Mme. Alboni's great success, it is said, made M. Vatel, the manager of
the Italiens, almost frantic with disappointment, for, acting on the
advice of Lablache, he had refused to engage her when he could have done
so at a merely nominal sum, and had thus left the grand prize open to
his rival. Her concert engagement being terminated, our prima donna made
a short tour through Austria, and returned to Paris again to make her
_début_ in opera on December 2d, in "Semiramide," with Mme. Grisi,
Coletti, Cellini, and Tagliafico, in the cast. The caprice of audiences
was never more significantly shown than on this occasion. Alboni, on
the concert stage, had recently achieved an unmistakable and brilliant
recognition as a great vocalist, and on the night of her first lyric
appearance before a French audience a great throng had assembled.
All the celebrities of the fashionable, artistic, and literary world,
princes, Government officials, foreign ministers, dilettanti, poets,
critics, women of wit and fashion, swelled the gathering of intent
listeners, through whom there ran a subdued murmur, a low buzz of
whispering, betraying the lively interest felt. Grisi came on after the
rising of the curtain and received a most cordial burst of applause.
At length the great audience was hushed to silence, and the orchestra
played the symphonic prelude which introduces the contralto air "Eccomi
alfin in Babilonia." Alboni glided from the side and walked slowly
to the footlights. Let an eye-witness complete the story: "There was a
sudden pause," says one who was present; "a feather might almost have
been heard to move. The orchestra, the symphony finished, refrained from
proceeding, as though to give time for the enthusiastic reception which
was Alboni's right, and which it was natural to suppose Alboni would
receive. But you may imagine my surprise and the feelings of the
renowned contralto when not a hand or a voice was raised to acknowledge
her! I could see Alboni tremble, but it was only for an instant. What
was the reason of this unanimous disdain or this unanimous doubt? call
it what you will. She might perhaps guess, but she did not suffer it
to perplex her for more than a few moments. Throwing aside the extreme
diffidence that marked her _entrée_, and the perturbation that resulted
from the frigidity of the spectators, she wound herself up to the
condition of fearless independence for which she is constitutionally and
morally remarkable, and with a look of superb indifference and conscious
power she commenced the opening of her aria. In one minute the crowd,
that but an instant before seemed to disdain her, was at her feet! The
effect of those luscious tones had never yet failed to touch the heart
and rouse the ardor of an audience, educated or uneducated." Alboni's
triumph was instantaneous and complete; it was the greater from the
moment of anxious uncertainty that preceded it, and made the certainty
which succeeded more welcome and delightful. From this instant to the
end of the opera, Alboni's success grew into a triumph. During the first
act she was twice recalled; during the second act, thrice; and she was
encored in the air "In si barbara," which she delivered with pathos, and
in the cabaletta of the second duet with _Semiramide_. She followed
in "La Cenerentola," and it may easily he fancied that her hearers
compensated in boisterous warmth of reception for the phlegmatic
indifference shown on the first night.
The English engagement of Mlle. Alboni the following year at Covent
Garden was at a salary of four thousand pounds, and the popularity she
had accomplished in England made her one of the most attractive features
of the operatic season. Her delicious singing and utter freedom from
aught that savored of mannerism or affectation made her power of
captivation complete in spite of her lack of dramatic energy. She sang
in the same company with Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot, while Mario and
Tamburini added their magnificent voices to this fine constellation of
lyric stars. When she returned to London in 1849, Jenny Lind had retired
from the stage where she had so thoroughly bewitched the public, and
Mlle. Alboni became the leading attraction of Her Majesty's Theatre,
thus arraying herself against the opera organization with which she had
been previously identified. Among the other members of the company were
Lablache and Ronconi. Mlle. Alboni seemed to be stung by a feverish
ambition at this time to depart from her own musical genre, and shine in
such parts as _Rosina, Ninetta, Zerlina_ ("Don Giovanni ") and _Norina_
("Don Pasquale"). The general public applauded her as vehemently as
ever, but the judicious grieved that the greatest of contraltos should
forsake a realm in which she blazed with such undivided luster.
It is difficult to fancy why Alboni should have ventured on so dangerous
an experiment. It may be that she feared the public would tire of her
luscious voice, unperturbed as it was by the resistless passion and
sentiment which in such singers as Malibran, Pasta, and Viardot, had
overcome all defects of voice, and given an infinite freshness and
variety to their tones. It may be that the higher value of a soprano
voice in the music market stirred a feeling in Alboni which had been
singularly lacking to her earlier career. Whatever the reason might have
been, it is a notorious fact that Mlle. Alboni deliberately forced the
register upward, and in doing so injured the texture of her voice,
and lost something both of luscious tone and power. In later years she
repented this artistic sin, and recovered the matchless tones of her
youth in great measure, but, as long as she persevered in her ambition
to be a _soprano_, the result was felt by her most judicious friends to
be an unfortunate one.
A pleasant incident, illustrating Alboni's kindness of heart, occurred
on the eve of her departure for Italy, whither she was called by family
reasons. Her leave-taking was so abrupt that she had almost forgotten
her promise to sing in Paris on a certain date for the annual benefit of
Filippo Galli, a superannuated musician. The suspense and anxiety of the
unfortunate Filippo were to be more easily imagined than described when,
asked if Alboni would sing, he could not answer definitively--"Perhaps
yes, perhaps no." He sold very few tickets, and the rooms (in the Salle
Hera) were thinly occupied. She, however, had not forgotten her promise;
at the very moment when the matinée was commencing she arrived, in time
to redeem her word and reward those who had attended, but too late to be
of any service to the veteran. Galli was in despair, and was buried
in reflections neither exhilarating nor profitable, when, some minutes
after the concert, the comely face and portly figure of Alboni appeared
at the door of his room. "How much are the expenses of your
concert?" she kindly inquired. "_Mia cara_," dolorously responded the
bénéficiaire, "_cinque centifranci_ [five hundred francs]." "Well,
then, to repair the loss that I may have caused you," said the generous
cantatrice, "here is a banknote for a thousand francs. Do me the favor
to accept it." This was only one of the many kind actions she performed.
Mlle. Alboni's Paris engagement, in the spring of 1850, was marked by a
daring step on her part, which excited much curiosity at the time,
and might easily have ended in a most humiliating reverse, though its
outcome proved fortunate, that undertaking being the _rôle_ of _Fides_
in "Le Prophète," which had become so completely identified with the
name of Viardot. It was owing as much, perhaps, to the insistance of the
managers of the Grand Opéra as to the deliberate choice of the singer
that this experiment was attempted. Meyerbeer perhaps smiled in his
sleeve at the project, but he interposed no objection, and indeed went
behind the scenes to congratulate her on her success during the night of
the first performance. Alboni's achievement was gratifying to her pride,
but it need not be said that her interpretation of _Fides_ was
radically different from that of Mme. Viardot, which was a grand
tragic conception, akin to those created by the genius of Pasta and
Schröder-Devrient. The music of "Le Prophète" had never been well fitted
to Viardot's voice, and it was in this better adaptation of Alboni to
the vocal score that it may be fancied her success, such as it was,
found its root. It was significant that the critics refrained from
enlarging on the dramatic quality of the performance. Mlle. Alboni
continued her grasp of this varied range of lyric character during her
seasons in France, Spain, and England for several years, now assuming
_Fides_, now _Amino_, in "Sonnambula," now _Leonora_ in "Favorita,"
and never failing, however the critics might murmur, in pleasing the
ultimate, and, on the whole, more satisfactory bench of judges,
the public. It was no new thing to have proved that the mass of
theatre-goers, however eccentric and unjustifiable the vagaries of a
favorite might be, are inclined to be swayed by the cumulative force
of long years of approval. In the spring of 1851, Mlle. Alboni, among
several of her well-established personations, was enabled to appear in a
new opera by Auber, "Corbeille d'Oranges," a work which attained only
a brief success. It became painfully apparent about this time that the
greatest of contralto singers was losing the delicious quality of her
voice, and that her method was becoming more and more conventional. Her
ornaments and fioriture never varied, and this monotony, owing to the
indolence and _insouciance_ of the singer, was never inspired by that
resistless fire and geniality which made the same cadenzas, repeated
night after night by such a singer as Pasta, appear fresh to the
audience.
Mlle. Alboni's visit to the United States in 1852 was the occasion of a
cordial and enthusiastic welcome, which, though lacking in the fury and
excitement of the "Jenny Lind" mania, was yet highly gratifying to the
singer's _amour propre_. There was a universal feeling of regret that
her tour was necessarily a short one. Her final concert was given at
Metropolitan Hall, New York, on May 2, 1852, the special occasion
being the benefit of Signor Arditi, who had been the conductor of
her performances in America. The audience was immense, the applause
vehement.
The marriage of Alboni to the Compte de Pepoli in 1853 caused a rumor
that she was about to retire from the stage. But, though she gave
herself a furlough from her arduous operatic duties for nearly a year,
she appeared again in Paris in 1854 in "La Donna del Lago" and other of
the Rossinian operas. Her London admirers, too, recognized in the newly
married prima donna all the charm of her youth.
In July, 1855, she was at the Grand Opéra, in Paris, performing in "Le
Prophète," etc., with Roger, having contracted an engagement for three
years. In 1856 she was at Her Majesty's Theatre with Piccolomini,
and made her first appearance in the character of _Azucena_ in "Il
Trovatore." Her performances were not confined to the opera-house; she
sang at the Crystal Palace and in the Surrey Music Hall. In October she
was again at the Italiens, commencing with "La Cenerentola." She then, in
conjunction with Mario, Graziani, and Mme. Frezzolini, began performing
in the works of Verdi. "Il Trovatore" was performed in January, 1857,
and was followed by "Rigoletto," which was produced in defiance of the
protestations of Victor Hugo, from whose play, "Le Roi s'amuse," the
libretto had been taken. Victor Hugo declared that the representation of
the opera was an infringement of his rights, as being simply a piracy of
his drama, and he claimed that the Theatre Italiens should be restrained
from performing it. The decision of the court was, however, against the
irascible poet, and he had to pay the costs of the action.
But why should the reader be interested in a yearly record of the
engagements of a great singer, after the narrative of the early
struggles by which success is reached and the means by which success
is perpetuated has come to an end? The significance of such a recital
is that of ardent endeavor, persistent self-culture, and unflagging
resolution. Mme. Alboni continued to sing in the principal musical
centers of Western Europe till 1864, when she definitely retired from
the stage, and settled at her fine residence in Paris, midst the ease
and luxury which the large fortune she had acquired by professional
exertion enabled her to maintain. She occasionally appeared in opera and
concert to the great delight of her old admirers, who declared that the
youthful beauty and freshness of her voice had returned to her. Since
the death of her husband she has only sung in public once, and then in
Rossini's Mass, in London in 1871.
Both the husband and the brothers of Alboni were gallant soldiers in the
Italian war of independence, and received medals and other distinctions
from Victor Emanuel. Mme. Alboni in private life is said to be one of
the most amiable, warm-hearted, and fascinating of women, and to take
the deepest interest in helping the careers of young singers by advice,
influence, and pecuniary aid. In social life she is quite as much the
idol of her friends as she was for so many years of an admiring public.