Vocal and Instrumental Concert: Prof. Augusto Bassetti Benefit

“…Professor Augusto Bassetti delivered a lecture on Italian Opera at Irving Hall last night. The subject as presented by the lecturer was a highly interesting one. He gave the history of the opera from its earliest stages an [sic] interspersed it with the most interesting incidents. It would be impossible within our limits to give even a synopsis of the lecture and we must content ourselves with remarking that it was received with applause. Signor Mazzoleni, the distinguished tenor, received an encore in singing a Venetian song by Salghetti-Drioli, in the concert which preceded the lecture. A number of other artists assisted in the concert.”

“…Professor Augusto Bassetti gave a concert and lecture, at Irving Hall, somewhat after the boarding-school keeper’s plan, only in this instance, the lecture, which dwelt upon the ‘history of music,’ and the lives of singers generally, happily came after the concert, and those who did not want to hear it had the choice of leaving after they had sipped of the honey of the entertainment.  The concert was quite good, and had the rare fault of being too short; its most novel number was an original Venetian song, on the untiring themes of love, newly composed by Sig. Drioli, and sung by Sig. Mazzolini [sic], and by the opera troupe, with Mr. Maretzek’s consent. There is a deal of tender sentiment also in the excerpt from Barili’s opera ‘A Night in Seville’ which Miss Harvey sang.  The young lady has a pleasant voice, and the ‘Song of Mercy’ fell softly from her lips.  But after all the lecture was the main event of the night—although quite a number of the little audience did not seem to anticipate that it could be, and so departed before it began.  Sig. Barretti [sic] began his address with a general review of the Theatrical Institution, but of course referred to the Opera as its most glorious branch.  In tracing the origin and progress of opera he gave anecdotes illustrative of the nomadic existence which music had in the middle ages, referred to Guido the Arctine monk and inventor of the Gregorian Chant as one of the earliest fosterers of a style of music which afterwards was the foundation of The Opera.  He spoke of the minstrels and troubadours of the romantic centuries as the earliest operatic artists, and facetiously but not extravagantly called Abelard, who fascinated Heloise by his love songs, as the memorable ‘first tenor.’  From this he diverged (with some want of sequence) into reflections on the small necessity there was for immorality in the opera and the drama, generally, and the gifted lecturer gave some irrefragable reminiscences from the newspapers, showing how the Bar, the Church and the State were equally subject to scandals!  Among the ‘goods’ flowing from the stage, he referred to the dissemination of knowledge; the painting of Divine retribution; the lifting of artists to dignity and wealth.  Upon the latter theme he dwelt with tantalizing interest until his little band of listeners must each have resolved to go at once and become great operatic artists.  He said the opera and the stage discloses at once to artists of all kinds the enchanted treasures of the Arabian Nights!!! and pointed, as proofs of this declaration, to the fabulous fortunes of Paganini, Pasta, Grisi, Jenny Lind, Forcat, Booth (who paid $75,000 for a house last week!) Rachel, and Picolomini.  A prima donna, whom he knew in Turin, in one week was paid more than the King’s Prime Minister.  But then the magnitude of her receipts can only be judged after we know what the Prime Minister’s salary is: that may be very trivial: the President of the Republic in Switzerland used to get nothing a year and find himself.  The lecturer brought his address to an end with some words about how the stage teaches independence to the workingmen; and to the generosity of artists! He forgot, however, in naming over the celebrated examples of this, to mention Mr. Edwin Forrest, who owns some areas of most valuable real estate which bring him handsome rentals, who earns besides about $2500 every week he acts, and has a fine bank account to back that—who sent to the million of suffering and starving women and little ones at the South, a check for $500, with a note to call attention to the munificent sum!”

“…Prof. Augusto Bassetti was unfortunate, first, in lecturing on music on Saturday night, and second, in prefacing the lecture with a concert. Both the concert and the lecture were equally good, yet we should have made the first illustrate the second in interpretation; for who will wait to hear a lecture after a concert is over? We have only to record that Mazzoleni sang with nervous vigor a new and stylish barcarole to words by one of the best of modern Italian poets, Dall-Ongarno, and that Signor Bassetti’s lecture was as interesting in itself as it was long and out of place. It was a review of the history of the Italian Operatic stage, a subject that does not lack attractions, and for this reason we trust that the lecture will be repeated. So little does the public know of the biography and history of music that instruction by lectures in this respect might be more frequent than it is, if we could trust that the hearers of biography written in a score would once in a while listen to history spoken out of bare prose.”