6 - On the Music for the Theatre Composed by Natives of Italy

Summary

London Institution, 22 February 1864

I will ask you, in reference to my lecture of last Monday, in which I gave a sketch of my plan and arrangement, including a short account of the early opera down to the time it took a definite form, to remember that when I speak of Italian composers for the theatre, I do not undertake to connect them with that which is now called ‘the Italian opera’; nor do I undertake any thing like a continuous history of the opera or lyric drama of Italy or of any other country beyond that which may arise out of the order in which I mention the composers brought forward and the specimens exhibited. Under the classification I have adopted it will be difficult to keep long with the so-called Italian opera.

It is true that for some long time after the production of the first opera ‘Dafne’ at Florence, Italy was the lyric stage and Italians were the composers, but this state of things could not last for an indefinite period, and we accordingly find after the lapse of a reasonable time that authors, composers and performers of other countries lend their aid to that form of lyric drama imitated at Florence.

In later times we know how Handel, Gluck and Mozart worked for the opera. Gluck (whose name will come more prominently before you under the list of German composers of the theatre) is acknowledged to have been one of the greatest benefactors to this branch of the musical art.

Indeed it seems that at the present time the Italians are passing over the responsibility and care of the Italian opera to composers and performers of other countries, and that they have no longer the strength, energy and means to support it. We have only to look at our daily advertisements to find French & German composers invading the Italian stage, and more than this we find that many of the principal singers are German, Swedish & Hungarian. I have heard a recent case quoted where the opera performed was composed by a German, and where not a single Italian took a principal part.