Genovese, who had sung his duet with Carthagenova so well, was caricaturing himself now that la Tinti was on the stage. From a great singer he sank to the level of the most worthless chorus singer.
The most formidable uproar arose that had ever echoed to the roof of the /Fenice/. The commotion only yielded to Clarina, and she, furious at the difficulties raised by Genovese's obstinacy, sang /Mi manca la voce/ as it will never be sung again. The enthusiasm was tremendous; the audience forgot their indignation and rage in pleasure that was really acute.
"She floods my soul with purple glow!" said Capraja, waving his hand in benediction at la /Diva/ Tinti.
"Heaven send all its blessings on your head!" cried a gondolier.
"Pharaoh will now revoke his commands," said the Duchess, while the commotion in the pit was calming down. "Moses will overwhelm him, even on his throne, by declaring the death of every first-born son in Egypt, singing that strain of vengeance which augurs thunders from heaven, while above it the Hebrew clarions ring out. But you must clearly understand that this air is by Pacini; Carthagenova introduces it instead of that by Rossini. This air, /Paventa/, will no doubt hold its place in the score; it gives a bass too good an opportunity for displaying the quality of his voice, and expression here will carry the day rather than science. However, the air is full of magnificent menace, and it is possible that we may not be long allowed to hear it."
A thunder of clapping and /bravos/ hailed the song, followed by deep and cautious silence; nothing could be more significant or more thoroughly Venetian than the outbreak and its sudden suppression.
"I need say nothing of the coronation march announcing the enthronement of Osiride, intended by the King as a challenge to Moses; to hear it is enough. Their famous Beethoven has written nothing grander. And this march, full of earthly pomp, contrasts finely with the march of the Israelites. Compare them, and you will see that the music is full of purpose.
"Elcia declares her love in the presence of the two Hebrew leaders, and then renounces it in the fine /aria/, /Porge la destra amata/.
(Place your beloved hand.) Ah! What anguish! Only look at the house!"
The pit was shouting /bravo/, when Genovese left the stage.
"Now, free from her deplorable lover, we shall hear Tinti sing, /O desolata Elcia/--the tremendous /cavatina/ expressive of love disapproved by God."
"Where art thou, Rossini?" cried Cataneo. "If he could but hear the music created by his genius so magnificently performed," he went on.
"Is not Clarina worthy of him?" he asked Capraja. "To give life to those notes by such gusts of flame, starting from the lungs and feeding in the air on some unknown matter which our ears inhale, and which bears us heavenwards in a rapture of love, she must be divine!"
"She is like the gorgeous Indian plant, which deserting the earth absorbs invisible nourishment from the atmosphere, and sheds from its spiral white blossom such fragrant vapors as fill the brain with dreams," replied Capraja.
On being recalled, la Tinti appeared alone. She was received with a storm of applause; a thousand kisses were blown to her from finger-tips; she was pelted with roses, and a wreath was made of the flowers snatched from the ladies' caps, almost all sent out from Paris.
The /cavatina/ was encored.
"How eagerly Capraja, with his passion for embellishments, must have looked forward to this air, which derives all its value from execution," remarked Massimilla. "Here Rossini has, so to speak, given the reins over to the singer's fancy. Her /cadenzas/ and her feeling are everything. With a poor voice or inferior execution, it would be nothing--the throat is responsible for the effects of this /aria/.
"The singer has to express the most intense anguish,--that of a woman who sees her lover dying before her very eyes. La Tinti makes the house ring with her highest notes; and Rossini, to leave pure singing free to do its utmost, has written it in the simplest, clearest style.
Then, as a crowning effort, he has composed those heartrending musical cries: /Tormenti! Affanni! Smanie!/ What grief, what anguish, in those runs. And la Tinti, you see, has quite carried the house off its feet."
The Frenchman, bewildered by this adoring admiration throughout a vast theatre for the source of its delight, here had a glimpse of genuine Italian nature. But neither the Duchess nor the two young men paid any attention to the ovation. Clarina began again.
The Duchess feared that she was seeing her Emilio for the last time.
As to the Prince: in the presence of the Duchess, the sovereign divinity who lifted him to the skies, he had forgotten where he was, he no longer heard the voice of the woman who had initiated him into the mysteries of earthly pleasure, for deep dejection made his ears tingle with a chorus of plaintive voices, half-drowned in a rushing noise as of pouring rain.
Vendramin saw himself in an ancient Venetian costume, looking on at the ceremony of the /Bucentaur/. The Frenchman, who plainly discerned that some strange and painful mystery stood between the Prince and the Duchess, was racking his brain with shrewd conjecture to discover what it could be.
The scene had changed. In front of a fine picture, representing the Desert and the Red Sea, the Egyptians and Hebrews marched and countermarched without any effect on the feelings of the four persons in the Duchess' box. But when the first chords on the harps preluded the hymn of the delivered Israelites, the Prince and Vendramin rose and stood leaning against the opposite sides of the box, and the Duchess, resting her elbow on the velvet ledge, supported her head on her left hand.
The Frenchman, understanding from this little stir, how important this justly famous chorus was in the opinion of the house, listened with devout attention.
The audience, with one accord, shouted for its repetition.