CHAPTER XIX.

BEGINNINGS OF OPERA IN FRANCE AND GERMANY.

I.

From Florence the art of dramatic song spread to all other parts of the world, yet not so rapidly as would have been supposed. For it was not until nearly half of the century had already elapsed that opera made a beginning in France, the country where ruled the unfortunate princess for whose nuptials the first opera had been written. French opera grew out of the ballet. This term, which at present is restricted to entertainments in which dancing is the principal feature, and the story is entirely told in pantomime, had formerly a more extended signification. It was equivalent to the English term "Mask," a play in which dancing, songs and even dialogue found place. This light and sprightly form of drama has been favored in France from a remote period. As early as the first quarter of the seventeenth century Antoine Boesset (1585-1643) composed ballets for the entertainments of the king, Louis XIII. His son succeeded him at the court of Louis XIV. Some of the ballets of the elder Boesset were produced in 1635, and in these we must find the beginnings of French opera, if indeed we do not go back still farther, and find it in the play of "Robin and Marian," written by Adam de la Halle. In fact, dramatic entertainment has been indigenous in France from an early date, and it is by no means easy to say that at any particular moment the line was crossed where modern opera begins. The ballets of Boesset were, no doubt, slight upon the dramatic side, having even less of serious intention in the music than the lightest of comic opera of the present day.

The impulse to grand opera came from a different quarter. A sagacious cleric, the Abbé Perrin, heard, either at Florence or in Paris, from the company of Italian singers brought over in 1645, Peri's "Eurydice," which made a great impression upon him, and he suggested to a musician of his acquaintance, Robert Cambert, the production of another work in similar style. Several things in this account appear strange, but strangest of all, the total ignorance that prevailed in Paris of the vast development that had been made in Italian opera by Monteverde and the other Italians, during the forty years since Peri's experiment had been first composed. With the leisurely movement of the times, the new work of the French composers was produced in 1659. This was "_La Pastorale_," performed with the greatest applause at the chateau of Issy. This was followed by several other works in similar style, "Ariane," "Adonis" and the like, and in 1669 Perrin secured a patent giving him a monopoly of operatic performances in France for a period of years.

Meanwhile a certain ambitious and unscrupulous youngster was feeling his way to a position where he might make himself recognized. It was the youthful violinist, Jean Baptiste Lulli, the illegitimate son of a Florentine gentleman, his dates being about 1633-1687. Lulli had been taught the rudiments of knowledge, including that of the violin, by a kind-hearted priest of his native city, and, when yet a mere lad, made his way to Paris in the suite of the duke of Guise. Once in Paris his way was open. Gifted with a quick wit, a total absence of principle or honor, but of insatiable ambition, he made his way from one position to another, and at length had been so prominent as a composer of dance music, and leader of the king's violins, as to have opportunity to distinguish himself by composing the music for the ballet of "_Alcidiane_," and others, in which Louis XIV himself danced. Lulli's ambition was still farther stimulated and his style influenced by the study of the music of Cavalli, for several of whose operas he composed ballets, upon the occasion of their production in France.

Within thirteen years he produced no less than thirty ballets. In these he himself took part with considerable success as dancer and comic actor. The success of Cambert and Perrin's operas of "_Pomone_" and "The Pains and Pleasures of Love" (1671) awakened in him the desire of supplanting them in the regard of the king. After intrigues creditable neither to himself nor to the powers influenced by them, he succeeded in this same year in having the patent of Perrin set aside, and a new one issued, giving him the sole right of producing operas in France for a period of years. Then ensued a career of operatic productivity most creditable and influential from every point of view. In the space of fourteen years Lulli produced twenty operas, or _divertissements_, of which the best, perhaps, were "_Alceste_," 1674, "_Thesée_," 1675, "_Amadis de Gaule_," 1684, and "Roland," 1685. Lulli made certain improvements upon the Italian models, which he originally followed, making the recitative more stately, and employing the accompanying orchestra for purposes of dramatic coloration. He was a great master of the stage, and introduced his effects with consummate judgment. His declamation of the text was most excellent, and in this respect his operas have served as models in the traditions of the French stage from that time until now. As a musician, however, he was clever rather than deep, and the music is often monotonous and rather stilted. Nevertheless, his operas held the stage for many years after the death of their author, and occasional revivals have taken place at intervals, even after the advance in taste and musical knowledge had effectually quenched their ability to please a popular audience. His "Roland" was performed as an incident in the regular season at Paris as late as 1778, when Gluck's "Orpheus" had already been heard. The example of Lulli's music given on pages 240 and 241 is from this work. The melody is vigorous and appropriate.

The most commendable feature of this beginning of opera in France was the attention given to the musical treatment of the vernacular of the country. The principle once recognized, that opera not in the vernacular of the country can never have more than an incidental and adventitious importance, has always been maintained in France. The _Académie de Musique_, for which the patent was granted to Perrin, and transferred to Lulli, has been maintained with few interruptions ever since, and has been the home of a native French opera, constantly increasing in vigor, originality and interest. Italian opera has been fashionable in Paris for brief periods, and as the amusement of the fashionable world, but the native opera has nearly always held the place of honor in the affections of the people, and the foreign works produced there have been translated into the French language.

[Music illustration: SONG.--"ROLAND, COUREZ AUX ARMES."

(From the opera "Roland," 1685. J.B. Lulli.)

Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es; L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-là du tré-pas, L'a-mour de ses di-vins ap-pas, Fait vi-vreau de-là du tré-pas. Ro-land, cou-rez aux ar-mes, aux ar-mes, cou-rez aux ar-mes, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es, Que la gloi-re a de charm-es.]

II.

In Germany the contrary was the case for more than a century later. The first operatic performance, indeed, was given in the German language. A copy of Peri's "Dafne" was sent to Dresden and as a preparation for performance the text was translated, but it was found impossible to adapt the German words to the Italian recitative, owing to the different structure of the German sentences, bringing the emphasis in totally different places. In this stress the local master, Heinrich Schütz, was called upon to compose new music, which he did, and the work was given in 1627. This beginning of German opera, however, was totally accidental. All that was intended was the repetition of the famous Italian work. Nor did the persons concerned appear to recognize the importance and high significance of the act in which they had co-operated, for no other German operas were given there or elsewhere until much later. Schütz, moreover, did not pursue the career of an operatic composer, but turned his attention mainly to church music and oratorio, in which department he highly distinguished himself, as we will presently have occasion to examine farther.

It was not until the beginning of the century next ensuing, that German opera began to take root and grow. The beginning was made in the free city of Hamburg, which was at that time the richest and most independent city of Germany, and, being remote from the centers of political disturbance, it suffered less from the thirty years' war than most other parts of the country. The prime mover here was Reinhard Keiser (1673-1739), born at Weissenfels, near Leipsic, and educated at the Thomas School. His attention had been directed to dramatic music early, and at the age of nineteen he was commissioned to write a pastoral, "_Ismene_," for the court of Brunswick. The success of this gained him another libretto, "_Basilius_," also composed with success. He removed to Hamburg in 1694, and for forty years remained a favorite with the public, composing for that theater no less than 116 operas, of which the first, "Irene," was produced in 1697. In 1700 he opened a series of popular concerts, the prototypes of the star combinations of the present day. In these entertainments the greatest virtuosi were heard, the most popular and best singers, and the newest and best music. His direction of the opera did not begin until 1703; here also he proved himself a master. The place of this composer in the history of art is mainly an adventitious one, depending upon the chronological circumstance of his preceding others in the same field, rather than upon the more important reason of his having set a style, or established an ideal, for later masters. His operas subsided into farce, the serious element being almost wholly lacking, and, according to Riemann, the last of them shows no improvement over the first. Their only merit is that they are not imitations of the Italian nor upon mythological subjects, but from common life. In his later life he devoted himself to the composition of church music, in which department he accomplished notable, if somewhat conventional, success. The Hamburg theater furnished a field for another somewhat famous figure in musical history, that of Johann Mattheson, a singularly versatile and gifted man, a native of that city (1681-1764). After a liberal education, in which his musical taste and talent became distinguished at an early age, he appeared on the stage as singer, and in one of his own operas, after singing his rôle upon the stage, came back into the orchestra in order to conduct from the harpsichord the performance, until his rôle required him again upon the stage. Indeed, it was this eccentricity which occasioned a quarrel between him and Händel, who resented the implication that he himself was incapable of carrying on the performance. Mattheson composed a large number of works, including many church cantatas of the style made more celebrated in the works of Sebastian Bach, later, the intention of these works having been to render the church services more interesting by affording the congregation a practical place in the exercises. Mattheson is best known at the present time by his "Complete Orchestral Director," a compilation of musical knowledge and notions, intended for the instruction of those intending to act in this capacity.