History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time Part 24

Beaumarchais, while a.s.sisting the national revolution with the _Marriage of Figaro_, is known to have aided in a more direct manner the revolution which was now imminent at the opera. It is said, that he was anxious to establish an operatic republic in the hope of being made president of it himself. He is known to have been a good musician. I have spoken of his having held the honourable, if not lucrative, post of music-master to the daughters of Louis XV. (by whom he was as well paid as was Piccinni by that monarch's successor);[64] and a better proof of his talent is afforded, by his having composed all the music of his _Barber of Seville_ and _Marriage of Figaro_, except the air of _Malbrook_ in the latter comedy.

Beaumarchais had been much impressed by the genius of Gluck. He met him one evening in the _foyer_ of the Opera, and spoke to him so clearly and so well about music that the great composer said to him: "You must surely be M. de Beaumarchais." They agreed to write an opera together, and some years afterwards, when Gluck had left Paris for Vienna, the poet sent the composer the _libretto_ of _Tarare_. Gluck wrote to say that he was delighted with the work, but that he was now too old to undertake the task of setting it to music, and would entrust it to his favourite pupil, Salieri.

Gluck benefited French opera in two ways. He endowed the Academie with several master-pieces, and moreover, destroyed, or was the main instrument in destroying, its old _repertoire_, which after the works of Gluck and Piccinni was found intolerable. It was now no longer the fas.h.i.+on to exclude foreign composers from the first musical theatre in France, and Gluck and Piccinni were followed by Sacchini and Salieri.

Strange to say, Sacchini, when he first made his appearance at the Academie with his _Olympiade_, was deprived of a hearing through the jealousy of Gluck, who, on being informed, at Vienna, that the work in question was in rehearsal, hurried to Paris and had influence enough to get it withdrawn. Worse than this, when the _Olympiade_ was produced at the Comedie Italienne, with great success, Gluck and his partisans put a stop to the representation by enforcing one of the privileges of the Academie, which rendered it illegal for any other theatre to perform operas with choruses or with more than seven singers on the stage.

[Sidenote: GLUCK.]

No work by Sacchini or Salieri was produced at the Academie until after the theatre in the Palais Royal was burnt down, in 1781. In this fire, which took place about eighteen months after Gluck had retired from Paris, and five months after the production of Piccinni's _Iphigenia in Tauris_, the old _repertoire_ would seem to have been consumed, for no opera by Lulli was afterwards played in France, and only one by Rameau,--_Castor and Pollux_, which, revived in 1791, was not favourably received.

It was in June, 1781, after a representation of Gluck's _Orphee_, that the Academie Royale was burnt to the ground. _Coronis_ (music by Rey, the conductor of the orchestra) was the last piece of the evening, and before it was finished, during the _divertiss.e.m.e.nt_, one of the scenes caught fire. Dauberval, the princ.i.p.al dancer, had enough presence of mind to order the curtain down at once. The public wanted no more of _Coronis_, and went quietly away without calling for the conclusion of Rey's opera, and without having the least idea of what was taking place behind the curtain. In the meanwhile the fire had spread on the stage beyond the possibility of extinction. Singers, dancers, musicians, and scene-s.h.i.+fters, rushed in terror from the theatre, and about a dozen persons, who were unable to escape, perished in the conflagration.

Madeleine Guimard was nearly burnt to death in her dressing-room, which was surrounded by flames. One of the carpenters, however, penetrated into her _loge_, wrapped her up in a counterpane (she was entirely undressed), and bore her triumphantly through the fire to a place of safety.

"Save my child! save my child!" cried Rey, in despair; and as soon as he saw the score of _Coronis_ out of danger he went away, giving the flames full permission to burn everything else. All the ma.n.u.scripts were saved, thanks to the courageous exertions of Lefebrvre, the librarian, who remained below in the music room even while the stage was burning, until the last sheet had been removed.

"The Opera is burnt down," said a Parisian to a Parisian the next morning.

"So much the better," was the reply. "It had been there such a time!"

This remark was ingenious but not true, for the Academie Royale de Musique had only been standing eighteen years. It was burnt down before, in 1768, on which occasion Voltaire, in a letter to M. d'Argental, wrote as follows: "_on dit que ce spectacle etait si mauvais qu'il fallait tot ou tard que la vengeance divine eclatat_." The theatre destroyed by fire in 1763[65] was in the Palais Royal, and it was reconstructed on the same spot. After the fire of 1781, the Porte St. Martin theatre was built, and the Opera was carried on there ten years, after which it was removed to the opera-house in the Rue Richelieu, which was pulled down after the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Duc de Berri. But we are advancing beyond the limits of the present chapter.

[Sidenote: THE NEW OPERA HOUSE.]

The new Opera House was built in eighty-six days. The members of the company received orders not to leave Paris, and during the interval were paid their salaries regularly as if for performing. The work began on the 2nd of August, and was finished on the 27th of October. Lenoir, the architect, had told Marie Antoinette that the theatre could be completed in time for the first performance to take place on the 30th of October.

"Say the 31st," replied the queen; "and if on that day I receive the key of my box, I promise you the Order of St. Michael in exchange."

The key was sent to her majesty on the 26th, who not only decorated Lenoir with the _cordon_ of St. Michael, but also conferred on him a pension of six thousand francs; and on the 27th the theatre was opened to the public.

In 1784, Sacchini's _Chimene_, adapted from _Il Gran Cid_, an opera he had written for the King's Theatre in 1778, was produced at the Academie with great success. The princ.i.p.al part in this work was sustained by Huberti, a singer much admired by Piccinni, who wrote some airs in the _cantabile_ style specially for her, and said that, without her, his opera of _Dido_, in which she played the princ.i.p.al part, was "without Dido." M. Castil Blaze tells us that she was the first true singer who appeared at the Academie. Grimm declares, that she sang like Todi and acted like Clairon. Finally, when Madame de Saint Huberti was performing at Strasburgh, in 1787, a young officer of artillery, named Napoleon Bonaparte, addressed the following witty and complimentary verses to her:--

"Romains qui vous vantez d'une ill.u.s.tre origine Voyez d'ou dependait votre empire naissant: Didon n'eut pas de charme a.s.sez puissant Pour arreter la fuite ou son amant s'obstine; Mais si l'autre Didon, ornement de ces lieux, Et ete reine de Carthage, Il et, pour la servir, abandonne ces dieux, Et votre beau pays serait encore sauvage."

Sacchini's first opera, _dipe a Colosse_, was not produced at the Academie until 1787, a few months after his death. It was now no question, of whether he was a worthy successor of Gluck or a formidable opponent to Piccinni. His opera was admired for itself, and the public applauded it with genuine enthusiasm.

[Sidenote: SALIERI.]

In the meanwhile, Salieri, the direct inheritor of Gluck's mantle (as far as that poetic garment could be transferred by the mere will of the original possessor) had brought out his _Danaides_--announced at first as the work of Gluck himself and composed under his auspices. Salieri had also set _Tarare_ to music. "This is the first _libretto_ of modern times," says M. Castil Blaze, "in which the author has ventured to join buffoonery to tragedy--a happy alliance, which permits the musician to vary his colours and display all the resources of genius and art." The routine-lovers of the French Academie, the pedants, the blunderers, were indignant with the new work; and its author entrusted Figaro with the task of defending it.

"Either you must write nothing interesting," said Figaro, "or fools will run you down."

The same author then notices, as a remarkable coincidence, that "Beaumarchais and Da Ponte, at four hundred leagues distance from one another, invented, at the same time, the cla.s.s of opera since known as "romantic." Beaumarchais's _Tarare_ had been intended for Gluck; Da Ponte's _Don Giovanni_, as every one knows, found its true composer in Mozart.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FRENCH OPERA BEFORE AND AFTER THE REVOLUTION.

[Sidenote: THE OPERA DURING THE CONVENTION.]

A complete history of the French Opera would include something like a history of French society, if not of France generally. It would, at least, show the effect of the great political changes which the country has undergone, and would remind us here and there of her celebrated victories, and occasionally even of her reverses. Under the despotism, we have seen how a simple _lettre de cachet_ sufficed to condemn an _abbe_ with a good voice, or a young girl with a pretty face, to the Opera, just as a person obnoxious to the state or to any very influential personage was sent to the Bastille. During the Regency, half the audience at the Opera went there drunk; and almost until the period of the Revolution the _abbes_, the _mousquetaires_, and the _grands seigneurs_, quarrelled, fought, and behaved in many respects as if the theatre were, not their own private house, but their own particular tap-room. Music profited by the Revolution, in so far that the privileges of the Academie were abolished, and, as a natural consequence, a number of new musical works produced at a variety of theatres which would otherwise never have seen the light; but the position of singers and dancers was by no means a pleasant one under the Convention, and the tyranny of the republican chiefs was far more oppressive, and of a more brutal kind, than any that had been exercised at the Academie in the days of the monarchy. The disobedient daughters, whose admirers got them "inscribed" on the books of the Opera so as to free them from parental control, would, under another system, have run away from home. No one, in practice, was injured very much by the regulation, scandalous and immoral as it undoubtedly was; for, before the name was put down, all the harm, in most cases, was already done.

Sophie Arnould, it is true, is said to have been registered at the Opera without the consent of her mother, and, what seems very extraordinary--not at the suggestion of a lover; but Madame Arnould was quite reconciled to her daughter's being upon the stage before she eloped with the Count de Lauragais. To put the case briefly: the _academiciens_ (and above all, the _academiciennes_) in the immoral atmosphere of the court, were feted, flattered, and grew rich, though, owing to their boundless extravagance, they often died poor: whereas, during the republic, they met with neither sympathy nor respect, and in the worst days of the Convention lived, in a more literal sense than would be readily imagined, almost beneath the shadow of the guillotine.

In favour of the old French society, when it was at its very worst, that is to say, during the reign of Louis XV., it may be mentioned that the king's mistresses did not venture to brave general opinion, so far as to present themselves publicly at the Opera. Madame Dubarry announced more than once that she intended to visit the Academie, and went so far as to take boxes for herself and suite, but at the last moment her courage (if courage and not shamelessness be the proper word) failed her, and she stayed away. On the other hand, towards the end of this reign, the licentiousness of the court had become so great, that brevets, conferring the rights and privileges of married ladies on ladies unmarried, were introduced. Any young girl who held a "_brevet de dame_"

could present herself at the Opera, which etiquette would otherwise have rendered impossible. "The number of these brevets," says _Bachaumont_, "increased prodigiously under Louis XVI., and very young persons have been known to obtain them. Freed thus from the modesty, simplicity, and retirement of the virginal state, they give themselves up with impunity to all sorts of scandals. * * * Such disorder has opened the eyes of the government; and this prince, the friend of decency and morality, has at last shown himself very particular on the subject. It is now only by the greatest favour that one of these brevets can be obtained."[66]

[Sidenote: OPERATIC AND RELIGIOUS FETES.]

No _brevets_ were required of the fishwomen and charcoal men of Paris, who, on certain fetes, such as the Sovereign's birth day, were always present at the gratuitous performances given at the Opera. On these occasions the balcony was always reserved for them, the _charbonniers_ being placed on the king's side, the _poissardes_ on the queen's. At the close of the representation the performers invited their favoured guests on to the stage, the orchestra played the airs from some popular ballet, and a grand ball took place, in which the _charbonniers_ chose their partners from among the operatic _danseuses_, while the _poissardes_ gave their hands to Vestris, Dauberval, &c.

During Pa.s.sion week and Easter, the Opera was shut, but the great operatic vocalists could be heard elsewhere, either at the Jesuits'

church or at the Abbaye of Longchamp, to which latter establishment it is generally imagined that the Parisian public used to be attracted by the singing of the nuns. What is far more extraordinary is, that the Parisians always laboured under that delusion themselves. "The Parisians," says M. Castil Blaze, in his "History of the Grand Opera,"

"always such fine connoisseurs in music, never penetrated the mystery of this incognito. The railing and the green curtain, behind which the voices were concealed, sufficed to render the singers unrecognisable to the _dilettanti_ who heard them constantly at the opera."

Adjoining the Jesuits' church was a theatre, also belonging to the Jesuits, for which, between the years 1659 and 1761, eighty pieces of various kinds, including tragedies, operas and ballets, were written.

Some of these productions were in Latin, some in French, some in Latin and French together. The _virtuosi_ of the Academie used to perform in them and afterwards proceed to the church to sing motets. "This church is so much the church of the Opera," says Freneuse, "that those who do not go to one console themselves by attending vespers at the other, where they find the same thing at less cost." He adds, that "an actor newly engaged, would not think himself fully recognised unless asked to sing for the Jesuits." As for the actresses, "in their honor the price which would be given at the door of the opera is given for a chair in the church. People look out for Urgande, Arcabonne, Armide, and applaud them. (I have seen them applaud la Moreau and la Cherat, at the midnight ma.s.s.) These performances replace those which are suspended at the opera."

[Sidenote: BEHIND THE SCENES.]

There would be no end to this chapter (and many persons would think it better not written) if I were to enter into details on the subject of the relations between the singers and dancers of the Academie, and the Grands Seigneurs of the period. I may observe, however, that the latter appear to have been far more generous, without being more vicious, and that they seem to have lived in better taste than their modern imitators, who usually ruin themselves by means of race-horses, or, in France, on the Stock Exchange. The Count de Lauragais paid an immense sum to the directors of the Academie, to compensate them for abolis.h.i.+ng the seats on the stage (probably impertinent visitors used to annoy him by staring at Sophie Arnould); the Duke de Bouillon spent nine hundred thousand livres on Mademoiselle la Guerre (Gluck's _Iphigenie_); the Prince de Soubise nearly as much on Mademoiselle Guimard--who at least gave a portion of it away in charity, and who, as we have seen, was an intelligent patroness of David, the painter.

When the Prince de Guemene became insolvent, the Prince de Soubise, his father-in-law, ceased to attend the Opera. There were three thousand creditors, and the debts amounted to forty million livres. The heads of the family felt called upon to make a sacrifice, and the Prince de Soubise was no longer in a position to give _pet.i.ts soupers_ to his _protegees_ at the Academie. Under these circ.u.mstances, the "ladies of the _ballet_" a.s.sembled in the dressing-room of Mademoiselle Guimard, their chief, and prepared the following touching, and really very becoming letter, to their embarra.s.sed patron:--

"Monseigneur,

"Accustomed to see you amongst us at the representations at the Lyrical Theatre, we have observed with the most bitter regret that you not only tear yourself away from the pleasures of the performance, but also that none of us are now invited to the little suppers you used so frequently to give, in which we had turn by turn the happiness of interesting you. Report has only too well informed us of the cause of your seclusion, and of your just grief.

Hitherto we have feared to importune you, allowing sensibility to give way to respect. We should not dare, even now, to break silence, without the pressing motive to which our delicacy is unable any longer to resist.

"We had flattered ourselves, Monseigneur, that the Prince de Guemene's bankruptcy, to employ an expression which is re-echoed in the _foyers_, the clubs, the newspapers of France, and all Europe, would not be so considerable, so enormous, as was announced; and, above all, that the wise precautions taken by the King to a.s.sure the claimants the amount of their debts, and to avoid expenses and depredations more fatal even than the insolvency itself, would not disappoint the general expectation. But affairs are doubtless in such disorder, that there is now no hope. We judge of it by the generous sacrifices to which the heads of your ill.u.s.trious house, following your example, have resigned themselves. We should think ourselves guilty of ingrat.i.tude, Monseigneur, if we were not to imitate you in seconding your humanity, and if we were not to return you the pensions which your munificence has lavished upon us. Apply these revenues, Monseigneur, to the consolation of so many retired officers, so many poor men of letters, so many unfortunate servants whom M. le Prince de Guemene drags into ruin with him.

"As for us, we have other resources: and we shall have lost nothing, Monseigneur, if we preserve your esteem. We shall even have gained, if, by refusing your gifts now, we force our detractors to agree that we were not unworthy of them. "We are, with profound respect,

"Monseigneur,

"Your most Serene Highness's very humble and