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It was made by Zimmerman, whose son was Gounod's father-in-law. Later, the weight of the keys was increased to get a greater volume of sound. Then, when long-haired virtuosi, playing by main strength, produced peals of thunder, they really "toucha du piano." To return to Orphée and end as we began, I have to make a painful confession.
If the works of Gluck in general and Orphée in particular have had a happy influence on our musical taste, a passage from this last work has been a noxious influence, the famous chorus of the demons "Quel est l'audacieux qui dans ces sombres lieux ose porter ses pas?" In the old days French opera was based on declamation and it was scrupulously respected even in the arias.
That excellent woman did not live to see the end of her work. She began the preparation of Orphée, but she died almost at once. So I was left to finish the score alone without that valuable experience and masterly insight by which she solved the most difficult problems. And there were real enigmas to be solved at every step.
In the disordered salon the piano was open, the bacchanal from 'Orphee aux Enfers' on the music-shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights of watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at sea, that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in every part.
In the disordered salon the piano was open, the bacchanal from 'Orphee aux Enfers' on the music-shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights of watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at sea, that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in every part.
This passage does not appear in the French Orphée and it is lacking in the engraved score, where it is replaced by a bravura aria of doubtful taste, accompanied by a single quartet. Whether the stage managers wanted an entr'acte or the tenor, Legros, demanded an effective aria, or for both these reasons, a reading of the manuscript indicates how absolutely the author's meaning was changed.
After he had written Iphigenie en Aulide, performed in 1774, especially for the Opéra, he had the idea of adapting Orfeo for the French stage. To tell the truth he must have thought of it before, for Orphée appeared at the Opéra only three months after Iphigenie and it had been entirely rewritten in collaboration with Moline.
His return to the old traditions was not the least of the attractions of his delightful Véronique. But we are wandering far from Gluck and Orphée, although not so far as we might think. In art, as in everything, extremes meet, and there are all kinds of tastes.
Sophie Arnould appeared with no less success in Gluck's operas of "Orphée" and "Alceste" than in the first, and rose again to the topmost wave of court favor. When "Orphée" was at rehearsal at the opera-house, it became the fashion of the great court dignitaries and the young chevaliers of the period to attend.
Then he brought home a new violin, and he said to me, 'I shall go; I shall play; I am Orphee, and dinners shall rise! I was glad, and kissed him; and he said, 'This is Sandra's gift to me, showing the violin. I only knew what that meant two days afterwards. Is a girl not seventeen fit to be married?"
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