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I have quoted this rather long passage to show how the impression made by one of Rameau's operas on his contemporaries resembled that made by Wagner on his enemies. It was not without reason that Rameau was said to be Wagner's forerunner, as Rousseau was Tolstoy's forerunner.
Whether she echoed his sentiments we are not told, but she lived seventeen years longer. Balfe married a German singer, Rosen, who afterward sang in some of his operas. One of the few other British composers who attained distinction was John Field, who, like Balfe, was Dublin-born. He was the inventor of Chopin's Nocturne.
And I think they would admire those old-fashioned songs that you sing, Miss Wenna, all the better for hearing them so far away from home at least, I should, but then I'm an outer barbarian. I think you, now, would be delighted with the grand music abroad with the operas, you know, and all that. I have had to knock about these places with people, but I don't care about it.
John, who, if he talked less about operas and singers, thought less about Alcibiades and Pericles, if he never complained of the load of business not being suited to his temper, at the very moment he had been working, like Gumdragon, to get the said load upon his shoulders; and if he persuaded one of his sincerity being as great as his genius, would appear to all time as adorned with the choicest gifts that Heaven has yet thought fit to bestow on the children of men.
My chief intention in so doing was to revive my faith in myself as a musician, as, ever since the autumn of the previous year, I had exercised my talents as a journalist and adapter of operas only.
"No one can ever think a lady extravagant for buying a black silk; it's such a useful dress; lasts forever almost." Days, weeks, and months rolled on, and with them an ever-rolling tide of flower-shows, dinners, at-homes, balls, operas, lawn-parties, concerts, and theatres.
He now proceeded to Florence, and while there became acquainted with an Italian poet, Ranieri di Calzabigi. They were mutually attracted to each other, and on parting had sworn to use their influence and talents to reform Italian opera. Gluck returned to Vienna, and continued to compose operas. In 1764, "Orfeo" was produced, an example of the new reform in opera!
This matter must be reserved for discussion until we deal with the operas separately. The labyrinthine libretto owes its defects not to the many years it took to write for when once Wagner set to work it was done in a single breath but to the nature of the subject and the very German way in which a German composer inevitably felt impelled to treat that subject.
Out of this beginning swiftly grew the opera. Composers in the new form sprung up in various parts of Italy, though Naples, Venice, and Florence continued to be its centres. Between 1637 and 1700, there were performed three hundred operas at Venice alone.
Here and there but most rarely one saw an eager woman with bright eyes, head bent forward and body spellbound, still enchantedly following the course of the play. Between the acts the orchestra pattered ragtime and inanities from the new comic operas, while the audience in general took some heart.
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