Henry Edwards - The Life of Rossini

Durante passed from one Conservatory at Naples to another, and was necessarily professor at all three.

M. Azevedo’s idea on the subject is certainly the best. “Since its production,” he says, “on the stage and in the universe it has been made the subject of a canticle for the Catholic Church, like all other successful airs. But a litany before the air and a canticle after the air are not the same thing.” M. Azevedo also rejects the rice.

“Le ombreggiature per le messe di voce, il cantar di partarrenti, l’arte di fermare la voce per farla fluire equale nel canto legato, l’arte di prender flato in modo insensibile e senza troncare il lungo periodo vocale delle arte antiche.” This passage is from Carpani. Stendhal, not finding it easy to translate, gives it, in Italian, as his own, and endeavours to explain his use of the Italian language by saying that he finds “an almost insurmountable difficulty in writing about singing in French.” This mania for “adaptation” makes one doubt the originality of everything Stendhal has done.

There is nothing to prove that Rossini entertained any such opinion of Velluti’s singing.

A: Théâtres Lyriques de Paris, “L’Opéra Italien,” p. 317.