A Note on Domenico Cimarosa's "Il Matrimonio Segreto"

Author(s): Carl Engel

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1947), pp. 201-206
Published by: Oxford University Press
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A NOTE ON DOMENICO CIMAROSA'S
IL MA TRIMONIO SEGRETO
By CARL ENGEL

This short essay by the late editor of The Musical Quarterly

appeared as a program note written for a presentation of Cima-
rosa's opera on April 23, I933, in the Coolidge Auditorium
under the auspices of the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Founda-
tion in the Library of Congress. Since the essay as a whole was
available to those present only (a small portion of it had been
printed in the April 1926 issue of The Musical Quarterly), we
are glad to have the opportunity to offer it to a larger pub-
lic.-Ed.

ACONNECTION between the roar of cannon and the appeal of

bel canto is perhaps not so obvious as is the general relation be-
tween music and warfare. But it exists, nevertheless. And one example
at least can be cited in proof of it.
Downing Street, on January 4, 18oo, had replied to the First
Consul's offer of peace in a tone calculated to offend any self-respect-
ing government. There was no further use for pen and parchment.
It was decided, in Paris, to write the answer with the sword of France
upon the map of Europe; and Lombardy was the particular corner of
that much-revised document to be distinguished by the consular
paraph. Less than 48 hours after the receipt of Lord Grenville's pomp-
ous and insolent note the machinery was set in motion for one of
history's boldest campaigns. Among the many thousands caught in
the wheels of these preparations and destined to follow Bonaparte
across the Great St. Bernard was a youngster barely 17, Marie Henri
Beyle by name, known later as the author of the writings which he
signed "Stendhal".
Climbing the Alps in the footsteps of Hannibal and Charlemagne
was an army led by a demigod, who flung it in a mad, fantastic thrust
at Milan, and on to Marengo-in Hazlitt's words, "the most poetical
of his battles". The lark was not lost on a boy like Beyle. His was a
hypersensitive mind, an eye of photographic quickness. And yet, 36
years later, when he "fixed" in the fluid of his graphic prose the pic-
tures gathered during that eventful spring, the clearest and strongest
201

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202 The Musical Quarterly
impressions that he retained were not of his "baptism by fire"; not of
the little general on muleback taking personal command to elude the
enemy's guns at Fort Bard; not of the perils on that narrow.road over-
hanging the steep, when all riders were ordered to walk by the side
of their horses and hold the reins with only two fingers, so that they
could instantly let go and save themselves if the frightened animals
stumbled and dashed down the precipice.
What Beyle remembered most vividly, at the time he wrote La Vie
de Henri Brulard, was Rolle, with the magnificent lake beneath, and
that exquisite moment of reverie when he felt the presence of Jean
Jacques' spirit, while the tolling of a "majestic bell" came from over
the hills and gave to his thoughts "une physionomie sublime". But
even this experience paled in his memory before the incident that
crowned the descent into the flowering plain. It was the evening of
his arrival at Ivrea. The Alps and their terrorslay behind him. A dust-
covered and tired and impatient soldiery thronged the town's one
theater. Young Beyle hungered for music. The opera that night-new
'to him-was Cimarosa'sII Matrimonio segreto. Not the snowy heights,
not the grandeur and horror of war had so moved him, as did the or-
chestra and the singers, and this fresh, scintillating score. (Nor was his
"godlike happiness" to be diminished by the fact that the pretty crea-
ture who sang the part of Carolina lacked a front tooth. Quite the
contrary: on the morrow he was in love with her.) The music cast en-
chantment over everything. The stuffy hall, the noisy audience were
forgotten. Innocent gayety, musical charm, vocal bravura combined
to shut out the steady rumble of passing ordnance. In that hour and
place even Rousseau dwindled to the size of a mere pedant, while "all
in Cimarosa was divine".
* *

In 180o Cimarosa's most successful opera was 8 years old. For its
success the libretto had been as much responsible as the music. They
formed a rarely felicitous union. A hundred years later, R. A. Streat-
feild, historian of the genus opera, still praised The Secret Marriage
for "its racy humour and delicate melody", still deemed its plot worth
retelling:
The story is simplicity itself, but the situations are amusing in themselves,
and are led up to with no little adroitness. Paolino, a young lawyer, has secretly
married Carolina, the daughter of Geronimo, a rich and avaricious merchant. In
order to smooth away the difficulties which must arise when the inevitable discov-

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 A Note on Domenico Cimarosa's II Matrironio Segreto 203
ery of the marriage takes place, he tries to secure a rich friend of his own, Count
Robinson, for Geronimo's other daughter, Elisetta. Unfortunately, Robinson pre-
fers Carolina, and proposes himself as son-in-law to Geronimo, who is of course
delighted that his daughter should have secured so unexceptionable a parti, while
the horrified Paolino discovers to his great dissatisfaction that the elderly Fidalma,
Geronimo's sister, has cast languishing eyes upon himself. There is nothing for the
young couple but flight; unfortunately, as they are making their escape they are
discovered and their secret is soon extorted. Geronimo's wrath is tremendous, but
in the end matters are satisfactorily arranged, and the amiable Robinson after all
expresses himself content with the charms of Elisetta.

Simple and tenuous as it may be, this plot took years to ripen. Its
earliest ancestor was a comedy, The Clandestine Marriage, by the
elder Colman and David Garrick, produced in London in 1766. This,
in turn, was suggested by one of Hogarth's famous series of pictures,
Marriage-a-la-mode. Just how large a share each author had in this
collaboration has never been divulged. Garrick was credited with hav-
ing invented, and played to perfection, the part of Lord Ogleby, a
character which was dropped in fashioning the opera libretto. George
Colman, the Younger, wrote in 1820 that "the outlines of the plan,
and of the principal characters were designed by Colman". Garrick,
at any rate, wrote for the comedy a prologue which begins:
Poets and Painters, who from Nature draw
Their best and richest stores, have made this law:
That each should neighbourly assist his brother,
And steal with decency from one another.
This law is still in force. Garrick invoked it to defend the drama-
tists' stealing from "matchless Hogarth". He could have scarcely
guessed how thoroughly they, in turn, would be subjected to pilfer-
age. In 1768, on June 4, the first offspring-Sophie, ou Le Mariage
cachde-a comedy with music, was given in Paris at the Theatre de la
Comedie Italienne in the H6tel de Bourgogne. The libretto had been
"adapted" by Mme. Riccoboni, nee Mlle. de Mezieres; the music was
by one Joseph Kohaut, a Bohemian army trumpeter, who had de-
serted, gone to France, and entered the services of the Prince de Conti.
The next descendant of whom a trace can be found was Le Mariage
clandestin, a one-act comic opera, produced in Paris at the Theatre
Montansier, November 11, 1790. Joseph Alexandre Pierre, Vicomte
de Segur, wrote the words. The music was by Fran5ois Devienne, vir-
tuoso on the bassoon and other wind instruments, prolific composer-
studiously penning music for eight hours every day-who succumbed
to the lot peculiar to so many players of wind instruments, by landing
in an asylum for the insane.

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204 The Musical Quarterly
It was possibly this little opera that furnished Giovanni Bertati
with the idea for II Matrimonio segreto. Operatic "borrowing" is an
ancient traffic. Da Ponte had derived directly from Bertati's Don Gio-
vanni the book for Mozart's opera. When Emperor Joseph II died, in
1790, Da Ponte, until then court poet, incurred the displeasure of
Leopold II, who had him expelled from Vienna. Fate's delicate re-
venge: Bertati became his successor. Fate's gentle irony: Mozart's Don
Giovanni, in 1788, had met with an indifferent reception in Vienna.
Emperor Joseph is said to have remarked: "This Don Giovanni is no
food for the teeth of my Viennese." The superintendent of the Im-
perial Theaters, Count Rosenberg-Orsini, had declared Mozart's mu-
sic "much too difficult to be sung". Mozart must have heard several
of Cimarosa's earlier operas in Vienna. It is doubtful whether Cima-
rosa had at that time heard a note of Mozart's.
Cimarosa, called to St. Petersburg by Katherine the Great in 1789,
did not stand the "northern climate" any better than had Galuppi,
Traetta, Paesiello, Sarti, in that order, before him. He slipped the
golden shackels late in 1791. When Emperor Leopold heard that
Cimarosa was anxious to quit Russia, he invited the composer to
Vienna. And there Cimarosa achieved what it was never given Mozart
to enjoy in his lifetime-a phenomenal operatic success.
Cimarosa and Bertati's Matrimonio was first performed in Vienna
on Tuesday, February 7, 1792, at the Imperial Theater of the Hof-
burg, exactly two months after Mozart's burial in a pauper's grave.
Emperor Leopold was so entranced with the opera that he insisted
upon its being repeated the same night, from beginning to end, after
composers, singers, and musicians had been duly regaled with food
and drink. The instance is unique. Success accompanied the opera
everywhere. It had a long and triumphant career.

whether
uncertain
It is Matrimonio segreto was given in Amer-
It is uncertain whether II Matrimonio segreto was given in Amer-
ica before the troupe of Cavaliere Rivafinoli performed it, early in
January 1834, at the Italian Opera, on Church and Leonard Streets,
in New York. The singers-Orlandi, Fanti, Marozzi, De Rosa, Bor-
dogni, Ravaglia-were not stars of a recognizable magnitude. In the
expanding universe of music they have receded to the regions of the
unremembered. Of Cimarosa's opera, The Mirror of January 18,
1834, said that "it has been several times represented, and though,: in
its very nature, of a quiet, domestic cast, and unassisted by the heavy

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 A Note on Domenico Cimarosa's II Matrimonio Segreto 205
choruses and gorgeous scenery of former pieces, bids fair to become
a greater favorite than any of its predecessors.... We are much pleased
to find the manager selecting an opera of Cimarosa's for the delight of
a New York audience". Clementina Fanti chose the Matrimonio for
her benefit, April 4, which was the last night of the season. The same
company gave the opera for the first time in Philadelphia, at the
Chestnut Street Theater, on April 17.
The great era of the Matrimonio was at the Theatre Italien in
Paris during the eighteen-thirties and forties, when the basso La-
blache sang the part of Geronimo. He chose that part for his Paris
debut in 1830. He played it in London. Moscheles wrote from that
city in 1830: "Lablache, with the grandest of all voices-the voce sul
labbro-his drollery, especially in the Barbiere, and his deaf old man
in the Matrimonio segreto can never be surpassed." The Secret Marri-
age reached its apogee when, in addition to Lablache as Geronimo,
Malibran, Sontag, Albertazzi, and Grisi alternated in the women's
parts; the baritone Tamburini sang the Count, and the tenor Rubini
sang Paolino. Lablache, especially, is said to have been incomparable
in the role of Geronimo, both as actor and as singer. Chopin wrote in
a letter from Paris in December 1831: "You can't conceive what La-
blache is like!"
But the taste in music had begun to veer. To some, Cimarosa
seemed flat and insipid. In 1843 Berlioz wrote: "As for Cimarosa, I
should pitch to the devil his unique and everlasting Matrimonio
Segreto, which is nearly as tiresome as the Marriage of Figaro without
being anything like so musical; I should prove ... that it is only an
opera for carnivals and fairs." (Berlioz forgot chamber music festi-
vals.) When the opera was revived in Leipzig on June lo, 1849, it
still gave pleasure to a large number of listeners. Max Maria von
Weber, son of Karl Maria, was one of them. He wrote 25 years later
that "the charming, spirited music of Mozart's great contemporary
provoked cheer and charm in the more sensitive and educated portion
of the audience". Schumann, already a prey to melancholia and nerv-
ous irritation, thought otherwise. He made the following brief entry
in his notebook on June 19, 1849, after having heard the Matrimonio:
"In technical respects-writing and instrumentation-absolutely mas-
terful, otherwise rather uninteresting, finally truly boresome and bare
of all invention."
* *
*

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206 The Musical Quarterly
These opinions clash with Beyle's. Beyle had what one might call
today the Cimarosa-complex.Not that he was one-sided or shallow in
his tastes and interests. He worshipped Shakespeare, adored Mozart,
and eventually wrote a glowing appreciation of Rossini. But Cima-
rosa, ever since that night at Ivrea, represented to him the quintes-
sence of Latin grace, freshness of color, and exuberance of spirit-the
warmth and sunshine of his foster land, Italy. The native of Grenoble
who styled himself by preference Arrigo Beyle Milanese went so far as
to wish seriously that Cimarosa, and not Mozart, had composed Le
Nozze di Figaro. And Arthur Schurig, in his life of Mozart (1923),
seems to agree with Stendhal, when he writes: "Frankly, we must ad-
mit that in Mozart's Figaro the spirit of Beaumarchais does not live.
Da Ponte has killed the Gallic wit, and Mozart has infused too much
heavy German blood into the French characters."
On the occasion of a brilliant revival of the Matrimonio, in 1884,
at the place of its first triumph, Vienna, Eduard Hanslick (always
sober and severe) went so far as to write: "Full of sunshine-that is the
right expression for Cimarosa's music. It has that genuine light,
golden color which is the only fitting one for a musical comedy."
Hanslick's article on Cimarosa'sopera came to the attention of Fried-
rich Nietzsche. He wrote about it to his friend and amanuensis, the
composer Heinrich Kbselitz ("Peter Gast"). Already on March 22,
1881, writing from Venice, where he spent most of his time, Gast had
acknowledged to Nietzsche the receipt of "two books by Stendhal".
On March 31 he wrote: "Stendhal refers so often to Cimarosa that I
must have a look at II Matrimonio segreto." Gast was anxious to try
his hand at an opera. It was his ambition to be an "allegro-musician",
a composer of sparkling, tuneful music. His secret hope was to ac-
complish more than the miracle of the Grail: to close in Nietzsche's
heart the wound that Wagner had inflicted by applying to it the balm
of a "new music", a Wagner-Ersatz,a music of smiles and sunshine.
Cimarosaseemed to point the way, the way to innocent joy, and to the
Dionysian allegrezzaof which Nietzsche was dreaming as the salvation
and rebir'thof the diama-perhaps of the world.
For Henri Beyle, at least, Cimarosa had worked such a wonder:
"Ma vie fut renouvelee et tout mon desappointement de Paris enterre
a jamais. Vivre en Italie et entendre de cette musique devint la base de
tous mes raisonnements." Returned from Napoleon's campaigns, he
kept his resolve.

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