of the Opera. “That metamorphosis, that transformation on the stage,
which some actresses obtain in a fashion so marvellous, the
Saint-Huberty pushed beyond the bounds of imagination, thanks to
incredible labours, thanks to victories achieved every day over her
unpleasing person, thanks to acquisitions apparently impossible, thanks
to a remarkable intelligence, thanks to a very wide knowledge of the
theatre and all its effects, thanks to a profound study of the
characters she represented, whose sentiments and emotions of the soul
she rendered, so to speak, ‘in a palpable manner,’ thanks, finally, to
what her talent possessed of her heart and of the passion which dwelt in
her. And she succeeded in effecting a well-nigh physical transformation;
in giving to her figure nobility, elegance; in moving with gestures of
pride or of touching grace. And she appeared seductive and desirable to
the amorous eyes of the audience.”[188]
* * * * *
The great services which Madame Saint-Huberty had already rendered to
the Opera, and the wonderful talent which she had displayed in the
various difficult rôles entrusted to her, made the administration keenly
alive to the importance of definitely attaching to the theatre an
artiste of such exceptional ability, whose value to them was immensely
enhanced by the approaching retirement of Mlle. Laguerre and the decline
of Rosalie Levasseur. During the year 1782, Madame Saint-Huberty had
only received 5500 livres, a very inadequate remuneration for the
attraction which she exercised over the public; and, fully aware of her
own value, she had been at no pains to conceal her dissatisfaction. On
November 22, 1782, La Ferté, the Intendant des Menus, wrote to Amelot,
the Minister of the King’s Household, pointing out the importance of
having the matter settled without delay. “She (Madame Saint-Huberty) is
a very troublesome person,” he says; “but we cannot dispense with her,
in view of the indifferent services and the unwillingness of the
demoiselle Levasseur. All that we can hope for is that the dame
Saint-Huberty will make the conditions as little onerous as possible,
and I suppose there will be no hesitation in according her the Court
pension of 1500 livres destined at first for the demoiselle Laguerre.”
After some further correspondence on the subject, the prima donna was
invited to formulate her demands. They were as follows:
(1) 3000 livres ordinary salary.
(2) Payment of firing, lights, and so forth.
(3) An annual _gratification extraordinaire_ of 3000 livres.
(4) A pension of 1500 livres on the musical establishment of the King.
(5) A _congé_ of two months every year, including the Easter recess.
This was, of course, to enable her to “star” in the provinces.
(6) None of her rôles to be entrusted to any other actress, save at her
own request.
La Ferté agreed readily enough to four of these proposals; indeed, the
first two had already been accorded, while, as we have just seen, he
himself had recommended the granting of the fourth. But he annotated the
third: “To promise it when circumstances permit”; and he declared the
sixth “impossible, as being contrary to the regulations.”
Madame Saint-Huberty’s reply was to temporarily retire from the Opera,
on the plea of ill-health, and to announce that she contemplated leaving
the stage altogether.
Then La Ferté submitted to Amelot an arrangement whereby the sum of 8000
livres a year was assured to the singer, independently of allowances for
firing, lights, and so forth, and of a pension of 1500 livres on the
musical establishment of the King, which would give her an annual income
of 9500 livres. She was also to be permitted to give two private
concerts every year, the expenses to be borne by the administration of
the Opera. These, it was calculated, would bring her another 3000
livres. Finally, she was to be granted the _congé_ she demanded, on
condition that she should not take it at a time when her services were
particularly necessary to the Opera or during the visit of the Court to
Fontainebleau.
On February 27, 1783, the Minister wrote to Madame Saint-Huberty, to
inform her of these proposals, as follows:
“Rendering to your talents and your zeal, Mademoiselle, all the justice
that they deserve, I afforded myself the pleasure to give an account of
them to his Majesty, who, in consequence, has willingly consented to
authorise me to announce to you that he has placed you on his musical
establishment for the sum of 1500 francs, to begin from January 1, 1782,
which gives you the benefit of a year in advance. Secondly, to complete
by a _gratification_ an annual salary of 8000 francs at the Opera; that
is to say that, supposing your place of first subject should only
produce, for example, 7000 francs, then the Court would give you 1000
francs to make up the 8000 francs. You will also be accorded every year
a _congé_ of two months. Finally, his Majesty consents to your giving
every year, if that be agreeable to you, two concerts for your own
benefit. His Majesty’s intention is that ‘these particular favours
should remain entirely secret.’ I am very pleased at having been able to
contribute towards securing them for you. You will kindly advise me
promptly of the receipt of this letter.”
To this letter Madame Saint-Huberty vouchsafed no reply; and, after
waiting until the middle of March, the Minister wrote again:
“The King inquired this morning, Mademoiselle, what reply you had made
to the letter which he authorised me to write to you. His Majesty was
not a little surprised when I informed him that I had not yet received
it. He charges me to demand of you a positive reply as promptly as
possible. I do not doubt that it will be such as the King has the right
to expect.”
But this letter, like the first, remained unacknowledged.
In the face of the obstinate silence of the actress, supported by public
opinion, which now began to declare itself in her favour, the Minister’s
position became so embarrassing that La Ferté counselled him, on the
occasion of a concert given at his hôtel, in which Madame Saint-Huberty
was to take part, to have recourse to the following little stratagem.
He advised Amelot to speak privately to the singer before the concert
began, and, in the event of his failing to obtain a satisfactory reply,
all the Minister’s personal friends, by previous arrangement, should
demand of Madame Saint-Huberty, after she had concluded her song,
whether she had definitely decided to remain at the Opera, and that
Amelot should then announce that he had done everything in his power to
retain her services. The luckless Intendant des Menus saw in this
species of public explanation the only way of giving the lie to the
report spread everywhere by the actress that she was leaving the Opera,
because she found it impossible to obtain adequate remuneration.
Finally, on March 20, 1783, the Minister, the Intendant, and the
administration of the Opera were forced to capitulate and to submit to
all the conditions imposed by the singer, stipulating only that Madame
Saint-Huberty should maintain the strictest secrecy concerning the
matter, lest the jealousy of her colleagues might lead them also to
demand higher salaries, and that she should engage to remain at the
Opera for eight years.[189]
And at the bottom of the letter in which Amelot announced their
surrender, the triumphant prima donna wrote as follows:
“In conformity with the arrangements made in this letter, I engage
myself to remain at the Opera for the space of eight years, to
begin from the first of January, 1784.
“(Signed) DE SAINT-HUBERTY.
_Executed this 22 March 1783._
Eight months after her victory over the authorities of the Académie
Royale de Musique, Madame Saint-Huberty reached the apogee of her fame
by her impersonation of Dido, in Piccini’s celebrated opera of that
name.
When he had accepted the engagement which the Baron de Breteuil, the
French Ambassador at Naples, had offered him, Piccini had fondly
imagined that he would find a position at once honourable and tranquil.
He came to Paris, and had no sooner arrived, than he perceived that
those who had summoned him thither had been prompted by no other motive
than that of pitting him against the composer who was then
revolutionising the French lyric stage. The poor musician was naturally
much troubled by this discovery, but all arrangements were concluded,
and he had no option but to accept the situation.
Naturally amiable and modest, Piccini was the last man in the world to
engage of his own free will in this miserable war, which would doubtless
have speedily ceased, had it not been for the conduct of the
philosophers and men of letters, many of whom knew scarcely anything of
music and cared even less, but who, infected by the mania for
disputation so prevalent in the eighteenth century, rushed into the
contest with a violence as ridiculous as it was disastrous to the
interests of Art, and envenomed it by their epigrams and
recriminations.[190] That the labours of Piccini were adversely effected
by the false position in which he found himself there can be little
doubt, and his success, under such circumstances, is, therefore, all the
more deserving of admiration.
_Roland_ and _Atys_ had succeeded, in spite of the efforts of the
Gluckists, who had combated their success by every means in their power;
but _Iphigénie en Tauride_ failed. The struggle was unequal: Piccini,
though capable of contending with Gluck, was unable to conquer him.
Mortified, discouraged, eager only for rest and tranquillity, he
resolved to compose no more, but he had counted without his librettist
and faithful ally, Marmontel. The Maréchal de Duras, Gentleman of the
Chamber in waiting that year, had demanded of Marmontel an entirely new
opera, to be played before the Court during its annual sojourn at
Fontainebleau. Marmontel replied that he could promise nothing, unless
Piccini would consent to collaborate with him again, and suggested that,
in order to arouse the composer from the state of dejection into which
he had fallen, the marshal should persuade the Queen to change the
annual _gratification_ which the Italian had hitherto received into a
perpetual pension. And this the marshal readily promised to do.
“He asked for and obtained it,” continues Marmontel, “and when Piccini
went with me to thank him: ‘It is to the Queen,’ said he, ‘that you must
show your gratitude, by composing for her this year a fine opera.’
“‘I do not ask anything better,’ said Piccini, as he left us, ‘but what
opera shall it be?’
“‘We must compose,’ said I, ‘the opera of _Didon_. I have long been
revolving the plan of it. But I forewarn you that I mean to unfold my
ideas at length; that you will have long scenes to set to music, and
that in these scenes I shall require a recitative as natural as simple
repetitions. Your Italian cadences are monotonous; the accents of our
language are more favourable and better supported. I beg you to mark it
down in the same manner as I repeat it.’
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘we shall see.’
“In this manner we formed the design of bestowing on recitative that
ease, that truth of expression which was so favourable to the
performance of the celebrated actress for whom the character of Dido was
intended.
“The time was short: I wrote the poem with great rapidity, and, in order
to withdraw Piccini from the distractions of Paris, I invited him to
come and compose with me in my country-house, for I had a very agreeable
one, where we lived as a family during the summer months. On his arrival
there, he set to work, and when he had completed his task,
Saint-Huberty, the actress who was to play the part of Didon, was
invited to come and dine with us. She sang the part, at night, from
beginning to end, and entered into the spirit of it so thoroughly that I
fancied she was on the stage. Piccini was delighted.”[191]
At the moment when Marmontel and Piccini judged it advisable to put
_Didon_ into rehearsal, Madame Saint-Huberty was entitled to the annual
_congé_ which she had stipulated for and obtained some months
previously; and she had made arrangements for a tour in Provence. She
took her part with her, however, telling the authors that they could
rehearse the opera without her, as they could rely upon her knowing her
music quite thoroughly before she returned, and probably before any one
else would be ready.
The rehearsals began at Fontainebleau, the part of the heroine being, as
a rule, taken by a chorus-singer, who, without attempting to sing Madame
Saint-Huberty’s music from beginning to end, read the part and did her
best to replace the prima donna in the concerted pieces. On two or three
occasions, however, Mlle. Maillard, a young actress, for whom the
Intendant La Ferté had a very pronounced _tendresse_, was entrusted with
the principal rôle.
The real Dido, meanwhile, was making a high successful tour in Provence,
where she was everywhere received with enthusiasm. At Aix, she caught
such a severe cold that for a time she lost her voice, but had,
fortunately, fully recovered its use by the time she returned to Paris.
“The part of Didon,” she wrote to one of her friends in Provence,
“having been composed for me, for my voice, and being the only very
interesting part in this piece, it will be impossible to give it
anywhere without me. This looks like conceit on my part, but I will
explain the matter to you. The part of Didon is _all acting_. The
recitative is so well composed that it is impossible to sing it.
“An immense number of persons had attended the early rehearsals of
_Didon_, and had come to the conclusion that it was one of Piccini’s
worst productions. But Piccini consoled himself by saying: ‘Wait till my
Didon comes!’ At the first rehearsal, which took place with myself in
the part, every one said: ‘Ah! he has recomposed the greater part of his
opera!’ And yet only four days had elapsed since the previous rehearsal.
Piccini heard it and remarked: ‘No, Messieurs, I have altered nothing in
the part. But until now _Didon_ was being played without Didon.’”
From which letter it will be gathered that undue modesty was not one of
Madame Saint-Huberty’s failings.
The day of the first representation drew near. The great singer resolved
to carry out a radical change in her costume. She held, as Mlle. Clairon
had held, that in order to faithfully represent the personages of
antiquity, it was absolutely essential to investigate their manners and
their characters, and to ascertain exactly the garments which they were
in the habit of wearing.[192] She regarded the theatre as a picture
which cannot hope to produce illusion, save by the fortunate accord of
all its elements, and she was far from meeting with this accord in
tragedy, in which the verse transported the audience to Rome or Sparta,
but in which one saw appear Greeks wearing brocaded robes, with turbans
on their heads, and Roman ladies with long trains borne by pages.[193]
This time she succeeded better than in _Ariane_, and went to the extreme
of simplicity. She announced that the costume she proposed to adopt was
an exact copy of a design by Moreau _le jeune_, sent from Rome, where
the artist then was. The tunic was of linen, the buskins laced on the
bare foot, the crown encircled by a veil, which fell down her back, the
mantle of purple, the robe fastened by a girdle below the bosom.
We may imagine the astonishment of the committee of the Opera, of La
Ferté, and of Amelot, when Madame Saint-Huberty, with Moreau’s design in
her hand, insisted that a costume exactly resembling it should be
forthwith ordered for her. “She thus dared to patronise new ideas and to
introduce to the Opera a costume designed by this reformer, whom they
believed they had conquered.”[194] All the authorities were up in arms
against these exorbitant pretensions, but the actress’s genius had
rendered her all-powerful; her wishes could no longer be ignored, and
they were obliged to yield. But every day the lady became more exacting
in her demands, and poor La Ferté was driven to his wits’ end to satisfy
them. “I have just ordered Madame Saint-Huberty’s robe,” he writes to
Amelot; “but it is terrible!” And again: “I have endeavoured to satisfy
Madame Saint-Huberty’s caprices in making her decide to content herself
with some changes in her robe for the part of Didon!” Unhappy Intendant!
The actress was now indeed taking an ample revenge for the rebuff she
had sustained in _Ariane_.
* * * * *
_Didon_ was at length presented on October 16, 1783. It was a dazzling
triumph for both composer and actress. Never had such enthusiasm been
witnessed at the Court. Louis XVI., though, as a rule, he did not care
for opera, was delighted and declared that “this opera had given him as
much pleasure as a fine tragedy.” To mark his satisfaction, he at once
decided that a pension of 1500 livres should be bestowed on the
principal actress, and sent the Maréchal de Duras to compliment her and
inform her of the pleasure she had afforded him.
“This,” writes one who was present, “was the finest scene of the
evening. When the Maréchal de Duras arrived behind the scenes, followed
by a crowd of courtiers in gala dress, Madame Saint-Huberty had not yet
had time to change her costume. She was standing up, the crown on her
head, draped in the purple mantle of the Queen of Carthage. Marmontel
and Piccini, intoxicated with joy, had thrown themselves at her feet and
were kissing her hands. One would have called them two criminals, whose
lives she had just spared. They only rose when M. de Duras approached to
repeat what the King had said. The actress listened to the marshal, and
her countenance, still animated by inspiration, became illumined with
the joy of this new triumph. The blush of pride rose to her forehead.
She had so much grandeur, nobility, and majesty in her bearing, with
these men at her feet, that better even than when upon the stage she
conveyed the idea of the Queen of Carthage. All the great nobles present
had the appearance of being only her courtiers.”
Métra describes this scene in the ironical tone characteristic of him.
He represents Piccini precipitating himself at the feet of the singer,
and amorously squeezing her hand. He shows us Marmontel, although more
slow to bend the knee, employing vows and the most tender expressions to
assure her that she arouses in his heart the most novel and the most
lively emotions. And he concludes: “What a pleasing contrast to picture
to oneself in this scene Saint-Huberty, still clothed in the purple of
Didon, receiving with dignity the incense of great noblemen and men of
letters, and to behold her, as a voluptuary of the time found her, two
days later, in Paris, playing a game of piquet with her page, at the
end of a table covered with a coarse and dirty dishcloth!”
In Paris, the opera and the singer obtained an even greater triumph than
at Fontainebleau. The evening of the first representation (December 1,
1783) was “an evening of transports and delirium.” The public could not
find means to express its admiration. At the conclusion of the
impressive song,
“Ah! que je fus bien inspirée,”
the audience rose in a body and interrupted the performance with
frenzied applause. At the touching air,
“Ah! prends pitié de ma faiblesse,”
there was not, we are assured, a dry eye in the whole house. “What more
glorious triumph,” writes one of the actress’s biographers, “could this
poor artiste in her days of toil and misery have ever dreamed of!”[195]
Among the critics, not a dissentient voice was heard; all joined in a
chorus of praise of _Didon_ and the great lyric _tragédienne_. “Madame
Saint-Huberty,” wrote the _Mémoires secrets_, “played the part with the
highest talent. She excelled even herself, and showed herself not less a
great actress than an accomplished singer.” “It is the voice of Todi; it
is the acting of Clairon!” cries Grimm. “It is a model which has not
been seen on the stage for a long time, and will not soon be seen
again.”
And Guinguéné, in his valuable study of the life and works of Piccini,
writes: “The talent of this sublime actress has its origin in her
extreme sensibility. An air might be better sung, but it would be
impossible to give to any air, to any recitative, a truer, more
passionate expression. No action could be more dramatic than hers, no
silence more eloquent. One still recalls her terrible dumb-show, her
tragic immobility; and the awful expression of her countenance during
the long ritornello of the chorus of the priests, towards the end of the
third act, and while the chorus is being sung.
“At the performance she did no more than replace herself in the position
in which she had naturally found herself at the first general rehearsal.
Some one spoke to her of the impression she had seemed to feel, and
which she communicated to the whole audience.
“‘I really experienced it,’ she answered. ‘After the tenth bar, I felt
as if I were dead.’[196]
“This reply,” remarks Gaboriau, “reveals the whole secret of the great
lyric _tragédienne’s_ talent. An actress of genius, she knew how to keep
her head, but she surrendered her whole heart, her whole soul. She
really suffered the grief which she expressed in so heartrending a
manner; she really felt as if she were dying. And to such a point was
this true that, after each performance, she was so ill and exhausted
that she needed several hours to recover herself.”[197]
It has been said that Madame Saint-Huberty was an infinitely better
actress than she was a singer. This, however, was certainly not the
case. Castil-Blaze declares her to have been the first vocalist worthy
of the name who appeared at the French Opera; while one of her
biographers points out that Piccini would never have composed for her so
difficult an air as that beginning: “_Ah! que je fus bien inspirée_,”
had he not known her to possess a cultivated voice, full of charm and
expression.
But the best proof that she really could lay claim to exceptional vocal
as well as dramatic talent, and was not merely “an actress who spoke
song”--to borrow Grétry’s definition of Madame Dugazon--is the success
which attended her appearance at the “Concerts Spirituels,” where she
took her place beside Mara and Todi, and acquitted herself so well that
some critics went so far as to speak of her as a formidable rival to
these eminent singers.
The success of _Didon_ continued unabated. At each performance, Madame
Saint-Huberty “seemed to add something to the purity of tone, to the
truth of expression, to the profundity of sensibility which she had
displayed on the first evening.”[198] At each performance a fresh
ovation awaited her. On January 14, 1784, at the twelfth representation
of the Opera, she was the recipient of an honour which up to that time
was absolutely without precedent in France.
“At the end of the second act,” writes Grimm, “which terminated with the
pathetic trio between Énée, Didon, and her sister, a crown of laurel,
badly aimed, fell into the orchestra. The person at whose feet it fell
placed it on the edge of the stage. The public, with loud cries,
demanded that it should be placed on Didon’s head, which was done, by
the demoiselle Gavaudan, to the accompaniment of unanimous and
prolonged applause. The actress, surprised and almost overwhelmed with
confusion, experienced a shock so great that it was, for the moment,
feared that she would be unable to finish her part.... This crown of
laurel was tied with a white ribbon on which was embroidered these
words: _Didon et Saint-Huberty sont immortelles_.”[199]
Apropos of this coronation, La Ferté wrote to Amelot: