Great Singers, First Series | Page 5

bickerings and feuds through
which she passed made her departure more of a pleasure to herself than
to the lovers of music in turbulent London.
She returned to Venice in 1728, where she met Adolph Hasse, who was
leader of the orchestra at the theatre in which she was engaged.
Faustina, in the full bloom of her loveliness, was more than ever the
object of popular adulation; and many of the wealthy young nobles of
Venice laid their names and fortunes at her feet. But the charming
singer had found her fate. She and Hasse had fallen in love with each
other at first sight, and Faustina was proof against the blandishments of
the gilded youth of Italy. Hasse was the most popular dramatic
composer of the age, and had so endeared himself to the Italian public
that he was known as "il caro Sassone," a title which had also been
previously given to Handel. Hasse had commenced life as a tenor
singer, but his talent for composition soon lifted him into a higher field
of effort. His first opera was produced at Brunswick, but its reception
showed that he must yet master more of the heights and depths of
musical science before attaining any deserved success. So he proceeded
to Italy, and studied under Porpora and Alessandro Scarlatti. In a few
years he became a celebrity, and the opera-houses of Italy eagerly vied
with each other in procuring new works from his fecund talent.

Faustina, then at the zenith of her powers and charms, and Hasse, the
most admired composer of the day, were congenial mates, and their
marriage was not long delayed.
Of this composer a few passing words of summary may be interesting.
His career was one long success, and he wrote more than a hundred
operas, besides a host of other compositions. Few composers have had
during their lifetime such world-wide celebrity, and of these few none
are so completely forgotten now. The facile powers of Hasse seem to
have reflected the most genial though not the deepest influences of his
time. He had nothing in common with the grand German school then
rising into notice, or with the simple majesty of the early Italian writers.
Himself originally a singer, and living in an age of brilliant singers, he
was one of the first representatives of that school of Italian opera which
was called into being by the worship of vocal art for its own sake. He
had an inexhaustible flow of tunefulness, and the few charming songs
of his now extant show great elegance of melodic structure, and such
sympathy with the needs of the voice as make them the most perfect
vehicle for expression and display on the part of the singer. For ten
years, that most wonderful of male singers, as musical historians unite
in calling Farinelli, charmed away the melancholy of Philip V. of Spain
by singing to him every evening the same two melodies of Hasse, taken
from the opera of "Artaserse."
In 1731 the celebrated couple accepted an offer from the brilliant Court
of Dresden, presided over by Augustus II., as great a lover of art and
literature as Goethe's Duke of Saxe-Weimar, or as the present Louis of
Bavaria. This aesthetic monarch squandered great sums on pictures and
music, and gave Hasse unlimited power and resources to place the
Dresden opera on such a footing as to make it foremost in Europe. His
first opera produced in Dresden was the masterpiece of his life,
"Alessandro dell' Indie," and its great success was perhaps owing in
part to the splendid singing and acting of Faustina, for whom indeed
the music had been carefully designed. As the husband of the most
fascinating prima donna of her age, Hasse had no easy time. His life
was still further embittered by the presence and intrigues of Porpora,
his old master and now rival, and jealousy of Porpora's pupil, Mingotti,

who threatened to dispute the sway of his wife. Hasse's musical spite
was amusingly shown in writing an air for Mingotti in his
"Demofoonte." He composed the music for what he thought was the
defective part of her voice, while the accompaniment was contrived to
destroy all effect. Mingotti was nothing daunted, but by hard study and
ingenious adaptation so conquered the difficulties of the air, that it
became one of her greatest show-pieces. A combination of various
causes so dissatisfied the composer with Dresden, that he divided his
time between that city, Venice, Milan, Naples, and London, though the
Saxon capital remained his professed home. One of his diversions was
the establishment of opera in London in opposition to Handel; but he
became so ardent an admirer of that great man's genius, that he refused
to be a tool in the hands of the latter's