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Updated: June 19, 2025
With her purse full of assignats Mademoiselle was actually obliged to obtain ready money from her diamonds, now useless to her. She gave them to Gaubertin, who sold them, and faithfully returned to her their full price. This proof of honesty touched her heart; henceforth she believed in Gaubertin as she did in Piccini.
Gluck had larger conceptions and more powerful genius than his Italian rival, but the latter's sweet spring of melody gave him the highest place which had so far been attained in the Italian operatic school. "Piccini," says M. Genguèné, his biographer, "was under the middle size, but well made, with considerable dignity of carriage. His countenance was very agreeable.
There the partisans of Gluck and the partisans of Piccini went at each other with such violence that there was more than one duel to record.
His operas having been heard and admired in France, their great reputation inspired the royal favorite, Mme. du Barry, with the hope of finding a successful competitor to the great German composer, patronized by Marie Antoinette. Accordingly, Piccini was offered an indemnity of six thousand francs, and a residence in the hotel of the Neapolitan ambassador.
The flimsiness of the poem was the cause; for the music, I am assured, is the finest that GLUCK ever composed, and several pieces of it have been repeatedly performed in the Parisian concerts. The Didon of PICCINI and the OEdipe a Colonne of SACCHINI have had no less success than the operas of GLUCK. They are very frequently represented.
It is no less fresh in the minds of critics how that modern Jupiter, Lessing, waged a long and bitter battle with the Titans of the French classical drama, and finally crushed them with the thunderbolt of the "Dramaturgie;" nor what acrimony sharpened the discussion between the rival theorists in music, Gluck and Piccini, at Paris.
Great as his genius was, he might have had a harder fight for justice but for his firm friend at court. He always had access to the queen, and was always accorded more respect at court than his rivals, Piccini or Sacchini. Realizing the worth of his own works, he often laid himself open to the charge of conceit, but the queen was ever ready to defend him warmly.
It was solely to gratify the Queen that the manager of the Opera brought the first company of comic actors to Paris. Gluck, Piccini, and Sacchini were attracted there in succession. These eminent composers were treated with great distinction at Court. Immediately on his arrival in France, Gluck was admitted to the Queen's toilet, and she talked to him all the time he remained with her.
Napoleon, the first consul, received him cordially in the Luxembourg palace. "Sit down," said he to Piccini, who remained standing, "a man of your greatness stands in no one's presence." His reception in Paris was, in fact, an ovation.
On the night of the first performance Mile. Laguerre, to whom Piccini had trusted the rôle of Iphigenia, could not stand straight from intoxication. "This is not 'Iphigenia in Tauris," said the witty Sophie Arnould, "but 'Iphigenia in champagne." She compensated afterward though by singing the part with exquisite effect.
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