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As a drama and as an opera "Fidelio" stands almost alone in its perfect purity, in the moral grandeur of its subject, and in the resplendent ideality of its music. Vincenzo Bellini was born Nov. 3, 1802, at Catania, Sicily, and came of musical parentage. By the generosity of a patron he was sent to Naples, and studied at the Conservatory under Zingarelli.
Zingarelli, the great musical composer, was another occasional member of this charming society: his wit and repartie are famous, and his bons mots are repeated wherever one runs to. I cannot translate any of them, but will write one down, which will make such of my readers laugh as understand Italian. The Emperor was at Milan, and asked Zingarelli his opinion of a favourite singer? "Io penso maest
And Lothair burst duly in with rapid, angry quavers: "Le Gare Generose, del Maestro Paesiello Che vedo? La Donna di Spirito, del Maestro Mariella. Briconaccio! Piro, Re di Epiro! Maledetti! del Maestro Zingarelli," &c. In a comic description of enthusiastic inspiration each seized the drift of the other's ideas. All the passages, imitations, &c.
Carpani in his thirteenth letter draws a pleasant picture of Haydn's life with his mistress Boselli, and incidentally describes how various composers composed: Gluck with his piano in a summer meadow and the bottled sunshine of Champagne on each side; Sarti in a dark room at night with a funereal lamp pendant from the ceiling; Salieri in the streets eating sweets; Paer while joking with his friends, gossiping on a thousand things, scolding his servants, quarrelling with his wife and children and petting his dog; Cimarosa in the midst of noisy friends; Sacchini with his sweetheart at his side and his kittens playing on the floor about him; Paesiello in bed; Zingarelli after reading the holy fathers or a classic; Anfossi in the midst of roast capons, steaming sausages, gammons of bacon and ragouts.
"When the fire that burned in me glowed too fiercely from the face I turned upon her, she met it with that studied smile of hers, the conventional expression that sits on the lips of every portrait in every exhibition. She was not listening to the music. The divine pages of Rossini, Cimarosa, or Zingarelli called up no emotion, gave no voice to any poetry in her life; her soul was a desert.
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