In 1824 Mme. Catalani again filled an engagement in England, making her reappearance in Mayer"s comic _pasticcio_, "Il Fanatico per la Mu-sica,"
the airs of which had been expressly selected for the display of her vocal _tours de force_. Crowded audiences again welcomed her whom absence had made an idol dearer than ever, and her transcendent power as a singer seemed to have rise even beyond the old pitch in her electrical _bravura_ style of execution. Yet some critics thought they detected tokens of the destroying hand of time. One critic spoke of the "fragrance" of her tone as having evaporated. Another compared her voice to a pianoforte the hammers of which had grown hard by use. In her appearance she had become even more beautiful than ever, with some slight accession of _embonpoint_, and was conceded to be the handsomest woman in Europe. For a while her popularity was unbounded among all cla.s.ses, and probably no singer that ever lived rode on a higher wave of public adoration. But the critics began to be very much dissatisfied with the vicious uses to which she put her magnificent voice. In Paris the wags had called her _l"instrument Catalani_. In London they said her style had become a caricature of its former grandeur, so exaggerated and affected had it grown.
"When she begins one of the interminable roulades up the scale," says a writer in "Knight"s Quarterly Magazine," "she gradually raises her body, which she had before stooped to almost a level with the ground, until, having won her way with a quivering lip and chattering chin to the very topmost note, she tosses back her head and all its nodding feathers with an air of triumph; then suddenly falls to a note two octaves and a half lower with incredible aplomb, and smiles like a victorious Amazon over a conquered enemy." A throng of flatterers joined in encouraging her in all her defects. "No sooner does Catalani quit the orchestra," says the same writer, "than she is beset by a host of foreign sycophants, who load her with exaggerated praise. I was present at a scene of this kind in the refreshment-room at Bath, and heard reiterated on all sides, "Ah! madame, la derniere fois toujours la meilleure!" Thus is poor Mme. Catalani led to strive to excel herself every time she sings, until she exposes herself to the ridicule most probably of those very flatterers; for I have heard that on the Continent she is mimicked by a man dressed in female attire, who represents, by extravagant terms and gestures, Mme. Catalani _surpa.s.sing_ herself." Occasionally, however, she showed that her genius had not forsaken her. Her singing of Luther"s Hymn is thus described by an appreciative listener: "She admits in this grandly simple composition no ornament whatever but a pure shake at the conclusion. The majesty of her sustained tones, so rich, so ample as not only to fill but overflow the cathedral where I heard her, the solemnity of her manner, and the St. Cecilia-like expression of her raised eyes and rapt countenance, produced a thrilling effect through the united medium of sight and hearing. Whoever has heard Catalani sing this, accompanied by Schmidt on the trumpet, has heard the utmost that music can do. Then in the succeeding chorus, when the same awful words, "The trumpet sounds; the graves restore the dead which they contained before," are repeated by the whole choral strength, her voice, piercing through the clang of instruments and the burst of other voices, is heard as distinctly as if it were alone! During the encore I found my way to the top of a tower on the outside of the cathedral, and could still distinguish her wonderful voice."
A charming incident is told of Mme. Catalani while in Brighton. Captain Montague, cruising off that port, invited her and some other ladies to a _fete_ on his ship, and the ladies were escorted on board by the Captain in a boat manned by twenty men. The prima donna suddenly burst forth with her pet song, "Rule Britannia," singing with electrical fire and the full power of her magnificent voice. The tars dropped their oars, and tears rolled down their weatherbeaten cheeks, while the Captain said: "You see, madame, the effect this favorite air has on these brave men when sung by the finest voice in the world. I have been in many victorious battles, but never felt an excitement equal to this."
Mme. Catalani retired from the stage in 1831. Young and brilliant rivals, such as Pasta and Son-tag, were rising to contest her sovereignty, and for several years the critics had been dropping pretty plain hints that it would be the most judicious and dignified course.
She settled on a magnificent estate near Lake Como, where she lived with her two eldest children--a son and daughter--the younger son being absent on military duty in the French army. This latter afterward became an equerry to Napoleon III., and the other children occupied positions of rank and honor. Mme. Catalani founded a school of gratuitous instruction for young girls near her beautiful villa, and exacted that all who graduated from this school should adopt her own name. One, Signora Masilli-Catalani, became quite an eminent singer. Mrs. Trollope tells us something of Catalani"s latter days as she visited her in Italy: "Nothing could be more amiable than the reception she gave us."
She expressed a great admiration and love for the English. Her beauty was little injured. "Her eyes and teeth are still magnificent," says Mrs. Trollope, "and I am told that, when seen in evening full dress by candlelight, no stranger can see her for the first time without inquiring who that charming-looking woman is." Mrs. Trollope hinted to Mlle, de Valle-breque that she would like to hear her mother sing; and in a moment Mme. Catalani was at the piano, smiling at the whispered request from her daughter. "I know not what it was she sang, but scarcely had she permitted her voice to swell into one of those bravura pa.s.sages, of which her execution was so very peculiar and so perfectly unequaled, than I felt as if some magic process was being performed upon me, which took me back again to something--I know not what to call it--which I had neither heard nor felt for nearly twenty years.
Involuntarily, unconsciously, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt as much embarra.s.sed as a young lady of fifteen might be who suddenly found herself in the act of betraying emotions which she was far indeed from wishing to display." William Gardiner visited Mme. Catalani in 1846. "I was surprised at the vigor of Mme. Catalani," he says, "and how little she was altered since I saw her at Derby in 1828. I paid her a compliment upon her good looks. "Ah!" said she, "I am growing old and ugly." I would not allow it. "Why, man," she said, "I"m sixty-six!" She has lost none of that commanding expression which gave her such dignity on the stage. She is without a wrinkle, and appears to be no more than forty. Her breadth of chest is still remarkable; it was this which endowed her with the finest voice that ever sang. Her speaking voice and dramatic air are still charming, and not in the least impaired."
About the year 1848 Catalani and her family left Italy for fear of the cholera, which was then raging, and sought refuge in Paris. While residing there she heard Jenny Lind. One morning, a few days after, the servant announced a strange visitor, who would not give her name. On being ushered in, the timid stranger, who showed a plain but pleasant face, knelt at her feet and said falteringly, "I am Jenny Lind, madame--I am come to ask your blessing." A few days afterward Catalani was stricken with the cholera, which she so much dreaded, and died on June 12th, at the age of sixty-nine.
It is not a marvel that the public was captivated with Catalani. She had every splendid gift that Nature could lavish--surpa.s.sing physical beauty, a matchless voice, energy of spirit, sweetness of temper, and warm affections. Her whole private life was marked by the utmost purity and propriety, and she was the soul of generosity and unselfishness.
The many business troubles in which she was involved were caused by her husband"s rapacity and narrowness of judgment, and not by her own disposition to take advantage of the necessities of her managers--a charge her enemies at one time brought against her.
Her unrivaled endowments (for that taken all in all they were unrivaled is now pretty well acknowledged) ought to have raised her much higher in rank as an artist. Her education even as a singer was extremely superficial, and she became an object of universal admiration without ever knowing anything about music. As she advanced in her career, her whole ambition seemed to be narrowed down to surprising the world by displays of vocal power. As long as these displays would dazzle and astonish, it made little difference how absurd and unmeaning they were.
Had she a.s.siduously cultivated the dramatic part of her profession, such were the powers of her voice, her sense of the beautiful, her histrionic pa.s.sion and energy, her charms of person, that she might have been the greatest lyric artist that ever lived. Many of the songs she selected as vehicles of display were unsuitable to a female voice. For instance, she would take the martial song for a ba.s.s voice, "Non piu Andrai," in "Figaro," and overpower by the force and volume of her organ all the bra.s.s instruments of the orchestra. A craving for such sort of admiration from unthinking crowds turned her aside from the true path of her art, where she might have reached the top peak of greatness, and has handed down her memory a shining beacon rather than as a model to her successors.
GIUDITTA PASTA.
Greatness of Genius overcoming Disqualification.--The Characteristic Lesson of Pasta"s Life.--Her First Appearance and Failure.--Pasta returns to Italy and devotes herself to Study.--Her First Great Successes in 1819.--Characteristics of her Voice and Singing.--Chorley"s Review of the Impressions made on him by Pasta.--She makes her Triumphal _Debut_ in Paris.--Talma on Pasta"s Acting.--Her Performances of "Giulietta" and "Tancredi."--Medea, Pasta"s Grandest Impersonation, is given to the World.--Description of the Performance.--Enthusiasm of the Critics and the Public.--Introduction of Pasta to the English Public in Rossini"s "Otello."--The Impression made in England.--Recognized as the Greatest Dramatic Prima Donna in the World.--Glances at the Salient Facts of her English Career.--The Performance of "Il Crociato in Egitto."--She plays the Male _Role_ in "Otello."--Rivalry with Malibran and Sontag.--The Founder of a New School of Singing.--Pasta creates the Leading _Roles_ in Bellini"s "Sonnambula" and "Norma" and Donizetti"s "Anna Bolena."--Decadence and Retirement.
I.
As an artist who could transform natural faults into the rarest beauties, who could make the world forgive the presence of other deficiencies which could not thus be glorified by the presence of genius, thought, and truth--as one who engraved deeper impressions on the memory of her hearers than any other even in an age of great singers--Mme. Pasta must be placed in the very front rank of art.
The way by which this gifted woman arrived at her throne was long and toilsome. Nature had denied her the ninety-nine requisites of the singer (according to the old Italian adage). Her voice at the origin was limited, husky, and weak, without charm, without flexibility. Though her countenance _spoke_, its features were cast in a coa.r.s.e mold. Her figure was ungraceful, her movements were awkward. No candidate for musical sovereignty ever presented herself with what must have appeared a more meager catalogue of pretensions at the outset of her career. What she became let our sketch reveal.
She was the daughter of a Jewish family named Negri, born at Saronno, near Milan, in the year 1798. The records of her childhood are slight, and beyond the fact that she received her first musical lessons at the Cathedral of Como and her latter training at the Milan Conservatory, and that she essayed her feeble wings at second-rate Italian theatres in subordinate parts for the first year, there is but little of significance to relate. In 1816 she sang in the train of the haughty and peerless Catalani at the Favart in Paris, but did not succeed in attracting attention. But it happened that Ayrton, of the King"s Theatre, London, heard her sing at the house of Paer, the composer, and liked her well enough to engage herself and husband at a moderate salary. When Pasta"s glimmering little light first shone in London, Fodor and Camporese were in the full blaze of their reputation--both brilliant singers, but destined to pale into insignificance afterward before the intense splendor of Pasta"s perfected genius. One of the notices of the opening performance at the King"s Theatre, when Mme.
Camporese sang the leading _role_ of Cimarosa"s "Penelope," followed up a lavish eulogium on the prima donna with the contemptuous remark, "Two subordinate singers named Pasta and Mari came forward in the characters of _Telamuco_ and _Arsi-noe_, but their musical talent does not require minute delineation." There is every reason to believe that Pasta was openly flouted both by the critics and the members of her own profession during her first London experience, but a magnificent revenge was in store for her. Among the parts she sang at this chrysalis period were _Cherubino_ in the "Nozze di Figaro," _Servilia_ in "La Clemenza di t.i.to," and the _role_ of the pretended shrew in Ferrari"s "Il s.h.a.glio Fortunato." Mme. Pasta found herself at the end of the season a dire failure. But she had the searching self-insight which stamps the highest forms of genius, and she determined to correct her faults, and develop her great but latent powers. Suddenly she disappeared from the view of the operatic world, and buried herself in a retired Italian city, where she studied with intelligent and tireless zeal under M. Scappa, a _maestro_ noted for his power of kindling the material of genius.
Occasionally she tested herself in public. An English n.o.bleman who heard her casually at this time said: "Other singers find themselves endowed with a voice and leave everything to chance. This woman leaves nothing to chance, and her success is therefore certain." She subjected herself to a course of severe and incessant study to subdue her voice. To equalize it was impossible. There was a portion of the scale which differed from the rest in quality, and remained to the last "under a veil," to use the Italian term. Some of her notes were always out of time, especially at the beginning of a performance, until the vocalizing machinery became warmed and mellowed by pa.s.sion and excitement. Out of these uncouth and rebellious materials she had to compose her instrument, and then to give it flexibility. Chor-ley, in speaking of these difficulties, says: "The volubility and brilliancy, when acquired, gained a character of their own from the resisting peculiarities of her organ. There were a breadth, an expressiveness in her _roulades_, an evenness and solidity in her shake, which imparted to every pa.s.sage a significance beyond the reach of more spontaneous singers." But, after all, the true secret of her greatness was in the intellect and imagination which lay behind the voice, and made every tone quiver with dramatic sensibility.
The lyric Siddons of her age was now on the verge of making her real _debut_. When she reappeared in Venice, in 1819, she made a great impression, which was strengthened by her subsequent performances in Rome, Milan, and Trieste, during that and the following year. The fastidious Parisians recognized her power in the autumn of 1821, when she sang at the Theatre Italien; and at Verona, during the Congress of 1822, she was received with tremendous enthusiasm. She returned to Paris the same year, and in the opera of "Romeo e Giulietta" she exhibited such power, both in singing and acting, as to call from the French critics the most extravagant terms of praise. Mme. Pasta was then laying the foundation of one of the most dazzling reputations ever gained by prima donna. By sheer industry she had extended the range of her voice to two octaves and a half--from A above the ba.s.s clef note to C flat, and even to D in alt. Her tones had become rich and sweet, except when she attempted to force them beyond their limits; her intonation was, however, never quite perfect, being occasionally a little flat. Her singing was pure and totally divested of all spurious finery; she added little to what was set down by the composer, and that little was not only in good taste, but had a great deal of originality to recommend it. She possessed deep feeling and correct judgment. Her shake was most beautiful; Signor Pacini"s well-known cavatina, "Il soave e bel contento"--the peculiar feature of which consisted in the solidity and power of a sudden shake, contrasted with the detached staccato of the first bar--was written for Mme. Pasta. Some of her notes were sharp almost to harshness, but this defect with the greatness of genius she overcame, and even converted into a beauty; for in pa.s.sages of profound pa.s.sion her guttural tones were thrilling. The irregularity of her lower notes, governed thus by a perfect taste and musical tact, aided to a great extent in giving that depth of expression which was one of the princ.i.p.al charms of her singing; indeed, these lower tones were peculiarly suited for the utterance of vehement pa.s.sion, producing an extraordinary effect by the splendid and unexpected contrast which they enabled her to give to the sweetness of the upper tones, causing a kind of musical discordance indescribably pathetic and melancholy. Her accents were so plaintive, so penetrating, so profoundly tragical, that no one could resist their influence.
Her genius as a tragedienne surpa.s.sed her talent as a singer. When on the stage she was no longer Pasta, but Tancredi, Romeo, Desdemona, Medea, or Semiramide. Ebers tells us in his "Seven Years of the King"s Theatre": "Nothing could have been more free from trick or affectation than Pasta"s performance. There is no perceptible effort to resemble a character she plays; on the contrary, she enters the stage the character itself; transposed into the situation, excited by the hopes and fears, breathing the life and spirit of the being she represents." Mme.
Pasta was a slow reader, but she had in perfection the sense for the measurement and proportion of time, a most essential musical quality.
This gave her an instinctive feeling for propriety, which no lessons could teach; that due recognition of accent and phrase, that absence of flurry and exaggeration, such as makes the discourse and behavior of some people memorable, apart from the value of matter and occasion; that intelligent composure, without coldness, which impresses and rea.s.sures those who see and hear. A quotation from a distinguished critic already cited gives a vivid idea of Pasta"s influence on the most cold and fastidious judges:
"The greatest grace of all, depth and reality of expression, was possessed by this remarkable artist as few (I suspect) before her--as none whom I have since admired--have possessed it. The best of her audience were held in thrall, without being able to a.n.a.lyze what made up the spell, what produced the effect, so soon as she opened her lips.
Her recitative, from the moment she entered, was riveting by its truth.
People accustomed to object to the conventionalities of opera (just as loudly as if all drama was not conventional too), forgave the singing and the strange language for the sake of the direct and dignified appeal made by her declamation. Mme. Pasta never changed her readings, her effects, her ornaments. What was to her true, when once arrived at, remained true for ever. To arrive at what stood with her for truth, she labored, made experiments, rejected with an elaborate care, the result of which, in one meaner or more meager, must have been monotony. But the impression made on me was that of being always subdued and surprised for the first time. Though I knew what was coming, when the pa.s.sion broke out, or when the phrase was sung, it seemed as if they were something new, electrical, immediate. The effect to me is at present, in the moment of writing, as the impression made by the first sight of the sea, by the first snow mountain, by any of those first emotions which never entirely pa.s.s away. These things are utterly different from the fanaticism of a _laudator temporis acti_."
When Talma heard her declaim, at the time of her earliest celebrity in Paris, he said: "Here is a woman of whom I can still learn. One turn of her beautiful head, one glance of her eye, one light motion of her hand, is, with her, sufficient to express a pa.s.sion. She can raise the soul of the spectator to the highest pitch of astonishment and delight by one tone of her voice. "O Dio!" as it comes from her breast, swelling over her lips, is of indescribable effect." Poetical and enthusiastic by temperament, the crowning excellence of her art was a grand simplicity.
There was a sublimity in her expressions of vehement pa.s.sion which was the result of measured force, energy which was never wasted, exalted pathos that never overshot the limits of art. Vigorous without violence, graceful without artifice, she was always greatest when the greatest emergency taxed her powers.
Pasta"s second great part at the Theatre Italien was in Rossini"s "Tancredi," an impersonation which was one of the most enchanting and finished of her lighter _roles_. "She looked resplendent in the casque and cuira.s.s of the Red Cross Knight. No one could ever sing the part of _Tancredi_ like Mine. Pasta: her pure taste enabled her to add grace to the original composition by elegant and irreproachable ornaments. "Di tanti palpiti" had been first presented to the Parisians by Mme. Fodor, who covered it with rich and brilliant embroidery, and gave it what an English critic, Lord Mount Edgc.u.mbe, afterward termed its country-dance-like character. Mine. Pasta, on the contrary, infused into this air its true color and expression, and the effect was ravishing."
"Tancredi" was quickly followed by "Otello," and the impa.s.sioned spirit, energy, delicacy, and tenderness with which Pasta infused the character of _Desdemona_ furnished the theme for the most lavish praises on the part of the critics. It was especially in the last act that her acting electrified her audiences. Her transition from hope to terror, from supplication to scorn, culminating in the vehement outburst "_sono innocente_," her last frenzied looks, when, blinded by her disheveled hair and bewildered with her conflicting emotions, she seems to seek fruitlessly the means of flight, were awful. The varied resources of the great art of tragedy were consummately drawn forth by her _Desdemona_, in this opera, though she was yet to astonish the world with that impersonation imperishably linked with her name in the history of art.
"Elisabetta" and "Mose in Egitto" were also revived for her, and she filled the leading characters in both with _eclat_.
II.
In January, 1824, Mme. Pasta gave to the world what by all concurrent accounts must have been the grandest lyric impersonation in the records of art, the character of _Medea_ in Simon May-er"s opera.
This masterpiece was composed musically and dramatically by the artist herself on the weak foundation of a wretched play and correct but commonplace music. In a more literal and truthful sense than that in which the term is so often travestied by operatic singers, the part was _created_ by Pasta, reconstructed in form and meaning, as well as inspired by a matchless executive genius. In the language of one writer, whose enthusiasm seems not to have been excessive: "It was a triumph of histrionic art, and afforded every opportunity for the display of all the resources of her genius--the varied powers which had been called forth and combined in _Medea_, the pa.s.sionate tenderness of _Romeo_, the spirit and animation of _Tancredi_, the majesty of _Semi-ramide_, the mournful beauty of _Nina_, the dignity and sweetness of _Desdemona_.
It is difficult to conceive a character more highly dramatic or more intensely impa.s.sioned than that of _Medea_; and in the successive scenes Pasta appeared as if torn by the conflict of contending pa.s.sions, until at last her anguish rose to sublimity. The conflict of human affection and supernatural power, the tenderness of the wife, the agonies of the mother, and the rage of the woman scorned, were portrayed with a truth, a power, a grandeur of effect unequaled before or since by any actress or singer. Every att.i.tude, each movement and look, became a study for a painter; for in the storm of furious pa.s.sion the grace and beauty of her gestures were never marred by extravagance. Indeed, her impersonation of _Medea_ was one of the finest ill.u.s.trations of cla.s.sic grandeur the stage has ever presented. In the scene where _Medea_ murders her children, the acting of Pasta rose to the sublime. Her self-abandonment, her horror at the contemplation of the deed she is about to perpetrate, the irrepressible affection which comes welling up in her breast, were pictured with a magnificent power, yet with such natural pathos, that the agony of the distracted mother was never lost sight of in the fury of the priestess. Folding her arms across her bosom, she contracted her form, as, cowering, she shrunk from the approach of her children; then grief, love, despair, rage, madness, alternately wrung her heart, until at last her soul seemed appalled at the crime she contemplated.
Starting forward, she pursued the innocent creatures, while the audience involuntarily closed their eyes and recoiled before the harrowing spectacle, which almost elicited a stifled cry of horror. But her fine genius invested the character with that cla.s.sic dignity and beauty which, as in the Niobe group, veils the excess of human agony in the drapery of ideal art."
Chorley, whose warmth of admiration is always tempered by accurate art-knowledge and the keenest insight, recurs in later years to Pas-ta"s _Medea_ in these eloquent words: "The air of quiet concentrated vengeance, seeming to fill every fiber of her frame--as though deadly poison were flowing through her veins--with which she stood alone wrapped in her scarlet mantle, as the bridal procession of _Jason_ and _Creusa_ swept by, is never to be forgotten. It must have been hard for those on the stage with her to pa.s.s that draped statue with folded arms--that countenance lit up with awful fire, but as still as death and inexorable as doom. Where again has ever been seen an exhibition of art grander than her _Medea"s_ struggle with herself ere she consents to murder her children?--than her hiding the dagger with its fell purpose in her bosom under the strings of her distracted hair?--than of her steps to and fro as of one drunken with frenzy--torn with the agonies of natural pity, yet still resolved on her awful triumph? These memories are so many possessions to those who have seen them so long as reason shall last; and their reality is all the more a.s.sured to me because I have not yet fallen into the old man"s habit of denying or doubting new sensations." The Paris public, it need not be said, even more susceptible to the charm of great acting than that of great singing, were in a frenzy of admiration over this wonderful new picture added to the portrait-gallery of art. In this performance Pasta had the advantage of absorbing the whole interest of the opera; in her other great Parisian successes she was obliged to share the admiration of the public with the tenor Garcia (Malibran"s father), the barytone Bordogni, and Leva.s.seur the ba.s.so, next to Lablache the greatest of his artistic kind.
A story is told of a distinguished critic that he persuaded himself that, with such power of portraying _Medea"s_ emotions, Pasta must possess Medea"s features. Having been told that the features of the Colchian sorceress had been found in the ruins of Herculaneum cut on an antique gem, his fantastic enthusiasm so overcame his judgment that he took a journey to Italy expressly to inspect this visionary cameo, which, it need not be said, existed only in the imagination of a practical joker.
In 1824 Pasta made her first English appearance at the King"s Theatre, at which was engaged an extraordinary a.s.semblage of talent, Mesdames Colbran-Rossini, Catalani, Konzi di Begnis, "Vestris, Caradori, and Pasta. The great tragedienne made her first appearance in _Desdemona_, and, as all Europe was ringing with her fame, the curiosity to see and hear her was almost unparalleled. Long before the beginning of the opera the house was packed with an intensely expectant throng. For an English audience, idolizing the memory of Shakespeare, even Rossini"s fine music, conducted by that great composer himself, could hardly under ordinary circ.u.mstances condone the insult offered to a species of literary religion by the wretched stuff pitchforked together and called a libretto. But the genius of Pasta made them forget even this, and London bowed at her feet with as devout a recognition as that offered by the more fickle Parisians. Her chaste and n.o.ble style, untortured by meretricious ornament, excited the deepest admiration. Count Stendhal, the biographer of Rossini, seems to have heard her for the first time at London, and writes of her in the following fashion:
"Moderate in the use of embellishments, Mme. Pasta never employs them but to heighten the force of the expression; and, what is more, her embellishments last only just so long as they are found to be useful."
In this respect her manner formed a very strong contrast with that of the generality of Italian singers at the time, who were more desirous of creating astonishment than of giving pleasure. It was not from any lack of technical knowledge and vocal skill that Mme. Pasta avoided extravagant ornamentation, for in many of the concerted pieces--in which she chiefly shone--her execution united clearness and rapidity. "Mme.
Pasta is certainly less exuberant in point of ornament, and more expressive in point of majesty and simplicity," observed one critic, "than any of the first-cla.s.s singers who have visited England for a long period.... She is also a mistress of art," continues the same writer, "and, being limited by nature, she makes no extravagant use of her powers, but employs them with the tact and judgment that can proceed only from an extraordinary mind. This const.i.tutes her highest praise; for never did intellect and industry become such perfect subst.i.tutes for organic superiority. Notwithstanding her fine vein of imagination and the beauty of her execution, she cultivates high and deep pa.s.sions, and is never so great as in the adaptation of art to the purest purposes of expression."
The production of "Tancredi" and of Zingarelli"s "Romeo e Giulietta"
followed as the vehicles of Pasta"s genius for the pleasure of the English public, and the season was closed with "Semiramide," in which her regal majesty seemed to embody the ideal conception of the a.s.syrian queen. The scene in the first act where the specter of her murdered consort appears she made so thrilling and impressive that some of the older opera-goers compared it to the wonderful acting of Garrick in the "ghost-scene" of "Hamlet"; and those when she learns that _Arsace_ is her son, and when she falls by his hand before the tomb of _Ninus_, were recounted in after-years as among the most startling memories of a lifetime. During her London season Mme. Pasta went much into society, and her exalted fame, united with her amiable manners, made her everywhere sought after. Immense sums were paid her at private concerts, and her subscription concerts at Almack"s were the rage of the town. Her operatic salary of 14,000 was nearly doubled by her income from other sources.
III.
The following year the management of the King"s Theatre again endeavored to secure Pasta, who had returned to Paris. Before she would finally consent she stipulated that the new manager should pay her all the arrears of salary left unsettled by his predecessor, for, in spite of its artistic excellence, the late season had not proved a pecuniary success. After much negotiation the difficulty was arranged, and Mme.
Pasta, binding herself to fill her Parisian engagements at the close of her leave of absence, received her _conge_ for England. Her reappearance in "Otello" was greeted with fervid applause, and it was decided that her singing had gained in finish and beauty, while her acting was as powerful as before. It was during this season that Pasta first sang with Malibran. Ronzi di Begnis had lost her voice, Caradori had seceded in a pet, and the manager in despair tried the trembling and inexperienced daughter of the great Spanish tenor to fill up the gap. She was a failure, as Pasta had been at first in England, but time was to bring her a glorious recompense, as it had done to her elder rival. For the next two years Pasta sang alternately in London and Paris, and her popularity on the lyric stage exceeded that of any of the contemporary singers, for Catalini, whose genius turned in another direction, seemed to care only for the concert room. But some disagreement with Rossini caused her to leave Paris and spend a year in Italy. During this time her English reputation stood at its highest point. No one had ever appeared on the English stage who commanded such exalted artistic respect and admiration. Ebers tells us, speaking of her last engagement before going to Italy: "At no period of Pasta"s career had she been more fashionable. She had literally worked her way up to eminence, and, having attained the height, she stood on it firm and secure; no performer has owed less to caprice or fashion; her reputation has been earned, and, what is more, deserved."
On her reappearance in London in 1827 Pasta was engaged for twenty-three nights at a salary of 3,000 guineas, with a free benefit, which yielded her 1,500 guineas more. Her opening performance was that of _Desdemona_, in which Mme. Malibran also appeared during the same season, thus affording the critics an opportunity for comparison. It was admitted that the younger diva had the advantage in vocalization and execution, but that Pasta"s conception was incontestably superior, and her reading of the part characterized by far greater n.o.bility and grandeur. The novelty of the season was Signor Coccia"s opera of "Maria Stuarda,"
in which Pasta created the part of the beautiful Scottish queen. Her interpretation possessed an "impa.s.sioned dignity, with an eloquence of voice, of look, and of action which defies description and challenges the severest criticism." It was a piece of acting which great natural genius, extensive powers of observation, peculiar sensibility of feeling, and those acquirements of art which are the results of sedulous study, combined to make perfect. It is said that Mme. Pasta felt this part so intensely that, when summoned before the audience at the close, tears could be seen rolling down her cheeks, and her form to tremble with the scarcely-subsiding swell of agitation.
During a short Dublin engagement the same year the following incident occurred, showing how pa.s.sionate were her sensibilities in real life as well as on the stage: One day, while walking with some friends, a ragged child about three years of age approached and asked charity for her blind mother in such artless and touching accents that the prima donna burst into tears and put into the child"s hands all the money she had.
Her friends began extolling her charity and the goodness of her heart.
"I will not accept your compliments," said she, wiping the tears from her eyes. "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, the want of clothing, the cold which they suffer. I should indeed be a great actress if at any time I could find a gesture expressing profound misery with such truth."
Pasta"s next remarkable impersonation was that of _Armando_ in "Il Crociato in Egitto," written by Meyerbeer for Signor Velluti, the last of the race of male sopranos. She had already performed it in Paris, and been overwhelmed with abuse by Velluti"s partisans, who were enraged to see their favorite"s strong part taken from him by one so much superior in genius, however inferior in mere executive vocalism. Velluti had disfigured his performance by introducing a perfect cascade of roulades and _fiorituri_, but Pasta"s delivery of the music, while inspired by her great tragic sensibility, was marked by such breadth and fidelity that many thought they heard the music for the first time. A ludicrous story is told of the first performance in London. Pasta had flown to her dressing-room at the end of one of the scenes to change her costume, but the audience demanding a repet.i.tion of the trio with Mme. Caradori and Mile. Brambilla, Pasta was obliged to appear, amid shouts of laughter, half Crusader, half Mameluke.
On the occasion of her benefit the same season, the opera being "Otello," Mme. Pasta essayed the daring experiment of singing and playing the _role_ of the Moor, Mile. Sontag singing _Desdemona_. Though the transposition of the music from a tenor to a mezzo-soprano voice injured the effect of the concerted pieces, the pa.s.sionate acting redeemed the innovation. In the last act, where she, as _Otello_, seized _Desdemona_ and dragged her by the hair to the bed that she might stab her, the effect was one of such tragic horror that many left the theatre. She thus united the most cultivated vocal excellence with dramatic genius of unequaled power. "Mme. Pasta," said a clever writer, "is in fact the founder of a new school, and after her the possession of vocal talent alone is insufficient to secure high favor, or to excite the same degree of interest for any length of time. Even in Italy, where the mixture of dramatic with musical science was long neglected, and not appreciated for want of persons equally gifted with both attainments, Mme. Pasta has exhibited to her countrymen the beauty of a school too long neglected, in such a manner that they will no longer admit the notion of lyric tragedy being properly spoken without dramatic as well as vocal qualifications in its representative." The presence of Malibran and Sontag during this season inspired Pasta to almost superhuman efforts to maintain her threatened supremacy. In her efforts to surpa.s.s these brilliant young rivals in all respects, she laid herself open to criticism by departing somewhat from the severe and cla.s.sic school of delivery which had always distinguished her, and overloading her singing with ornament.
Honors were showered on Pasta in different parts of Europe. She was made first court singer in 1829 by the Emperor of Austria, and presented by him with a superb diadem of rubies and diamonds. At Bologna, where she performed in twelve of the Rossinian operas under the _baton_ of the composer himself, a medal was struck in her honor by the Societa del Casino, and all the different cities of her native land vied in doing honor to the greatest of lyric tragediennes. At Milan in 1830 she sang with Rubini, Galli, Mme. Pisaroni, Lablache, and David. Donizetti at this time wrote the opera of "Anna Bolena," with the special view of suiting the dominant qualities of Pasta, Rubini, and Galli. The following season Pasta sang at Milan, at a salary of 40,000 francs for twenty representations, and was obliged to divide the admiration of the public with Mali-bran, who was rapidly rising to the brilliant rank which she afterward held against all comers. Vincenzo Bellini now wrote for Pasta his charming opera of "La Sonnambula," and it was produced with Rubini, Mariano, and Mme. Taccani in the cast. Pasta and Rubini surpa.s.sed themselves in the splendor of their performance. "Emulating each other in wishing to display the merits of the opera, they were both equally successful," said a critic of the day, "and those who partic.i.p.ated in the delight of hearing them will never forget the magic effect of their execution. But exquisite as were, undoubtedly, Mme.
Pasta"s vocal exertions, her histrionic powers, if possible, surpa.s.sed them. It would be difficult for those who have seen her represent, in Donizetti"s excellent opera, the unfortunate _Amina_, with a grandeur and a dignity above all praise, to conceive that she could so change (if the expression may be allowed) her nature as to enact the part of a simple country girl. But she has proved her powers to be unrivaled; she personates a simple rustic as easily as she identifies herself with _Medea, Semiramide, Tancredi, and Anna Bolena_."
IV.
After an absence of three years Mme. Pasta returned to England, and her opening performance of Medea was aided by the talents of Rubini, Lablache, and f.a.n.n.y Ayton. Rubini performed the character of _Egeus_, and the duets between the king of tenors and Pasta were so remarkable in a musical sense as to rival the dramatic impression made by her great acting. She was no exception to the rule that very great tragic actors are rarely devoid of a strong comic individuality. In Erreco"s "Prova d"un Opera Seria," an opera caricaturing the rehearsals of a serious opera at the house of the prima donna and at the theatre, her performance was so arch, whimsical, playful, and capricious, that its drollery kept the audience in a roar of laughter, while Lablache, as "the composer," seconded her humor by that talent for comedy which Ronconi alone has ever approached. Lablache also appeared with Pasta in "Anna Bolena," and the great ba.s.so, mighty in bulk, mighty in voice, and mighty in genius, fairly startled the public by his extraordinary resemblance to Holbein"s portrait of Henry VIII.