An
eminent Italian teacher in New York, who has made a specialty of
teaching trills and runs and roulades and other vocal circus tricks,
lately declared that he was tired of this style of singing, and began
to prefer a more simple and dramatic style. The same is true of the
modern Italian composers. It is well known that Boito, Ponchielli, and
Verdi in his latest operas, approximate the German style; and their
admirers will doubtless ere long adapt their taste to this change.
Nevertheless, there are not a few remaining who look upon opera as a
sort of vocal acrobatics. They go once or twice to the Metropolitan,
and feel defrauded of their money if the prima donna fails to come
forward to the prompter's box to run up some breakneck scales, and,
having arrived at the top, descend by means of a chain of trills or
series of somersaults. Their interest in music is _athletic_ (feats of
skill), not _aesthetic_ (artistic expression of emotions). Yet these
people have the impudence to say that German opera is "stupid,"
forgetting that their case might be analogous to that of the drunkard
who thinks the earth is reeling when he is.
Pages:
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300