The Girlhood of Catalani.--She makes her _Début_ in
Florence.--Description of her Marvelous Vocalism.--The Romance of Love
and Marriage.--Her Preference for the Concert Stage.--She meets Napoleon
in Paris.--Her Escape from France and Appearance in London.--Opinions
of Lord Mount Edgcumbe and other Critics.--Anecdotes of herself and
Husband.--The Great Prima Donna's Character.--Her Gradual Divergence
from Good Taste in singing.--_Bon Mots_ of the Wits of the Day.--The
Opera-house Riot.--Her Husband's Avarice.--Grand Concert Tour through
Europe.--She meets Goethe.--Her Return to England and Brilliant
Reception.--She sings with the Tenor Braham.--John Braham' s Artistic
Career.--The Davides.--Catalani's Last English Appearance, and the
Opinions of Critics.--Her Retirement and Death.
About the year 1790 the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, in the duchy
of Urbino, was the subject of a queer kind of scandal. Complaint was
made to the bishop that one of the novices sang with such extraordinary
brilliancy and beauty of voice that throngs gathered to the chapel from
miles around, and that the religious services were transformed into a
sort of theatrical entertainment» so entranced were all hearers by the
charm of the singing, and so forgetful of the religious purport of these
occasions in the fascination of the music. His Reverence ordered the
lady abbess to abate the scandal; so the young Angelica Catalani was
no longer permitted to sing alone, but only in concert with the other
novices. Her voice at the age of twelve, when she began to sing, already
possessed a volume, compass, and sweetness which made her a phenomenon.
The young girl, who had been destined for conventual life, studied so
hard that she became ill, and her father, a magistrate of Sinigaglia,
was obliged to take her home. Signor Catalani was a man of bigoted
piety, and it was with great difficulty that he could be induced to
forego the plan which he had arranged for Angelica's future. The idea
of her going on the stage was repulsive to him, and only his straitened
circumstances wrung from him a reluctant consent that she should abandon
the thought of the convent and become a singer. From a teacher and
composer of some reputation the young girl received preliminary
instruction for two years, and from the hands of this master passed into
those of the celebrated Marchesi, who had succeeded Porpora as chief of
the teaching _maestri_. This virtuoso had himself been a distinguished
singer, and his finishing lessons placed Angelica in a position to
rank with the most brilliant vocalists of the age. It was somewhat
unfortunate that she did not learn under Marchesi, who taught her when
her voice was in the most plastic condition, to control that profuse
luxuriance of vocalization which was alike the greatest glory and
greatest defect in her art.
While studying, Angelica went to hear a celebrated cantatrice of the
day, and wept at the vanishing strains. "Alas!" she said with sorrowing
_naivete_. "I shall never be able to sing like that." The kind prima
donna heard the lamentation and asked her to sing; whereupon she said,
"Be reassured, my child; in a few years you will surpass me, and I
shall weep at your superiority." At the age of sixteen she succeeded in
getting an engagement at La Fenice in Venice to sing in Mayer's opera of
"Lodoiska" during the Carnival season. Carus, the director, accepted her
in despair at the very last moment on account of the sudden death of
his prima donna. What were his surprise and delight in finding that the
_debutante_ was the loveliest who had come forward for years, and
the possessor of an almost unparalleled voice. Of tall and majestic
presence, a dazzling complexion, large beautiful blue eyes, and features
of ideal symmetry, she was one to entrance the eye as well as the ear.
Her face was so flexible as to express each shade of feeling from grave
to gay with equal facility; and indeed all the personal characteristics
of this extraordinary woman were such as Nature could only have bestowed
in her most lavish mood. Her voice was a soprano of the purest quality,
embracing a compass of nearly three octaves, from G to F, and so
powerful that no band could overwhelm its tones, which thrilled through
every fiber of the hearer. Full, rich, and magnificent beyond any other
voice ever heard, "it bore no resemblance," said one writer, "to any
instrument, except we could imagine the tone of musical glasses to be
magnified in volume to the same gradation of power." She could ascend
at will--though she was ignorant of the rules of art--from the smallest
perceptible sound to the loudest and most magnificent crescendo, exactly
as she pleased. One of her favorite caprices of ornament was to imitate
the swell and fall of a bell, making her tones sweep through the air
with the most delicious undulation, and, using her voice at pleasure,
she would shower her graces in an absolutely wasteful profusion. Her
greatest defect was that, while the ear was bewildered with the beauty
and tremendous power of her voice, the feelings were untouched: she
never touched the heart. She could not, like Mara, thrill, nor, like
Billington, captivate her hearers by a birdlike softness and brilliancy;
she simply astonished. "She was a florid singer, and nothing but a
florid singer, whether grave or airy, in the church, orchestra, or
upon the stage." With a prodigious volume and richness of tone, and a
marvelous rapidity of vocalization, she could execute brilliantly the
most florid notation, leaving her audience in breathless amazement; but
her intonation was very uncertain. However, this did not trouble her
much.
In the season of 1798 she sang at Leghorn with Crivelli, Marchesi, and
Mrs. Billington, and thence she made a triumphal tour through Italy.
From the first she had met with an unequaled success. Her full,
powerful, clear tones, her delivery so pure and true, her instinctive
execution of the most difficult music, carried all before her. Without
much art or method, that superb voice, capable by nature of all the
things which the most of even gifted singers are obliged to learn by
hard work and long experience, was sufficient for the most daring feats.
The Prince Regent of Portugal, attracted by her fame, engaged her, with
Crescentini and Mme. Gafforini, for the Italian opera at Lisbon, where
she arrived in the year 1804.
The romance of Catalani's life connects itself, not with those escapades
which furnish the most piquant tidbits for the gossip-monger, but with
her marriage, which occurred at Lisbon. Throughout her long career no
breath of scandal touched the character of this extraordinary artist.
Her private and domestic life was as exemplary as her public career was
dazzling. One night, as Angelica was singing on the stage, her eyes
met those of a handsome man in full French uniform, and especially
distinguished by the diamond aigrette in his cap, who sat in full sight
in one of the boxes. When she went off the stage she found the military
stranger in the greenroom, waiting for an introduction. This was M. de
Vallebrègue, captain in the Eighth Hussars and _attache_ of the
French embassy, who in after years received his highest recognition of
distinction as the husband of the chief of living singers. They were
both in the full flush of youth and beauty, and they fell passionately
in love with each other at first sight. When the lover asked Signor
Catalani's consent, the latter frowned on the scheme, for the golden
harvest was too rich to be yielded up lightly for the asking. He coldly
refused, and bade the suitor think of his love as hopeless, though
he found no objection to M. Vallebrègue personally. Poor Angelica
was thoroughly wretched, and day after day pined for her young
soldier-lover, who had been forbidden the house by the father. For
several days she was in such dejection that she could not sing, and
the romance became the talk of Lisbon. One day an anonymous letter
was received by Papa Catalani charging M. Vallebrègue with being a
proscribed man, who had committed some mysterious crime vaguely hinted
at. Armed with this, her father sought to reason Angelica out of
her passion; but she clung to her lover with more eagerness, and was
rewarded, to her great joy, by learning that the crime was only having
fought a duel with and severely wounded his superior officer--an offense
against discipline, which had been punished by temporary relief from
military duty and a pleasant exile to Lisbon. The young beauty
wept, sighed, pouted, and could be persuaded to sing only with much
difficulty. All day long she said with deep mournfulness, "_Ma che bel
uffiziale_" and pined with genuine heart-sickness. At last Vallebrègue
smuggled a letter to his discouraged mistress, in which he said in
ardent words that no one had a right to separate them, and urged her
to lend all her energies to her professional work, so that, being a
favorite at court, she might induce the Prince to intercede in the
matter. Angelica tried in vain to get an interview with the Prince, and
found that he was at his country villa twenty miles away. Her accustomed
energy was equal to the difficult. Calling a coach, she drove out to the
royal villa. Trembling with emotion and fatigue, she threw herself at
the feet of the good-natured Prince, whom she found in the garden, and
told her story as soon as her timidity could find words. He could hardly
resist the temptation to badinage which the lively Angelica had hitherto
been so ready to meet with brilliant repartee, but the anxious girl
could only weep and plead. It was such a genuine love romance that
the Prince's heart was touched, and, after some argument and advice to
return to her father, he yielded and gave his sanction to the match. He
accompanied the now radiant Angelica back to Lisbon, and in an hour's
time a ceremony in the court chapel made her Madame de Vallebrègue,
in presence of General Lannes, the French envoy, and himself. Signor
Catalani was enraged at the turn which things had taken, but he could
only acquiesce in the inevitable, especially as his daughter and her
husband settled on him a country estate in Italy and a comfortable
annuity for life.
Mme. Catalani returned to Italy with a reputation which made her name
the first in everybody's mouth. Yet at this time her appearance on
the dramatic stage always occasioned a feeling of pain, her excessive
timidity and nervousness made her action spasmodic, and deprived her
of that easy dignity which must be united with passion and sentiment to
produce a good artistic personation. It was in concert that her grand
voice at this period shone at its best. Her intimate friends were wont
to say that it was as disagreeable and agitating for her to sing in
opera, as it was delightful in the concert-room; for here she poured
forth her notes with such a genuine ecstasy in her own performance as
that which seems to thrill the skylark or the nightingale. Though the
circumstances of her marriage were of such a romantic kind, and she
seems to have been deeply attached to her husband through life, M.
Valle-brègue appears to have been a stupid, ignorant soldier, and, as is
common with those who make similar matrimonial speculations, to have had
no eyes beyond helping his talented wife to make all the money possible
and spend it with the utmost freedom afterward. Mme. Catalani made a
brief visit to Paris in the spring of 1806, sang twice at St. Cloud, and
gave three public concerts, each of which produced twenty-four thousand
francs, the price being doubled for these occasions.
Napoleon was always anxious to make Paris the center of European art,
and to assemble within its borders all the attractions of the civilized
world. He spared no temptation to induce the Italian cantatrice to
remain. When she attended his commands at the Tuileries she trembled
like a leaf before the stern tyrant, under whose gracious demeanor she
detected the workings of an unbending purpose. "Où allez vous, madame?"
said he, smilingly. "To London, sire," was the reply. "Remain in Paris.
I will pay you well, and your talents will be appreciated. You shall
receive a hundred thousand francs per annum, and two months for _congé_.
So that is settled. Adieu, madame." Such was the brusque and imperious
interview, which seemed to fix the fate of the artist. But Mme.
Catalani, anxious to get to London, to which she looked as a rich
harvest-field, and regarding the grim Napoleon as the foe of the
legitimate King, was determined not to stay. "When at Paris I was
denied a passport," she afterward said; "however, I got introduced
to Talleyrand, and, by the aid of a handful of gold, I was put into
a government boat, and ordered to lie down to avoid being shot; and
wonderful to relate, I got over in safety, with my little boy seven
months old."