Poor Mr. Lumley! For the benefit of a generation who will not set eyes on Signor Lablache, it should be stated that he was of Herculean proportions, a giant in height, and so portly that he made a superb Falstaff. His voice shook the walls of Her Majesty's Theatre, and he had a heart as big as some men's bodies.
It is well to know something of this "excessive" book. Two brothers, Carlo and Francesco, are the sons of Maximilian Moor, an old Bohemian noble. The younger brother Francesco is envious of the fortunate first-born, and poisons his father's heart against him. Carlo driven from home, joins a robber band, and Francesco impatient to reap the fruits of his wickedness seeks to accelerate the old man's death by telling him that his first-born has met with his death. Francesco's next scheme is to implore Amalia, the betrothed wife of Carlo, to marry him, but she resents his odious suit. Quite by chance she meets Carlo, to whom she tells everything, and as he, in one of his raids in the forest, has discovered his father almost starved to death in a cave, the desire for vengeance cannot be restrained. He summons his co-outlaws, who swear to avenge the wrongs of the infamous Francesco. This done, Carlo reveals himself to his father and bride, but the horrible revelation that he is a robber does not hinder their sympathy and tenderness towards Carlo. Amalia offers to marry him just as he is, bound by oath to outlawry. This is impossible. Maddened by despair, he thrusts his poniard into her bosom, and thus meets her appeals for relief by death. Thus ends this most tragic story; the music keeping pace with the varied emotions of horror, of melancholy, and tenderness, which the subject alternately excites.
There were beautiful numbers in _I Masnadieri_, or "The Brigands," notably the grand scena "_Tu del mio Carlo al seno_," with its _cabaletta_ "_Carlo Vive_," which Jenny Lind could sing entrancingly; the duet between Amalia and Francesco; the air "_Lo, sguardo_," deliciously accompanied by the wind instruments; the quartet "_Tigre feroce_"; the tenor air "_O mio castel paterno_," wherein Gardoni's beautiful voice, and manner, were so noticeable; the trio in which the superlative powers of Jenny Lind, Gardoni, and Lablache were united; and, to name one more number, the air "_Volasti alma beati_," with its beautiful harp accompaniment. Notwithstanding many attractions, it was a dead failure, and only kept the boards two or three nights. "_I Masnadieri_," an authority afterwards wrote, "turned out a miserable failure, as it deserved to do, since it could but, at all events, as was rightly said, increase Signor Verdi's discredit with every one who had an ear, and was decidedly the worst opera that was ever given at Her Majesty's Theatre, the music being in every respect inferior even to that of _I Due Foscari_."[26]