Part 18

"Ernani" and "Attila" had given Verdi a European fame, and it was not long before he received offers from managers from abroad. The first came from Lumley, then lessee of Her Majesty's Theatre; and Verdi at once accepted a proposition to compose an opera for England. "King Lear" was suggested as a subject, but was rejected because its plot did not turn on love. Schiller's "The Robbers" was at last decided on, and it was performed under the title, "I Masnadieri," in London, July 22, 1847, with Jenny Lind, Lablache and Gardoni in the cast. It was not a success there, and met with no more favorable reception elsewhere. As Costa, after the production of this opera, left Her Majesty's Theatre to join Covent Garden, Lumley made Verdi a proposition to become his conductor for three years at a very handsome salary. The offer was favorably entertained by the composer, but there stood in the way a contract with the publisher, Lucca, of Milan, by which Verdi had agreed to write two operas for him. Efforts were made to buy Lucca off, but he held to his bargain, and the result was that Verdi did not remain in London. He went to Passy, and there composed "Il Corsaro" and "La Battaglia di Legnano" for Lucca. The former was brought out at Trieste, Oct. 25, 1848, and was a complete failure. The other opera was produced in Rome, Jan. 27, 1849, with no more gratifying results. The composer, however, was not dismayed by these disasters, but set to work at once on "Luisa Miller" for the San Carlo of Naples, where, on Dec. 8, 1849, it was given for the first time with a success that was as merited as it was overwhelming. His next work, "Stifellio," first performed at Trieste, Nov. 16, 1850, culminated in failure, and even when rewritten and revived as "Aroldo" seven years later, achieved no very encouraging popularity. Verdi had now written sixteen operas, all of which have fallen into oblivion except "Ernani," "I Lombardi" and, perhaps, "Luisa Miller." Despite the failure of most of them, their composer had become a great favorite with the public, owing to the appeal that much in the texts of his operas made to the patriotism of his fellow-countrymen, then fretting under Austrian rule. For example, the chorus in "I Lombardi," beginning _O Signore dal tetto natio_, excited great enthusiasm because of the application the public fastened on the words. It was the same with the chorus, _Si videsti I Leon di Castiglia_, in "Ernani." The censorship was very severe in that day, and so easily excited were the people by anything that bore even the most remote reference to the spirit of revolution prevailing, that the authorities would not allow a conspiracy to be acted on the stage; and hence "Ernani" had to be changed before the police would give consent to its performance. In "Attila," the aria, _Cara Patria già madre e Regina_, afforded the people an opportunity to testify violently to their animosity toward the Austrian government. The house was in an uproar; the audience shouted and screamed; hats, canes, umbrellas, fans, bonnets and flowers were hurled to and fro; the roaring of the public drowned the tones of the singers and the orchestra, and the police found the greatest difficulty in reducing the noise-makers to order. This all reflected favorably on Verdi as far as the public was concerned, and he became a popular idol of the time. With "Luisa Miller" ended what may be considered the first period of his musical development.

In 1851 he began that series of operas which established his fame as the greatest of living Italian opera composers. A libretto founded on Victor Hugo's "Le Roi s'amuse" was prepared for Verdi, with the title "La Maledizione." The censorship objected to a king being presented in the light in which Francis I. is made to appear in the original story, especially when cursed by a court fool.

After much anger and much debating, the monarch was turned into a duke of Mantua and the title into "Rigoletto." Verdi retired to Busseto and labored vigorously at his score. It was completed in forty days, and was performed at La Fenice, March 11, 1851. Its success was enormous. The work was soon given in every opera house in Europe with the same results that attended it in Venice. The composer rested on his laurels for two years. Then "Il Trovatore" appeared at the Teatro Apollo, Rome, Jan. 19, 1853. Its triumph was immediate and brilliant, and this opera also made an instant tour of the civilized world. It was only some five weeks later when "La Traviata" was produced at the Fenice. This opera, however, fell flat and was an utter failure. The composer, who rated the work very highly, was in despair. The fault was not with his score but with the singers, especially with Signora Donatelli who sang and acted Violetta. She was an exceedingly fleshy woman, and when the doctor, in the third act, announced that the heroine was emaciated by consumption and had only a few hours to live, the audience burst into roars of laughter. The opera was damned for Venice. Nevertheless, elsewhere it experienced a better fate and met with an enthusiastic reception. These three operas may be pronounced the best as well as the last of the Italian opera school as developed through Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti.

Verdi's next work was "Les Vêpres Sicilliennes," written for the Paris Grand Opéra, and given for the first time there June 13, 1855. It is a brilliant work, but made no advance on its immediate predecessors from the same source. Then came "Simon Boccanegra," for La Fenice, produced March 12, 1857. It was an irretrievable failure, despite its fine and intensely dramatic last act. This was followed by "Un Ballo in Maschera," brought out at the Teatro Apollo, Rome, Feb. 17, 1859. There was again trouble with the police, who objected to the original title, "Gustavo III.," a monarch who was assassinated. The text was also deemed objectionable, and the composer was commanded to choose other words for his music. Verdi indignantly refused, and the manager of the San Carlo at Naples, for whom the work was written, brought an action against Verdi for damages to the extent of two hundred thousand francs. This affair almost excited a revolution in Naples. The populace assembled outside Verdi's house and cheered him and followed him through the streets, shouting "Viva Verdi!" his name, read acrostically, signifying "_V_ittorio _E_mmanuele _R_e _D_i _I_talia"; the cry, though apparently honoring the composer, carrying with it a revolutionary significance. However, the title was changed; a governor of Boston replaced Gustavo III., and the opera was one of Verdi's most decided popular successes. His next opera was composed for St. Petersburg, and was "La Forza del Destino." It was brought out with mild success Nov. 10, 1862. Then succeeded "Don Carlos," for the Grand Opéra in Paris, produced March 11, 1867, and enthusiastically received; but it added nothing to Verdi's fame. He was now fifty-four years old, and had written twenty-six operas. His fame was world-wide, and he was the greatest living Italian opera composer. Wealth and honors had followed glory, and the son of the poor innkeeper of Roncole was now one of whom his native land was proud.

In the mean while Verdi was elected a foreign member of the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris, to take the place vacated by the death of Meyerbeer. More than this; for, when the duchy of Parma resolved to annex itself to the new kingdom of Italy and formed its first legislative assembly, Verdi was elected deputy to this body by the district of Busseto. He became a member of the Italian parliament upon the urgent solicitation of Count Cavour, but at the end of two or three years sent in his resignation. This, however, did not prevent King Victor Emmanuel making him a senator in 1875; he had no taste for politics, and after having taken the oath, he never again sat in that body. The honors that were showered on him did not turn his head, and he was never more pleased than when his friends, forgetting his titles, addressed him simply as Signor Verdi. In 1862 he composed a cantata expressly for the inauguration of the World's Fair in London. Four great musicians had been called on to represent their country musically at this exposition. They were Auber for France, Meyerbeer for Germany, Verdi for Italy, and Sterndale Bennett for England. Verdi is the only one of these masters still living. His work was an "Inno delle Nazioni," which was performed at Her Majesty's Theatre, May 24, 1862. The hymn comprised an introduction, a chorus, and a soprano solo sung by Mme. Tietjens. The _finale_, which is on a vast scale, skilfully combined the English, French and Italian national airs.

After "Don Carlos," Verdi did not produce a new opera for four years, and then appeared "Aïda," written for the opening of the Italian Theatre in Cairo, in December, 1871, the most brilliant and most original work he had composed up to that time, and, on the whole, the most impressive evidence of his musical genius. His next achievement was his splendid Requiem, written to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Manzoni and produced at Milan, May 24, 1874, in the church of San Marco. Its success in the church was immense, and elsewhere it was no less enthusiastically received and admired. In April, 1881, a revised version of "Simon Boccanegra" was given at Milan. The work was more successful than it was in its original form, but it did not become popular. His other works up to this time were a string quartet, written at Naples and performed in the composer's own house, in April, 1873; a "Pater Noster" for two sopranos, contralto, tenor and bass; and an "Ave Maria" for soprano and strings. Both these last-named works were given for the first time at La Scala, April 18, 1880. Verdi was now sixty years of age, and could well afford to rest on his laurels. He had worked industriously and had reached a time of life when the inventive faculties begin to show signs of exhaustion. His growth in his art had been constant, and his latest works were his masterpieces. His fecundity, however, was not yet exhausted; for, after a silence of sixteen years, he produced "Otello," another magnificent opera, at La Scala, Feb. 6, 1887; and still later, when eighty years of age, he brought out "Falstaff," a work full of youth, inspiration and beauty, and marvellous as the invention of a composer who had reached fourscore years, though the opera calls for no excuse for shortcomings on account of its writer's advanced age. It is his latest effort, up to date, though there are reports that this wonderful old man is busy in the composition of an opera founded on Shakespeare's "King Lear."

In addition to the immense mass of music already mentioned, Verdi has published for the voice six _romanzas_, two bass songs, a nocturne for soprano, tenor, and bass, with flute obligato; an album of six _romanzas_, and other lighter compositions. His youthful works that remain unpublished include marches, symphonies, concertos and variations for the pianoforte, duets, trios, church compositions, including a "Stabat Mater," and cantatas. He also wrote choruses to Manzoni's tragedies, and set music to many of the same author's poems. In 1862 he was one of the thirteen Italian composers who combined to write a requiem as a tribute to the memory of Rossini. For this Verdi composed a "Libera me," which so impressed Signor Mazzucato that he urged Verdi to compose the whole work. Manzoni dying soon after, Verdi offered to write a requiem in the poet's honor, and the last movement is the same "Libera me" that was written for the Rossini memorial.

After mourning deeply the loss of the wife and children that had been taken from him with such agonizing rapidity, Verdi married Signora Strapponi, by whom, however, he has had no children. He resides on his handsome estate near Busseto, except during the winter months which he passes in Genoa. He has a beautiful garden and a large farm, to whose cultivation he devotes himself with enthusiasm. He is very fond of his animals, especially his horses. To young musicians he is especially kind. His modesty is excessive, and he objects strongly to talk of himself and his art triumphs. He lives quietly the life of a well-to-do country gentleman, and is delighted to see his friends, if they are not over-prone to discuss music. His disposition is charitable, and he gives freely but unostentatiously to the needy. Some of the splendors of his garden, which appear to be the mere caprice of a rich man with a taste for the luxuries of life, were conceived and carried out for the purpose of giving to poor working people out of employ, the means of earning a livelihood. He gave ten thousand francs toward building a theatre at Busseto, because the inhabitants desired one. It is a small but handsome and elegant building, on the front of which is inscribed, in letters of gold, the name of the great master, who years before, when a poor boy, played the organ in the church of the neighboring village of Roncole for the yearly pay of $7.20.

Verdi is described as "tall, agile, vigorous, endowed with an iron constitution and an energy of character that promise lifelong virility." His friend and _collaborateur_, Signor Ghislanzoni, says of him: "I have known artists who, after having been recklessly prodigal of good humor and affability in their youth, have become gloomy and almost irritable under the burden of glory and honors. Verdi, on the contrary, seems to have left behind him at each upward step in his career a part of that hard, rough exterior that belonged to his earlier years." At eighty he is still young, still vivacious.

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That Verdi is one of the most popular opera composers of his time must be freely conceded. That he is a great musician in any exacting sense of the word cannot be so readily granted. He has been in no sense an innovator, and as far as his influence on opera is concerned, he leaves it where he found it, except inasmuch as he has followed the changes that the musical development of his time has made in every branch of the art. He has not been an epoch-maker in opera, as was Rossini, and in nothing that he has written has he made such an impression on his contemporaries in opera as was made by the "La Sonnambula" and the "Norma" of Bellini, and the "Lucia di Lammermoor" and the "La Favorita" of Donizetti. As it seems to us, he was the logical outgrowth of the latter, as Donizetti was of Bellini, as Bellini was of Rossini, and as Rossini was of the _finales_ of "Il Nozze di Figaro." Gifted with an inexhaustive fund of melody, and a strong feeling for dramatic effect, he trusted to these gifts without paying especial heed to any philosophical principle on which operas should be composed, and appealed to the nerves and the ephemeral emotions of his public, rather than to its heart or its intelligence, for its plaudits. The immense vogue he has won, not only in his own country but in every land where a taste for opera is cultivated, shows that this form of appeal was not made in vain. Nevertheless, the twenty-seven operas which form the great bulk of his musical life-work, in spite of their wealth and variety of melody, the extraordinary resources of invention they exemplify in their composer, and the fluent skill exhibited by him in saying the same thing in an infinite number of ways, do not present anything of the highest order, even in their kind. Not one of these operas is great in the sense that Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Seviglia" is great, or in the sense that the first act and the meeting of the cantons in the same master's "William Tell" are great. There are beauties innumerable in them, but they do not lie deeper than the surface. They are affluent in inspiration of a certain order, but it is the inspiration of a prolific tune-maker, with an instinct for opera writing, and without any very high musicianship or any very sincere artistic feeling. More spontaneous, perhaps, than Meyerbeer, in the invention of melody, he has never risen to the height of the magnificent duet between Raoul and Valentine, in the fourth act of "Les Huguenots," and the fine trio in the last act of "Robert le Diable."

We have said that Verdi was the logical outgrowth of Donizetti. It would be more exact to say that, up to the time that "Aïda" appeared, he continued to follow in the same path as that trodden by the composer of "Lucia." The latter, after all, had a certain originality, inasmuch as his operas were, in many distinctive ways, different from those of any of his predecessors; though it may, with some show of justice, be claimed that the "I Puritani" of Bellini provided him with his model. The difference between Bellini and Donizetti, however, is far greater than is that between Donizetti and Verdi, though there is a marked family resemblance between all three, as far as conventional forms are concerned. Until quite recently, however, these forms were the monotonous characteristics of Italian opera. In saying this we do not mean that the operas of this school are not in harmony with the views that have of late prevailed regarding the absurdity of this form or the propriety of that form of opera: in other words, that Italian opera, with its _cabballettas_, duets, quartets, and its _scenas_, consisting of a recitative, an andante, and a brilliant allegro, its adherence to flowing melody and to tunefulness generally is wrong in principle, as opposed to that form of opera or music-drama advocated by Wagner and his followers, which, it is claimed, is more natural and more logical. When the characters in a drama, instead of speaking, resort to singing in order to express themselves, whether they do it according to the methods of Wagner or the methods of Verdi, the absurdity is equally great. Ortrud giving vent to her hate in song is no less untrue to nature than is Azucena. There is no more truth, no more logic, in the "endless melodies" of Wagner than there is in the regularly formed and terminable melodies of Verdi. The opera music of Wagner, when performed by an orchestra without the assistance of voices, says no more than does the music of Verdi given under the same conditions, except that the latter is more intelligible as music pure and simple. We do not intend to draw any comparison between the respective qualities of the music of these composers, but we insist that no one who hears the music of either master for the first time, as mere instrumental music, can tell what it is intended to express on the stage. Hence it is folly to urge that the opera music of any school expresses more than that of another. It is folly to speak of nature in connection with the emotions of love, hate, hope, despair, joy and woe, when sung by actors to the accompaniment of an orchestra. The only logic that can enter into so illogical a process is that which, having conceded that song may take the place of speech, concedes all the rest. The opera composer should not be judged by any other canon of art than that which he has followed in writing his work; and when Wagner's Tristan sings his love according to the composer's idea of musical and dramatic propriety, he is no less ridiculous, _per se_, than is Verdi's Ernani in the like situation. The composer who creates the precise impression that he strives to create by the music he places in the mouths of his characters is the composer who has made all that can be made of his art, whether he be Wagner or Verdi. It is not the way in which it is done, but it is the result achieved, that is to be considered. That the two masters will express the same sentiment by methods directly contrary is nothing to the point. The effect is all that is of importance, and it is in the power of nobody to prove that the one method is right and the other wrong, or to impress greater propriety on the one than on the other, except arbitrarily and irresponsibly.

Verdi's reputation began to spread after "Nabucco"; it increased with "I Lombardi" and was established firmly by "Ernani." In all these works, affluence of melody and rhythmical variety are conspicuous. In none of them is there any profound musicianship. They suggest brilliant improvisation rather than deep thought. In certain portions of the scores of "I Lombardi" and "Ernani" there is vigorous dramatic color, but it is of the perfunctory type made familiar by Donizetti. The orchestration is conventional, and orchestral color is rarely sought except by violent contrasts. The overture to "Nabucco" is one of the few works in this kind that the composer has attempted. It is made up of melodies from the opera, put together with no special skill, and, though effective after a noisy fashion, is of no musical value. It is the best of his overtures, but in common with the others, is wholly barren of thematic development. In this purely instrumental branch of his art he has written nothing as good as Donizetti's overture to "La Fille du Regiment," in respect to form, instrumentation, and musicianship generally. His overtures to "Giovanna d'Arco," "Les Vêpres Sicilliennes," "Aroldo" and "La Forza del Destino," though tuneful and effective in their way, are without any merit on which we need dwell.

Verdi did not attain to fame without meeting with opposition. It was claimed that he was over-noisy, a charge not wholly without foundation, notably in his "I Due Foscari" which succeeded "Ernani," and in which the predominance of the brass wind instruments, a novelty then, was almost overpowering. Then, too, it was charged that his music, if it should be sung much, would ruin the voices of the singers, so addicted was he to write for them in their highest register. It was not until "Rigoletto" appeared that his instrumentation showed any marked care, or that he seemed to be impressed by the variety of effects that could be produced by a judicious use of the wood wind. In Gilda's air, _Caro nomo_, the scoring is delightful in its grace, delicacy and charmingly contrasted coloring. In the last act of this opera, too, is the famous quartet, in which are so felicitously mingled impassioned love, mirth, suspense and vengefulness,--the best thing in its kind that had appeared since the sextet in "Lucia" and the trio in "Lucrezia Borgia," and which was soon to be followed by the more popular but less artistic _Miserere_ in "Il Trovatore." It is true that he had written the stirring and effective _Carlo Magno_ finale to one of the acts of his "Ernani," and that it attained to immense popular favor; but the "Rigoletto" quartet is the most brilliant and most musicianly of all his efforts in its kind. "Rigoletto," which was composed in forty days, has outlived the sixteen operas that preceded it, and its wealth of melody and its powerful dramatic effects, cause it to be listened to still with much of the pleasure and interest that attended its first production forty-two years ago. It is one of the works in which the composer will live.