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The padre, with ears critically deaf, and with smiling, unconvinced eyes, was shaking his head, while young Gaston sang "Trovatore" at him, and beat upon the table with a fork. "Come and convert me, then," said Padre Ignazio, and he led the way. "Donizetti I have always admitted. There, at least, is refinement. If the world has taken to this Verdi, with his street-band music But there, now!
Of recent years he has devoted most of his time to concerts, though he is one of the founders and officers of the Society of American Singers, with which artistic body he frequently appears in the classic operas of Mozart, Pergolesi, Donizetti and others. My first conference with Mr. Bispham was held in his New York studio.
He accounts for this upon the theory that the composer was of Scotch descent, his grandfather having been a native of Perthshire, by the name of Izett, and that his father, who married an Italian lady, was Donald Izett. The change from Donald Izett to Donizetti was an easy one. The story, however, is of doubtful authenticity.
There was scarcely an opera or an overture, from Mozart to Donizetti, that he did not insist upon singing a scene from; and wound up all by a very pathetic lamentation over English insensibility to music, which he in great part attributed to our having only one opera, which he kindly informed me was "Bob et Joan."
You don't deserve good singers. If by chance the King himself omitted to applaud at the right time, Barbaja would shrug his shoulders and go grumbling out of his box. "With all his peculiarities, he it was who formed and brought forward Lablache, Tamburini, Rubini, Donzelli, Colbran, Pasta, Fodor, Donizetti, Bellini, and the great Rossini himself, whose masterpieces were composed for Barbaja.
His first opera, "Enrico di Borgogna," was so highly admired by the Venetian manager, to whom, it was offered, that he induced friends of his to release young Donizetti from his military servitude. He now pursued musical composition with a facility and industry which astonished even the Italians, familiar with feats of improvisation. In ten years twenty-eight operas were produced.
Bellini and Donizetti? Oh, yes. Dancing? They had no dancing at grandmamma's, but she adores dancing, and Mr. Clive dances very well indeed. Oh, she is so happy in the country! London? London is delightful, and so is the seaside.
Many of them, such as 'Betly, 'Linda di Chamonix, and 'Anna Bolena, were successful when produced; but Donizetti aimed merely at satisfying the prevailing taste of the day, and when a new generation sprang up with different sympathies from that which had preceded it, the operas which had seemed the most secure of popularity were soon consigned to oblivion.
Though the opera is monotonous from sameness of color and lack of dramatic interest, there are many numbers which leave a charming impression by their grace, refinement, and genuine poetical effect. Gaetano Donizetti was born at Bergamo, Italy, Sept. 25, 1798.
The music of Mozart and Cimarosa, Boïeldieu and Eossini, Cherubini and Bellini, Donizetti and Meyerbeer, furnished in equal measure the mold into which her great powers poured themselves with a sort of inspired fury, like that of a Greek Pythoness.
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