In a few words he told their hapless story, Saying, ‘Our Machiavellian impresario, Making a signal off some promontory, Hail’d a strange brig—Corpo di Caio Mario! We were transferr’d on board her in a hurry, Without a Single scudo of salario; But if the Sultan has a taste for song, We will revive our fortunes before long.
‘The prima donna, though a little old, And haggard with a dissipated life, And subject, when the house is thin, to cold, Has some good notes; and then the tenor’s wife, With no great voice, is pleasing to behold; Last carnival she made a deal of strife By carrying off Count Cesare Cicogna From an old Roman princess at Bologna.
‘And then there are the dancers; there’s the Nini, With more than one profession, gains by all; Then there’s that laughing slut the Pelegrini, She, too, was fortunate last carnival, And made at least five hundred good zecchini, But spends so fast, she has not now a paul; And then there’s the Grotesca—such a dancer! Where men have souls or bodies she must answer.
‘As for the figuranti, they are like The rest of all that tribe; with here and there A pretty person, which perhaps may strike, The rest are hardly fitted for a fair; There’s one, though tall and stiffer than a pike, Yet has a sentimental kind of air Which might go far, but she don’t dance with vigour; The more ’s the pity, with her face and figure.
‘As for the men, they are a middling set; The musico is but a crack’d old basin, But being qualified in one way yet, May the seraglio do to set his face in, And as a servant some preferment get; His singing I no further trust can place in: From all the Pope makes yearly ’twould perplex To find three perfect pipes of the third sex.
‘The tenor’s voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow; But being the prima donna’s near relation, Who swore his voice was very rich and mellow, They hired him, though to hear him you’d believe An ass was practising recitative.
‘’Twould not become myself to dwell upon My own merits, and though young—I see, Sir—you Have got a travell’d air, which speaks you one To whom the opera is by no means new: You’ve heard of Raucocanti?—I’m the man; The time may come when you may hear me too; You was not last year at the fair of Lugo, But next, when I’m engaged to sing there—do go.