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The outstanding defect in the libretto of Patience is the decentralisation of interest in the second act. The alert ones who remembered that in that act the heroine has only one song, and certain passages of dialogue not remarkable for dramatic force, had predicted that Millicent would inevitably lose ground as the evening advanced. They were, however, deceived.
This work, although it has a drawback in the shape of a confused libretto, is to be retained permanently on the Covent Garden repertoire in London. In oratorio, a worthy place must be accorded to the works of Mme. Grandval, Célanie Carissan, Mrs. Bartholomew, and Rosalind Ellicott. Among women composers of successful masses may be reckoned Mrs. Beach, Mme.
"But, of course, you don't. Well, then!" She put both her hands palm downward on the divan, and, speaking slowly with an emphasis that was cutting, and stretching her body till her shoulders were slightly raised, she said: "Just now, while Susan and you were in the garden, Armand Gillier asked me if we would give up his libretto." "Give up the libretto?"
On December 26, the first night of the carnival season, his opera Agrippina was produced at Venice. The libretto was by Cardinal Grimani, who had already written other dramas for music, all produced, like Handel's, at the Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice.
Probably at another time Graham would have been amused and interested in the observation of a character new to him, and thoroughly southern, lovable not more from its naive simplicity of kindliness than from various little foibles and vanities, all of which were harmless, and some of them endearing as those of a child whom it is easy to make happy, and whom it seems so cruel to pain; and with all the Venosta's deviations from the polished and tranquil good taste of the beau monde, she had that indescribable grace which rarely deserts a Florentine, so that you might call her odd but not vulgar; while, though uneducated, except in the way of her old profession, and never having troubled herself to read anything but a libretto and the pious books commended to her by her confessor, the artless babble of her talk every now and then flashed out with a quaint humour, lighting up terse fragments of the old Italian wisdom which had mysteriously embedded themselves in the groundwork of her mind.
A bare list of the names of the friends and opponents he gained at this time would take up more space than is available in so brief a study as this, and I must pass over many interesting incidents. The most important is that connected with The Flying Dutchman libretto.
There was a fierceness, characteristic of Algerians of a certain class, in his manner now that he had got rid of his first formality. Charmian felt slightly embarrassed. At that moment she hoped strongly that her husband would not come down. For the first time she realized the gulf fixed between Claude and the libretto which she had found for him. But he must bridge that gulf out here.
What you offered to my husband was immature; but I always knew you had talent." "Indeed? You never told me so that I remember." "You appeared to be fully aware of it." Gillier made a fist of his hand on the cover. He wished Jacques Sennier were setting the libretto he had sold to Claude Heath, and Madame Sennier wished exactly the same thing. He did not know her thought; but she divined his.
Education he had none: he was unable to write the commonest letter, and did not know a note of music; yet he would give his composers the most valuable hints, and dictate with admirable skill the plan of a libretto. His own voice was of the harshest and most inharmonious texture; but by his advice and instructions he formed some of the first singers in Italy.
He handed him a libretto, which with a few alterations here and there became "Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio." Verdi accepted the offer at once, and being obliged to move to Busseto, where he had been appointed organist, remained there nearly three years, during which time the opera was completed.
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