To return once more to the consideration of Grisi's splendid career.
The London season of 1839 was remarkable for the production of "Lucrezia
Borgia." The character of the "Borgia woman" afforded a sphere in which
our prima donna's talents shone with peculiar luster. The impassioned
tenderness of her _Desdemona_, the soft sweetness of "love in its
melancholy and in its regrets" of _Anna Bolena_, the fiery ardor and
vehemence of _Norma_, had been powerfully expressed by her, but the
mixture of savage cruelty and maternal intensity characteristic of
_Lucretia_ was embodied with a splendor of color and a subtilty of
ideal which deservedly raised her estimate as a tragedienne higher than
before. Without passing into unnecessary detail, it is enough to state
that Mme. Grisi was constantly before the publics of London and Paris
in her well-established characters for successive years, with an
ever-growing reputation. In 1847 the memorable operatic schism occurred
which led to the formation of the Royal Italian Opera at Convent Garden.
The principal members of the company who seceded from Her Majesty's
Theatre were Mmes. Grisi and Persiani, Signor Mario, and Signor
Tamburini. The new establishment was also strengthened by the accession
of several new performers, among whom was Mlle. Alboni, the great
contralto. "Her Majesty's" secured the possession of Jenny Lind, who
became the great support of the old house, as Grisi was of the new
one. The appearance of Mme. Grisi as the Assyrian Queen and Alboni as
_Arsace_ thronged the vast theatre to the very doors, and produced
a great excitement on the opening night. The subject of our sketch
remained faithful to this theatre to the very last, and was on its
boards when she took her farewell of the English public. The change
broke up the celebrated quartet. It struggled on in the shape of a trio
for some time without Lablache, and was finally diminished to Grisi and
Mario, who continued to sing the _duo concertante_ in "Don Pasquale," as
none others could. They were still the "rose and nightingale" whom Heine
immortalizes in his "Lutetia," "the rose the nightingale among flowers,
the nightingale the rose among birds." That airy dilettante, N. P.
Willis, in his "Pencilings by the Way," passes Grisi by with faint
praise, but the ardent admiration of Heine could well compensate her
wounded vanity, if, indeed, she felt the blunt arrow-point of the
American traveler.
A visit to St. Petersburg in 1851, in company with Mario, was the
occasion of a vast amount of enthusiasm among the music-loving Russians.
During her performance in "Lucrezia Borgia," on her benefit night, she
was recalled twenty times, and presented by the Czar with a magnificent
Cashmere shawl worth four thousand rubles, a tiara of diamonds and
pearls, and a ring of great value. From the year 1834, when she first
appeared in London, till 1861, when she finally retired, Grisi missed
but one season in London, and but three in Paris. Her splendid physique
enabled her to endure the exhaustive wear and friction of an operatic
life with but little deterioration of her powers. When she made her
artistic tour through the United States with Mario in 1854, her voice
had perhaps begun to show some slight indication of decadence, but her
powers were of still mature and mellow splendor. Prior to crossing the
ocean a series of "farewell performances" was given. The operas in which
she appeared included "Norma," "Lucrezia Borgia," "Don Pasquale," "Gli
Ugonotti," "La Favorita." The first was "Norma," Mme. Grisi performing
_Norma_; Mlle. Maria, _Adalgiza_; Tamberlik, _Pollio_; and La-blache,
_Oroveso_; the last performance consisted of the first act of "Norma,"
and the three first acts of "Gli Ugonotti," in which Mario sustained the
principal tenor part. "Rarely, in her best days," said one critic, "had
Grisi been heard with greater effect, and never were her talents as
an actress more conspicuously displayed." At the conclusion of the
performance the departing singer received an ovation. Bouquets were
flung in profusion, vociferous applause rang through the theatre, and
when she reappeared the whole house rose. The emotion which was evinced
by her admirers was evidently shared by herself.
The American engagement of Grisi and Mario under Mr. Hackett was very
successful, the first appearance occurring at Castle Garden, August 18,
1854. The seventy performances given throughout the leading cities are
still a delightful reminiscence among old amateurs, in spite of the
great singers who have since visited this country and the more stable
footing of Italian opera in later times. Mr. Hackett paid the two
artists eighty-five thousand dollars for a six months' tour, and
declared, at a public banquet he gave them at the close of the season,
that his own profits had been sixty thousand dollars. Mme. Grisi had
intended to retire permanently when she was still in the full strength
of her great powers, but she was persuaded to reappear before the London
public on her return from New York. It became evident that her voice was
beginning to fail rapidly, and that she supplied her vocal shortcomings
by dramatic energy. She continued to sing in opera in various parts of
Europe, but the public applause was evidently rather a struggle on the
part of her audiences to pay tribute to a great name than a spontaneous
expression of pleasure, and at Madrid she was even hissed in the
presence of the royal court, which gave a special significance to the
occasion. Mr. Gye, of the Royal Italian Opera in London, in 1861 made
a contract with her not to appear on the stage again for five years,
evidently assuming that five years were as good as fifty. But it was
hard for the great singer, who had been the idol of the public for more
than a quarter of a century, to quit the scene of her splendid triumphs.
So in 1866 she again essayed to tread the stage as a lyric queen, in the
_rôle_ of _Lucrezia_, but the result was a failure. It is not pleasant
to record these spasmodic struggles of a failing artist, tenacious of
that past which had now shut its gates on her for ever and a day. Her
career was ended, but she had left behind a name of imperishable luster
in the annals of her art. She died of inflammation of the lungs during a
visit to Berlin, November 25, 1869. Her husband, Mario, retired from
the stage in 1867, and suffered, it is said, at the last from pecuniary
reverses, in spite of the fact that he had earned such enormous sums
during his operatic career. His concert tour in the United States, under
the management of Max Strakosch, in 1871-'72. is remembered only with a
feeling of pain. It was the exhibition of a magnificent wreck. The touch
of the great artist was everywhere visible, but the voice was utterly
lost. Signor Mario is still living at Rome, and has resumed the rank
which he laid aside to enter a stage career.
Grisi united much of the nobleness and tragic inspiration of Pasta with
something of the fire and energy of Malibran, but in the minds of the
most capable judges she lacked the creative originality which stamped
each of the former two artists. She was remarkable for the cleverness
with which she adopted the effects and ideas of those more thoughtful
and inventive than herself. Her _Norma_ was ostentatiously modeled on
that of Pasta. Her acting showed less the exercise of reflection and
study than the rich, uncultivated, imperious nature of a most beautiful
and adroit southern woman. But her dramatic instincts were so strong and
vehement that they lent something of her own personality to the copy of
another's creation. When to this engrossing energy were added the most
dazzling personal charms and a voice which as nearly reached perfection
as any ever bestowed on a singer, it is no marvel that a continual
succession of brilliant rivals was unable to dispute her long reign over
the public heart.