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At last they reached the Sala Clementina, a vast unfurnished hall, rich only with mural decorations and gilding, and here another Guard met them who, without words, escorted the Cardinal and his young companion through a number of waiting-rooms, made more or less magnificent by glorious paintings, wonderful Gobelin tapestries, and unique sculptures, till they reached at last what is called the anti-camera segreto, where none but Cardinals are permitted to enter and wait for an audience with the Supreme Pontiff.
Saratoga until August, then Newport till the frost, the city afterwards; and so an endless round of happiness." And he steps off humming Il segreto per esser felice! Well, we were all sitting in the great drawing-room at the "United States." We had been bowling in our morning dresses, and had rushed in to ascertain if the distinguished English party had arrived. They had not.
'Il Matrimonio Segreto' was produced at Vienna in 1792, and proved so very much to the taste of the Emperor Leopold, who was present at the performance, that he gave all the singers and musicians a magnificent supper, and then insisted upon their performing the opera again from beginning to end.
Though he sang successfully in all styles of music and covered a great dramatic versatility, the parts in which he was peculiarly great were Leporello in "Don Giovanni"; the Podesta in "La Gazza Ladra"; Geronimo in "Il Matrimonio Segreto"; Caliban in Halévy's "Tempest"; Gritzonko in "L'Etoile du Nord"; Henry VIII in "Anna Bolena"; the Doge in "Marino Faliero"; Oroveso in "Norma"; and Assur in "Semiramide."
Moreover, a place at Rome was marked out for him, for he there had powerful connections. He was a nephew by marriage of Cardinal Sarno, whose sister had married another of his uncles, a Paris notary; and he was also cousin german of Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, a Cameriere segreto, and son of one of his aunts, who had married an Italian colonel.
Ordained by Pius IX himself, afterwards becoming a Canon of the Vatican Basilica, and Cameriere segreto, he had risen to the post of Majordomo about the time of the Italian occupation, and in 1874 had been created a Cardinal.
'Il segreto! the girl cried commandingly, with a forefinger at his breast. He crossed arms, toning in similar recitative, with anguish, 'Dove volare! They joined in half a dozen bars of operatic duet. She flew to him, embraced and kissed. 'I must have it, my papa! unlock. I've been spying the bird on its hedgerow nest so long!
Unfavourable reports were circulated about the ladies, the mother having almost lost caste since she had become a widow, and the girl having too bold a beauty, too conquering an air. Thus the marriage had not met with the approval of Serafina, who was very rigid, or of Onofrio's elder brother Pio, at that time merely a Cameriere segreto of the Holy Father and a Canon of the Vatican basilica.
Lablache made his first appearance in London, in 1830, in "Il Matrimonio Segreto," and almost from his first note and first step he took an irresistible hold on the English public, which lasted for nearly a quarter of a century. It perplexed his admirers whether he was greater as a singer or as an actor. We are told that he "was gifted with personal beauty to a rare degree.
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