George T. Ferris - Great Singers, Second Series
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George T. Ferris >> Great Singers, Second Series
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The great _diva's_ horizon (since Sontag's retirement from the stage she
had been acknowledged the leading singer of the age) was now destined to
be clouded by a portentous event. M. Malibran arrived in Paris. He had
heard of his wife's brilliant success, and had come to assert his rights
over her. Maria declined to see him, and no persuasions of her friends
could induce her to grant the _soi-disant_ husband, for whose memory she
had nothing but rooted aversion, even an interview. Though she finally
arrived at a compromise with him (for his sole interest in resuming
relationship with his wife seemed to be the desire of sharing in the
emoluments of her profession), she determined not to sing again in the
French capital while M. Malibran remained there, and accordingly retired
to a chateau near Brussels. The whole musical world was interested in
settling this imbroglio, and there was a final settlement, by the terms
of which the singer was not to be troubled or interfered with by her
husband as long as he was paid a fixed stipend. She returned to Paris,
and reappeared at the Italiens as _Ninetta_, the great Rubini being in
the same cast. The two singers vied with each other "till," observed a
French critic, "it seemed as if talent, feeling, and enthusiasm could go
no further." This engagement, however, was cut short by her frequent and
alarming illnesses, and Mme. Malibran, though reckless and short-sighted
in regard to her own health, became seriously alarmed. She suddenly
departed from the city, leaving a letter for the director, Severini,
avowing a determination not to return, at least till her health was
fully reestablished. This threatened the ruin of the administration, for
Malibran was the all-powerful attraction. M. Viardot, a friend who
had her entire confidence (Mlle. Pauline Garcia afterward became Mme.
Viardot), was sent to Brussels as ambassador, and he represented the
ruin she would entail on the operatic season of the Italiens. This plea
appealed to her generosity, and she returned to fulfill her engagement.
Constant attacks of illness, however, continued to disturb her
performances, and the Parisian public chose to attribute this
interruption of their pleasures to the caprice of the _diva_. She
so resented this injustice that she determined, at the close of
the engagement, that she would never again sing in Paris. Her last
appearance, on January 8,1832, was as _Desdemona_, and the fervency of
her singing and acting made it a memorable night, as the rumor had crept
out that Mme. Malibran was then taking a lasting leave of them as an
artist, and the audience sought to repair their former injustice by
redoubled expressions of enthusiasm and pleasure.
An amusing instance of her eccentric and impulsive resolution was
her hasty tour with La-blache to Italy which occurred a few months
afterward. The great basso, passing through Brussels _en route_ to
Naples, called at her villa to pay his respects. Malibran declared her
intention, in spite of his laughing incredulity, of going with him.
Though he was to leave at dawn the next morning, she was waiting at the
door of his hotel when he came down the stairs. As she had no passport,
she was detained on the Lombardy frontier till Lablache obtained the
needed document. At Milan she only sang in private concerts, and pressed
on to Rome, where she engaged for a short season at the Teatro Valle,
and succeeded in offending the _amour propre_ of the Romans by singing
French romances of her own composition in the lesson-scene of "Il
Barbiere." She learned of the death of her father while in Rome, news
which plunged her in the deepest despondency, for the memory of his
sternness and cruelty had long been effaced by her appreciation of the
inestimable value his training had been to her. She had often remarked
to her friend, Mme. Merlin, that without just such a severe system her
voice would never have attained its possibilities.
From Rome she went to Naples to fulfill a _scrittura_ with Barbaja, the
celebrated _impressario_ of that city, to give twelve performances at
one thousand francs a night. An immense audience greeted her on the
opening night at the Fondo Theatre, August 6, 1832, at first with a cold
and critical indifference--a feeling, however, which quickly flamed
into all the unrestrained volcanic ardor of the Neapolitan temperament.
Thenceforward she sang at double prices, "notwithstanding the
subscribers' privileges were on most of these occasions suspended, and
although 'Otello,' 'La Gazza Ladra,' and operas of that description were
the only ones offered to a public long since tired even of the beauties
of Rossini, and proverbial for their love of novelty."
Her great triumph, however, was on the night when she took her leave,
in the character of _Ninetta_. "Nothing can be imagined finer than the
spectacle afforded by the immense Theatre of San Carlo, crowded to the
very ceiling, and ringing with acclamations," says a correspondent of
one of the English papers at the time. "Six times after the fall of
the curtain Mme. Mali-bran was called forward to receive the reiterated
plaudits and adieux of the assembled multitude, and indicate by graceful
and expressive gestures the degree to which she was overpowered by
fatigue and emotion. The scene did not end within the walls of the
theatre; for a crowd of the most enthusiastic rushed from all parts
of the house to the stage-door, and, as soon as her sedan came out,
escorted it with loud acclamations to the Palazzo Barbaja, and renewed
their salutations as the charming vocalist ascended the steps."
Mme. Malibran had now learned to dearly love Italy and its impulsive,
warm-hearted people, so congenial to her own nature. She sang in
different Italian cities, receiving everywhere the most enthusiastic
receptions. In Bologna they placed a bust of their adored songstress
in the peristyle of the theatre. Each city vied with its neighbor in
lavishing princely gifts on her. She had not long been in London, where
she returned to meet her spring engagement at the King's Theatre in
1833, when she concluded a contract with the Duke Visconti of Milan for
one hundred and eighty-five performances, seventy-five in the autumn and
carnival season of 1835-'36, seventy-five in the corresponding season of
1836-'37, and thirty-five in the autumn of 1836, at a salary of eighteen
thousand pounds. These were the highest terms which had then ever been
offered to a public singer, or in fact to any stage performer since the
days of imperial Rome.
V.
Mme. Malibran's Italian experiences were in the highest sense gratifying
alike to her pride as a great artist and to her love of admiration as
a woman. Her popularity became a mania which infected all classes, and
her appearance on the streets was the signal for the most fervid shouts
of enthusiasm from the populace. For two years she alternated between
London and the sunny lands where she had become such an idol. She had
to struggle in Milan against the indelible impress made by Mme. Pasta,
whose admirers entertained an almost fanatical regard for her memory as
the greatest of lyric artists; but when Malibran appeared as _Norma_,
a part written by Bellini expressly for Pasta, she was proclaimed _la
cantante per eccelenza_. A medal, executed by the distinguished sculptor
Valerio Nesti, was struck in her honor. Her generosity of nature was
signally instanced during these golden Italian days in many acts of
beneficence, of which the following are instances: During her stay at
Sinigaglia in the summer of 1834, she heard an exquisite voice
singing beneath the windows of her hotel. On looking out she saw a wan
beggar-girl dressed in rags. Discovering by investigation that it was a
case of genuine want, she placed the girl in a position where she could
receive an excellent musical education and have all her needs amply
supplied. On the eve of her departure from Naples, the last engagement
she ever sang in that city, Gallo, proprietor of the Teatro Emeronnitio,
came to entreat her to sing once at his establishment. He had a wife and
several children, and was a very worthy man, on the verge of bankruptcy.
"I will sing," answered she, "on one condition--that not a word is
said about remuneration." She chose the part of _Amina_; the house was
crammed, and the poor man was saved from ruin. A vast multitude followed
her home, with an enthusiasm which amounted almost to a frenzy, and the
grateful manager named his theatre the Teatro Garcia. On Ash-Wednesday,
March 13, 1835, Mme. Malibran bade the Neapolitans adieu--an eternal
adieu. Radiant with glory, and crowned with flowers, she was conducted
by the Neapolitans to the faubourgs amid the _eclat_ of _vivats_ and
acclamations.
The Neapolitans adored Malibran, and she loved to sing to these
susceptible lovers of the divine art. On one occasion when she was
suffering from a severe accident, she appeared with her arm in a sling
rather then disappoint her audience. During all her Italian seasons,
especially in Naples, where perfection of climate and delightful scenery
combine to stimulate the animal spirits, she pursued the same wild
and reckless course which had so often threatened to cut off her frail
tenure of life. A daring horsewoman and swimmer, she alternated these
exercises with fatiguing studies and incessant social pleasures. She
practiced music five or six hours a day, spent several hours in violent
exercise, and in the evenings not engaged at the theatre would go
to parties, where she amused herself and her friends in a thousand
different ways--making caricatures, doggerel verses, riddles,
conundrums, _bouts-rimes_, dancing, jesting, laughing, and singing. Full
of exhaustless vivacity, she seemed more and more to disdain rest as her
physical powers grew weaker. The enthusiasm with which she was received
and followed everywhere was in itself a dangerous draught on her nervous
energies, which should have been husbanded, not lavishly wasted. One
night at Milan she was deluged with bouquets of which the leaves were of
gold and silver, and recalled by the frantic acclamations of her hearers
twenty times, at the close of which she fainted on the stage. It was
during this engagement at Milan that she heard of the death of the young
composer, Vincentio Bellini, on September 23, 1835, and she set on
foot a subscription for a tribute to his memory, leading the list with
four-hundred francs. It was a premonition of her own departure from the
world of art which she had so splendidly adorned, for exactly a year
from that day she breathed her last sigh.
Her arrival in Venice during this last triumphant tour of her life
was the occasion for an ovation not less flattering than those she had
received elsewhere. As her gondola entered the Grand Canal, she was
welcomed with a deafening _fanfare_ of trumpets, the crash of musical
bands, and the shouts of a vast multitude. It was as if some great
general had just returned from victories in the field, which had saved a
state. Mali-bran was frightened at this enthusiasm, and took refuge in a
church, which speedily became choke-full of people, and a passage had
to be opened for her exit to her hotel. Whenever she appeared, the
multitude so embarrassed her that a way had to be made by the gendarmes,
and her gondola was always pursued by a _cortege_ of other gondolas,
that crowded in her wake. When she departed, the city presented her with
a magnificent diamond and ruby diadem.
In March, 1835, the divorce which she had long been seeking was granted
by a French tribunal, and ten months later, at the expiration of the
limit fixed by French law, she married M. De Beriot, March 29, 1836,
thus legalizing the birth of their son, Wilfred de Beriot, who, with
one daughter, that did not live, had been the fruit of their passionate
attachment. On the day of her marriage she distributed a thousand francs
among the poor, and her friends showered costly gifts on her, among them
being an agraffe of pearls from the Queen of France.
During the season of 1835 Mme. Malibran appeared for Mr. Bunn at
Drury Lane and Covent Garden in twenty-six performances, for which she
received L3,463. Among other operas she appeared in Balfe's new work,
"The Maid of Artois," which, in spite of its beautiful melody, has never
kept its hold on the stage. Her _Leonora_ in Beethoven's "Fidelio"
was considered by many the peer of Mme. Schroder-Devrient's grand
performance. Her labors during this season were gigantic. She would rise
at 5 a.m., and practice for several hours, rehearsing before a mirror
and inventing attitudes. It was in this way that she conceived the
"stage-business" which produced such an electric impression in "Gli
Orazi," when the news of her lover's death is announced to the heroine.
"While the rehearsals of 'The Maid of Artois' were going on from day to
day--and Mme. Malibran's rehearsals were not so many hours of sauntering
indifference--she would, immediately after they were finished, dart
to one or two concerts, and perhaps conclude the day by singing at an
evening party. She pursued the same course during her performance of
that arduous character," thus wrote one of the critics of the time, for
the interest which Malibran excited was so great that the public loved
to hear of all the details of her remarkable career.
Shortly after her marriage in the spring of 1836, Mme. de Beriot was
thrown from her horse while attending a hunting-party in England,
and sustained serious internal injury, which she neglected to provide
against by medical treatment, concealing it even from her husband.
Indeed, she sang on the same evening, and her prodigious facility in
_tours de force_ was the subject of special comment, for she seemed
spurred to outdo herself from consciousness of physical weakness. When
she returned to England again in the following September, her failing
health was painfully apparent to all. Yet her unconquerable energy
struggled against her sufferings, and she would permit herself
no relaxation. In vain her husband and her good friend Lablachc
remonstrated. A hectic, feverish excitement pervaded all her actions.
She was engaged to sing at the Manchester Musical Festival, and at the
rehearsals she would laugh and cry hysterically by turns.
At the first performance of the festival in the morning, she was carried
out of her dressing-room in a swoon, but the dying singer was bent on
doing what she considered her duty. She returned and delivered the air
of _Abraham_ by Cimarosa. Her thrilling tones and profound dejection
made a deep impression on the audience. The next day she rallied from
her sick-bed and insisted on being carried to the festival building,
where she was to sing a duet with Mme. Caradori-Allen. This was the
dying song of the swan, and it is recorded that her last effort was one
of the finest of her life. The assembly, entranced by the genius and
skill of the singer, forgot her precarious condition and demanded a
repetition. Malibran again sang with all the passionate fire of her
nature, and her wonderful voice died away in a prolonged shake on her
very topmost note. It was her last note on earth, for she was carried
thence to her deathbed.
Her sufferings were terrible. Convulsions and fainting-fits followed
each other in swift succession, and it was evident that her end was
near. The news of her fatal illness excited the deepest sympathy and
sorrow throughout England and France, and bulletins of her condition
were issued every day. Pending the arrival of her own physician, Dr.
Belluomini, from London, she had been bled while in a fainting-fit by
two local practitioners. When she recovered her senses, she said, "I am
a slain woman, for they have bled me!" She died on September 23, 1836,
and De Beriot's name was the last word that parted her pallid lips.
The death of this great and idolized singer produced a painful shock
throughout Europe, and was regarded as a public calamity, for she had
been as much admired and beloved as a woman as she was worshiped as
an artist. Her remains, first interred in Manchester, were afterward
removed by her husband to Brussels, where he raised a circular memorial
chapel to her memory at Lacken. Her statue, chiseled in white marble by
Geefs, represents her as _Norma_, and stands in the center, faintly lit
by a single sunbeam admitted from a dome, and surrounded by masses of
shadow. "It appears," says the Countess de Merlin, "like a fantastic
thought, the dream of a poet."
Maria Malibran was unquestionably one of the most gifted and remarkable
women who ever adorned the lyric stage. The charm of her singing
consisted in the peculiarity of the timbre and the remarkable range of
her voice, in her excitable temperament, which prompted her to execute
the most audacious improvisations, and in her strong musical feeling,
which kept her improvisations within the laws of good taste. Her voice,
a mezzo-soprano, with a high soprano range superadded by incessant work
and training, was in its middle register very defective, a fault which
she concealed by her profound musical knowledge and technical skill.
It was her mind that helped to enslave her hearers; for without mental
originality and a distinct sort of creative force her defective voice
would have failed to charm, where in fact it did provoke raptures. She
was, in the exact sense of a much-abused adjective, a phenomenal singer,
and it is the misfortune of the present generation that she died too
young for them to hear.
WILHELMINA SCHROeDER-DEVRIENT.
Mme. Schroeder-Devrient the Daughter of a Woman of Genius.--Her Early
Appearance on the Dramatic Stage in Connection with her Mother.--She
studies Music and devotes herself to the Lyric Stage.--Her Operatic
_Debut_ in Mozart's "Zauberflote."--Her Appearance and Voice.--Mlle.
Schroeder makes her _Debut_ in her most Celebrated Character,
_Fidelio_.--Her own Description of the First Performance.--A Wonderful
Dramatic Conception.--Henry Chorley's Judgment of her as a Singer and
Actress.--She marries Carl Devrient at Dresden.--Mme. Schroeder-Devrient
makes herself celebrated as a Representative of Weber's Romantic
Heroines.--Dissolution of her Marriage.--She makes Successful
Appearances in Paris and London in both Italian and German
Opera.--English Opinions of the German Artist.--Anecdotes of her London
Engagement.--An Italian Tour and Reengagements for the Paris and London
Stage.--Different Criticisms of her Artistic Style.--Retirement from the
Stage, and Second Marriage.--Her Death in 1860, and the Honors paid to
the Memory of her Genius.
I.
In the year 1832 German opera in its original form was introduced into
England for the first time, and London learned to recognize the grandeur
of Beethoven in opera, as it had already done in symphony and sonata.
"Fidelio" had been already presented in its Italian dress, without
making very much impression, for the score had been much mutilated, and
the departure from the spirit of the composer flagrant. The opera,
as given by artists "to the manner born," was a revelation to English
audiences. The intense musical vigor of Beethoven's great work was felt
to be a startling variety, wrought out as it was in its principal
part by the genius of a great lyric vocalist. This was Mme.
Schroeder-Devrient, who, as an operatic tragedienne, stands foremost in
the annals of the German musical stage, though others have surpassed
her in merely vocal resources, and who never has been rivaled except by
Pasta.
She was the daughter of Sophia Schroeder, the Siddons of Germany. This
distinguished actress for a long time reigned supreme in her art. Her
deep sensibilities and dramatic instincts, her noble elocution and
stately beauty, fitted her admirably for tragedy. In such parts as
_Phedre, Medea, Lady Macbeth, Merope, Sappho, Jeanne de Montfaucon,
and Isabella_ in "The Bride of Messina," she had no pere. Wilhelmina
Schroeder was born in Hamburg, October 6, 1805, and was destined by her
mother for a stage career. In pursuance of this, the child appeared at
the age of five years as a little Cupid, and at ten danced in the ballet
at the Imperial Theatre of Vienna. With the gradual development of the
young girl's character came the ambition for a higher grade of artistic
work. So, when she arrived at the age of fifteen, her mother, who wished
her to appear in tragedy, secured for her a position at the Burgtheater
of Vienna, where she played in such parts as _Aricie_ in "Phedre,"
and _Ophelia_ in "Hamlet." The impression she made was that of a great
nascent actress, who would one day worthily fill the place of her
mother. But the true scope of her genius was not yet defined, for she
had not studied music. At last she was able to study under an Italian
master of great repute, named Mazzatti, who resided in the Austrian
capital.
Her first appearance was as _Pamina_ in Mozart's "Zauberflote," at the
Vienna theatre, January 20, 1821. The _debutante_ was warmly welcomed by
an appreciative audience, and the terrors of the young girl of seventeen
were quickly assuaged by the generous recognition she received. The
beauty of her voice, her striking figure and port, and her dramatic
genius, combined to make her instantly successful. Wilhelmina Schroeder
was tall and nobly molded, and her face, though not beautiful, was
sweet, frank, and fascinating--a face which became transfigured with
fire and passion under the influence of strong emotion. Her vocal organ
was a mellow soprano, which, though not specially flexible, united
softness with volume and compass. In intonation and phrasing, her art,
in spite of her youth and inexperience, showed itself to be singularly
perfect. Though she rapidly became a favorite, her highest triumph was
not achieved till she appeared as _Leonora_ in the "Fidelio." In this
she eclipsed all who had preceded her, and Germany soon rang with her
name as that of an artist of the highest genius. Her own account of her
first representation of this role is of much interest:
"When I was studying the character of _Leonora_ at Vienna, I could not
attain that which appeared to me the desired and natural expression at
the moment when _Leonora_, throwing herself before her husband, holds
out a pistol to the Governor, with the words, 'Kill first his wife!'
I studied and studied in vain, though I did all in my power to place
myself mentally in the situation of _Leonora_. I had pictured to myself
the situation, but I felt that it was incomplete, without knowing why or
wherefore. Well, the evening arrived; the audience knows not with what
feelings an artist, who enters seriously into a part, dresses for the
representation. The nearer the moment approached, the greater was my
alarm. When it did arrive, and as I ought to have sung the ominous
words and pointed the pistol at the Governor, I fell into such an utter
tremor at the thought of not being perfect in my character, that my
whole frame trembled, and I thought I should have fallen. Now only fancy
how I felt when the whole house broke forth with enthusiastic shouts of
applause, and what I thought when, after the curtain fell, I was
told that this moment was the most effective and powerful of my whole
representation! So, that which I could not attain with every effort
of mind and imagination, was produced at this decisive moment by my
unaffected terror and anxiety. This result and the effect it had upon
the public taught me how to seize and comprehend the incident, so,
that which at the first representation I had hit upon unconsciously, I
adopted in full consciousness ever afterward in this part."
Not even Malibran could equal her in the impersonation of this
character. Never was dramatic performance more completely, more
intensely affecting, more deeply pathetic, truthful, tender, and
powerful.
Some critics regarded her as far more of the tragedian than the singer.
"Her voice, since I have known it," observes Mr. Chorley, in his "Modern
German Music," "was capable of conveying poignant or tender expression,
but it was harsh and torn--not so inflexible as incorrect. Mme.
Schroeder-Devrient resolved to be _par excellence_ 'the German dramatic
singer.' Earnest and intense as was her assumption of the parts she
attempted, her desire of presenting herself first was little less
vehement: there is no possibility of an opera being performed by a
company, each of whom should be as resolute as she was never to rest,
never for an instant to allow the spectator to forget his presence.
She cared not whether she broke the flow of the composition by some cry
heard on any note or in any scale--by even speaking some word, for
which she would not trouble herself to study a right musical emphasis
or inflection--provided, only, she succeeded in continuing to arrest the
attention. Hence, in part, arose her extraordinary success in "Fidelio."
That opera contains, virtually, only one acting character, and with her
it rests to intimate the thrilling secret of the whole story, to develop
this link by link, in presence of the public, and to give the drama the
importance of terror, suspense, and rapture. When the spell is broken
by exhibiting the agony and the struggle of which she is the innocent
victim, if the devotion, the disguise, and the hope of Leonora, the
wife, were not for ever before us, the interest of the prison-opera
would flag and wane into a cheerless and incurable melancholy. This
Mme. Schroeder-Devrient took care that it should never do. From her first
entry upon the stage, it might be seen that there was a purpose at her
heart, which could make the weak strong and the timid brave; quickening
every sense, nerving every fiber, arming its possessor with disguise
against curiosity, with persuasion more powerful than any obstacle, with
expedients equal to every emergency.... What Pasta would be in spite
of her uneven, rebellious voice, a most magnificent singer, Mme.
Schroeder-Devrient did not care to be, though nature, as I have heard
from those who heard her sing as a girl, had blessed her with a fresh,
delicious soprano voice."
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