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 _début_ 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, passionate 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
assure 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 passion."
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 assuredly 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
hoarseness 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 passages, 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.