CHAPTER XIII

VERDI AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

Verdi’s mission in Italian opera--His early life and education--His first operas and their political significance--His second period: the maturing of his style--Crowning achievements of his third period--His contemporaries.

I

One can hardly imagine the art of music being what it is to-day without Bach or Mozart or Beethoven, without Monteverdi or Gluck or Wagner. It has been said that great men sum up an epoch and inaugurate one. Janus-like, they look at once behind and before, with glances that survey comprehensively all that is past and pierce prophetically the dim mists of the future. Unmistakably they point the way to the seekers of new paths; down through the ages rings the echo of their guiding voice in the ears of those who follow. So much is this so that the world has come to measure a man’s greatness by the extent of his influence on succeeding generations. The test has been applied to Wagner and stamps him unequivocally as one of the great; but a rigid application of the same test would seem to exclude from the immortal ranks the commanding figure of his distinguished contemporary, Giuseppe Verdi.

Yet, while it is still perhaps too early to ascertain Verdi’s ultimate place in musical history, there are few to-day who would deny to him the title of great. Undoubtedly he is the most prominent figure in Italian music since Palestrina. The musical history of his country for half a century is almost exclusively the narrative of his remarkable individual achievement. Nevertheless, when he passed away, leaving to an admiring world a splendid record of artistic accomplishment, there remained on the musical soil of Italy no appreciable traces of his passage. He founded no school; he left no disciples, no imitators. Of all the younger Italians who aspired to inherit his honored mantle there is not one in whom we can point to any specific signs of his influence. Even his close friend and collaborator, Boïto, was drawn from his side by the compelling magnetism of the creator of _Tristan_. Some influence, of course, must inevitably have emanated from him; but it was no greater apparently than that exercised even by mediocre artistic personalities upon those with whom they come immediately in contact. It is curious to note, in contrast, the influence on the younger Italians of Ponchielli, a lesser genius, and one is inclined to wonder why ‘the noblest Roman of them all’ inspired no one to follow in his footsteps.

The reason, however, is not far to seek. Verdi was no innovator, no explorer of fresh fields. He had not the passionate desire that Wagner had for a new and more adequate form of expression. The fierce contempt for conventional limitations so common to genius in all ages was unknown to him. Verdi was temperamentally the most _bourgeois_ of great artists. He was conservative, prudent, practical, and self-contained. The appearance of eccentricity was distasteful to him. He had a proper respect for established traditions and no ambition to overturn them. The art forms he inherited appeared to him quite adequate to his purposes, and in the beginning of his career he seems to have had no greater desire than to imitate the dramatic successes of Rossini, Mercadante, and Bellini. His growth was perfectly natural, spontaneous, unconscious. He towered above his predecessors because he was altogether a bigger man--more intelligent, more intense, more sincere, and more vital. He was not conscious of the need for a more logical art form than the Italian opera of his time, and unquestioningly he poured his inspiration into the conventional molds; but as time went on his sure dramatic instinct unconsciously shaped these into a vehicle suitable to the expression of his genius. It thus became the real mission of Verdi to develop and synthesize into a homogeneous art form the various contradictory musical and dramatic influences to which he fell heir; and, having done that, his work was finished, nor was there anything left for another to add.

The influences which Verdi inherited were sufficiently complex. The ideals of Gluck and Mozart were strangely diluted by Rossini with the inanities of the concert-opera school, of which Sacchini, Paesiello, Jommelli, and Cimarosa were leading exponents. _Il Barbiere_, it is true, is refreshingly Mozartian and _Tell_ is infused with the romantic spirit of Weber and Auber; but even these are not entirely free from the vapidity of the Neapolitans. With Rossini’s followers, Bellini, Donizetti, and Mercadante, Italian opera shows retrogression rather than advance, though _Norma_ is obviously inspired by _Tell_ and _La Favorita_ is not lacking in traces of Meyerbeer. The truth is that Italian opera during the first few decades of the nineteenth century was suffering from an epidemic of anæmia. It was not devoid of spontaneity, of inspiration, of facile grace; but it was languid and lackadaisical; it was like the drooping society belle of the period, with her hothouse pallor, her tight corsets and fainting spells and smelling salts. To save it from degenerating into imbecility there was necessary the advent of an unsophisticated personality dowered with robust sincerity, with full-blooded force and virility. And fortunately just such a savior appeared in the person of Giuseppe Verdi.

The career of Verdi is in many ways the most remarkable in musical history. None other covers such an extended period of productive activity; none other shows such a very gradual and constant development; none other delayed so long its full fruition. Had Verdi died or stopped writing at the same age as did Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Schubert, or Schumann--to mention only a few--his name would be to us merely that of a delightful melodist whose genius reached its fullest expression in _Rigoletto_ and the _Traviata_. He would rank perhaps with Rossini and Donizetti--certainly not higher. But at an age which is usually considered beyond the limit of actual achievement he gave to the world the crowning masterpieces which as far surpass the creations of his prime as _Tristan_ and _Die Meistersinger_ surpass _Das Liebesverbot_ and _Rienzi_.

II

Giuseppe Fortunino Verdi was born on October 10, 1813, in the little village of Le Roncole, about three miles from Busseto. His parents were Carlo Verdi and Luigia Utini, peasants and innkeepers of Le Roncole.

Happily, the narrative of Verdi’s early years is comparatively free from the wealth of strange and wonderful legends that cluster like barnacles around the childhood of nearly every genius. There was something exceptional, however, in the sympathetic readiness with which the untutored innkeeper encouraged his son’s taste for music by the gift of a spinet and in the eager assiduity with which the child devoted himself to the instrument. In encouraging his son’s taste for music it was the far-fetched dream of Carlo Verdi that the boy might some day become organist of the church of Le Roncole. At the age of eleven Verdi justified his father’s hopes. Meantime he went to school at Busseto and subsequently became an office boy in the wholesale grocery house of one Antonio Barezzi.

Barezzi was a cultivated man. He played with skill upon the flute, clarinet, French horn, and ophicleide, and he was president of the local Philharmonic Society, which held its meetings and rehearsals at his house. There Verdi’s talent was recognized by the conductor Provesi, who after a few years put the young man in his place as conductor of the Philharmonic Society and frequently used him as his substitute at the organ of the cathedral.

Eventually, however, Verdi exhausted the musical possibilities of Busseto, and his loyal friends, Barezzi and Provesi, decided that he should go to Milan. Through the influence of Barezzi he was awarded one of the bursaries of the _Monte di Pietà_,[120] and, as this was not sufficient to cover all his expenses, the good Barezzi advanced him money out of his own pocket.

Verdi arrived in Milan in June, 1832, and at once made application in writing for admission as a paying pupil at the Conservatory. He also went through what he afterward called ‘a sort of examination.’ One learns without surprise that he was not admitted. The reason for his rejection is one of those profound academic secrets about which the world is perfectly unconcerned. He was simply advised by Provesi’s friend, Rolla, a master at the Conservatory, to choose a teacher in the town, and accordingly he chose Vincenzo Lavigna. With him Verdi made rapid progress and gained a valuable practical familiarity with the technique of dramatic composition. From this period date many forgotten compositions, including pianoforte pieces, marches, overtures, serenades, cantatas, a _Stabat Mater_ and other efforts. Some of these were written for the Philharmonic Society of Busseto and some were performed at La Scala at the benefit concerts for the _Pio Istituto Teatrale_. Several of them were utilized by Verdi in the scores of his earlier operas.

From 1833-36 Verdi was _maestro di musica_ of Busseto. During that time he wrote a large amount of church music, besides marches for the _banda_ (town band) and overtures for the orchestra of the Philharmonic. Except as preparatory exercises, none of these has any particular value. The most important event of those three years was Verdi’s marriage to Margarita Barezzi, daughter of the enlightened grocer who so ably deputized Providence in shaping the great composer’s career. This marriage seems to have kindled a new ambition in Verdi, and as soon as the conditions of his contract with the municipality of Busseto were fulfilled he returned to Milan, taking with him his wife, two young children and the completed score of a musical melodrama, entitled _Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio_, of which he had copied all the parts, both vocal and instrumental, with his own hand.

Verdi returned to Milan under most promising auspices, having already attracted the favorable notice of some of the leading social and artistic factors of that musical city. A few years before, when he was studying in Milan, there existed a society of rich musical _dilettanti_, called the _Società Filodrammatica_, which included such exalted personages as Count Renato Borromeo, the Duke Visconti, and Count Pompeo Belgiojoso, and was directed by a _maestro_ named Masini. The society held weekly artistic meetings in the hall of the Teatro Filodrammatico, which it owned, and, at the time we speak of, was engaged in preparing Haydn’s ‘Creation’ for performance. Verdi distinguished himself by conducting the performance of that work, in place of the absent _maestri_. Soon afterward Count Borromeo commissioned Verdi to write the music for a cantata for voice and orchestra on the occasion of the marriage of some member of his family, and this commission was followed by an invitation to write an opera for the Philodramatic Theatre. The libretto furnished by Masini was altered by Temistocle Solera--a very remarkable young poet, with whom Verdi had cultivated a close friendship--and became _Oberto di San Bonifacio_.

III

This was the opera with which Verdi landed in Milan in 1838. Masini, unfortunately, was no longer director of the Philodramatic Theatre, but he promised to obtain for _Oberto_ a representation at La Scala. In this he was assured the support of Count Borromeo and other influential members of the Philodramatic, but, beyond a few commonplace words of recommendation--as Verdi afterward remarked--the noble gentlemen did not exert themselves. Masini, however, succeeded in making arrangements to have _Oberto_ produced in the spring of 1839. The illness of one of the principal singers set all his plans awry; but Bartolomeo Merelli, who was then _impresario_ of La Scala, was so much impressed with the possibilities of the opera that he decided to put it on at his own expense, agreeing to divide with Verdi whatever price the latter might realize from the sale of the score.[121] _Oberto_ was produced on the seventeenth of November, 1839, and met with a modest success. Merelli then commissioned Verdi to write within two years three operas which were to be produced at La Scala or at the Imperial Theatre of Vienna. None of the librettos supplied by Merelli appealed to Verdi; but finally he chose what appeared to him the best of a bad lot. This was a work in the comic vein, called _Il Finto Stanislao_ and renamed by Verdi _Un Giorno di Regno_.

It was the supreme irony of fate that set Verdi just then to the composition of a comic opera. Poverty, sickness, and death in rapid succession darkened that period of his life. Between April and June, 1840, he lost, one after the other, his baby boy, his little girl, and his beloved wife. And he was supposed to write a comic opera! _Un Giorno di Regno_ naturally did not succeed, and, feeling thoroughly disheartened by his successive misfortunes, Verdi resolved to abandon a musical career. From this slough of despond he was finally drawn some months later by the attraction of a libretto, written by his friend Solera, which Merelli had succeeded in inducing him to read. It was _Nabucco_.[122]

The opera _Nabucco_ was finished in the fall of 1841 and was produced at La Scala on March 9, 1842. Its success was unprecedented. The first performance was attended by scenes of the wildest and most fervent enthusiasm. So unusually vociferous was the demonstration, even for an Italian theatre, that Verdi at first thought the audience was making fun of him. _Nabucco_, however, was a real sensation. It had a dramatic fire and energy, a massiveness of treatment, a richness of orchestral and choral color that were new to the Italians. The chorus of the Scala had to be specially augmented to achieve its magnificent effects. Somewhat crude it was, no doubt, but it possessed life and force--qualities of which the Italian stage was then sorely in need. One is amused at this date to read the complaints of an eminent English critic--Henry Fothergill Chorley of the _Athenæeum_, to wit--touching its noisiness, its ‘immoderate employment of brass instruments,’ and its lack of melody. Familiar charges! To the Italians _Nabucco_ was the ideal of what a tragic music drama should be, and certainly it approached that ideal more nearly than any opera that had appeared in years.[123]

The great success of _Nabucco_ placed Verdi at once on an equal footing with Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini, Ricci, and the other musical idols of contemporary Italy. The management of La Scala commissioned him to write the _opera d’obbligo_[124] for the grand season of the Carnival, and Merelli gave him a blank contract to sign upon his own terms. Verdi’s demands were sufficiently moderate, and within eleven months he had handed to the management of La Scala the completed score of a new opera, _I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata_.

With _I Lombardi_ began Verdi’s long and troublesome experience with the Austrian censorship. The time was almost ripe for the political awakening of Lombardo-Venetia, and some of the patriotic feeling which Verdi, consciously or unconsciously, expressed in _Nabucco_ had touched an answering chord in the spirit of the Milanese which was partly responsible for the enthusiasm with which the opera was received. Such demonstrations were little to the taste of the Austrians, and when _I Lombardi_ was announced they were prepared to edit it into complete political innocuousness. Accordingly, in response to an ill-tempered letter from Cardinal Gaisruk, Archbishop of Milan, drawing attention to the supposed presence in _I Lombardi_ of several objectionable and sacrilegious incidents, the director of police, Torresani, notified the management of La Scala that the opera could not be produced without important changes. After much discussion Torresani finally announced that, as he was ‘never a person to cut the wings of a young artist,’ the opera might go on provided the words _Salve Maria_ were substituted for _Ave Maria_.[125]

_I Lombardi_ was produced in February, 1843, and met with a reception rivalling that which greeted _Nabucco_. As in the case of the latter opera a certain amount of this excitement was political--the audiences reading into many of the passages a patriotic meaning which may or may not have been intended. The chorus, _O Signore, dal tetto natio_, was the signal for a tremendous demonstration similar to that which had been aroused by the words, _O, mia patria, si bella e perduta_ in _Nabucco_. Additional political significance was lent to the occasion by the interference of the police to prevent the repetition of the quintet. In truth, Verdi owed much of his extraordinary success of his early operas to his lucky coincidence with the awakening patriotic and revolutionary sentiment of the Italian people. He put into fervent, blood-stirring music the thoughts and aspirations which they dared not as yet express in words and deeds. We cannot believe that he did this altogether unconsciously, for he was much too near the soil and the hearts of the people of Italy not to feel with them and in a measure express them. Indeed, as he himself acknowledged, it was among the common people that his work first met with sympathy and understanding.

After the success of _I Lombardi_ Verdi was beset with requests for a new work from all the leading opera houses in Italy. He finally made a contract with the Fenice in Venice and chose for his subject Victor Hugo’s drama _Ernani_, from which a mediocre libretto was arranged at his request by a mediocre poet named Francesco Maria Piave. The subject appealed strongly to Verdi and resulted in a score that was a decided advance on _Nabucco_ and _I Lombardi_. It brought Verdi again into collision with the Austrian police, who insisted on certain modifications; but, in spite of careful censorship, it still furnished an opportunity for patriotic demonstrations on the part of the Venetians, who read a political significance into the chorus, _Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia_. Under the circumstances one cannot say to what extent, if any, the artistic appeal of _Ernani_ was responsible for the enthusiasm which greeted its _première_ at La Fenice on March 9, 1844. Some of the other Italian cities--notably Florence--received it coolly enough; but, on the whole it was very successful in Italy. Abroad the impression it produced was less favorable. It was the first Verdi opera to be given in London, where Lumley opened the season of 1845 with it at Her Majesty’s Theatre. The manner of its reception may be described in the words of a contemporary wag, who declared after the performance: ‘Well, the “I don’t knows” have it.’ In Paris it was presented at the Théâtre Italien, in January, 1846, but, owing to the excusably strenuous objections of Victor Hugo, its name was changed to _Il Proscritto_ and the name of its characters were also altered. Hugo did not admire Piave’s version of his drama; neither did it succeed with the Parisian public.

Verdi’s next effort was _I due Foscari_, a long-winded melodrama constructed by Piave, which was produced in 1844, and received without enthusiasm. Its merit is far below that of its three immediate predecessors; nor was its successor, _Giovanna d’Arco_, of much more value, though it had the advantage of a good poem written by Solera. _Giovanna d’Arco_ was followed, respectively, by _Alzira_ and _Attila_, neither of which attained or deserved much success. Great enthusiasm, it is true, marked the reception of _Attila_ in Italy, but it is attributable almost solely to the susceptible patriotic fervor of the people, who were aroused to almost frantic demonstrations by such lines as _Avrai tu l’universo, resti l’Italia me_. In London _Attila_ attracted to the box-office the magnificent sum of forty dollars, though in Paris a fragment of the work produced what was described as ‘a startling effect,’ through the medium of the statuesque Sophie Cruvelli.[126]

Yet during all this time Verdi was advancing, as it were, under cover. His failures were not the result of any decline in his powers. They showed no loss of the vigor and vitality that gave life to _Nabucco_, _I Lombardi_, and _Ernani_. Simply, they were less felicitous, but no less the crude and forceful efforts of a strong man not yet trained to the effective use of his own strength. Some of their defects, too, were no doubt due to the poverty of the libretti, for Verdi was essentially a dramatic genius, dependent for inspiration largely upon the situations with which he was supplied. Certainly the quality of his works seems to vary precisely with the quality of their libretti. Thus, _Macbeth_, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, made by Piave, proved a distinct advance on its immediate predecessor, _Attila_--even though Piave did not improve on Shakespeare. It was produced at La Pergola, Florence, on March 14, 1847, with complete success. Like so many other Verdi operas, ‘Macbeth’ provided an excuse for patriotic demonstrations, and in Venice the Austrian soldiery had to be summoned to quell the riotous and seditious excitement aroused by Palma’s singing of the verse:

_La patria tradita Piangendo c’invita Fratelli, gli oppressi Corriamo a salvar._

‘Macbeth’ was followed by _I Masnadieri_, which was written for the stage of Her Majesty’s Theatre, London. It was originally intended that Verdi should write an opera for the English stage on the subject of King Lear, and it is to be regretted that circumstances prevented him from carrying out his project, for he seems to have found a special inspiration in the Shakespearean drama. The libretto of _I Masnadieri_ was written by Andrea Maffei, but that excellent poet had the bad judgment to single out for treatment _Die Räuber_ of Schiller, which had already been shamefully mauled and mangled by other librettists. It was a complete failure in London, where Verdi himself conducted it; it also was a complete failure everywhere else.

Notwithstanding this Verdi was offered the post of _chef d’orchestre_ at Her Majesty’s Theatre, but had to refuse because of contract engagements. His next two operas were mere hack work--_Il Corsaro_ and _La Battaglia di Legnano_. The latter, being a deliberate attempt to dramatize a revolution rather than to express the feelings that underlie revolutions, was an artistic failure.

IV

With _Luisa Miller_ begins what is usually known as Verdi’s second period--the period in which he shook himself free from the grandiose bombast, from which none of his earlier works is entirely free. In this so-called second period he becomes more restrained, more coherent, more _net_; he leans somewhat more to the suave _cantabile_ of Bellini and Donizetti, a little more--if the truth be told--to the trite and mawkish. Cammarano fashioned the libretto of _Luisa Miller_ from Schiller’s immature _Kabale und Liebe_. It was a moderately good libretto and moderately good, perhaps, sufficiently describes the music which Verdi wrote to it. _Stiffelio_, a work of little merit, with a poem by Piave, was the next product of Verdi’s second manner. It was given without success at the Grand Theatre, Trieste, in November, 1850.

After _Stiffelio_, however, there came in rapid succession from Verdi’s pen three works whose enormous success consummated his fame and whose melodiousness has since reëchoed continuously from every opera stage and street organ in the universe. When _Stiffelio_ was produced he was under contract with the _impresario_ Lasina to write an opera for the Fenice of Venice. At his request Piave again made free with Victor Hugo, choosing this time the unsavory melodrama, _Le roi s’amuse_, which he adopted under the title of _La Maledizione_. When the Italian police got wind of the project, however, there was serious trouble. _Le roi s’amuse_ contains some implied animadversions on the morals of royalty, and the censorship absolutely forbade the appearance in Italy of such an iniquitous trifling with a sacrosanct subject. Verdi, who possessed a generous share of obstinacy, refused to write an opera on any other subject, to the despair of the Fenice management who had promised the Venetians a new opera by the illustrious _maestro_. A way out of the _impasse_ was finally found by a commissary of police named Martello, who advised some substitution in the names of the characters--such as the duke of Mantua for the king--and also suggested the title _Rigoletto, Buffone di Corte_. These suggestions proved acceptable to Verdi and within forty days the score of _Rigoletto_ was written and orchestrated from first note to last. Its _première_, on March 11, 1851, was an unqualified success. The too famous _canzone_, ‘_La donna e mobile_,’ caused a sensation which was so accurately foreseen by the composer that he would not put it to paper until a few hours before the performance. _Rigoletto_ was presented at the Italian Opera, Covent Garden, London, in the season of 1853 and at the Théâtre Italien, Paris, on January 17, 1857. Its London reception was very cordial.

Certainly _Rigoletto_ marks a decided advance on its predecessors. It is simpler in design, more economical of material, more logically developed and dramatically more legitimate--notwithstanding such puerilities as Gilda’s eccentric and irrelevant aria in the garden scene. There are present also signs which seem to indicate the influence of Meyerbeer; but it is difficult to trace specific influences in the work of a man of such absorbing individuality as Verdi.

After _Rigoletto_ came _Il Trovatore_, which was produced at the Apollo Theatre, Rome, on January 19, 1853, and was received with extraordinary enthusiasm. From Rome it spread like wildfire throughout Italy, everywhere achieving an overwhelming success. In Naples three houses gave the opera at about the same time. Soon all the capitals in Europe were humming its ingratiating melodies. Paris saw it at the Théâtre Italien in December, 1854; London at Covent Garden in May, 1855--even Germany extended to it a warm and smiling welcome. Truly, _Il Trovatore_ is, to an extent, unique in operatic annals. It probably enjoys the distinction of being the most popular and least intelligible opera ever written. The rambling and inchoate libretto was made by Cammarano from _El Trovador_ of the Spanish dramatist, Antonio Garcia Gultierez, and nobody has ever lived who could give a succinct and lucid exposition of its story. For that reason probably the work as a whole is such as to deserve the name of ‘a concert in costume,’ which someone has aptly applied to it. Verdi could not possibly have woven a dramatic score of consistent texture round such a literary nightmare. What he did do was to write a number of very pleasing solos, duets, and trios, together with some theatrical and ingratiating orchestral music. Anyone inclined to question the theatricalism of the score may be interested in comparing the ‘Anvil Chorus’ of _Il Trovatore_ with the ‘Forging of the Sword’ episode in _Siegfried_. Still, one cannot deny distinct merit to a work which has held a place in the affections of millions of people for more than half a century. Its amazing popularity when it first spread contagiously over Europe aroused a storm of critical comment which reads amusingly at this day. In the eyes of Verdi’s enthusiastic protagonists _Il Trovatore_ naturally marked the zenith of operatic achievement, while his antagonists placed it unequivocally at the nadir of uninspired and commonplace triviality.

_La Traviata_ sounds like a feminine counterpart of _Il Trovatore_, which it followed and with which it has been so often associated on operatic bills. The two works, however, are drawn from widely different sources and are about as dissimilar in every way as any other two operas of Verdi which might be mentioned. Piave made the libretto of _La Traviata_ from _La Dame aux Camélias_ of Alexandre Dumas, _fils_. The subject does not appear to be an ideal one for musical treatment; but it is of a style which seems to have a peculiar appeal to composers, as witness _Bohème_, _Sappho_, _Manon_, and many others. One is inclined to award to the _Traviata_ a very high place among Verdi’s works. It stands alone among them, absolutely different in style and manner from anything else he has done. There is in it a simplicity, a sparkle, a grace, a feminine daintiness, an enticing languor, a spirit quite thoroughly Gallic, suggesting, as Barevi has observed, the style of the _opéra comique_ (_cf._ Chap. I). _La Traviata_, produced at Venice in 1853, was a flat failure, partly owing to the general incapacity of the cast; about a year later, with some changes, it was reproduced in Venice and proved a brilliant success.

Two years of silence followed _La Traviata_. During that time Verdi was engaged on a work which the management of the Paris Opera--passing over Auber, Berlioz, and Halévy--had commissioned him to write for the Universal Exhibition of 1855. The libretto was made by Scribe and Duveyrier and dealt with the sanguinary episode of the French-Italian war of 1282, known as the Sicilian Vespers--a peculiar subject to select under the circumstances. After an amount of delay, caused by the eccentric disappearance of the beautiful Sophie Cruvelli, idol of contemporary Paris, _Les Vêpres Siciliennes_ was produced at the Opéra in 1855. It was received with great enthusiasm, but did not outlive the popularity of its first prima donna. It was followed by _Simon Boccanegra_, composed to a poem adapted by Piave from Schiller’s _Fieschi_, which, produced at the Fenice, Venice, in 1857, with little success, was later revised by that excellent poet, Arrigo Boïto, and, with the music recast by Verdi, was received at La Scala, Milan, in 1881 with distinct favor.

Verdi’s next opera, _Un Ballo in Maschera_, has a peculiar history, turning on the curious interaction of art and politics which is such a feature of Verdi’s career. It was adapted from the ‘Gustave III’ of Scribe, which Auber had already set to music for the Paris Opera, and was at first entitled _La Vendetta in Domino_. Written for the San Carlo Theatre, Naples, it was about to be put into rehearsal when word arrived of the attempted assassination of Napoleon III by Orsini. The Italian police, morbidly sensitive in such matters, at once forbade the representation of _Un Ballo in Maschera_ without radical modifications, and Verdi, with his customary obstinacy, emphatically refused to make any alteration whatsoever. Even when the San Carlo management instituted a civil action against him for two hundred thousand francs Verdi declined to budge. He was openly supported in his attitude by the entire population of Naples, which greeted his appearance everywhere with enthusiastic shouts of _Viva Verdi!_. Eventually, feeling that the affair would create a revolution on its own account, the authorities requested Verdi to take himself and his opera out of Naples. The opera was then secured by Jacovacci, the famous _impresario_ of the Apollo Theatre in Rome, who swore he would present it in that city at any cost. ‘I shall arrange with the censure, with the cardinal-governor, with St. Peter if necessary,’ he said. ‘Within a week, my dear _maestro_, you shall have the libretto, with all the _visas_ and all the _buon per la scena_ possible.’ Nevertheless the papal government did not prove so tractable, and, before _Un Ballo in Maschera_ could appear in Rome the scene of the action had to be shifted from Sweden to America and the character of Gustave III transmogrified into the Earl of Warwick, Governor of Boston! Indifferent to historic accuracy, however, Rome received the opera with enthusiasm, when it was produced in February, 1859. Upon the occasion of its presentation at the Théâtre Italien, Paris, on January 13, 1861, the scene was shifted to the kingdom of Naples--where it still remains--because Mario refused to wear the costume of a New England Puritan at the beginning of the eighteenth century. _Un Ballo in Maschera_ was given in London in 1861 and was received very cordially.

It is, in effect, one of the most mature works of Verdi’s second manner. Still more mature and suggestive of what was to come is _La Forza del Destino_, which was written for the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersburg, and was produced there on November 10, 1862, encountering merely a _succès d’estime_. Repellantly gloomy and gruesome is the story of _La Forza del Destino_, adapted by Piave from _Don Alvar_, a tragedy in the exaggerated French romantic vein by Don Angel de Saavedra. The oppressive libretto perhaps accounted in large measure for the lack of success which attended the opera, not only in St. Petersburg, but in Milan, where it was produced at La Scala in 1869, and in Paris where the Théâtre Italien staged it in 1876. Yet _La Forza del Destino_ contains some of the most powerful, passionate and poignant music that Verdi ever wrote, and one can see in it more clearly than in any of his other works suggestions of that complete maturity of genius which was to blossom forth in _Aïda_, _Otello_, and _Falstaff_.[127]

Notwithstanding the indifferent reception accorded _Les Vêpres Siciliennes_ in Paris, the management of the opera again approached Verdi when a new gala piece was needed for the Universal Exhibition of 1866. The opera management was singularly unfortunate in its experience with Verdi. For this occasion the composer was supplied by Méry and Camille du Locle with an indifferent libretto called _Don Carlos_, and he was unable to rise above its level.

V

_Don Carlos_, however, was but the darkness before the dawn of a new period more brilliant and glorious than was dreamed of even by those of Verdi’s admirers who did him highest reverence. At that time Wagner had not yet come into his own, and, in the eyes of the world at large Verdi stood absolutely without peer among living composers. Consequently, when Ismaïl Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, wished to add lustre to the beautiful opera houses he had built in Cairo he could think of nothing more desirable for the purpose than a new work from the pen of the great Italian. That nothing might be wanting to make such an event a memorable triumph, Mariette Bey, the distinguished French Egyptologist, sketched out, as a subject for the proposed work, a stirring, colorful story, recalling vividly the picturesque glories of ancient Egypt. This story set fire to Verdi’s imagination. Under his direction a libretto in French prose was made from Mariette’s sketch by Camille du Locle and done into Italian verse by A. Ghislanzoni. So ardently did Verdi become enamoured of the work that within a few months he had handed to Ismaïl Pasha the completed score of _Aïda_. The opera was to be performed at the end of 1870, but owing to a number of causes--including the imprisonment of the scenery within the walls of Paris by the besieging Germans--its performance was delayed for a year. It was finally given on December 24, 1871, before a brilliant cosmopolitan audience and amid scenes of the most intense enthusiasm.[128] The success of _Aïda_ was overwhelming; nor was it due, as in the case of so many other Verdi operas, to causes extraneous to the work itself. Milan, which heard _Aïda_ on February 7, 1872, received it with an applause which rivalled in spontaneous fervor the enthusiasm of Cairo, and the verdict of Milan has been emphatically endorsed by every important opera house in the world. Within three years, beginning on April 22, 1876, the Théâtre Italien presented it sixty-eight times to appreciative Parisian audiences, and later, at the Opéra, its reception was still enthusiastic. England, hitherto characteristically somewhat cold to Verdi, greeted _Aïda_ warmly when it was given at Covent Garden in 1876, and bestowed upon the work the full measure of its critical approval.

_Aïda_ was the storm centre around which raged the first controversy touching the alleged influence of Wagner on Verdi. In _Aïda_, apparently, we find all the identifying features of the modern music-drama as modelled by Wagner. There is the broad declamation, the dramatic realism and coherence, the solid, powerful instrumentation, the deposition of the voice from its commanding position as the all-important vehicle, the employment of the orchestra as the principal exponent of color, character, expression--putting the statue in the orchestra and leaving the pedestal on the stage, as Grétry said of Mozart. Yet, in spite of all this, in spite of much specious critical reasoning to the contrary, _Aïda_ is altogether Verdi, and there is in it of Wagner not a jot, not a tittle! It is, of course, impossible to suppose that Verdi was unacquainted with Wagner’s works, and equally impossible to suppose that he remained unimpressed by them. But Verdi’s was emphatically not the type of mind to borrow from any other. He was an exceptionally introspective, self-centred and self-sufficient man. Besides, he was concerned with the development of the Italian lyric drama purely according to Italian taste, and in directions which he himself had followed more or less strictly from the beginning of his career. From the propaganda of Wagner he must inevitably have absorbed some pregnant suggestions as to musical dramatics, particularly as Wagner was in that respect the voice of the _zeitgeist_; but of specific Wagnerian influence in his music there is absolutely no trace. Anyone who follows the development of Verdi’s genius from _Nabucco_ can see in _Aïda_ its logical maturing. No elements appear in the latter opera which are not appreciable in embryo in the former--between them lies simply thirty years of study, knowledge and experiment.

During a period of enforced leisure in 1873 Verdi wrote a string quartet, the only chamber music work that ever came from his fertile pen. His friend, the noble and illustrious Manzoni, passed away in the same year, and Verdi proposed to honor his memory by composing a _requiem_ to be performed on the first anniversary of his death. The municipality of Milan entered into the project to the extent of planning an elaborate public presentation of the work at the expense of the city. Verdi had already composed a _Libera me_ for a mass which, in accordance with a suggestion made by him to Tito Ricordi, was to be written in honor of Rossini by the leading composers of Italy. For some undiscovered reason or reasons this mass was never given. The _Libera me_ which Verdi wrote for it, however, served as a foundation for the new mass in memory of Manzoni. On May 22, 1874, the Manzoni _Requiem_ was given at the church of San Marco, Milan, in the presence of musicians and _dilettanti_ from all over Europe. Later it was presented to enthusiastic audiences at La Scala, at one of the _Matinées Spirituelles_ of the Salle Favart, Paris, and at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Hans von Bülow, with Teutonic emphasis, has characterized the _Requiem_ as a ‘monstrosity.’ While the description is perhaps extreme, it is, from one point of view, not altogether unjustified. Certainly a German critic, having in mind the magnificent classic structures of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, could hardly look with tolerance upon this colorful expression of southern genius. The Manzoni _Requiem_ is, in fact, a complete contradiction of itself, and as such can hardly be termed a successful artistic achievement. The odor of the _coulisses_ rather than that of the sanctuary hangs heavily about it. But, if one can forget that it is a mass and listen to it simply as a piece of music, then the _Requiem_ stands revealed for what it is--a touching, noble, and profound expression of love and sorrow for a friend departed. This is Verdi’s only important essay in sacred music, though mention may be made of his colorful and dramatic _Stabat Mater_, written in 1898.

A five-act opera entitled _Montezuma_ which Verdi wrote in 1878 may be passed over with the remark that it was produced in that year at La Scala, Milan. Then for nearly ten years Verdi was silent. The world was content to believe that his silence was permanent, that the marvellously productive career of the great master had come to a glorious and fitting close in _Aïda_ and the _Requiem_. Nobody then could have believed that _Aïda_, far from making the culmination of Verdi’s achievement, was but the beginning of a new period in which his genius rose to heights that dwarfed even the loftiest eminence of his heyday. There is nothing in the history of art that can parallel the final flight of this man, at an age when the wings of creative inspiration have usually withered into impotence, or crumbled into dust. Under the circumstances one can, of course, very easily overestimate the æsthetic value of the last works of Verdi, surrounded as they are in one’s imagination with the halo which the venerable age of their creator has inevitably lent to them. As a matter of fact, the ultimate place of Verdi’s last works in musical history it is not within our power to determine. The mighty weapon of popular approval--which bestows the final accolade or delivers the last damning thrust, according to one’s point of view--has as yet missed both _Otello_ and _Falstaff_. Critics differ, as critics will and ever did. Musically, dramatically, formally, and technically _Otello_ and _Falstaff_ are the most finished examples of operatic composition that Italy has ever given to the world; and even outside Italy--if one excepts the masterpieces of Wagner--it is doubtful if they can be paralleled. Whether, also, they possess the divine spark which alone gives immortality is a moot point. We cannot say.

The goddess of fortune, who on the whole kept ever close to Verdi’s side, secured for him in his culminating efforts the collaboration of Arrigo Boïto, a poet and musician of exceptional gifts. Undoubtedly Boïto made very free with Shakespeare in his libretto of _Otello_, but, compared with previous attempts to adapt Shakespeare for operatic purposes, his version is an absolute masterpiece. Even more remarkable, and much more faithful to the original, is his version of _Falstaff_, which, taken by and large, is probably the only perfect opera libretto ever written. _Otello_ is a story which might be expected to find perfect understanding and sympathy in the mind and temperament of an Italian, and consequently the faithful preservation of the original spirit is not so remarkable; but that an Italian should succeed in retaining through the change of language the thoroughly English flavor of _Falstaff_ is truly extraordinary.

_Otello_ was produced on February 5, 1887, at La Scala, Milan. That it was a brilliant success is not artistically very significant. Verdi to the Milanese was something less than a god and more than a composer. Its first performance at the Lyceum Theatre, London, in July, 1889, and at the Paris Opéra on October 12, 1894, were both gala occasions, and the enthusiasm which greeted it may safely be interpreted in part as a personal tribute to the venerable composer. Outside of such special occasions, and in the absence of the leather-lunged Tamagno, _Otello_ has always been received with curiosity, with interest, with respect, with admiration, but without enthusiasm and, generally speaking, without appreciation. A certain few there are whose appreciative love of the work is fervent and sincere; but the attitude of the public at large toward _Otello_ is not sympathetic.

Much the same may be said of the public attitude toward _Falstaff_--though the public, for some reason difficult to fathom, is provided with comparatively few opportunities of becoming familiar with this greatest of all Verdi’s creations. Excepting _Die Meistersinger_ and _Le Nozze di Figaro_ there is nothing in the literature of comic opera that can compare with _Falstaff_, and in its dazzling, dancing exuberance of youth and wit and gaiety it stands quite alone. ‘_Falstaff_,’ says Richard Strauss, ‘is the greatest masterpiece of modern Italian music. It is a work in which Verdi attained real artistic perfection.’ ‘The action in _Falstaff_,’ James Huneker writes, ‘is almost as rapid as if the text were spoken; and the orchestra--the wittiest and most sparkling _riant_ orchestra I ever heard--comments upon the monologue and dialogue of the book. When the speech becomes rhetorical so does the orchestra. It is heightened speech and instead of melody of the antique, formal pattern we hear the endless melody which Wagner employs. But Verdi’s speech is his own and does not savor of Wagner. If the ideas are not developed and do not assume vaster proportions it is because of their character. They could not be so treated without doing violence to the sense of proportion. Classic purity in expression, Latin exuberance, joyfulness, and an inexpressibly delightful atmosphere of irresponsible youthfulness and gaiety are all in this charming score....’ Nowhere in _Falstaff_ do we find the slightest suggestion of Wagner. Its spirit is much more that of Mozart. Naturally it invites comparison both with _Die Meistersinger_ and with _Figaro_, but the comparison in either case is futile. In form and content _Falstaff_ is absolutely _sui generis_.

La Scala, which witnessed the first Verdi triumph, also witnessed his last. _Falstaff_ had its _première_ there on February 9, 1893, in the presence of ‘the best elements in music, art, politics and society,’ to quote a contemporary correspondent of the London _Daily Graphic_. The audience, so we are informed, grew wildly riotous in its enthusiasm. Even the ‘best elements’ so far forgot themselves as to wax demonstrative; while that part of the population of Milan which was not included in the audience held a demonstration of its own after the performance in front of Verdi’s hotel, forcing the aged composer to spend most of the night walking back and forth between his apartment and the balcony that he might listen to reiterated appreciations of an opera which the majority of the demonstrators had not heard. Paris heard _Falstaff_ at the Opéra Comique in April, 1894, and London at Covent Garden in the following month. _Falstaff_ was the crowning effort of a distinguished genius, of a composer who had shed great lustre on the fame of Italian music, of a man venerable in age and character and achievement. It was Verdi’s swan-song. He died in Milan on January 27, 1901.[129]

Verdi’s extended career brings practically every nineteenth-century Italian composer of note within the category of his chronological contemporaries; but of contemporaries in the philosophical sense he had practically none worthy of mention. Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Mercadante, Frederico and Luigi Ricci all outlived the beginning of Verdi’s artistic career. _I Puritani_ first appeared in 1834, _Don Pasquale_ in 1843, the _Crispino e la Comare_ of the Ricci brothers in 1850.

Rossini died only three years and Mercadante only one year before _Aïda_ was produced, though both had long ceased to compose. But all of these men belong artistically to a period prior to Verdi. Many of the younger Italians, including Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Puccini, had already attracted attention when _Falstaff_ appeared; but they again belong to a later period. Boïto[130] is hard to classify. He is the Berlioz of Italian music, on a smaller scale--a polygonal figure which does not seem to fit into any well-defined niche. His _Mefistofele_ was produced as early as 1868, yet he seems to belong musically and dramatically to the post-Wagnerian epoch. Apart from those who were just beginning or just ending their artistic careers Italy was almost barren of meritorious composers during most of Verdi’s life. It would appear as if that one gigantic tree absorbed all the nourishment from the musical soil of Italy, leaving not enough to give strength to lesser growths. Of the leading Italian composers chosen to collaborate on the mass in honor of Rossini, not one, except Frederico Ricci and Verdi himself, is now remembered.[131] There remains Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-86) who is important as the founder of the Italian realistic school which has given to the world _I Pagliacci_, _Cavalleria Rusticana_, _Le Gioje della Madonna_, and other essays in blood-letting brutality. His operas include _I Promessi Sposi_ (1856), _La Savojarda_ (1861), _Roderica_ (1864), _La Stella del Monte_ (1867), _Le Due Generale_ (1873), _La Gioconda_ (1876), _Il Figliuol Prodigio_ (1880), and _Marion Delorme_ (1885). Of these only _La Gioconda_, which still enjoys an equivocal popularity, has succeeded in establishing itself. Ponchielli wrote an amount of other music, sacred and secular, but none of it calls for special notice, except the _Garibaldi Hymn_ (1882), which is likely to live after all his more pretentious efforts have been forgotten.

There is nothing more to be said of Verdi’s contemporaries. The history of his career is practically the history of Italian music during the same time. He reigned alone in unquestionable supremacy, and, whatever the future may have in store for Italy, it has not yet disclosed a worthy successor to his vacant throne.

W. D. D.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] The _Monte di Pietà e d’Abbondanza di Busseto_ is an institution founded primarily for the relief of the poor and secondarily to help poor children of promise to develop their talent for the sciences or fine arts.

[121] This does not sound like extravagant generosity on Merelli’s part, but it must be remembered that in those days it was customary for an unknown composer to bear the expense of having his operas produced. The score of _Oberto_ was purchased by Giovanni Ricordi, founder of the publishing house of that name, for two thousand Austrian _liri_ (about three hundred and fifty dollars).

[122] _Nabucco_ is a common Italian abbreviation of Nabucodonosor.

[123] The part of Abigail in _Nabucco_ was taken by Giuseppina Strepponi, one of the finest lyric _tragédiennes_ of her day, who afterward became Verdi’s wife.

[124] The _opera d’obbligo_ is the new work which an _impresario_ is pledged to produce each season by virtue of his agreement with the municipality as lessee of a theatre.

[125] This ludicrous concession to archiepiscopal scruples recalls the production of _Nabucco_ in London, where the title was changed to _Nino, Rè d’Assyria_, in deference to public sentiment--because, forsooth, Nabucco was a Biblical personage. One can fancy how the British public of that day would have received Salomé!

[126] _Attila_ in its entirety was never given in Paris.

[127] For the sake of completeness we may mention here as the chronologically appropriate place Verdi’s _L’Inno delle Nazione_, written for the London International Exhibition of 1862 as part of an international musical patch-work in which Auber, Meyerbeer, and Sterndale Bennett also participated. _L’Inno delle Nazione_ may be forgotten without damage to Verdi’s reputation.

[128] Contrary to a widespread impression _Aïda_ was not written for the opening of the Khedival Opera House, that event having taken place in 1869. It may also be observed that the story of _Aïda_ has no historical foundation, though it was written with an expert eye to historical and archæological verisimilitude.

[129] Space does not permit us to speak of Verdi’s personality, his private life, or the many honors and distinctions which came to him. The reader is referred to ‘Verdi: Man and Musician,’ by F. J. Crowest, New York, 1897, and ‘Verdi: An Anecdotic History,’ by Arthur Pougin, London, 1887.

[130] Arrigo Boïto, b. Padua, 1842, composer and poet, studied at the Milan Conservatory. See Vol. III.

[131] Besides Verdi and Ricci the list included Buzzola, Bazzini, Pedrotti, Cagnoni, Nini, Boucheron, Coccia, Jaspari, Platania, Petrella, and Mabellini. Mercadante was omitted because his age and feeble health rendered it impossible for him to collaborate in the work. Jaspari is still in some repute as a musical historiographer.

Transcriber's note:

Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.

The book cover has been modified by the Transcriber and is included in the public domain.