In 1824 Mme. Catalani again filled an engagement in England, making her
reappearance in Mayer's comic _pasticcio_, "Il Fanatico per la Mu-sica,"
the airs of which had been expressly selected for the display of her
vocal _tours de force_. Crowded audiences again welcomed her whom
absence had made an idol dearer than ever, and her transcendent power as
a singer seemed to have rise even beyond the old pitch in her electrical
_bravura_ style of execution. Yet some critics thought they detected
tokens of the destroying hand of time. One critic spoke of the
"fragrance" of her tone as having evaporated. Another compared her
voice to a pianoforte the hammers of which had grown hard by use. In
her appearance she had become even more beautiful than ever, with some
slight accession of _embonpoint_, and was conceded to be the handsomest
woman in Europe. For a while her popularity was unbounded among all
classes, and probably no singer that ever lived rode on a higher wave
of public adoration. But the critics began to be very much dissatisfied
with the vicious uses to which she put her magnificent voice. In Paris
the wags had called her _l'instrument Catalani_. In London they said her
style had become a caricature of its former grandeur, so exaggerated and
affected had it grown.
"When she begins one of the interminable roulades up the scale," says
a writer in "Knight's Quarterly Magazine," "she gradually raises her
body, which she had before stooped to almost a level with the ground,
until, having won her way with a quivering lip and chattering chin to
the very topmost note, she tosses back her head and all its nodding
feathers with an air of triumph; then suddenly falls to a note two
octaves and a half lower with incredible aplomb, and smiles like a
victorious Amazon over a conquered enemy." A throng of flatterers joined
in encouraging her in all her defects. "No sooner does Catalani quit
the orchestra," says the same writer, "than she is beset by a host of
foreign sycophants, who load her with exaggerated praise. I was present
at a scene of this kind in the refreshment-room at Bath, and heard
reiterated on all sides, 'Ah! madame, la dernière fois toujours la
meilleure!' Thus is poor Mme. Catalani led to strive to excel herself
every time she sings, until she exposes herself to the ridicule
most probably of those very flatterers; for I have heard that on
the Continent she is mimicked by a man dressed in female attire,
who represents, by extravagant terms and gestures, Mme. Catalani
_surpassing_ herself." Occasionally, however, she showed that her genius
had not forsaken her. Her singing of Luther's Hymn is thus described by
an appreciative listener: "She admits in this grandly simple composition
no ornament whatever but a pure shake at the conclusion. The majesty of
her sustained tones, so rich, so ample as not only to fill but overflow
the cathedral where I heard her, the solemnity of her manner, and the
St. Cecilia-like expression of her raised eyes and rapt countenance,
produced a thrilling effect through the united medium of sight and
hearing. Whoever has heard Catalani sing this, accompanied by Schmidt
on the trumpet, has heard the utmost that music can do. Then in the
succeeding chorus, when the same awful words, 'The trumpet sounds; the
graves restore the dead which they contained before,' are repeated by
the whole choral strength, her voice, piercing through the clang of
instruments and the burst of other voices, is heard as distinctly as if
it were alone! During the encore I found my way to the top of a tower on
the outside of the cathedral, and could still distinguish her wonderful
voice."
A charming incident is told of Mme. Catalani while in Brighton. Captain
Montague, cruising off that port, invited her and some other ladies to a
_fête_ on his ship, and the ladies were escorted on board by the Captain
in a boat manned by twenty men. The prima donna suddenly burst forth
with her pet song, "Rule Britannia," singing with electrical fire and
the full power of her magnificent voice. The tars dropped their oars,
and tears rolled down their weatherbeaten cheeks, while the Captain
said: "You see, madame, the effect this favorite air has on these brave
men when sung by the finest voice in the world. I have been in many
victorious battles, but never felt an excitement equal to this."
Mme. Catalani retired from the stage in 1831. Young and brilliant
rivals, such as Pasta and Son-tag, were rising to contest her
sovereignty, and for several years the critics had been dropping pretty
plain hints that it would be the most judicious and dignified course.
She settled on a magnificent estate near Lake Como, where she lived
with her two eldest children--a son and daughter--the younger son being
absent on military duty in the French army. This latter afterward became
an equerry to Napoleon III., and the other children occupied positions
of rank and honor. Mme. Catalani founded a school of gratuitous
instruction for young girls near her beautiful villa, and exacted that
all who graduated from this school should adopt her own name. One,
Signora Masilli-Catalani, became quite an eminent singer. Mrs. Trollope
tells us something of Catalani's latter days as she visited her in
Italy: "Nothing could be more amiable than the reception she gave us."
She expressed a great admiration and love for the English. Her beauty
was little injured. "Her eyes and teeth are still magnificent," says
Mrs. Trollope, "and I am told that, when seen in evening full dress
by candlelight, no stranger can see her for the first time without
inquiring who that charming-looking woman is." Mrs. Trollope hinted to
Mlle, de Valle-brèque that she would like to hear her mother sing; and
in a moment Mme. Catalani was at the piano, smiling at the whispered
request from her daughter. "I know not what it was she sang, but
scarcely had she permitted her voice to swell into one of those bravura
passages, of which her execution was so very peculiar and so perfectly
unequaled, than I felt as if some magic process was being performed
upon me, which took me back again to something--I know not what to
call it--which I had neither heard nor felt for nearly twenty years.
Involuntarily, unconsciously, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt as
much embarrassed as a young lady of fifteen might be who suddenly found
herself in the act of betraying emotions which she was far indeed from
wishing to display." William Gardiner visited Mme. Catalani in 1846. "I
was surprised at the vigor of Mme. Catalani," he says, "and how
little she was altered since I saw her at Derby in 1828. I paid her a
compliment upon her good looks. 'Ah!' said she, 'I am growing old and
ugly.' I would not allow it. 'Why, man,' she said, 'I'm sixty-six!' She
has lost none of that commanding expression which gave her such dignity
on the stage. She is without a wrinkle, and appears to be no more than
forty. Her breadth of chest is still remarkable; it was this which
endowed her with the finest voice that ever sang. Her speaking voice and
dramatic air are still charming, and not in the least impaired."
About the year 1848 Catalani and her family left Italy for fear of
the cholera, which was then raging, and sought refuge in Paris. While
residing there she heard Jenny Lind. One morning, a few days after, the
servant announced a strange visitor, who would not give her name. On
being ushered in, the timid stranger, who showed a plain but pleasant
face, knelt at her feet and said falteringly, "I am Jenny Lind,
madame--I am come to ask your blessing." A few days afterward Catalani
was stricken with the cholera, which she so much dreaded, and died on
June 12th, at the age of sixty-nine.
It is not a marvel that the public was captivated with Catalani. She
had every splendid gift that Nature could lavish--surpassing physical
beauty, a matchless voice, energy of spirit, sweetness of temper, and
warm affections. Her whole private life was marked by the utmost purity
and propriety, and she was the soul of generosity and unselfishness.
The many business troubles in which she was involved were caused by
her husband's rapacity and narrowness of judgment, and not by her own
disposition to take advantage of the necessities of her managers--a
charge her enemies at one time brought against her.
Her unrivaled endowments (for that taken all in all they were unrivaled
is now pretty well acknowledged) ought to have raised her much higher
in rank as an artist. Her education even as a singer was extremely
superficial, and she became an object of universal admiration without
ever knowing anything about music. As she advanced in her career, her
whole ambition seemed to be narrowed down to surprising the world by
displays of vocal power. As long as these displays would dazzle and
astonish, it made little difference how absurd and unmeaning they were.
Had she assiduously cultivated the dramatic part of her profession, such
were the powers of her voice, her sense of the beautiful, her histrionic
passion and energy, her charms of person, that she might have been the
greatest lyric artist that ever lived. Many of the songs she selected as
vehicles of display were unsuitable to a female voice. For instance,
she would take the martial song for a bass voice, "Non piu Andrai," in
"Figaro," and overpower by the force and volume of her organ all
the brass instruments of the orchestra. A craving for such sort of
admiration from unthinking crowds turned her aside from the true path of
her art, where she might have reached the top peak of greatness, and has
handed down her memory a shining beacon rather than as a model to her
successors.