Chapter 9 ELISABETTA-ROSSINI'S DéBUT AT NAPLES.

IN Elisabetta Mademoiselle Colbran obtained the first of the numerous triumphs for which she was to be indebted to Rossini. The work was founded on the subject of "Kenilworth," and it is satisfactory to know that the libretto was from the pen of Signor Smith, a gentleman of unmistakable origin settled at Naples. Amy Robsart loses her beautiful name in the opera and is called Matilda; but then Signor Smith had not taken his story direct from Sir Walter's novel. He had adapted it from a French melodrama.

The cast of the opera was admirable, the principal parts being assigned to Mademoiselle Colbran, Mademoiselle Dardanelli, Nozzari, and Garcia. An English dilettante, a great admirer of Mademoiselle Colbran, obtained correct copies from London for the costume of Queen Elizabeth; and the success of the prima donna, both as an actress and as a singer, was most remarkable.

The Neapolitans had not heard a note of Rossini's music. The stories of his great success in the north of Italy had reached them from time to time; but there was nothing to prove that this success was deserved. The composer, of whose merits the Milanese and the Venetians were so full, had not been tested at Naples, and the composer who has not been tested at Naples has yet to make a name. If the Neapolitan public was not prepared to applaud Rossini merely on the recommendation of the Milanese, the professors of the Conservatories, where he had never studied, were quite ready to criticise him very severely, and had made up their minds beforehand that he was not a musician of any learning.

Rossini treated the Neapolitan audience to the overture he had written the year before at Milan for "Aureliano in Palmira," and which was to be presented to the public of Rome the year afterwards as fit preface to "Il Barbiere." The brilliant symphony was naturally liked, though if the Neapolitans had known that it was originally written for "Aureliano in Palmira," they, perhaps, would not have applauded it quite so much.

The first piece in the opera was a duet for Leicester and his young wife in the minor, described by Stendhal as "very original." The effect of the duet was to confirm the audience in the good opinion they had already formed of the composer, who, so far as Naples was concerned, was now only making his début. The finale to the first act, in which the principal motives of the overture occur, raised the enthusiasm of the audience to the highest pitch. "All the emotions of serious opera with no tedious interval between," such was the phrase in which the general verdict of the Neapolitan public was expressed.

Mademoiselle Colbran's great success, however, was yet to come. It was achieved in the first scene of the second act, when an interview between Elizabeth (in her historical costume from London) and Matilda is made the subject of a grand scene and duet; and again in the finale to the second, described by the critics of the period as one of the finest Rossini ever wrote.

Mademoiselle Colbran's solo, "Bell' alme generose," in which she forgives and unites the lovers, is a brilliant show-piece, written for the display of all the best points in the prima donna's singing. "A catalogue of the qualities of a fine voice" it was called, and Mademoiselle Colbran's voice was at that time magnificent.

It was objected to the solo that it was not in keeping with the situation, being very grand, but entirely devoid of pathos. Such remarks, however, as these were not made until after the performance. Rossini had aimed at success through a very successful prima donna, and he had attained it.

"Elisabetta," though it contained much beautiful music, was not one of Rossini's best operas, and owing perhaps to the distribution of parts it has not been much played out of Italy, nor elsewhere than at Naples. For instance, the parts of Leicester and Norfolk are both given to tenors. If Rossini had been distributing the characters according to his own ideas, as he was afterwards able to carry them out, he would certainly have made the treacherous Norfolk a baritone or a bass; the position of the lover, Leicester, as tenor being of course quite unassailable. But Rossini had to write for a particular company, and there was no bass singer at the San Carlo capable of taking first parts.

Indeed it was still a conventional rule that in opera seria leading personages should not be represented by the bass, who was kept systematically in the background. Rossini was the basso's friend, not only in regard to opera seria, but also as to operas of mezzo carattere, such as "La Cenerentola," "La Gazza Ladra," and "Torvaldo e Dorliska." It is entirely to Rossini and his music that Galli, Lablache, and so many distinguished baritones and basses, owe their reputation.

The company at the San Carlo, though without a leading basso, included at this time three admirable tenors-Davide, Nozzari, and Garcia; and the two latter appeared together in "Elisabetta." This opera is the first in which Rossini accompanies recitative with the stringed quartet in lieu of the piano and double bass of former Italian composers. The score of "Otello" is the one usually cited (by M. Fétis, M. Castil Blaze, among other writers) as first exhibiting this important substitution.