SENESINO AND CARESTINI.

99

on the 12th of July, mentioning letters which he had received from Handel, and proceeds:

"I find that Senesino, or Carestini, are desired at one thousand two hundred guineas each, if they are to be had. I am sure that Carestini is engaged at Milan, and has been so for many months past; and I hear that Senesino is engaged for the ensuing carnival at Rome. If we can neither get Senesino nor Carestini, then Mr. Handel desires to have a man soprano, and a woman contralto, and that the price for both must not exceed one thousand, or eleven hundred guineas; and that the persons must set out for London at the latter end of August, or beginning of September, and that no engagement must be made with one, without a certainty of getting the other."

Senesino and Carestini were each of them, therefore, as good as a woman and a man. The following letter informs us of the result of these negotiations:

"A Londres, 27 de Octob', 1730. "MONSIEUR,--Je viens de recevoir l'honneur de votre lettre du 22 du passée, N. S., par laquelle je vois les raisons qui vous ont déterminé d'engager Sr. Sinesino sur le pied de quatorze cent ghinées, à quoy nous acquiesçons, et je vous fais mes trèshumbles remercîments des peines que vous avez bien voulu prendre dans cette affaire. Le dit Sr. Sinesino est arrivé icy il y a 12 jours et je n'ai pas manqué, sur la présentation de votre lettre, de luy payer à compte de son salaire les cent ghinées que vous luy aviez promis. Pour ce qui est de la Sigra. Pisani, nous ne l'avons pas eue, et comme la saison est fort avancée et qu'on commencera bientôt les opéras, nous nous passerons cette année-cy d'une autre femme d'Italie, ayant déjà disposé les opéras pour la compagnie que nous avons présentement.

"Je vous suis pourtant très-obligé d'avoir songé à la Sigra. Madalena Pieri, en cas que nous eussions eu absolument besoin d'une autre femme qui acte en homme; mais nous nous contenterons des cinq personnages, ayant actuellement trouvé de quoy suppléer au reste.

"C'est à votre généreuse assistance que la Cour et la Noblesse

devront en partie la satisfaction d'avoir présentement une compagnie à leur gré, en sorte qu'il ne me reste qu'à vous en marquer mes sentiments particuliers de gratitude et à vous assurer de l'attention très-respectueuse avec laquelle j'ay l'honneur d'être, Monsieur,

"Votre très-humble et très-obeissant serviteur,

"GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL.”

"A Monsieur, Monsieur Colman, Envoyé Extraordinaire de sa Majesté Britannique auprès de son Altesse Royale le Grand Duc de Toscane à Florence." 991

These letters are not merely interesting on account of their signature, but because they furnish proof that Handel, in reviving the opera, had the special protection of the King and (more still) of a portion of the nobility. The Envoy Extraordinary of His Britannic Majesty would certainly not have busied himself about making engagements for "first, second, and third parts," if he had not received an order to that effect; and the impressario of the Haymarket, if he had not been recommended, would not have written to an ambassador, "we are impatiently expecting some news in order to inform the Court." If the

1 "London, 17 October, 1730.

"SIR,-I had the honour of receiving your letter on the 22nd of last month (N. S.), by which I perceive the reasons which have induced you to engage Sr. Sinesino for 1400 guineas, to which we agree; and I tender you my very humble thanks for the trouble which you have kindly taken in this matter. The aforesaid S. Sinesino arrived here twelve days ago, and I did not fail, on the presentation of your letter, to pay him, on account of his salary, the hundred guineas which you promised him. As for Sigra. Pisani, we have not yet heard her; and as the season is much advanced, and the operas will soon commence, we will dispense for this year with another woman from Italy, having already cast the operas for the company which we now have.

I am, nevertheless, very much obliged to you for having thought of Signora Madalena Pieri, in case we should absolutely require another woman to act the part of a man; but we shall content ourselves with five personages, having actually found enough to supply the rest.

"It is to your generous assistance that the Court and the Nobility will partly owe the satisfaction of having now a company to their taste; and it only remains for me to express to you my own sentiments of gratitude, and to assure you of the very respectful attention with which I have the honour to be, &c.

"GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL.

"To Mr. Colman, &e."

nobility had already broke with him, Handel would not have made use of the expression, "the Court and the Nobility will partly owe to you the satisfaction of having now a company to their taste."

Senesino, who had been obtained at the price of fourteen hundred guineas, made his reappearance on the 2nd of February, 1731, in Porus, which had fifteen consecutive representations. It has been already stated that this was a great success. The reprint in 1736 is marked "fourth edition." The poem should be highly interesting, judging only from the distribution of the parts:-"Porus, King of India, in love with Cleofida; Cleofida, Queen of another part of India, in love with Porus; Gandartes, Porus's General, in love with Erissena, sister of Porus; Erissena, promised to Gandartes; Alexander, the Macedonian King; Timagenes, Alexander's General and favourite, but secretly his enemy." This was how Porus and Alexander occupied themselves at the Haymarket in 1731. The French opera of the eighteenth century was essentially mythological. Castor and Pollux, Proserpine, Paris and the Apple of Discord, Perseus, Phæton, Psyché, and Hébé, filled all the parts; but the Italian opera, on the other hand, was exclusively royalist. In all the poems, with names ending in o or in a, belonging to that epoch, we find only kings, queens, princes, and princesses; the most insignificant personages are generals-for how shall there be kings without armies? When, for the sake of variety, a shepherd' or a pirate is introduced, it is always some brother of the king or queen, who has

1 Great Britain in the eighteenth century was quite as much infested as France with shepherds and shepherdesses. Out of these very tribes alone, an army equal to the invasion of Russia might have been levied among those bearing the name of Thyrsis, and the young ladies called Amaryllis were sufficient to people the deserts of Arabia. But the manners of the age were not less barbarous on that account; and the laws, the faithful mirror of society, were still characterized by an unheard of ferocity; as witness this paragraph from the Daily Courant of the 10th of June, 1731" Joseph Crook, alias Sir Peter Stranger, stood in the pillory at Charing Cross for forging a deed, and after he had stood an hour, a chair was brought to the pillory scaffold, in which he was placed, and the hangman with a pruning-knife cut off both his ears, and with a pair of scissors slit both his nostrils, all which he bore with much patience; but when his right nostril was seared with a hot iron, the pain was so violent he could not bear it; whereupon his left nostril was not seared, but he was carried bleeding to a neighbouring tavern. He is sentenced to be imprisoned for life."

been stolen from his cradle, and who recovers his rank at the end of the third act, when he marries a princess who adored him under his shepherd's garb. Sometimes, as in Ptolemy, the king and queen themselves have been brought down to the crook, and the three acts are employed in restoring them to their thrones, very much to the disgust of their sheep, who are jealous at seeing themselves slighted in favour of a biped flock.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is the king of some place, frequently of Cyprus, who loves the princess of some other place, not uncommonly of Thrace, whilst the princess, for her part, is in love either with an emperor or with the captain of the guard; add to these a tyrant or a traitor, or a little old highpriest, who opposes the wishes of the lovers, and you have the entire "drama per la musica" of London. Love must indeed be the most natural, the most profound, the most universal, the most indefatigable, the most inexhaustible, the most unconquerable, and the most insatiable passion to which the human heart is subject, since men are never wearied with the millions of intrigues which have been exhibited upon the stage during the past three thousand years. From Eschylus to M. Scribe, the Indian and Chinese dramatists included, there are probably not fifty dramatic works, be they comedies, tragedies, farces, ballets, or pantomimes, which are not founded upon a happy or an unhappy amour. It would be a curious subject of calculation to reckon up the thirty or forty thousand marriages which thus take place every evening in the different quarters of the globe.

And whilst upon the subject of poems, it may be observed that of all those which Handel composed music to, there are scarcely any in which some one or other of the principal personages does not fall asleep in the presence of the audience; Amadis, Rinaldo, Ptolemy, Admetus, Justin, Orlando; Mirtillo in Pastor Fido, Teseo in Ariadne, Rossane in Floridante, Arsace in Parthenope, Grimoaldo in Rodelinda, Ginevra in Ariodante, and Poppea in Agrippina, all take their little nap. This narcotic influence is so strong, that Cleopatra in Julius Cæsar, although perfectly awake, pretends to be asleep in order not

PRODUCTIONS AND REVIVALS.

103 to disappoint the audience. This strange malady is even observable in the oratorios. In Solomon, the king and queen, after having inaugurated the Temple of Jerusalem, sing a very tender amorous duet, and straightway retire to sleep before the double chorus of priests and people, who, being doubtless great frequenters of the opera, hold this to be very natural, and begin praying to the Greek zephyrs of some centuries subsequent, to prolong their repose-" Ye Zephyrs, soft breathing, their slumbers prolong." Nothing short, indeed, of Handel's music could reconcile the public to such a bad example.

About the same time that Porus was produced, Rodelinda was revived for the second time, and for the fourth or fifth time the fine score of Rinaldo, " revived with many additions by the author," according to the book of 1731. The advertisement in the Daily Journal of the 2nd of April bears witness that, as manager of the theatre, he incurred great expense for the miseen-scène :-" Rinaldo, with new scenes and cloathes. Great preparations being made to bring this opera on the stage, is the reason that no opera can be performed before Saturday next."

Handel never did things by halves, and he only stopped short where honour compelled him to. A man might ruin himself with such a temperament; but he could accomplish many noble things.

At the commencement of the following season, that is to say, on the 25th of January, 1732, Ætius (or Ezio), a new opera was sung by Senesino, Montagnana (who was not less celebrated), and Signora Strada, who has left behind her a name in theatrical annals. In spite, however, of such support, and of its great musical merit, Etius was only represented five times. Handel was obliged to give Sosarme a month afterwards, on the 15th of February, 1732. It makes one shudder to perceive the insatiable selfishness with which the public, in its rage after novelty, mercilessly exhausts the genius of the composer. Sosarme was more fortunate than Etius, but scarcely so much so as it deserved to be.

When Handel was suffering both as an artist and as a manager, a circumstance quite independent of his own free will