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The Italian public, in spite of such criticism, very soon accepted the opera of "Otello" as the greatest serious opera ever written for their stage. It owed much, however, to the singers who illustrated its rôles. Mme. Colbran, afterward Rossini's wife, sang Desdemona, and Davide, Otello. The latter was the predecessor of Rubini as the finest singer of the Rossinian music.
A volcano, signori miei, a volcano, un Vesuvio! I had the honour and the happiness of singing with him in the opera dell' illustrissimo maestro Rossini in Otello!
Naldi to let me buy it." In 1828 the principal members of the operatic company at the Italiens were Malibran, Sontag, Donzelli, Zuchelli, and Graziani. Malibran sang in "Otello," "Matilda di Shabran," "La Cenerentola," and "La Gazza Ladra." Jealous as she was by temperament, she always wept when Madamoiselle Sontag achieved a great success, saying, naively, "Why does she sing so divinely?"
We swam round the Castello until we were opposite your windows, and sang 'Funiculi, funicula! in the water, to serenade you. Why didn't you hear us? Papa has a splendid voice, almost like Tamagno's in the gramophone, when he sings the 'Addio' from 'Otello. Of course we kept a little out at sea. Papa is so easily recognized by his red mustaches. But still you might have heard us." "I did."
Had he followed his inclinations and the advice of Victor Hugo, who gave him a letter of introduction to Emile de Girardin, he would have become a journalist in Paris instead of the composer of "Mefistofele" and the poet of "Otello," "Falstaff," "La Gioconda," and "Ero e Leandro."
Malibran about this time essayed the same experiment which Pasta had tried, that of singing the rôle of the Moor in "Otello." It was not very successful, though she sang the music and acted the part with fire.
He was all the while unconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his throat all the way up the river the gondolier's song in the "Otello," where Rossini has worthily set to music the immortal words of Dante and, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail "nella miseria" was distinctly audible on the brink of the water.
At length, so eager did the spectators become, that they pressed closer and closer upon the dancer, and Mammy Otello had to rush in and shove them back with her stout arms to prevent him from being overwhelmed. "Tired yet, old fellow?" shouted Bill, as he went on shuffling away and kicking his heels; "I am not, let me tell you!"
It is a question how he came to be held in such honor. His works, outside of the Barbier and Guillaume Tell, and some performances of Moïse, belonged to the past. They still went to see Otello at the Théâtre-Italien, but that was to hear Tamberlick's C diesis. Rossini was under so little illusion that he tried to oppose the effort to have Semiramide put into the repertoire at the Opéra.
Rossini showed his real opinion of it by writing his best and most mature work in a different style; and Verdi has done the same in "Aida" and "Otello," in which there is hardly a trace of colorature, while the style often approaches to that of genuine dramatic song. The colorature or florid style, however, is only one of the varieties of Italian song.
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