Great Singers.
Second Series.
by George T. Ferris.
NOTE.
In the preparation of this companion volume of "Great Singers," the same limitations of purpose have guided the author as in the case of the earlier book, which sketched the lives of the greatest lyric artists from Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag. It has been impossible to include any but those who stand incontestably in the front rank of the operatic profession, except so far as some account of the lesser lights is essential to the study of those artistic lives whose names make the captions of these sketches. So, too, it has been attempted to embody, in several of the articles, intelligent, if not fully adequate, notice of a few of the greatest men singers, who, if they have not aroused as deep an enthusiasm as have those of the other s.e.x, are perhaps justly ent.i.tled to as much consideration on art grounds. It will be observed that the great living vocalists have been excluded from this book, except those who, having definitely retired from the stage, may be considered as dead to their art. This plan has been pursued, not from any undervaluation of the Pattis, the Nilssons, and the Luccas of the present musical stage, but because, in obeying that necessity imposed by limitation of s.p.a.ce, it has seemed more desirable to exclude those whose place in art is not yet finally settled, rather than those whose names belong to history, and who may be seen in full perspective.
The material from which this little book is compiled has been drawn from a variety of sources, among which may be mentioned the three works of Henry F. Chorley, "Music and Manners in France and Germany," "Modern German Music," and "Thirty Years" Musical Kecollections"; Sutherland Edwards"s "History of the Opera"; Fetis"s "Biographie des Musiciens"; Ebers"s "Seven Years of the King"s Theatre"; Lumley"s "Reminiscences"; Charles Hervey"s "Theatres of Paris"; a.r.s.ene Houssaye"s "Galerie de Portraits"; Countess de Merlin"s "Memoires de Madame Malibran"; Ox-berry"s "Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes"; Crowest"s "Musical Anecdotes" and Mrs. Clayton"s "Queens of Song."
GREAT SINGERS, SECOND SERIES, MALIBRAN TO t.i.tIENS.
MARIA FELICIA MALIBRAN.
The Childhood of Maria Garcia.--Her Father"s Sternness and Severe Discipline.--Her First Appearance as an Artist on the Operatic Stage.--Her Genius and Power evident from the Beginning.--Anecdotes of her Early Career.--Manuel Garcia"s Operatic Enterprise in New York.--Maria Garcia is inveigled into marrying M. Malibran.--Failure of the Garcia Opera, and Maria"s Separation from her Husband.--She makes her _Debut_ in Paris with Great Success.--Madame Malibran"s Characteristics as a Singer, a Genius, and a Woman.--Anecdotes of her Generosity and Kindness.--She sings in a Great London Engagement.--Her Eccentric and Daring Methods excite Severe Criticism.--Her Reckless Expenditure of Strength in the Pursuit of her Profession or Pleasures.--Madame Malibran"s Attachment to De Beriot.--Anecdotes of her Public and Private Career.--Malibran in Italy, where she becomes the Popular Idol.--Her Last London Engagement.--Her Death at Manchester during the Great Musical Festival.
I.
With the name of Malibran there is a.s.sociated an interest, alike personal and artistic, rarely equaled and certainly unsurpa.s.sed among the traditions which make the records of the lyric stage so fascinating.
Daring originality stamped her life as a woman, her career as an artist, and the brightness with which her star shone through a brief and stormy history had something akin in it to the dazzling but capricious pa.s.sage of a meteor. If Pasta was the Siddons of the lyric drama, unapproachable in its more severe and tragic phases, Malibran represented its Garrick.
Brilliant, creative, and versatile, she sang equally well in all styles of music, and no strain on her resources seemed to overtax the power of an artistic imagination which delighted in vanquishing obstacles and transforming native defects into new beauties, an attribute of genius which she shared in equal degree with Pasta, though it took on a different manifestation.
This great singer belonged to a Spanish family of musicians, who have been well characterized as "representative artists, whose power, genius, and originality have impressed a permanent trace on the record of the methods of vocal execution and ornament." Her father, Manuel Vicente Garcia, at the age of seventeen, was already well known as composer, singer, actor, and conductor. His pieces, short comic operas, had a great popularity in Spain, and were not only bright and inventive, but marked by thorough musical workmanship. A month after he made his _debut_ in Paris, in 1811, he had become the chief singer, and sang for three years under the operatic _regime_ which shared the general splendor of Napoleon"s court. He was afterward appointed first tenor at Naples by King Joachim Munit, and there produced his opera of "Califo di Bagdad," which met with great success. It was here that the child Maria, then only five years old, made her first public appearance in one of Paer"s operas, and here that she received her first lessons in music from M. Panseron and the composer Herold. When Garcia quitted Italy in 1816, he sang with Catalani in Paris, but, as that jealous artist admitted no bright star near her own, Garcia soon left the troupe, and went to London in the spring of 1818. He oscillated between the two countries for several years, and was the first brilliant exponent of the Rossinian music in two great capitals, as his training and method were peculiarly fitted to this school. The indomitable energy and ambition which he transmitted to his daughters, who were to become such distinguished ornaments of the stage, were not contented with making their possessor a great executant, for he continued to produce operas, several of which were put on the stage in Paris with notable success.
Garcia"s name as a teacher commenced about the year 1823 to overshadow his reputation as a singer. In the one he had rivals, in the other he was peerless. His school of singing quickly became famous, though he continued to appear on the stage, and to pour forth operas of more than average merit.
The education of his daughter Maria, born at Paris, March 24, 1808, had always been a matter of paternal solicitude. A delicate, sensitive, and willful child, she had been so humored and petted at the convent-school of Hammersmith, where she was first placed, that she developed a caprice and a recklessness which made her return to the house of her stern and imperious father doubly painful, lier experience was a severe one, and Manuel Garcia was more pitiless to his daughter than to other pupils.
Already at this period Maria spoke with ease Spanish, Italian, French, and English, to which she afterward added German. The Garcia household was a strange one. The Spanish musician was a tyrant in his home, and a savage temper, which had but few streaks of tenderness, frequently vented itself in blows and brutality, in spite of the remarkable musical facility with which Maria appropriated teaching, and the brilliant gifts which would have flattered the pride and softened the sympathies of a more gentle and complacent parent. The young girl, in spite of her prodigious instinct for art and her splendid intelligence, had a peculiarly intractable organ. The lower notes of the voice were very imperfect, the upper tones thin, disagreeable, and hard, the middle veiled, and her intonation so doubtful that it almost indicated an imperfect ear. She would sometimes sing so badly that her father would quit the piano precipitately and retreat to the farthest corner of the house with his fingers thrust into his ears. But Garcia was resolved that his daughter should become what Nature seemingly had resolved she should not be, a great vocalist, and he bent all the energies of his harsh and imperious temper to further this result. "One evening I studied a duet with Maria," says the Countess Merlin, "in which Garcia had written a pa.s.sage, and he desired her to execute it. She tried, but became discouraged, and said, "I can not." In an instant the Andalu-sian blood of her father rose. He fixed his flashing eyes upon her: "What did you say?" Maria looked at him, trembled, and, clasping her hands, murmured in a stifled voice, "I will do it, papa;" and she executed the pa.s.sage perfectly. She told me afterward that she could not conceive how she did it. "Papa"s glance," added she, "has such an influence upon me that I am sure it would make me fling myself from the roof into the street without doing myself any harm.""
Maria Felicia Garcia was a wayward and willful child, but so generous and placable that her fierce outbursts of rage were followed by the most fascinating and winning contrition. Irresistibly charming, frank, fearless, and original, she gave promise, even in her early youth, of the remarkable qualities which afterward bestowed such a unique and brilliant _cachet_ on her genius as an artist and her character as a woman. Her father, with all his harshness, understood her truly, for she inherited both her faults and her gifts from himself. "Her proud and stubborn spirit requires an iron hand to control it," he said; "Maria can never become great except at the price of much suffering." By the time she had reached the age of fifteen her voice had greatly improved.
Her chest-notes had gained greatly in power, richness, and depth, though the higher register of the vocal organ still remained crude and veiled.
Fetis says that it was on account of the sudden indisposition of Madame Pasta that the first public appearance of Maria in opera was unexpectedly made, but Lord Mount Edgc.u.mbe and the impressario Ebers both tell a different story. The former relates in his "Reminiscences"
that, shortly after the repair of the King"s Theatre, "the great favorite Pasta arrived for a limited number of nights. About the same time Konzi fell ill and totally lost her voice, so that she was obliged to throw up her engagement and return to Italy. Mme. Vestris having seceded, and Caradori being for some time unable to perform, it became necessary to engage a young singer, the daughter of the tenor Garcia, who had sung here for several seasons.... Her extreme youth, her prettiness, her pleasing voice, and sprightly, easy action as _Rosina_ in "Il Barbiere," in which part she made her _debut_, gained her general favor." Chor-ley recalls the impression she made on him at this time in more precise and emphatic terms: "From the first hour when Maria Garcia appeared on the stage, first in "Il Barbiere" and subsequently in "Il Crociato," it was evident that a new artist, as original as extraordinary, was come--one by nature fairly endowed, not merely with physical powers, but also with that inventive, energetic, rapid genius, before which obstacles become as nothing, and by the aid of which the sharpest contradictions become reconciled." She made her _debut_ on June 7, 1825, and was immediately engaged for the remaining six weeks of the season at five hundred pounds. Her first success was followed by a second in Meyerber"s "Il Crociato," in which she sang with Velluti, the last of that extraordinary _genre_ of artists, the male sopranos. Garcia wrote several arias for her voice, which were interpolated in the opera, much to Manager Ayrton"s disgust, but much also to the young singer"s advantage, for the father knew every defect and every beauty of his daughter"s voice.
If her father was ambitious and daring, Maria was so likewise. She had to sing with Velluti a duet in Zingarelli"s "Romeo e Giulietta," and in the morning they rehea.r.s.ed it together, Velluti reserving his fioriture for the evening, lest the young _debutante_ should endeavor to imitate his ornaments. In the evening he sang his solo part, embroidering it with the most florid decorations, and finishing with a new and beautiful cadenza, which astonished and charmed the audience; Maria seized the phrases, to which she imparted an additional grace, and crowned her triumph with an audacious and superb improvisation. Thunders of applause greeted her, and while trembling with excitement she felt her arm grasped by a hand of iron. "Briccona!" hissed a voice in her ear, as Velluti glared on her, gnashing his teeth with rage. After performing in London, she appeared in the autumn with her father at the Manchester, York, and Liverpool Festivals, where she sang some of the most difficult pieces from the "Messiah" and the "Creation." Some said that she failed, others that she sang with a degree of mingled brilliancy, delicacy, and sweetness that drew down a storm of applause.
II.
Garcia now conceived a project for establishing Italian opera in the United States, and with characteristic daring he set sail for America with a miserable company, of which the only talent consisted of his own family, comprising himself, his son, daughter, and wife, Mme. Garcia having been a fairly good artist in her youth. The first opera produced was "Il Barbiere," on November 29, 1825, and this was speedily followed by "Tancredi," "Otello," "Il Turco in Italia," "Don Giovanni,"
"Cenerentola," and two operas composed by Garcia himself--"L"Amante Astuto," and "La Figlia dell" Aria," The young singer"s success was of extraordinary character, and New York, unaccustomed to Italian opera, went into an ecstasy of admiration. Maria"s charming voice and personal fascination held the public spellbound, and her good nature in the introduction of English songs, whenever called on by her admirers, raised the delight of the opera-goers of the day to a wild enthusiasm.
The occurrence of the most unfortunate episode of her life at this time was the fruitful source of much of the misery and eccentricity of her after-career. M. Francois Eugene Malibran, a French merchant, engaged in business in New York, fell pa.s.sionately in love with the young singer, and speedily laid his heart and fortune, which was supposed to be great, at her feet. In spite of the fact that the suitor was fifty, and Maria only seventeen, she was disposed to accept the offer, for she was sick of her father"s brutality, and the straits to which she was constantly put by the exigencies of her dependent situation. Her heart had never yet awakened to the sweetness of love, and the supposed great fortune and lavish promises of M. Malibran dazzled her young imagination. Garcia sternly refused his consent, and there were many violent scenes between father and daughter. Such was the hostility of feeling between the two, that Maria almost feared for her life. The following incident is an expressive comment on the condition of her mind at this time: One evening she was playing _Des-demona_ to her father"s _Oth.e.l.lo_, in Rossini"s opera. At the moment when _Oth.e.l.lo_ approaches, his eyes sparkling with rage, to stab _Desdemona_, Maria perceived that her father"s dagger was not a stage sham, but a genuine weapon. Frantic with terror, she screamed "Papa, papa, for the love of G.o.d, do not kill me!"
Her terrors were groundless, for the subst.i.tution of the real for a theatrical dagger was a mere accident. The audience knew no difference, as they supposed Maria"s Spanish exclamation to be good operatic Italian, and they applauded at the fine dramatic point made by the young artist!
At last the importunate suitor overcame Gar-cia"s opposition by agreeing to give him a hundred thousand francs in payment for the loss of his daughter"s services, and the sacrifice of the young and beautiful singer was consummated on March 23, 1826. A few weeks later Malibran was a bankrupt and imprisoned for debt, and his bride discovered how she had been cheated and outraged by a cunning scoundrel, who had calculated on saving himself from poverty by dependence on the stage-earnings of a brilliant wife. The enraged Garcia, always a man of unbridled temper, was only prevented from transforming one of those scenes of mimic tragedy with which he was so familiar, into a criminal reality by a.s.sa.s.sinating Malibran, through the resolute expostulations of his friends. Mme. Malibran instantly resigned for the benefit of her husband"s creditors any claims which she might have made on the remnants of his estate, and her New York admirers had as much occasion to applaud the rect.i.tude and honor of the woman as they had had the genius of the artist. Garcia himself, hampered by pecuniary difficulties, set sail for Mexico with his son and younger daughter, to retrieve his fortunes, while Maria remained in New York, tied to a wretch whom she despised, and who looked on her musical talents as the means of supplying him with the luxuries of life. Mme. Malibran"s energy soon found a vent in English opera, and she made herself as popular on the vernacular as she had on the Italian stage. But she soon wearied of her hard fate, which compelled her to toil without ceasing for the support of the man who had deceived her vilely, and for whom not one spark of love operated to condone his faults. Five months utterly snapped her patience, and she determined to return to Paris. She arrived there in September, 1826, and took up her abode with M. Malibran"s sister. Although she had become isolated from all her old friends, she found in one of the companions of her days of pupilage, the Countess Merlin, a most affectionate help and counselor, who spared no effort to make her talents known to the musical world of Paris, Mme. de Merlin sounded the praises of her friend so successfully that she soon succeeded in evoking a great degree of public curiosity, which finally resulted in an engagement.
Malibran"s first appearance in the Grand Opera at Paris was for the benefit of Mme. Galli, in "Semiramide." It was a terrible ordeal, for she had such great stars as Pasta and Sontag to compete with, and she was treading a cla.s.sic stage, with which the memories of all the great names in the lyric art were connected. She felt that on the result of that night all the future success of her life depended. Though her heart was struck with such a chill that her knees quaked as she stepped on the stage, her indomitable energy and courage came to her a.s.sistance, and she produced an indescribable sensation. Her youth, beauty, and n.o.ble air won the hearts of all. One difficult phrase proved such a stumbling-block that, in the agitation of a first appearance, she failed to surmount it, and there was an apprehension that the lovely singer was about to fail. But in the grand aria, "Bel Raggio," she indicated such resources of execution and daring of improvisation, and displayed such a full and beautiful voice, that the house resounded with the most furious applause. Mme. Malibran, encouraged by this warm reception, redoubled the difficulties of her execution, and poured forth lavishness of fioriture and brilliant cadenzas such as fairly dazzled her hearers.
Paris was conquered, and Mme. Malibran became the idol of the city, for the novelty and richness of her style of execution set her apart from all other singers as a woman of splendid inventive genius. She could now make her own terms with the managers, and she finally gave the preference to the Italiens over the Grand Opera, at terms of eight hundred francs per night, and a full benefit.
In voice, genius, and character Mme. Mali-bran was alike original.
Her organ was not naturally of first-rate quality. The voice was a mezzo-soprano, naturally full of defects, especially in the middle tones, which were hard and uneven, and to the very last she was obliged to go through her exercises every day to keep it flexible. By the tremendously severe discipline to which she had been subjected by her father"s teaching and method, the range of voice had been extended up and down so that it finally reached a compa.s.s of three octaves from D in alt to D on the third line in the base. Her high notes had an indescribable sparkle and brilliancy, and her low tones were so soft, sweet, and heart-searching that they thrilled with every varying phase of her sensibilities. Her daring in the choice of ornaments was so great that it was only justified by the success which invariably crowned her flights of inventive fancy: To the facility and cultivation of voice, which came from her father"s training, she added a fertility of musical inspiration which came from nature. A French critic wrote of her: "Her pa.s.sages were not only remarkable for extent, rapidity, and complication, but were invariably marked by the most intense feeling and sentiment. Her soul appeared in everything she did." Her extraordinary flexibility enabled her to run with ease over pa.s.sages of the most difficult character. "In the tones of Malibran," says one of her English admirers, "there would at times be developed a deep and trembling pathos, that, rushing from the fountain of the heart, thrilled instantly upon a responsive chord in the bosoms of all." She was the pupil of nature. Her acting was full of genius, pa.s.sion, and tenderness. She was equally grand as _Semiramide_ and as _Arsace_, and sang the music of both parts superbly. Touching, profoundly melancholy as _Desdemona_, she was gay and graceful in _Rosina_; she drew tears as _Ninetta_, and, throwing off the coquette, could produce roars of laughter as _Fidalma_.
She had never taken lessons in poses or in declamation, yet she was essentially, innately graceful. Mme. Malibran was in person about the middle height, and the contour of her figure was rounded to an enchanting _embonpoint_, which yet preserved its youthful grace. Her carriage was exceedingly n.o.ble, and the face more expressive than handsome; her hair was black and glossy, and always worn in a simple style. The eyes were dark and luminous, the teeth white and regular, and the countenance, habitually pensive in expression, was mutable in the extreme, and responsive to every emotion and feeling of the heart. To quote from Mr. Chorley: "She may not have been beautiful, but she was better than beautiful, insomuch as a speaking Spanish human countenance is ten times more fascinating than many a faultless angel-face such as Guido could paint. There was health of tint, with but a slight touch of the yellow rose in her complexion; great mobility of expression in her features; an honest, direct brightness of eye; a refinement in the form of her head, and the set of it on her shoulders."
When she was reproached by Fetis for using _ad captandum_ effects too lavishly in the admonition: "With the degree of elevation to which you have attained, you should impose your opinion on the public, not submit to theirs," she answered, with a laugh and a shrug of her charming shoulders: "_Mon cher grognon_, there may perhaps be two or three connoisseurs in the theatre, but it is not they who give success. When I sing for you, I will sing very differently." Mme. Malibran, buoyed up on the pa.s.sionate enthusiasm of the French public, essayed the most wonderful and daring flights in her song. She appeared as _Desdemona, Rosina_, and as _Romeo_ in Zingarelli"s opera--characters, of the most opposing kind and two of them, indeed, among Pasta"s masterpieces. It was said that, "if Malibran must yield the palm to Pasta in point of acting, yet she possessed a decided superiority in respect of song"; and, even in acting, Malibran"s grace, originality, vivacity, piquancy, spontaneity, feeling, and tenderness, won the heart of all spectators.
Such was her versatility, that the _Semi-ramide_ of one evening was the _Cinderella_ of the next, the _Zerlina_ of another, and the _Desdemona_ of its successor; and in each the individuality of conception was admirably preserved. On being asked by a friend which was her favorite role, she answered, "The character I happen to be acting, whichever it may be."
In spite, however, of the general testimony to her great dramatic ability, so clever and capable a judge as Henry Chorley rated her musical genius as far higher than that of dramatic conception. He says: "Though creative as an executant, Malibran was not creative as a dramatic artist. Though the fertility and audacity of her musical invention had no limits, though she had the power and science of a composer, she did not establish one new opera or character on the stage, hardly even one first-cla.s.s song in a concert-room." This criticism, when closely examined, may perhaps indicate a high order of praise. Mme.
Malibran, as an artist, was so unique and original in her methods, so incomparable in the invention and skill which required no master to prompt or regulate her cadences, so complex in the ingenuity which blended the resources of singing and acting, that other singers simply despaired of imitating her effects, and what she did perished with her, except as a brilliant tradition. In other words, her utter superiority to the conventional made her artistic work phenomenal, and of a style not to be perpetuated on the stage. The weight of testimony appears to be that Mme. Malibran was, beyond all of her compet.i.tors, a singer of most versatile and brilliant genius, in whom dramatic instincts reigned with as dominant force as ability of musical expression. The fact, however, that Mme. Malibran, with a voice weak and faulty in the extreme in one whole octave of its range, and that the most important (between F and F), was able by her matchless skill and audacity in the forms of execution, modification, and ornament, to achieve the most brilliant results, might well blind even a keen connoisseur by kindling his admiration of her musical invention, at the expense of his recognition of dramatic faculty.
It was characteristic of Mme. Malibran that she fired all her fellow-artists with the ardor of her genius. Her resources and knowledge were such that she could sing in any school and any language. The music of Mozart and Cimarosa, Boeldieu and Eossini, Cherubini and Bellini, Donizetti and Meyerbeer, furnished in equal measure the mold into which her great powers poured themselves with a sort of inspired fury, like that of a Greek Pythoness. She had an artistic individuality powerful to create types of its own, which were the despair of other singers, for they were incapable of reproduction, inasmuch as they were partly forged from her own defects, transformed by genius into beauties. In all those accomplishments which have their root in the art temperament, she was a sort of Admirable Crichton. She played the piano-forte with great skill, and, with no special knowledge of drawing, possessed marked talent in sketching caricatures, portraits, and scenes from nature. She composed both the music and words of songs and romances with a felicitous ease.
She excelled in feminine works, such as embroidery, tapestry, and dressmaking, and always modeled her own costumes. It was a saying with her friends that she was as much the artist with her needle as with her voice. She wrote and spoke five languages, and often used them with different interlocutors with such readiness and accuracy that she rarely confused them. Her wit and vivacity as a conversationalist were celebrated, and her _mots_ had the point as well as the flash of the diamond. Her retorts and sarcasms often wounded, but she was quick to heal the stroke by a sweet and childlike contrition that made her doubly fascinating.
Impa.s.sioned, ardent, the prey of an endless excitement, her restless nature would quickly return from its flights to the every-day duties and responsibilities of life, and her instincts were so strong and n.o.ble that she was eager to repair any errors into which she might be betrayed. Lavish in her generosity to others, she was personally frugal, even penurious. A certain brusque and original frankness, and the ingenuousness with which she betrayed every impression, often involved her in compromising positions, which would have been fatal to a woman in her position less pure and upright in her essential nature. Fond of dolls, toys, and trifles, she was also devoted to athletic sports and pastimes, riding, swimming, skating, shooting, and fencing. Sometimes her return from a fatiguing night at the opera would be marked by an exuberance of animal spirits, which would lead her to jump over chairs and tables like a schoolboy. She was wont to say, "When I try to restrain my flow of spirits, I feel as if I should be suffocated." Her reckless gayety and unconventional manners led to strange rumors. She would wander over the country attired in boy"s clothes, and without an escort, and a great variety of innocent escapades led a carping world to believe that she indulged excessively in stimulants, but the truth was that she never drank anything but a little wine-and-water.
Maria could not long endure the frowning tutelage of M. Malibran"s sister, whom she at first selected as her chaperon, and so one day she decamped without warning, in a coach, and established her "household G.o.ds" with Mme. Naldi, an old friend of her father, and a woman of austere manners, whom she obeyed like a child. Her protector had charge of all her money, and opened all her letters before Maria saw them.
When her fortune was at his height, Mme. Mali-bran showed her friend and biographer, Countess do Merlin, a much-worn Cashmere shawl, saying: "I use this in preference to any that I have. It was the first Cashmere shawl I ever owned, and I have pleasure in remembering how hard I found it to coax Mme. Naldi to let me buy it."
In 1828 the princ.i.p.al members of the operatic company at the Italiens were Malibran, Sontag, Donzelli, Zuch.e.l.li, and Graziani. Malibran sang in "Otello," "Matilda di Shabran," "La Cenerentola," and "La Gazza Ladra." Jealous as she was by temperament, she always wept when Madamoiselle Sontag achieved a great success, saying, naively, "Why does she sing so divinely?" The coldness between the two great singers was fomented by the malice of others, but at last a touching reconciliation occurred, and the two rivals remained ever afterward sincere friends and admirers of each other"s talents. There are many charming anecdotes of Madame Malibran"s generosity and quick sympathy. At the house of one of her friends she often met an aged widow, poor and unhappy, and strongly desired to a.s.sist her; but the position and character of the lady required delicate management. "Madame," she said at last, "I know that your son makes very pretty verses." "Yes, madame, he sometimes amuses himself in that way. But he is so young!" "No matter. Do you know that I could propose a little partnership affair? Troupenas [the music publisher] has asked me for a new set of romances. I have no words ready. If your son will give them to me, we could share the profits."
Mme. Malibran received the verses, and gave in exchange six hundred francs. The romances were never finished.
She performed all such acts of charity with so much refined delicacy, such true generosity, that the kindness was doubled. Thus, at the end of this season, a young female chorister, engaged for the opening of the King"s Theatre, found herself unable to quit Paris for want of funds.
Mme. Malibran promised to sing at a concert which some of the leading vocalists gave for her benefit. The name of Malibran of course drew a crowd, and the room was filled; but she did not appear, and at last they were obliged to commence the concert. The entertainment was half over when she came, and approached the young girl, saying to her in a low voice: "I am a little late, my dear, but the public will lose nothing, for I will sing all the pieces announced. In addition, as I promised you all my evening, I will keep my word. I went to sing in a concert at the house of the Duc d"Orleans, where I received three hundred francs. They belong to you. Take them."
III.
In April of the same year during which Mme. Malibran had established herself so firmly in the admiration of the Parisian world, she accepted an engagement for the summer months with La-porte of the King"s Theatre in London. She made her _debut_ in the character of _Desdemona_, a part which had already been firmly fixed in the notions of the musical public by the two differing conceptions of Pasta and Sontag. The opera had been originally written for Mme. Colbran, Rossini"s wife, and when it was revived for Pasta that great lyric tragedienne had embodied in it a grand, stormy, pa.s.sionate style, suited to the _genre_ of her genius.
Mme. Sontag, on the other hand, fashioned her impersonation from the side of delicate sentiment and tenderness, and Malibran had a difficult task in shaping the conception after an ideal which should escape the reproach of imitation. Her version was full of electric touches and rapid alternations of feeling, but at times it bordered on the sensational and extravagant. Her fiery vehemence was often felt to be inconsistent with the tenderness of the heroine. The critics, while admitting the varied and original beauties of her reading, were yet severe in their condemnation of some of its features. Mme. Malibran, however, urged that her action was what she would have manifested in the actual situations. "I remember once," says the Countess De Merlin, "a friend advised her not to make _Otello_ pursue her so long when he was about to kill her. Her answer was: "You are right; it is not elegant, I admit; but, when once I fairly enter into my character, I never think of effects, but imagine myself actually the person I represent. I can a.s.sure you that in the last scene of Desdemona I often feel as if I were really about to be murdered, and act accordingly." Donzelli used to be much annoyed by Mme. Malibran not determining beforehand how he was to seize her; she often gave him a regular chase. Though he was one of the best-tempered men in the world, I recollect him one evening being seriously angry. Desdemona had, according to custom, repeatedly escaped from his grasp; in pursuing her, he stumbled, and slightly wounded himself with the dagger he brandished. It was the only time I ever saw him in a pa.s.sion."
She next appeared successively as _Rosina, Ni-netta, and Tancredi_, winning fresh laurels in them all, not only by her superb skill in vocalizing, but by her versatility of dramatic conception and the ease with which she entered into the most opposite phases of feeling and motive. She covered Rossini"s elaborate fioriture with a fresh profusion of ornament, but always with a dexterity which saved it from the reproach of being overladen. She performed _Semiramide_ with Mme.
Pisaroni, and played Zerlina to Sontag"s _Donna Anna_. Her habit of treating such dramatic parts as _Ninetta, Zerlina_, and _Amina_ was the occasion of keen controversy among the critics of the time. Entirely averse to the conventional method of idealizing the character of the country girl out of all semblance to nature, Malibran was essentially realistic in preserving the rusticity, awkwardness, and _naivete_ of peasant-life. One critic argued: "It is by no means rare to discover in the humblest walk of life an inborn grace and delicacy of Nature"s own implanting; and such a.s.suredly is the model from which characters like _Ninetta_ and _Zerlina_ ought to be copied." But there were others who saw in the vigor, breadth, and verisimilitude of Mme. Malibran"s stage portraits of the peasant wench the truest and finest dramatic justice.
A great singer of our own age, Mme. Pauline Lucca, seems to have modeled her performances of the operatic rustic after the same method. In such characters as __Susanna in the "Nozze di Figaro," and _Fidalma_ in Cimarosa"s "Il Matrimonio Segreto," her talent for lyric comedy impressed the _cognoscenti_ of London with irresistible power. She was fascinated by the ludicrous, and was wont to say that she was anxious to play the _Duenna_ in "Il Barbiere" for the sake of the grotesque costume. In playing _Fidalma_ the drollery of her tone and manner, the richness and originality of her comic humor, were incomparable. Her daring, however, prompted her to do strange things, which would have been condemned in any other singer. For example, while _Fidalma_ is in the midst of the most ludicrous drollery of the part, Malibran suddenly took up one word and gave an extended series of the most brilliant and difficult roulades of her own improvisation, through the whole range of her voice. Her hearers were transported at this musical feat, but it entirely interrupted the continuity of the humor.
On Mme. Malibran"s return to Paris, she found her father, who had unexpectedly returned from his Mexican tour, thoroughly bankrupted in purse, and more embittered than ever by his train of misfortunes. He announced his intention of giving some representations at the Theatre Italien. This resolution caused much vexation to his daughter, but she did not oppose it. Garcia had lost a part of his voice; his tenor had become a barytone, and he could no longer reach the notes which had in former times been written for him. She knew how much her father"s voice had become injured, and knowing equally well his intrepid courage, feared, not without reason, that he would tarnish his brilliant reputation. Garcia displayed even more than ever the great artist. A hoa.r.s.eness seized him at the moment of appearing on the stage. "This is nothing," said he: "I shall do very well"; and, by sheer strength of talent and of will, he arranged the music of his part (_Almaviva_) to suit the condition of his voice, changing the pa.s.sages, transposing them an octave lower, and taking up notes adroitly where he found his voice available; and all this instantly, with an admirable confidence.
Malibran"s second season in Paris confirmed the estimate which had been placed on her genius, but the incessant labors of her professional life and the ardor with which she pursued the social enjoyments of life were commencing to undermine her health. She never hesitated to sacrifice herself and her time for the benefit of her friends, in spite of her own physical debility. One night she had promised to sing at the house of her friend, Mme. Merlin, and was amazed at the refusal of her manager to permit her absence from the theatre on a benefit-night. She said to him: "It does not signify; I sing at the theatre because it is my duty, but afterward I sing at Mme. Merlin"s because it is my pleasure." And so after one o"clock in the morning, wearied from the arduous performance of "Semiramide," she appeared at her friend"s and sang, supped, and waltzed till daybreak. This excess in living every moment of her life and utter indifference to the requirements of health were characteristic of her whole career. One night she fainted in her dressing-room before going on the stage. In the hurry of applying restoratives, a _vinaigrette_ containing some caustic acid was emptied over her lips, and her mouth was covered with blisters. The manager was in despair; but Mme. Malibran, quietly stepping to the mirror, cut off the blisters with a pair of scissors, and sang as usual. Such was the indomitable courage of the woman that she was always faithful to her obligations, come what might; a conscientiousness which was afterward the immediate cause of her death.
IV.
It was in Paris, in 1830, that Mme. Malibran"s romantic attachment to M.
Charles de Beriot, the famous Belgian violinist, had its beginning. M.
de Beriot had been warmly and hopelessly enamored of Malibran"s rival, Mdlle. Sontag, in spite of the fact that the latter lady was known to be the _fiancee_ of Count Rossi. The sympathies of Malibran"s warm and affectionate heart were called out by her friend"s disappointment, for gossip in the musical circles of Paris discussed De Beriot"s unfortunate love-affair very freely. With her usual impulsive candor she expressed her interest in the brilliant young violinist without reserve, and it was not long before De Beriot made Malibran his confidante, and found consolation for his troubles in her soothing companionship. The result was what might have been expected. Malibran"s beauty, tenderness, and genius speedily displaced the former idol in the heart of the Belgian artist, while she learned that it was but a short step between pity and love. This mutual affection was the cause of a dispute between Maria and her friend Mme. Naldi, whose austere morality disapproved the intimacy, and there was a separation, our singer moving into lodgings of her own.