CHAPTER IV.

BEAUMARCHAIS, PAISIELLO, AND ROSSINI.

At Rome, where no opera reflecting directly or indirectly on the Roman Catholic religion and the rights of princes, or inculcating patriotism, or trifling with morality, or touching in any way upon anything that concerns the Papal Court, is permitted; where, consequently, neither "Les Huguenots," nor "Guillaume Tell," nor "Lucrezia Borgia," nor "La Traviata," can be played in the dramatic shape naturally belonging to them; the authorities were as scrupulous with regard to the choice of subjects in Rossini's time as they are now.

If the natural instincts of despotic governments have always led them to favour operatic performances, they have done so on the very reasonable condition that nothing against themselves or their allies, the priesthood, should be introduced into the works represented. Thus "Le Prophète" becomes "L'Assedio di Gand" at St. Petersburgh, "Lucrezia Borgia" "La Rinegata" at Rome, where the Italians at the Court of Pope Alexander the Sixth are metamorphosed into Turks.

Auber's "Muette de Portici" and Donizetti's "Martiri" were both proscribed at Naples (the "Muette" above all!). Even at Paris the performances of "Gustave," after the first production of the work, were suddenly stopped; and Verdi, treating the same subject for the San Carlo, was forced by the Neapolitan censorship to make the action of the piece take place at Boston in the United States.

Several dramas had been suggested to the Roman censorship, when at last the unpolitical plot of the "Barber of Seville" was proposed and accepted. The censor (who could have known little of Beaumarchais) thought it impossible such a subject could be made a vehicle for the introduction of political allusions.

All, however, that Rossini wanted was a well-planned "book" for musical purposes, and he found precisely what suited his genius in the "Barber of Seville."

In a literary point of view, the "Marriage of Figaro" is no doubt superior to its predecessor the "Barber;" but notwithstanding the eminently lyrical character of the page in the former work, the "Barber of Seville" is the best adapted for musical setting. It was as a pamphlet, rather than as a comedy, that "Le Mariage de Figaro" obtained its immense success in Paris, and _Figaro's_ wit cannot be reproduced in music. Gaiety, however, is as much a musical as a literary quality, and the gaiety of Beaumarchais' versatile irrepressible hero is admirably expressed, with even increased effect, in Rossini's "Barbiere."

* * * * *

It would be rendering no service to Rossini to compare him with Mozart, whom he himself regarded as the greatest of dramatic composers.[12] But Rossini's genius is very much akin to that of Beaumarchais; whereas that of Mozart (to the disadvantage certainly of Beaumarchais) was not. Rossini is Beaumarchais in music; Beaumarchais is not Mozart in literature.

No wonder that "Le Barbier de Séville" has been found so eminently suitable for musical treatment. Beaumarchais, who had strong views on the subject of the musical drama, and who was himself a good musician,[13] had in the first instance designed it as a libretto.

The subject of "Le Barbier de Séville" is manifestly taken from Molière's "Sicilien;" but the bare skeleton of the drama, as Beaumarchais himself points out, is common to innumerable works.

"An old man[14] is in love with his ward, and proposes to marry her; a young man succeeds in forestalling him, and the same day makes her his wife under the very nose and in the house of the guardian." That is the subject of the "Barber of Seville," capable of being made with equal success into a tragedy, a comedy, a drama, an opera, &c. What but that is Molière's "Avare"?--what but that is "Mithridates"? The genus to which a piece belongs depends less upon the fundamental nature of the subject than upon the details and the manner in which it is presented.

Beaumarchais goes on to say what his original intention had been in regard to the simple subject of a ward carried away by her lover from beneath the nose of her guardian. "How polite of you," a lady had said to him, "to take your piece to the Théâtre Français, when I have no box except at the Italian Theatre! Why did you not make an opera of it? They say it was your first idea. The piece is well suited to music."

The author of "Le Barbier de Séville" explains why he abandoned his original intention. He had doubts on the subject of the form and general treatment of opera which, to the neglect of the melodic portion of the work, ought, he considered, to be assimilated to the spoken drama of real life; (the end of which theory, carried out to its extreme consequences, would be to substitute recitative for singing, speaking for recitative--annihilation of the musical drama, in short).

Five years afterwards, in the year 1780, Paisiello proved practically how well Beaumarchais' "Barbier de Séville" was adapted to musical setting. Beaumarchais heard it, and was much pleased. What would his delight have been could he have listened to the "Barbiere" of Rossini--and with Adelina Patti in the part of _Rosina_!

Rossini was not one of those unconscious men of genius who are unable to judge of the merit of their own works. He Certainly never expressed too high an opinion of them, and latterly used to say that his music had grown old--as if the "Barber of Seville" could grow old. But he knew the "Barber" to be one of his happiest, as it certainly was one of his most spontaneous, productions; and whichever of his works he may have considered the best, he thought the "Barber" the most likely to endure.

"The third act of 'Otello,'" he once said, "the second act of 'Guillaume Tell,' and the whole of 'Il Barbiere,' will perhaps live;"[15] and there are reasons why, independently of its musical worth, the "Barber" will in all probability still be played when the few other operas of Rossini which still keep the stage are no longer represented. It is composed on a firm scaffolding, unlike that of "Guillaume Tell," which very soon broke down, and has never been put together again in a durable dramatic form. The libretto has not to contend with the impression left by an unapproachable masterpiece on the same subject, as in the case of "Otello." Finally, the comedy on which it is founded is not only a masterpiece in a purely dramatic sense, it is moreover essentially a drama for music, and for just such music as Rossini loved to write, and wrote to perfection. There is nothing more felicitous in all operatic setting than _Basilio's_ air, the crescendo of which exists as much in Beaumarchais's prose as in Rossini's music.

Indeed, _Don Basile's_ little essay on the efficacy of calumny, read for the first time by any one already acquainted with Rossini's musical version, would seem to have been directly suggested by the music. The elegance and distinction of _Almaviva_ are the same in the opera as in the comedy; and all the gaiety of Beaumarchais's "Figaro" lives again in Rossini's music, in a sublimated form.

Rossini was not so fond of writing prefaces as Beaumarchais; but he departed from his ordinary rule in the case of "The Barber," and has told us the exact circumstances under which it occurred to him to take for his subject an admirable comedy which Paisiello had already made into an opera thirty-five years before.

Paisiello's opera had been played all over Europe, and it has been mentioned that the curious in musical antiquities may from time to time hear it even now at the Fantaisies Parisiennes. It is not nearly so full of music as Rossini's work, but it contains seven very interesting pieces,--_Almaviva's_ solo; _Don Basile's_ air--a setting of the passage on calumny, as in the modern "Barbiere;" an air for _Bartholo_; a comic trio, in which two fantastic and episodical characters (wisely omitted by Rossini), _La Jeunesse_ and _L'Eveillé_, respectively sneeze and yawn in presence of _Rosina's_ guardian; a very ingenious trio, based on the incidents of the letter; a duet, in which the disguised _Almaviva_, on arriving to give his music lesson, is received by _Don Bartholo_; and a quintet, in which _Don Basilio_, accused of fever, is sent hastily to bed--the _buona sera_ scene, which Rossini took good care to preserve.

Rossini is said to have felt rather embarrassed when the impresario of the Argentina opera told him that the governor of Rome saw no objection to his setting "The Barber of Seville" to music. Not that any rule of etiquette forbade him to take a subject already treated by another composer; Metastasio's best libretti have been set over and over again by innumerable composers. From the very beginning of opera, the legend of Orpheus, the story of Dido's abandonment, have been treated by almost all composers, including Rossini himself, who composed cantatas on both these subjects. Piccinni and Sacchini had both composed music twice to the "Olimpiade;" and Paisiello did not enjoy, probably did not claim, any special right of property in Beaumarchais' "Barbier de Séville."

Nevertheless, Paisiello had put his mark on the work. His "Barbiere" was celebrated throughout Italy, and Rossini thought it only polite on his part as a young beginner (he was then twenty-three years of age) to write to the venerable maestro (Paisiello was seventy-four years of age), to ask his permission to re-set "The Barber."

The venerable maestro, who had not been over-pleased at the success of "Elisabetta," thought it would be a good plan to let his youthful rival attack a subject which, according to Paisiello, had already received its definite musical form, and wrote to him from Naples, giving him full permission to turn Beaumarchais' "Barbier de Seville" once more into an opera.