Lecture Eleven: French Opera and Ballet

 In Life, let us have fantasy, boldness, unexpectedness, enchantment -- above all, tenderness, morbidezza, but as a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note. – George Bizet

♣ Rossini vs. Meyerbeer--The rival composers Meyerbeer and Rossini cordially disliked each other. Strolling Paris with a friend, Rossini ran into Meyerbeer, who asked after his health. Rossini cited a string of calamities. Meyerbeer expressed all due dolor and moved on. But when Rossini's friend urged him to speed homeward to bed, the composer replied: My dear fellow, I feel perfectly fine. But it so cheers our friend Meyerbeer to think that I'm at death's door that I hadn't the heart to disappoint him."  le Figaro

This week we finally get to the most successful and widely popular musical form of the early 19th century.  This was not found in the perfumed, refined salons of Chopin's Paris or in the more intellectually earnest artistic circle of Schumann's Germany, but rather where it had been for the preceding 50 years--the opera house. We will be spending the last three lectures on this art form that over-shadowed all others in the 19th century.

Opera, especially Italian opera, whose traditions were the strongest and best established, was the most obvious link between the music world of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the operatic world the changes brought on by the currents of Romanticism were less sweeping and often more superficial in nature. Both the Italian tradition--dominated by Rossini, Bellini and Dionizetti and the Bel Canto school, and the French--dominated by (the also Italian!) Cherubini and Spontini and (the German) Meyerbeer grand opera school, so-called because of its emphasis on great pomp and formal dramatic circumstance--essentially retained highly formalized structures and practices of earlier generations. One Romantic element, especially in the music of the Italians, was a fondness for libretti (stories) based on the works of popular Romantic novelists such as Sir Walter Scott (Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Bellini's I Puritani, etc.). Grand opera, an the other hand, showed a markedly Romantic fondness for highly--often absurdly--emotional, bizarre scenes (such as the tableau of skating nuns in Le Prophete by Meyerbeer) and, for a more colorful, dramatic use of the orchestra. Italy, however, was the major country least affected by Romanticism. This was due in large part to the spirit of humanism, still "resident" in Italy with widespread acceptance from the time of the Renaissance.

We begin today with France, from the ponderous operas of Meyerbeer to the more Romantic grand opera with composers such as Bizet (Carmen), Gounod (Faust), Saint-Saëns and Massenet.  

Bizet

 Outline 

    I.   They are the most influential and enduringly popular of the many extant nineteenth-century opera traditions. 

A.   Nineteenth-century Italian and German opera contrast marvelously as one is grounded on tradition, the other on innovation. 

II. Following the reforms of Christophe Willibald Gluck, French Romantic operas remained spectacular. There are three main nineteenth-century French operatic types: 

A.  Grand opera developed c.1820-1850 as a spectacular form of entertainment for the growing French middle class. 

B.  Opéra comique is lighter in spirit and smaller in cast and staging than grand opera, and it uses spoken dialogue. 

C.  Lyric opera combines elements of grand opera and opéra comique—it is spectacular but uses spoken dialogue (Bizet’s Carmen). 

    III. Grand Opera 

A. The leading librettist was Eugène Scribe and the leading composer was Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864).

                   1. Meyerbeer established the style with Robert le Diable (Robert the Devil, 1831) and Les Huguenots (1836)

B. Rossini's Guillaume Tell is also an example of grand opera and the longest opera ever written, which is one reason it is never performed!

C. Parisian grand opera would influence later composers such as Verdi, Wagner, and Verdi even premiered Don Carlos in Paris in French.

    Featured Music:

    Overture to William Tell

    excerpt from Les Huguenots 

    IV.  Comic Opera in France 

     A. Opéra Comique

                  1. Used spoken dialogue instead of recitative

                  2. Less pretentious than grand opera, using fewer singers and players

                  3. Composed in a simpler musical idiom

                  4. Usually comedic plots

                  5. Daniel François Auber's Fra Diavolo (Brother Devil, 1830) and his other comic operas mingle humorous and romantic elements.

B. When the Second French Empire (after 1851) censored serious opera, opéra bouffe could satirize the Empire freely.

                 1. Opéra bouffe emphasized smart, witty, and satirical elements of opera.

                 2. Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) founded opéra bouffe. His famous can-can dance is from his opéra bouffe, Orphée aux enfers

                 3. Offenbach's works influenced composers in other countries, including Gilbert  and Sullivan and Johann Strauss the Younger.

                 Featured Music:

                 Video from Pirates of Penzance 

    V.  French Lyric Opera

A. The scale is larger than that of opéra comique but smaller than grand opera.

B. The typical subject is romantic drama or fantasy.

C. Faust (1859) by Charles Gounod (1818–1893) is the most famous example.

                 Featured Music:

                Jewel Song from Faust

     VI. Berlioz and French Opera

A. Berlioz's operas do not fit neatly into operatic categories, and for this reason his works were overlooked until recently.

B. La Damnation de Faust (1846) was not intended to be staged. The form bears no resemblance to his symphonies and does not depend on recurring themes.

C. Les Troyens

               1. Berlioz wrote the text himself, based on Vergil's Aeneid.

               2. Scene complexes present the action.

                     a. Only the most important scenes are set.

                     b. The narratives are condensed.

                     c. Ballets are introduced at every opportunity.

               3. The passions and incidents are brought to life intensely and on a heroic scale. 

    VII. Georges Bizet (1838–1875)

    A. Carmen premiered in Paris in 1875.

               1. Contained spoken dialogue, so was classified as an opéra comique despite its realism.

               2. Its Spanish setting and melodies give it an exotic flavor

    B. Bizet's harmonic vocabulary includes chromatic harmony and ninth chords, features he probably learned by performing the music of Chopin and Liszt.

       Featured Music:

       Three arias from Carmen 

VIII. Lastly, we turn to Ballet.

There is not time this semester to cover Ballet in depth but it was also an important art form of the 19th century, especially in France, where it was also a major part of every Grand Opera.  Time permitting we will view a short video of Tchaikovsky’ Nutcracker ballet to give a short example of the form.  To put ballet in context with other music and historical events, here is a timeline by Prof. Sue Talley. (Information about Ballet is in boldface type.) 

A CENTURY OF BALLET

 Literature:  Between 1800 and 1810, the German poet, Goethe, wrote Faust, the legend of a man who sold his soul to the devil, with the provision that he could have anything he wanted.  After enjoying the company of Helen of Troy, Faust laid eyes on an innocent local girl, Marguerite, and decided that he wanted her more than anyone or anything else.  The sad story of their relationship formed the basis for several operas. 

Literature:  In 1810, notice that Sir Walter Scott wrote The Lady of the Lake.  This story was part of the ancient legend of King Arthur, and was the basis for operas, as well as a number of books. 

            Music:  Opera, “Fidelio,” by Beethoven (1805)

 Beethoven’s “second period”, 1802 to 1816

                         Metronome invented, 1815

                         The Erlking (Schubert), 1815

                         The Barber of Seville, opera by Rossini, 1816 

History:  Napoleon retreated from Moscow in 1812.  (That famous retreat later inspired Tchaikovsky to write the 1812 Overture, written in 1880, in which he uses a real cannon for sound effects, as well as the Russian National Anthem, the French National Anthem, and the hymn, “O Lord, Save Thy People,” from the Divine Liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church.) 

History:  “The War of 1812,” in which the United States fought the British.  Has nothing to do with the overture!!  The Star-Spangled Banner, however, was written during the war. 

History: The Congress of Vienna:  This was the conference in 1814-15, after Napoleon had been drive into exile, in which the major European powers got together to see how the territories would be redistributed, and to restore boundaries between the European states which had been changed by Napoleon.  A milestone in European history, it occasioned Beethoven and others to write special music. 

            Music:  Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), Der Freischutz, 1821.

                         Beethoven:  Ninth Symphony, 1823

                         Mendelssohn:  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1826

                         Opera, Guillaume Tell, by Rossini, 1829 (Grand Opera)

                         Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, 1830

                         Opera:  Norma, by Vincenzo Bellini, 1831

 Literature:  The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo (1802-1885), 1831 

                         Opera:  L’elisir d’amore, by Donizetti, 1832

                         Chopin’s Etudes published, 1832

                         Wagner takes up position at Würtzburg, 1833, begins writing

                         Opera:  I  Puritani, by Bellini, 1835

                         Opera:  Lucia di Lammermoor, by Donizetti, 1835

                         Opera:  Les Huguenots, by Meyerbeer, 1836 

History:  Queen Victoria crowned, 1837, beginning a reign which would last 60 years and contribute to a huge amount of European history.  For example, it was Queen Victoria who introduced Czarina Alexandra (her niece, though a German princess) and Czar Nicholas, the last monarchs of Russia.  Most of the European monarchy were related (Nicholas was only 1/17th Russian!), and during Queen Victoria’s monarchy it could truly be said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire.”   

Literature:  Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1842, published two volumes of his poetry, including Idylls of the King, a Christian allegory on the life of King Arthur and his knights.  The Arthur story and its offshoots would greatly influence literature (Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is only one example) through the 1960s, when the Broadway show, Camelot, portrayed another kind of Arthur. 

Music:  The New York Philharmonic Society was formed in 1842 and is still going strong.  It has had such famous composers and conductors as Antonin Dvorak, Gustav Mahler, and Leonard Bernstein over the years.

            Opera:  Don Pasquale, by Donizetti, 1843

            Operas:  Rienzi, 1842, Der fliegende Holländer, 1843 (Wagner)

            Opera:  Tannhäuser, by Richard Wagner, 1845

 History:  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto in 1848, ushering in an age of tremendous civil unrest, or, as the Russian author, Dostoyevsky said, “socialism, with its brother, atheism.”  Unfortunately, the communist position was strengthened by the injustice suffered by workers and children in the Industrial Revolution. 

Literature:  Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), was published in 1847, under the name of “Currer Bell.”  Like several other female authors of the century (George Sand, Chopin’s lover, in France, George Eliot in England), the Bronte sisters disguised their female names in order to get published.  (Only a couple of these wore male clothes and smoked cigars, as George Sand did!) 

            Ballet:  Giselle.  Music:  Adolphe Adam/ choreography: Perot & Corolli

Literature:In Russia, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was condemned to be shot in 1849, because of his anti-Czarist views, but was saved just before the execution, to write some of the great novels of the 19th century, including The Brothers Karamazov, The Gambler, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment.  He was a nationalistic Russian and a strong Christian writer, although he succumbed to many personal temptations, chiefly his addiction to gambling.  During this time in Russia, there were two strong groups, the Slavophiles (friends of Slavs) and Westernizers.  Of the two, Dostoyevsky would have been a Slavophile.   

            Music:  Bach-Gesellschaft founded (1850)

                         Opera:  Lohengrin, by Richard Wagner (1850) (Grail story)

                         Rigoletto, opera by Giuseppe Verdi, 1851 (critical of royalty) 

Literature: Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, the American author, was written in 1854.

On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, based upon his observations about the world of nature, which started the controversy about evolution, was written in 1859. 

            Music:  Opera, Orpheus aux enfers, by Offenbach, 1858 (opera bouffe)

                         Opera, Tristan und Isolde, by Richard Wagner, 1859

                         Opera, Faust, by Gounod, 1859

 Opera, Les Troyens, by Berlioz, 1863

                         Brahms, Piano Quintet in F minor, 1864

History:  The United States’ Civil War, 1861-1865, four long years of suffering occasioned primarily by slavery, as well as inequity in the distribution of wealth, killed more Americans than World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, combined. 

History:  Lincoln assassinated, 1865. 

Literature:  Leo Tolstoy, a Russian count, wrote War and Peace in 1864.  His simple lifestyle and anticlerical position affected many in Russia. 

            Music:  Opera:  Romeo et Juliet, by Gounod, 1867 

             Ballet:  Coppelia, 1870.  Music:  Leo Delibes.  Choreography: A. Saint-Leon 

                         Opera  Aida, by Giuseppe Verdi, 1871 (Grand Opera)

 Opera:  Boris Godunov, by Modest Mussorgsky, 1874

 Opera:  Wagner finishes Der Ring des Nibelunen, cycle, 1874

 Operetta:  Die Fliedermaus, by J. Strauss the Younger, 1874

                         Opera:  Carmen, by Bizet, 1875 (spoken dialogue)

             Ballet:  Sylvia, 1876.  Music:  Leo Delibes.  Choreography:  L. Merante 

                         Opera:  Samson et Dalila, by Camille Saint-Säens, 1877 

            Ballet:  Swan Lake, 1877.  Music:  Peter I. Tchaikovsky.  Chor.: M. Petipa 

Literature: Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, 1876, was a comedy which, like some of the author’s other novels, made gentle fun of the manners and morays of the South. 

Art:  Gare St. Lazare, by Claude Monet (1840-1926), 1877.  Monet was the leader of the movement called “Impressionism,” which featured a beautiful but slightly blurry look, focusing on the play of light on outdoor scenes.  Claude Debussy followed the lead of the Impressionist painters and poets and started a similar movement in music. 

            Music:  Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture, 1880

 Metropolitan Opera, New York City, opened, 1883

                         Richard Wagner dies, 1883

                         Operetta:  The Mikado, by Gilbert and Sullivan, 1885

                         Opera:  Otello, by Giuseppe Verdi, 1887 (text by Boito)

                         César Franck, Symphony in D minor, 1888

                         Opera:  Parsival, by Richard Wagner, 1888

                         Richard Strauss, (1864-1949), Don Juan (1889) 

History:            Statue of Liberty (Frederic Bartholdi) given to the US by France, 1888

Paris World’s Fair, 1889, for which the Eiffel Tower was created 

            Ballet:  The Sleeping Beauty.  Music:  P. Tchaikovsky.  Chor:  M. Petipa 

            Music:  Gabriel Fauré, La bonne chanson, 1892 

            Ballet:  The Nutcracker.  Music:  P. Tchaikovsky.  Choreography:  M. Petipa 

                         Opera:  Werther, by Massenet, 1892.  (A rash of suicides followed.)

                         Opera,  Falstaff, by Giuseppe Verdi, 1893 (his last)

                         Opera,  La Bohème, by Giaccomo Puccini (1858-1924), 1896

                         String sextet, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) Verklärte Nacht, 1899 

For further study of opera I will list arias after each of the three Opera lectures.  A CD in MP3 format will be placed in the listening lab.  

 French Opera Arias  

          

1)      Bizet - La fleur que tu mavais jetee

2)      Bizet Carmen Air des adieux

3)      Bizet Carmen Chanson Boheme

4)      Bizet Carmen Chanson du Toreador

5)      Bizet Carmen Habenera

6)      Bizet Carmen (Micaelas aria)

7)      Bizet Carmen La fleur que tu mavais jetée

8)      Bizet Carmen Seguidilla

9)      Bizet Pearl fishers Au fond du Temple Duet

10)  Delibe Lakmé - Flower Duet

11)  Delibes Lakmé Ou va Ia jeune Hindoue (Bell Song)

12)  Goddard Jocelyn Caches dan cet asile (Berceuse)

13)  Gounod Faust, opera- Ah, je ris de me voir si belle (Jewel Song)

14)  Gounod Faust

15)  Gounod Faust Ah! Je Ris de Me Voir

16)  Gounod Faust, opera- Salut! demeure chaste et pure

17)  Massenet Werter - Pourquoi me reveiller

18)  Saint-Saens Samson - Mon Coeur

 

For your enjoyment I have added some of Rossini's wit:

♣ Rossini vs. Meyerbeer II
Another day Meyerbeer was complaining to Rossini that he felt in the lowest possible spirits, and so forth. Rossini consoled him: "I'll tell you what it is; you listen to [your music] too much."
(Louis Engel, From Mozart to Mario, 1886)
[Meyerbeer is known for doing a rather excessive number of rehearsals for his operas.]

♣ Rossini vs. Halevy
Another rival of Rossini, Jacques François Halévy was one day much irritated by an organ-grinder who stood outside his window. Moreover, he was playing nothing but tunes from Rossini's Barber of Seville. Halévy went out and said to the man, "I will give you one louis d'or if you will go to Rossini's lodgings and play one of my tunes outside his window."
The organ-grinder replied with a smile: "But, monsieur, M. Rossini has paid me two louis d'or to play his music outside your window."
(S. Beach, Musicdotes)

♣ Highest compliment
Rossini congratulated the American diva Adelina Patti by saying: "Madame, I have cried only twice in my life. Once when I dropped a wing of truffled chicken into Lake Como, and once when for the first time I heard you sing."
(T. FitzGibbon, comp., The Pleasures of the Table)

♣ Why wait?
After a particulary excellent meal, Rossini's hostess thanked him for accepting her invitation and hoped that he would dine with her again soon. "Right away," said Rossini enthusiastically.
(N. Slonimsky, A Thing or Two about Music)

♣ Confession of faith
Rossini once said quite frankly, "I know of no more admirable occupation than eating, that is, really eating. Appetite is for the stomach what love is for the heart. The stomach is the conductor, who rules the grand orchestra of our passions, and rouses it to action. The bassoon or the piccolo, grumbling its discontent or shrilling its longing, personify the empty stomach for me. The stomach replete, on the other hand, is the triangle of enjoyment or the kettledrum of joy. As for love, I regard her as the prima donna par excellence, the goddess who sings cavatinas to the brain, intoxicates the ear, and delights the heart. Eating, loving, singing, and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like the bubbles of a bottle champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool."
That the musician who could make such a frank gastronomic confession of faith and once declared that "The truffle is the Mozart among the mushrooms," was an accomplished gourmand cannot be denied.
(Leopold Auer, My Long Life in Music, 1924)

♣ Worse than a fruitcake
Rossini was greeted by a society fop who noticing that Rossini did not recognize him, said: "Don't you remember me? I sat next to you when they served a gigantic macaroni pie at a dinner in your honor in Milan."
Rossini replied, "Indeed I remember the macaroni very well, but I don't remember you."
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ Living statue
On his seventieth birthday, a group of his admirers had a surprise present. They collected twenty thousand francs to erect a Rossini statue. "Give me the twenty thousand," graoned Rossini, "and I'll stand on the pedestal myself."
(S. Beach, Musicdotes)

♣ Rossini on Liszt I
"It is said, with what truth I [Samuel Butler] know not, that Liszt got Verdi to give him a letter of introduction to Rossini and went to call on him. Rossini was exceedingly polite, asked him to play, and when he had done inquired what the piece was. Liszt said, 'It is a march I have written on the death of Meyerbeer; how do you like it, maestro?' Rossini said he liked it very much, but presently added, 'Do you not think it would have been better if it had been you who had died, and Meyerbeer who had written the music?'"
[This story appears to be a standard musical chestnut. A similar story has been told of George Gershwin (in the role of Meyerbeer) and his friend Oscar Levant (in the role of Rossini), with an unknown composer in Liszt's place.]
(G. Keynes and B. Hill, Samuel Butler's Notebooks)

♣ Rossini on Liszt II
There is another story about Liszt that as a young man he played his new work before Rossini. Rossini is said to have remarked, "I prefer the other." "Which other?" asked Liszt.
"The chaos in Haydn's Creation."
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ Rossini on Wagner
Visiting Rossini in his Paris house, a friend noticed a score of Wagner's Tannhäuser on the piano. But the score was placed upside down. When the friend tried to put it right side up, Rossini interrupted him saying: "I already played it right side up but could make nothing of it. Then I tried it the other way around, and it sounds much better."
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ After all it's not requiem
Rossini, who usually marked errors in his pupil's compositions with crosses, returned to a mediocre student a manuscript on which he made only occasional crosses. The pupil happily said, "I'm so pleased there are so few mistakes." Rossini replied, "If I had marked all the blunders in the music with crosses, your score would have looked like a cemetery."
(N. Slonimsky, A Thing or Two about Music)
[A similar story is told of Brahms, who supposedly declined to make a cemetery of Wolf's manuscript.]

♣ Because it ain't me
A soprano who sang Rossini's famous aria "Una voce" embellished it with many showy fioriture. Rossini courteously congratulated her on her technique, but then asked her: "And whose is the music?"
(W. Adams, Treasury of Modern Anecdotes)
[A similar story is told of Franz Schubert, who supposedly made the same remark when Michael Vogl sang a transposed version of Schubert's song because it was too high for him.]

♣ With apologies to F-sharp
Rossini was conducting an orchestra when an oboist played an F-sharp instead of an F. After corrected him, Rossini added consolingly, "In regard to the F-sharp, don't worry about it; we'll find some other place to fit it in."
(N. Slonimsky, A Thing or Two about Music)

♣ No extenuating circumstance
Another player did not fare so well. In a rehearsal conducted by Rossini, a horn player hit a bad note making a squealing noise. "What's that?" Rossini fumed. "It's I, I . . . " stammered the player. Rossini interrupted, "Ah, is it? Then pack up your horn and go home. I'll join you later."
The horn player was Rossini's father.
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ One extenuating circumstance
When Rossini conducted the première of one of his early operas in Rome, the first clarinet player made numerous mistakes during the rehearsals. Even though Rossini was mercilessly severe to other players, he never remonstrated him.
The clarinetist was a barber who habitually shaved Rossini after each rehearsal.
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ Living proof
Rossini's famous wit failed him on one occasion. In 1856, Rossini encountered the music theorist François-Joseph Fétis in a Paris music store that was selling his Treatise on Counterpoint and Fugue. Gesturing toward the book Rossini asked, "Must all this be learned?" "Not all all," replied Fétis. "You yourself are the living proof to the contrary."
(N. Slonimsky, A Thing or Two about Music)

♣ Primo Aprile
Before a performance of one of his operas, Rossini received the following letter: "A lady who wishes to make the acquaintance of the great Maestro will be at the Scala tonight in Box No. 9 to tell you something she cannot put into writing." Meanwhile, he was also told by the leading tenor of the opera company that the wife of the French ambassador, famed for her beauty, had arrived n Milan to hear Rossini's opera and that she would occupy Box No. 9. Rossini's excitement was piqued. Dressed in his best, Rossini went to the Box No. 9 just as the overture began only to find it empty. It still remained so after the first act of opera was over. When lights were turned on, Rossini noticed an envelop on the empty chair next to him. Eagerly he picked it up and read: "My dear Maestro. The ambassadress of France regrets that she cannot come to the theater tonight for one important reason: she is dead - and well decayed. The French ambassador has been a widower for three years. Please accept, Maestro, the compliments of your admirer, 'Primo Aprile.'"
Eagerly he tore it open and read: "The first of April!" Rossini exclaimed angrily. "Why don't I ever look at the calendar!"
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

&clubs Easier than getting off bed
Rossini's laziness is proverbial. One morning he was writing music in bed when a sheet of the manuscript of an operatic duet fell off and floated under the bed. Still in bed, Rossini tried to reach it but could not quite get to it. Rather than getting out of bed, Rossini sighed, took another music sheet and wrote out brand new duet. Then a friend visited him, and Rossini asked him to retrieve the original manuscript. When Rossini compared two versions of the duet, he thought the second was better, but since the first wasn't bad either, he opted to add an extra part and use it as a trio.
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ Happy birthday
Arthur Sullivan visited Rossini one morning and found him playing a small piece of music as he entered. "Why, what is that?" he asked. Rossini answered in a serious tone: "It's my dog's birthday and I write a little piece for him every year."
(Arthur Lawrence, Sir Arthur Sullivan, 1899)

♣ Five ways to write an overture
Rossini gave the following advice on the art of writing overtures in a lettter to a young composer:
"Wait till the evening before the opening night. Nothing primes inspiration like necessity, whether it takes the form of a copyist waiting for your work or the coercion of an exasperated impresario tearing his hair out in handfuls. In my day all the impresarios in Italy were bald at thirty.
I composed the overture to Otello in a little room in which that the baldest and most ferocious of all managers, Barbaja, shut me up with a plate of macaroni and told me that that he would let me out only after I had written the last note of the overture.
I wrote the overture to La Gazza Ladra, on the very day of the first performance of the opera in the theatre itself. I was imprisoned under the guard of four stage hands who were ordered to throw down the music pages, sheet by sheet, to copyists seated below. As the manuscript was copied, it was sent page by page to the conductor who then rehearsed the music. If I had failed to keep the production going fast, my guards were instructed to throw me in person to the copyists.
With Barber of Seville, I did better still. I didn't compose an overture, but instead I made use of the overture to my opera Elisabetta though it is a serious opera [whereas the Barber is a comic opera]. The public was delighted.
I composed the overture to the Comte Ory while fishing with my feet in the water, in the company of a Spanish musician who the whole time talked incessantly about Spanish finance. I composed the overture to William Tell in the lodgings on the Boulevard Montmartre filled night and day with a crowd of people smoking, drinking, talking, singing, and bellowing in my ears.
As for Moses, I just didn't write one at all, which is the easiest way of all.
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ It can't be any worse
One day a composer unknown to Rossini sought his opinion on the scores of two oratorios. Rossini attempted to excuse himself citing poor health, but the composer insisted, stating that he would return in a week for Rossini's judgment. A week later when he came back Rossini, looking serene and smiling, claimed that he had been so ill and had slept so little that he could only look at one of the scores. When the composer eagerly asked about his opinion, Rossini replied, "There are good things in it . . . but I prefer the other one."
(E. Van de Velde, Anecdotes Musicales)

♣ A stickler for accuracy
A shabbily dressed fellow came in desiring to play for Rossini, who was known to be generous to poor musicians.
"Well," said Rossini, "what am I to do for you? An artist? What sort of a voice have you got?"
"No voice, Monsieur Rossini; I am an instrumentalist; but if you will only ..."
"Ah! What instrument then?"
"The drum, Monsieur! and if you let me play to you ..."
"No, thank you; and besides we have no drum here."
"But I have brought mine with me." The drummer was not to be got rid of. "I shall have the honour of playing for you the overture to La Gaza Ladra."
After the tremendous roll which opens the march in the overture, the drummer looked up, content with the noise he made. "Monsieur," said he, "here are now sixty bars' rest - we will pass them over, and ..."
"I beg you will do no such thing," replied Rossini. "Pray count them!"
(Henry F. Chorley, Music and Manners in France and Germany, 1841)

♣ Dirty Moses
Rossini attended a concert in which a set of variations on an aria from his own Moses in Egypt was played on musical glasses filled with water to various levels to sound the right pitch. After the tenth variation, Rossini's companion suggested that they walk out. "Not until this gentleman has finished washing Moses," replied Rossini.
(N. Slonimsky, A Thing or Two about Music)

♣ Dear God
It was the custom of composers to write at the end of a finished work, "Glory be to God." Rossini did not dare to use this sacrosanct formula for his frivolous opera buffas. When he finished a Mass after the Biblical age of seventy, he wrote: "Good God! Here is my poor Mass. Thou knowest, O Lord, as well as I, that I was born to write comic operas and that my patrimony consists in a little heart and less science. Be therefore compassionate and leave me enter Paradise."
(N. Slonimsky, Slonimsky's Book of Musical Anecdotes, Allen, Towne, & Heath, Inc., 1948)

♣ Friday the Thirteenth
Rossini was extremely superstitious, believing in omens and malevolent spirits. When he received a gold watch from the king of France, Louis Philippe, he proudly showed it to a friend who noticed a circular inscription in Arabic engraved on its face. Rossini inquired about the meaning of the inscription, but none of his learned friends were able to decipher it. Seized with inexpressible fears, he put the watch away; it was found after his death in a secret compartment in his desk. Strangely enough, Rossini died on November 13, 1868 - Friday the thirteenth.
 

♣ Point of reference
Robert Browning wrote in his letter (1848): "Rossini . . . directed his letters to his mother as 'mother of the famous composer'."

QUOTES BY ROSSINI

♣ "Give me a laundry list and I will set it to music."
(I. Croft and D. Fraser, A Dictionary of Musical Quotations, 1985)

♣ "Delight must be the basis and aim of this art. Simple melody - clear rhythm!"
(Letter, 1868)

♣ "Music is a sublime art precisely because, unable to imitate reality, it rises above ordinary nature into an ideal world, and with celestial harmony moves the earthly passions."
(Zanolini, Biografia di Gioacchino Rossini, 1875)

QUOTES ON ROSSINI

♣ "Who would not gladly listen to Rossini's lifely flights of fancy, to the piquant titillation of his melodies? But who could be so blind as to attribute to him dramatic truth?" - Carl Maria von Weber
(Morgenstern, Composers on Music, 1958)