Part 38 (1/2)
After leaving Bergamo, Rubini was engaged as second tenor in an operatic company of no great importance. He next joined a wandering troop, and among other feats he is said to have danced in a ballet somewhere in Piedmont, where, for his pains, he was violently hissed.
In 1814, he was engaged at Pavia as tenor, where he received about thirty-six s.h.i.+llings a month. Sixteen years afterwards, Rubini and his wife were offered an engagement of six thousand pounds, and at last the services of Rubini alone were retained at the Italian Opera of St.
Petersburgh, at the rate of twenty thousand pounds a year.
[Sidenote: RUBINI.]
Rubini was such a great singer, and possessed such admirable powers of expression, especially in pathetic airs (it was well said of him, ”_qu'il avait des larmes dans la voix_,”) that he may be looked upon as, in some measure, the creator of the operatic style which succeeded that of the Rossinian period up to the production of _Semiramide_, the last of Rossini's works, written specially for Italy. The florid mode of vocalization had been carried to an excess when Rubini showed what effect he could produce by singing melodies of a simple emotional character, without depending at all on vocalization merely as such. It has already been mentioned that Bellini wrote _Il Pirato_ with Rubini at his side, and it is very remarkable that Donizetti never achieved any great success, and was never thought to have exhibited any style of his own until he produced _Anna Bolena_, in which the tenor part was composed expressly for Rubini. Every one who is acquainted with _Anna Bolena_, will understand how much Rossini's mode of singing the airs, _Ogni terra ove_, &c., and _Vivi tu_, must have contributed to the immense favour with which it was received.
Rubini will long be remembered as the tenor of the incomparable quartett for whom the _Puritani_ was written, and who performed together in it for seven consecutive years in Paris and in London. Rubini disappeared from the West in 1841, and was replaced in the part of ”Arturo,” by Mario. Tamburini was the next to disappear, and then Lablache. Neither Riccardo nor Giorgio have since found thoroughly efficient representatives, and now we have lost with Grisi the original ”Elvira,”
without knowing precisely where another is to come from.
[Sidenote: RUBINI'S BROKEN CLAVICLE.]
Before taking leave of Rubini, I must mention a sort of duel he once had with a rebellious B flat, the history of which has been related at length by M. Castil Blaze, in the _Revue de Paris_. Pacini's _Talismano_ had just been produced with great success at _la Scala_. Rubini made his entry in this opera with an accompanied recitative, which the public always applauded enthusiastically. One phrase in particular, which the singer commenced by attacking the high B flat without preparation, and, holding it for a considerable period, excited their admiration to the highest point. Since Farinelli's celebrated trumpet song, no one note had ever obtained such a success as their wonderful B flat of Rubini's.
The public of Milan went in crowds to hear it, and having heard it, never failed to encore it. _Un 'altra volta!_ resounded through the house almost before the magic note itself had ceased to ring. The great singer had already distributed fourteen B flats among his admiring audiences, when, eager for the fifteenth and sixteenth, the Milanese thronged to their magnificent theatre to be present at the eighth performance of _Il Talismano_. The orchestra executed the brief prelude which announced the entry of the tenor. Rubini appeared, raised his eyes to heaven, extended his arms, planted himself firmly on his calves, inflated his breast, opened his mouth, and sought, by the usual means, to p.r.o.nounce the wished-for B flat. But no B flat would come. _Os habet, et non clamabit._ Rubini was dumb; the public did their best to encourage the disconsolate singer, applauded him, cheered him, and gave him courage to attack the unhappy B flat a second time. On this occasion, Rubini was victorious. Determined to catch the fugitive note, which for a moment had escaped him, the singer brought all the muscular force of his immense lungs into play, struck the B flat, and threw it out among the audience with a vigour which surprised and delighted them.
In the meanwhile, the tenor was by no means equally pleased with the triumph he had just gained. He felt, that in exerting himself to the utmost, he had injured himself in a manner which might prove very serious. Something in the mechanism of his voice had given way. He had felt the fracture at the time. He had, indeed, conquered the B flat, but at what an expense; that of a broken clavicle!
However, he continued his scene. He was wounded, but triumphant, and in his artistic elation he forgot the positive physical injury he had sustained. On leaving the stage he sent for the surgeon of the theatre, who, by inspecting and feeling Rubini's clavicle, convinced himself that it was indeed fractured. The bone had been unable to resist the tension of the singer's lungs. Rubini may have been said to have swelled his voice until it burst one of its natural barriers.
”It seems to me,” said the wounded tenor, ”that a man can go on singing with a broken clavicle.”
”Certainly,” replied the doctor, ”you have just proved it.”
”How long would it take to mend it?” he enquired.
”Two months, if you remained perfectly quiet during the whole time.”
”Two months! And I have only sung seven times. I should have to give up my engagement. Can a person live comfortably with a broken clavicle?”
”Very comfortably indeed. If you take care not to lift any weight you will experience no disagreeable effects.”
”Ah! there is my cue,” exclaimed Rubini; ”I shall go on singing.”
”Rubini went on singing,” says M. Castil Blaze, ”and I do not think any one who heard him in 1831 could tell that he was listening to a wounded singer--wounded gloriously on the field of battle. As a musical doctor I was allowed to touch his wound, and I remarked on the left side of the clavicle a solution of continuity, three or four lines[101] in extent between the two parts of the fractured bone. I related the adventure in the _Revue de Paris_, and three hundred persons went to Rubini's house to touch the wound, and verify my statement.”
[Sidenote: TAMBURINI.]
Two other vocalists are mentioned in the history of music, who not only injured themselves in singing, but actually died of their injuries.
Fabris had shown himself an unsuccessful rival of the celebrated Guadagni, when his master, determined that he should gain a complete victory, composed expressly for him an air of the greatest difficulty, which the young singer was to execute at the San Carlo Theatre, at Naples. Fabris protested that he could not sing, or that if so, it would cost him his life; but he yielded to his master's iron will, attacked the impossible air, and died on the stage of haemorrhage of the lungs. In the same manner, an air which the tenor Labitte was endeavouring to execute at the Lion's theatre, in 1820, was the cause of his own execution.
I have spoken of the versatility of talent displayed by Rubini in his youth. Tamburini and Lablache were equally expert singers in every style. In the year 1822 Tamburini was engaged at Palermo, where, on the last day of the carnival, the public attend, or used to attend, the Opera, with drums, trumpets, saucepans, shovels, and all kinds of musical and unmusical instruments--especially noisy ones. On this tumultuous evening, Tamburini, already a great favourite with the Palermitans, had to sing in Mercadante's _Elisa e Claudio_. The public received him with a salvo of their carnavalesque artillery, when Tamburini, finding that it was impossible to make himself heard in the ordinary way, determined to execute his part in falsetto; and, the better to amuse the public, commenced singing with the voice of a soprano sfogato. The astonished audience laid their instruments aside to listen to the novel and entirely unexpected accents of their _ba.s.so cantante_. Tamburini's falsetto was of wonderful purity, and in using it he displayed the same agility for which he was remarkable when employing his ordinary thoroughly masculine voice. The Palermitans were interested by this novel display of vocal power, and were, moreover, pleased at Tamburini's readiness and ingenuity in replying to their seemingly unanswerable charivari. But the poor _prima donna_ was unable to enter into the joke at all. She even imagined that the turbulent demonstrations with which she was received whenever she made her appearance, were intended to insult her, and long before the opera was at an end she refused to continue her part. The manager was in great alarm, for he knew that the public would not stand upon any ceremony that evening; and that, if the performance were interrupted by anything but their own noise, they would probably break everything in the theatre. Tamburini rushed to the _prima donna's_ room. Madame Lipparini, the lady in question, had already left the theatre, but she had also left the costume of ”Elisa” behind. The ingenious baritone threw off his coat, contrived, by stretching and splitting, to get on ”Elisa's” satin dress, clapped her bonnet over his own wig, and thus equipped appeared on the stage, ready to take the part of the unhappy and now fugitive Lipparini. The audience applauded with one accord the entry of the strangest ”Elisa” ever seen. Her dress came only half way down her legs, the sleeves did not extend anywhere near her wrists. The soprano, who at a moment's notice had replaced Madame Lipparini, had the largest hands and feet a _prima donna_ was ever known to possess.
[Sidenote: TAMBURINI.]
The band had played the ritornello of ”Elisa's” cavatina a dozen times, and the most turbulent among the a.s.sembly had actually got up from their seats, and were ready to scale the orchestra, and jump on the stage, when Tamburini rushed on in the costume above described. After curtseying to the audience, pressing one hand to his heart, and with the other wiping away the tears of grat.i.tude he was supposed to shed for the enthusiastic reception accorded to him, he commenced the cavatina, and went through it admirably; burlesquing it a little for the sake of the costume, but singing it, nevertheless, with marvellous expression, and displaying executive power far superior to any that Madame Lipparini herself could have shown. As long as there were only airs to sing, Tamburini got on easily enough. He devoted his soprano voice to ”Elisa,”
while the ”Count” remained still a ba.s.so, the singer performing his ordinary part in his ordinary voice. But a duet for ”Elisa” and the ”Count” was approaching; and the excited amateurs, now oblivious of their drums, kettles, and kettle-drums, were speculating with anxious interest as to how Tamburini would manage to be soprano and ba.s.so-cantante in the same piece. The vocalist found no difficulty in executing the duet. He performed both parts--the ba.s.s replying to the soprano, and the soprano to the ba.s.s--with the most perfect precision.
The double representative even made a point of pa.s.sing from right to left and from left to right, according as he was the father-in-law or the daughter. This was the crowning success. The opera was now listened to with pleasure and delight to the very end; and it was not until the fall of the curtain that the audience re-commenced their charivari, by way of testifying their admiration for Tamburini, who was called upwards of a dozen times on to the stage. This was not all: they were so grieved at the idea of losing him, that they entreated him to appear again in the ballet. He did so, and gained fresh applause by his performance in a _pas de quatre_ with the Taglionis and Mademoiselle Rinaldini.