Mme. Viardot's high position on the operatic stage of course brought her
into intimate association with the leading singers of her age, some of
whom have been mentioned in previous sketches. But there was one great
tenor of the French stage, Nourrit, who, though he died shortly after
Mme. Viardot's entrance on her lyric career, yet bore such relation
to the Garcia family as to make a brief account of this gifted artist
appropriate under this caption. Adolphe Nourrit, of whom the French
stage is deservedly proud, was the pupil of Manuel Garcia, the intimate
friend of Maria Malibran, and the judicious adviser of Pauline Viardot
in her earlier years. The son of a tenor singer, who united the business
of a diamond broker with the profession of music, young Nourrit received
a good classical education, and was then placed in the Conservatoire,
where he received a most thorough training in the science of music, as
well as in the art of singing. It was said of him in after-years that
he was able to write a libretto, compose the music to it, lead the
orchestra, and sing the tenor rôle in it, with equal facility. His first
appearance was in Gluck's "Iphigenie en Tauride," in 1821, his age then
being nineteen. Gifted with remarkable intelligence and ambition, he
worked indefatigably to overcome his defects of voice, and perfect his
equipment as an artist. Manuel Garcia, the most scientific and exacting
of singing teachers, was the _maestro_ under whom Nourrit acquired
that large and noble style for which he became eminent. He soon became
principal tenor at the Académie, and created all of the leading tenor
rôles of the operas produced in France for ten years. Among these may
be mentioned _Néoclès_ in "La Siège de Corinthe," _Masaniello_ in "La
Muette de Portici,"_Arnold_ in "Guillaume Tell," _Leonardo da Vinci_
in Ginestell's "François I," _Un Lnconnu_ in "Le Dieu et la Bayadere,"
_Robert le Diable, Edmond_ in "La Serment," _Nadir_ in Cherubini's "Ali
Baba," _Eleazar_ in "La Juive," _Raoul_ in "Les Huguenots," _Phobus_ in
Bertini's "La Esmeralda," and _Stradella_ in Niedermeyer's opera.
Nourrit gave a distinct stamp and a flavor to all the parts he created,
and his comedy was no less refined and pleasing than his tragedy
was pathetic and commanding. He was idolized by the public, and his
influence with them and with his brother artists was great. He was
consulted by managers, composers, and authors. He wrote the words for
Eleazar's fine air in "La Juive," and furnished the suggestions on which
Meyerbeer remodeled the second and third acts of "Robert le Diable" and
the last act of "Les Huguenots." The libretti for the ballets of "La
Sylphide," "La Tempête," "L'île des Pirates," "Le Diable Boiteux," etc.,
as danced by Taglioni and Fanny Elssler, were written by this versatile
man, and he composed many charming songs, which are still favorites
in French drawing-rooms. It was Nourrit who popularized the songs of
Schubert, and otherwise softened the French prejudice against modern
German music. In private life this great artist was so witty, genial,
and refined, that he was a favorite guest in the most distinguished and
exclusive _salons_. When Duprez was engaged at the opera it severely
mortified Nourrit, and, rather than divide the honors with a new singer,
he resigned his position as first tenor at the Académie, where he so
long had been a brilliant light. His farewell to the French public,
April 1, 1837, was the most flattering and enthusiastic ovation ever
accorded to a French artist, but he could not be induced to reconsider
his purpose. He was professor of lyric declamation at the Conservatoire,
but this position, too, he resigned, and went away with the design of
making a musical tour through France, Germany, and Italy. Nourrit, who
was subject to alternate fits of excitement and depression, was maddened
to such a degree by a series of articles praising Duprez at his expense,
that his friends feared for his sanity, a dread which was ominously
realized in Italy two years afterward, where Nourrit was then singing.
Though he was very warmly welcomed by the Italians, his morbid
sensibility took offense at Naples at what he fancied was an unfavorable
opinion of his _Pollio_ in "Norma." His excitement resulted in delirium,
and he threw himself from his bedroom window on the paved court-yard
below, which resulted in instant death. Nourrit was the intimate friend
of many of the most distinguished men of the age in music, literature,
and art, and his sad death caused sincere national grief.
As a singer and actor, Nourrit had one of the most creative and
originating minds of his age. He himself never visited the United
States, but his younger brother, Auguste, was a favorite tenor in New
York thirty years ago.
The part of _John of Leyden_ in "Le Prophète," whose gestation covered
many years of growth and change, was originally written for and in
consultation with Nourrit, just as that of Fides in the same opera was
remolded for and by suggestion of Pauline Viardot. Yet the opera did not
see the light until Nourrit's successor, Duprez, had vanished from the
stage, and his successor again, Roger, who, though a brilliant singer,
was far inferior to the other two in creative intellectuality, appeared
on the scene. Chorley asserts that Du-prez was the only artist he had
ever seen and heard whose peculiar qualities and excellences would
have enabled him to do entire musical and dramatic justice to the
arduous part of _John of Leyden_.... "I have never seen anything like a
complete conception of the character, so wide in its range of emotions;
and might have doubted its possibility, had I not remembered the
admirable, subtile, and riveting dramatic treatment of _Eleazar_ in 'La
Juive' (the _Shyloch_ of opera) by M. Duprez."
This artist may be also included as belonging largely to the sphere
of Pauline Viardot's art-life. Albert Duprez, the son of a French
performer, was born in 1806, and, like his predecessor Nourrit, was a
student at the Conservatoire. At first he did not succeed in operatic
singing, but, recognizing his own faults and studying the great models
of the day, among them Nourrit, whom he was destined to supplant, he
finally impressed himself on the public as the leading dramatic singer
of France. According to Fetis and Castil-Blaze, he never had a superior
in stage declamation, and the finest actors of the Comédie Française
might well have taken a lesson from him. His first great success, which
caused his engagement in grand opera, was the creation of _Edgardo_ in
"Lucia di Lammermoor" at Naples in 1835.
Two years later he made his _début_ at the Académie in "Guillaume
Tell," and his novel and striking reading of his part on this occasion
contributed largely to his fame. He was a leading figure at this theatre
for twelve years, and was the first representative of many important
tenor rôles, among which may be mentioned those of "Benvenuto Cellini,"
"Les Martyrs," "La Favorita," "Dom Sebastien," "Otello," and "Lucia."
Duprez was insignificant, even repellent in his appearance, but, in
spite of these defects, his tragic passion and the splendid intelligence
displayed in his vocal art gave him a deserved prominence. Duprez
composed many songs and romances, chamber-music, two masses, and eight
operas, and was the author of a highly esteemed musical method, which is
still used at the Conservatoire, where he was a professor of singing.
Another name linked with not a few of Mme. Viardot's triumphs is that
of Ronconi, a name full of pleasant recollections, too, for many of the
opera-goers of the last generation in the United States. There have been
only a few lyric actors more versatile and gifted than he, or who
have achieved their rank in the teeth of so many difficulties and
disadvantages. His voice was limited in compass, inferior in quality,
and habitually out of tune, his power of musical execution mediocre, his
physical appearance entirely without grace, picturesqueness, or dignity.
Yet Ronconi, by sheer force of a versatile dramatic genius, delighted
audiences in characters which had been made familiar to the public
through the splendid personalities of Tamburini and Lablache,
personalities which united all the attributes of success on the lyric
stage--noble physique, grand voice, the highest finish of musical
execution, and the actor's faculty. What more unique triumph can be
fancied than such a one violating all the laws of probability? Ronconi's
low stature and commonplace features could express a tragic passion
which could not be exceeded, or an exuberance of the wildest, quaintest,
most spontaneous comedy ever born of mirth's most airy and tameless
humor. Those who saw Ronconi's acting in this country saw the great
artist as a broken man, his powers partly wrecked by the habitual
dejection which came of domestic suffering and professional reverses,
but spasmodic gleams of his old energy still lent a deep interest to the
work of the artist, great even in his decadence. In giving some idea of
the impression made by Ronconi at his best, we can not do better than
quote the words of an able critic: "There have been few such examples
of terrible courtly tragedy in Italian opera as Signor Ronconi's
_Chevreuse_, the polished demeanor of his earlier scenes giving a
fearful force of contrast to the latter ones when the torrent of pent-up
passion nears the precipice. In spite of the discrepancy between all our
ideas of serious and sentimental music and the old French dresses, which
we are accustomed to associate with the _Dorantes_ and _Alcestes_ of
Molière's dramas, the terror of the last scene when (between his teeth
almost) the great artist uttered the line--'_Suir uscio tremendo lo
sguardo figgiamo_'--clutching the while the weak and guilty woman by
the wrist, as he dragged her to the door behind which her falsity was
screened, was something fearful, a sound to chill the blood, a sight to
stop the breath." This writer, in describing his performance of the part
of the _Doge_ in Verdi's "I Due Foscari," thus characterizes the last
act when the Venetian chief refuses to pardon his own son for the crime
of treason, faithful to Venice against his agonized affections as a
father: "He looked sad, weak, weary, leaned back as if himself ready to
give up the ghost, but, when the woman after the allotted bars of noise
began again her second-time agony, it was wondrous to see how the old
sovereign turned in his chair, with the regal endurance of one who says
'I must endure to the end,' and again gathered his own misery into his
old father's heart, and shut it up close till the woman ended. Unable to
grant her petition, unable to free his son, the old man when left alone
could only rave till his heart broke. Signor Ronconi's _Doge_ is not to
be forgotten by those who do not regard art as a toy, or the singer's
art as something entirely distinct from dramatic truth."
His performance of the quack doctor _Dulcamara_, in "L'Elisir d'Amore,"
was no less amazing as a piece of humorous acting, a creation matched
by that of the haggard, starveling poet in "Matilda di Shabran" and
_Papageno_ in Mozart's "Zauberflote." Anything more ridiculous and
mirthful than these comedy _chef-d'ouvres_ could hardly be fancied. The
same critic quoted above says: "One could write a page on his _Barber_
in Rossini's master-work; a paragraph on his _Duke_ in 'Lucrezia
Borgia,' an exhibition of dangerous, suspicious, sinister malice such as
the stage has rarely shown; another on his _Podesta_ in 'La Gazza Ladra'
(in these two characters bringing him into close rivalry with Lablache,
a rivalry from which he issued unharmed); and last, and almost best of
his creations, his _Masetto_." Ronconi is, we believe, still living,
though no longer on the stage; but his memory will remain one of the
great traditions of the lyric drama, so long as consummate histrionic
ability is regarded as worthy of respect by devotees of the opera.