GAETANO DONIZETTI. WITH A PORTRAIT. THE good town of Bergamo, incomparable among the picturesque cities of northern Italy, in right of the view across the plain from its upper town, liveliest, too, among the markets of Lombardy, in right of its great fairs; holds, also, a distinguished place in the records of operatic art. It has given to the Italian theatre some of its most famous personages. Not to speak of Harlequin (type and prototype of the Scapins and Figaros since introduced in modern comedy), who was a Bergamask, this same magnificent town, though remarkable for the cacophony of its dialect and the harsh tones of voice in which its inhabitants bargain or scold, has been fruitful of great singers. As the last and greatest among these we may name Rubini, whose intense feeling and profound skill have founded a school and a tradition among artists, no less than created a passing frenzy among the European pub lic. From Bergamo, too, comes Signor Piatti, one of the best contemporary violoncellists. But insomuch as the creative faculty exercises a longer-lived and a wider influence than any executive perfection, the musical illustration, by which Bergamo will, perhaps, be the longest known, is to be found in the operas of Gaetano Donizetti: -who was born there in the year 1797, and whose body died there on the 8th of April last. His mind had died within the body some years earlier. But No very precise record has reached us of Donizetti's parentage. His education began at the Lyceum of Bergamo, under the guidance of Simon Mayer. This master, who is best recollected as, the composer of "Medea," because Pasta sang in that opera, was possessed of little genius, being precisely one of those eclectic writers whose appearance neither forwards nor retards the progress of Art. he must have been valuable as a teacher, from the unimpeachable correctness which marks all that bears his signature and this very absence of individuality. An Albrechtsberger "turns out" much better pupils than a Beethoven; a Reicha than a Rossini. And we are accordingly told, that the young Donizetti, who passed from the hands of Mayer into the no less estimable ones of Padre Mattei, of Bologna, (a learned contrapuntist,) and Signor Pilotti, another professor there, was early able to produce "overtures, violin quartettes, (flimsy enough it may be presumed,) cantatas, and church music." For again, it may be observed, that the sound tenets of old musical instruction in composition, professed to enable the tyro to turn his hand to anything. The subdivision of occupation, which is comparatively of a modern date, must be taken, wheresoever it occurs, as a sign of incompleteness or imperfect training. The boy's estro is from the first said to have been fluent rather than brilliant or characteristic ;-to have shown itself in construction more signally than in invention. A French journal tells us that shortly after his return from Bologna to Bergamo in 1816, the young Donizetti was "taken for a soldier," and was only able to deliver himself from military thraldom by gaining a success in his own vocation. This he accomplished in 1818, by the production of his first Opera, VOL. XXIII. SS "Enrico di Borgogna," at Venice. His biographers, however, assure us, that, of the nineteen (?) operas which Donizetti produced within the next ten years, only one, "Zoraide in Granata," sung at Rome in 1822 by Donzelli, and the sisters Mombelli, was admitted to have made "a hit." There is no need, then, to enumerate them; enough to say that scattered pieces from "Olivo e Pasquale," have been formerly sung in our concert rooms. A somewhat washy duet, "Senza tanti complimenti," from "Il Borgomastro di Saardam," is still in request among our mediocre singers of Italian. Moreover, a year or two since, "L'Ajo nell Imbarrazzo" was tried at her Majesty's Theatre; but the music was not original enough to induce the public to endure a story full of the most puerile buffooneries, in spite of the best efforts of Lablache to give them life and character. It might have seemed, then, that after ten years' experiment Donizetti's place was irretrievably fixed among the mediocrities who manufacture poor music for the second rate theatres of Italy-to meet the popular craving for perpetual variety, good, bad, or indifferent. Such, however, was not the case. Something like originality and individuality (marking that he had come to years of musical discretion,) broke out in his twenty-first Opera, "L'Esule di Roma," which was given at Naples in the year 1828, with Mlle. Tosi, MM. Winter and Lablache, in the principal parts. Some of our amateurs may recollect it as the work with which Mr. Monck Mason opened his disastrous, but enterprising one season of opera management, that of 1832. Such will recall the terzetto, in which a certain novelty of structure is evident. The next work in order which has made "any stand" (as the phrase runs in the green-room) was the "Regina di Golconda," an Opera containing no music to compare with Berton's sprightly melodies to the original " Aline," but to which such cantatrici of Italy as have a touch of the Dugazon in them still recur, from time to time. And that the maestro was looked to as promising is evident by his being commissioned to write for Pasta:-for whom his thirty-second Opera, the "Anna Bolena," was produced at Milan in 1831. The work is performed still, when any prima donna appears who is strong enough to contend for Pasta's succession. Though it is not clear of the usual amount of platitude warranted, nay, courted, by Italian audiences; though it be full of the rhythms of Rossini, it has still touches which assert the individuality of its composer; and these, it may be noted, occur in the critical places. The duet, in the second act, betwixt the Queen and her rival, may be mentioned in proof; as also the final bravura "Coppia iniqua,"-which, though merely written as an air of display, is still full of deep tragical dramatic passion; the last frenzy of a breaking heart! From this time forward the place of Donizetti was assured as next in favour to that of the more sympathetic Bellini, and superior to that held by the less impulsive and more scholastic Mercadante. Thirty-three Operas followed the " Anna Bolena," and they gradually became better in staple, more original, and more popular. To name them one by one would be tedious. It will suffice to touch lightly upon those which still live in the Opera Houses of Europe. There is "L'Elisir,"-from the first to the last note a spontaneous utterance of pretty music, weakest where Rossini would have been strongest, in the part in the charlatan, Dr. Dulcamara, whose grand aria, even a Lablache cannot rescue from insipidity. There are "Parisina," "Torquato Tasso," and "Belisario," none of which stand beyond a chance of being revived by the dramatic singers of the new school. With them also may be mentioned "Gemma di Vergy," "Roberto Devereux,” and (of a later date) “Maria de Rohan,"-the last never to be forgotten in England, because of the magnificent tragic acting of Ronconi. Better music than in any of the above will be found in "Lucrezia Borgia," and a more taking story. One rich concerted piece and a notable finale for the tenor in the "Lucia di Lammermoor," have won for this Opera the most universal popularity gained by any of its master's works. According to our own fancy, Donizetti has never written anything of a higher order, as regards originality and picturesqueness, than the night scene in Venice, which makes up the second act of "Marino Faliero," including the Barcarolle and the grand aria which no singer has dared to touch since Rubini laid it down. We there find, for the first time, an entire emancipation from those forms and humours originated by Rossini (or, to be exact, perfected by him from indications given by Paër) by the imitation of which all the modern Italians (save Bellini) have commenced their career as dramatic composers. : "Marino Faliero" was written expressly for that incomparable company, including Mademoiselle Grisi, Signori Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, and Ivanoff, which was assembled in 1835 in Paris. For the same year, and the same artists, Bellini's "I Puritani" was composed and since it is a certain theatrical law, that two great stage successes cannot come together; and since the latter work made the furore, the former was, by mathematical necessity, sure to be comparatively disregarded. But after poor Bellini's untimely death, which followed hard upon his triumph, it became evident to the impresarii, that there was no Italian composer who could please (most especially on our side of the Alps) so certainly as Donizetti. Accordingly he was called to Vienna, and there wrote the "Linda di Chamouny," which became so popular that its composer was rewarded by being nominated to a lucrative court appointment. The management of the Grand Opera of Paris, too, disappointed of a new work by Meyerbeer, and in distress for music more vocal and pleasing than the clever head-combinations of M. Halevy,-invited the universal maestro to write for that magnificent theatre. Unlike most of his predecessors, Donizetti seems neither to have hesitated, nor to have taken any extraordinary amount of pains or preparation on the occasion. He came as requested, but after his appearance in Paris in 1840, we find his name within a curiously short space of time to "Les Martyrs," and "Dom Sebastian,"-two grand five-act Operas, both of which failed-(though still given in Germany and Italy); and to "La Favorite," a four-act Opera, (written for Madame Stoltz, MM. Duprez and Baroilhet) which may be regarded as his best serious work; to "La Fille du Regiment," for L'Opera Comique, in which Mademoiselle Borghese made her début. The last Opera and the lady were found wanting by that most fastidious company of judges, a Parisian audience. Everywhere else, however, the gaiety of the music (containing the most fresh and gaillard of Donizetti's sprightly inspirations) has placed it in the first rank of favour among comic Operas. We surely need not remind |