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Updated: June 18, 2025
Presently our attention was attracted by the sound of singing at the corner of the little lawn most distant from the house. It was growing dark, and the form of the singer could barely be discerned upon a bench under a great oak. The voice was that of a man, and his song was an Italian air from one of Verdi's operas.
"Titiens is the most superb Leonora without a single exception that the Anglo-Italian stage has ever witnessed," wrote an admiring critic. Among other brilliant successes of the season was her performance for the first time of Amelia in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera," which was a masterpiece of vocalization and dramatic fire.
"In getting what we do not deserve." There was nothing in that to offend. But the man's eyes, of which already she had been conscious, did offend. They seemed to disrobe her. Annoyedly she turned. Paliser turned with her. "Verdi's bric-
This necessity is recognized not only by lecturers, but by all the great masters of poetry, fiction and music. Wilhelm Tell is best known by its overture and what could be more solemn and impressive than the opening bars of "El Miserere" in Verdi's "Il Trovatore."
Another magnificent scene is the judgment of Radames, in the fourth act, where an extraordinary effect is gained by the contrast of the solemn voices of the priests within the chamber with the passionate grief of Amneris upon the threshold. The love scene, in the third act, shows the lyrical side of Verdi's genius in its most voluptuous aspect.
The whole of the last act is a brilliant example of Verdi's picturesque power, combined with acute power of characterisation.
That evening I realized the appositeness of Dr. von Bulow's remark to Mascagni when the world seemed inclined to hail that young man as the continuator of Verdi's operatic evangel: "I have found your successor in your predecessor, Verdi," but it did not seem necessary to think of "Otello" and "Falstaff" in connection with the utterance; "La Traviata" alone justifies it.
Her last performance, and perhaps one of the grandest efforts of her life, was the character of Helene in Verdi's "Les Vêpres Siciliennes," the active principal parts having been taken by Bonnehée, Gueymard, and Obin. The production of the work was on a splendid scale, and the opera a great success.
Many of the great things of this century-ending had not been done then, nor even dreamed of, and even musicians listened to the Trovatore with pleasure, not dreaming of the untried strength that lay waiting in Verdi's vast reserve. It was then the music of youth. To us it seems but the music of childhood.
The story itself is almost too repulsive for stage representation; but in beauty, freshness, originality, and dramatic expression the music of "Rigoletto" is Verdi's best; and in all this music the quartet is the masterpiece. "La Traviata," an opera in three acts, words by Piave, is founded upon Dumas's "Dame aux Camelias," familiar to the English stage as "Camille."
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