Chapter 10

The characters expressing placidity, softness, and feminine grace, like _Lucia, Amina,_ and _Zerli-na_, involving the sentimental rather than the passionate, were best fitted to Mme. Persiani's powers as artist. She belonged to the same school as Sontag, not only in character of voice, but in all her sympathies and affinities; yet she was not incapable of a high order of tragic emotion, as her performance of the mad scene of "Lucia di Lammermoor" gave ample proof, but this form of artistic expression was not spontaneous and unforced. It was only well accomplished under high pressure. Escudin said of her, "It is not only the nature of her voice which limits her--it is also the expression of her acting, we had almost said the ensemble of her physical organization. She knows her own powers perfectly. She is not ambitious, she knows exactly what will suit her, and is aware precisely of the nature of her talent." Although she attained a high reputation in some of Mozart's characters, as, for example, _Zerlina_, the Mozart music was not well fitted to her voice and tastes. The brilliancy and flexibility of her organ and her airy style were far more suited to the modern Italian than to the severe German school.

A charming compliment was paid by Malibran, who knew how to do such things with infinite taste and delicacy, to Persiani, when the latter lady was singing at Naples in 1835: while the representative of _Lucia_ was changing her costume between the acts, a lady entered her dressing-room, and complimented her in warmest terms on the excellence of her singing. The visitor then took the long golden tresses floating over Persiani's shoulders, and asked, "Is it all your own?" On being laughingly answered in the affirmative, Malibran, for it was she, said, "Allow me, signora, since I have no wreath of flowers to offer you, to twine you one with your own beautiful hair." Mme. Persiani's artistic tour through Italy, in 1835, culminated in Florence with one of those exhibitions of popular tyranny and exaction which so often alternate with enthusiasm in the case of audiences naturally ardent and impressible, and consequently capricious. When the singer arrived at the Tuscan capital, she was in such a weak and exhausted state that she did not deem it prudent to sing. Her manager was, however, unbending, and insisted on the exact fulfillment of her contract. After vain remonstrances she yielded to her taskmaster, and appeared in "I Puritani," trusting to the forbearance and kindness of her audience. But a few notes had escaped her pale and quivering lips when the angry audience broke out into loud hisses, marks of disapprobation which were kept up during the performance. Mme. Persiani could not forgive this, and, when she completely recovered her voice and energy a few weeks after, she treated the lavish demonstrations of the public with the most cutting disdain and indifference. At the close of her engagement, she publicly announced her determination never again to sing in Florence, on account of the selfish cruelty to which she had been subjected both by the manager and the public. Persiani's fame grew rapidly in every part of Europe. At Vienna, she was named chamber singer to the Austrian sovereign, and splendid gifts were lavished on her by the imperial family, and in the leading cities of Germany, as in St. Petersburg and Moscow, the highest recognition of her talents was shown alike by court and people.

It was not till 1837 that Mme. Persiani ventured to make her first appearance in Paris, a step which she took with much apprehension, for she had an exaggerated notion of the captious-ness and coldness of the French public. When she stepped on the stage, November 7th, the night of her _début_ in "Sonnambula," she was so violently shaken by her emotions that she could scarcely stand. The other singers were Rubini, Tamburini, and Mlle. Allessandri, and the audience was of the utmost distinction, including the foremost people in the art, literary, and social circles of Paris. The _debutante_ was well received, but it was not until she appeared in Cimarosa's "Il Matrimonio Segreto" that she was fully appreciated. Rubini and Tamburini were with her in the cast, and the same great artists participated also with her in the performance of "Lucia," which set the final seal of her artistic won h in the public estimate. She also appeared in London in the following year in "Sonnambula." "It is no small risk to any vocalist to follow Malibran and Grisi in a part which they both played so well," was the observation of one critic, "and it is no small compliment to Persiani to say that she succeeded in it." She had completely established herself as a favorite with the London public before the end of the season, and thereafter she continued to sing alternately in London and Paris for a succession of years, sharing the applause of audiences with such artists as Grisi, Viardot, Lablache, Tamburini, Rubini, and Mario.

A tour through Belgium and the Rhenish provinces, partly operatic, partly concertizing, which she took with Rubini in the summer and fall of 1841, was highly successful from the artistic point of view, and replete with pleasant incidents, among which may be mentioned their meeting at Wiesbaden with Prince Metternich, who had come with a crowd of princes, ministers, and diplomats from the château of Johannisberg to be present at the concert. At the conclusion of the performance, the Prince took Rubini by the arm, and walked up and down the salon with him for some time. They had become acquainted at Vienna. "My dear Rubini," said Metternich, "it is impossible that you can come so near Johannisberg without paying me a visit there. I hope you and your friends will come and dine with me to-morrow." The following day, therefore, Rubini, Mme. Persiani, etc., went to the château, so celebrated for the produce of its vineyards, where M. Metternich and his princess did the honors with the utmost affability and cordiality. After dinner, Rubini, unasked, sang two of his most admired airs; and the Prince, to testify his gratification, offered him a basket of Johannisberg, "to drink my health," he laughingly said, "when you reach your château of Bergamo." Rubini accepted the friendly offering, and begged permission to bring Mme. Rubini, before quitting the north of Europe, to visit the fine château. Metternich immediately summoned his major-domo, and said to him, "Remember that, if ever M. Rubini visits Johannisberg during my absence, he is to be received as if he were its master. You will place the whole of the château at his disposal so long as he may please to remain." "And the cellar, also?" asked Rubini. "The cellar, also," added the Prince, smiling: "the cellar at discretion."

III.

The characteristics of Mme. Persiani's voice and art have already been generally described sufficiently to convey some distinct impression of her personality as a singer, but it is worth while to enter into some more detailed account of the peculiar qualities which for many years gave her so great a place on the operatic stage. Her acute soprano, mounting to E flat _altissimo_, had in it many acrid and piercing notes, and was utterly without the caressing, honeyed sweetness which, for example, gave such a sensuous charm to the voice of Mme. Grisi. But she was an incomparable mistress over the difficulties of vocalization. From her father, Tacchinardi, who knew every secret of his art, she received a full bequest of his knowledge. Her voice was developed to its utmost capacity, and it was said of her that every fiber in her frame seemed to have a part in her singing; there was nothing left out, nothing kept back, nothing careless, nothing unfinished. So sedulous was she in the employment of her vast and varied resources that she frequently rose to an animation which, if not sympathetic, as warmth kindling warmth, amounted to that display of conscious power which is resistless. The perfection with which she wrought up certain scenes, such as the "Sonnambula" _finale_ and the mad scene in "Lucia," judged from the standard of musical style, was not surpassed in any of the dazzling displays of the stage. She had the finest possible sense of accent, which enabled her to give every phrase its fullest measure.

Groups of notes were divided and expressed by her with all the precision which the best violinists put into their bowing. The bird-like case with which she executed the most florid, rapid, and difficult music was so securely easy and unfailing as to excite something of the same kind of wonder with which one would watch some matchless display of legerdemain.

Another great musical quality in which she surpassed her contemporaries was her taste and extraordinary facility in ornament. Always refined and true in style, she showed a variety and brilliancy in her changes and cadenzas which made her the envy of other singers. In this form of accomplishment she was first among Italians, who, again, are first among the singers of the world. Every passage was finished to perfection; and, though there were other singers not inferior to her in the use of the shake or the trill, yet in the attack of intervals distant from each other, in the climbing up a series of groups of notes, ascending to the highest in the scale, there was no singer of her own time or since who could compete with her. Mr. Chorley tells us how convincingly these rare and remarkable merits impressed themselves on him, "when, after a few years' absence from our stage, Mme. Persiani reappeared in London, how, in comparison with her, her younger successors sounded like so many immature scholars of the second class." On her gala nights the spirit and splendor of her execution were daring, triumphant, and irresistible, if we can trust those who heard her in her days of greatness. Moschcles, in his diary, speaks of the incredible difficulties which she overcame, and compares her performance with that of a violinist, while Mendelssohn, who did not love Italian music or the Italian vocalization, said: "Well, I do like Mme. Persiani dearly. She is such a thorough artist, and she sings so earnestly, and there is such a pleasant _bitter_ tone in her voice."

Donizetti met Mme. Persiani again in Vienna in 1842, and composed for her his charming opera, "Linda di Chamouni," which, with the exception of the "Favorita" and "Lucia," is generally admitted to be his best. In this opera our singer made an impression nearly equal to that in "Lucia," and it remained afterward a great favorite with her, and one in which she was highly esteemed by the European public.

The transformation of Covent Garden Theatre into a spacious and noble opera-house in 1847, and the secession of the principal artists from Her Majesty's Theatre, were the principal themes of musical gossip in the English capital at that time. The artists who went over to the Royal Italian Opera were Mines, Grisi and Persiani, Mlle. Alboni (then a novelty on the English stage), and Signors Mario, Tamburini, Salvi, Ronconi, Hovere, and Marini. M. Persiani was the director, and Signor Costa the _chef d'orchestre_. Although the company of singers was a magnificent combination of musical talent, and the presentation of opera in every way admirable, the enterprise had a sickly existence for a time, and it was not until it had passed through various vicissitudes, and came finally into the hands of the astute Lumley, that the enterprise was settled on a stable foundation.

From 1850 to 1858 Mme. Persiani sang with her usual brilliant success in all the principal cities of Europe, receiving, for special performances in which she was a great favorite, the then remarkable sum of two hundred pounds per night. Her last appearance in England was in the spring of 1858, when she performed in "I Puritani," "Don Pasquale," "Linda di Chamouni," and "Don Giovanni." In the following winter she established her residence in Paris, with the view of training pupils for the stage. Only once did she depart from her resolution of not singing again in opera. This was when Signor Mario was about to take his benefit in the spring of 1859. The director of the Theatre Italiens entreated Persiani to sing _Zerlina_ to the _Don Giovanni_ of Mario, to which she at last consented. "My career," she said, "began almost in lisping the divine music of 'Don Giovanni'; it will be appropriately closed by the interpretation of this _chef-d'ouvre_ of the master of masters, the immortal Mozart." Mme. Persiani died in June, 1867, and her funeral was attended by a host of operatic celebrities, who contributed to the musical exercises of a most impressive funeral. Mme. Persiani, aside from her having possessed a wonderful executive art in what may be called the technique of singing, will long be remembered by students of musical history as having, perhaps, contributed more than any other singer to making the music of Donizetti popular throughout Europe.

MARIETTA ALBONI.

The Greatest of Contraltos.--Marietta Alboni's Early Surroundings.--Rossini's Interest in her Career.--First Appearance on the Operatic Stage.--Excitement produced in Germany by her Singing.--Her Independence of Character.--Her Great Success in London.--Description of her Voice and Person.--Concerts in Taris.--The Verdicts of the Great French Critics.--Hector Berlioz on Alboni's Singing.--She appears in Opera in Paris.--Strange Indifference of the Audience quickly turned to Enthusiasm.--She competes favorably in London with Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot.--Takes the Place of Jenny Lind as Prima Donna at Her Majesty's.--She extends her Voice into the Soprano Register.--Performs _Fides_ in "Le Prophète."--Visit to America.--Retires from the Stage.

I.

There was a time early in the century when the voice of Rosamunda Pisaroni was believed to be the most perfect and delightful, not only of all contraltos of the age, but to have reached the absolute ideal of what this voice should be. She even for a time disputed the supremacy of Henrietta Sontag as the idol of the Paris public, though the latter great singer possessed the purest of soprano voices, and won no less by her personal loveliness than by the charm of her singing. Pisaroni excelled as much in her dramatic power as in the beauty of her voice, and up to the advent of Marietta Alboni on the stage was unquestionably without a rival in the estimate of critics as the artist who surpassed all the traditions of the operatic stage in this peculiar line of singing. But her memory was dethroned from its pedestal when the gorgeous Alboni became known to the European public.

Thomas Noon Talfourd applied to a well-known actress of half a century since the expression that she had "corn, wine, and oil" in her looks. A similar characterization would well apply both to the appearance and voice of Mlle. Alboni, when she burst on the European world in the splendid heyday of her youth and charms--the face, with its broad, sunny Italian beauty, incapable of frown; the figure, wrought in lines of voluptuous symmetry, though the _embonpoint_ became finally too pronounced; the voice, a rich, deep, genuine contralto of more than two octaves, as sweet as honey, and "with that tremulous quality which reminds fanciful spectators of the quiver in the air of the calm, blazing summer's noon"; a voice luscious beyond description. To this singer has been accorded without dissent the title of the "greatest contralto of the nineteenth century."

The father of Marietta Alboni was an officer of the customs, who lived at Casena in the Romagna, and possessed enough income to bestow an excellent education on all his family. Marietta, born March 10, 1822, evinced an early passion for music, and a great facility in learning languages. She was accordingly placed with Signor Bagioli, a local music-teacher, under whom she so prospered that at eleven she could read music at sight, and vocalize with considerable fluency. Having studied her solfeggi with Bagioli, she was transferred to the tuition of Mme. Bertoletti, at Bologna. Here she had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Rossini, in whom she excited interest. Rossini gave her some lessons, and expressed a high opinion of her prospects. "At present," he said to some one inquiring about the young girl's talents, "her voice is like that of an itinerant ballad singer, but the town will be at her feet before she is a year older." It was chiefly through Rossini's cordial admiration of her voice that Morelli, one of the great _entrepreneurs_ of Italy, engaged her for the Teatro Communale of Bologna. Here she made her first appearance as _Maffeo Orsini_, in "Lucrezia Borgia," in 1842, Marietta then having reached the age of twenty. She was then transferred to the La Scala, at Milan, where she performed with marked success in "La Favorita." Rossini himself signed her contract, saying, "I am the subscribing witness to your union with renown. May success and happiness attend the union!" Her engagement was renewed at the La Scala for four successive seasons. A tempting offer from Vienna carried her to that musical capital, and during the three years she remained there she won brilliant laurels and a fame which had swiftly coursed through Europe; for musical connoisseurs visiting Vienna carried away with them the most glowing accounts of the new contralto. Her triumphs were renewed in Russia, Belgium, Holland, and Prussia, where her glorious voice created a genuine _furore_, not less flattering to her pride than the excitement produced at an earlier date by Pasta, Sontag, and Malibran. An interesting proof of her independence and dignity of character occurred on her first arrival in Berlin, before she had made her _début_ in that city.

She was asked by an officious friend "if she had waited on M------." "No! who is this M------," was the reply. "Oh!" answered her inquisitor, "he is the most influential journalist in Prussia." "Well, how does this concern me?" "Why," rejoined the other, "if you do not contrive to insure his favorable report, you are ruined." The young Italian drew herself up disdainfully. "Indeed!" she said, coldly; "well, let it be as Heaven directs; but I wish it to be understood that in _my_ breast the woman is superior to the artist, and, though failure were the result, I would never degrade myself by purchasing success at so humiliating a price." The anecdote was repeated in the fashionable saloons of Berlin, and, so far from injuring her, the noble sentiment of the young _debutante_ was appreciated. The king invited her to sing at his court, where she received the well-merited applause of an admiring audience; and afterward his Majesty bestowed more tangible evidences of his approbation.

It was not till 1847 that Marietta Alboni appeared in England. Mr. Beale, the manager of the Royal Italian Opera, the new enterprise which had just been organized in the revolutionized Covent Garden Theatre, heard her at Milan and was charmed with her voice. Rumors had reached England, of course, concerning the beauty of the new singer's voice, but there was little interest felt when her engagement was announced. The "Jenny Lind" mania was at its height, and in the company in which Alboni herself was to sing there were two brilliant stars of the first luster, Grisi and Persiani. So, when she made her bow to the London public as _Arsace_, in "Semiramide," the audience gazed at her with a sort of languid and unexpectant curiosity. But Alboni found herself the next morning a famous woman. People were astounded by this wonderful voice, combining luscious sweetness with great volume and capacity. It was no timid _débutante_, but a finished singer whose voice rolled out in a swelling flood of melody such as no English opera-house had heard since the palmiest days of Pisaroni. Musical London was electrified, and Grisi, who sang in "Semiramide," sulked, because in the great duet, "Giorno d'orrore," the thunders of applause evidently concerned themselves with her young rival rather than with herself. Another convincing proof of her power was that she dared to restore the beautiful aria "In si barbara," which had been hitherto suppressed for lack of a contralto of sufficient greatness to give it full effect. In one night she had established herself as a trump card in the manager's hand against the rival house, an accession which he so appreciated that, unsolicited, he raised her salary from five hundred to two thousand pounds.

Mlle. Alboni's voice covered nearly three octaves, from E flat to C sharp, with tones uniformly rich, full, mellow, and liquid. The quality of the voice was perfectly pure and sympathetic, the articulation so clear and fluent, even in the most difficult and rapid passages, that it was like a performance on a well-played instrument. The rapidity and certainty of her execution could only be compared to the dazzling character of Mme. Persiani's vocalization. Her style and method were considered models. Although her facility and taste in ornamentation were of the highest order, Alboni had so much reverence for the intentions of the composer, that she would rarely add anything to the music which she interpreted, and even in the operas of Rossini, where most singers take such extraordinary liberties with the score, it was Alboni's pride neither to add nor omit a note. Perhaps her audiences most wondered at her singular ease. An enchanting smile lit up her face as she ran the most difficult scales, and the extreme feats of musical execution gave the idea of being spontaneous, not the fruit of art or labor. Her whole appearance, when she was singing, as was said by one enthusiastic amateur, conveyed the impression of exquisite music even when the sense of hearing was stopped.

Alboni's figure, although large, was perfect in symmetry, graceful and commanding, and her features regularly beautiful, though better fitted for the expression of comedy than of tragedy. The expression of her countenance was singularly genial, vivacious, and kindly, and her eyes, when animated in conversation or in singing, flashed with great brilliancy. Her smile was bewitching, and her laugh so infectious that no one could resist its influence.

Fresh triumphs marked Mlle. Alboni's London season to its close. In "La Donna del Lago," "Lucrezia Borgia," "Maria de Rohan," and "La Gazza Ladra" she was pronounced inimitable by the London critics. Mme. Persiani's part in "Il Barbiere" was assumed without rehearsal and at a moment's notice, and given in a way which satisfied the most exacting judges. It sparkled from the first to the last note with enchanting gayety and humor.

II.