to-day are not artistically the peers of the princes of 1770, though they are less accomplished as singers. What could the pupils of the Pistocchi school have achieved if confronted with the same tremendous demands upon their resources as are the operatic impersonators of to-day? Compare any one of the airs of Handel with the tremendous duet of Raoul and Valentine in the fourth act of Les Huguenots. Analyze the enormous difference in style between a scene of Gluck and the last act of Verdi’s Otello. Set the third act of Aida against one of the early works. The amount of physical force required in these modern creations is far greater than that demanded by the older operas, and the opportunities for reposeful singing, in which complete command of the vocal resources may be had, are fewer indeed.
But this is not all. There is the enormous volume, the gorgeous sonority, of the modern orchestra to be considered. The singer of to-day does not rest upon a simple accompaniment. He himself accompanies an orchestral description of brilliant character, an instrumental depiction of emotional struggle far more eloquent than his own utterances. If he is to dominate this, he must be capable of producing a notable volume of tone, and of making all his expressive modulations upon a gigantic scale. This is the day of big voices; the little, sweet organ has no place in the monster opera house behind the thundering modern orchestra.
Still another consideration must be brought forward. Above all things the successful dramatic singer of to-day must have brains. He cannot content himself with the study of vocal technics and the plan of arias. He has to construct an impersonation upon the highest poetic lines. Even the Italians are demanding this of their singers, and such rôles as Mascagni’s Osaka or Puccini’s Scarpia, while requiring powerful voices and declamatory skill, need in even greater measure intelligence and theatrical subtlety.
Wagner was the father of it all, and he must be thanked for the more intellectual impersonations given now to characters which used only to be sung. Gounod’s Faust, Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots, Verdi’s Il Trovatore, are all better interpreted now than they were a quarter of a century ago, because the singers who then sang only these have since turned their attention to the works of Wagner, and have learned the meaning of the philosophic and poetic musical drama. Jean de Reszke, who has sung Faust and Tristan, Romeo and Siegfried, with equal beauty and truthfulness, is, taking him all in all, a more influential dramatic artist than Farinelli. Yet there can be no doubt that Farinelli was a better singer than de Reszke.
Some remnants of the middle school, that of Grisi and Mario, are left us in the persons of Sembrich, Melba, Caruso, and their kind. It is well for us that they are here, for otherwise we might lose sight of the possibilities of pure singing, which is the true basis of all operatic impersonation. These are the artists who have the true schooling, and in all probability, when we hear Sembrich and Caruso in L’ Elisir d’ Amore, we are not an immeasurable distance away from a performance of Don Pasquale with Grisi and Mario in the cast.
