M. Duponchel, the manager of the Opéra in Paris, hastened to London to
hear Alboni sing, and immediately offered her an engagement. In October,
1847, she made her Parisian _début_. Her first appearance in concert was
with Alizard and Barroilhet. "Many persons, artists and amateurs," said
Fiorentino, "absolutely asked on the morning of her _début_, Who is
this Alboni? Whence does she come? What can she do?" And their
interrogatories were answered by some fragments of those trifling and
illusory biographies which always accompany young vocalists. There was,
however, intense curiosity to hear and see this redoubtable singer who
had held the citadel of the Royal Italian Opera against the attraction
of Jenny Lind, and the theatre was crowded to suffocation by rank,
fashion, beauty, and notabilities on the night of her first concert,
October 9th. When she stepped quietly on the stage, dressed in black
velvet, a brooch of brilliants on her bosom, and her hair cut _à la
Titus_, with a music-paper in her hand, there was just one thunder-clap
of applause, followed by a silence of some seconds. She had not one
acknowledged advocate in the house; but, when Arsace's cavatina, "Ah!
quel giorno," gushed from her lips in a rich stream of melodious sound,
the entire audience was at her feet, and the critics could not command
language sufficiently glowing to express their admiration.
"What exquisite quality of sound, what purity of intonation, what
precision in the scales!" wrote the critic of the "Revue et Gazette
Musicale." "What _finesse_ in the manner of the breaks of the voice!
What amplitude and mastery of voice she exhibits in the 'Brindisi'; what
incomparable clearness and accuracy in the air from 'L'ltaliana' and the
duo from 'Il Barbiere!' There is no instrument capable of rendering with
more certain and more faultless intonation the groups of rapid notes
which Rossini wrote, and which Alboni sings with the same facility and
same celerity. The only fault the critic has in his power to charge
the wondrous artist with is, that, when she repeats a morceau, we hear
exactly the same traits, the same turns, the same fioriture, which was
never the case with Malibran or Cinti-Damoreau."
"This vocal scale," says Scudo, speaking of her voice, "is divided into
three parts or registers, which follow in complete order. The first
register commences at F in the base, and reaches F in the _medium_. This
is the true body of the voice, whose admirable timbre characterizes and
colors all the rest. The second extends from G in the _medium_ to F on
the fifth line; and the upper part, which forms the third register, is
no more than an elegant superfluity of Nature. It is necessary next
to understand with what incredible skill the artist manages this
instrument; it is the pearly, light, and florid vocalization of
Persiani joined to the resonance, pomp, and amplitude of Pisaroni. No
words can convey an idea of the exquisite purity of this voice, always
mellow, always equable, which vibrates without effort, and each note of
which expands itself like the bud of a rose--sheds a balm on the ear,
as some exquisite fruit perfumes the palate. No scream, no affected
dramatic contortion of sound, attacks the sense of hearing, under the
pretense of softening the feelings."
"But that which we admire above all in the artist," observes Fiorentino,
"is the pervading soul, the sentiment, the perfect taste, the inimitable
method. Then, what body in the voice! What largeness! What simplicity of
style! What facility of vocalization! What genius in the contrasts! What
color in the phrases! What charm! What expression! Mlle. Alboni sings as
she smiles--without effort, without fatigue, without audible and broken
respiration. Here is art in its fidelity! here is the model and example
which every one who would become an artist should copy."
"It is such a pleasure to hear real singing," wrote Hector Berlioz. "It
is so rare; and voices at once beautiful, natural, expressive, flexible,
and _in time_, are so very uncommon! The voice of Mlle. Alboni possesses
these excellent qualities in the highest degree of perfection. It is
a magnificent contralto of immense range (two octaves and six notes,
nearly three octaves, from low E to C in alt), the quality perfect
throughout, even in the lowest notes of the lowest register, which
are generally so disastrous to the majority of singers, who fancy they
possess a contralto, and the emission of which resembles nearly always
a rattle, hideous in such cases and revolting to the ear. Mlle.
Alboni's vocalization is wonderfully easy, and few sopranos possess such
facility. The registers of her voice are so perfectly united, that in
her scales you do not feel sensible of the passage from one to another;
the tone is unctuous, caressing, velvety, melancholy, like that of
all pure sopranos, though less somber than that of Pisaroni, and
incomparably more pure and limpid. As the notes are produced without
effort, the voice yields itself to every shade of intensity, and
thus Mlle. Alboni can sing from the most mysterious piano to the most
brilliant forte. And this alone is what I call singing humanly, that
is to say, in a fashion which declares the presence of a human heart,
a human soul, a human intelligence. Singers not possessed of these
indispensable qualities should in my judgment be ranked in the category
of mechanical instruments. Mlle. Alboni is an artist entirely devoted to
her art, and has not up to this moment been tempted to make a trade
of it; she has never heretofore given a thought to what her delicious
notes--precious pearls, which she lavishes with such happy bounty--might
bring her in per annum. Different from the majority of contemporary
singers, money questions are the last with which she occupies herself;
her demands have hitherto been extremely modest. Added to this, the
sincerity and trustworthiness of her character, which amounts almost to
singularity, are acknowledged by all who have any dealings with her."
After the greatness of the artist had fairly-been made known to the
public, the excitement in Paris was extraordinary. At some of the later
concerts more than a thousand applications for admission had to be
refused, and it was said that two theatres might have been thronged.
Alboni was nearly smothered night after night with roses and camellias,
and the stage was literally transformed into a huge bed of flowers,
over which the prima donna was obliged to walk in making her exits.
An amusing example of the _naïveté_ and simplicity of her character is
narrated. On the morning after her second performance, she was seated
in her hotel on the Boulevard des Italiens, reading the _feuilletons_
of Berlioz and Fiorentino with a kind of childish pleasure, unconscious
that she was the absorbing theme of Paris talk. A friend came in, when
she asked with unaffected sincerity whether she had really sung "_assez
bien_" on Monday night, and broke into a fit of the merriest laughter
when she received the answer, "_Très bien pour une petite fille_."
"Alboni," writes this friend, "is assuredly for a great artist the most
unpretending and simple creature in the world. She hasn't the slightest
notion of her position in her art in the eyes of the public and musical
world."