THE GREAT SINGERS
T H E
WORLD OF MUSIC
BY
£º
ANNA, COMTESSE DE BREMONT
THE GREAT SINGERS
“God’s ange! once with s/zz"it wand
Aszender syſzote the 77.4/stic bond'
Sealing the mute Ziffs of the soul:
Azza! /o/ zwith ſuſ/ ?/zelodious rol/–
With wozzdrows cadence &orne along—
Sørang forth the glorious gift of song.’
ANNA de BRéMONT
Aem gotk
B R E N T A N O’S
LONDON, CHICAGO, PARIS, WASHINGTON
1892
C O N T E N T S
PAGE
BRAHAM : 1774-1856, . & t tº I
BILLINGTON : 1770-1818, g tº º • I4.
CATALANI : 1779-1849, g ſo e . I 8
GARCIA : 1775-1832, . * & º • 37
GIUGLINI : 18–-1865, . & e § . 47
GRISI: 1811-1869, g gº e e . 5 I
HAYES : 1825-1861, . tº tº & , 61
LABLACHE : 1794-1858, tº e e . 7O
JENNY LIND : 1820-1887, e & g . 84
MALIBRAN : 1808-1836, g & e . IO5
MARIO : 1808-1883, . g * * . I 35
PAREPA-ROSA : 1836-1874, . e * . I 44
PASTA : 1798-1865, * t * * . I 53
RUBINI : 1795-1854, . e e te . I64
RON CONI : 1810-1883, . e te º . 185
SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT : 1804-1860, tº . I9 I
SONTAG : 1805-1852, . e t & . 203
TIETJENS: 1831-1877, . g G ſº . 22O
B R A H A M
1774-1856
C HERE is a fine scorn in his face, which
nature meant to be of Christians. The
Hebrew spirit is strong in him in spite of his
proselytism. He cannot conquer the shibboleth.
How it breaks out when he sings, “The children
of Israel passed through the Red Sea” The
auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to
him, and he rides over our necks in triumph.
The foundation of his vocal excellence is sense.’
Thus wrote Charles Lamb of one of the greatest
tenors of a past generation—the incomparable
singer, John Braham, whose name has become
a household word for all that is grand and
patriotic in English song ; whose stirring ballad,
The Death of AWelson, thrilled and roused to the
highest pitch of excitement the loyal hearts of
many a British audience of over a half century
ago; and, to the present day, that splendid song,
with its dramatic accompaniment, never fails to
touch the chord of patriotism in the breasts of
‘- VOL. III. A.
2 THE GREAT SINGERS
a new generation, be it delivered with all the
brilliancy of an accomplished artist, or trolled
out in the quavering tones of some battered
warrior, singing, in the firelight, of the valorous
deeds of his youth, to the listening children,
blessings of his old age, gathered round his
knee.
The first time Weber heard the great tenor,
he exclaimed, “This is the greatest singer in
Europe.’ This was in the opera of Der
Freischilág, but it was in oratorio that Braham
excelled. The singular sweetness and marvel-
lous purity of his voice, together with its extra-
ordinary power, admirably fitted him for the
highest interpretation of sacred music. His
superb delivery of ‘Comfort ye, my people, is
said to have produced a sensation beyond the
power of description. The exquisite notes
rose far above the swell of the orchestra, like
the flight of a bird above the tumult of the
waves, and combined with this was an execution
absolutely perfect in tone and articulation.
The character of his singing was purely
dramatic ; so much so, that it has been com-
pared to the acting of the great Siddons,—the
great sensation which she produced by dramatic
effect he produced by musical effect. He had
the wonderful power of imparting the colour of
BRAHAM 3
the various emotions of his song to his voice,
breathing the soft, liquid tones of love, the
bright sounds of hope and adoration, or the
full, sonorous tones of despair and awe. In
Jephthah, his singing of the air, “Deeper and
deeper still,’ was so extraordinary in its changes
of tone and splendour of conception, that people
were awed into the belief, for the time, that it
was not the voice of a mortal, but the song of
an angel descended in their midst.
Braham's singing inaugurated a new era in
vocal music. He was the first to introduce the
perfect use of the falsetto in England. It had
been tried before by singers of moderate skill.
Only one, Johnstone, is recorded to have used it
with any degree of success, but the abruptness
of his transitions gained for him the sobriquet of
“Bubble and Squeak.' Braham's method was
so admirable, his range of voice—it had a scale
of twenty notes, extending from A in the bass
to E in alt—So perfectly modulated from one
note to the other, that the use of the falsetto
was really a great enhancement to its natural
beauty, while his skilful execution of the
portamento and Swell stamped his method as
a truly scientific One. g
We read of few great English singers before
the time of Braham ; in fact, we find none in
4 THE GREAT SINGERS
the annals of English music until Braham and
Mrs. Billington appeared. The great artists
who delighted the British lover of music in
those days were French or Italian. English
musical art was at a very low mark during the
early part of the seventeenth century, and the
history of its progress is as curious as it is
interesting. In those days the glorious Muse
found few supporters, and those were of a
Strange and fantastic character. Who would
credit at the present time the information that
Our great London, centre of musical art for all
the world, where the highest and noblest in the
land graciously and generously support by
their patronage English music and her votaries,
in the latter part of the seventeenth century
owed to an obscure coal-pedlar, Thomas Britton,
all the good music of the time, were it not from
the pen of Dibdin, whose account of this quaint
patron of British music, written fully a century
after his death, is at once valuable and enter-
taining.
‘It had always been a custom to entertain
companies at private houses with minstrelsy,’
writes Dibdin ; ‘concerts were set forward, to no
great effect, however, till a man of the name of
Britton, a most singular instance of natural
endowment, who attained to perfection in every-
BRAHAM 5
thing he studied, and who seems to have had a
most scientific mind, established under very
forbidding circumstances a regular concert.
This Britton, a small-coal man, in an obscure
part of the town, in a room without ornament
or accommodation, and more like a prison than a
receptacle for decent auditors, attracted all the
fashion of the age, who flocked regularly every
week to taste a delight of which the English
were particularly fond, so that it was considered
as vulgar not to have attended Britton's concert
as it would be now not to have heard Banti.’
The musical ‘small-coal man’ lived in an old
house in Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell. The
room devoted to the concerts was very small,
and the ceiling so low that a tall man found it
difficult to stand erect, while the staircase was
outside the house and could scarcely be ascended
without an almost acrobatic attempt at crawling.
Despite all these obstacles, ladies of the highest
rank and fashion disdained not to present them-
selves with their attendant cavaliers at these
weekly concerts. These are the first public
concerts on record in London. Of the origin of
Britton's concerts, Ned Ward, a facetious writer
in those days, and keeper of a public-house in
Clerkenwell, records in his Satirica/ Reflections
on Clubs the following:—‘The small-coal man's
6 THE GREAT SINGERS
Club was first confirmed by Sir Roger l’Estrange,
a very musical gentleman who had a tolerable
perfection on the bass viol. The attachment
of Sir Roger and other ingenious gentlemen,
lovers of the Muses, to Britton, arose from the
profound regard he had in general to all
manner of literature ; the prudence of his
deportment to his betters procured him great
respect, and men of the greatest wit, as well
as some of the highest quality, honoured his
musical Society with their company.’ To the
Percy Anecdotes we are indebted for the in-
teresting assurance that this remarkable man
“was so distinguished that, when passing along
the streets in his blue linen frock and with his
sack of small-coal on his back, he was frequently
accosted with such expressions as these, “There
goes the famous small-coal man, who is a lover
of learning, a performer of music, and a
companion for gentlemen.”’’
Britton was born in 1650, and died in 1714.
His influence in English musical art died,
happily, not with him, but gradually gained
strength and power, until we find, in the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century, such artists as
Mrs. Billington, Henry Russell, and Braham,
upholding in glorious fame the standard of
British song.
BRAHAM 7
John Braham was born in Goodman's Fields
in June 1774. His father was a Portuguese Jew,
and well advanced in years at the time of the
great singer's birth. His early life was a pre-
carious one, full of vicissitudes. No mention is
made of his mother by his biographers, and his
father's dying abroad left the lad at the mercy
of the world, and dependent on his own re-
sources. He drifted from pillar to post, as
thousands of London waifs float, abreast the
great wave of London life; but genius cherishes
jealously those whom she has marked for her
own. Her innate influence guided the helpless
street urchin, imbuing him with a spirit of self-
reliance and hopefulness, a spirit of integrity
prompting him to gain his little need of bread
by some honest means, no matter how humble,
and we hear of the lad as a vendor of pencils in
the crowded marts of the great city. Then, again,
he challenged fortune in lifting up his voice, and
the silvery notes caught the attention of Leoni,
the great singing master. Poverty and the
streets vanished before the advent of the kindly
old master, and young Braham found a father,
friend, and teacher at one and the same time ;
and, by the way, it would be interesting to note,
with a margin however, that this same Leoni
was the reputed father of the great actor, Kean.
8 THE GREAT SINGERS
On the death of his beloved master, Leoni, who
died in Jamaica in 1797, Braham returned to
England, and soon assumed his rightful place
in the world of musical London. This was ac-
complished principally through the influence of
the Goldsmid family, then, as now, a family of
Opulence and distinction. From this point the
career of Braham was one of marvellous success,
covering a period of sixty years, until death
claimed him in a peaceful old age, watched
and lovingly tended by his daughter, Frances,
Countess Waldegrave. He retained his faculties
to the last, and, only a few weeks before the end,
was present at a concert in Exeter Hall to hear
the then rising star of the world—upon which his
was fast setting—Jenny Lind. He made a great
fortune, unfortunately partly lost in speculation.
As early as 1809, he received at the Theatre
Royal, Dublin, the sum of two thousand guineas
for fifteen nights, a fabulous sum in those days
and times.
London is full of reminiscences of the Great
in all branches of Art; scarcely a street or
square but what bears some historic record,
and to many an idler full of absorbing interest.
Not least of these points of interest is the
‘ Grange,’ in Brompton, where the first great
English tenor breathed his last.
BRAHAM 9
Many and varied are the anecdotes recorded
of Braham; some found their origin in admira-
tion of his great gifts, and others in the slough
of jealousy, which never fails to spatter its
filth over those who are successful. First of
all is the story that he changed his name in
order to repudiate the old race from which he
sprang, an heroic race that has defied the
censure of many a benighted age of ignorance
and withstood the storms of persecution, a race
that has enriched the annals of the musical and
artistic world beyond all dispute. It is not
likely that young Braham, under the protection
of a powerful Jewish family, would forswear his
religious nationality through shame or any low
motive ; no doubt some professional reason
prompted him to shorten the name. By
dropping the A the name became undoubtedly
more euphonious, more adapted to the con-
ventional playbill. And, on the other hand, the
love of mystery which characterises the artist
may have prompted him to disguise his name
as hundreds of great artists have done who were
not Jews but Christians. Braham's father was
short and stout, and his neighbours nicknamed
him ‘Punch,’ a title which clung to him through
life. He was often spoken of by his friends in
the old Jewish quarters of London as ‘Abe
IO THE GREAT SINGERS
Punch.’ Henry Russell is responsible for the
following amusing anecdote, apropos of this
sobriquet. Braham was performing in a pas-
t?ccio, at the Garrick Theatre, with Mrs.
Crouch, Mrs. Bland, Kelly, and Jack Bannister.
The scene represented the interior of an
old country inn. (Enter Braham with a
ôundle slung to a sticæ on his shoulder.) ‘I
have been traversing this desolate country
for days with no friend to cheer me. (Sits.)
I am weary, yet no rest, no food, scarcely life.
Oh, heaven pity me! Shall I ever realise my
hopes P (Knocks on table.) What, ho! there,
house ! (Knocks again.) Will no one come 2'
Enter Landlord : “I beg pardon, sir, but
(Starts.) I know that face (aside). What can
I do for you, sir? Shall it be supper ?’
Braham : ‘Gracious heavens ! 'tis he the voice
—the look—the (With calmness.) Yes,
I want food.” Landlord: ‘Tell me what brings
One so young as thou appearest to be through
this dangerous forest ?” Braham : I wiſ/. For
days, for months, oh for years, I have been in
search of my father.” Landlord: ‘Your father l’
Braham : ‘Yes, my father. 'Tis strange—but
that voice—that look—that figure—tell me that
you are my father.” Landlord : ‘No, I tell thee
no, I am not thy father.” Braham : ‘Heaven
BRAHAM II
protect me. Who, tell me, who is my father ?’
Scarcely had Braham put this question when
a little Jew stood up in an excited manner in
the midst of a densely crowded pit and ex-
claimed —
‘I knowed yer farder well. His name was
Abey Punch l’
The performance was suspended for some
minutes in the roars of laughter that followed
this revelation.
Incledon, whom Mathews describes as the
manliest of singers, as generous as a prince,
and never ashamed to mention his former life
as a common sailor doing rough work before
the mast, and his struggles from a strolling
player to a singer at Vauxhall, from whence
he was rescued by Rauzzini and speedily raired
to a place in public estimation, was a powerful
rival of Braham. He was at the same time
intensely jealous of the great tenor, and on one
occasion, when he sang a duet with him, entitled
‘Gallop on Gaily, declared “he is too florid,
and has too many runs; he hops about from
note to note like a tomtit in a gooseberry
bush ' '
Another anecdote which shows how highly
his confrères valued and admired his voice is
told of Tom Cooke, described as the most
I 2 THE GREAT SINGERS
facetious of fiddlers, who was as clever at quips
and cranks as he was at wielding the baton as
conductor of Drury Lane Theatre, and whose
conundrums were the amusement of the town
as well as of his pupils, one of whom, on one
occasion, asked ‘Which is the best shop to get
a fiddle at P’ whereupon Cooke retorted, “A
chemist's, because if you buy a drug there, they’ll
always give you a vial in.” During a rehearsal
of a most important song, Braham leaned over
the footlights and whispered : ‘I say, Cooke,
keep quite Soft here, because just at this point I
intend dropping my voice, to add to the effect
of the passage.’ ‘It’s you !’ cried Cooke. ‘By
the powers tell me whereabouts, for it’s just
the voice I’d like to pick up.’
Mathews gave a most perfect imitation of
Braham, a liberty the great singer most amiably
condoned, but could never prevail upon the
actor to repeat in his presence. On one occasion,
however, Braham succeeded by resorting to
subterfuge. It was at a dinner party at which
both were present. Mathews could not be in-
duced to give the imitation—suddenly Braham
disappeared from the table, and in his absence
the actor consented to amuse and astonish the
assembled company by taking the place of the
absent Braham, even to the singing of one of
BRAHAM 13
his most popular songs. When the song was
ended, Braham suddenly appeared from under
the table, and in his heartiest tones exclaimed,
“Very well, Mathews exceedingly like, indeed,
nay, perfect, if I know myself!'
B I L L I N G T O N
1770-1818
EAUTIFUL as a daughter of the gods, with
a voice as heavenly as that of an angel, and
as dainty in her youth and freshness as a dewy
rose, Mrs. Billington took all London by storm
when she made her début as Rosetta at Drury
Lane, when barely sixteen years old. Her voice
was of that exceeding rich and flute-like quality
that lends itself to the most ornate style of
execution as well as to the most chaste and
pathetic, while, at the same time, it was adorned
with remarkable power and compass. Combined
with this wonderful voice, she possessed the
genius of imagination, which enabled her to
embue every class of Song she essayed with an
originality of treatment and expression un-
equalled by any other songstress of her time.
The most homely ballad became in her setting
a gem of exquisite beauty, while the higher
and more florid class of music was enriched
with a splendour dazzling in its finish and
14
|BILLINGTON I 5
purity. The simplicity and nobility of her
interpretation of Handel and Purcell’s music
were marvellous, and carried the hearts of
hearers in a tumultuous wave of delight to her
feet, as she stood before them unaided by the
glitter and glamour of the stage, robed only
in the modest and seemly garb befitting the
sacred themes of oratorio; and never, we read,
were her triumphs greater. Surely a reproof
to those great singers of to-day, who turn the
platform of oratorio into the lounge of the ball-
room by the display of neck and bosom, the
glitter of jewels, nodding of plumes, and all the
accompanying gorgeous vagaries of fashion
There is a time and place for everything, and
none understood it better than Mrs. Billington,
who knew how to doff the fineries of the stage
when she lifted her glorious voice in oratorio.
The great singer would as soon have thought
of going to church in a low gown and diamonds
as to so present herself in oratorio.
Mrs. Billington came of a musical family; her
father was the famous Weichsell, hautboy of
the Italian Opera, while her mother was also
a singer of Covent Garden. The great singer
was early instructed in the principles of music,
and was an accomplished performer on more
than one instrument. Tradition has it that
I6 THE GREAT SINGERS
her baby-fingers often played a merry tune on
the hautboy, guided by the hand of her father,
who supplied the “wind’ of the melody. Her
early marriage, though deplored by her father,
was nevertheless a very happy one for the great
singer. Billington was an accomplished leader
and member of the Drury Lane band, and a
devoted husband, ever ready to promote the
success and protect the interests of his gifted
wife. An amusing story is recorded of this
devotion. During the performance of an opera
in which Mrs. Billington sang, her spouse was
as usual present in the orchestra. At one part in
which Mrs. Billington executed a grand bravura,
Billington, conceiving that the trumpeter did
not accompany her with sufficient force, called
to him in a subdued tone, ‘Louder, louder l’
The command was repeated so often by the
leader of the orchestra, that at length the indig-
nant trumpeter—a German—threw down his
instrument, and turning to the audience ex-
claimed in breathless tones of passion, ‘It is
easy to cry louder louder but—by gar—where
is de zväzed P’ I
Haydn, the great composer, was a most
enthusiastic admirer of Mrs. Billington, and
would often exclaim : “She has the voice of
a seraph, the Soul of a goddess, and the smile
BILLINGTON 17
of an angel.” One day he called on Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and found Mrs. Billington sitting for
the famous picture of St. Cecilia by the great
painter. Haydn stood rapt in thought for
some moments, gazing on the charming model
and her counterpart of the canvas, surrounded
by the choir of angels. “It is a very fine like-
ness,’ he said at length, ‘but you have made a
strange mistake.’ ‘What is that?’ exclaimed Sir
Joshua. ‘You have painted her listening to the
angels,’ answered Haydn ; “you ought to have
represented the angels listening to her.” Mrs.
Billington was so charmed, records the chronicler
of this pretty story, that she sprang from her
seat and threw her fair arms around Haydn's
neck.
Mrs. Billington retired from the stage in the
zenith of her powers, and her last notes held
her listeners with the same breathless attention
as when they first sprang rich, limpid, and thrill-
ing from her girlish lips.
VOL. III. B
CA. T A L A N I
I779-1849
NE of the first among the queens of song,
Catalani presents a figure of striking
interest ; but while her story fascinates and
allures, it is remarkably free from the elements
of stage romance. In her case marvellous vocal
powers were allied with personal beauty. At
one bound she leaped into fame, and was borne
along the tide of success, which carried her to
fortune and splendour, and left her a pure-
minded and amiable woman, unspoiled by the
world's flatteries, full of charitics and good
works.
Angelica Catalani was born at Sinigaglia,
near Rome, where her father was a tradesman,
and educated at the convent of Santa Lucia, at
Gubbio, to which she had gained admittance
through the influence of Cardinal Onorati. At
the convent the extreme beauty of her voice
attracted great attention, and the abbess, a
woman of ability and culture, did all in her
18
CATALANI I9
power to develop the rare gift. Catalani repaid
these attentions by singing solos in the choir,
and the flexibility, compass, and beauty of her
voice became famous in the district, and at-
tracted large congregations to the church of
Santa Lucia. On fête-days the chapel was
thronged by a wondering and delighted crowd,
and numbers were unable to obtain admission or
to catch a glimpse of la maravigliosa Angelica.
The pleasure of the congregations expressed
itself in frequent applause, a secular form of
approval which created scandal, and the abbess
was enjoined by the bishop to discontinue the
solos. In order to defeat prejudice and Scandal,
an ingenious compromise was effected. The
pieces hitherto given as solos were sung in
concert, and the startling effect and brilliancy
of Angelica's soul-moving notes were tempered
by the voices of the novices, among a group of
whom she was veiled from the eyes of mere
secular curiosity. The fair songstress, how-
ever, was still strikingly en évidence, and on one
occasion her rendering of the Ave Maris Stella
melted the people to tears. She remained three
years at the convent, and benefited by such
musical tuition as it afforded—an imperfect
tuition, which laid the basis of a meretricious
style, overloaded with ornament and tricks of
2O THE GREAT SINGERs
execution, often in violation of the principles of
true art, which was never afterwards overcome.
Catalani afterwards received instruction from
Marchesi, who was much struck by the pheno-
menal beauty of her voice, and taught her to con-
trol its luxuriance. While pursuing her studies
at Florence under this master, she heard a dis-
tinguished prima donna at the theatre. The
skilful execution of the vocalist moved her to
tears, and she exclaimed, ‘Alas! I shall never
attain such perfection.” Subsequently she was
introduced to the artist, who, after hearing her
sing, embraced her with great tenderness, say-
ing, ‘Be assured, my child, in a few years you
will surpass me, and it is I who shall weep at
your success.’ The prophecy was soon to be
verified.
The proprietor of the theatre of La Fenice at
Venice was in a dilemma. A new opera had
been prepared with great care, and arrange-
ments were complete for its production on a
magnificent scale, when the prima donna died
suddenly. Zamboni, the prompter, suggested
to the despairing manager that the young
Catalani should have a trial. The suggestion
was adopted, and in her sixteenth year—1795
—the youthful singer, trembling with emotion,
yet Sustained by the ardour of genius just
CATALANI 2 I
kindled to ambition, made her début in the
title-róle of Mayer's opera of Lodozsáa.
Her success was instantaneous ; nothing was
wanting to insure triumph. Her face and
figure constituted a vision of loveliness, and the
rare quality and grandeur of her voice added to
these an angelic charm. Such a combination
had never before been witnessed, even in Venice.
Her figure was tall and elegant, her features
regular and noble, and her fair hair and lovely
blue eyes, together with a charming smile and
graceful manner, made up an ideal prima donna.
Histrionic power was deficient; but the defect
was lost or ignored among so many perfections
crowned by such a gift of song. The impression
left upon the audience could only be expressed
in loud cries of admiration culminating in the
wildest enthusiasm. The critics vied with each
other in the libation of praise. Her voice, a
soprano of the purest quality, embracing a
compass of three octaves from G to F, and
so powerful that no band could drown it, is
described by one of these as ‘full, rich, and
magnificent beyond any other voice ever heard,
and could only be compared to the tones of
musical glasses when magnified in volume to
the same power. Without having the experience
and training of other artistes, and, indeed, being
22 THE GREAT SINGERS
only imperfectly studious of the rules of art,
she could ascend at will from the least audible
sound to the most magnificent crescendo. This
power constituted an original charm which
raised her above all minute criticisms, and
astonished and delighted her audiences with a
sense as of the freshness and fulness of seaward
gales bearing the fragrance of southern island
groves. ‘ One of her favourite ornamental
caprices was to imitate the swell and fall of the
sound of a bell, making her tones sweep through
the air with the most delicious undulations, and
showering her graces in wasteful profusion.’
Three years later, Catalani, having greatly
extended her powers as a vocalist, sang at
Leghorn with Crivelli, Marchesi, and Mrs.
Billington, and appeared subsequently at La
Pergola in Florence. In 18OI she was received
with enthusiasm at Milan, where she appeared
in Zingarelli's C/itemnestra and Nasolini’s Bac-
cana/; ; from thence she proceeded to Florence,
Trieste, Rome, and Naples, adding to her
triumphs at each city, and exciting wonder and
admiration.
In 1804 Catalani was engaged by the Prince
Regent of Portugal for the Italian Opera at
Lisbon, in conjunction with Gafforini and
Crescentini, at a salary of 24,OOO Cruzados
CATALAN I 23
(£30OO), and for several seasons she was the
idol of the Portuguese capital.
Of the great prima donna's—for she was now
great, and her fame rang throughout Europe,
all the leading impresarios vying with each other
to Secure the Operatic prize—style and power
of singing at this period there is much conflict
of Opinion, many conceding to her the universal
palm, while others claim that her merits were
circumscribed and limited. Her voice for clear-
ness and purity, for richness, for height and
depth of grandeur and vocal power, was allowed
on all sides to be transcendent; but her style,
it was said, was artificial, lacking both artistic
method and intellectual breadth, and being
especially deficient in artistic restraint. To
arrive at some degree of Sureness on this point,
it would be necessary to examine the critical
estimates of her contemporaries, the majority
of which agree, in the main, that though she
lacked the essential qualifications of the highest
artistic expression, the charm of her vocal
power was unrivalled. Her singing instinct
was true—even equal to her vocal range and
power; but her taste was false ; and her 7722nd—
still limited by imperfect culture—in art was not
equal to her artistic sense and enjoyment.
In an interesting passage, quoted by Mr. H.
24 THE GREAT SINGERS
Sutherland Edwards,” Jacques Godefroi Ferrari,
a pupil of Paisiello, unconsciously suggests this
distinction, without possibly being aware of its
entire significance. ‘Her voice,’ says Ferrari,
“was sonorous, powerful, and full of charm and
suavity. This organ, of So rare a beauty, might
be compared for splendour to the voice of Banti;
for expression, to that of Grassini; for sweet
energy, to that of Pasta; uniting the delicious
flexibility of Sontag to the three registers of
Malibran. Madame Catalani had formed her
style on that of Pacchierotti, Marchesi, Cre-
Scentini ; her groups, roulades, triplets, and
moralentz were of admirable perfection ; her
well-articulated execution lost nothing of its
purity in the most rapid and most difficult
passages. She animated the singers, the chorus,
the orchestra even, in the finales and concerted
pieces. Her beautiful notes rose above and
dominated the ensemble of the voices and instru-
ments; nor could Beethoven, Rossini, or any
other musical Lucifer, have covered this divine
voice with the tumult of the orchestra. Our
vocal virtuOSO was not a profound musician ;
but, guided by what she did know, and by
her practised ear, she could learn in a moment
the most complicated pieces.’
* History of the Opera, vol. ii. pp. 16-17.
CATALAN I 25
Here the critic hints at a limited musical
knowledge on the part of Catalani. But it is
clear that her chief defect was in taste and not
in knowledge, and in understanding even more
than in taste ; for the artist who could learn
the most difficult and complicated music with
momentary ease and rapidity assimilated that
kind of knowledge in a manner that was beyond
tuition. Her sense of enjoyment lay in the
expression of sounds without rigidly relating
these sounds to ideas; the mind operates ex-
tensively in the latter performance, and
dominates the taste in the region of musical
aesthetics. Castil - Blaze, another authority
quoted by Mr. Edwards, accentuates this view,
with the same unconscious naïveté as Ferrari,
and amidst a similar blaze of panegyric.
‘Her firm, strong, brilliant, voluminous voice,’
he says, “was of a most agreeable timôre ; it
was an admirable Soprano of prodigious compass,
from Za to the upper sol, marvellous in point of
agility, and producing a sensation difficult to
describe. Madame Cata/ani's manner of singing
left something to desire in the noble, broad, sus-
tained style. Mesdames Grassini and Barilli
surpassed her on this point, but with regard
to difficulties of execution and Özzo, Madame
Catalani could sing out one of her favourite airs
26 THE GREAT SINGERS
and exclaim Son Regina / She was there with-
out a rival. I never heard anything like it.
She excelled in chromatic passages, ascending
and descending, of extreme rapidity. Her
execution, marvellous in audacity, made talents
of the first order pale before it, and instru-
mentalists no longer dared figure by her side.’
Tulou, the flautist, once performed after the
great singer and achieved signal Success, but
the experiment was regarded as a very danger-
ous one to undertake. I have ventured to
italicise the sentence in which the writer, to
adopt a current colloquialism, unconsciously
‘gives the artist away.”
Lord Mount-Edgcumbe, the severest critic of
Catalani’s faults of style, also confirms the view
here suggested, and his remarks are worth
quoting on account of their testimony to the
phenomenal powers of the vocalist. ‘Her voice,’
he says, ‘is of a most uncommon quality, and
capable of exertions almost supernatural. Her
throat seems endued (as has been remarked by
medical men) with a power of expansion and
muscular motion by no means usual, and when
she throws out all her voice to the utmost, it
has a volume and strength that are quite
surprising, while its agility in divisions, running
up and down the scale in semitones, and its

CATALANI 2\7
compass in jumping Over two Octaves at once,
are equally astonishing. It were to be wished
she was less lavish in the display of these
wonderful powers, and sought to please more
than to surprise; but her taste is vicious, her
excessive love of ornament spoiling every simple
air, and her great delight (indeed her chief
merit) being in songs of a bold and spirited
character where much is left to her discretion
(or indiscretion) confined by accompaniment,
but in which she can indulge in ad Ziółłume
passages with a luxuriance and redundancy no
other singer ever possessed, or if possessing,
ever practised, and which she carries to a
fantastical excess. She is fond of singing
variations on some known simple air, and latterly
has pushed this taste to the very height of
absurdity, by singing, even without words, varia-
tions composed for the fiddle.’
Catalani's knowledge and culture did not
embrace the high things of the intellect, and
her mental range was limited in the extreme.
A lovely creature, endowed with many graces,
and gifted beyond measure in one phase of her
art, she was the idol of society; but her strange
ignorance of general subjects was often the
Subject of unfriendly remark, and sometimes
led her into ludicrous mistakes. Once at the

8 THE GREAT SINGERS
court of Saxe-Weimar, she noticed the majestic
presence of the illustrious Goethe, and, observing
the marked attention paid to him, she inquired
who he was. ‘That, madame, is the celebrated
Goethe, was the reply. “Goethe–Goethe P’
She asked, with a puzzled air. ‘ On what instru-
ment does he play 2' ‘He is the renowned
author of The Sorrows of Werther, madame.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember, she said : then, address-
ing the great man with abrupt vivacity, added,
“Ah, sir, what an admirer I am of Werther l'
Goethe, always amenable to feminine charm,
bowed profoundly. ‘I never, she continued,
‘saw anything SO laughable in my life. What a
capital farce it is l’ ‘The Sorrows of Werther
a farce, madame 2' the poet murmured icily.
‘Oh, yes,” said Catalani, with a burst of laughter,
‘never was there anything so exquisitely
ridiculous.’ The great prima donna was in-
nocently referring to a stage burlesque travesty
of the famous book. Goethe did not recover
himself the whole evening. It is hardly to be
expected that the mental calibre thus indicated
could secure for Catalani the highest place in
her own art.
At Lisbon occurred the most momentous
event in a life that, apart from the excitement
of Operatic triumph, was quiet, colourless, placid,
CATALANI 29
and irreproachable. Catalani was introduced
to Captain Valabrèque, a handsome young
officer of noble family, attached to the French
Embassy. A mutual attachment sprang up,
and, in spite of the opposition of Signor Catalani,
they were married at Lisbon. Catalani was
devoted to her husband, who repaid her by his
constancy, and by absorbing his identity in the
public character and fame of his wife, whose
enormous gains he drew upon without stint, and
dissipated at the gambling table. This failing,
it appears, constituted no barrier to her affection
and unselfish generosity.
Having entered into an agreement to appear
in London at the King's Theatre, Haymarket,
Catalani left Lisbon to appear at Madrid and
Paris before crossing the channel. Her concerts
at Madrid, under the patronage of the Queen,
created a great Sensation, and the rush for seats
was often the occasion of tumult. She obtained
for the best seats as much as four ounces of
gold, equal in value to twenty-One guineas,
per seat; and for three concerts in Paris she
realised 72,000 francs. She sang twice at St.
Cloud; and Napoleon, who desired to retain
her services for the French capital, summoned
her to the Tuileries. The world-conqueror was
unusually gracious to the conqueror of hearts;
3O THE GREAT SINGERS
but his manner was still sufficiently awful to
excite ‘Aa plus grande émotion of Catalani’s life.
When informed that she was about to visit
London, ‘You must remain here, he said ; “I
will pay you well, and your talent will be
better appreciated. You shall have IOO,OOO
francs per annum, and two months for congé.
Come ! that is settled. Adieu, madame.’ The
fair songstress, who had hitherto bowed before
kings and queens with conscious indifference,
was greatly fluttered in spirit, and trembled in
the presence of the terrible Emperor. She
left the palace without acquiescence.
Napoleon faithfully adhered to his promise,
and a legal contract was left at her residence.
He added to his generosity by sending her a
present of 5000 francs, settled on the recipient
a pension of I2,OOO francs, and allowed
her the gratuitous use of the opera for her
concerts. Catalani determined, nevertheless,
to fulfil her London engagement, and, being
denied a passport, she disguised herself as a
nun and took passage for England, where her
contract was for a salary of £2OOO, 6 IOO extra
for travelling expenses, and a clear benefit.
The London début took place on December
15th, 1806. She appeared in Semiramide, ex-
pressly composed for her by Portogallo. She
CATALANI 3I
took London by Storm ; and immediately
became the rage. Her magnificent vocal
power exceeded public anticipation. She was
caressed, féted, adored. In the first year her
gains amounted to nearly £ I7,OOO. She Ob-
tained two hundred guineas for a single rendi-
tion of ‘God Save the King,’ and £2OOO for a
single musical festival. Her concerts and
operatic engagements throughout the United
Ringdom were equally successful, and during
her seven years' stay she is said to have real-
ised a fortune equal to those of the greatest
nobility.
Her extravagance, and her husband's gamb-
ling excesses, soon dissipated these large sums.
The beer bill for her servants alone amounted in
one year to £ IO3; and Valabrèque, who had the
absolute command of her purse, lost vast sums
at the gambling table. Valabrèque was certainly
fortunate beyond his deserts. He had neither
talent nor economy. He was handsome, ami-
able, unintellectual to the verge of absolute
stupidity, without the remotest sympathy for
his wife's talent, and could only appreciate the
value of her efforts by the returns they brought
to the exchequer. Once at Paris, Catalani,
having found the piano too high at the re-
hearsal, begged her husband to see that the
32 THE GREAT SINGERS
fault was rectified before the concert in the
evening. To her extreme annoyance, she
found that no alteration had been effected.
Valabrèque thereupon sent for the stage car-
penter, who declared that he had acted accord-
ing to orders by sawing off two inches from
each leg of the instrument. ‘Surely it cannot
be too high now, my dear!” said Valabrèque
soothingly. The exorbitant demands in the
money contracts were all traceable to Vala-
brèque. On one occasion he named a sum
so preposterous that the manager declared it
would disable him in the engagement of ad-
ditional talent for the opera. “Talent l’ ex-
claimed Valabrèque, ‘have you not Madame
Catalani ? My wife, with four or five puppets,
is quite sufficient.’ *.
These tactics were tacitly admitted by
Catalani, who grew at length to regard them
as both wise and desirable. Her operas were
one-part operas; the music of the composers
was hacked and hewed to suit her exact vocal
requirements, and subsidiary parts were dis-
pensed with ; a few puppets to fill in the
tableaux was sufficient for her.
Returning to Paris she obtained the manage-
ment of the Italian Opera there, with a
subvention of ISO,OOO francs. After an un-
CATALAN I 33
fortunate period, she went on tour, visiting
Hamburg, Denmark, and Sweden, exciting wild
enthusiasm in the principal cities. After the
Restoration she reappeared in Paris, and re-
sumed the direction of the opera. The system
which ruined opera in London was established,
All expenses were cut down ; scenery, orchestra,
and chorus were diminished ; operas were cut
up, and variations by Rode introduced, until
little more than the names of the original
works remained. The extra gains netted
through this deplorable parsimony were im-
mediately swallowed up by Valabrèque.
In May 1816 Catalani gave concerts in
Munich, and from thence proceeded to Italy,
returning to Paris in August of the following
year. In 1818 she decided to give up opera,
and resumed her concert tours, accompanied
by Madame Gail, with whom she quarrelled at
Vienna, and continued her journey alone. This
tour lasted nearly ten years. In 1824 we find
her in London, performing a certain number
of nights, but with no regular engagement.
We learn from Lord Mount-Edgcumbe that her
powers were undiminished, “her taste unim-
proved.’ An attempt to engage her for the
opera stage in London in 1826 was frustrated by
the exorbitant terms proposed by Valabrèque.
VOL. III. C
34. THE GREAT SINGERS
She visited Germany, Italy, Paris once more—
singing here without the usual success—Russia,
Poland, and North Germany, reappearing in
England for the York Festival in 1828. Lord
Mount-Edgcumbe, who heard her this year
at Plymouth, describes her as having ‘lost a
little in voice, but gained more in expression,
as “electrifying an audience with her Rule
Britannia,’ and as ‘still handsome, though
somewhat stout.’
Eventually Catalani retired to her beauti-
ful villa in the neighbourhood of Florence,
where she founded a school of singing for
young girls. While on a visit to Paris she
was attacked by cholera, and died there on
June 12th, 1849.
Catalani had achieved the supremest heights
of popularity; but, though her phenomenal
vocal powers were probably never exaggerated
by her admirers, she did not fulfil the highest
ideal of art. Her great power of Song was
chained down and circumscribed by the merest
earthly limits. Her genius had the warmth
and feeling of the earth, unillumined by the
sunlike soul and starry eyes of the heavens.
Genius uninformed by intellect, not purified by
ideal vision, and not enlarged by culture, gives
to art only a part of its beauty and grandeur.
CATALANI 35
It is a Psyche without the diaphanous robe of
lustrous purity; an Eros without wings. But
within her limits she was great enough, and
belongs to both genius and art; and the honours
showered upon her were justly due.
The King of Prussia sent her a compli-
mentary autograph letter, and the medal of
the Academy. From the Emperor of Austria
she received a superb ornament as a token of
admiration. By the Emperor and Empress of
Austria she was laden with rich presents and
high distinctions. The magistracy of Vienna
struck a medal in her honour. From an audi-
ence of 5000 persons in St. Petersburg she
derived the sum of 15,000 guineas in four
months. The great Napoleon regarded her
with great favour, and bestowed a pension
on her. In England she realised more than
:850,000 in a few years.
And while kings, potentates, and peoples
rained honours upon her, Catalani remained
unspoiled by fortune, preserving to the stage
an ideal of pure womanhood in art, and re-
taining a virginal charm of domestic truth and
deep religious simplicity. Her charities were
boundless. The amount earned by public
concerts for various institutions is estimated
at 2,OOO,OOO francs, and her private purse sup-
36 THE GREAT SINGERS
plied the most exquisite gratification of a noble
heart which overbrimmed with benevolence.
Such traits of lofty character cover a multitude
of petty faults, and declare her to be an honour
to the lyric stage.
G A R C I A
1775-1832
T ARCIA'S claim to a place amongst the
great singers is somewhat doubtful.
Perhaps the strongest he could put forward
would be that he was the father of Maria
Malibran. Still, in justice to his energy and
varied musical talents, more or less brilliant, he
is entitled to a few pages. Spanish tenors are
rare, for, though the climate of Andalusia is
almost identical with that of southern Italy,
and the air and soil impregnated with the same
chemical compounds, which are supposed to
give tone to the voice, Spain has not produced
tenors of any great importance. Like Mario,
Garcia was a failure upon his first appearance
in Seville for lack of histrionic ability, but his
intense energy soon conquered this, until he
absolutely became not only a fine romantic
actor, but also made a name for himself in
Opéra-bouffe. At the early age of six years
Manuel del-Popolo-Vicente Garcia was ad-
37
38 THE GREAT SINGERS
mitted as a chorister to the cathedral in his
native town. He had so far studied, even at
that early age, under Ripa and Almarcha.
As there was no theatre in Seville in those
early days, young García found sacred music
his only opportunity, and it is quite possible
that it was owing to this foundation he scored
many of his successes. At the age of seventeen,
so well had Garcia utilised his time that he was
known far and wide around Seville as a singer
Of no mean ability, composer, and leader. In
1792 Garcia went to Cadiz. On meeting the
director of the theatre in a posada, the latter
invited Garcia to a performance that evening :
after the performance he was asked what he
thought of it. “Nothing,’ was the calm reply;
‘the music is pretty, but you don’t know how
to get its full value; your leader is a block-
head.” Challenged by the director, if he dared
to make, good his words, the lad without hesi-
tation agreed to lead on the following evening
if he was accorded a rehearsal in the morning.
His success was pronounced ; the opera never
went so well, and Garcia was at once engaged.
But his ambition soared somewhat higher, and
at the end of the year he left the conductor's
baton for the stage. His first appearance was
in I793 in a tomadilla containing some pieces
GARCIA 39
of his own composition ; but although his voice
was good and well trained, he was so positively
awkward on the stage that any advance in his-
trionic ability seemed hopeless. We next hear
of Garcia in Madrid. Here he sang in oratorio
and several tomadillas composed by himself,
the result being fairly successful. On a trip to
Malaga he composed his first opera, EZ Preso.
This was an adaptation from a French comic
Opera entitled Ze Brissomier, ou la Ressemålance.
On his arrival in Malaga he found that the
yellow fever was raging, and he returned to
Madrid. Here he revolutionised the Spanish
taste for music by producing a series of short
comic operas taken from the French, and hither-
to unknown in Spain. His venture turned out
to be most satisfactory, and showed his aptitude
for gauging the necessities of his public. In
one of these operettas, which he named El Poeta
Ca/cu/ista, he introduced a song, El Contra-
bandista, which is still very popular.
Garcia was enjoying considerable popularity
in Spain, when restless ambition, which was one
of his principal characteristics, prompted him to
seek other fields for fame. In 18O8 we find him
in Paris, where, although he had never sung in
Italian, he had the courage to face an audience
at the Opéra-Bouffe in Paër’s Grise/da. Pos-
4O THE GREAT SINGERS
sessed of the same energy which was afterwards
so universally admired in his daughter Malibran,
he triumphed over all difficulties and obstacles.
He had scarcely been a month at Les Italiens
before he was at the head of the tried and cele-
brated singers at that establishment. The
verve and entrain of the young Spaniard proved
irresistible, so much so that Garat, a sound
critic of those times, said a peculiarly happy
and apposite thing of him : ‘J’aime /a ſureur
Andalouse de ceſſ homme, el/e anime tout.’ On
the I3th of March 1809 he chose for his benefit
the operetta El Poeta Calculista. This was the
first time that Spanish national music had been
heard in Paris, and the soft Andalusian melodies
were received with such bravos and encores, and
they had to be repeated so many times, that
the run of the piece was stopped on account
of the undue strain on the singer's voice.
In 18 II he left for Italy, and was greatly ap-
preciated in Turin, Rome, and Naples, in which
latter city, Murat, Prince of Naples, appointed
him his primo tenore. Taking advantage of
his residence in the land of song, he com-
menced to study hard, and Overcame many of
his deficiencies under the friendly advice and
hints of his friend the tenor Ansoni. With a
happily balanced mind, in which both theory
GARCIA 4 I
and practice found their legitimate sphere,
Garcia was perhaps the first to study the action
of the throat from a physiological point of view
and to elaborate a system based on anatomical
considerations. In 1812 his opera // Califo di
Bagdad was performed in Naples with great
Success ; and in 1815 so great a name had he
made that Rossini wrote a part for him in
Elisaffetta, and further confided to him the part
of Almaviva in ZZ Baróiere, which Garcia sang
in Rome.
In 1816, Catalani, then manager of the
Théâtre Italien in Paris, appointed him as primo
Żemore, when his répezzoáre consisted of Così fan
Tutte, Grise/da, // Califo di Bagdad, AVogge di
Aigaro, and L’Italiana in Algeri ; they were as
many successes, especially the first named, which
created quite a furore. But here, unfortunately,
that jealousy so prevalent amongst musicians,
whether vocal or instrumental, asserted itself.
Catalani was the culprit, and her jealousy found
vent in the most trivial objections, calculated
Only to annoy and disturb the sensitive mind
of Garcia, who left Paris abruptly for London.
In London he sang in Barbiere and many
Other operas. He would have been better ap-
preciated in the English capital had not Lord
Mount-Edgcumbe, then looked upon as a
42 THE GREAT SINGERS
judge of vocalism, taken exception to the
quality of his voice. He returned to Paris,
where he remained for five years, and these
five years may be considered as the most im-
portant in his career. Besides increasing his
reputation as a singer, and particularly as an
actor, he created for himself a great name as
a teacher of singing, a reputation that will
never pale—his own daughter, Maria Malibran,
being then a living proof of how system may
triumph over physical obstacles. But for the
constant and unremitting attention of her father,
it must be considered doubtful whether Mali-
bran would ever have developed that magnifi-
cent voice that charmed the world. When he
returned to London in 1824, having for his
object the début of his daughter Maria, whose
education was then complete, he obtained such
a reputation as a teacher that at times as many
as eighty pupils were waiting their turns for a
lesson.
We now come to the most important period
in his life, viz. his introduction of Italian
opera into America. In 1825, accompanied by
his family, together with Cruvelli, Angrisani,
and Rosich, the others being of minor import-
ance, he opened in New York in Ofello, and
afterwards produced Romeo, ZZ Turco in Italia,
GARCIA 43
Don Giovannā, and other operas. His success
was assured, and his reception most flattering,
but the trying climate affected the voice of the
singers, and the marriage of his daughter to M.
Malibran deprived the company of their chief
Support. Undaunted, however, Garcia made
arrangements to proceed Southwards and to
give the same operas in Mexico, which entailed
upon him the laborious task of translating the
libretti into Spanish, so as to make them
intelligible to his public. His success was
phenomenal, for he remained eighteen months
in the city of Mexico, giving opera three times
a week. About this time Garcia began to feel
the effects of his laborious existence, and, having
made an ample fortune, he determined to retire.
Accordingly he made his arrangements to em-
bark from Vera Cruz. Knowing the lawless
state of the country, then infested with roving
bands of marauders, he hired a body-guard; but
even this precaution failed to prevent his being
attacked and despoiled of the greater part of
his fortune. Thus the American tour became a
disastrous failure; the money, so hardly earned,
was gone beyond redemption, added to which his
daughter had concluded a most unhappy mar-
riage, and an indemnification, promised Garcia
by M. Malibran for the loss of his daughter's
44 THE GREAT SINGERS
services, was sunk in the latter's bankruptcy,
which took place shortly after the marriage.
To an ordinary man so severe a blow would
have been annihilation. Not So Garcia ; his
energy and indomitable courage rose to the
situation, so many proofs of which he had given
during his long struggle in life. Undismayed
by misfortunes that would have paralysed most
men, Garcia at once made up his mind to face
the heavy blow he had received with that energy
and indomitable courage for which he was so
conspicuous. Arrived in Paris, he at once com-
menced to resume his singing-lessons, and very
Soon ascertained that his absence in America
had in no way disturbed the reputation he had
earned as a maestro. Pupils flocked to him by
the dozen, and after three years' hard work
he found himself in comfortable circumstances.
But more trouble was to follow him : a blow
was to be struck which he ought to have antici-
pated must come in the ordinary course of
nature. He determined to reappear in Opera,
and essayed one of his old rôles in Barbiere ;
but, alas ! it was only to ascertain that he had
lost his voice for ever. Oh the anguish of
that moment l Can any one portray it? Is it
possible that a pen can be found to describe
the feelings of a great artist who discovers that
GARCIA 45
his very soul is dead within him, that a part of
his life is buried, and consolation only to be
found in triumphs of the past? For some time
Garcia refused to be consoled ; the affection and
sympathy of his son and his daughter Pauline
in no wise soothed his terrible dejection ; he was
absolutely stunned by the catastrophe. Time,
however, that soother of cares, at last effected
a change, and Garcia consented to resume his
lessons; but the old vigour and energy had
gone, and at the age of fifty-seven, in the year
I832, he passed away.
As a singer and actor Garcia possessed merits
of no common order ; his passionate nature was
calculated to carry his audience with him. In
music he was well versed, though often too
much given to fioriture, a fault which was also
laid at the door of Malibran, and doubtless
contracted from her father. As a composer he
was more prolific than successful, only two of
his works, the Contračandista and // Califo,
making a sufficient impression to be still pre-
served in the musical world. But as a teacher
no one has ever surpassed him ; to be a pupil
of Garcia's was to be a success, for if he found
there was no talent or no voice in his pupils, he
at once gave them up ; his memory will Outlive
that of many celebrated musicians, and the
46 THE GREAT SINGERS
triumphs of his pupils—Rimbault, Ruiz-Garcia,
Méric-Lalande, Favelli, Merlin, Nourrit, and
Géraldy, above all his son Manuel and his
daughters Malibran and Viardot-Garcia—are
so many laurels in their master's wreath of
glory.
In private life he was known to possess an un-
governable temper, which caused most lament-
able scenes in his family. One evening, whilst
playing Otello in New York to his daughter's
Desdemona, he had occasion to find fault with
her acting, and he had, in his rage, threatened
to kill her unless she improved; the next even-
ing something further excited his anger, and in
the last act he pursued her with such fury that
she called out to him in Spanish, “Papa, don't
kill me.’ Malibran is dead ; his son Manuel is
a professor of singing perhaps superior to his
father ; whilst Pauline Viardot-Garcia, a singer
of the greatest excellence and pianiste of con-
spicuous ability, resides in Berlin.
G I U G L I N I
18—1-1865
BELL is tolling at Pesaro; it rings mourn-
fully under the vault of the clear blue sky.
The requiem is accompanied by the low songs
of the birds, and the murmur of leaves gently
moved by a soft autumn wind. In a long, low
white villa roofed with red tiles, and covered
with vine and honeysuckle, lies the dead body
of Giuglini, who but a few months ago was the
rage of European Society. A tenor of Surpass-
ing sweetness, though lacking in volume, it
was Mr. Mapleson who first introduced the hand-
some young Italian to the British public at Her
Majesty's Theatre, in 1857. Poor old theatre
As I passed it the other day, it seemed to me as
if each brick ruthlessly hurled to the ground by
the unsparing pickaxe was a tear shed to the
memory of the departed great artists who had
signalised their triumphs there, amongst whom
we may certainly place Giuglini. What the
*No record of the date of Giuglini’s birth is to be found.
47
48 THE GREAT SINGERS
causes were which upset the balance of this
great tenor's mind no one seems to have
fathomed, but it is certain that when he died
at Pesaro he was insane. Evidently the germs
of insanity were apparent on his return to
London from his last engagement in Russia.
Whether his engagement in St. Petersburg, in
1864, to sing the rôle of Faust in the opera of
that name had hastened or caused this sudden
attack of insanity is difficult to determine. Mr.
Mapleson, under whose management he last
appeared, tells the following story:—‘Prior to
the close of the London season of 1864, Giuglini
signed an engagement for St. Petersburg, re-
ceiving a large honorarium for his services.
Regarding himself as the only representative of
Faust, he had not taken the precaution of
stipulating for his appearance in this, or indeed
any other part in his répertoire. On his arrival
he was much mortified to find the Covent
Garden artists, of whom there were several,
always working and intriguing together ; and to
Giuglini's great dismay the part of Faust was
assigned to Signor Tamberlik, Patti being the
Margherita and Nantier-Didiée the Siebel.
Now passed some two or three weeks before
Giuglini could obtain a début. One afternoon,
about three o'clock, he was informed by the
GIU GLINI 49
intendant that he was called upon to perform
the rôle of Faust, Tamberlik being suddenly
taken ill. This was indeed good news, and he
set about arranging his costumes and looking
over music. Towards six o'clock he heard it
rumoured that Madame Patti would be too
indisposed to sing, and that some débutante
would sing Margherita. This thoroughly un-
nerved him, and he himself became indisposed,
which he at once notified to the intendant. At
the advice of his friends he was induced to take
a walk and pay a visit to Some acquaintances to
spend the evening.
‘About ten o'clock the door was rudely opened
without any warning, and an employé entered,
accompanied by two officials, one of whom
politely raised his hat and said, “Signor Giuglini,
I believe º’ to which the Signor replied in the
affirmative. They thereupon immediately left.
Nothing more was heard about the matter until
about a fortnight afterwards. It being pay-day
for the principal artists, that afternoon the
Imperial Treasurer called at Giuglini's house
with a roll of rouble notes, requesting him to
sign a receipt for his month's pay, which Giuglini
at once did. But on leaving the treasurer begged
to draw his attention to the notes, as a deduction
of 6 I5O had been made from his monthly stipend
WOL. III. D
5o THE GREAT SINGERS
in consequence of his having left the house on
the day he was reported to be indisposed. He
got into a towering rage, requesting the balance
to be handed to him, as he was allowed certain
days of indisposition according to the terms of
his contract. The treasurer replied that, accord-
ing to the provisions of that clause, he should
have remained in his house on the day of his
reported illness. The arguments became very
warm, and Giuglini in a fit of rage threw the
whole bundle of rouble notes into the fire, and
from that moment his reason seemed to have
left him.’
From this we may gather that at no time
during his artistic career was Giuglini absolutely
Sane, and that the malady was increased and
fed by the nervous excitement entailed by his
short but brilliant career. We have no bio-
grapher who has given the early life of Giuglini,
or what his antecedents were before he made
his brilliant entry on the operatic stage. What
his voice lacked in carrying power was made up
for by the sweetness of its tone. His dramatic
power was weak, but here again he made up for
the deficiency by his elegance of manner and
handsome person. Perhaps his best opera was
Faust, and long will he be remembered in that
rôle when he sang it with Titiens and Patti.
G R IS I
1811-1869
HE eyes shining out eloquently beneath
their broad brows and full lids, proclaim-
ing dramatic passion ; the finely-moulded lips,
replete with sweetness and sympathy; while
the nose and forehead conform in their display
of intellectual power and firmness of purpose.
The cheeks and chin are moulded in womanly
lines; the whole noble head, framed in its
coronal of dark abundant tresses, set off by the
graceful throat and shoulders with their orna-
mentation of pearls and lace draperies, forms a
fascinating portrait of the great singer in the
full splendour of her prime. The bold yet
elegant superscription beneath the picture is a
ready index to the character of one who wore
the laurel of dramatic Songstress for more than
a quarter of a century.
Another portrait displays the great singer later
in life, wherein the eyes have lost much of their
bold fire, but gained in introspection ; the brow
51
52 THE GREAT SINGERS
is still as serene, but the handsome mouth has
taken upon itself tender curves, their fulness,
drooping lines, wherein is written the history of
motherly cares; the same rich chain of pearls
encircles the throat, but the coquetry of the
early portrait has given place to the dignity of
the matron, still wearing the laurel of fame, but
with chastened grandeur.
A thoroughly womanly woman, she charmed
by her grace of manner, while she enthralled
the world by her phenomenal gift of song. As
a lyric actress she towered above all her con-
temporaries, even the peerless Malibran.
‘There are certain striking features in every
one of her impersonations, to forget which is
utterly impossible,” wrote a friend and critic in
the Times, when the news of her death reached
London, “for those who are able to feel and
appreciate such traits in the exhibition of vocal
and dramatic art which can proceed from
genius alone. She was equally admirable in lyric
tragedy, lyric comedy, and lyric melodrama ;
such traits were as plentiful as with less gifted
artists they are rare.” She combined with this
remarkable versatility a capacity for study and
love of improvement in her art truly wonderful,
an example by which many of the young
singers of to-day might profit were they to lay
GRISI 53
it to heart; in fact, her whole artistic life was
one of constant effort to attain perfection. No
vocalisation was too trivial for her careful study,
no part beneath her creative instinct. She loved
her public with a devotion amounting to rever-
ence; with the veneration of a priestess she
made her offering of song at the altar of art;
her profession was to her a holy duty. Alas !
how few there are who to-day sanctify their art
to so high a degree And her public loved her,
adored her, in return. England, above all other
countries, cherished her even in the waning
years of her glory; they still worshipped the
setting sun in gratitude for the memory of its
meridian of golden Splendour. ‘Again and again
she said Addio / but she was perpetually coming
back,' writes one who knew her well, ‘happy in
being allowed to sing before her old worshippers,
in a concert-room, even the simple ballad of
Home, Sweet Home.’ Her noble appreciation of
the public was strikingly shown in her unvarying
promptitude to keep her part in the fulfilment
of their pleasures; she rarely disappointed
them ; ill or well she was ready to appear when
announced. The public knew they were sure
of her, and sought the opera in a comfortable
State of confidence that no sudden announce-
ment of change of bill would confront them, as
54 THE GREAT SINGERS
in the case of more than one capricious prima
donna of those days.
Giulia Grisi, the daughter of Gaetano Grisi,
an officer of engineers under Napoleon, was
born in 1812. The tastes of the family
were decidedly musical and artistic, the father
having dramatic ability, and the mother taking
delight in vocal work. An elder sister, who
was born in 1805 and died in 1840, was a
singer of considerable ability and fame ; but
the name of Grisi, as known to the world, was
made famous by the celebrated Giulia. Grisi
was the niece of the famous Grassini, and a
cousin, Carlotta Grisi, was distinguished as a
danseuse.
Giulia's vocal talent manifested itself at a
very early period, and it was carefully fostered
and cultivated by her sister Giudetta. Her
subsequent teachers were Filippo Celli, Madame
Boccabadati, and Guglielmi. At the age of
seventeen she made her début at Bologna,
creating a very favourable impression, and
raising glowing hopes about her future. Her
voice and personal charms were both pro-
nounced to be eminently distinctive, and the
grace of her style, and promising dramatic
force of her acting, at once secured the sym-
pathy of the audience. Like Pasta, she carried
GRISI 55
off a moderate stature by a noble carriage and
handsome features, which expressed an intel-
lectual variety and a charming individuality.
Indeed, she is said to have presented the
appearance of a still handsomer Pasta, to whom
she was akin in dramatic genius and fire. Her
progress was unusually rapid. In a year after
her début Rossini predicted a great future for
her. Curious to relate, though she possessed
a voice of surpassing richness and flexibility,
her friends coldly declared that she had no
talent for music, and she herself admitted that
she owed the bent of her musical development
to Giaccometti, her teacher at Bologna, who first
discovered and drew out her latent powers, and
foresaw her future distinction on the lyric stage.
He procured her an engagement during the
Carnival to appear in several Operas, including
IZ Aaróżere and Sposa di Provincia.
At the conclusion of a short engagement at
Florence, Grisi appeared at La Scala in Milan,
where she met the glorious Pasta, then at the
zenith of her splendid career, who aided her
with counsel and instruction. She also attended
to a course of study under the tuition of
Mariani, and was further aided by Rossini and
Bellini. Rossini was exceedingly gracious to
the fair young aspirant, and Bellini recognised
!
56 THE GREAT SINGERS
the higher instincts of the artist who, long
afterwards, in conjunction with Pasta, saved
Morma from the repulse of a cold and un-
discerning public.
Grisi passed over to Paris, where the influence
of her friends and the patronage of Rossini, the
director, soon procured her an engagement at
the Opera, where she made her first appearance
in the title-rôle of Rossini's new opera, Semi-
ramezale. She was supported by Eckerlin and
Tamburini, and her recognition was immediate
and wholly triumphant. For nearly thirty
years—dating from 1832—she was engaged as
prima donna assoluta. Pasta had retired, and
Grisi reigned without a rival. -
In 1834 she made her first appearance in
London in La Gazza Zadra ; but her principal
triumph was achieved in Anna Bolema, in which
opera she had the co-operation of Lablache and
Rubini. This was the period of phenomenal
casts. The celebrated quartett of Grisi, Lablache,
Tamburini, and Rubini was world-renowned ;
and, indeed, such a powerful combination would
be impossible in the present day. Composers
who were sure of their works finding such in-
terpreters had the noblest incentive to produc-
tion. Happily the pernicious practice of writing
for individual singers has ceased ; but in those
GRISI 57
days the cast appears to have been fully as
important as the libretto. Perhaps more operas
were written for Grisi than for any other can-
tatrice.
Grisi was extremely popular in London, and
she had quite an affectionate regard for the
English capital, where she became a persona
grata of the operatic stage. The great quartett
lasted for some time. A substitute was found
at the defection of Rubini; but when Lablache
and Tamburini fell out there were no reserves to
draw upon. The quartett dwindled to a duett;
but the duett of Mario and Grisi became equally
famous. These delightful artistes are now in-
variably associated together. Heine coupled
them in a poetic simile as ‘the rose, the nightin-
gale among flowers, and the nightingale, the
rose among birds.” In 1854 the two artistes are
again jointly referred to by Heine, after their
return from America. “The nightingales,” he
says, “though sadly deficient in voice and fresh-
ness, have yet had a plentiful harvest of metal.’
Between 1834 and 1861 Grisi only missed
One season in London. Her health was robust,
and enabled her to undergo severe and repeated
exertions, but her voice was giving evidence of
the ravages of time. Mario, too, showed indica-
tions of vocal decline. However, despite the
58 THE GREAT SINGERS
headshaking of well-disposed friends and a few
seceders, both artistes continued to hold the
public with a spell which their splendid
dramatic gifts, added to so much grace and
beauty, sufficed to maintain.
At Paris the public were less indulgent,
though they never inflicted entire defeat upon
the couple ; but at Madrid in 1859 Grisi was
received very coldly, and at once relinquished
her engagement.
Rest was prescribed. In 1861 Mr. Gye,
Director of the Royal Italian Opera, proposed
a contract stipulating that Grisi should not
appear in public for five years; and it was
thought that Grisi could embrace this oppor-
tunity of needful rest. But inaction chafed the
spirit of Grisi; and the conditions acted like a
curb on her nature. As soon as the term had
expired she surprised the public by appearing
at Her Majesty's Theatre in Zucrezia Borgia.
The performance was a comparative failure.
The great singer, whose voice had evoked the
adoration of two continents, was a vocal wreck
and a source of grief to her friends. She
withdrew from the opera, but continued to
sing at occasional concerts with undiminished
popularity.
Grisi was married in 1836 to the Count de
GRISI 59
Melcy, but the union proved a most unhappy
one. A warm attachment sprang up between
her and Mario, and received the sanction of the
Church after she had succeeded in procuring a
divorce from her first husband. By Mario she
had six daughters, three of whom died in youth,
while three were married. The Emperor
Nicholas jestingly referred to them as ‘grisettes.’
‘Pardon me, sire,’ was the humorous repartee,
‘they are marionettes.’
Her splendid voice, in its prime, had no flaw,
and her superb histrionic talent added lustre to
the brightest laurels of the lyric stage.
In 1869 Grisi set out for St. Petersburg to
join Mario, with whom she intended to return
to London. At Berlin she was seized with an
attack of inflammation of the lungs, and after
a few days' illness she died on November 29th.
Her remains, enclosed in a crystal casket,
with an outer case of oak and a third coffin of
lead, each being of superb workmanship, and
the set costing I 5,OOO francs, were interred at
the cemetery of Père Lachaise in Paris. Mario
and his daughters were in waiting, on December
2nd, to receive the mournful burden, which was
carried by train from Cologne; and a large
procession followed the funeral cortège to the
grave. The outer coffin was richly decorated
6o THE GREAT SINGERS
with ornaments cast in bronze, a wreath lay
upon each corner, and at the head a crown of
thorns. By the side of her two daughters lies
all that is mortal of the once peerless Grisi,
whose beautiful genius, graced and developed
by art and culture, gave light, music, and bril-
liance to the stage, and swayed to ecstasy the
emotions of two continents.
H A Y E S
18251-1861
NOTE of sadness swept over the musical
world when the Irish Songbird spread
her wings and soared into the unknown realms
of death : a note of sadness prolonged and
bitter in her own beloved Ireland, where she
was worshipped not only for her wonderful gift
of song but also for her beautiful character as
a woman, one in whom shone all those virtues
for which Irishwomen are renowned all the
world over—modesty, simplicity, and affection.
She was essentially a ballad singer—that most
difficult of musical specialties, wherein art and
natural expression are curiously blended, and
the highest cultivation of the voice concealed
under a style of phrasing apparently simple and
unstudied. As a singer of national Songs,
especially those of Ireland, she was unrivalled in
her day. In music of this class her pure and
lovely voice, untrammelled by the over-cul-
* Or 1824.
61
62 THE GREAT SINGERS
tivation of the ornate Italian school, was truly
exquisite. Those “wood-notes wild” gushed
forth with a depth of emotion in their cadences
that carried the hearts of her hearers with her.
She was intensely Irish in her enthusiasm and
impulsive warmth of heart, and she possessed
the power to imbue her song with the same
stirring feeling, although never sacrificing her
sense of the truth and beauty of her art to
popular Success.
Catherine Hayes was born at Limerick in
the year 1825, of worthy though humble
parents. Her musical talents were early de-
veloped, especially those pertaining to the voice.
She could sing any melody, no matter how
difficult, by what is termed “by ear,' when she
was quite a little child. Her sense of musical
perception was so acute that she would imitate
the warble of the birds almost before she learned
to speak. Very naturally the parents, with true
Irish love of the marvellous, were prodigiously
proud of their little one's gifts, and spared no
effort in training the little child as far as their
crude and limited resources would permit.
They taught her all the wild and beautiful
song-lore of the people, and to that early
training and natural inspiration Catherine
Hayes no doubt owed much of the wonderful
HAYES 63
power of her song in the years of her fame
and success. The renown of the young singer
Soon spread far and wide, and Dr. Knox, the
Bishop of Limerick in those days, favoured the
rising singer with his patronage. Her father's
cottage was situated on the banks of the
Shannon, and an arbour close to the river's
edge was the favourite retreat of Catherine,
where she would pass her leisure in a delightful
abandonment to music. Thinking she was
alone, she would sing freely and passionately all
her little répertoire. But the noble river soon
betrayed her secret. Pleasure-seekers idly
drifting along its surface in the distance
caught the echoes of those wild-bird notes, and
Sought the spot from whence they came, to listen
silently and as silently float away when the
music ceased. One evening the good Bishop
formed one of a party rowing on the river,
when the clear notes attracted their attention ;
drawing near the shore, they listened in silence
until a prolonged and perfect trill, with which
she finished her song, wrung from them a burst
of applause. The story goes on to state that
from that moment the fortune of the young
singer was made ; invitations from the Bishop
and other prominent people followed, and funds
were soon obtained to procure for her the
64 THE GREAT SINGERS
necessary instruction. She went to Dublin to
study under a famous master; thence to Paris,
where she studied under Manuel Garcia, the
master of Malibran and Jenny Lind. Here
difficulties first arose, partly due to her wild
erratic genius, which could not at once
bend itself to systematic study, and partly to
that sensitive nature for which the Irish race
are remarkable, which could not brook the
harsh method of the great master. But, stern
taskmaster though he was, the young singer
dared to do with Garcia what no one ever
attempted before—she laughed at him. “Don’t
you like my voice P’ No response from the
master but a muttered Spanish imprecation.
“Very well,’ quoth the young singer, with a
burst of national unreasonableness; “I dare say
some one else will teach me. I please the
public; what more do you want? I am only
an Irish girl ; perhaps if I had a Spanish or
Italian name I should please you better.' And
thus she left Garcia and went to Milan, where
she placed herself under the milder rule of
Ronconi. She made her début at Marseilles in
Aurigan? with such success that she was called
twelve times before the Curtain. Afterwards
she appeared at La Scala as prima donna in
the character of Linda de Chamouni. From
HAYES 65
Milan she went to Vienna, thence to Venice
and to the principal Italian cities, in all of
which she was very successful. On the Ioth of
April 1849 she made her first appearance in
London at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent
Garden. Her success was great—very great,
indeed, when we take into consideration the
fact that she had to compete with the fame of
such singers as Pasta, Grisi, and Jenny Lind, in
the glory of whose renown the merits of a
native singer, no matter how high, were sure to
pale. Here is an extract from The Times
(London) of April I Ith, 1849:- Miss Catherine
Hayes, an Irishwoman by birth, has for a
considerable period enjoyed a high reputation
in Italy, and has been the chief support of the
Scala at Milan. Her voice is a soprano, not
remarkable for power but of a very sweet
quality throughout, and capable of telling
without the slightest effort. Miss Hayes's
style of singing is artistic and graceful ; she
never forces her voice, but has abundance of
energy at command, which she uses legitimately
and without any tendency to exaggeration. In
the first scene the uproarious welcome which
she received from the audience appeared to
Overcome her altogether, and it was not until
near the end of the well-known cavatina, ‘O /uce
VOL. III. E
66 THE GREAT SINGERS
dź quest' anima,’ that she entirely recovered
her presence of mind. Here, however, an
elegant cadenza introducing a clever and well-
executed shake gained her a great applause
and restored her confidence, and enabled
her to repeat the cabaletta, with double effect.
Her next hit was in the duett with Carlo. This
was given so effectively by both singers that it
was unanimously redemanded. In the grand
scene with Antonia, Miss Hayes was excellent;
and the mad Scene that follows was sung with
admirable effect, especially the well-known
bravura passage, “Mon e ver, where her exe-
cution of the chromatic passages was perfect,
and the ascending trait with the violins at the
end was accomplished with remarkable decision
and brilliancy. In this, as well as in the last
scene, Miss Hayes gave evidence of a great
deal of dramatic feeling and a thorough
familiarity with stage effect. Nothing could be
warmer or more unanimous than her reception
by the audience, who applauded her enthusias-
tically and recalled her before the footlights
after every act. A part of these manifestations
may be possibly attributed to the fact of Miss
Hayes being a countrywoman; but the almost
unanimous feeling in the lobbies between the
acts, where often the truth is whispered that
HAYES 67
finds no expression during the performance,
was that her success was thoroughly deserved.’
It is but just to the fame of a great singer,
which some biographers have sought to de-
preciate, to chronicle this incontestable proof of
her abilities as a musician and artist on One
of the most trying occasions of her career. One
biographer has written that ‘she enjoyed a
period of fair success,’ and that “her voice was
beautiful, but she was an imperfect musician
and did not study.' Surely a most unjust
criticism in face of the foregoing from the
columns of the most Severely critical journal
of London at that time. An artist who could
shine in such rôles as Linda, Lucia, and
Armina in Sonmamöula was assuredly a musician;
and no better proof of study could be desired
than the fact that she sang those different rôles
with great success in Italy, the very birthplace
of Opera.
Lumley, in his Aeminiscences, speaks of the
début of Catherine Hayes, ‘an English vocalist
of great and well deserved celebrity, in Zucia,
with Sims Reeves in the part of Edgardo.
The supporters of “native talent,” who formed a
small popular party of their own in opposition
to its detractors at all ventures, had here an
opportunity of greeting two native singers on
68 THE GREAT SINGERS
the same boards in Italian opera, and certainly
must have enjoyed a well-won triumph for
their cause.’
Many triumphs gilded by fortune fell to her
lot in Australia and America. While in Ireland
her course was one triumphant ovation. On the
return from her great musical tour she married
Mr. Bushnell, an estimable gentleman, who
died shortly afterwards in the Pyrenees, of
rapid consumption, a malady to which the
great Irish singer at last succumbed when in
the prime of life. She died at Sydenham on
the 5th of August 1861.
“In Catherine Hayes,' writes a London
chronicler of her death, ‘Ireland has lost one
of the sweetest singers of its national airs. A
daughter of the sister isle, she was thoroughly
imbued with its melody, and it was in the al-
ternately wild and tender melodies which have
inspired so many poets—and foremost among
them Thomas Moore, whose Irish Melodies
more than anything else that fell from his
pen proclaim his genius and perpetuate his
name—that her genial warmth of expression
found its highest medium of display. As a
singer of this particular class of music she was
probably unsurpassed. It was here, far more
than in the Italian vocalisation of which she
HAYES 69
had made herself an accomplished adept, that
Catherine Hayes possessed the secret to charm
a crowd. In her own country she had but to
give a national air and hold the audience spell-
bound ; and no wonder, for surely the best
judges of what is perfect Irish ballad-singing
are the Irish people themselves.’
All honour to the poor Irish girl who sprang
from the people and attained such heights of
artistic and Social renown. May her memory
ever remain as green as the hills and valleys of
her own beloved Ireland
L A B L A C H E
1794-1858
GREAT heart in a great body, a great
Soul in a great voice, and we have in a
sentence the history of Lablache. Two repre-
sentatives of the most fervid, poetical, and
impressionable of races, a Frenchman and an
Irishwoman, gave to the world this prince of
bassos. Tradition teems with charming anec-
dotes of his wit, his genius, and his generosity;
and here let me relate a touching instance told
me by one who was a witness of the great
singer's quixotic act of kindness.
One night while taking his accustomed walk
of exercise after the opera, enjoying his solitary
cigar and cogitations, the great artist came
Suddenly upon a ragged street singer, trolling
out his miserable song and disturbing the
harmony of the peaceful moonlight night.
Lablache, impatient of so rude an interruption
to his thoughts, and disgusted by the efforts of
the desecrator of music, strode up to the beggar
70
LABLACHE 71
in order to bid him cease his mournful attempts
at song. A glance revealed to him that the
singer was old, decrepit, and trembling with
exhaustion. In a moment the ill-humour of
Lablache changed to pity, and addressing the
man, who was evidently frightened by the for-
midable size of his interlocutor, he very gently
said: ‘Why do you make such a noise, my
friend ? what can I do to help you?”
“Nothing, monsieur,” answered the man with
a sad attempt at dignity. “I don't beg; I sing
for the few sous thrown from those who care to
listen.’
“Oh ho!’ exclaimed Lablache with assumed
irony, ‘then, since you succeed so badly, let me
assist you !’
Whereupon the great singer lifted up his
voice in a strain so grand and Sweet that the
poor old man would have fallen at his feet in
the ecstasy of his surprise and joy had not
Lablache supported him. But others heard
him and came trooping from café and restaurant,
lured by the rich and glorious tones. ‘Lablache,
'tis Lablache, whispered the crowd as they
gathered round : one, two, and three chansons
followed, and then the great singer, seizing the
tattered hat of the old man, passed it round.
Gold and silver glittered in the moonlight as
72 THE GREAT SINGERS
they fell into that shabby hat, a fortune for
the miserable votary of music, whom Lablache
placed in a comfortable home with the proceeds
of those few moments of perfect song. The
next day all Paris knew of this latest act of
benevolence of their idol, and very proud
indeed were the witnesses to retail their par-
ticipation in that midnight romance of the
Boulevards.
Rossini, who loved him with an affection as
deep as it was sincere, was very fond of telling
the following story of Lablache's humour. A
provincial rang his bell one day by mistake,
Lablache by some chance opened the door him-
self. “I wish to see Tom Thumb,' said the visitor
in some trepidation. “I am he l’ exclaimed
Lablache in deep overpowering tones. ‘You !’
gasped the other ; ‘but they told me he was a
very little fellow.’ ‘Oh! that is when I perform
in public,’ replied Lablache with an air of
surprise and sincerity, “but I take it easy at
home.’ It appears Tom Thumb really lived in
the house, but in quite another part.
Lablache was born in Naples, December 6,
1794; both father and mother were of foreign
origin. The latter, a native of the Emerald
Isle, probably thought her future assured when
she married the well-to-do merchant, Nicholas
LABLACHE 73
Lablache of Marseilles; but she had reckoned
without the stormy days of the Revolution, which
shattered the fortunes of so many households.
What were the precise political opinions of her
husband has not been placed on record, but
they must have been sufficiently compromising
to cause him to leave the land of his fathers in
I791 and seek a new home in Italy; there he
lived quietly until 1799, when a revolution
broke out at Naples, directed against the
French, which overwhelmed him with ruin.
Broken-hearted by these reverses, he died too
Soon to see the cause of his countrymen
triumphant. The mother and three children
survived to enjoy the protection of Joseph
Bonaparte during the brief period of his rule.
Luigi was placed in the Conservatorio della
Pietà de Turchini, where Gentilli and Valesi
were his teachers in music and singing, while
he had special training in violin and violoncello.
It is remarkable that his voice—at that time
a beautiful soprano—was only treated , as a
secondary consideration, it being the outspoken
intention of his teachers to train him for the
orchestra. For a long time it seemed ex-
tremely doubtful whether he had any calling
for music; as a boy Lablache was anything
but diligent, and expert only in those things
74 THE GREAT SINGERS
calculated to obscure his talents. An accident,
however, revealed to his teachers the excellence
of the material they had in hand. A friend
of the youth, who played the contrabass, was
taken ill and probably in danger of losing his
situation, when Lablache undertook to fill his
post, though he had only a week to learn the
instrument, which was totally new to him. He
Succeeded so well that all doubt of his talents
was removed. A biographer deduces there-
from that he had it in him to succeed as a
virtuOSO on whatever instrument he might have
chosen—an argument it would be difficult to
disprove.
But Lablache had set his mind against the
calling of a musician ; his voice was the only
gift he thought worth cultivating ; and, more
than that, he wished to train it for one purpose
—the stage, and particularly the comic stage—
an intention as agreeable to his tastes as it
was repugnant to the authorities of the Con-
servatorio.
However, before that wish could be carried
out, a momentous change came Over his Organ.
The beautiful soprano for which he was re-
nowned was last heard on a memorable occasion.
Haydn died in 1809, when Lablache was fifteen
years of age. At the performance of Mozart's
LABLACHE 75
A'equiem in honour of the dead master, the
young singer sang the Soli. So much was he
in earnest, when really put to a congenial task,
that he overstrained his voice and became per-
fectly speechless after the performance. Fears
were entertained that the loss of voice might
be permanent, and, indeed, the Soprano was
gone never to return ; but in a few months the
most magnificent bass took its place, and more
than consoled him for the loss of his former
voice.
Speaking of Mozart's Requiem, it is interest-
ing to note that, on a much later Occasion,
Lablache was again a principal performer in it.
It was when Beethoven was carried to his last
rest. On that occasion, not only did he travel
purposely to Vienna for the interment, but
defrayed out of his own pocket the expenses
of the opera singers, and took a leading part
as one of the torch-bearers gathered around
the grave of the great master. So freely was
this acknowledged, that Schubert composed
and dedicated to him three songs set to Italian
words, the only ones written by the composer
in that language.
The new vocal development only increased
Lablache's desire to go on the stage. No doubt
he felt in him the dramatic gifts of which he
76 THE GREAT SINGERS
gave proof in later years. No less than five
times did he run away from the Conservatorio,
only to be recaptured after a short spell of
liberty. He signed an engagement for Salerno,
at about one-and-eightpence a day, the most
tempting feature being the payment of one
month's salary in advance. The possession of
this money turned his head completely ; he
did not leave Naples until he had gone through
all the money, a feat which did not take him
more than two days. When he appeared at
Salerno with a well-filled portmanteau, the
impresario received him kindly, but became
very cool when a few days later a director
of the Conservatorio turned up to reclaim the
truant. Still there were the contents of the
portmanteau to recoup the manager for the
salary advanced; at least So he fondly imagined,
until an inspection proved these contents to
consist of sand. When the number of these
withdrawals had reached five, the Government
thought it necessary to intervene. A law was
passed that no theatre in the kingdom should
engage a pupil of the Conservatorio without
special permission, under a penalty sufficiently
formidable to insure the observance of this
III C2Sl] I’62.
This was effective in returning Lablache to
LABLACHE 77
his studies and preventing him from leaving
the Conservatorio until his time had expired.
When, in 1812, eighteen years old, he had at
last gained that freedom which he had so longed
for, he lost no time in devoting himself to the
career of his choice. His first engagement was
as buffo AWapolitano at the San Carlino Theatre
at Naples, and his début was in La Molinara.
He further increased his connection with the
stage by marrying Teresa Pinotti, the gifted
daughter of a clever actor. Though a marriage
where the early age of eighteen represents all
the wisdom and experience of the husband
Cannot be recommended without reserve, his
was a happy case in point. Lablache, naturally
indolent and devoid of the quality of applica-
tion, needed a stimulating influence to force him
into study; his wife had sufficient judgment
and ambition to see that his talents were wasted
as a suburban buffo. In fact, a man of inferior
physical resource would have probably been
ruined by the strain of two performances per
day. Lablache, easygoing and satisfied with
his present position, was not easily prevailed
upon to sever his connection with the Carlino ;
above all, he dreaded the necessary study of
good Italian to replace the patois which was all
he knew, and all he required so far. But Teresa
78 THE GREAT SINGERS
was determined, and, woman-like, she carried
her point by sheer perseverance.
Accordingly the couple left for Sicily, where
the husband procured without great trouble the
appointment as prºmo &asso cantamäe to the
opera at Palermo. He achieved wonders here
in the part of Ser Marc-Antonio, and his re-
ception by the public was so gratifying that he
made Palermo his home for five years. Gradu-
ally his fame spread beyond the confines of
the island. The directors of La Scala at Milan,
probably the first theatre of Italy, heard of his
voice, and engaged him without hesitation. His
first appearance there was in Cenerentola ; his
acting and singing were excellent, and more
than made up for the faulty pronunciation, which
would have damned any inferior performance.
But Lablache was not blind to his faults, and
soon determined to rectify them. Not unlike
Rossini, he acquired in later life that culture
which want of opportunity and indolence had
prevented him from acquiring during boyhood
and youth. Already, in Naples, he had com-
menced to fill out the lacunae in his education.
Probably his excellent wife gave the impulse
which was enhanced by the advice of a banker's
wife, who had before her marriage been a noted
singer.
LABLACHE 79
The Milan season established the fame of
the singer throughout Europe. Mercadante, at
that time at the height of his fame, wrote Elisa
e Claudio expressly for him. Voyages were
now the only thing needed to make his reputa-
tion universal. Until 1824, his time was divided
between Milan, Turin, and Venice; then, for
the first time, he crossed the Alps, and appeared
in Vienna, where he soon became a prime
favourite. A medal with a flattering inscrip-
tion still bears testimony to the enthusiasm of
the excitable Viennese.
From Vienna he returned to Naples, the
birth-place he had left twelve years ago, and
which he now re-entered as first singer to
Ferdinand I., with an engagement at the San
Carlo. For a number of years he devoted
himself to that theatre, alternating his engage-
ment with frequent tours through Italy, but not
going beyond the boundary of that country.
English and French impresarios tried in
vain to secure him for their theatres. It was
not until 1830 that he appeared in Paris and
London, where he was received with the
greatest admiration. His triumphs were not
limited to his voice ; wherever he appeared
there were enthusiastic and sincere admirers
of his talent for the stage, his striking appear-
8O THE GREAT SINGERS
ance, and his social successes as a finished man
of the world. There were, indeed, competent
critics who doubted whether he was greater as
a singer or as an actor. His head and features
were imposing, his figure tall enough to set off
his bulk. A critic writes: “One of his boots
would have made a portmanteau, one could
have clad a child in one of his gloves.’ His
strength was truly Herculean ; as Leporello
he used to carry off under his arm Masetto,
represented by a fairly powerful man. On one
Occasion he was seen lifting a heavy contrabass
from the Orchestra on to the stage by one
hand, and replacing it without an effort. To
all these accomplishments must be added a
perfect balance of temper and a probity and
broadmindedness not generally met with. His
répez-toire was exceedingly large, ranging from
low comedy to high drama and tragedy. It
was considered an undecided point whether he
was better as Géronimo in ZZ Matrimonzo
segreto and the Podesta in La Gazga Zadra, or
in the serious parts he took in AVorma and
Semiramide, and critics unite in considering
his conception of the rollicking part of Leporello
unique and unrivalled, while, at the same time,
he had great success in the title-róle of Don
Gzovanni.
LABLACHE 8I
In 1833 Lablache paid one last professional
visit to Naples, and received the unbounded
applause of his countrymen as Dulcamara in
L'Elisire d'amore and in Don Pasquale. From
that year he divided his time between London
and Paris, appearing also in some of the grand
oratorio performances for which the English
provincial towns are celebrated. His kindly
disposition was ever exerted on behalf of his
brethren in the theatrical profession. ‘Lablache
acts towards me as a father,’ was the answer of
Jenny Lind to Queen Victoria. At the English
court he was a persona gratissima. Both the
Queen and the Prince Consort distinguished
him, and towards the former and some of her
children he acted for a time as teacher.
In 1852 he accepted an engagement for the
season at St. Petersburg, and created the
greatest possible sensation, but this was his
last regular connection with the stage. Feeling,
perhaps, that his health was giving way, he
retired to his beautiful country seat, Maisons-
Laffitte, near Paris, and henceforth limited his
musical activity to some few lessons and an
occasional reappearance on the boards.
Here he passed some of the happiest moments
of his life. Though his health was giving way,
he felt no suspicion that his days were counted,
WOL. III. F
82 THE GREAT SINGERS
until 1856, when grave disorders in his system
commenced to preoccupy his mind. At Kis-
singen, the watering-place recommended by
his physicians, he met one of his old admirers,
the Emperor Alexander II. of Russia, who
treated him on the most friendly footing. The
appointment as Court singer, and a Russian
decoration, may have gladdened his heart for
the moment, though he felt that he could not
hold them for long. ‘It will be an ornament
for my burial,’ was the sad remark he made to
the Emperor with regard to the Order.
He returned to his French country seat
only to find that his apprehensions were
well-founded. Even the mild air of August
struck chilly on his constitution. A move to
Posilipo, and afterwards to Naples, afforded
only temporary relief. He asked and obtained
the solace of religion administered by an old
comrade who had exchanged the stage for a
convent of Dominicans. On 23rd January
1858 the celebrated singer passed away. He
lies buried at Maisons-Laffitte, whither his
body was removed in terms of his will.
The sisters of Lablache profited from the
high position he had created for himself; one
of them married the Marquis de Braida ; the
other became Abbess of Sessa. Of his sons,
LABLACHE 83
the elder went on the stage, but never got
beyond mediocrity; the youngest is an officer
in the French army; a daughter became the
wife of the celebrated pianist, Thalberg.
Lablache never composed; he left a work
on singing, which is, however, not considered
equal to his great reputation.
The successorship to his fame is, we think,
still open. There has been no want of bassos
of superior excellence, but it must be admitted
that neither for volume of voice nor superior
acting have we yet found his peer.
J E N NY LIN D
1820-1887
HEN we recall the name of Jenny Lind
—a household word familiar in the
mouth—we think of her charming individuality
as a woman, as much as of her great and
enduring fame as an artist. Her fame was
great, her relation to art was of the highest;
but her life was greater and higher than these.
Malibran, Titiens, Nilsson, and Patti are also
familiar names, but their meaning and lustre
belong wholly to the footlights. Jenny Lind
comes home with us, as it were, and touches
our sympathies to a higher issue of praise and
admiration, because, Somehow, we have never
dissociated the unrivalled singer, the cultured
and world-famous artist, from the sterling-
hearted woman whose first thought was for the
claims of humanity, and whose first action was
to give and bestow, to heal and console.
Jenny Lind was born in Sweden, and through
all her wanderings, while bending to the in-
84
JENNY LIND 85
exorable law which forces a great artist to
become a citizen of the world, she ever re-
tained a sense of patriotic devotion towards
the land of her birth. Her parents were in
humble circumstances, and her father is said
to have been the possessor of a good voice, and
was fond of Singing in an amateur way. The
child was endowed with a beautiful voice, the
singular clearness and flexibility of which at-
tracted Considerable local attention, and she ac-
companied all infantile employments with a con-
stant hum of Song. One day, while nursing a cat
at a window, and singing as usual with bird-like
spontaneity and enthusiasm, she attracted the
attention of a passing stranger, who happened
to be the maid of Mademoiselle Lundberg, a
dancer at the Royal Opera. This girl told her
mistress about the child with the most beautiful
voice she had ever heard. “As a child,’ says
the great prima donna, ‘ I sang with every step
I took, and with every jump my feet made.”
The damseuse called on the mother; heard
little Jenny sing, and was delighted beyond
measure. The child was a genius, she declared,
and no time should be lost in preparing her for
the stage. Madame Lind had prejudices
against the stage, and would not hear of the
Suggestion. At length the influence of Croelius,
86 THE GREAT SINGERS
a musician of some repute, and the tears of the
little songstress, overcame the family oppo-
sition. Count Puke, the head of the Royal
Opera, could hardly be prevailed upon to
listen to the trial essay of the ‘small, ugly, broad-
nosed, shy, gauche, undergrown girl' of nine
presented to him by Croelius.
‘This is a theatre,’ he exclaimed in irate
tones, “not a nursery !' He did listen, how-
ever, and to listen was to be conquered. It
was at once decided that the gifted child should
be educated at the expense of the Government;
a course to which the mother gave a reluctant
consent. The Government showed paternal
interest in the little prodigy, and placed her,
Out of deference to the mother's prejudice, with
a number of other pupils, under the charge of
Madame Lind. This well-intended arrange-
ment did not prove successful. The austere
character of Madame Lind, warped by early
misfortunes, was found to be unbearable by the
pupils, and Jenny herself, driven to despair,
took refuge with the theatrical authorities, who
Supported her action. After vexatious legal
proceedings the directors of the theatre were
compelled to restore the child to her mother,
and the breach was healed by the exercise of
due tact and discretion.
JENNY LIND 87
While in the first stage of her career, Jenny
showed histrionic abilities of a high order, and
a drama entitled The Polish Mine, in which she
appeared at the age of ten, was the medium
of her first introduction to the public. The
extraordinary talent displayed by the child in
this and other plays elicited the warmest
eulogy from the press critics. For several years
we hear only of Jenny Lind the actress ; her
vocal talent was not permitted as a tour de force
in public entertainments, but, though kept in
abeyance, it was carefully nurtured under the
able direction of Berg, who succeeded Croelius
as the child's instructor.
A memorable date was March 7th, 1838, a
day which dawned in anxiety and fear and
trembling—never to be forgotten by Jenny
Lind, who celebrated it in after years with tears
of joy and thanksgiving. On the evening of
this day she made her début as a prima donna
at the Royal Opera (Stockholm) in the part of
Agatha in Der Freischiite. She had been care-
fully coached for the part by Madame Eriksen,
to whom she was passionately attached. One
day at rehearsal she put all her soul into the
music; but the teacher for whose approval she
was bidding remained silent. ‘Alas! am I then
So incapable and stupid P’ thought the unhappy
88 THE GREAT SINGERS
aspirant, whose cup of sorrow was overflowing.
She looked up sadly only to find herself in the
embrace of the kind-hearted teacher whose
tears fell thick and fast upon her face. They
were the splendid tears evoked by the noblest
passion of heroic souls. ‘My child,’ said
Eriksen, “I have nothing to teach you.’
Her success was complete. Her triumph
was acclaimed by the critics, who exhausted
the language of panegyric in references to the
beauty of her voice, her admirable method of
production, her execution, the intense feeling
she imparted to her music, and her dramatic
power. Euryanthe, Robert le Diable, and The
Vesta! followed in rapid succession, each opera
adding a new laurel to the crown of the young
prima donna. The best society of the Swedish
capital showered favours upon her, and she won
fresh triumphs in the drawing-room and the
concert hall. New operas were added to her
répertoire. Meyerbeer's Robert had just taken
Paris by storm ; and Jenny Lind—she was
already known to fame by this familiar and
affectionate appellation—performed the part of
Alice no less than sixty times in the northern
city. Probably it has never had a better ex-
ponent ; her lovely voice, eminently suitable for
the music, being supplemented by dramatic
JENNY LIND 89
powers such as have rarely been allied with
high vocal perfection.
A wider sphere for development was felt to
be necessary. Jenny Lind was a true artist,
and did not regard the circumscribed musical
atmosphere of Stockholm as other than a field
of trial. Expansion and development was to
be found in Paris, and under Garcia's instruc-
tion. Acting upon the advice of the tenor
Belletti, her colleague at the Stockholm Opera,
she determined to close her engagement, and
proceed to the French capital. After another
season of incessant work, she made a farewell
bow in AVorma—her 447th appearance on the
stage since she played Angela as a child of
ten.
In Paris she met with failure and disappoint-
ment; but the sequel was beneficial. Her
temperament was highly nervous, and she was
sensitive in the extreme. She broke down
completely at a soirée given by the Duchesse
de Dalmatie, a relation of the Queen of
Sweden, where she first sang in presence of
the redoubtable Garcia. The company present,
though predisposed to favour, was disappointed
by the half-hearted manner in which she sang
Some Swedish songs. The next day Garcia's
verdict was still more unfavourable. During
90 THE GREAT SINGERS
an aria from Zucia, which she had sung forty
times at Stockholm, she succumbed to extreme
nervous excitement. ‘Vous m'aveg plus de voia.’
was the terrible judgment of the creator of
prime donne. Garcia, however, promised an-
Other hearing in six weeks' time on condition
that she did not sing a note in the interval and
spoke as little as possible. After the second
interview, the result of which was more favour-
able, she underwent a course of study, extend-
ing over ten months, under the celebrated
master, and then returned to Stockholm with-
out appearing before the Parisian public. The
Statement that she appeared at the Grand
Opera in Paris and met with a cool reception
is not supported by evidence. Jenny Lind
never appeared in Paris, except at the soirée
mentioned ; in after years she refused the most
flattering proposals to engage for a season in
the French capital.
A period spent in comparative retirement
was followed by an engagement at Berlin, where,
in 1844, Jenny Lind created the leading rôle in
a new opera by Meyerbeer. She looked for-
ward to her début in the great musical centre
with no enviable feelings. Her extreme
nervous depression, however, was allayed by a
cordial reception, and the result of the perform-
JENNY LIND 9I
ance was that she was acclaimed an artist of
European distinction. Among the foreign
impresarios who now hastened to Berlin to
Secure the latest star on any terms was Bunn,
the director of the Drury Lane Theatre, who
had received an intimation of the value of the
great prize from the Earl of Westmorland, the
British Ambassador. A contract was signed,
but its non-fulfilment, owing to ill-health, led to
vexatious litigation, in the course of which the
young prima donna was mulcted in a penalty
of £2500. Bunn did not hesitate to impute
motives of which she was quite incapable.
The plea of the artist that the English language
was too difficult of acquirement in the time
allotted was treated by Mr. Cockburn, counsel
for Bunn, and afterwards Lord Chief-Justice
of England, with supreme insular patriotism
and disdain, ‘considering' that the artist had
succeeded in mastering the ‘jawbreaking'
German language. This is both amusing and
instructive.
Jenny Lind had taken the German heart by
Storm, and her progress through the country
was marked by a succession of enthusiasms
and kindly demonstrations. The art-loving
Prussian king treated her as a friend, and the
entire court lavished upon her affection and
92 THE GREAT SINGERS
distinction. Still she retained her genuine
simplicity of character, a frank womanliness,
unspoiled by flattery, and endued with the
warmest sensibility and artistic sincerity. At
Bonn, amidst the brilliant throngs assembled to
do honour to the memory of Beethoven and
witness the unveiling of his statue, we find her
a central figure; and in the Rhenish towns and
Castles, she forms one of the principal attractions
at the festivals given by the king to his
illustrious guests, the Queen and Prince Consort
of England.
In scenes like this, Jenny Lind found pauses
for reflection of a character which is seldom
associated with stage successes. A strong
feeling of dissatisfied longing for something
higher in life than the applause of excited
multitudes possessed her almost to pain. Art
did not seem to approach its ideal of serene
Song-land, Surrounded by meretricious trappings,
environed by pasteboard pastoral, and tinsel
gossamer, and steeped in limelight and Greek
fire. In the midst of these triumphs, which
were even eclipsed by her appearance in Der
Frezschii/3 during the second Berlin season, we
find the first indication of a desire to quit the
glitter and publicity of the stage, which she
could not reconcile with her love of nature and
JENNY LIND 93
simplicity, the feeling of true sentiment and
solitude, upon which the higher artistic instinct
leans, and which is a conspicuous feature in the
art temperament of northern races. True art
is religious; and the expression of the highest
music can only be profaned by the addition of
Scenic illusion. This conviction grew upon her,
and fixed her ultimate resolve to dissociate
herself from the theatrical sphere of music.
The thought began to simmer ; but did not
take final shape yet awhile.
To know Mendelssohn and not sing at the
Gewandhaus concerts was impossible—almost
unimaginable in the case of Jenny Lind. Ah !
that was a great evening at Leipzig—the eighth
concert of 1845. There was a programme of
giants; dishes concocted by Mozart and Weber
were served up by Jenny Lind, Joachim, and
that splendid orchestra which, for collective and
individual excellence, could not have been
matched in the world. Four times the number
of available seats were applied for. Instead of
taking a proposed benefit, Our charming young
artist and noble-minded woman devoted one
concert to the Widows’ Fund. The result was
magnificent ; and, indeed, the returns for the
entire series were unprecedented. Prudent
Leipzig, economic Leipzig, was unhinged to the
94 THE GREAT SINGERS
verge of wild extravagance. Five thalers for a
ticket of the nominal value of one and a third
was an act of musical dissipation which even
the richest would have hesitated to commit
under ordinary circumstances ; but a visit from
Jenny Lind could not be classed among ordinary
OCCUI11 e11CeS.
At Berlin, again, she eclipsed all former
triumphs. The dear public would never tire of
her. She was a public character as distinct as
royalty, and much more interesting ; of infinite
charm of style, adorned by the muses and the
graces with the compact and all-commanding
sparkle of true genius allied with reverence;
fulfilling the Laureate's description completely,
if the substitution in the verses of a quality
for an accomplishment will not be deemed
Sacrilegious :
‘Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam
Of reverence, dear to Science, dear to Art’:
a quality evidently wisely appreciated by all
good Berliners, and one which is, indeed, the
key-note of Teutonic genius, distinguishing it
beyond all other. The Huguenots, performed as
never before in Berlin, was followed by Spon-
tini’s Vestale, in which the artist exceeded the
anticipations of old playgoers brimming over
JENNY LIND 95
with memories of Milder-Hauptmann and
Schröder-Devrient.
Before proceeding to Vienna she sang at a
Gewandhaus concert at Leipzig, this time for
her own benefit, assisted, among others, by
Mendelssohn, David, and Clara Schumann. At
Vienna, for the first time, Jenny was timid and
frightened ; no amount of effort and experience,
no number of triumphs, could serve to obliterate
the native modesty of her character. She
alarmed the director of the Theater an der
Wien by expressing an opinion that her voice
would not fill the building. This feeling grew
upon her, and she refused to sing. From this
awful dilemma Hauser, a friend of Mendelssohn,
rescued the director by a judicious appeal to
her good-nature. Jenny Lind was never vainly
capricious; she was merely modest, sensitive,
and diffident, never valuing her magnificent
powers after the fashion of spoiled prime
donme, who sometimes delight in capricious
vagaries which torture unfortunate managers
and insult the public. Timid, sensitive, shrink-
ing under an overwhelming sense of undue
responsibility, she sometimes allowed an ima-
ginary difficulty to fill the place created by
nervous apprehension ; but the slightest fillip
to her humanity roused an antagonism to self
96 THE GREAT SINGERS
which transformed her phantom fears into
powers wielded by a Superior nature, at once
strong and noble. Her fears about filling the
hall with her voice were groundless; she filled
it as easily as she conquered the-at first shy
and cold—Viennese public by her magnificent
performance of Norma, before which the serried
phalanx of Opposition and the machinations of
intriguing rivals melted like Snow on mountain
summits before the noontide sun.
From the Mendelssohn correspondence, about
this time, we find that the great composer,
attracted by the genius of the great singer, was
thinking out an Opera to be a monument to
them both. Jenny Lind was charmed with the
idea, and Madame Birch-Pfeiffer was asked to
supply the libretto. Unfortunately, the master
was carried off before the idea took shape and
Substance.
In the meantime, negotiations with Lumley,
manager of Her Majesty's Italian Opera, for
Jenny Lind's appearance in London were only
retarded by fears arising Out of the vindictive
proceedings of Bunn. Liberal terms were
offered. All her friends, Mendelssohn included,
urged her to visit London. The opera there
was literally on its last legs, and it was a
question of life and death significance to the
JENNY LIND 97
management. The famous artist looked favour-
ably on the proposal ; but the lawsuit with
Bunn, hanging like a black shadow across her
mind, terrified her. Eminent counsel's opinion
showed that her case was good, and that the
absurd threat of Bunn to have her imprisoned
was quite beyond the question. But Jenny was
nothing if not timid and nervous ; her fears
were not to be battled down easily. An offer
to compromise the affair by payment of two
thousand pounds, indignantly refused by Bunn,
seemed to her as a confirmation of his intention
to do the worst. All her letters during those
dark days speak with terror of the impending
voyage. At last, however, she was prevailed
upon to brave the dungeons held out pro-
spectively by her enemy, and to rescue the
Italian Opera from bankruptcy.
It is needless to describe the enthusiasm she
raised among all classes of London Society. In
this respect the English capital was only at
one with Berlin and Vienna. The Queen,
touched by the grace and modesty of the great
singer, distinguished her in every way. A
bracelet, the only token she would receive for
singing at Buckingham Palace, was carefully
treasured up by the artist until her last days.
Lablache, whose long and successful career had
WOL. III. G
98 THE GREAT SINGERS
made him acquainted with all the best prime
domne of his period, declared enthusiastically
that he knew of none more gifted. Her acting,
indeed, had that exceptional standard of ex-
cellence that it went to the heart of the
audience, while their ears were charmed by her
voice. In this respect, if in no other, she was
unique. She became so interwoven with her
part that for the time-being she was a distinct
and separate identity.
The tergetto in Robert was rendered so
vividly that an admirer referred to it as some-
thing marvellous in respect of pathetic repre-
sentation. ‘How can I act otherwise,’ she said,
‘when placed between my lover and the fiend?”
In the Somnambula the heroine is supposed to
pass along a plank which gives way and places
her in a position of Some danger. In stage
practice this is usually avoided by making use
of a dummy figure made up to resemble the
actress. But Jenny would hear of no such
makeshift. ‘How can I, she said, ‘face the
audience and sing to them of an action I have
not accomplished ”’ So seriously did she take
matters of this kind that she would not even
look down at the critical moment, for fear of
marring the general impression that Somnam-
bulists look straight in front of them.
JENNY LIND 99
But again and again the idea takes shape to
quit the stage. A short season in Berlin and a
visit to Sweden intervene between the last two
seasons in London which were to terminate her
stage career.
In 1849, after a most successful tour through
the provinces, her contract with Lumley expired
with a performance of the Figlia at Brighton.
In her diary the day is underlined with three
black bars, and eight points of exclamation are
expressive of the determination to abide by the
intention, once conceived.
Lumley had no claim on her, but foolishly
disbelieved in her carrying out her expressed
resolve, and stood before a heavy loss for pre-
parations made, and neglected to procure an
adequate successor. He begged and prayed,
and a sort of compromise was arranged by
which the artist undertook to assist at six
recitals of opera, at which the entire operas
were to be produced, but without acting or
stage accessories. The first of these, Mozart's
Magic Flute, fell flat and resulted in a loss. To
make up for this, and in recognition of the
liberal treatment she had always experienced
at the hands of Lumley, Jenny Lind offered to
appear in five more Operas—an unusual con-
cession from one so obstinate when once
IOO THE GREAT SINGERS
*
decided. It is hardly necessary to mention
that the last of these performances signalised
the final departure from the stage of one of its
greatest ornaments.
That religious motives may have had some-
thing to do with the decision is far from im-
possible. A Swedish lady friend, who was
much in her company at that time, was con-
spicuous for a very exalted degree of piety;
her influence, though Occult, may have asserted
itself; and Jenny Lind herself, in later years,
pointed to the Bible and the setting sun as
objects for adoration incompatible with stage
life. But other influences, doubtless, exercised
her impressionable mind at this critical period.
An unfortunate engagement to a Swedish actor,
broken off by mutual consent, and the sudden
death of Mendelssohn, whose advice would
have probably been decisive, added to her
general aversion to great and boisterous pub-
licity. And we must not forget that she was
above all a musician, and, as such, considered
the song and the Oratorio higher forms of art
than the stage.
Henceforth a new era opens up before her;
it is the reign of music, pure and unfettered by
the attributes of the stage ; pure also inasmuch
as it is principally devoted to needy and suffer-
JENNY LIND IOI
ing humanity. The energy which has landed
the artist at the highest goals of ambition is
now directed into the channels of benevolence.
For the honour of the musical profession, be
it said, we have far to seek among its principal
votaries to encounter avarice ; an open hand
has in most cases been held out by those on
whom fortune has bestowed the greatest of gifts.
The voice of the singer, the instrument of the
virtuOSO, has rarely been appealed to in vain
when sufferings had to be allayed. But for
wholesale bounty, for princely munificence, none
have climbed to the heights of Jenny Lind.
While still on the stage a series of concerts
was inaugurated for the benefit of five hospitals
and the Mendelssohn Scholarship, in which she
took the greatest interest. The proceeds handed
Over to these institutions, gained in nine weeks,
were within five shillings of £ Io,500. But this
is only a solitary instance ; as regards the total
contributed by Jenny Lind during her long life
to good purposes we cannot venture upon an
estimate.
Short travels on the Continent preceded her
last great venture. Impresarios and agents
were besieging her to undertake concert tours
in different countries, since the stage was to be
a closed book. Suppliants from France and
IO2 THE GREAT SINGERS
Russia were after her, hunting out the smallest
places she might hit upon for retirement.
She was near accepting an offer to travel
through Russia, when the most gigantic pro-
posal ever heard of was placed before her.
Barnum has been one of the best-abused men
of his time. Whether the word “humbug' was
invented for him, or whether he was invented
for the word “humbug, are alternatives that will
find accepters and rejecters; but whatever may
be thought of some of the baits with which he
tempted his public, there is no doubt that for
bold enterprise and knowledge of the mankind
he had to deal with his equal has yet to be
born. However, novelties are not always pro-
curable, and stale ware meant certain loss. As
a poet of the period feelingly expressed it:
“But in the last few months there’s been a slight
decline
In the living alligator and anaconda line ;
Even Tom Thumb exhibitions are getting rather slow,
And my factory for whales was burnt a while ago,
And the Mammoth Boy and Girl are getting rather
thinned ;
As sure as my name 's Barnum and yours is Jenny Lind
I must provide the public with some new exhibition,
For I hold my popularity on that express condition,
So I thought of you, Miss Jenny, the Swedish night
ingale.’
JENNY LIND IO3
There is a pleasant glimpse of the famous
showman in this transaction. His terms were
far in advance of anything the great singer had
received. But the enterprise proved a lucky
one ; he shared his good fortune with the cause
of it in a generous spirit. The proceeds of
the first concert exceeded his most sanguine
expectations, and awoke in Barnum such en-
thusiasm that he tore up the first contract, and
thrust upon his ‘Swedish nightingale’ terms
more advantageous than those contained in
the original one. The American success of
Jenny Lind can only be hinted at without
descending to the heroics of the bill-poster and
the advertiser. The great and appreciative
people of the United States literally ‘adored '
her. The crush to get to her concerts is de-
scribed as terrific and even dangerous. Tickets
were sold by auction, and realised frequently
as much as six hundred dollars each. The
year's result was enormous : it was a perpetual
Danae shower, a swift-running Pactolus; and
brought to the fortunate artist, after making
fortunes for the managers, at least three million
dollars. She was accompanied on tour by
Benedict, Belletti, and Otto Goldschmidt.
On this tour Jenny Lind was married to her
colleague, Otto Goldschmidt, at Boston, in
IO4 THE GREAT SINGERS
I852. It was a love marriage, and productive
of great happiness on both sides. Her supreme
felicity was found in domestic ties; and the
absorbing affection of children, the enduring
love of a gifted and sympathetic husband, drew
her away from the interests of the concert plat-
form. Gradually her appearances at concerts
and Oratorios became rare, but her interest in
music ceased only with life. The position of
her husband as leader of the Bach Choir in
London afforded an ample field for the occa-
Sional exercise of her great gifts; and her
influence, personal and artistic, benefited the
world of art through many gifted pupils.
Her life was beautiful and true. She adorned
the stage, and left it a legacy of purity in con-
duct and high aims realised ; no star ever shone
with whiter or more dazzling lustre in the firma-
ment of art, or withdrew from it with less regret
to illuminate with equally conspicuous grace
and devotion the sphere of domestic piety, con-
jugal duty, and maternal care. Her charities
were boundless. On November 2nd, I887, Sur-
rounded by all her loved ones, children and
grandchildren, her calm and noble spirit passed
to the great peace ‘beyond these voices.’ Her
memory remains unsullied by an unworthy
deed, untainted by the breath of envy.
M A L I B R A N
1808-1836
HE chamber of death. A woman lying
in eternal sleep. But what a woman
The voice that had charmed the world, that
matchless voice, has sung its last Song, and her
spirit has gone to join the angels before God's
throne, and swell the mighty chorus singing
endless Hallelujahs There is a crowd in
front of the house, a mighty crowd of men and
women, rich and poor; carriage after carriage
drives up, and whispered inquiries are made at
the door, with its muffled knocker. The crowd
is mute, anxiously watching the windows. It
is within twenty-five minutes of midnight, but
no one of all that assembly thinks of the hour.
They are waiting—waiting what for 2 To hear
how their idol is progressing. Some, better
instructed than others, know that her life is
passing away at each tick of the clock; but
others are hopeful. ‘God grant she may be
105
IO6 THE GREAT SINGERS
spared,’ murmurs an old lady, leaning on the
arm of her maid. “Amen,’ says every voice in
her vicinity. Then there is a shiver in the
crowd, for the blinds are being pulled down ;
strong men sigh, women burst into tears, the
crowd melts away. Malibran is dead.
With such a singing master as her father, it is
not difficult to account for Malibran's marvellous
power. At first, that is to say as a child, her
voice was harsh and discordant; but Garcia,
her father, the prince of singing masters, was
not slow to discover that in that voice, properly
trained and educated, he had one of the grandest
artistes in the world. Unlike most operatic
singers, Malibran early developed an unusual
dramatic talent ; and her first début made that
most apparent, for her acting was better than
her singing. As we have said before, Garcia
was a stern taskmaster. He was almost brutal
in exactness, and the poor child approached her
lessons in fear and trembling ; but her father
made her what she was—the prima donna of the
world ; and so, even on her death-bed, notwith-
standing what she had suffered, she gracefully
alluded to his instruction as the one which
made her success. -
Her first appearance was at the early age of
five years at the Fiorentini Theatre in Naples,
MALIBRAN Io'7
where she took a child's part in Agnese ; so
much talent did she exhibit, that a few years
after, the composer, Hérold, gave her instruction
on the piano. Just at this time her friends,
anxious to push her to the front, suddenly
became imbued with the idea that she was
deficient in ear. It was about this time that
her father took her in hand, under the adverse
circumstances we have already mentioned ; but
her dread and terror of these lessons had a
most salutary influence, for in her endeavour
to restrain her fears she acquired that self-
Command on the stage which made her most
conspicuous. Referring to her want of ear at
this period, the following story will suffice —
“At times her father would get up from the
piano and leave the room in despair; then
Maria would run after him and entreat him to
return. “Did you hear how much you were
out of tune 2” he would ask her. “Oh, yes,
papa.” “Well, then, let us begin again.” With
all allowance for severity and uncontrollable
temper, there was some method in Garcia's
system. The defects of Maria could be
conquered by iron determination only, while
the voice of her likewise celebrated sister,
Pauline, was docile and pliable. To have
recognised these circumstances shows the
Io8 THE GREAT SINGERS
unerring judgment which has made Garcia
probably the best singing master of all ages.
But, while affecting the greatest despondency
with regard to her future, the father knew that
he had a pearl of the first order in his keeping.
Sooner than expected, it was to be given to
publicity. A cantata by Rossini was to be
performed at a wedding party; but the Master,
newly arrived, feared for his reputation if
jeopardised at that early period by an indifferent
performer. His anxiety to secure a good singer
was, therefore, extreme. This Garcia rightly
deemed the proper moment to launch his
daughter. A rehearsal sufficed to dispel the
doubts of the crafty Rossini, who was not
prepossessed in favour of débutantes. The
cantata was duly performed, and resulted in
a great Success.
In 1824 the family went to London to fulfil
an engagement. Maria was now fully qualified
to appear on the stage. Her education had
proceeded apace; she spoke four languages
perfectly, was a perfect pianist and a fair
composer. Nothing was now wanting but an
opportunity, which soon presented itself. It is
not quite certain whether an illness of Pasta,
prima donna at the King's Theatre, was the
occasion of Maria distinguishing herself, or
MALIBRAN IO9
whether it was due to Ronzi not fulfilling her
engagement; but there is no doubt she was the
means of helping the management out of a very
awkward situation, whilst making for herself a
name. A number of fortuitous circumstances
combined to place her in a position of great
prominence. Intrigues and illness seemed to
be in league against the Sorely tried theatre in
the Haymarket. Pasta was very chary of her
assistance, Madame Vestris seceded, and Ronzi
and Caradori were unable to keep to their
agreements; the field was thus open for the
youthful prima donna to distinguish herself on
a stage generally reserved for tried maturity.
Her début was in the Barbiere, and her per-
formance of the graceful Rosina made her at
once a favourite with the London public. It
is true her voice had not yet lost a certain
roughness, which, indeed, it could never quite
conceal ; but youth, good looks, and conscien-
tious acting and singing make up for a good
many deficiencies. A critic (Lord Mount-
Edgcumbe) says that ‘she was too highly
extolled and injudiciously put forward as a
prima donna, when she was only a promising
débutante'; but this was neither the opinion of
the public nor that of the ruling powers, who
forthwith engaged her for the remaining six
I IO THE GREAT SINGERS
weeks of the season for £500, the playbills
including a première of Meyerbeer's Crociato.
The stay in London was, however, pre-
destined to be short. Garcia had engaged
himself and family to perform in New York,
and they consequently left England for that
destination ; and although the company, with
the exception of the Garcias, was made up of
the poorest material, the performances were
fairly sustained, Maria, Of course, taking the
principal parts. This tour was of the greatest
possible benefit to her in her later career, for
she acquired that experience and confidence
without which the best of artists fail to impress
the audience. Her voice, also, which needed
constant practice, improved as time went on.
She appeared in a great number of operas, of
which we may mention Ofello, Romeo, Dom
Giovanni, Tancredi, Cenerentola, besides two
operas specially composed for her by her
father, L'amante astuto, and La figlia del!" aria.
The American public treated the company
with that effusiveness and cordiality which has
become proverbial; and yet the venture was,
from a pecuniary point of view, a failure. We
come now to a period in Malibran's life which
various biographers have treated in different
ways. Her marriage with M. Malibran was
MALIBRAN I I I
coincident with pecuniary losses in the Garcia
family; but whether it was Garcia who prevailed
on the unwilling daughter to accept her suitor,
or whether his daughter eagerly seized upon
the opportunity to gain her freedom, cannot
be safely determined. The latter alternative
has been suggested by an authority who was
by no means favourable to the father; and it
is quite possible that the temper of the latter,
which became very trying, may have turned
the scale with a girl whose ideas of married life
were at that time probably very crude. The
fact has to be recorded that the marriage
settlement contained a clause by which Garcia
was to receive £5000 as a solatium for the
loss of his daughter's services. It is, however,
a fact that M. Malibran's financial position,
already seriously compromised, drove him into
the bankruptcy court before the first year of
married life was over.
Such considerations must be borne in mind
when forming an idea about this most un-
fortunate marriage, rendered even more irk-
some to the wife by an estrangement from
her relatives, which estrangement lasted over
a number of years. Matters became disagree-
ably complicated : there had never been any
pretence of love; all she had aimed at was an
II 2 THE GREAT SINGERS
agreeable existence independent of her father,
independent also of the stage as a Source of
subsistence. And now the stake she had
played for, and for which she had pledged
her whole existence, was snatched away from
her grasp—had, in fact, never existed ; the
sacrifice of her youth had been wrung from
her fraudulently under pretences which had
been false from the first. No wonder that she
preserved a feeling of hatred towards her
husband for the rest of her days; no wonder
that she repudiated the knot which bound her
and had been tied by unholy means.
But in the meantime the embarrassments of
her husband were not altogether unwelcome ;
they afforded her an opportunity to gain her
liberty and to place the ocean between herself
and the object of her aversion. There could
be no question as to her future career; she
had nothing but her voice, and to exercise it
in New York was out of the question, as all
the money she made would have been seized
by her husband's creditors. The parting was
as much d /'amiable as it could be under the
circumstances. The terms have remained
secret, but there is reason to believe that a
portion of the wife's earnings in Europe were
to be sent to her husband.
MALIBRAN II3
She arrived in Paris in December 1827, at
which time she was not yet twenty. Watch-
ful of her good name, the young singer went to
reside with her husband's sister, though from the
outset there was no love lost between them.
Working her way up gradually, and singing
freely at concerts, she soon found an opportunity
to show her talent for the operatic stage. This
occurred in January 1828, and the occasion was
the performance of Semiramide at the Grand
Opéra for the benefit of Galli. She was labour-
ing under many disadvantages: for the first
time in her life she felt nervous, nor was the
part one she would have chosen ; but never-
theless she scored an immediate and striking
success. Henceforth there was never any want
of engagements; the difficulty was rather to
choose among a surfeit. With admirable
judgment she gave preference to the Italian
over the grand Opera, the latter affording less
opportunity for display of voice. Her début
was in Otello, an opera to which she remained
partial all her life. The great novelty and
originality that distinguished her style from
that of all other prime donne earned her great
applause, and effectually silenced the few
doubters who were not content to be guided
by one representation.
VOL. III. |H
II4 THE GREAT SINGERS
As her reputation and income grew, so did the
dissensions with her husband's relatives, with
whom she was staying. Greatly though she
shrank from embarking in life in Paris unpro-
tected and subject to all the risks of women in
her position, the surveillance both of her person
and her money became so irksome that she one
day hired a carriage and left her sister-in-law's
house for good, and took up her residence with
an old friend of her family, a Madame Naldi,
austere and respectable in the extreme, and a
very dragon of virtue towards the many visitors
that insisted with more importunity than right
to see her beautiful charge. To this chaperon
the headstrong and wilful girl resigned not only
her liberty but the disposal of her money, out
of which only the smallest amount was allowed
her for necessary expenses. Years afterwards
she used to point to an old and worn cashmere
shawl as a precious relic reminding her of the
great trouble it had given her to get it out of
Naldi.
While her popularity was still on the increase,
it was put to as severe a test as could be
imagined. Sontag, the unrivalled prima donna,
exalted by her many friends to the highest
place among contemporaries, came to Paris
in fulfilment of an engagement at the Théâtre
MALIBRAN II 5
des Italiens, where she was to alternate first
parts with Malibran. The friends of the latter
trembled for the comparisons which were sure
to be drawn between her and this artist of
European fame. Malibran herself passed pro-
bably some of the most anxious moments she
had ever experienced. Naturally ambitious, she
strained every nerve to score a victory over her
rival, who was also pitted against her in London
during the season of 1829. In this respect she
was too exacting ; the fame of Sontag was too
conspicuous and too well deserved to admit of
her suffering by comparison; but both in Paris
and London the public pronounced them equal,
and this was in reality a great achievement for
the young singer, who only a few years back
had been quite unknown to fame. Shortly
after, Sontag retired from the stage altogether
upon marrying Count Rossi; and thus termi-
nated a rivalry which was equally honourable
to both, especially as even during the time they
were together before the public it did not
preclude a cordial friendship springing up, in
lieu of that jealousy so common among pro-
fessionals, which jealousy almost always appears
in its most petty and malignant shape. -
Ambitious though Malibran was, jealousy
seems to have formed no part of her character,
II6 THE GREAT SINGERS
for there are too many instances on record of
her cordial and generous good-nature and that
delicacy of feeling which shuns ostentation and
shrinks from wounding the feelings of those
with whom it is brought into contact. In
connection with this a characteristic instance
is related. A friend of Malibran’s had occasion
to appeal to the generosity of the company on
behalf of an impoverished countryman. When
applied to, Malibran offered to contribute the
same amount as the others; but when the party
broke up she took her friend aside and added
a considerable amount, saying that she had not
wished to hurt the feelings of the other sub-
scribers by doing SO publicly, and insisting that
her generosity should remain unknown. An-
other trait of goodness of heart is furnished by
the following anecdote. Malibran had pro-
mised to sing at a concert given by a young
and struggling artist. To the great consterna-
tion of the concert-giver she did not appear at
the appointed time. The concert was nearly
over when she arrived, having been detained
by a pressing engagement at the Duc d'Orléans'.
But, not content with doing all she had under-
taken, she went up to the young artist and
said: ‘I had promised to sing for you this
evening; it is therefore only fair I should give
MALIBRAN I 17
you all I have earned. With which she handed
her a purse received from the Duc, and left the
room before the bewildered recipient could reply.
So far her receipts had been moderate,
averaging little more than sixty pounds per
night, both in London and Paris, while twenty-
five pounds was her fee for singing at concerts.
When Sontag retired, it was, however, felt that
the remuneration was not adequate ; the next
offer from Mr. Alfred Bunn was made at the
respectable figure of £125 per night for nineteen
nights.
At this time Malibran made two notable
additions to her répertoire, viz. La Gazga Madra
and Cenerento/a, in both of which operas her
success was prodigious ; the combination of
singing and acting was on all hands admitted
to be unequalled. It was remarked that though
not the first to act in the Gazza Madra, she was
yet the first to bring out hidden beauties of
the prison scene which nobody had suggested
before. Her representation of the neglected
heroine in Cemerento/a was also true to life, and
may have awakened reminiscences of her own
by no means too happy childhood. Another
part, Matilda de Sobrano, she soon surrendered
to Sontag, to whose voice it was better suited.
At concerts she did not sing as often as she
II.8 THE GREAT SINGERS
would have liked to. The fee of twenty-five
guineas, though readily allowed to Pasta, was
considered too high ; and Malibran was too
proud to reduce her demand, and thus acknow-
ledge herself inferior to her predecessor.
Hitherto her whole soul had been absorbed
by her art ; study had left her no time for
other thoughts, and a deep sense of moral
purity had kept her free from that contagious
influence to which no women are more subjected
than those whose life is passed in the glare of
publicity. But, once illumined by the rays of
a real passion, it could not be expected that
her impulsive nature would permanently submit
to the fetters to which she owned a simply
legal allegiance.
‘I confess, she said one day to a friend rally-
ing her on the subject of one of her great but
unloved admirers, ‘ I confess that I do believe
he loves me ; but what of that P I do not love
him. I do not wish to set myself up as a heroine
of virtue. I know the dangers to which I am
exposed. I am young, untrammelled by pecuni-
ary dependence, married to a man old enough
to be my grandfather, my husband two thousand
leagues apart from me, and I exposed to every
temptation—the probability is that I shall fall
in love some day or another. But rest assured
MALIBRAN II9
that, whenever I do, I will not play the coquette.
When I meet with the man capable of winning
my heart, I will honestly tell him that I love
him, and my affection will never change.’
This opinion, expressed long before it was
put to the test, was fully borne out by the
course of her /Zazson with the celebrated violinist,
de Bériot. Several times they had met in
society without feeling more than a mutual
liking for each other. Pity, that near relative
of love, was to draw them closer together. De
Bériot was unhappy, suffering under the pain
of an unrequited attachment; this must have
awakened slumbering chords in the heart of
the singer. One evening, after playing the
violin, there was so much genuine effusiveness
in the heartiness with which she thanked him,
and so much eloquence in a sudden burst of
tears which started unbidden to her eyes, that
their secret, unknown to them before, stood
revealed. The tenderest of ties connected the
two together, never to be broken during life.
Between London and Paris her time was
fully taken up during the next few years. With
a singular freak for masquerading in boys'
clothes, which occurs again and again in her
career, she had set her heart on performing the
part of Otello in the opera of that name ; but
I2O THE GREAT SINGERS
the result was a great failure, neither her voice
nor her figure being of a nature to do justice
to the stalwart Moor. She felt relief when her
Parisian engagement came to an end, and this
relief gave her the force to once more concen-
trate her energies for a last effort. The per-
formance of Ofello was long remembered by
the Parisians ; once more the old thunder of
applause greeted the ears of the singer, once
more regret at the termination of her contract
was joined to a clamour for her reappearance.
But the revival of enthusiasm was too late:
Paris had seen and heard the last of Malibran
as an actress; the French capital was never
again to be a scene of her successes.
One drop of joy had fallen into the cup of
sorrow and anxiety that had been full to over-
flowing. Garcia became again reconciled to
his child, with whom he remained in unbroken
harmony for the short term of his life.
About this time Malibran made the happiest
acquaintance of her life, as far as her own sex
was concerned. She met Lady Roberts of
Roberts's Cove, County Cork, the heroine of
the wreck of the ill-fated steamer Ki//arney,
lost opposite her house during a dense fog.
Lady Roberts was the mother of the present
baronet, Sir Randal Roberts, the soldier,
MALIBRAN I2 I
novelist, journalist, and dramatic author. Lady
Roberts, although an amateur, was an artist of
the highest quality, and Malibran took the
gifted and sympathetic lady to her heart. It
is a well-known fact that Malibran had an
imperfection in the middle register of her voice,
which her father, with constant effort, taught
her to conceal by method ; and, curiously
enough, from singing so often together in
private, Lady Roberts's voice, which was, if
anything, even more superb than Malibran's,
became affected in the same way. It was Lady
Roberts who eventually effected the reconcilia-
tion between Malibran and her father, much to
the joy of both—good, lovely, and gifted women
as they were. One afternoon, when the two
ladies met at Lord Mount-Edgcumbe’s, Malibran
said to her host: ‘I want you to hear a pupil of
mine sing—though, indeed, if I only had her
glorious voice I should be grateful; for when
she sings I am nobody.” Lady Roberts was a
great comfort to Malibran, and made the sad
hours of her latter life more endurable through
her sympathy and warm affection.
After the Paris engagement she returned to
Brussels, and it was her intention to accept no
public engagement until she should be married
to the man of her heart's choice. But the love
I22 THE GREAT SINGERS
of her profession was too profound to resist
temptation for any length of time. Lablache,
passing through Brussels on his way to Italy,
suggested more in joke than in earnest that she
should accompany him. The clock had barely
struck five on the next morning when a travel-
ling-carriage drew up at his door containing
Malibran, ready to start for Italy. Lablache
could scarcely credit his eyes; but those who
knew this creature of impulse hardly wondered
at her adopting a course which commended it-
self to her mind by its originality and caprice.
In Italy the adventures of Malibran were
on the whole favourable, though there were
some incidents of a less agreeable nature. At
Rome, where she sang four times, she committed
the blunder of singing two French songs in the
music-lesson of the Baróżere—an innovation sure
to be unpalatable to Italians, and accordingly
resented. Here she learned the death of her
father, which affected her so deeply that she
was confined to her bed for several days. Here,
also, she made an agreement with Barbaja to
appear at the San Carlo Theatre at Naples for
twelve nights. Arriving there, the prima
donna, Ronzi di Begnis, refused to cede her
place to the new comer, a circumstance seem-
ingly alarming, but one which the astute Barbaja
MALIBRAN I23
knew how to turn to favourable account.
Having sold all the tickets for the San Carlo,
he let Malibran appear at the Fondo Theatre
—likewise under his management—and was
thereby enabled to reap a double harvest. As
usual, she chose Ożello, and was warmly ap-
plauded ; but her next performance of Cene-
zenfo/a had little success, and the Gagga Zadra
fared no better. On the whole, she was dis-
appointed with her reception at Naples, but
was more fortunate at Bologna, where she was
rapturously applauded. After Bologna she was
engaged to appear at Milan ; but circumstances
induced her to make a proposal cancelling this
engagement, and upon receiving an unfavour-
able reply she took the matter into her own
hands by travelling forthwith to Brussels.
From Brussels Malibran proceeded to
London, where she was engaged for the
season at Drury Lane at a hundred and fifty
pounds per night. She appeared with great
success in an English version of Somnambula
and other operas, and at provincial festivals she
received sums never dreamt of before.
After a brief stay in Brussels, an engagement
called her to Naples, where she arrived on
November 14th, 1833, and made her début in
Otello. Unfortunately the superstitious nature
I24 THE GREAT SINGERS
of the Neapolitans deprived her of a legitimate
triumph. The 14th November being a ‘good
day, the inauspicious third act had to be left
out, and the actress was thus robbed of her best
SCCI) eS.
Prova and La Gagga ladra were only mode-
rately well received, and altogether Malibran
could not make a success with the Neapolitans.
It was a repetition of the last months in Paris,
and Malibran, deeply offended, resolved that it
should be so in more senses than one. AVorma
was reserved for her last appearance ; and in
that part she rose to such heights that all re-
sentment was forgotten ; the audience stood On
the benches and applauded for several minutes.
For days this marvellous impersonation was the
sole topic of conversation, and everybody looked
forward to a further performance. But Malibran
remained firm ; she would give them no further
opportunity to undervalue her ; and, without
paying any regard to the frantic entreaties to
remain, she left Naples on March 13th, not to
return for more than a year.
At Milan her task was not easy. She was
called upon to contend with the glorious
memories of Pasta, whose performances were
still the marvel of the generation. To appear
in AVorma, one of Pasta's principal parts, re-
MALIBRAN I25
quired no small measure of hardihood ; but to
succeed in it as she did was one of the greatest
triumphs possible. Both Pasta and Malibran
were consummate actresses, though of diametri-
cally opposed styles. The first-named had
mastered all the subtle arts of acting as em-
bodied in the recognised schools, while the
latter was a child of Nature following her own
impulsive mind, every gesture and every action
bearing the impress of unstudied originality.
It was her delight to keep her audience in
suspense by a variety of acting which rendered
each appearance different from its predecessor.
Her acting was the untutored intuition of a
highly sensitive mind.
It was this variegated spirit, this incalculable
nature of the chamaeleon, which lent so much
brilliancy to her reputation. Her voice, fine
but faulty, and in many respects relying on
artificial measures for success, was probably
eclipsed by performers like Grisi and Sontag ;
but the consummate power and skill that she
knew how to infuse into her acting carried the
audience away and procured her triumphs
which rank with the most memorable successes
ever achieved.
Malibran only acted for twenty nights at
Milan ; she was due in London, and, with an
I26 THE GREAT SINGERS
utter disregard of all considerations of health
and comfort, she started on the long and
tedious voyage. Before leaving, however, she
signed a contract with the Duke Visconti,
Director of the Scala, for one hundred and
eighty-five performances to extend over three
years, for which, besides other favourable con-
ditions, she was to receive 450,000 francs—an
undertaking which can only be compared to
the vast conceptions of Barnum. Little did the
contracting parties think that the young and
active singer would be in her grave before half
the performances had been given.
In England she only remained a sufficient
length of time to fulfil her engagements, after
which she left immediately for Sinigaglia, where
she had agreed to sing during the fair. In one
of her sudden fits of caprice she insisted on
taking the reins on the coach during the better
part of the journey; and, not content with the
risk of being exposed for hours to the heat of
the sun, she plunged into the sea a few minutes
after dismounting. A violent fit of illness was
the consequence ; fortunately, it did not last
long, and only enhanced the delight with which
the audience witnessed her début in AVorºna.
In passing through the town on her way
to Lucca the people recognised her, and did
MALIBRAN 127
not rest until she stopped the carriage and,
accompanied by de Bériot, sang to them.
At Lucca her reception exceeded everything
she had ever met with. All the nobles, from
the Duke downward, came at her feet; and
after the last performance the people insisted
on unharnessing her horses and drawing her
carriage to the hotel. Clamorous were the
desires that she should stay for a few perform-
ances—even if for only one more perform-
ance; but this was impossible, as she was
already due in Milan.
After a short series of thirteen performances
to highly appreciative audiences, she left for
her third trip to Naples, where she was engaged
for forty nights at two thousand francs each.
Her first appearance at the Fondo in La
Somnambula was a great success, but in Tancred;
at San Carlo the applause was only indifferent.
One of the many proofs of her tact—a quality
which seems to be rapidly going out of fashion
—was furnished during this visit, and is too
characteristic to be omitted. There lived at
Naples a poor hairdresser whose skill and good
fortune were equally indifferent. Malibran
employed him every day, paying him most
liberally, but had her hair rearranged the
moment he left. A friend, who had noticed
I 28 THE GREAT SINGERS
this, was astonished that she should lose SO
much time. ‘Why not give him the money,’
she said, “if you persist in helping him P' ‘It
would hurt his feelings, Malibran rejoined ;
‘ now, when he hears of my success, he thinks
that part of it may be due to himself. To
confer such happiness is well worth some little
trouble.’
On the 4th December she appeared in a new
opera, Amelia, by Rossi, but unfortunately would
persist in dancing a mazurka, and, as she was a
very indifferent dancer, part of the failure of the
opera was set down to this circumstance. How-
ever, she made up for this non-success in /meg
de Castro, where her impersonation was so
powerful that several ladies in the audience
fainted, and had to be carried out of the theatre.
Soon afterwards she met with a carriage acci-
dent which caused a discoloration of the wrist
and an enforced retirement for a fortnight.
During this time she received many proofs of
sympathy. The King, in whose favour she did
not stand very high, sent his own physician ;
but now, as on a later fatal occasion, she
refused assistance other than homoeopathic,
When, in due course, she reappeared with her
arm in a sling, she was made the subject of the
most vociferous acclamation.
MALIBRAN 129
At last she quitted Naples for new triumphs
at Venice. In Paris, on the 29th of March
1836, all obstacles having been removed, she
was married to de Bériot.
The latter part of her stay in Italy had been
far from pleasant. The cholera was raging
throughout Lombardy and the north ; and
though the intrepid prima donna knew of no
obstacle, and penetrated boldly into the hot-
beds of infection, the people were in a great
state of alarm, and the theatres consequently
empty.
After the marriage ceremony had been per-
formed in Paris, the couple went to spend a few
days at Brussels, and thence to London, where
they arrived early in April. Prospects looked
bright for the young prima donna. Her reputa-
tion showed no signs of decrease ; every per-
formance added vigour and subtlety to her
voice; there was hardly a rival to challenge
her ; and at the early age of twenty-eight she
stood on the threshold of life, wedded to the
man whom she loved. But it was decreed
otherwise. Her intrepid courage, which impelled
her to court risks from which many a strong
man would have recoiled, that had induced her
in Italy to exchange her horse for a mule that
had thrown its muleteer, that had made her
VOIL. III. I
I3O THE GREAT SINGERS
dare death in more shapes than one, was to be
the means of cutting short a splendid career.
Whilst riding an unmanageable horse, she was
thrown and dragged Some distance before the
stirrup gave way and left her on the road, an
unconscious object, bedraggled with mud and
blood. Even then matters might have mended
had she listened to rational advice ; but her
only object was to keep the affair secret from
her husband. She would see no physician,
neither would she take that repose of which
she stood in the greatest need. On the same
evening she performed as usual, her hair being
so arranged as to conceal the heavy injuries
to her head ; and it cannot be doubted that
this accident, aggravated by her obstinacy, led
to her premature death.
Very soon she felt the consequences of her
folly, though she still declined to submit to any
treatment. About the end of July she left
England for Brussels, where, unheeding severe
pain, she gave a concert on the 12th of August,
following it up by a performance of the Son-
mambula at Aix-la-Chapelle, and a short stay at
the Château de Roissy, near Paris. But though
she would not admit it, her features betrayed the
great and constant agony she was suffering.
Towards the end of September she left for
MALIBRAN I 3 I
Manchester, where she was expected for the
musical festival. Her old friend Lablache was
there, and in his society she passed some of her
last happy hours. It was evident that she was
utterly unfit for any exertion. Both Lablache
and de Bériot united their prayers to make her
desist, but she remained intractable to the last.
At rehearsal in church the sound of the organ
caused her to burst into tears. On the day
following it brought on an attack of hysterics
and a fainting fit; nevertheless she insisted on
remaining and singing an air by Cimarosa
which produced a wonderful effect on the
audience. In the evening she performed at
the theatre without apparent fatigue; but on
the next day she had to be carried out of
church in a fainting fit which lasted for several
hours. It was hoped that she would desist
from singing at a concert in the evening,
but she recovered in time and bore down all
Opposition. An eye-witness says that she
looked more like a spectre than a living being
when she faced the audience. Thundering ap-
plause greeted her after the duet from Andromico,
which she sang with Madame Caradori, though
she was nearly fainting from the exertion when
she left the platform. But the shouts of encore
revived her ; before their invigorating influence
I32 THE GREAT SINGERS
the prayers of her friends to desist were of no
avail. She actually struggled through a repeti-
tion ; and while the audience were still wildly
applauding, the unconscious singer was borne
away to her deathbed.
It was now apparent that the last scene had
arrived. Malibran herself, though averse to
adopt allopathic treatment, offered no objection
to being bled, as proposed by the physicians. “It
matters little now,” she said ; “the end will come
in any case.’ Her favourite homoeopathic doctor,
Belluomini, who was instantly summoned from
London, and had charge of her during the last
days, maintained that but for the bleeding
she might have recovered ; but other medical
authorities have expressed it as their conviction
that when she was carried from the theatre all
hope was at an end. It may be further added
that, had she submitted to treatment after her
accident in April, she would have probably sur-
vived, though her injuries were undoubtedly
very serious.
She lingered on for nine days. During the
first two or three her sufferings were intense;
but then all pain left her, and she fell into a
kind of stupor. For hours at a time she would
lie speechless; her last words were to ask
whether de Bériot had played well at the
MALIBRAN I 33
concert. Being answered in the affirmative, she
dropped back with a smile and never spoke
afterwards. But, though unuttered, her love
for her husband was never absent from her
mind. She was happy when his hand was
clasped in hers, and a slight pressure of the
fingers, accompanied by an eloquent look, was
more expressive than words could have been.
She passed away on the 23rd September,
1836, twenty minutes before midnight; so quiet
and uneventful were her last hours that she had
ceased to exist for several minutes before those
around her couch were aware of the fact.
It was remarked as a sad and curious coin-
cidence that Malibran died on the same date as
Bellini, and exactly one year later, both, more-
over, being of the same age, twenty-eight.
Her unpublished compositions were collected
and published in a volume under the name of
Dernières pensées musicales de Marie-Félicité
Garcia de Bérioſ. They are pleasing, but of
no great intrinsic value.
One of the best-known portraits of Malibran
represents her in an opera-box leaning against
the cushion. The features are fascinating and
distinctly Spanish in type, the eyes being very
large and expressive, and nose and mouth
regular.
I34. THE GREAT SINGERS
The life of Malibran is an attractive study
from many points of view. While unstinted
admiration is due to the actress and singer, we
linger with pleasure over highly amiable traits
of character, such as courage, sincerity, tact,
generosity, and immutable attachment to
friends. And if we regret her obstinacy, for
which she had to suffer severely, we must not
forget that it was the outcome of a daring and
an energy rarely met with among the favourites
of fortune.
In artistic circles her death left a great
void. It is true, great singers were among
her survivors ; but until Jenny Lind fascinated
her audiences, none had arisen to approach
Malibran in the combined art of singing and
acting.
M. A. R. I O
1808-1883
F all the tenors of the century no one
will seek to dispute the right of place
with him who for twenty-six years was the rage
of London, Paris, and St. Petersburg society.
Nature had been more than ordinarily lavish
of her gifts, for, in addition to the most magni-
ficent voice ever heard, excepting Rubini's, the
Chevalier di Candia possessed a perfect face,
a face that Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto
loved to paint ; to this was added an equally
elegant figure, whilst his manners possessed that
grace and refinement so seldom seen upon the
stage. The influence of women in early life
has always given to man that peculiar softness
and delicacy of tone which rough associations
can never evolve ; and so it was that Mario's
intense love for children, his kindness and con-
sideration for his inferiors, and his admiration
for painting, Sculpture, and offſets de vertu were
most pronounced. Théophile Gautier, on hear-
135
I36 THE GREAT SINGERS
ing that exquisite voice for the first time,
listened in rapt attention ; when the aria ceased,
he seemed lost in wonder, and said, the soft
tone of the last note still lingering in his ear,
‘It is a nightingale singing in a thicket'; then,
after a pause, ‘Yes, he excels in the rendering
of tender thoughts—love, melancholy, regret
for an absent home, and all the soft sentiments
of the soul.” Thus, unconsciously, Gautier spoke
the thoughts of Lucretius when he wrote that
pleasing poetical suggestion that man learned
to sing by imitating the voices of birds :
“At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore
Ante fuit multo, quam laevia carmina cantu
Concelebrare homines possent, aureisque juvare.”
At his father's request he entered the army
in 1828; but soldiering was not his métier.
Curiously enough, when at Caucone's school he
was singing basso when Mercadante discovered
him : ‘What?’ said the latter, “do you call this
a basso 2 It’s a tenor, and what a tenor l’ Little
is known of his early life until he came to Paris
in 1836, where, amongst other acquaintances, he
made that of Henry Greville. It was about this
time that the peculiarities of Mario's nature
became pronounced, especially that of adapting
itself to whatever he chose to take up. He knew
well enough the gift which God had given him,
MARIO I37
but he hesitated, in view of his birth and position,
to avail himself for the purposes of gain of that
wonderful voice which, after Rubini, astonished
the world, and has never been equalled since.
To sing is one thing in grand Opera, to act is
another ; and how few tenors there are who
combine these two absolute necessities to suc-
cess At first the cultivation and training of
the voice absorbs all attention — they care
nothing for acting ; but in great artistes who
possess the sacred fire, dramatic effect comes to
them spontaneously as they study. The very
melodies they produce from their mouths and
throats suggest the movements of the limbs.
The staccato prompts the force of action ; the
piano, that of languishing movements, the soft
pressure of the hand, the quiet abandon of the
limbs. In this Mario was peculiarly successful,
the grace and symmetry of his figure assisting
him in a great degree. Mario's life was a care-
less Bohemian one, so much so that many stories
are told of him that are not easy to believe. The
story of the lady who, though she had never
been introduced to Mario, yet was present dur-
ing her life-time at every performance in which
he sang, no matter in what part of the world
it was, and who died without ever having
spoken or written a word to him, is well-known
I38 THE GREAT SINGERS
and authenticated : as also is the one relating
to his first visit to the Queen, when com-
manded to sing before Her Majesty. Upon
this Occasion a carriage had been ordered for
the great tenor to enable him to enjoy the
lovely scenery of Deeside without tiring him-
self; but Mario got wearied of the carriage,
stopped the coachman, and desired him to
return home, continuing his ramble on foot.
When, on his return, he entered the grounds of
Balmoral, he lost his way, and whilst aiming to
strike the right path to the Castle he suddenly
found himself close to a very plainly dressed
woman, who, with a sun-bonnet of capacious
proportions, was engaged, watering-pot in hand,
refreshing a thirsty flower-bed. Mario advanced,
and, hat in hand, approached : ‘Your pardon,
mademoiselle, he said, “but I am a stranger, a
guest of Her Majesty; she has asked me to
sing ; I have lost my way, and it is near the
hour ; could you tell me the path to reach the
Queen's apartment?’ ‘You wish to see the
Queen P’ ‘Yes, mademoiselle.’ ‘Well, signor,
you see her now—I am the Queen ; follow me.’
It has been said that, no matter how great is
the gift of voice, this gift, without training, is of
little value to the possessor. Mario and Adelina
Patti are instances of the absolute fallacy of such
MARIO I 39
a dictum. When Mercadante was asked who
were their maestros, the answer came quickly,
“Themselves.” After a great deal of persuasion,
Henry Greville persuaded Mario, then in im-
poverished circumstances, that pride and an
empty stomach were at variance with the laws
of nature and convenience; and so, after a little
time, the great tenor succumbed to the voice of
justice and prudence, and accepted an engage-
ment from Duponchel, director of the opera.
His salary was fixed at I 500 francs a month,
and he made his déâzzá in the 76/e of Robert le
Diable. His success was pronounced from a
vocalistic point of view, but he had yet to learn
to be dramatic as well as musical. In 1840 he
passed from the Académie to the Italian opera,
as best suited to his nationality. His first
appearance in London was in Zucrezia Boºgia,
June 6th, 1839; but it was not until 1846 that he
took the place of Rubini, and was acknowledged
as the most perfect stage lover ever seen. The
only failure, if it can be so called, was in his
attempt to sing the rôle in Dove Giovanned that
Nourrit and Garcia had failed to succeed in.
In Mario's case this failure is to be accounted for
in the fact that the character of reckless profli-
gate was not in keeping with his temperament ;
in fact, he was too amiable to secure the
I4O THE GREAT SINGERS
sympathy of his audience. Mario seldom sang
in Oratorio, although passionately fond of sacred
music, which strongly appealed to his sensitive
nature. At the Birmingham Festival in 1849
he sang ‘Then shall the righteous, in AE/ja/ ;
and at Hereford in 1855, “If with all your
hearts, out of the same oratorio. Who will
ever forget listening to that marvellous quartett
when Mario took the place of Rubini with Grisi,
Tamburini, and Lablache in 1843–46 P
There are numerous stories told of Mario,
illustrative of his peculiar temperament and
sangſroid. At one time, when in reduced
circumstances, he had to take some very
cheap apartments; in fact, he was reduced to
sleeping in a room with several other persons.
In the middle of the night he suddenly awoke
and found Some One trying to rob him and
demanding his valuables. “My money P’ asked
Mario; “take what you can find, but please let
me continue my dreams and my sleep.’ He
had absolutely not a penny. Again, One day
Mario was looking into Goupil's shop, quite
absorbed in the study of an engraving ; sud-
denly he felt a finger in his pocket, which he
instantly seized, and looking over his shoulder
he saw a little upturned face belonging to a
very ragged little boy.
MARIO I4 I
‘F/h, bien / said he, “if I break your finger
will you cry out and explain how your hand
came in my pocket 2'
“Oh I am so humiliated ' ' said the thief.
‘And why ’’ said Mario. “Is it repentance
that makes you humiliated, or is it only regret
at your awkwardness P’
“Nothing but sorrow at my clumsiness,’ said
the urchin. -
‘Well,” said Mario, who ever seized the
opportunity to forgive, ‘I’ll make a bargain
with you. There is nothing in that pocket but
my handkerchief; will you undertake to try
again, and in a manner more worthy of your
talents, and take my handkerchief without my
catching you ? If you do so you shall keep the
handkerchief; if not, I shall hand you over to
a sergent-de-ville. Mind, I warn you,” added
Mario, “I shall hold my hand on my pocket.’
‘I accept,” said the thief.
Mario put his hand behind his back upon the
pocket, and appeared once more engrossed by
the engraving. Scarcely a moment had passed
when his handkerchief was fluttered in his face,
his hand still protecting his pocket.
‘Well, he said, ‘that was well done. How did
you do it? Mind, I don't dispute your claim.”
“Oh l’ replied the thief, ‘ce n'est pas difficiſe.
I42 THE GREAT SINGERS
Monsieur looked at the picture, but watched
me over the shoulder. The thing was to get
your hand away, so I did it with this, holding
up a Straw.
‘Don’t you try to humbug me ! You don’t
mean to tell me that you drew my handkerchief
through that straw 2'
‘A/, / mais more, what happened was this.
Monsieur held his stick in the right hand and
his pocket with the left, so with this little straw
I tickled Monsieur's ear. Monsieur withdrew
his hand from the pocket to scratch ; I seized
the opportunity; and voz/d tout /'
Mario never got over his nervousness. “G/7
assà, g/z ass? /zz fanno tremare,’ he used to say
(“Your footlights make me tremble ; I can’t get
over it.") Once he was asked by a lady to sing
at her evening reception ; and would he think
I 5oo francs sufficient remuneration ? Mario
refused, telling the messenger he was Sorry, but
he was engaged.
When remonstrated with he said, ‘Is it worth
while putting on a dress coat for the sake of
I5OO francs (£6O) 2'
Again, when the Emperor Nicholas ordered
Mario to shave off his beard, he refused. The
Empress, knowing that the Czar brooked no
contradiction, asked him to comply for her
MARIO I 43
sake; but Mario said he would rather leave
St. Petersburg than run the risk of losing his
voice, and he kept his beard. It is needless to
say that whenever Mario walked in London
he was recognised. One day, walking in
Piccadilly, a young lady saw him, and
involuntarily exclaimed, “Mario !’ ‘A votre
service, made/ſtoise//e,’ said the handsome tenor,
removing his hat, whilst the young lady blushed
crimson. In Messrs. Downey's shop there is a
picture of an eminently handsome old man
with white hair and a long white beard, that
few can pass without stopping to look at. It
is the picture of the once famous tenor, Mario,
who passed away from the Scene of his triumphs
on earth in comparative poverty. “Post funera
zyżrſals.’
Giovanni Baptiste Matteo, Cavaliere di
Candia, was born at Cagliari in 1808, in his
father's house ; and he died on December II,
1883. The General Marchese di Candia, Gover-
nor of Nizza and Novara, his father, was a dis-
tinguished soldier of a good old Piedmontese
family, whilst his mother was a daughter of the
haughty house of Colonna.
P A R E PA – R O S A
1836-1874
HE subject of this brief sketch will be
remembered as an artist of promise
whose name must be associated with the Carl
ROSa Company — one of the most effective
operatic combinations of modern times.
Euphrosyne Parepa de Boyesku was born on
May 7, 1836, at Edinburgh. Her father, who
was a native of Bucharest, died in her early
youth ; and her mother, Miss Elizabeth Seguin,
from whom she inherited her musical gift, had
the care of her early training. Her mother
had been a singer, and her uncle, Edward Seguin,
was a well-known bass singer. The training
begun by her mother was continued under the
direction of the most eminent masters of the
time. The child showed great aptitude for
study, and her development was remarkably
rapid.
In 1852, being then in her sixteenth year,
Mcille. Parepa made her first public appearance
144 -
PAREPA-ROSA I45
at Malta, in the part of Amina. The début was
a great success, and a short Season was followed
by a tour in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Her
voice was universally admired, and the care
and study she bestowed upon the parts under-
taken enlisted the sympathy and approval of
all good judges. Without creating any marked
sensation, her splendid soprano voice, brilliant
execution, and genuine artistic method made
her an esteemed favourite at Naples, Genoa,
Rome, Florence, Madrid, and Lisbon. The
King of Portugal manifested the most kindly
interest in her welfare, and showed the young
artist many graceful marks of favour.
Having made considerable progress in her
art, and gained the valuable experiences of
nearly six years of constant stage work, Mdlle.
Parepa determined to face the London audience.
Accordingly, she arrived in England, and ar-
rangements were entered into with the manage-
ment of the Royal Italian Opera at the Lyceum,
where she made her bow to the English public
on May 21, 1857, in the part of Elvira in /
P2/ræſamz.
Everything was done by her friends to insure
the success of the occasion. A letter of intro-
duction to the Prince Consort from her good
friend the King of Portugal secured her at
VOL. III. R
I 46 - THE GREAT SINGERS
once the notice and interest of royalty, and the
Queen invited the young prima donna to
Osborne, where her rare intelligence, combined
with grace of manner, her cultured mind, her
various accomplishments, and the sincerity of
character she evinced, rendered her a great
favourite. She was highly educated, spoke
several languages with ease, fluency, and cor-
rectness; her figure was round and graceful;
and her charming features, though they did
not indicate strength and power, were lit up
with an expression of interest and sweetness.
But the début, notwithstanding these advan-
tages, was not a pronounced success. The
critics were shy; faint praise was mingled very
temperately with a large allowance of judicious
advice and instruction. The critic of the
Athenaum—a voice of authority—was especi-
ally rigid and unbending, and admonished the
new-comer that the good feeling expressed in
the kindly reception given by the audience
should not be mistaken for a ratification of the
position she had assumed as a leading prima
donna.
‘It would be doing our part'—so the fiat
goes—‘in beguiling the lady with false hopes
were we to say that she has much present
chance of retaining such position in London—
PAREPA-ROSA I47
at least, in Serious opera. She is young,
buxom, with a handsome face, well fitted for
“Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles,”
a fair soprano voice—extending upwards to D
above the line—a good idea of phrasing, and
considerable executive powers. These, how-
ever, are spurious rather than real, florid with-
out neatness, and not always in tune,—the
devices, in short, of a vocalist imperfectly
taught, which, however satisfying to a second-
rate public, Cannot, and should not, win lasting
renown for their owner in a London opera-
house. As a comprimeria, Mdlle. Parepa may
prove an acquisition.’
No doubt the critic exceeded the actual
position of affairs in his statement of the case.
It was not just, for instance, to imply that the
execution of the singer was not first-rate, and
that she had been imperfectly taught. Her
chief excellence consisted in the finish of her
style, and her execution derived all the dis-
tinction that can be won from assiduous care
and practice. The fact is that Parepa-Rosa
was a gifted and cultured singer; a fact that is
perfectly illustrated by the other fact that she
afterwards won a high reputation in oratorio,
and formed a conspicuous attraction at the
I48 THE GREAT SINGERS
Handel Festivals of 1862 and 1865. Her voice
was rich and sweet, with a certain commanding
power, but it was not phenomenal in character.
As an actress she was intelligent, graceful, and
winning ; artistic in a high degree, but by no
means powerful in the presentation of character.
She united rare conscientiousness to the art of
taking pains. The dash and force which ac-
companies genius in Commanding or striking
situations were absent from her portrayal of
dramatic episodes, but what cultured intelli-
gence could supply was never wanting. Time
gave fulness and ripeness to her style, both as
a singer and an actress ; and the writer already
quoted bears ample testimony to her develop-
ment when—after her death in 1874—he speaks
of her ‘splendid voice,’ adding, “she might have
formed a worthy exponent of the Pasta-Grisi
characters’; which, it must be allowed, is a
liberal concession from a writer who was at one
time only disposed to grant her a place among
acceptable second-rate artists.
In the following year (1858) she appeared in
a revival of Zampa at Covent Garden, with a
strong cast, including Didiće, Tamberlik, Neri-
Baraldi, Ronconi, and Tagliafico, the success of
which established her London reputation. A
round of operatic parts played at Covent Garden
PAREPA-ROSA I49
and Her Majesty's Theatres, between 1859 and
I865, served to bring her increased renown as
well as to mellow and broaden her dramatic
and vocal powers. These included, besides
original parts in Mellon's Victorine, the English
production of Massé's La Reine Topaze, and
Macfarren's Helvellyn, Arline in the Bohemian
Girl, Satanella, Dinorah, Elvira (Masaniello),
and the Zerlinas of Fra Diavolo and Don
Giovanni.
As the Victorine in Mellon's opera she shone
with peculiar distinction, giving life, variety,
and individuality to a character that offered
very little in itself, and doing, by her splendid
singing, much to enhance the reputation of the
composer. Her acting had acquired depth and
power, and she imparted to the character of
Victorine a passionate fervour that won golden
Opinions from all who watched her career with
interest. The cast included Miss Thirlwall and
Messrs. Haigh (tenor), Santley (baritone),
Honey, and Carri. The only survivor of the
group, the accomplished baritone, Mr. Santley,
is to this day the ornament of London concert-
rooms, where he reigns a vocal king in ballad
and Oratorio with undiminished force and
popularity.
In La Reine Topaze (the English version was
I 50 THE GREAT SINGERS
produced on December 26th) she essayed a
task of more than ordinary difficulty. The
Original Queen Topaze was designed for
Madame Miolan-Carvalho, and played with all
her rare distinction and power by that admir-
able artiste, whose felicitous touches, the expres-
Sion of a sparkling individuality freshened and
lightened by elegant humour, were in this
Opera expressly evoked by librettist and com-
poser. Although Mdlle. Parepa achieved a
Considerable measure of success in the part,
giving eminent satisfaction to all who had not
witnessed the original performance, the com-
parison with the Parisian artiste was irresistible
and fatal. Criticism is founded on comparison,
and an opportunity of this character is seldom
missed by the critic. The verdict is against
the artiste. It is summed up by the Athenaeum,"
whose judgment is worth quoting because it
evinces a tone of respect and an admission of
qualities very different from those suggested in
the same journal two years previously.
‘We are sorry to say that the London Queen
Topaze in hardly one point resembles the
Parisian one. How clever and available Mdlle.
Parepa is, how good a musician,—how versa-
tile a linguist, we have no occasion to repeat.
* December 29th, 1860.
PAREPA-ROSA I 5 I
With such a range of music at command, why
and wherefore (in the name of self-knowledge)
should she have determined on showing to all
who know Queen Topaze what she cannot do P
That which was contrived for Madame Miolan-
Carvalho had better be left untouched by any
Subsequent soprano. Here (and this not alto-
gether chargeable on the heavier words of the
version) the lightness, the elegance, the un-
limited and apparently untiring execution are
missing. Mdlle. Parepa cannot do anything
badly; but she does hard work where her
Original played ; is merely meritorious, not
fascinating.’
Mdlle. Parepa achieved a signal triumph in
the part of Mabel in Macfarren's Helvellyn,
which was produced on November 3rd, I864.
She was well supported by Mme. Lemmens-
Sherrington, who sustained the part of Hannah.
Both artistes were in their prime, and the Opera
met with undoubted success.
After a short tour in Germany in 1865, she
undertook a concert tour in America, accom-
panied by Mr. Carl Rosa and Levy, the dis-
tinguished cornet player. In the early part of
the year, April 26th, her husband, Captain
Henry de Wolfe Carvell, died at Lenia, Peru.
Two years later she was married to Mr. Carl
I 52 THE GREAT SINGERS
Rosa at New York. They remained in America
four years, and established their famous opera
Company, which boasted Some famous names
in its early campaigns. In 187 I Mme. Parepa-
Rosa returned to England, but was prevented
by illness from making an appearance on the
opera stage during the season, only recovering
in time for the winter season of opera at Cairo.
In the following year she reappeared in London
with great success. At the close of the season
she revisited America with her opera company
—now reputably famous as the Carl Rosa Com-
pany—and returned to London in 1873, in-
tending to devote great care to the production
of Zohengrin at Drury Lane in March of the
following year. While these preparations were
proceeding she was seized with a severe illness,
from which she died on January 21st, 1874.
She was deeply regretted both in England
and America, where her irreproachable private
character, and her distinction as an artiste of the
highest culture, endeared her to wide circles of
friends.
PAST A
1798-1865
IUDITTA PASTA, a Jewess, was born
at Sarvano, near Milan, in 1798. Her
maiden name was Negri; but this name soon
merged in that of her husband, which she made
famous throughout the world, her first publicity
as a vocalist of eminence being attained after
her marriage to Signor Pasta, a tenor singer,
which took place about the year 1816. Pasta
was first instructed by Bartolomeo Lotti,
chapel-master of the Cathedral of Como, and
Asioli. In 1815, having left the Conservatorio,
she appeared in the minor theatres of Leghorn,
Parma and Brescia ; and in the following year
she appeared at Paris in the train of Catalani.
At Paris she attracted considerable notice from
connoisseurs, but she hardly gave indications of
her future powers. Without bursting into
Sudden splendour, she played subordinate parts,
and matured her voice by incessant practice
and care. It was said of her that she left
153
I 54 THE GREAT SINGERS
nothing to chance, and proved the truth of the
axiom that genius is the art of taking pains.
Pasta and her husband were engaged for a
Season in London at a joint salary of £400. She
made her first appearance at the King's Theatre
On January I Ith, 1817, in the part of Arsinoe in
Cimarosa's Penelope, the title-róle being played
by Madame Camporesi; this was followed by
Cherubino in Le Nogge di Figaro, and sub-
ordinate parts in several other operas. She
elicited occasional eulogies from the critics,
who saw the germs of future distinction in the
care and study which the young artiste evinced
in the interpretation of the parts entrusted to
her ; but, though the exceptional quality and
power of her voice did not escape the notice of
the judicious, at the outset of her career as a
singer she failed to excite general notice. Her
voice was lacking in clearness and purity, and
she had not yet attained complete command of
it. But her style was expressive, and her act-
ing was characterised by ability such as in-
dicated a reserve of histrionic power of the
highest order. It was foreseen that her forfe
would lie in tragedy. Although below the
medium height, her carriage was imposing and
majestic, and her noble features, of the true
classic mould, were lit up with intelligence.
PASTA I 55
Pasta returned to Italy, withdrew temporarily
from the stage, and for over a year applied her-
self to a rigorous course of study. The reward
of patience and assiduity was won on her re-
appearance in Venice, where she created a pro-
found sensation in 1819, and at once asserted
the claims of genius developed by conscientious
study. A season in Rome during the same year
was attended by the most gratifying success,
which was followed by triumphs at Trieste and
Milan in the following year. In 1821, at Paris,
she succeeded in making a complete conquest
of the public, which was ratified, after a flatter-
ing reception at Verona, in March of the next
year, when in the opera of Romeo e Giulieża
she was received with that enthusiastic homage
which Parisians only render in acknowledg-
ment of the highest gifts. -
By perseverance she had conquered all de-
fects of tone, and the surprising beauty of her
voice was now the theme of universal admira-
tion. Its range and power were remarkable.
The critics found that she had extended it to
two octaves and a half, from A above the bass
clef to C flat, and even to D in alt. Its quality
was marked by a rare Sweetness which per-
meated its rich volume, and her exquisite taste
was reinforced by deep feeling and accurate
I 56 THE GREAT SINGERS
judgment. Her trill was exceptionally beautiful
and artistic.
A writer in Zippincott in 1874, who met her
in retirement many years afterwards, gives an
interesting account of her achievement of the
shake or trill in her own words. “I had no
natural shake or trill,’ she says, “and as the
music of forty years ago was very elaborate,
this was a great drawback to me. For five
years I struggled to obtain the power of trilling;
One day it came to me as by inspiration, and
I could shake perfectly. I kept the secret at
rehearsal. I was then at Bergamo, acting in
AVZoêe, an opera containing an aria, ‘A)e/s24ave
ôel contento,” which suited my voice in every
respect, but which I had hitherto been obliged to
partly omit, as a long trill obbligato opens the
quick movement. I simply told the conductor
of the orchestra to suspend the instruments at
this passage, as I wished to introduce a long
cadenza. When I came to the passage in
question I stood in the middle of the stage,
and commenced a shake in a low key,
gradually increasing in power, finally diminish-
ing, and ending in a cadenza which perfectly
linked it to the aria. For a minute or two
there was a dead silence, then the musicians
laid down their instruments, while both or-
PASTA I 57
chestra and public applauded me to the
echo.'
Pasta's fame speedily attained the zenith.
Her rare powers, ripened by time and developed
and refined by study, burst upon an astonished
world with the splendour and brilliancy of a
constellation. Whatever defects still lingered
in her voice were obscured by her intellectual
refinement, her marvellous pathos, her trans-
forming energy in heroic situations, her pro-
found but restrained tragic power. She was
among the greatest actresses of her time—of
all time. She lost her individuality, creating,
amid the stage surroundings, a perfect ideal of
the impersonation of the moment. Her lower
notes had tears in them, and thus her command
of pathetic emotions was heightened and in-
tensified ; her movements and gestures were
indescribably graceful, deepening into grandeur
or tragic abruptness as the situation required.
Passion and fire, held in artistic restraint, like
hounds in the leash, gave to supreme moments
inimitable and decisive touches. A perfect
grace in pause or movement, added to an
antique facial charm, made every pose, ac-
centuated by true art, but never artificial, a
study for a painter or sculptor. Niobe,
Tancredi, Romeo, Desdemona, Medea, Semi-
I 58 THE GREAT SINGERS
ramide—each character was infused with life
and individuality, and borrowed distinction
and grandeur from real emotion. ‘Here is a
woman, exclaimed Talma, “ of whom I can
still learn
Pasta reappeared in London on April 24th,
1824, as the reigning queen of that stage which,
only seven years before, she had left almost
unnoted. She took the town by storm, and
reaped a golden harvest. £14,000 was the sum
offered for the following season. In 1825-6
she appeared alternately in London and Paris.
Ir, the former city she played Pasiello's Wāna
Pagea per Amore, and the touching pathos of
her acting drew tears from her fashionable
audience.
Owing to a disagreement with Rossini, at
that time director of the Opéra Italien at Paris,
she quitted England and went to Naples. In
1827, however, she returned to London for a
season of twenty-three nights, for which she re-
ceived nearly three thousand guineas, and a free
benefit which realised fifteen hundred guineas.
During this season she played Desdemona, and
elicited a comparison with Malibran, who also
essayed the part. Malibran's superiority in
vocalisation was admitted, but it failed to wrest
the palm of completeness from her rival, whose
PASTA I 59
conception of the part and finished acting were
beyond the scope of Malibran. Her impersona-
tion of Mary Stuart still further increased her
fame and popularity. The farewell in the last
scene is said to have been a crowning triumph
of queenly grandeur and tragic pathos. She
felt the situation deeply, and when she ap-
peared before the curtain in response to a
tumultuous call she was still suffering from
extreme agitation. After a triumphal Season
at Dublin she went to Trieste,
At Trieste one day she met a little child of
three, who solicited alms for her blind mother
in artless tones. Pasta, bursting into tears, gave
the child all the money in her purse. To the
friends who began praising her bounty she said:
‘I will not accept your compliments. This
child demanded charity in a sublime manner.
I have seen at one glance all the miseries of the
mother, the wretchedness of their home, and all
that they suffer. I should indeed be a great
actress if at any time I could find a gesture
expressing profound misery with such truth.’
In 1828 Pasta is again in England, and
during a most brilliant series of Successes,
including 7 ancredi, Mayer's ſ.a. Rosa Óianca
& Rosa rossa, and Ze/mira, she achieved a
great triumph in the part of Armando in //
160 THE GREAT SINGERS
Crociato in Egitto, an opera originally composed
for the celebrated male soprano, Velluti. Curio-
sity was roused, and a spirit of partisanship was
maintained, rising at times to serious outbreaks
during the performance. The palm, however,
was awarded to Pasta. Her fempo was fault-
less, her conception of the part was strikingly
original, and Velluti could not hope to compete
with Pasta in histrionic power. On the first
night a humorous incident occurred. At the
conclusion of the trio, “Ma ba/ga gue/ cor’ sent,’
Pasta hastened to her dressing room to change,
but the audience clamoured for an encore.
Pasta hurried on to the stage again half-
Crusader and half-Mameluke. For her benefit
she selected Ofello, appearing herself as the
jealous Moor, Sontag being the Desdemona.
The experiment was a daring one, and hardly
appreciated at first. The transposition of the
music marred the effect of some of the concerted
pieces. But the tragic intensity of the great
actress Conquered prejudice, and carried away
the audience. Criticism, however, was not
wholly favourable. In the last scene she
grasped Desdemona by the hair and dragged
her to the bed. This was horrifying. ‘Some
of the spectators, we are told, ‘considered her
to have exceeded the bounds of good taste, and
PASTA I6 I
to have touched the very verge of disgust. It
was, however, a magnificent tragic outburst.
In this year (1828) Pasta excelled herself as
an actress; doubtless stimulated to the expres-
sion of her highest powers by the presence of
her ‘two young and glorious rivals, Malibran
and Sontag. Says one critic, ‘She never acted
so well or sung so ill.’
In 1829 she once more appeared at Vienna, and
the Emperor created her first court singer, at the
same time presenting her with a Superb diamond.
During this yéar she purchased a charming villa
on the Lake of Como, and performed in twelve
operas by Rossini, the great master himself
conducting, and a medal was struck in her
honour by the Società del Casino. In the fol-
lowing year she is also at Vienna, at Milan,
singing with Rubini and Lablache. Donizetti,
this year, wrote and produced Anna Bolena
with these three great singers in the cast: and
in 1831 Pasta and Rubini surpassed themselves
as Amina and Elvino in Bellini's La Sonnamzóula,
the opera being specially written for Pasta. For
season (1831) at Milan, Pasta received a salary
of 40,000 francs.
Pasta, Lablache, and Rubini appeared to-
gether in London (in 1831) in Medea. If
possible, her tragic acting was grander than
VOL. III. L
I62 THE GREAT SINGERS
ever ; she was said to have revived the memory
of the great Siddons. The great English
tragedienne, who witnessed one of her per-
formances, is stated to have exclaimed : ‘I am
thankful that she lived not in my time.’ Her
versatility was remarkable, and her genius for
comedy was shown in Prova d'un Opera, a
burlesque of the rehearsals of grand opera.
She evoked roars of laughter by her burlesque
singing, which was free from the slightesttrace of
vulgarity. The quarrel scene between the prima
donna and the composer (Lablache) was rendered
irresistibly comic by the superb comedy power
displayed by Pasta. She bade farewell to the
Parisian stage this year.
In 1832 Bellini's AVorma was produced at La
Scala. Pasta, as the Druid priestess, achieved
the crowning triumph of her career; she was
supported by Donzelli (Pollione) and Giulia
Grisi (Adalgisa). When Norma was produced
during the next season in London for Pasta's
benefit, it did not create enthusiasm, although it
was conducted by the composer ; indeed, the
superb acting of Pasta and the singing of Grisi,
then rising into fame, only saved it from failure
—its great beauties not being readily discri-
minated by the English public, with whom it
shortly afterwards became a prime favourite.
PASTA I63
Pasta continued to appear in opera in the
principal cities of Europe until her retirement
in 1842, when her ſailing powers warned her to
quit a scene upon which she had hitherto
reigned Supreme. In 1832 she was elected an
honorary member of the Academia di Santa
Cecilia at Rome, and in 1840, after a brilliant
Season at St. Petersburg, was presented by the
Czar with a valuable ring. By the failure of a
bank at Vienna she lost nearly the whole of her
fortune.
Pasta, who spent the rest of her days in
retirement at Como–except the winters passed
at Milan or Genoa-died on Ist April 1865.
If not the greatest of the queens of song, she
was undoubtedly the most versatile genius and
the greatest actress of the lyric stage.
R U B I N I
I 795-1854
UBINI divides the palm with Mario—the
two greatest tenors of this century. In
many respects it is difficult to decide as to how
much of the palm should be given to either, or
whether it should be equally divided. The
preponderance and weight of sympathy is
doubtless on the side of Rubini, whose splendid
powers are unrivalled in delicacy of expression,
and whose florid execution—a phrase too wo-
fully abused by Charlatans and pretenders—was
a perfect wilderness of Sweets. His name, too,
is inalienably associated with the fame of
Bellini and Donizetti, composers whose genius
his voice touched into expression, and whose
fame he extended among their contemporaries.
He retired with Bellini during the composition
of ZZ Pirata, and may be said—such was the
influence his marvellous voice exercised over
the composer—to have materially assisted in
the composition of that opera and of Za Som-
164
RUBINI I65
mambula and / Puritami, the melodious strains
of which he rehearsed in the study of Bellini
before their final committal to paper. Doni-
zetti, also, owed to Rubini his first great wave
of popular favour as well as the direction of his
style. Thirty-one operas by Donizetti had pre-
ceded the Anna Bolema, but this latter work,
the tenor part written expressly for Rubini, for
the first time indicated his true style, in which
his command and restraint of passionate
melody are made clear. It was Surely the
golden cycle of opera when Rubini shone with
more than gracious splendour amid a dazzling
constellation of fixed stars ; when Pasta, Grisi,
Lablache, and Rubini united their artistic
perfections to swell the fame of Bellini and
Donizetti.
Giambattista Rubini was born at Romano,
near Bergamo, on April 7th, 1795. His father,
from whom he learned the rudiments of his art,
was a poor musical professor. The infant time
of Rubini was chequered by poverty and family
straits, but not uncheered by music; for the
child had within him a bubbling runnel of song
that expressed itself with spontaneous enthusi-
asm after the manner of birds. The dumb soul
shook his wayward brain into fantastic images
that trembled on his lips into sweet sounds.
I66 THE GREAT SINGERS
When only eight years of age he sang in the
church choir, and played a violin in the orches-
tra. Don Santo, priest and organist at Adro,
to whom at this period the child was committed
for instruction, declared that he had no talent
for singing, and sent him home again, whimper-
ing his Sorrow into music on the roadside.
Poor Don Santo—withered tree of casuistry,
Sole depositary of the musical wisdom of that
Small world—much he knew about it !
At the age of twelve he appeared in a
woman's part at the theatre of Romano with
Considerable success. At the conclusion of his
part of the performance he sat at the front door
of the theatre with a plate before him to receive
his reward from the public. So it appears that
he was not in the regular salary list. Shortly
afterwards we find him at the Bergamo theatre,
playing the violin in the orchestra between the
acts of comedies, and singing in the chorus
when the curtain was up during the opera
Season. At a pinch he served the manager well
by singing a cavatina in a drama ; the vocalist
was enthusiastically applauded by the audience,
and received an extra five-franc piece from the
management. Rubini always remembered this
event with pleasure, and never failed, in his
prosperous days, amid the festivals of memory,
RUBINI I67
to honour this one by singing the old cavatina
by Lamberti to his friends.
In his nineteenth year, after various vicissi-
tudes in a troupe of wandering singers—he
danced in a ballet at Piedmont, and danced
SO badly that he was hissed—he obtained an
engagement as tenor at Pavia at a salary of
thirty shillings per week. But the young artiste
was cheerful and courageous, happy to have
found employment, endeavouring to profit by
every opportunity, and diligently striving to
commend himself to the management, which,
somehow, did not set a high value upon his
services. Barbaja was a clever man, the prince
of impresarios, but he did not know a note of
music. How was he to discern the veritable
gold mine locked up in the insignificant
Rubini's voice? Whatever may have been the
suppressed longing of his soul, the instinctive
knowledge of folded up possibilities, Rubini
himself could not have foreseen the triumphs
that waited upon his future song, the crowds
wild with adulation, the deference of potentates,
the jewelled loveliness of the civilised world,
careful of the smiles of the awkward, common-
place, pock-marked tenor, with a voice of gold,
a mouth cradle-kissed by all the bees of
melody; nor could the half-starved Rubini,
I68 THE GREAT SINGERS
singing and acting on a pittance, tossed by
wayward Fortune from pillar to post, dare to
dream of that future of fabulous sums, of a
palatial residence in beloved Bergamo, of a
princely revenue in England and France, of
A2O,OOO a year in St. Petersburg
Rubini sang at the Carnival at Brescia ;
shortly afterwards at the San Mosè Theatre at
Venice, then at Naples with Pellegrini and
Nozzari, in two operas written for Barbaja by
Fioravanti. His success was undoubted. The
public recognised his great merits as a singer,
and the resonance and beauty of his voice
were acclaimed on all sides. It was the
beginning of fame. Still Barbaja only con-
sented to retain his services on a reduced
salary. Rubini accepted the situation with all
its hardships, including the galling reduction
of salary, for the sake of being near Nozzari,
from whom he was taking lessons. *
Even Barbaja was soon to acknowledge the
value of the new tenor ; and, indeed, Barbaja,
once a waiter, and now among the very greatest
of impresarios, was not slow to acknowledge
artistic merit that paid well. Many humorous
anecdotes are told of him. Once, after Rubini
had attained to great fame, the great impresario
was complacently regarding the great tenor
RUBIN I 169
from a box in the theatre of La Scala, when
some wags in the auditorium, bent upon
astonishing the manager, set up a discordant
hiss. It was one of his most successful parts,
and Rubini, quite disconcerted, looked up in
confused amazement. Barbaja leaned out of
his box in a towering rage, and, shaking his
fist at the hissers, caused general consternation
by shouting: ‘Bravo, Rubini ! never mind those
pigs. It is I who pay you, and I am delighted
with your singing.” Even Barbaja was aroused
to a due acknowledgment of the merit (i.e.
value) of Rubini, when the latter had achieved
the most brilliant successes in La Gagga Zadra
at Rome and Naples.
In 1819 Rubini was married to Mcille.
Chomel, known at Naples as La Comelli, a
singer of reputation, a Frenchwoman, and who
had been a pupil of the Paris Conservatoire.
The marriage appears to have been a very
happy one. Rubini had a simple, kindly
nature, pleased with success but not dazzled
into moral blindness by it, and his head was
never turned by flattery or good fortune.
* This story is told by Mr. H. Sutherland Edwards in Zhe
Arima ZXorazza, vol. i. p. 17O. Many other humorous stories,
including the ‘piano-leg' story—also told of Valabrèque, the
husband of Catalani—are related of Barbaja.
I7o THE GREAT SINGERS
Rubini, having made vast strides as a singer
in all the Italian cities, now looked towards
Paris. He made his début in the French
capital on October 6th, 1825, in Za Cemerezzola,
which was followed by Ode//o and Za Domna
de/ Zago. His triumph was complete. Paris
was taken by storm ; Rubini was hailed as the
‘king of tenors.’ His glorious voice, its timbre,
its quality, his brilliant execution, his power
in dramatic vocalisation, his thrilling pathos,
his exquisite art, his chest notes, his head
notes, were declared to exceed all the best
traditions of the lyric stage. He united the
power of expressing deep tragic feeling to the
most melting tenderness. Qu'il avaiz des
/a/7/zes dams /a voit,” said one of his critics.
From this time forward his artistic career was
One continuous triumph. Barbaja, having now
no doubt of his value, insisted upon his return
at the end of six months to fulfil his engage-
ment at Naples, Milan, and Vienna.
Rossini's music, in which Rubini made his
first appeal to fame, was soon to be displaced
by the new school of opera which the singer
himself helped to create. Bellini and Donizetti
both wrote operas under the direct influence
of Rubini, and the former composer got Rubini
to sing over the airs of // Pirata and / Puritani
RUBINI I7 I
during the composition of these operas. Doni-
zetti also wrote the tenor parts of his later
Operas with an eye to Rubini. “Every one,’
says Mr. H. Sutherland Edwards,” “who is
acquainted with Anna Bolezza will understand
how much Rubini's mode of singing the airs,
Og??? terra, etc., and lºve £24, must have
contributed to the immense favour with which
it was received.” The succession of operas
after Anna Bolena—Lucia, Zucrezia, Marino
Fa/zero, etc.—were all dictated more or less by
the same influence; the mutual dependence
upon each other of artiste and composer.
The influence of Bellini upon the style of
Rubini was salutary. It helped to weaken his
love of ornamentation, and induced a juster
Conception of the value of simple and chaste
expression in singing. It showed him that
force and animation were stultified rather than
advanced by over decoration ; and that true
art gained strength and massive grandeur from
simplicity. Rubini's voice was a revelation to
the composer, who lost no opportunity of
convincing the artist that its singular purity,
freedom, and majesty, were best displayed,
indeed only adequately exhibited, in passages
expressing simple dignity and pathos. Although
* Aistory of the Opera, vol. ii. p. 248.
I72 THE GREAT SINGERS
he had carried the art of florid execution to
the highest degree of perfection, his real ſorte
lay in the expression of the gems of melody,
abounding in the touches which reach the
heart and overbrim the eyes. To this end
Bellini wrote the tender, moving strains of the
tenor parts originally entrusted to Rubini, and
prevailed upon him in the disuse of the falsetto
voice, which, although he employed it with the
greatest tact and delicacy, would not be
tolerated in Our day even from Rubini, whose
voice, marvellously sweet, yet capable of organ-
like power and volume, extended from E of
the bass to B of the treble clef, and commanded
a falsetto register as high as F and G above.
Simple emotion, expressed with the vocal
power of a great Singer, afforded a golden key
to the sympathies of the audience—this was
the principle applied by Bellini and adopted
by Rubini. As illustrating this spirit of co-
operation and mutual interdependence, more
than one pleasant record may be cited. Mr.
H. Sutherland Edwards tells us” that when
Bellini was putting the finishing touches to the
part of Arturo in Z Puritanz, Rubini (as usual,
singing the music as it was written down by
the composer) inadvertently displaced a D flat
* Zhe Prima Domna, vol. i. p. 208.
RUBINI I73
by an F natural, which both surprised and
pleased Bellini, who accepted it as an emenda-
tion, saying, “If he can sing it, he may as well
have it.’ Of the truth of the position held by
Bellini there need be no question. Rubini,
happily, saw it without much hesitation ; and
by embracing it, he not only widened and
deepened his hold upon artistic principles, but
made his future secure. In Rossini's music he
had climbed to a high position in the artistic
world ; but it was really as an exponent of the
School of Bellini and Donizetti, and especially
in the enunciation of the principles laid down
by Bellini, that he won his great fame as a
Singer.
After the conclusion of his engagement with
Barbaja, Rubini appeared in London in 1831.
He was just freed from the contracts which had
bound him, in no silken ties, to Barbaja. His
earnings for some time had averaged 68000 per
annum ; but his contracts allowed him only a
moiety of his earnings, which he now received
in full to his own account. He was in a
position of positive affluence, with prospects
that placed the thirty shillings a week engage-
ment at Pavia, seventeen years ago, in the
dimmest shade of the backward vista of a
dream. Only recently, Rubini and his wife
I74 THE GREAT SINGERS
were offered engagements at a joint salary of
ŻóOOO a year; now these figures were more
than doubled ; and later on his own services
were retained at St. Petersburg for the princely
salary of £2O,OOO. Rubini, being blest with
simple tastes, and having no delight in mere
extravagance, did not squander his money. He
lived much in society, with hearty enjoyment of
the good things of life ; but he laid by a great
fortune. A clinging to old ties and associations
ever remained with him. He never forgot that he
was once a poor chorister, and when a dismissed
member of the chorus besought his intervention
with an obdurate manager, he signed his plea for
the defaulter, ‘ Rubini, ancien choriste.” In a like
spirit he purchased a property and residence at
his birthplace, where he spent his last days.
Beside this fine property, he left, at his death, a
fortune of over £90,000.
The next ten years, 1831-1843, were divided
between Paris and London. Rubini was the
lion of the two greatest capitals in the world.
He sang in operas, concerts, festivals, and
created a furore wherever he appeared. His
triumphs would fill a volume; the history of
this brilliant period of his career would make
another “tale of two cities.’ It is remarkable
that, during the most eventful years of his life,
RUBINI I75
the great tenor sang with undiminished force
and attained the zenith of his fame with a
broken clavicle !
The story of the accident was told by M.
Castil-Blaze in the Revue de Paris, and is thus
condensed by Mr. Edwards " :- Pacini's Talis-
mano had just been produced with great success
at La Scala. Rubini made his entry in this
opera with an accompanied recitative, which
the public always applauded enthusiastically.
One phrase in particular, which the singer
commenced by attacking the high B flat
without preparation, and holding it for a
considerable period, excited their admiration to
the highest point. Since Farinelli's celebrated
trumpet song no one note had ever attained
such a success as this wonderful B flat of
Rubini's. The public of Milan went in crowds
to hear it, and having heard it, never failed to
encore it. “One’ aſtra vo/ta /* resounded
through the house almost before the magic
note itself had ceased to ring.” After hearing
it fourteen times the Milanese thronged the
theatre for the eighth performance of // Ta/is-
mano. ‘The orchestra executed the brief pre-
lude which announced the entrance of the
tenor. Rubini appeared, raised his eyes to
* History of the Opera, vol. ii. pp. 267-270.
176 THE GREAT SINGERS
heaven, extended his arms, planted himself
firmly on his calves, inflated his breast, opened
his mouth, and sought, by the usual means,
to pronounce the wished-for B flat. But no
B flat would come. Os habe?, et mom clamabit.
Rubini was dumb ; the public did their best
to encourage the disconsolate singer, applauded
him, cheered him, and gave him courage to
attack the unhappy B flat a second time. On
this occasion Rubini was victorious. De-
termined to catch the fugitive note, which for
a moment had escaped him, the singer brought
all the force of his immense lungs into play,
struck the B flat, and threw it out among the
audience with a vigour which surprised and
delighted them. In the meanwhile, the tenor
was by no means equally pleased with the
triumph he had just gained. He felt that
in exerting himself to the utmost he had in-
jured himself in a manner which might prove
very serious. Something in the mechanism of
his voice had given way. He had felt the
fracture at the time. He had, indeed, con-
quered the B flat, but at what an expense!—that
of a broken clavicle.’
However, he continued his scene. He was
wounded but triumphant, and in his artistic
elation he forgot the positive physical injury he
RUBINI 177
had sustained. On leaving the stage, he sent
for the surgeon of the theatre, who, by inspect-
ing and feeling Rubini's clavicle, convinced
himself that it was indeed fractured. The bone
had been unable to resist the tension of the
Singer's lungs. Rubini may have been said to
have swelled his voice until it burst one of its
natural barriers.
‘It seems to me,’ said the wounded tenor, ‘that
a man can go on singing with a broken clavicle?”
‘Certainly, replied the doctor, ‘you have just
proved it.’
‘How long will it take to mend it 2' he
inquired.
‘Two months, if you remain perfectly quiet
during the whole time.”
‘Two months And I have only sung seven
times. I should have to give up my engage-
ment. Can a person live comfortably with a
broken clavicle P’
‘Very comfortably indeed. If you take care
not to lift any weight you will experience no
disagreeable effects.”
“Oh there is my cue, exclaimed Rubini; ‘I
shall go on singing.’
“Rubini went on singing,’ says M. Castil
Blaze, ‘and I do not think any one who heard
him in 1831 could tell that he was listening to
VOL. III. M
178 THE GREAT SINGERS
a wounded singer—wounded gloriously on the
field of battle. As a musical doctor, I was
allowed to touch the wound, and I remarked on
the left side of the clavicle a solution of con-
tinuity, three or four lines (that is to say, a
quarter or a third part of an inch) in extent
between the two parts of the fractured bone.
I related the adventure in the Revue de Paris,
and 300 persons went to Rubini's house to
touch the wound and verify my statement.’
Rubini was idolised in Paris and London,
and, indeed, in all the first capitals of Europe.
He was the darling of society, and his popularity
never diminished during his lifetime. The
public adored the great singer, and great nobles
and mighty potentates paid him marked atten.
tion. In 1842, at the conclusion of a concert
at Wiesbaden, Prince Metternich took him by
the arm, and promenaded the salon with him,
and cordially invited him to the château, where
he met a distinguished company on the follow-
ing day. After dinner, Rubini sang two of his
favourite songs unsolicited. The delighted
prince, famous for his rare and costly wines,
gave him a basket of his choice Johannisberg—
the choicest selection of that vintage in the
world—at the same time offering him the
freedom of the château, and instructing the
RUBINI I79
servant to receive M. Rubini at all times as if
he were its master. With princely courtesy
and generosity the stately mansion with all
its magnificent appointments was placed abso-
lutely at the disposal of the great tenor. It was
the Prince of Courtesy's fitting devoir to the
King of Song. “And the cellar also P’ asked
Rubini with slyly amiable vivacity. “The
cellar also, replied the Prince gaily: ‘the
cellar at discretion.’ At all times a welcome
guest at the houses of the great was Rubini;
all the more so because his manners were
simple and unassuming, having no tinge of
the vulgarity which exclusive prerogative and
wholesale adulation too often impart to the
spoiled idols of the theatre.
In 1843, accompanied by Liszt, Rubini under-
took a tour through Holland and Germany.
They separated at Berlin, and Rubini pro-
ceeded alone to St. Petersburg, where he was
received with great éclat, and his singing
created the wildest enthusiasm. His first
concert realised 50,000 francs. The Czar
Nicholas conferred upon him the rank of
colonel, and appointed him director of singing
in the Russian dominions. His artistic career
may be said to terminate in Russia. After a
return visit to Italy in the Summer, with a call,
I8o THE GREAT SINGERS
en passant, at Vienna, he reappeared at St.
Petersburg in 1844. The climate at length
seriously affected his health, and permanently
injured his voice. He retired to his estate at
Romano, where he died on March 3rd, 1854, the
fifty-ninth year of his age.
There can be no doubt of the high merit of
Rubini. He was a great singer of the highest
order, and thoroughly deserved the great fame
he enjoyed during his lifetime. It was ex-
pected by the partisans of Mario that the latter
would eclipse Rubini at the very outset of his
career. But Mario, ever confident, and relying
wholly on the quality of his voice, had the
mortification of exciting an unflattering com-
parison in the minds of his first audience.
‘ Rubini l’ they shouted with a deafening
clamour of disapproval—‘Pas d'amateurs—
Rubin? —pas d'amateurs / ' Rubini was a
master of style, knew every vibration of his
tones, and had learned the utmost command of
his fine organ by intense study. Though he
never became a finished actor, the care he
bestowed upon perfecting the quality and
adaptability of his voice was unrivalled ; and
in this respect, if in no other, Mario was greatly
his inferior. “Mario,' says Dr. Louis Engel,”
1 A'rom Mozart to Mario, vol. ii. p. 233.
RUBINI I8 I
‘ cannot be said to be the greatest tenor of the
century, because his wonderful gifts were not
developed by persevering study like the equally
wonderful voice of Rubini, who surpassed in
this respect every singer before or after him.’
And again : ‘The intense persevering studies of
Rubini and Lablache, the greatest singers of
their age, were never made by Mario, who at
first was only an amateur.” He paid no at-
tention to declamation, and in concerted pieces
nearly always remained silent, reserving him-
self for supreme efforts, when the effects pro-
duced on his audiences were almost magical.
The late Mr. Chorley, whose testimony is
always valuable, notes his defects as an artiste.
‘He would walk through the third of an Opera
languidly, he says, “giving the notes correctly
and little more, in a duet blending his voice
intimately with that of his partner (in this he
was unsurpassed); but when his own moment
arrived there was no longer coldness or hesita-
tion, but a passion, a fervour, a putting forth to
the utmost of every resource of consummate
vocal art and emotion, which converted the
most incredulous, and satisfied those till then
inclined to treat him as one whose reputation
had been overrated.’
He is charged with too much indulgence in
I82 THE GREAT SINGERS
head notes; ‘but,’ says Escudier, ‘so perfect is
his art that the transition from one register to
the other is imperceptible to the hearer. . . .
Gifted with immense lungs, he can so control
his breath as never to expend more of it than
is absolutely necessary for producing the exact
degree of sound he wishes. So adroitly does
he conceal the artifice of respiration that it is
impossible to discover when his breath renews
itself, inspiration and expiration being ap-
parently simultaneous, as if one were to fill a
Cup with one hand while emptying it with the
Other. In this manner he can deliver the
longest and most drawn out phrases without
any solution of continuity.’
Rubini's figure was short and awkward, and
his features were seamed and scarred by small-
pox ; but these disadvantages were counter-
balanced by his agreeable smile, the intelligence
and brightness of his expression, and the amia-
bility of his manner. He never excelled as an
actor ; indeed rarely tried to act at all—a
disposition hardly conceivable of one who had
been associated in art with the incomparable
Pasta and the brilliant Grisi, who belonged to
the age of Malibran and Lind and Mario.
Grisi is said to have made an actor of Mario ;
and it is difficult to imagine Rubini playing
RUBINI 183
Egeus to the Medea of Pasta without catching
inspiration from the truly great actress, who
woke admiration and envy in the breast of the
aged Siddons. A French critic, quoted by
Miss Clayton," remarks: ‘He did not trouble
himself much about anything but the particular
scene which placed him in the foreground.
When this was past, he retired, without caring
much for the story of the drama, or the conduct
of the other performers. In the air, the duet,
or the finale, in which he had a preponderating
part, Rubini would suddenly rouse himself and
display all the energy and charm of his in-
comparable talent. It was in the tone and
sonorousness of his organ, in the artistic
management of his voice, that all Rubini's
dramatic power consisted.’
Such a talent is excellent in oratorio, or on
the concert platform, where its limitation is in
due order and propriety. On the lyric stage,
however, it is a reproach to find it unaccom-
panied by the histrionic arts which add to the
grace, strength, and triumph of the situation.
Without these the singer—as in the case of the
great Catalani—is liable to the charge of com-
manding attention merely in the capacity of
a musical instrument with finer lights and
* Queens of Song, vol. ii. p. 166.
I84 THE GREAT SINGERS
shadows—of being vow et praeterea mihil. And
if Rubini escaped the imputation, it was be-
cause he sang like One inspired, adding to the
splendour of his voice, with its Orphic sweet-
ness and entrancing majesty, the feeling of a
true artistic nature, a just conception of ideal
and dramatic qualities, a charm of energy or
reposeful peace, and a massive intellectual
power, such as he was denied the ability of
imparting to stage action and gesture.
Whatever his defects may have been, he is,
if not the first, among the greatest true singers
of the world.
R O N C O N I
1810-1883
HE rule which cruelly postpones recogni-
tion of so many of Our choicest spirits
until death has removed them, broken often in
heart and vigour, from the scene of their labours,
does not seem to apply to the stage. Here
success is for the living and Lethe for the dead.
How many of those whose names, barely a
generation ago, rang exultantly from the lips
of a grateful audience, whose feats were ac-
claimed night after night by thousands in
accents of frantic admiration, have lived—or
still live among us—in the shade of oblivion,
or, at best, in the faint, dimmed recollection
of those whose silvered hair has witnessed the
burial of generation after generation of their
successors, victims to the all-devouring appetite
of our fast-living days for a celebrity that counts
by seconds in the whirligig of time.
Ronconi ! Not ten years have elapsed since a
modest notice in musical papers announced that
185
I86 THE GREAT SINGERS
the once celebrated singer of that name had
joined the majority. “A celebrated singer of
the name of Ronconi ! Who was he P’ was the
question of many well versed in operatic annals.
And then it was found that, though still so
recently one of us, he had been virtually dead
for close on forty years—dead as a singer,
dead in that capacity which alone procured for
him pre-eminence among the millions of undis-
tinguished units. -
‘Ronconi?’ our grandfathers would say mus-
ingly; ‘ah, yes, we remember, to be sure, though,
had the name not been recalled to us, it might
not have occurred to our mind.”
And yet, if in the forties it had been suggested
to the habitués of Her Majesty's that Ronconi,
the celebrated singer and actor, would ever cease
to be a household word among theatre-goers,
they would have answered with a smile of
incredulity. From all the performers that have
found favour with the hypercritical audiences of
the middle of our century, Ronconi's stands out
as a perfectly unique case, For, strange to relate,
his voice was defective; hardly an Octave was
comprised in its register, and none even of those
notes were remarkable for great depth ; his
physique was mediocre, no flashes of genius lit
up his eyes, no commanding beauty or grace
RON CONI 187
lent effect to his features; puny and insignificant,
he had to hold the boards beside the imposing
figure of Lablache, and to share the attention
of the audience with artistes like Grisi. And
yet it is recorded, on the best of evidence, that
he not only held his own against all these dis-
advantages, but scored successes where the
above-named favourite singers failed to impress
their hearers. Of course, an explanation is
to be found for this seeming incongruity.
Ronconi's voice, such as it was, was well skilled ;
the very utmost had been done, by teacher and
pupil, to communicate absolute perfection to an
instrument which, to say the least of it, was not
in any degree extraordinary. But this is not
sufficient to account for his phenomenal success.
It must be sought in the circumstance that, as
an actor, he was without rival among Con-
temporaries who devoted their whole attention to
the singing, and regarded the dramaticexigencies
of the score with barely concealed indifference.
His was another case in proof that conscien-
tious application and hard work may rival very
closely the electric flashes of genius, which too
Often disdains the drudgery of hard work.
Giorgio Ronconi was born at Milan, August
6th, 18 IO. He came of a musical stock. Both
as a singer and a teacher his father ranked among
I88 THE GREAT SINGERS
the best of his contemporaries, and a younger
brother, Felice, though he does not seem to
have been on the stage, was well known beyond
Italy as a professor of music. He was barely
twenty when he made his début at Pavia as
Arturo in La Straniera. Perhaps his name
was, in some degree, responsible for his early
recognition. After a successful voyage through
Italy, he made a stay of some length in Rome,
where he met Donizetti, who wrote no less than
three operas for him. ZZ Furioso, Torquato Tasso,
and Maria di Rohan, but especially the latter,
added to his reputation, and his impersonation
of the Duc de Chevreuse was among the most
applauded creations of the time. Rome was of
importance to his career in more than one
respect. Here he linked himself in marriage
to Giovannina Giannoni, a singer of moderate
renown, who failed to make an impression on
her public. In 1842 he made his first appear-
ance at Her Majesty's Theatre, London. This
was perhaps the climax of his career. Though
well received on the continent, he does not seem
to have met anywhere else with that spontaneous
burst of enthusiasm which greeted him in the
British capital. Maria di Rohan was here also
one of his staple pieces, and he saved the piece
from the utter collapse which was nearly brought
RON CONI 189
about by the inferior acting of his wife. As
Doze in Z due Foscari, he was afforded the
palm of the evening over such celebrities as
Mario and Grisi. His by-play is said to have
been so excellent that it kept all the attention
riveted on him. After a provincial tour, in
which Thalberg assisted, he went to Paris, and
appeared at the Italiens for several seasons in
succession; for a time he even held the manager-
ship of that celebrated theatre, a position he
also held at Madrid some time afterward. For
a number of years he led the life of most of his
profession, travelling from Capital to capital,
earning applause enough to Satisfy the greatest
appetite, and money enough to be far removed
from the cares of life had he but exercised the
most primitive discretion. But that improvi-
dence which gnaws at the roots of fortunes so
easily acquired became the bane of his life.
When the time came to ease his voice and a
spell of quiet life was urgently called for, it was
found that pecuniary Considerations would not
allow of any repose. He had to continue his
incessant round of work, pleasure, and excite-
ment, and the voice, which with a little care
might have been preserved for years to come,
gave way, never to return. With it perished his
fame, applause, remembrance. Soon a curtain
I90 THE GREAT SINGERS
fell between the once deified idol and the public,
who know no pity in their rapid march onward
over death-strewn paths to new pleasures,
new idols, new playthings to be cast aside
relentlessly as soon as they pause in the ascent
of the ladder. Comparatively little is known
of the period following 1846, the year of
Ronconi's decadence. Baffled in his efforts to
regain popularity, he travelled from country to
country, from town to town, until at last he
found a resting place in the south-west corner
of Europe, in the comparatively isolated city of
Cordova, where he founded an academy for
singing, and where he died uncared-for and
forgotten, bowed down by the weight of seventy-
three years of mingled prosperity and adversity.
Viewed as a singer alone, it may well be
doubted whether Ronconi deserves a place in
this book ; viewed as an actor-singer there can
be no question that he deserves to rank among
the greatest of his profession.
SCHRODER-DEVRIENT
1804-1860
| N the old and venerable Trinitatis cemetery
of Dresden, popularly known as ‘der zweite
Airch/of a plain marble slab with the in-
scription, ‘Wilhelmine von Bock Schröder-
Devrient, marks the burial-place of one of the
greatest dramatic singers of Germany.
Greatest, not perhaps in actual vocal quality,
for in this respect Sontag and others towered
above her ; and yet we use the word advisedly,
for in dramatic power, feeling, and fascination,
she has never been surpassed, and hardly ever
equalled ; and if German opera is to-day a
power in England and even in German-hating
France, not a little of its success may be traced
back to the devoted singer who made its
worship the purpose of a life.
“Not only my own reputation is at stake,’
she writes, referring to her first engagement for
Paris, “but my failure would mean the failure
of German music, of Beethoven, Mozart, Weber.
191
I92 THE GREAT SINGERS
When I think of this responsibility, fear over-
takes me, and I am nearly tempted to cancel
the contract.’ These, her own words, convey
better than any argument the one aim to which
she devoted a lifetime of faithful toil.
Wilhelmine Schröder came of histrionic stock.
Her mother was a tragedienne of considerable
merit. To this day she is quoted in Germany
as the “great’ Schröder, and compared to
Siddons. The father was a baritone of some
renown in his country. The marriage was not
a happy one, and beyond the family dissensions
Wilhelmine's life was embittered by the Draconic
laws which obtained with the pedagogic autho-
rities of that age. She was to be instructed in
dancing, and the master—a negro–knew of
no better method than to string her legs up by
means of cords for hours at a time, until the
child fainted with fatigue and pain. Things
grew no better as time went on. Hamburg, her
birthplace, was smarting under the cruel in-
Solence of Davoust, who set his heel on every
attempt at independence. For a supposed
slight to the French the family had to fly the
city. They wandered about in Germany, gain-
ing a precarious living in the impoverished
war-racked country by Occasional performances
at which the children's dancing feats were among
SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT I93
the principal attractions. At last they found
a home in Prague, and afterwards at Vienna.
From a dancer, Wilhelmine developed into an
actress, her talents being greatly aided by the
experienced tuition of the mother, an advantage
she enjoyed in later years when she had devoted
herself to opera.
In 1821, when seventeen years old, she made
a brilliant first appearance in the Zauberflöte, a
Success that was followed up and, if possible,
increased by her conception of Agatha in the
Freischiiſa, which secured her the approval and
friendship of Weber. But her principal triumph
was to come. The authorities resolved to re-
vive Aſide/io, and to confide to her the principal
part. This opera had been performed several
times since 1805, but had always fallen flat.
Even uncompromising admirers of Beethoven
took exception to the music, which the composer
obstinately refused to modify in the slightest
particular. Soured in temper, and impatient
of the criticism he anticipated, he protested
angrily against his music being entrusted to a
mere child, but the authorities overruled him.
Wrapt up in a black cloak which covered all
except those large mournful eyes, he sat couched
behind the leader of the orchestra, seeing the
music which his cruel infirmity suffered him to
VOL. III. N
I94 THE GREAT SINGERS
hear no longer. We can well imagine that the
powerful pathos of the actress was not lost on
him, that her noble bearing and impassioned
gesture were to him, a revelation that his mean-
ing, misunderstood for years, had at last found
an interpreter. There was nought but kindness
in the eyes that beamed on her after the opera
was over, as he patted her cheek and promised
to write another opera for her. That morning
meant European fame for Wilhelmine ; it also
meant fame for Fidelio, tardy and belated,
but perhaps sweeter for that reason.
Soon afterwards the young prima domena left
for Dresden, where Weber was impatient for
her arrival. The first of her fatal mistakes took
place very soon afterwards. Karl Devrient, a
nephew of the great Ludwig, and himself a
very eminent actor, met her in Berlin, and she
consented to a marriage, which was celebrated
after a brief delay. However ardent their
love may have been at first, it soon cooled off
and developed into the other extreme. This
unfortunate marriage lasted for five years, and
appears to have been one continuous wrangle,
not even softened by occasional reconciliations.
Four children were born without bringing peace.
The husband seems to have been a hard man,
whose one aim was to make money, and the
SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT I95
wife was too impulsive and impatient of control
to yield where it might have been wise to do so.
At last, in 1828, things came to such a pass that
divorce came as a relief equally welcome to
both sides, although Wilhelmine must have felt
very severely the absence from her children.
In 1830 she made her first appearance in
Paris, where she was well received, even though
such celebrities as Malibran and Pasta disputed
favouritism with her. Her success was especially
striking in Fidelio, with which opera her name
will indeed always remain linked. Later on—
it is said in consequence of a challenge from
Malibran—she was heard in Italian opera ; but
though her performance was always creditable,
there can be no doubt that from every point of
view German music was better suited for her.
Her whole appearance was typically German ;
the tall, somewhat robust figure, ample bust, and
large features stamped her a Northerner, and an
exceptionally thick and rebellious growth of
flaxen hair, which often encircled her head,
loose and flowing like the mane of a Maenad,
was not in Consonance with the more delicate
heroines of Italian Opera. Besides, she was
terribly in earnest, and for that reason perhaps
a little inclined to be a trifle heavy. Some
exception was taken in Paris to this tendency,
196 THE GREAT SINGERS
and it was echoed a year later in London, but
on the whole she had little to complain of in
the notices of which she formed the subject.
Up to the very last the dramatic part of her
art had the first claim ; the music was perhaps
a little too much subordinated to the acting,
which gave rise to many incongruities which
would not have been easily pardoned in a less
popular singer. At a certain performance of
Fidelio, she became SO wrapped up in her part,
acted it with such truth of feeling, that the stage
faint became a real faint which overcame her
after a most inharmonious shriek. This dis-
sonance, quite unintended by the actress, and
certainly not in the score, was rapturously
applauded by the audience, and has been since
pretty universally imitated by her successors.
In London Madame Schröder was well
known on the boards of the Covent Garden
Theatre, but her experiences with the manage-
ment of that theatre were not of an agreeable
nature. Bunn, who later on acquired notoriety
in a pecuniary battle with Jenny Lind, seems to
have had in most of his dealings an eye to the
main chance, and whatever his other failings may
have been he does not appear to have erred on
the side of delicacy. Scenes eminently charac-
teristic of this contention are related, notably
SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT I97
one in which he penetrated into the room of
the sick prima donna and insisted that she
should show herself on the stage for a moment,
which manoeuvre would have deprived the
public of the right to claim the money paid for
tickets. On a later occasion, rather than pay
his artistes, he preferred to declare himself
bankrupt, although it was believed that he
need not have done so.
The year 1837 may be considered the height
of her career. After that the defects in her
voice, aggravated by the circumstance that she
had had comparatively little training, became
painfully evident as time went on. In 1847
her last appearance on the stage took place
in Riga.
During her connection with the Dresden
Opera, which with slight intermissions lasted
Over twenty years, she was necessarily in close
communication with Wagner, who was at the
head of that theatre for many years. In spite
of many disagreements that could not well have
been avoided between two equally excitable
natures, there seems to have been mutual ap-
preciation between the pair. She was certainly
the first eminent singer who sang in Rienzi,
The F/Wing Dutchman, and Tannhäuser; and
we have it on Wagner's own authority that she
198 THE GREAT SINGERS
acted as an Egeria on his imagination, and that
in writing and composing she was always before
his mind's eye; and it speaks no little for her
musical penetration that, at a time when the
whole musical world turned its back on the
‘musician of the future,' she alone believed in
his future. It is, of course, impossible that
Schröder-Devrient, even had she been alive,
could have sung at Bayreuth, but it would have
been a fitting consummation of the career of the
Contemporary of Beethoven and Wagner had she
been spared to witness the triumph of the latter,
which at her early death not the most daring
of prophets would have ventured to predict.
In 1847 Madame Schröder contracted a
Second marriage with a Herr von Döring, a
most worthless man, who used her only to
gratify his extravagant tastes for gambling.
She had been warned on all sides against this
marriage, but, obstinate as ever, the advice of
friends only confirmed her in her purpose.
Written evidence that would have proved the
truth of the accusers was torn up by her unread ;
even the marriage contract drawn up by the
husband she refused to read, thinking it due to
her husband to show blind faith in him, the
more so as everybody turned against him.
After the wedding Döring did not try to con-
SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT I99
ceal his motives in marrying her, and laid claim
to the whole of her belongings. It then ap-
peared that the contract she had signed con-
tained an absolute cession, not only of all she
possessed, but of all profits, pensions, and
moneys to come to her during the term of her
life.
Her third and last marriage took place in
I850, the husband, a Russian of the name of
von Bock, who owned estates in Livonia, being
a thoroughly worthy man. This union was
promising in every respect, and the many friends
of the artiste thought she would at last gain the
repose she was entitled to ; but they took no
account of the restless disposition which is the
natural outcome of a nomadic life dating from
the earliest youth. For one year she remained
on her husband's estate, Trakiten, trying faith-
fully to curb her impatience; but nature was
too strong for her. Though her attachment to
her husband never ceased, she desired a change
from the solitude that was killing her. No
doubt Bock saw himself that to retain her
might have a serious effect on her health, and
reluctantly parted from her. On passing
through Dresden she was arrested on a charge
of sympathy with the revolution of 1848. That
she may have sympathised with a movement
2OO THE GREAT SINGERS
which was based on national feeling is quite
possible, and as she was never skilled in the
art of concealing her feelings, it is quite likely
that one or two remarks of a compromising
character may have fallen from her lips. With
great difficulty she succeeded in obtaining her
freedom and reaching Berlin, where she was in-
formed that Saxony was henceforth closed to
her. This was a bitter blow, as many of her
friends lived in that kingdom ; but a worse mis-
hap was to befall her. The Russian Govern-
ment, in its dread of anything connected with
the revolution, on the strength of the Saxon
proceeding forbade her to return to Russia.
It was only with the greatest difficulty and at
considerable cost that the husband got both
edicts revoked.
During the latter part of her life Schröder-
Devrient devoted herself to concert singing,
and was widely celebrated for her rendering of
the songs of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann,
and Mendelssohn. Schumann's beautiful song,
Ich gro/le nichá, dedicated to her, was sung
with a dramatic force which held the audience
spellbound. Her conception of serious music
was often so striking, and at the same time so
true, that many pieces of music Comparatively
unknown and unappreciated Owe their sub-
SCHRöDER-DEVRIENT 2O I
sequent popularity to her rendering, which
came as a revelation to many Sound musicians.
Perhaps it is to be regretted that in imparting
dramatic power to music of the concert- and
drawing-room she inaugurated a school of
mannerisms and eccentricities that even in her
were not free from a tinge of exaggeration, and
became absolutely deplorable when practised
by her incompetent followers. This practice
has long since fallen into abeyance, and we hope
it will not be revived.
Many and touching traits are noted by her
biographers. They all bear testimony to a
kindly though passionate disposition of char-
acter, great earnestness in her art, and a
modesty bordering on self-depreciation. She
had likewise a great and methodical love of
order which, though not incompatible with the
above qualities, deserves mention. A small
but characteristic case in point is the fact that
the same hairpins were used by her for over
twenty years.
When at Leipzig in 1859 she succumbed to
a painful illness which had an alarming progress.
There was scarcely time to transport her to
Coburg, where she died on 2 Ist January 1860,
the devoted care of a sister and friend having
proved unable to prolong her life. Her husband,
2O2 THE GREAT SINGERS
who had been summoned to her bedside, only
arrived in time to attend her funeral.
The following words by her biographer,
Claire von Glümer, though written with a
partial pen, are, we think, not inapt:-
‘Lessing says of Raphael that even without
hands he would have been a great artist. It
may be equally said of Wilhelmine Schröder-
Devrient that even without voice she would
have been a great singer. It was her soul that
sang with a power, a beauty, and a truth that
have never been equalled, and may perhaps
never be surpassed.’
S O N T A G
1805-1852
EW lives of celebrated singers have been
more sensational ; not one do we call to
mind in which the fabric of reality has been
interwoven with so much romance, the course
of incident more thrilling, the sequence of
circumstances bordering more closely on the
province of the fairy tale.
The beautiful singer, the young prince that
falls in love with her, the evil spirits which
forbid the marriage, but are eventually over-
come—all these familiar figures form part of
the biography of Henriette Sontag. And the
last sentence: ‘They lived happy ever after-
wards’—to whom can it be applied with greater
truth than to the gifted singer and her devoted
husband P
And then in the time-honoured course of the
fairy tale come the bad days; the evil spirits
prevail; adversity threatens to overcome hus-
band and children. The wife descends from
- 203
2O4 THE GREAT SINGERS
her throne, and, throwing away her crown,
works to shield her beloved ones from want ;
works and toils her hardest until the catastrophe
supervenes, and, having accomplished her de-
voted purpose, she breathes her last.
Can anybody improve on this fairy tale P Is
there an addition to be suggested, a change to
be submitted, that would better qualify it for
the pages of the Aračian AWights?
Henriette Sontag was born in 1805 in the
beautiful Rhenish town of Coblentz. It was a
modest household, that of the Sontags ; father
and mother were both actors of no great repu-
tation. At that time, and much later, actors
were considered little better than social out-
casts, and it cannot have been to a very exalted
audience that little Henriette, perched on a
table, used to sing Mozart's arias when hardly
more than a baby. The next step can be easily
imagined ; poor people can ill afford to let the
talent of their children ripen slowly; the child
was barely six when she made her first appear-
ance at Darmstadt in the Donauzweiðchen, and
created some sensation both by her appearance
and the sterling quality of her voice. Three years
later the father died ; he had held a good posi-
tion as low comedian, but the income ceased with
his death, and the mother and children had to
SONTAG 2O5
leave for Prague, where Henriette continued to
appear in children's parts, anxiously awaiting
the time when she would be allowed to enter
the Conservatory. At last the minimum age of
twelve, reduced in her case by one year, was
reached, and the next four years were devoted
to conscientious study under the able tuition of
Weber. When fifteen years of age, a fortunate
accident occurred which was to lift her at once
into a prominent position. The regular prima
donna fell ill quite suddenly, and the director
of the theatre, at his wits' end, had to confide
her part as Queen in /ean de Paris to Henriette.
Always petite, she looked a mere child at that
age. She used to dwell in after years on the
many innocent Stratagems adopted to add
to her age, one of the principal items being
a pair of red shoes with soles of four inches
in thickness. But though she was naturally
somewhat timid, the sweetness of her voice
was such as to more than compensate for
all deficiencies. The Prague audience were so
generous in their applause that the reputation
of the singer travelled fast beyond the limits
both of town and kingdom. Vienna was still
the Mecca of all aspirants to musical honours;
she was soon installed in the ‘Kaiserstadt, over
which the shadows of Haydn and Mozart
2O6 THE GREAT SINGERS
seemed yet to linger, where the mighty genius
of Beethoven was still battling against poverty
and physical adversity; where Weber, Moscheles,
Hummel appealed for judgment, and Fodor-
Mainvielle enchanted mighty audiences. Four
years Sontag remained in the gay capital,
alternating her time between close study and
Occasional appearances on the stage. Ever
afterwards she acknowledged freely that she
Owed much, and perhaps everything, to Madame
Mainvielle, who took a friendly interest in the
young singer. But the Vienna public, slow to
recognise new talent, were not very apprecia-
tive until Weber set the seal on her name by
confiding to her the title-róle in his opera of
Furyanthe, which she carried through triumph-
antly on 25th October 1823. Composer and
Singer were in every one's mouth ; even Beet-
hoven, whose interest was not easily aroused,
and whose deafness had kept him at home on
the night of the performance, asked how ‘little
Sontag’ had acquitted herself. From this date
the German, and we may say the European,
reputation of Sontag was established. She was
Soon to leave Vienna—not, however, before
she had sung at the first performance of
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and his Mass
in D, works which tax the powers of a singer
SONTAG 2O7
to the utmost. After a short engagement in
Leipzig she signed a contract for Berlin on
excellent terms; here she was received with
the greatest enthusiasm, and acquired a popu-
larity never known before. It soon became a
national question in the Prussian capital to
honour Sontag. The court, affable and art-
loving, was additionally impressed by her Ger-
man birth. The nation were delighted that
one of their countrywomen had broken through
the fate which seemed to deny to the German
race a singer of really first importance. Many
are the tales related of the exaggerated form
this worship took. One raconteur attributes to
her the story that an admirer used one of her
shoes as a goblet. This may be true, though it
hardly seems original ; but it is proved beyond
a doubt that a set of boisterous students over-
turned her post-chaise into the river that nobody
should use the same after her. Luckily the
coach was empty at the time. Moving in the
first circles in Berlin, it was naturaſ that she saw
a good deal of Count Rossi, Secretary to the
Sardinian Embassy, and a great favourite of
society. Whether the mutual attachment of
the pair, which was only severed by death, was
of Sudden or gradual growth is not known, but
it soon became irresistible. The obstacles to
2O8 THE GREAT SINGERS
the union were, however, very serious. The
age had its peculiar views about etiquette.
Count Rossi was an aspirant to high diplo-
matic rank, and Henriette Sontag, whatever the
degree of her merit and popularity, was yet—
an actress. It must not be believed that these
ideas were sanctioned by the lover; it is proved
by his action, and on the testimony of all who
knew him, that he was personally disposed to
forego any advantage to secure the foremost
prize of his life. But family ties cannot always
be ignored, and very often they are mixed up
with questions of bread and butter. With more
wisdom than is usually found among young
and impetuous lovers, they postponed for the
moment all idea of marriage until they should
be justified by the state of financial independ-
ence which the talents of the lady seemed to
promise within no great distance of time.
In 1826 Sontag first appeared in Paris as
Rosina in // Baróiere, and was warmly ap-
plauded. The Paris public was slightly predis-
posed towards her, and Catalani had just made
a great hit in that part, circumstances which
considerably enhanced her triumph. The critics
were unanimous in her praise, and had no
hesitation in pronouncing her far superior to
Catalani. The latter never forgave her rival
SONTAG 2O9
for having eclipsed her; she was wise enough
to conceal her chagrin, but there are many
proofs that she felt the humiliation deeply.
One of her utterances in this respect enjoyed
wide circulation, and it is quite spiritue/ enough
to deserve quotation. Placed before the bitter
alternative to praise her rival or to lay herself
open to the charge of envy, she said : “F//e est /a
première dams some genre, mead's some genre m'es; Zas
le premier.’ And yet there may be just a grain of
truth concealed in this ocean of malice. Takenasa
singer, Sontag has indeed hardly been surpassed,
and especially in comic and light opera, such
as the Baróiere and the graceful, if somewhat
shallow, productions of the French school, she
was as near perfection as can be imagined ; but
when she turned to serious opera, and attempted
the heavy parts of Semiramide and similar
operas, it was stated—and perhaps not quite
without reason—that she was somewhat lacking
in highly dramatic quality. Nobody was better
aware of this fact than Sontag herself; nobody
could have gone to work to remove it with
greater assiduity. Where she was wanting
Pasta excelled, and the earnestness with which
Sontag watched that great actress and tried to
frame herself on her model forms one of the
many proofs of the modesty which was a pro-
VOL. III. O
2 IO THE GREAT SINGERS
minent feature in her character. After a
successful trip to London, where her benefit
performance alone realised the colossal figure
of £2OOO, Sontag returned to Paris. Malibran
had just arrived there from America, and it was
expected that her very sensitive and highly
strung character would lead to considerable
jealousy between the two stars. The public
did its utmost to fan these animosities; it
ranged itself into two camps, and each singer
had strong partisans who thought they could not
better serve the interests of their own party
than by abusing their opponents. The sequel
proved that these attempts were highly dis-
tasteful to both Malibran and Sontag. The
latter was singularly free from envy, and the
former, misunderstood as people of passionate
character often are, was so appreciative of the
merits of her rival that she was found one
evening in her opera-box bathed in tears,
lamenting that she would never be able to sing
like her. At last a meeting came about quite
unexpectedly. A mutual promise to perform
for the benefit of a deserving actor resulted in
the choice of a duet, which was the beginning
of a long and sincere friendship and a frequent
co-operation on the stage of two first-class
singers, which up to that time had been con-
SONTAG 2 II
sidered out of the question. Don Giovanni,
Semaramzâde, Oże//o, united the names of Mali-
bran and Sontag on the playbills, and raised a
contented smile on the faces of that much-
tribulated individual, the impresario.
But all this time, while the income of Sontag
was increasing by leaps and bounds, she had
not set aside her purpose to become one with
her Italian lover. Financially, there was now no
longer any impediment to the marriage, but the
family objections still remained in full force,
and the King of Sardinia, a personal friend of
the Rossis, could not be approached on the
matter. One great obstacle was indeed re-
moved by the kindly King of Prussia, who
granted a patent of nobility to his gifted sub-
ject. But even the question of Henriette
quitting the stage, a course she was willing
to take, could not remove the stigma that she
had once been an actress. Seeing that there was
no early prospect of obtaining their purpose,
they consented to a private marriage, which
took place in 1829 ; but in 1830 circumstances
arose which induced them to brave all op-
position by boldly publishing the marriage.
Placed before a fait accom//7, the Government
decided to keep the young secretary of em-
bassy in office, and even some time afterwards
2 I 2 THE GREAT SINGERS
to promote him—on condition, of course, that
his wife was to quit the Stage.
Her last appearance in Paris took place on
the 18th January 1830. The Opera was
Tancredi, and the ovation brought by the
public to the young singer who had sufficient
self-abnegation to quit the stage when the
most glorious triumphs seemed in prospect
for her was something to remember. Another
year, indeed, was to be devoted to the musical
profession, but it was to be limited to the
concert-room ; the glare of the footlights, the
tinsel of the stage, and the closely packed
galleries were to know her no more. Only
once did she depart from this resolution. When
reaching Berlin, the clamour of her friends and
admirers was so loud, the claims the Prussian
capital had on her so obvious, that she ap-
peared for one solitary performance on the
19th May, burying the first epoch of her
theatrical career in scenes of the most turbu-
lent enthusiasm.
From this moment, and for nearly twenty
years, the personality of Henriette Sontag is
merged in that of the Countess Rossi. After
having exhausted the cup of public adulation as
an actress and singer, it was no less her destiny
to shine in private life as a great lady socially
SONTAG 2 I 3
representing a kingdom of Some pretension.
Her husband was soon promoted to the rank of
ambassador. For a number of years he held
that rank at the Hague, in Germany and Prussia.
At all of these courts his wife made herself a
great favourite. There can be no doubt that her
social talents untutored amounted to an in-
stinct; that tact in her was truly inborn ; that
she disarmed the prejudices of the old and
stiff-necked nobility of Germany and Prussia,
whose reverence of escutcheons and quarterings
was only exceeded by their aversion to any-
thing pertaining to the stage; that, wholly free
from any pride and haughtiness, no word or
feature of hers indicated that she was not to
her station born. As a wife and as a mother
her conduct was exemplary. Carl Sontag, her
brother, who may be accused of partiality, is
fully borne out by other witnesses in stating that
the bearing of husband and wife towards each
Other was uniformly that of two most devoted
lovers, that a wedded life of over twenty years
had engendered none of that indifference which
familiarity usually breeds in marriages of long
Standing. No trace of a coolness, none of a
cloud, be it ever so insignificant and passing,
appears to have traversed the life of this ideal
couple. But, as though the wife had felt a
2I4 - THE GREAT SINGERS
foreboding that her voice would once more be
called upon to serve the interests of those she
loved best, she neglected nothing to keep it in
perfect practice, wholly shielding it from every
undue strain and exertion as carefully as if her
living depended upon it.
Adverse circumstances were to befall the
Rossi family. The troublous year of I848,
which had shattered in succession nearly all
the thrones of the European continent, had not
been without grave import to the kingdom of
Sardinia. Charles Albert, after a brave fight,
had succumbed to the superior power of Austria.
Peace had been sued for and obtained, but at
the cost of sacrifices which laid the little king-
dom prostrate for many a day to come. A
heavy war indemnity necessitated the greatest
economy in all departments. The diplomatic
service, among others, had to be totally re-
arranged ; many posts were abolished, others
restricted to the smallest allowance. The
Rossis were not without well-founded ap-
prehension that a serious change was in Store
for them. Their anxiety was increased by the
precarious state of their private fortune, which
had been seriously compromised by deprecia-
tion of their investments. Their family now
consisted of four, and the thought that her
SONTAG 2 I 5
children might grow up in Straitened circum-
stances, while she could help it, weighed heavily
on the tender-hearted mother. Under these
circumstances she took the momentous step to
go on the stage. It was not lightly resolved upon.
We can imagine the objections of Rossi, the pro-
test of the family, the objections even of the King.
It was urged, not without a show of reason, that
her voice, though all that could be desired for a
concert-room, could not have passed scatheless
through the time of a generation; that her reputa-
tion was in peril if she were now to challenge the
verdict of a public in whose ears the marvellous
music of Jenny Lind still lingered. All these
objections and more were raised by well-meaning
friends, but they could not prevail against the
urgent demands of her next-of-kin.
Lumley, of Her Majesty's Theatre, London,
was in the throes of one of those crises which
more than once threatened that theatre with
imminent ruin. Jenny Lind, on whose reap-
pearance he had counted, was not to be weaned
from the repose she enjoyed in her Brompton
villa. There was nobody to replace her, and
the public protested emphatically against any
singer not of the very first merit. Before any
knowledge of the financial embarrassments of
the Rossis could have reached him, the wary
2 I6 THE GREAT SINGERS
impresario had scented from afar the possibility
of Securing the great singer to repair his falling
fortunes. A first attempt to approach the
Subject through the Earl of Westmorland,
British ambassador at Berlin, was doomed to
failure ; but where the diplomatist had failed
the virtuoso was successful. Thalberg, passing
through Berlin, called on the Countess, and
laying siege to the half-willing victim, suc-
ceeded in breaking down the last barriers of
her resistance. The overjoyed impresario was
enabled to announce in a flourish of language
the immediate return ‘owing to family circum-
stances' of the Countess Rossi, or, as she hence-
forth styled herself, Madame Sontag, to the
Stage.
It was, in truth, a great risk. She had been
for operatic purposes dead for over twenty years,
and this half-forgotten singer of a previous
generation was now to be unearthed and placed
in juxtaposition to the mature power of Jenny
Lind. Lumley himself confesses that he
thought it impossible that a voice could be
preserved intact for such a length of time.
Had there been another singer at his command
it is more than likely that the idea to re-engage
Sontag would not have occurred to him. But
all his doubts were dispelled when he heard
SONTAG 217
her in Berlin, all the public doubts were
scattered like froth before her triumphant
rendering of the part of Amina in the Sommam-
ôu/a, so gloriously associated with the name of
Jenny Lind. But all attempts to bolster up
the doomed fortunes of the moribund theatre
proved unavailing ; slowly but surely financial
decline overtook the management; the fates
seemed to be fighting against a theatre which,
for reasons partly inexplicable, was lingering
on a slow deathbed. Madame Sontag stuck
bravely to her contract. Lumley admitted
gratefully that she had not embittered his life
by any of those caprices and failings which are
too often the stock-in-trade of singers. The
severest of winters could not deter her from
carrying Out an engagement to visit Scotland,
though pecuniarily this tour was far from a
success, and its hardships were not of a
common order. Many artistes would have
demurred at a tour in which Snowed-up trains
and miles of walking through icebound country
were among the ordinary features; more than
one would have consulted her own comfort
and paid little heed to the date and exigencies
of programmes, and the embarrassments of un-
fortunate caterers to the public amusements.
The American tour, with all its excitement
2 I 8 THE GREAT SINGERS
and worry, was not to be spared her. Following
in the wake of Jenny Lind, who had been the
idol of the Transatlantic public, her task was
no easy One, and the applause that was her
universal tribute gains in value when regarded
in the light of the comparisons she was
subjected to. Her voice, stimulated by the
change of climate, had its full power, and there
is little doubt that it would have preserved its
Strength and Sweetness for a number of years;
but the end was nearer at hand than anybody
imagined. An attack of cholera seized on her
in Mexico, and terminated while yet in its
prime a life singularly pure and unblemished,
and remarkable for its strange vicissitudes and
unhappy end. It must have been a consolation
in her death struggle that the object she had
in view, to reinstate her family in their fortune,
had been accomplished.
As a singer, nobody will deny Sontag a
place among the first in her profession ; as a
wife and mother none could be more faithful
and devoted ; as a woman her sweetness and
simplicity of character were perhaps among
her most remarkable features. Few of her sex
have compassed a public career, exciting as
little jealousy and enmity as she did ; few
kept themselves so pure of Cabal and intrigue;
SONTAG 219
few have been so ready to acknowledge merit
in others.
The date of her death was 17th June 1852.
Only six days before she had acted in Zącreaza
Borgia, the same opera which was to be the
swan's song of her countrywoman Tietjens.
T I E T J E NS
1831-1877
HE shadows of death hung dark and
heavy over that last performance of
their idol, when the public thronged to hear
the great singer in her incomparable rôle of
Lucrezia, at Her Majesty's Theatre, the 19th
of May 1877,-shadows visible only to poor
Tietjens, as she bravely hid her anguish in
bursts of glorious song. Never before had she
Sung SO magnificently, cried her audience.
Never before had her acting reached so superb
a standard. Ah little they knew the terrible
Scene of the dressing-room, the anguish, the
fainting spells, the secret of the dying artiste.
When the great curtain dropped, slowly
shutting out her world for ever, she, whose voice
thrilled every heart with its passion, love, and
despair, had sung her last notes, finished her
great career in glory as it had begun. Honour
to those soldiers of art who die the death of
heroes on the bloodless battlefield of duty
220
TIETJENS 22 I
Theresa Tietjens was born in Hamburg, of
Hungarian parents. The year of her birth is
variously given as 183 I or 1834, but the former
is probably correct, as it agrees with the
inscription on her tombstone.
Even when a child her voice was so promising
that she was at once destined for the stage.
About her childhood and surroundings very
little is known. The singer herself, though
well known to many of the present generation,
seems to have preserved great reticence in
regard to her early history. It may therefore
be inferred that her parents belonged to the
lower classes; in fact, without vouching for the
correctness of the source, we have heard it
stated that they kept a small drinking-place,
situated, as is usual in Hamburg, in a cellar.
Anyhow, history has not placed on record the
movements of the elder Tietjens, and Theresa
herself only emerges in 1849, when she appears
for the first time at the Hamburg theatre in
Zucrezia Borgia, a performance which procured
her at once great local celebrity. The Hamburg
theatre has always enjoyed popular considera-
tion in Germany ; even in the last century it
stood out among the better theatres of the
country, and since then an ample State subsidy
has enabled the directors to cater to the
222 THE GREAT SINGERS
somewhat fastidious tastes of the rich and art-
loving burghers. To succeed on this stage at
the first appearance was a matter of some
difficulty, and secured the young singer a
favourable hearing in other German theatres.
In due time she proceeded to Frankfort, and
after a successful season to Vienna, where she
arrived in 1856. Although she did not obtain
at that place the appointment as first prima
donna, it was admitted on all hands that her
rendering of Valentine in the Huguenots entitled
her to the highest consideration. An English
lady who heard her in this part was so enrap-
tured that she induced Lumley to engage her
for his last season at Her Majesty's Theatre.
There she appeared on April 13th, 1858, and
impressed the audience so favourably in her part
of Valentine, that the opera was repeated several
times, each performance adding a fresh leaf to
the record of her growing fame.
From this time Mdlle. Tietjens made London
her home. Though Lumley's managership of
Her Majesty's Theatre expired in 1859, she
remained at that theatre under the successive
management of Smith and Mapleson, until the
great fire in 1867 necessitated a change of venue.
Even then she remained with the same company,
migrating with them to Drury Lane, where she
TIETJENS 223
appeared regularly for a number of years,
excepting in 1869 and 1870, when the coalition
between the rival companies admitted of her
acting at Covent Garden. A short time before
her death she returned to the rebuilt theatre
in which she had made her dé67/ſ.
The beauties of her voice are still well re-
membered. It was a Soprano uniting great
volume with rare sweetness, and sufficiently
powerful to fill the largest house. It was soft as
velvet, and even when it grew weaker there was
no flaw to be detected in its mellowness, none
of those qualities which, miscalled ‘wiry’ and
‘silvery,’ cover in reality ill-disguised attempts to
enforce a pretence which no longer exists. Hers
was not a naturally fluent and flexible voice; it
required conscientious training and hard practice,
and the serious and painstaking nature of the
artiste helped her to undergo a season's hard work
which many among her competitors would have
shrunk from in dismay. This is the secret of
the perfection which she achieved in rendering
the most florid passages of the Italian répertoire,
this the means by which she placed herself on a
level with many singers of higher natural gifts.
But magnetism was undoubtedly one of the
greatest characteristics of her singing; apart
from its undeniable charm and effect on her audi-
224 THE GREAT SINGERS
tors, it exercised a wonderful influence over her
fellow-artistes. Lumley the impresario relates
an interesting circumstance illustrating very
strongly this gift of magnetism. The Occasion
was the much-anticipated début of Tietjens
before a London audience in Zes Huguenots,
when every nerve was strained by the manage-
ment to make the production as effective as
possible, as much depended on the all-important
first night. “To none were fortune and fame
more at stake than to Mademoiselle Tietjens,’
writes Lumley in his Reminiscences. How
much she felt this critical position was evidenced
by her burst of artistic animation and excitement
at rehearsals. Her powerful voice rang through
the theatre, exciting the applause of all present;
it kindled the latent fire of Giuglini, until each
artiste vied with another in dramatic power
and musical declamation, and the rehearsals
were in reality brilliant performances. So
strongly were all present impressed with the
merits of the new prima donna that fears were
entertained lest she should utterly “swamp' the
favourite tenor.
‘He will never be able to come up to that
powerful voice in the last act, quoth one. ‘She
will utterly swallow up Giuglini, cried another.
But all these fears proved idle, for on the event-
TIETJENS 225
ful night Tietjens so inspired Giuglini by the
magic of her voice and splendour of her acting
that he was carried completely out of himself,
sang and acted as he had never done before, and
as Raoul raised himself to the pinnacle of his
profession.
This same gift of magnetism won the hearts
of her Irish audiences. Mr. Mapleson, whose
charming and valuable Memoirs teem with
interesting matter about the great Singer,
relates numerous instances of quixotic acts of
adoration on the part of these fervid admirers.
‘It being a wet night, the enthusiasts around us
made a carpet for Tietjens to walk on from her
carriage, by throwing their coats on the pave-
ment. The crowd remained outside the hotel
for Over an hour, making repeated calls for a
Song, until a deputation, accompanied by the
chief constable, appeared, imploring her to
disperse the crowd, or serious consequences
might follow. Compelled to go to the window,
Tietjens addressed the crowd in these words :
“I will sing you 7 he ſlast A’ose of Summer,
provided you promise to go home immediately
afterwards as quiet as mice.” And when the
song had ceased the crowd melted away in
dead silence. The Inspector afterwards re-
marked to Tietjens that if ever a revolution
VOIL. III. P
226 THE GREAT SINGERS
broke out in Ireland they would send for her
to quell it.’
It was the last night of Mr. Mapleson's
Opera season in Dublin, and the record of the
demonstration which took place in honour of
Tietjens reads like a romance. When the
singer rendered the great air in Weber's opera
of Offeron, that sublime canticle, “Ocean, thou
mighty monster,’ a scene of boundless enthu-
siasm ensued—not content with the song of
the English bard, the audience clamoured for
one of their own beloved Irish airs, and after
continued cheering and excitement, Tietjens,
amid profound silence, rendered in her
matchless style 7%e Zast Rose of Summer.
“I remember, naïvely writes Mr. Mapleson,
‘taking a pin from my collar, and dropping
it on the stage in order to give a practical
and effective illustration of the old saying
that you “could hear a pin drop.” -
The Tietjens furore in New York in 1875,
when she appeared in concert at Steinway
Hall, was the last of the wave of triumph to
greet the great singer as she neared the shores
of Eternity. Death overtook her shortly after
her return to Fngland. Those who on that
occasion heard her matchless rendering of the
old Irish ballads will never forget the eloquence
TIETJENS 227
of her style—the martial force she threw into
the strains of The Battle of the Boyne, and
the tenderness of her Kathleen Mavourneen.
Strange that a German singer should have
caught and interpreted so marvellously the
spirit of a nation so much the reverse of her
own ; but Music, like Death, is a great leveller,
through whose medium all men understand
one another, and exchange the priceless gift of
sympathy.
The end of the noble singer was swift and
terrible, but she went bravely down the
shadowed lane towards the portals of Death,
cheering her sorrowing friends to the last by
her resignation and courage. .
NOTE
IT may seem strange to American readers that no
mention is made in this work of any representative of
American singers in the World of Music, when such
artistes as Antoinette Sterling, Nordica, and Albani are
the most popular of the English-speaking world of to-
day ; but as the present volumes have been rigorously
devoted to the dead of the World of Music, and as
American talent has only come to the fore within the last
quarter of a century, the omission of those famous names
will be readily understood. A future series on the
Composers, Virtuosi, and Singers of the Day will afford
an ample field for the record of American artistes.
ANNA DE BREMONT.
LonDon, October 7th, 1892.
Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty,
at the Edinburgh University Press.

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