CHAPTER VII.

"GUILLAUME TELL."

Before attacking "Guillaume Tell," Rossini retired into the country; and this time devoted, not thirteen days to the production of the entire work, as in the case of that comic masterpiece "Il Barbiere," but six months to the pianoforte score alone. It was at the château of M. Aguado, the well-known banker, that Rossini wrote the whole of "Guillaume Tell," with the exception of the orchestral parts. These he added after his return to Paris, where he completed the work among visitors and friends, talking and laughing with them the whole time, as if engaged in some ordinary and not very important pursuit.

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Different versions have been given of the engagement which bound Rossini to write so many operas for the Académie. Rossini's salary, as Inspector of Singing, was, according to M. Azevedo, twenty thousand francs a year. M. Azevedo, in stating this amount, says nothing about any additional engagement in direct connection with the Académie.

M. Castil Blaze, on the other hand, without saying anything about the inspectorship of singing, speaks of a contract, by which Rossini was to write three operas for the Académie in the course of six years, during which period he was to receive ten thousand francs a year in addition to his composer's fees.

M. Guizot, who, as Minister of the Interior in the year 1830, was brought officially into communication with Rossini, tells us in his "Memoirs" that Rossini's salary as Inspector-General of Singing was seven thousand francs a year; and that after the success of "Guillaume Tell" he signed a new contract with the Civil List, by which he engaged to compose two more operas for the Académie--conditions not stated.

However, in the first instance, all Rossini had to go to work upon was the libretto of "Guillaume Tell," as prepared by M. de Jouy. He was accustomed to bad librettos; but the badness of M. de Jouy's book seems to have been something exceptional.

The preparation of the libretto must have occupied a considerable time, and caused the author or authors infinite trouble. M. de Jouy had, in the first instance, brought Rossini a poem of seven hundred verses, written without any particular view to the one purpose for which librettos should exist. It being impossible for Rossini to do anything with M. de Jouy's libretto as it stood, M. Bis was called in; and to him the whole of the second act, by far the best of the five, is said to be due.

M. Bis, however, found himself placed in rather a delicate position. The composer wished him to turn and return the libretto until he got it into something like shape for the music. M. de Jouy, on the other hand, desired above all to save the honour of his too academical verses; and the result, as usual in such cases, was a compromise which satisfied no one--not even the public.

The authors having at last finished the libretto, but not until they had nobly sacrificed their poetry to the wants of the composer, printed it with a sort of apology in the form of a preface.

"We might have offered," they said, "a more regular work to the reader; it would have been only necessary to publish it as it was first conceived; but then we should have had to restore several scenes which have been suppressed; to put in their original place others, the order of which has been inverted; and to cut out some passages which owe their existence to the requirements of the music alone. Thus the printed piece would have been quite different from the piece performed; and as the spectators desire above all to find in the libretto what the instrumentation does not permit them distinctly to hear, the words, for the first time, perhaps, have been sent to press in exact conformity with those of the score. If, on the one hand, the natural result of this step is to offer a larger field to criticism, on the other, the public will no doubt be grateful to us for a slight sacrifice of self-love made in the interest of its pleasures. We also, it must be confessed, wished to pay an indirect homage to our illustrious associate. It would have been repugnant to our feelings to strike out even the defective verses which the musical rhythm--sometimes fixed upon beforehand--obliged us to arrange as they are; there are some chords, too, so powerful that they seem to consecrate the words to which they lend their magic. In the midst of this immense and completely new creation which makes Rossini a French composer, 'Guillaume Tell' seems to be the work of one alone--of Rossini."

From this preface it must be concluded, not that Rossini is answerable for the badness of the "Guillaume Tell" libretto as it now stands, but that it would have been much worse if he had not caused numerous alterations to be made. In fact, the preface clearly shows, that in its original form it must have been altogether useless for musical purposes.

Much has been said about the failure, or incomplete success, of Rossini's masterpiece in the serious style; and Rossini's long silence is often attributed to the coldness with which it was received. It was at once appreciated, however, by the critical public, and the applause at the first representation was most enthusiastic. But an opera cannot live by its music alone, and the drama of "Guillaume Tell" is very imperfect. After the first few weeks, in spite of the well-merited eulogiums of the critical press, the opera ceased, in theatrical parlance, to draw. It was represented fifty-six times in its original form, and was then cut down to three acts; the original third act being entirely omitted, and the fourth and fifth acts compressed into one.

At last the second act was given alone--often as a mere _lever de rideau_, with inferior performers; and it was not until Duprez made his début in the part of _Arnold_ that the success of the opera was renewed. For three years before the arrival of Duprez the public heard nothing of "Guillaume Tell" but the celebrated second act.

One day Rossini met the director of the Opera on the boulevard, who said to him,--

"Well, Maestro, you are in the bills again to-night. We play the second act of "Guillaume Tell."

"What! the whole of it?" inquired Rossini, who was naturally much hurt by the mutilation of his work. That alone did not cause him to lay down his pen; but it did not prevent his doing so.

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It is to be eternally regretted that Rossini, in composing his last and greatest work for the stage, did not select some drama better suited for musical treatment than "William Tell." Nevertheless, Schiller's play contains fine situations, and Rossini was never more nobly inspired than in writing the duet for _Tell_ and _Arnold_; the trio of the Oath, and the scene of the meeting of the Cantons; all of which owe a great portion of their effect to their position in the drama. The charming air of _Mathilde_, "Sombre forêt," would be equally charming for _Lucia_, or any other sentimental light soprano, waiting for her lover in a wood, or elsewhere; the passionate duet for _Mathilde_ and _Arnold_ might be sung by any pair of lovers; the enchanting ballet music would make the fortune of any opera. But the pieces first named are of those which belong to "Guillaume Tell," and "Guillaume Tell" alone, and which would, by comparison, fall flat if dissociated from the words, and above all, the dramatic situations to which the composer has attached them.

Whatever we may think of the drama itself, the music which Rossini has composed for it is the most dramatic that has come from his pen; and while thoroughly dramatic, it is at the same time thoroughly melodious--a combination not to be met with except in the works of the very greatest masters. Indeed, "Guillaume Tell" is full of melody, in the simplest solos as in the most massive choral writing. Rossini said of the compositions of his old professor, Mattei, that "the solo passages were not prominent, but that the _pleni_ were admirable." In "Guillaume Tell" the solo passages and the _pleni_ are admirable alike. The music, whatever it may have to express, never ceases to be beautiful, and there is in every piece a clear current of melody, which the richest and most varied harmony never obscures.

"Guillaume Tell," Rossini's latest, is also his finest opera. It is written throughout in a higher and more dramatic style than any of his previous works. It exhibits more sustained power, and is the only one of his operas for the French stage in which every piece of music is new and written specially for the situation. The distinctive feature in "Guillaume Tell," as regards form, is the avoidance of the conventional cavatina. It is right and necessary that a libretto should be constructed with a view to musical as well as dramatic effect; but it is not necessary that each principal singer, on coming before the public, should sing a "cavatina;" nor is it desirable, when a cavatina does happen to fall in with the situation (the opera has its soliloquies as well as the spoken drama), that it should be of a certain recognised pattern, with a few bars of recitative, or slow movement and a cabaletta.

We feel in "Guillaume Tell" that the characters do not appear on the stage merely to sing airs, duets, &c., but as personages in a musical drama. The custom in Italian opera was that each character should sing an air, and sing it as soon as possible after entering. Hence, indeed, the very word "cavatina," from _cavare_, to issue forth. This custom has shown itself far more tenacious than all the others which Rossini broke through. It, indeed, seems to bear the force of an irremissible law; and we find that Rossini's successors, who follow his example as well as they can in all other respects, avoid doing so in this particular one. Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi have all accepted the inevitable cavatina; and Rossini himself, if he had returned to Italy, would doubtless have returned to the cavatina at the same time,--in which there can be nothing to object to, provided only that it be not dragged in, as is often the case, without the least reference to dramatic propriety.

Of the grand vocal and instrumental combinations, so admirably treated in "Guillaume Tell," Rossini had previously given an example in "La Donna del Lago." But the scene of the meeting of the Cantons in "Guillaume Tell" is far grander. It may, indeed, be cited as the grandest operatic scene that exists--and, moreover, _the grandest of all dramatic scenes in regard to the treatment of masses_, which in the spoken drama can only be employed as a means of spectacular effect. The opera is the only form of drama in which a crowd, an army, a deliberative assembly, can effectually join with voice as well as with gesture in the action of the piece, as it is the only form of drama in which three or four persons, uttering similar or diverse sentiments, can be made to give expression to them at the same time.

The scene of _Vasco di Gama_ before the Inquisition, in Meyerbeer's "Africaine," would have a very poor effect in ordinary drama. The prelates and other members of the tribunal, instead of singing, would of course have to speak; and as they could not speak all at once, they would have to address the unhappy _Vasco_ through a single representative instead of crushing him, as in the opera, beneath the weight of their unanimous condemnation. Such a scene, again, as the Market-scene in "Masaniello," in which the chattering of the dealers and the hurry and bustle of the crowd are made, through beautiful and appropriate music, to form one harmonious whole, could only be faintly and imperfectly imitated on the non-operatic stage by a representation in dumb-show, for spoken words would be worse than useless. Similarly, the meeting of the Cantons, in "Guillaume Tell," is a magnificent subject for an operatic scene, which, treated otherwise than operatically, would be as flat and dull as a procession of the Reform League.

How, indeed, could the descent of the various bands from the mountains, and their gathering together in one vast agitated flood, be suggested and impressed upon the mind so forcibly as through music? Here the operatic composer had an opportunity, turned by Rossini to magnificent advantage, of going to the heart of a grand dramatic situation, and bringing out its full significance.

The trio, independently of its wonderful melodic and harmonic beauty, is a fine example of the power of music to give a simultaneous presentation of various and conflicting emotions. But on the mere beauty of the "Guillaume Tell" music, whether for the solo voices or for the orchestra, for the chorus or for the ballet, it would be vain to dwell. It would be useless to speak of it to those who have heard it--impossible to give any idea of it to those who have not.