. Our amateur friend was a chorister in the church, and had some notion of music. He had also obtained a slight acquaintance with the vocal art from attending an operatic performance whenever occasion led him to London, but knew little of singers or operas. His journey to London was one intoxicating dream of the delight awaiting him. If he entertained any other feeling, it was the fear that he should arrive too late. However, he reached London safe and early, installed himself in a hotel in the Haymarket, partook of a hurried dinner, and found himself in the pit of the theatre in capital time. How he deported himself during the performance this history doth not say. When the curtain fell on the opera his excitement was so intense, that no soul was left in his body to enjoy the ballet. His body remained nevertheless, and, what is more, needed replenishing; so he hurried across the street to the Café de l'Europe, ensconced himself in a box, and called for hot brandy-and-water, to be followed by a chop and kidneys. His situation was distressing. He was bursting with communicative desires. He longed to disburden his breast of the over-fulness of its wonder and admiration. O for a friend at such a time, to participate in all he felt, to share in his raptures, his enthusiasm, his burning emotions! O, Jenny Lind, what a witch thou art! The brandy-and-water proved a welcome solace; the chop and kidneys soothed his irritation, and paved the way for another glass. While thus employed, two gentlemen entered the box, and sat opposite him, but he was too much absorbed in appeasing his appetite to notice them. Hush! What word is that he heard? Did his ears deceive him? No!—Yes!—the strangers were speaking of Jenny Lind! He pricked up his ears and listened. "Well, I don't know, you know," observed one of the gentlemen; "but I always heard, you know, Malibran could not be beat." "There is no comparison, I assure you," rejoined the other; "I heard them both, and can form an opinion. Malibran was very fine, and all that sort of thing, but Jenny Lind is the greatest singer." "Well, you know—" the other commenced, but was interrupted by our Hampshire friend, who suddenly and somewhat fiercely broke forth with the exclamation, addressed to the second speaker, "Right, sir! Jenny Lind is the greatest singer; and not only greater than Malibran, but greater than any singer past, present, or to come. Malibran! She'd give Malibran twenty!" And he resumed his brandy. "Well, you know," said the stranger number one, who spoke very slowly and quietly, "you cannot very well judge of the odds unless you know the amount of the game; and as you speak so very confidently, I suppose you have heard Jenny Lind often?" "I have just been over the way at Her Majesty's Theatre," replied the country amateur with much confidence, "and have heard her in Sonnambula." "The devil you have!" ejaculated the two strangers, laughing heartily. "Why, what are you laughing at?" inquired our provincial friend. "Only," answered number two, "at a slight mistake you have made." "Mistake! what mistake?" "Had you looked round you on your entrance into the theatre, you would have seen bills posted all over the walls, informing you that—" "What?" "The opera had been changed; so that instead of Jenny Lind in the Sonnambula, you have been hearing Madame Castellan in Linda di Chamouni."
One word about the burning of Her Majesty's Theatre, which has partly led to the narration of the events and incidents contained in the foregoing pages. The magnificent structure in the Haymarket, whose history for two-thirds of a century has been intimately connected with the arts of music and dancing, is annihilated, with not a relic left to indicate its former splendours. The familiar classical apologue, however, is about to be realised. A new theatre will arise from the ashes of the old one. It is well that an establishment with such lofty aims and purposes, so formed to advance the interests of the divine art, to charm, to delight, and to refine our social existence, should be restored to its pristine glory. Music is the most gratifying, the most universally loved, and best understood of the fine arts; and it would be nothing short of a disgrace to the country to allow its chief temple, so intimately bound up with numberless brilliant associations, to pass away from us.
1. It is somewhat singular that during the first year of Jenny Lind's engagement at Her Majesty's Theatre, Rossini's Barbiere was not once performed—a circumstance which had not occurred in any previous season since 1818, when that greatest of comic operas was first produced in this country.
2. By all accounts, the vehement applauses of the Drury-Lane audiences were as the breathing of zephyrs compared with the frantic demonstrations and fury of excitement of the Milanese public, when, a year or two earlier, Malibran performed Norma at the Scala Theatre. She was called, we are told, forty-seven times before the curtain; and when she declined to answer the last summons, a row ensued of so violent a nature, that the chief magistrate had to appear on the stage, surrounded by his gendarmerie, and read the riot-act before the audience would disperse. This circumstance is alluded to in some lines written on the death of Malibran, in 1836, by a young friend of mine, who, if enthusiasm could make the poet, might have earned a sounding name for himself. The following stanza—which I cite as showing the extraordinary furor Malibran created—is more to be praised for its feeling than poetic power:
"Where is thy glory, Milan; where thy boast?
La Scala's walls no more shall hear the din
That from thy many thunder-throated host
Menaced thy giant structure from within.
Where the wide sea of waving kerchiefs seen?
Hats flung aloft, and hands in transport loud?
The Apollonic fury that hath been
In tempest-clamour o'er the madden'd crowd,
Till Fame resign'd her trumpet, overaw'd and bow'd?"
3. Called at the time, I believe, the "Tottenham Theatre;" but re-named the "Queen's" after the accession of her Majesty in 1837.