History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time. Edwards Henry Sutherland

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СКАЧАТЬ the minister, by which Buononcini the conductor, Francesca Cuzzoni, Margarita Durastanti, Francesco Bernardi, surnamed Senesino, Gaetano Bernesta, and Guiseppe Boschi were to come to Paris in 1723, and give twelve representations of one or two Italian Operas, as they thought fit. Francine, the director of the Académie, engaged to pay them 35,000 francs, and to furnish new dresses to the principal performers. This treaty was not executed, probably through some obstacle interposed by Francine; for the manager signed it against his will, and on the 2nd of December following, the regent, with whom it had originated, died. The absurd privileges secured to the Académie Royale, and the consequent impossibility of giving satisfactory performances of Italian Opera elsewhere than at the chief lyrical theatre must have done much to check the progress of dramatic music in France. From time to time Italian singers were suffered to make their appearance at the Grand Opera; but at the regular Italian Theatre established in Paris, as at the Comédie Française, singing was only permitted under prescribed conditions, and the orchestra was strictly limited, by severe penalties, rigidly enforced, to a certain number of instruments, of which not more than six could be violins, or of the violin family.

      At the Comédie Italienne an ass appeared on the stage, and began to bray.

      "Silence," exclaimed Arlechinno, "music is forbidden here."

      Among the distinguished amateurs of the period of the regency was M. de Saint Montant, who played admirably on the viola, and had taught his sons and daughters to do the same. Being concerned in a law suit, which had to be tried at Nimes, he went with his family of musicians to visit the judges, laid his case before them, one after the other, and by way of peroration, gave them each a concert, with which they were so delighted that they decided unanimously in favour of M. de Saint Montant.

      A law suit had previously been decided somewhat in the same manner, but much more logically, in favour of Joseph Campra, brother of the composer of that name, who was the conductor of the orchestra at the Opera of Marseilles. The manager refused to pay the musicians on the ground that they did not play well enough. In consequence, he was summoned by the entire band, who, when they appeared in court, begged through Campra that they might be allowed to plead their own cause. The judges granted the desired permission, upon which the instrumentalists drew themselves up in orchestral order and under the direction of Campra commenced an overture of Lulli's. The execution of this piece so delighted the tribunal that with one voice it condemned the director to pay the sum demanded of him.

      A still more curious dispute between a violinist and a dancer was settled in a satisfactory way for both parties. The dancer was on the stage rehearsing a new step. The violinist was in the orchestra performing the necessary musical accompaniment.

      "Your scraping is enough to drive a man mad," said the dancer.

      "Very likely," said the musician, "and your jumping is only worthy of a clown. Perhaps as you have such a very delicate ear," he added, "and nature has refused you the slightest grace, you would like to take my place in the orchestra?"

LA CAMARGO

      "Your awkwardness with the bow makes me doubt whether your most useful limbs may not be your legs," replied the dancer. "You will never do any good where you are. Why do you not try your fortune in the ballet? Give me your violin," he continued, "and come up on to the stage. I know the scale already. You can teach me to play minuets, and I will show you how to dance them."

      The proposed interchange of good offices took place, and with the happiest results. The unmusical fiddler, whose name was Dupré, acquired great celebrity in the ballet, and Léclair, the awkward dancer, became the chief of the French school of violin playing.

      Marie-Anne Cupis de Camargo did not lose so much time in discovering her true vocation. She gave evidence of her genius for the ballet while she was still in the cradle, and was scarcely six months old when the variety of her gestures, the grace of her movements, and the precision with which she marked the rhythm of the tunes her father played on the violin led all who saw her to believe that she would one day be a great dancer. The young Camargo, who belonged to a noble family of Spanish origin, made her début at the Académie in 1726, and at once achieved a decided success. People used to fight at the doors to obtain admittance the nights she performed; all the new fashions were introduced under her name, and in a very short space of time her shoemaker made his fortune. All the ladies of the court insisted on wearing shoes à la Camargo. But the triumph of one dancer is the despair of another. Mademoiselle Prévost, who was the queen of the ballet until Mademoiselle de Camargo appeared was not prepared to be dethroned by a débutante. She was so alarmed by the young girl's success that she did her utmost to keep her in the background, and contrived before long to get her placed among the figurantes. But in spite of this loss of rank, Mademoiselle de Camargo soon found an opportunity of distinguishing herself. In a certain ballet, she formed one of a group of demons, and was standing on the stage waiting for Dumoulin, who had to dance a pas seul, when the orchestra began the soloist's air and continued to play it, though still no Dumoulin appeared. Mademoiselle de Camargo was seized with a sudden inspiration. She left the demoniac ranks, improvised a step in the place of the one that should have been danced by Dumoulin and executed it with so much grace and spirit that the audience were in raptures. Mademoiselle Prévost, who had previously given lessons to young Camargo, now refused to have anything to do with her, and the two danseuses were understood to be rivals both by the public and by one another. The chief characteristics of Camargo's dancing were grace, gaiety, and above all prodigious lightness, which was the more remarkable at this period from the fact that the mode chiefly cultivated at the Opera was one of solemn dignity. However, she had not been long on the stage before she learned to adopt from her masters and from the other dancers whatever good points their particular styles presented, and thus formed a style of her own which was pronounced perfection.

STAGE COSTUME

      Mademoiselle de Camargo, in spite of her charming vivacity when dancing, was of a melancholy mood off the stage. She was not remarkably pretty, but her face was highly expressive, her figure exquisite, her hands and feet of the most delicate proportions, and she possessed considerable wit. Dupré, the ex-violinist, who had leaped at a bound from the orchestra to the stage, was in the habit of dancing with Camargo, and also with Mademoiselle Sallé, another celebrity of this epoch, who afterwards visited London, where she produced the first complete ballet d'action ever represented, and at the same time introduced an important reform in theatrical costume.

      The art of stage decoration had made considerable progress, even before the Opera was founded, but it was not until long after Mademoiselle Sallé had given the example in London that any reasonable principles were observed in the selection and design of theatrical dresses. In 1730, warriors of all kinds, Greek, Roman, and Assyrian, used to appear on the French stage in tunics belaced and beribboned, in cuirasses, and in powdered wigs bearing tails a yard long, surmounted by helmets with plumes of prodigious height. The tails, of which there were four, two in front and two behind, were neatly plaited and richly pomatumed, and when the warrior became animated, and waved his arm or shook his head, a cloud of hair powder escaped from his wig. It appeared to Mademoiselle Sallé, who, besides being an admirable dancer, was a woman of taste in all matters of art, that this sort of thing was absurd; but the reforms she suggested were looked upon as ridiculous innovations, and nearly half a century elapsed before they were adopted in France.

      This ingenious ballerina enjoyed the friendship and regard of many of the most distinguished writers of her time. Voltaire celebrated her in verse, and when she went to London she took with her a letter of introduction from Fontenelle to Montesquieu, who was then ambassador at the English Court. Another danseuse, Mademoiselle Subligny came to England with letters of introduction from Thiriot and the Abbé Dubois to Locke. The illustrious metaphysician had no great appreciation of Mademoiselle de Subligny's talent, but he was civil and attentive to her out of regard to his friends, who were also hers, and, in the words of Fontenelle, constituted himself her "homme d'affaires."

PHILOSOPHERS AND ACTRESSES

      Mademoiselle Sallé was not only СКАЧАТЬ