30 APRIL 1842, Page 9

THE ITALIAN OPERA.

IT is "more in sorrow than in anger" that we reflect or write upon the state of the Italian lyric drama. We have no need to trust to history or the perhaps partial record of contemporary enthusiasts—the Italian opera of any age is present to us whenever -we choose : we have only to take the works of JOMELLI, HASSE, and LEO, of BACH, SACCHINI, and MEYER, or Of PAISIELL0, PAER, WINTER, and CimARosA, from their shelves, and the Italian opera throughout the long period em- braced by the lives of these eminent artists is before us. It was the model for dramatic composers to copy, as well as the school in which vocal excellence was reared. It was the spring of melody, the mirror which reflected alternate gayety or grandeur, and flung its bright gleams on every European shore. Every Italian theatre had its com- poser or composers of eminence. Naples, Venice, Rome, Milan, Flo- rence, Bologna, had each its separate dramatic school ; while even foreign nations and Northern composers contributed to its musical wealth. IlAssE at Dresden, HANDEL and BACH at London, GRAUN at Berlin, and MOZART at Vienna, all, at different periods, cast their sup- plies into its treasury. Our own recollection takes us back to the time when the Italian opera was the most perfect exhibition of its kind that .could be furnished ; when a new opera was a source of new gratification, an expression of new and bright thoughts ; and when the list of com- posers for the season presented an unbroken array of talent and genius. Every musician in the Metropolis was a frequenter of the Opera. He _went there to study his art, to learn it powers, to feel its influence, to catch its inspiration. We have now almost to treat it as a matter of history, for its present state may be thus summed up- " Vissi e regnai: non vivo or pia 06 regno.

lien Si puo dir, Noi tumuli,: a tutti è giuuto L ultimo E hies itabil panto."

Italy universally supplies one and one only person by courtesy called a dramatic composer : we say by courtesy, for of any attribute of art Dolmen-rids wholly destitute. The mechanical process of arranging the most bald and commonplace successions of notes by the simplest process is all that his mind can reach or his industry accomplish-

-" or qual duce fie deguo di local" No artist can contemplate the fallen musical as well as moral great- ness of Italy without a sigh. To him the decline and degradation of its -opera is a loss irreparable. He may turn elsewhere for musical enjoy- ment of another kind, but this void is still unsupplied. The creed (if _such a term can be given to the mere like or dislike of ignorance) of those who control the destiny of the Italian opera in this country for- bids its restoration to excellence, since its synonymes as to music run thus: " ow—exploded, bad, vulgar, intolerable; NEW—excellent, deliyht- jul, admirable." The same opera to which ten years ago were applied all the latter epithets, has now acquired the first of the former, and in ten years more it will be characterized by every succeeding one first shrugged and sneered at as antique, it will soon be condemned as vul- gar, and finally proscribed as intolerable. It is this folly that renders the case hopeless : we have nothing new, and we will have nothing old. Is this the way to deal with a work of art, or is any other work of art thus treated? Do we thus treat our pictures, our poems, or our plays ? Are the productions Of MICHAEL ANGELO, Of DANTE, of SPENSER, or of SHAlispERE, all of whom lived before the Italian opera had even a name, thus cast aside ; or have we any other test of merit for any work of art than its intrinsic excellence ? An opera, like a picture, is not the better for its age; but neither is it the worse. If good when pro- duced, it is good still; if worthless, worthless still. The simple ques- tion is, not when was a given opera produced, but what are its intrinsic merits. Choose the best, and the best only, without reference to any -other quality ; and let the same principle which would govern your -choice in any. other work of art decide in this. Such a rule of action, at all times Judicious, is now indispensable to the restoration of the Italian opera. It produces nothing worthy its name or fame, and must Therefore revert to those productions which adorn it in order to prolong either reputation or existence. " But," it may be said, "the singers would not sing and the audience would not tolerate the operas of a past generation." What singers ? Perhaps not RUBIN; who stipulates that he shall not be compelled to perform in Le Nozze di Figaro ; perhaps not that half-taught class of Italian artists whose musical educa- tion is comprised in the acquisition of a certain number of pas- sages which they reiterate with cuckoo-like monotony ; but cer- tainly not such artists as LABLACRE, Taranomm, and Memo: these men, at least, have a just appreciation of the Italian school, and disclose because they feel its real beauty and grandeur. Witness the solitary opera of CUIARO8A, that is occasionally allowed to re- visit the stage in order to remind us what the lyric drama of his .country once was. With regard to the audience, the experiment has yet to be tried ; but in a recent instance at another theatre we have wit- nessed the triumph of striking excellence over the prejudice agaiust operatic antiquity. The general opinion among musical critics was that Acts and Galatea could not succeed, and that the public would disregard an opera a century old. This assumption has been found to be in- correct, and its fate has been decided upon grounds that are wholly in- dependent of age. Do justice to a great work of art—that is, enable the composer to appear in his true garb, whether of grace or grandeur— and the result is seldom doubtful. For the golden age of the Italian Opera we must look to a later period. Giant as HANDEL was, he was unable to disclose the fulness of his power when manacled by the ar- bitrary rules under which he wrote. A mere succession of songs, how- ever excellent, is not an opera; and we must here be content to gather up, preserve, and use these choice fragments in other forms. The ma- turity of the Italian opera was attained at a later age ; and, without re- sorting to its remoter periods, we may safely recur to works which have been produced within the last fifty years, as the most finished compositions of their kind,—including those of M02.t.RT, MEYER, PAER, WINTER, PAISIELLO, GITGLIELMI, SACCEINI, CIMARose, and ROSSINI. Of these composers, though of unequal rank, there exists scarcely a single opera which does not contain more original thought and more real beauty than all that DoNIZETTI ever composed or compiled.

The history of the last London season sufficiently confirms our state- ment and elucidates our opinion. A solitary opera was all that Italy could furnish; and this was too bad even for the indulgent auditors who frequent Her Majesty's Theatre to tolerate. The present season, as far as it has advanced, tells the same melancholy tale. We may assume Gemma di Vergy to have been the choicest novelty that the Impresario in his recent Italian tour could obtain. To criticize such a wretched composition would be a waste of words. It has not a single musical excellence of any sort—not a gleam of sunshine—not a solitary bright speck. " But the singers—can their excellence be denied or disputed ; and is not RuBINI coming ?" We question not either the individual or the collective ability of those accomplished artists : but singers are only the accessories of an opera;not the opera itself; which must be estimated, like every other musical production, per se. They are the bricks and mortar to an architect, colours to a painter, marble to a statuary. It is his hand that piles them into symmetry—that gives them grace and animation—that renders them instinct with beauty. They may degrade the sublime, but to transform meanness into splendour or vulgarity into grace is beyond their reach : the sublime or the beautiful must be in the work, or it will not be at all. The very supposition that the nature or merit of a compositionean be transformed by a singer's powers, and that dulness in conception can be rendered interesting in performance, is a confession of original weak- ness. The work must cease to he what the composer has made it, and become something altogether different—the singer must displace the composer and usurp his office—he must become not the echo of another's thoughts but of his own, ere such a result can be obtained. Polish the pebble as you will, it will not become a diamond—gild your copper as you please, it is still but copper.

The present state of the company at Her Majesty's Theatre seems propitious to the reform we advocate. Those who are familiar with the history of the Italian opera in this country need not to be informed that it has always been the nursery of intrigue—not merely among singers, but amono- their noble patrons. More than a century ago, the partisan- ship of Peers was thus recorded- Somerot sud Devonshire attend The British Toffs, [LA every note commend: While famed Epiue does equal skill employ, And listening Peers coati to the cstaticoy ; Bedford to hear her song his dice forsakes, And Nottingham is raptured when she shakes."

Then came the cabalsbetweenthepartisansofCuZzoNI and FAUSTINA ; and the game has continued ever since. The singers who have so long kept possession of the stage in our own time, though in part indebted for such an exclusive occupation of it to their talents, have owed it also to a series of intrigues, of which the public have no cognizance, and into a detail of which we have no desire to enter. It is sufficient that the combination is broken up, and that the monopoly is at an end. The fact is now palpable, that variety is attainable without any abatement in point of excellence.

Signora Poor FREZZOLINI, who made her on Tuesday night, in Beatrice di Tenths, is an artist of the very first order—a singer of whose station there is no doubt or dispute. To natural powers abundant and copious, she adds the highest degree of polish—substituting for mere claptrap ornament true classical refinement. Her graces bespeak an elegant mind as well as a cultivated voice, and her singing not only delighted the ear but moved the heart: it added all the fascination of art to the truth of nature. Signora MoLTINI, too, is a singer of more than respectable talents ; one to be heard with pleasure, though unequal to excite enthusiasm. GuAsco is a tenor of the first order ; possessing a rich and well-cultivated organ, and free from the glaring defects which constantly deformed RUBINfS singing. RONCONI is also equal to his allotted station, though incapable of that extraordinary vocal agility in which TAMBURTNI luxuriated. One excellence is observable in all these singers—their style has a greater approach to purity than we have been lately accustomed to : they sing what their author has given them to sing, without stopping the orchestra at every fourth bar to make an exhibition of themselves. The natural result of this will be to induce a demand for music of higher pretensions, and to the disuse of such as owes all its interest to a singer's additions. The first singer who en- throned herself on the ruins of her art was CATA LA ; of whom Lord MOUNT-EDGECUMBE justly remarks, that "site indulged in ad libitum passages with a redundancy which no other singer practised, and car- ried them to an absurd excess. From this it resulted that she had a bad choice in music, preferring the compositions of inferior masters, written' expressly for herself, to the operas of the best composers. She detested Mozart's music, because it kept the singer under the control of the orchestra, and forbade those breaches of time in which she was accustomed to indulge." This system, which inverts the just positions of the singer and the composer, has been followed by her successors, and fostered by the feebleness of recent composers. The remedy is a return to their proper stations, by a revival of operas of high character, in which the vocal art can be worthily and fitly developed.

The desire for novelty will come in aid of the change we advocate. We have shown that, in the present musical state of Italy, new operas of recent date are not producible. It is also true that the opera-fre- quenters grumble at the wearisome repetition of the same stale melo- dies and embellishments, even when put together under the title of a new opera. We point to a remedy ; and a remedy which the company, in its present state, has the power to supply. Whether the managers possess the knowledge, the power, and the prudence to make the expe- riment, remains to be seen.