the mother and the wife remembered the early days of the prima donna,
and how that voice and those talents had achieved fortune and honor. The
instant her determination was whispered, all the theatres of Europe were
open to her. She chose the Queen's Theatre, in London, and Lumley
offered her L7,000 sterling for the season. This she accepted; and once
more, she stepped on to those boards, where, twenty years previously,
she had stood, in all the freshness of her youth, but in the full
maturity of her talent. To say how the house welcomed her would be
impossible. It greeted her with shouts, with the waving of
handkerchiefs, with tears--for she had many friends, who remembered her
hospitality in her high estate. It rose to receive her. She stood before
them, gentle, unassuming, as in former years, but lovelier, far
lovelier. So youthful was she when she left the stage, that she had not
attained her full stature; she had grown considerably now, her form was
rounded with the full grace of womanhood. There were the same matchless
arms and hands, the proverbially beautiful foot. That countenance had
still the purity of outline of former years; but a life, however happy,
will, in a high and sensitive nature, leave a thoughtful and pensive
look upon the features.
Her beauty had gained what is almost a substitute for
beauty--expression. The wavy ringlets which had floated in clouds around
her girlish face were now braided over that deep, intellectual brow, on
which no evil passion or sordid calculation had ever set one wrinkle.
Those who had, in youth, witnessed her first appearance, looked at each
other's careworn features with astonishment, and asked if that fair
creature were not the daughter of the one enshrined in their memories.
But the voice, like which none had ever since been heard, soon
proclaimed that it was _the_ Henriette Sontag. Yet that voice had gained
in power, in expression, and in tone. What could the happy girl of
former days, whose short life had been a series of triumphs, do but
carol, like the lark, at the gates of Heaven? For _her_ sin, sorrow,
shame, misfortune, were undreamed of. But since, the woman had shuddered
at crime, felt and shared sorrow, often consoled shame, was now assailed
by misfortune. Now feeling, passion, and deep pathos hallowed every
note, inspired each gesture. The Henriette Sontag had outlived her fame,
and Madame Rossi Sontag, in her place, was recognised by perhaps the
most critical, because the most travelled audience in the world, as the
very greatest artist, both as an actress and a singer, ever heard or
known.
IS IT THE MOTHER, OR THE DAUGHTER?
IN 1850, when Madame Sontag reappeared as a vocalist in Paris, after a
silence of twenty years, Adolphe Adam, the composer of "_Le Postillon de
Lonjumeau_" and other popular music, wrote and published the following
pleasant notice of her, in one of the Paris journals. It will be
observed that it refers to Mr. Lumley, the once flourishing, but now
broken-down Operatic manager.
I thought proper to attack the privilege which has been granted to Mr.
Lumley--but since it has been granted, I will say no more about it, but
proceed to examine the merits of the artists whom Mr. Lumley has brought
us. I have said that Lumley was clever and energetic--cleverer, perhaps,
than you thought him. He is a better manager than you would suspect. For
the last month, we have been fancying he was going to let us hear the
Countess Rossi. I too believed it--but to-day I am convinced he has
taken us all in. No! The young girl, whom I heard last Tuesday at the
Conservatoire, is not, cannot be, the Countess Rossi. Ten years ago, at
St. Petersburg, I had the honor of both seeing and hearing the Countess
Rossi. In that lady I perfectly recognised the _cantatrice_ whom I had
formerly admired and applauded at the Theatre Italien. But the
_cantatrice_ whom I heard the other night cannot be the same. In the
first place, she is much younger, more beautiful than the other, and has
a great deal more talent. Now these are three qualities which would
diminish, rather than increase, in the space of twenty years--unless we
dated from the cradles of the prima donnas; and certainly the
_cantatrice_, whom in 1830 we idolized in the _Barbiere_ and the
_Cenerentola_, was already some years removed from infancy.
Here is the true history of all this mystery. The Countess Rossi has, as
it is reported, lost her fortune; but she is still rich in the
possession of a daughter--a lovely girl, the very counterpart of her
mother--as lovely and as graceful--German by her complexion and waving
golden hair; Italian by her voice; French by her inimitable grace and
distinction. This charming young girl, notwithstanding the high rank to
which she was born--notwithstanding her brilliant education--did not
hesitate for an instant to sacrifice herself for her family. She went to
Lumley, and entreated him to engage her at his theatre. Imagine her
sorrow, when he refused her! Mr. Lumley judiciously thought that, though
talent might be hereditary in this family, name and reputation were not.
Now what a manager cares most for, is a name--a name which fills at once
his house and his money-drawers, and enables him to give (and pay) high
salaries.
Overpowered by this unexpected refusal, the young girl sank into a
chair--when suddenly, the face of the manager was illumined by a
brilliant idea. "All may yet be well, my dear Mademoiselle--we can
reconcile every thing. We will at once come to my own relief and that of
your mother. I cannot engage _you_, but I will engage your mother; and I
will give her two hundred thousand francs ($40,000) for the first
season."
"But, sir," said the young girl, "my mother is now Countess Rossi. It is
twenty-two years since she left the stage; and how do we know whether
she still possesses the talents which made her once so celebrated?"
"As we cannot tell that, Mademoiselle, we will not ask her either to
sing or to appear on the stage. Nominally, I will engage Madame
Henriette Sontag; but it is you who will sing in her place."
The affair was at once arranged. All was signed and agreed upon, amidst
tears of tenderness and admiration in which Mr. Lumley, though he was a
manager, could not help joining. The Countess Rossi consented to the
strictest retirement during the engagement of her daughter--or rather
her own. The parties were bound to secresy by the most solemn oaths;
and this secret has been so well kept that no one has suspected the
substitution. My instincts, aided by memory, have enabled me to
penetrate this mystery, which I shall perhaps be blamed for revealing.
But I confess that I am not a little proud of having found it out. And
then I really felt it a matter of conscience not to reveal to the world
such an unexampled and unheard of instance of filial devotion.
On her entrance at the _Conservatoire_, Mademoiselle Sontag imitated so
well the manners and grace of her mother--her refinement and her
elegance--that the illusion was complete. It was the same smile--the
same winning courtesy to the public--the same undulating figure. Her
very music books, like those of her mother, were bound in rich crimson
velvet. Everybody, excepting myself, was taken in--and, like every one,
I too applauded--to the utter destruction of my gloves; and I should
certainly have split the skin of my hands as well, had it not been much
more solid than kid.
The moment Mademoiselle Sontag began to sing, all doubt--if there ever
had been any, that I had really guessed the secret--vanished. It was the
same purity of voice--the same charm of style and execution, which I had
so much applauded, and which still echoed both in my ears and in my
heart. But the voice of _this_ Sontag had more power, more firmness,
more body. The higher notes are just as soft and just as clear--but they
have more roundness; and the middle register is infinitely better. In a
word, this artist unites the qualities of youth and freshness to all the
talents of the experienced and finished artist. _Rode's variations_ were
a series of vocal wonders. It was impossible to imagine that art or
talent could reach so high; and after all, I think we must set it down
to one of those prodigies which nature alone can create.
SOUVENIRS OF THE OPERA IN EUROPE.
BY
JULIE DE MARGUERITTES.
CHAP. I.
THE opera was _Cenerentola_; the overture, chorus, introduction, &c.,
all were impatiently listened to. At length the scene opened and
revealed _Cenerentola_ by her kitchen fire. She lays down her bellows,
she advances; even in that assemblage of beauty she was the most
beautiful. Her dress is simply a grey merino with a black velvet ribbon
round the waist. She is exactly the height of the Medicean Venus, what
the moderns call the middle height: her figure, though slight, has the
full proportion of womanhood: her skin glows with the soft tint of the
China rose; her arms and hands are faultless; her ankle, revealed by the
short petticoat, that of the "Danatrice;" the foot, one for which the
glass slipper would be too large. Who can describe her face? the soft,
pouting lips of infancy, the delicate features, the large melting blue
eye, the finely turned oval face, enshrined in a cloud of golden curls.
So lovely was she that the audience appeared to forget that she was to
do anything more than allow herself to be looked at. But she comes
towards the footlights with the modest self-possession of an innocent
child. "_Una olta c'era un re_," first reveals the sweet tone of her
voice. From the first note to the last it is unmistakably a soprano. Her
execution, as she advanced into the difficulties of the music, was
perfectly supernatural; it resembled an instrument--no bird--but it was
the perfection of the loveliest of all instruments, the human voice.
With the purity of a silver bell, she reached to the E above the lines;
it was perfectly equal, both in the upper and middle registers; it was
sweet, soft, and expressive in all its tones. When the public recovered
from the first effect, they were obliged to acknowledge that it was
wonderful, pleasing, and charming, like the fair creature before them,
moving gracefully through her part as she would have done in a
drawing-room. _Cencrentola_ (like the _Barbiere_) is an opera which is
sung by sopranos and by contraltos; it was originally written for Emilia
Bonini, a contralto, who quietly made her fortune in Italy, unknown to
Parisian or Londonian fame. It bears transposition without injury,
though it contains great difficulties of execution. Madame Albertazzi,
an English woman of great beauty, who acquired great celebrity and died
very young, was the first who ventured to appear in it after Sontag.
The enthusiasm for Sontag increased every night. Her gentle, unassuming
manners, her youth--she was but twenty, and looked eighteen--her
surprising beauty, the maidenly reserve of her conduct, brought to her
feet the homage of all London; the princess's robe was more than once
offered her for acceptance; a royal widower, allied with the English
throne, though a countryman of her own and now a king, offered his hand
at the risk of immense sacrifices; but she was never coquettish--never
prudish--never vain, and never swerved from her allegiance to the one
whose name she now bears, and to whom she was secretly engaged before
coming to England. She went everywhere with her merry little sister, and
her stately _dame de compagnie_; stepped from the stage to the saloons
of Devonshire House, where, amongst the most courted and honored guests,
she waltzed with the joyousness of a German girl; but none ever presumed
to pollute her ear with an impure word. There was at this time in London
another remarkable cantatrice, the most wonderful contralto who had ever
been heard since the days of Banti, of whom none but Italians ever
heard, and whom they have now forgotten. Her style and voice were
considered without equal; but nature had disdained to complete her work.
Pisaroni was little, crooked, awkward, and united in her features and
complexion every species of ugliness--but all this was forgotten when
from that large ungraceful mouth issued low mellifluous notes producing
on her hearers the thrilling effect of a sudden burst from an organ in a
still moonlight cathedral. At one morning concert, at the close of the
season, Pisaroni, Malibran, and Sontag sang the trio (from Meyerbeer's
_Crociato_) "_Giovinetto cavalier_;" and never was such music heard
since.
SONTAG AND MALIBRAN
AT
EPSOM RACES.
BY
JULIE DE MARGUERITTE.
CHAP. II.
SOME years ago an open carriage with four thorough-bred horses, mounted
by postillions in black velvet jackets and silver-tasseled caps, was
waiting at the door of a small, neat house in London, at the corner of
Regent and Argyle streets. The sun was shining brilliantly, and though
it was not later than ten o'clock in the morning, brilliant equipages
were continually dashing through the street. The horses of the carriage
which was waiting, tossed their heads and pawed the ground impatiently,
as the other horses galloped by; the postillions repeated to each other
the names of the owners as each equipage passed. Two gentlemen in the
very plainest morning costume, passed up and down the pavement, looking
anxiously each time they went by the open door into the small passage of
the house. "Can anything have detained her?" said one of the gentlemen
with a strong foreign accent. "We shall be late," said his companion
with the purest English accent, looking at his watch. "Warrender and
Burghersh!" shouted the groom on the leader to the groom on the wheeler,
as an equipage as well appointed as their own new past them. "They are
going for Malibran," said the foreigner, "we shall be last." "Coming
out!" shouted the footman, opening the carriage door, while his fellow
servant let down the steps, and escorted by a large and remarkably ugly
man, of most courtly bearing, three ladies issued from the house. One
was the Countess C----, the two others were Henriette and Nina Sontag.
The Chevalier de Benkhausen, the Russian Charge d'Affaires, followed the
ladies into the carriage, the two other gentlemen mounted the box, the
postillions tightened the reins, the footmen shouting "All right!" got
on the dickey, and off sped the carriage at full speed. They were going
to Epsom, and this was the Derby day. In a few minutes, as they went
down Conduit street into Bond street, they passed a carriage in which
were one lady and three gentlemen. The lady was Marie Malibran; her
companions--Lord Burghersh, Sir George Warrender, and Charles de Beriot.
Men, grooms, and postillions shouted as they went by, and Malibran
impetuously threw herself forward to see into the carriage; but the
object of her curiosity was quietly talking to Lady C----, so that all
she saw was the back of a very pretty satin bonnet with a blonde veil,
and the outside of Nina Sontag's white parasol. Malibran threw herself
pettishly back and pulled the fingers of her glove--how she longed to
see the rival who had landed but two days before, and for whom all
London was already raving! The two carriages continued their race until
the crowd separated them, enveloping all in one cloud of dust. For hours
later the Countess of C----'s carriage was the scene of the delicious
scrambling which is the principal pleasure of Epsom, for those who are
not members of the turf; the attentive footmen supplying clean glasses,
fresh bottles of champagne, and saucers of Gunter's ice creams to all
from a fourgon which had preceded them. There was literally a dense
crowd round this carriage, each in turn taking his place on the steps
and leaning on the open door. Lady C---- proclaimed almost every name
in the English peerage, in the diplomatic corps, in the artistic and
political world, as she introduced in succession every new comer to her
distinguished guest. The Chevalier de Benkhausen, well known as a wit
and a "bon vivant," absorbed all the good things, though saying
brilliant ones at the same time. Lord C---- had descended from the box
and stood on the other side, occasionally exchanging salutations with
his friends, but without allowing his hand to quit the door of the
carriage on the side nearest Sontag, on which he stood, and many eyes
were ready to seize that envied position, but he maintained it in right
of a previous acquaintance in Berlin, with the beautiful _prima donna_.
Nina Sontag, who was a pretty girl of fifteen, kept eating, drinking,
bowing, and talking, but took particular care to hand up wings of
chicken and glasses of champagne to the very handsome foreigner, who
still retained his place on the box, having apparently taken literally
the scene before him, and fancying that it was really his duty to look
at the race, which every one else seemed to have forgotten. Nobody knew
much about him; he had come from Berlin (which accounted for his
intimacy with Nina), was a new attache of the Sardinian embassy, and had
been introduced to Lady C---- by M. de Benkhausen as le Comte Rossi.
Suddenly the crowd round the carriage gave way on each side before a
tall fine man and a slight girlish woman enveloped in a large black lace
mantilla, and wearing a simple Leghorn bonnet. M. de Benkhausen, on
perceiving her, sprang from the carriage, took her hand, and assisted
her into his place, saying, "Mademoiselle, j'ai l'honneur de vous
presenter Madame Malibran." They gazed one instant at each other,
another instant and their hands were clasped, and a tear glistened in
the eye of the daughter of the South, who was passion's essence, whilst
a deeper tint mantled the cheek of the more reserved German. Nina's
laugh abruptly stopped, even the phlegmatic Count Rossi turned quickly
round, and Lord C---- reverently took off his hat. But few words were
exchanged, and then they parted, Malibran taking the arm of De Beriot,
and being followed by as numerous a train as the one they left behind.
Thus for the first time met the two greatest musical geniuses of the
age. Two nights after was the eventful night. The King's Theatre, as it
was then called, presented the most beautiful sight it is possible to
imagine. Fashion for once had forgotten itself, and every box, which on
ordinary nights it is voted vulgar to fill, was occupied by four or five
ladies in full dress, a dress which it is the peculiar prerogative of
English women to become, better than any other women in the world.
HENRIETTE SONTAG
AND THE
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.
BY
PRINCE PUCKLER-MUSKAU.
From his celebrated work entitled "Tutti Frutti."
SHE came here as the wife of the Sardinian Minister to the Court of St.
Petersburg, preceded by her fame as a singer. Courtly etiquette was
dying of curiosity to hear the _prima donna_, yet refrained her stately
steps under the imperial nod of the all-powerful Czar. Could she? would
she? ought she to sing? These were the questions. If the Emperor thought
right to ask her to sing, would the King of Sardinia think proper to
allow her to sing? At length one point was decided. There was a grand
_fete_ at the winter palace, and the newly arrived ambassadress was
invited; this was positive. Then from _salon_ to _salon_ flew the
intelligence that the Czar had asked the Countess Rossi to sing--that
Nesselrode had decided that, without infringing the dignity of the
_corps diplomatique_, an ambassadress _might_ sing; and, finally, that
his majesty of Sardinia, being consulted, had graciously accorded
permission; and, consequently, her Excellency Madame La Comtesse Rossi
would prove to the whole court, assembled at the winter palace, that
besides being the most lovely, graceful, and amiable of women, the
Sardinian ambassadress was also the greatest artist of the day. And so
it was, my dear ----, that the beautiful and melodious voice was revealed
to us in all its showers and cascades of brilliant notes--taking the ear
captive, until we all regretted the rank in which fate had placed such a
wonder, condemning it to comparative silence. The emperor was entranced.
After the concert, offering his arm to his lovely and gifted guest, he
promenaded with her through the saloons, presenting her to all the great
people; and the next day the empress invited the countess to join her
private circle, and to dine with her _en famille_. It is said that the
empress is even more charmed with the sweet and gentle manners of Madame
Rossi, than she was with all her surpassing talents.
* * * * *
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