"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.
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