The Countess of Rudolstadt A Sequel to "Consuelo"

The Italian Opera-house at Berlin had been built early in the reign of Frederick the Great, and was then one of the most beautiful in Europe. There was no charge for admission--all the actors being paid by the king. To be admitted, however, it was necessary to have a ticket, every box having its regular occupant. The princes and princesses of the royal family, the diplomatic corps, the illustrious travellers, the academy, the generals, the royal household, the employés and friends of the king, monopolized the house. No one could complain of this, for theatre and actors, all belonged to the king. There was open to the people of the good city of Berlin, a small portion of the parterre, the greater part of which was filled up by the military, each company and regiment having a right to send a certain number of men. Instead of the joyous, impressionable and sensitive Parisian public, the artists had a pit full of heroes six feet high, as Voltaire called them, the greater number of whom brought their wives on their backs. The aggregate was brutal enough, strongly perfumed with tobacco and brandy, knowing nothing of music, and neither admiring, hissing, nor applauding except in obedience to orders. In consequence of the perpetual motion, however, there was a great deal of noise.

Just behind these gentlemen there were two rows of boxes, the spectators in which neither saw nor heard. They were obliged, though, to be constantly present at the representations his majesty was graciously willing to provide for them. The king was present at every performance. In this way he contrived to maintain a military supervision of the many members of his family, and to control the swarms of courtiers around him. This habit he had inherited from his father, who, in a miserable frame building, occupied by wretched German buffoons, used to while away every winter evening, regardless of rain. The king used to sleep through the performance and the showers. This domestic tyranny, Frederick had undergone, suffering under it all the while; and when he became himself the possessor of power, rigidly enforced it, as well as many more despotic and cruel customs, the excellence of which he recognised as soon as he became the only person in the kingdom not obliged to submit to them.

No one dared to complain. The house was majestic and all the operatic appointments luxurious. The king almost always overlooked the orchestra, keeping his lorgnette in battery on the stage, and setting the example of perpetual applause.

All know how Voltaire, during the early years of his installation at Berlin, applauded the courtly splendor of the northern Solomon. Disdained by Louis XV, neglected by Madame de Pompadour, who had been his protectress, persecuted by the Jesuits, and hissed at the Theatre Français, in a moment of disappointed pride, he came to look for honors, a reward, and appointment of chamberlain and grand cordon, and the intimacy of a great king, by far more complimentary to him than the rest of his new acquisitions. Like a spoiled child, the great Voltaire pouted at all France and fancied he could mortify his countrymen. At that time, intoxicated by his newly-acquired glory, he wrote to his friends that Berlin was a more pleasant place than Versailles, that the opera of Phaeton was the most magnificent spectacle imaginable, and that the prima donna had the finest voice in all Europe.

At the time that we resume the thread of our story (and we will set our readers' minds at rest by saying that a year had passed since we saw Consuelo), winter displayed all its rigor at Berlin, and the great king had began to exhibit himself in his true aspect. Voltaire had begun to see his illusion in relation to Berlin. He sat in his box, between D'Argens and La Mettrie, not even pretending to love music, to which he was no more awake than he was to true poetry. His health was bad, and he regretted sadly the thankless crowds of Paris, the excitability, the obstinacy of which had been so bitter to him, and the contact with which had so overpowered him, that he determined never to expose himself to it again, although he continued to think and toil ceaselessly for it.

On this occasion the spectacle was excellent. It was the middle of the carnival; all the royal family, even those members who had moved into other parts of Germany, was collected in Berlin. The Titus of Metastasio and Hasse was being performed, and the two leading members of the Italian troupe, Porporina and Porporino, were cast in the principal parts.

If our readers will make a slight exertion of memory they will recall that these two dramatic personages were not husband and wife as their names might seem to indicate. The first was Signor Uberti, an excellent contralto. The second was the zingarella Consuelo, like the first a pupil of the Professor Porpora, who, according to the Italian custom in vogue at that time, had permitted them to assume his glorious name.

It must be confessed, that Porporina did not sing in Prussia with the power she had in other places exhibited. While the limpid contralto of the male singer swelled without any indication of delay, and protected by the consciousness of success and power--that too fortified by the possession of an invariable salary of fifteen thousand livres for two months' labor--the poor zingarella, more romantic and perhaps more disinterested, and certainly less used to the northern ices and a public of Prussian corporals was under the influence of an excitement and sang with that perfect and conscious method which affords criticism no hold, but which is altogether insufficient to excite enthusiasm.

The fervor of the dramatic artist and of the audience, cannot dispense with each other. Now, under the glorious reign of Frederick, there was no enthusiasm at Berlin. Regularity, obedience, and what in the eighteenth century--at Frederick's court especially--was known as Reason, were the only virtues recognized in this atmosphere, measured and weighed in the hand of the king. In every assembly over which he presided, no one hissed or sighed, without his permission. Amid all the crowd, there was but one spectator able to give vent to his impressions, and that was the king. He constituted the public; and though a good musician and fond of music, all his tastes were subjected to so cold a logic, that when his opera-glass was attached to every gesture, the vocal inflections of the singer's voice, far from being stimulated, were entirely paralyzed.

The singer was forced to submit to this painful fascination. The slightest inspiration, the slightest portion of enthusiasm, would probably have offended both the king and court, while artistic and difficult passages, executed with irreproachable mechanism, delighted the king, the court, and Voltaire. Voltaire said, as all know, "Italian music is far better than French, because it is more ornate, and a difficulty overcome is something at least." This was Voltaire's idea of art. He might have answered, had he been asked if he liked music, as a certain fop of our own days did--"It does not exactly annoy me."

All went off perfectly well, and the finale was being reached. The king was satisfied, and turned to his chapel-master from time to time, to express his approbation by a nod. He was preparing even to applaud Porporina, at the conclusion of the cavatina which he always did in person and judiciously, when, by some strange caprice, Porporina, in the midst of a brilliant rondeau, which she had never failed, stopped short, turned her haggard eyes towards a corner of the hall, clasped her hands, and crying "Oh my God!" fell at full length on the stage. Porporino bore her behind the stage, and a tempest of questions, thoughts, commentaries, swept through the house. In the interim the king spoke to the tenor, amid the noise which drowned his voice, "Well, what is this?" said he, in a brief, imperious tone. "Conciolini, hasten to find out." After a few seconds the latter returned, and bowing respectfully before the top of the railing on which the king leaned his elbow, replied, "Sire, the Signora Porporina is senseless, and they are afraid she will he unable to continue the opera."

"Ah!" said he, shrugging his shoulders. "Give her a glass of water. Get her some essence, and finish as soon as possible."

The tenor, who had no disposition to offend the king and expose himself to his bad humor in public, went again behind the scenes quietly, and the king began to talk quickly to the leader of the orchestra and musicians; the public being much more interested in what the king said and did than in poor Porporina, made rare efforts to catch the words that fell from the monarch's lips.

The Baron von Poelnitz, grand chamberlain and director of amusements, soon came to tell the king of Consuelo's condition. In Berlin nothing passed off with the solemnity imposed by an independent and powerful public. The king was everything, and the spectacle was his and for him. No one was surprised to see him thus become the principal actor of this unforeseen interlude.

"Well, let us see, baron," said he, loud enough to be heard by a part of the orchestra; "will this soon be over? Have you no doctor behind there? You should have one always."

"Sire, the doctor is there. He is unwilling to bleed the lady, lest he should weaken and prevent her from playing her part. He will be forced to do so, though, unless she recovers from her fainting fit."

"Then she is sick, and not feigning?"

"Sire, to me she seems very sick."

"Then let down the curtain, and we will go. But wait; let Porporino sing something to console us, so that we may be enabled to go home without a catastrophe."

Porporino obeyed, and sang two pieces deliciously. The king applauded, the public followed his example, and the performance was over. A minute afterwards, the court and people were going out, the king stood on the stage, and caused himself to be led to the dressing-room of the prima donna.

The public does not sympathize with an actress, taken sick on the stage, as it should. Adored as the idol may be, there is so much selfishness among the dilettani, that they are much annoyed at the loss of pleasure, than by the suffering and anguish of the victim. Some sensible women deplored, as was then said, the catastrophe of the evening--

"Poor thing! She had a cold, and when she came to make her trill, found it out, and became sick, rather than fail."

"I think she did not pretend," said a much more sensible woman; "people do not fall so hard, when they are not really sick."

"Ah, who knows?" said the first; "a great actress falls just as she pleases, and is not afraid of hurting herself. They do it so well."

"What possessed Porpora to make such a scene?" said, in another part of the room, whence the la mode was going out, La Mettrie to the Marquis D'Argens. "Has her lover beaten her?"

"Do not speak thus of a virtuous and charming girl," said the marquis. "She has no lover. If she had, she has not been abused by him, unless, indeed, he be the basest off men."