Physiology of the Opera — A Reader’s Guide

The Opera in the Abstract.

"L'Opéra toujours Fait bruit et merveilles: On y voit les sourds Boucher leurs oreilles."

To most of the world (and we say it advisedly,) the opera is a sealed book. We do not mean a bare representation with its accompanying screechings, violinings and bass-drummings. Everybody has seen that--But the race of beings who constitute that remarkable combination; their feelings, positions, social habits; their relation to one another; what they say and eat;[a] whether the tenor ever notices as they (the world) do, the fine legs of the contralto in man's dress, and whether the basso drinks pale ale or porter; all these things have been hitherto wrapped in an inscrutable mystery. In regard to mere actors, not singers, this feeling is confined to children; but the operators of an opera are essentially esoteric. They are enclosed by a curtain more impenetrable than the Chinese wall. You may walk all around them; nay, you may even know an inferior artiste, but there is a line beyond which even the fast men, with all their impetuosity, are restrained from invading.

[a] We actually knew a man who, when a tenor was spoken of, as having gone through his _role_, thought that that worthy had been eating his breakfast.

You walk in the street with a young female, on whom you flatter yourself you are making an impression; suddenly she cries out, "Oh, there's Bawlini; do look! dear creature, isn't he?" You may as well turn round and go home immediately; the rest of your walk won't be worth half the dream you had the night before. This shows an importance to be attached to these remarkable persons, which, together with the mystery which encircles them, is exceedingly aggravating to the feelings of a large body of respectable citizens. Among those who are mostly afflicted, we may mention all women, but most especially boarding school misses. Mothers of families are much perturbed; they wonder why the tenor is so intimate with the donna, considering they are not married; and fathers of families wonder "where under the sun that manager gets the money to pay a tenor twelve hundred dollars a month, when state sixes are so shockingly depressed." We were going to enumerate those we thought particularly afflicted by a praiseworthy desire to know something more of these obscurities, but they are too many for us. In every class of society, nay, in the breast of almost every person, there exists a desire to be rightly informed on these subjects. It was to supply this want that we have devoted ourselves more especially to the actors who do, to the exclusion of the auditors who are "_done_."

Shakspeare observes, that "all the world's a stage;" the converse of this proposition is no less worthy of being regarded as a great moral truth,--that all the stage is a world. Every condition of life may be found typified in one or other of the officials or attachés of an opera house; from the king upon the throne, symbolized by the haughty and magisterial impresario, to the _chiffonier_ in the gutter, represented by the unfortunate chorister who is attired as a shabby nobleman on the stage, but who goes home to a supper of leeks. Between these two degrees, of dignity and unimportance, come those many shades of social position corresponding to the happy situations of Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and divers other dignitaries, set forth in the stage director, the treasurer, the chorus-master, &c.

The tenor, basso, prima donna and baritone may be considered as belonging to what is called "society;"--that well-to-do and ornamental portion of the community, who having no vocation save to frequent balls, soirées, concerts and operas, and fall in love--serve as objects of admiration to those persons less favoured by fortune, who make the clothes and dress the hair of the former class.

Our simile need not be carried further, it being apparent to the most inconsiderate reader, that it is quite as truthful as that hatched by the swan of Avon. We shall now commence our observations upon the most interesting members of a troupe; those best known to the community before whom they nightly appear; and leave unnoticed those disagreeable but influential ones who raise the price of tickets, or stand in a little box near the door and palm off all the back seats upon the uninitiated.

"In short, I may, I am sure, with truth assert, that whether in the _allegro_ or in the _piano_, the _adagio_, the _largo_ or the _forte_, he never had his equal."--CONNOISSEUR. No. 130.

"Famed for the even tenor of his conduct, and his conduct as a tenor."--KNICKERBOCKER.