[Music: Di te, di te scordarmi! di te, di te scordarmi!]
That this departure from the text must have been sanctioned by Verdi, is, I think, proved by the fact that it has always been sung thus, and the composer himself must often have heard the substitution. He would certainly have forbidden its use, had he not approved of it, for he was particularly averse to having changes made in his music. The following anecdote illustrates this trait in his character. It was related by the late Mme. Marie Saxe, better known under her Italianized name of Marie Sasse. This distinguished soprano singer, a member of the Paris Opéra for a number of years, was engaged to give a certain number of performances at the Opera of Cairo. _Aida_ was one of the operas stipulated for in her contract. She had never sung the rôle, and in studying it found the _tessitura_ of the music, at one or two points, a little too high for her natural means. As she was compelled by her contract to sing the opera, she asked Verdi to make some slight changes to bring the music within her reach. But he refused absolutely to make the least alteration.
Madame Saxe was specially selected by Meyerbeer to create the rôle of Sélika in _l'Africaine_. She studied the part for three months with the composer, and sang it when the work was first given at the Paris Opéra. She was also chosen by Richard Wagner for the part of Elisabeth when _Tannhäuser_ was given its stormy performances, with Niemann in the title-rôle, at the same theatre in 1861.
Madame Saxe possessed a score of _Tannhäuser_ with the inscription in the composer's handwriting:
"_A ma courageuse amie Mademoiselle Marie Saxe._
The slight modifications, or _pointages_, asked from Verdi, were not, I was assured by Madame Saxe, of a character to alter either the rôle or the opera, and she remarked (I quote her own words): "Why should Verdi have shown himself more unreasonable or less yielding than Meyerbeer or Wagner?" (_plus intransigeant, plus intraitable que_ Meyerbeer _ou_ Wagner?).
In tradition, however, there is the true or accepted tradition--so called because believed to have been sanctioned by the composer himself, or approved of by competent authorities and its use warranted by time--and the false. This latter is simply an accumulation of excrescences superimposed on the original by individual whim or personal fancy. These have been invented by singers desirous of bringing into relief certain special and peculiar gifts, or who have mistaken, perhaps forgotten, the original and authentic tradition. Thus their artistic heritage has become so altered and disfigured by successive additions, or "machicotage," as to bear no resemblance to the original, this being buried under a heap of useless complications.