Alto

Alto
The Voice of Bel Canto

Dan H. Marek

R OW M A N & L I T T L E F I E L D
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
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Title: Alto : the voice of bel canto / Dan H. Marek.
Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2016] | Includes bibliographical
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 To Joyce DiDonato
in whom the highest standards of bel canto yet live
Contents

Musical Examples ix
Figures xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction xv

Part I:  The Alto Voice in the Baroque Era

  1  Mezzos and Contraltos 3
  2  Why Castrati? 5
  3  Altos in the Dawn of Opera 23
  4  Altos, Neapolitan Style 25
  5  Mr. “Hendel’s” Altos 31
  6  Faustina Bordoni and Il Caro Sassone 39
 7  Gluck’s Basses-Dessus and Mozart’s Altos 43
 8  Intermezzo 49
Part II:  Altos in the Romantic Revolution
 9  Cambio di Voce 57
10  The Swan of Pesaro and I Musici 59
11 The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta 69
12  Giuditta Pasta 81
13  Caroline Unger (Ungher): The Forgotten Prima Donna 95
14  Maria (Garcia) Malibran 99
15  Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 113
16  The Altos of Grand Opéra 133
17  “La Favorite,” Rosine Stoltz 137
18  Altos in Opéra Lyrique and Opéra Comique 141
19 The Bel Canto Altos of Bellini and Donizetti 149

vii
viii Contents

20  Verdi and Verismo Altos 159

21  German Romanticism, Wagner, Strauss, and the Alto Voice 167
22  The Russian Altos 175
23  Altos in the English-Speaking World 181

Part III:  Altos after 1900

24  Twentieth-Century Altos 189
25  Contemporary Alto Singers 201

Selected Bibliography: Books 223

Selected Bibliography: Articles, Essays, and Web Sites 227
Alto Singer Index 229
General Index 233
About the Author 241
Musical Examples

Musical Example 2.1.  “Son qual nave” from Ataserse by Riccardo Broschi 8
Musical Example 2.2.  “Qual nave smarita” from Radamisto by George Frideric Handel 19
Musical Example 4.1.  “Destrier che alle armi usato” from Poro by Nicolò Porpora 27
Musical Example 5.1.  “Ombra mai fu” from Serse by George Frideric Handel. Embellishment by Dr. Putnam Aldrich 36
Musical Example 8.1.  Mozart’s Letter about Lucrezia Agujari 49

ix
Figures

Figure 5.1.   Senesino (Francesco Bernardi) by Alexander van Haecken (1701–1758) after Thomas Hudson (1701–1779) 32
Figure 5.2.   Giovanni Carestini. Courtesy Clarissa Lablache Cheer 34
Figure 5.3.   Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano) by Pier Leone Ghezzi (c. 1740) 35
Figure 6.1.   Faustina Bordoni by Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757) 39
Figure 8.1.   Giuseppina Grassini by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842) 51
Figure 8.2.   Luisa Todi by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun 52
Figure 10.1.  Giuditta Pasta as Tancredi. Collection of the author 61
Figure 10.2.  Geltrude Righetti-Giorgi 64
Figure 11.1.  Isabella Colbran as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello. Courtesy Clarissa Lablache Cheer 70
Figure 11.2.  Marietta Alboni. Collection of the author 77
Figure 12.1.  Giuditta Pasta as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello. Collection of the author 81
Figure 13.1.  Caroline Unger (Ungher) 95
Figure 14.1.  Maria Malibran as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello by Henri Decaisne (1799–1852) 99
Figure 15.1.  Pauline Viardot from a photo by Erwin Hanfstaengl 113
Figure 17.1.  Gilbert-Louis Duprez and Rosine Stoltz in Donizetti’s La Favorite by Gabriel Lépaulle (1804–1886) 137
Figure 18.1.  Célestine Galli-Marié as Carmen by Henri Lucien Doucet (1856–1895) 142
Figure 18.2.  Emma Calvé as Carmen. Collection of the author 145
Figure 19.1. Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis as Fatima in Pietro L’Ermita (an alternate version of Rossini’s Mosé in Egitto)
by A. E. Chalon (1780–1860) 152
Figure 20.1.  Maria Waldmann by Mondel and Jacob, Wiesbaden 163
Figure 21.1.  Marianne Brandt by A. Erlich, repro. Albert H. Payne, 1902 170
Figure 21.2.  Ernestine Schumann-Heink as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Metropolitan Opera, 1902 171
Figure 22.1.  Yulina Platonova 176
Figure 23.1.  Clara Butt as Brittania 182
Figure 23.2.  Minnie Hauk as Carmen 184
Figure 23.3.  Louise Homer as Amneris in Aida. Collection of the author 185

xi
xii Figures

Figure 24.1.  Conchita Supervia by Antonio Esplugas (1852–1929) 191

Figure 24.2.  Giulietta Simionato as Santuzza by Louis Mélançon. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives 192
Figure 24.3.  Sigrid Onégin as Lady Macbeth by Schneider, Berlin. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives 193
Figure 24.4.  Kathleen Ferrier 197
Figure 25.1.  Risë Stevens as Octavian by Bender. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives 201
Figure 25.2.  Marilyn Horne as Adalgisa in Norma by Louis Mélançon. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives 203
Figure 25.3.  Frederica von Stade as Rosina by Heffernen. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives 204
Figure 25.4.  Cecilia Bartoli as Rosina by Minnie Klotz. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives 205
Figure 25.5.  Joyce DiDonato as Rosina by Ken Howard. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives 206
Dan H. Marek by Louis Marek 241
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my special thanks to the following three
scholars who have given me invaluable help in the preparation
of this book: Philip Gossett, the world’s outstanding authority
on nineteenth-century Italian opera, especially the works of Ros-
sini, has devoted a great deal of his valuable time in correcting
and editing my manuscript dealing with Isabel Colbran and
Rossini, as well as other aspects of the operatic vocal scene, both
in its historical and contemporary settings.
Dr. Paul Micio of the Sorbonne and critic of the Donizetti So-
ciety originally reviewed my Giovanni Battista Rubini and the Bel
Canto Tenors: History and Technique and offered many constructive
criticisms that have helped me immensely. Dr. Miscio then spent
several months editing my chapters on French repertoire and is
also an expert on good writing style. His generosity is amazing.
Alexander Weatherson, scholar and chairman of the Donizetti
Society, edited and corrected the chapters on Donizetti and printed
prepublication excerpts from this book in the Donizetti Society News-
letter. His input on the career of Rosine Stoltz was also very helpful.
xiii
Clarissa Lablache Cheer, a direct descendant of the great
basso Luigi Lablache, has generously contributed illustrations
from the Lablache Archive. Herr Rainer Rupp and Frau Heike
Haberl of the Simon Mayr Gesellschaft kindly provided infor-
mation on Mayr and his influence on Donizetti. Signor Sergio
Ragni, a scholar on the subject of Isabel Colbran, was very help-
ful on the subject of Rossini’s muse. Kenneth Stern, who wrote
a definitive book on the career of Giuditta Pasta, was the source
of much information on the great diva.
A special thanks to the late Robert Tuggle, John Pennino,
and John Tomasicchio of the Metropolitan Opera Archives for
help with the illustrations. I would also like to express appre-
ciation to my former senior editor at Rowman & Littlefield,
Bennett Graff, who was a great source of advice and encour-
agement to me. Thanks also to Natalie Mandziuk, acquisitions
editor, and Monica Savaglia, Erin McGarvey, Annette Van
Deusen, Theresa Phillips, and Darren Williams at Rowman
& Littlefield.
Introduction
Dr. Charles Burney (1726–1814), the English composer, musi-
cian, and historian whose works have been a fountainhead for
musicologists for more than two hundred years, neatly sums up
the long history of singing:
But every excellence in music when it has been pursued to ex-
cess is thrown aside to lie fallow till forgotten; and after a series
of years, like a fashion in apparel, it is started again as a new
invention. Great powers of execution depend on the natural
voice and peculiar talents of the singer; the exertion and use of
those powers, on the state of composition at the time. If sobriety
and simplicity reign, no great exertion will be allowed, however
capable the singer may be of performing extraordinary feats;
but if refinement, subtlety, high notes, or rapid divisions are the
mode, the singer must not submit to the limits of nature and
facility, but must torment himself day and night in attempting
impossibilities, or he will be heard with as much indifference as a
ballad-singer in the streets.1
This statement holds true today. The fantastic artistic feats of
the castrati, their female counterparts, and the women singers
called musici who replaced them in the early nineteenth century
are now being appreciated because of the efforts, first, of Mari-
lyn Horne (b. 1934) and now Cecilia Bartoli (b. 1966), Joyce
DiDonato (b. 1969), Vivica Genaux (b. 1969), Jennifer Larmore
(b. 1958), Ewa Podleś (b. 1952), and Sonia Prina (b. 1975),
among others. The operas of Francesco Cavalli (1602–1676),
Antonio Cesti (1623–1669), Leonardo Leo (1694–1774),
Leonardo Vinci (1696–1730), Niccoló Porpora (1686–1768),
Johann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783), and many other composers
xv
of the Baroque era would not engage our attention on stage
today despite the frantic efforts of stage directors intent on
engaging the eye instead of the ear. But the incredible ease of
obtaining recorded performances of these works on records
makes a new appreciation of vocal virtuosity possible. Now we
can concentrate on the beauty of the voices and the music, as we
should. Special effects are not new. In Venice of the seventeenth
century, whole armies and naval forces fought battles on the
stage, along with horses and chariots, as well as elephants.
In our time falsettists, called countertenors, such as David
Daniels (b. 1966) and Andreas Scholl (b. 1967) have valiantly
performed Baroque music, especially Handel, but the falsetto
voice has limitations that have been rejected throughout vocal
history. To my mind, the female alto voice is the most satisfying
performer of this music. The so-called coloratura soprano and
high tenor were unknown in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. As the baritone is considered the “normal” voice of
the adult male, so is the alto the “normal” voice of the female.
The fact emerges that the alto voice was the voice of bel canto for
more than 250 years. The composers wrote music of a moderate
range, and virtuosity—vocal, musical, and emotional—was the
standard by which artists were measured. Maybe it is time to
appreciate these virtues again.
NOTE
1.  Charles Burney, A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages
to the Present Period, vol. 4 (London: Payne & Son, 1789), 413–14.
I
THE ALTO VOICE IN THE BAROQUE ERA
1
Mezzos and Contraltos
Be not afeared; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.1
Like Prospero’s mysterious island, the passaggio2 can be a scary
place. This is the land of the contralto and mezzo-soprano, both
male and female. The problem of a smooth transition from one
register to the other is the same, regardless of gender, granting
that the passage is in the bottom of female voices and the top of
their male counterparts. Registration is a relatively clear-cut is-
sue for sopranos and basses, but the interior voices are forced to
continually pass back and forth across this no-man’s-land. This
is the source of much confusion because young singers are often
unsure about their vocal category. For example, young female
soprano singers who are auditioning for our school (Mannes
College of Music) often audition as mezzo-sopranos because
their top voices are deficient. Of course, their voices are lacking
in true mezzo or contralto color, and they are advised to work on
their problems technically to find their true voices.
The problems lie deeper. In a recent issue of Musical America
International Directory of the Performing Arts, there were listings
for 455 mezzo-sopranos and only 24 for contraltos! The Met-
ropolitan Opera lists mezzo-sopranos but no contraltos. What
happened? Has the female physiology changed that much in the
two hundred years since Gioachino Rossini’s (1792–1868) time?
Of course not! The answer is that natural contraltos, fearful of
being shut out of all of the juicy roles, call themselves mezzos in
order to work regularly. Luigi Lablache (1794–1858), the great
nineteenth-century basso, in his Method of Singing, threw up his
hands at this confusion, stating that “as for Contralto voices,
they are so varied in their capacities that it is impossible to pre-
scribe general studies for them.”3
Into this troublesome state of affairs we can toss the Broad-
way belters (women who drive the chest voice up into the
middle in order to sound more powerful), countertenors (male
falsettists), and the castrati, many of whom started as male
sopranos and whose voices gradually descended as they grew
older. Further adding to the confusion is the spectacle of gen-
der switching (en travesti), where we have males singing female
3
parts, like Curlew River by Benjamin Britten (1913–1976), and
females in male roles like the familiar Cherubino in Le nozze di
Figaro and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. In order to bring a
little order to this study, I will revert to the old name for these
voices—altos, which, curiously enough, means “high” in Italian
(alt in German).
The contralto voice is an acoustical instrument that is pitched
a minor third below the lyric soprano, while the mezzo-soprano
is only a half-step higher than the contralto. With this infor-
mation in hand, we can begin to understand mezzo-soprano–
contralto history. Throughout history, especially since the soprano
began to be singled out as the prima donna assoluta during the
beginning of the nineteenth century, mezzo-sopranos have lusted
after their notoriety (and fees). Many have decided to try the
soprano repertoire, with varying degrees of success. In studying
vocal history one continually runs across accounts of altos, such
as Maria Malibran (1808–1836) and her sister Pauline Viardot
(1821–1910), who consistently sang parts that today are the sole
province of sopranos. Certainly transposition played a part in such
forays. Modern singers such as Christa Ludwig (b. 1928), Shirley
Verrett (b. 1931), and Grace Bumbry (b. 1937) sang higher dra-
matic roles but felt more comfortable in lower altitudes. Regina
Resnik (1922–2013) began as a dramatic soprano but moved per-
manently down to mezzo/contralto roles. All of these singers were
probably more contraltos than mezzos, while higher mezzos, such
as Cecilia Bartoli and Frederica von Stade (b. 1945) would happily
sing ingenue parts such as Zerlina and Despina.
NOTES
1.  William Shakespeare, The Tempest (New York: Spencer Press, 1958),
3.3.136–37.
2. The passaggio (passage) is the Italian word for the region of the
voice, roughly from D above Middle C to the G above, where the voice
must pass from the chest register to the next register above.
3. Luigi Lablache, Abridged Method of Singing (Cincinnati, OH:
John Church, 1873), 9.
2
Why Castrati?
The main reason for the adoption of the castrato voice was that
by the end of the sixteenth century, falsetto singing was rejected
in artistic solo singing. Women were not allowed to sing in the
church, following the Pauline Dictum: mulier taceat in ecclesia
(women are to remain silent in the church). St. Paul (c. 5–c.
67) meant that women were not to preach or engage in theo-
logical discussion, but the church interpreted this as absolute,
so women were forbidden not only to speak, but also to sing.
In earlier times, the soprano line (descant) of the polyphonic
music was carried by boy sopranos, who were weak, musically
unreliable, and whose voices changed just when they were suf-
ficiently trained. It was necessary, therefore, for the alto male
singers to hold their voices back by the use of falsetto to blend
with the boys on the descant line. Practically all vocal music was
polyphonic, but with the invention of opera in 1597, it was nec-
essary to develop a more assertive solo sound. Giulio Caccini (c.
1560–c. 1615) renounced the use of the falsetto in solo singing
When a man sings a solo, he does not have to accommodate
himself to others as in ensemble singing, so that he should choose
a range which he can sing in natural voice without recourse to
the falsetto.1
Bernhard Ulrich also states:
It is possible that the falsetto was sufficient for less imposing times
and conditions. The advent of the castrati is an energetic renuncia-
tion of the falsetto. The degeneration of the art of the falsetto must
have set in with the introduction of the castrati. This happened in
the last half of the sixteenth century. Authentic information about
the use of castrati in singing during the preceding period is, so far as
I am aware, not yet known.2
A special method of producing the falsetto voice with more
power was supposedly developed in Spain during the sixteenth
century, and the papal choir imported most of its singers
(spagnoletti) from there. The papal choir under Pope Clement VII
(1478–1534) consisted of seven sopranos, seven countertenors
(altos), five tenors, and six basses. These treble voices were prob-
ably covert castrati. The last falsettist, Giovanni de Sanctis of
5
Toledo, sang in the Sistine choir from 1588 to 1625. The first
Italian castrati, Petrus Paulus Folignatus and Hieronymous Ros-
sinus were admitted to the papal choir in 1599. For the next 250
years, the Italian musici, as they were also called, both sopranos
and altos, dominated the choir. It is therefore clear that the in-
stitution of the castrati was developed at first, not in the theater,
but in the church. The last castrato, soprano Alessandro Moreschi
(1858–1921) sang in the Sistine choir until Pope Pius X (1835–
1914) banned the castrati in 1903. Moreschi can still be heard on
primitive recordings, but he was a very poor singer, and we cannot
get any idea of the glorious singing of the greatest of these artists
from them, although they are invaluable as historical documents.
During the a cappella period (1474–1640), the word mezzo-
soprano was unknown. The male soprano of that era sang in
about the same range as today’s mezzo; the lower treble voice
was called alto. This is not to say that there were no women
singers during the Renaissance. Since women were forbidden
to sing in church and in most places on the stage as well, they
usually appeared only in social situations. In the court of Fer-
rara, solo singing by women was encouraged. Francesca Caccini
(1587–1641), the eldest daughter of Giulio Caccini, was a fine
singer and composer. She was the first woman known to have
composed opera and was the highest paid musician on the staff
of the Medici family—employed as a singer, teacher, and com-
poser. Settima Caccini (1591–c. 1660), her younger sister, was
also a singer and composer said to have “an immortal reputation
having mastered to perfection the art of singing.”3 The famous
trio of the Bendidio sisters (Isabella, 1546–1610, and Lucrezia,
1547–1584) and Laura Peparara (c. 1560–c. 1601) were re-
ported by G. B. Doni (1594–1647) to have sung 350 madrigals
by memory during the period between 1579 and 1597.4
Women were also soloists in the intermedii (forerunners of op-
era) presentations and in the first operas in Florence. For the most
part, however, the alto parts were sung by men in choral music,
and the designation SATB still stands today. When the term alto
was first used, it meant a falsettist, later a castrato. In the early
sixteenth century, the alto line was called contratenor altus, which
became contralto, earlier misunderstood as a contraction of contra
6 Chapter 2
alto or “against the high.” However, the term contralto was rarely
used; the common term was alto.
Since the first third of the seventeenth century, the four
ospedali (orphanages for girls) of Venice were famous for the
quality of the performances by the girls. In 1737 Niccoló
Porpora held various posts in three of the ospedali—Incurabili,
Pietà, and Ospedaletto, which attests to the excellence of the
instruction to be found there. Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
was employed at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà for thirty years
and wrote most of his major works there, many for the girls of
the orphanage. Vivaldi claimed to have written ninety-four op-
eras but only about fifty have been found. He never achieved
the eminence of his great contemporaries and did not have
access to the greatest singers of his time, but Orlando furioso
(1727) has been a favorite of several alto singers, most notably
Marilyn Horne.
In 1774, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) re-
ported on a performance of Ferdinando Bertoni’s (1725–1813)
oratorio Saul furens by the female singers and orchestra of the
fourth Venetian ospedale, the Mendicanti.
The women presented an oratorio from behind a grill in the
church, which was filled with listeners; the music was beautiful,
and the voices were magnificent. An alto sang the role of Saul,
the single figure in the libretto. I scarcely realized that such a
voice existed.5
Today there is quite a lot of interest in the subject of the
castrati. The film Farinelli (1994) and Cecilia Bartoli’s Sacri-
ficium recording convey quite a lot of information, although
Farinelli is largely fictional. It is very difficult for modern
audiences accustomed to being marginalized by the pop music
industry to understand why the Italians of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries would ever consider having their children
sacrificed in such a manner, just for music’s sake. However, if
we consider the ubiquity of pop music today, we can begin
to understand the importance of opera in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century Italy. The church and the opera house
were the centers of social activity. In Venice, a city of around
250,000 people, there were six opera houses operating simulta-
neously. Opera (seria) was in demand in every city and court in
the land and there was intense competition for the best singers
and composers. Most of the singers were attached to courts
where they were required to furnish the entertainment as well
as participate in religious ceremonies. A few became fabulously
wealthy and famous and attained a level of virtuosity never
before or since achieved.
In such a “seller’s market,” there was ample opportunity
for abuse. Superstition led some impoverished parents to
believe that the operation itself would be enough to ensure
their child’s fortune and a comfortable old age for themselves.
There are estimates that some four thousand children per year
were subjected to castration at the height of the eighteenth
century.6 Most were Italian but there was some such activity in
Germany. Very few achieved fame or riches, and the vast ma-
jority were relegated to miserable lives in church choirs or were
minor abbés or servants. Some were even prostitutes.
The act of castration itself was never sanctioned and carried a
penalty of death or excommunication at the very least, so it was
a clandestine affair indeed. However, once the deed was done, the
victim was allowed to seek any career path open to him. Many
of the opera stars had stories about the accidents that rendered
them eunuchs—such as being attacked by a goose as a child or
falling off a horse. The operation itself was called an orchiectomy.
The typical castrato was not capable of procreation but was
able to have intercourse, a fact that has given rise to many
stories about their sexual exploits with noblewomen. “Sauce
for the goose is sauce for the gander,” especially when there is
no risk of unwanted pregnancy in such a patriarchic era. The
allure of the musico’s “rock star” status led to many abuses and
arrogance, just like today’s pop stars. There is a famous story
of an English noblewoman, in ecstasy over a performance, who
cried out “One God! One Farinelli!”
The church’s official stand, that sex is to be reserved solely
for procreation, made it impossible for the castrati to marry,
and this is the real tragedy of this story. A castrato’s connection
with the future could only be in their memories and in those
of their students.
The intervention into the endocrine system of a boy had a
number of physical consequences. The typical castrato grew
very tall with a smaller-than-normal head covered with a thick
head of hair. He was sallow, beardless, and some exhibited
female-like breasts (gynecomastia). The chest, quite large with
more expansion front to back at the sternum (called keel-chest
or pectus carinatum), which, along with strenuous breathing
exercises from boyhood, enabled the singer to expand the
lungs much farther than normal, resulting in a stupendous
breathing capacity.
The castrato has to be seen as a “singing machine” constructed
simply and solely by making use of the laws of biology. The
underlying principle was that of exploiting and strengthening
in adult human beings certain features characteristic of the
boy’s voice. Among “white” voices, the boy’s voice is that which
in the natural range known in vocal jargon as “chest voice” has
the largest number of notes from b flat to d’’ or e’’. Fairly often,
therefore, the range is to f ’’, which means that from ten to thir-
teen notes can be sung with full voice in the chest register, as
against approximately half that number in the female soprano
voice. The advantage is obvious if we consider the strength, the
fullness, the “bite” of the chest or “natural voice” as compared
with the more penetrating but less vibrant and rounded sounds
of the female “head voice.”
Thus orchiectomy inhibited the growth of the larynx before
the voice broke, in other words before the boy, because of the
lowering of the sounds by an octave which takes place in the
adult, took on the characteristics of a man’s voice. An operation
was therefore carried out on the testes (by binding the testicular
cord and possibly even by removing the testes in certain cases),
the result being—the effect was known at the time but not the
cause—a stoppage of the secretion of testosterone, the hormone
that causes the growth of the larynx.7
These physical characteristics, combined with strenuous
and thorough training carried on from boyhood, enabled the
castrati to access extraordinary vocal feats of phrasing, flex-
 Why Castrati? 7
ibility, agility, dynamic control, power, and range. Without
question, many of the female singers of the period trained by
the same methods, such as Faustina Bordoni (1697–1781),
Vittoria Tesi (Tramontini) (1700–1775), and Francesca Cuz-
zoni (1696–1778), were almost the equal of the evirati but
never reached the heights of such great singers as Farinelli
(Carlo Broschi, 1705–1782), Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano,
1710–1783), Giovanni Carestini (c. 1705–c. 1759), and
Senesino (Francesco Bernardi [1690–?]). The competition be-
tween singer and instrument is the story of a famous anecdote
by Burney about Farinelli and a trumpet player:
when he was seventeen he went to Rome with Porpora. During
the run of an opera there was a struggle between him and a famous
player on the trumpet. It started as an amiable and sportive contest
until the audience began to take sides. After severally swelling a
note, in which each manifested the power of his lungs and tried
to rival each other in brilliancy and force, they had both a swell
and shake together, in thirds, which was continued so long, while
the audience eagerly awaited the event that both seemed to be
exhausted and, in fact, the trumpeter wholly spent, gave it up,
thinking that his antagonist was as much tired as himself and that
it would be a drawn battle, when Farinelli, with a smile on his
countenance, showing that he had only been sporting with him
all the time, broke out all at once in the same breath, with fresh
vigor, and not only swelled and shook the note, but ran the most
rapid and difficult divisions and was at last silenced only by the
acclamations of the audience. From this period may be dated that
superiority which he ever maintained over his contemporaries.8
As the castrati grew older, their voices reflected a slow
mutation so that they moved lower in pitch, a soprano often
finishing his career as a contralto. The boyish voice took on a
tenor quality in the bottom that was much louder and more
brilliant than any female mezzo-soprano or contralto. Dr. Bur-
ney reported hearing Gasparo Pacchierotti, who had a range
of more than three octaves, sing tenor arias in their original
keys. The most important point was that the castrato voice
retained the quality of a boy’s voice, but because it was driven
by the strength of a grown man, it was much more powerful
and penetrating.
During the seventeenth century the librettists and compos-
ers were drawn to idyllic Acadian types of metaphors, such as
descriptions of rivers and the sea, comparing them to feelings
of love. There were also imitations of birdsong and expressions
of fury and vengeance. However, as vocal technique advanced
into the eighteenth century, artists such as Antonio Bernacchi
(c. 1690–1756), Carestini, and Farinelli were able to perform
dazzling feats of virtuosity such as lung-bursting runs, wide leaps
(con slancio), trills, and martellato effects in so-called tempest
arias that compared the fury of storms at sea with the raging of
the human heart. Farinelli, considered a soprano with a three-
octave range, was a law unto himself but mostly sang in the alto
range. One of the most famous of these arias was “Son qual
nave” from Ataserse (1734), by Farinelli’s brother, Riccardo Bros-
chi (1698–1756). It is performed beautifully by Cecilia Bartoli
in the Sacrificium recording.
Musical example 2.1.  “Son qual nave” from Ataserse by Riccardo Broschi
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
Musical example 2.1.  (continued)
 Why Castrati? 19

The “tempest” aria was not only effective for the male singers,
and it did not have to be an aria agitato. The aria “Qual nave
smarrita tra sirti e tempesta” from Radamisto (1720), one of
Handel’s first “tempest” arias, was written for Margherita Du-
rastanti (1686–1734). Radamisto was later revived with Senesino
in the title role.
There were also tempest arias written for sopranos after Cuz-
zoni, the first great high soprano, who created the role of Cleopa-
tra in Giulio Cesare (1724). “Da tempeste il legno infranto” has
been happily twittered by legions of sopranos ever since. To my
mind, the raw power and resonant voice of a contralto like Mari-
lyn Horne in “Furibondo spira il vento” from Partenope (1730) is
far more satisfying. The powerful alto voice is the best choice for
the tempest aria. We see, therefore, that composers for a period
of more than two hundred years were writing music of a moder-
ate range to accommodate the alto voice, both male and female.
Screaming high notes was quite beside the point, and the soprano
“diva” only gained ascendancy in the early nineteenth century.
Basses and tenors were relegated to character roles, so we can truly
say that the alto voice was the voice of bel canto.

Musical Example 2.2.  “Qual nave smarita” from Radamisto by George Frideric Handel
Musical Example 2.2.  (continued)
 Why Castrati? 21
Musical Example 2.2.  (continued)
NOTES
1.  Bernhard Ulrich, Concerning the Principles of Vocal Training during
the A Cappella Period and until the Beginning of Opera (1474–1640),
trans. John Seal (Minneapolis, MN: Pro Musica Press, 1973), 98.
2. Ulrich, Concerning the Principles of Vocal Training, 100.
3.  Susan Parisi, “Settima Caccini,” The New Grove Dictionary of
Opera, vol. 1, ed. Stanley Sadie (New York: Oxford University Press,
1997), 669.
4. Ulrich, Concerning the Principles of Vocal Training, 93–94.
5. Jane Baldauf-Berdes, Women Musicians of Venice, 1525–1855
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 242.
6.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers (New York: Simon & Schus-
ter, 1966), 38.
7. Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 108–9.
8.  Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in France and Italy
(London, 1773; New York: Broude Brothers, 1969), 213–14.
3
Altos in the Dawn of Opera
Theatrical productions integrated with music and songs have
gone on for thousands of years. Certainly the ancient Greeks
included music with their plays, and it was as an attempt to
re-create the Greek drama by a group of Florentine scholars and
noblemen called the Camerata that the strange hybrid called
opera was born. It is generally agreed that the first opera was
Dafne by Ottavio Rinuccini (1562–1621), with music by Ja-
copo Peri (1561–1633) and Jacopo Corsi (1561–1602) in 1598.
In these early operas the contralto voice, like the tenor and bass,
was mostly assigned to character roles. In Dafne (1608), on the
same libretto with music by Marco da Gagliano (1582–1643),
the performer receiving the highest praise was Antonio Brandi
(fl. 1600–1610), an alto castrato (Burney calls him a counter-
tenor), as the shepherd-messenger Tirsi.
Venice was the most important center for opera in the latter
half of the seventeenth century, and its influence spread to all
the major European cities. The first theater fully devoted to
opera production, the Teatro San Cassiano, opened in Venice in
1737. The castrati, both alto and soprano, were “the stars of the
show.” A visitor to Venice who reflected the French distaste for
the castrati had this to say:
There is also one Thing that charms them, which I believe would
not please you; I mean those unhappy Men who basely suffer
themselves to be maimed, that they may have finer Voices. The
silly Figure! which, in my Opinion, such a mutilated Fellow
makes, who sometimes acts the Bully and sometimes the Passion-
ate Lover, with his Effeminate Voice and wither’d Chin is such a
thing to be endured?1
Because Roman ecclesiastical authorities did not permit women
to appear on stage in a public theater, many fine women singers
were forced to emigrate from there and the Venetian opera was
born. The Roman contralto Giulia Saus Paolelli (fl. 1633–1653),
who was Penelope in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria in
Bologna and Venice in 1641, was one of the first “divas” in oper-
atic history. The high soprano that we equate with this title was
unknown during this time and well into the eighteenth century.
23
As regards women’s voices, in exactly the same way as both his con-
temporaries and his predecessors, Monteverdi uses two: the con-
tralto or male alto, and a type of voice which is soprano in name
but never sings in very high tessituras or over a very wide range,
and in any event simply coincides with the mezzo-soprano voice.2
In L’incoronazione di Poppea, one of the most beautiful arias,
“Oblivion soave” is sung by Poppea’s nurse Arnalta, a contralto.
In keeping with the confusion about this voice, this role and
others portraying a lusty old woman have alternated between
a contralto and a countertenor (falsettist). Santa Marchesina
(fl. 1706–1739) was a famous contralto who specialized in this
kind of role, often serving as a foil between two buffo basses. In
modern editions of these works, these roles are often designated
as mezzo-soprano. Comic characters (often sung by contraltos)
were regularly inserted into serious operas of the seventeenth
century in much the same way that clowns give comic relief to
Shakespeare’s dramas. This practice died out in the eighteenth
century, however, and Handel only had one such episode in all
his operas—that of the character Elviro (bass) in Serse.
Pier Francesco Caletti-Bruni, known as Francesco Cavalli,
was an outstanding composer of the early Venetian school.
His opera Giasone (Jason) was “the single most popular opera
of the seventeenth century.”3 Giasone (1649), as well as Serse
(1655) and Pompeo Magno (1666), featured alto castrati in the
title roles, in keeping with the principle, established by Claudio
Monteverdi (1567–1643) and the Roman school that historical
and mythological heroes were to be portrayed by evirati, while
their love interests were generally portrayed by female sopranos.
The range of pitch of Cavalli’s operas was modest; the sopranos
(male and female) were mostly in the range of the mezzo-sopra-
nos of today, rarely exceeding the high A, but he moved toward
a more expansive style in his later works.
The most famous example of the Baroque court opera was
Il pomo d’oro by Pietro Antonio Cesti (1623–1669). It had five
acts, divided into sixty-six scenes, with twenty-four stage settings
and lasted for ten hours. There were ten separate roles written
for alto castrati.
24 Chapter 3
All the parts [in Il pomo d’oro] were sung by men, with the
quaint consequence that some of the male characters in the
opera have higher voices than the female ones—a situation
not uncommon in Italian seventeenth-century opera even
when there were women singers, for the composers favored the
woman’s alto voice and commonly reserved the soprano roles
for castrati.4
Some of these roles, such as Didone (Dido) and Medea,
expand the female roles to heroic proportions. Cesti’s writing
for the voice was not so different from Cavalli’s and other com-
posers of the time, but Celletti says that “it was with Antonio
Cesti that Venetian opera took a decisive step in the glorifica-
tion of the art of singing.”5
Other Venetian composers who were prominent in the latter
half of the seventeenth century were Carlo Francisco Pollarollo
(1653–1722), Antonio Sartorio (c. 1620–1684), Giovanni
Legrenzi (1626–1690), Pietro Andrea Zeani (c. 1620–1684),
and Giovanni Domenico Freschi (1640–1690). In general,
these composers tended to write more florid music for sopra-
nos than for altos, both male and female. However, there were
plenty of opportunities for the altos—for example, a proto-
type of the “mad” scene, so dear to Bellini and Donizetti, in
Legrenzi’s Totila (1677). The Roman consul Pubblicola (male
alto) loses his mind at the false news of his wife’s death at the
hands of the Goth invaders. In the same opera, the part of Ves-
tige (female mezzo-soprano), is written in the C clef, a rarity in
seventeenth-century opera. In Pollarollo’s Onorio in Roma, the
eponymous hero (male alto) sings one of the earliest imitations
of birdsong in “Usignoli che cantata.” In Cesti the coloratura
begins to take on effects borrowed from instruments, such as
the organ, violin, or harpsichord. The trumpet accompani-
ment in Sartorio and Legrenzi is used to distinguish royalty or
warrior heroes.
The Venetian influence on opera was not slow to spread to
other parts of Europe, principally the South German courts.
Two composers in residence there were Carlo Pallavicino (c.
1640–1686), the director of the first permanent opera house
in Dresden, and Agostino Steffani (1654–1728) in Munich
and Hanover. Both composers moved in the direction of more
florid figuration, increased velocity, expanded vocal range, and
extended arias, which led to the glorification of the singer’s art
in the da capo aria in the eighteenth century. Another technical
improvement was the necessity of the attainment of spectacu-
lar breathing capacity by the singers of the century to come.
The expansion of the vocal range introduced by Steffani is a
novelty. Agamennone (tenor) in Breisede (“Dolce magna è la
beltá”) reaches b’. The male alto rises to e’’; the (female) con-
tralto voice, which following the precedent in Pollarolo’s Onorio
in Roma we find used by Steffani in serious roles (Drusilla in
Servio Tullio and Lavinia and Semiamira in Turno), sings up
to d’’, a note unusual at the time for that vocal register, and
incidentally initiated by Steffani in Turno, with a fairly decided
virtuosity (e.g. Semiamira’s aria “Placidette belle aurette” in
imitation of the sighing of the wind.)6
NOTES
1.  Donald J.Grout, A Short History of Opera, 2nd ed. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1965), 100.
2. Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 36.
3.  Amanda Holden, ed., The New Penguin Opera Guide (New York:
Penguin Putnam, 2001), 159.
4. Grout, A Short History of Opera, 92.
5. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 43.
6. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 58.
4
Altos, Neapolitan Style
The other influence in the Italian opera of the eighteenth cen-
tury came from the south. Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725) has
been credited with being the founder of the so-called “Neapoli-
tan” school, but Grout states that he should be understood as
summing up the older tradition rather than as an initiator of a
new movement. Perhaps Neapolitan is a misnomer; some called
the style Galant or Rococo. While not inventing the ternary aria,
Scarlatti gave it greater breadth and range of feeling. Most vo-
cal students cut their eye teeth on such Scarlatti staples as “Gia
il sole dal Gange” from L’onestà negli amori and “O cessate di
piagarmi” from Pompeo, while never learning the art of improvi-
sation that goes with them. Scarlatti had a rather modern desire
to involve and stir the emotions of the listener much more than
a typical composer of the period that, in my opinion, caused
him to lift the tessituras of his works. However, he did not, as a
rule, give the singers extremely high notes to sing. The highest
note for his male altos and contraltos was usually E’’.
In the operas of his mature years, however, Scarlatti’s writing is
more virtuosic than that of Pallavicino or Steffani. This is par-
ticularly true of the male alto (Alfo in L’ammazone corsara, Elmiro
in Rosaura, Muzio in Scipione nelle Gallia, Adalgiso in Carlo, re
d’Allemagna) and of the female contralto voice which Scarlatti
uses in serious roles as early as Honesta negli amori (1680, role of
Rosmira) and carries to an unusual level of virtuosity for this type
of voice with Cunegonda in La principessa fedele.1
Scarlatti apparently wrote more than one hundred operas
but only about half are traceable, so we don’t know much
about who were in the casts. However, we do know that the
alto castrato Nicoló Grimaldi, called Nicolino (1673–1732), a
fellow Neapolitan, became famous in Scarlatti operas. Among
them were La caduta de’ Decemviri (1697), Muzio Scevola, and
Il prigioniero fortunato (1698). Nicolino also starred in Pirro e
Demetrio (1697), which introduced Italian opera to London in
1707. Both Antonio Bernacchi and Giovanni Carestini, two of
the greatest alto castrati, were in Griselda in 1721.
Others in the Galant school were Leonardo Leo and Leon-
ardo Vinci. Leo is best known for the commedia per musica,
25
which became immensely popular as a counterbalance to the
opera seria. These operas, mainly in the Neapolitan dialect, uti-
lized the contralto voice in character parts and were disdained
by the great castrato stars who only appeared in serious works.
However, Leo did compose opere serie in his early career and later
for Venice and Rome. Perhaps the best known was Andromaca
(1742), his penultimate opera seria, which starred the soprano
Giovanna Astrua (1720–1757) and the alto Gaetano Majorano,
called Caffarelli. Caffarelli hated prima donnas and he and As-
trua had a long history of conflict.
Caffarelli’s principal enemy was his own temperament; he was
notorious for overbearing arrogance both to fellow artists and to
the public. He had spells under house arrest and in prison, for
assault, misconduct at a performance of Latilla’s Olimpia nell’
isola d’Abuda (1741), when he indulged in indecent gestures and
mimicry of other singers, and for humiliating a prima donna
[Astrua] in Hasse’s Antigono (1745). He was constantly late for
rehearsals, and sometimes failed to turn up. He is said to mellow
in old age and given large sums to charity; Burney was charmed
by his politeness.2
Leonardo Vinci was the most important composer of the new
Rococo or Galant style of composition for opera (the so-called
aria opera), which featured recitatives alternating with as many
as twenty-five da capo arias. Accompaniments were simplified
and the melody emphasized. The casts were reduced to six stereo-
typed personages, which were arranged in a hierarchical order, the
principal romantic couple (primo uomo and prima donna) taking
first place. In locations where women were forbidden on the stage
(Rome and Lisbon), female parts were taken by young castrati.
The whole enterprise was designed to glorify the singer, whose
influence had never been higher before or since. This stripped-
down style even influenced Handel in some of his later operas.
After a period of composing buffo operas, Vinci ventured into
the realm of drammi per musica with Publio Cornelio Scipione
in 1722. The young mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni, usually
called simply Faustina, as Analgilda and Antonia Merighi (fl.
1711–1740, d. by 1764), contralto, in the male role of Lucejo,
26 Chapter 4
were equally praised for their work in this opera. Silla Dittatore
(1723), Vinci’s second drama per musica was written on the
same subject as Mozart’s Lucio Silla—the abdication of the
Roman dictator Sulla in 79 BC. The opera starred Nicolino as
Silla and Merighi again in a pants role as Pompeo. The great
contralto Vittoria Tesi sang the title role of Eraclea in Vinci’s
next opera along with the famous Farinelli in 1724.
Vinci went on to compose thirty-seven operas in a little
more than a decade of accomplishment. His greatest works
were Didone abbandonata, Siroe re di Persia, Catone in Utica,
Semiramide reconosciuta, Alessandro nell’ Indie, and Ataserse, all
written to libretti by his great friend Metastasio (Pietro Anto-
nio Domenico Trapassi) (1698–1782). Invariably, the princi-
pal characters were portrayed by alto singers such as Mariana
Benti Bulgarelli (La Romania) (? 1684–1734), a fine actress
who was Metastasio’s mentor (and mistress). The title role in
Didone abbandonata was written for her, but, in the premiere
in Rome, she was not allowed onstage and had to be content
to coach the alto castrato Giacinto Fontana (Farfallino) (fl.
1712–1735) in the female role of Dido. The role of Jarba was
sung by Gaetano Berenstadt (c. 1690–1735), an alto castrato
of German origin, who was one of the very few castrati who
were not Italian. Nicolino, Carestini, and Bulgarelli were all in
the cast of Siroe re di Persia in 1726. Il Medo (1728) featured
soprano Farinelli as well as altos Bernacchi and Tesi. Farfallino
then sang the eponymous role of Semiramide in 1729. Ales-
sandro nell’ Indie (1729) and Ataserse (1730) had three altos in
the cast—Carestini, Fontana (Farfallino), and Giuseppe Ap-
piani (1712–1742), a contralto and student of Porpora. Vinci
was an inveterate gambler and had money troubles all his life.
Moreover, he was often in trouble with amorous affairs.
Several years later in Naples, Charles de Brosses provides
more details, giving substance to the rumor: “they say that he
was insolent and having been punished more than once for
a gallantry he conducted too openly with a Lady, he died of
being poisoned.”3
As we study the careers of La Tesi, Bulgarelli, and Faustina
and those of the great alto castrati, we can begin to surmise that
the high soprano voice had no hegemony on the central roles in
the Baroque opera, especially those of Vinci, Hasse, and Handel.
The first so-called golden age of singing (there have
been several) was roughly the period from Antonio Lotti
(1667–1740) to George Frideric Handel (1685–1759). Lotti,
Giovanni Bononcini (1670–c. 1750), and Nicolò Porpora
were three composers who bridged the interval between Scar-
latti and Handel, the great master of the eighteenth century.
Lotti utilized several of the great altos who would become
more famous in the decades to come—the alto castrato Fran-
cesco Bernardi (Senesino), mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni,
and contralto Vittoria Tesi. In Burney’s words, Bononcini
“continued during his whole life [to be] a friend to the voice
and a lover of simplicity.”4 He also stated that Bononcini was
an unsuccessful rival to Handel, but he was well regarded all
over Europe. This view is regarded today as somewhat exces-
sive. Rodolfo Celletti (1917–2004) says:
From the strictly vocal point of view, he [Bononcini] writes best
among the composers of the first half of the eighteenth century,
and Handel borrowed from him a number of patterns, and
indeed from time to time the odd tune.5
Porpora is remembered today as one of the greatest voice
teachers of all time, but he was also a composer who expanded
the degree of virtuosity (some might say empty virtuosity) in
the opera seria by exploiting the talents of his famous pupils.
He was the teacher of the great castrato soprano Farinelli and
the alto Caffarelli, as well as many others. Franz Haböck, in his
monumental unfinished study Die Gesangkunst der Kastraten,
published forty-two arias that were sung by Farinelli. They
were composed by most of the greatest composers of his time
including nine by Porpora. Rodolfo Celletti makes the follow-
ing observation about Porpora’s compositions:
In the Largos and Andantes of the best known operas (which in-
cidentally are few), Porpora adheres to the rule, which later be-
came universal, of keeping the voice in the middle of its range.6
This is an extraordinarily important point, because it reveals
what is often misunderstood about the art of the castrati. As we
try to peer back into the mists of vocal history, we tend to view
their art in terms of the subsequent history of Romanticism,
including Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) and Richard Wagner
(1813–1883) and all the other great composers of the last two
centuries. Perhaps because of the fact that human beings and
other animals tend to raise their voices in times of stress, com-
posers have tended to gradually rely on powerful high notes to
express increasingly dramatic texts. The outer limit of human
vocal endurance has been reached in the music of Richard
Wagner and others, such as in Verdi’s Otello and Strauss’s (1864–
1949) Elektra. Even in lyric music, the voice was often pushed to
extremes of pitch in the bel canto operas of Bellini and Donizetti.
This is not only the taste of the “groundlings.” In a recent
article in the New York Times about the return of James Levine
(b. 1943) to the podium after a long hiatus,
Then he [Levine] reminisced about the very first time he re-
hearsed at the Met in 1971, for a “Tosca” with the tenor Franco
Corelli. “I confess I love great high notes,” Mr. Levine said,
noting that many conductors in those days were reluctant to let
singers hold them for so long. “I came to a place where I knew,
in the last act, he would take this note and make a beautiful,
long diminuendo. And I held this with the orchestra. When
I did, the orchestra stopped, shuffled and applauded. I said,
‘What’s this?’ And they said, ‘It always drives us crazy—they’d
cut it, other conductors.’ They were all big Corelli fans, as it
turned out, which I thought was very cute.”7
This is not to say that this is necessarily a bad development,
but it is certainly different from the common style of the sev-
enteenth and eighteenth centuries.
During the Italian Baroque and Classical periods, composers
were not writing for posterity, but composing for the elevated
taste of mostly noble patrons and subject to the needs of the sing-
 Altos, Neapolitan Style 27
ers. Singers were well educated in both technique and musicality
to exhibit sprezzatura, or an easy grace, devoid of signs of struggle
in producing the tone, such as grimacing, violent gestures, shout-
ing, and off-pitch singing. Indeed, these faults have become
synonymous with opera in the minds of many in the modern
audience who have a hard time reconciling people screaming at
each other in foreign languages as singing about love.
While it is inherently dramatic, the Italian singing [seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries] we are studying is also a courtly art, one
of graciousness and good manners. The texts are invariably about
aspects of love, including joy, doubt, jealousy, and a thousand
other variations, but never extending to vulgarity and violence.8
So rather than envisioning the Baroque singers as a pack of
eunuchs screaming at the top of their lungs on impossibly high
pitches, an examination of the arias written for Farinelli, who
is always described as a soprano, reveals the astounding fact
that the arias are all in the middle range, almost never rising
above the staff. Sometimes the pitch descends as far as low G,
(a pitch half a step lower than today’s pitch). It is the fact that
these singers were males singing an octave higher than normal
that makes them seem to be so high. Therefore, the difference
between a soprano and an alto castrato was, in fact, rather
small. This is not to say that they were incapable of singing
higher notes, but as Celletti points out, the middle of the voice
was the norm. The effects they were after were contained in
the music and the text, and those who were able to add the
most beautiful improvised ornaments were considered the best
artists. Most of the composers of the period did not write out
these flourishes but left it up to the well-trained singers. How-
ever, Porpora did write out many of the embellishments and
paved the way for the extravagant opera seria of the eighteenth
century. The following excerpt is from Porpora’s opera Poro
Musical Example 4.1.  “Destrier che alle armi usato” from Poro by Nicolò Porpora
(1731), written for Farinelli. This aria is definitely in the alto
range and contemporary mezzo-sopranos such as Cecilia Bar-
toli, Joyce DiDonato, and Vivica Genaux have begun to mine
the forgotten riches of this repertoire in recordings.
In the eighteenth century, the acknowledged center for the
production of fine singers was the Bologna school, founded
by Francesco Antonio Pistocchi (1659–1726) in 1706. Until
then, as Galliard says, “Italian singing was a little crude.”9
Pistocchi was a child prodigy with a beautiful soprano voice
and also a talent for composing. When he was about sixteen,
he lost his voice—Burney says from “a dissolute life style,” but
Heriot thought the reason was probably from natural causes
during the period when castrati sometimes suffered some of
the same symptoms of the cambio voce that normal adolescents
do. In dire financial straits, Pistocchi turned to composing and
even worked as a music copyist. He was not content with this,
however, and by dint of sheer perseverance and technical study
he was able to restore his voice by 1687, but it was by then a
rich, full contralto. He appeared in operas all over Europe for
the next few years, observing the different styles and methods
of the various singers until his last performance in Albinoni’s
Il più fedele tra vassalli. Pistocchi then accepted a position of
Maestro di Cappella at Anspach, where one of his students
was Princess Carolina of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1713–1757),
later Queen Carolina, who became one of Handel’s staunch-
est supporters. After a successful career at Anspach, which
included leading the famous Brandenburg orchestra, Pistocchi
returned to Bologna, where he retired to a convent, teaching
promising young artists when it suited him. It was not as a
singer that Pistocchi is remembered, but, along with Porpora,
he was one of the great teachers of the period. Pistocchi’s back-
ground in instrumental music and composition led him to an
instrumental style in the vocal effects that he taught.
Musical Example 4.1.  (continued)
 Altos, Neapolitan Style 29
Musical Example 4.1.  (continued)
Leaving aside the technical advances which the castrati helped
to popularize, they must be given the credit for having intro-
duced and developed the taste which governed the best singing
of the Golden Age, and the inventor of which, according to
Tosi, was Pistocchi. The best concise and accurate definition
of this taste is probably that given by Tartini in his Trattato di
musica (1754): “It consists first and foremost in the voice of the
singer being produced with sweetness, control, power, sostenuto
when required, etc. Secondly it consists of appoggiaturas, trills,
rubato and protracted sounds, and methods of singing, natural
and artificial, adapted to cantilena, etc.”10
Some of Pistocchi’s students were guilty of corrupting
these virtues by indulging in empty virtuosic displays and
left him open to criticism. Probably the “chief corrupter” but
undeniably a great singer was the contralto Antonio Bernac-
chi. Pistocchi also produced the alto castrati Antonio Pasi (fl.
1704–1732) and Giovanni Battista Minelli (? 1687–d. after
1737), the great tenor Annibale Pio Fabri (1697–1760), and
Gizziello’s teacher Domenico Gizzi (1687–1758).
Bernacchi, like his mentor, originally had a deficient voice,
both in natural quality and also in technique. When he first ap-
peared on the stage, his best friends advised him to study with
Pistocchi or find another career. Bernacchi was received kindly
by Pistocchi, who provided several years of intense instruction.
During this time, Bernacchi refused to sing in public, even for
his closest friends. When he reappeared, he was judged, in Bur-
ney’s words, to be “the most refined and artificial singer of his
time.”11 I presume that the word “artificial” means that Bernac-
chi made up for the lack of natural talent by his great technique.
The Bologna school of Pistocchi emphasized a good strong
clear quality in the middle of the voice. Some mystery arose
as to how this clear middle sound was produced, and contem-
porary accounts spoke of singing “divisions from the chest.”
Today we would refer to this quality as middle register. The
singing of Marilyn Horne clearly illustrates this quality. Ber-
nacchi was a great exemplar of this technique, having previ-
ously exhibited a weak middle voice.
In 1727, Bernacchi and Farinelli were both cast in Orlan-
dini’s Antigona in Bologna. Farinelli was then twenty-two and
had had great successes in Rome, Naples, Venice, and Vienna.
In a duet, Farinelli showed off all his virtuosity, musicality, and
beauty of voice, then Bernacchi, called “the king of singers,”
not only matched all that his much-younger rival had done,
but added further variations of his own. The two became fast
friends and Farinelli entreated Bernacchi to give him lessons
in grazie soprafine (ultra-refined graces), which presumably
included singing in a strong middle register.
Farinelli and Giovanni Carestini then began to use this more
“engaged” singing to great applause. Bernacchi’s pupils included
Senesino, Carestini, Giambattista Mancini (1716–1800), and
30 Chapter 4
the great tenor Anton Raaff (1714–1797), Mozart’s friend and
the first Idomeneo.
Gaetano Orsini (1679–1750) was a contralto castrato serving
the imperial court in Vienna from 1700 to 1740. Mancini says
that he “had a gift for preserving in his old age a florid, mellow
and flexible voice.”12 Orsini appeared with Faustina Bordoni in
Spartico (Sparticus) by Giuseppe Porsile (1680–1750), a piece
that required great breath control and excellent command of
coloratura.
NOTES
1.  Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1991), 65.
2. Winton Dean, “Caffarelli,” The New Grove Dictionary of Opera,
vol. 1, ed. Stanley Sadie (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 677.
3. Kurt Markstrom, The Operas of Leonardo Vinci, Napoletano
(Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 1992), 336.
4.  Charles Burney, A General History of Music: From the Earliest
Ages to the Present Period, vol. 4 (London: Payne & Son, 1789), 116.
5. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 72.
6. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 73.
7.  Michael Cooper, “Met’s Maestro Heading Back to His Podium,”
New York Times, 23 September 2013, A1.
8.  John Glenn Paton, ed., 26 Italian Songs and Arias (Van Nuys,
CA: Alfred Publishing, 1991), 6.
9.  Pier Francesco Tosi, Observations on the Florid Song, trans. and
annotated M. Galliard, ed. Michael Pilkington (1743; repr., London:
Stainer & Bell, 1987), vii, 46.
10. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 115.
11. Burney, A General History of Music, 55–56.
12. Giambattista Mancini, Practical Reflections on Figured Singing,
trans. and ed. Edward V. Foreman (Vienna, 1774; Champaign, IL: Pro
Musica Press, 1967), 7.
5
Mr. “Hendel’s” Altos
Besides Rossini, George Frideric Handel was the composer
who most appreciated the alto voice. In thirty-six years, he
wrote forty-two operas, which included many roles for altos,
both male and female. Handel (often called Hendel in Lon-
don) had a fairly stable group of singers for whom he wrote
many of his most enduring masterpieces. Jane Barbier, con-
tralto (dates unknown; will proved 1757) appeared in Handel’s
first London operas—Rinaldo (1711), Il pastor fido (1712),
and Teseo (1713).
Margherita Durastanti was an Italian soprano who finished
her career in roles of a mezzo-soprano range. She was a very
good actress who frequently played male roles. She was in
the service of Marchese Ruspoli in Rome along with Antonio
Caldara (c. 1670–1736) and Handel, who composed the solo
parts in many of his finest solo cantatas for her. Durastanti was
the first singer for whom Handel wrote music especially suited
to her vocal qualities. John Keates says that she and Handel
were much in each other’s company in the summer of 1707
and their relationship could have been more than professional,
though there is no proof.
Durastanti created the title parts of Agrippina (1709) and
Radamisto (1720), and Cloelia in Muzio Scevola, a pasticcio
(1721), Gismondo in Ottone (1723), Vitige in Flavio (1723),
Sesto in Giulio Cesare (1724), and Tauride in Arianna (1724).
Handel brought Durastanti back in 1733 in revivals of Ottone
and Il pastor fido. Durastanti had a longer personal association
with Handel than any other musician. When she was in her
fifties, Lady Bristol reported to her husband that the other
singers were all “scrubbs except old Durastanti who sang as
well as ever.”1
Francesca Vanini (Boschi) (?–1744) was an Italian “pathetic
style” contralto who was married to Giuseppe Boschi, Handel’s
favorite bass. Along with her husband, she sang in twelve op-
eras in Venice including the part of Ottone in the premiere of
Handel’s Agrippina in 1709. Vanini was renowned for singing
male parts. She created the heroic part of Giofreddo in Rinaldo
for Handel in 1711. It is the first Italian language opera written
31
specifically for the London stage and was the most performed
of all of Handel’s operas during the composer’s lifetime.
Anastasia Robinson (c. 1692–1755), an Englishwoman, also
began her career as a soprano but switched to contralto, possibly
as a result of illness. As a soprano, she created the part of Oriana
for Handel in Amadigi di Gaula and Ode for Queen Anne’s Birth-
day. Then, as a contralto, she premiered Elmira in Floridante,
Matilda in Ottone, Teodata in Flavio, and most importantly,
Cornelia in Giulio Cesare. In all these operas Robinson was
teamed with another alto, Handel’s primo uomo, the notorious
castrato Senesino. In 1724, Senesino insulted Robinson and was
caned by her elderly husband, Lord Peterborough, to whom she
was secretly married. Senesino was forced to kneel at her feet
and confess that she was a “nonpareil of virtue and beauty.”2
Robinson had personal charm and enjoyed great popularity
despite her technical limitations, which Handel accommodated
by sometimes doubling her part with the orchestra.
Today, the best-known woman alto on Handel’s roster was
Faustina Bordoni, called simply “Faustina.” Bordoni was called
a soprano, but her range was b to g’’, today considered mezzo-
soprano. She was considered to be one of the greatest singers
of her time. Faustina was a very dramatic singer, beautiful, and
unequaled in coloratura work. Johann Joachim Quanz (1697–
1773), Frederick the Great’s flute teacher and an authority on
embellishment practice, was mostly alone in designating a spe-
cial category for the mezzo-soprano in this period. He wrote:
Faustina had a mezzo-soprano voice that was less clear than
penetrating. Her compass was now only from B flat to G [be-
low high C], but after a time [i.e., 1727] she extended its limits
downward. Her execution was articulate and brilliant. She had a
fluent tongue for pronouncing words rapidly and distinctly, and
a flexible throat for divisions, with so beautiful a trill that she
could put it in motion upon short notice just where she would.
The passages might be smooth or by leaps, or consist of itera-
tions of the same tone. She sang adagios with great passion and
expression, but these were not equally successful if such deep
sorrow were to be impressed on the hearer.3
32 Chapter 5
Faustina made her London debut as Roxana in the pre-
miere of Handel’s Alessandro in 1726. The aria “Brilla nell’
alma,” in the wonderful recording by Joyce DiDonato, gives
us an idea of what a brilliant singer Faustina was. She went
on to create four more parts for Handel—Alcestis in Admeto,
Pulcheria in Riccardo Primo (1727), Emiro in Siroe, and Elisa
in Tolomeo (1728). She also sang in a revival of Radamisto in
1728. Faustina’s rivalry with Francesca Cuzzoni is legendary
and supposedly culminated in a hair-pulling stage fight in
G. B. Bononcini’s Astianatte in 1727. Dr. John Arbuthnot
(1667–1735), a satirist who was an associate of Jonathan Swift
and the inventor of the John Bull character, wrote:
But who would have thought the Infection should reach the
Haymarket and inspire two Singing Ladies to pull each other’s
coifs? . . . It is certainly an apparent Shame that two such well
bred Ladies should call Bitch and Whore, should scold and fight
like Billingsgates.4
Lately, research has determined that it was the singers’ sup-
porters that instigated the fracas, and in the true tradition of
London journalism, the fight was greatly exaggerated in the
press. Faustina never returned to London after 1728.
Figure 5.1.  Senesino (Francesco Bernardi) by Alexander van
Haecken (1701–1758) after Thomas Hudson (1701–1779)
To illustrate the point that altos in Handel’s time were rela-
tively interchangeable, let us look at the casts for Radamisto, the
first opera he composed for the newly formed Royal Academy of
Music in April 1720. The part of Radamisto, son of Farasmane,
was sung by Margherita Durastanti (soprano) and Zenobia, his
wife, by Anastasia Robinson (contralto). In the revised version,
December 1720, Senesino (alto castrato) assumed the role of
Radamisto and Durastanti the role of Zenobia. In 1728, Faustina
Bordoni (mezzo-soprano) sang Zenobia. To add further to the
confusion, the part of Tiridate, king of Armenia, was first sung
by a tenor and subsequently by a bass. Tigrane, prince of Pontus,
was sung by three different voice types—first by soprano Ca-
terina Galerati ( fl. 1701–1721), then by soprano castrato Matteo
Berselli ( fl. 1708–1721), and finally by alto castrato Antonio
Baldi ( fl. 1714–1735).
The first important alto castrato for Handel was the afore-
mentioned Nicolino, who was the finest artist of his generation.
He was certainly the first top-ranking castrato to come over for
any length of time, and but for him it is possible that the Italian
opera would have proved no more than a passing vogue, as it
had in France, and would have succumbed before a combina-
tion of national prejudice and the fact that it was in a language
incomprehensible to the majority of the audience.5
Nicolino was born in Naples and flourished in Venice from
1700 to 1708. He was closely associated with the operas of
Alessandro Scarlatti, especially La caduta de’ Decemviri (1697)
and Muzio Scevola and Il prigioniero (1698). Nicolino was
praised as a fine actor as well as a singer. In 1708, Nicolino,
who had a taste for adventure, traveled to what was then the
wilderness of the London stage. His debut was in Pirro e Deme-
trio (1694) by Scarlatti, a huge success despite the opera being
considered absurd by Richard Steele (1672–1729) and others
in the English press. Nicolino’s biggest success came in Man-
cini’s Idaspe fedele (1710), where he engaged in mortal combat
with a stage lion while singing “Mostro crudel, che fai?” at the
top of his lungs.
Handel arrived in London in 1711 and featured Nicolino in
Rinaldo, his first opera there. Nicolino then returned to Italy,
but in 1714 he was briefly back in London to create Amadigi
di Gaule for Handel. He again took up residence in Venice and
for the next few years traveled back and forth between there and
Naples, singing in operas by Tommaso Albinoni (1671–1750),
Bononcini, Francesco Gasparini (1661–1727), Domenico Sarro
(1674–1744), Pollarolo, and Leonardo Leo. His most prized
possession was reputed to be the staff of St. Joseph, “which
flowered when he became betrothed to the Most Holy Virgin,”6
and which he “removed from the hands of heretics”7 in London.
He bequeathed it to the church of Real Monte in Naples where,
according to Heriot, it could still be seen in 1927.
Without question, the castrato Senesino (Francesco Ber-
nardi) was Handel’s most important singer. Heriot says that
there were three castrati named Senesino, all born in Siena.8
Bernardi was the most famous and the other two were gener-
ally known by their real names. There is very little known
 Mr. “Hendel’s” Altos 33
about Senesino’s early life. His dates have been given as 1686
to 1758, but that would have made him an almost exact
contemporary of Antonio Bernacchi, who is reported to have
been his teacher. He was probably younger than Bernacchi,
for he made his debut in 1707 in Venice. At any rate, he was
a spectacular success from the very beginning. If he was born
circa 1690, he would have been seventeen years old, a com-
mon age for castrati to begin their careers. Senesino sang in
many theaters in Italy in operas that are forgotten today by
such composers as Giovanni Maria Ruggeri (c. 1690–1720),
Giuseppe Boniventi (between 1670 and 1673–after 1727),
Antonio Lotti (1666–1740), Pollarollo, and Caldara. Between
1715 and 1717, he was engaged at the most important theater
in Italy, the San Carlo in Naples, where he appeared in six op-
eras, including Alessandro Scarlatti’s Carlo d’Allemagna and La
virtù trionfante. In September 1717, Senesino was engaged at
Dresden, where he was paid the princely sum of 7,000 thaler
and given a carriage for his personal use. He sang in Lotti’s
Giove in Argo (1717), Ascanio (1718), and Teofane (1719).
He was dismissed for insubordination after he refused to sing
an aria in Johann Heinichen’s (1673–1729) Flavio Crispo and
tore up the music of his castrato colleague Matteo Berselli (fl.
1708–1721). Senesino won laurels for his singing but, like
many castrati, his acting initially left much to be desired.
The Neapolitan impresario Count Zambeccari says of him
“Senesino continues to comport himself badly enough; he
stands like a statue, and when occasionally he makes a gesture,
he makes one directly opposite of what is wanted,” but audi-
ences in Venice and Vienna seem generally to have been de-
lighted, and his appearance at the Saxon court opera at Dresden
in 1719 was on the crest of a wave of recent Italian successes.9
Mr. “Hendel” traveled to the continent to engage singers
for the second season of the Royal Academy of Music in 1720.
He was commissioned by his board of directors to engage
“Senezino” whose fame had spread to London. Handel heard
Senesino in Teofane and engaged the capricious musico for a fee
of 3,000 guineas. Quanz described Senesino:
He had a powerful, clear, equal and sweet contralto voice, with
a perfect intonation and an excellent shake. His manner of sing-
ing was masterly and his elocution unrivaled. Though he never
loaded Adagios with too many ornaments, yet he delivered the
original and essential notes with the utmost refinement. He
sang Allegros with great fire and marked rapid divisions from
the chest, in an articulate and pleasing manner. His counte-
nance was well adapted to the stage, and his action was natural
and noble. To these qualities he joined a majestic figure.10
Senesino remained with Handel’s company until 1728
and sang in all thirty-two of the operas produced during that
period. Among them were thirteen by Handel: Radamisto
(1720), Floridante (1721), Ottone (1723), Flavio (1723),
Giulio Cesare (1724), Tamerlano (1724), Rodelinda (1725),
Scipione (1726), Alessandro (1726), Admeto (1726), Riccardo
Primo (1727), Siroe (1728), and Tolomeo (1728). There were
also eight by Bononcini and seven by Attilio Ariosti (c. 1666–c.
1740). Senesino and Handel had at least one thing in com-
mon—volatile personalities. They parted company in 1728
with the closing of the academy.
In 1729, Handel was again on the continent in a search
of new singers for the Second Academy. He engaged a pretty
contralto, Francesca Bertolli (?–1767), who, along with Sen-
esino and soprano Anna Maria Strada del Pò (fl. 1719–1741),
sang in most of Handel’s operas. Bertolli appeared in fifteen
or sixteen operas as well as oratorio performances. Handel
composed nine parts for her—Idelberto in Lotario (1729),
Armindo in Partenope (1730), Gandartes in Poro (1731),
Honoria in Ezio (1732), Melo in Sosarme (1732), Medoro in
Orlando (1733), Ramisa in Arminio (1737), Leocasta in Gius-
tino (1737), and Selene in Berenice (1737).
In the revised and expanded 1732 oratorio Esther, Bertolli,
along with the other Italian singers, Senesino, Strada, and
the bass Antonio Montagnana (fl. 1730–1750), all coped
valiantly, if not altogether successfully, with the English text.
“You would have sworn it had been Welch,” commented one
audience member, who was disappointed to find “this Sacred
Drama a mere Consort, no Scenary [sic], Dress or Action.”11
To replace Senesino, Handel engaged the forty-four-year-
old Antonio Bernacchi, who appeared in two operas: Lotario
(1729) and Partenope (1730). Bernacchi had previously ap-
peared in Rinaldo and Amadigi for Handel in 1717. For good
measure, Bernacchi insisted on the inclusion of his mistress
(whatever that might mean), the contralto Antonia Merighi
as a member of the company. It turned out well, for Merighi
proved to be a good singer (advertised as a counter tenor) and
actress. She created Matilda in Lotario, Rosmira in Partenope,
and Erissina in Poro (1731). She was also heard in Giulio
Cesare, Tolomeo, Scipione, Rinaldo, and probably Rodelinda.
Some of these were soprano parts that Handel adjusted for
her. Merighi defected to the Opera of the Nobility in 1736
in operas by Hasse, Riccardo Broschi, Farinelli’s brother
(1700–1756), G. B. Pescetti (1704–1756), Egidio Duni
(1708–1775), and Francesco Maria Veracini (1690–1768).
She then returned to Handel in 1738 and created parts in
Faramondo, Alessandro Severo, and Serse.
Bernacchi was undoubtedly a great singer, but in these two
engagements he failed to please. Handel was forced to reengage
Senesino in 1730 and the musico created four new parts—Poro
(1731), Ezio (1732), Sosarme (1732), and Orlando (1733)—
and sang in many revivals.
In 1733, as a gesture of “biting the hand that fed him,”
Senesino intrigued with Porpora and others to set up the
so-called Opera of the Nobility as a rival company. It stole
many of Handel’s stars, including Cuzzoni, Montagnana,
and it featured Farinelli, the most famous castrato in history.
Between 1733 and 1736, Senesino sang in five operas by
Porpora and even presented Handel’s Ottone. He returned
to Italy in 1737 and sang in Turin, Rimini, and Florence.
His last known performances were in Porpora’s Il trionfo de
Camilla at the San Carlo in 1740. A final glimpse of him
34 Chapter 5
is caught in March of that year, when Horace Walpole met
him returning to Siena in a chaise: “We thought it was a fat
old woman, but it spoke in a shrill little pipe, and proved
itself to be Senesini.”12 Senesino’s porcine appearance made
him the butt of many jokes and caricatures. He was irascible
and temperamental but a great singer nonetheless. Despite
Zambeccari’s assessment of his acting, Londoners felt that
he was outstanding, especially in his delivery of recitative. A
song called The Lady’s Lamentation for the Loss of Senesino was
popular for years after his departure.
In most of Handel’s operas, Senesino played the title charac-
ter, so I think we are justified in stating that Handel built the
majority of his operatic output around his love of the contralto
voice. With Senesino gone and Bernacchi in decline, Handel
had to find another star alto singer to attract the fickle London
public. He found just such an artist in Giovanni Carestini
(Cusanino).
Carestini was taken to Milan under the protection of the
Cusiano family when he was twelve years old (hence the
pseudonym, which is rarely used). Carestini was definitely a
student of Bernacchi of the Bolognese school who made his
debut in the female role of Costanza in Bononcini’s opera
Figure 5.2.  Giovanni Carestini. Courtesy Clarissa Lablache Cheer.
Griselda in 1721. Burney says he began his career as a “pow-
erful and clear soprano” who developed into “the fullest and
finest countertenor [an unusual designation for the time] that
has, perhaps, ever been heard.” He goes on to say:
Carestini’s person was tall, beautiful and majestic. He was a
very animated and intelligent actor, and having a considerable
portion of enthusiasm in his composition, with a lively and
inventive imagination, he rendered everything he sang interest-
ing with good taste, energy and judicious embellishments. He
manifested great agility in the execution of difficult divisions
from the chest in a most articulate and admirable manner [a
hallmark of the Bolognese school]. It was the opinion of Hasse,
as well as of many other eminent professors, that whoever had
not heard Carestini was unacquainted with the most perfect
style of singing.13
The engagement of Carestini seems to have continued the
uproar surrounding Senesino and, especially, Cuzzoni, whom
Handel threatened with defenestration for refusing to sing her
aria “Falsa imagine” in Ottone in 1723. Carestini created four
parts for Handel—Arianna in Creta (1734), Oreste (1734),
Ariodante (1735), and Alcina (1735). It was not all roses;
Grove’s quotes an anecdote from Burney:
In Alcina occurs the beautiful song “Verdi prati,” which he
[Carestini] sent back to the composer as not suited to him.
Handel on this became furious, ran to the house of the singer
and addressed to him the following harangue: “You tog! Don’t I
know petter as yourself vaat is pest for you to sing! If you vill not
sing all de song vaat I give you, I vill not give you ein stiver!”14
Carestini also sang in Handel’s oratorios—the revised Esther
from 1718, Deborah (1733), and Athalia (1733). He also
created the principal male role in Parnasso in festa (1734), a
masque, and sang in a revised Acis and Galatea. Burney says
that he continued “in the highest reputation for twenty years
after quitting England.”15 Carestini returned to Naples in
1735, where his salary exceeded that of Caffarelli’s. He re-
turned to London in 1740 but enjoyed little success. He then
returned briefly to Italy, then Austria, where he was in Maria
Theresa’s employ, then in Dresden for Hasse from 1747 to
1749. After a long engagement in Berlin, from 1750 to 1754,
Carestini then, for all practical purposes, wrapped up his career
in St. Petersburg from 1754 to 1756.
In 1733 Handel added another Italian contralto, Caterina
Maria Negri ( fl. 1719–1745) to his company, the Second
Academy. Negri, a student of Pasi of the Bologna school, was
a deep contralto who often sang male roles. She sang in eleven
of Handel’s operas, including parts composed for her—Carilda
in Arianna in Creta, Polinesso in Ariodante, Bradimante in Al-
cina, Irene in Atalanta, Tullius in Arminio, Arsace in Berenice,
Philocteles in Oreste, and Cloride in Parnesso in festa. Aside from
some agility required, Negri seems to have had a modest ability.
In 1736, in a departure from his usual practice, Handel
composed Atalanta for a soprano castrato, Gioachino Conti,
known as Gizziello.
 Mr. “Hendel’s” Altos 35
Handel never till now had a first man to write for with so
high a soprano voice. Niccolini, Senesino, and Carestini, were
all contraltos. There was often dignity and spirit in their style;
but Conti had delicacy and tenderness, with the accumulated
refinements of near thirty years, from the time of Handel’s first
tour to Italy. I think it not difficult to discover, particularly in
the first act, that in composing Conti’s part in this opera, he
modelled his melody to the school of this new singer. Indeed,
Handel was always remarkably judicious in writing to the taste
and talents of his performers; in displaying excellence, and cov-
ering imperfections.16
After the departure of Carestini and his soprano experiment,
Handel “made do” with Domenico Annibali (c. 1705–1779
or later), again a contralto castrato, in Arminio, Giustino, and
Berenice (1737). Burney remarked that “his abilities during
his stay in England seem to have made no deep impression.”17
Burney is also witness to the decline of opera in England dur-
ing this time. He says that this was no fault of Handel, upon
whom he unequivocally bestows the title of “genius.” He says
that the English public was so surfeited with “the most exquisite
musical feats that the art of man has ever been able to furnish”
that they flocked to “their homely food, The Beggar’s Opera and
ballad farces on the same plan, with eagerness and comfort.”18
It was into this atmosphere of decline and desperation due
to competition with the Opera of the Nobility at the King’s
Theater that Handel imported the last (and greatest) alto
castrato, Gaetano Majorano, called Caffarelli (also Caffariello,
Caffarellino, and Gaffariello). Caffarelli was one of two stu-
dents of Porpora said to be the greatest singers in the history
of the art, Farinelli being the other. Caffarelli, according to
Heriot, “may have been one of those strong-minded children
who insisted on immolating themselves for the sake of their
voice.”19 Porpora and Caffarelli are the subjects of the hoary
Figure 5.3.  Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano) by Pier Leone Ghezzi
(c. 1740)
old story related to innumerable indolent students by their
voice teachers (myself included) about the youngster being
held to a single set of seven vocalises for seven years, without
being allowed to sing a single song, who was then told to go
forth and sing anything he wanted to, for he was the great-
est singer in Italy and the world! Porpora disliked Cafarelli’s
personality, but always stated that he was the greatest singer
he had ever produced. It is hard to separate his greatness as a
singer from all the juicy stories about his behavior.
If Caffarelli were around today, he would be on the front
page of National Enquirer every week! In 1728, he narrowly
escaped being assassinated by the jealous husband of a noble-
woman by hiding all night in an unused cistern. In 1739, he
and another castrato, Reginelli, had a pitched battle with canes
in the sacristy of the church of Donna Romita on a solemn
occasion attended by members of the nobility. He narrowly
escaped prison by royal intervention.
Caffarelli made his debut at the age of sixteen in a feminine
part, a common practice of the time. The opera was Sarro’s Il
Valdemaro and the young castrato was soon in demand from
the greatest theaters in Italy. Cafarelli’s voice would be consid-
ered today as a spinto mezzo-soprano, for it was very strong and
he was sometimes criticized for forcing. In 1728 in Venice and
Turin, he had outstanding success in Pollarollo’s Nerina as well
as Sarro’s Didone Abbandonata in Milan. In 1730 in Rome,
he appeared in Porpora’s Mitridate, Siface, and Germanico
and created a furore as Pirro in Hasse’s Cajo Fabrico. After an
uninterrupted series of successes in Milan, Bologna, and other
major theaters, in 1734 he appeared in Merope by Geminiano
Giacomelli (1690–1740) with Farinelli and “their very differ-
ent styles were equally admired.”
The Baron Grimm, in a concert at the Louvre, gave this
assessment of a performance by Caffarelli:
It would be difficult to give any idea of the degree of perfection
to which this singer has brought his art. All the charms and love
that can make up the idea of an angelic voice, and which form
the character of his, added to the finest execution, and to sur-
prising facility and precision, exercise an enchantment over the
senses and the heart, which even those least sensible to music
would find it hard to resist.20
In 1738, Caffarelli was invited to London by Handel, where
he created parts in Faramondo and Serse, which begins with the
immortal “Ombra mai fu,” which Burney said “had a clear and
majestic style, out of the reach of time and fashion.”21 For Caf-
farelli, London was one of very few engagements where he was
not successful. The public was still in love with the memory
of Farinelli and also the climate did not agree with Caffarelli,
who was not well most of the time.
In 1737, Handel suffered a stroke but made an amazing
recovery. In 1738, failing to get enough subscriptions for the
ensuing season of opera, he began to compose oratorios, which
were much cheaper to produce and were all in the language of
his audiences—English. He sporadically produced several operas
after that, but in 1741 after the last of them, Deidame, received
36 Chapter 5

Musical Example 5.1.  “Ombra mai fu” from Serse by George Frideric Handel. Embel-
lishment by Dr. Putnam Aldirch

only three performances, he composed Italian opera no more.
This development also signaled a sea change in the fortunes of
the English singers, and the reign of the Italian musici, however
marvelous, came to an end. Thereafter, Handel composed his
oratorios mostly for normal voices; the tenor John Beard (1716–
1791) appeared in more Handel works than any other singer,
first appearing in the oratorio Esther as a boy in 1732. The
popularity of the oratorio format, which brought out some of
Handel’s greatest works, also assured his future financial security.
Caterina Galli (c. 1723–1804) was an Italian mezzo-soprano
who made her debut in G. F. Brivio’s (?–c. 1758) Mandane,
sang in Enrico and Sirbace by Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785)
and in Porpora’s Temistocle, all of which were male roles. Galli
was trained by Handel, who composed parts for her in Joshua
(1748), Alexander Balus (1748), Susanna (1749), the title role
in Solomon (1749), Theodora (1750), Jephtha (1752), and The
Choice of Hercules (1751). Solomon was the first travesty role
composed by Handel since Durastanti’s Radamisto back in
1720. Besides these works, Galli sang in many revivals, includ-
ing Messiah, Samson, Hercules (1749), Saul (1750), Belshazzar,
Esther, and Alexander’s Feast (1751), and probably Deborah
(1754). Galli was the mezzo/contralto soloist for Handel’s fa-
mous Messiah performance for the Foundling Hospital in 1754.
Galli, having a voice of a lower pitch, which the Italians call
mezzo-soprano, and her appearance being less feminine than Fra-
 Mr. “Hendel’s” Altos 37
si’s began in this opera [Enrico] with a man’s part, and afterwards
frequently employed in male parts on the opera stage. There was
something spirited and interesting in her manner; however, she
was little noticed by the public till she sung in Handel’s oratorio
Judas Maccabeus, 1746, when she acquired such favor in the air
“Tis liberty alone” [Israelitish Man] that she was not only encored
in it every night, but became an important personage among
singers, for a considerable time afterwards.22
Maria Antonia Marchesini (fl. 1736–1739) (La Lucchesina)
(not to be confused with Santa Marchesini) was engaged by
Handel in 1738. She created roles in Faramondo and Serse, and
was probably the first witch of Endor in Saul.
Susanna Cibber (1714–1766), sister of Thomas Arne, who
frequently sang Polly in the Beggar’s Opera, was the mezzo-
soprano in the first performance of Messiah in Dublin (1742).
She apparently had a great deal of emotional impact, for a
clergyman in the audience exclaimed upon hearing “He Was
Despised and Rejected” exclaimed, “Woman, for this thy sins
are forgiven thee.”23 Cibber, whose voice was described by Bur-
ney as “a thread,” subsequently gave up her career as a singer
and became one of the greatest tragic actresses in the history
of the London stage.
Handel made subsequent alterations in the Messiah score
to fit the singers he had on hand. In 1750, he arranged three
arias—“But Who May Abide the Day of His Coming,” “Thou
Art Gone up on High,” and later, “How Beautiful Are the
Feet” for Gaetano Guadagni (c. 1725–1792), a young con-
tralto castrato who would later become immortal by creating
the eponymous part in Cristolph Willibald Gluck’s (1714–
1787) Orfeo in 1762. Guadagni was the last great alto castrato
employed by Handel and had earlier appeared in Theodora.
He was something of a character who became quite rich but
gave away his fortune to the poor and died in poverty. After he
retired, he enjoyed presenting Ofeo ed Euridice, enacted in his
little puppet theater, singing the title part behind the scenes.
The mezzo-soprano Angelo Monticelli (c. 1712–c. 1758)
debuted in Venice and also appeared in Milan and Rome
where, because he had a pleasant face and good figure, he often
assumed female roles. He was engaged as primo uomo at the
King’s Theater from 1741 to 1746. Horace Walpole reported
that he was “infinitely admired, after Farinelli,”24 while Burney
said that his singing was “sweet, simple, smooth and unimpas-
sioned.”25 Monticelli was considered a good actor and did not
attempt vocal feats beyond his powers, a virtue often ignored
by many singers. Monticelli was attached to the Austrian
court from 1740 but his only confirmed public appearances
were after 1748. After two seasons at the San Carlo in Naples,
Monticelli joined Hasse’s company in Dresden as primo uomo
in 1753, where he died in 1758.
NOTES
1. John Keates, Handel: The Man and His Music (New York:
Random House, 2009), 207.
2.  Lady Mary Wortley Montague, The Letters and Works of Lady
Mary Wortley Montague (London: George Bell and Sons, 1898), 353.
3.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 98–99.
4.  Thomas Forrest Kelley, First Nights at the Opera (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 39, 42.
5.  Angus Heriot, The Castrati in Opera (1927; repr., New York:
Da Capo, 1975), 125.
6. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera, 127.
7. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera, 129.
8. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera, 91.
9. Keates, Handel, 102.
10.  Dean, “Senesino,” The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 4
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 315.
11. Keates, Handel: The Man and His Music, 187.
12.  Dean, “Senesino,” Grove Music Online, updated 15 May 2009,
www.grovemusic.com, 14 December 2013.
13.  Charles Burney, The Present State of Music in France and Italy
(London, 1773; New York: Broude Brothers, 1969), 369–70.
14. Anonymous, Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed.
J. A. Fuller Maitland, Waldo Selden Pratt, and Charles Newell Boyd
(London: McMillan, 1911), 463.
15. Burney, A General History of Music, 370.
16. Burney, A General History of Music, 398.
17. Burney, A General History of Music, 402.
18.  The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, called a ballad opera, pre-
miered in 1728. The ballad opera was a vehicle for social satire, not
necessarily used to ridicule Italian opera.
19. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera, 142.
20.  Dean, “Caffarelli,” The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 1
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 677.
21. Burney, A General History of Music, 423.
22. Burney, A General History of Music, 449.
23.  Peter Jacobi, The Messiah Book: The Life and Times of Handel’s
Greatest Hit (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982), 38.
24. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera, 162.
25. Burney, A General History of Music, 62.
6
Faustina Bordoni and Il Caro Sassone

For all his genius and subsequent fame, Handel was not the others of the period, Hasse saw the alto voice as the lead singer
most renowned and beloved opera composer during the early in his operas. In 1728, he produced Attalo, rè di Bitinia, which
part of the eighteenth century. That honor was bestowed upon starred Giovanni Carestini in the title role. Tesi was the prima
another German composer, Johann Adolf Hasse, called Il Caro donna in Tigrane in 1729, celebrating the name day of Charles
Sassone (the beloved Saxon), although he was not, in fact, from VI of Naples. By 1730, Hasse’s fame had extended beyond
Saxony. Hasse has recently been recognized as being one of the Naples, and he was engaged to write Ataserse for Venice, then
founders of the so-called classical or Galant style. Furthermore, the most important center for opera. Farinelli sang Arbace and
Hasse was a singer (tenor), a fact which is common among the young Francesca Cuzzoni was Mandane. The opera was
many of the great composers, including Rossini. To my mind, well received and Hasse continued to provide operas for Venice
this engenders a love for the beauties and a respect for the
limitations of the human voice, which is missing from many
modern composers like Thomas Adès, who don’t seem to un-
derstand the difference between instrumental and vocal music.
Hasse was a student of both Porpora and Alessandro Scarlatti
in Naples, which further informed him in the intricacies of
vocal composition. Hasse was also a prolific composer of sa-
cred music, but we concern ourselves only with his prodigious
output of opera here.

In a word, Hasse represents in the vocal art of the Baroque

opera a balance between cantabile style and melismatic style.
But he is probably the composer whose melody-writing best
expresses both the “imitative” qualities demanded of an operatic
composer of his period and the fluency of Metastasio’s verses.
This is the general view of his contemporaries, who in Italy
and Germany placed him ahead of any other opera composer.
The clarity and simplicity of the melodic thinking also made
him popular with many great singers—something which did
not always happen, for example, with Handel—especially on
the part of those who were outstanding in the pathetic and
graceful style.1

Hasse, even more than Handel, always had access to the

greatest singers of the period, probably through the good of-
fices of Porpora. Most especially, his wife Faustina Bordoni,
for whom he wrote at least fifteen operas, was one of the finest
singers of all time. In one of his earliest compositions, the ser-
enata Antonio e Cleopatra (1725), he was able to command the
services of Farinelli and the great contralto Vittoria Tesi. Like Figure 6.1.  Faustina Bordoni by Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757)

39
40 Chapter 6
until 1758. Hasse also began contributing compositions for
the girls in the Ospedale degli Incurabili in 1830.
In the same year, two events shaped the future for
Hasse—he married Faustina Bordoni and he was engaged as
maestro di cappella in Dresden. It is probable that the court
was as much interested in Faustina as prima donna as it was
in Hasse, the maestro di cappella. At this point, let us pause
to consider the career of Faustina Bordoni, who was one of
the very greatest singers of the eighteenth century, male or
female. When Faustina left Naples in the spring of 1723,
Vinci composed a cantata for her entitled La partenza del
Faustina. Faustina was born in Venice and the protégé of
the aristocratic composer Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739),
who wrote the delightful satire on the follies of the operatic
world Il teatro di musica alla moda in 1720. Her singing
teacher was Michelangelo Gasparini (c. 1670–c. 1732), also
a composer. Faustina made her debut in 1716 in Venice in
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo’s Ariodante and continued there
until 1725 in the service of the Elector Palatine. While in
Venice, she sang in operas by Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1750
or 1751), Leo, the Pollarolos (father and son), the broth-
ers Gasparini, Giuseppe Maria Orlandini (1676–1760),
Vinci, and others. In 1718 she encountered the soprano
Francesca Cuzzoni, who became her principal rival in the
years to come. From 1717, Faustina also traveled to Reggio
nell’Emilia, Milan, Modena, and Bologna. She sang in seven
operas in Naples (1721–1723), Florence, and Parma, where
she appeared in Vinci’s Il trionfo di Camilla (1724–1725).
She made her German debut in 1723 in Munich and also
became a great favorite in Vienna during the decade of the
twenties.
Giambattista Mancini, author of Practical Reflections on
Figured Singing (1774), wrote a detailed account of Bordoni’s
singing:
[Faustina Bordoni was born in Venice, where she learned the
art of singing under the direction of Michaelangelo Gasparini
of Lucca. The professor was not only perfect in his art, but
became a very celebrated contrapuntalist under the direction of
the celebrated and most gifted Antonio Lotti. He wrote several
Theatrical Operas of fine and rare taste like his other gifts, and
also conducted church music well. This singer, well guided by
her master, developed a rare method, consisting of a distinct
and purified vocal agility, which she used with incomparable
facility, earning applause from the very first years in which she
presented herself before the public. Her style of agility was so
pleasing because it sounded to the very end, and in a way so
new, and above all so difficult, in sustaining a passage with
notes in sextolets, or even in triplets, and performing with
such exact proportion, without ever slowing down in ascending
or descending, giving to each its proportionate coloration, as
is exactly necessary for the setting forth of each passage. The
perfect and happy execution of this agility is extraordinary, and
gives the character of a great professor to anyone who possesses
it to perfection. Our Faustina Hasse sang with this rare method,
so she could not be imitated. Besides this natural excellence
of agility she had another kind of agility, accompanying with
everything a fast and very solid trill and mordent. She had a
perfect intonation, a secure knowledge of spinning forth the
tone and sustaining the voice, the refined art of conserving and
refreshing the breath, and the excellence of a finished taste.
All of these were sublime gifts in her, perfectly mastered, and
maintained through assiduous study, by which she attained a
facile execution of great perfection, united to the just precepts
of the art. If from all this emerges a complex perfection, one
must also say that our virtuosa reaped approbation as her just
reward, with universal esteem; so much is true, that she always
received merited applause, and distinction in every place where
she was heard.2
In 1725, Bordoni was engaged for three operas at the Teatro
San Giovanni Grisostomo, the greatest and most opulent op-
era theater in Venice. There she triumphed in Ifigenia in Tau-
ride and La Rosmira fedele by Vinci and Berenice by Orlandini.
In 1730 she married Hasse and went on to a long and happy
career until she retired in 1751.
The relative stability of the appointment in Dresden al-
lowed Hasse to produce a large body of work (he composed
around seventy stage works). Hasse’s Arminio (1731) was
premiered in Milan and starred Carestini in the eponymous
role and Faustina as Tusnelda. Cleofide was Hasse’s first opera
for Dresden and featured four altos—Domenico Annibali,
Antonio Campioli (fl. 1703–1738), castrati Nicolo Pozzi,
and of course, Faustina Bordoni. It is probable that J. S. Bach
(1685–1750) attended the premiere of Cleofide and the Hasses
most likely were present at Bach’s concert the following day. To
get an idea of how much Faustina was valued—Hasse was paid
500 gold ducats for his services and Faustina 1,000. This was
the equivalent of eight years’ pay for such a singer as Annibali!3
Hasse’s next opera Catone in Utica was premiered in 1731 in
Turin and featured La Tesi and Farinelli. In 1732, Hasse’s Cajo
Fabrizio was produced in Rome with alto castrati Annibali
and Angelo Monticelli. Faustina, who was pregnant, did not
participate. Hasse produced two operas in 1732 for Venice.
Faustina was prima donna in Demetrio but not in Euristeo,
which featured Francesca Cuzzoni. This was five years after
the famous hair-pulling fight; was it the reason Faustina was
not in the cast?
In 1733 Siroe, a libretto by Hasse’s good friend Metastasio,
featured two of the greatest altos of the period—Vittoria Tesi
and Caffarelli, with Farinelli rounding out the cast. Tito Vas-
pasiano (1735), set to the same Metastasio libretto as Mozart’s
La clemenza di Tito (1791), premiered in Pesaro and included
a novelty and portent of things to come—tenor Angelo Amor-
evoli (1716–1748) sang the title role, while Carestini and
Bordoni were the primo uomo and prima donna. Alessandro
nell’ Indie (1736), set to the familiar Metastasian libretto, pre-
miered in Venice with Vittoria Tesi as Cleofide. Back in Dres-
den in 1737, Faustina sang the title roles in Senocrita, Atalanta,
and Asteria. Alto Domenico Annibali, back from London
where he was working for Handel, was featured in a revision
of Tito and a new opera Irene in February 1738. On May 9,
Hasse’s Alfonso received a lavish production in the rebuilt and
redecorated Dresden Opera House to celebrate the marriage of
Princess Maria Amalia to King Charles of the Two Sicilies. The
cast included altos Faustina, Annibali, and Pozzi. From 1738
to 1739, the Hasses traveled to Venice, where Faustina sang in
 Faustina Bordoni and Il Caro Sassone 41
four operas including one by her husband, Viriate, along with
Angelo Monticelli.
Metastasio’s libretto for Didone abbandonata was set more
than fifty times by the composers of the bel canto era. Hasse’s
version premiered in 1742 in honor of Frederick Augusta’s
birthday and featured Faustina as Dido, as well as contralto
Caterina Negri and alto castrato Domenico Annibali. In the
Carnivale season of 1745 in Venice, Hasse set another Me-
tastasio libretto, Semiramide riconosciuta. The cast included
La Tesi and Carestini. Back in Dresden in October 1745,
Hasse set Arminio to a libretto by Giovanni Claudio Pasquini
(1695–1763), a protégé of Metastasio. It featured three al-
tos—Faustina, Annibali, and Negri. Arminio was a favorite
of Frederick the Great, and he asked Hasse and Faustina to
give chamber concerts every night during his nine-day stay
in Dresden. In June 1747, Carestini arrived in Dresden for
a four-year stay, where he was featured in a Hasse opera, La
spartana generosa.
Clouds appeared on the horizon for the Hasses that same
summer, when Johann was asked to preside over a perfor-
mance of Porpora’s Filandro, which featured Porpora’s pupil,
twenty-five-year-old soprano Regina Mingotti (1722–1808)
as prima donna. This was the first time in seventeen years
that Hasse had produced an opera seria by any other com-
poser and the first time any other singer besides Faustina had
been a prima donna in Dresden. Faustina was now fifty years
old and presiding over a thirty-one-year career, an astound-
ing fact in any era, but she was not through yet. She was
the prima donna in Hasse’s Leucippo in October, along with
Carestini, and in February 1748, she and Mingotti both sang
in Demofoonte. This produced a rivalry reminiscent of the
Cuzzoni-Faustina battle of 1726. The issue was the relative
positions of the characters on the stage, which was a matter
of utmost importance in the Baroque era. The principals ap-
pealed to Metastasio to settle the dispute, which resulted in
the following letter:
Vienna, 10th February, 1748.
Most dear friend,
I hasten to answer your letter of the 5th, and to return your
kindness by enclosing the arrangement of the positions which
I allocated to the characters in “Demofoonte,” when it was
presented in this Caesarean theater…
ACT I
Scene I
RIGHT LEFT
Matusio Dircea
Scene II
RIGHT LEFT
Dircea Timante
Scene III
Adrasto Demofoonte Timante
Scene IV
Timante
Scene V
Creusa Cherinto
Scene VI
Creusa Timante Cherinto
And so on: in one instance we have the remark “Demofoonte
may cross to the center for his aria.” The final ripieno is dis-
posed as follows:
Demofoonte
Dircea Cherinto
Matusio Adrasto
“This” continues Metastasio,
was how I regulated the character’s positions at the Imperial
theater. At moments, when the action necessitates it, the more
illustrious [degno] character may be at the left, but this does
not produce the least inconvenience. In the first place the
right hand is not considered the most eminent position by
every nation; and, even if it were, the character could make
the left the most distinguished merely by walking across the
stage. . . .
If in view of such considerations and necessities the more
illustrious character is on the left, and the lowlier one on the
right, they can be distinguished in various ways, for instance by
placing the former a few steps ahead of the other or placing him
in the middle of the stage facing the audience, and the other a
long way from him and further back, sideways onto the audi-
ence and facing his superior.
There follows a ludicrous discussion as to “who should de-
mand respect, Dircea of Creusa [Mingotti], as being the
principal role, or Creusa of Dircea [Faustina] as a princess in
disguise”; the whole business sounds not so much like stage
management as the heart-searching of an anxious ambassadress
faced with a ticklish point of protocol.4
Attilio regolo, another Metastasio libretto, was premiered in
1750 with the two prima donnas in the cast, as well as altos
Annibali and Negri. On February 20, 1751, Faustina appeared
on the opera stage for the last time in her husband’s Ciro ri-
conosciuto on another of Metastasio’s librettos. Her partner was
the great Felice Salimbeni (c. 1712–1751), a soprano castrato
and another of Porpora’s illustrious pupils. Salimbeni died in
August of the same year, probably of consumption. Faustina
retained the title of virtuosa di camera and retained her salary
of 3,000 thaler a year.
At this point we will take our leave of the Hasses, al-
though Johann continued composing opere serie until his
retirement to Venice in 1773. He and Metastasio were the
last and staunchest defenders of the tradition of the opera
seria. In 1771 the partners collaborated in what was to be
the last opera for both—Ruggiero, ovvero l’eroica gratitudine
for Milan. The youthful Mozart was commissioned to write
his serenade Ascanio in Alba for the same occasion. Leopold
crowed that Wolfgang had put Hasse’s opera in the shade,
but Mozart wrote:
Tonight is Herr Hasse’s opera; since, however Papa is not going
out, I cannot see it. Luckily, I know almost all the arias by heart,
and thus I can stay home and see and hear it in my mind.5
Faustina Bordoni-Hasse lived in a comfortable retirement
with Johann in Venice. She died on November 4, 1781. Johann
42 Chapter 6
followed his beloved Faustina in death on December 16, 1783.
Faustina’s old rival, Francesca Cuzzoni, died in Bologna in ob-
scurity and abject poverty, making buttons for a living, on June
19, 1778.
Before leaving the German courts for France, I will
mention Karl Heinrich Graun (1704–1759), another
Italianized German who was well known in his time as
Frederick the Great’s official composer. Graun was an-
other tenor singer who composed several operas to Freder-
ick’s librettos; Montezuma (1755) was the most important
and featured an alto castrato (probably Carestini) in the
title part.
NOTES
1. Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 78–79.
2.  Giambattista Mancini, Practical Reflections on Figured Singing,
trans. and ed. Edward Foreman (1774; repr., Champaign, IL: Pro
Musica, 1967), 10.
3.  Frederick L. Millner, The Operas of Johann Adolf Hasse (New
York: UMI Research Press, 1979), 7.
4.  Angus Heriot, The Castrati in Opera (1927; repr., New York:
Da Capo, 1975), 76–78.
5.  Frederick L. Millner, The Operas of Johann Adolf Hasse (New
York: UMI Research Press, 1979), 33.
7
Gluck’s Basses-Dessus and Mozart’s Altos
In other parts of Europe in the eighteenth century (like twenty-
first-century America), the contralto voice was not in favor.
Gluck preferred the haut-contre (high tenor) sound in most of
his operas. Italian travelers during this time complained that the
French singers were screaming, so perhaps the French basses-
dessus (mezzo-sopranos) were contraltos forced to sing too high.
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle, 1783–1842) states that:
Unquestionably, there must exist a certain number of contral-
tos in France; but as soon as a young lady evinces difficulty in
reaching G or A, she is invariably told that “she has no voice.”1
Gluck’s earliest operas were not distinguished by the reforms
that later made him famous and were written in the common
opera seria form. His Demofoonte (1743), premiering at the
Teatro Regio Ducal in Milan, featured Carestini in the title
role, and Ezio (1750, revised in 1763), had Gaetano Guadagni
as Ezio. Gluck’s Ipermestra of 1744 in Venice featured a female
contralto, Vittoria Tesi (Tramontini). Tesi, another product
of the Bologna school, studied with Francesco Campeggi (fl.
1730) and Bernacchi. She made her debut in 1716 in Parma
and thereafter appeared with all the great singers, both female
and castrati, of her time. She was named virtuosa di camera
for the prince of Parma in Venice in 1718. The following year
she was singing with Durastanti and Senesino in Dresden. She
returned to Italy, where she travelled to all the great theaters
until 1747. A highlight was that she sang in the opening of the
Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1737.
There is a wonderful legend that in 1743, apparently to
escape the intentions of a certain nobleman who was not con-
tent to have her remain his mistress, she went into the streets
and offered the first man she met 50 ducats to marry her. The
poor man gladly accepted her offer and they entered into a
faux marriage. When the nobleman resumed his pursuit of her,
she told him that she was already wed to another. This may be
based on her unlikely marriage to Tramontini, but whatever
the case, it makes a good story.
43
In 1748 Tesi was in Vienna, where she enjoyed the pa-
tronage of Maria Teresa, who bestowed upon her the title of
virtuosa di camera. There she again created a role for Gluck in
Semiramide riconosciuta on a libretto by Metastasio to great
acclaim. In 1754, Gluck composed another opera for Tesi, Le
cinesi (The Chinese Ladies). It was written as a one-act comedy
for the imperial court in Vienna and conceived as a satire on
the operatic conventions of the time. Tesi retired in the 1750s
and began teaching. Among her pupils were the renowned
Caterina Gabrielli (1730–1796) and Anna Lucia de Amicis (c.
1733–1816). While in Vienna, Tesi met Mozart and his father
as well as Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798).
Tesi was described by Quantz, who heard her in 1719, as
having a “contralto voice of masculine strength.” Tesi was fond
of singing arias written for the bass voice (an octave higher, of
course). The recorded voice of Dame Clara Butt (1872–1936)
probably conveys the quality of such a voice. Mancini, in his
Practical Reflections on Figured Singing (1774), gives Tesi first
place, even ahead of Faustina and Cuzzoni:
she did not lack the study which assured the possession of
the art of singing, and a perfect and exquisite method, and
yet, animated by her natural genius, she resolved to acquire
with more tenacity the art of acting. She was correct in this
resolution, for she was adorned with all the rare prerogatives
which so infrequently appear together, but were united in her.
An estimable and very complex personality, accompanied by a
noble and gracious portamento; a clear and exquisite pronun-
ciation; a sounding of the words according to their true sense;
the adaptability to distinguish one character from another as
much through a change in facial expression as with appropriate
gestures; complete intonation, which did not vacillate in even
the most fervent action, were excellences so singular in her,
and so perfectly guided by her art, that she remained the one
perfect mistress. This lady merited such great fame and honor
that finally in 1769 she was decorated with the order of faith
and Constancy by the King of Denmark, and she is the same
lady who was the mainstay of the Italian theater in her time.2
44 Chapter 7
In 1762, Orfeo ed Euridice, the first joint work of Gluck
and Raniero de’ Calzabigi (1714–1795), premiered in Vienna.
This revolutionary work, shorn of opera seria conventions,
emphasized the essence of the music and honest emotion. As
noted, the title role was created by the alto castrato, Gaetano
Guadagni, who could not have known that he was participat-
ing in the beginning of the end of his tragic race. The aria “Che
faro senza Euridice,” in which Orfeo pours out his grief for the
loss of his spouse, has been a mainstay for legions of mezzo-
sopranos ever since. Its very simplicity has made it possible to
be sung by less than virtuoso singers but few understand how
to reach its depths of despair. Later, Gluck arranged the role for
tenor. Guadagni also created the title role in Telemaco in 1765.
The rest of Gluck’s operas were written for sopranos, with the
possible exception of Iphigénie en Tauride of 1779, which is
often sung by a mezzo-soprano.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) composed twenty-
two operas in various styles and genres, from his youthful
trifles to the consummate masterpieces of his maturity. Always
anxious to please his aristocratic patrons and capricious sing-
ers, he could adapt to any demand but to him the music was
always paramount, not just another part of an artistic whole.
Therefore, he shared the same ideals as the Italian composers
of his day, but he surpassed all of them
not by a changed approach to opera but by the superior beauty,
originality, and significance of his musical ideas, by his greater
mastery of counterpoint, by his higher constructive powers, and
by his ability to write music which not only perfectly portrayed
a dramatic situation but at the same time could develop freely
in a musical sense, without being in the least hampered by the
presence of a text.3
Mozart’s first stage work, written when he was eleven, was a
pasticcio called Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, Pt I., K. 35
(The Obligation of the First Commandment), a sacred sing-
spiel, which premiered at the archbishop’s palace in Salzburg
on March 12, 1767. Parts II and III, now lost, were by other
composers. Gerechtigkeit (Divine Justice) was played by Maria
Anna Braunhofer (1748–1819), who is listed as an operatic
soprano. However, she also created the role of Giacinta in
Mozart’s buffo opera La finta simplice, K. 46A (The Pretended
Simpleton) (1768), which is a mezzo-soprano part. There are
two rewarding arias for Giacinta, “Che scompiglio” (What
Havoc!) and “Se a maritarmi” (Whether to Get Married) in the
opera. Alfred Einstein writes that “the most unified realization
of character is achieved in the figure of Giacinta—the anxious
sentimental woman in love,”4 surely an astounding achieve-
ment for a boy of twelve!
Prior to La finta, Apollo et Hyacinthus (1767), K. 38, was
really Mozart’s first opera, an intermezzo in Latin, written to
a libretto based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It featured two boy
altos, Johann Ernst as Apollo and Josef Vonterthon as Zeph-
yrus (dates unknown). Additionally, Hyacinthus was played by
boy soprano Christian Enzinger. Wolfgang did not shield his
schoolmates from vocal difficulty, and the arias “Jam pastor
Apollo” for Apollo and “En duos conspices” for Zephyrus are
written in the typical Italian vocal idiom of the day.
Mitridate, re di Ponto, K. 74A, written when Mozart was
just fourteen years old, premiered at the Teatro Regio Ducal in
Milan on December 26, 1770. Some, citing Mozart’s extreme
youth, condemned the opera in advance, but they were soon
silenced when the work’s premiere began a run of twenty-two
sold-out performances. Mitridate featured a contralto castrato,
Giuseppe Cicognani (fl. 1770s) as Farnace. Cicognani was un-
doubtedly an important singer, for he was mentioned among
the greats in Mancini’s Practical Reflections on Figured Singing,
although no details were given.5 Farnace has two rewarding
arias in Mozart’s youthful work, an aria agitato “Venga pur,
minacci e frema” and “Gia dagli occhi il velo è tolto,” a beauti-
ful short aria di portamento.
The career of Giuseppe Cicognani can be traced back to
Brescia in 1756. He sang with many of the great virtuosos such
as Giovanni Manzuoli (c. 1720–1782), Gaetano Guadagni,
Caterina Gabrielli, Caffarelli, Caterina Galli, Giuseppe Aprile
(1732–1813), and Anna de Amicis. Composers who worked
with Cicognani included Tommaso Traetta (1727–1779),
Niccolò Jommelli (1714–1774), Giovanni Vincenzo Sarti
(fl. 1643–1655), and Hasse, who wrote “Primo uomo musico
Cicognani has a seductive voice and a beautiful cantabile.”6
Mozart’s next opera, Ascanio in Alba, K. 111, a festa teatrale
or serenata, was commissioned by Empress Maria Theresa
(1717–1780) for the wedding of her son, Archduke Ferdi-
nand of Hapsburg (1754–1806) in Milan. Capitalizing on
the success of Mitridate the previous year, the fifteen-year-old
genius composed the music in only three-and-a-half weeks.
The success of Ascanio made the young composer “the toast
of the town” and his association with Joseph II (1741–1790),
Maria Theresa’s eldest son, proved invaluable for the creation
of his mature works ten years later when Joseph became
emperor.
The eponymous role of Ascanio in the premiere on October
17, 1771, at the Teatro Regio Ducal was sung by Giovanni
Manzuoli, who began his career as a soprano in Florence in
1731. During a forty-year career, in the manner of many
castrati, his voice gradually settled into a contralto. Manzuoli
had a thirteen-year engagement at the San Carlo in Naples
and sang extensively in Madrid and Lisbon, as well as London,
Vienna, and throughout Italy. Ascanio marked the end of a
great career. But Ascanio was not the first time that Mozart had
encountered the great singer. On a trip to London in 1764, he
met Manzuoli and Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782), two
artists who had a profound effect on the young prodigy.
On the 24th of November, [1764] Wolferl, himself wide-eyed
with excitement as so many others had been in listening to him,
was taken to the opening of the Italian Opera Company, where
he heard really fine singing for the first time. Giovanni Man-
zuoli, a celebrated castrato, and a great favorite with London
audiences, was enchanted by him and gave him some lessons in
singing, by which he profited instinctively as if absorbing the
knowledge through his skin.7
 Gluck’s Basses-Dessus and Mozart’s Altos 45
This knowledge is of supreme benefit for those who write
for the voice. We know that both Rossini and Wagner were
good singers and understood that the human voice is not the
same as other instruments. The voice has a direct line to the
emotions and is the most expressive instrument, but it is sub-
ject to the constraints of contracted muscles and other physical
and emotional limitations.
Einstein describes the same scene with an insight into Mo-
zart’s vocal ideal:
In the spring of 1764 he went to London, and there breathed
the familiar air of Italian opera. He met the composer who was
to be a model in so many forms up until the first Vienna years,
Johann Christian Bach, and the singer Giovanni Manzuoli, of
whose voice and style of performance one needs only to read
Burney’s description in order to recognize Mozart’s ideal: “the
most powerful and voluminous that has been heard on our stage
since the time of Farinelli, and his manner was full of taste and
dignity.” When Johann Christian and the young Mozart—who
later had the good fortune to compose his Ascanio in Alba for
Manzuoli as the protagonist—had this castrato for a model, the
vocal portraits they made were almost identical.8
The performances of Ascanio did not, however, end well. Mo-
zart wrote to his sister on November 24, 1771:
Manzuoli, who up to the present has been generally looked
upon as the most sensible of the castrati, has in his old age given
the world a sample of his stupidity and conceit. He was engaged
for the opera at a salary of five hundred cigliati, but, as the
contract did not mention the serenata, he demanded another
five hundred for that, which is one thousand cigliati in all. The
court only gave him seven hundred and a fine snuff-box (quite
enough, I think). But he, like a true castrato returned both the
seven hundred cigliati and the snuff-box and went off without
anything. I do not know how it will all end—badly, I expect.9
Ascanio in Alba was written in haste by the precocious
teenager in the prevailing style of the day. Though astonished
by how well Mozart had mastered the operatic manner of his
time, we wait in vain for the deep feelings that his mature op-
eras instill in us. There is no doubt as to who the primo uomo
is, for Ascanio has four arias in various moods in keeping with
the standard form of the opera seria. These days Ascanio in Alba
seems to have been captured by the falsettists, who call them-
selves countertenors, with varying degrees of success.
The next opera to feature an alto in a lead role was La
finta giardiniera (The Make-Believe Lady Gardener), which
is called Mozart’s first dramma giocoso or “playful drama.” La
finta giardiniera has a libretto of uncertain authorship—pos-
sibly Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793), revised by Marco Coltellini
(1724–1777). The plot is convoluted, to say the least, and
Mozart’s musical style faithfully follows the libretto, so there is
a lack of continuity and dramatic synthesis. However, there are
very beautiful moments that foretell the masterpieces to come.
The role of Cavalier Ramiro, a rejected lover, does have a seri-
ous character that is sustained throughout the opera. Ramiro’s
aria, “Dolce d’amor compagna,” is the most beautiful in the
whole opera. Ramiro was first sung in the premiere on January
13, 1775, at the Savatortheater in Munich by Tomasso Consoli
(c. 1753–c. 1808), a mezzo-soprano castrato.
There are several connections between La finta giardiniera
and Mozart’s next opera seria, Il rè pastore (The Shepherd
King), which was first sung on April 23, 1775, in the palace of
Archbishop Colloredo in Salzburg.
The legacy of Munich in Mozart’s new opera is not confined
to its music. From Munich came the version of the libretto
used, which corresponded to the two-act book set by Pietro
Guglielmi for the Bavarian Court in 1774, in which Tommaso
Consoli sang the prima donna role of Elisa. Consoli was im-
ported from Munich a year later to sing the primo uomo role
of Aminta, and it is easy to imagine composer and castrato (he
sang Ramiro in Giardiniera) conspiring while in Munich to
make sure the archbishop “chose” Il rè pastore. In his letter of
7 August 1778 Mozart jests about getting Metastasio to write
a libretto in which the castrato sings both prima donna and
primo uomo, who never meet. The joke is all the more savory
because Consoli did just this in successive years in Munich and
Salzburg. He must have greatly pleased Mozart as the music for
Aminta and Ramiro suggests.10
Such shenanigans were common in the eighteenth century.
Castrati often assumed female roles at the beginning of their
careers; Goethe reported that they were very good at it, indeed.
More confusing is the fact that the music of Aminta, which in-
cludes the lovely air, “L’amero saro costante” is pitched higher
than that for Ramiro and suggests that Consoli’s range was
quite impressive, unless some transcription took place.
Between Il rè pastore and Le nozze di Figaro, Mozart com-
posed seven operas, which include the acknowledged master-
pieces Idomeneo and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, but none
were written for an alto in a leading role.
In 1783, Joseph II, the Holy Roman Emperor and archduke
of Austria, finding opera seria boring, assembled a troupe at his
Vienna court to present the new sensation, Italian opera buffa.
The troupe included the skillful librettist Lorenzo da Ponte
(1749–1838) and several other composers besides Mozart: An-
tonio Salieri (1750–1825), Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816),
and Vicente Martin y Soler (1754–1806). Mozart had been
looking for a subject for an Italian opera and, in 1786, he
settled upon the second comedy of Beaumarchais’s trilogy Le
Mariage de Figaro. It’s amazing that Joseph would have allowed
this subject to be performed in his court. The original play
had been banned in France by Louis XVI, and the Bastille was
stormed only three years after the premiere of the opera. Ap-
parently the aristocracy could not see what was coming and,
eventually, much of Europe was affected.
As there was no mezzo-soprano designation in Mozart’s
time, the character of Cherubino is listed as soprano. Today,
when we think of a “pants role,” we usually think of Cheru-
bino first, and what young mezzo has not been given “Voi che
sapete” by her teacher as a primary aria? The first Cherubino
was Dorotea Bussani (neé Sardi) (1763–d. after 1810), who
46 Chapter 7
was newly married to Francesco Bussani (1743–d. after 1807),
a basso buffo who doubled as Dr. Bartolo and Antonio in the
original production of Figaro. From the beginning, the Figaro
production was beset by intrigue and discord. Mozart and his
father blamed Salieri, who allied himself with the Bussanis. Da
Ponte described Francesco Bussani as
A certain [Francesco] Bussani, inspector of scenery and ward-
robe, who was proficient in all professions except that of an
honorable man, ran to Count Rosenberg when he heard that
I had inserted a ballet into Figaro and told him in tones of
astonishment and disapproval: “Your Excellency, the poet has
introduced a ballet into his opera!”11
The ballet was suppressed but restored after the emperor was
convinced that it was an integral part of the plot.
Dorotea Bussani, (who married the treacherous Francesco that
year [1786]) made her debut as Cherubino, and must have been
perfect for the part—years later a critic would still remark on
her “great vivacity and playful expression.”12
Da Ponte, however, was not impressed:
Dorotea Bussani (the original Cherubino), who Da Ponte
snorted, “though a vulgar woman of little merit, had purely
by means of pulling faces and silly clowning, and perhaps by
methods more theatrical still, built up a great following among
cooks, ostlers, waiters, lackeys and wig makers . . . and in con-
sequence, was thought a gem.”13
Bussani also created the roles of Ghita in Martin y Soler’s
Una cosa rara (1786), Despina in Cosi fan tutte (1790), and
Fidalma in Domenico Cimarosa’s (1749–1801) Il matrimonio
segreto (1792). Cimarosa’s opera has been called the greatest
opera buffa of the eighteenth century, excepting, of course,
Mozart’s masterpieces. Una cosa rara was a huge hit in the
same season as Figaro and Mozart displays his sense of humor
by quoting a theme from it in the last act of Don Giovanni.
Bussani was apparently more a contralto than a mezzo-
soprano, for “a contemporary wrote that he had never heard
such a beautiful and charming chest voice, nor one used with
so much humour and so mischievously (Grundsätze zur The-
aterkritik, 1790).”14 From 1795 to 1805, Dorotea Bussani sang
in Italy, and from 1807 to 1809 in Lisbon. However, when
she was older, her appearances in London did not please the
English public.
Don Giovanni capitalized on the success of Figaro and
premiered at the Estates Theater in Prague on October 29,
1787. There are no roles for altos, although Zerlina and
Donna Elvira are occasionally sung by lyric mezzo-sopranos
such as Cecilia Bartoli. We know that Pauline Viardot sang
Donna Anna, but she hastened to say that she sang many roles
unsuited to her voice. During the Vienna run that started on
May 7, 1788, Dorotea Bussani sang Susanna, but Mozart did
not care for her interpretation. Francesco Bussani sang both Il
Commendatore and Masetto.
The triumvirate of Da Ponte operas was concluded by Così
fan tutte at the Burgtheater in Vienna on January 26, 1790.
The opera was given only five times before performances were
halted by the death of Joseph II on February 20. The following
summer, the opera was performed five final times and then no
more in Vienna during Mozart’s lifetime. The story of lovers
trading places did not upset eighteenth-century audiences,
which enjoyed stories of cross dressing, disguises, and other
escapades, but nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century moral-
ists considered it somewhat risqué. It has been called “Laclos’s
Les liaisons dangereuses with heart.”15
Apparently Mozart did not nurse a grudge against Francesco
Bussani, for he cast him as Don Alfonso along with his wife,
Dorotea, as Despina. I have always preferred Despina sung by
a mezzo-soprano and played older, since an ingenue dispensing
worldly advice to the sisters seems ludicrous. Dorotea Bussani
apparently considered the Fiordiligi, Adriana Ferrarese del
Bene (c. 1755–d. after 1804), her archrival.
The aria [“Come scoglio”] is parodistic in tone, and, with its
wide intervals and absurd jumps from the top to the bottom
of the soprano range [stile con slancio], seems likely to have
been at any rate partly intended to poke fun at the phenomenal
range and technique of Ferrarese del Bene, the original singer
of Fiordiligi, who was Da Ponte’s mistress at the time of the
première but seems to have been no favourite of Mozart’s either
personally or artistically.16
William Mann has an opinion about Mozart’s sense of humor
regarding these vocal gymnastics:
It was evidently recognized that these monster leaps were a
special effect, to be reproduced even when the singer was not
Adriana Ferrarese who prided herself on her extensive vocal
compass. Mozart did not care for her and, being required to
display this specialty of hers, made her expose her gear-change
from head-to-chest-register, and back, as violently as possible. It
was also said that Mozart was playing on Ferrarese’s technique
of ducking her head for low notes and throwing it back for her
top register, so that in these bars she would look as well as sound
undignified.17
The alto lead, Dorabella, was sung by Louise (Luisa) Vil-
laneuve (fl. 1786–1799), a mezzo-soprano of French origin.
Villaneuve started out as a ballet dancer and made her singing
debut in Milan in 1786. In 1788 she sang the role of Amore
in Martin y Soler’s L’abore di Diana and debuted in Vienna
in the same role where she was acclaimed for her “charming
appearance, her sensitive and expressive acting, and her art-
ful, beautiful singing.”18 Mozart was in a jocular mood when
he wrote Così, and Dorabella’s second act aria, “È amore un
ladroncello,” alludes to Villaneuve’s celebrity as Amore in Sol-
er’s opera. Mozart composed three other pieces for Villaneuve
to be inserted in other operas—“Alma grande e nobil core”
(K. 578), for Cimarosa’s I due baroni di Rocca Azzura, and
“Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia” (K. 582) and “Vado, ma dove?” (K.
583) interpolated into Soler’s Il burbero di buon cuore. Some
 Gluck’s Basses-Dessus and Mozart’s Altos 47
books on Mozart assert that Villaneuve and Ferrarese del Bene
were sisters in real life as well as on the stage, but there is no
evidence that this is so.
This leaves La clemenza di Tito, which was started after most
of Die Zauberflöte had already been composed. The opera
was commissioned to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II
(1747–1792) as king of Bohemia and premiered in the Prague
National Theater on September 6, 1791. Coming only two
years after the French Revolution, the old-fashioned opera
seria was based on a reduced Metastasio libretto by Caterino
Mazzolà (1745–1806) that had already been set by nearly forty
composers. The magnanimity of the rulers was the standard
public relations ploy of eighteenth-century despots and in this
case was meant to strengthen the grip of the Bohemian aristoc-
racy on the peasantry. There is no sense that Mozart knew any
of this, rushed as he was. He composed the opera in only eigh-
teen days, with the secco recitatives being written by another
composer, probably his student Franz Süssmayr (1766–1803).
Mozart had originally envisioned the role of Sesto as a tenor.
However, the impresario entrusted to produce La clemenza di
Tito, Domenico Guardasoni (c. 1731–1806), had promised to
engage “a castrato of leading quality” for the primo uomo role
(more important than whatever “distinguished maestro” he
chose). This turned out to be Domenico Bedini (c. 1745–d.
after 1795). Bedini’s career began modestly enough in comic
opera in 1762 in Pesaro and Rome. He was then secondo
uomo in several opera houses in Italy and Munich and finally
achieved primo uomo status after 1776. He retired after singing
during Carnival in Florence in 1792. Today Sesto is invariably
sung by a mezzo-soprano. I am fond of Cecilia Bartoli’s deeply
committed characterization and her martellato singing of the
coloratura section of the great aria “Parto, parto.” Teresa Ber-
ganza was also a memorable Sesto and was featured in the Karl
Böhm (1894–1981) recording.
The musico role of Annio was created by alto Carolina (An-
chulina) Perini (fl. 1790). We know that Perini, “the famous
Italian soprano,” was chosen to sing at the coronation banquet
for Leopold II that took place earlier on the very day of the
premiere. I have found nothing further about Perini and sus-
pect that the “famous” description was a bit of press agentry by
Guardasoni to drum up business.
The part of the villain Vitella has also often been sung by
mezzo-sopranos. Dame Janet Baker (b. 1933) scored a tri-
umph singing the part at Covent Garden in 1975. The original
Vitella was Maria Marchetti-Fantozzi (b. after 1760–d. after
1800) who was known, especially in Naples and Milan, as an
excellent actress as well as a singer and who had an extraordi-
nary range and a virtuosic coloratura ability. Like Pasta, she
was adept at portraying tragic and passionate heroines such
as Cleopatra and Semiramide. Fantozzi went on to further
success in Venice and Berlin. At the premiere she “roused the
emperor to raptures.”19
NOTES
1.  Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], Life of Rossini, trans. Richard
N. Coe (1823; repr., London: Calder, 1956), 384.
2.  Giambattista Mancini, Practical Reflections on Figured Singing,
trans. and ed. Edward V. Foreman (1774; repr., Champaign, IL: Pro
Musica Press, 1967), 9.
3.  Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1965), 274.
4.  Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1945), 394.
5. Mancini, Practical Reflections on Figured Singing, 12.
6. Anonymous, Giuseppe “Cicognani,” www.quellusignolo.fr/
castrats/cicognani.html, 4 January 2015.
7. Marcia Davenport, Mozart (New York: Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1932), 42.
8. Einstein, Mozart, 356–57.
9. Cliff Eisen et al., “Giovanni Mazuoli,” In Mozart’s Words,
www.letters.mozartways.com, 4 January 2015.
10. Daniel Heartz, Haydn, Mozart, and the Viennese School,
1740–1780 (New York: Norton, 1995), 606.
11.  Louis Biancolli, ed., The Mozart Handbook (New York: Gros-
set & Dunlap, 1954), 140–41.
12.  Rodney Bolt, The Librettist of Venice (New York: Bloomsbury,
2006), 155–56.
13. Bolt, The Librettist of Venice, 193.
14. Christopher Raeburn, “Dorothea Bussani,” The New Grove
Dictionary of Opera, vol. 1, ed. Stanley Sedie (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1997), 658.
15. Bolt, The Librettist of Venice, 201.
16. Biancolli, The Mozart Handbook, 278.
17. William Mann, The Operas of Mozart (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1977), 541–42.
18.  Dorothea Link, “Louise Villeneuve,” The New Grove Diction-
ary of Opera, vol. 3, ed. Stanley Sedie (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997). From (Wiener Zeitung, iii, 1789, 1673).
19. Mann, The Operas of Mozart, 570.
8
Intermezzo
The last half of the eighteenth century could be called the
second golden age of singing, but there were other factors that
were struggling for expression. The Baroque fascination for
fantasy and spectacular scenic effects was giving way to more
realism. Metastasian veneration for “enlightened despots” such
as La clemenza di Tito was being replaced by social satires like
Le nozze di Figaro. In the opera seria, which moved along in
parallel fashion for a long time, the castrati were still “the stars
of the show,” but they were slowly being replaced by more
human figures and genuine emotion in the works of Handel,
Gluck, and Mozart. Comic opera, which never utilized the
Musical Example 8.1.  Mozart’s Letter about Lucrezia Agujari
49
evirati, became increasingly popular and actually led to the
development of the melodramas of the nineteenth century.
The range of the music was expanded so that the resplendent
high note gradually became the focal point of the music. This
led inexorably to the elevation of the high soprano to the sta-
tus of “prima donna” and the high tenor as her hero and love
interest. Although florid singing continued up until Rossini
and beyond, the original purpose of florid music—namely, to
amplify the emotional content of the musical and dramatic
situation—increasingly began to lose its meaning. In such an
atmosphere, the alto voice was bound to suffer diminished
50 Chapter 8
interest by a jaded public. There ensued a frantic competition
among the high sopranos, both female and male, to reach the
highest notes at the fastest possible speeds. Mozart wrote a
famous letter to his sister in 1770 reporting that he had heard
Lucrezia Agujari (1743–1783), called La bastardella, sing a
high C in the passage in musical example 8.1.
The altos were not totally replaced by any means during this
period. Of all the singers after Farinelli, the one who elicited
the greatest expressions of admiration, not only for his virtuos-
ity, but also for his almost mystical ability to move the heart,
was Gasparo Pacchierotti. I have written extensively about this
great singer in Singing: The First Art. Pacchierotti was part of
a group of singers who were expanding the range of virtuosity
to the highest level ever known.
The normal range of the castrato contraltos was the two octave
G to G of today’s baritones, although an octave higher, of
course, and, as we learn from Burney, Pacchierotti [1740–1821]
sang up to a B flat or even a C. Burney also notes the fullness
and flexibility of his low voice, and remembers hearing him sing
tenor arias in their original pitch, descending to the B flat. This
would indicate a range of at least three octaves. In other words,
his voice must have provided a foretaste of those female mezzo-
sopranos of the nineteenth century who inspired such wide-
ranging roles as Cenerentola, Rosina, Malcolm Graeme (in La
donna del lago) and Fidès (in Le prophète), the delight of their
originators and the despair of most of those who followed.1
Pacchierotti was very intelligent and well read, so he could
have been influenced by the reforms of Gluck and others who
were reacting to the excesses of the opera seria of old. Lord
Richard Mount-Edgecombe (1764–1839) reflected on Pac-
chierotti’s impeccable taste:
his powers of execution were great, but he had far too good
taste and good sense to make a display of them where it would
have been misapplied, confining it to one aria d’agilita in each
opera, confident that the chief delight in singing and his own
supreme excellence lay in touching expression and exquisite
pathos. Yet he was so thorough a musician that nothing came
amiss to him; every style was to him equally easy, and he could
sing, at first sight, all songs of the most opposite characters,
not merely with the facility and correctness which a complete
knowledge of music must give, but entering at once into the
views of the composer, and giving them all the spirit and expres-
sion he had designed. Such was his genius in his embellishments
and cadences, that their variety was inexhaustible. He could
not sing a song twice in exactly the same way; yet never did he
introduce an ornament that was not judicious and appropriate
to the composition.2
This attitude of respect for the composer was revolution-
ary for the era. Until then, the composer was regarded as
little more than a servant. It took a long time for the at-
titudes to change to the veneration to the composer’s work
that is pervasive among informed musicians today. Violet
Paget (Vernon Lee) quotes Marcello’s satirical work Il teatro
di musica alla moda:
The composer must be very humble towards everyone, standing
with his hat off before the singers, and showing every possible
degree of politeness toward the [performing] bear, the figuranti
[set designers], and the candle-snuffers; but he has to maintain
his station with the poet, “ordering him to put in such and such
metres and syllables, insisting on the poem being legibly copied,
with lots of commas, semicolons, notes of interrogations, &c.,
although in his composition he is to pay no attention whatever
to commas, semicolons, or interrogations.”3
Girolamo Crescentini (1762–1846) was the mezzo-soprano
castrato singer, composer, and teacher who had perhaps the
most beautiful voice of all the castrati. The youthful Schopen-
hauer wrote in his diary:
His supernaturally beautiful voice cannot be compared with that
of any woman: there can be no fuller and more beautiful tone,
and in its silvery purity he yet achieves indescribable power.4
Crescentini was another product of the Bologna school,
studying with Lorenzo Gibelli (1718–1812), a very well-
known teacher who also taught the youthful Rossini. He made
his debut in Rome in 1783 at the age of twenty-one (quite a
late start for a castrato). He made rapid progress, especially in
Naples, where he often sang with Giacomo David (Davide)
(1750–1830), the most famous tenor of the era. He sang in the
premieres of Catone in Utica by Giovanni Paisiello and Amleto
by Gaetano Andreozzi (1755–1826). Crescentini was known
for his pure voice and expressive singing, which was perhaps
equal to Pacchierotti’s, although he lacked the latter’s power.
In Milan, January 1796, he created the part of Romeo in Nic-
coló Zingarelli’s (1752–1837) Giulietta e Romeo and was always
identified with the role. Indeed, Crescentini composed “Ombra
cara aspetta,” which became known as “Romeo’s Prayer” and
was inserted into the opera. The style was really inappropriate
for the dramatic situation and Zingarelli complained that it
“lacked common sense.” As these things often go, it created a
sensation and was forever identified with the opera. Stendhal
used Crescentini’s performances of “Romeo’s Prayer” to explain
the improvisatory genius of these artists and to rail against the
composers’ assumption of control of all of the ornamentation.
There is no composer on earth, suppose him to be as ingenious as
you will, whose score can convey with precision, these and similar
infinitely minute nuances which form the secret of Crescentini’s
unique perfection in his interpretation of the aria; furthermore,
all this infinitely minute material is itself in a perpetual state of
transformation, constantly responding to variations in the physi-
cal condition of the singer’s voice, or to changes in the intensity of
the exaltation and ecstasy by which he may happen to be inspired.
At one performance, he may tend towards ornaments redolent of
indolence and morbidezza; on a different occasion, from the very
moment when he sets foot upon the stage, he may find himself
in a mood for gorgheggi instinct with energy and life. Unless he
yields to the inspiration of the moment, he can never attain to
perfection in his singing. A great singer is essentially a creature of
nerves; a great violinist, on the other hand, needs a temperament
of a radically different quality.5
 Intermezzo 51

The following year in Venice (1797), Crescentini created the best described as queenly. Her coloring was dark, her features
part of Curiazio in Domenico Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi ed I Curi- clean-cut and noble. Talma, the great French tragedian, declared
azi, where he shared the stage with Josephina Grassini (1773– he had never seen any actress with such an expressive physi-
1850), one of the greatest contraltos of the age, as Orazia. ognomy. Her voice was a contralto limited in range, but rich
in quality, and of unusual power and flexibility. In her youth
Grassini was also the first Giulietta in the Zingarelli piece and
she was associated constantly with Crescentini and Marchesi,
relied on Crescentini’s advice as a teacher all her life. It should
two of the best male sopranos of the time, who did much to
be noted that all these singers were singing contemporary mu- benefit her musical style. Fétis, the French critic, who knew her
sic, which, at this time, was calculated to please both performer well, admired especially the free emission of her voice and the
and audience, not irritate them. Crescentini’s skill as a musician breadth of her phrasing.
made him popular with the composers who formed a bridge to Mentally, nature had treated Grassini in niggardly fashion.
Rossini. His successes included Luigi Cherubini’s (1760–1842) She was slow-witted, indolent, unimaginative and unambitious.
Ataserse at Livorno, Giuseppe Sarti’s (1729–1802) Didone ab- Whatever personal charm she possessed was due to her unusual
bandonata at Padua, and Il ritorno di Baco dall’ Indié by Angelo beauty and her kindly disposition. She was notoriously dull in
Tarchi (1760–1814). Crescentini went to Lisbon in 1797, company.6
where he remained for four years as a singer and director of the
opera. He returned to Milan, where in 1803 he was applauded On June 4, 1800, Grassini was interpreting Cora in An-
in Giovanni Simone Mayr’s (1763–1845) Alonso e Cora and dreozzi’s La vergine del sole at La Scala. In the audience was
Vincenzo Federici’s (1764–1826) Ifigenia en Aulide. Napoleon, en route to his army’s victory over the Austrians at
In 1805, Crescentini was in Vienna when Napoleon’s troops Marengo on June 14. The “little corporal,” smitten by Gras-
occupied the city. The emperor, who had no liking for the sini’s beauty and lovely voice, added her to his coterie of lovers
singing of the castrati, heard Crescentini’s singing of “Romeo’s and brought her to Paris where she sang in concerts, there being
Prayer.” He was so moved that he unpinned the Order of the no Italian opera at the time. At one, the Grand National Festi-
Iron Crown of Lombardy from his own jacket and bestowed val at the Champ de Mars, there were eight hundred musicians.
it upon the singer right then and there. He then elevated According to some of the critics, she created a sensation.
Chevalier Crescentini to a knighthood and the nobility and Grassini was a free spirit, known to have had numerous af-
appointed Crescentini singing teacher to the imperial family. fairs, and she took up a relationship with the violinist Pierre
Crescentini moved to Paris in 1806, where he remained until Rode (1774–1830), who was solo violinist to Napoleon. Rode
1812, when he returned to Bologna and in his later years
taught singing at the Royal College of San Pietro a Majella.
The great Isabella Colbran (1785–1845) was one of his pupils.
Josephina (Giuseppina) Grassini had a contralto voice of
great power but it was also unusually flexible. She was noted
for her innate musicality and good taste. Grassini made her
debut in 1789 in Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi’s (1728–1804)
La pastorella nobile (1788). Guglielmi was an important com-
poser in the late eighteenth century who composed both opera
seria and buffo operas. He was a competitor of Paisiello and
Cimarosa, whose innovations were a part of the bridge to Ros-
sini. Grassini started out in opera buffa at La Scala to no great
acclaim, but soon realized that her forte was in drama, so she
resumed her studies and returned to the stage in 1792.
Grassini starred in the first La Scala performances of
Zingarelli’s Ataserse (1793) and in the premieres of Marcos An-
tonio Portugal’s (1762–1830) Demofoonte (1794), Ferdinando
Bertoni’s (1725–1813) Orfeo ed Euridice (1776), Telemaco
nell’ isola di Calypso (1797) by Simone Mayr, and Cimarosa’s
Artemisia regina di Caria (1797). At La Fenice, she sang the
title role in the first performance of La morte di Semiramide by
Sebastiano Nasolini (? 1768–1798).
Like her soprano counterpart Angelica Catalani (1780–
1849), she was very beautiful but perhaps not very well endowed
intellectually.

Physically, Grassini had every desirable quality in the gift of

Figure 8.1.  Giuseppina Grassini by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le
nature. She was tall and well proportioned, with a carriage Brun (1755–1842)
52 Chapter 8
was the composer whose set of violin variations were notori-
ously appropriated by Angelica Catalani with words allegedly
by the singer. Stendhal famously remarked about Catalani that
“God had somehow forgot to place a heart within reasonable
proximity of this divine larynx.”7 Rode and Grassini embarked
on a concert tour to the Netherlands and Germany, after
which she returned to Italy.
From 1803 to 1805 Grassini was in London. She made
her debut at the King’s Theater in Andreozzi’s La vergine del
sole. She also appeared in the title roles of Zaira and Il ratto
di Proserpina by Peter von Winter (1754–1825). In Il ratto
she was judged to be the victor in a singing contest with the
famous soprano, Mrs. Billington (Elizabeth) (1768–1818).
In 1806, Grassini and Crescentini returned to Paris where
Napoleon apparently forgave her indiscretions and appointed
her “first chamber virtuosa.” Grassini subsequently premiered
Luigi Cherubini’s Pimmalione (1809), reprised Orazia in Gli
Orazi ed I Curiazi at the Théâtre Italien in 1813, and cre-
ated Dido in Didone abbandonata (1814) by Ferdinando Paer
(1771–1839) at the Tuileries Palace.
While Napoleon was in exile on the island of Elba, Grassini
moved to Rome. After he escaped and returned to governance
during the “Hundred Days,” she returned to Paris. After the
Bourbon Restoration, Grassini remained in Paris, where she
became the lover of the Duke of Wellington (1769–1852), who
had defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Wel-
lington had been appointed British ambassador to France. How-
ever, Grassini was soon compelled to leave France by Louis XVIII
(1755–1824), who could not countenance the immense popu-
larity of Napoleon’s former lover. Grassini returned to London
where she was heard in the premiere of Aristedemo by Vincenzo
Pucitta (1778–1861), Angelica Catalani’s favorite composer. In
1815, Grassini returned to Italy where she sang in Trieste, Padua,
Florence, and Brescia. In 1817, she sang in two performances
of Gli Orazi at La Scala. Grassini retired in 1823 in Milan and
took up teaching. Two of her pupils were among the most il-
lustrious singers of the nineteenth century—her niece, Giulia
Grisi (1811–1869) and Giuditta Pasta (1797–1865). Giuseppina
Grassini passed away in Milan in 1773 at the age of seventy-five.
Figure 8.2.  Luisa Todi by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Grassini was not the only great female alto singer of the
interim era. Luisa Todi (1753–1833) was a Portuguese mezzo-
soprano (born Luisa Rosa de Aguiar). Unlike most of the
other singers of the era, Todi was equally adept at opera buffa
and opera seria. She started her career as an actress in 1767
or 1768 in Molière’s (1622–1673) play Tartuffe in Lisbon.
From 1769 to 1771, after studying singing, she appeared in
Giuseppe Scolari’s (1720–d. after 1774) Il viaggiatore ridicolo
(1770) and two other comic operas. Todi gained recognition as
an important singer in Oporto from 1772 to 1777. Luisa was
more than just a singer. She spoke four languages—French,
Italian, English, and German—very well and was praised for
her clear diction. Todi was very skilled technically and was an
excellent actress who had an immediate emotional impact on
her audiences.
Todi was engaged in 1777 in London for Paisiello’s comic
opera Le due contesse (1776) but failed to make much of an
impression. Burney thought that
she must have improved very much since she was in England,
or we treated her very unworthily, for though her voice was
thought to be feeble and seldom in tune while she was here,
she has been extremely admired in France, Spain, Russia and
Germany, as a most touching and exquisite performer.8
She then switched to serious parts and her international
fame was established by her triumph at the Concerts Spirituels
in Paris in 1778, whose director was Gluck’s famous haut-con-
tre Josef Legros (1714–1787). To get some idea of the quality
of these concerts, there were two other artists on the programs:
Anton Raaff (1714–1797), the first Idomeneo, and his young
friend, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose symphony No. 31
in D major (Paris) was premiered by the orchestra, reputed to
be one of the finest in Europe. Todi was judged to be “the best
foreign singer ever featured in France.”9 Todi returned to the
Concerts Spirituels in 1779 and 1780 to even more acclaim.
From 1780 to 1783 she appeared at the Teatro Reggio in Turin
and gave several concert tours in Italy, Switzerland, Austria,
and Germany.
In 1783, La Todi was back in Paris where, like Cuzzoni and
Faustina before her, she became embroiled in a battle with the
German soprano Gertrud Elizabeth Schmeling (1749–1833),
who was known as Mara (from her married name). Mara was
the favorite singer of Frederick the Great who was loath to let
her travel. He kept her close to his court by either putting her
in jail or sending her husband off to play in a regimental band.
The pair finally escaped his clutches by traveling to Bohemia
in 1780. In Paris the rivalry between the two singers reached
a white-hot pitch, which divided the public into two warring
factions. Luisa Todi was judged the victor and was called “the
nation’s singer.”
In 1784 Todi traveled to Russia with her family to join
a brilliant company at the court of Catherine the Great
(1729–1796). Catherine was not only a great patroness of the
arts, especially opera, but also a librettist of some nine operas.
Giuseppe Sarti (1729–1802), an acquaintance of Mozart,
 Intermezzo 53
was the director. Sartri’s opera Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode
(1782) was immortalized by Mozart by being quoted in the
last act of Don Giovanni. Luisa appeared in Sarti’s Castore e
Polluce (1786) and her performance in his Armida e Rinaldo
so impressed Catherine that she presented the singer with two
diamond bracelets. To express her gratitude in turn, Todi and
her husband composed an opera, Pollinia, and dedicated it
to the monarch. Luigi Marchesi (1754–1829), a notoriously
temperamental soprano castrato, was in the opera. He and
Sarti became jealous of Todi and began to intrigue against
her. Catherine responded by sacking the pair, though she
reinstated Sarti in 1790. La Todi remained in Russia for four
years (1784–1788) and was the singing teacher to the royal
princesses. Catherine continued to shower her with jewelry of
incalculable value.
In 1788 Luisa Todi was in the court of Frederick Wilhelm
II of Prussia where she triumphed in Andromeda by Johann
Friedrich Reichardt (1752–1815) and Medea by Johann
Gottlieb Neumann (1741–1801). Then she returned to Paris
for her third engagement at the Concerts Spirituel in March
1789. Todi sang, among other selections, “Sarete alfin con-
tenti,” a scene composed for her by Cherubini, and she was
judged to be the greatest singer of her time. Luisa Todi left
Paris only a few weeks before the French Revolution swept
away most of the nobility who had been the sponsors of the
arts and culture of the land.
After a year’s visit to Hanover, La Todi embarked on a tour
of Germany and sang for Ludwig von Beethoven (1770–1827)
in Bonn. She then traveled to Venice, where she appeared in the
Teatro San Samuele from 1790 to 1791, which was declared the
“Todi year.” While in Venice, she began to have vision problems,
which caused her to retire from the stage for a few months.
This was the subject of many tributes and poems written in
her honor. When she returned to the theater, there was raptur-
ous applause. The following season (1791–1792), Todi sang in
Bergamo, Padua, Turin, Parma, and Prague. She was engaged by
the Madrid Teatro de los Caños del Peral from 1792 to 1795.
La Todi’s native country, like Mozart in Austria, failed to
recognize her outstanding career, mostly because women were
forbidden to appear on the stage there. However, after an en-
gagement at the San Carlo in Naples from 1777 to 1779, she
returned to Oporto in 1801. Sadly, misfortune followed the
singer for most of the rest of her life. Todi’s beloved husband
died in 1803, and she wore mourning clothes all her remaining
years. In 1809 Napoleon’s army invaded Oporto and, while
trying to escape, Luisa lost most of her possessions in the river
Douro, including the priceless jewels bestowed upon her by
Catherine II. Todi and her family were imprisoned by the
French, but General Soult remembered “the nation’s singer”
and protected her. In 1811 Todi moved to Lisbon, but by
1823, she had lost her sight completely. She died in 1833 after
suffering a stroke. She was interred in a Lisbon cemetery that
was covered by the foundation of another building. Portugal’s
greatest singer remains buried beneath the floor of a nonde-
script cellar despite repeated requests for a proper memorial
from family descendants and Todi devotees. However, Lisbon
named the street where she died Rua Luisa Todi in 1917. Also,
in Todi’s hometown, Setúbal, there is a bust and monument,
and the main avenue is named Avenida Luisa Todi.
NOTES
1.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 85.
2. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera (1927; repr., New York: Da Capo,
1975), 107.
3.  Vernon Lee [Violet Paget], Studies of the Eighteenth Century in
Italy (London: Unwin, 1907), 164–65.
4. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera, 119.
5.  Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], Life of Rossini, trans. Richard N.
Coe (1823; repr., London: Calder, 1956), 344–45.
6.  Francis Rogers, “Giuseppina Grassini,” The New Music Review
and Church Music Review 7, nos. 73–84 (December 1907–November
1908): 119–20.
7. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 326.
8.  Charles Burney, A General History of Music: From the Earliest
Ages to the Present Period, vol. 4 (London: Payne & Son, 1789), 509.
9. Michel Brenet, Les Concerts en France sous L’ancien Régime
(Paris: Fischbacher, 1900), 319.
II
ALTOS IN THE ROMANTIC REVOLUTION
9
Cambio di Voce
The description of the adolescent “change of voice” is an apt
term for the changes that occurred in opera at the turn of the
eighteenth century. The Age of Enlightenment, or Age of Rea-
son, was coming to a close and the romantic era was dawning.
The French revolution in 1789 is generally regarded as the
political end of the era, but the musical end was probably the
apotheosis of Tamino and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte of Mo-
zart. Seeds for the romantic age were also planted by Mozart
in the real-life characters in Le nozze di Figaro and by Handel
in his scheme of financing his opera seasons by subscription,
taking advantage of the demand for culture from the emerg-
ing middle class, as well as support from the nobility. Perhaps
sensing that the castrato voice was inadequate for such strong
emotions, he also cast a tenor as Bajazet, who commits suicide
in full view of the audience in Tamerlano (1724).
But it was opera buffa, or burletta, the “humble sister” of the
opera seria that elevated the tenor and soprano voices to the
romantic stars-of-the-show status that they still enjoy today.
Neapolitan opera buffa dated from the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in the shadow of the
mighty Teatro San Carlo.
Comic opera was performed during the off-season, between
acts of spoken plays and for the general entertainment of the
masses. The singers were not the great virtuosi, nor was the
music meant to inspire or uplift. However, composers were
never paid very much in the eighteenth century and they had
to make a living; burlettas were written by many of the great
composers of the day, such as Giovanni-Battista Pergolesi
(1710–1736), Galuppi, Niccolo Jommelli, Leo, and Niccola
Piccini (1728–1800). The singers, held to the high standards
of serious opera, were nothing special, but that level of medi-
ocrity would be considered very good today. They were very
good actors and improvisers, rooted in the traditions of the
commedia del arte.
The contralto voice, so dear to the composers of opera seria,
was not used in the opera buffa. On the other hand, the tenor,
which was relegated to supporting roles in the opera seria,
became the male lead, while the bass, formerly a messenger or
57
other minor character, assumed the roles familiar to us of the
blustering old doctor or blundering servant. Thus, the arche-
type of the romantic tenor like Almaviva and the basso-buffo
such as Dr. Bartolo and Don Pasquale were born. The musical
language and orchestration were cut from the same cloth as the
opera seria, but concerted numbers of six or more characters,
all babbling about being driven mad or howling about the state
of their confusion, were used as finales. The opera seria was a
stylistic dead end as soon as the race of singers for whom it
was created died out, but from the humble seed of the burletta
sprouted the mighty tree that led to the full-length comic op-
eras of Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, and, indeed, the dramatic
operas of Verdi and Puccini.
After Cimarosa, Paisiello, and Paer, all of whom mostly
cast sopranos as the prima donnas in their voluminous output
of operas, Johann Simon Mayr, known as Giovanni Simone
Mayr in Italy, was the bridge into the nineteenth century, and
he led the development of the opera seria into the melodrama
of the Romantic age. Mayr was the teacher of Donizetti for
eight years, and Rossini and Verdi were greatly influenced
by him. Mayr wrote almost seventy operas, which are rarely
performed today, though many have been recorded. Mayr’s
chief contribution, besides being a great teacher, was in apply-
ing the orchestral harmonic effects achieved by Joseph Haydn
(1732–1809) and Mozart to Italian opera. Stendhal says that
“he had scarcely a notion how to extract melody from the hu-
man voice, but he was very skilled in extracting music from
his instruments.”1
Another innovation was instituted by the flamboyant but
enormously successful impresario Domenico Barbaja (1778–
1841), when he took over the management of the Teatro San
Carlo in Naples in 1809. Mayr supported Barbaja’s policy of
composing opera seria in the French style, dispensing with
recitativeo secco in favor of orchestral accompaniments. Mayr’s
Medea in Corinto in the new style was a triumph in 1813.
Rossini took over the musical directorship of the Teatro San
Carlo in 1815 and presided over the production of several of
Mayr’s operas.
58 Chapter 9
Mayr had a long career writing opera serie that began in
Venice at the Fenice with Saffo ossia I riti d’Apollo Leucadio in
1794. Mayr’s early operas were cast in the familiar mold and
featured castrati such as Crescentini in Saffo, Telemaco nell’isola
di Calypso (1797), Alonso e Cora (1803), and Zamori ossia L’eroe
dell’ Indie (1804). Luigi Marchesi starred in Lodoiska (1796),
Lauso e Lidia (1798), and Ginevra di Scozia (1801). Last, but
certainly not least, Giovanni Battista Velluti (1781–1861) pre-
miered in Raùl di Crequi (1809).
Female altos who are familiar to us include Giuseppina
Grassini in Telemaco, Margherita Chabrand (1780?–?) in I
misteri eleusini (1802), Teresa Giorgi-Belloc (1784–1855)
in Adelasia ed Aleramo (1806) and Fedra (1821), Marietta
(Maria) Marcolini (c. 1780–1814 or later) in Il sacrifizio di
Ifigenia (1811), Isabella Colbran in Medea in Corinto (1813),
Cora (1815), and Mennone e Zemira (1817), Giuditta Pasta
in Danao (1818), and Rosa Mariani (1799–d. after 1832) en
travesti as Alfredo Re in Alfredo il grande re degli Anglo-Sassoni
(1819).
Mayr’s name has faded into operatic history, but he was very
important in the primo ottocento. Besides his innovations already
mentioned, of general interest is the fact that Mayr was at the
forefront of the gradual replacement of the castrati with tenors as
the leading men of the opera seria. During this time the San Carlo
was a veritable treasure trove of great tenors, and Mayr, as well
as Rossini, began to take advantage of this cornucopia. Manuel
Garcia (1775–1832), Andrea Nozzari (1775–1832), Domenico
Mombelli (1751–1835), Gaetano Crivelli (1768–1836), Niccola
Tacchinardi (1772–1859), Giovanni David (1789–1851), and,
especially, Giacomo David all created leading roles in Mayr’s op-
eras. Giovanni Battista Rubini (1792–1854) appeared in no less
than nine Mayr operas during his splendid career.
NOTE
1.  Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], Life of Rossini, trans. Rich-
ard N. Coe (1823; repr., London: Calder, 1956), 17.
10
The Swan of Pesaro and I Musici
Even as the soprano voice was in its ascendancy to the status
of prima donna, the alto voice was not finished as a central
interest in opera, nor is it to this day. The alto as the voice of
bel canto had a towering champion—Gioachino Rossini, who
particularly loved the contralto voice. In a letter from late 1852
or early 1853 to Luigi Christostomo Ferrucci in Rognoni, he
wrote:
The contralto is the norm against which the other voices and
instruments must be gauged. If you want to do without the
contralto you can push the prima donna assoluta as high as the
moon and the basso profondo right down to the bottom of the
well and this will leave you with nothing in the middle. One
should concentrate on the central register in order to always be
in tune; at the extreme ends, what you gain in force you lose
in grace, and by this abuse you paralyse the throat, resorting
as a remedy to canto declamato, that is, out-of-tune shouting.
Then it becomes necessary to give the orchestration more body
in order to cover the excesses of the voice, to the detriment of
good musical color.1
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart passed away on December 5,
1791, and Gioachino Rossini was born on February 29, 1792.
If we believed in transmigration of the soul, it is not hard to
imagine that the same irrepressible musical genius burned in
both men; the same spirit of joy in music making and in the
love of a good joke. Rossini’s mother was a singer and was
called “the [Angelica] Catalani of seconde donne.”2 As a child,
Rossini had a beautiful soprano voice and sang the boy’s role
in Camilla by Paer and even substituted (in his treble voice)
for an ailing basso-buffo in Valentino Fioravanti’s (1764–1837)
I due gemelli while still a child. Edmond Michotte, a wealthy
amateur from Belgium, made a visit to Rossini in Beau Sejour
(Passy) in 1858. Michotte recounts that Rossini remembered
the purity, miraculous flexibility, and, above all, the penetrat-
ing accent of the castratis’ voices. He also mentioned that
Rossini’s uncle and father had planned to assure the family’s
fortune by submitting the boy to the knife, but Gioachino’s
mother would have none of it at any price.3
59
Rossini’s first opera, a farse, Il cambiale di matrimonio, pre-
miered at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice in 1810 and starred
the eighteen-year-old composer’s family friend, mezzo-soprano
Rosa Morandi (1777–1856) as Fanny. Although its rhythmic
and melodic verve was considered a bit rambunctious and
rude, the farse was a hit, due in no small part to Morandi’s
singing. Morandi had previously (1807) appeared in Mayr’s
cantata S. Napoleone and the premiere of his opera Nè l’un,
nè l’altro at La Scala. In later years, she also created the title
roles in Nicola Vaccai’s (1790–1848) Malvina (1816) and
Rossini’s Edoardo e Cristina in 1819. Her other Rossini roles
were in L’italiana in Algeri, Matilde di Shabran, Tancredi, and
Otello. Navigating the period of change from the opera seria
to Romantic melodrama, Rosa Morandi also created the title
roles for the young Saverio Mercadante’s (1795–1870) Il posto
abbandonato ossia Adele ed Emerico and Gaetano Donizetti’s
(1797–1848) Chiara e Serafina in 1822.
In 1811, while employed as a coach and cembalist for the
Accademia dei Concordi at Bologna, Rossini composed a
beautiful cantata on the subject of Dido and Aeneas, so be-
loved by opera seria composers. It was titled La morte di Didone
and was written for Maria Ester Mombelli (1794–1827 or
later), daughter of the tenor Domenico Mombelli. Mombelli
did not get around to performing the cantata until 1818.
Grove’s lists Mombelli as a mezzo-soprano or soprano. I would
say her voice is more of the latter, judging from the tessitura of
the role (Lisinga) that Rossini composed for her in Demetrio
e Polibio, which received a professional production by the
Mombelli troupe in 1812. Sister Mariana “Anna” Mombelli,
a contralto, sang Siveno. A beautiful duet “Questo cor ti
giura amore” from the opera was composed by the teenaged
Rossini. Ester Mombelli later created the role of Madame
Cortese (1825) in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims and participated
in the Paris premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s (1791–1864)
Il crociato in Egitto. Il crociato is best known these days as the
last opera written for a castrato, Giovanni Battista Velluti, for
whom Rossini also composed Arsace in Aureliano in Palmira
(1813). Incidentally, it was Rossini as director of the Téâtro
60 Chapter 10
Italien who supervised the production of Il crociato. Ester
Mombelli was later well known for her portrayal of Angelina
in La Cenerentola.
Probably desperate for cash, Rossini swiftly set his next
opera, L’equivoco stravagante (1811), to a bizarre libretto by
Gaetano Gasbarri in which one of the rivals for a girl’s af-
fection convinces the other that she is a covert castrato and
an army deserter to boot. The contralto prima donna was
Marietta (Maria) Marcolini as Ernestina, who would be very
important to Rossini’s early career. Besides L’equivoco, Marco-
lini created the eponymous role in Ciro in Babilonia (1812),
Clarice in La pietra del paragone (1812), Isabella in L’italiana in
Algeri (1813), and the title role of Sigismondo (1814). She was
also renowned for her portrayal of Tancredi (1813), Rossini’s
“breakout” opera.
Stendhal wrote that Marcolini had “a ravishing contralto
voice and magnificent gifts as a comic actress.” He also gossips
that Marcolini was Rossini’s mistress during this period.
It may well be imagined that, in a land such as Venice, Rossini’s
glory as a composer was easily equaled by his triumphs as a
man. It was not long before la Marcolini, a delightful cantratrice
buffa, and, at the same time, a woman in the fullest flower of
her youth and talent swept him away from the great ladies who
had been his first protectresses. The gossips whispered of base
ingratitude; and there were many tears shed.4
Stendhal further infers that Marcolini, not to be outdone by
the noble ladies flocking around Rossini, then threw over
Prince Lucien Bonaparte as a sacrifice to him.5
The next important alto in Rossini’s compositional career
was Teresa Giorgi-Belloc, who created the role of Isabella in
L’Inganno felice for the nineteen-year-old Rossini at the San
Moisé in Venice in 1812. L’Inganno felice was such a hit that it
ran for a month. At the close of the run, portraits of Giorgi-
Belloc were sold in the theater, while canaries, doves, and wild
pheasants were released from the loges.
Giorgi-Belloc was a versatile mezzo-soprano and contralto
who often sang soprano roles, as many of the altos were
obliged to do during this period of transition to the soprano
voice as prima donna. Giorgi-Belloc was a fixture at La Scala
for twenty years, where she created Ninetta in Rossini’s La
gazza ladra in 1817. At La Scala, Mayr thoroughly revised the
title part in his Medea in Corinto for her in 1823. Giorgi-Belloc
specialized in Rossini roles and was most well-known for the
contralto parts in Tancredi, La Cenerentola, and L’italiana in
Algeri. She retired in 1828.
Curiously, Richard Coe, in his index to Stendhal’s book,
calls Giorgi-Belloc “an ugly and coarse voiced soprano of
French parentage.”6 I think he must have had her confused
with Adelaide Malanotte (1785–1832), the first Tancredi,
whose voice was compared to the sound of an English horn.
Rossini’s next opera, Ciro in Babilonia (1811), premiered
only two months after his success, was a fiasco. The cast in-
cluded Marietta Marcolini in the eponymous trouser role of
Ciro. An opera seria, it was labeled a “sacred oratorio” so that
it could play during Lent. Rossini’s famous wit came to the
fore in an aria di sorbetto (an aria sung by a minor character
during which the audience could take a break for refreshments
and conversation). Rossini related the following anecdote to
Ferdinand Hiller (1811–1885):
For the opera Ciro in Babilonia I had a horrible seconda donna
[Anna Savinelli as Argene]. Not only was she ugly beyond all
description, but her voice too was without any dignity. After the
most careful testing, I found that she had a single note, the mid-
dle B flat, that didn’t sound too bad. I thereupon wrote an aria
[“Chi disprezza gl’infelici”] in which she had to sing just that
note. I set it all in the orchestra, and as the piece was liked and
applauded, my unitonal singer was delighted with her triumph.7
As we have seen, Marcolini’s assumption of the male role
of Ciro was not a unique event. Cross-dressing and gender
switching was common in the Baroque and Classical eras.
Examples are Handel’s writing the role of Radamisto for
Margherita Durastanti and, of course, Mozart’s Cherubino in
Le Nozze di Figaro. Mostly, however, gender switching took
place among the castrati, many of whom began their careers
in female roles and only switched to the male roles as they got
older. The most important thing about this subject is the un-
derstanding that performers and audiences of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries saw nothing incongruous about a
military hero or emperor piping about his exploits in a high
treble voice. Our idea of masculinity these days is probably a
bass-baritone in a voice-over selling razor blades on television.
Rodolfo Celletti points out that the otherworldly sound of
the castrato voice was ideal for portraying the atmosphere of
fantasy of the Baroque era.
By now the goals and the components of bel canto are all known
to us and can be itemized. The aim is to evoke a sense of won-
der through unusual quality of timbre, variety of colour and
delicacy, virtuosic complexity of vocal display and ecstatic lyrical
abandon. To achieve this, bel canto opera dispenses with realism
and dramatic truth, which it regards as banal and vulgar, replac-
ing them with a fairy-tale view of human feelings and of nature.
Thus a decisive function is performed by: (a) so-called hedo-
nism, which is actually an expression of the smoothness, pathos,
and tenderness of vocal sound; (b) virtuosity, in other words the
amazing feats of daring needed to portray the wonders of a world
of fantasy; (c) symbolic flowery language which underlines the
mythical status of the characters; (d) contrapuntal skill and the
art of improvisation; (e) the abstract nature of the relationship
between sex and role, as symbolized by the castrati and the trav-
esti; (f ) the taste for rare, stylized voices and, in contrast, a sort
of antipathy for voices regarded as commonplace and vulgar.8
It was into the last vestiges of that world of fantasy, along
with the stirrings of desire for the portrayal of real human
feelings on the stage, that Rossini was born. Even during this
dawn of the Romantic period, there was still a sizeable audi-
ence, like Lord Richard Mount-Edgecombe, who yearned for
the old days, so composers often resorted to the institution
of the musico. The first use of the term was to distinguish the
 The Swan of Pesaro and I Musici 61

trained musician from the amateur. Later on, in the seven- the Ferrara performances.10 Deemed an unbridled success, it is
teenth and eighteenth centuries, it came to mean a castrato, the version most often performed today.
often with a derogatory connotation. As the castrati died out, The Tancredi at the premieres of both versions of the opera
primo musico (sometimes musichetto) was used to describe an was sung by Adelaide Malanotte, a contralto whose voice was
alto (mezzo-soprano or contralto) who sings a so-called trouser praised for its accuracy and refined taste but whose timbre was
role. These days this convention is pretty much limited to the said to resemble that of an English horn, “an unpleasant singu-
roles of boys, like Cherubino and Octavian. larity without which Malanotte would figure honorably among
Faced with the issue of believability in today’s visual atmo- first-rank artists.”11 On the very eve of the premiere, the prima
sphere, many of the Baroque roles are sung by falsettists, called donna conveyed to Rossini her distaste for the entrance aria
countertenors, who valiantly try to cope with the demands of “Dolci d’amore parole” that the maestro had composed for her.
this music, but, to me, a rich-voiced female alto like Marilyn There is a legend that Rossini then sat down and composed the
Horne, Ewa Podleś, Cecilia Bartoli, or Joyce DiDonato is much famous aria “Di tanti palpiti” during the four minutes it took to
more satisfying. Perhaps the operatic pendulum will swing back cook a plate of rice, and, ever after, the Venetians have called a
once again, as it did in seventeenth-century Venice, away from quickly composed air an aria dei risi or “rice aria.” Philip Gossett
the emphasis on visual effects and distortions of the libretti to re- informs me that the legend is “demonstrably false.”
ally listening to the beautiful singing and glorious music, which Malanotte is practically unknown these days, but Tancredi
are the only reasons for the existence of opera in the first place. became an enormous hit in Europe. The study of Tancredi
Rossini’s next opera La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder) affords us an opportunity for a further expansion in our un-
(1812) is chiefly remembered today for its sparkling overture. It derstanding of the alto voice because of the variety of great
was produced in Venice and featured a soprano as prima donna. artists who have sung this musico role. One of the very greatest
Six days after the premiere, Demetrio e Polibio, an opera Rossini was Giuditta Pasta, born Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza
had written for the Mombelli family while still a student four Negri in Saronno, Italy. I have included Pasta because she was
years earlier, received its first performance in Rome. It featured
Ester Mombelli as Lisinga and her sister Mariana, a contralto
en travesty, as Siveno, her lover. Demetrio was sung by tenor
Domenico, their father. Later, in 1817, Demetrio was sung by
the great contralto Benedetta Rosmunda Pisaroni (1793–1872).
Rossini’s first opera for La Scala, La pietra del paragone
(The Touchstone), was first performed on September 26,
1812, and ran for an astonishing fifty-three performances.
Marietta Marcolini sang La Marchesa Clarice, and the cast
included a great bass, Filippo Galli (1783–1853), for whom
Rossini wrote several major parts. Stendhal says that La Mar-
colini had always had a yen to appear on stage in male attire,
so Rossini persuaded his librettist to contrive an absurd scene
where she appears with a male chorus in disguise as a captain
of the Hussars, singing her big aria “Se l’itale contrade.” Of
course, this is a different situation from that in which a mu-
sico sings a straight male heroic role, as with Rossini’s next
great success—Tancredi (1813). La pietra del paragone put the
twenty-year-old Rossini “on the map” as the leading young
composer in Italy.
Tancredi was premiered at another very important theater—
La Fenice in Venice on February 6, 1813. The libretto was
based on Torquato Tasso’s (1544–1595) and Voltaire’s9 (1694–
1778) tragedies and fashioned by Gaetano Rossi (1780–1855).
The original version ended with a lieto fine (happy ending)
with Tancredi and Amenaide in each other’s arms. In a second
version, truer to Voltaire’s tragedy, the drama ends with the
death of Tancredi. The second version played in Ferrara in
March 1813, but the first version was restored because some
of the audience complained that the tragic ending interfered
with their digestion. To their everlasting credit, Philip Gossett
(1941) and Marilyn Horne cooperated in presenting Tancredi,
in its second form, in Houston in 1977 for the first time since Figure 10.1.  Giuditta Pasta as Tancredi. Collection of the author.
62 Chapter 10
a mezzo-soprano, most often described as a soprano because
of the higher roles she sang. Other notable Tancredis were the
castrato Fillipo Sassaroli in Dresden in 1817, Maria Malibran
in 1822, Isabella Colbran in London in 1824, and Pauline Vi-
ardot in Paris in 1839. Tancredi lay dormant for 120 years due
to popularity of Rossini’s comic operas and the lack of under-
standing of his importance to the development of Italian dra-
matic opera. In 1952 the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino revived
Tancredi with the great Giuletta Simionato (1910–2010). The
aforementioned Marilyn Horne, Teresa Berganza, Cecilia Bar-
toli, Vivica Genaux, Joyce DiDonato, and Ewa Podleś are all
fine modern interpreters of Tancredi, so we are in the midst of
a resurgence of the alto as prima donna.
As successful as Tancredi was in the field of melodramma
eroico, so was also Rossini’s next opera, L’italiana in Algeri,
composed in only eighteen days, although he did not pre-
pare the secco recitatives himself. Called a melodrama giocoso,
L’italiana starred Marietta Marcolini as Isabella. L’italiana
was the best comic opera composed by Rossini up until that
point and, with its Neapolitan roots, it fed an appetite for
comic opera among the Venetians. The alto voice was ideal for
portraying an independent woman like Isabella. Who has not
enjoyed the descent into the nether regions of the voice in the
aria “Cruda Sorte,” as sung by such a powerful and attractive
artist as Marilyn Horne? L’italiana, an enormous hit in Italy
along with the later Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola,
produced a curious paradox. Rossini in later years became
known as a composer of only comic operas. In his A Short
History of Opera, Donald Jay Grout devotes a scant three pages
to Rossini. It took the dedicated labors of Philip Gossett and
others in the Centro Studi Rossiani in Pesaro to bring out his
true importance to the development of serious Italian opera.
During the 1816 to 1817 season, L’italiana in Algeri was
premiered in Paris, Germany, and Vienna. Stendhal com-
plained that because of the machinations of Ferdinando Paer
and the anti-Rossini clique, the Paris premiere was a failure
there. In 1819, London saw its first L’italiana with Teresa
Giorgi-Belloc in the title role and the great tenor Manuel
Garcia as Lindoro. The New York premiere was January 26,
1832. The Metropolitan Opera only got around to producing
the opera in 1919. It is performed regularly in the twenty-first
century, with forty-eight productions being presented in forty-
three cities since January 2009.12
Aureliano in Palmira (1813), Rossini’s next opera, has an alto
in a leading role, but it was written for the last great castrato,
Giovanni Battista Velluti. Velluti outlived his contemporaries
and became almost the last survivor of his tragic race. When
he was in his prime, Velluti, who was quite handsome, had nu-
merous amorous affairs with noblewomen. He made his debut
in Forli in 1800 and appeared in Andreozzi’s Piramo e Tisbe in
Naples in 1803. He was a great success in Rome from 1805
to 1808 in Giuseppe Nicolini’s (1762–1842) La selvaggio nel
Messico and Trajano in Dacia, Giacomo Tritto’s (1733–1824)
Andromaca e Pirro, and a revival of Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi ed I
Curiazi, which was created by Crescentini in 1801. In Milan,
Velluti had a triumph in Coriolano, another opera by Nicco-
lini, with Isabella Colbran. Niccolini and Francesco Morlacchi
(1784–1841) became Velluti’s favorite composers because of
the opportunities for lavish embellishment that they afforded
him, and he traveled extensively appearing in their operas. Vel-
luti had no peer in music featuring agility during this period,
and he prepared three sets of embellishments for each opera,
from which he never varied.
Aureliano in Palmira was Rossini’s only experience of writ-
ing for a castrato, and it has given rise to the oft-repeated
story about the young composer’s run-in with the vain but
prodigiously gifted musico. As the story goes, as the singer sang
his cavatina “Se tu m’ami, o mia regina” in three rehearsals, he
embellished it each time with increasing flourishes of coloratura
so that the original melody had almost completely disappeared.
The premiere was a huge success for Velluti but the opera was
a flop. Rossini was enraged and exclaimed, “Non conosco piú le
mie arie!” (“I cannot even recognize my own music!”) He then
purportedly vowed to regain control and write out all the em-
bellishments for his operas. Stendhal was an unabashed admirer
of Rossini, but he pointed out what was lost when the spon-
taneous improvised performance was forced to give way to the
come scritto (literal interpretation) of the music. He wrote that
Rossini actually respected Velluti but feared that subsequent
mediocre artists, who did not have the advantage of his inter-
pretative genius, might corrupt the public’s taste with mindless
roulades and fioratura unconnected to the dramatic content
of the music. He had already castigated Angelica Catalani for
these same abuses. He also stated that what was written for a
great singer was not necessarily comfortable for succeeding art-
ists and spontaneity and freedom would be lost. He then claims
that Rossini from this time on had embarked on a “second
manner” in the Neapolitan operas written for the particular
gifts (and weaknesses) of his mistress, then wife, Isabella Col-
bran, starting with Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra (1815).
Rodolfo Celletti in his wonderful little book, A History of
Bel Canto, refutes this notion, pointing out that
Rossini was probably the most intelligent opera composer in
history, not the most stupid, as might be implicitly deduced if
we paid any attention to the positively ludicrous notion of his
arranging all his writing to serve the purpose of punishing Velluti
and giving a boost to Colbran. The vast number of passages, for
solo voice or ensemble, which in Rossini’s operas appear in florid,
ornate, and varied form, are so treated because the composer’s
inspiration wanted it that way. And we are the beneficiaries.13
Celletti further points out that the Arbace character that
Velluti portrayed in Aureliano already contains more elaborate
coloratura than Rossini had provided in his earlier opera seria
works. It is also certain that Velluti further embellished his part
in the accepted style of the day. Celletti shows that Rossini
expected and encouraged this practice by providing numerous
arresti or arbitri that were fermatas, not written as holds in the
melody, but opportunities for the insertion of vocalises, half
cadences, and the like by the performer.
 The Swan of Pesaro and I Musici 63
Venice was now the scene of further triumphs for Velluti, and of
further burlesque incidents—including the misunderstanding
caused by the wife of the chief Governor of the Fenice. This
lady, to whom her husband was absolutely subservient, left a
note for her dressmaker, before leaving for the country, saying
that on a certain outfit she “did not want velvet” (non voglio
veluto). The husband, finding this and jumping to the wrong
conclusion, immediately dismissed the singer on some pretext;
then the wife returned. Being an ardent fan of Velluti’s, she
made her long suffering husband rush off in person to catch
the singer up, and bring him back on whatever conditions he
might stipulate. So Velluti was persuaded to return, and to cre-
ate the role of the Christian knight in Meyerbeer’s “Crociato in
Egitto”—a role specially composed for him, and in which he
achieved a notable success.14
Velluti died in 1861, at eighty years of age, and the news-
papers of the day are full of paragraphs expressing amazement
that he should have been alive so recently. He was thought of
as a legend, dimly remembered from the distant past, and there
he had been alive and active, among them all the time.
His character, as will have been gathered, was erratic and
unpredictable. An unusually intelligent man for a singer, he
could be kind, witty, and perspicacious, but he also on oc-
casion showed himself conceited and demanding, and even,
apparently, downright dishonest. But it must have been nerve-
wracking to feel oneself so much an object of curiosity.15
Il Turco in Italia was premiered at La Scala in 1814 and the
Milanese considered it to be a mirror image of L’italiana in Algeri
and therefore lacking in originality. Like many other operas, its
initial lack of success was gradually reconsidered and it became
quite popular. The opera was influenced by Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte
and featured a soprano, Francesca Maffei Festa (1778–1835), as
Fiorilla and the alto Adelaide Carpano as Zaida. Fiorilla has been
sung by mezzo-sopranos—in 1826 Maria Malibran sang it in
New York and Cecilia Bartoli in Zurich in 2002.
Sigismondo (1814) was a decided failure and has seldom
been repeated. The premiere was at the Fenice in Venice with
Marietta Marcolini in the musico title role. Stendhal, who in-
tensely admired Marcolini, said of her “tour de force” in sing-
ing the final aria in Sigismondo: “Where to find a prima donna
with lungs sufficiently robust to sing a grand air à roulade at
the end of so wearying a work?”16
We now come to a change in the trajectory of Rossini and
his casting of the prima donna roles in his operas. He en-
countered Domenico Barbaja and ultimately Isabella Colbran,
Barbaja’s mistress who would become Rossini’s mistress and
then wife. Barbaja not only shrewdly managed La Scala, but
also the gambling concession of the opera house, which was
the true moneymaker. He eventually simultaneously managed
most of the major opera houses in Europe. In 1806, Bar-
baja took over the management of the gambling concession
above the Caffé della Meridionale in Naples for King Joseph
Bonaparte (1768–1844). Three years later in 1809, Joachim
Murat (1767–1815), Napoleon’s brother-in-law, ascended the
throne. He provided Barbaja the unprecedented opportunity
to manage both the royal gaming concessions and the greatest
opera house in Italy, the Teatro San Carlo, as well as the smaller
theaters, the Fondo, Nuovo, and Fiorentini.
In 1815 Barbaja brought Rossini to Naples. It is not certain
how Rossini and the impressario first met. Although the popu-
lar opera seria Tancredi was composed only two years earlier,
the twenty-three-year-old Rossini had a reputation as Italy’s
greatest composer of opera buffa. Perhaps Barbaja believed
that if Rossini was not successful composing opere seria for the
San Carlo, he could be kept busy writing farse for the smaller
theaters. Rossini was contracted as the music director of the
San Carlo and Fondo theaters and was to write two operas per
year. Rossini later quipped, “If he had been able to, he would
have put me in the charge of the kitchen too.”17 One thing is
certain: by this time, Isabella Colbran was the prima donna
assoluta of the San Carlo and had Barbaja in the palm of her
hand. She would brook no competition from any other prima
donna, be it soprano or alto. Rossini, who was very wise for a
youngster, understood which side of his bread the olive oil was
on. He set to work composing an opera seria for Colbran, Elisa-
betta, regina d’ Inghilterra. Elisabetta was premiered on October
4, 1815. It was a great success and Rossini went on to compose
eight more operas for the great Spanish diva. I cover them in
the next chapter, “The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta.”
Should Elisabetta fail, L’italiana in Algeri was booked for its
Naples premiere at the Fondo. The Isabella was sung by Mar-
gherita Chabrand-Albani, a veteran of the buffo company and
later a prima donna of the San Carlo and, according to Richard
Osborne, an audience favorite. The Lindoro was the young
Giovanni Battista Rubini who had debuted in L’inganno felice in
the Fiorentini in early October. I do not know if Chabrand-Al-
bani was an alto, but Isabella’s music lies too low for most sopra-
nos. I imagine that she was a mezzo-soprano with a wide range.
Chabrand-Albani (1780–18?) had a long career and created the
part of Leonore in Mayr’s opera L’amor coniugale (1805), based
on the same story as Beethoven’s Fidelio. Both operas premiered
in 1805. She was also in the San Carlo’s premiere of Gli Orazi ed
i Curiazi of Cimarosa (1807), Mayr’s Alonzo e Cora (1809), the
alto part of the Gran Vestale in Gaspure Spontini’s (1774–1851)
La vestale with Colbran as Giulia in 1811, the title part in
Genevra di Scozia by Mayr in 1815, Sofia in L’allievo d’amore
(1815) by Paer, Anna in Maometto (1817) by Peter von Winter,
Rosa in Le cantatrice villane (1817) of Valentino Fioravanti, La
rosa bianca e la rosa rossa (1819) of Mayr, and Telaria in Castore
e Polluce (1819) by Federici, along with the great contralto
Benedetta Rosmunda Pisaroni as Fedra.18 Most of this time
Chabrand-Albani was overshadowed by Colbran, but she was
a valuable member of the Neapolitan scene for many years and
deserves to be remembered.
Rossini had permission to travel and compose operas else-
where, but his salary was docked for the time he was gone.
Perhaps fulfilling a previous commitment to the Teatro Valle in
Rome, Rossini arrived there in the late fall of 1815 to supervise
a production of Il Turco in Italia. Capitalizing on an enthu-
siasm for Rossiniana in the eternal city, Rossini composed a
64 Chapter 10

dramma semiserio, Torvaldo e Dorliska for December 1815. The

young alto Adelaida Sala (fl. 1810–1830), was the Dorliska
and Domenico Donzelli (1790–1873), the great spinto tenor,
the Torvaldo. Sala, who married a grandee of Spain, became
countess of Fuentes. She was described in Michael Quin’s A
Visit to Spain:

She is of a short figure, an intelligent, though not very hand-

some countenance, and possesses a charming voice. It is not an
extensive compass, being what is called a contr’alto; but there is
fluidity and a precision of intonation in her notes which always
please the hearer. Nor does she want that divine power of ex-
pression, the true magic of the human voice, which revealing, as
it were, the inner recesses of the heart of the performer, exercises
the same influence over that of the auditor, and binds them
together for a moment in the invisible chains of sympathy.19

Despite a sterling cast, Torvaldo e Dorliska proved to be a fi-

asco, mostly because of a dismal libretto. The day after the pre-
miere, Rossini signed a contract with Duca Francesco Sforza-
Cesarini (c. 1772–1816), a noble impresario who owned the
Teatro Argentina in Rome. Rossini was obligated to compose
an opera based on any libretto given him in five weeks, adjust
the music to the convenience and demands of the singers, pre-
side at rehearsals, and serve as maestro al cembalo for the first
three performances. The opera proved to be Almaviva, ossia
L’inutile precauzione, a title probably chosen to distinguish it
from Il barbiere di Siviglia of Paisiello, whose partisans (paisi-
ellisti) Rossini had reason to fear. Sforza-Cesarini, who was
in financial trouble, knew that he had to engage one star to
fill the house and he did so—the great Spanish tenor Manuel
Garcia was the original Almaviva. There is some evidence that
the title Almaviva was used to publicize the presence of Garcia,
but it was immediately known by its present title.
For Rosina, Sforza-Cesarini’s original choice was Elisabetta
Gafforini (c. 1772–?) who was famous for buffo roles. When
Gafforini’s demands became excessive, Sforza-Cesarini, at Ros-
sini’s urging, engaged a young contralto, Geltrude Righetti-
Giorgi (also Giorgi-Righetti) (1793–1862) who had only been
singing in public for two years.
Her voice was described by Louis Spohr (1784–1859) as
“full, powerful, and of rare extension, rising from F below the
staff to B flat above it.”20 Righetti-Giorgi had a short career, re-
tiring in 1822 because of ill health, but she created the leading
roles in two of the immortal masterpieces of the Italian lyric
stage—Rosina and Angelina in La Cenerentola, which pre-
miered on January 25, 1817. Righetti-Giorgi was a spirited ad-
vocate for Rossini, and in 1823 published a reply to an article
written by Stendhal (under the pseudonym Alceste) in 1822.
Her monograph was called Cenni di una donna gia cantante
sopra il maestro Rossini. A rather snarky review of her book in
the Harmonicon of 1824 quotes Righetti-Giorgi’s opinion that
Mozart’s music did not stand comparison with that of Rossini:
Figure 10.2.  Geltrude Righetti-Giorgi
which however is so trivial, that neither the amateur nor the
connoisseur feels any interest in remembering it, what is there
besides that makes any deep impression upon the soul? This
Don Giovanni of Mozart, which made such a noise in Milan
and Florence, was very cooly received in other theaters of Italy.21
Righetti-Giorgi’s memoir provides much insight into the
fiasco of the first performance of Il barbiere. She modestly
wrote that the audience, in an uproar, did not listen to Figaro’s
“Largo al factotum” nor the Count-Figaro duet “All’idea di quel’
metallo,” but that she had received three outbursts of applause
during “Una voce poco fa.” Rossini, for his part, feigned illness,
refusing to greet a throng of well-wishers who came to congratu-
late him on the success of the second performance, even though
they broke out two windows in his hotel in their enthusiasm.
Until recently, the Count’s great last-act aria, “Cessa di piu
resistere,” was usually omitted from performance, sometimes
cited as superfluous and that Rossini composed it as a sop for
Garcia’s ego.22 The real reason, of course, is that it is difficult
and beyond most modern tenors who have been brought up
on the technique of the voix sombrée.23 These days, Juan Diego
Florez (b. 1973) and a few other tenors can handle this aria
brilliantly, so it is regularly heard in performance and in re-
cordings. In her book, Righetti-Giorgi also defended Rossini’s
practice of borrowing from himself.

I have played the character of Zerlina in his Don Giovanni, It is true that Rossini copies himself, but if a passage in one of
where with the exception of the air, La ci darem la mano, his operas pleases, why should he not be permitted to transplant
 The Swan of Pesaro and I Musici 65
it into another, and see his favorite flower blooming into a
second nosegay?24
She stayed true to her convictions, for in subsequent produc-
tions in 1816:
In Bologna, she appropriated for Rosina the Act II aria written
for Almaviva, “Cessa di piu resistere.” She also made a change
that quickly became a custom and continued into the twentieth
century: she substituted an aria of her own choice (in this case,
“La mia pace, la mia calma”) for “Contro un cor,” the aria of
the lesson scene. . . . In Florence, Righetti Giorgi replaced the
aria in the lesson scene with “Perché non puoi calmar,” probably
by Stefano Pavesi (1779–1850), an aria more elaborate than the
one she had inserted in Bologna and “Cessa di piú resistere” was
omitted entirely.”25
Neither Rossini nor Garcia was present for these perfor-
mances. In the premiere, Garcia interpolated his own com-
position for “Se il mio nome” while accompanying himself
on his guitar to howls from the audience. Rossini insisted on
his original composition for subsequent performances.26 In
1819 in Venice, Rossini adjusted Rosina’s music for soprano
Josephine Fodor-Mainvielle (1789–1870), and the soprano
voice was fairly dominant in the role until recently. But that’s
another story.
While in the final rehearsals for Il barbiere, Rossini learned
that the Teatro San Carlo had burned to the ground. He re-
turned to Naples to fulfill his obligations, with a contract in
his pocket for another opera for December 1816 at the Teatro
Valle. This turned out to be the drama giocoso La Cenerentola,
which featured Geltrude Righetti-Giorgi as Angelina.
Rossini’s next opera for Naples was La gazzetta, which pre-
miered at the Fiorentini, a small buffo opera house in lieu of
the San Carlo, which Barbaja was having rebuilt in splendor
in record time. The story, based on Goldoni’s Il matrimonio
per concorso (1743) was about a pair of fathers who were trying
to make money by marrying off their daughters to wealthy
husbands. One of them, a rogue named Don Pomposo, was
played by Carlo Casaccia (Casacciello), an enormous comic
genius who belonged to a family that had kept Neapolitans in
stitches for the better part of a century. As a concession to the
Fiorentini audience, Rossini consented to having Casaccia’s
part written in Neapolitan dialect. He regretted the decision,
however, and wrote to his mother: “I don’t really understand
the form of the dialogue or the development of the action.
Will heaven help me?”27
The Lisette in La gazzetta was the aforementioned Mar-
gherita Chabrand, a Neapolitan audience favorite. Unfor-
tunately, the opera was not a success and folded after a few
performances. Lately (2001), however, with the critical edition
by Philip Gossett and direction by Dario Fo (1926) at Pesaro,
the opera has gained new life. Rossini’s next opera, Otello (De-
cember 4, 1816), is covered in the next chapter.
Rossini arrived back in Rome sometime in the middle of
December 1816. Three days before he was to have his new
opera ready (December 23), he still had not chosen a libretto.
He may have notified the impresario that he would have to
postpone the premiere. Italian composers of the period were
accustomed to working quickly, but Rossini was the king of
the procrastinators.
His [Rossini’s] “Barber” was composed—and more than that,
was mounted—in a month. Someone told Donizetti that he
had written it in thirteen days. “Very possibly” was the reply;
“he is so lazy!”28
Jacopo Ferretti (1784–1852), the librettist, famously wrote
that he had suggested the story of Cinderella to Rossini and
delivered the outline overnight. He stated that he had written
the verses in twenty-two days and that Rossini had prepared
the score in twenty-four. There is little doubt that Righetti-
Giorgi influenced Rossini to convert most of “Cessa di piu
resistere” to “Non piu mesta.” The premiere of La Cenerentola
on January 25, 1817, was a shipwreck. The tenor, Giacomo
Guglielmi (1782–1820), whose once-beautiful voice was on
the decline, was not able to learn the music correctly and, ac-
cording to Feretti, sang “a whole shopful of wrong notes.” Gi-
useppe de Begnis (1793–1849) the Dandini “had the system,
when singing, of shouting like a man possessed.”29
Righetti-Giorgi, who had sung “Cessa piu resistere” in a
revised Il barbiere in Bologna the previous summer, headed
a cast of tried and tested Rossinians. They needed to be. Ac-
cording to Feretti, the act 2 duet between Dandini (Giuseppe
DeBegnis) and Don Magnifico (Andrea Verni) was still being
rehearsed in the break between acts on opening night which
was almost as noisy and accident-ridden as the first night of
Il barbiere. By now, however, Rossini was impervious to the
antics of the Roman mob. La Cenerentola quickly won inter-
national acclaim and for many years was more popular than Il
barbiere di Siviglia. It is certainly the most humane of Rossini’s
great comedies.30
Rossini used the warm velvety sound of Righetti-Giorgi’s alto
voice to contrast sharply with the shrill quality of her two wicked
soprano sisters. She continued to ride the subsequent popularity
of La Cenerentola, which played at the Valle for at least twenty
performances until the season ended on February 18. She had
a triumph in Genoa and the opera ran for forty-four perfor-
mances at La Scala with Francesca Maffei-Festa (1778–1835) in
the title role. Rossini was only twenty-five, but he composed no
more opere buffe for Italian opera houses. Le comte Ory (1828)
and Il viaggio a Reims (1825) were comic operas composed for
Paris, and Adina (1818) was premiered in Lisbon.
Rodolfo Celletti further amplifies his point that the increas-
ingly florid nature of Rossini’s vocal writing was an intrinsic part
of his inspiration and not a rigid attempt to control the singers.
Stendhal and others have written that this development was an
attempt to hide Isabella Colbran’s vocal decline behind a flurry
of notes. In this regard, Righetti-Giorgi was a willing participant
in a watershed moment in vocal history and, far from being
resentful, was a vigorous defender of Rossini.
66 Chapter 10
Actually, it was with Il barbiere, Cenerentola and La gazza
ladra that Rossini reaches a type of exceedingly detailed col-
oratura and introduces another innovation—that of placing
comic opera on a level with opera seria as an “anvil” for forg-
ing vocal virtuosity. But with Semiramide he was to go even
further, corroborating the fact that, contrary to what is always
maintained, the enrichment of the melismatic part is a gradual
and ongoing process which was only to be abandoned when
his move to Paris forced him to adjust his methods to French
practice.31
Philip Gossett informs me that the particelle reveal that the
singers of the Paris Opéra added back the ornaments that Ros-
sini removed.
Rossini next traveled to Milan, where he composed La
gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie), which premiered on May
31, 1817. Rossini stayed with Francesca Maffei-Festa and her
husband, who were hospitable to him. However, the opera
featured alto Teresa Giorgi-Belloc, who had created Isabella
in L’inganno felice for Rossini, as Ninetta. La gazza ladra is a
melodrama or opera semiseria and, besides Belloc, featured the
veteran Rossini bass Filippo Galli (1783–1853) as Fernando
Villabella. Others in the cast who would later create important
roles for Rossini were Antonio Ambrosi (1886–?), bass, and
Savino Monelli (1784–1836), a tenor who also created two
roles for Donizetti.
La gazza ladra seems to have been based upon a story of an
actual event in France in which a peasant girl was hanged for
the theft of a family’s silver. The culprit was, in fact, a magpie.
The role of Ninetta, the wronged servant girl of the story,
is a character like Cenerentola, who elicits our sympathies.
Though not a “starry”-type role, it has attracted a number of
great singers like Isabella Colbran, Giuditta Pasta, Laure Cinti-
Damoreau (1801–1863), and especially Maria Malibran.
Stendhal was present at the inaugural performance and
wrote that “it was one of the most glittering, the most single-
minded triumphs” that he had ever witnessed. Rossini became
fatigued from the hundreds of times he had to bow during the
performance.
There was Madame Belloc, who sang the part of poor Ninetta
with her pure and wonderful voice which seems to grow
younger with every passing year (the role is not difficult, but she
sang it with infinite grace and intelligence; and I remember that
she seemed to add a touch of dignity to the basic conception of
the character, so that in the end we had, not so much a common
serving-wench, but something much closer to the daughter of a
gallant veteran, driven out into the world to seek employment
on account of her father’s misfortunes).32
We take our leave of Stendhal, Belloc, and La gazza ladra
with the following anecdote that provides a window into
an Italian opera house at the beginning of the nineteenth
century:
Spectators in the pit [in Milan] had clambered up on to their
benches, and had called upon Madame Belloc to give them
an encore; and they were already calling for yet another encore
of the same cavatina [“Ah! Gia dimentico i miei tormenti”],
when Rossini intervened in person, addressing the front rows
of the pit from his seat at the piano: “Gentlemen, the part
of Ninetta is extremely heavy; and if you continue to treat
Madame Belloc in this inconsiderate manner, she will be too
exhausted to finish the opera.” This argument, which was
repeated from mouth to mouth, and argued from one end of
the pit to the other, did at last, after an interruption lasting
some fifteen minutes, produce an effect. My neighbours on
either hand were arguing away among themselves with as
much heat and sincerity as though they were old acquain-
tances; and in all Italy I have never witnessed such fatal
imprudence. Spontaneous discussion of this type gives the
informer the very chance he is hoping for, to butt in, pick a
side in the argument, and later denounce the contestants to
the police—only too successfully!33
NOTES
1.  Leonella Grasso Caprioli, “Singing Rossini,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Rossini, ed. Emanuele Senici (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), 192.
2.  Herbert Weinstock, Rossini: A Biography (New York: Knopf,
1968), 9.
3. Edmond Michotte, Richard Wagner’s Visit to Rossini and an
Evening at Rossini’s in Beau Sejour, trans. and ed. Herbert Weinstock
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 109–10.
4.  Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], Life of Rossini, trans. Richard
N. Coe (1823; repr., London: Calder, 1956), 66.
5. Lucien Bonaparte (1775–1840), first prince of Canino and
Musignano, was a younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte.
6. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 493.
7. Weinstock, Rossini, 28.
8.  Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 9.
9.  Voltaire’s pseudonym was François-Marie Arouet..
10.  Philip Gossett, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 151.
11. Weinstock, Rossini, 405.
12.  Operabase, operabase.com (accessed 15 December 2013).
13. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 145–46.
14.  Angus Heriot, The Castrati in Opera (1927; repr., New York:
Da Capo), 194.
15. Heriot, The Castrati in Opera, 199.
16. Weinstock, Rossini, 495.
17. Weinstock, Rossini, 48.
18. Amadeus, www.amadeusonline.net/almanacco.php?Start=0&
Giorno=&Mese=&Anno=&Giornata=&Testo=Chabrand&Parola=St
ringa (accessed 25 January 2014).
19.  Michael Joseph Quin, A Visit to Spain (London: Hurst Rob-
inson, 1824), 99.
20. Weinstock, Rossini, 414.
21.  Anonymous, “Rossini,” The Harmonicon, ed. William Ayer-
ton, vol. 2 ( London: Samuel Leigh, 1824), 83.
22. Gossett, Divas and Scholars, 256–59.
 The Swan of Pesaro and I Musici 67

23. For explanations of the voix sombrée, please see Dan H. 27.  Richard Osborne, Rossini: His Life and Work (New York: Ox-
Marek, Singing: The First Art and Giovanni Battista Rubini and the ford University Press, 2007), 44.
Bel Canto Tenors: History and Technique, xiv, 85, 93, 170, 201, 252, 28. James Mason, “Curiosities of Music,” The Leisure Hour 34,
254, 271–72, 308. (1885): 124.
24.  Anonymous, “Rossini,” 82. 29. Weinstock, Rossini, 72–73. Quoted from a posthumous mem-
25.  Patricia K. Brauner, Il barbiere di Siviglia (Kassel, Germany: oir by Jacopo Ferretti.
Bärenreiter Verlag, 2010), v–vi. 30. Osborne, Rossini, 48–49.
26.  For insight into the common practice of interpolating other 31. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 145.
composer’s music into opera scores, see Hilary Poriss, Changing the 32. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 260.
Score (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 33. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 266.
11
The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta
In Bologna in 1807, Rossini, who was only fifteen, first briefly
encountered the beautiful, supremely talented, but imperious
twenty-two-year-old Spanish mezzo-soprano Isabella Angela
Colbran. Like Giuditta Pasta, Colbran could be called a
mezzo-soprano with an upward extension to high E or even F
on occasion, or a soprano with a downward range extending
to a G below middle C, giving a useable range of almost three
octaves. There is a thicket of terminology for this special kind
of voice. In the early nineteenth century, such a voice was
commonly called a soprano sfogato. The problem today is that
some authorities (Grove) define this voice as “airy, evaporated,”
a “light soprano voice,” “light and easy in style.” Such a voice
should be more properly called soprano acuto sfogato, for a
singer with a light, high voice who is comfortable singing a
high F and above. However, the meaning also associated with
this term sfogato is sfogarsi—(persona) “to give vent to one’s
feelings.”1 This is certainly in line with the term as understood
by the Italian composers and singers of the primo ottocento.
The singers with the designation soprani sfogati were all great
interpreters of dramatic tragic roles, not comedic parts.
Another meaning of the term sfogato is “unrestrained.”
Therefore I would say that since these singers had access to
the lowest notes down to G and also the highest notes of the
soprano range, they were dramatic mezzo-sopranos (altos)
with exceptional top notes who sang with great passion and
had dazzling coloratura ability. All were able to sing over the
heavier orchestral accompaniments that were coming into
fashion at the time. I would think that the term alto sfogato
would be a more appropriate term for them, although they
would probably have bristled at the term, which to them
would denote secondary status. Geoffrey S. Riggs designates
these voices assoluta,2 but to me, this is a social term rather
than a vocal one meant to designate which prima donna or
primo uomo is really first. The modern equivalent of the term
is superstar, when being a star is not enough.
One of the criticisms of the soprani sfogati, like Colbran and
Giuditta Pasta, is that their voices lacked homogeneity, but this
is based on a profound ignorance of the nature of the human
69
voice. In order to sing the extreme range of the soprano sfogato
parts, the artist had to be a master of registration. Many mod-
ern teachers tell their students that they must sound the same
from the top to the bottom of the voice. The bel canto masters
stressed that the scale must be even, not the same.
The human voice in its natural state is often unequal, tremu-
lous, unsteady, heavy, and of small compass. Well-directed and
persevering study can alone ensure correct intonation,—perfect
the mellowness and intensity of the sounds,—level irregulari-
ties of the registers, and, by uniting these extend the compass;
besides which, it is only by means of study that a singer can
acquire flexibility and rapidity of execution.3
The reason that the bass voice sounds so different from the
coloratura soprano is not the pitch, but that it contains more
overtones. The same is true for the bass notes on the piano,
which are produced by thick, long strings and the treble notes
by thin, short ones. This does not mean that the bass voice is
louder and projects better than the treble. A visit to any con-
cert hall will prove this statement.
We know that the great castrati, like Farinelli, Caffarelli,
and Pacchierotti had essentially the same ranges as the soprani
sfogati, and I am sure that Rossini was not the only one who
remembered them. During the reign of the castrati, there
were always women who challenged them for supremacy, like
Mozart’s original Susanna, Nancy Storace (1766–1817) versus
Luigi Marchesi.4 For this study, I treat the soprani sfogati as
altos with extraordinarily high ranges. Also, we must keep in
mind the concert pitch was considerably lower in the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century. Most of these singers also sang
male roles, so they are designated as musici as well.
We must remember that the altos of the primo ottocento were
forced to sing higher tessituras as the sopranos were increas-
ingly favored by composers like Donizetti and Bellini. They
feared that they would begin to be considered seconde donne.
However, as Manuel Garcia II (1805–1906) once remarked,
“transposition was invented for singers.”5 Although these al-
terations were not often documented, it is certain that they
70 Chapter 11
did take place. Sergio Ragni stated that Colbran was a soprano
and has good evidence to back up his view. He writes that
when Colbran sang repertoire originally written for Marcolini
or Righetti-Giorgi, Rossini raised the pitches of the arias and,
conversely, when someone like Marcolini sang the Colbran
repertoire, the pitches were lowered.6
Then, as now, singers designated as soprani sfogati who in-
sisted on singing everything, such as Pasta, Viardot (who was
a true contralto), and, in our day, Maria Callas (1923–1977),
suffered shocking decline of the top of their voices at the end
of their careers. Maria Malibran, with her vivacious personal-
ity, would probably have suffered the same fate had she not
died so young. The dramatic personality is not an ingredient
for vocal longevity. Zinka Milanov (1906–1989) and Joan
Sutherland (1926–2010) both sang to advanced ages. Milanov
once famously told a young student, “Don’t act, darling. It’s
bad for the voice!”
Isabella Colbran, who was born Isabel Colbrandt in her
native Madrid, was a protégée of Queen Maria Luisa of Spain
and studied with Crescentini, among others, which may have
given her the idea of singing such an extended range. Colbran
was also the composer of four song collections, which gives us
an idea of the thoroughness of the musical education of the
time, which, in contrast to the present, was practically devoid
of distractions. She made her stage debut in Spain in 1806.
Figure 11.1.  Isabella Colbran as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello.
Courtesy Clarissa Lablache Cheer.
The following year, she was made a member of the Accademia
Filharmonica in Bologna before her first performance, an
extraordinary honor. Stendhal, who had a love-hate attitude
toward Colbran, describes her thus:
She was a beauty of the most imposing sort: with large features
that are superb on stage, magnificent stature, blazing eyes a la
circassienne, a forest of the most beautiful jet-black hair, and fi-
nally, an instinct for tragedy. As soon as she appeared [on stage],
wearing a diadem on her head, she commanded involuntary
respect even from people who had just left her in the foyer.7
Between 1808 and 1809, Colbran, who was a dramatic
singer, created roles at La Scala in Nicolini’s Coriolano, Vin-
cenzo Federici’s Ifigenia, and Orcamo by Verdi’s composition
teacher, Vincenzo Lavigna (1776–1836). In 1811, Barbaja
brought Colbran to the San Carlo, where she achieved no-
table success in La vestale by Gaspare Spontini in 1811 and
Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide in 1812. Colbran then created the
title role in Mayr’s Medea in Corinto (1813). These operas
were written in the French style, dispensing with the secco
recitativo in favor of orchestral accompaniment throughout,
and were especially suited to Colbran’s strengths as a dra-
matic actress as well as a great singer. Colbran was to remain
in place as prima donna assoluta in the greatest opera house
in the world for a decade.
October 4, 1815, was the date of the premiere of Elisabetta,
regina d’ Inghilterra. Naples was the center of a vigorous op-
eratic life and was proud of its native composers. Zingarelli,
Paisiello, Cimarosa, Paer, Giuseppe Mosca (1772–1839),
Valentino Fioravanti, and the transplanted German Giovanni
Simone Mayr (Johann Simon Mayr) were regularly produced
at the three principal theaters, Teatro San Carlo, Teatro del
Fondo, and Teatro Nuovo. The smaller Teatro dei Fiorentini
was the home of the venerable Neapolitan buffo tradition.
Rossini had his work cut out for him. The Neapolitans were
suspicious of “foreigners,” and conservative Neapolitan musi-
cians and connoisseurs had been warning about the threat to
their beloved institutions “from Italy.” Rossini’s fame had defi-
nitely preceded him. This prejudice went so far as Zingarelli
forbidding the students of San Sabastiano (the Royal School of
Music) from even reading Rossini’s opera scores. We can imag-
ine the result of such a proscription—I’m sure the students
couldn’t wait to pore over Rossini’s latest masterpiece.
Elisabetta, besides being written for the prodigious talents
of Colbran, was different from Rossini’s previous works in two
important respects: he accommodated the French style that
Barbaja had instituted at the San Carlo by dispensing with
the secco recitativos entirely, and he composed the fioratura
that he expected the singers to sing with very little room for
improvisation. Colbran, who specialized in queenly figures,
had already played Elizabeth in Stefano Pavesi’s Elisabetta,
regina d’ Inghilterra in 1812.8 She had no reason for complaint
about Elisabetta. Her first-act cavatina with chorus “Quante
grato all’ alma mia” and the cabaletta “Questo cor ben lo
comprende”—borrowed from Aureliano in Palmira—was de-
 The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta 71
signed to introduce Elisabetta in a big way. The aria is full of
trills and extravagant coloratura runs with a wide range. The
cabaletta later became the second section of “Una voce poco
fa.” Joyce DiDonato recorded a wonderful album of Colbran’s
repertoire called Colbran: The Muse (Erato-Parlophone Cata-
log, 5099969457852).
Stendhal, writing in 1823, was a rabid fan of Giuditta Pasta.
He seemed intent on destroying the reputation of Isabella
Colbran, stating that her voice was in decline during Rossini’s
tenure in Naples, but other authorities reported that she sang
with great success until 1821. Sergio Ragni points out that
Stendhal was not even in Naples after 1816 and only heard
her in Otello and Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra. His book, Life
of Rossini, was published in 1823. It is unlikely that Rossini
would have written nine operas for her if she was unequal to
the task of singing their formidable difficulties, regardless of
his personal feelings for her. He stated to Edmond Michotte
that Colbran was the greatest among the lady singers with
whom he had worked.9 Isabella Colbran was the favorite of
the king of Naples, and Stendhal wrote that it was only the
fear of him that compelled the Neapolitan public to refrain
from voicing its displeasure. This seems far-fetched to me. The
major cause for complaint from Colbran’s critics is that she
had difficulties staying on pitch in cantilena passages. Celletti
attributes this to “fatigue or incorrect use of the muscles of the
breathing apparatus.”10 However, he also states that Colbran
was known for her “broad and noble phrasing,” which, to me,
implies a mastery of the breath. Colbran was a student of Cres-
centini, and I doubt that she forgot how to breathe. Also, she
was only thirty years old at the premiere of Elisabetta, regina
d’Inghilterra in 1815. The conventional wisdom is that Rossini
wrote florid music for her to cover up her deficiencies. How-
ever, we have seen that Rossini viewed fioratura as an intrinsic
element of his expressive style, not as a grafted-on component
adopted for extramusical reasons.
It is true that florid music helps alleviate vocal fatigue by
varying the tension in the muscles of the throat. Besides the
fact that the repertoire was basically florid, the bel canto mas-
ters stressed agility as the best means of training the voice.
They felt that high notes were best reached by way of runs,
and modern declamatory screaming would be abhorrent to
them. I think that the reason for Colbran’s vocal problems
was to be found in her own temperament and probably were
not Rossini’s fault. I am sure she was fatigued, but it was the
effort of holding a high soprano tessitura in a voice that was
essentially an alto. Muscles that are required to contract too
much for a long period of time ultimately win the battle to
relax. There was no such thing as a mezzo-soprano category
in the early nineteenth century. Since there was a universal
style of opera composition (most composers were imitators
of Rossini), you were either a soprano or a contralto. Colbran
was already celebrated for her mastery of the florid style before
Rossini began to write for her. She probably sensed the shift
away from the alto toward the high notes of the soprano dur-
ing the movement from bel canto to the melodramma of the
early nineteenth century and demanded that Rossini write
music to compete with the high sopranos. I’m not even sure
that the soprano sfogato is a sustainable category. This refusal
to admit limits sometimes costs such singers dearly. Pauline
Viardot (Garcia), one of the truly great contraltos of all time
who sang everything from Norma to Fidès, retired from the
international stages at the age of only forty-two.
The rest of the cast of Elisabetta was exemplary. The great
tenor Manuel Garcia was Norfolk, the equally celebrated bary-
tenor Andrea Nozzari was Leicester, and Girolama Dardanelli
(176?–183?) was Matilde. The relations between Colbran and
Garcia probably went all the way back to Madrid in 1805. In
Naples in June 1813, they appeared together as a team in I riti
d’Efeso by Giuseppe Farinelli (1769–1836), who assumed the
patronym of his protector during his studies. Garcia was an
accomplished composer, as well, and his most popular buffo
opera, Il califfo di Bagdad, premiered at the Teatro del Fondo
in September. Garcia sang the role of the Caliph, and Colbran
was Zultrube, a rare comic opera role for her. Colbran also
appeared in two other Garcia works—the cantata Diana ed
Endimione in February 1813 and Jella e Dallaton ossia La don-
zella di Raab in November 1814.
While Isabella Colbran was the reigning prima donna of the
Neapolitan opera at the time it is interesting that, like Garcia,
she was criticized for over-ornamenting: “Which has given oc-
casion to some critics to say that the Signora Colbran used too
much showmanship, and at times abused the liberty given to
her by the composer, giving to her voice an unusual and unex-
pected development, and embellishing every note with more or
less pleasant foreign ornaments.”11
The mention of the ornaments as being “foreign” possibly
suggests that her ornamented style was recognized as being
specifically Spanish. In spite of the critics, both Colbran and
Garcia adhered to their florid style—which was soon to have its
impact on Rossini.
The criticism of the florid style really must be regarded
with an open mind. Critics and scholars have perhaps too
readily clamoured for “purity” of the composer’s intentions.
Even modern attempts to interpolate historically “correct”’
embellishments do not come close to conveying the excitement
of Colbran’s and Garcia’s performances—which were always
unique. On the spur of the moment, a fiery roulade would be
tossed before the astonished crowd—not because it was cor-
rect, but because artistic inspiration moved the singer to do so.
Perhaps modern bel canto singers need not so much to study
the original scores of Rossini, as to capture the “free spirit” of
the performers. This was an art in which the singers—not the
conductor—ruled supreme. The fact that both Colbran and
Garcia maintained a highly embellished style in spite of official
criticism indicates that it was well received by the public. While
it is true that a public can have bad taste, so too can critics be
overly cerebral. The ultimate aim of music or drama is that the
audience be moved. In this Colbran and Garcia were eminently
successful.12
With this in mind, one wonders what a performance of Le
nozze di Figaro, starring the two fiery Spaniards at the Fondo
72 Chapter 11
on March 15, 1814, sounded like. (Garcia sang the baritone
role of the Count.) It seems logical to me that Rossini utilized
the experience and advice of these two experienced virtuosos
when he prepared the ornaments that were an intrinsic part of
the scores he composed for them. In spite of the unquestioned
triumph of Elisabetta, as always, there were critics who dispar-
aged the young composer’s accomplishment. The witty Rossini
had a ready answer. Said they:
“Now, why not admit frankly, that throughout the work, you
have consistently sacrificed both dramatic emphasis and expres-
sion to la Colbran’s passion for embroidery?”
“I have sacrificed to one idol, and to one only,” retorted Ros-
sini, with that streak of pride which becomes him so admirably.
“I have sacrificed to success!”13
Rossini was obligated to compose two operas a year for Bar-
baja. After the failure of La gazzetta in September 1816, the
next opera in the Colbran series was Otello, which successfully
opened at the Fondo on December 4, 1816. The smaller royal
theater was used because the great San Carlo was still being
rebuilt after the fire. The cast included Nozzari as the Moor,
Colbran was Desdemona, Giovanni David the Rodrigo (a part
much more important in the Rossini work than in Verdi’s op-
era), and Jago was sung by Giuseppe Ciccimarra (1790–1836).
On January 12, 1817, the theater reopened with a com-
missioned work by the leading composer of the day, Johann
Simon Mayr. It was a melodramma allegorico called Il sogno di
Partenope and featured Giovan Battista Rubini as Apollo, in his
first appearance at the San Carlo. The rest of the cast included
the established stars Colbran, Giovanni David, Nozzari, and
Raffaele De Bernardis. The occasion was very glamorous and all
of Europe was dazzled by the splendor of the event. Five days
later, Otello was mounted at the San Carlo and was judged a
triumph despite the absurdity of its libretto. On this occasion,
Jago was sung by Manuel Garcia. Stendhal says that the title role
was originally composed for the great Spanish tenor. Nozzari,
with his baritonal timbre was immediately identified as a great
Otello, and Rossini no doubt chose to leave well enough alone.
When Verdi composed his Otello, Victor Maurel (1848–1923),
the baritone, pestered the composer to call the opera Iago. Ros-
sini could very well have called his effort Desdemona, because the
part written for Isabella Colbran is really the central character in
the opera. The writing for both the leading characters is extreme
in range with important phrases relegated to the lower parts of
the voice. We are therefore justified in calling Desdemona an
alto part. The Giornale del Regno delle Due Sicilie wrote:
Signora Colbran, grand in the so-called bravura pieces, and
extremely happy in passages in the form of arpeggios and rapid
runs, has no rivals in tragic and declamatory music, and in the
difficult talent of expression.14
Incidently, the institution of the musico comes into play here,
because Pasta and Malibran, who were great Desdemonas, both
took up the title role with varying degrees of success. Modern
audiences accustomed to the Shakespearean verisimilitude of
Arrigo Boito’s (1842–1918) and Verdi’s masterpiece, should not
compare the two operas on dramatic grounds. The opera seria is,
above all, about the singing and the music. In the context of the
taste of the Neapolitan public of the primo ottocento, the tragic
ending was rather daring. Rossini was even forced to supply a
lieto fine (happy ending) for a production in Rome, whose audi-
ence might be offended by the murderous original ending. The
literati of the time were scandalized. When Lord George Byron
(1788–1824) saw Otello in Venice in 1818 he wrote:
They have been crucifying Othello into an opera (Otello by
Rossini)—Music good but lugubrious—but as for the words!—
all the real scenes with Iago cut out—and the greatest nonsense
instead—the handkerchief turned into a billet doux, and the
first singer would not black his face—for some exquisite reason
assigned in the preface.15
Stendhal suggested that in this version of Otello, rather than
desperate love, it was vanity that compelled the Moor to kill
Desdemona.
Rossini was obligated to accept any libretto submitted to
him in Naples. He therefore set aside his natural aversion to
magical and supernatural subjects to compose Armida, a three-
act opera seria, which premiered on November 11, 1817, at
the rebuilt San Carlo. Armida was something of a throwback
to the “machine” operas of the Venetian Baroque. The libretto
was based on Torquato Tasso’s (1544–1595) Gerusalemme
liberata, a story that was was set by many composers—like
Handel’s Rinaldo.
Sumptuously staged, it displayed, as Radiciotti put it: “Armida’s
palace and enchanted garden, appearances and disappearances
of demons, furies, specters, chariots pulled by dragons, dances
of nymphs and amorini, characters swept up into the sky and
descending from artificial clouds.”16
Armida requires a volcanic personality and a sfogato voice
to pull off this role. The orchestration was deemed “too
German”—a charge leveled at Donizetti and Verdi later on.
Besides the difficulty of casting the title role, the score calls for
six tenors, three of them being virtuoso parts. With the subject
obviously chosen to glorify Isabel Colbran, it is curious that
she doesn’t have an introductory cavatina. However, in one
of the longest roles in the Rossini canon, there is plenty of
opportunity for her to shine. Osborne points out the erotic in-
tensity of much of Armida’s music and speculates that Colbran
and Rossini had already become lovers as early as 1817. The
aria from act 2 “D’amore, al dolce imperio,” with its extreme
range and terrifying triplet coloratura and chromatic scales, is
difficult for sopranos on the low end and altos on the high end.
For me, the exemplary Reneé Fleming (b. 1959) is out of her
depth in this role and even Maria Callas had trouble projecting
the lower part of this aria, although she certainly had plenty of
temperament. I would call Joyce DiDonato a true sfogato and
her recording of Colbran’s repertoire is outstanding.
Rossini’s twenty-third opera, Adelaide di Borgogna ossia Ot-
tone, re d’Italia premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on
 The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta 73
December 27, 1817. Written in haste, Adelaide reverted to
secco recitativi and minor arias written by Rossini’s friend Mi-
chele Carafa (1787–1872). It was judged a failure by all con-
cerned, but there have been several recent recordings and per-
formances. Of interest to us is the fact that the part of Ottone
was sung by the musico Elisabetta Pinotti (fl. 1806–1822), a
contralto en travesti. Albert Cametti, in a book about Ferriti,
the librettist of La Cenerentola, wrote about Elisabetta Pinotti:
The role of Ottone, by one of those strange customs of the
times, was sustained by a woman; it was the contralto, also
called that of the primo musico, a denomination that explains
itself when one thinks that the contralto donna had taken
the place of the elephant songbirds [castrati] of the seventeen
hundreds. The part was interpreted by one of the two Pinotti
sisters, Elisabetta, of a robust wide-ranged voice, who was a little
unsteady. The part that Rossini wrote for her rises from a deep
B to the high F, and a few times pushes from a deep G to the
high B-flat.17
Next in the Colbran canon was Mosè in Egitto (1818, revised
in 1819), which was called an azione tragico-sacra so that it
could be staged during Lent. Weinstock calls it a “proto-grand
opera” in three acts. The eponymous role of Moses was writ-
ten for Michele Benedetti (1778–1828), a sturdy Rossini bass
who had a long career at the San Carlo. Benedetti created
seven roles for Rossini and went on to sing in premieres of
Bellini and Donizetti. In Mosè, Rossini elevated the bass voice
to a central position in the opera, a novel idea at the time.
The queenly Colbran was cast as a young Jewish girl, Elcia, in
love with Osiride, the pharaoh’s son, sung by Andrea Nozzari.
I am sure she didn’t mind the demotion in status because she
got to sing a “mad” scene after her lover is smitten by a stroke
of lightning in the second act. Mosè was revised and greatly
expanded in Paris in 1827 and renamed Moïse et Pharaon, but
Colbran was out of the picture by that time.
Ricciardo e Zoraide was first heard at the San Carlo on De-
cember 3, 1818. It starred not one, but two great altos—Isa-
bella Colbran as Zoraide and Benedetta Rosmunda Pisaroni
as Zomira. Giovanni David and Andrea Nozzari, tenors,
were also both in the cast. Pisaroni had a wonderful contralto
voice but started as a soprano. A case of smallpox forced her
to descend to the contralto range and left her horribly dis-
figured. She used to send pictures of herself to impressarios
who were interested in engaging her to lessen the shock of
her first appearance. After she sang for a while, the audiences
concentrated on her wonderful singing and forgot about her
appearance. Stendhal stated that “in the first act, the greatest
applause was reserved for a duet between Le Signorine Colbran
and Pisaroni: Invan tu fingi, ingrata!”18
Ermione, based on Racine’s Andromaque, with a libretto
by Andrea Leone Tottola (d. 1831) was premiered on March
27, 1819. It is the most mysterious of all the Rossini serious
operas that the composer wrote for Naples. It had a cast of
stellar performers (the same as Ricciardo e Zoraide) but the
public didn’t “get” it, and Rossini withdrew it after only seven
performances. It was never produced again during his lifetime.
Perhaps there was an aversion to the classical subject in the
midst of the heady Romantic period or perhaps its tightly
organized intertwined plot and musical ensemble writing was
a step too far into the future.
Withdrawing the score from the Neapolitan impresario Do-
menico Barbaja, Rossini is alleged to have said, “You’ll see it
again sooner or later, and perhaps then the Neapolitan public
will recognize its mistake.” Although he tried to resurrect in-
dividual numbers in other operatic contexts, he basically put
Ermione away. Asked whether he would allow a French transla-
tion, he responded, “No. It is my little Italian Guillaume Tell,
and will not see the light of day until after my death.”19
At any rate, Isabella Colbran as Ermione (Hermione) could
still sing very well in 1819, regardless of Stendhal’s critical
comments. However, there are moments in duets with Orestes
(Giovanni David), where Rossini took advantage of the tenor’s
extraordinary high voice to allow Colbran to take the lower line.
Philip Gossett has written a fascinating account of the fi-
asco in the revival of Ermione at the Pesaro Festival in 1987.
The conductor, Gustav Kuhn, did not know the score and
Monserrat Caballé (b. 1933), in Colbran’s role of Ermione,
could not sing it. Marilyn Horne, Chris Merritt (b. 1952),
and Rockwell Blake (b. 1951) were all excellent, however. In
the Chicago Opera Theater’s regie theater production, stage
director Jonathan Miller (b. 1934) reset the opera in the time
of the American civil war. In 2013, the Met recast Rigoletto in
ratpack Las Vegas. When are we going to realize that this stage
director nonsense does not make it more interesting to young
people? They are not jaded on period dress and manners; for
them, brought up on cop dramas on TV, the original version is
novel. It just has to be done really well and truthfully.
The action of creativity is not exhausted with the writing of
the opera by the composer; it is crystalized and made manifest
in the course of its execution. If the vocal performance is inad-
equate, the so-called musical values remain either unexpressed
or misunderstood. This applies in a general way to all music
theater. But whereas in the performance of late Verdi or Puccini
and the verismo writers any vocal defects are impediments which
to some extent actually “impede” (and even so can be partially
made up by good orchestral conducting), as we go back to early
Verdi, Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, the impediment becomes
more and more “nullifying.” Rossini, and especially Rossini in
his opera seria works, is rendered virtually unintelligible by poor
vocal execution.20
This point of view is dependent on the recognition of the
importance of arts education. The media-manipulated public
must first recognize what is good and what is not.
Isabella Colbran was not involved in Rossini’s next effort,
Eduardo e Cristina, which took place in the Teatro San Bene-
detto in Venice on April 24, 1819. Realizing that he didn’t
have time to compose an entirely new opera, Rossini cobbled
up a pasticcio stitched together from elements of his operas
Adelaide di Borgogna, Ricciardo e Zoraide, and Ermione, which
were unfamiliar to Venetian audiences. He also fell back on the
74 Chapter 11
convention of the recitativo secco and the musico en travesti for
the romantic leads. Amazingly, the patchwork affair was a huge
hit! Byron, who attended the opera, wrote:
There has been a splendid opera lately at the San Benedetto,
by Rossini, who came in person to play the harpsichord. There
people followed him about, cut off his hair “for memory”; then
he was shouted, and sonnetted, and feasted and immortalized
much more than either of the Emperors.21
The opera’s success was due in no small part to the cast.
Rosa Morandi, the mezzo-soprano who, we remember, was a
fine Rossini alto, created the part of Cristina. The Eduardo was
the musico Carolina Cortesi, who was a contralto. Apparently
Morandi and Cortesi were an established pair, for they also
appeared in Meyerbeer’s Emma di Resburgo directly after the
run of Eduardo e Cristina.22
On February 19, 1819, Rossini provided a cantata for three
voices in honor of the recovery from illness of Francis I of
Austria. On May 9, although Rossini was not in Naples, some
of the music from it was used for the state visit of the emperor
and featured Isabella Colbran and two great tenors, Giovanni
David and Giovanni Battista Rubini. Upon his return in June,
Rossini was required to oversee a lavish new production of La
gazza ladra, which, besides Colbran, starred Nozzari, David,
and Pisaroni. Then the news came that Spontini, blocked by
the Berlin authorities, had to be released from his obligation
for the fall season at the San Carlo. Barbaja turned to Rossini
to fill the void in the schedule, despite the young composer’s
contract for a Carnival season production at La Scala.
Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake became the subject of
Rossini’s next “Colbran” opera, which premiered on Septem-
ber 24, 1819. La donna del lago continued Rossini’s foray into
“musico” opera. It was not well received at first, but after slight
adjustments (less brass on stage), it became one of Rossini’s
most popular operas. Besides the extraordinary alto parts,
Giovanni David as Uberto and Andrea Nozzari as Rodrigo di
Dhu are also accorded brilliant roles in a “blockbuster” opera.
It is well known that Isabella Colbran (Elena) would brook
no competition from other prima donnas but apparently she felt
no animosity against musici. Rosmunda Benedetta Pisaroni was
cast in the male role of Malcom Groeme, whose music is for a
contralto. Stendhal says that because of the ultimate success of
La donna, the twenty-six-year-old Pisaroni was elevated to front
rank of singers. He further states that La donna del lago should
not be produced in Paris because of the lack of a contralto with
sufficient technique to execute music written for her.
Malcom’s act 1 scena “Mura felice” and Elena’s final rondo
“Tanti affetti” are some of the most brilliant music ever written
for the alto voice. Marilyn Horne’s recorded rendition of the
former and Joyce DiDonato’s version of the latter are highly
recommended.
With La donna del lago safely underway, Rossini set out for
Milan to fulfill his obligation to La Scala. The result was Bi-
anca e Falliero with a libretto by Felice Romani (1788–1865),
who later became a librettist for Bellini and Donizetti. Bianca
opened on December 26, 1819. Being rushed for time, Rossini
fell back on the recitativo secco format, borrowed music from
Edoardo e Cristina and La donna del lago, and continued in
the use of a musico as the male romantic lead. He did not have
Colbran and the rest of the outstanding ensemble of Naples,
but the singers of La Scala were adequate and the opera ran for
thirty-nine performances.
Soprano Violante Camporési (1785–c. 1833) was Bianca,
and Falliero was sung by contralto Carolina Bassi Manna
(1781–1862), called “La Napoletana.” Bassi Manna was born
into a family of musicians in Naples. Her brother Nicola was
a celebrated basso-buffo and her other brother, Adolfo, was a
composer and director of the Teatro Nuovo in Trieste. She had
a large repertoire and premiered several operas by followers of
Rossini—Semiramide riconosciuta (1819), Margherita d’Anjou
(1820), and L’esule di Granata (1822) of Meyerbeer—and
many operas of Pacini and Mercadante. Stendhal states that
she is “the only singer whose genius approaches that of Ma-
dame Pasta.”23
Rossini returned to Naples on January 12, 1820, and, as
director of the Royal opera, began to prepare a performance of
Spontini’s opera Fernando Cortez. Despite his best efforts and
those of Isabella Colbran and Nozzari, it was received with
indifference by the Neapolitan public, which deemed it too
“Teutonic.” The music of Spontini was undoubtedly fatiguing
to the voice, and Colbran may have felt its effects when she
took on La vestale in 1811. The famous lyric soprano Hen-
riette Sontag (1806–1854), who was very careful to preserve
her voice, had a stipulation in her Berlin Opera contract that
she would not ever be required to sing anything by Spontini.
Be that as it may, Rossini’s experience in mounting Spontini’s
work may well have planted the seeds in him toward the con-
cept of grand opera, which would ultimately flower in Paris
in Le siège de Corinthe in 1826. Maometto II, which opened at
the San Carlo on December 3, 1820, had an outstanding cast.
Isabella Colbran (Anna), Andrea Nozzari (Paolo Erisso), and
Filippo Galli (Maometto II) were all veteran Rossini singers.
The travesti part of Calbo was sung by newcomer alto Adelaide
Comelli (Chaumel), who had just married Giovanni Battista
Rubini. Colbran had an extremely dramatic part that required
her to stay on stage for forty minutes and then commit suicide
to end the opera. Rossini wrote an exquisite cantilena aria
“Giusto ciel, in tal periglio” for her as part of the great third
movement called the terzettone (fat terzetto) by Rossini. If she
was not able to sustain a cantilena line, I am sure that Ros-
sini would not have kept the aria in. The Neapolitans were
not thrilled with the tragic ending. In 1823, Rossini revised
Maometto II for Venice. He had to alter the ending to a lieto
fine for the Venetians, which was adapted from the rondo from
La donna del lago.
In mid-December 1820, Rossini was in Rome where he was
preparing Matilde di Shabran, an opera semi-seria. As usual, he
was pressed for time and enlisted the help of Giovanni Pacini
(1796–1867) to share the compositional chores. The opera
once again utilized the musico convention in the character
 The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta 75
of Edoardo, sung by Annetta Parlamagni ( fl. 1820–1830).
However, Edoardo is not the love interest in Matilde. Osborn
says that he is modeled on the Tancredi character but “senti-
mentalized into comedy.”24 (Throughout the opera, Edoardo
has a propensity for crying.) The opera was conducted by
Nicolo Paganini (1782–1840), the demonic violin virtuoso. It
is often customary for us in the twenty-first century to think of
our great composers as Apollonian demigods, whose thoughts
were always deeply serious. The following anecdote helps us to
appreciate the twenty-nine-year-old Rossini’s wonderful sense
of fun.
Paganini and Rossini were in Rome, Lipparini was singing at
the Tordinona, and in the evening I often found myself with
them and their mad contemporaries. Carnival was approaching,
and one evening we said, “Let’s arrange a masquerade.” “What
to do?” What not to do! Finally we decided to mask as blind
people and sing requests for charity as they do. We put together
four lines of verse which said:
We are blind. We were born
To earn our living from kindness.
On a happy day,
Do not refuse charity.
Rossini quickly set them to music. They were rehearsed and
rehearsed, and finally we decided to go on stage on the last
Thursday before Lent. We decided that we should wear very
elegant clothes beneath a top covering of poor, patched rags. In
short, an apparent but clean misery.
Rossini and Paganini had to act as the orchestra, strumming
two guitars, and they decided to dress as women. Rossini filled
out his already abundant form with bundles of straw, looking
absolutely non-human! Paganini, as thin as a door, and with a
face that seemed to be the handle of his violin, appeared twice
as thin and loose-limbed when dressed as a woman.
I ought not to say so, but we created a furor, first at two or
three homes where we went to sing, then in the Corso, then on
the festal night.25
Barbaja agreed to assume management of the Vienna
Kärnthnertor Theater on December 1, 1821. Rossini’s and
Colbran’s last Neapolitan opera, Zelmira, opened on February
16, 1822, at the San Carlo. It was composed as a farewell to
Naples and to introduce Rossini and Colbran to the Viennese
public. The premiere included Colbran in the title role and the
familiar Nozzari, Giovanni David, and Benedetti. On March
7, 1822, the day after the close of the run of Zelmira, Rossini
and Colbran, along with Nozzari, David, and Ambrosi, left for
Vienna. On March 16, at Castenaso, a few miles east of Bolo-
gna, Rossini and Isabella Colbran were married. Colbran, as a
star prima donna, was very wealthy and brought a substantial
dowry to the marriage. She had a villa at Castenaso inherited
from her father. There was immediate gossip that Rossini had
married her for her money. Stendhal wrote that
Barbaja had presented Rossini “gratis, a carriage, food, lodgings,
and his mistress. The divine Colbran . . . had been the delight
of Prince Wablonowski, of the millionaire Barbaglia [sic], and
the maestro.”26
In 1816, Rossini’s L’Inganno Felice was introduced to Vi-
enna, which started a craze for the Rossini operas that lasted
for years to come. By the time Domenico Barbaja assumed
control of the court opera there in 1821, seven of Rossini’s
works. including Il barbiere and Tancredi, were already in rep-
ertoire. From April to July 1822, Barbaja’s company mounted
a Rossini festival at the Kärntnertor Theater, which opened
with Zelmira. Isabella Colbran was not in good voice and
was having trouble adjusting to the unfamiliar acoustics. La
Cenerentola (Aschenbrödel) followed, sung in German with a
German cast and conductor. Rossini oversaw the production.
His tempi were considered too fast by the German-speaking
cast, but he advised them to concentrate on the music and not
to worry about missing a few words. The Angelina was sung
by Amalie Schütz-Oldosi (1804–1852), who developed into a
good Rossini singer. She subsequently appeared in La donna
del lago, L’italiana in Algeri, and Tancredi at La Scala and the
San Carlo.27 She also sang Elena in La donna del lago in 1825
at the Théâtre Italien in Paris with Rubini, who had just made
his sensational debut in La Cenerentola.
The next opera in the series, Matilde di Shabran, was judged
a success by the Rossini-intoxicated Viennese. Mathilde was
sung by Rossini’s old friend from 1811, the veteran Ester
Mombelli. Mombelli was judged to be unsteady in tone and
wavering in pitch but a very entertaining comedienne.28 The
minor part of Contessa D’Arco was sung by a nineteen-year-old
Austrian contralto, Carolina Unger (1803–1877), who would
develop into a great star. Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra followed
in May, and the Musikalische Allgemeine Zeitung reported that
“Signora Colbran performed the protagonist’s role superbly and
she was truly the queen of the evening.”29 La gazza ladra played
in June with Mombelli as Ninetta and Carolina Unger as Lucia.
In July, Ricciardo e Zoraide, with Colbran in the title role, ended
the festival. The celebratory crowd followed the artists to their
hotel and was treated to an impromptu concert. Colbran sang
her aria from Elisabetta “stupendously” and then the duet from
Armida, “Cara, per te quest anima,” with David. Rossini him-
self sang “Largo al factotum.” The fans were only dispersed by
a contingent of police. It should not be lost on the reader that
Isabella Colbran was able to pull off such a feat of endurance
as late as 1822 after a career of the most demanding repertoire
that had lasted for sixteen years.
After a visit to Castenaso and Verona, the Rossinis trav-
eled to Venice and La Fenice, where they presented a revised
Maometto II and a pasticcio of the first act of Maometto II and
a one-act version of Ricciardo and Zoraide. Colbran was not
well and not in good voice. She was even whistled at in one
performance and a mock obituary for her career was circu-
lated outside the opera house. There were some sympathetic
reviews, but this was the beginning of the end of Isabella
Colbran’s career. Rossini soldiered on. He had accepted a
commission for the revised Maometto II and a new opera
76 Chapter 11
starring his wife. That opera, Semiramide, based on Voltaire’s
Sémiramis (1748), which premiered on February 3, 1823, was
the apex of the Rossini “Colbran” operas and marked the last
time that Isabella Colbran sang on Italian soil. Rosa Mariani,
who was well known for travesti roles, was the Arsace, the de-
pendable Filippo Galli was Assur, and John Sinclair, a Scottish
tenor who had sung for Rossini at the San Carlo in 1821, was
Idreno. Semiramide ran for twenty-eight performances at La
Fenice by March 10.
The Rossinis left for Paris on October 20, 1823, on the way
to London, where they arrived on December 13. Giovanni
Battista Benelli (fl. 1820s), the impresario in London, had as-
sembled a great company of singers, which included Colbran,
Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis (1800–1853), Manuel Garcia,
and Giuditta Pasta. Rossini was called upon to supervise the
production of his operas and, along with appearances at con-
certs in wealthy homes, was feted, lionized, and made an enor-
mous amount of money. Colbran, on the other hand, faced
the disastrous end of her career. Zelmira, on January 24, 1824,
due to her alarming vocal decline, was a failure. The reviewer
for the Harmonicon made every effort to treat her with respect
but had a disaster to report.
Madame Colbran Rossini, who now made her first appearance
in England, has long been known in Italy, chiefly at Naples, as
a great singer; her style is pure, and her ornaments are graceful
without being redundant. The delivery of her voice is in the
manner of the best schools; what remains of it is sweet, but
we fear that devouring Time has not left much of the original
substance to judge by, and that her power will be found quite
inadequate to the parts which she will have to sustain, and to
the capacity of the theater that she ought to be able to fill.30
The Times, however, was damning: “She may have possessed
the voice and style suited to a prima donna, but the period has
passed, and we can only recommend that Signor Benelli place
her on his retiring pension-list as speedily as possible.”31
Manuel Patricio Garcia II (1805–1906), the son of the
first Almaviva, who became the most influential voice teacher
of all time, sang Ilo. He abandoned the stage in 1829. Even
Il barbiere was not a success, as Benelli himself ventured to
sing Figaro (badly). After Isabella Colbran was judged to be
unable to sing, Garcia and Pasta saved the day, appearing in
Otello and Semiramide, which must have been quite a blow to
Colbran’s ego.
The rest of the Colbran-Rossini saga is very sad. Rossini
was appointed to the directorship of the Paris Théâtre Italien
in November 1825. He and Isabella stayed together in Paris
and elsewhere until they moved in 1829, along with Rossini’s
father, into the spacious palazzo in Bologna that Rossini had
owned for seven years. In September 1830, Rossini set out
for Paris without Isabella. He believed that he would be back
in Bologna in a month, but he did not see her again for four
years. Their relationship had deteriorated into a standoff of
professional respect. He was thirty-eight and Isabella forty-
five. As a prima donna for more than fifteen years with the
world at her feet, Colbran had great difficulty adjusting to
country life. They say a prima donna dies three times. The
first is when she loses her looks, the second when she loses her
voice, and the third time, she dies just like the rest of us.
Giuseppe Rossini (1758–1839), Gioachino’s father, was
entrusted to take care of his son’s affairs and to look after
Isabella, including distributing the monthly income that
Gioachino provided for her. Giuseppe’s letters to his son
disclose how difficult these tasks were for him. Isabella was
an inveterate spendthrift and a compulsive gambler, a habit
probably picked up during her years with Barbaja. In a letter
to Lorenzo Bartolini (1770–1850), Napoleon’s favorite sculp-
tor, she begs him to sell a miniature portrait of herself to pay
off a gambling debt.
When Fortune frowns everything conspires against one. I have
need of a friend and my mind turns to you. You know that my
health is always poor, that my affairs go from bad to worse. To
distract myself I turned to gambling, with such misfortune that
I cannot pick up a card that is not beaten. The idea that my
luck would change has caused me to go too far and get into
difficulties.32
Furthermore, Isabella was in poor health. Rossini had suf-
fered from gonorrhea from his early years and Isabella had also
contracted the disease. There is reason to suspect that the illness
was a factor in her vocal decline. There is a common variety of
gonorrhea called “gonorrhea throat.” Venereal disease was very
common in the promiscuous atmosphere of the Romantic age.
As examples, Franz Schubert (1797–1828) died at age thirty-
one and Robert Schumann (1810–1856) and Donizetti were all
infected with syphilis. The latter two died insane. Stendhal also
died of syphilis. The treatments for these diseases were sometimes
worse than the illnesses. For example, Schumann was treated
with arsenic, and Rossini had daily catheter insertions, along with
warm baths, leeches for hemorrhoids, castor oil, and flower of
sulphur, along with other nostrums. It has always been a mystery
to me that people wonder why Rossini ceased to compose operas
after 1829. He was the most successful operatic composer in
the world, had plenty of money, and was in agony much of the
time with his illnesses. In 1832, he met Olympe Pélissier (1797–
1878), an established courtesan, who became more caregiver
than mistress and who was adept at managing Rossini’s frequent
bouts of depression as well as his physical health.
Rossini returned to Bologna in November 1836 and wrote
to a friend that Isabella was “well and very reasonable,” imply-
ing that he had discussed a formal separation from her. In
January 1837, Olympe moved to Bologna and was installed
in her own house. She was the luncheon guest of Isabella
Colbran-Rossini, who treated her very well. The Rossinis were
legally separated in September 1837. Isabella was given the
entire use of the villa in Castenaso, an amount to cover the
rent for an apartment in Bologna during the winter, and a
monthly stipend.
In August 1845, Rossini received the disturbing news that
Isabella was gravely ill in Castenaso. He and Olympe traveled
 The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta 77

there on September 7 after being notified that Isabella was stayed in the adjoining dining room and enjoyed providing the
dying. guests his famous bon mots.

Rossini talked with Isabella alone for about a half hour and One evening a diva sang badly and then went into the dining
emerged from her bedroom with his cheeks bathed in tears. He room to receive Rossini’s opinion of her performance. “Oh my
instructed her servants to take the most assiduous care of her. dear friend!” he said. “What do you want me to tell you? No,
For the succeeding month, he received daily reports on her con- No, I cannot say anything to you!” The lady told the other
dition—and on October 7 was told that she had died after hav- guests that the Maestro had been unable to find words to ex-
ing spoken his name several times. Almost exactly thirty years press his admiration. When a society lady had succeeded in all
had elapsed since the dazzling Colbran had created the role of but destroying an aria, she excused herself to Rossini by saying:
Elisabetta at the San Carlo in Naples. Rossini’s thoughts well Pardon me, cher maître, I am a little frightened. Rossini’s reply
may have roved back to the era that had ended for her, as for was: “And so am I.”34
him, when she had sung the title role of Semiramide in Venice in
1823, thus closing his career as a composer of operas for Italy.33 Rossini was always interested in teaching young singers who
had the wisdom and character to listen to his advice. He always
Ten months later he married Olympe Péllisier. followed the progress of his protégé, the young Russian tenor,
When Rossini moved to Paris in 1826, he began to study the Nicola Ivanoff (1810–1880) and, especially, the great contralto
French language, French prosody for singing, and the taste of Marietta Alboni (1826–1894), who was a frequent performer
the French public. His predilection for casting the alto voice as at Rossini’s soirees.
prima donna gave way to the French preference for the soprano Alboni was a student at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna,
voice in leading roles. Rossini even accommodated this change where Rossini was named a perpetual consultant. There he
by arranging Il barbiere for the soprano voices of Giulia Grisi
and Adelina Patti (1843–1919). He adapted Maometto II to the
French style with the title Le siège de Corinthe. He reduced the
florid lines and streamlined the large musical structures of the
original. The original horrific ending was replaced by an even
more terrible one in which the whole city of Corinth was sac-
rificed. The alto musico part of Calbo was replaced by the great
tenor Adolf Nourrit (1802–1839) as Néoclès. Colbran’s part of
Anna was replaced by Pamyre, sung by Laure Cinti-Damoreau
(1801–1863), a soprano. Besides Le siege, Cinti-Damoreau,
who became the most important female singer for Rossini in
Paris, created leading roles in Moïse et Pharaon (1827), Le comte
Ory (1827), and Guillaume Tell (1829). She was also Elvire in
La muette de Portici (1828) by Auber, and Isabelle in Meyer-
beer’s Robert le Diable (1831), which established the model for
grand opera for years to come. In a strange reversal, Le siege was
translated into Italian and as L’assedio di Corinto became quite
popular with the Italian public.
With Guillaume Tell (1829), Rossini laid down his operatic
pen. He was still artistic consultant to the Thèâtre Italien and
attracted the greatest composers and singers of the period. Ros-
sini liked singers; Giuditta Pasta, Giulia Grisi, Maria Malibran,
Luigi Lablache, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Marco Bordogni
(1789–1856), and Antonio Tamburini (1800–1876), among
many less famous artists, were frequent guests in his small
apartment. The year 1836 began a long period of fecund
retirement for Rossini in Bologna and Florence, then back in
Paris, until his death in 1868. He remained interested in all
things musical and cultural, and his advice and encourage-
ment was avidly sought by young composers such as Bellini,
Donizetti, Mercadante, and Verdi.
Rossini’s weekly soirees, which he presided over from 1858
to 1868, called samedi soirs, were attended by most of the great
musical, artistic, and political figures of the time. Invitations
were highly prized and sometimes fought over. Rossini mostly Figure 11.2.  Marietta Alboni. Collection of the author.
78 Chapter 11
coached her in the principal contralto roles in his operas. She
made her debut in Bologna at the age of sixteen, not unheard
of in those days, and was still singing very well at seventy.
Henry F. Chorley (1808–1872) stated that her voice was a
“rich, deep, real contralto, of two octaves from G to G, as
sweet as honey, but not intensely expressive; and with a tremu-
lous quality which reminds fanciful speculators of the quiver
in the air of the calm, blazing summer’s noon. I recollect no
Italian voice so luscious.”35 He related that as Pippo to Grisi’s
Ninetta in La gazza ladra, Alboni had to sing the entire first
solo in the duet “Ebben per mia memoria” three times over, to
the intense displeasure of the Ninetta.
Alboni became a renowned musico. Her male roles included
Maffeo Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia, Pierotto in Linda di Chamo-
nix, Armondo di Gondi in Maria di Rohan, and Smeton in
Anna Bolena, all by Donizetti; Néocles in Le siege de Corinthe,
Arsace in Semiramide, Tancredi, and Malcolm in La donna del
lago by Rossini; Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Don Carlo
(the baritone role) in Ernani of Verdi, Romeo in Giuletta e
Romeo by Nicolo Vaccai (1790–1848), and Urbain in Meyer-
beer’s Les Huguenots.
Alboni’s normal alto roles were numerous and included Ros-
sini’s Rosina in Il barbiere, La Cenerentola, Ninetta in La gazza
ladra, and Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri. Rossini also wrote
a cantata dedicated to Olympe, Giovanna D’Arco in 1832,
which Alboni sang as one of the samedi soirs in 1859. Like
other altos of the period, Alboni also sang soprano roles such
as Anna Bolena, Norina in Don Pasquale, Marie in La fille du
regiment, all by Donizetti, and Norma and Amina in La son-
nambula by Bellini. All of these were probably transposed, but
Chorley remarked that the strain was noticeable. Alboni was
also able to cope with the modern trends toward melodrama
in true contralto roles such as Ulrica in Il ballo in maschera and
Azucena in Il trovatore by Verdi.
Alboni traveled incessantly, joining Rubini’s company in
St. Petersburg in 1844 and was a frequent visitor to Lon-
don where she outshone such luminaries as Giulia Grisi
and Jenny Lind (1820–1887). From 1852 to 1853, Alboni
mounted a successful tour of the United States—Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) and Walt Whitman
(1819–1892) were great fans. Rossini was like a “second fa-
ther” to Alboni and she and Adelina Patti sang at his funeral
in the Église de la Sainte-Trinité. Alboni grew to be quite
corpulent as she grew older. Rossini, who was capable of
indelicacy even toward his favorites, called her “the elephant
that swallowed a nightingale.”36
Théophile Gautier when he heard Marietta Alboni, one of the
greatest Rossini contraltos in musical history, exclaimed: “Une
voix si féminine et même temps si mâle. Juliette et Roméo dans
le meme gosier!” (A voice at once so feminine and yet so male!
Juliet and Romeo in the same throat!)
Thus, it is in the contralto voice that Rossini’s bel canto style
finds its mainstay. Basically, Rossini makes use of the contralto
in two ways: as a buffo prima donna and as a musico.37
NOTES
1. Catherine E. Love, ed., Giunti Marzocco Collins Dizionario
Italiano Inglese (Firenze, Italy: Giunti, 1985), 911.
2. Geoffrey S. Riggs, The Assoluta Voice in Opera, 1797–1847
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003).
3.  Manuel Garcia II, A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing,
Part I (Boston: Ditson, ca. 1855), 8.
4.  Marchesi had an embellishment that consisted in running up
a scale of semitones culminating in a high note of astonishing power.
He called this his “bomba.” When Storace had the temerity of match-
ing the musico’s feat with her own “bomba,” Marchesi demanded that
she be fired. She was summarily dismissed.
5. Manuel Garcia II, Hints on Singing (London: Ascherberg,
Hopwood, and Crew, 1894), 19.
6. E-mail from Sergio Ragni to Dan H. Marek, 21 January
2014.
7. Weinstock, Rossini: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1968), 16.
8.  Richard Osborne, Rossini: His Life and Work (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 223.
9. Michotte, Richard Wagner’s Visit to Rossini and an Evening at
Rossini’s at Beau Sejour, trans. and ed. Herbert Weinstock (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1968), 121.
10.  Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 86.
11. James Radomski, Manuel Garcia (1775–1832): Chronicle of
the Life of a Bel Canto Tenor at the Dawn of Romanticism (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000), 108. Quote is from Monitore delle
due Sicilie, 19 October 1811.
12. Radomski, Manuel Garcia, 108.
13.  Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], Life of Rossini, trans. Richard
N. Coe (1823; repr., London: Calder, 1956), 163.
14. Osborne, Rossini, 46–47.
15. Osborne, Rossini, 46. The singer that Byron saw in Venice was
Nicola Tacchinardi (1772–1859).
16. Weinstock, Rossini, 80. Giuseppe Radiciotti (1858–1931) was
an important biographer of Rossini.
17. Weinstock, Rossini, 423.
18. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 383.
19.  Philip Gossett, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 5.
20. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 178–79.
21. Weinstock, Rossini, 93.
22.  Naomi André, “Women’s Roles in Meyerbeer’s Operas: How
Italian Heroines Are Reflected in French Grand Opera,” in Opera
and Society in England and France from Monteverdi to Bourdieu, ed.
Victoria Johnson, Jane E. Fulcher, and Thomas Entman (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 99.
23. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 413.
24. Osborne, Rossini, 296.
25. Weinstock, Rossini, 108. The quote is from the politician and
writer Massimo d’Azeglio (1798–1866) who was an Italian statesman,
novelist, and painter. Ludovico Lipparini (1802–1856) was not a singer,
but a painter who painted a portrait of Rossini, among many others.
26. Weinstock, Rossini, 113.
27.  Michael Jahn, “La Cenerentola in Vienna,” Program for Vi-
enna State Opera’s La Cenerentola, 2012–2013, 54.
28. Anonymous, “Rossini Festival Review,” Allgemeine Musika-
lische Zeitung 28 (July 1822): 458.
 The Maestro and the Prima Donna Assoluta 79

29. Weinstock, Rossini, 116. 34. Weinstock, Rossini, 273.

30.  Anonymous, “The King’s Theater,” The Harmonicon, ed. Wil- 35. Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (New
liam Ayerton, vol. 2 ( London: Samuel Leigh, 1824), 32. York: Knopf, 1926), 206.
31. Osborne, Rossini, 88. 36.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
32. Osborne, Rossini, 120. Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 224.
33. Weinstock, Rossini, 234–35. 37. Celletti, A History of Bel Canto, 158.
12
Giuditta Pasta

If chance were to present Rossini with an actress who is in this volume about altos. Pasta had the same amazing range
young and beautiful; who is both intelligent and sensitive; as Colbran and was a very dramatic actress.
whose gestures never deteriorate from the plainest and Two years after Pasta’s triumphant return to Paris, Stendhal
most natural modes of simplicity, and yet manage to keep published the following description of Pasta’s voice:
faith with the purest ideals of formal beauty; if, allied to
such an extraordinary wealth of dramatic talent, Rossini Madame Pasta’s voice has a considerable range. She can achieve
were to discover a voice that never fails to thrill our very perfect resonance on a note as low as bottom A, and can rise
souls with the passionate exaltation which we used, long as high as C#, or a slightly sharpened D; and she possesses
ago, to capture from the masters of the Golden Age; a the rare ability to sing contralto as easily as she can sing soprano
voice which can weave a spell about the plainest word in [italics mine]. I would suggest, in spite of my atrocious lack of
the plainest recitative; a voice whose compelling inflexions technical knowledge, that the true designation of her voice is
can subdue the most recalcitrant and obdurate of hearts, mezzo-soprano, and any composer who writes for her should use
and oblige them to share in the emotions that radiate
from some great aria . . . if Rossini were to discover such
a world of wonder, who doubts that the miraculous would
happen, that he would shed his laziness like a garment,
settle down reservedly to a study of Madame Pasta’s voice,
and soon start composing within the special range of her
abilities? Inspired by the sublime gifts of such a prima
donna, Rossini would recover the ardour which burned
like a bright flame in his soul at the outset of his career,
and win back the secret of those delicious and simple
melodies which laid the foundations of his reputation.1

Stendhal was writing in Paris in 1823 when Isabella Col-

bran’s career was over and Giuditta Pasta was twenty-five years
old. As it turned out, Rossini finally did compose a role for
Pasta, that of Corinna in Il viaggio a Reims, which premiered
on June 19, 1825. I think it is safe to say that this role was
not what Stendhal dreamed of. Pasta had to wait until the
ascension of Bellini and Donizetti before her true glory un-
folded. Of all the names in the history of singing, none is
more lustrous than hers. Pasta was the prima donna assoluta
for whom Bellini wrote Norma (1831), La sonnambula (1831),
and Beatrice di Tenda (1833). For Donizetti, she created Anna
Bolena (1830) and Bianca in Ugo, conte di Parigi (1832). She
also premiered Niobe by Pacini for the San Carlo in 1826. Her
voice is described variously as a mezzo-soprano or a soprano
sfogato, and her career could be said to parallel that of Isabella Figure 12.1.  Giuditta Pasta as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello.
Colbran. This is the reason that I have included both singers Collection of the author.

81
82 Chapter 12

the mezzo-soprano range for the thematic material of his music, ship. Pasta could not help but notice Grassini’s breathing and
while still exploiting, as it were incidentally and from time to phrasing, her respect for the text and elegant stage deportment,
time, notes which lie within the more peripheral areas of this and the subsequent results on the audience.3
remarkably rich voice. Many notes of this last category are not
only extremely fine in themselves, but have the ability to pro- The next opera at Brescia was Gli Orazi e i’Curiazi, which
duce a kind of resonant and magnetic vibration, which, through had been a vehicle for Grassini for many years. Pasta again
some still unexplained combination of physical phenomena took on a musico role of Curiazio, which had been created by
exercises an instantaneous and hypnotic effect upon the soul of Crescentini. She received warm applause and was signed to re-
the spectator.2 peat performances in other Italian cities. From 1819 to 1821,
Giuditta Pasta led the nomadic life of the itinerant singer. She
Not everyone was as enthusiastic. Rossini remarked that Pasta
missed her husband and child but was steadily gaining the ex-
“always sang false,” but in later years he became a very staunch
perience onstage for which there is no substitute. She accepted
friend and advocate.
an engagement at the Teatro Nuovo in Trieste in December
Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta was born into a
1819 and appeared in six roles there. Most were quite forget-
family named Negri in Saronno, near Milan. The patronymic
table. They included Il barone di Dolsheim (1818) by Pacini,
Pasta came from her husband, Giuseppe, an unsuccessful
I virtuosi a teatro by Mayr (1801), a cantata premiere, La festa
tenor who handled her business affairs and contracts. Gi-
patria by Farinelli (1820), Paer’s L’Agnese (1809), and Pavesi’s
uditta entered the Milan conservatory at fifteen and after
Il trionfo della belle o sia Corradino (1820). Only Angelina in
three years of study with Giuseppe Scappa made her debut in
La Cenerentola, which Pasta sang twenty-six times in Trieste,
an amateur production of Scappa’s Lope de Vega in 1816. In
have survived to this day, and she dropped all of them as she
1817, through the influence of Paer, she appeared in Paris at
steadily moved away from the buffa repertoire.
the Théâtre Italien as one of Catalani’s “puppets” (the young
Next, in Padua, she created yet another musico role, Ippolito
Manuel Garcia I was another). Pasta appeared in three Paer
to Grassini’s eponymous Fedra by Ferdinando Orlandi (1774–
operas and her only performance as Giulietta in Zingarelli’s
1848). The pair then reprised Gli Orazi e i’Curiazi. Giovanni
Giulietta e Romeo. After that, she sang numerous (108) musico
Pacini, who was to become an important composer in Pasta’s
Romeos. An unsuccessful Elvira in Don Giovanni ended the
career, revised his La sposa fedele (1819) for Giuditta, who was
Paris engagement, but she did sing three other major Mozart
next engaged as prima donna assoluta in Turin. Paer’s Sargino,
roles in London after that. After a stint in London’s King’s
ossia L’allievo dell’amore, curiously called an opera eroicomio,
Theater in 1817, competing with Josephine Fodor-Mainvielle
was the second item on the calendar. La schiava in Bagdad by
to little effect, she withdrew to have a baby (her only child,
Pacini received its premiere on October 28, 1820, with Pasta
Maria Clelia Luigia Teresa Pasta) and a period of further
in the role of Zora.
study with Davide Banderali (1789–1849). Some writers
It should be noted that Pasta was becoming noted for trav-
have stated that she did not appear in public for two years,
esti roles. She accepted an engagement at the Fenice in Venice,
but Stern asserts that she sang an almost unbroken series of
beginning in December 1820, for two musico parts—Gon-
performances during that time.
salvo in Nicolini’s La conquista di Granata and the title role of
In 1818, Pasta had a successful engagement in Venice as
Arminio by Pavesi. Nicolini’s opera was a fiasco, but Giuditta
Adelaide in Pacini’s Adelaide e Comingio and went on to gain
received most of the applause. Arminio was a great success and
experience in a variety of operas in Padua (she sang Angelina
went on to at least nineteen performances. Pasta, in keeping
in La Cenerentola), Trieste, and Rome. In Rome she created the
with the time, honored Italian custom, embellished her music
travesti role of Linceo in Mayr’s Danao, the first opera written
freely, and often interpolated music of Rossini and others in
especially for her. It was not a success. Then came another pre-
arias di baule (suitcase arias) in all her roles.
miere—Clodimiro in Giuseppe Nicolini’s Giulio Cesare nelle
In 1821, Paris and London were the centers of wealth, cul-
Gallie. A Rossini rarity, Aureliano in Palmira featuring Pasta in
ture, and squalor. Napoleon’s death on May 5, 1821, brought
Velluti’s old role of Arsace then received a single performance.
to an end the period of the French Revolution and the Napo-
Even at the tender age of twenty-one, Giuditta Pasta had
leonic Empire. The Bourbon King Louis XVIII reigned during
a sense of her worth and lost an engagement in Munich due
the second restoration from 1815 to 1824, and a period of
to her excessive salary demands and insistence on the title
relative peace ensued, which lasted for half a century.
prima donna assoluta. Her next engagement was in Brescia
in the trouser role of Marc Antonio in La morte di Cleopatra Emerging in 1815 from a generation of warfare, the European
by Sebastiano Nasolini written in 1791. The most important world continued to roll along the broad avenue of the nine-
thing about this engagement was that Pasta met the “star of the teenth century, which, seen in retrospect, stands as the most
show” Giuseppina Grassini, the great contralto, who took the remarkable period of material progress in the history of the
young singer under her wing. human race.4

Grassini became the most significant female influence on Gi- Many young Americans flocked to the City of Light in search
uditta Pasta’s artistic growth. The two developed a close relation- of culture and instruction unavailable in their native land.
 Giuditta Pasta 83
“The evening need never hang heavy on the stranger’s hands,”
wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, having dispensed altogether with
his misgivings about Paris. The very air seemed to be charged with
excitement. “More than twenty theaters are blazing with light and
echoing with fine music . . . not to mention concerts . . . shows
innumerable,” he wrote. “The theater is the passion of the French
and the taste and splendor of their dramatic exhibitions can hardly
be exceeded.”
There were two opera houses, both exuberantly ornate and
spacious: the Théâtre Italien on the Place des Italiens where Ital-
ian opera was performed, and the Salle Le Peletier, home to the
company now known as the Paris Opera, at the time sometimes
called the Grand Opéra, and known too, for its corps de ballet.5
Giuditta Pasta’s return to the Paris stage was on June 5,
1821, at the Théâtre Italien, which was directed by her old
friend and mentor Ferdinando Paer. It was the turning point
of her career. She chose what would become one of her sig-
nature roles, that of Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello. The Paris
premiere included Manuel Garcia in the title role and Marco
Bordogni as Rodrigo. The result was instant success and el-
evated Pasta to the ranks of the outstanding vocal artists of the
age, or any other age for that matter. Giuditta Pasta was a great
singer without question, but it was in the realm of expression
that she possessed the mystical ability to move her audiences
to ecstatic expressions of approbation. The term “acting with
the voice” is a rare attribute of the very greatest artists who
share with instrumental musicians the ability to phrase imagi-
natively with minute variations of rhythm, dynamics, accent,
and virtuosic delivery of speed and power. Pasta was renowned
for the taste and restraint of her embellishments that, once
fixed, were never changed during her career. She shared this
characteristic with modern singers who very rarely embellish
in the spontaneous manner of virtuosos of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
In addition, however, the singer has the advantage of the hu-
man voice’s capacity for infinite variation of timbre called forth
by the text and dramatic situation, facial expression, and body
language. Even the vowels have the capacity to arouse emotion
without words. For example, “aah” expresses satisfaction, “ooh”
wonder, and so forth. This expressive power of the human
voice was what prompted Vladimir Horowitz (1903–1989)
to remark that he never listened to recordings of pianists but
preferred to listen to great singers.
Giuditta Pasta was the prototype of the dramatic singer
in an age just emerging from a period in which an opera
performance resembled a tableau rather than a dramatic per-
formance. Of course, all trends progress to the point where
they are overdone, such as the present emphasis on visual
spectacle at the expense of the musical and vocal elements.
In a Pasta performance of Paisiello’s Nina only three years
later, a Paris critic of the Allgemeine Musicalische Zeitung
reported:
Not only did this enchantress hold her listeners spellbound; she
herself was so seized and carried away that she collapsed before
the end. She was recalled, and duly appeared, but what a sight!
Too weak to walk alone, supported by helping hands, more car-
ried than walking, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, every
muscle in the expressive face in movement, and reflecting as
touchingly as her singing, the depth of her emotions! The ap-
plause rose to the highest conceivable pitch—and she fainted!6
Otello ran for fifteen performances. Pasta’s London nemesis,
Josephine Fodor-Mainvielle, was in Paris and her supporting
claque tried to disrupt one of Pasta’s performances, but they
were vanquished by increased applause. The rivalry was, in
some respects, trumped up because the two artists were very
different, much like the Callas-Tebaldi rivalry closer to our
time. Pasta was then persuaded to sing Donna Anna in Don
Giovanni. She never felt comfortable in Mozart and abandoned
the role after five performances. Her reputation in musico roles
was enhanced by her subsequent appearance as Romeo in
eight performances of a much-altered version of Zingarelli’s
venerable Giulietta e Romeo. Paer then arranged a new version
of his Camilla, ossia il sotterraneo, a tearjerker about a mother’s
despair that provided Pasta, with her intrinsic vocal quality
of morbidezza, an opportunity to bring her audience to tears.
The Teatro Regio in Turin was Pasta’s next stop, where
she appeared in two more trouser roles as Eduardo in what
was described as Rossini’s Eduardo e Cristina and Clearco in
Farinelli’s I riti d’Efeso, which was sung by Garcia and Colbran
in 1813. Eduardo e Cristina is an example of the difficulty of
getting an accurate picture of a performance during this time.
Not only was Eduardo e Cristina a pasticcio to start with, Ros-
sini borrowing liberally from himself, but the Turin version
had interpolations from six other composers as well as other
Rossini operas. The Pasta Turin season is an object lesson in
the power that the prima donnas had during this period and
the musical excesses that were bound to happen when their
ambitions were unchecked. However, it was probably prefer-
able to the present climate where the administration and stage
directors hold all the cards!
Giuditta Pasta returned to Paris on March 11, 1822, se-
cure in the title of prima donna assoluta. She had wished to
sing Tancredi in her previous French visit but was prevented
from doing so by the unavailability of the score. After a delay
caused by Garcia’s supposed illness (the part of Argirio lies very
high and Garcia was a low tenor), Pasta finally presented the
Paris premiere of one of her signature parts. Marco Bordogni
sang the tenor part easily but was castigated for his poor act-
ing. Pasta had often sung the great aria “Di tanti palpiti” in
concerts transposed up a minor third. The French, who cared
much more about the literary quality of the libretto than the
Italians, were reluctantly won over. The critic for La Quotidi-
enne wrote:
One expected the role of Tancrède would be sung by Madame
Pasta in a superior manner; but nobody had thought that a
young and pretty woman could represent, with such command-
ing nobility, so touching and so realistic, the young Syracusan
knight; his, countenance, his bearing, his inflections breathed
84 Chapter 12
the motto that Voltaire gave his hero: Love and Honor! She sang
the Italian opera but acted the French play.7
Unfortunately, as we have seen, the original tragic ending was
replaced by the vapid lieto fine in this production as well as
all productions in the nineteenth century. The tragic ending
would have suited Pasta’s unique gifts very well.
Pasta next assumed two of Rossini’s “Colbran” roles—the
title role in Elisabetta, regina d’Inghliterra and Elcia in Mosé
in Egitto. After the Fourth Estate’s usual complaints about
the librettos of these operas, Pasta won individual plaudits for
her characterizations. To illustrate the shallow preoccupations
of the French critics, her turban in the role of Elcia became
an object of fascination. In January 1823, Pasta assumed the
eponymous role in Medea in Corinto by Mayr, a subject irre-
sistible to tragediennes from Colbran to Callas (who sang the
Cherubini version, not Mayr’s). The role of Giasone was sung
by Garcia, who had created the original part. Capitalizing on
the success of Medea, Pasta was featured in another of Mayr’s
finest works, La rosa bianca e la rosa rossa. Written originally
for a tenor, the role of Enrico was arranged for Pasta as a mu-
sico part. The wonderful aria “Dolci d’amor parole,” which
was cast out of the original version of Tancredi at Malanotte’s
insistence, was inserted into La Rosa along with copious addi-
tions and substitutions by Paer. Despite eleven repetitions, La
Rosa failed to catch on.
After a period of illness and a miscarriage, Giuditta re-
turned in a series of musico performances as Enrico, Tancredi,
and Romeo. Then she appeared as Elisa in Elisa e Claudio by
Mercadante, an unjustly neglected composer. Paisiello’s Nina,
ossia La pazza per amore, which we have already described,
came next. Nina became one of her most popular roles. Ros-
sini and Isabella Colbran arrived in Paris in November 1823
on their way to London. Otello was staged on November 29
with Garcia and Pasta. Rossini himself coached the singers and
may have written some embellishments for Pasta. After a few
performances of Paer’s L’Agnese on April 11, 1824, Pasta set
her sights on London to claim her rightful title of prima donna
assoluta of King’s Theater.
Like critics in Paris, London was amazed at the progress
Giuditta Pasta had made in the six years since she had been
there. I described the scene in London when the Rossinis ar-
rived in December 1823. Isabella Colbran’s unfortunate failure
in Zelmira and the vocal decline of Garcia put a damper on
the season. The impresario Benelli desperately brought in the
aging Angelica Catalani, whose voracious appetite for money
ensured the failure of the season. The English prejudice against
all things French worked against Giuditta, whose praise in the
French press preceded her. Garcia, although not in top form,
was still a formidible Moor in Otello, which opened on April
24, 1824, under Rossini’s musical direction.
Pasta’s voice was, like Callas’s, an unruly instrument that,
no doubt, was exacerbated by her dramatic intensity. This was
duly noted by the critics who, mesmerized by her acting and
musical imagination, overlooked her deficiencies.
It is not what is generally called a veiled voice, though it would
appear so; it seems to pass through an obstructed organ, and it
evidently demands from her immense exertion. There is there-
fore little of that musical sweetness in her tones which linger
on the memory after it is heard. A woman with only Madame
Pasta’s voice, and without her other qualifications, would have
little chance of arriving at any eminence; but this lady inspires
it with such eloquence of the mind, and, by mere management,
distributes it into a such a variety of light and shade, that she
renders it the medium of extraordinary dramatic effect. At the
moment that her voice is at its ultimate stretch of loudness, and
sometimes it is loud even to harshness, she suddenly suspends
her flight, makes a transition to a gentle strain, and rests upon it
until she appears to be captivated with her own conceptions. . . .
It is in these contrasts of voice that Madame Pasta excels—They
are striking, and always executed in such a masterly style as to
produce an electric effect on the audience.8
This use of sudden dynamic contrasts called “light and shade”
was also a characteristic of Giovanni Battista Rubini’s style
often mentioned by English critics, especially Henry Chorley.
Rossini was not impressed with the training of the singers
of his era. In a conversation with Ferdinand Hiller, he said:
“Most of the important singers of the present owe their talent
more to fortunate natural endowment than to their training.
This is true of Rubini, of Pasta, and of many others.”9 This
statement is all the more true for our era, but true artistry is
not about technical perfection. It is about the communication
of emotion. This is the element in Pasta’s singing that Stend-
hal described as “the mystical power of the human voice.” An
audience feels all the emotion but is unable to express it as
fluently as an artist can. The catch is that artists must pursue
technical perfection as an ever-ascending platform to reach a
higher level of communication. Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
put it this way:
Conscience compels us to turn ourselves into good craftsmen.
My objective, therefore, is technical perfection. I can strive
unceasingly to this end, since I am certain of never being able
to attain it. The important thing is to get nearer it all the time.
Art, no doubt, has other effects, but the artist, in my opinion,
should have no other aim.10
Benelli had originally engaged Giuditta for Otello, Medea in
Corinto, and Romeo. Apparently unable to put Medea on the
stage, he settled on a cobbled-together production of Tancredi,
presumably prepared by Rossini, which had ten performances.
Pasta’s version of “Di tanti palpiti” was much slower than the
usual tempo but apparently had Rossini’s blessing. The critic
for the Harmonicon felt that she “adds a few such chaste, grace-
ful, and original ornaments to it and gives it so much genuine
feeling, that it pleases all tastes.”11
The greatest challenge to Pasta during the London season
was Semiramide, which Colbran had premiered the previous
year. She and Garcia had a brilliant success and Semiramide
became one of her most often performed roles. One wonders
how Colbran felt, witnessing a rising star singing roles written
 Giuditta Pasta 85
for her and being directed by her husband. We have seen how
she treated Olympe Péllisier with respect when they met in
Bologna. Did she perhaps give the young Pasta the benefit of
her advice?
London, during the first part of the nineteenth century, was
a fertile source of income for the Italian artists who flocked
there for the rich fees that were paid by the wealthy nobility
and nouveau riche industrialists for their private concerts. Ros-
sini and Pasta made a lot of money there, but not at King’s
Theater, because Benelli went bankrupt and fled, leaving the
artists’ salaries largely unpaid.
Giuditta and her family returned to Paris in August 1824
to a changed landscape. Pasta was now the chief attraction at
the Théâtre Italien, where Rossini now was codirector with
Paer. Her return to Paris was in one of her warhorses—as
Romeo in Zingarelli’s venerable opera. Pasta continued her
lucrative concert engagements with Paer’s help, but she was
never as comfortable in concert as she was on the lyric stage.
During the 1824–1825 season, Pasta alternated her tried-and-
true roles—Tancredi, Nina, Romeo, and Desdemona. Rossini
wanted to tie her down for five years at the Italien, but she was
determined to return to London, where the money was. The
administration required Giuditta to post a bond of 15,000
francs to ensure her timely return.
On May 10, 1825, Giuditta Pasta marked her return to the
King’s Theater with a performance of Otello with Garcia. The
London Morning Post remarked on the numerous curtain calls
of the recently deceased Desdemona, complete with a bloody
nightgown. Semiramide followed with the general opinion
that Pasta was even greater than the year before. The season’s
concerts were marked by two noteworthy events. In a concert
on May 13, 1825, Pasta appeared with Manuel Garcia and
his daughter Maria along with Franz Liszt (1811–1886). She
also sang a duet with the last great castrato, Giovanni Battista
Velluti. On June 2 at Marlborough House, Giuditta sang the
great duet from Semiramide “Ebben, a te ferischi” with the
seventeen-year-old Maria Garcia (later to become the great
Malibran), who had always idolized her.
Upon her return to Paris in June 1825, Pasta began
learning three new roles: Armando in Il crociato in Egitto
of Giacomo Meyerbeer, Corinna in Il viaggio a Reims, the
new cantata scenica by Rossini, and Colbran’s last Rossini
role, Zelmira. Her rentrée to Paris was Otello with Domenico
Donzelli on June 14. Rossini had taken on the directorship of
the Théâtre Italien along with Ferdinando Paer in November
1824. He then composed Il viaggio a Reims starring Pasta
and other luminaries in honor of the coronation of Charles
X. Corinne was the only role that Rossini wrote especially for
Pasta, although she sang most of the roles in his catalog. Il
viaggio premiered on June 19 and was withdrawn after only
four performances. Rossini salvaged some of the music to
use in Le comte Ory and the rest lay undisturbed until 1977,
when Philip Gossett discovered the missing parts and recon-
structed the score. The first performance in 150 years took
place in Pesaro in 1984.
Giuditta entered into a contract with Barbaja for the
1826–1827 season in Naples and finished the 1825 season
with the same familiar repertoire. On September 25, 1825,
the long delayed Il crociato in Egitto opened in Paris with Pasta
in the musico role of Armando. Meyerbeer reworked the role,
originally created by Giovanni Battista Velluti for Pasta. She
received good notices but did not find the role congenial and
removed it from her active repertoire in 1828 after only nine
performances in total. Later, in Berlin, she found Meyerbeer’s
Les Huguenots “brilliant, extravagant, bizarre.”12
In November, Giuditta Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rubini,
the great tenor, began an association that would prove of mu-
tual benefit for many years. Both were devoted family people
and there was, refreshingly, never a hint of scandal from either
during their long careers. Their initial offering was a revival of
Mayr’s La rosa bianca e la rosa rossa. Rubini’s first assumption
of the eponymous role of Otello took place on December 15,
1825, with Pasta as Desdemona. Knowing that he could not
compete with the dramatic voices of Nozzari, Donzelli, and
even Garcia, he played the part as a soldier consumed with
thoughts of sadness and gloom. Pasta changed her interpreta-
tion to harmonize with the inspiration of her partner and both
received accolades from critics and public alike.
Giuditta was next involved in an imbroglio with Fodor-
Mainvielle over who would have the right to the title role in
the Paris premiere of Semiramide. The entire administration,
Rossini included, became involved. Pasta refused to sing Ar-
bace, which would probably have been a coup de théâtre for
her, but she was promised the premiere of Rossini’s next opera.
This never came to pass because she did not sing in French, the
language of Rossini’s final output. Fodor-Mainvielle eventually
won out but it was a Pyrrhic victory.
When the brilliant, very popular Fodor-Mainvielle appeared on
the stage as Semiramide, she was greeted with noisy enthusi-
asm. For a time, all went as had been foreseen. Then her tones
began to emerge hoarse and strangled and she could be seen
to struggle. The orchestra fell silent; the curtain was closed. A
functionary announced that the performance had had to be in-
terrupted because Fodor-Mainvielle was suffering a temporary
indisposition. The wait lengthened.
The scene in the star’s dressing room was of consternation,
as she alternately wrung her hands and struck them against her
face. Rossini wept, fearing the worst. The nightmare fear of
singers had become a reality for Fodor-Mainvielle: her voice had
somehow been damaged irreparably.13
Fodor-Mainvielle attempted a few comebacks in vain. Her
career was over. This tragedy cleared the way for Giuditta
Pasta, but her performance of Semiramide was not without
controversy. Fodor-Mainvielle was a pure soprano who tended
to shriek some top notes, a charge often leveled by Italians
at French singers. Pasta’s voice was more of an alto quality,
although she had the soprano top notes. It was agreed that
Pasta’s acting ability and vocal color were superior and Semir-
amide became one of the mainstays of her repertoire.
86 Chapter 12
Zelmira, Pasta’s next new role, proved to be quite congenial
for her, and Rossini composed a beautiful new aria, “Da te
spero” for her. The alto quality of Pasta’s voice is demonstrated
in this piece, which was the answer to Stendhal’s 1823 prayer.
Marilyn Horne’s recording of it is wonderful. Pasta shared
the Zelmira stage with Rubini, Bordogni, Carlo Zucchelli
(1793–1879), and Amalia Schütz-Odolsi as Emma, and she
would eventually take the opera to London and Naples. Ken-
neth Stern states that Pasta took part in fifty-two concerts dur-
ing the ten months that she was in Paris from 1825 to 1826.
From April until August 1826, Giuditta Pasta tended her
garden in London. The principal crop was money. London
and Paris were opera-mad, and the Italian singers of the era
were only too glad to relieve them of the burden of their
heavy purses. Pasta signed a contract with John Ebers of
King’s Theater, guaranteeing her the titles of prima donna
assoluta and musico assuloto. The contract reads a lot like that
of Angelica Catalani twenty years earlier. She had control of
repertoire, casting, staging, and was paid a hefty salary in
advance for the operas in which she was cast. She was allowed
to sing wherever she wished, as long as the engagement did
not conflict with her schedule at the theater. She certainly
took advantage of that codicil, for she did sixty-three con-
certs in the ninety-nine days she was in London.14 Her roles
for London were Desdemona and Medea in Corinto, both
partnered with Alberico Curioni (1785–1875), a journey-
man tenor best known as the handsomest Italian tenor until
Mario15 came along. Medea was the London premiere of the
Mayr masterpiece, and it created a sensation. Her acting was
continually compared to Sarah Siddons (1775–1831), the
greatest British actress of her age, as in Paris, François-Joseph
Talma (1763–1826), the great French tragedian, was one of
her most enthusiastic fans. Mayr’s opera must have been a
good basis for her portrayal of Norma, which came along
in 1831. Tancredi, Romeo, Nina, and Zelmira rounded out
Pasta’s London repertoire, and she left the city for Paris on
August 1, 1826. Her neurotic husband, Giuseppe, who had
accompanied the Garcia troupe in their famous visit to New
York, rejoined her. The highlight of Giuditta’s season in Paris
was her benefit on October 18, 1826, as Medea. The house
was overflowing and it was a brilliant evening.
Giuditta Pasta had not been “home” in four years. Barbaja
had arranged for her debut at the great Teatro San Carlo in
Naples. Great care had to be exercised in her selection of a
debut role for Naples, because the chauvinistic Neapolitans
could not believe an important operatic career could be estab-
lished outside of their historic city. Despite contrary advice,
she chose Medea for her debut on November 8. 1826. The
critic for the Giornale del Regno delle Due Sicilie remarked on
her contralto-like lower voice with its veiled quality and lack of
“extraneous ornaments,” a quality prized by the Neapolitans.
He did, however, notice that “everyone, however, recognized
in her a marvelous acting ability, a depiction of tragic dignity
above all praise. She approached the sublime in the depiction
of the grand passions.”16
Giovanni Pacini’s Niobe premiered on November 19,
1826, as a celebration of the birthday of the queen of Naples.
The cast was sterling; besides Giuditta Pasta in the title role,
Giovanni Battista Rubini was Licido, Luigi Lablache was
Anfione, and Carolina Ungher (Unger), whom we last met in
Vienna in 1824, was cast as Asteria. I have written extensively
about Niobe as the opera that, according to Pacini, elevated
Rubini to the title of “king of tenors.” Pasta, in yet another
opera about infanticide, had a notable success.
Then came a chorus of maidens of Niobe, then an example
of a famous cavatina of Pasta, which finally ended in a duet
with Ungher. Il primo tempo: “Invan tuoi preghi ostenti,” was
sung with the excellence of the famous prima donna artist and
received many bravas! from the Court and from the public. The
largo of the duettino increased the approbation: and finally in
the stretta of the cabaletta, (somewhat new in thought and form)
the King gave a sign for applause, and the whole room repeated
the cheering, so the performers repeated the selection—this had
never happened in an evening gala!17
Weinstock writes that it was probable that it was during the
run of Niobe that Bellini had first heard Pasta, who became
the creator of his most important roles, Norma and Amina.
However, it was Rubini who stole the show with the aria “Il
soave e bel contento,” which became hugely popular and was
inserted into many operas, concert programs, and figured in
many instrumental compositions as well.
Hilary Poriss has written an important book about the prac-
tice of aria insertion, Changing the Score,18 in which she cites
the many artists who appropriated the aria, including Giuditta
Pasta and Carolina Ungher, from the original cast, who knew
a good thing when they saw it. Indeed, Pasta credited “Il soave
e bel contento” as being one of the three arias that paved her
road to stardom.19 Rubini himself interpolated the aria into
Pacini’s L’ultimo giorno di Pompei, Rossini’s La donna del lago
and Mosè in Egitto, and Bellini’s La straniera and Il pirate,20 and
sang it in countless recital programs. The aria was also used as
a basis for many instrumental transcriptions for such artists as
Ignaz Moscheles (1794–1870) and Franz Liszt (1811–1886),
whose concerts in the 1830s and 1840s featured his Divertisse-
ment sur la cavatine “I frequenti palpiti” (1835–1836).21 Both
artists collaborated on the piece while Rubini and Liszt were
touring together in 1842.
Pasta’s next opera, Otello, was a direct challenge to the
Neapolitan memories of Isabella Colbran, for it was pro-
duced at the Teatro del Fondo, where it received its pre-
miere in 1816. She received ovations with the royal family
in attendance. Since Rossini had neglected to compose a
cavatina (entrance aria) for Desdemona, most prima donnas
of the time “corrected” his oversight by inserting arias that
they fancied. Pasta added “Ah! Come rapida” from L’esule di
Granata (1822) of Meyerbeer (surely a conflict of compo-
sitional styles) as her choice. There was hysterical acclaim.
Further incursions into Colbran territory were Zelmira and
Gabriella di Vergi by Michele Carafa and Giuditta by Pietro
 Giuditta Pasta 87
Raimondi (1786–1853), two Gothic horror operas that gave
Pasta plenty of opportunity to stretch her histrionic wings.
The addition of Medea in Corinto made a total of sixty-
four performances for Naples. There were some anti-Pasta
murmurings from the Fodoristi, but they were soon silenced
by the enthusiastic approbation of both Crescentini and
Zingarelli. Giuditta Pasta, possibly feeling unappreciated,
left Naples in April 1827, never to return. Almost eighty
years later, stung by members of the notorious “claque,” the
young Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) vowed never to return
to Naples either, except “to eat a plate of spaghetti.” He did
come back in 1921, only to die in the city of his birth.
The 1827–1828 season was comprised of a long visit to the
British Empire. In the midst of a hectic schedule, Giuditta
arrived in London from Naples on May 1, 1727. The season
opened with a mixed bill of acts from Tancredi and Giulietta
e Romeo. On May 10, Semiramide was heard with Pasta and a
young contralto making her debut, Marietta Brambilla (1807–
1875) as Arsace. Brambilla and Pasta became fast friends.
Brambilla sang two musico roles during the season—Romeo
in Zingarelli’s Romeo e Giulietta and Adriano in Il crociato in
Egitto. She became famous for the trouser roles; she created
Paolo in Generali’s Francesca di Rimini (1828), Maffio Orsini
in Lucrezia Borgia of Donizetti (1833), and Pierotto in Linda
di Chamounix (1842). She also sang Smeton in Anna Bolena
and Pippo in La gazza ladra in 1848.
Pasta prepared two new operas during the 1827–1828 sea-
son at King’s Theater, the title roles of Maria Stuarda, regina
di Scozia by Carlo Coccia (1782–1873) and Mercadante’s
Didone abbandonata, derived from Metastasio’s well-worn text.
Both operas were deemed unsuccessful although Pasta had
a personal success. The season ended on August 4. Giuditta
also sang an astounding sixty-two concerts during the brief
season, sometimes as many as three a day! She toured Ireland,
offering concerts and operatic performances during August.
Then she appeared in concert in England and Scotland. She
often offered “Di tanti palpiti” and “Il soave e bel contento,”
reveling in trills, chromatic runs, leaps con slancio, and other
embellishments, always in perfect taste. One of her secrets was
that she decorated her arias just enough without overdoing it.
Audiences responded with thunderous applause.
A frequently mentioned problem was that Pasta sometimes
sang under pitch, a trait that she shared with Isabella Colbran.
I have already addressed this in my discussion of the career of
the great Spanish soprano sfogato. In my opinion, these singers
were great musicians, and I believe that they were altos who
were holding high tessituras and simply got tired occasionally.
However, Stern published a fascinating account from Adelaide
Kemble (1814–1879), an English soprano who studied with
Pasta on Lake Como in 1839.
Even at her best, she [Pasta] had always sung false upon three
notes in the middle of her voice—the C of the third space, with
D and E which follow, were always considerably too flat. One
day that she was teaching me to sing “Casta Diva” . . . when
I came to the words “spargi in terra,” which fall upon these
particular notes, she suddenly stopped me. “Crescete, mia cara,
(You are singing sharp, my dear),” said she. I began again and
was stopped at the same place. Anxious to ascertain the fact,
about which I had doubts, I repeated the passage for the third
time, very gently touching the piano at the concluding note,
and finding myself in perfect unison with it. “Ma non sentite
che crescete sempre? (But don’t you hear that you still sing
sharp?)”—she exclaimed, and then herself sang the notes a full
quarter of a tone too flat, after which she looked at me with
an air of complacent triumph, and remarked, “Sentite che dif-
ferenza, cara mia? (You hear the difference, my dear?)”—a very
curious proof that her false intonation was an imperfection of
the ear, and not of the voice, for these three notes of the scale, a
most remarkable peculiarity, which I have never since met with
in anyone.22
Is it possible that Pasta simply learned the diatonic scale incor-
rectly as a child, and her genius kept her locked into a false
concept from the beginning?
Back in London, Pasta’s season began on January 16, 1827,
with Tancredi, Otello, Mayr’s La rosa bianca e la rosa rossa, and
Il crociato in Egitto of Meyerbeer. After these performances, she
eliminated the last two operas from her repertoire. Semiramide
followed.
The Morning Post extolled Pasta as “the greatest singer and
one of the greatest tragic actresses that ever lived,”23 high praise
indeed from an English critic.
The twenty-two-year-old Henriette Sontag, who was the
soprano soloist at the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
in 1824, was a member of the London company in 1827. The
dilettanti attempted to institute a rivalry between the two very
dissimilar artists but they became good friends. The novelty
of the season was Pasta’s assumption of the title role of Otello
while Sontag sang Desdemona. The interpretation of Otello by
a woman was a controversial subject to many, although Pasta’s
other numerous musico roles were no problem at all. Another
unusual performance was a Semiramide with Giovanni Velluti
in the role of Arbace. Stern writes that Pasta sang seventy-
seven concerts in London during the 1827–1828 season. She
returned to Paris in August to reunite with her husband and
daughter and begin a well-deserved vacation in her native land.
She purchased a villa on Lake Como, which she named Villa
Roda. She also acquired a residence in Milan. On December 7,
1827, she sang in a concert there and was engaged by Barbaja
for a short season at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna. She
sang her familiar roles during the season and was named Kam-
mersängerin to the court. She was unhappy because the German
singers did not understand Italian and the dramatic context of
Otello and Semiramide was lost. Giuditta returned to Milan to
the Teatro Carcano in April where she was contracted for fifty-
two performances of her familiar repertoire. The Semiramide
included Brambilla and a young French tenor, Gilbert-Louis
Duprez (1806–1896), who later became famous as the origina-
tor of the do di petto or so-called chest high C. Pasta’s Milan
season was a great success. She interpolated Rubini’s aria from
88 Chapter 12
Niobe “Il soave e bel contento” as her entrance aria in Otello and
caused the critics to forget all about previous Desdemonas. She
closed the season with Romeo on July 31.
For a grand finale of admiration, flowers, sonnets, and crowns
cascaded down from the boxes, and from the uppermost part
of the theater doves were unleashed. Dozens of spectators ac-
companied the diva to her residence and the critic for I teatri
reported: At four o’clock in the morning one could still hear the
cries Viva da Pasta! Viva la Grande Attrice Cantante! Giuditta,
indeed moved by this heart-felt display of affection, noted in
her journal: “I never in my life saw such enthusiasm.”24
What the rigors of a busy schedule of singing demanding
repertoire cost Giuditta Pasta (and other similar artists) is re-
vealed by her yearning for rest and relaxation. She planned to
take the late summer and autumn of 1829 off at her villa La
Roda, even refusing offers from La Scala. However, in Novem-
ber she succumbed to entreaties from Rossini on behalf of the
Teatro Communale in Bologna. He called her “Semiramide”
and invited her to stay with him and Isabella at their villa. It
is interesting that Rossini and Pasta were brought together at
that particular juncture in history. On August 3, 1829, Rossini
had premiered Guillaume Tell, one of the operas that set the
musical world firmly on the path to grand opera. With Tell,
Rossini sensed that his operatic world was coming to an end
and he composed no more operas. Verdi wrote:
Certainly no one would deny genius to Rossini! Well then:
despite all his genius, in Guglielmo Tell one detects the fatal
atmosphere of the Opéra, and at times, though less often than
with other composers, one feels that there is something bigger
and something smaller and the musical working-out is not so
sincere and secure as in Il barbiere.25
On the way to Bologna, on August 26, Rossini stopped in
Milan to hear Rubini in Bellini’s Il pirata and met the young
composer for the first time. Giuditta Pasta had become the
prototype of the dramatic lead of the grand opera. One would
have liked to have been a fly on the wall during discussions
among Rossini, Colbran, and Pasta. Rossini stated that he
would be at Giuditta’s disposal during her stay, and one would
suppose that she would take advantage of his coaching of his
operas. On November 5, Giuditta debuted in Bologna as
Desdemona in Otello. Tancredi and Semiramide soon followed.
After a short stay in Milan where she sang with Giovanni Da-
vid and Antonio Tamburini for the first time, Pasta traveled
to Verona, where she sang Romeo to Brambilla’s Giulietta in a
further pasticcio of Zingarelli’s work in the city of the drama’s
origin. In February 1830, Giuditta sang another travesti role,
the eponymous Malek Adel by Nicolini, which was given five
performances in Verona. In April 1830, Giuditta Pasta returned
to Vienna’s Kärntnertortheater for a two-month season under
much-improved circumstances compared to her previous visit.
She was reunited with her old friend and colleague Giovanni
Battista Rubini. They shared the stage and vociferous acclaim
from audiences and critics alike. The operas were Nina, Otello,
Giulietta e Romeo, Tancredi, and Semiramide. Then Giuditta
assumed a Bellini role for the first time—six performances
as Imogene in Il pirata, which had been premiered two years
earlier by Rubini and his wife Adelaide Comelli-Rubini
(1796–1874) at the San Carlo. This version was replete with
aria insertions by the artists that would have infuriated Bellini
had he known about them. After the Viennese season, Gi-
uditta spent the summer and fall of 1830 in repose at her villa
on Lake Como. Ahead was the most meaningful engagement
for Giuditta Pasta and her colleague Rubini—the 1830–1831
season at the Teatro Carcano in Milan. It is useful to sum up
Pasta’s career to this momentous turning point.
Roles that established Giuditta Pasta’s primacy were Tan-
credi, Elisabetta, and Semiramide by Rossini, Zingarelli’s Romeo
e Giulietta (she sang both parts), Mayr’s Medea in Corinto,
and Nina by Paisiello. For at least ten years, Pasta was the un-
disputed queen of opera during a period that included Maria
Malibran, Benedetta Pisaroni, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
(1804–1860), Giulia Grisi, Isabel Colbran, and Henriette
Sontag—great singers all. However, none of the roles she was
famous for were written expressly for her.
In 1824 Pasta’s greatest admirer, Stendhal (Marie-Henri
Beyle), noticed this omission and wrote a famous essay about
Pasta in which he laments the fact that she was forced to adapt
the truly original and inspired aspects of her art to roles writ-
ten for others. What was there about Pasta’s performances that
inspired such adulation in all the great opera houses of Europe?
Rossini is reported to have said “she always sang false” (off
pitch), but he continued to feature her at the Théâtre Italien
and coached her for her London performance of Semiramide,
one of her greatest triumphs. Henry Chorley felt that her fig-
ure was short and clumsy (she had one shortened leg), but her
demeanor had
“a grace and majesty which put many a born Royalty and
Ambassadress to shame,” and further—“one recollects Madame
Pasta by her Medea, her Romeo, her Norma, her Anna Bolena.
When she could be dramatic, the defects of intonation to which
she was liable either disappeared, or were forgotten in the con-
summate union of vocal art with human emotion.”26
The answer is complicated. First of all, Pasta’s career came
at a unique time in vocal history, when the art of the castrati
was giving way to the new taste for realistic drama. Mezzo-
sopranos and contraltos often replaced castrati in heroic male
roles, even appropriating the title primo musico or simply
musico. Pasta’s dedication to dramatic truth was unmatched by
any other singer except Callas, with whom she has often been
compared. Her gestures and facial expressions were always
rooted in the music but were so simple and tasteful that her
audience was at a loss to explain their power.
It seems clear that, as a singing actress, Pasta was ahead of
her time and had to wait for Bellini and Donizetti to come
upon the scene in the latter part of her career to fulfill her
true promise. At the height of her power when Stendhal was
writing about her, she was forced to adapt the faded works of
 Giuditta Pasta 89
such as Mayr, Paer, Paisiello, and Zingarelli to her own vision,
much as Jon Vickers (1926–2015) transformed Peter Grimes
in our time. Most of the time she had complete control of all
aspects of the performance, including insertions of arias from
other works, if it suited her purpose.
Pasta was also, in Berton Coffin’s words, an acting singer,
who, like Callas, had to tame an unruly and obdurate voice.
Pasta’s embellishments were not spontaneous but carefully
crafted to express the emotional weight of the text. Stendhal
writes:
I think that I should despair of ever succeeding, were I obliged
to describe one single embellishment normally used by Madame
Pasta which is not a monument of classical grace and style, or
which is unfit to stand as a model of unrivalled perfection. Ex-
tremely restrained in her use of fioriture, she resorts to them only
when they have a direct contribution to make to the dramatic
expressiveness of the music; and it is worth noting that none
of her fioriture are retained for a single instant after they have
ceased to be useful.27
Giuditta Pasta’s voice was a powerful mezzo-soprano with an
extended range from low A to high D. She sang a wide range
of parts from Despina to her great role, Norma. Less noticed
is the fact that, like Malibran and other contemporaries, she
also sang many male roles formerly reserved for castrati and
tenors, such as Tancredi, Romeo, and the title role of Rossini’s
Otello, which Chorley described as “something fierce, master-
ful, oriental, the like of which had hardly, till she came, been
expressed in music.”28 Pasta also had a masterful command of
registration and timbre at the service of her “deep and passion-
ate sincerity.”
Stendahl was unstinting in his praise of this great singer and
prototype singing actress. He lamented the fact that Rossini
had never composed a role for her by the time he wrote his
Life of Rossini in 1823. At that time Pasta was very well known
for the part of Romeo in Zingarelli’s Romeo e Giulietta, which,
we may remember, was written for the alto castrato Crescentini
in 1796. She was also famous for Paisiello’s Nina, an alto part,
and both Otello and Desdemona in Rossini’s opera. Stendhal’s
comments illuminate the often-ambiguous status of the alto
voice. What is often overlooked is the fact that the Italian
composers wrote parts for each individual singer and couldn’t
have cared less about assigning specific categories, unlike their
German counterparts who invented the fach system. Mozart
(an Italian-style composer) famously stated that he composed
for singers “like a good tailor makes a fine suit of clothes.”
This point is vividly illustrated by the story of the composi-
tion of Anna Bolena. A consortium of Milanese at the Teatro
Carcano were intent on challenging La Scala during Carnival
by commissioning two new operas from outstanding young
composers of the day. They chose Bellini and wanted Mey-
erbeer, who was unavailable, so they substituted Donizetti.
Felice Romani agreed to be the librettist for both operas. They
also intended to engage the greatest singers and selected Pasta
and Rubini. Giuditta Pasta did not know Donizetti personally
but her talents were described to him by Romani, Mayr, and
her friend Alexandre Micheroux (1792–1846). Donizetti was
Pasta’s guest at Villa Roda for a month and deferred to her
every wish in the preparation of the score. Her sense of taste
and practical experience were invaluable to Donizetti, and in
him she finally had a composer who could realize Stendhal’s
dream. Rossini has often been excoriated for borrowing from
himself, but Kenneth Stern has written a fascinating account
of how Donizetti borrowed from twelve previous operas in
preparing Anna Bolena. This self-plagiarism was not a problem
for Rossini, and it was not for Donizetti, either.
Anna Bolena received a sumptuous mounting at the small
Carcano Theater on December 26, 1830, and was an im-
mediate success. Pasta and Rubini were singled out for their
extraordinary singing. Donizetti wrote:
“Success, triumph, delirium, it seemed that the public had
gone insane, everyone says they cannot remember ever being at
such a triumph. I was so happy that I started to cry, imagine!
. . . Even though I had faith in a favorable outcome because
everyone spoke well of the opera, singers and orchestra and even
the impressarios, during the first quarter hour I was suspended
between heaven and hell . . . now I am in paradise!” It is signifi-
cant that only after Anna Bolena did Mayr refer to his former
pupil as Maestro.29
Anna Bolena received twenty performances at the Carcano
and soon went out all over Italy and the rest of Europe, affirm-
ing Donizetti’s reputation as one of the exciting young com-
posers on the international scene. It was high time—he had
already written thirty-four operas. During the run of Anna,
Pasta also alternated Romeo, Semiramide, and Malek-Adel (Nic-
colini), garnering more critical praise.
While Milan celebrated Anna Bolena, Bellini was no doubt
characteristically burning with jealousy and working furiously
on La sonnambula, which had its premiere two-and-a-half
months later on March 6, 1831. The subject matter of the
two operas couldn’t have been more different, and Pasta and
Rubini had to shift gears from a royal dramatic tragedy to the
bucolic landscape of a Swiss village. Bellini knew Pasta’s voice
very well, since he had attended her performances in Naples
during her 1826–1827 season. It is possible that they had met
during that time, but they certainly had met in 1828, when
the young composer sought her financial advice. Of course,
he knew Rubini’s talent thoroughly, since the great tenor had
created Gualtiero in Il pirata in 1828 and had sung three other
Bellini roles before 1831. Always excitable, Bellini became very
difficult during rehearsals, especially with the poet Romani.
He substituted some of his own verses and rewrote “Ah! Non
giunge” six times. It took the veteran Giuditta Pasta to calm
him down and assure him of the effect of the text written into
the score. Pasta no doubt called upon her extensive experience
with Paisiello’s Nina, ossia La pazza per amore in her portrayal
of Amina, the simple country girl.
La sonnambula was an instant hit. Bellini wrote that “Rubini
and Pasta are two angels who enraptured the whole audience to
90 Chapter 12
the verge of madness;” Mikhail Ivanovitch Glinka (1804–1857),
the “father of Russian opera,” “shed tears of emotion and ec-
stasy.”30 The critic of L’Eco tried to remain calm but was swept
away by the general enthusiasm:
The Maestro and the singers were called out twelve, fifteen, or
twenty times,—we really do not know—onto the stage. Bellini
has sustained his reputation, Rubini sang like an angel, and
it was reserved for Madame Pasta to transform the majesty of
Semiramide and the profound sensibility of Anna Bolena so
admirably into the simple and ingenuous graces of a young
country girl. After her duet with Rubini, it could truly be said
“That is the way to sing.”31
Pasta alternated the two very different roles during March
of what was perhaps her most successful season. On March
27, 1831, she made her belated debut at La Scala but not in
an operatic role. She appeared in a benefit concert with Filippo
Galli, the great bass, singing all her old warhorse solos. She then
headed for her retreat on Lake Como for a well-earned rest.
Giuditta Pasta had not appeared at King’s Theater in Lon-
don for three years. She arrived with her two new roles in
tow and opened the season on May 12, 1831, with Medea in
Corinto along with Rubini and Luigi Lablache. The house was
filled to overflowing with an enthusiastic audience. Tancredi,
Semiramide, curiously Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and a rare
comic turn as Corilla in Francesco Gnecco’s (c. 1769–1810
or 1811) La prova d’un opera seria followed. Gnecco’s work,
a spoof on the foibles of vain opera singers, was irresistible
to many of the great singers of the time, who enjoyed poking
fun at themselves and each other. After two singings of Otello,
Anna Bolena finally took the stage on July 8 with Pasta, Ru-
bini, and Lablache in his first assumption of the role of Enrico.
Anna Bolena, brought hither under the protection of Madame
Pasta’s royal robes, was permitted rather than admitted, though
in this historical English opera might be discerned something of
Donizetti’s own; and though three of the characters—those of
the Queen (Pasta), Percy (Rubini), and Henry (Lablache) were
played and sung to perfection.32
Everything considered, some voices to protest the lack of
historical veracity in Romani’s libretto were to be expected.
Chorley was right on target when he pointed out the essence
of opera, which makes it different from plain drama and other
spectacles. This should be read by all who believe that regiethe-
ater is the salvation of opera.
It is curious to recollect how Bellini’s second opera, introduced
here (also by Madame Pasta), La sonnambula, was treated on its
introduction with contempt; the want of science on the part of
its composer dwelt on, and that which is true in expression, and
which has kept the opera alive, utterly overlooked. It may have
been that possibly truth in expression was not then cared for by
those who frequented our Italian opera.33
Pasta did not sing Amina often. The tessitura was high for
a voice such as hers, so these days Amina is more often sung
by high lyric sopranos. In addition, the London pitch was
very high—Sir Michael Costa’s (1808–1884) tuning fork was
A—453.4; other opera pitches averaged 449. By contrast, the
Théâtre Italien in Paris was A—424 in 1823.34 After thirty-
six opera performances and fifty-six concerts in London,
Giuditta headed for Paris, where she was reunited with her
daughter Clelia. On September 1, 1831, Anna Bolena, the first
Donizetti opera to be heard in Paris, was premiered to mixed
reviews, although the singers were accorded rave notices.
The French critics were much more interested in historical
verisimilitude and the literary quality of the libretto than the
Italians, for whom voice and music were paramount. Pasta’s
appearance as Tancredi elicited this comment from a French
critic: “Why adorn Madame Pasta, who played a valorous
Tancrède returning from a perilous journey, with a brilliant
feather, a golden lance, an azure shield, a purple shoulder-belt,
and a tunic trimmed in silver?”35
Henry Chorley’s comment that Giuditta’s ornaments, once
decided upon, were fixed forever, did not hold true for Pasta’s
Paris Tancredi. Apparently, conscious of the competition from
the vivacious and spontaneous Maria Malibran, Pasta added
fiorature to her interpretation with the most exquisite taste.
Desdemona in Otello followed with Rubini taking on the title
role. She seemed tired in these performances but her acting
ability carried the day. La sonnambula, the first Bellini work
heard in Paris, with its pallid book, was not to every French
taste. However, Pasta’s ability to submerge her queenly persona
into the part of the simple peasant girl elicited admiration.
Pitch problems, which plagued Giuditta for most of her career,
seemed to be more pronounced in La sonnambula, which, as
noted, has a high tessitura, even though the Paris pitch was
lower. As Elvino, Rubini was in his element. Gnecco’s La prova
d’un opera seria provided comic relief for La Pasta, Rubini, and
Lablache, and La sonnambula closed the season on October
30. Giuditta never sang Amina again. Norma, which immor-
talized her, lay ahead at La Scala, as yet unconquered territory
for the diva.
Giuditta Pasta and La Scala had been in a financial and artis-
tic standoff for many years before 1831. To illustrate how the
prima donna had replaced the castrato as the most important
person on the operatic scene—for a concert in Bath, England,
the impressarios were “under the necessity of giving Madame
Pasta 200 guineas for one night. . . . Signor Rubini could not
be had for less than 100 guineas.”36 No doubt La Scala’s hand
had been forced by the previous season’s resounding success at
the Carcano. A financial agreement was reached with Pasta at
the end of 1831, and Donizetti and Bellini were commissioned
to write new operas for her to libretti by Felice Romani. Bellini
chose the subject of Norma, ossia L’infanticidio based on a play
that was being performed in Paris. Was his choice influenced
by his having previously seen Pasta in Medea in Corinto and
Niobe in Naples? Both operas dealt with the heartrending sub-
ject of a mother’s decision to murder her children and called
forth Pasta’s highest levels of dramatic intensity. Unlike the
original play, however, the children are spared and Norma is
immolated in a supreme act of self-sacrifice.
 Giuditta Pasta 91
Rehearsals for Norma began on Monday, December 5,
1831. There is a story that, incredibly, Giuditta did not like
her cavatina, “Casta diva,” one of the greatest arias ever writ-
ten. Because of her absolute power over the content of the
opera, Bellini was terrified that she would insert an entrance
aria from some lesser composer’s opera. He persuaded her to
keep the aria for a week and agreed to change it after that
time if she still did not care for it. She changed her mind,
even sending him a gift as an apology. Stern refutes this tale,
promulgated by Bellini’s first biographer, Fillipo Cicconetti,
stating that there is absolutely no evidence that this is true.
There were numerous revisions and adjustments in the origi-
nal score, however. The original key of “Casta Diva” was G
major, but Pasta found F major to be more congenial, as have
many subsequent Normas.
Rubini was in Paris during the season of 1831, so the choice
of Pollione fell to Domenico Donzelli, who was one of the fin-
est Otellos of his era. Donzelli was what we would call today a
spinto tenor and Bellini wrote for him accordingly. A notable
modern Pollione was Franco Corelli (1921–2003), partner to
Maria Callas’s Norma. The first Adalgisa was soprano Giulia
Grisi, who, encouraged by her success at La Scala, broke her
contract and moved to Paris where she became a great star and
a member of the famous “Puritani Quartet.” She later became
a noted Norma in her own right, although Bellini did not care
for her in the title role.
As so often happens in the world of classical music, the
premiere of Norma was an abject failure. Bellini exclaimed:
“Fiasco! fiasco! solemn fiasco!”37 The cast was exhausted.
There was a rehearsal of the second act the morning of the
first performance. Apparently Donzelli did not know his role
well, and Bellini described Grisi as “cold.” Nevertheless, after
a few performances, the theater was packed and Pasta went on
to sing twenty-eight performances. Norma became one of the
most performed operas of the nineteenth century, but there
have been precious few great Normas from its inception until
today. Giuditta Pasta went on to sing 115 performances of
Norma in her illustrious career.
La Pasta presented her Desdemona and Anna Bolena to La
Scala audiences in January and February 1832. Notable in the
casts were Donzelli as Otello and Giulia Grisi as Jane Seymour.
Donizetti’s offering of a new opera for La Scala was Ugo, conte
di Parigi, which premiered on March 13, 1832. There were
only three performances. Romani withdrew his name from
the libretto because it was so disfigured by the Italo-Austrian
censors. The cast was the same as Norma and complained
to Donizetti incessantly. Pasta, pro forma, demanded an in-
troductory cavatina and made several cuts and additions to
her florid passages. The La Scala season was strenuous for
Giuditta, and she showed signs of extreme fatigue, especially
lapses in pitch. She had sung fifty-three performances of the
most demanding repertoire spanning the period from Decem-
ber until April. She then retreated to her villa on Lake Como
for a well-deserved rest until the middle of August. She then,
accompanied by Bellini, journeyed to Bergamo, Donizetti’s
hometown, where she sang eleven performances of Norma.
The first performance took place on August 22. Bellini’s opera
was staged after imposing preparation unexampled earlier on
our stages. The orchestra, chorus, and stage-band were aug-
mented. Nothing was skimped. Giuditta Pasta aroused the
spectators’ enthusiasm by the smooth modulations with which
she knew how to adorn her singing, by her noble presence, by
her reasoned emotion.38
This generosity of the bergemaschi in the city of Mayr and
Donizetti toward the mean-spirited Bellini was amazing. He
never reciprocated toward his perceived rival. On December
8, 1832, Pasta, again accompanied by Bellini, arrived in Ven-
ice for the Carnival season at the La Fenice. On the day after
Christmas, she embarked on a season of twenty-three perfor-
mances of Norma. She was lauded for her descending scales
(by then her trademark) and long beautiful trills. Otello and
Tancredi were also performed during the season. Unfortunately
Alberico Curioni was cast in the title role of Otello and was de-
tested by the La Fenice public. “When Otello killed himself,”
the public cried, “may he not rise again!!!”39
Bellini’s contribution to the La Fenice season was Beatrice di
Tenda. Bellini’s intent was an opera designed to further glorify
Giuditta Pasta, but choosing a suitable subject proved daunt-
ing. Romani delayed so long in Milan that the police had to
be summoned to force him to come to Venice. Bellini worked
under intense pressure, had to delete several numbers, and the
opera opened on March 16, 1833, almost a month after the
announced date for the premiere. The reception of Beatrice
was decidedly mixed. Audience members shouted “Norma!
Norma!” when they thought that they perceived Bellini’s self-
borrowing, and Bellini and Romani had a public falling-out
in the press, ending a most productive relationship. Beatrice
received only two more complete performances and Pasta
never sang the role again. Beatrice has had recent revivals—and
Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne, in her New York debut,
presented a memorable concert performance in 1961.
The year 1833 was an example of the difficulty of making
any sense of the conflicting views of critics and various onlook-
ers in operatic performances, especially in London. Since many
reviews were written anonymously, it is impossible to know
the credentials of the critic. I suspect that some, especially in
nonspecialized papers and magazines, were written by some-
one who just happened to be in the city room at the time.
For example, “Pasta was magnificent . . . her voice was in full
power and splendor. . . . Nothing could be finer;40 But Henry
Chorley, writing much later (1862), recalled that
The glory of Madame Pasta already showed signs of waning;
she steadily began her evening’s task half a tone too flat. Her
acting was more powerful and striking than ever, if that could
be. This, however, was her last season of being the presiding
divinity of the opera.41
It becomes clear that Giuditta Pasta was surpassed in sheer
beauty of voice by Giulia Grisi and in musical imagination by
Maria Malibran. Nevertheless, she was able to hold her place
on the pinnacle of operatic fame by excelling in those virtues
92 Chapter 12
and adding the force of a magnetic and hypnotic personality.
This is the reason she is often compared to Maria Callas.
In April 1833, Pasta arrived in London accompanied by
Bellini and probably other Italian singers who were engaged
for the season at King’s Theater. A curiosity of the season was
a bastardized version of La sonnambula at Drury Lane, sung
in English by Maria Malibran. Medea in Corinto starring Pasta
in one of her surefire vehicles opened the season at King’s
Theater in late April, followed by Anna Bolena with Joséphine
de Méric (1801–1877), Rubini, and Tamburini. For a benefit
for Rubini, Giuditta relearned Il pirata in a truncated version
reluctantly agreed to by Bellini. Lack of preparation and fran-
tic rehearsals, even on the day of performance, produced a less
than sterling performance. Norma, coached and conducted
by Bellini, took the stage on June 20. Giuditta’s colleagues
included Donzelli, Filippo Galli, and De Méric. Bellini’s
opera was not appreciated by many of the critics and Pasta’s
intonation problems were pointed out by several. By the fifth
performance, everything seems to have gotten back on track.
Bellini chose his I Capuleti e i Montecchi for his London
benefit on July 20, 1833. It is not clear why he chose not to
present Beatrice di Tenda; perhaps he still smarted from its
poor reception in Venice. Pasta did not know the role of Ro-
meo and only learned it because of her respect for Bellini. It
was not a success and one anonymous writer opined that “at
least it was better than Norma!” There were only two perfor-
mances and Pasta never sang it again.
After the London season, the Pastas retreated to Lake Como
for three months before arriving in Venice on December 9,
1833, where Giuditta would create the last two new roles in
her repertoire. Fausta by Donizetti was written for Giuseppina
Ronzi de Begnis at the San Carlo in January 1833. The plot
concerns the adulterous love of Fausta, wife of the Roman
Emperor Constantine, for her stepson, somewhat along the
lines of Phaedra of Greek mythology. Pasta was praised for her
performance, which was repeated eight times. Anna Bolena was
offered nine times, and then excerpts of acts from both operas
were given six repetitions.
The final opera composed especially for Giuditta Pasta was
Emma d’Antiochia by Mercadante. The librettist Romani de-
layed, as usual, and at the premiere on March 8, 1834, Pasta
was not well but carried on anyway. The public sympathized
with the great singer who had to cut the grand finale of the
work. By the third singing of Emma, Pasta had recovered and
was applauded generously, but the work did not have a lasting
success after seven repetitions. Pasta was weary and having no
more operatic worlds to conquer, retired from the stage from
1835 to 1837. She was a devoted mother but had been away
from her daughter’s formative years for too long (Clelia was
now eighteen). Incredibly, Bellini, whose character was never
as elevated as his music, wanted to marry Clelia for reasons of
financial security. Mama Giuditta was too wise to allow that
to happen, and Clelia was married to a cousin, an engineer
named Eugenio Ferranti. Pasta supported her daughter and
her husband in the first years of their marriage and for finan-
cial reasons agreed to return to the London stage in 1837. By
this time Giulia Grisi was the prima donna assoluta of King’s
Theater and Pasta was more like a guest star. She presented her
old warhorses—Tancredi, Medea in Corinto, and Zingarelli’s
Romeo—and participated in fifty-five concerts, which were the
real moneymakers. Giuditta Pasta’s immense charisma is dif-
ficult to overestimate. Both Stendhal and Chorley, separated
by many years, devoted whole chapters of their books to her
art. Writing in 1861, Chorley vividly remembered her London
trip of 1837:
When she returned to England in 1837, and occupied a box
in the center of the dress circle of the King’s Theater,—the pit,
with one accord turned towards her with an immediate gaze of
interest and welcome as befits a royal personage. I was afraid
to see and hear her again, aware of the illusions which eager
persons are apt to cherish in regard to objects of early admira-
tion. During this last visit referred to her voice was steadily out
of tune, with some exceptional moments. Painful as this was to
the ear, she was none the less the “Queen And wonder of the
enchanted world of sound,” in right of all those attributes which
age cannot wither, neither custom stale. The grandeur of her
style had undergone no decay, her wonderful musical percep-
tion was unimpaired; so were incomparable taste, courage, and
yet moderation in ornament.42
After her London visit Pasta returned to Lake Como in
October, where she entertained Olympe Pélissier, as Isabella
Colbran had in January of the same year. The kindness shown
to Olympe by the two divas was much appreciated by Rossini,
who, with Olympe, also sent an ardent letter of condolence
to Giuditta, who suffered the death of her granddaughter
Giuditta in 1838. Pasta rarely sang in public but did venture a
concert with Rossini for Prince Metternich in 1838, although
she was an Italian patriot and resented Austrian domination
of her country.
From 1840 to 1841, Giuditta Pasta embarked on a trip to
imperial Russia, a pioneer in a trend that inspired Giovanni
Battista Rubini, Pauline Viardot, Alboni, and Tamburini to
brave the northern climes in an Italian gold rush. She arrived
in Vienna, where she gave two concerts in costume, then
on to Warsaw for several concerts, including the last act of
Otello, and she was received with enthusiasm. It is difficult
for us in the twenty-first century to understand the adula-
tion of the operatic stars of the nineteenth century and the
willingness of the public to forgive the inevitable decline of
well-remembered artists.
A Russian production of Semiramide in January 1836 was
an artistic and financial success and rekindled the public’s
interest in Italian opera. The tide began to turn away from
French opera due to domestic productions and not those
imported from Italy. During the 1840–1841 season, three out
of four productions were Italian, and in the following season,
the Russians were enamored by the works of Donizetti and all
operas were by him or local Russian composers. During the
1841–1842 season, Giuditta Pasta, then forty-four years old,
 Giuditta Pasta 93
appeared in the title role of Norma, which she had created ten
years earlier in 1831, and in Semiramide, Tancredi, and Anna
Bolena. The German and Russian members of the company
learned their roles in Italian in her honor. According to one ac-
count, “she astounded everyone with her style, but her singing
turned out to be highly unsatisfactory. The greatly renowned
prima donna’s voice was already jolly well shot.”43
However, most of the critics, unwilling to brave the wrath
of the tsar and the nobility, were extravagant in their praises.
Giuditta sang several private concerts for the royal family and
was rewarded with jewelry worth a fortune. Pasta gave two
concerts in costume in Moscow on January 23 and 30, 1841,
with the same program as those in Vienna and offered nine
performances of opera at the Bol’shoy in Moscow. She re-
turned to St. Petersburg in February and occupied herself with
singing concerts until May 24, when she departed for Berlin
for a two-month stay. In the twilight of her career, Giuditta’s
pitch problems were evident, but the German critics, though
noting them, paid homage to the beau restes of a great artist.
Her final performances of Norma and her last full performance
of an opera (Tancredi) took place in Berlin.
In September 1841, Giuditta Pasta embarked on the career
of retired lady and sometime teacher to those in whom she
was interested. The most significant was Maurice Strakosch
(1885–1887), who was the teacher and manager of Adelina
Patti. In 1846, Pasta lost both her adored mother and hus-
band within a few months of each other. During the 1840s
and 1850s, she sponsored the patriotic cause of Italian in-
dependence from Austria. In 1850 she traveled to London
and renewed acquaintances with old friends and colleagues.
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872), a friend and great Italian
patriot, persuaded her to appear in a concert for the benefit of
Italian emigrants. A shadow of her former self, she agreed to
sing on July 8, 1850. She was greeted with deafening applause
by those eager to recall past glories.
Like Patti, she found ways to compensate for deficiencies
when her powers were waning. She was incapable of giving
less than all of her strength and vitality in a performance.
Pauline Viardot attended a performance with Henry F.
Chorley of scenes from Anna Bolena in 1850 when Pasta was
fifty-two. Her voice was in ruins and she was not presented
to her best advantage in costume or hair dressing. Chorley
reported that
a more painful or disastrous spectacle could hardly be looked on.
The first scene was Ann Boleyn’s duet with Jane Seymour.
The old spirit was heard and seen in Madame Pasta’s “Sorgi!”
and the gesture with which she signed to her penitent rival to
rise. Later she attempted the final mad scene of the opera. By
that time, tired, unprepared, in ruin as she was, she had rallied
a little. When, on Ann Boleyn’s hearing the coronation music
for her rival, the heroine searches for her own crown on her
brow, Madame Pasta wildly turned in the direction of the festive
sounds, the old irresistible charm broke out; nay, even in the
final song, with its roulades and its scales of shakes ascending
by semitones, the consummate vocalist and tragedienne, able
to combine form with meaning—the moment of the situation
with such personal and musical display as form an integral part
of operatic art—was indicated; at least in the apprehension of
the younger artist.
“You are right!” was Madame Viardot’s quick and heartfelt
response (her eyes full of tears) to a friend beside her; “You are
right! It is like the Last Supper of Da Vinci at Milan—a wreck of
a picture, but the picture is the greatest in the world!”44
The foregoing should not be construed as the desire of
an older artist to remain on the stage. Giuditta Pasta was
not like Giulia Grisi, who made such a series of farewells
that it prompted a critic to remark: “Does the word last
bear an esoteric idiom in operatic parlance other than that
ordinarily accepted?”45 Giuditta was really a homebody who
had expressed a desire to retire as early as 1828. For the next
fifteen years, she moved among her various properties in
Lake Como and Milan, tending her gardens and receiving
occasional visitors. Her eyesight gradually deteriorated and
she had trouble walking. She passed away at the age of sixty-
eight on April 1, 1865.
NOTES
1.  Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], Life of Rossini, trans. Richard
N. Coe (1823; repr., London: Calder, 1956), 361–62.
2. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 364.
3.  Kenneth Stern, Giuditta Pasta: A Life on the Lyric Stage (Palm
Springs, CA: Operaphile Press, 2013), 58.
4.  P. R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World (New York: Knopf,
1963), 421.
5.  David McCullough, The Greater Journey (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2011), 48. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) visited Paris
in 1833 and wrote that it was “a loud modern New York of a place.”
6. Anonymous, Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung 16 (April 1824),
361.
7. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 109.
8. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 139. From the Morning Herald, April
1824.
9.  Herbert Weinstock, Rossini: A Biography (New York: Knopf,
1968), 264.
10.  Scheherazade introductory notes (Paris: Durand, reissue n.d.,
ca. 1950).
11.  Anonymous, “The King’s Theater,” The Harmonicon, ed. Wil-
liam Ayerton, vol. 2 ( London: Samuel Leigh, 1824), 124.
12. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 419.
13. Weinstock, Rossini, 146.
14. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 212.
15.  Giovanni Matteo Mario, Cavaliere de Candia (1810–1883),
generally considered to be the inheritor of Rubini’s mantle.
16. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 229.
17.  Giovanni Pacini, Le mie memorie artistiche (Florence: Tipi dei
Successori le Monnier, 1875) 45–47.
18.  Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2009).
19. Poriss, Changing the Score, 95.
20. Poriss, Changing the Score, 86–87.
21. Poriss, Changing the Score, 84.
94 Chapter 12
22. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 437.
23. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 260.
24. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 285.
25. Weinstock, Rossini, n.167.
26. Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (New
York: Knopf, 1926), 27, 87.
27. Stendhal, Life of Rossini, 368.
28. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 27.
29. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 303–4.
30.  Herbert Weinstock, Vincenzo Bellini: His Life and His Operas
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1971), 97.
31. Weinstock, Vincenzo Bellini, 97–98.
32. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 17.
33. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 17–18.
34.  John Ellis and Arthur Mendel, Studies in the History of Musical
Pitch (1880; repr., Amsterdam: Fritz Knuf, 1968), 52.
35.  Patrick Barbier, Opera in Paris, 1800–1850: A Lively History
(New York: Hal Leonard, 1995), 188.
36. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 324–25.
37. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 340–41.
38. Weinstock, Vincenzo Bellini, 121.
39. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 360.
40. Stern, Giuditta Pasta, 373.
41. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 45.
42. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 90.
43.  Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2001), 196. Taruskin is quoting Alexan-
der Ivanovich Vol’f, Kronika peterburgskikh teatrov s krontsa 1826 do
nachala 1855, part 1 (St. Petersburg: tip. R. Golike, 1877), 98.
44. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 93.
45.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 180.
13
Carolina Unger (Ungher)
The Forgotten Prima Donna

She has southern fire, northern earnestness, lungs of bronze, If you give the concert, I will guarantee that the house will be full.
a voice of silver, and a talent of gold.1 You have too little confidence in yourself. Has not the homage of
the whole world given you a little more pride? Who speaks of op-
Thus Gioachino Rossini described the contralto Carolina position? Will you not learn to believe that everybody is longing
Unger who was born in Vienna (not Székesfehérvár, Hungary) to worship you again in new works? O obstinacy!4
in 1803 as Karoline. Unger was connected to many of the
most important musicians and literary figures of the early This is an astonishing bit of self-confidence from a twenty-one
nineteenth century. Her father, Johann Karl (1771–c. 1836), year old, but apparently she and Sontag were a little tipsy from
was a teacher, writer, and amateur singer. He was a friend
of Schubert and provided texts for two of Schubert’s songs,
“Die Geselligkeit” (D. 609) and “Die Nachtigall” (D. 724).
Carolina was a student of Johann Michael Vogl (1768–1840),
who was Schubert’s friend and earliest champion, and Aloysia
Weber (c. 1760–1831), Mozart’s sister-in-law and his first love.
She also studied piano with Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart
(1791–1844), Wolfgang Amadeus’s youngest son.
In 1821, Carolina Unger was already a member of the Vi-
enna Court Opera and, as a terrified eighteen year old, made
her debut at the Kärtnertortheater as Dorabella in a perfor-
mance of Cosi fan tutte in which Franz Schubert served as
a répétiteur. In August 1822, she had her first major success
as Tancredi. On December 1, 1822, Franz Liszt made his
Viennese debut and on the program with him was the nine-
teen-year-old contralto, Carolina Unger, who sang an aria
from Rossini’s Demetrio e Polibio.2 In September, she and
the eighteen-year-old Henriette Sontag visited Beethoven at
his summer home in Baden near Vienna. Beethoven wrote
to Johann Andreas Stumpff: “Two women singers called on
us today and as they absolutely insisted on being allowed to
kiss my hands and as they were decidedly pretty I preferred
to offer them my mouth to kiss.”3 Because Vienna had gone
Rossini-mad, Beethoven began to believe that the premieres
of his Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony should not take
place there. Vienna, he said, “preferred whipped cream”
(schlag). The young girls tried to persuade him that his dark
mood was wrong. At dinner with Beethoven (probably on
January 25, 1824), Carolina Unger wrote in his conversa-
tion book. Figure 13.1.  Carolina Unger (Ungher)

95
96 Chapter 13
too much wine at dinner. Finally Beethoven decided to do the
concert and to use the two charming girls as soloists, although
he had to take the word of others as to their abilities.
Unger called Beethoven a “tyrant over the vocal organs.” And
both girls tried good-naturedly to charm him into making
changes. He would not. “Well then,” Unger said to Sontag, “we
must go on torturing ourselves in the name of God.”5
The rest is well known. Beethoven was unable to hear the tu-
multuous applause after the first performance of the Ninth on
May 7, 1824. It was Carolina Unger who plucked Beethoven’s
sleeve and gently turned him around toward the delirious au-
dience. Beethoven was quite taken by the young singer who,
among others, urged him to compose an Italian opera for the
singers of Barbaja’s company. He considered the idea for some
time, but the project came to naught.
In 1825 Unger was brought to Naples as a prima donna by
Barbaja. Her name was spelled “Ungher” in Italy so as not to
be pronounced “Undscher,” so I will spell it that way hereaf-
ter. This was an unusual elevation to stardom, but there is no
evidence that she and Barbaja had anything but a professional
relationship. Ungher was the only German-speaking artist who
gained popularity in Italy as a great exponent of the art of bel
canto, but her pedigree was Austrian, leading all the way back
to Mozart. Therefore, she combined bel canto vocalism with
exceptional musicianship. Ungher, like many other natural al-
tos in the primo ottocento, was not so conscious of vocal catego-
ries. With a range of low A to D3, which was the same as Col-
bran and Pasta, she often sang soprano roles. Ungher remained
at the San Carlo for two years. We have already mentioned her
participation in the glittering premiere of Niobe by Pacini,
but while in Naples, she also created the roles of Matilde in
Sapienti pauca (1825) and Celestina in Un di fiori cestellino
(1827) by Pietro Raimondi, the title role in Tazia (1826) by
Giuseppe Balducci (1796–1845), and Giacinda in Giacinda
ed Ernesto (1827) by Sir Julius Benedict (1804–1885), an im-
portant composer and conductor. In 1827, Donizetti signed
a contract with Barbaja for twelve operas for Naples, and he
chose Ungher to create Marietta in Il borgomastro di Saardam.
Ungher became one of Donizetti’s favorite singers and he
composed three other roles for her: the title role in Parisina
(1833), which was Donizetti’s (and Ungher’s) favorite opera
for a number of years, Antonina in Belisario (1836) in Venice,
and Maria in Maria di Rudenz (1838) in Venice. Carolina
had successful engagements in Turin, Bologna, Genoa, Milan,
and Rome. She arrived at La Scala in 1828, where she created
Ramiro d’Elva in Pacini’s I cavalieri di Valencia and Alessio
in L’ orfano della selva (melodramma comico) by Carlo Coccia.
The greatest triumph of the La Scala season was the premiere
of Bellini’s La straniera on February 14, 1929. Ungher sang the
alto part of Isoletta. In the cast were Henriette Méric-Lalande
(1798–1807), Antonio Tamburini, and Domenico Reina
(1797–1843). In 1830 she had great successes as Fiorilla in
Rossini’s Il turco in Italia and as Teodora in Pacini’s La sposa
fedele. After the La Scala engagement, Ungher was in great de-
mand and refused any long-term contracts. She subsequently
appeared in all the most important Italian theaters, an unusual
feat for a German-speaking artist. Ungher was Elisabetta in
Otto mesi in due ore, ossia Gli esiliati in Siberia (opera romantica)
by Donizetti (1827), which was an overwhelming (and the
only) success during the Carnival season in Rome’s Teatro Valle
in 1832. Ungher was sought after by all the Italian composers
and premiered operas by Giuseppe Lillo (1814–1863), Saverio
Mercadante, Nicola Vaccai, Otto Nicolai (1810–1849), the
aforementioned Pacini, Feliciano Strepponi (1797–1832), Lu-
igi Rieschi (1805–1859), Giuseppe Persiani (c. 1799–1869),
Luigi Ricci (1805–1859), and Antonio Granara (1809–?).
Many other composers sought in vain to have Ungher pre-
miere their works. In 1834, while working on Les Huguenots,
Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote to his wife that he wanted Carolina
Ungher for the great role of Valentine:
The Ungher is a very great artist with the highest dramatic
intentions, and if her voice were not so big and sharp edged
like a castrato, I would prefer to compose for her more than
the extravagant Malibran. But, as it is, since I wanted infinitely
more, I had to have a Valentine in Paris.6
Marie Cornélie Falcon (1814–1897), a French soprano, cre-
ated the role on February 29, 1836, before her unfortunate loss
of her voice in March 1837. Perhaps the atmosphere in Paris,
where the Italians complained of the screaming of the French
singers, contributed to the early demise of the voices of Falcon,
Nourrit, Duprez, and Fodor-Mainvielle.
Donizetti’s Gianni di Calais (1828) in Paris in 1834 featured
Carolina Ungher as Mathilde and Rubini (the original Gianni).
She returned to the San Carlo, after being away for nine years,
and she became the first German-speaking singer to sing Norma
there in 1835. Another Donizetti opera, Marin(o) Faliero, was
first sung in Paris in 1835 with Giulia Grisi as Elena, but it
was Carolina Ungher who first introduced the opera to Italy in
Florence in 1836. She subsequently took it to Vienna and other
major European cities with great success. Donizetti neglected
to compose an entrance aria (cavatina) for Elena in Marin
Falliero, which was expected by the public during this time.
Hilary Poriss devotes an entire chapter in her book to Carolina
Ungher’s choices for inserting suitcase arias (arias di baule) to
make up for this deficiency. Poriss points out that Ungher made
these alterations with great taste and musicianship. She quotes
Franz Liszt’s description of the prima donna:
Extremely intelligent, [Carolina Ungher] understands and plays
her roles not in the way they have been laid out for her, but as
they ought to be played. . . . She is noble, sincere, captivating,
and impassioned, and although exaltation and ardor win us
over, it is primarily her great skill, wise heart, and ultimately
her art, in the best meaning of the word, that conquer us. From
the moment she makes her entrance, the nobility of her bearing
and dignity of her actions command attention.7
Carolina Ungher sang Anna Bolena in Reggio Emilia in Ca-
labria in 1837, where they struck a gold medal in her honor.
 Carolina Unger (Ungher) 97
Her carriage was drawn to her home by the local inhabitants.
Her garden was illuminated with torches and banners and she
was reduced to tears by bands and choirs who serenaded her
at her window. By this time she had a repertory of more than
one hundred roles, which ranged from contralto to soprano.
Henriette-Cleméntine Méric-Lalande premiered the epony-
mous role of Lucrezia Borgia in 1833, but Carolina Ungher
swiftly became the outstanding Lucrezia in Europe and caused
a sensation in Vienna on May 9, 1839. Other Donizetti roles
that Ungher undertook were Lucia di Lammermoor and Maria
Stuarda, which was premiered by Maria Malibran on Decem-
ber 30, 1835, at La Scala. In the fall of 1837, Carolina bought
a permanent home in Florence and was appointed “chapel
and chamber singer” by the grand duke of Tuscany. She also
acquired the villa “La Concezione” in Trespiano, a village near
Florence.
Liszt met with Carolina in Trieste in October 1839. He
appeared with her in a concert where she sang a Mozart song
and three Schubert lieder: Erkönig, Trockene Blumen, and Der
Einsame. The two spent two weeks together in what he as-
sured his mistress, Countess Marie D’Agoult, was a platonic
relationship.8 In 1839 Liszt was quoted as saying: “Without
exaggeration or partiality, it seems to me that she is the greatest
stage artist—in the noble and broad sense of the word—strid-
ing across the stage in Europe.”9
Despite her great success on the stage, Carolina Ungher
found a stable love relationship quite late in life. Her tumultu-
ous affair with Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) is chronicled
in desperate letters she wrote to him. Dumas was an inveterate
womanizer who is known to have had forty mistresses and
fathered four illegitimate children. Carolina wrote a last letter
to him shortly after the premiere of Belisario while still being
serenaded by aficionados outside her balcony. She makes allu-
sions about Dumas’s wife, the actress Ida Ferrier:
Good-bye, do not forget me, imagine that I am as Hero, who
watched the waves bring me my lover, provided that a moral
storm does not kill me. You’ve told her anything about me?
Even more so, I’m afraid of your silence because I know that I
love you to distraction and would never tell anyone.10
Dumas never answered her and there was no reunion.
Nikolaus Lenau (1802–1850) was an Austrian poet who
had a disposition for sentimental melancholy. He was restless
and determined to travel to America to seek peace and free-
dom. Lenau settled in a utopian colony called the Harmony
Society, but, disillusioned by his perception of American
money-grubbing, he soon returned to Vienna. In June 1839,
he met Carolina Ungher during her sensational run as Lucrezia
Borgia at the Kärntnertortheater. She sang Schubert’s “Der
Wanderer” and “Gretchen am Spinnerade” for him, and Lenau
proclaimed her a genius. In July he accompanied her to a guest
appearance in Dresden, where he described her as
a wonderful woman having the highest nature that we worship
here on earth. During conversation she is lively and funny, often
childish and playful, which, when revealed, the soul sheds the
big shocks and beneficent nature seeks to bring life back into
balance. Then suddenly, the serious voice of her soul breaks out
and what she says about tragedy and her view of the same also
shows me her thoughts on the highest plane.11
On July 11, 1839, Lenau received a passionate letter from
Carolina in which she declared a boundless love for the poet
and that they were both miserable alone. He went for a vacation
to Bad Ischl on July 24, where he was joined by Carolina in the
middle of August. She showed him two wreaths that had been
give to her on the last evening in Dresden. One was bestowed
by the poet Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853), who was one of the
founders of the Romantic movement of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. The other was presented by Wil-
hemine Schröder-Devrient on her knees. Schröder-Devrient
was the soprano idolized by Richard Wagner and for whom he
composed Adriano in Rienzi, Venus in Tannhäuser, and Senta
in Der Fliegende Holländer. Schröder-Devrient was a formida-
ble competitor for Ungher, but Carolina’s expressive power was
far more powerful and allowed her to triumph over her rival.
During a trip the couple made to Linz and then to Salzkam-
mergut in August, they discussed the possibility of marriage.
Carolina was ready to make the commitment, but Lenau
demurred, saying that as long as she belonged to her public
and his financial affairs were not such that he could contribute
to their household, he could not contemplate such a union.
Besides, he said, Carolina was contractually obligated for nine-
teen months and would have to pay severe penalties for breach
of contract. He said that Carolina accepted this with “beauti-
ful female docility,” however, Ungher was not one to cry over
spilled milk. The relationship soon cooled and Carolina, who
lived in Venice, ceased to correspond with Lenau. He saw her
again in May 1840 when she performed in Vienna. He wrote
that there were barriers, but she seemed happy to see him.
In the same year, during an engagement in Rome, Caro-
lina met with the German-French painter Henri Lehmann
(1814–1882). Lehmann told the ever-curious singer that he
knew a young Frenchman who possessed a sensational appa-
ratus, invented the previous year, called a daguerreotype that
could produce portraits that were as though painted with light.
Carolina then met the young François Sabatier (1818–1891),
a wealthy French scholar, patron of the arts, and translator of
Goethe’s Faust. Although François was fifteen years younger
than Carolina, they fell in love and were married on March 18,
1841, in Florence in the church of Santa Lucia dei Magnoli.
In July 1841, with her husband and the tenor Napoleone
Moriani (1808–1878), Carolina Ungher went to Dresden for
a second time. There, at the age of thirty-eight, she fulfilled her
last contract and retired from the operatic stage. Her repertoire
was quite varied—Donizetti’s Parisina, Lucia di Lammermoor,
and Belisario and Rossini’s Otello and Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Hermann von Friessen wrote:
I believe that I have never heard a more perfect artist. No distract-
ing externals, not even a special beauty that nature conferred to
98 Chapter 13
the instrument stood by her side. Who would want to compare
her in this respect with the highly acclaimed Schröder-Devrient?
But you learn about her security and fine skill in her mastery of
the tone, a wealth of fine shades from the soft and touching, from
the heroic imposing, from the glowing passion, in a word, a depth
and variety of sensation in the areas of dramatic song that was, at
least to my amateur ear, completely new.12
Von Friessen and Tieck, both admirers of Ungher’s interpreta-
tion of the tragic roles, did not want to see her as Rosina. They
were pleasantly surprised. Von Friessen wrote:
Following her portrayal of tragic roles, Parisina, Desdemona,
Anna Bolena, I had no faith in her ability to portray this lighter
role, which I myself, from frequent viewing, knew almost by
heart. But I saw and heard something new. Best of all, this
delicacy of lovely coquetry, soon passing to graceful longing,
quickly switching to jubilant joy, here mischievous, there a
loveable languishing, I had never imagined. What Tieck pro-
nounced somewhere that the actor himself would have to be
a poet at times by making discoveries in his role and unveil
subtleties which are often missed even by an astute eye before—
that happened here completely.13
In describing Ungher’s Desdemona, von Friessen also stated
that Rossini himself, if he had witnessed Carolina’s interpreta-
tion, would finally understand what he had wrought.
So ended Carolina Ungher’s operatic career. From Dresden
she and Sabatier made a side trip to Leipzig, where they, along
with Franz Liszt, were guests of Robert and Clara Schumann.
Carolina sang lieder for the assemblage, and Schumann wrote
that although she was hoarse, he was moved to tears by an
artist he could only compare with Pauline Viardot. Ungher
remained in Dresden, where she hosted a small but chosen
society of music lovers, until the spring of 1842. She sang
Mozart and Schubert lieder for them and received a complete
collection of Schubert lieder from Franz Xavier Mozart.
In February 1842, Carolina was invited to the Prussian
court, where she sang a concert performance of Valentine in
Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots with Liszt providing the accompa-
niment. Meyerbeer, who had attended her performances in
Dresden and who had wanted to compose Valentine for her in
1834, expressed satisfaction in finally hearing her in the great
part. While in Berlin, she collaborated with Liszt on several
other occasions and presented the premiere of his “Die Lore-
lei” at the home of Amalie Beer, Meyerbeer’s mother. She also
sang some of Fanny Mendelssohn’s (1805–1847) songs and
was “very taken by Fanny’s compositions.”14
The Sabatiers then settled in Florence, where Carolina
already had a summer villa and the wealthy Sabatier built a
palace for the winter months. Guests included Elizabeth Bar-
rett Browning (1806–1861) and the novelist Fanny Lewald
(1811–1889), who described the couple as ideally suited be-
cause Carolina looked much younger than she was and Saba-
tier, who was always focused on serious subjects, looked older.
During this time Carolina was noted for her interpretations
of Mozart and Schubert lieder. She also showed considerable
talent as a composer of songs, which François published after
her death.
In 1850 the Sabatiers moved temporarily to Paris, where
they were friendly with many of the painters on the scene, es-
pecially Gustave Courbet (1819–1877). In Courbet’s famous
painting, “The Artist’s Studio” (1855), the Sabatiers can be
seen on the right side of the picture, next to Charles Baude-
laire (1821–1867). One of their painter friends, Auguste
Bouquet (1810–1846), suddenly died, and Carolina, who
had no children of her own, took in his daughter, Louise,
to raise.
In Carolina Ungher’s final years, she frequently sang in
informal situations. Désirée Artôt de Padilla (1835–1907), a
great singer in her own right, related the following anecdote to
Edward Hanslick (1825–1904):
La Artôt enthusiastically told me how the expressive old woman
with the portly paunch and the black horn-rimmed glasses
on her nose sang the recitatives of Norma. Since you saw the
incarnate Norma, you forgot the wrinkles, the obesity, and the
horn-rimmed glasses.15
Despite her Austro-Hungarian ancestry, Carolina Ungher was
one of the most important interpreters of the music of Bellini,
Donizetti, and Rossini from her adopted country in the early
part of the century. It is said, however, that her pronunciation
of the Italian language had an accent. Carolina Ungher passed
away on March 23, 1877, in Florence and was buried in the
San Miniato al Monte cemetery. François Sabatier remarried
after her death and died December 1, 1891.
NOTES
1.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 213.
2. Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 1811–1847
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 77–78.
3.  George Marek, Beethoven: Biography of a Genius (New York:
Funk & Wagnalls, 1969), 587.
4. Marek, Beethoven, 587.
5. Marek, Beethoven, 592.
6.  Klaus Martin Kopitz, “Caroline Unger,” Musik und Gender
im Internet, http://mugi.hfmt- hamburg.de/A_lexartikel/lexartikel
.php?id=unge1803 (17 October 2012): 10. My translation.
7.  Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2009), 37.
8. Walker, Franz Liszt, 280.
9.  Allgemeine Theaterzeitung: Originalblatt für Kunst, Literatur,
Musik, Mode, und geselliges Leben 32, no. 76 (April 16, 1839): 382.
10.  Kopitz, “Caroline Unger,” 12. My translation.
11.  Kopitz, “Caroline Unger,” 13. My translation.
12.  Kopitz, “Caroline Unger,” 17. My translation.
13.  Kopitz, “Caroline Unger,” 18. My translation.
14.  Kopitz, “Caroline Unger,” 21. My translation.
15.  Kopitz, “Caroline Unger,” 25. My translation.
14
Maria (Garcia) Malibran

No founders of a school of singers can expect that two Maria Felicia Garcia was born in Paris on March 24, 1808.
people, during a century, shall enter it, so indomitable, so The birth certificate read Félicité, but Maria always used Feli-
fervid, so full of resource, as the Garcia sisters; but for its cia.3 As Malibran, her brief career blazed across the European
scholars to emulate them might prove a fatal ambition— landscape like a supernova in the desert sky. Her life was the
and it has done so.1
epitome of the heroine of the Romantic era, and its very brevity,
like that of Marilyn Monroe, contributed heavily to her legend.
In the annals of vocal history, no name is more revered than
Manuel Garcia moved to Naples, where he made his debut at
that of Garcia. Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Garcia, the first Al-
the San Carlo in 1812. He brought along the four-year-old
maviva in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, was the progenitor of
a distinguished family that included his daughters, the famous
altos Maria and Pauline, and his son, Manuel Patricio, perhaps
the greatest voice teacher of all time. However, Garcia I (Père)
was not really named Garcia but was born Manuel del Pópulo
Vicente Rodríguez, and his daughters, Maria Malibran and
Pauline Viardot, won fame with the names of their husbands.
In addition, his famous children were all born to his second
wife, Joacquina Stiches (Briones), without the convenience of
a divorce from his first wife, Manuela Morales. Garcia also had
two daughters by Morales, one of whom, Josefa Ruiz-Garcia
(c. 1803), a soprano sfogato who studied with him in Paris, had
a successful career, often singing with Malibran. Garcia always
referred to her as his “niece.”
So much has been written about Maria Malibran (née Gar-
cia) that it is difficult to separate fact from fiction. Some, like
the Countess Maria de Merlin (1789–1852) and George Fer-
ris, portray her as an angel who briefly descended from heaven.
Merlin, who knew Malibran as a fellow student of Garcia,
offers a description that would, perhaps, describe her erratic
behavior as bipolar in modern terms.

The disposition of Maria Malibran presented the strangest

incongruities. She united in herself strength of mind and cre-
dulity, resolution and weakness. When elated to the highest
pitch, the following instant would reduce her to the deepest
despondency. She was generous to excess, mean in trifles, bold
yet timid, alternately sublime and childish.2

However, both Maria and her sister Pauline were also often Figure 14.1.  Maria Malibran as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello
described as geniuses. by Henri Decaisne (1799–1852)

99
100 Chapter 14
Maria, born to the stage, who made her unscheduled debut in
1813. According to Mackinlay:
It was during this stay at Naples that little Maria made her first
public appearance when she was barely five years old. The an-
ecdote was one which Manuel Garcia was very fond of relating.
The opera in which the diminutive vocalist made her début
was Paër’s “Agnese,” in which there was a child’s part.
In the second act there is a scene where the husband and wife
have quarreled and are united through the intervention of their
daughter. The tiny Malibran attended the rehearsals and knew
the whole opera by heart. On the night of the performance the
prima donna either forgot her part or hesitated a moment. Lo!
The little girl instantly took up the melody, and sang with such
vigor and resonance that the entire house heard her. The prima
donna was about to interrupt when the audience shouted,
“Bravo! Don’t stop her. Let her go on.”
It was a period when the public loved infant prodigies, both
musical and dramatic, and Marietta was actually permitted to
sing the part of Agnese throughout the rest of the scene—a
piece of audacity which delighted the hearers and called forth
an exhibition of true Italian enthusiasm.4
Garcia began studying voice with Giovanni Ansani (1744–
1826) in Naples for the first time in his life and one wonders
whether he was accompanied there by his precocious daughter.
As usual, Rossini had a cogent comment about the young
mezzo-soprano star when he was asked who the greatest female
singer with whom he had worked was.
The greatest was Colbran, who became my first wife, but the
unique was Malibran. Ah! That marvelous creature! She sur-
passed all her imitators by her truly disconcerting musical ge-
nius, and all the women I have ever known by the superiority of
her intelligence, the variety of her knowledge, and her flashing
temperament, of which it is impossible to give any idea. Know-
ing the most diverse languages, she sang in Spanish (her native
tongue), Italian, French, German, and after eight days of study,
she sang Fidelio in English in London. She sketched, painted,
embroidered, sometimes made her own costumes, above all,
she wrote. Her letters are masterpieces of subtle intelligence, of
verve, of good humor, and they display unparalleled originality
of expression.5
Rossini goes on to relate how Maria responded after the fiasco
of the premiere of Il barbiere:
“I was touched by the visit of Garcia, my incomparable Alma-
viva, accompanied by his eight-year-old daughter, the future
Malibran! As soon as she came in, she bounded toward me and
dissolved in tears, clung to my neck, crying: ‘Ah! If mama only
had sent me to the theater last night!’”
“And what would you have done?”
“Oh, while they were hissing your beautiful music, I should
have shouted with all my strength: ‘you are all snakes; go back
to the wild places and understand the music of the bears, the
only sort you deserve!”’
“She really would have been capable of doing just that,” Ros-
sini added, “for she was a little demon. Then she said to me:
‘Don’t be sad: listen: when I am grown up, I’ll sing Il barbiere
everywhere, but (tapping her foot) never in Rome, even if the
Pope on both knees begs me to.’
“When the visit was over, she was still throwing me from the
door a quantity of kisses from her little hands, and she went
away singing ‘Una voce poco fa.’ Would you believe that that
gamine, after attending only a few rehearsals of Il barbiere, had
remembered nearly all the pieces?”6
Maria began studying at approximately the age of six. Gar-
cia believed in two things: excellent musicianship and hard,
exacting work. In addition to his vocal work with Maria, since
he was a busy singer, Garcia sent her to Ferdinand Hérold
(1791–1833) for her first study on the piano and Auguste
Panseron (1795–1859) for study in solfège. Both men were
colleagues of Rossini in Naples and Rome.
The clash of the two strong egos of Garcia and his preco-
cious daughter still reverberates, but I would think that some
of the stories suffer from exaggeration. Many of these tales
center on Garcia’s alleged cruelty toward his daughters and,
indeed, toward his other students as well. The Escudier broth-
ers (Marie-Pierre Pascal 1809–1880 and Léon 1815–1881)
published an article in 1840 refuting the idea that Garcia’s
strict teaching methods implied cruelty.
This precocious instruction, which Manuel Garcia gave to
his children, has been the pretext and occasion of a calumny
that the gratuitous malevolence of some and the hateful
jealousy of others have unfortunately laid upon the father
of Maria and Pauline. They say that he forced their physi-
cal and mental development against nature. The fruit of his
intelligent perseverance has been denounced by an indignant
public as the result of a daily and continuous tyranny—of a
barbarous violence forced with maniacal stubbornness upon
young constitutions. This is an abominable lie against which
we protest in the name of her who is no longer but a glorious
and sad memory.7
In the Romantic age, such exaggerations made great press and
helped to dramatize the tragic nature of Malibran’s life. Pauline
also strongly denied such allegations:
Madame Viardot resents vigorously the calumny that gained
ground, she does not know how, as to her father’s cruelty and
brutality.8
There is no question as to Maria’s stubbornness, willfull-
ness, and recklessness. She obviously resented authority and
was sometimes impertinent. Later, the Countess Merlin asked
Garcia about his treatment of Maria.
The success or failure of an actor or singer often depends on the
mere caprice of an audience, whose wayward humour makes
or mars the fate of talent. The feelings of a debutante should
therefore be well schooled, ere she appears before the public.
One day I made this remark to Garcia, and added a slight re-
proach on his severe treatment of one so likely to have much to
suffer. “I am aware,” replied he, “that the world blames me; but
 Maria (Garcia) Malibran 101
I am right. Maria can never become great but at this price: her
proud and stubborn spirit requires a hand of iron to control it.
Towards her younger sister, on the contrary, I have never had
cause to exercise harshness, and yet she will make her way. This
is the difference: the one requires to be bound by a chain, the
other may be led by a silken thread.”9
Of course, this different treatment of an older child as opposed
to a younger sibling is very common in most families.
After the premiere performances of Il barbiere and perhaps
in terror due to an outbreak of cholera, Garcia decided to re-
turn to the Théâtre Italien in Paris to join Catalani’s troupe in
the spring of 1816. In the following autumn, the family made
a short visit to London, where he enrolled Maria in the con-
vent boarding school at Hammersmith. Garcia, no doubt out
of patience with the strong-willed youngster, turned her over
to the French Benedictine nuns, who would have administered
a healthy dose of discipline as well as an excellent education
in French and English. There is some controversy about when
Maria returned to her parents in Paris—it was probably after
Garcia’s London season in 1819. This is when her vocal educa-
tion began in earnest and when Maria became acquainted with
the Countess Merlin, whose life’s work became the immortal-
ization of Maria Malibran. The Countess Merlin states that
Maria’s first years of practice were painful and tedious. Nothing
short of that firmness of character, with which nature had so
liberally endowed her, could have made her a musician. Her
aptitude for musical study was but slowly developed, and her
voice wanted flexibility; yet, in spite of all these disadvantages,
she resolutely persevered, and she overcame each fresh difficulty
with increasing courage. Some credit is doubtless due to her
father; he never allowed the plea of “I cannot” to prevail.
Maria Garcia’s voice was at first feeble. The lower tones were
harsh and imperfectly developed, the upper tones were indif-
ferent in quality, and limited in extent, and the middle tones
wanted clearness. Her intonation was so false as to warrant the
apprehension that her ear was defective.10
It certainly sounds hopeless, doesn’t it? However, contrast
this to Rossini’s statement and the story of Paer’s Agnese above.
Malibran was famous, above all, for her outstanding musical-
ity, and I cannot believe that she was innately unmusical. In
my opinion, musicality cannot be taught, only musicianship.
As for her voice being imperfect, how can you make such judg-
ments about the voice of a child? Maria had to wait for physical
maturity for her voice to develop. This leaves vocal technique,
such as proper breathing and velocity studies, which Garcia
certainly could teach her. Above all, Maria learned spontane-
ity from watching her father and Colbran work. Unlike Pasta,
who worked everything out beforehand, Garcia was always
“in the moment” and improvised brilliantly, never singing the
same piece in exactly the same way.
Imbedded in Garcia’s style—the style which simultaneously
attracted and scandalized—was the Spanish spirit, nurtured
by his experience of life, love, and theater in the principal cit-
ies of Spain. Garcia came from a country where, even in the
folk music (such as cante jondo) the performer is expected to
deliver, to embellish, to move the audience with daring artistry
executed with a masculine grace not unlike that of a bull fighter.
Flamenco artists have a special term for this quality: duende.
Duende implies not only spirit, style, flair, but also complete
emotional communication with the audience. Garcia had this
special quality naturally, from his cultural roots, and it entered
into his interpretation of Rossini and Mozart roles. For him it
was inconceivable “just to perform” the music as written. He
had to charge the music both with embellishments actually af-
fecting the melodic line and with the passion of his delivery. For
Garcia this was the essence of bel canto. It was not just a matter
of beautiful sound laden with fiorituri. Rather, performing and
composition were united and depended on the inspiration of
the moment. Although the music of Rossini, Bellini, and Doni-
zetti and its performing style have often suffered at the hands
of a twentieth century Western criticism which has had either a
heavily rational French or a sober German bias, one wonders if,
for a more open-minded evaluation of this style, different criti-
cal tools are needed. One also wonders if modern performers,
who may lack such spontaneity of delivery, including the ability
to improvise, as possessed by a Garcia, Colbran, or Malibran are
even able to afford critics and the public a stylistically appropri-
ate rendering of these works—thus making impossible any fair
judgement of the works themselves.11
Garcia’s Paris season of 1819 began with the French
premiere of Il barbiere di Siviglia. The French seem to have
preferred Paisiello and one could imagine little Maria (now
eleven years old) primed to do battle on behalf of her be-
loved Maestro Rossini. A revival of Paisiello’s work was a
failure, and Rossini’s masterpiece soon found its rightful
place in the Parisian operatic pantheon. The next two years
were fruitful for Garcia. He presented two successful new
compositions—La mort de Tasse and La Munière—and sang
two Paris premieres: Otello (with Pasta) and the role he was
most famous for, the title role in Don Giovanni (parts of
which were transposed). On July 18, 1821, Maria’s younger
sister, Pauline, was born.
Maria continued her laborious studies with her father but
began to show the rebellious spirit and fire that she became
famous for.
One day Garcia, after an hour of work said to her: “You’ll never
be anything more than a chorister.” Holding up her little head
of fourteen, she answered: “This chorister will be more talented
than you.”12
In 1823 Garcia’s fortunes changed. His voice showed signs
of wear and he may have been touched by the scandal of his
abandonment of his first wife, Manuela Morales. There
were also political problems between Spain and France, and
some Spanish citizens were ordered to leave. The Garcia
family set off for London, and in May, Garcia appeared at
King’s Theater in London as Otello. He was criticized for
his “almost too florid”13 style but generally praised in other
Rossini operas.
102 Chapter 14
The political problems having been resolved, the Garcias
returned to Paris in September and were reunited with Rossini
in November. I have already described how Rossini, Garcia,
Pasta, and Colbran were preparing for the London season of
1824 in chapter 11. Colbran’s failure in Zelmira was compen-
sated for by Garcia and Pasta in Otello and Il barbiere. It was in
London that Garcia established his famous singing academies
for beginners and those who aspired to be professional singers.
No doubt sixteen-year-old Maria was the outstanding pupil.
She made her London debut in a concert given by Rossini
on June 9, 1824, singing a duet with her father and “Nacqui
all’affano” from La Cenerentola.14 The concert was found to
be unbearably dull by the reviewer from The Harmonicon in
spite of a program that, besides the Garcias, included Pasta,
de Begnis, Colbran, and Rossini himself singing his own
compositions.15 The reviewer seems to be most upset that the
subscription cost two guineas.
Mackinlay says that after the London season, Maria also
made her professional debut in Paris in the early autumn at a
club that was established by her father. Two months later, the
family was back in London where Maria continued her studies
in her father’s vocal academy. On June 11, 1825, Maria Garcia
made her operatic debut in the role that she had prophesied to
Rossini when she was eight years old—Rosina in Il barbiere.
The opportunity came the way it often does for young sing-
ers—she “jumped in” when Pasta had to return to Paris and
all the other established prima donnas were unavailable. The
debut was a triumphant success. A critic for the New Monthly
Magazine (1825) wrote:
Such perfection in this respect [her embellishments] was prob-
ably never witnessed by a performer of her years. It is scarcely
conceivable, and well merited the rapturous approbation which
it called from every part of the house. All our experience does
not furnish an instance of a first debut of such an age attended
with equal and equally deserved success.16
Maria was engaged for the rest of the season for the sum of
£500. The 1825 London season closed with the first London
performance of Il crociato in Egitto by Meyerbeer with Maria
in the role of Felicia and none other than Giovanni Velluti
as Armando. The Countess Merlin related a story that Maria
appeared with Velluti in a duet from Zingarelli’s Romeo e Gi-
ulietta and bested him in a “coloratura duel,” which caused the
castrato to fly into a rage. However, Velluti, a relic of the past
despised by many Londoners as a freak, oversaw every aspect of
the production of Il crociato and provided Maria with a link to
the glorious traditions of the bel canto past. She incorporated
some of his teaching in her style of embellishment during the
remainder of her career. Velluti also assisted Maria’s brother
Manuel in the preparation of his monumental treatise on
singing.17
At the end of the season, the Garcias appeared in several
provincial concerts. Maria was chosen as a soloist in the sec-
ond York Festival when the management was unable to engage
either Catalani or Pasta. Maria’s repertoire was “Gratias” by
Gugliemi, “Alma invitta” from Segismondo by Rossini, a ter-
zetto from Il crociato in Egitto, “O patria” from Tancredi, and
her signature aria, “Una voce poco fa.” However, she received
devastating reviews for “Rejoice Greatly” from Handel’s Mes-
siah. Apparently the animosity toward her came from the fact
that Garcia negotiated a higher fee for her than the established
English singers got.
Miss Garcia’s “Rejoice” was so complete a failure, that the
English singers not only felt but expressed the injustice done
them by the enormous sum given to this young, unformed and
incompetent Prima Donna, however clever (which she certainly
is) she may be upon the Italian stage.18
The Countess Merlin, however, should be counted high
up in the annals of hyperbole with the following appraisal of
Maria’s talent:
Maria’s voice was a rich contralto, possessing all the qualities
of a soprano. Her intonation was perfect. Hers was, in fact, a
persuasive voice, that bent us to its wish, and realized the senti-
ment of the poet equally with the feelings of the audience. “She
could,” says a talented writer [Mr. I. Nathan], “like the singers
of ancient days, transport the mind into sublimity, infuse the
spirit of benevolence, inspire divine energy, arouse the slum-
bering conscience, restore social sympathies, regulate moral
feelings, restrain the fury of ambition, unlock the iron grasp of
avarice, expand the liberal palm to deeds of charity, breathe the
sacred love of peace into the bosom of the turbulent, and the
mild spirit of forbearance and toleration into persecuting big-
otry and prejudice.” Her decorations, we might add, resembled
the natural inflections of the nightingale, or the warbling of
zephyrs upon an Æolian harp; yet never unadapted to the na-
ture of the melody, or the genius of the composition.19
In August 1825 Dominick Lynch (1786–1857), who was
the son of a prominent New York wine merchant, arrived
in London with the express purpose of engaging a group
of Italian singers to bring Italian opera to America for the
first time. He was the partner of Stephen Price, the director
of the Park Theater in New York. Garcia, like a veritable
Columbus of opera, put together a company that consisted
of his family and a few other singers who embarked for the
New World on October 1, 1825, on the packet ship New
York. During the thirty-seven-day journey, the troupe enter-
tained the ship with rehearsals and impromptu concerts on
deck. The passengers enjoyed conversing with the four-year-
old Pauline, who spoke four languages, switching back and
forth effortlessly. Once, when Garcia became enraged with
his son, Manuel, he felled the twenty-year-old youth with
one blow. When the captain of the ship heard of the inci-
dent, he promised Garcia that he would reward any further
incident by clapping the offender into irons. The rest of the
trip was quiet.
The intrepid company arrived in New York on November
7, and Garcia immediately set to work promoting and pre-
paring for the first performance of Italian opera in America.
 Maria (Garcia) Malibran 103
Il barbiere took place on November 29, 1825. When one
considers that Garcia had to recruit and train a local or-
chestra and chorus (consisting of mechanics who had settled
in New York), construct sets, and promote opera to an un-
comprehending public, it was a miracle that it succeeded as
well as it did. He was aided in this by Lorenzo Da Ponte,
Mozart’s librettist, who was a professor of Italian literature at
Columbia College. There is a story that Garcia, when he was
introduced to the author of Don Giovanni, clasped the old
man’s arm and danced around the room while singing “Fin
che’han dal vino” in childlike glee.
Of course, Garcia was the most famous singer in the troupe,
but Maria soon stole the show. Called “signorina” by many, she
soon became the darling of New York and fulfilled her own
prophecy made to her father three years before. The season
in New York was a great place for the young Maria to learn
the lessons that only experience on the stage can teach. It was
also far away from the critics of London and Paris, who would
not feel the need to allow mistakes in the development of a
young artist. The repertoire was extensive, with seventy-nine
performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia, Tancredi, Otello, La
Cenerentola, and Il turco in Italia, all by Rossini, Mozart’s Don
Giovanni, Zingarelli’s Romeo e Giulietta, and two operas by
Garcia—L’amante astuto and La figlia dell’aria—during a pe-
riod of ten months. The Rossini repertoire was indispensable
for an alto singer of this period and would form the backbone
of the Malibran career for the rest of her life. Il barbiere was
performed more than forty times alone without “any abate-
ment of interest.”
In the ensuing years, New York was proud of launching the
career of one of the greatest prima donnas of the age. General
Grant Wilson wrote some impressions of Maria: “Her science
and skill are such as enable her to run over every tone and
semi-tone with an ease and grace that cost apparently no ef-
fort.” He concludes with a vivid little sketch of Maria Garcia
as she was at the age of seventeen: “Her person is about the
middle height, slightly embonpoint; her eyes dark, arch, and
expressive; and a playful smile is almost constantly the com-
panion of her lips. She was the magnet that attracted all eyes
and won all hearts.”20
The end of the New York season on September 30, 1826,
marked the greatest turning point in Maria’s life and also its
greatest mystery. Garcia’s family opera troupe, without Maria,
set out for Mexico, where they were engaged to present a
season. The reason Maria stayed behind was that in March,
she had married François Eugène Malibran (1781–1836),
a naturalized French-American merchant, who was twenty-
seven years older than she. Why this event occurred is still
debated. Maria had previously contemplated marriage to the
American poet Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867), a friend of
James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1861). Her father, no doubt
understanding that Maria had become the star of his troupe,
put a stop to the budding romance. Maria, possibly through
an introduction by Da Ponte, then met Malibran, reputed to
be very wealthy. Though charming, Malibran, only six years
younger than her father, could not have been much of a physi-
cal attraction for her. Mackinlay felt that Malibran’s wealth
was not the reason for the marriage, since Maria was well on
the way to being one of the great operatic stars of the day.
However, in her situation, even if there was plenty of money
generated by her stardom, her father controlled it. This was
not the first or last case of a prima donna marrying a wealthy
man in order to pursue her career in comfort. However, the
principal reason was probably that the naive and immature
Maria wished to escape the tyrannical hand of her father, who
put such strictures on his free-spirited daughter.
Apparently, Garcia detested Malibran and initially refused
permission for this marriage also. The Garcia household
erupted in screams of fury, and Maria threatened to kill herself
if her father did not relent. Finally, Malibran offered financial
compensation to Garcia and stated that he wanted Maria to
retire from the stage. Garcia reluctantly gave his permission
and wrote to Pasta that he was sorry that Maria was ending her
career but happy that Malibran had the resources to give her
a comfortable life. On October 16, 1826, the Garcia troupe
left for Mexico, including the five-year-old Pauline. After a
successful Mexican season, on the way back on the road to Ve-
racruz, they were robbed of most of the proceeds of their labors
by Mexican bandits. Pauline never forgot this misadventure,
but also remembered that the rest of the night was spent with
surprising good humor, considering that they had all survived
and had nothing further to lose.
The conventional story, promoted by Merlin, Mackinlay,
Ferris, and others, is that meanwhile Maria was learning
the truth about Malibran, who not only misrepresented his
fortune, which was in a very bad state, but within a year of
their marriage had gone bankrupt and had been incarcerated
in debtor’s prison. It seems that he had been counting on her
earning power as a prima donna to save his fortune.
April Fitzlyon presents a convincing case that, on the con-
trary, Malibran was a decent businessman, aware of the pitfalls
of a marriage to the teenaged Maria, and that she was the ag-
gressor, desperate to escape the alleged cruelty of her father. In
a letter to Malibran, she wrote: “I can’t believe that your heart
is indifferent to my advances, for I try every moment of the
day to make you understand my tender feelings with which no
one else has been able to inspire me.”21
As Malibran’s fortunes sank, to her everlasting credit, Maria
was determined to retire his debt and returned to the stage,
where she appeared in English operettas and sang in church.
She was the highest paid performing artist in America up until
that time and earned $6,000 for ten performances, which was
still not enough to pay off Malibran’s creditors. Maria then
journeyed to Philadelphia, where she was the first to introduce
Italian opera there. She gave several concerts in the Philadel-
phia area with orchestra. Fitzlyon writes that, unable to find
steady work in America, she resolved to return to Europe to
resume her career and that Eugène would join her there later.
Her last American performance was a benefit concert on Oc-
tober 29, 1827, at the Bowery Theater.
104 Chapter 14
When the programme had been completed, the Signorina came
forward and seated herself at her harp, but seemingly overcome
by emotion again rose. Mr. Etienne, the pianist, thereupon took
up the prelude to the farewell song, especially written for the
occasion, and this, on regaining her composure, she sang in a
most touching and effective manner.22
In a narcissistic letter to Malibran written on the ship to Eu-
rope, the nineteen-year-old Maria assured him that
it is hard to be separated from people one loves, from you. Pauvre
ami, I assure you that I have never loved you with passion, as
I’ve already told you, but since I’m no longer with you, your
good qualities appear so vividly in my mind, that I see that I
have made a mistake in believing that I only loved you faith-
fully.23
Maria (now Malibran) arrived in Paris on November 28,
1827, and took up lodgings with her husband’s sister. Her
brother, Manuel Patricio, who had left the family troupe in
Mexico, soon joined her there and also began to supervise his
sister’s vocal studies. No one in Paris knew her and her friend,
the Countess de Merlin, arranged a soirée to introduce her
to the Parisian musical establishment. She was an instant hit.
Malibran’s Paris debut was January 14, 1828, at the Académe
Royale de Musique in Semiramide in a benefit for Fillipo Galli,
a great bass and family friend. Semiramide was a part that she
had never sung and in which she was not yet entirely comfort-
able; however, her talent and determination carried the day.
The prodigious talent displayed by Pisaroni in the subsequent
scenes gave occasion to comparisons by no means favourable to
Mme. Malibran. On her re-entrance she was coldly received;
but she soon succeeded in winning the public to her favour. In
the andante to the air “Bel raggio lusinghier,” the young singer
threw out such powers, and displayed a voice so full and beauti-
ful, the former coldness gave way to applause. Encouraged by
this, she hazarded the greatest difficulties of execution, and
appeared so inspired by her success that her courage became
temerity.
From that night she was the idol of the French public.
Another French critic writes, “If Maria Malibran must yield
the palm to Pasta in point of acting, yet she possesses a decided
superiority in respect to song.”24
The same benefit program included an act from Il barbiere
starring Henriette Sontag, who became Malibran’s only rival.
The two divas developed an intense competition that spurred
both on to greater accomplishments in the years to come.
Rossini, who was always an intimate of the Garcia family
and had heard her sing many times at social occasions, had
never before made an offer to engage her. After Semiramide,
he offered her an exclusive contract at the Théâtre Italien for
more than 100,000 francs for four years. When asked why he
had waited to make the offer, the shrewd composer replied
that he had to hear her in a big house and see the effect upon
the audience. If he had offered too little, he would have been
doing her a disservice, and if too much, the disservice would
have been to himself. Malibran refused to be bound by the
contract but continued to sing for Rossini for enormous fees
on a per-performance basis. She instinctively understood that
the Opéra, where everything was sung in French, encouraged
screaming and was not conducive to long careers.
Malibran became the greatest star at the Théâtre Italien.
Operas performed for Rossini include both the title role and
Arsace in Semiramide, Desdemona in Otello, La Cenerentola,
and Ninetta in La gazza ladra. She studied the eponymous role
in Matilde di Shabran, but, because it was a soprano part, she
never sang it in public and soon surrendered it to Sontag. As
Romeo, Malibran electrified the audience with a free fall flat
upon the stage in the death scene. Maria, with her extravagant
singing and acting, became the icon of the Romantic Age.
The reputation of Pasta began to fade from the minds of the
ever-fickle dilettanti. Stendhal, the greatest advocate for Pasta,
predicted that Maria would become “the greatest singer in the
world.”25 Liszt, three years her junior, told her that she “had
more than genius”26 and Alfonse de Lamartine (1790–1869)
called her “supernatural.”27
The final performance of the 1827–1828 season at the
Théâtre Italien was Otello, and Maria was afforded a recep-
tion never before witnessed in the French capital. There was a
Parisian law forbidding curtain calls. There was such an uproar
that the commissioner of police tried to mount the stage to
enforce the law but was grabbed by the neck and dragged away.
Maria wrote Eugène on the same night:
The curtain was raised, I appeared. Everyone was standing on
the benches, screaming, howling, bellowing, the noise reaching
all the way to the dressing rooms. Someone threw me another
crown with some verses that you will read in the paper, and each
lady from the first, second, and third tiers and from everywhere
threw me their bouquets of flowers, while the screaming contin-
ued, undiminished, for ten minutes and the uproar redoubled
at each falling bouquet. Really, it was like a rain of flowers.28
Malibran then went on vacation and returned to Paris in
late September. Her new contract was for 35,000 francs for
a six-month engagement to be followed by three months in
London for 40,000 francs. Maria added Ninetta in La gazza
ladra to her repertoire, a part that became one of her greatest
roles. The season was also marked by her brother Manuel’s
Parisian debut as Figaro, which was not successful. Thereafter,
he decided to give up the stage.
Malibran always longed to have a great opera written for
her special abilities but that never came to pass. However, on
December 9, 1828, a very good one, Clari by the young Fro-
menthal Halévy (1799–1862), premiered at the Théâtre Ital-
ien. For once, Maria could not be compared with other artists
in the role she created. The critics were lavish with praise but
could not decide if the work’s success was due to the composer
or to the artist who created it.
François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871), the “dear grumbler,”
wrote what was probably the least emotional review: “As great
an actress as a singer, this virtuoso was perfect from one end
 Maria (Garcia) Malibran 105
of her role to the other, but in the third act especially, she was
beyond all praise.”29 The Countess Merlin felt that the effect
of Clari would never be forgotten by those who witnessed the
performance, but that after Malibran it would have been dif-
ficult for any other artist to sing the part.
Soon after Malibran’s meteoric rise to fame and glory, living
with her in-laws began to irritate her, and she then moved in
with Madame Naldi, the widow of an old family friend. Her
attitude toward her husband also began to change, and, al-
though she was willing to work to pay off her husband’s credi-
tors, she chastised him for not paying off his debt to her father,
perhaps as much as $50,000. She admonished him not to join
her in Europe, where she felt that she needed to be left in peace
to pursue her career. There is no hint that she was unfaithful
to Malibran, but she saw herself as a high priestess dedicated
to her art. Madame Naldi became a surrogate mother to her
and educated her in the management of money. She could be
stingy in financial negotiations but gave away a large portion
of her earnings in secret without recognition, and in Paris,
she regularly worked several mornings a week in the Catholic
hospital for children.30
News of Malibran’s triumph reached Mexico while the Gar-
cia troupe was playing there. An article appeared in El Sol that
credited Garcia as the last master of the ancient tradition of
improvisation and credited Maria’s success as the direct result
of his teaching.31 In March 1829, after losing the proceeds of
eighteen months of hard work to the bandits, the Garcia fam-
ily arrived in Paris practically destitute. Garcia had financed
their trip by an appeal to Eugène Malibran, who apparently
paid him part of the debt he was owed. Garcia sang a few
performances of Il barbiere, Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra,
and Don Giovanni, but his voice had deteriorated to the point
where he retired from the stage at the age of fifty-five. He then
dedicated himself to the teaching of voice and developed some
of the great singers of the age. His accompanist for many of
the lessons was the eight-year-old Pauline, who was a piano
student of Charles Meysenberg (1785–c. 1828) and who
studied composition and counterpoint with Antoine Reicha
(1785–1836), a friend of Beethoven and Haydn. Reicha also
taught Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), who became a close
friend of Pauline’s.
Although very different artists, the Malibran-Sontag rivalry
could not be resisted by the cognoscenti, and Rossini brought
them together at a soiree and coerced them into singing a duet
from Semiramide. Thereafter, recognizing the publicity value
of the rivalry, they appeared together as often as possible in
Tancredi, Don Giovanni, where Maria played Zerlina to Son-
tag’s Donna Anna, and her first Arsace in Semiramide.
In the meantime, Malibran returned to London in 1829,
where she had emerged from the chorus and made her
unscheduled debut four years before. This time she was a
full-fledged prima donna who commanded a fee of £66 per
performance during the three-month season. Her roles at
King’s Theater included Desdemona, Semiramide, Romeo (in
Zingarelli’s opera), Tancredi, Ninetta, Fidalma in Il matrimo-
nio segreto, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and Zerlina, which
in her time, occupied a more important place than it does
now. The summer season of 1829 presented a whole galaxy of
stars. Besides Malibran, Sontag, and Pisaroni, Pasta decided
to appear to do battle with her new rival. Pasta’s style was
queenly and rather plain, but in response to Maria’s virtuosity,
she began to embellish her vocal line more. The English crit-
ics, unlike their French counterparts, were always reluctant to
appear too enthusiastic about anyone, and Malibran’s artistic
momentum had to build slowly. First she had to overcome the
notion that she was a mere imitator of Pasta. Then, conserva-
tive critics had to get over being shocked over the realism of
her interpretations.
“In love scenes she often outsteps the modesty of her sex, and
seems to forget that a woman should be wooed, and was not
made to woo,” observed a scandalized journalist. “With her,
however, it is quite the reverse; and the manner in which she
sometimes paws about the person of her lover is really indeli-
cate.”32
Chorley wryly observed: “On the whole, she was found un-
equal, bizarre, and fatiguing by many of our opera loungers
(a public as apt to be scared as allured by original genius).”33
In Malibran’s time, it was unusual for the same person to
sing both tragic and comedic parts. Pasta did so occasionally,
but Malibran often performed in pasticcio evenings where she
might sing the last act from Otello, two acts as Susanna in Le
nozze de Figaro, and the musico role of Romeo in Giulietta e
Romeo. She enjoyed character parts such as Fidalma, the old
aunt, in Il matrimonio segreto. Far from Pasta’s tragic dignity
as Desdemona, in the final scene, Maria flew around the stage
like a frightened deer. She would advise her partner to catch her
when he could because she was not sure what she would do.
Only [Marco] Bordogni, middle-aged and lazy, refused to alter
his habits when acting with her. “Look here, Maria, my girl,” he
told her, “just don’t you imagine that I’m full of fire and energy
like you, and that I want to tire myself out and fling myself about
like you do. If you want me to kill you, you come over here.”34
There has been a lot of ink expended on the question
of Malibran’s ability to elicit such a frenzied response from
her audiences. There seems to be little question about her
vocal, histrionic, and musical abilities. However, audiences
do not only listen, but they also look, and there must have
been something sensual about Maria Malibran’s expressions
and movements onstage. The Romantic movement was not
just intellectual, but was also about the free expression of
long-repressed sexual feelings. Maria Taglioni (1804–1884)
and Fanny Essler (1810–1884) were two ballet dancers who
inspired adulation from an adoring public by shortening their
skirts. Some English critics criticized the realism with which
Malibran played peasant parts: Zerlina and Ninetta (in La
gazza ladra), making them “coarse country girls with awkward
demeanor and hoydenish manners.”35
106 Chapter 14
The London management had heard of the Parisian en-
thusiasm for the Malibran-Sontag duo and presented them
together as often as possible, often to Sontag’s disadvantage.
In Figaro and Don Giovanni, she was perceived as cold and
remote as compared with Malibran’s impassioned portrayals.
In a performance of Romeo e Giulietta, Maria’s deadfall caused
ladies in the boxes to scream. Besides the opera, Maria’s endless
rounds of soirees and private concerts left her exhausted, and
she canceled several of the final performances.
Sometime during the London season of 1829, Maria had
become friends with Charles-Auguste de Bériot (1802–1870),
a Belgian violinist and composer. They had met before in Paris
when Bériot was vainly pursuing Malibran’s rival, Henriette
Sontag, who was well on her way to a marriage to the Count
Rossi. Bériot was handsome and his style of playing was con-
gruent with Maria’s own intensely Romantic view of music.
Malibran and Bériot appeared together in a concert at the
Argyll Rooms, which also featured Felix Mendelssohn (1809–
1847). Maria sang a set of difficult and beautiful variations
composed by Bériot. Soon after, Maria, still jealous of Bériot’s
interest in Sontag, was persuaded to sing as a guest at his solo
recital. A bond of friendship developed, which soon ripened
into a more intimate relationship. At a concert in Brussels that
featured Malibran and Bériot:
When he [Bériot] finished she rushed up to him with what
at first appeared to be merely heartfelt congratulations. The
violinist thanked her politely. At this total misinterpretation of
her sentiments she grasped his hand. “No, no!” she whispered
urgently, her eyes flashing. “Can’t you see I love you?”
From that evening they were lovers.36
In the fall of 1829, Malibran returned to Paris and was
reunited with her family after a three-year separation. She
was probably already Bériot’s mistress, but in relations with
her father, the shoe was on the other foot now. Maria was
already the famous prima donna and wealthy, so a delicate
truce developed between her and her father. She had offered
him 4,000 francs a year, which he took as an insult. Garcia was
singing a few performances at the Théâtre Italien, and Maria
was in some of them. Fitzlyon tries to suggest an incestuous
relationship between Garcia and his young daughter, but there
is no evidence to support this beyond their appearing together
on stage in love relationships, that is, Don Giovanni–Zerlina
and Otello-Desdemona and a novel, Max by Ernest Legouvé
(1807–1903), supposedly based on Malibran’s life.
Maria’s chief problem at this time was her relationship with
Bériot. She wished to be married to him but suffered the
inconvenience of already being married to Eugène Malibran.
Maria wanted to be free to pursue her own life and began to
resent the preaching of Madame Naldi. She moved into her
own residence in Paris and, for the first time, began to live
alone. She deeply loved Bériot, and Fitzlyon speculates that
she may have already been pregnant in 1830. The couple fell
into disagreements. Maria was anxious to preserve her “vestal
virgin” status as high priestess of the Romantic movement, and
Bériot apparently wanted to cash in on her fame by embark-
ing on a concert tour to Russia together, which would com-
promise her but not him. They were separated by conflicting
engagements—she to London and he to St. Petersburg. Their
relationship was at a low ebb. Maria was depressed and of-
fended by being discriminated against for being a mere actress
by many in London’s aristocracy, a sentiment shared by many
of her colleagues. She was also deathly afraid of being labeled
an adulteress and went for help to a friend she trusted, Louis
Viardot (1800–1883), who later became the husband of her
sister, Pauline.
Malibran kept up a manic schedule:
On May 26 she reported, “LaLande [Henriette] having failed,
I am up to my neck in work. A concert in the morning, two or
three more in the evening, and the same thing over again the
next day, not even excepting the nights I sing at the opera.” She
planned to sing that Wednesday in a London concert, leave im-
mediately for Bath where she would arrive at 9:00 in the morn-
ing, sing two songs, depart for Bristol at 1:00 in the afternoon,
be there by 2:00 and play the third act of Otello with Donzelli,
pocket her 120 guineas, and arrive in London the next morning
to start all over again at the theater.37
Like many other talented people, such as Caruso and
Chaliapin (1873–1938), Maria Malibran had a number of
talents and interests. She was a good painter and caricaturist,
sometimes made her own costumes, was a born mimic, often
went shooting and riding, and was a good fencer. She fancied
herself a dancer but, like most singers, was not very good at it.
She read voraciously and was friends with many of the most
influential writers and great actors of the day. But it was music
that penetrated the deepest recesses of her soul. When she first
heard Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, she went into convulsions
and fainted. As a musician, she was capable of reading any
music at sight, often providing her own accompaniment. She
was a harpist and played her own harp accompaniment for the
“Willow song” in Otello. Not the least of Malibran’s talents was
that of composer. She composed mostly romances, drawing-
room songs mostly sentimental and naive, which were very
popular. She published several collections during her lifetime.
After her death Les dernières pensée musicales de M. F. Malibran
Bériot was a best seller. Her songs were praised by Berlioz,
Schumann, and Debussy.38
Howard Bushnell observes the following fact about Mali-
bran’s and Pasta’s singing, which is of great value to those who
are prepared to understand how it is done.
Maria’s voice was not outstandingly beautiful, but its remarkable
range and her powers of expression raised her above her rivals.
She, like Pasta before her, had learned to take the same notes
in different registers to vary the color for purposes of expression;
her middle voice could be sung in the brilliance of her soprano
register or the rich power of her chest tones, which she used fre-
quently and with more force than any singer before her.39
In May, Maria received twin blows that had a grave
impact on her. Bériot sent her a bitter letter, to which she
replied in kind, and she received the false news that her
 Maria (Garcia) Malibran 107
brother Manuel had been killed in Algeria. The day before
her performance of Semiramide, Malibran went into a cata-
leptic trance and fell down a flight of stairs, suffering a seri-
ous gash. The next day she insisted on going to the theater
and, not being able to stand, was carried into her carriage
and into her dressing room. Then, to the amazement of her
entourage, she revived and swept onto the stage, where she
gave one of her most luminescent performances. When the
performance was over, she lapsed back into the trance again.
Even a genius such as Malibran cannot repeal the laws of
nature, and Maria became known for frequent “indisposi-
tions,” which reminds one of Montserrat Caballé, of whom
it is said, “is available for a limited number of cancellations
this year.” On July 26, Maria added the trouser role of Don
Diego in Mercadante’s Donna Caritea to her repertoire and
received rapturous reviews.
In June, through the offices of Bériot’s sister, the lovers were
reconciled. The summer was spent searching for a solution
for their problem and the idea of a “secret” (and bigamous)
marriage was apparently hatched, which may or may not have
happened. This was complicated by the French Revolution of
1830 in which King Charles X (1757–1836) was driven from
power and Louis Philipe (1773–1850) assumed the throne.
During the summer of 1830, probably in Paris, the couple ap-
peared with two witnesses before a priest who, at first, “could
not understand anything.” The situation was explained to him
and absolute secrecy was promised. He was not asked for any
written declaration. Some sort of ceremony—a benediction?—
was performed. From then on, Maria, Charles, and his family
considered them to be married, and Charles referred to her as
his “wife.” It is, perhaps, ironical that Malibran’s greatest success
that season was in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto.40
In August Maria traveled to Bath, England, where she
became deathly ill. She may have suffered a miscarriage or
delivered a child that did not survive. From then on she (and
her career) revived and she negotiated a new contract with the
Théâtre Italien for the unheard-of sum of 1,075 francs per per-
formance and the exclusive right to play all the principal roles.
The managers of the theater resigned themselves “to drink the
hemlock,” agreeing that she was “unique in the world.”41
When Maria Malibran returned to Paris to resume her
career at the Théâtre Italien, tired of hypocrisy and subter-
fuge, she and Bériot moved in together in a house on the Rue
Blanche. She was deeply hurt by the shunning she received
from old friends like Madame Naldi, her father turned against
her, and she even received catcalls from the orchestra pit.
With characteristic determination she assembled a legal team
coordinated by Louis Viardot to dissolve her marriage to Mali-
bran. Malibran, alarmed, traveled to Paris in late November to
confront her and was advised to consult her lawyers. Having
just met the Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834) at court, she
enlisted his aid in obtaining a divorce. He became a dear friend
up until his death in 1834, and they addressed each other as
“tutor” and “pupil.” Eugène flatly refused the divorce, agreeing
only that they should live together platonically.
Maria attempted to stave off her depression by a manic
round of activity. She added Francesco Gnecco’s La prova
d’un opera seria to her repertoire. She ignored all advice about
husbanding her energy and was frequently ill. Toward the end
of the season, her performances sometimes suffered. She and
Charles turned down all offers for the summer season and
traveled to Belgium, where they built a magnificent new home
in Ixelles. Life became more complicated when she became
pregnant. She notified the Théâtre Italien that she would be
unavailable for an unspecified length of time due to illness.
Having no adequate replacement, the management panicked
and Malibran reluctantly agreed to appear but to leave before
the end of the season.
For two-and-a-half months Maria continued to sing at the
Italien, garnering rave reviews. George Sand was especially
effusive:
I have seen Madame Malibran in Otello. She made me weep,
shudder, in a word, suffer as if I were present in a real-life scene.
This woman is the premiere genius of Europe, beautiful as one
of Raphael’s virgins, simple, energetic, naïve, she is the foremost
singer and the foremost tragedienne. I’m crazy about her.42
There was one misstep. Having seen Pasta in the title role
of Otello in London (the first act was omitted), she decided
to take on the entire opera. This time her competitive nature
led her astray and no one was convinced with the venture.
Wilhemine Schröder-Devrient, a large German dramatic
soprano, was Desdemona. The contrast between the slender
and feminine Malibran and the heroic-sized soprano was
ludicrous. Malibran’s last performance was January 20, 1832,
as Desdemona to Giovanni Battista Rubini’s Otello. Fétis
wrote:
She has regained all her powers, the alteration of which has
been noticeable for several months. Her voice was clear. Dar-
ing, genius, astonishing fecundity of imagination, surety of
execution, all the brilliant qualities to which we have often paid
homage we found again this time, and she moved us to the
highest degree. We cried with her tears; her melancholy made
us grieve; we were surprised to find ourselves bursting with joy
at her sudden joys; all her emotions were ours; and when the
curtain fell between us to separate us, perhaps for a long time,
we felt a great affliction.43
This seems an apt swan song, for she never sang in Paris again.
Her child, who did not survive, was probably born in March
1832. Maria and Charles returned to Belgium but any plans
to return to Paris had to be canceled due to a cholera outbreak
so virulent that it killed twenty thousand people.
Toward the end of May, Maria and Charles were visited
by Luigi Lablache, who was on his way to Italy. On the spur
of the moment, they decided to join the great bass, and the
event so dreaded by the management of the Théâtre Italien,
Maria Malibran’s Italian career, began. She was engaged for the
equivalent of 4,000 francs per performance at the Teatro Valle
in Rome. No other artist had even approached such a sum.
Her debut was scheduled for June 30, 1832, as Desdemona.
108 Chapter 14
During rehearsals she learned of the death of her father on
June 9. Despite his severity to her, she was devastated, for Ma-
ria loved her father and always gave him credit for developing
her great talent. After her father’s death, Maria was responsible
for the support of her mother and her sister. This was not dif-
ficult, since she made enormous amounts of money and had
a generous nature. Pauline and Johanna moved into Maria’s
home in Brussels. Depressed by her father’s death and despite
her popularity, Malibran sang only six of the twelve perfor-
mances of Otello and Il barbiere that she was contracted for.
She then traveled to Naples, where she was engaged for eight
performances of Otello, La gazza ladra, and La Cenerentola by
the famous impresario Domenico Barbaja. She was booked
into the Teatro Fondo but was reengaged for the San Carlo
for an additional ten performances. Despite praise from the
critics, the Neapolitan custom of withholding applause unless
the king led it did not sit well with Malibran. However, her
final performances did erupt into frenzied excitement, despite
court protocol.
Maria’s next engagement was in Bologna for eighteen per-
formances for enormous fees. At Bologna, she undertook the
role of Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi for the first
time. She replaced the last scene with that of Vaccai’s Giulietta
e Romeo, a substitution that was standard for a long time. The
success of the scene was such that at several performances
women had to be carried from the theater in a faint. For her
final performance, she sang the last three scenes of the Bellini/
Vaccai Romeo and the last scene of La Cenerentola. When she
reached “Non piu mesta,” she burst into tears and could not
continue. The applause lasted for one hour, and there were
twenty-four curtain calls. Maria was scheduled for forty per-
formances at La Scala after Bologna, but her second pregnancy
forced her to cancel the contract. This resulted in litigation
that lasted for two years but ended when La Scala, eager to
have the famous diva, capitulated.
A son, Charles II, was born in Brussels on February 13,
1833. Since his parents were very seldom in the city, he was
cared for by Charles’s sister. The divorce from Malibran took
on a special urgency, but despite the help from Lafayette, the
lawyers on two continents dithered on. Meanwhile, the myth
about the “secret marriage” was promulgated and, whether
believed or not, was tolerated.
Malibran resumed her career with an engagement in
London’s Drury Lane Theater for fifteen performances. This
engagement reminds one of Catalani’s stint at the Théâtre
Italien in Paris, because the rest of the company was second
rate. Malibran received a large salary and “packed them in”
at double ticket prices. Her competition was at King’s The-
ater, where an all-star roster included Pasta, who was singing
Norma, Anna Bolena, Tancredi, Medea, and Il pirate, among
other works. Malibran’s first assignment was as her first Amina
in La sonnambula in a clumsy English translation. The English
critics had always hated La sonnambula with its vapid libretto,
but they praised Maria to the skies. Bellini was present and,
although vexed by the translation, loved Maria’s singing. He
was dragged to the stage by admirers and both immediately
felt a great kinship.
Malibran appeared in two other inferior works during the
season—The Devil’s Bridge by Charles Edward Horn (1786–
1849), which she had sung in New York, and Hyppolite
Chelard’s (1789–1861) The Students of Jena, which included
a “family concert” that allowed her to sing songs in varied
languages and styles. Maria was appreciated; the operas were
not. She then returned to Naples for the season from Novem-
ber 1833 to March 1834. There she was in her element with
the language and a public that, unlike London, understood
the style of an art form that had sprung from the soul of the
people. She started slowly at first, chafing at the no-applause
protocol when the king was present. On November 30, she
appeared in Irene, ò L’assedio di Messina by Pacini, one of the
few works written expressly for her. Besides Malibran, the stel-
lar cast included Giovanni David and Luigi Lablache, but the
opera was judged to be mediocre. In January 1834, another
new work, Carlo Coccia’s La figlia del’ Arciere, was even less of
a success and lasted only three performances. Bushnell points
out that Malibran’s greatest triumphs always occurred toward
the end of the season, when the court suddenly realized that
it was about to lose her.44 Despite her veneration for Pasta,
Malibran excelled in La sonnambula and Norma, and with
these roles she surpassed the older diva and entered into the
realm of a quasi-divinity. Some superstitious Italians attributed
miracles to her.
Malibran first appeared as Norma in 1834. Her success was
“colossal,” and from then on many considered it her greatest
part. It was one with which she could easily identify; was she
not a dedicated priestess torn between love and her vocation?
She had ceased to be Desdemona, the predestined victim, and
had become the Druid priestess—or pure Amina in La sonnam-
bula, unjustly accused of immorality. Malibran was no longer a
Rossini heroine, but a Bellini heroine.45
Other Malibran operas in the Naples season include Il ma-
trimonio segreto, La gazza ladra, Otello, the title role in Semir-
amide, La prova d’un opera seria, and possibly I Capuleti ed I
Montecchi of Bellini.
The last fortress to be conquered, La Scala, was next. On the
way there, Malibran stopped in Bologna, where, in addition to
La sonnambula and Otello, it was announced that she would
undertake Pasta’s greatest role, Norma. The public erupted
into a delirium; no hotel rooms were to be had, as people from
the outlying districts crowded into town, and hysterical fanat-
ics followed her home, serenading her most of the night after
performances. While in Bologna, she received news that her
friend and benefactor, Lafayette, had passed away. Despite his
best efforts and those of Louis Viardot, the French Parliament
failed to pass the divorce law that made it possible for Maria
to divorce Eugène Malibran.
When Malibran arrived in Milan, it was said that her life
was threatened by “Pastists.” She was very nervous in her intro-
ductory cavatina, “Casta Diva,” which surely was exacerbated
 Maria (Garcia) Malibran 109
by the fact that Pasta herself was in the audience. She soon re-
covered her equilibrium, however, and was given four curtain
calls at the end of the first act.
The operatic annals of no country present any example of a
triumph similar to that enjoyed by Madame Malibran, on the
evening of her first performance at Milan. At the conclusion of
the opera she was recalled no less than thirty times; and each
time wreaths, bouquets, trinkets, and sonnets, were thrown on
the stage. When she returned home, she found the gardens of
Visconti Palace, where she resided, brilliantly illuminated. A
triumphal arch, with a complimentary inscription, was erected
at the entrance of the principal avenue. Upwards of twenty
thousand persons assembled around the palace, and the orches-
tra and chorus performed a cantata, composed for the occasion
by Madame Panizza. Madame Malibran’s feelings were quite
overpowered by these marks of favor. She repeatedly went into
her balcony, and by graceful and expressive gestures thanked her
numerous admirers.46
The following two days were passed in debates between the
“Pastists” and the “Malibranists.” Any doubts about Maria’s
first performance were erased by the second, in which she was
in full command of all her powers. There was a “changing of
the guard” in the La Scala performance from Pasta’s unvarying
and studied Classical perfection to the new Romantic realism
that varied from performance to performance as Malibran
followed her feelings on the spur of the moment. In this
sense, Malibran represented the wave of the future and Pasta
belonged to the glorious but stilted past. Maria’s Desdemona
further stoked the fires of enthusiasm in Milan. Malibran left
La Scala for London on May 25, 1834, with a contract for
fifteen performances the next autumn and engagements for the
Carnivals of 1835 and 1836 for the astonishing total sum of
420,000 francs. En route to London, she and Charles stopped
in Paris to see friends, who were amazed that her voice had
doubled in size and resonance. Her abilities as a musician had
likewise grown to the point where there was no comparison
to anyone else. While in Paris, she attended a performance of
Norma starring the young soprano, Giulia Grisi, who, along
with Henriette Sontag, was in the vanguard of the ascending
popularity of the soprano as the quintessential prima donna
assoluta. Grisi was the spearhead of the “Puritani Quartet”
that dominated opera production in London and Paris for
twenty-five years. The trip to London was only to attend
brother Manuel’s concert, but when the impresario Alfred
Bunn (1797–1860) heard of Malibran’s arrival, he offered her
La sonnambula. The offer came to naught when Maria asked
for a sky-high fee for an opera that was unpopular in London.
On June 30, the couple left London for Sinigaglia and Lucca,
where Maria received her usual frenzied reception.
Malibran returned to La Scala, where on September 27
she opened the season with Norma, followed by I Capuleti,
Otello, La sonnambula, and one of her characteristic programs
of scenes from La Cenerentola and Il barbiere. Merlin says
that Malibran found it difficult to pass from one character to
another in the course of one of these pasticcios but the public
loved them. Maria received eighteen curtain calls in her last
Norma on October 26, and the next day left for Naples. On
the way, she attended a performance of Norma with Pasta in
Bologna. She paid her respects to the great diva, who received
her graciously and thanked her for the gift of singing for the
Milanese. Malibran opened at the Teatro Fondo on November
30, 1834, in La sonnambula with tripled ticket prices and
followed with Tancredi and Norma. During the 1834–1835
season in Naples, Malibran was to learn four new operas:
Amelia by Lauro Rossi (1812–1885), Bellini’s promise of a
Puritani revised especially for her, Ines de Castro by Persiani,
and Il colonello by Luigi and Federico Ricci (1809–1877).
Amelia was a fiasco for several reasons, but the most egregious
was that Malibran insisted that Rossi write a mazurka for her
to dance with a dancer named Mathis in the second act. There
is an Italian proverb about the suitability of singers as dancers:
song and dance are like the devil and holy water.
Ines de Castro, with Malibran and Gilbert-Louis Duprez, on
the other hand, was a resounding success and was repeated all
over Europe. Bériot wrote a letter in which he asserted that
in Naples, it was necessary for the composer to pay off the
conductor, concertmaster, costume person, the claque, and all
others involved in a production in order to ensure its success.
He stated that Persiani spent all the profits he made from the
production of Ines in this way. Maria then had an accident in
a carriage and dislocated her wrist, so that she was unable to
rehearse Il colonello and had to leave Naples for Venice in early
March 1835. Carolina Ungher premiered Il colonello three
weeks after Malibran’s departure and had an outstanding suc-
cess. Because of a cholera outbreak, the score for the Malibran
version of I puritani was prevented from arriving in Naples on
time, so Maria was never able to sing it.
On the way to Venice, Maria and Charles stopped in
Bologna. There she gave three unscheduled concerts and
learned that she had been granted an annulment from Eugène
Malibran by a French court. Charles and Maria were free to
marry after a ten-month residency in Paris, and her joy almost
amounted to an illness. As used to adulation as Maria was now
accustomed to, she was quite unprepared for the reception ac-
corded her in Venice. The whole city shut down awaiting her
boat from the mainland. Brass bands serenaded her and the
police led her and Charles to their lodgings. Since the fifteenth
century, all gondolas had to be painted black by law. Maria
designed one that was gray with silk and gold decorations
and an interior of scarlet with blue curtains. Her gondolier
was dressed in colorful costume and all Venice knew who was
passing.
Malibran’s Venetian debut was Desdemona at La Fenice.
She had to repeat the first cavatina and received ten curtain
calls after the third act. She sang La Cenerentola next with the
same result, and then Rosina. Norma followed on April 4 and
5. Some critics favored Pasta’s interpretation, citing the com-
poser’s intentions, but were ignorant of the fact that Bellini
wanted Maria to introduce his opera to Paris.
110 Chapter 14
An aspect of Maria’s character is illuminated by the follow-
ing story. Gallo, the impresario of a neighboring theater, the
Emeronittio, facing bankruptcy, begged Malibran to sing two
additional performances at 3,000 francs each to rescue him.
To save her colleague, she did so, and the first performance,
Il barbiere at the Fenice, netted him 2,875 francs. La sonnam-
bula at the Emeronittio brought in 4,125 after expenses. The
evening was an amazing triumph. Franz Liszt counted thirty-
six curtain calls, and Gallo announced that the theater would
henceforth be called Il Teatro Malibran, a name by which it
is still known today. When the grateful impresario came in to
pay the diva her fee, she told him to keep it—they were even.
Maria’s return to London was in La sonnambula and was
marked with a huge standing ovation, even before she began
singing. One critic wrote that her singing was only equaled by
her acting. On her previous London trip, Maria had observed
the performance of Fidelio by Wilhimine Schröder-Devrient, a
great German actress who had barely learned to sing but who
had great dramatic power. In this regard, she was a prototype
of a modern singer who seems to think that if one emotes
enough, it is all right to ignore vocal difficulties. Chorley had
prescient insight in his review of Schröder-Devrient:
Her voice was a strong soprano . . . with an inherent expressive-
ness of tone which made it more attractive on the stage than
many a more faultless organ. Such training as had been given to
it belonged to that false school which admits to such a barba-
rism as the defence and admiration of “nature singing.” [Today
this is called “organic” singing.] Why not as well speak of natu-
ral playing on the violin or other instruments which is to be
brought under control? A more absurd phrase was never coined
by ignorance conceiving itself sagacious. Why as well not have
nature-civilization?—nature-painting?—nature-cleanliness? But
on the rock of this difficulty the German singers and German
composers for voices have split. A man whose fingers cannot
control the strings would hardly have a second hearing, did he
attempt instrumental music. But a woman, supposing she can
correctly flounder through the notes of a given composition,
has been allowed, too contemptuously, to take rank as a singer.47
Maria Malibran was unquestionably a great actress. Her
performance of Leonora was a revelation to many, but
the controversy about the relative merits of Malibran and
Schröder-Devrient continued. Maria had set herself the task of
surpassing Schröder-Devrient as an actress while retaining all
her vocal and musical qualities. Chorley had some reservations
despite his general admiration of Malibran.
She delivered Beethoven’s music wonderously, considering its
unsuitability for her voice, making changes and adaptions where
they were inevitable with such musician-like science that not the
protest of a solitary purist could be raised against them, but the
effect produced in the opera by a singer incomparably inferior to
her, Madame Schröder-Devrient, was deeper and more moving.48
Malibran’s manic work schedule was alarming to her hus-
band and friends, and I would think that she was headed for
disaster if she had not died so young. The most astounding
fact was that she sometimes sang La sonnambula and Fidelio
on the same night.49 I cannot think of any similar feat by any
other artist. She also often sang afternoon concerts on the same
nights that she had operatic performances and then would sing
for late-night private soirees. Charles de Bériot wrote about
her schedule:
Maria is well despite the unprecedented work that she en-
dures. Here is her schedule three or four days a week: morning
rehearsal at ten o’clock after a good hour of piano practice,
Concert from 1:00 until 4:00. Opera from seven until 10. Then
one or two private concerts finish the evening; and poor Maria
has hardly returned to rest before it is daybreak. And that is the
existence that she leads in London. All this is against my will,
for I oppose with all my strength her acceptance of these con-
certs after the performances, and I refuse a large part of them
although she doesn’t know it; for you know that little Spanish
head. She would kill herself if she were permitted.50
Malibran was scheduled for another tour of Italy, which
began August 15, 1835, in Lucca with Ines de Castro and La
Cenerentola. Lucca was under the threat of cholera but Maria
received her customary frenzied reception. Charles and Maria
departed for her next engagement at La Scala on September
12, 1835, but on reaching Carrara, they were stopped by the
quarantine. The intrepid prima donna and her party surrepti-
tiously left Carrara to travel over the Apennines by way of an
unused and perilous mule trail. Modern-day singers who can
fly to almost any place on earth seldom think of the difficulty
of travel in the nineteenth century. The great Maria Malibran
reached an astonished Castelpoggio astride a mule. From there
she reached Milan and began a six-month engagement at La
Scala. Sometime early in the engagement she received news of
the death of Bellini on September 23, 1835, and was cast into
a state of despair. Little did she know that that fatal date would
be the same as her own exactly one year in the future.
Maria Stuarda by Donizetti was to have been premiered in
Naples the preceding year but was prevented from opening by
the king because of the portrayal of Mary being beheaded. Ma-
ria Malibran was chosen for the premiere at La Scala. The first
performance on December 30, 1835, was a fiasco. Donizetti
declared Maria, who had been ill, “voiceless.” Her condition im-
proved for subsequent performances, but the censors demanded
changes in the libretto, which she refused. A compromise was
reached. For the last four evenings, the first act of Maria Stu-
arda, in which Mary does not appear, was followed by the last
two acts of Otello, where Maria scored her customary triumphs.
The original version of Maria Stuarda then lapsed into a 130-
year slumber. Maria then premiered another new work, Vaccai’s
Giovanna Grey, which was judged a failure despite Malibran’s
best efforts and was withdrawn after four repetitions. On March
20, 1836, Maria Malibran gave her last performance at La Scala
and Italy: I Capuleti and the last act of La sonnambula. Having
waited the ten-month period required by law since the annul-
ment of her marriage to Eugène Malibran, Maria and Charles
set off for Paris. They became legally married on March 29,
1836, and set off for Brussels for a short rest before the London
 Maria (Garcia) Malibran 111
season. The Bériots, despite their intentions to rest, gave two
concerts for charity. In the second, Maria was joined in a duet
by her sister, Pauline, now almost fifteen.
The London season at Drury Lane, which commenced on
May 2, 1836, included Fidelio, La sonnambula, and a new
work by Michael William Balfe (1808–1870), The Maid of
Artois. Balfe, an Irish baritone protégé of Rossini, was mul-
titalented as a singer, composer, conductor, and impresario.
Malibran had met him in Milan, where they had sung Il
barbiere, La sonnambula, and Otello together. She had dubbed
him “the English Rossini,” although he was thoroughly Irish.
The Maid was based on the story of Manon Lescaut, Malibran’s
character being named Isoline. The convoluted libretto by the
impresario Bunn ends with a lieto fine or happy ending. Bush-
nell writes that it was one of the most successful operas ever
staged in England. The Maid received some small criticisms
but Malibran was praised to the skies.
The masterly light and shade in her singing of the recitative, her
intense and refined expression, and the novel and musician-like
graces and ornaments which she introduced in the succeeding
passages, brought down a torrent of approbation. Her clear
and powerful voice, her wonderful skill in executing roulades,
chromatic phrases, and shakes, the richness and volume of her
contralto notes and the precision, brilliance, and variety of her
cadenzas, defy all description and set at naught all criticism.51
Despite being pregnant, Maria continued her hectic schedule
of performances and concerts as well as extracurricular activi-
ties. She accepted an invitation to a hunting party and chose the
most spirited horse in the stable called “King of the Stables.”
She was a skilled horsewoman but was pitched headlong from
the steed, her foot caught in the stirrup, and was dragged over
the rocky course, her head bouncing from the stones. Despite
her injuries, she insisted on singing a performance that very
night. The Countess Merlin believed that Maria Malibran had
a premonition of an early death and engaged in frenetic activity,
sometimes in childish amusements like playing with dolls, to
stave off thoughts of doom. After her accident, Maria’s behavior
became even more bizarre. She continued performing at Drury
Lane to the end of her contract on July 16, 1836, and then she
and Charles returned to the continent.
On August 14 Maria appeared with her sister in concert
at Liège, where Pauline also demonstrated her ability on the
piano. Maria confided to her sister that she believed that she
had a blood clot on the brain and would soon die. Then she
traveled to Aix-la-Chapelle, where she sang two performances
of La sonnambula in Italian while the rest of the cast sang in
German. Her headaches were so severe by this time that she
could hardly stand. After a short vacation, Maria and Charles
traveled to Manchester, where the choral festival was to be-
gin on September 12. She was able to perform well the first
two days, although onlookers remarked that she appeared to
be pale and ill. Two days later, she was to sing a duet from
Mercadante’s opera Andronico with Maria Caradori-Allen
(1800–1865). Although barely able to stand, Malibran insisted
on singing. Caradori-Allen decided to add embellishments be-
yond those agreed upon and Maria rose to the challenge as she
had with Velluti so long ago. Her voice rose a third above her
rival and held a trill for an amazing length of time. The audi-
ence responded with a great burst of applause and demanded
an encore. Malibran said to her conductor, Sir George Smart
(1776–1867), “If I sing again, it will kill me.” “Then do not
sing,” replied Sir George, “let me address the audience.” “No,”
said Maria, “I will sing it again and annihilate her!”52 After
the duet she fainted and was carried into her dressing room.
Two doctors prescribed that she be bled. Her dear friend
Lablache, knowing that she did not believe in the procedure,
protested. He was told to stick to singing and let the doctors
attend to healing. Nine days later, on September 23, 1836, at
11:40 pm, Maria Malibran, one of the greatest—if not the
greatest—female singer who ever lived passed away peacefully.
After a protracted and unseemly battle between her family and
Manchester Festival authorities, her body was exhumed and
buried in an appropriate mausoleum in Brussels.
NOTES
1. Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (New
York: Knopf, 1926), 8.
2.  Countess Maria de Merlin, Memoirs of Maria Malibran, vol. 1
(London: Henry Colburn, 1840), 55.
3. April Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran: Diva of the Romantic Age
(London: Souvenir Press, 1987), 23.
4.  Malcolm Sterling Mackinlay, Garcia the Centenarian and His
Times: Being a Memoir of Manuel Garcia’s Life and Labors for the
Advancement of Music and Science (New York: D. Appleton, 1908),
35–36.
5. Edmond Michotte, Richard Wagner’s Visit to Rossini and an
Evening at Rossini’s at Beau Sejour, trans. and ed. Herbert Weinstock
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 121–23.
6. Michotte, Richard Wagner’s Visit to Rossini, 126–27.
7.  James Radomski, Manuel Garcia: Chronicle of the Life of a Bel
Canto Tenor at the Dawn of Romanticism (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2000), 301.
8. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 31.
9. Merlin, Memoirs of Maria Malibran, 51–52.
10. Merlin, Memoirs of Maria Malibran, 47.
11. Radomski, Manuel Garcia, 96.
12. Radomski, Manuel Garcia, 301. Radomski is quoting Ernest
Legouvé, Soixante ans de souvenirs, 242.
13. Radomski, Manuel Garcia, 162.
14. Mackinlay, Garcia the Centenarian, 49.
15. Anonymous, The Harmonicon, ed. William Ayerton, vol. 2
(London: Samuel Leigh, 1824), 145.
16.  Howard Bushnell, Maria Malibran: A Biography of the Singer
(University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1979), 13.
17.  Angus Heriot, The Castrati in Opera (1927; repr., New York:
Da Capo, 1975), 198.
18. Radomski, Manuel Garcia, 184. Quoted from Quarterly Musi-
cal Magazine 7 (1825): 437.
19. Merlin, Memoirs of Maria Malibran, 4.
20. Mackinlay, Garcia the Centenarian, 67–68.
21. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 43.
22. Mackinlay, Garcia the Centenarian, 82.
23. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 54.
112 Chapter 14
24. Mackinlay, Garcia the Centenarian, 88.
25. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 79.
26. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 79.
27. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 79.
28. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 76.
29. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 84
30. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 93.
31. Radomski, Manuel Garcia, 235–36.
32. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 92.
33. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 8.
34. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 95.
35. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 98.
36. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 104.
37. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 116.
38. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 264.
39. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 44. Italics mine.
40. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 112.
41. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 113.
42. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 128.
43. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 134.
44. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 166.
45. Fitzlyon, Maria Malibran, 184.
46. Merlin, Memoirs of Maria Malibran, 150–51.
47. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 39.
48. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 9.
49. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 196.
50. Merlin, Memoirs of Maria Malibran, 35–37.
51. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 211. Quoted from The Morning Post,
May 28, 1836.
52. Pleasants, The Great Singers, 151.
15
Pauline (Garcia) Viardot

“Ed io anché son un cantatrice!”1 [And I am also a singer!]— take Maria’s place in the operatic firmament. The comparison
Pauline Garcia, age 16 was not fair, for Maria was beautiful and Pauline was not, al-
though she had a strange, magnetic attraction in performance
Michelle Ferdinande Pauline Garcia was born on August 29, that made people forget her plainness.
1821, in Paris. She was thirteen years younger than Maria Mali- The debut of the sixteen-year-old Pauline Garcia took place
bran, her illustrious sister, and separated by temperament as well at a charity concert in Brussels in December 1837 with her
as by geography and age. We have already seen how Maria was
brilliant in an impetuous, willful, spontaneous, and neurotic
way. Pauline was more thoughtful and intelligent, bordering on
genius, but no less abandoned onstage. In her performances with
Rubini in Moscow in 1844–1845: “Her passions, as yet unawak-
ened in real life, found an outlet on the stage. All those who saw
her were struck by the extraordinary passion of her acting, and
Rubini told her more than once in a performance: ‘Don’t act so
passionately, you’ll die on the stage.’”2 Pauline was like her sister
in refusing to accept limitations. As an alto, she was probably
more of a contralto than mezzo-soprano. She struggled with
Norma all her life and advised her students: “Don’t do as I did. I
wanted to sing everything and I spoilt my voice!”3
Pauline Garcia was her father’s favorite, and she accompa-
nied singers in his studio from the time she was eight years
old until his death in 1832. She said that she learned much
there, especially from the great tenor Adolf Nourrit. Pauline
had always wanted to be a pianist, and besides Meysenberg,
she had studied with the young Franz Liszt. He was twenty-
five and she fifteen. It’s no small wonder that she developed a
crush on the man who was the romantic idol of all Europe.
All her life, Pauline Garcia was regarded as an excellent pianist
by such keyboard luminaries as her friend Frédéric Chopin
(1810–1849), Ignaz Moscheles, Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–
1921), Liszt, and others. However, after her father’s death,
her mother Joaquina decided that she should carry on the
family business of singing. Joaquina pressured her daughter to
abandon the piano, and, with some regret, Pauline began the
serious study of voice, mostly by herself, under the watchful
eye of her mother. The death of her sister, Maria, in 1836 was
a terrible shock to her and to all of musical Europe. Not the
least of Pauline’s problems was the expectation that she would Figure 15.1.  Pauline Viardot from a photo by Erwin Hanfstaengl

113
114 Chapter 15
brother-in-law Charles-Auguste de Bériot. This was followed by
a concert tour for royalty in the spring, when they visited Berlin,
Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Dresden. In Leipzig, she met a girl three
years older than herself who became her lifelong friend—fel-
low pianist Clara Wieck, later to become Clara Schumann
(1819–1896). In the fall of 1838, Joaquina decided to take her
daughter to the scene of her father’s and sister’s triumphs, Paris.
We recall Maria Malibran’s introduction to Parisian intellectual
and artistic life at the soiree given by the Countess Merlin in
1827. Madame Carolina Jaubert did the same for Pauline Garcia
in the autumn of 1838. Expectations ran high and the dilettanti
assembled there were not disappointed:
“I feel I can still hear the tremor of joy which ran through the au-
dience from the very first bars,” Paul de Musset, the poet’s brother
wrote many years later. “It was La Malibran’s voice, we said, but
with a wider range, more velvety, fresher. . . .” The emotion by
those present, discerning amateurs, to whom La Malibran had
been the inspiration of their youth, communicated itself to Pau-
line too. Feeling herself appreciated and among well-wishers, she
began to sing better and better, and with such enjoyment that her
mother was not able to tear her away from the piano.4
Some of those present at the soiree formed a “Pauline Garcia
defensive league” to help and protect her in establishing her ca-
reer. One of the members was Alfred de Musset (1818–1857),
who, after engaging her in conversation, was pleased to dis-
cover how intelligent and well-informed she was.
He drew her out on all sorts of themes, and found that this
girl of not yet seventeen was “as well up in everything as an old
professor.” He went home delighted with his new discovery.
“What a charming thing genius is!” he kept on repeating. “How
fortunate we are to live at a time when it still exists, and to see
it so close too!”5
Musset was the epitome of a poet in the Romantic Age. He
had a well-publicized affair with George Sand and wrote a mov-
ing tribute to Pauline’s late sister. Musset had idolized Maria
Malibran as the personification of the Romantic Age, and he
began to view Pauline as the harbinger of a new age of artistic
achievement. There is some substance in this because Malibran
was perhaps the last exemplar of the improvisatory genius of bel
canto, whereas Pauline Garcia would become the doyenne of
the emerging musical genre called grand opera while remaining
mistress of the older styles of Gluck and Rossini. Maria had
built her career largely on the works of Rossini. However, the
most important composer for Pauline, aside from Rossini, was
Meyerbeer, followed by Charles Gounod (1818–1893), Halévy,
Saint-Saëns, and Berlioz. Musset became infatuated by Pauline,
perhaps as much for her intellect as for her physical (and vocal)
charms. He felt that she would be a bulwark against the cor-
rupted state of opera in Paris at that time. It is not quite clear
what happened, but apparently Pauline rebuffed Musset’s ad-
vances, which, in true Romantic fashion, caused him great pain.
However, they remained friends for a long time.
In spring 1839, the fearless Pauline Garcia traveled across
the English Channel to London, where she made her operatic
debut on any stage as Desdemona on May 9 at King’s Theater.
The pendulum of public taste was swinging toward the high
soprano as prima donna, with Giulia Grisi and Fanny Persiani
(1812–1867) ready to do battle with any upstart who dared
to challenge their hegemony, especially an eighteen year old
named Garcia. Grisi became an implacable enemy, ready to
sabotage Pauline at any opportunity. Chorley, writing many
years later, recalled his first encounter with Pauline Garcia,
who became a close friend:
Well, this new Garcia, with a figure hardly formed, with a face
which every experience and every year must soften and har-
monize, with a voice in no respect excellent or equal, though
of extensive compass, with an amount of sensitiveness which
robbed her of half her power, came out in the grand singers’
days of Italian opera in London and in a part most arduous, on
every ground of memory, comparison, and intrinsic difficulty—
Desdemona in Otello. Nothing stranger, more incomplete in its
completeness, more unspeakably indicating a new and master-
ful artist, can be recorded than that first appearance. She looked
older than her years; her frame (then a mere reed) quivered this
way and that; her character-dress seemed to puzzle her and the
motion of her hands as much. Her voice was hardly settled,
even with its own after-conditions; and yet, paradoxical as it
may seem, she was at ease on the stage, because she brought
thither instinct for acting, experience of music, knowledge of
how to sing, and consummate intelligence. There can be no
doubt with anyone who saw that Desdemona on that night,
that another great career had begun.6
It can be said that Pauline, by great personal effort—like
Pasta before her and Callas after—conquered a naturally
intractable instrument and added notes to either end of a
modest mezzo-soprano range. She lived in an age when sing-
ers were still not conscious of vocal categories, and the altos
continued to sing parts that were getting increasingly higher.
Pauline, who was inexperienced on stage, made a greater im-
pression in the concert hall at first, and sang for the young
Queen Victoria twice. Unwilling to pander to popular taste,
she was always more popular with the cognoscenti than the
general public.
While the Garcias were still in London, they were visited by
Louis Viardot, who, it will be remembered, was a dear friend
of Maria Malibran. After the disastrous fire of January 14,
1838, Viardot was named the director of the Théâtre Italien
in Paris. He had heard of Pauline’s success in London and
came over to scout the new prospect. He was pleased with her
performances and promptly engaged her for the new season in
Paris. The date of the first performance was October 8, 1839,
and Pauline chose Desdemona once again, with her confidence
bolstered by her success in London. The name on the lips of
the audience was Malibran before Pauline began to sing, but
she soon won their applause on her own merits. She was ap-
plauded vigorously after every act and Lablache embraced her.
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 115
“Oh, cunning Lablache,” commented Gautier, “who pretends
to be fat and grey-haired in order to kiss pretty women!”7
With this quote, Gautier raised the issue of Pauline Garcia’s
personal appearance, which was an issue with the public and
critics from the outset of her career in London.
Pauline had a tall, slender figure in her youth, and her physi-
ognomy, Jewish in its cast, though noble and expressive, was so
far from being handsome that when at rest the features were
almost harsh in their irregularity. But, as in the case of many
plain women, emotion and sensibility would quickly transfigure
her face into a marvelous beauty and fascination, far beyond the
loveliness of line and tint. Her forehead was broad and intel-
lectual, the hair jet-black, the complexion pale, the large black
eyes ardent and full of fire. Her carriage was singularly majestic
and easy, and a conscious nobility gave her a bearing a loftiness
which impressed all beholders.8
Perhaps this nobility of bearing reminded Pauline’s aficio-
nados of Pasta’s queenly bearing, while her voice recalled the
beauty and passion of her sister’s singing. Pauline was ahead
of her time in the care with which she prepared her parts. A
self-taught artist, she designed her own costumes to be both
historically accurate and pleasing to the eye in an era when
scant attention was paid to such details. She studied the liter-
ary sources of her roles avidly, a trait not shared by any of her
contemporaries. In comic parts, her interpretations of Rosina
and Angelina were calculated to bring out the youth and fresh-
ness of the characters and won the hearts of cynical critics.
After all, she was only eighteen years old.
At this juncture, a woman who was to be an enormous
influence on Pauline Garcia entered her life. Amantine-
Lucile-Aurore-Dupin (1804–1876), who is best known by her
nom de plume, George Sand, was a flamboyant novelist and
memoirist who is now as well known for her numerous affairs
with Chopin and other famous men as for her literary achieve-
ments. It may be that Pauline was introduced to Sand by Louis
Viardot, who was an old friend of the novelist and who helped
her with her marital difficulties, as he had with Pauline’s sister.
Sand and Pauline immediately became fast friends, a relation-
ship founded on mutual respect for each other’s genius. Sand
was exactly twice as old as Pauline and became her trusted
adviser. One of Sand’s former lovers was Alfred de Musset, and
she certainly influenced Pauline’s hardened attitude toward
him. She had another prospective match in mind—none other
than Louis Viardot. Despite being twenty-one years older than
Pauline, Viardot was no Eugène Malibran. Madame Garcia
and Sand were agreed that Viardot was a fine man of absolute
integrity, and though a little cold, was cultured as well as being
an impresario and a practical businessman. As unlikely as it
seems, Viardot was also an agnostic and had extremely liberal
political views. George Sand, for her part, saw in Viardot an
excellent support for Pauline’s coming role as high priestess of
her art, someone who would not demand too much emotional
commitment from his wife. Pauline hesitated, perhaps put off
by the cold-blooded calculations of her friend and her mother.
She had known Viardot since she was a child; she trusted
and was truly fond of him but did not love him. He, in turn,
deeply loved her and patiently courted her.
The Paris opera season ended on April 5, 1840, and on
April 18, Louis Viardot and Pauline Garcia were married.
Ever a man of integrity, Viardot had resigned his post as
director of the Théâtre Italien because of the conflict of in-
terest of having a wife who was a prima donna. Pauline had
not been engaged for the following season, so the Viardots
were free to travel on their honeymoon to Italy. While in
Rome, they visited the Villa Medici, where the winners of
the Prix de Rome were housed. There a young man played
the accompaniment to an aria from Der Freischütz for
Pauline by memory. His name, unknown to her then, was
Charles Gounod.
When they returned to Paris at the beginning of August,
Pauline was only able to obtain engagements for concerts,
despite the sterling reputation that she had garnered the pre-
vious season. The reason for this was that the prima donnas
Rosine Stoltz (1815–1903) at the Opéra and Giulia Grisi at
the Théâtre Italien were terrified that Pauline Viardot-Gar-
cia would eclipse their careers. Stoltz was a mezzo-contralto
singer who was the mistress of Léon Pillet (1803–1868), the
director of the Paris Opéra from 1840 to 1847. Grisi was
beautiful and a great singer, but her musical and intellectual
acuity were wanting. She was ten years older than Pauline
and her intense jealousy would cause Pauline problems for
years to come.
Pauline was beginning to lose her illusions. . . . One thing was
now becoming clear to her, as it had to Berlioz before her: in
Paris in the mid-nineteenth century artistry, musicianship,
high ideals and true devotion to art counted for very little;
reputations were made or marred by intrigues, cabals, love
affairs and even bribes. After the splendid excitement of her
initial successes, Pauline was beginning to taste the bitterness
of disappointment and inactivity; not because of any artistic
shortcomings on her part—on the contrary, the critics had been
unanimous in their praise—but because of the petty plots and
intrigues which ruled Parisian life.9
Given these difficulties, Pauline spent the winter of 1840
singing in concerts and developing friendships with artists
and literary people such as Frédéric Chopin, Ary Sheffler
(1795–1858), the Dutch-German painter who became a fa-
ther figure for her, Eugène Delacroix (1799–1863), and, of
course, George Sand, who was saddened to see the Viardots
depart for London for the spring season.
In London, Pauline Viardot-Garcia assumed the part of
Orazia in Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi e i Curiazi, which had been
created by the great Grassini. Chorley felt that even Malibran’s
sister could do nothing for the heroine in this weak opera. He
wrote that Pauline had to fight recollections of Pasta in Tan-
credi, which she sang with Persiani. She also had to contend
116 Chapter 15
with the malevolent presence of Grisi, with whom she had to
sing Semiramide. However, as Angelina, Chorley wrote
Yet even so early in her career her singing in La Cenerentola
could not be exceeded for invention and brilliancy of style.
When she appeared with Rubini she had to subdue her voice so
as to match his musical whisper; but for the final rondo she had
already invented that reading and those admirably ingenious
changes (changes not so much allowed as demanded by Signor
Rossini’s music) most of which have been quietly appropri-
ated by less imaginative singers—to name but one, Madame
Alboni.10
The year 1841 was to be Rubini’s farewell season in
London, and on April 29, he sang a benefit performance of
Otello opposite Pauline’s Desdemona. The previous night was
the Ancient Concert at the Hanover Square Rooms, where
Viardot-Garcia performed Beethoven’s terzetto Tremate, empi,
tremate with Rubini and Lablache. Pauline also sang two con-
certs on May 12 and 17.
On May 17, there took place what was deemed the “Mon-
ster Concert” in the press—Mr. Benedict’s morning soiree at
Her Majesty’s Theater. The concert was oversold, and some
patrons were turned away, while the rest were packed into
an overheated room where they could not exit, even if they
had wanted to. The concert lasted four-and-a-half hours, but
all agreed that there was great music-making. The highlight
was “Preghiera” from Rossini’s Mosé sung by Rubini, Mario
(Giovanni Matteo de Condia), Viardot, Grisi, Persiani, the
Lablaches, and other stars of the opera and accompanied by
Liszt, Henri François Joseph Vieuxtemps (1820–1881) on the
violin, and Giovanni Puzzi (1792–1876) on the horn.
The same night she sang with most of the same stars at
Buckingham Palace. The singers had learned that London was
the source of the highest fees paid anywhere, and most of them
often sang more than one performance a day.
Because of such gruelling schedules, it is hardly surprising
that Pauline was tired; added to this, she was expecting her
first child. At the end of the season, she was happy to accept
an invitation from George Sand to vacation at her estate at
Nohant. After Pauline sang a concert in Paris on August 24,
the Viardots joined Sand, Chopin, and Delacroix for rest,
music-making, and good conversation. Louis was an avid
hunter, and Pauline enjoyed outdoor walks with him. Most of
all, she enjoyed going through whole scores with Chopin and
listening to him improvising and playing his own works. This
carefree idyll had to be cut short because Pauline was engaged
for the Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester in early September.
This is the world’s oldest choral festival, which dates back to
1724 and is hosted by the three choirs of Gloucester, Herford,
and Worcester in rotation. The festival has presented Handel’s
great choral works and featured many eminent soloists over
the years.
When Pauline returned to Paris, she had an exciting op-
portunity to premiere Rossini’s Stabat Mater before a distin-
guished audience in a private tryout at the salon of M. Herz
on October 31, 1841. She then gave birth to her first child, a
daughter named Louise Pauline Marie, on December 14. Pau-
line, who was just twenty years old, was not oriented toward
domestic life and resumed her career almost immediately. In
February, she appeared in concert with Chopin, but, with no
operatic engagements forthcoming, she and Louis left for a
concert tour of Spain in April 1842. Little Louise was left in
the care of her grandmother, Joaquina.
Louis had always been enamored of Spain and its culture,
and Pauline had never visited the country of her parents’
birth. When they reached Madrid, they were dismayed to find
that the Italian opera company had been disbanded. Pauline
repeated history and recruited an ensemble from amateur and
professional singers, as her father had in America in 1825. She
too worked night and day to prepare them for performances of
Il barbiere di Siviglia and Otello. Despite the difficulties, Pau-
line was successful and the Viardots were feted wherever they
went. While in Spain, Pauline first encountered her bête noire,
Norma. Although the part was not very congenial vocally, she
identified with the Druid priestess and insisted on singing it
throughout her career.
At this time, the Viardots were in touch with George Sand
and eagerly awaited the latest issue of La Revue Indépendante,
which included installments of Sand’s latest novel Consuelo.
The heroine was unabashedly based on Pauline Viardot-
Garcia. In the novel, Sand advances the Lisztian idea of génie
oblige, or the obligation of genius to care for one and all and to
promote the ideals of truth and beauty. Pauline was influenced
by this ideal all her life and George provided encouragement
for her protégé.
Pauline’s career seemed to be at a stopping point; negotia-
tions for Italian engagements had fallen through. Finally, four
days before the premiere of Semiramide, on October 13, 1841,
the Théâtre Italien announced that Pauline Viardot-Garcia
would sing the part of Arsace to Grisi’s Semiramide, not in
her own right, but as a substitute for an indisposed singer. The
reviews were generally favorable, but when the season was over,
it was not considered a success. Pauline had been discriminated
against in her choice of repertoire by theater management,
which was afraid to incur the displeasure of Grisi and Persiani.
She was allowed only supporting roles in La Cenerentola, Tan-
credi, and Valentino Fioravanti’s Le cantatrici villane (1799).
Ninetta, a soprano part in La gazza ladra, was her only lead
role. In addition, there were critics who viciously attacked her,
not because of her singing, but because of the political views of
her husband and George Sand. When she wished to sing Ros-
ina at her own benefit, the Figaro, Antonio Tamburini suddenly
became mysteriously ill and the performance never took place.
Onlookers did not fail to note that Tamburini was an original
member of the famous “Puritani Quartet,” which, besides him,
consisted of Grisi, Rubini (replaced in 1839 by Mario, Grisi’s
lover and eventual husband), and Lablache. All the friends
around Pauline agreed that such a poisonous atmosphere would
destroy her career and that she must build it up elsewhere, so
she ultimately returned to Paris riding on a wave of success.
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 117
When an offer came from Donizetti, the director of the
Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, she left Paris. After a trium-
phant debut as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia on April 19,
1843, Pauline was received by the emperor, sought after by
all the nobility, and acclaimed by the public. Unfortunately,
Donizetti’s Alina (1827) was a failure, despite Pauline’s inclu-
sion of a rondo by de Bériot based on a theme from L’elisir
d’amore. However, she performed the opera at La Scala be-
tween 1843 and 1846. Pauline’s performance of Amina in La
sonnambula was subject to some animosity from Italian parti-
sans, but she rose to the occasion and was given an ovation at
the end of the opera.
She went from there to Prague for more performances of
Il barbiere and then to Berlin, where she met Meyerbeer, who
had been a friend of her sister. Meyerbeer made it known
that he considered Pauline Viardot-Garcia to be the foremost
singer of the day and arranged a concert for her before the
king. Meyerbeer was a powerful person in Paris at the Opéra
and stated that he would not allow any of his operas to be per-
formed there unless Pauline was in the cast. This, as we shall
see, was an important development for Pauline Viardot and a
new direction for the alto voice in opera. It was also to impact
the career of Giulia Grisi.
The Viardots returned to France and visited Nohant for a
short time, then they traveled to Berlin for a few concerts, and
finally went to Leipzig, where Pauline joined Robert and Clara
Schumann, as well as Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) at the
Gewandhaus for some sublime music-making.
In a few days, Pauline was able to announce that Louis had
negotiated a contract for the coming season with the Imperial
Theaters in St. Petersburg in the mysterious and forbidding
Russian empire. European travelers to Russia were often ner-
vous but fascinated by the prospect of encountering an alien
environment:
one trembles lest one should encounter a bear on the Nevsky
Perspective, or receive in one’s peaceable dwelling a famished
wolf. His mind full of such erroneous anticipations, the traveler
fancies himself a stage or two beyond Christendom, expects to
make acquaintance with a semi-barbarous land, and approaches
the City of the Czars with trepidation and anxiety. How star-
tling and agreeable is the contrast to these gloomy forebodings,
of the reality that presents itself on entering the Russian capital,
especially if the approach is made from the side of the sea. The
beauty of the entrance into St. Petersburg cannot easily be
paralleled.11
In 1836, the Russian appetite for Italian opera was stimulated
by a local production of Semiramide. In 1841, Giuditta Pasta
had pioneered the Italian opera’s conquest of Russia. She ap-
peared in Norma, which she had created ten years earlier, and
Semiramide, Tancredi, and Anna Bolena. Pasta’s great style was
intact but her voice was not. In the spring of 1843, the eminent
tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini had visited Moscow and St.
Petersburg for a series of concerts. After Lent in St. Petersburg,
he starred in La sonnambula, Lucia di Lammermoor, I puritani,
Otello, a performance of scenes from Marino Faliero by Doni-
zetti, and Niobe by Pacini. He was assisted by a local company
of Russian and German singers who had learned their parts in
Italian just for the occasion. Although Rubini’s voice was a bit
worn, the critics were ecstatic. The “iron tyrant,” Tsar Nicholas
I (1825–1855), was reported to be in tears. Nicholas appointed
Rubini “imperial director of singing” and asked him to organize
a first-rate Italian opera company for the following season, 1843
to 1844. This was the environment where the twenty-two-year-
old Pauline Viardot-Garcia found herself as prima donna.
Pauline Viardot-Garcia’s debut was in Il barbiere on No-
vember 3, 1843. She was joined by Rubini and Tamburini in
the three-thousand-seat Bol’shoy Theater (not to be confused
with Moscow’s Bol’shoy). Pauline had a triumph that could
only be compared with those that her sister had experienced
in Italy. Critics were amazed by her voice and captivated by
her conception of the character, which was faithful to both
Beaumarchais and Rossini. She was considered to be a greater
artist than Sontag, Catalani, or Pasta. Heady fare for a girl of
twenty-two! On November 27, she sang “The Nightingale,” a
popular romance by Alyabyev in perfect Russian in the lesson
scene. Pauline’s Russian language coach was Ivan Sergeyevich
Turgenev (1818–1883), who would play a large part in Pau-
line’s life. The tsar himself applauded “like a madman.” From
that moment on, Pauline Viardot-Garcia was the greatest star
on the Russian stage.
The next opera on Viardot’s schedule was Otello, and the
reception was even more enthusiastic:
Again her capacity for understanding the literary text as well
as the music impressed the critics, who found Rubini wanting
in this respect. “Madame Viardot-Garcia is both Shakespeare’s
and Rossini’s Desdemona, whereas Rubini is only Rossini’s
Othello.”12
Pauline Viardot seemed to sense the inexorable movement
of the composers’ choice for the protagonists in opera away
from the alto voice to the high soprano. Her way of combating
this trend was to sing both categories: Semiramide and Lucia
di Lammermoor were her next roles, the former judged to be
the outstanding hit of the season. Pauline received excellent
notices and the Russian public was thoroughly captivated by
the Romantic movement. A new industry was founded—the
raising of hothouse flowers for bouquets that rained down
upon St. Petersburg’s new darling. However, the company was
not able to adequately cast all the roles in Don Giovanni, and
Mozart’s masterpiece was the only work that was unappreci-
ated. At the end of the season, it was announced that Rubini
would bring the opera company back to St. Petersburg for the
1844–1845 season, and the tickets immediately sold out. As
Pauline left for Vienna, the news of her triumphs in St. Peters-
burg preceded her and she was recognized as the latest heir of
the Garcia legacy.
While Pauline was in Vienna, Louis traveled back to France,
where he purchased a magnificent old house in Rozay-en-Brie,
not far from Paris. In the three months she had off before the
118 Chapter 15
season began in St. Petersburg, Pauline busied herself setting
up the household at Courtavenel, as the new house was called.
The Viardots were reproached by George Sand for not visiting
her at Nohant and for being “too Russified.”
The stunning success of the previous season in St. Peters-
burg had resulted in the Italian company being expanded with
two sections—one for St. Petersburg, the other for Moscow.
There were ultimately to be seventy-six performances, the
auditorium of the theater was enlarged, and ticket prices were
increased. There were new additions to the company, notably
Marietta Alboni and Jeanne Castellan (1819–d. after 1858),
a notable French soprano. On October 21, 1844, Viardot-
Garcia’s season opened with La sonnambula. When she ap-
peared, the applause lasted so long that she was reduced to
tears and had to collect herself before she could begin to sing.
Despite Pauline being idolized, the taste of the Russian public
had begun to change. Her performance as Desdemona was
considered great but the opera was deemed heavy and old-
fashioned. There was another development: Castellan was not
only a very good singer, but was considered to be beautiful, as
well. As is often the case with opera fans, the public began to
divide into two factions—the Viardotists and the Castellanists.
The chief of the Viardotists was Turgenev, who, smitten with
Pauline from the very first, loudly proclaimed his love for her
to all who would listen. Pauline was probably embarrassed by
Turgenev’s adoration, but she nevertheless continued her Rus-
sian lessons with him, as Louis was friendly with the Russian
writer and shared a number of interests with him. After perfor-
mances of Il barbiere and La Cenerentola, Viardot-Garcia again
engaged her nemesis, Norma. Her performance of November
30 was considered a qualified success.
“Viardot-Garcia is the most exquisite singer,” wrote a musical
journal of repute, “strictly in the demi-caractère type of music,
in opera buffa and semi-seria, but for opera seria her chest is too
weak—this was proved by the part of Norma. Consequently
she can probably be prima donna assoluta only in Petersburg.”
This prophecy proved to be devastatingly accurate. Pauline may
not have admitted to her friends that Norma had not been an
unqualified success, but she was too intelligent not to realize
it herself. Norma continued to terrify, torment, tantalize, and
fascinate her literally to her dying day.13
Before the beginning of Lent, an opera called Bianca e Gualt-
iero composed by A. L’vov [1798–1870] was performed. Even
with Viardot, Rubini, and Tamburini singing, it was un succès
d’estime, so to speak.14
As the season came to a close, Rubini retired but Tamburini
and Viardot-Garcia agreed to return for the 1845–1846 sea-
son.
Pauline was presented with a golden flower holder bearing the
signatures of the eighty-six subscribers on the handle, inscribed:
“St. Petersburg, homage, admiration and recognition offered to
Mme. Viardot-Garcia, on February 25th, 1845.” The names
of the dozen roles she had sung in Russia were listed: Rosina,
Desdemona, Amina, Romeo, Lucia, Zerlina, Tancredi, Adina,
Norma, Cenerentola, Bianca and Norina.15
The Viardots chose to remain in St. Petersburg during the
Lenten season. Like London, there were concerts almost every
day. One of the most important events for Russian music
was that Viardot, Rubini, and Tamburini performed the trio
from Glinka’s Life for the Tsar, which was the first time that
European journals reported on Russian music in the West.
Viardot-Garcia later did much to advance the cause of Rus-
sian composers. At the end of Lent, the Viardots traveled to
Moscow for more concerts. The reception for Pauline was even
more enthusiastic than in St. Petersburg. At one concert she
had to repeat every song on the program and was given thirty
curtain calls. By chance, Turgenev was also in Moscow, and he
showed them around the city and even began to plan to follow
the Viardots home. He was treated like a member of the fam-
ily, and although his love for Pauline was never in question,
her attitude toward him is a matter of some controversy. Al-
though Pauline Viardot-Garcia loved her husband, Turgenev,
her children, her mother, and George Sand, nothing was as
important to her as her music. Those who wrote about her
being a careerist missed the point. Artists like Viardot do not
care as much about their careers in the same sense that movie
stars care about theirs. In a letter to Louis written in 1857,
Pauline declared:
There is nothing more interesting, nothing more moving than
to feel that you have an entire audience in the hollow of your
hand, laughing when you laugh, weeping when you sob, and
shaking with anger. Believe me when I say that if one feels so
happy at these moments, it is not simply that one’s vanity is
pleased, or that one experiences a sense of mastery over the au-
dience, still less that that one is simply in accord with them; no,
it is rather that the power of creation, kinetic strength, is being
openly revealed in the performer.16
Nor was it a love of money:
now success and property ownership made it difficult for her to
focus on her art for art’s sake, and she cried: “Oh give me back
my songs, my sleep. Take back your hundred crowns.”17
After a rest at Courtavenel, Pauline received a letter on
July 1, 1845, from Meyerbeer inviting her to take part in a
ceremony in Bonn for a monument unveiling to Beethoven
with an accompanying festival. The project had been proposed
by Franz Liszt, who contributed a great deal of money toward
it. Nobility, both hereditary and artistic, attended, including
Queen Victoria. On August 11, a small concert under Meyer-
beer’s direction was given for all the dignitaries. Both Pauline
and Jenny Lind (1820–1887), her brother’s prize pupil, sang.
On August 13, Pauline sang the great scene from Orfeo and
she and Jenny Lind sang the duet from Les Huguenots with
Meyerbeer as the accompanist. At the end of the festival, the
Viardots returned to Courtavenel, where they were joined by
Turgenev at the end of August.
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 119
The 1845–1846 St. Petersburg season took place in a
radically changed atmosphere. The public, ever fickle, began to
lose interest in Italian opera. Rubini was gone and the previous
season had been overextended in the number of performances
and ticket prices. Rossini was considered by some of the dilet-
tanti as old hat, and some felt that Donizetti, so popular a few
years before, had “written himself out.” I Lombardi by Verdi
was greeted by howls of outrage.
After an engagement in Berlin, Viardot-Garcia opened
her season in October to a warm welcome. She sang her first
Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, which, having premiered
in 1843, was dans l’air du temps, but it failed to draw. There
were further travails. Louis and Pauline had taken Louise with
them and the child had developed whooping cough, and, more
seriously, Louis came down with cholera. Pauline continued
to sing L’elisir d’amore, Il barbiere, and finally La sonnambula,
which was the last triumph she would enjoy in St. Petersburg
for a long while. She contracted whooping cough from Louise
and was forced to cancel the rest of the season. The Viardots
left St. Petersburg on February 24, 1846, and passed through
Berlin on the way home.
During the summer, Turgenev wrote often, urging Pauline
to return to St. Petersburg for the fourth time. However, after
the taxing season in Russia, Pauline knew that she had to
recover her health before making any decisions about further
engagements. She finally decided on Berlin, where Meyerbeer
was anxious to work with her. Thus, she avoided the climate
in Russia, which most of the Italian singers found distressing,
and Turgenev’s presence, which was often disturbing to her.
Pauline’s debut on October 5, 1846, at the Königstadt The-
ater was as Amina in La sonnambula. In her letters, she claimed
that her success had been great, but German audiences were
more reserved than her Russian admirers. On October 13, she
sang a duet concert with her sister’s old rival, Henriette Sontag
(now Countess Rossi) at the Italian Embassy. She then sang
her first Berlin Norma on November 2. The Allgemeine Musi-
kalische Zeitung published a long article about the performance
that called Pauline Viardot-Garcia “an extraordinary singer,
better, a musical genius.”
The biggest sensation made was the Norma, and rightly so, for
the brilliant woman developed in this well-known opera an
originality of conception of the character, a wealth of beauti-
ful and dramatic true intentions, a mastery, power, energy and
stamina in singing that surpasses anything seen or heard until
now from the time of the Norma of Fraul. Hähnel (who in
Könnigstadt, about 12 years ago, was the first Norma for Ber-
lin), until Jenny Lind.
The article goes on to compare Pauline’s performance to that
of Jenny Lind who, it was said, “was an insulted civilized
woman, who in her soul was an injured Christian nun,” while
Viardot was a “priestess of a barbarous uncivilized people, a
Gallic woman.”18
Pauline had to call upon her natural aptitude for languages
in Berlin because the operas at the Königstadt Theater were in
Italian, while those at the Deutsche Theater were in German.
Additional operas at the Königstadt Theater were Norina in
Don Pasquale on the November 18, Don Giovanni, L’elisir
d’amore, and Otello. At the Deutsche Theater she also sang
Otello and Il barbiere in German. There she partnered with
the Bohemian proto-Heldentenor, Joseph Alois Tichatschek
(1807–1886). Tichatschek was the first Rienzi, the first
Tannhäuser, and the best of the early Lohengrins.
The Berlin engagement from 1846 to 1847 was an impor-
tant turning point for Viardot because working with Mey-
erbeer showed her a path to the future. Her repertoire also
consisted of new dramatic parts that were more theatrical and,
for the most part, less florid. Though these roles were mostly
written for heroic sopranos, Pauline sang Leonore in Fidelio,
Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Rachel in La Juive of Halévy,
Valentine in Les Huguenots, and Alice in Robert le diable by
Meyerbeer. In Robert, Viardot performed the legendary feat of
singing two roles in the same opera. Tuezek, who was singing
Isabella, became ill. The management was frantic and Pauline
took over her part. Since the characters are never on stage at
the same time, she was able to change costumes and assume
both characters. The public loved it and wanted her to repeat
her tour de force, but Viardot refused, not wishing to offend
the other singer.
The new repertoire was not appreciated by everyone. Dela-
croix wrote a letter to George Sand on November 20, 1847:
Last night I saw the opera of the famous Verdi, (he referred to
the first performance of Jerusalem [I Lombardi] at the Opéra on
the 19th) about whom that young German musician I met at
your house was so enthusiastic; Verdi or Merdi is the fashion
of today; it’s merely a rehash of Rossini’s leavings, without the
ideas; nothing but noise! They’ll ask your opinion, so you’ll
have to go see it, but I won’t go with you, I assure you. I keep
thinking about your poor Madame Viardot whose inevitable
fate, if she wants to earn a living, is to sing the music of these
scoundrels for evermore.19
George Ferris recapped Pauline’s Berlin season:
Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, Dresden, Frankfort, Leipsic, and
other German cities were the scenes of a series of triumphs,
and everywhere there was but one voice as to her greatness as
an artist, an excellence not only great, but unique of its kind.
Her repertoire at this time consisted of Desdemona, Cenerentola,
Rosina, Camilla (in “Orazi”), Arsace, Norma, Ninetta, Amina,
Romeo [in Bellini’s I Capuletti], Lucia, Maria di Rohan, Leonora
(“La Favorita”), Zerlina, Donna Anna, Iphigénie (Gluck), the
Rachel of Halévy, and the Alice and Valentine of Meyerbeer.20
Ferris failed to mention the Leonore in Fidelio. Also, Meyer-
beer, who was famous for his powers of persuasion, talked a re-
luctant Pauline into singing Vielka in Ein Feldlager in Schliesen,
which had been written for Jenny Lind.
While Viardot was in Berlin, she was approached by her old
friend Clara Schumann. Clara asked her to appear in Robert’s
Das Paradies und die Peri. Pauline, overburdened by learning
120 Chapter 15
new parts, reluctantly refused. From then on, Clara, who de-
spised Meyerbeer, referred to Pauline with a hint of bitterness.
The summer of 1847 was eventful. Pauline was grieved by
the breakup of Chopin and George Sand. She was friendly with
both of them and tried to remain neutral, despite pressure from
people who had axes to grind on both sides. Turgenev stayed
with the Viardots at Courtavenel and did some of his best writ-
ing there. The exact nature of the ménage à trois of Louis, Pau-
line, and Turgenev is not known. Louis and Turgenev had many
interests in common and the older man may have resigned
himself to the status quo. Turgenev, for his part, loved Pauline
his whole life and did not want to cause her unhappiness, so
whatever love relationship there was between them was discreet.
In the fall of 1847, Pauline again embarked on a tour of
Germany and visited Dresden, Hamburg, and Berlin. Un-
daunted by their experience in St. Petersburg, the Viardots
also brought Louise along. In Berlin, she saw a great deal of
Meyerbeer, who was the Generalmusikdirector there. Meyerbeer
had not forgotten his promise to compose a new opera for her
at the Paris Opéra. In the beginning of 1848, he was in Paris
and nearing completion of the work that included the role
that was to become her signature, Fidès in Le prophète. After
protracted negotiations, she was engaged to premiere the work
in September 1848. While Meyerbeer was in Paris, the confla-
gration called the Revolution of 1848 erupted.
Fears haunting the established classes of Europe for thirty years
came true in 1848. Remembered horrors appeared again, as in
a recurring dream, in much the same sequence as after 1789
only at a much faster rate of speed. Revolutionaries milled in
the streets, kings fled, republics were declared, and within four
years there was another Napoleon. Soon thereafter there was a
series of wars.21
In Paris, Louis-Philippe (1773–1850) abdicated and fled
to England. A republic was declared and a period of turmoil
ensued. Against this backdrop of unrest, Pauline traveled from
Germany to Paris, arriving in March. She and Meyerbeer
worked intensely together on her role of Fidès, altering parts
of it to fit her voice like a glove. Louis’s political dreams had
seemed to come true. He contemplated becoming a member
of the National Assembly, while Pauline composed a cantata,
La jeune république, which was sung by tenor Gustave Roger
(1815–1879) and sixty girls from the Conservatoire on April
6. Roger, who created the title role in La damnation de Faust
(1846) of Berlioz, was to be the first Jean de Leyde in Le
prophète opposite the Fidès of Viardot-Garcia.
The 1848 opera season in London, insulated from the con-
vulsions in Europe, promised to be brilliant. There were two
rival opera companies again, one at Covent Garden and the
other at Her Majesty’s. Pauline was engaged at Covent Garden,
where she had to contend with Grisi and Persiani once again.
The main attraction at Her Majesty’s was her brother’s star
pupil, Jenny Lind. Viardot-Garcia’s work was cut out for her.
She chose to sing La sonnambula on May 9, 1848, a rather
injudicious choice, since Grisi had sung the piece with great
success a few days earlier. Jenny Lind was also judged to be an
outstanding Amina. Pauline was to be teamed up with Mario,
but Grisi was up to mischief, and Mario became suddenly
“indisposed.” Pauline had to make do with a substitute tenor, a
certain Señor Puig (whose stage name was Signor Flavio), who
had to go on without a rehearsal. She reported that he sang
quite well but his acting was “stiff.” Pauline was very nervous
and the audience was unresponsive until she sang “Ah! Non gi-
unge,” whereupon she received an encore and enthusiastic ap-
plause. There were further complications: Pauline’s repertoire
for the season was to consist of Les Huguenots, Fidelio, Romeo
in I Capuletti e i Montecchi, and Iphigénie en Tauride. All were
delayed because of missing music, translations not prepared
on time, and so forth. Mario did sing the second Sonnambula,
and the Illustrated London News said that there was a huge
difference between this performance and the preceding one.
In her opening cavatina, she was quite another being, taking the
most difficult divisions with a volume of voice and a certainty
that drew forth immense applause. In the finale of the bedroom
scene she exhibited all the intensity of Malibran without the
exaggeration, encouraging Mario to sing with extraordinary
fervor: the effect was electric and there were loud cheers and
calling for the singers at the end of the act. Mme. Viardot,
by this second performance of Amina, has proved that her
dramatic genius is of the highest order, and that she possesses
originality of musical conception to a remarkable degree. Her
fiorature are thoroughly artistic, and entirely her own. In respect
to the quality of her organ, it is beautiful in the medium notes
and soul stirring in the lower tones, but in the upper octave,
there is a want of timbre, as if this portion of the register had
been fatigued by over-exertion or by forcing them in her earlier
studies.22
The reviewer was aware of Pauline’s transition to the head
voice for her upper notes, as the Garcia training would dic-
tate, but he probably did not understand that there would be
fewer overtones in the higher register. Zerlina in Don Giovanni
and Romeo in I Capuletti e i Montecchi passed without much
notice but the London premiere of Les Huguenots was an im-
mense success for Pauline in the role of Valentine and it caught
the Italian cabal, who had hitherto avoided Meyerbeer’s works,
by surprise. The opera was attended by Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert and performed in Italian by Viardot and Mario
“on command.” Chorley wrote that Les Huguenots established
Pauline Viardot as “different from, and superior to, any other
prima donna within the compass of these [his] recollections.”
The effect which was to be produced in it seemed to strike
conviction that the opera was not so much “foolishness” into
Madame Grisi, who subsequently, in consequence of Madame
Viardot’s deferred arrival, appropriated the part, and, with it,
took as tradition some of her predecessor’s inventions—espe-
cially those of listening terror, in the striking conspiracy scene.23
Grisi was not through. Pauline’s benefit was scheduled for
August 3. The morning of the performance, Mario announced
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 121
that he was ill and could not appear. Grisi graciously offered
to sing Norma for Pauline’s benefit if she wished. Pauline was
ready this time and retorted that if anyone sang Norma, it
would be she. Viardot also noted that Gustave Roger was in
town and perhaps could be persuaded to take Mario’s part of
Raoul in Les Huguenots. Roger readily agreed, but since he only
knew the part in French, he sang in the original language while
the rest of the cast sang in Italian. Pauline, in another feat of
Garcia derring-do, learned as much of her part as she could in
French while she was offstage and was able to join Roger in his
own language as the evening wore on. The audience was very
excited by this feat and gave the artists a great ovation. Grisi’s
intrigues were thwarted, and from then on Pauline was given
the respect she deserved.
During the 1848 season, both Berlioz and Chopin were in
London, perhaps avoiding the turmoil in Europe. Besides the
opera season, there was a busy concert schedule. On May 12
and again at Chopin’s own concert in July, Viardot sang her
own transcriptions of some of Chopin’s mazurkas, which were
enthusiastically approved of by the composer. Then, on June
29, she premiered an arrangement for voice and orchestra of
Berlioz’s La captive. Berlioz became one of her most fervent
admirers and declared that “she was one of the greatest singers
of all time.”24
After the London season, the Viardots remained in England
for the music festivals in Norwich, Birmingham, and a reen-
gagement for the Three Choirs Festival of Herford, Gloucester,
and Worcester. Besides her familiar interpretations of operatic
excerpts, Pauline exhibited her mastery of the styles of Haydn
in The Creation, Handel’s Jeptha, and a scene from Carl Maria
von Weber’s (1786–1826) Der Freischütz sung in German.
After the British festivals, the Viardots returned to Paris
and the new townhouse that Louis had had built on the Rue
de Donai. Pauline had been engaged to sing Valentine in La
Huguenots at the Théâtre de la Nation, as the Paris Opéra was
called post-revolution. Pauline’s major concern in the fall of
1848 was the preparation of the role of Fidès with Meyerbeer.
His grand operas were immensely popular with the French
public, but he had not composed one for twelve years since
Les Huguenots in 1836. Viardot and Meyerbeer needed each
other; she to finally find her rightful place as the star of the
Opéra, and he to retain his popularity in the face of the chal-
lenge from the growing reputation of Giuseppe Verdi, whose
Jérusalem (I Lombardi) premiered there in 1847. Verdi was an
admirer of Meyerbeer and credited him as being a model for
his works. Meyerbeer, in turn, was influenced by the mature
Rossini’s fluent vocal writing, but his four great operas, Robert
le diable, Les Huguenots, Le prophète, and L’Africaine were also
distinctly German in their meticulous preparation, philosophi-
cal underpinnings, and orchestral scoring. It is easy to see how
Pauline Viardot, with her high-minded dedication and intel-
lectual achievements, not to mention her great musical and
vocal ability, would be irresistible to the composer.
Giacomo Meyerbeer, born Jakob Liebmann Beer into an ex-
tremely wealthy family, was a talented composer whose popular-
ity lasted into the twentieth century, as long as there were singers
able to interpret his difficult music. Les Huguenots, for example,
requires seven virtuoso singers, and was called the “Night of the
Seven Stars.”25 In addition, most of his grand operas required
the vast resources of a subsidized opera house to mount these
gargantuan works. In Le prophète, the sensational effect of the
rising sun over the battlefield was staged by the first use of elec-
trical arc lamps at the Paris Opéra; the ballet was equipped with
a new invention—roller skates to simulate ice skating; and the
final scene required the catastrophic demolition of a palace from
the explosion of a powder magazine. The anti-Semitic attacks by
Schumann, Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), and especially Wag-
ner, who bit the hand that fed him, and the impact of the scenic
effects and other novelties in his operas have done much to dim
the luster of Meyerbeer’s career. Some pundits have observed
that the music was the least important element in Meyerbeer’s
operas. Berlioz, a friend of Meyerbeer, famously said:
Meyerbeer has not merely the luck to have talent, but in a very
high degree the talent to have luck.26
However, modern research has given Meyerbeer new status
as one of the greatest and most influential composers of
nineteenth-century opera.
In his youth, Meyerbeer was a child prodigy as a pianist
who studied with Muzio Clementi (1752–1832) and made
his public debut at the age of eleven playing Mozart’s D mi-
nor Piano Concerto, K. 466. He counted among his friends
Carl Maria von Weber and Ignaz Moscheles, with whom he
enjoyed performing extemporized piano duets. Meyerbeer
studied composition with the Abbé Georg Vogler (1749–
1814) and Mendelssohn’s teacher, Carl Friedrich Zelter
(1758–1832). Meyerbeer had already composed several works
but still considered himself to be a virtuoso pianist until he
met Antonio Salieri, who encouraged him to travel to Italy to
study writing for the voice. Europe was opera-mad and even
Beethoven was intimidated by the mania for Rossini’s music.
Meyerbeer understood that in order to be “on the map” as
a composer, he had to write successful operas. He moved
to Paris in 1815 and then to Italy the following year. There
he adopted the first name “Giacomo” in place of Jakob. We
have previously mentioned some of Meyerbeer’s Italian op-
eras—Semiramide riconosciuta and Emma di Resburgo of 1819,
Margherita d’Anjou (1820), and L’esule di Granata (1822). His
greatest Italian success was Il crociato in Egitto, composed for
La Fenice in Venice in 1824, after which Rossini invited him
to the Théâtre Italien in Paris in 1825. Il crociato provided
Meyerbeer with critical recognition but Robert le diable, in
1831, really began his career as the most-performed operatic
composer of the nineteenth century.
Meyerbeer had a contradictory and complicated personal-
ity. He was one of the first artists who understood the value of
public relations and courted favor with the powerful, yet he was
personally reserved and suspicious. He burned all letters that he
received, was morbidly afraid of being buried alive, and had a
horror of cats. He was outwardly affable but privately withdrawn
122 Chapter 15
and irritable. Meyerbeer invented the press conference to inform
the public about the latest news in his compositional world. He
was meticulous in his casting choices, and there was consider-
able delay in mounting Le prophète. The opera was based on a li-
bretto by Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), and although Meyerbeer
had been working on it since 1838, the first draft was not ready
until 1841. Meyerbeer always had Viardot-Garcia in mind for
the pivotal role of Fidès, but Leon Pillet, who was the director
of the Opéra from 1840, insisted on casting his mistress, Rosine
Stoltz, in the part. Meyerbeer deposited the score with a Parisian
lawyer and refused to consider a production until his specifica-
tions were met. He was the only composer of his time who had
the resources to control his destiny in this way.
That was not all. Chorley tells us that, originally, Meyer-
beer had conceived the eponymous part of John of Leyden
for Adolphe Nourrit, “the most intellectually gifted of tenors
on record,”27 who had committed suicide in 1839. Then he
considered Gilbert-Louis Duprez, who had become famous for
the so-called ut de poitrine in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell in 1837.
By 1848, because of this pernicious technique, Duprez’s voice
was almost gone, and Meyerbeer chose Gustave Roger instead.
The other two major roles were Jeanne Castellan as Berthe and
Nicholas Prosper Levasseur (1791–1871) as Zacharie. Levas-
seur was an excellent bass who created important roles for Ros-
sini, Gounod, Halévy, and Donizetti, as well as for Meyerbeer.
The preparation for Le prophète was long and arduous. The
rehearsals, which began on October 1, 1848, saw Meyerbeer
continually altering the score, much like the tryout period for a
Broadway musical, as he struggled to reconcile Scribe’s artistic
aims with his own while at the same time trying to please the
singers. For example, Castellan wanted an introductory cava-
tina, which Meyerbeer considered unnecessary, but he none-
theless composed two. Castellan predictably chose the more
florid version. Roger’s voice was more lyric than Duprez’s and
Meyerbeer had to trim the part of Jean to suit him. In addi-
tion, Roger’s wife insisted that the composer cut Roger’s third-
act aria so as not to tire her husband too much. Meyerbeer did
so, even though both he and Roger liked the aria very much.
In such an atmosphere, Pauline’s advice and musical insights
were beneficial to the composer. Le prophète is not a conven-
tional love story and the part of Berthe is not the center of inter-
est. It is, rather, the story of an older woman’s love for her son
whom she is forced to renounce in order to save him. Only the
true contralto voice can do justice to this part and Pauline’s sear-
ing portrayal is still being spoken of today. The aria “Ah! Mon
fils” takes advantage of the strong chest and middle registers that
Pauline obviously had, but it also reaches high up into the head
register as well. Fidès is the forerunner of dramatic alto roles
like Azucena and Ulrica, even Ortrud and Kundry, which are
not romantic leads but important to the drama and the musical
structure of the opera. Unquestionably Verdi was influenced by
Le prophète when composing Il trovatore in 1853.
In Verdi’s mind Azucena was to be the main role of the drama:
he initially wanted to title his opera La zingara (“The Gypsy”)
or La vendetta (“The Revenge”). There is a first draft of the plot
by Verdi, written before Cammarano had been chosen as the
librettist. Azucena is the main character, and her revenge is the
heart of the plot.28
After many postponements, the premiere of Le prophète
took place on April 16, 1849. As late as April 8, Meyerbeer
was still making revisions to the score. Because of the novelty
of the libretto and the music, opinion was divided about the
opera. Chopin and Delacroix, both friends of Pauline’s, hated
it, but one point was agreed upon by all: it was a personal tri-
umph for Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Berlioz, who could be severe
toward mediocrity, reviewed the opera in the Journal des Débats
on April 20, 1849:
The success of Roger and Madame Viardot was immense. The
latter, in the part of Fidès, displayed a dramatic talent which no
one, in France, believed her to possess to such a high degree. All
her poses, her gestures, her expressions, even her costume, are
studied with profound art. As to the perfection of her singing,
the extreme skill of her vocalization, her musical assurance—
those are things known and appreciated by everyone, even in
Paris. Madame Viardot is one of the greatest artists who come to
mind in the past and present history of music. To be convinced
of this, it is enough to hear her sing her first aria, “O mon fils,
sois béni.”29
London was eager for its own premiere of Le prophète but both
theaters, Covent Garden and Her Majesty’s, were in financial and
artistic disarray. Meyerbeer felt that the London public would
not tolerate a four-hour performance and gave the Covent Gar-
den conductor, Michael Costa, carte blanche to make cuts. The
role of Berthe was taken over by Catherine Hayes (1825–1861),
an Irish soprano who had sung at La Scala and the opera was
translated into Italian. Mario, who was a modern tenor in the
sense that he relied much more on his natural talent than he did
on skill as either a vocalist or musician, had not learned his part
adequately and broke down musically several times. Nevertheless,
on July 24, 1849, Pauline Viardot-Garcia swept away all previous
reservations about her work with her portrayal of Fidès. Wilhem
Kuhe (1823–1912), the Bohemian-born British musician and
administrator, wrote that:
Viardot-Garcia invested the part she created with a living inter-
est, which made it quite as attractive as that of the ordinary
youthful heroine. How beautifully she sang her two arias Ah,
Mon Fils and Pieta, pieta and how transcendentally she acted
in the Coronation scene; none who heard and saw her will ever
forget.30
Chorley, who was an early supporter of Pauline but who was
never blind to her faults, devoted an entire chapter in his book
Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections to her.
Her other great success, then in England, was in M. Meyerbeer’s
Prophète—an opera so thoroughly identified with herself and so
animated by her probable performance of a character (however
improbable) high-toned and new in an opera, that it has lived
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 123
a languishing life here since she has been withdrawn from it,
as compared with the former work. The intrinsic merits of this
opera will be discussed elsewhere; but here it must be repeated
that our artist could set on the scene a homely burgher woman,
with only maternal love and devotion to give her interest, and
could so harmonize the improbabilities of a violent and gloomy
story, and of music much too forced, as to make the world, for
a while, accept it for its composer’s masterpiece. When the story
of M. Meyerbeer’s operas is finally written it may prove that he
was as much indebted to Madame Viardot for suggestion in Le
prophète as he was to Nourrit in Les Huguenots.31
After an engagement in Liverpool where she appeared in
Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the Viardots returned to Paris where,
unbeknown to Pauline, her dear friend Chopin had died on
October 17, 1849. On October 30, Pauline Viardot sang the
alto part in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem dedicated to
Chopin. Luigi Lablache, who had sung the “Tuba Mirum” at
Beethoven’s funeral, had the bass part.
Later in the fall, the Viardots received a visit from a young
man who was scheduled for a thirty-minute interview. The visit
lasted for more than two hours. They had met briefly, nine years
previously, in Rome. The young man, Charles Gounod, im-
pressed Pauline with his charm, musicality, and good looks. He
also had an air of an ascetic about him, as he had contemplated
the priesthood and had a lifelong interest in Catholic theological
matters. Like Turgenev, he also had a very close relationship with
his mother, a piano teacher, who accompanied the thirty year
old everywhere. Gounod had written nothing for the stage, he
said, because he did not know a competent librettist, so Pauline
gave him an introduction to Emile Augier (1820–1889). She
agreed to sing in Gounod’s opera and on the basis of her fame in
Le prophète, Nestor Roqueplan (1809–1870), the director of the
Opéra, agreed to stage the work by the unknown composer. The
result was Gounod’s first opera, Sapho.
Pauline uncharacteristically seemed to completely suspend
judgment with regard to Gounod. She wrote to George Sand:
“Really, for Art, what a consolation it is to be face to face with
a great musical genius, without always having to give oneself a
crick in the neck from looking backwards into the past,” she
told her. Apart from his musical genius, Pauline assured George
that Gounod was a man of distinction, “a noble nature, lofty
and simple.” She spent her time making music with him “from
morning to evening, and dreaming about it from evening to
morning.” She even went so far as to tell George that she con-
sidered Gounod to be in “the same elevated sphere” as Mozart.32
In the spring of 1850, Pauline left for Germany, where she
was to sing several performances of Le prophète. Soon the Vi-
ardots received the news that Gounod’s brother, Urbain, had
died. Gounod’s mother was prostrate with grief, and Charles
had to suspend work on Sapho to attend to his family’s af-
fairs. The kindly Louis discreetly offered the young composer
money, if he needed it. Then the Viardots invited Gounod and
his mother to Courtavenel so Charles could finish Sapho in
peace. The Gounods gratefully accepted.
The peculiar organization of the occupants of Courtavenel
in 1850 has been described in great detail elsewhere.33 Besides
Louis and Pauline Viardot, Gounod and his mother, there was
also Pauline’s daughter Louise, Louis’s sister Berthe, Pauline’s
mother Joaquina, her uncle Paolo, and Ivan Turgenev. Both
Turgenev and Gounod adored Pauline, and she began to spend
more time with the latter discussing Sapho. The men in this
situation got on well together, but Turgenev returned to Russia
in June while the Viardots were in London. Then, in Novem-
ber, Turgenev wrote that he had an illegitimate daughter the
same age as Louise who was suffering bullying and abuse from
servants, other children, and even from Turgenev’s mother,
who had died and left the author a substantial fortune. Pauline
offered to raise the child, Pelageya, along with her own daugh-
ter. The young girl was nicknamed Paulinette and proved to
be as difficult as Louise, who resented her and her mother’s
relationship with Turgenev.
The 1850 season at Covent Garden featured Halévy’s La
Juive with Viardot as Rachel. The production was sumptuous
and money was no object. Pauline had already appeared as
Rachel numerous times singing the role in French and Ger-
man. For the Italian company in London, she learned the part
in Italian. Chorley felt that the music, written for soprano
Cornélie Falcon, was beyond the natural range of Pauline’s
voice but that she acted and sang it “sublimely.” Chorley did
not mention that Grisi tried yet a third time to sabotage Pau-
line’s premiere:
In 1850, when La Juive was revived for Viardot, with Mario as
the Eléazar, the latter became indisposed a few hours before the
premiere. This time Viardot was prepared. She had a substitute,
a Belgian tenor named Enrico Maralti (Merelt) ready and wait-
ing, and the performance went on. It was, of course, Maralti’s
last performance in the part.34
The original Eléazar was Adolphe Nourrit, who was re-
nowned for his artistic integrity, attention to detail, and intel-
ligence. His makeup for the aged Eléazar was correct in every
detail. Mario, on the other hand, who was famous for his
good looks, refused to alter his appearance and appeared to be
as young as his daughter.35 During the 1850 London season,
Viardot-Garcia appeared in two other roles that couldn’t be
more different from Rachel—Zerlina in Don Giovanni and
Adina in L’elisir d’amore. Others in the cast were Mario, Tam-
burini as Belcore, and Georgio Ronconi (1810–1890) as Dr.
Dulcamara.
A press notice remarked: “L’Elisir was revived, Mme. Viardot
making her first Covent Garden appearance as Adina. It was
one of the great hits of the season. Her Adina was a piece of
genuine, refined comedy and her vocalization was distinguished
by the most brilliant cadenzas. In Prendi per me she was imme-
diately applauded, as also in the two duets.36
The rehearsals for Sapho commenced at the Opéra in the
beginning of February 1851. Pauline had to assume command
of the proceedings because of Gounod’s inexperience and the
124 Chapter 15
incompetence of others in the cast. Gounod was unused to the
chaos of an operatic premiere and Pauline had to soothe him
like a child, though he was three years older than she. Because
of the closeness of their relationship, there were (and still are)
rumors that they were lovers. Whatever the case, the opera
opened on April 16, 1851, to mixed reviews. The opera was
uneven in quality, had no ballet, and was thought by some to
be “politically dangerous and subversive.”37 The unkindest cut
of all came from Léon Escudier:
“Madame Viardot no longer sings,” wrote Escudier in La France
Musicale on 20th April. “Every note that comes from her intel-
ligent voice is an ear-splitting cry. This singer, once so admired,
is more or less dead to art.”38
Sapho was withdrawn after seven performances and Pauline
Viardot did not sing in all of them. During such a period of
unrest, there is evidence that perhaps Pauline, who was only
thirty, was criticized more for her husband’s political views
than she was for her singing.
The London season opened on July 5, 1851, with Le
prophète. Pauline and Mario were generally praised. On July
11, Viardot appeared as Pappagena in The Magic Flute while
Grisi sang Pamina. On August 2, Pauline reprised Adina, one
of her most popular parts in London. Gounod had accom-
panied the Viardots to London, where Sapho premiered on
August 9, 1851. The general consensus of the critics was that
the work was pretentious and boring. Pauline, as usual, was
praised for her individual effort. She had introduced some of
Gounod’s sacred works in concerts around London before the
premiere of Sapho and introduced him to influential friends.
Gounod, beginning to feel that he no longer needed her to ad-
vance his career, turned on her like a viper. He mostly blamed
her for choosing Augier as librettist for Sapho because the poet
took a lot of the criticism relating to the opera. But he also
wrote to a friend that Pauline’s voice was past its prime and
that she sang out of tune all the time.
While in London, Pauline learned from a musical journal
that her contract at the Paris Opéra had been cancelled. The
official reason was that she needed a rest but the real truth
was that she had been labeled a subversive, a friend of George
Sand, and the wife of Louis Viardot, a dangerous republican.
Gounod decided that his association with the Viardots was
no longer politically advantageous and began to withdraw.
He married the daughter of a professor at the Conservatoire,
Anna Zimmerman. It seems that he was browbeaten into
proposing by his future mother-in-law, a formidable woman,
like his own mother. Pauline was expecting her second child,
Claudie, in May 1852, and Gounod vowed not to get married
until after her baby was born. The Zimmermans had received
an anonymous letter accusing Gounod and Pauline Viardot of
having had an affair. Making last-minute excuses not to attend
several dinners with the Viardots, Gounod and the Zimmer-
mans announced that the marriage would take place without
guests. Pauline had sent a wedding present of a gold bracelet
to Anna Zimmerman, whom she had known since she was a
child. Gounod returned the bracelet, stating that Anna wished
to wear no bracelet other than the one he had given her. For
his ill-mannered behavior, Gounod received the following let-
ter from Louis Viardot:
Sir:
It is no longer for my wife, but for me to write to you today.
Since you have had the weakness, I might say the cowardice,
to make yourself intermediary for, and the accomplice of, an
insult addressed to a woman whom you should at least respect,
you will not be surprised that I should, from henceforth, close
the door of my house to you. Doubtless you will, sir, be a great
musician and will have admirers, but I doubt you will keep
your friends.
Louis V.
For his part, Pierre Zimmerman stated that he had never
believed the rumors about Pauline and Gounod. Turgenev,
Ary Scheffer, the painter who was like a second father to Pau-
line, and George Sand all withdrew their friendships with the
hypocritical composer.
In June, the Viardots received the unwelcome news that
Turgenev had been imprisoned briefly and then was placed
under house arrest at Spasskoye, his family estate. He had an-
gered the tsar with an article he had written eulogizing Nicolai
Gogol (1809–1852), who had been a notorious critic of the
autocratic establishment. Pauline rested for the summer and
then felt well enough to travel to England, where she appeared
in festivals in Norwich, Birmingham, and at the Sacred Har-
monic Society in London. She had always excelled in sacred
music and Chorley had remarked that in that genre “she had
never been surpassed.”39
In January 1853 the Viardots returned to St. Petersburg, the
scene of Pauline’s former triumphs. Her initial role was Rosina
and she was welcomed back by an enthusiastic public who were
relieved that rumors of her vocal decline were greatly exagger-
ated. She performed many of her old roles in works like Otello,
Il barbiere, and La sonnambula, but some were transposed, a
well-worn Garcia solution to the problem of growing older. The
tenor Mario was also engaged for the season and did his last-
minute cancellation act for Il barbiere, but Viardot substituted
La Cenerentola without a rehearsal and scored a brilliant success.
Le prophète was new to Russia and many felt that Fidès was now
more appropriate for Pauline’s age (she was only thirty-two).
In March, Louis came down with the flu and decided to
return home. Pauline traveled to Moscow, where her recep-
tion was even greater that it had been in St. Petersburg. Be-
ing Lent, she only appeared in concert, often accompanying
herself. Her vocal arrangement of one of Chopin’s mazurkas
was especially appreciated. Apparently, Turgenev evaded his
house arrest and visited her for a short time in Moscow,
although nothing is known about the visit. One important
facet of Viardot’s visit to Russia is that her concerts featured
pieces by contemporary Russian composers such as Glinka,
Alexander S. Dargomyzhski (1813–1869), and Anton Ru-
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 125
binstein (1829–1894). She later made them known to the
West, along with Alexander Borodin (1833–1887) and Pyotr
Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893).
On June 13, 1853, Viardot-Garcia was back in London
where she appeared in several concerts with the Philhar-
monic Society. She sang in Handel’s Samson in Liverpool
and then returned home to Paris where her career was sty-
mied through no fault of her own. She was pregnant again
and devoted herself much more to Louis and her family. The
Viardots’ daughter Marianne was born on March 15, 1854.
However, Pauline was sufficiently recovered to take part in
the Covent Garden season from June to August 1854. The
Musical World, in perusing the prospectus for the season
remarked:
Another great name remains to be added—Pauline Viardot
Garcia who has been re-engaged after the absence of two sea-
sons. This distinguished artist is as much a contralto as a soprano,
and as much a mezzo soprano as either. We have therefore, not
classed her among the soprani proper, although she stands next
to Grisi on the list.40
The season was marked by the first of Giulia Grisi’s inter-
minable series of “farewells.” Although the great bass Luigi
Lablache had sung in London repeatedly since 1830, he
finally made his Covent Garden debut on May 9. Pauline
reprised Le prophète in a performance before Queen Victoria
and the king of Portugal. Jean was sung by Enrico Tamberlik
(1820–1889), an Italian dramatic tenor who was to become
an important Verdi interpreter and who was first to interpo-
late the high C in Il trovatore. Tamberlik was the only com-
petitor to Mario. The Musical World welcomed Viardot back
with a long critique:
Madame Viardot’s style and method are models. It is the style
and method of Garcia, of Malibran, Catalani, and Pasta. Her
faults arise from the want of dependence upon her vocal powers.
Not being able to trust to her voice alone for producing effects,
she is sometimes led to sacrifice natural and simple expression
to an excess of elaboration, and a continual endeavor to make
the most out of every bar and phrase. But even this is done with
wonderful skill, and is not always easily detected. As a mere
vocalist, Madame Viardot is one of the greatest we ever heard.
Her manner of enunciating, and her method of producing the
voice might afford a useful lesson to some of her most famous
contemporaries. Moreover—what cannot be said of many sing-
ers—she is a practiced and skilled musician.41
Gnecco’s buffa opera La prova d’un opera seria was given
in July with a strong cast of Viardot, Lablache, and Ronconi.
Lablache caricatured Pauline to the amusement of all. On
the same program, Pauline introduced the rondo finale from
Balfe’s The Maid of Artois, which her sister had created in
1836. On July 15, she sang Desdemona and three days later
sang two acts of Le prophète and La prova d’un opera seria to
cover for another’s indisposition. On August 9, Pauline took
part in a song recital at the Harmonic Union. In September,
she returned to Worcester for the Three Choirs Festival, where
she performed in Elijah and arias from La Sonnambula and La
Cenerentola. Then on September 21, she participated in the
opening performance of St. George’s Hall in Liverpool with
much the same repertoire as in Worcester, plus Louis (Lud-
wig) Spohr’s (1784–1859) Last Judgment. The latter work was
thought too high for Pauline but she was given great credit for
negotiating it.
In January 1855, Pauline Viardot received a visitor at her
home in Paris. It turned out to be a moderately successful
Italian composer named Giuseppe Verdi, whose latest work, Il
trovatore, was creating a sensation at the Théâtre Italien. Verdi
had come to ask Pauline to step into the role of Azucena, a part
that was definitely influenced by Pauline’s portrayal of Fidès in
Le prophète. Il trovatore was having a long run but the Azucena,
Adelaide Borghi-Mamo (1826–1901), described as “one of the
finest lyric tragediennes of the age,”42 had just had a baby, Er-
minia, who would later become a successful soprano. Although
Pauline did not know the work and had never seen the score,
she attended a rehearsal and sang the next performance but not
without extracting a contract of two performances of Rosina
from the management.
Like Gounod before him, Verdi was amazed at Pauline’s aston-
ishing grasp of a new musical idiom and of her ability to com-
mit it to memory almost instantaneously. Of this wonderful feat
the Italian said: “I can never forget it—she’s a woman of great
talent and altogether remarkable.”43
For her trouble, Pauline was immediately criticized:
for declaiming rather than singing, for delivering [her part] with
too much fire, for gesturing too much . . . for being too much
the actress. . . . But, however that might be, she has produced
the most lively impression on the public.44
The Paris critic for The Musical World, who paraphrased a re-
view by P. A. Fiorentino in Le Constitutionnel, was even more
scathing. His vicious review can be summed up in the following
sentence:
There is no use concealing the fact that Mad. Viardot’s perfor-
mance was a failure.45
Louis Viardot wrote a letter to the Musical World in rebuttal
and enclosed the following letter from Verdi:
Sirs—I was not acquainted with the article you mention in the
English journal The Musical World, which I do not find just.
Since Madame Viardot does me the honour to value my opin-
ion of the manner in which she sustained the part of Azucena,
in the Trovatore, I am happy to repeat to her what I had the
pleasure to tell her at her first representation, in the Théâtre-
Italien—which is, that, without considering the veritable tour de
force of appearing, after a single rehearsal, in a part new to her,
and so difficult as that of Azucena, it is impossible to represent
it with more intelligence, truth, and perfection, than she had
done in every detail. Mad. Viardot was, in the part of Azucena,
126 Chapter 15
what she has been and always will be, a great artist, in the full
acceptation of the term. Such is my opinion—an opinion,
moreover, which the public completely shares with me.
Pray accept and present to Madame the expression of my
sentiments les plus distingués.
Paris, 12th March, 1855.46
As a result, Verdi insisted on Pauline’s singing Azucena
in the London premiere of Il trovatore, which took place on
May 10, 1855, before the queen, Napoleon III, and Empress
Eugénie. With the Verdi work, Pauline Viardot-Garcia’s art
anticipated the modern era and her skills showed that a singer
trained in bel canto can deal with the Italian melodramatic
operas, French grand opera, and even some of Wagner’s works.
It should be said that the English critics were divided on the
merits of Il trovatore and some of the old guard considered
Verdi’s music to be offensive to the ears.
Madame Viardot’s Azucena is one of the most remarkable per-
formances of its time. The savage, credulous, restless Spanish
gypsy, strong in her instincts but whose reason amounts to little
beyond a few broken ideas of revenge, is in every word, look,
and gesture. Nor has Covent Garden ever heard such singing
as hers in this music. It lies thoroughly within the compass of
her voice:—the middle portion of which has gained body and
sweetness. Since Madame Pasta and Rubini left the stage, we
have had nothing of higher vocal finish—nothing in dramatic
utterance more true and beautiful than her delivery of the An-
dantino, “Si, la stanchezza” [act 4].47
Pauline appeared in Julius Benedict’s concert with the rest
of the artists of the Royal Italian Opera on June 14. Along
with familiar arias, she sang two “woodland melodies” part
songs, “The Forest Home” and “The Warbler of the Forest”
with her friends, Clara Novello (1818–1908) and Charlotte
Sainton-Dolby (1821–1885). She then sang Rosina on June
23. Le prophète was given for the first time in August with
Viardot and Tamberlik as Jean. The Royal Italian Opera then
embarked on a tour to the Theater Royal in Liverpool. Pauline
sang an act of Otello following a performance of Lucia by oth-
ers, and added Donna Anna to her repertoire. The festival in
Birmingham was next, where Pauline won plaudits for her per-
formance in Elijah. The “great event” in Birmingham, on Au-
gust 29, was the premiere of Sir Michael Costa’s oratorio Eli.
Besides Viardot, the singers were Sims Reeves (1818–1900),
a British tenor known for his fine oratorio singing, Jeanne
Castellan, and Karl Johann Formes (1815–1889), a German
bass. Viardot was singled out for her work—“nothing could
be more artistic and finished.”48
On September 3, 1855, Il trovatore was given its initial
performance in Dublin by the Covent Garden Company with
Viardot-Garcia and Tamberlik. “Certainly the Azucena, as an
‘all round’ performance, has never been equaled; but all the
lyric world with one consent submit to the matchless genius
of Viardot.”49 The next night Pauline offered her Rosina to the
Dublin public. On September 6, her incomparable Fidès in Le
prophète was given there for the first time.
This was, perhaps, the most complete representation which ever
took place in the Theatre Royal, not only with reference to the
artistes engaged, but to the accessories, the mise en scene, &c.,
&c. It required a vocal and dramatic genius, such as Viardot, to
grasp the character of Fides. It cannot give offence to say that all
succeeding attempts have been imitations, and the nearer they
approached the original “creation” the more successful.50
On September 8, Otello with Viardot and Tamberlik was per-
formed. Pauline’s Desdemona “was a study in every particular”
and Tamberlik astounded the public with his famous high
C sharp, which had a “pure metallic ring.”51 On September
10 and 11, Trovatore and Prophète were repeated. The season
closed with a “glorious” performance of Don Giovanni with
Pauline as Donna Anna.
The Viardots returned to Courtavenel, and there Turgenev
joined them. In early November, he took an apartment in Paris
where he settled his daughter and her governess. Pauline was
pregnant again and only sang the occasional concert. On July
20, 1857, the Viardots’ son, Paul, was born at Courtavenel.
Late in the summer, Pauline resumed her career in London at
the Society of Ancient Music concerts where she sang arias by
Gluck, a composer she revered whose works later brought her
more adulation.
In the late fall, Pauline and her maid traveled alone to War-
saw, where on December 13, she gave a concert at the palace
of Prince Gortchakoff. She sang an aria from L’Italiana in
Algeri, some Russian songs, and two airs from Le prophète, the
performance of which, in its entirety, was forbidden in Poland.
Her operatic debut was in Norma on December 15, and she
went on to sing twelve performances that included Il barbiere,
Otello, La sonnambula, L’elisir d’amore, Il trovatore, and La
Juive. Of her Norma performance, Pauline wrote to Louis:
“I was frightened, absolutely and horribly frightened! I sang the
opening recitative as badly as you can possibly imagine,” but
afterwards she declared that she would never be so scared again,
as she had used up all her fear on that occasion!52
The correspondent of The Musical World did not notice Pau-
line’s nervousness and reported:
The fair vocalist’s success was immense. Everyone was delighted
by the power of her voice, by her marvelous facility, by her
vocal science, pushed to the utmost limits of art, and by her
dramatic talent, which is beyond all praise. In speaking thus, I
am simply the echo of our musical critics. A shower of bouquets
overwhelmed Malibran’s emulator and sister, who was called
forward as many as ten times in the course of the evening.53
From Warsaw, Pauline gave a series of performances in
northern Germany and then arrived in Berlin in late January
at the invitation of the prince and princess of Prussia. Lud-
wig Rellstab (1799–1860), the German music critic, poet,
librettist, and novelist whose poems were set by Schubert in
Schwanengesang, wrote the review for Die Zeit that was then
translated by The Musical World. Rellstab was a conservative
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 127
critic who didn’t care for Meyerbeer, but he was an enthusiastic
admirer of Viardot-Garcia. In 1826, he produced a pamphlet
that satirized Rossini’s music and Henriette Sontag in particu-
lar. For this, he was sent to Spandau prison. On February 2,
1858, he reported:
Hers [Viardot-Garcia’s] is the true grandiose, historical style.
The singer frequently touches your heart’s core by a noble and
simple trait, by a natural and feeling gesture, by a stroke of
genius. The culminating point of the part [Fidès] is in the scene
of the church; the malediction was given with the greatest mae-
stria, both vocal and dramatic. Here especially the artist painted
in a historical style; she exhibited in every passage incomparable
freedom, precision, and force, with a mimic and plastic power
full of burning life. The grand air of the fifth act was the tri-
umph of her extraordinary singing. Her success was as great as
the talent displayed.54
Pauline’s tour de force was the ease with which she switched
back and forth between styles.
To speak frankly, we were uneasy about Madame Viardot’s
Rosina; uneasy from the recollections of fifteen years. The heart
of an old critic is a stone pyramid, filled with the mummies of
the Pharaohs of art. Imagine our surprise on beholding a Rosina
that appeared to step from the fountain of youth; a Rosina of
sixteen. Ought we not to attribute to genius the virtues of this
same fountain? Not only has the great artist’s singing remained
as fine and charming as it was in her younger days, but it has
become more beautiful, younger, and more charming. Yes,
singing, acting, and appearance—miraculous to say—have be-
come more charming and more beautiful. If ever there was an
opportunity of admiring the triumph of art over nature it was
certainly on this occasion.
With reference to Norma, the same journal goes on to say:
Scarcely had we heard the Casta Diva, before we recognized
the greatest, the most complete, and the most glorious of Mad.
Pauline Viardot’s creations. Not one of the other Normas we ever
heard rose to such grandeur in her acting, or such maestria in
her singing; not Grisi who did not possess the same amount of
dramatic genius; nor Jenny Lind who appeared not to understand
that this priestess of the moon could become a terrible Hecate.55
From Berlin, Viardot-Garcia went to Leipzig, where in
February and March she gave several concerts in the Ge-
wandhaus. Her conductor was Julius Rietz (1812–1877), a
respected musical scholar who became Pauline’s close friend
and epistolary confidant. On February 12, she sang a scene
from Gluck’s Orfeo, including “Che faro senza Euridice.” She
also sang several familiar arias and a novelty—a bravura aria
from Carl Heinrich Graun’s Brittanico (1751)—as well as her
vocal arrangements of Chopin’s mazurkas.56
On March 29, Pauline was in Cologne for a concert that
was followed by performances of Donna Anna and Rosina.
The reviewer wrote that he agreed with the Berlin critic and
added that he admired Pauline’s technical ability, especially her
command of the breath. He added that her German diction
was better than the German artists who neglected this branch
of the art.57
Pauline’s next engagement was in London in May, though
not at Covent Garden, which had burned down at a masked
ball in 1856. Colonel James Henry Mapleson (1830–1901),
a flamboyant twenty-seven-year-old impresario, set up a
company at the Theater Royal in Drury Lane that opened
with Don Giovanni featuring Viardot-Garcia as Donna Anna.
While in London, the Viardots purchased the autograph score
of Don Giovanni, now preserved in the Bibliothèque Natio-
nale. After Don Giovanni, Pauline appeared in her familiar
role of Amina in La sonnambula. During the summer, she was
touring the English provinces with a company organized by
Thomas Willert Beale (1828–1894), an enterprising manager
and sometime composer. The tour was rough and ready and
proved to be fatiguing to the singers. Pauline was accompanied
by Louise, now seventeen years old, who assisted by preparing
local choruses and serving as prompter.
On August 12, 1858, Pauline reprised Azucena for the Dub-
lin audience. On August 16, she sang her first Yelva (queen of
the gypsies) in La Zingara, an Italianized version of Michael
Balfe’s very popular The Bohemian Girl. She was also heard as
Donna Anna and Rosina. In September, Pauline returned to
the Birmingham Festival where she created another oratorio
role, the eponymous Judith composed for her by Henry Leslie
(1822–1896), an English choral conductor and composer. She
was praised for her performance but local newspapers were
resentful of her Messiah, feeling that the English singers were
crowded out by too many foreigners who were “lesser Handel
singers.”58
After a short stay in Paris, the Viardots traveled to Budapest,
where Pauline debuted as Rosina in November 1858. She
received a cold reception and Louis wrote that the Hungar-
ians preferred to cry rather than laugh. With La Juive, Norma,
Le prophète, and Otello, they had plenty to cry about and the
press soon began to write rapturous reviews. Pauline’s season
coincided with a visit from her friend Clara Schumann, who
was on tour. The friends gave two concerts together where they
played a piece for two pianos by Robert Schumann and sang
arias and one of Pauline’s arrangements of a Chopin mazurka.
Before they left the city, the Holgyfutar reproached the sellers
of prints because they had missed the opportunity of offering
the public portraits of the “two most celebrated musicians in
the world!”59
From Budapest, Pauline traveled to Weimar, where Liszt
greeted her warmly. He was enthusiastic about her perfor-
mances of Norma on December 19 and Rosina on December
22. In a letter to Julius Rietz, she mentions Liszt’s kindness to
her and that she did not care for his musical ideas. After her
departure from Weimar, along with extolling her singing and
acting, Liszt paid her composing career a great compliment in
a long article in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, saying that her
music displayed great tenderness and harmonic subtleties that
128 Chapter 15
would cause more well-known composers to feel the pangs of
envy. He felt that she had written too little and hoped that she
would begin to compose more.60
From Weimar, the peripatetic singer rested in Paris for a few
days and then embarked again on a strenuous tour of the Eng-
lish provinces. She planned to sing about fifty concerts during
a period of two months. The tour included Dublin, to which
she returned at the end of March for a three-week season at the
Theater Royal. The company included her old rivals, Grisi and
Mario. However, Pauline did not spend much time worrying
about them, as she had to prepare for one of the greatest tri-
umphs of her career—the British premiere of Verdi’s Macbeth.
In the case of Macbeth, those deficiencies often pointed out
by her critics—her uneven, sometimes harsh voice and lack
of physical beauty—may have contributed to her portrayal of
Lady Macbeth as one of the greatest in history. Verdi famously
described his vision of the character in comments about Eu-
genia Tadolini (1809–1851), who was being considered for
the role.
This may sound absurd, but Madame Tadolini is a handsome
woman with a beautiful face, and I want Lady Macbeth to be
ugly and evil. Madame Tadolini sings to perfection, and I don’t
want Lady Macbeth to sing at all. Madame Tadolini has a won-
derful voice, clear, flexible, and strong, while Lady Macbeth’s
voice should be hard, stifled, and dark. Madame Tadolini has
the voice of an angel, and Lady Macbeth’s should be that of a
devil.61
Viardot-Garcia’s portrayals of Norma and Azucena as savage,
primitive women bent on revenge were an excellent preparation
for the role of Lady Macbeth. There was one problem: Lady
Macbeth was written for a wide-ranging soprano voice. Pau-
line wrote detailed instructions to the conductor, Luigi Arditi
(1822–1903), asking that her parts be transposed. For example,
her opening cavatina Vieni, t’affretta was to be transposed
down a minor third and other parts a whole tone down. She
urged him to have the parts copied because the prospect of con-
verting to six double flats and five double sharps would be too
daunting for the local orchestra to handle.62 Apparently these
changes were not observed by the local critic in the new work:
The first performance of “Macbeth” formed a special feature
during this engagement. This work contains some of Verdi’s
best writing and scoring, but the absence of a soprano part has
prevented the Opera from becoming as popular as others by the
same eminent composer. Lady Macbeth is a mezzo-soprano—
indeed almost a contralto part—and the interpretation was such
as might be expected from the musical and dramatic powers of
a Viardot. Her “make-up” was evidently formed on that of Mrs.
Siddons; and in the bedroom scene the likeness to the received
portraits of the latter great actress was very striking; and some
very old playgoers, who had seen the sister of the great Kemble
act the part in Crow-street Theater, gave evidence to this ef-
fect, and were very much struck with Viardot’s magnificent
performance, which was, indeed, a high Shakespearean study,
well worth witnessing, even if deprived of the beautiful music.63
The season had opened with Il trovatore on March 28, 1859,
starring Grisi, Mario, and Viardot. Macbeth was on March
30. New parts for Pauline were Orsini, in Lucrezia Borgia by
Donizetti, in which her Brindisi was encored four times, and
Nancy in the Dublin premiere of Martha by Friedrich von
Flotow (1812–1883).
It is unnecessary to remind Dublin opera-goers of Giulia Grisi’s
Enrichetta, Mario’s Lionello, or Graziani’s Plunketto; but we
may refer to this the only occasion on which Viardot held forth
as Nancy. Those who had seen her “heavy tragedy” the night
before, and now beheld her on the “light fantastic,” dancing like
a sylph (for in everything she was perfect), could hardly believe
it was the same person.64
Viardot also reprised Zerlina in Don Giovanni. Her partners
in all these performances were Grisi and Mario, in whom the
pangs of jealousy had evidently subsided. Later, Viardot took
Lady Macbeth on the road in a tour of the British provinces
in a ragtag production conducted by Auguste Vianesi (1837–
1908), who also conducted the opening night performance of
the Metropolitan Opera on October 22, 1883.
On May 24, 1859, Pauline appeared in a benefit concert for
Marie Carolina-Carvalho (1827–1895), who would go on to
create four roles by Gounod: Marguerite in Faust (1859), Bau-
cis in Philémon et Baucis (1860), Mireille (1864), and Juliette
(1867). Marie was the wife of the director of the Paris Théâtre-
Lyrique, Léon Carvalho (1825–1897). When Carvalho heard
Pauline sing “Che faro?” from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice he
determined to revive the venerable azione teatrale for her. No
one expected much interest in such a “dated” work since Paris
was always clamoring for something new. The original version
of Orfeo was written for the alto castrato Gaetano Guadagni
and was sung in Italian in Vienna at the Burgtheater in 1762.
In 1774, Gluck thoroughly revised the opera (now titled Or-
phée et Eurydice), transposed the title part for the haute-contre
tenor Joseph Legros (1739–1793), and added ballet sequences
to conform to the French taste.
For the 1859 revival, Carvalho recruited Hector Berlioz
who, besides his other accomplishments, was France’s leading
authority on Gluck. Pauline and Berlioz had known each other
for a long time, occasionally collaborating on various projects.
When Carvalho’s offer came, Berlioz was hard at work on his
monumental Les Troyens. In August 1859, Pauline sang ex-
cerpts from Berlioz’s great work in a concert at Baden-Baden.
The composer began to visualize her as Cassandra, or possibly
Dido, and sought her advice, although it is not certain how far
her influence extended.
For Orphée, Berlioz retained the key scheme of the 1762
version while incorporating many of the features of the 1774
Paris performances. In September, Berlioz spent two days at
Courtavenel, where he confessed a sudden unrequited love for
Pauline. Besides being tormented emotionally, Berlioz was not
well and suffered from an intestinal illness that plagued him
all his life. The atmosphere was uncomfortable but the two
worked very hard to make a success of the work they both
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 129
venerated. Berlioz and Viardot were assisted in their work by
another young composer, Camille Saint-Saëns, a prodigy who
had already attracted the attention of some of the greatest mu-
sicians of the time. The rehearsals helped to calm Berlioz and
he was elated by the unexpected success of the opera, which
premiered on November 18, 1859. Gluck’s masterpiece had an
astounding run of 138 performances through 1861. Pauline’s
performance, although hampered by a case of bronchitis, was
lauded by the critics. Chorley, writing in 1862, was a great
admirer of Pauline Viardot’s art but he was not blind to her
faults:
The part, [Orfeo] originally written for an artificial Italian con-
tralto, was subsequently transposed so as to suit a high tenor
French voice. That either Guadagni or Legros can have satisfied
the eye may also be doubted. The Frenchman, we know, was
affected and grimacing in his action. As personated by Madame
Viardot it left nothing to desire. Her want of regularity of fea-
ture and of prettiness helped, instead of impairing, the sadness
and solemnity of the mourner’s countenance; the supple and
statuesque grace of her figure gave interest and meaning to every
step and every attitude. . . .
Further, the peculiar quality of Madame Viardot’s voice—its
occasional harshness and feebleness, consistent with tones of
the gentlest sweetness—was turned by her to account with rare
felicity, as giving the variety of light and shade to every word
of soliloquy, to every appeal of dialogue. A more perfect and
honeyed voice might have recalled the woman too often to fit
with the idea of the youth. Her musical handling of so peculiar
an instrument will take place in the highest annals of art.65
Emboldened by the unexpected success of Orphée, Carvalho
decided to mount Beethoven’s Fidelio with Viardot in the title
part. Fidelio had been a fiasco when presented at the Théâtre
Italien a few years before but was a success on its return on
May 5, 1860, although not as great as Orphée. Pauline felt
that Beethoven’s opera was “too symphonic” for the Parisians.66
In February 1860, Pauline Viardot encountered the colos-
sus who would soon revolutionize the operatic world, Richard
Wagner. The two had met briefly twenty-one years before, but
in 1860, influenced by Julius Rietz, Pauline was firmly in the
anti-Wagner camp. However, she did agree to sight-read act 2
of Tristan und Isolde in a private audition for a patron, with
the composer singing the title role and Berlioz in attendance.
Because she was sight-reading and disliked the music, Pauline
“marked” her part, singing some of it an octave lower. Also,
Isolde is a high part and not a comfortable fit for a voice
like Viardot’s. Wagner was not pleased but he was impressed
with Pauline’s feat of reading such a complicated score at
sight. Also, unknown to Rietz, she performed excerpts from
Tannhäuser at an afternoon concert given by the Countess
Löwenthal. She probably thought more of Wagner than she
let on to Reitz because she defended the composer against
those who behaved badly at performances of Tannhäuser and
Die Meistersinger.
Pauline was next asked to prepare Gluck’s Alceste for the
Opéra and Berlioz was asked to supervise as he had for Orphée,
but citing his unwillingness to alter the part for Pauline’s voice,
he declined. He later relented and helped to advise her, but
not to the extent that he had done for Orphée. Although her
voice was now in serious decline, Alceste was the last triumph
for Pauline on the great international stages. She continued
to sing in concerts and small operatic venues but retired
gracefully from the larger scene. Viardot and Berlioz became
more estranged when he did not cast or even consult her for
the production of Les Troyens, part of which was given at the
Théâtre-Lyrique on November 4, 1863. Pauline had been inti-
mately involved with the creation of Berlioz’s chef-d’œuvre and
she was deeply hurt.
During that same year, 1863, the Viardots resolved to leave
France. Louis detested the imperial régime of Napoleon III
(he hated any Napoleon). Pauline, despite her recent suc-
cesses with Orphée and Alceste, had been wounded deeply by
the intrigues and hostility of the previous twelve years of the
Parisian artistic milieu. Pauline gave her “official” farewell per-
formance of Orphée on April 24, 1863. She was only forty-two
years old. The Viardots moved to Baden-Baden, where they
purchased a villa that soon became a center of the social life
of the town, which was largely populated by European aristoc-
racy. Madame Viardot’s matinees and soirees were attended by
Prussian aristocracy and, on occasion, even by Otto von Bis-
marck (1815–1898) himself. The Viardots were accepted into
a society that would have snubbed them in Paris a generation
earlier. Turgenev also acquired land next to the Viardots, which
included a small theater. He was as devoted to Pauline as ever,
but their relationship had evolved and became less melodra-
matic. Pauline began to compose more and wrote several op-
erettas for her children and pupils to stories by Turgenev. They
were appreciated not only by the titled audience who attended,
but also by Clara Schumann, Anton Rubinstein (1829–1894),
and Liszt, who were frequent visitors. She published a number
of songs, some in Russian.
Through Clara Schumann, Viardot met Johannes Brahms
(1833–1897), who spent the summer of 1864 near Baden-
Baden. Other writers have attached great credence to Pauline’s
letter to Rietz of 1859 that states that she did not care for
Brahms’s music, which had been introduced to her by Clara
Schumann. However, as time passed, she grew to appreciate
the gruff young man more. They became friendly and Brahms
composed a serenade for her birthday in which he conducted
some of her students under her window. On March 30, 1864,
they participated together in a performance of Bach’s St.
Matthew Passion at Karlsruhe; Brahms played the organ and
Pauline was the alto soloist. Brahms also conducted a perfor-
mance, from the piano, of Pauline’s operetta, Le dernier sorcier,
staged in her music room on August 24, 1869.67
To me, Pauline Viardot and Brahms found kindred spirits
in Pauline’s public premiere of Rhapsodie aus Goethes Harzreise
im Winter, op. 53, or more simply in English, the Alto Rhap-
sody. Like an echo of Schubert’s stark Winterreise, Goethe’s
poem must have evoked feelings of isolation and yearning in
them both.
130 Chapter 15
The Rhapsody also represents a turning point in Brahms’s life,
as “Harzreise im Winter” had for Goethe. In Brahms’s case it
was an acceptance that all he had, now, was his art. In that sense
too it is his bridal song, his embrace of a solitary fate. Whatever
succor and redemption from despair he might find in life, he
would find henceforth in music.68
Pauline Viardot-Garcia was certainly no stranger to such feel-
ings. The rhapsody was one of Brahms’s most moving and
heartfelt works and in Pauline he found the ideal interpreter.
Pauline’s major activity in Baden-Baden was teaching. She had
pupils from all over Europe, an unusual number of which were
Russian. As befitted a Garcia, she was strict and thorough but
cared deeply for the welfare of her students. Besides her songs,
she published An Hour of Study, in two volumes, which remain
highly instructive to this day. Her pupils included Désirée Artôt
(1835–1907), Aglaia Orgeni (1841–1926), Marianne Brandt
(1842–1921), and Antoinette Sterling MacKinlay (1850–1904).
In 1870, the conflagration called the Franco-Prussian War
put an end to the Viardots’ idyllic existence in Baden-Baden.
They were caught in the middle: as French citizens, they could
not remain in Germany, and since they were opposed to the
régime in France, they could not return to Paris. They had to
hasten to London as a haven while Turgenev settled their af-
fairs in Baden-Baden before rejoining them there. Pauline was
glad to see her brother Manuel but was distressed to be in a
foreign country with no money, since all their property was in
Germany and France. They were refugees who possessed only
that which they were able to take out of Germany. Pauline
was forced to accept pupils who were less than talented and
did a little singing, although her London glory days were long
past. Turgenev was of some help and what he had to spare
went to the Viardot children. Pauline was always interested in
the younger Russian composers, especially Pyotr Ilyich Tchai-
kovsky, whose songs she sang from 1871. She also had a high
opinion of Eugene Onegin before its premiere in 1879.
As the war wound down, Louis Viardot redirected his hatred
for the Second Empire toward Germany and a return to Baden-
Baden became impossible. After being away for eight years,
the Viardots returned to their house in Paris with Turgenev
in tow. There was no longer any pretense about the ménage à
trois of Pauline, Louis (who was over seventy), and Turgenev,
who was increasingly dependent on Pauline for his emotional
health. Having relinquished Courtavenel, the Viardots bought
a summer home in Bougival, on the Seine, not far from Paris.
Turgenev built a Swiss-style chalet for himself in the garden. He
also occupied an apartment in the house in Paris.
As things in life often do, they changed drastically in the
house on the Rue de Douai. Turgenev had been an unknown
writer on his mother’s apron strings when he first encountered
Pauline at the height of her great career. Now, a constant
stream of visitors came to see the world-famous author. Rus-
sian acquaintances often painted Pauline as a gold digger who
was after Turgenev’s money and kept him prisoner, forbidding
him from returning to Russia as one of its most distinguished
authors. They either did not know or ignored the fact that the
Viardots had often provided Turgenev financial support when
his mother closed the purse strings.
Pauline resumed her Sunday “at-homes,” where she sometimes
sang, usually with Saint-Saëns as accompanist. Although her
voice had deteriorated, her interpretations still held her listen-
ers spellbound. In 1872, Saint-Saëns introduced his student, a
young composer named Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924), into the Vi-
ardot circle. Fauré fell deeply in love with Marianne, the Viardots’
daughter. Marianne and Fauré were engaged to be married, but
she broke off the engagement soon after and married another.
Fauré was deeply affected for a long time but ultimately under-
stood that it was for the best. He resisted Pauline’s urging that he
write large-scale works for the theater and today is known as an
excellent composer of mélodies for the concert stage.
Another young composer, Jules Massenet (1842–1912),
who had been the timpanist in the historic Orphée perfor-
mances at the Théâtre-Lyrique, attracted Pauline’s interest.
Massenet had written an oratorio, Marie-Magdeleine, which
Pauline Viardot premiered at the Odéon Theater on April 11,
1873. It put Massenet on the map and was the last new role
she would create in public.
Saint-Saëns was almost the only close friend who survived
Pauline Viardot. Louis had a stroke in 1882 and Turgenev
became gravely ill with what turned out to be spinal cancer.
Pauline gave up her teaching to nurse both. Louis died in May
1883 and Turgenev lingered on with terrible suffering until
September 3, 1883. Pauline Viardot-Garcia lived on until
May 18, 1910. She became cautious about confiding in any-
one because there were many eager to exploit her and even to
blame her for keeping Turgenev away from his homeland. She
remained lively and engaged to the very end. Her last word was
the role that most vexed and challenged her—Norma!
NOTES
1.  George T. Ferris, Great Singers, Second Series (New York: D.
Appleton, 1892), 115.
2. April Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius (New York: Appleton-
Century, 1964), 188.
3.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 223.
4. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 46.
5. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 47.
6. Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (New
York: Knopf, 1926), 232.
7. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 70.
8.  George T. Ferris, Great Singers, Second Series (New York: D.
Appleton, 1892), 120.
9. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 92.
10. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 133.
11.  Edward Jerrman, St. Petersburg: Its People, Their Character, and
Institutions (New York: Barnes, 1855), 9.
12. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 151.
13. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 182–83.
14. Aleksandr Ivanovitch Vol’f, Khronika peterburghskikh teatrov
s kontsa 1826 do nachala 1855 goda (St. Petersburg: Tip. R. Golike,
1877), 112.
15.  Barbara Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot
Garcia, 1836–1863, vol. 1 (Amersham, UK: Cambridge Scholars
Press, 2003), 199.
 Pauline (Garcia) Viardot 131
16. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
218.
17. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
219.
18.  H. Truhn, “Pauline Viardot-Garcia,” Allgemeine Musikalische
Zeitung 7 (July 1847): 111–12.
19. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
219.
20. Ferris, Great Singers, Second Series, 128–29.
21. R. R. Palmer, A History of the Modern World (New York:
Knopf, 1963), 469.
22. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
249–50.
23. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 234.
24. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
255.
25.  Denis Arnold and Tim Ashley, “Giacomo Meyerbeer,” Oxford
Music Online, www.oxfordmusiconline.com/article/opr/t114e4393
(accessed 5 May 2014).
26.  Hector Berlioz, Memoirs of Hector Berlioz from 1803 to 1865
(New York: Dover, 1966), 476.
27. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 227.
28. Anonymous, “Il Trovatore,” The Opera Glass, http://opera
.stanford.edu (7 July 2014).
29. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 245.
30. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
279.
31. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 235.
32. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 261.
33. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius; Kendall-Davies, The Life and
Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia.
34. Pleasants, The Great Singers, 180.
35. Ruth Jordan, Fromental Halévy: His Life and Music, 1799–
1862 (New York: Hal Leonard, 1996), 149.
36. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
303.
37. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
312.
38. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 273.
39. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
344.
40. Anonymous, “Prospectus for Covent Garden, 1854,” The
Musical World 32, no. 11 (1854): 196.
41.  Anonymous, “Review of Le Prophète,” The Musical World 32,
no. 23 (1854): 392.
42.  Martin Chusid, Verdi’s Il trovatore: The Quintessential Italian
Melodrama (Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press, 2012), 93.
43. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
356.
44. Chusid, Verdi’s Il trovatore, 93. Reported in the Gazzetta musi-
cale di Milano, March 11, 1855.
45.  Anonymous, “Review of Il trovatore,” The Musical World 33,
no. 9 (1855): 147.
46.  Anonymous, “Letter from Verdi Enclosed in a Communica-
tion from Louis Viardot,” The Musical World 33, no. 9 (1855): 168.
47. Chusid, Verdi’s Il trovatore, 98. Quoted from The Athenaeum,
May 19, 1855.
48. Anonymous, The Musical World 33, no. 35 (1855): 561.
49. R. M. Leavey and J. O’Rorke, Annals of the Theater Royal,
Dublin (Dublin: Joseph Dollard, 1880), 166.
50.  Leavy and O’Rorke, Annals of the Theater Royal, 167.
51.  Leavy and O’Rorke, Annals of the Theater Royal, 168.
52. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
381.
53.  Anonymous, “Madame Viardot in Poland,” The Musical World
35, no. 2 (1858): 27.
54. Ludwig Rellstab, “Madame Viardot at Berlin,” The Musical
World 35, no.7 (1858): 108.
55.  Rellstab, “Madame Viardot at Berlin,” 157–58.
56. Anonymous, “Feuilleton,” Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung 37
(1858): 301.
57.  Anonymous, “Music at Cologne,” The Musical World 35, no.
16 (1858): 246.
58. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
388.
59. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
393.
60. Franz Liszt, “Pauline Viardot-Garcia by Franz Liszt,” Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik 50, no. 5 (1859): 49–54.
61.  Charles Osborne, The Complete Operas of Verdi (New York: Da
Capo, 1969), 147–48.
62. Kendall-Davies, The Life and Work of Pauline Viardot Garcia,
vol. 1, 398.
63.  Leavey and O’Rorke, Annals of the Theater Royal, 196.
64.  Leavey and O’Rorke, Annals of the Theater Royal, 197.
65. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 237.
66. Fitzlyon, The Price of Genius, 356.
67.  Peter Clive, Brahms and His World (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow
Press, 2006), 476.
68.  Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms (New York: Knopf, 1997), 353.
16
The Altos of Grand Opéra
The long career of Pauline Garcia-Viardot could be viewed as a
template for the gradual movement of the alto voice from the
bel canto coloratura fireworks of Handel and Rossini toward
the gravitas of grand opera heroines like Saint-Saëns’s Dalila
and Verdi’s Princess Eboli (Don Carlo). Many of these roles
are not ingenue romantic leads but interesting flesh-and-blood
characters whose dramatic situations invite our attention.
Whereas the original reason for the elaboration of coloratura
singing was to enhance the emotional weight of the text and
dramatic situation, grand opera reflected the desire of the Paris
public to be titillated by novel, sometimes grotesque, twists
of plot and shocking stage effects. The requirement of hav-
ing a ballet in each opera illustrates the taste of a public that
was increasingly more interested in being entertained visually
than aurally. This taste dominates all entertainment today. In
addition, opera orchestras became bigger, choruses and crowd
scenes more abundant, with soloists who were forced to sing
louder, higher, and with a darker tone color (voix sombrée).
The inevitable consequence was an inflated style of “effects
without causes” (in Wagner’s phrase), of striking and brilliant
musical numbers inadequately motivated by the dramatic
situation. In short, composers and librettists acted on three
principles that are still perfectly familiar: (1) give the public
what it wants; (2) if a little is good, more is better; and (3) the
whole (that is, the complete opera) is equal to the sum of its
parts (that is, the several musical styles of which the opera is
composed). The result, while undeniably successful at the time
and of great influence on the future course of opera, was not
one that can now be contemplated with unmixed admiration.1
The specialty of the coloratura alto, so prevalent in earlier
times, gave way to the lyric and dramatic voices required by
these changing conditions. Sometimes these roles could be
classified as romantic leads, but they were more often desig-
nated as character parts. Daniel Francis Auber’s (1782–1871)
La muette de Portici (1828) and Rossini’s Guillaume Tell (1829)
are considered to be the first of the French grand operas, but
Meyerbeer is credited with establishing the distinguishing
traits of the form. His early Italian operas were heavily influ-
133
enced by Rossini, and some featured altos in leading roles.
Of these Meyerbeer operas, Rosa Mariani created Isaura in
Margherita d’Anjou (1821) and L’esule di Granata featured
Benedetta Rosmunda Pisaroni in the travesti role of the king
of Granata. The last opera written for a castrato, Il crociato in
Egitto (1824) starred Giovanni Battista Velluti and was also
one of the last operas to use secco recitatives. Valentine in Les
Huguenots (1836) was written for Cornélie Falcon, who had a
category named for her (falcon soprano), which was a slightly
lower voice than a lyric soprano. As we have seen, Pauline
Viardot often sang Valentine, as well as Rachel in Halévy’s La
Juive (1835), which was also written for Falcon. Of course,
Fidès was Viardot’s signature role. Halévy had also composed
Clari (1828) for Pauline’s sister, Maria Malibran.
From Pauline Viardot’s circle, three composers who were
influenced by her and wrote important parts for the alto voice
were Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Jules Massenet,
whom I cover in chapter 18 on the Opéra Lyrique.
Camille Saint-Saëns originally conceived the eponymous
role of Dalila, in Samson et Dalila for the voice of Pauline
Viardot in her prime. The extraordinary ability of Pauline to
expand her musical and dramatic range from the bel canto rep-
ertoire, such as Rosina and Angelina, to the grand opera roles
of Fidès, Azucena, and Dalila, is very impressive. Pauline had
known Saint-Saëns for a long time. He had begun Samson in
1868 but he did not finish it until 1876. By that time Pauline
Viardot was too old to be convincing on stage and her voice
was in poor condition. However, she did perform the first two
acts in 1874 in a private performance with homemade scenery
as an attempt to influence its production.
Saint-Saëns was like the proverbial “prophet in his own
country” and no French company had any interest in produc-
ing the opera whatsoever. The ostensible reason was hostility
of the public toward its biblical subject, but separate perfor-
mances of acts 1 and 2 produced adverse reactions from the
critics who did not understand the music. It was not until after
1890 that Samson et Dalila began to enjoy the popularity that
it still has.
134 Chapter 16
Through the influence of Liszt, Samson et Dalila was given
its premiere in a German translation at the grand-ducal opera
house in Weimar in 1877. Dalila was sung by a house mezzo-
soprano, Auguste von Müller (1848–1912). Müller sang in
many provincial theaters in Germany in a career that spanned
from 1875 to 1886. Her repertoire included Azucena, early
interpretations of Fricka (in both Das Rheingold and Die
Walküre), and Flosshilde in Götterdämmerung.
Saint-Saëns finally reached the stage of the Paris Opéra with
his Henri VIII, which premiered on March 5, 1883. The opera
concerned the period when Henry was discarding Catherine of
Aragon in favor of Ann Boleyn. It featured the great baritone
Jean Lassalle (1847–1909) in the title role who lived long
enough to make some fine recordings of a bygone age. Anne de
Boleyn, a heavy role like that of Amneris, Léonor de Guzman,
and Princess Eboli, was sung by mezzo-soprano Alphonsine-
Hélène Richard (1858–?).
Other operas by Saint-Saëns that feature altos in lead roles
include Ascanio, which premiered at the Palais Garnier in 1890
with Rosa Bosman (d. 1930), a Belgian alto, as Scozzone, and
Déjanire, his last opera, in 1911, with Germaine Bailac (fl.
1910–1920) as Phénice.
Hector Berlioz loved the alto voice, no doubt reflecting his
close relationship with Pauline Viardot, but he was also prob-
ably influenced by his memory of performances by Alexandrine
Carolina Branchu (1780–1850) in representations of Gluck’s
Alceste and Iphigénie en Tauride, as well as her interpretations
of Hypermnestre in Antonio Salieri’s Les Danaïdes. Branchu is
listed as a soprano but none of the roles assigned to her lie very
high. Branchu was prima donna at the Opéra, where she created
Cherubini’s Corine (Anacréon, 1803) and Noraïme (Les Aben-
cérages, 1813) and Spontini’s Julia (La vestale, 1807), Amazily
(Fernando Cortez, 1809), and Statira (Olympie, 1819).
Berlioz shared the same opinion of the alto voice as Rossini,
whose remark I have previously quoted.
One reason for Berlioz’s predilection for the female voice
type lower than that of the conventional prima donna is
expressed in Traité d’instrumentation: “The voices of mezzo-
sopranos (second sopranos) and contraltos are usually more
homogeneous [than sopranos] and more even, and so much
easier to write for.” In his surviving works there are only two
roles for full soprano, both comparatively ingenious characters:
Teresa in Benvenuto Cellini and Héro in Béatrice et Bénédict. A
number of other roles, including Ascanio and Béatrice herself,
are designated “soprano” but were in fact sung by performers
associated with mezzo-soprano roles. Neither ascends much
above the treble staff. The more complex characters—Margue-
rite, Marie (L’enfance du Christ), Cassandra, Didon, Béatrice—
have all been taken by mezzo-sopranos, and to these may be
added two trouser roles, curiously with variants of the same
name, Ascanio and Ascanius (Ascagne) in Les Troyens.2
Berlioz composed La damnation de Faust in 1845, and as
a form halfway between an opera and an oratorio, he called
the work a légende dramatique. Faust received its premiere at
the Opéra-Comique on December 6, 1846. Marguerite was
Hortense Dufflot-Maillard (1808–1858), a mezzo-soprano
who had already had success at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in
Brussels in Norma, La Favorite, La Vestale, and Moïse.3 Berlioz
was disappointed at the reception from the Parisian public,
which was indifferent to his masterpiece. He stated that he
“had no fashionable cantatrice to sing the part of Marguerite”4
and was financially ruined by the fiasco.
The greatest French grand opera of the nineteenth cen-
tury was, without a doubt, Les Troyens (1858). The entire
opera was never performed in Berlioz’s lifetime and had to
wait until 1890 at Karlsruhe for a complete performance.
Berlioz composed Les Troyens with the help and advice of
Pauline Viardot, who ardently wished to premiere both of its
two central characters, Dido and Cassandra. We have seen
where she sang excerpts from Les Troyens at Baden-Baden in
1859. Berlioz began his epic work in 1856 with the support
of Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (1819–1887)
of Weimar, who had a forty-year relationship with Franz
Liszt. After a frustrating wait for the Paris Opéra to mount
his masterpiece, he agreed that a version of the second half
of the opera, called Les Troyens à Carthage, be produced by
the Théâtre-Lyrique in 1863. However, even this shortened
adaptation was mutilated, the orchestra inadequate, and
the cast weak in an opera that called for heroic voices. The
Dido (there was no Cassandra) was sung by Anne-Arsène
Charton-Demeur (1824–1892). Charton-Demeur is listed
as a dramatic mezzo-soprano but one wonders about such
a designation. She made her debut as Lucia at Bordeaux in
1842 and subsequently sang Amina in La sonnambula. In
1862, Charton-Demeur created the title role of Béatrice et
Bénédict at Baden-Baden, conducted by the composer. Ap-
parently, Charton-Demeur had a dramatic temperament, for
Berlioz wrote about her Béatrice:
I had taken the book from Much Ado about Nothing, and added
the songs and the episode of the musician. The duet, Vous soup-
irez, madame! The trio between Hero, Beatrice, and Ursula, Je
vais d’un cœur aimant, and Beatrice’s big song Dieu! que viens-je
d’entendre? (which was sung at Baden by Madame Charton with
feeling, verve, immense fire, and rare beauty of style), produced
a tremendous effect.5
Berlioz’s opinion was mixed about Charton-Demeur for Les
Troyens à Carthage. On the one hand he wrote:
Dido’s solo Je vais mourir,
Dans ma douleur immense submerge,
quite overcame me. Madame Charton rendered this passage in
a grandly dramatic manner:
Enée, Enée,
Ah! Mon âme te suit!
and shrieked in despair, as she struck her breast and tore her
hair, just as Virgil had intended:
Terque quarterque manu pectue percussa decorum
Flaventesque abscissa comas.6
 The Altos of Grand Opéra 135
The late Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson (1954–2006) has left a
wonderful rendition of this aria on YouTube. However, Berlioz
also wrote:
In the duet between Æneas and Dido, I soon discovered that
Madame Charton’s voice was unequal to so violent a scene, and
it fatigued her so much that she had not strength enough left
to sing the terrible recitative in the fifth act, Dieux immortels! Il
part! and her last aria and the scene of the funeral pile.7
The first complete performance of Les Troyens, which,
I think, is France’s answer to the Ring, was performed un-
der Felix Mottl’s (1856–1911) direction on two successive
evenings, December 6 and 7, 1890, at Karlsruhe. Again
performed in German, the premiere came twenty-one years
after Berlioz’s death. Dido was sung on this occasion by
Pauline Mailhac (1858–1946) who, I am sure, had sufficient
stamina for the role, for she was a Wagnerian who took part
in the Bayreuth Festival, where she sang Venus in Tannhäuser
and Kundry in Parsifal from 1891 to 1894. To see how flex-
ible the repertoire for such an alto voice as Mailhac’s was in
Germany at the time, consider that she sang Aida, Rachel in
La Juive, Mignon, Senta in Der Fliegende Hollander, Ortrud
in Lohengrin, Eva in Die Meistersinger, Carmen, and Leonore
in Fidelio. Mailhac made her final performance in 1901, as
Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, Karlsruhe, where she spent the
major part of her career.
Luise Reuss-Belce (1862–1945), née Louise Baumann, sang
Cassandra at the premiere of Les Troyens. She was another Wag-
nerian stalwart whose debut in 1881 was at Karlsruhe as Elsa
in Lohengrin. Reuss-Belce remained in Karlsruhe for fifteen
years as a member of the ensemble. In 1882, she appeared as
one of the flower maidens in the world premiere of Parsifal at
Bayreuth. She was engaged at the court theater in Wiesbaden
from 1886 to 1907 with numerous guest appearances at other
theaters. In Bayreuth she sang Fricka (her signature role),
as well as Eva in Die Meistersinger and a host of lesser parts.
In 1893, Reuss-Belce also began to have success abroad. She
sang Sieglinde in Die Walküre at Covent Garden and Fricka in
Amsterdam. From 1901 to 1903, Reuss-Belce was a member
of the Metropolitan Opera Company. There she sang her first
Venus in Tannhäuser, as well as Isolde in Tristan und Isolde,
Eva, Sigliende, and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, as well as Elsa,
for a total of thirty-three performances.8 Other roles in a long
career included Carmen and Santuzza in Cavalliera rusticana.
Reuss-Belce worked as a director for many years and was
finally found dead in a railway car in the devastating Allied
incendiary bombing attack on Dresden in the last days of
World War II. Luise Reuss-Belce was the last singer who had
sung under the direction of Richard Wagner.
Before leaving the category of grand opera, I should include
Don Carlos by Verdi, which received its premiere on March
11, 1867, at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris. Undoubtedly a
grand opera, Don Carlos was revised several times and is most
often performed in the Italian version, Don Carlo. Princess
Eboli is one of the great roles in the alto repertory. It was
first performed by Pauline Guéymard-Lauters (1834–1876
or later), another Belgian mezzo-soprano. She created Queen
Gertrude in Ambroise Thomas’s (1811–1896) Hamlet (1868)
and Balkis in Gounod’s La reine de Saba (1862). Other roles
sung by Guéymard-Lauters include Valentine in Les Hugue-
nots, Leonora in Il trovatore, Donna Anna, Fidès, Léonor in La
Favorite, and Gluck’s Alcestis.
NOTES
1.  Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1965), 316–17.
2. Julian Rushton, “Berlioz and the Mezzo-Soprano,” in Berlioz
Scenes from the Life and Work, ed. Peter Bloom (Rochester, NY: Uni-
versity of Rochester Press, 2008), 67–68.
3. Édouard Jacques Gregoir, Panthéon Musical Populaire, vol. 1
(Brussels: Schott Frères, 1876), 36.
4.  Hector Berlioz, Memoirs of Hector Berlioz from 1803 to 1865
(New York: Dover, 1966), 505.
5. Berlioz, Memoirs, 420.
6. Berlioz, Memoirs, 500.
7. Berlioz, Memoirs, 501.
8.  Gerald Fitzgerald, ed., Annals of the Metropolitan Opera, Tables,
1883–1985 (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989), 183.
17
“La Favorite,” Rosine Stoltz

One of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of 1837. Rosine Stoltz never sang with Nourrit in Paris because,
opera was the reign of Rosine Stoltz as the queen of the Paris having been displaced by Gilbert-Louis Duprez and his “chest
Opéra from 1838 to 1847. I am sure that she would have been high C” in 1838, the despondent Nourrit plunged to his death
pleased at my allotting a whole chapter to her career. The story from the top floor of the Villa Barbaja in Naples. He was only
of “La Stoltz” is a complicated stew of legend, fabrication, ma- thirty-seven years old.
licious gossip, and vehicle for revisionist history. For example, When Rosine Stoltz did make her debut at the Paris Opéra
Léon Escudier blamed Stoltz’s capriciousness at the premiere on August 25, 1837, in La Juive, her partner was the redoubt-
of La Favorite for Donizetti’s subsequent descent into madness able Duprez, who detested her. It would not be the first or the
(he was actually a victim of syphilis).1 Stoltz was probably last time that artists who hated each other would translate their
an accomplished singer, as witnessed by the vocal challenges
of parts she sang, such as Léonor de Guzman in La Favorite.
What is fact is that she was an example of the corruption of
the operatic scene in Paris during the 1930s and 1940s when
she was the mistress of Léon Pillet.
Rosine Stoltz was born Victoire Noël in Montparnasse,
Paris. She became quite a slippery character. After an unsuc-
cessful foray into vaudeville, she showed up in Antwerp and
Amsterdam as Mademoiselle Héloïse. She then migrated to the
Monnaie in Brussels under the name of Mademoiselle Ternaux
in 1832, starting in secondary roles. She graduated to leads in
Rossini’s Il barbiere, Tancredi, and Otello in Lille in 1833, and in
1834 Stoltz sang Alice in Robert le diable in Antwerp. In 1835
she returned to the Monnaie as Madame Stoltz (a variation of
her mother’s maiden name, Stoll), where she reprised Alice. The
name Rosine was probably appropriated because of her success
in Il barbiere. She then appeared as Rachel in the Brussels pre-
miere of La Juive.2
During the Monnaie’s 1836–1837 season, the principal at-
traction was the great Adolphe Nourrit, the leading tenor of
the Paris Opéra who appeared in many of the grand opera roles
he had created there. He also sang the role of Cavatini in Pierre
Gaveaux’s (1760–1825) Le bouffe et le tailleur (1804), while
Stoltz sang Célestine as well as Rachel in La Juive. Nourrit was
moved by Stoltz’s performances and offered to recommend her
to the Paris Opéra. Her debut there was delayed because she
bore a child to the director of the Monnaie, Alphonse Lescuyer Figure 17.1.  Gilbert-Louis Duprez and Rosine Stoltz in Doni-
(fl. 1830s) in September 1836, whom she married in March zetti’s La Favorite by Gabrielle Lépaulle (1804–1886)

137
138 Chapter 17
enmity into performance excitement. Duprez wrote about
Stoltz in his Souvenirs d’un chanteur:
With the leadership of Léon Pillet, there began at the Opéra
the domination, or rather the reign, of Madame Stoltz, a reign
absolute and despotic, if ever there was one. Until that time,
this artist had appeared very little and only in roles of middling
importance. The creation of La Favorite showed off her energy
and her dramatic fire; she was noticed but, not content with her
share of public favor, Madame Stoltz could soon not bear for
anyone other than herself to be in the limelight and she used
her influence relentlessly on the new director to undermine
the success of those men and women whose talent or beauty
eclipsed her. So she was not exactly adored by the members
of the Opéra. The strongest and boldest openly hated her; the
small and fearful dreaded her and murmured softly. I remember
that I was walking down the rue Saint-Lazare with Meyerbeer
when we were suddenly accosted by the great S., that beautiful
ballet dancer who had found me so unattractive when I first
came to the Opéra. She was exasperated and explained the
reason for her anger in a rather common way, typical of those
of her class. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “my dear Meyerbeer, oh my
dear Duprez, if you only knew that Madame Stoltz has just had
my salary reduced! If I meet her, I’ll break her neck!” Among
opponents of “la Favorite,” as we called her, was Barroilhet, who
was scandalized, as was I, when told by Pillet, “Madame Stoltz
is a Malibran, without the defects.” Our bass Alizard never
lost an opportunity to express his dislike for our star. One day
Madame Stoltz passed by in the courtyard where we were all
gathered at the end of rehearsal: “And to think,” said Alizard in
his big Picardy voice, “that the destiny of this woman in her old
days will be to keep house for a bachelor . . . maybe even mine.”
Following this quip, Alizard’s contract was not renewed and he
never had the consolation of seeing his prophecy come true.3
Rosine Stoltz was probably a better actress than she was a
singer and excelled in declamation. Mary Ann Smart attempts
to cut through the myths and misconceptions about this singer
in her article for the Cambridge Opera Journal and cites the
following by François-Joseph Fétis:
A woman of talent counts among the singers at the Opéra.
Although her voice is mediocre and her musical training no
more than sketchy, she compensates for these deficiencies with
a lively dramatic sense and an unusual intelligence. Well placed,
and confined within the limits of her specialty, this actress could
be very useful, but [because she is] ambitious far beyond the
limits within which an artist should sensibly confine herself,
she wanted to invade everything, to dominate everything, and
M. Pillet’s naïve admiration has not left her to desire in vain the
sacrifices demanded by her amour-propre.4
This seems to me to be a fair assessment of Stoltz’s ability
but she must have had enough vocal resources to cope with
the demands of the repertoire written for her. Smart describes
her voice this way:
Voice, after all, is only a little more ephemeral than other “reali-
ties” of a life, and many descriptions of Stoltz the singer survive.
They tell of power, sometimes stridency, a range of only about
two octaves, very good low notes, a strong but harsh upper
register.
Certain common compliments and criticisms emerge: she
often sang out of tune and lacked agility and technical control
but her timbre and extensive range of nuance are praised almost
unanimously. All agree that her greatest strength was as an
actress, that the intensity of her gestures and her tragic declama-
tion were unequalled.5
A list of Stoltz’s creations at the Paris Opéra from 1838 is
impressive, but since she had little competition during this
time, it is understandable.
•  Ricciarda in Halévy’s Guido et Ginevra on March 5,
1838.
•  Ascanio* in Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini on September 10,
1838.
•  Marguerite in Halévy’s Le lac des fées on April 1, 1839.
•  Lazarillo* in Marco Aurelio Marliani’s (1805–1849) La
Xacarilla on October 28, 1839.
•  Loyse in François Bazin’s (1816–1878) cantata Loyse de
Montfort on October 7, 1840.
•  Léonor de Guzman in Donizetti’s La Favorite (La fa-
vorita) on December 2, 1840.
•  Agathe in Weber’s Le freischütz (French adaptation of Der
Freischütz) on June 7, 1841.
•  Catarina in Halévy’s La reine de Chypre on December 22,
1841.
•  Odette in Halévy’s Charles VI on March 15, 1843.
•  Zaïda in Donizetti’s Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal on
November 13, 1843.
•  Beppo* in Halévy’s Le lazzarone on March 29, 1844.
•  Desdémone in Rossini’s Otello (French adaptation of
Otello) on September 2, 1844.
•  Marie Stuart in Louis Niedermeyer’s (1802–1861) Marie
Stuart on December 6, 1844.
•  Estrelle in Balfe’s L’étoile de Séville on December 17, 1845.
•  David* in August Mermet’s (1810–1889) David on June
3, 1846.
•  Marie in the Rossini pastiche (by Niedermeyer) Robert
Bruce on December 30, 1846. The pasticcio Robert the
Bruce was cobbled up from Rossini’s La donna del lago.
Smart quotes Gustave Bord (1852–1934), Stoltz’s early
biographer, as claiming that Rosine sang Léonor de Guzman
in La Favorite 481 times, Catarina in La reine de Chypre 118
times, and Lazarillo in La Xacarilla in 100 performances. Ben-
venuto Cellini was Berlioz’s first opera and had been accepted
for production by Pillet’s predecessor, Henri Duponchel
(1794–1868), in 1835. The premiere with Duprez in the title
role was a fiasco when the audience erupted in riots and the
orchestra musicians judged it too difficult to play.
* Trouser roles.
 “La Favorite,” Rosine Stoltz 139
La Favorite was Stoltz’s signature role and some critics spec-
ulated that the libretto was biographical based on her relation-
ship with Pillet. Donizetti originally planned to compose Le
Duc d’Albe as his second opera for Paris, but Pillet objected on
the grounds that there was not a starring role for Rosine Stoltz.
He then revised L’Ange de Nisida and added the required
fourth act, which the librettist Alphonse Royer (1803–1875)
declared Donizetti had written in three or four hours after din-
ner.6 The reception for La Favorite was lukewarm but gradually
began to gain favor. Some critics felt that its success would
have been immediate had the title role been sung by Cornélie
Falcon instead of Stoltz.
It was at the time of Dom Sébastien that the mental illness
that would eventually overcome Donizetti first manifested
itself. Some of Donizetti’s more volatile friends accused Stoltz
of being the cause of his decline but most people considered
such an assessment ridiculous. Nevertheless, she must have
been venal and temperamental.
The climax of the difficulties during the rehearsals of
Dom Sébastien had come when Rosine Stoltz had refused to
remain on stage when Paolo Barroilhet (1810–1871), in the
role of Camões (Camoëns), sang a barcarolle. When Doni-
zetti strongly objected to her absence during that part of the
scene, Stoltz consented to remain—if the second verse of the
barcarolle was deleted. That compromise was agreed to by the
direction, and at that point, Donizetti’s anger got the better of
him. He threw down the score, denounced Stoltz for having
wounded his artistic dignity, and walked out of the theater.
“Three friends,” Léon Escudier wrote, “and we among them,
followed him home. He said nothing more. He gave vent to
rattling sounds of rage. His mind was confused.”7
Stoltz was finally driven off the stage of the Opéra in 1847
by the mounting criticism of her relationship with Pillet, and
he followed soon after. Mary Ann Smart states that after 1840,
the Opéra entered a period of decline:
Pillet’s advent of superintendent in 1840 saw the Opéra’s fortunes
decline rapidly. After the triumph of La Favorite, Paris’s first the-
ater slipped into disappointing premières and lackluster revivals
with singers often past their primes. Stoltz’s tenure coincided with
the departures of many popular artists and the vocal decline of
others, including the leading tenor and pioneer of the famous
high C “from the chest,” Gilbert Duprez. Of course laments
about vocal decline and departed great singers are a commonplace
of any opera house in any season, but they had greater polemic
urgency in Paris, becoming the basis for an aesthetic debate about
the relative merits of the spectacular scenic effects of French grand
opera and the Italian style emphasis on voice and melody. . . .
As the unpopular superintendent’s “favourite,” Stoltz was a
convenient symbol: since the aesthetic and political problems
that haunted the Opéra were too sweeping to be confronted
directly, attention could be diverted toward the smaller conflicts
and disasters that could plausibly be blamed on her vanity and
ambition. She was accused of sabotaging the sopranos already at
the Opéra by preventing Pillet from giving them starring roles,
and of forbidding him to invite rivals to Paris.8
Rosine Stoltz may not have been the sole cause of the
Opéra’s decline, but she certainly had a hand in it, an opinion
shared by many separate witnesses. Her later life was as flam-
boyant as her singing career.
Her need to mythologize herself, to embroider and fabricate
a persona, enlivens her narrative, but it also creates a need for
theories—explanations of her unreliability as a chronicler of
her own life.
Take, for example, her kaleidoscope of names. With every
twist and turn of her career or personal life, Rosine took a
new name, at first simply discarding the old, later accumulat-
ing them, hoarding assumed personae. By the end of her life
the woman born Victoire Noël was signing her letters “Rosa
Carolina, comtesse de Ketschendorf, baronesse de Stoltzenau,
princesse de Lesignano, duchesse de Bassano, princesse de
Paix, née d’Altavilla (Rosine Stoltz).9
Some of these titles were based on actual marriages and
some were appropriated from various assignations. Rosine
Stoltz died in Paris on July 30, 1903, at the age of eighty-eight.
NOTES
1.  Mary Ann Smart, “The Lost Voice of Rosine Stoltz,” Cambridge
Opera Journal 6, no.1 (1994): 34.
2. Jean-Louis Tamvaco, Les cancans de l’Opéra: Chroniques de
l’Académie royale de musique et du théâtre, à Paris sous les deux Restaura-
tions, 2 vols. (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2000), 1074.
3. Gilbert-Louis Duprez, Souvenirs d’un chanteur. Paris: Michel
Levy Frères, 1880. Trans. Paul Micio.
4.  Smart, “The Lost Voice of Rosine Stoltz,” 39.
5.  Smart, “The Lost Voice of Rosine Stoltz,” 48.
6.  Herbert Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy,
Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1963), 157.
7.  Herbert Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy,
Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1963), 209.
8.  Smart, “The Lost Voice of Rosine Stoltz,” 38–39.
9.  Smart, “The Lost Voice of Rosine Stoltz,” 41.
18
Altos in Opéra Lyrique and Opéra Comique
For those who insist on clear-cut labels, the distinction
between the opéra comique and regular opera is a source of
confusion. Based on a purely mechanical analysis, the differ-
ence is between works that have spoken dialogue and others
that are through-composed or have sung recitatives. However,
many works like George Bizet’s (1838–1875) Carmen, Mas-
senet’s Manon, Gustave Charpentier’s (1860–1956) Louise,
and Claude Debussy’s (1862–1918) Pelléas et Mélisande are on
serious subjects but they were all premiered at the Théâtre de
l’Opéra-Comique.
Donald J. Grout states that
The state of musical taste in Paris (that is to say in France)
from 1840 to 1870 is sufficiently illustrated by three facts: the
adoration of Meyerbeer, the neglect of Berlioz, and the craze
for Offenbach.1
Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880), a German-born French
composer, wrote more than one hundred operettas but only
one opera, the posthumous Les contes d’Hoffmann (1881).
In 1855, when Offenbach was rejected as a composer by the
Opéra-Comique, he opened his own small (three-hundred-
seat) Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, where he produced more
than thirty one-act operettas. All had only three characters
because of government licensing strictures. In one of the early
pieces, Le violoneux (1855), a mezzo-soprano named Hortense
Schneider (1833–1920) made her debut and immediately
became the star of the show. In the following season, she cre-
ated Gigolette in Tromb-al-ca-zar and Pierrette in La rose de St.
Flour, both by Offenbach, as well as the role of Violette in Les
pantins de Violette by Adolphe Adam (1803–1856). After the
two seasons she worked with Offenbach in these small operet-
tas, she moved on to the Palais-Royal, where she appeared in
many vaudevilles, melodramas, and comedies, both as a singer
and a stage actress, from 1858 to 1864.
Once the prohibition against larger casts had been lifted,
Offenbach was finally able to embark on a series of full-length
operettas. The first of these, Orphée aux enfers (1858) (Or-
141
pheus in the Underworld), featured the altos Marguerite Cha-
bert (fl. 1850–1860) as Juno and Marguerite Macé-Montrouge
(1836–1898) as L’Opinion publique. Both were veterans of
Offenbach’s “small operettas.” Orphée was wildly popular with
the Parisian public and one of the main reasons was the “Infer-
nal Galop” number, which featured the once-naughty cancan.
Some confused spectators actually bought tickets to see Gluck’s
Orphée during a long run at the Opéra, thinking they were go-
ing to see Offenbach’s rollicking musical!
At the Palais-Royal, Hortense Schneider now commanded
large fees and was notoriously temperamental. She contem-
plated retirement, but despite these obstacles, Offenbach per-
suaded her to rejoin him at the Théâtre des Variétés for La belle
Hélène (1864), which was a triumph for her. Schneider created
leading roles in several of Offenbach’s operettas, some of which
he called opéras bouffes. They include Boulotte in Barbe-bleue
(1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867), and La
Périchole (1868). Schneider continued singing in Paris for a
few years and visited London and St. Petersburg as late as 1872.
More than her voice, Schneider profited from the succès de scan-
dale of her private life, as well as her personal beauty and acting
ability, during a career reminiscent of many of today’s pop divas.
The Tales of Hoffmann is an opéra fantastique set to a libretto
by Jules Barbier (1825–1901) based on three short stories by
E. T. A. Hoffmann The alto voice is very important in this
opera, with Hoffmann’s muse, Poetry, masquerading as Nick-
lausse, his closest friend. One of his loves, Giulietta, is often
sung by a mezzo-soprano. The first Nicklausse was Marguerite
Ugalde (1862–1940), a French operetta singer who performed
the part at the first performances (which did not include the
third act) on February 10, 1881, at the Opéra-Comique. The
muse was mezzo-soprano Marie Molé-Truffier (1855–1923).
Ambrose Thomas was a French composer who is remembered
today as the composer of Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868).
He was also an esteemed educator who was the director of
the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 until his death in 1896.
Among his pupils was Jules Massenet. As a winner of the Prix de
Rome, Thomas became deeply influenced by the Italian genius
142 Chapter 18
for melody. Mignon is based on Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters
Lehrjahre. Mignon’s song Nur wer die Sennsucht kennt was also
one of the most popular subjects of the nineteenth century for
many composers of song literature such as Schubert, Schumann,
Beethoven, Hugo Wolf (1860–1903), and Tchaikovsky. The
original French libretto for the opera was by Jules Barbier and
Michel Carré (1821–1872) and featured the required happy
ending instead of the tragic death of Mignon, as in Goethe’s
original story. Mignon premiered on November 17, 1866, at
the Opéra-Comique. Thomas prepared a version with sung
recitatives in 1870 and that is the one most performed today.
However, the original version had achieved 1,600 performances
at the Opéra-Comique by 1927.2
Célestine Galli-Marié (1840–1905) was a mezzo-soprano
whose performance in Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl attracted
the attention of the management of the Opéra-Comique. She
made a successful debut as Serpina in Pergolesi’s La serva pa-
drona in 1862. She was then chosen to create the eponymous
role of Mignon.
“She is small and graceful, moves like a cat, has an impish,
pert face, and her whole personality seems unruly and mischie-
Figure 18.1.  Célestine Galli-Marié as Car-
men by Henri Lucien Doucet (1856–1895)
vous. She acts as though she had been trained in the sound
tradition of Molière; she sings in a fresh full voice, piquant and
mellow,” wrote a critic in 1862 after her overwhelmingly suc-
cessful debut in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona. In Albert Grisar’s
(1808–1869) Les Amours du diable the following year, “she was
by turns piquant, tender, sardonic, and impassioned.”
In Lara by Aimé Maillart (1817–1871), an opera based
on Byron’s poem, she played her part, dressed as a boy, “with
feline grace and fierce energy.” Lara was “a great success for
Mme Galli-Marié who is decidedly a most remarkable artist,”
Ludovic Halévy realized as early as 1864. She sang and played
the part with rarest talent. In 1866 she created the title role of
Thomas’s Mignon, making it so much her own that when the
opera was later revived with another singer one critic protested:
“Mignon is Galli-Marié; no other artist should sing it.”3
Galli-Marié made a fine career from this ever-popular part.
One of the features of her interpretation of Mignon was her
study of the 1836 painting of Mignon by Ary Scheffer, a dear
friend of Pauline Viardot.
In 1856, a long article by Offenbach on the history of comic
opera in Le Figaro inspired a competition for aspiring compos-
ers. It was won by the eighteen-year-old George Bizet, who
submitted Le docteur Miracle. Despite winning the prestigious
Prix de Rome award the next year, misfortune seemed to dog
the career of Bizet, who endured a lack of success in his earlier
operas because of a lack of suitable libretti and unfair criticism
from unenlightened members of the press. However, there
were a few who believed in him, notably Berlioz and Léon
Carvalho (1825–1897), the director of the Théâtre-Lyrique.
Finally, in 1873, Bizet received a commission from the Opéra-
Comique director for an opera based on Prosper Mérimée’s
(1803–1870) novel Carmen of 1845. Bizet played through the
part for Galli-Marié and decided that she was perfect for the ti-
tle role. The libretto was to be by Henri Meilhac (1831–1897)
and Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908), a team best known for
work with Offenbach. However, the cash-strapped manager of
the Opéra-Comique, Camille du Locle (1832–1903), contin-
ued to haggle by mail over salary with the touring Galli-Marié
for four months. Finally, on December 18, 1873, they came
to an agreement. In a letter to du Locle on January 2, 1874,
Galli-Marié wrote:
I have signed with the Monnaie for a new series of 15 perfor-
mances. It is no longer a matter for the anodyne, peaceful role
of Marguerite (in which, by the way, I have just had a triumph
here . . .) but of Le prophète. La Favorite, Il Trovatore, etc, etc.
And I am not afraid of them!4
I take this to mean that the thirty-four-year-old singer was
feeling a new maturity in her voice and was moving into the
mezzo-soprano range with more dramatic parts instead of the
lyric soprano roles of her youth. Certainly, she had previously
exhibited the temperament necessary for such parts and now
the voice matched her dramatic inclinations. In the spring of
1874, Bizet received the news that the premiere of Carmen had
 Altos in Opéra Lyrique and Opéra Comique 143
been postponed, with rehearsals starting in October instead
of August. Having planned to learn her role in the summer,
Galli-Marié, who was eager to play the fiery gypsy, pretended
to be ill to evade several verbal agreements for engagements
that summer. She enjoyed a period of relaxation, incognito,
in a chateau near Bordeaux. In a nice bit of playfulness, she
called herself Madame Cipriani from the Castello di Cipriani
in Mignon. She requested copies of the difficult parts of the
role from Bizet but demurred when he offered to bring them
to her in person. She stated that she would be traveling in
September and needed the parts before rehearsals began and
would sight-read the rest at that time.
Rehearsals began on October 2, 1874, while Galli-Marié
was performing Mignon at the Opéra-Comique at the same
time. On October 5, she sang in the 344th performance of
Thomas’s popular opera and on December 9, appeared as
Rose Friquet in Les Dragons de Villars, another opera by Aimé
Maillart. Turbulent rehearsals were held almost every weekday
from November until the end of the year. For his part, du
Locle upheld the reputation of French opera managers as a
contemptible lot. Having become sole director, he presided
over a steadily declining box office. Frustrated, he took out his
pique on the cast and creators of Carmen.
The only remaining outlet for du Locle was the upholding
of his reputation as a prophet. Preferring omniscience to loy-
alty, he did not hesitate to indulge in derogatory remarks in the
hearing of the authors and singers. He told all and sundry that
Bizet’s music was “Cochin-Chinese and utterly incomprehen-
sible.” The effect of the director’s attitude permeated the whole
company, thereby rendering unbearably difficult the com-
poser’s efforts to control the rebellious musicians and singers.5
The rehearsals in January 1875 continued to be chaotic. Bi-
zet was forced to accompany them himself. The chorus, accus-
tomed to standing in a row, staring at the conductor, declared
the first two acts, where they were required to move about the
stage in a realistic manner, unperformable and threatened to
strike, while the orchestra proclaimed the score to be unplay-
able. Du Locle demanded that the ending be changed, but
Galli-Marié refused to accept any changes whatsoever and
threatened to resign if there were any. Ernest Guiraud (1837–
1892) was Bizet’s close friend who was born in New Orleans.
He composed the recitatives for the grand opera version of
Carmen and orchestrated the score of Les contes d’Hoffmann
after the deaths of both composers. Guiraud stated that Bizet
revised the habanera thirteen times before he and Galli-Marié
were satisfied.6
The first performance of Carmen, which more than any
other is identified with the alto voice, premiered on March 3,
1875. Du Locle, worried about the possibility of a scandal, dis-
couraged the ordinary family parties from attending. The audi-
ence was made up of a mixture of professional musicians, the
press, music publishers, and boulevardiers who were anxious
to witness a scandal. Between the first two acts, friends went
backstage to congratulate the composer. Gounod, ever true to
his duplicitous form, praised Bizet to his face, but in private
complained that Bizet had stolen the best music in the score
from him. As the opera proceeded, a chill descended upon
the theater, and it was evident that the premiere had been a
failure. Only a few friends, their eyes sad, greeted the hapless
composer after the final curtain.
The second performance was a different story. Audience
members who had enjoyed themselves were mystified by the
reports of the failure of the premiere. Some laid the blame
squarely at du Locle’s door. However, the damage had been
done by the scathing reviews from a corrupt press between
the first two performances. Carmen ran for forty-eight perfor-
mances, seemingly a sign of success, but the houses were never
full and the cost of production was never recouped.
Oscar Comettant (1819–1898), in a venomous article,
did not spare Galli-Marié. “This distinguished artist,” he felt,
“could have corrected what was shocking and apathetic in the
character of this heartless, faithless, lawless gypsy. She has,
on the contrary, exaggerated Carmen’s vices by a realism that
would at best be bearable in an operetta in a small theater. At
the Opéra-Comique, a subsidized theater, a decent theater if
there ever was one, Mlle Carmen should temper her passions.”7
There were unsubstantiated backstage assertions that Cé-
lestine Galli-Marié and Bizet had a romantic relationship that
began during rehearsals of Carmen. Whether or not this was
true, she is to be given great credit for the realization of Bizet’s
masterpiece.
“Throughout the embattled rehearsals of Carmen, it was not
the composer’s wife who sustained him either as a man or as
an artist. It was Galli-Marié, the woman of the theater, who
became the embodiment of his creation by her own gifts, her
faith in his talent, her fierce loyalty to his conception of the
interpretation of her role, and her willingness to make sacri-
fices for it rather than compromise—it was she who gave him
wholehearted support. How then must he have felt when he
read the virulent personal attacks by Commetant and Achille
de Lauzières (1800–1875) on the character she portrayed with
such faithful adherence to his conception that she herself be-
came Carmen? And if the singer’s interpretation represented
the tangible, visual aspects of Bizet’s heroine, it is probable that
spiritually and musically Carmen was the realization of Bizet’s
own unconscious longing.”8
“On June 3, 1875, after a swim in the cold waters of the
Seine, George Bizet died from ‘a cardiac complication of acute
articular rheumatism. Without the febrile polyarthritis fol-
lowing a chill, he would not have died during a convalescence
from a recurrent throat angina.’”9
One of the most intriguing legends in the history of opera
is that on the thirty-third performance of Carmen, Célestine
Galli-Marié had a premonition of the death of Bizet during the
card scene in act 3. She managed to finish the scene and then
fainted in the wings. The opera ended at approximately the
same time that Bizet lost consciousness. The next performance
was canceled due to Galli-Marié’s high fever. On the night of
Bizet’s funeral, Carmen was presented onstage at the Opéra-
Comique. The entire cast was crying. Galli-Marié was unable
144 Chapter 18
to sing the next two performances, which were canceled. Her
final performance was on June 13, 1875.
Before being forced out of the directorship, du Locle revived
Carmen for a series of twelve performances with the original cast
starting on November 15. Tchaikovsky attended one of the per-
formances and was stirred by both the opera and Galli-Marié’s
interpretation. After the close of that run, Carmen was absent
from the Opéra-Comique for eight years, but Galli-Marié
continued to sing it in theaters all around Europe, appearing
in Brussels, Bordeaux, Barcelona, Lyon, Liège, Dieppe, Naples,
and Genoa, where she was stabbed in the cheek by an over-
excited tenor. During this period, Carvalho, now the director
of the Opéra-Comique, was importuned on all sides to revive
Carmen, but he still considered it to be immoral. Furthermore,
when Galli-Marié was suggested to star in a revival, Halévy and
Meilhac cried,
“Don’t mention that woman to us,” said the librettists. “It was
her fault that the piece failed. Her interpretation of the part was
too realistic. . . . Mme Galli-Marié may perhaps have played
Mérimeé’s Carmen. But she did not play ours.”10
On April 21, 1883, Carvalho, bowing to the pressure, pre-
sented a shabby, poorly cut, badly rehearsed Carmen, starring
a bland, colorless soprano named Adèle Isaac (1854–1915).
To provide an idea of her unsuitability for Carmen, consider
that she sang Susanna and Zerlina at the Opèra-Comique
and created the parts of Olympia and Antonia in Les contes
d’Hoffmann in 1881. The other singers were incompetent and
the last act was so under-rehearsed that the singers missed their
cues and the staging was disastrous. The audience was outraged
at this desecration of a great work of art, but Bizet’s music was
appreciated at last and the rest of the season was a box-office
success. Finally, on October 22 of the same year, Carvalho
relented and revived the opera as it had been written, with the
original sets and costumes. Galli-Marié was triumphant and
the critics had a tasty French meal of crow. The deceitful critic,
Oscar Comettant, reversed course with this learned comment:
Mme Galli-Marié is the personification of Carmen as Mérimée
conceived her. This incarnation at first seemed shocking to the
decent audiences of the Opéra-Comique, which today accepts
it without reservation. . . . Mme Galli-Marié was recalled as
much as three times in rapid succession. Carmen, the most hair-
raising strumpet of Moorish blood . . . but also the most live
and “thrilling” of creatures, has finally gained her naturalization
papers at the bourgeois, prudish Salle-Favart. Bizet’s work has
liberated it from all obstacles and it has definitely entered the
repertory of the Opéra-Comique.11
The overwhelming success of Mignon and Carmen obscures
the fact that Galli-Marié had quite a lot of experience in creat-
ing major roles in operas now largely forgotten. As a typical
alto musico, she premiered several travesti parts—Lazarille in
Don César de Bazan (1870) by Massenet, Vendredi (Friday) in
Robinson Crusoé (1870), and the title role of Fantasia (1872),
both by Offenbach. François Auguste Gevaert’s (1828–1908)
Le Capitaine Henriot (1864), Fior d’Aliza (1866) of Victor
Massé (1822–1884), and Piccolino (1866) by Ernest Guiraud
were other operas premiered by Galli-Marié.
Célestine Galli-Marié continued to sing her great role of
Carmen, appearing at Her Majesty’s Theater in London in
1886. She returned to the Opéra-Comique in December 1890
for her last performance with Nellie Melba (1861–1931), Jean
de Reszke (1850–1925), and Jean Lassalle (1847–1909) in
order to raise money for a memorial for Bizet.
On November 25, 1892, when Emma Calvé first sang Car-
men at the Opéra-Comique, Galli-Marié went backstage to
congratulate her successor.
“Bravo” she said, “The way you have played the part is highly
interesting, very original, never trivial, although very bold. And
what a lovely voice you have!” Then with a sigh: “This is the
first time I have consented to be present at this opera which
reminds me so poignantly of my youth.”12
The last composer of Pauline Viardot’s circle to consider was
Jules Massenet, who wrote more than thirty operas, several of
which have leading roles for the alto voice. It seems to me that
Viardot had a way of encouraging appreciation for the lower
female voice among her composer associates. Grout states that
Massenet was the outstanding French composer of the late
nineteenth century, attributing this to a gift for personalized
melody and an individual style that took advantage of new
devices without being a member of any particular “school.”13
I have already noted Massenet’s opéra-comique, Don César de
Bazan, written for Célestine Galli-Marié in 1872, and Marie-
Magdeleine, the drame-sacré premiered by Pauline Viardot in
1873. The grand opera Le roi de Lahore (1877) was a great suc-
cess and established Massenet as an outstanding young French
composer. His next work, Hérodiade (1879), was rejected at
the Opéra for the same reasons that Samson et Dalila was. The
Théâtre de Monnaie in Brussels was much more adventurous
in those days and Hérodiade received its premiere on Decem-
ber 19, 1881. The Hérodiade was Blanche Deschamps-Jéhin
(1857–1923), who had made her debut there as Mignon in
1879. Deschamps-Jéhin possessed a wide-ranging contralto
voice and was a mainstay at the Opéra-Comique for more
than a decade in the 1880s. Her other Massenet premiere roles
included Madame de la Haltière in Cendrillon (1899) and the
baroness in Chérubin (1905). In 1891, she made her debut at
the Paris Opéra as Léonor in La Favorite. Deschamps-Jéhin
went on to star there as Fidès, Amneris, Dalila, Ortrud, Fricka,
and Erda. Carmen, Azucena, and Brangäne in Tristan were
among the other roles in her repertoire.
Of course, Massenet is best known for Manon (1884), which
has been a vehicle for high sopranos since it was written. Manon
established Massenet as the leading composer of his generation
in France, a position comparable to Verdi in Italy. Massenet’s
other masterpiece was Werther, from the novel by Goethe. The
idea for Werther went back to 1880 and took a long time to
germinate. It was also turned down as too depressing by the
unimaginative directors at the Opéra-Comique. The premiere
 Altos in Opéra Lyrique and Opéra Comique 145
took place on February 16, 1892, in Vienna and was performed
in German. Charlotte was sung by Marie Renard (1864–1939),
an Austrian mezzo-soprano, born Marie Pötzl. Renard had made
her debut in Graz as Azucena and already had Carmen and Mi-
gnon under her belt before the premiere of Werther.
The versatility of the altos of the nineteenth century was
amazing. Besides the alto roles mentioned, Renard sang the
first performance of Manon in Vienna in 1890, as well as Än-
nchen in Weber’s Der Freischütz, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus,
Musetta in La Bohème, and Tatyana in the first Viennese
performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 1897. Renard
bade farewell to the stage in 1900 as Carmen.
The enormous popularity of Cavalleria Rusticana by the
young Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945) and the Italian genre
called verismo prompted Massenet to compose La Navarraise,
which he called an épisode lyrique, in 1894. The Anita (la
Navarraise) of the original production at Covent Garden was
Emma Calvé (1858–1942).
Designated a soprano in all historical accounts, Calvé was a
true model of a zwischen-fach (“between categories”) artist who
defied classification. She was obviously just as interested in the
dramatic aspects of a role as she was in the purely musical and
Figure 18.2.   Emma Calvé as Carmen. Collection of the author.
vocal elements. On recordings, Calvé certainly sounds like a
lyric soprano in the upper half of the voice, but her middle and
chest voice have an undeniable power. I am including her in
this study because of her celebrity as the most famous Carmen
of her generation, as well as the other alto roles that she sang.
Calvé came from a lower-middle-class family and had
few educational advantages. She struggled for acceptance
in Italy and France for ten years after her debut at the
Monnaie as Marguerite in Faust in 1881. At the recommen-
dation of François Gevaert, director of the Brussels Con-
servatoire, Calvé began studying with Mathilde Marchesi
(1821–1913), whose strict methods were not compatible
with Calvé’s free and earthy spirit. She learned much from
Marie Miolan-Carvalho, the first Marguerite in Faust, and
from her last voice teacher, Rosina Laborde (1824–1907).
One of her secrets was her study with the elderly castrato,
Domenico Mustafà (1829–1912), from whom she learned
the use of the whistle register, which lies above the head
voice and accounts for her ability to sing such disparate parts
as Ophélie in Thomas’s Hamlet and Carmen, her signature
role. This sound can be clearly heard in her recording of “Ma
Lisette,” a folk song.
Calvé was always identified as the quintessential French
singer but she cut her eyeteeth on Italian verismo, hav-
ing created Suzel in L’amico Fritz with Fernando de Lucia
(1860–1925) in 1891. Santuzza was her first success and she
was the first interpreter of the part at the Opéra-Comique in
November 1891. Calvé prepared for the part by following
the great actress Eleonora Duse (1858–1924) around Italy,
studying gesture and stagecraft. She was always grateful to
Victor Maurel (1848–1923), the first Iago and Falstaff in
Verdi’s operas, who, sensing her potential, engaged her to
appear with him at the Théâtre Italien in 1884 and gave her
the benefit of his advice.
Today, Calvé would probably be considered a method ac-
tress. She gave the following account of her preparation for
the role of Santuzza:
“My interpretation for the role of Santuzza,” she recalled, “aston-
ished my comrades. My spontaneous and apparently unstudied
gestures shocked them. Even the costume, which I had brought
with me from Italy, the clothes of a real peasant woman, coarse
shirt, worn sandals and all, was considered eccentric and ugly. I
was unmercifully criticized and ridiculed. . . . Come what will,” I
thought, “I shall act the part as I feel it. I went on the stage, and
I was . . . the naïve and tragic Santuzza, the passionate, impulsive
peasant girl of Italy. It was a triumph!”14
On November 25, 1892, Emma Calvé sang her first Carmen
at the Opéra-Comique. She prepared her signature part with
no less attention to detail. As background, Calvé lived in Spain
until the age of six and retained a lifelong fluency in Spanish.15
An inveterate traveler, and always a curious observer, Calvé
had visited Granada and seen the gypsies and their dances. She
had studied their dress, gestures, and movements, and she now
strove for authenticity in her own interpretation.
146 Chapter 18
“I insisted,” she wrote in My Life, “on wearing the fringed shawl
which is called in Spain the mantón de Manila instead of the
bolero and short skirt in which the part had always been cos-
tumed. In the matter of the dance, also, my ideas and those of
the director did not agree! They wanted me to learn the steps
which had been danced with such grace and charm by Galle-
Marié. How do you expect me to imitate Galli?” I protested.
“She was small, dainty, and an entirely different build. I am big.
I have long arms. It is absurd for me to imitate anyone but the
gypsies themselves.” Whereupon, I showed them the true dance
of the gitanas, with its special use of the arms and hands—a
manner of dancing for which the Spaniards have invented the
expression el bracear.”16
With her overwhelming success as Carmen, Emma Calvé
began her great international career, singing at Covent Garden
from 1892 to 1894, from 1898 to 1902, and again in 1904.
The alto repertoire she sang included Carmen, Mignon, La Na-
varraise, and Hérodiade. The soprano repertoire included Me-
fistofele by Arrigo Boito, Gounod’s Faust, and Thomas’s Hamlet.
In 1893 she debuted as Santuzza at the Metropolitan and sang
the first New York production of Carmen there on December
20, 1893. In her six seasons at the Met, she sang Carmen no
less than 137 times. She then took Carmen to Boston, Chicago,
and Montreal. The Don Josés included De Lucia, with whom
she often partnered, and Jean de Reszke. On October 3, 1895,
Calvé reached the apex of her career at the Opéra-Comique
when she sang the Paris premiere of La Navarraise. Massenet
was pleased and composed another opera for her, Sapho, which
premiered on November 27, 1897. Calvé played Fanny Le-
grand, an artist’s model. The role is listed as soprano.
Emma Calvé’s reputation was achieved mostly at the Opéra-
Comique. She had to wait until 1899 to make her debut at the
Paris Opéra as Ophélie in Thomas’s Hamlet. Even then, when
she heard that the great Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) was go-
ing to appear in her first Hamlet on the same night as her debut,
she postponed it for a few days until May 29, citing a conflict
with the dress rehearsal of Massenet’s Cendrillon at the Opéra-
Comique. She soon dropped Ophélie from her repertoire as
being too high for her. In 1902, Calvé premiered La Carmélite,
a soprano role by Reynaldo Hahn (1874–1947), who was a
student of Massenet at the Conservatoire. From 1903 to 1904,
Emma Calvé returned to the alto repertoire with Berlioz’s La
damnation de Faust and Hérodiade. From 1906 to 1915, she
traveled extensively around the world and in the United States
and Germany. In 1916 during the war, Calvé gave concerts in
France to benefit the Red Cross. She did not retire until 1925
after another tour in America.
From 1899 to 1900, Calvé and others in her party traveled
through the East with a man who had a profound effect on
her life, Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902). Vivekananda has
left a number of books about spiritual matters. He wrote the
following about Emma Calvé:
She was born poor but by her innate talents, prodigious labour
and diligence, and after wrestling against much hardship, she is
now enormously rich and commands respect from kings and
emperors. . . . The rare combination of beauty, youth, talents,
and “divine” voice has assigned Calvé the highest place among
the singers of the West. There is, indeed, no better teacher than
misery and poverty. The constant fight against the dire poverty,
misery, and hardship of her girlhood, which has led to her
present triumph over them, has brought into her life a unique
sympathy and a depth of thought with a wide outlook.17
After 1925, Emma Calvé took up teaching in Millau, in the
south of France, where she died in 1942 at the age of eighty-
three.
The mezzo-soprano who sang the greatest number of
premieres for Massenet was Lucy Arbell (1882–1947), who
collaborated with the composer after the turn of the new cen-
tury. Arbell created the roles of Perséphone in Ariane (1906),
the title role in Thérèse (1907), Queen Amahelli in Bacchus
(1909), Dulcinée in Don Quichotte (1910) with the great bass
Feodor Chaliapin, Postumia in Roma (1912), and Colombe in
Panurge (1913).
Arbell made her debut in 1903 at the Paris Opéra as Dalila
and then sang Fricka (Die Walküre), Amneris in Aida and
Maddelena in Rigoletto, both by Verdi, as well as Uta in Sigurd
(1884) by Ernest Reyer (1823–1909), a French opera that tells
the story of the Niebelungenlied in a single evening. Reyer’s
music owes more to Berlioz than it does to Wagner. Arbell
continued to sing Charlotte in Werther into the 1920s. There
were rumors to suggest that Massenet was a womanizer, but
Rodney Milnes suggests that “external evidence would suggest
sex in the head rather than in the bed.” He says that “there
is something rather sad about the aging Massenet’s relation-
ship with the gold-digging Lucy Arbell, a relationship surely
reflected in Don Quichotte.”18
According to eyewitnesses, Arbell’s demands on the com-
poser tested even his infatuation and after his death, she pur-
sued his widow with lawsuits over exclusive rights to his post-
humous oeuvre, hence the long-delayed premières of Cléopâtre
(1914) and Amadis (1922).19
Cléopâtre was not premiered until two years after the death
of the composer due to the abovementioned lawsuits. The title
role was not sung by Arbell, for whom it was written, but by
the beautiful Russian soprano Maria Kuznetsova (1880–1966).
Arbell and Kuznetsova had appeared together in the last opera
premiered during Massenet’s lifetime, Roma (1912). Arbell had
a subsidiary role, Postumia, while Kuznetsova sang the leading
role of Fausta. Kuznetsova had a great career, mostly in Europe,
after she escaped the Russian revolution after 1917. Her sec-
ond husband was Jules Massenet’s nephew, Alfred Massenet.
Margherita Grandi (1894–1972), an Australian mezzo-
soprano (later a soprano), attended the Royal Conservatory of
Music in London and studied voice with Mathilde Marchesi,
Jean de Reszke, and, later, Emma Calvé in Paris. She must
have been quite taken by the vivacious Calvé, for she made her
debut as Charlotte in Werther with the stage name of Djéma
Vécla (an anagram of Calvé). Massenet had started to com-
pose Amadis in 1895 but shelved it until the last years of his
 Altos in Opéra Lyrique and Opéra Comique 147
life, when he secretly finished it. At the Opéra Monte Carlo,
Grandi premiered the eponymous role of Amadis in 1922,
almost ten years after the death of the composer. Grandi then
moved to Italy, studied with Giannina Russ (1873–1951) and
emerged almost ten years later as a dramatic soprano, singing
the role of Aida under her real name. In 1948, she recorded
the sleepwalking scene from her best role, Lady Macbeth, with
Thomas Beecham (1879–1971), in which the high notes were
sung by soprano Dorothy Bond (1921–1952). High notes
are often a casualty when altos try to move up to the soprano
repertoire. Grandi’s voice can be heard on the film The Red
Shoes, also made in 1948. In the same year, the fifty-four-year-
old Grandi made an impressive recording of “Tu che la vanita”
from Don Carlo in which she displays her powerful middle
and low notes.
Stendhal’s earlier complaint that the French nation did
not encourage the development of the contralto voice ceases
to hold water, for there are some fine singers spanning the
Belle Époque. We are now entering the era when some of
these French alto singers can be heard on recordings. Blanche
Deschamps-Jéhin had a prolific career from 1879 to 1905,
first at the Monnaie in Brussels and then mostly at the Opéra-
Comique. Deschamps-Jéhin created the role of Ufa in Ernest
Reyer’s Sigurd in 1884, as well as the title role of Hérodiade
in Massenet’s opera in 1888. While at the Opéra-Comique,
she took part in the world premieres of Une Nuit de Cléopatre
(posthumous) of Victor Massé, Gounod’s Le Médecin malgré
lui (1886), Margared in Édouard Lalo’s (1823–1892) Le Roi
d’Ys (1888), Madame de la Haltière in Massenet’s Cendril-
lon, and the mother in Charpentier’s Louise (1900). After a
successful visit to London where she sang with the de Reszke
brothers, Melba, and Pol Plançon (1854–1914), Deschamps-
Jéhin joined the Paris Opéra, singing the first Dalila at the
Palais Garnier. She received admiring notices for her Léonor
in La Favorite, as well as for her interpretations of Fidès,
Amneris, and Ortrud. Her last performance was as Marta in
Boito’s Mefistofele with Chaliapin in 1909.
Like Emma Calvé, Jeanne Gerville-Réache (1882–1915)
was a pupil of Rosine Laborde. She also studied with Pauline
Viardot, especially the role of Orphée, in which she made
her debut at the Opéra-Comique in 1899. Gerville-Réache
remained there until 1902, when she created two world pre-
miere roles, that of Catherine in Camille Erlanger’s (1863–
1919) Le juif polonais (1900) and Geneviève in Debussy’s
Pelleas et Mélisande (1902). After a falling-out with the man-
agement, she sang at the Monnaie for the next two seasons
and then debuted at the Royal Opera House in London in
1905, where she reprised Orphée. In 1907, Gerville-Réache
was engaged at the Manhattan Opera Company, the rival
company to the Metropolitan Opera run by Oscar Ham-
merstein I (1847–1919). The Manhattan had many of the
world’s greatest singers on the roster during its brief existence
from 1906 to 1910. Gerville-Réache repeated her Pelleas
role of Geneviève with Mary Garden (1874–1967) and was
especially admired for her Dalila, which she had studied with
Saint-Saëns. She also sang Clytemnestra in the American pre-
miere of Elektra, a role she immediately renounced. After the
Hammerstein company ceased operation, Gerville-Réache
was engaged at the Chicago Lyric, where she moved into the
Wagnerian repertoire with Brangäne and Fricka and was also
heard as Carmen. With prospects for an even more brilliant
career, Jeanne Gerville-Réache died of food poisoning in
New York City at the age of thirty-two.
Except for a tour of South America in 1911, the contralto
Suzanne Brohly (1882–1943) remained in Paris at the Opéra-
Comique for a career that lasted more than a quarter of a cen-
tury. Brohly made her debut in 1906 with a triumph as Lehl in
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snegourotchka. Her repertoire included Car-
men, Nicklausse in Les contes d’Hoffmann, Clytemestre in Iphigé-
nie en Aulide, Catherine in Erlanger’s Le juif polonais, the mother
in Louise, Geneviève in Pelleas et Mélisande, Mignon, Orphée,
Charlotte in Werther, the title role in Massenet’s Thérèse, and
Margared in Le Roi d’Ys, along with a host of lesser roles.
Brohly participated in a number of world premieres—
Erlanger’s Aphrodite with Mary Garden, Paul Dukas’s (1865–
1935) Ariane et Barbe Bleue, and Le Carillonneur by Xavier
Leroux (1863–1919). She made a number of records that
reveal a well-produced voice of good size and plenty of emo-
tional intensity.
Marie Charbonnel (1880–1962) was born in Lyon where she
attended the conservatoire and debuted at the Opéra National
there as Fidès in Le prophète in 1901. She remained in Lyon for
the next six years building repertoire, which included Amneris,
Carmen, Orphée, Azucena, Charlotte, and Margared in Le Roi
d’Ys. Charbonnel was engaged by the Paris Opéra in 1907,
where she debuted as Dalila, and then sang Erda in the Paris
premiere of Wagner’s Ring. Charbonnel also created the part
of Vanina in Saint-Saëns’s L’Ancêtre in 1905 at Monte Carlo.
In 1910 she joined the Opéra-Comique, where she appeared
as Carmen, the mother in Louise, Pygmalion in Massé’s Gal-
athée, and created roles in Ernest Bloch’s (1880–1959) Macbeth
(1910) and Lucien Magnard’s (1865–1914) Bérénice (1911).
Charbonnel’s voice was resonant and equalized throughout the
range without the pronounced “break” from the chest register
that mars the singing of many altos of this period.
When the eighty-one-year-old Camille Saint-Säens was
invited to conduct his Samson et Dalila at the Teatro Colon
in Buenos Aires in 1916, it was Jacqueline Royer (1884–19??)
whom he brought along as his Dalila. Royer was the daughter
of a music professor and began singing at an early age. Upon
her graduation from the Paris Conservatoire in 1904, she was
immediately engaged at the Paris Opéra, making her debut
as Léonor in La favorite. Royer also sang at Monte Carlo and
the Royal Opera in London. Besides Dalila, she sang Amneris,
Gertrude in Thomas’s Hamlet with Tita Ruffo (1876–1953),
Geneviève in Pelleas, and the principessa in the London pre-
miere of Giacomo Puccini’s (1858–1924) Suor Angelica in
1920. She also created a number of roles in now-forgotten
operas such as Carmine in Amilcare Ponchielli’s (1834–1886)
posthumous I mori di Valenza. Royer’s recordings are extremely
148 Chapter 18
rare (she only made four). Her rendition of the first part of the
Prison Scene from Le prophète shows a substantial voice, a good
legato line, and tasteful expression.
NOTES
1.  Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1965), 425.
2. Grout, A Short History of Opera, 340.
3.  Mina Curtiss, Bizet and His World (New York: Vienna House,
1958), 358. Quoted from Charles Soubies and Charles Malherbe,
Histoire du Théâtre-Lyrique, 1851–70 (Paris, 1899), passim.
4. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 364. Quoted from an unpub-
lished letter from Galli-Marié to du Locle, Bibliothèque de l’Opéra.
5. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 379. Quoted from Pierre Berton,
Souvenirs de la vie de théâtre (Paris, 1913), 239.
6. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 383.
7. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 404. Quoted from Oscar Com-
metant, Le Siècle, 8 March 1875.
8. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 406.
9. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 419. Quoted from Dr. Eugène
Gelma, “La Mort du Musicien Georges Bizet,” Cahiers de Psychiatrie
2 (Strasbourg, 1949).
10. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 431. Quoted from Maurice
Lefèvre, Musica 117 (June 1912).
11. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 435. Quoted from Oscar Com-
metant, Le Siècle, 8 October 1883.
12. Curtiss, Bizet and His World, 434. Quoted from Emma Calvé,
“Souvenirs d’ une grande Cantatrice,” Le Figaro, 9 June 1939.
13. Grout, A Short History of Opera, 434–35.
14. Pleasants, The Great Singers, 306.
15. Victor Girard, Emma Calvé liner notes (West Chester, PA:
Marston Records, 1998), 2.
16.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 306.
17.  Advaita Ashrama, The Life of Swami Vivekananda (Himalayas:
Advaita Ashrama, 1915), 552.
18.  Rodney Milnes, “Jules Massenet,” The New Grove Dictionary
of Opera, vol. 3, ed. Stanley Sedie (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997), 257.
19.  Milnes, “Jules Massenet,” The New Grove Dictionary of Opera,
257.
19
The Bel Canto Altos of Bellini and Donizetti
Vincenzo Bellini only lived for thirty-four years, but his life
(1801–1835) spanned the fluid era when the high soprano
voice began to supplant the alto as the romantic lead in opera.
However, most of the singers that he chose for his operas,
such as Pasta and Malibran, had rich, resonant voices that
can be characterized as mezzo-sopranos with comfortable top
notes. Considering Bellini’s volatility, I would imagine that he
would have been incensed to have heard someone like Amelita
Galli-Curci (1882–1963) piping his expansive vocal lines.
Bellini described mezzo-soprano Adelaide Comelli-Rubini as
“that witch, his [Rubini’s] asinine and ambitious wife”1 when
informed that she wished to sing Imogene in his Il pirata in Vi-
enna in 1828. As it turned out, Comelli-Rubini did a good job
and Bellini was relieved. Il pirata established Bellini’s reputa-
tion. Other significant altos who sang Imogene were Giuditta
Grisi (1805–1840), who was Giulia’s sister, Caroline Ungher,
and Giuditta Pasta.
La straniera first premiered on February 14, 1829, with
Henriette Méric-LaLande (1798–1867), a soprano and a fa-
vorite of Bellini, as Alaide (la straniera). Included in the cast
was alto Caroline Ungher as Isoletta, but she soon (1831) took
on the title part of Alaide, as did Giuditta Grisi, both of whom
sang it numerous times throughout Europe.
Zaira was a failure in its premiere in Parma on May 16,
1829. The opera again featured Méric-LaLande in the title
part and Luigi Lablache as Orosmane, sultan of Jerusalem.
Teresa Cecconi, a mezzo-soprano, sang the musico role of
Nerestano, whose rondo was one of the few musical numbers
to receive warm applause.2
Felice Romani, Bellini’s principal librettist, then revised
his Giulietta e Romeo (Vaccai, 1825) for the young composer
as I Capuleti e I Montecchi, which premiered on March 11,
1830, at La Fenice, Venice. The part of Romeo was assigned
to Giuditta Grisi, whose reputation has been eclipsed by her
famous sister, but who was obviously esteemed by Bellini, who
was choosy about the casting of his operas. There were also ru-
mors about an amorous relationship between Grisi and Bellini
during the run in Venice, which included his coaching her in
149
the part of Imogene in Il pirata. I Capuleti was a great success,
both for Giuditta Grisi and Bellini. As we have seen, Romeo
was a great vehicle for Maria Malibran but a poor fit for Pasta,
who dropped it from her repertoire after only two repetitions.
La sonnambula is an opera that illustrates that the rigid
organization of vocal categories into Fächer sometimes leads
to confusion. In our time, the Internet provides a unique op-
portunity to compare both alto and soprano voices singing
“Ah! non credea mirarti” in the same key (A minor). Each has
virtues to recommend it. There are many versions available
on YouTube. Maria Callas, perhaps the best modern parallel
to the original Amina, Giuditta Pasta, sings an emotional and
introspective version, while Cecilia Bartoli, who might be
channeling Pauline Viardot in the exuberant cabaletta “Ah!
non giunge,” descends to a low B flat in her embellishments.
Adelina Patti, who recorded “Ah! non giunge” in 1906, sings
an exquisite trill. As we have seen, Pasta abandoned Amina
after a few performances, and most altos have ceded the terri-
tory to the sopranos during the years since Patti and Sembrich
claimed it for their own.
During the course of studying the careers of Pasta, Mali-
bran, and Viardot, we have dealt extensively with Norma,
Bellini’s greatest work, from its premiere in 1831. There have
been many performances over the years. One of the most in-
teresting was that of January 18, 1834, at the Tratro Apollo in
Rome. No doubt “spooked” by the druid theme of the opera,
the pontifical censor insisted on changing the title to La foresta
d’Irminsul and the title character to “Delia.” La foresta became
quite popular at the papal court. In 1835 Caroline Ungher as
“Delia” interpolated Rubini’s great aria from Pacini’s Niobe, “Il
soave e bel content.” In 1859, the Marchisio sisters, Carlotta
(1835–1872), a soprano, and Barbara (1833–1919), a con-
tralto, were “Delia” and Adalgisa respectively. The Marchisio
sisters are usually considered a duo because they often sang
together.
Had the Turanese sisters Barbara and Carlotta Marchisio
been born at the turn of the century rather than 1833 and
1835, respectively, Rossini might even have been wooed back
150 Chapter 19
to the composition of opera after Guillaume Tell. They ap-
peared too late for that, but they were to give a new genera-
tion the opportunity to hear several of Rossini’s operas sung
as though the new manners of singing required by Halévy,
Meyerbeer, and the middle-aged Verdi had not intervened—
and they were to be one chief reason for the creation of his last
large composition, the Petite Messe solennelle.3
The twenty-one-year-old Carlotta made her operatic debut
in 1856 as Norma. Barbara, the contralto, made her first oper-
atic appearance as Rosina in the same year. Thereafter, Barbara
took on the roles of Azucena, Angelina in La Cenerentola,
Pierotto in Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix, and Maffio Or-
sini in Lucrezia Borgia. In the same year the sisters began their
illustrious duo career with three Rossini operas: Matilde di
Shabran, Semiramide, and Guglielmo Tell, Barbara singing the
minor part of Jemmy. They added Otello, with Barbara as Des-
demona. When they reached La Scala in 1858, they triumphed
in a revival of Semiramide, for a remarkable total of thirty-three
performances. News travels fast in the operatic world, and a
report to the Paris Opéra stated that not since Malibran and
Sontag had the famous second-act duet been sung with such
perfection. The sisters were engaged for a French translation
of Semiramide at the Opéra for the summer season of 1860.
Rossini, who evidently had heard them during a rehearsal,
greeted them when they called at the Chausseé d’Antin with the
words: “My dear babies, you have brought a dead man to life!”4
Other operas that the sisters appeared in were Il trovatore
and La forza del destino of Verdi, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lam-
mermoor, Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, Rossini’s L’italiana
in Algeri and Mosè in Egitto, Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, and
Bellini’s I puritani. Carlotta passed away in 1872, and Barbara
continued to sing until 1876, when she retired to teach. When
she was being installed as a teacher at the illustrious San Pietro
di Maiella conservatory in Naples in 1892, the great fifty-nine-
year-old contralto sang the rondo finale of La Cenerentola and
“Agnus Dei” from the Petite Messe Solennelle. Barbara Marchi-
sio was the teacher of Toti dal Monte (1893–1975) and Rosa
Raisa (1893–1963), the first Turandot.
Elvira in I puritani was created by Giulia Grisi in 1835, and
the original cast was called the Puritani quartet. Later, with the
substitution of the tenor Mario for Rubini, they were called
the vieille garde. They held sway over the production of opera
in Paris and London for nearly twenty-five years and I puritani
was produced almost every year during this time. Bellini’s op-
era was always the province of the sopranos and was popular
from its inception in London and Paris, especially when Grisi
was around to sing it. The altos did not invade this territory
with one notable exception.
In June 1833, Bellini was in London and was invited to hear
Maria Malibran in an English translation of La sonnambula at
the Drury Lane Theater. He was vexed by the performance in
a language that he didn’t understand and complained that his
music was “torn to shreds”—that is, until Malibran sang the
words “Ah! M’abbracia!” Bellini wrote to Francesco Florimo
(1800–1888):
All that I can say is that never in my life shall I be able to feel a
greater emotion. From that moment I have become very close
to Malibran. She shows me all the admiration she feels for my
music, and I show the same for her immense talent. I have
promised to write her an opera befitting her genius. That’s a
thought which electrifies me, my dear Florimo.5
That would be the mezzo version of I puritani written for
Naples, which neither of them lived to see. The fate of the
Malibran version of I puritani was like a Greek tragedy. The
outbreak of cholera prevented the score sent by Bellini from
arriving before the deadline, and no amount of persuasion
from Maria and her supporters could prevent the cancellation
of the contract. Bellini vowed that he would never again come
to Naples. The Naples version was written for a mezzo-soprano
lead as noted, and Arturo was to have been sung by Gilbert-
Louis Duprez. The role of Riccardo, originally sung by the
baritone Antonio Tamburini, was altered to be sung by a tenor.
Malibran would have a splendid role. For example, the
beautiful largo of the third finale (“Credeasi misera”) is ar-
ranged to give her, and not the tenor, the predominant part (it
starts with Elvira’s words, “Qual mai funera”).6 The Malibran
Puritani lay undisturbed for 151 years until it was given as a
“world premiere” in London in 1985.
The Bellini repertoire, with the exception of Norma, began
to die out when the artists who created it passed from the
scene. For example, in the twentieth century, the Metropolitan
produced forty-three different operas during the 1909–1910
season, but none by Bellini. Norma was revived at the Met
only four times as vehicles for artists who could do it justice:
Rosa Ponselle (1897–1981) in 1927, Zinka Milanov in 1943,
Maria Callas in 1956, and Joan Sutherland in 1970. None of
these singers could be called altos, but all had strong middle
and chest voices. Ponselle sang Carmen and Callas recorded it
but never sang it onstage.
For some time, since the advent of the so-called coloratura
sopranos such as Henriette Sontag, Jenny Lind, and Adelina
Patti, the Bellini oeuvre was perceived by many as being rather
delicate and, frankly, boring. The flights of fioratura by such
as Galli-Curci, Maria Barrientos (1883–1946), and Lily Pons
(1904–1976) seemed to be as devoid of meaning as the singing
of a canary. Nowadays we are witnessing a resurgence of the bel
canto repertoire, thanks to the scholarship of Rodolfo Celletti,
Philip Gossett, and others, as well as the glorious singing of Cal-
las, Horne, Sutherland, Bartoli, and lately, Joyce DiDonato, who
have shown how much drama is inherent in this music.
Gaetano Donizetti was the prolific composer of some seventy
operas. His work still lives on in perennial favorites like Lucia
di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, and L’elisir d’amore, and others
that are revived from time to time. Some are written for soprano
voices, but following the lead of Rossini, he also composed many
operas for the alto prima donnas. His use of the alto voice began
with the melodramma Enrico di Borgogna. This was Donizetti’s
first opera to be performed, which premiered at the Teatro San
Luca in Venice on November 14, 1818. The role of Elisa was
 The Bel Canto Altos of Bellini and Donizetti 151
sung by Adelaide (Adele) Catalani (fl. 1818–1832) (not An-
gelica Catalani). Donizetti made the distinction, calling her “la
Catalani iuniore” in a letter to Mayr in which he declared that
she had a “large beautiful voice” and was hoping for a better
outcome than he had had with a previous prima donna who
was unavailable.7 Weinstock says that Catalani had a secondary
career in several theaters and was listed on the roster at La Scala
as late as 1832. The musico role of Enrico was created by Fanny
Eckerlin (1802–1842), a contralto whose career was decidedly
not secondary. The sixteen-year-old Eckerlin had just made her
debut the same year as Isabella in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri at
the Teatro S Benedetto (also in Venice). According to Gerardo
Casaglia,8 Enrico was followed a month later by an opera buffa
(farsa) by Donizetti called Una follia, which featured the same
cast, in the same roles, based on the same libretto as Enrico.
The score has been lost, and one wonders whether this was an
attempt to make up for the lack of success of Enrico di Borgogna
by tweaking the original version to attract the public to a work
in the popular buffo genre. During the Carnivale season of 1820
in Mantua, Eckerlin was also possibly in the cast of Le nozze in
villa, a buffa opera.9 In 1822, Rossini wrote an aria for Fanny
Eckerlin’s appearance in Zelmira in Vienna, and she went on
to become one of his most successful interpreters. Eckerlin was
compared favorably with Benedetta Pisaroni during this time and
they shared a similar repertory. Her fluency in coloratura and her
extensive range accounted for her acclaim in travesti musico roles.
Donizetti’s next piece, the melodrama eroico Zoraida di
Granata (1822), had a measure of notoriety when he was
forced to replace the tenor Amerigo Sbigoli in the role of Abe-
namet with a musico contralto named Mazzanti. Sbigoli had
attempted to emulate the stentorian tones of Domenico Don-
zelli in another opera and had burst a blood vessel and died.10
Zoraide di Granata11 was revived in 1824, and Abenamet was
sung by Benedetta Pisaroni.
Despite an inept libretto, the melodramma La zingara was
a big hit with the audience at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples on
May 11, 1822. The title role was sung by Giacinta Canonici
(fl. 1812–1834). Stendhal (who mistakenly called her Gra-
ciata Canonici) thought her “beautiful” and stated that she
was a “leading light of the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples.”12
Canonici created the role of Berenice in L’occasione fa il ladro
for Rossini in 1812. In 1822 she replaced Isabella Colbran in
Zelmira at the San Carlo.
On June 29, 1822, La lettera anonima a drama per musica,
Donizetti’s one-act farce, opened at the Teatro del Fondo.
Teresa Cecconi (fl. 1822–1832), a young mezzo-soprano,
appeared as Melita, and the twenty-seven-year-old Giovanni
Battista Rubini, on the verge of a great career, sang Filinto.
Donizetti complained that the performance “was half-ruined
by a novice singer” (Cecconi).13 As noted, Cecconi survived
the setback and went on to create Nerestano in Zaira by Bellini
in 1829. William Ashbrook is at pains to point out that
The characterization of Donizetti’s early career up to the time
of his great success with Anna Bolena (1830), as anni di galera
(years spent turning out an embarrassing profusion of journey-
man’s work) is as misleading in its way as is the application of
that perjorative term to the first decade of Verdi’s output. There
is hardly a score of Donizetti’s from the 1820’s that does not
have some pages that anticipate his future achievements. La let-
tera anonima, in spite of the contretemps that marred its prima,
managed to have a run of twenty performances.14
To this should be added that, because of his appointment at
Naples, Donizetti had access to the best group of singers in It-
aly, which were assembled during Rossini’s tenure there. Many
were cast in his early operas, both in Naples and elsewhere.
La Scala was the scene for the next Donizetti opera, the
semiserio melodramma Chiara e Serafina, which premiered
October 26, 1822. Rosa Morandi, the famed Rossini mezzo-
soprano, sang Serafina to a libretto by the outstanding Felice
Romani. The opera ran for twelve performances but was not
considered enough of a success by the directors of the theater
to offer Donizetti a new contract. Chastened but not discour-
aged, Donizetti returned to Naples, where he had a further
series of disappointments. His next alto work was L’ajo nell’
imbarazzo (The Tutor Embarrassed), which he called a melo-
dramma giocoso. It premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome on
February 4, 1824. L’ajo, which was revised for the taste of
the Neapolitan audience two years later as Don Gregorio, was
a huge success in Rome. Alto Maria Ester Mombelli, an old
friend of Rossini, starred as Gilda. L’ajo nell’ imbarazzo contin-
ued for the rest of the season in Rome and was repeated many
times throughout Italy and the rest of Europe.
The next Donizetti opera to feature the alto voice in the lead
role was Olivo e Pasquale, with a libretto by Jacopo Ferretti,
again at the Teatro Valle on January 7, 1827. The travesti role
of Camillo (later changed to a tenor) was sung by Anna Scu-
dellari Cosselli (fl. 1820s), who was listed as prima donna for
the Valle in 1826 and 1827.15 Anna was the wife of Domenico
Cosselli (1801–1855), a fine baritone and Rossini specialist
who later created Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor (1835).
Almost forgotten today, Olivo e Pasquale was staged all over
Europe during Donizetti’s lifetime.
Donizetti’s next opera was the first for his new position as
music director for Barbaja in Naples. Titled Otto mesi in tre ore,
ossia Gli esiliati in Siberia (Eight Months in Two Hours, or the
Exiles in Siberia), the opera romantica has had quite a history
of different versions and revisions. A species of “rescue” opera,
the plot concerns a teenager, Elisabetta Potoski, and her efforts
to free her father, unjustly exiled to Siberia. Caterina Liparini
(1792–1855), a soprano, assumed the role of Elisabetta in the
first performance on May 13, 1827. However, as previously
mentioned, Donizetti revised the part for the great contralto
Caroline Ungher in 1832.16
Ungher became one of Donizetti’s favorite singers, and he
wrote several more operas for her in the ensuing years, including
his next melodramma giocoso, Il borgomastro di Saardam, which
premiered on August 19, 1827, at the Teatro del Fondo. Il bor-
gomastro was carefully rehearsed, given a good production, and
ran for thirty-five repetitions, but when Ungher attempted it at
152 Chapter 19
La Scala with an under-rehearsed and mediocre cast, it proved
to be a fiasco and was withdrawn after only one performance.
Alina, regina di Golconda, an opera buffa with Serafina Ru-
bini, a soprano, in the title role, premiered on May 12, 1828,
at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. As far as I can tell, Serafina
Rubini, who was a prima donna at several theaters, was not
related to Giovanni Battista Rubini. Alina was revised with
Viennese prima donna Annetta Fischer (fl. 1830s) assuming
the title role on October 29, 1833, at the Valle in Rome. As far
as the tessitura of Alina is concerned, Pauline Viardot had great
success in the part during a run at La Scala during the period
from 1843 to 1846.
Donizetti’s next opera that featured an alto in the leading
part was Gianni di Calais, a melodramma semiserio that starred
Giovanni Battista Rubini and his wife, mezzo-soprano Adelaide
Comelli-Rubini. Gianni premiered on August 2, 1828, at the
Teatro Fondo. The Rubini couple, along with baritone Antonio
Tamburini, who was also in the cast, was largely responsible for
the success of the opera, and prompted Barbaja to sign Doni-
zetti as director of the Royal Theaters of Naples, a post he held
for ten years. Rubini was always fond of Gianni and persuaded
the Théâtre Italien in Paris to stage it in 1833 and 1834. The
principal part of Matilde was sung by Caroline Ungher.
The Rubini duo were the principals, along with Luigi
Lablache, in Il giovedi grasso (Maundy Thursday), a farsa with
Figure 19.1.  Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis as Fatima in
Pietro L’Ermita (an alternate version of Rossini’s Mosé in
Egitto) by A. E. Chalon (1780–1860)
spoken dialogue, part of which was delivered in the Neapolitan
dialect. The first staging was on February 26, 1829. Ashbrook
states that the characters of this work have “beguiling charm,”
which has been revealed in some modern stagings.17
The tragedia lirica Anna Bolena was the work that was critical
for Donizetti’s career as a great composer and opened doors for
him in all the great theaters of Europe, being the first Donizetti
opera to be heard in Paris and London. It was repeated regularly
for twenty-five years and has enjoyed a modern revival start-
ing with Maria Callas at La Scala in 1957. I discussed Anna
Bolena, which premiered at the Carcano Theater on December
26, 1830, in the chapter on Giuditta Pasta. I should mention
Elisa Orlandi (1811–1834), the first Giovanna Seymour whose
story was even more poignant than that of Maria Malibran.
Orlandi, a mezzo-soprano, made her debut as Fiorillo in Il turco
in Italia in Parma at the age of nineteen and seemed destined
for a great career. She sang some soprano parts as well as alto
roles. Orlandi apparently was a favorite of Donizetti because,
besides Giovanna Seymour, she created the part of Eleonora
in the world premiere of Il furioso all’isola di San Domingo at
the Valle in Rome in 1833. She also portrayed Adina in L’elisir
d’amore, Isabella in Olivo e Pasquale, and Matilde in Gianni di
Calais. Besides those of Donizetti, Orlandi sang in operas by
Rossini, Meyerbeer, Pacini, Joseph Weigl (1766–1846), Cesare
Pugni (1802–1870), Pietro Antonio De Moyana (d. 1870), and
Mercadante. In 1834 in Rovigo, just prior to her entrance as
Adalgisa in Norma, the twenty-three-year-old Elisa Orlandi, so
full of promise, collapsed and died.
In 1832, Donizetti composed Fausta for Giuseppina Ronzi
de Begnis, who is mostly listed as a soprano. Riggs calls her a
soprano sfogato or assoluta and suggests that she has been un-
justly neglected as “a crucial figure in the history of bel canto.”18
Some idea of her ability can be gathered by the fact that she
sang Giulia in Spontini’s La vestale when she was only seven-
teen years old. Attesting to the fluid nature of vocal categories
during this period, Ronzi de Begnis sang many alto parts in
common with Pasta, Colbran, and Malibran, such as Rosina,
Desdemona, Elena in La donna del lago, and the musico role
of Bellini’s Romeo. Fausta was called an opera seria and the
libretto, like that of Euripides’s Phaedra, is about the unhealthy
lustful obsession of the protagonist for her stepson. Donizetti
hoped that Fausta would build on the success of Anna Bolena,
but William Ashbrook writes:
The heroic tone and a certain striving to be grandiose make
parts of the score of Fausta seem rather cold and monotonous,
but in the great final scene of Fausta’s suicide Donizetti com-
municates real pathos and tragic immediacy, testifying in the
aria “Tu che volli” and its cabaletta, “No, qui morir degg’io” to
his innate understanding of the nuances of human suffering.19
This scene, with its throbbing coupled sixteenth notes used
by many composers to portray anguished palpitations, also
awakened Donizetti to the potential of Ronzi de Begnis, both
technically and expressively, to help him realize his destiny as a
great musical dramatist. The two collaborated during a period
 The Bel Canto Altos of Bellini and Donizetti 153
of seven years to produce five notable operas. Ronzi de Begnis
became an important singer in the Donizetti canon, as we shall
see. On December 26, 1832, Giuditta Pasta assumed the title
role of Fausta at La Scala in which her supporting cast did not
rise to Donizetti’s expectations. The opera generated little enthu-
siasm; nevertheless, Fausta achieved a run of thirty repetitions.
Ugo, conte di Parigi, a tragedia lirica, premiered at La Scala
on March 13, 1832, and featured the Norma pair, Giuditta
Pasta as Bianca and Giulia Grisi as her sister Adelia, along with
Donzelli in the title role. When Donizetti reached Milan, he
was confronted with his score, which had been mutilated at
the hands of the censors, so much so that Romani, the libret-
tist, disavowed it. The great singers in the cast were demoral-
ized and disorganized. Ugo was a failure and withdrawn after
only five performances, but it was to prove to be a source of
material in subsequent Donizetti operas. Donizetti’s season
was not a total loss, for Pasta and Grisi (Giovanna Seymour)
appeared together in the La Scala premiere of Anna Bolena for
eight performances with great success.
L’elisir d’amore, called a melodramma giocoso, the next Doni-
zetti masterpiece, was composed in only two weeks. It has
never been confused as an alto opera by anyone, but Pauline
Viardot did sing Anina in Russia. The young composer con-
tinued his furious pace during the middle thirties with Sancia
di Castiglia, another tragedia lirica composed for Giuseppina
Ronzi de Begnis and premiered at the San Carlo on November
4, 1832. The eponymous role of Sancia, queen of Castille,
was a Gothic tale of a mother persuaded to poison her son
in order to secure the throne for her lover, only to relent at
the last moment and drink the poison herself. The musico
role of Garzia, the son, was sung by mezzo-soprano Diomilla
Santolini (fl. 1830s) and Ircano, the Saracen lover, by Luigi
Lablache. Amazingly, Naples welcomed Sancia warmly, but it
soon disappeared from the repertory. In modern times, Mon-
serrat Caballé made a CD of a concert performance in 1992.
Donizetti’s next melodrama, Il furioso all’isola di Santo Do-
mingo, had a libretto by Feretti and premiered at the Valle on
January 2, 1833. It was his first opera to feature a baritone as
the protagonist. The baritone voice was emerging during the
early part of the nineteenth century as a separate category and
was utilized to the fullest by Verdi and Wagner. Giorgio Ronconi
(1810–1890), who portrayed the madman Cardenio, became
one of the great artists in the category and appeared in seven
premieres by Donizetti and in numerous other operas. Ten years
later, Ronconi created the title role in Verdi’s Nabucco. Eleonora,
the alto love interest, was sung by the ill-starred Elisa Orlandi.
The impresario Giovanni Paterni (1779–1837) discovered that
Orlandi was introducing the final rondo from Il furioso into
other operas, not in their original version, but in a bastardized ar-
rangement by Giacomo Panizza (1804–1860). Paterni promptly
protested against this misuse of the aria by placing notices in
several papers denouncing it as “contrary to the intentions of the
composer and contrary to the sacred rights of property.”20
The next opera Parisina, a melodramma from a poem by
Lord Byron, was Donizetti’s favorite for a long time and
starred the redoubtable Caroline Ungher with Gilbert-Louis
Duprez as Ugo. Parisina premiered on March 17, 1833, at the
Teatro della Pergola in Florence. Duprez modestly remarked in
his Souvenirs d’un chanteur:
Composed especially for me, it united the grace and elegance
of the light genre, in which I had performed at the beginning
of my career, with the elevated qualities of the opera seria which
produced such good results for me after eighteen months, and it
seemed to be the act of union between the two genres.21
Ashbrook remarks that Parisina foreshadows Lucia in many
expressive details. Duprez was the first Edgardo. Perhaps he
brought echoes of Parisina with him to the role.
The great poet Torquato Tasso, was the subject of the next
melodramma by the same name, which premiered on Septem-
ber 9, 1833, at the Teatro Valle in Rome. Tasso was the author
of Gerusalemme liberata (1581), which was the source for
many literary and musical works, including Rossini’s Armida
and Handel’s Rinaldo. Donizetti originally conceived the op-
era as a vehicle for Rubini, whose lack of interest caused the
composer to again center on the baritone Ronconi to create
the title part. The mezzo-soprano Adelina Spech (1811–1866),
whose repertoire included Norma and La sonnambula, was cast
as Eleonora d’Este.
Adelina Spech was a prima donna of some importance dur-
ing the 1830s but she caused Donizetti trouble during the
rehearsals of Tasso. He informed Ricordi that “La Spech, a con-
tralto who has pulled herself up by the teeth to mezzo-soprano,
has caused me to turn half my opera inside out.”22
Tasso was so well received (fifteen repetitions) that even the
librettist, Ferretti, was given curtain calls. The opera had a
certain amount of success in Italy and the German-speaking
countries but not in London or Paris.
The melodramma Lucrezia Borgia first met the footlights on
December 26, 1833, at La Scala to a libretto by Felice Romani.
The title role was created by soprano Henriette Meric-Lalande
(1798–1867). Alto Marietta Brambilla was the original Maf-
feo Orsini. Lucrezia ran into trouble from the censors from
the first and was produced in other theaters under a bevy
of other titles and libretto changes. The impressarios were
cowed by threats of lawsuits for plagiarism by Victor Hugo
(1802–1885), the original author, and by Borgia descendants.
In addition, on pain of her imminent departure, Meric-
Lalande insisted upon Donizetti composing aria finale for the
last act as Lucrezia stands over the body of her son, whom
she has poisoned. Donizetti reluctantly complied but revised
the score twice in 1840 with new finales. Lucrezia was one of
Donizetti’s most popular scores during the nineteenth century.
As previously mentioned, Caroline Ungher created a sensation
in Vienna in 1839 and became the leading Lucrezia in Europe.
Ungher’s magnetism was described afar by Chorley:
Madame Grisi has been surpassed, I have been told, by the orig-
inal Lucrezia; a woman far less splendidly gifted by nature—
Madame Ungher—whose serpentine and deep malevolence,
154 Chapter 19
subtly veiled at the moment when its most diabolical works
were on foot, has been described as fearful.23
Donizetti’s next opera of interest to us was Maria Stuarda,
another tragedia lirica, which was written for Ronzi de Begnis
at the San Carlo in 1834 but finally premiered by Maria Mali-
bran at La Scala on December 30, 1835. The circumstances of
Maria Stuarda’s birth were curious and highlight the frustra-
tion of Italian composers of the early ottocento and the diffi-
culty of divining the true intentions of the great composers of
the period. Maria Stuarda, capitalizing on continental fascina-
tion of the bloody Tudor history, was based on Friedrich Schil-
ler’s (1759–1805) play. The libretto was to have been written
by Romani, who was beginning to disdain libretto writing,
and it was turned over to Giuseppe Bardari (1817–1861), a
seventeen-year-old law student.
At the first orchestral rehearsal, Ronzi de Begnis had the fol-
lowing lines to address to Anna Del Serre, the Elisabetta: “Im-
pure daughter of Boleyn, do you speak of dishonor? Obscene
and unworthy prostitute, may my blush fall on you. Profaned
is the English throne, vile bastard, by your foot!”24
Ronzi de Begnis delivered these lines with her customary
vehemence and Del Serre took them personally. In a scene
reminiscent of the fight between Francesca Cuzzoni and Faus-
tina Bordoni a hundred years earlier, Del Serre attacked her
rival—biting, hitting, and pulling her hair. Ronzi de Begnis,
who was a heavyweight in more than voice, was surprised but
counterattacked, and Del Serre fainted and had to be carried
home, where she spent a few days in bed. A month later Doni-
zetti wrote to Ferretti:
You know about the battle between the women, and I do not
know if you are aware that Ronzi spoke against me, believing
me out of earshot. She said, “Donizetti protects that whore of
a Del Serre.” And to her surprise, I answered, “I do not protect
any of you, but those two queens were whores, and you two are
whores.” She was convinced; either she was ashamed or decided
to keep quiet. She spoke no more, the rehearsal went on, and
then the opera was not performed.25
The opera not being performed was a reference to the king’s
prohibition of a performance of Maria Stuarda after a success-
ful dress rehearsal for an invited audience. There are several
possible reasons for this action, mostly political. Be that as it
may, Donizetti revised the plot, added more characters, and
the bastard child of Maria Stuarda emerged as Buondelmonte,
which premiered on October 18, 1834, with Ronzi de Begnis
and Del Serre in the same roles with different names. This was
the only staging of Buondelmonte, and Donizetti was deter-
mined to preserve his original vision of the opera, but he had
to wait for a little more than a year until it was mounted at La
Scala. In the meantime, he had to make a living.
The amazingly prolific young composer had already fin-
ished the draft for the tragedia Marino Faliero for the Théâtre
Italien when he submitted his next work to the censors in Mi-
lan for the production that took place on December 26, 1834.
This tragedia lirica was Gemma di Vergy, based upon Dumas’s
Charles VII, and the eponymous heroine was Giuseppina
Ronzi de Begnis. Gemma is one of the most difficult and re-
warding roles ever written, and Ronzi de Begnis demonstrated
her ability by completing a run of twenty-six performances
without any obvious signs of fatigue. In an interview in 1976,
Montserrat Caballé, the outstanding modern Gemma, quoted
Lilli Lehmann’s (1848–1929) statement that one Norma was
equivalent to three Brünnhildes. She went on to say that one
Gemma was equal to three Normas.26 Especially beautiful (and
difficult) is Gemma’s prayer, “Eccomi sola alfine,” in the first
act and the finale to the last act, “Chi m’accusa.” Gemma di
Vergy was very successful in Italy. In Palermo nearly fourteen
years later, a performance of Gemma inspired a patriotic dem-
onstration when the “faithful slave” sang the words:
You took away my heart and soul,
Country, gods, and liberty!27
The next two items along Donizetti’s trajectory were defi-
nitely soprano roles. Marino Faliero, which premiered on March
12, 1835, starred Giulia Grisi as Elena with other members
of the Puritani quartet—Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache. I
Puritani premiered during the same season and garnered more
attention than Marino Faliero because the latter had a less showy
role for the prima donna. In London, both operas were the 1835
season’s most important events. Chorley clearly preferred Ma-
rino but he stated that the lack of interest in the female character
and “on such occasions there is always a success and a failure.
The public will not endure two favourites.”28
The other masterpiece that will endure as long as opera is per-
formed is Lucia di Lammermoor, which has been the vehicle for
countless soprano prima donnas since it was created by Fanny
Tacchinardi-Persiani on September 26, 1835, at the San Carlo.
The Edgardo was Duprez, a small-voiced tenor at the time, who,
it was said, could be heard only if one were no farther away than
the prompter’s box. His development of the voix sombrée and the
ut de poitrine changed the technique of many male singers since
his time (not necessarily for the better).
Maria Stuarda was given a production under its original
title for the first time at La Scala on December 30, 1835.
Maria Malibran, who was ill, took on the title role while
Giacinta Puzzi-Toso (1807–1889) sang Elisabetta. Alexander
Weatherson informs me that Toso was very tall and made
Malibran look like a dwarf. Toso, married to the great hornist
Giovanni Puzzi (1792–1876), was a mezzo-soprano who had
an important career in London during the 1820s and 1830s.
In 1827 she appeared in the musico role of Aeneas opposite
Pasta in Mercadante’s Didone abbandonata (1823) and as Elisa-
betta in Carlo Coccia’s opera Maria Stuarda, regina di Scozia,
with Pasta as Maria. There seems to be quite a divergence of
opinion about Puzzi-Toso, a London student of Coccia, but
she was only twenty years old and must have been thoroughly
frightened to be singing opposite the great Pasta. Lord Mount
Edgcumbe stated that
 The Bel Canto Altos of Bellini and Donizetti 155
she has the recommendation not only of a brilliant voice, but of
extraordinary beauty: but this was her first appearance on any
stage, and she is extremely young; consequently she cannot yet
be a finished prima donna, whatever promise of future excel-
lence she may hold out.29
On the other hand, Stern quotes a review of Coccia’s Maria
Stuarda, which “found her exceedingly stupid and inanimate.”30
Maria Malibran could always be counted on to deliver ex-
citement whenever she sang, be it positive or negative. While
she was in Naples, she had heard of the debacle of Buondel-
monte, and “developed a passionate desire to perform it [Maria
Stuarda] in its original form.”31 When Donizetti arrived in
Milan in early December 1835, he found chaos of a differ-
ent order than the one in Naples. The censors had approved
the libretto all right, but the Elisabetta, Sophia dall’ Occa
Schoberlechner (1807–1864), refused to sing her truncated
part, which was the reason Puzzi-Toso was engaged. In the pre-
miere on December 30, Donizetti reported that Malibran was
“voiceless” and the evening was “painful from start to finish.”32
Maria improved in later performances, but after the third, the
censors demanded changes. They would not tolerate the word
“bastard” or kneeling in the confession scene. Maria refused
to perform this watered-down version, rightly believing that
the changes weakened the drama. Consequently, on four ad-
ditional evenings, the first act of Stuarda, in which Mary Stuart
does not appear, was followed by the last two acts of Otello, in
which La Malibran scored further triumphs. And thus ended
the history of Maria Stuarda at La Scala for 130 years.33
Eugène Delacroix, a great painter but a pedantic critic, in a
conversation with Manuel Garcia II described in his journal,
left an indelible impression of the kind of performance that
Maria Malibran gave. It sounded remarkably modern.
Madame Malibran, in Maria Stuarda, was brought before her
rival, Elizabeth, by Leicester, who implored her to humiliate
herself before her rival. She finally consented to do so and, fall-
ing to her knees, gave way to the most profound supplication.
But, outraged by Elizabeth’s inflexible hardness, she would
rise up impetuously and fly into a rage that, he said, produced
the greatest effect. She ripped her handkerchief, and even her
gloves, to tatters. That, again, is one of those effects to which a
great artist never will descend; they are of the sort that delights
people in the loges and wins an ephemeral reputation for those
willing to indulge themselves that way. . . . People whose minds
do not rise very high and who are not at all demanding in
matters of taste—that is to say, unfortunately the majority—
always will prefer [to Pasta] talents of the sort possessed by La
Malibran.34
One of Donizetti’s favorite prima donnas, Caroline Ungher,
created the part of Antonina in his next tragedia, Belisario, on
February 4, 1836, at La Fenice in Venice. Donizetti described
the mezzo-soprano Antonietta Vial, who was cast as Irene, as
“both a bastard soprano and a veiled contralto.” He set to work
to revise Vial’s part to such good effect that the audience was
reduced to tears after her duet with the tenor in the second
act.35 Ungher obviously scored a triumph judging from the
following review from the Gazzetta Privilegiata di Venezia:
No first performance in memory has recorded a more splendid,
fuller, more solemn success. . . . The numbers that were most
enthusiastically judged were the donna’s [Ungher’s] cavatina,
with its sublime cabaletta, a tenor-bass duet. . . . The handling
of the finale and the scena and grand aria of the donna were
other imaginative and graceful conceptions, and they will be
enjoyed even more in time, when “our ear, conquered by so
much novelty, will have become a little accustomed [to it].”36
Belisario racked up a total of twenty-eight consecutive perfor-
mances, and Ashbrook states that there would have certainly
been more, had the opening performance not occurred late in
the season.37
In Naples of 1836, ravaged by a cholera epidemic, the the-
aters, with the exception of the Nuovo, were shut down. The
alto Amalie Schütz-Oldosi, whom we last encountered in 1822
as an eighteen-year-old beginner in Vienna, was the reigning
prima donna. The one-act farsa Il campanello was a welcome
diversion from the devastation and political strife that envel-
oped the city. The opera, which starred Ronconi and Schütz-
Oldosi, premiered June 1, 1836. The warm reception accorded
Il campanello encouraged Donizetti to compose a dramma
giocoso, Betly o La capanna svizzera, to his own libretto, which
he later revised into a two-act version. The role of Betley was
sung by Adelaide D’Anvers Toldi (fl. 1830s), a soprano.
In May 1836 Domenico Barbaja again assumed control of
the Neapolitan theaters. He engaged Donizetti to compose a
dramatic opera, L’assedio di Calais. L’assedio was the story of the
attack on Calais during the Hundred Years’ War.
Donizetti wrote the male lead role for a contralto, as would
have been done in the 18th century. This was because Barbaja
had been unable to produce a creditable tenor for Donizetti to
work with—the composer described the three available tenors
as “almost useless.”38
The musico cast as Aurelio was Almerinda Manzzochi
(1804–1869), a contralto who had sung supporting roles in
the premieres of Elvida (1826) and Il Borgomastro di Saardam
(1827). The role of Eleonora was sung by soprano Caterina
Barilli-Patti (d. 1870), mother of the famous Adelina. Doni-
zetti had hoped that L’assedio would be a suitable work for the
Opéra in Paris and he wrote Duprez that he would write a
new version for him to star in and would compose dances that
would convince the Parisians that the opera had been written
expressly for their city. Unfortunately, there were no perfor-
mances outside Naples, which had a total of thirty-eight repe-
titions after its prima on November 19, 1836. Both Weinstock
and Ashbrook had high opinions of L’assedio di Calais and
suggest that a modern staging would be repaid with success.
Donizetti thought so, too; his letter to Duprez contained the
following line: “And, by God, if it [L’assedio] does not produce
an effect, I would give you leave to castrate me.”39
156 Chapter 19
The composition of Pia de’ Tolomei, Donizetti’s next opera,
a tragedia lirica based on canto 5 of Dante’s Purgatorio, com-
menced before he was finished with L’assedio di Calais. Originally
slated to be produced at La Fenice in Venice, which had burned
down, its prima was on February 18, 1837, at the Teatro Apollo.
Originally conceived as a vehicle for Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani
and the tenor Antonio Poggi (1808–1875), Donizetti was co-
erced by the management into falling back on the old musico
tradition by composing a part for the young inexperienced con-
tralto Rosina Mazzarelli (b. 1822). Mazzarelli created the role of
Pia’s brother, Rodrigo. In a short career, she stood out as Maffeo
Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia and was engaged at La Scala in 1839.
Pia de’ Tolomei was revised twice and in the second revision,
sung at the San Carlo in 1838, Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis
assumed the role of Pia and contralto Eloisa Buccini ( fl. 1837–
1847) sang Rodrigo. Buccini created parts in Saffo by Pacini
and La vestale by Mercadante in 1840. She also participated in
Il dono a Partenope (1840), a pasticcio based on the poetry of
Giovanni Schmidt (c. 1775–c. 1855) for the name day of King
Ferdinand II (1810–1859) of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
In 1841 she also sang the role of Cuniza in Oberto, Verdi’s first
opera, at the San Carlo.
In the summer of 1837, Donizetti’s wife Virginia died soon after
the death of their infant son. The young composer was devastated.
He was bedridden for a time and could not bring himself to men-
tion or write Virginia’s name again. Gradually he pulled himself
together and in August began to work again. He was contracted for
two operas—one for Barbaja in Naples in October and the other
for La Fenice in January 1838. The Neapolitan opera was Roberto
Devereux with Ronzi de Begnis in the role of Elisabetta, which
opened on October 28, 1837. Roberto Devereux is the third opera,
along with Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda, in the trio called “the
three queens,” which represents the apex of Donizetti’s develop-
ment as a dramatic composer. In 1845 in St. Petersburg, Pauline
Viardot, along with Rubini, presented Roberto Devereux, but the
opera failed to please. In the 1970s Beverly Sills (1929–2007) un-
dertook the roles of the three queens onstage and in the recording
studio. Although Sills was a consummate artist and musician, her
assumption of these roles aroused a controversy that persists to this
day. Some critics suggest that these parts, written for the sumptu-
ous voices of Pasta and Ronzi de Begnis, were too dramatic for the
light-voiced Sills and led to the shortening of her career.
“I read the newspapers,” said Sills, whose husband, Peter
Greenough, was associate editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
All singers read their reviews, whether they say so or not. And of
course it hurts when they say something cruel. But I knew my
voice better than anyone, and “Devereux” was Donizetti, the
orchestration was light. It was exactly right for my voice. Did
it take a toll? Sure. But that was because dramatically the role
called for me to push down the voice a lot. That was my choice. I
went into it with eyes wide open. I would do it all over again.40
Sill’s statement reveals the difficulty a lyric soprano has in
taking on roles composed for wide-ranging alto (Riggs calls
them assolute) voices like Ronzi’s or Pasta’s. Even Monserrat
Caballé, whose opulent sound was more appropriate to these
roles, had some deficiency in the lower reaches of these wide-
ranging parts. The voice of the late Leyla Gencer (1928–2008)
was probably the most like Pasta’s or Ronzi’s. Her 1965 record-
ing of “Vive ingrato” with the RAI orchestra of Milan is truly
outstanding. Gencer was often associated with Donizetti’s mu-
sic and several little-performed Donizetti masterpieces such as
Belisario, Lucrezia Borgia, and Les Martyrs were revived for her.
Gencer had a repertoire of more than seventy operas.
Donizetti’s other commission, a dramma tragico for La
Fenice, was Maria de Rudenz. The librettist was Salvatore
Cammarano (1801–1852), who based the book on a French
gothic horror story, La nonne sanglante. Caroline Ungher cre-
ated the title role and Georgio Ronconi, baritone, sang the part
of Corrado Waldorf. The usually fast-working Donizetti was
drowning in depression due to the recent loss of his family.
Nevertheless, he finished it on time and the premiere came on
January 30, 1838. The Venetians loved Ungher but hated the
violence of the plot in which Maria kills her rival in love and
then dies. The opera was withdrawn after only two repetitions
but received sporadic performances during the next thirty years.
After the premiere of Roberto Devereux in 1837, the tide
of the casting in Italian opera began to float upward. Altos
who could handle both mezzo and soprano parts began to be
replaced by high sopranos whose middle and lower voices were
significantly weaker. At the forefront of this trend were Giulia
Grisi and Eugenia Tadolini, whom we encountered earlier in
Grisi’s attempts to vanquish Pauline Viardot and Verdi’s rejec-
tion of Tadolini as Lady Macbeth. Both were beautiful women
and no doubt great artists, but neither had the vocal heft in the
middle and bottom necessary for some of these roles. Grisi’s
most conspicuous failure was when she tried to sing Fidès in
Le prophète in 1852.41 Tadolini was cast as Paolina in the first
Italian performance of Poliuto on November 30, 1848, at the
San Carlo a few months after Donizetti’s death. The original
production, scheduled for September 1838, was prohibited
by the king on religious grounds. Disgusted, Donizetti then
left Naples for Paris, and Poliuto was produced under the title
Les martyrs on April 10, 1840, with soprano Julie Dorus-Gras
(1805–1896) as Pauline. La fille du regiment (1840), Rita
(1841), Maria Padilla (1841), Linda di Chamounix (1842),
Don Pasquale (1843), and Maria di Rohan (1843) were all writ-
ten for lyric sopranos and premiered by such as Tadolini and
Grisi. Adelia, written for the Teatro Apollo in Rome in 1841,
is notable because it was written for Giuseppina Strepponi
(1815–1897), a renowned soprano who became the second
wife of Giuseppe Verdi. Strepponi helped establish the compos-
er’s early career and was the first Abigialle in Nabucco in 1842.
As previously mentioned, La Favorite (a reworking of the
semiseria opera L’ange de Nisida) was premiered in 1840 as a
grand opera with alto Rosine Stoltz as Léonor. Stoltz also cre-
ated Zaïda in Dom Sébastien in 1843, causing the turbulent
rehearsal period already described. Caterina Cornaro, the last
opera that Donizetti completed, had its premiere at the San
Carlo on January 12, 1844. Donizetti did not prepare Caterina
 The Bel Canto Altos of Bellini and Donizetti 157
himself or attend the premiere, which proved to be a fiasco. An
interesting point to our study is contained in a letter Donizetti
wrote to his brother-in-law:
I am awaiting with anxiety the news of the fiasco of Caterina
Cornaro at Naples. La [Fanny] Goldberg [b. c. 1820] as the
prima donna is, without being aware of it, my first ruination. I
wrote for a soprano—they give me a mezzo!42
Hèléne in Le duc d’Albe was written for Rosine Stoltz in 1840,
but she refused to sing it, so Donizetti put it aside to revise
L’ange de Nisida into La Favorite for her. Le duc d’Albe was never
finished until after Donizetti’s death, when it finally reappeared
as Il duca d’Alba on March 22, 1882, at the Teatro Apollo in
Rome. The completion of the score was overseen by Matteo
Salvi (1816–1887), together with a panel from the Milan Con-
servatory. The now renamed Amelia was Abigaille Bruschi Chi-
atti (fl. 1840s). At the time of Dom Sébastien, Donizetti began
to show signs of the syphilis, which would tragically destroy his
mind and eventually kill him on April 8, 1848.
NOTES
1.  Herbert Weinstock, Vincenzo Bellini: His Life and His Operas
(New York: Knopf, 1971), 43.
2. Simon McGuire and Elizabeth Forbes, “Zaira,” The New
Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 4, ed. Stanley Sedie (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997), 1202.
3.  Herbert Weinstock, Rossini: A Biography (New York: Knopf,
1968), 280.
4. Weinstock, Rossini, 281.
5. Howard Bushnell, Maria Malibran: A Biography of a Singer
(University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1979), 152.
6. Weinstock, Vincenzo Bellini, 448. Weinstock quotes from
Francesco Pastura, Vincenzo Bellini (Catania, 1959), 591–85.
7.  Herbert Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy,
Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1963), 21.
8.  Gerardo Casaglia, “Donizetti,” www.amadeusonline.eu/almanac
co.php.
9. Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera, 316.
10. William Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 23.
11.  The first version was spelled Zoraida and the second Zoraide.
(Alexander Weatherson, “Puntitura for Pauline Viardot,” Atti del
convegno della celebrazioni del Bicentario, La vocalit’ e i cantanti,
Bergamo, Italy, September 25–27, 1997.)
12.  Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], Life of Rossini, trans. Richard
N. Coe (1823; repr., London: Calder, 1956), 496.
13.  Charles Osbourne, The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti,
and Bellini (Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1994), 149–50.
14. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 27.
15.  Anonymous, “Foreign Musical Report, Rome,” The Harmoni-
con, ed. W. Pinnock, vol. 4 (London: Samuel Leigh, 1826), 96.
16.  Donizetti wrote a late version of this opera for Pauline Viardot
called Elisabeth. Weatherson, “Puntitura for Pauline Viardot,” 197–213.
17.  William Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 53.
18.  Geoffrey S. Riggs, The Assoluta Voice in Opera (Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 2003), 137.
19. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 71.
20. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 76.
21.  Gilbert-Louis Duprez, Souvenirs d’un chanteur, trans. Herbert
Weinstock (Paris: Michel Levy Frères, 1860), 92–93.
22. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, n. 624.
23. Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (New
York: Knopf, 1926), 79.
24. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 85.
25. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 85. From a letter to
Guido Zavadini.
26. Riggs, The Assoluta Voice in Opera, 142.
27. Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera, 103.
28. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 65.
29. Richard Edgcumbe, Musical Reminiscences of an Old Ama-
teur Chiefly Respecting Italian Opera in England for Fifty Years, from
1773–1823 (London: John Andrews, 1834), 174.
30.  Kenneth Stern, Giuditta Pasta: A Life on the Lyric Stage (Palm
Springs, CA: Operaphile Press, 2013), 246. The quote is from The
Examiner, 17 June 1827.
31. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 203. Bushnell bases this opinion
on Guillaume Cottrau, Lettres d’un Mélomane (Naples, 1885), 30.
32. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 203. From Guido Zavadini, Doni-
zetti (Bergamo, 1948).
33. Bushnell, Maria Malibran, 203–4. The opera had a few
nineteenth-century revivals elsewhere.
34. Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera, 117.
35. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 106. From a letter to
Giulio Recordi on 14 January 1836.
36. Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera, 350.
37. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, n. 637.
38.  Philip Eisenbeiss, Bel Canto Bully (London: Haus Publishing,
2013), 207.
39. Ashbrook, Donizetti and His Operas, 112.
40.  Octavia Roco, “Sills Relives Her Finest Hour,” San Francisco
Chronicle, September 2000. My italics.
41.  Elizabeth Forbes, Mario and Grisi: A Biography (London: Vic-
tor Gollanz, 1985), 118.
42. Weinstock, Donizetti and the World of Opera, 213.
20
Verdi and Verismo Altos
When Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi began to compose
his operas in 1839, the conquest of the prima donna position
by the sopranos was complete. However, as he moved toward
integrating the music and drama as a cohesive whole, integrat-
ing the recitativo, gradually eliminating the older forms such
as the cavatina, and exerting more control over the singers and
orchestra, he created a number of parts for the lower female
voice. Although not the protagonists of the operas, they were
highly important and have to be considered major roles. In
Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, his first opera, which pre-
miered on November 17, 1839, at La Scala, the role of Cuniza
was sung by Mary Shaw (1814–1876), an English contralto
best known for her concert and oratorio performances. She
made her operatic debut earlier the same year as Arsace in Ros-
sini’s Semiramide and also sang Malcom Groeme in La donna
del lago. After the premiere, she returned to England singing
Verdi’s praises. She attracted the attention of Henry Chorley,
an old-school critic who failed to be impressed, although he
admired Verdi’s “earnestness in attempting dramatic expres-
sion”: “In Signor Verdi’s operas, the hysterical element is as
sure to have a large place as are incitements for the singer to
use the utmost force of his voice.”1
Chorley was really lamenting the death of bel canto and
hated the intemperate screaming that began to take over the
opera in his day and that, even now, is the norm that repels
many reasonable people.
“In truth, the impression that must be forced on everyone
the deeper the examination goes amounts to this—Italian con-
noisseurship is defunct; the necessity for excitement, which in
music has been growing up for the past thirty years with the
rapidity of the fairy beanstalk, has brought the public into that
state in which good and bad no longer have a meaning or a
distinction.”2
As for Mary Shaw, her career was cut short when her hus-
band became insane. The stress caused her to be unable to sing
on pitch, which is as good an excuse as any, I suppose.
Verdi’s next work was Un giorno di regno, a comedy that
received a solitary performance at La Scala on September 5,
159
1840. Verdi was at the lowest point in his life, having lost
his wife and his two children in the preceding three years.
The part of Giulietta die Kelbar was sung by Luigia Abbadia
(1821–1896), an excellent Italian mezzo-soprano who also
created the role of Ines in Donizetti’s Maria Padilla (1841).
Abbadia had a wide range and sang a variety of leading parts.
“She had a fine voice, a secure technique, and a strong tem-
perament.”3
Nabucco (Nabucodonosor), Verdi’s third opera, was a “colos-
sal” success from the very start after its premiere on March
9, 1842, again at La Scala. Coming at the end of the season,
it had only eight repetitions, but in the new season starting
in August 1842, it had a phenomenal sixty performances.
Because of the enormous impact of the title character and,
especially, Abigaille, the alto role of Fenena gets overlooked.
However, Fenena is usually sung by leading singers and her
last act prayer, “Oh, dischiuso è il firmamento!” is lovely. The
premiere was sung by Giovannina Bellinzaghi (b. c. 1820), a
mezzo-soprano. For the following season, Verdi adjusted the
part upward for a soprano, Amalia Zecchini (181?–188?). The
reason for this is not clear, but Zecchini went on to become a
prima donna at La Scala and Naples, so perhaps she was the
best singer available. Modern performances of Nabucco invari-
ably use the original version.
Verdi’s self-described “galley years” (1842–1851) were domi-
nated by the sopranos in leading roles. Only Macbeth, which
premiered on March 14, 1847, at the Teatro della Pergola in
Florence offered the alto voice the possibility of playing the
leading role of Lady Macbeth. We have seen how Pauline Viar-
dot, who premiered the part in the British Isles in 1859, made
extensive revisions to the score. The original Lady Macbeth was
the soprano Marianna Barbieri-Nini (1818–1887), who had
studied with Pasta and premiered two other operas for Verdi,
I due Foscari (1844) and Il Corsaro (1848). Geoffrey S. Riggs
states that Lady Macbeth is the last opera role that fills his cri-
teria for the designation of assoluta. As composed, the upward
range of Lady Macbeth’s cavatina “Vieni! t’affretta!” is up to
high C with copious B flats—definitely a dramatic soprano
160 Chapter 20

aria. Viardot transposed it down a minor third, other arias were and impossible, for someone who has no ability, but easy for
lowered a whole step. She also advised the conductor, Luigi one who understands. And since you had the kindness to write
Arditi, that “the second act cabaletta ‘Trionfai’ is not sung.”4 me a first time, it may not annoy you to write me a second, pro-
Verdi’s revision of 1865 was written in French for the viding me with a musical scale, an abstract of her voice, writing
under each note, good, bad, weak, strong, etc. . . . If this bothers
Théâtre Lyrique in Paris. He inserted a new aria, “La luce
you Madame Goggi can do it herself without fear of confessing
langue,” into the second act in place of “Trionfai.” “La luce
her sins; it is under the seal of confession and will benefit both
langue” has a low tessitura down to low B, but occasionally her and me.7
rockets up two octaves to the high B. The sleepwalking scene is
written with a low tessitura, entirely in keeping with the range
Emilia Goggi was born in Prato, Tuscany, and enrolled in
of the alto voice. The Lady Macbeth for the Paris version was
the Conservatorio di Santa Caterina at the age of six. In 1841
Agnès Rey-Balla (1836–1889).
she made her debut at La Fenice as Adalgisa in Norma and was
Joseph Ortigue, a critic for the Journal de Débats, wrote, “The
then engaged in leading roles in several theaters in Northern
event of the evening was Mme. Rey-Balla’s debut in the role of
Italy. Her extensive range enabled her to sing dramatic soprano
Lady Macbeth. This singer is experienced; she knows the stage;
roles such as Abigaille in Nabucco and Elvira in Ernani, which
she possesses a voice having considerable range and power, a little
she performed in Spain from 1845 to 1846. However, the in-
fatigued, but thoroughly dramatic. Her success was very great.”
creasingly powerful middle and bottom of her voice darkened
Other critics were less convinced. Verdi himself blamed her for
considerably, so she began to embrace the mezzo-soprano rep-
the opera’s muted success in Paris, claiming that the sonnambu-
ertoire. Besides Azucena, Goggi created parts in other lesser-
lismo (sleepwalking scene) did not create the proper effect.5
known operas. While preparing for a tour of England, Goggi
Closer to our day, notable mezzo-sopranos who have taken
suddenly died in 1857 at the age of thirty-nine, four years after
on Verdi’s monstrous Lady are Shirley Verrett (1931–2010),
the premiere of Il trovatore.
Grace Bumbry (b. 1937), Fiorenza Cossotto (b. 1935), Agnes
Il trovatore became an immense success; only three years
Baltsa (b. 1944), Dolora Zajick (b. 1952), and Jennifer Lar-
after its premiere, it had received 229 productions worldwide,
more (b. 1958).
including 190 performances in Naples in six theaters.8 Il
La maledizione (The Curse), which became Rigoletto only a
trovatore was first produced in Paris on December 23, 1854,
month before its premiere on March 11, 1851, ended Verdi’s
by the Théâtre Italien at the Salle Ventadour with Adelaide
“galley years” and ushered in his “middle period.” Rigoletto has
Borghi-Mamo as Azucena. I previously described how Pauline
always been a very popular opera and a great temptation to
Viardot “jumped in,” with no rehearsal, while Borghi-Mamo
stage directors to “improve” on Verdi in productions that range
was confined after having a baby.
from “The Planet of the Apes” (Munich) to the “Rat Pack in
While Verdi was in Paris, the director of the Paris Opéra,
Las Vegas” (The Met). The role of Maddelena is not pivotal,
François-Louis Crosnier (1792–1867) suggested that Verdi
but she adds color and helps to underline the duke’s licentious
revise Il trovatore as a French Grand Opera, adding a ballet
nature. The premiere was sung by contralto Annetta Casaloni
and expanding some of Azucena’s music for the fourth act
(1826–1915), who was the teacher of the “Divine Claudia”
to accommodate Borghi-Mamo, who sang the Paris Opéra
Muzio (1889–1936).
premiere on January 12, 1857. Adelaide Borghi-Mamo had
Azucena was the title Verdi first envisioned for the opera
a significant forty-year career and was known as a passionate
he was preparing at the same time that Rigoletto, La traviata,
singer with a big voice. Julian Budden called her the chief star
and Les vêpres Sicilienne were in various stages of development.
of the Théâtre Italien. She created many roles in lesser-known
Azucena in Il trovatore became one of the most important
operas by such composers as Pacini, Lauro Rossi, Halévy,
roles in the alto repertoire after the opera’s premiere at the
Felicién David (1810–1876), Gaetano Braga (1829–1907),
Teatro Apollo on January 19, 1853. Mozart’s remark that he
Achille Peri (1812–1880), and Emilio Usiglio (1841–1910).
tailored his music for the singer “as perfectly as a well-made
She could display a lighter side and was admired for her per-
suit of clothes” is familiar.6 It is sometimes assumed that later
formances of Rossini’s Il barbiere and La Cenerentola. More
composers, notably Beethoven and Wagner, composed the
dramatic repertoire included Léonore Guzman in La favorita,
music and then tried to find singers who could cope with it.
Urbino in Mercadante’s Il giuramento, Desdemona in Rossini’s
However, a letter illustrates the care that Verdi used in follow-
Otello, and Fidès in Meyerbeer’s Le prophète. Besides Azucena,
ing Mozart’s example in choosing Emilia Goggi (1817–1857)
her other Verdi roles included Federica in Luisa Miller and
for the role of the old gypsy.
Preziosilla in La forza del destino.
It must have been sometime in the summer of 1852 that
Il Trovatore is supremely important in our study of the
Emilia Goggi was first suggested to Verdi for the role of
lower female voice as the “voice of bel canto.” Julian Budden
Azucena. On August 24, Verdi replied to a letter from Josef
is eloquent on the subject of the trajectory of the alto voice in
Poniatowski (1814–1873), a Polish nobleman and composer:
the Verdi oeuvre.
Thank you for having given me news of the ability and voice “Again, though Rigoletto, the duke, Gilda, and Sparafucile
of Madame Goggi. I notice that there are some difficulties but are all specific characters, Leonora, Manrico, and the count
that does not frighten me. With ability and good will one can are the merest vocal archetypes; Ferrando, for whom Verdi had
succeed. The part I intend for her is strange, original, difficult, specified a ‘rather baritonal bass,’ is not even that. Only one
 Verdi and Verismo Altos 161
character is sculpted in depth: Azucena, a figure entirely new
in Verdi’s female gallery. So far he had made no significant use
of the mezzo-soprano or contralto voice in a principal role.
Cuniza in Oberto is distinguishable from her colleagues merely
by her range. Federica (Luisa Miller) and Maddelena (Rigoletto)
exploit the contralto color, but both are comprimaria roles and
not particularly grateful to the singer (especially Federica). But
Azucena is the first of a glorious line that includes Ulrica (Un
Ballo in maschera), Eboli (Don Carlos), Amneris (Aida), and in
a different vein Preziosilla (La Forza del destino).”9
The composition of Un ballo in maschera was Verdi’s most
frustrating experience and the story of his battles with the cen-
sors and the consequent alteration of the titles and locales of
the opera from Stockholm, to Stettin (Szecezcin), and finally
to Boston are well known. Ulrica is the next stop on the arc of
memorable alto characters in the Verdi canon. Ulrica was based
on an actual person, Ulrica Arfvidsson (1734–1801), who was a
fortune-teller for the aristocracy. She mostly divined by reading
tea leaves and had a reputation for never being wrong. Her lair
was located in a nondescript alley in order to guard the privacy
of her aristocratic customers. The premiere of Ballo finally
reached the stage of the Teatro Apollo in Rome on February 17,
1859. The role of Ulrica, which calls for a real contralto, was
sung by Zelina Sbriscia ( fl. 1850–1870). Hilary Poriss writes:
She was educated in Rome, where she made her operatic debut
in a production of Mercadante’s I Normanni a Parigi. She created
the role of Ulrica in the premiere of Un ballo in maschera at the
Teatro Apollo in Rome in 1859, but was not Verdi’s first choice:
he lamented (5 April 1858) to the impresario Vincenzo Jaco-
vacci: “You were wrong to rush Sbriscia’s contract in this way. I
hear she is bad, very bad indeed!” Even though the premiere of
Un ballo in maschera was a success, Sbriscia was not well received:
the critic for the Gazzetta Musicale di Milano commented that
“the arias for all the actors were loudly applauded, except for
those sung by [Pamela] Scotti and Sbriscia.”10
We don’t know whether this lack of enthusiasm for Ulrica
was because Sbriscia was really so terrible or because the audi-
ence was repelled by the character and her music’s strangeness.
Sbriscia did not seem to make much of an impact elsewhere.
In modern times, Ulrica was the role in which the great con-
tralto Marian Anderson (1897–1993) finally broke the “color
barrier” at the Metropolitan Opera on January 7, 1955. It was
the only time she sang an operatic role on stage, because she
had had no theatrical training.
Verdi continued his bent toward exotic characters and lo-
cales in La forza del destino, set in Seville with Don Alvaro, the
tenor, portrayed as a Peruvian of mixed Indian parentage. The
premiere of Forza, which also underwent several revisions, was
in St. Petersburg on November 10, 1862. La forza del destino
has a further bizarre reputation among some superstitious Ital-
ian singers as being a “cursed” opera. Luciano Pavarotti (1935–
2007) purportedly refused to sing it for that reason. The great
American baritone Leonard Warren (1911–1960) collapsed
and died on the stage of the Met during a performance of
Forza in 1960 after beginning the aria “Morir, tremenda cosa”
(To Die Is a Momentous Thing”).
To be sure, the alto role in Forza, Preziosilla, the young
gypsy, is not the major interest of the opera. It serves the same
function as Siebel in Faust and Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette,
adding variety and color. In keeping with the bizarre nature
of Forza, the original Preziosilla, Constance Nantier-Didiée
(1831–1867), was trying to prevent the engagement of the
lead soprano, Carolina Barbot-Douvry (1830–d. after 1875).
Hearing this, he [Verdi] protested to the director of the Imperial
Theaters: “This is really too much! I know that if I were direc-
tor, I would set fire to the four corners of the theater rather than
put up with such demands!”11
Nantier-Didiée had studied with Gilbert-Louis Duprez and
won the premier-prix for opera at the Paris Conservatoire in
1849. She made her debut in Turin as Emilia in Mercadante’s
La vestale in 1850. She appeared at the Théâtre Italien and at
Covent Garden until 1864, where she was in the English pre-
mieres of Rigoletto and Benvenuto Cellini. She had an extensive
repertory of dramatic, comic, and musico roles.
Don Carlos is the longest and most revised of the Verdi
operas. It was based on Friedrich Schiller’s dramatic poem
Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien, with a libretto by Joseph Méry
(1797–1866) and Camille du Locle. It premiered on March
11, 1867, at the Académie de Musique in Paris. It features one
of the greatest (and most difficult) roles in the dramatic mezzo-
soprano repertoire, Princess Eboli.
“Here is the kind of ambivalent character that since Il trova-
tore Verdi had learned to embody in the mezzo-soprano voice,
the female equivalent of the baritone. After Philip, he told
Franco Faccio (1840–1891), the most important part in the
opera was that of Eboli.”12
“Of Schiller’s two women, Elisabeth is little more than a
plaster saint, the traditional image of wifely and womanly
virtue, who springs to life only when defending herself against
King Philip’s false accusations. Princess Eboli, on the other
hand, is three dimensional—proud, willful, passionate, and
capable of great charm in the pursuit of her own ends.”13
In casting Eboli, the director of the Opéra, Èmile Perrin
(1814–1885), had originally chosen a young contralto, Rosine
Bloch (1844–1891), who had a beautiful and powerful voice
and was also a beautiful woman—a requirement for Eboli, who
has reason to lament her own beauty. In order to rest her voice
for the stress of creating the part of Eboli, Perrin removed her
from the part of Fidès and replaced her with Pauline Gueymard-
Lauters. Gueymard-Lauters was a Belgian soprano sfogato whose
wide range enabled her to sing such disparate roles as Donna
Anna, Valentine, Léonor (La Favorite), and Fidès. She had
created the part of Leonora in Le Trouvère in 1857. Gueymard-
Lauters did such a great job with Fidès in rehearsals that Perrin
wrote Verdi that he should use her for Eboli instead of Bloch.
Verdi ultimately did so, but this caused problems that have
persisted for singers who have assumed the role to this very day.
The original “Song of the Veil” was in G major, and Verdi trans-
posed it up a whole step for Gueymard-Lauters. Because of this,
Julian Budden states that Ebolis who are effective in the “Song
of the Veil” are lacking in “O don fatal” and vice versa.14 Verdi
162 Chapter 20
was also forced to make copious cuts and changes to the score,
and Don Carlos was not considered a success, despite a record
of forty-three performances. Only Rossini recognized the true
extent of Verdi’s genius.
“Tell [Verdi] from me,” Rossini wrote to Tito Ricordi, “that if
he returns to Paris he must get himself very well paid for it,
since—may my other colleagues forgive me for saying so—he is
the only composer capable of writing grand opera.”15
The first performance of Don Carlos in Italian was not in It-
aly, but in London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden on
June 4, 1867, under the baton of Sir Michael Costa. The score
was further cut (the first act was removed completely) and
revised. All of this was done without Verdi’s permission, but
the revisions resemble those made by Verdi himself in 1883.
The two female leads, Pauline (Paolina) Lucca (1841–1908) as
Elisabetta Valois and Antonietta Fricci (1840–1912) as Eboli,
were imported from Vienna. Each singer sang both soprano
and mezzo-soprano repertoire. Fricci (born Antonie Fritsche)
created several roles for lesser-known composers. Fricci, who
had a dramatic voice, was also the first Italian Eboli at Bologna
on October 27 of the same year. She had an outstanding career
at La Scala from 1865 to 1873, where she sang Lady Macbeth
and Lucrezia Borgia.
The Italian premiere of the uncut Don Carlos was on
October 27 in Bologna under the baton of Angelo Mariani
(1821–1873), a longtime collaborator of Verdi. Eboli was
again Antonietta Fricci, who was the recipient of Verdi’s
special invitation to sing the part. Fricci was a student of
Mathilde Marchesi in Vienna. The Elisabetta was Teresa Stolz
(1834–1902), a Bohemian soprano who would become very
important to Verdi, both musically and personally.
After the failure of the first performance of Don Carlos in
Naples in 1871, Verdi took matters into his own hands and
made further revisions, which he also supervised himself.
The premiere of the new version was during Carnival in
1872, with the pairing of Teresa Stolz and Maria Waldmann
(1842–1920), which would be very important in the years to
come. Both Stolz and Waldmann were students of Francesco
Lamperti (1813–1892), a great teacher of singing at the Milan
Conservatory.
But still the fortunes of Don Carlos disappointed the com-
poser’s hopes. When given at all, it was liable to the kind of
disfiguration against which he had been campaigning for years.
A letter to Ricordi’s agent Tornaghi tells us that in Reggio
Emilia in 1874, Antonietta Fricci had replaced some of her
part with music from Les Huguenots and Macbeth.16
Verdi continued to revise the opera, and a new four-act ver-
sion was given at La Scala on January 10, 1884. The title part
was sung by the great Francesco Tamagno (1850–1905), the
first Otello. On this occasion, Eboli was Giuseppina Pasqua
(1851–1930), who went on to create the part of Mistress
Quickly in Falstaff in 1893. Pasqua began her career, surely
misclassified by her teachers, as a coloratura soprano, making
her debut in 1868 as Oscar in Un ballo in maschera. In 1872,
still singing the soprano repertoire, her La Scala debut came
as Ännchen in Weber’s Der Freischütz. In Milan, she studied
with Luigia Abbadia to retrain her voice as a mezzo-soprano.
Pasqua then assumed the role of Preziosilla in the first per-
formance of La forza del destino at the San Carlo in 1876. In
1877 she scored a triumph as Amneris at the Teatro Comunale
in Bologna’s first Aida, a result that she repeated at La Scala
the following year. Pasqua sang leading roles all over Europe,
including the Bol’shoy in Moscow in 1878 and 1879. She was
the prima donna contralto in Barcelona spanning the years
1881 to 1887. She must have been an excellent actress, for
she was particularly admired for her portrayal of Carmen in
Madrid from 1879 to 1897.
When asked, by a person who does not know opera, which
work I recommend for a first hearing, I invariably suggest
Verdi’s Aida. The sheer scale of the stage scene, the pageantry,
and, above all, the beauty of the music are usually enough to
ensure the creation of a lifelong fan. What is often overlooked
is that the elements of the drama between the four princi-
pal characters are on an intimate scale and the plot line is
straightforward, with none of the complications of operas like
Don Carlos. The character of Amneris is one of Verdi’s most
powerful creations, and only the alto voice is suitable to fulfill
its demands. The casting for Amneris, like that of Don Carlos,
presented problems. Verdi’s original conception of the role
was of a soprano with good low notes. He originally wanted
Marietta Antonietta as Aida and Teresa Stolz as Amneris
for the La Scala premiere, but he was bound by his original
contract to engage singers from the resident company for the
original performance in the Cairo Opera House on December
24, 1871. After misgivings on Verdi’s part, Eleonora Grossi (fl.
1860–1870s) was engaged for Amneris. It was reported that
Grossi was singing both Fidès in Le prophète and Léonor Guz-
man in La Favorite with the Cairo Company, but Verdi was
still not convinced. However, he received encouraging reports
from a conductor whom he trusted, Franco Faccio, about
Grossi’s singing and finally agreed to her engagement as Am-
neris. Not much is known about Grossi. She sang at Covent
Garden in 1868 and 1869 as Nancy in Martha, Urbain in Les
Huguenots, and Pippo in La gazza ladra. On the basis of this
information, Elizabeth Forbes judged that “she had a flexible
voice of considerable dramatic weight.”17
The ruler of Egypt was anxious to have Verdi compose
the opera and paid all the artists handsomely. Verdi, fear-
ing an inadequate performance, did not travel to Cairo for
the opening. For him, the true premiere was at La Scala on
February 8, 1872, and he lavished a great deal of care on its
preparation. Since Antonietta Fricci was not available for Aida,
Verdi switched Teresa Stolz to the title part and engaged the
relatively inexperienced Austrian mezzo-soprano, Maria Wald-
mann, for Amneris. She had made her debut in Moscow as
Pierotto in Linda di Chamounix of Donizetti in 1865 and had
sung Eboli in Trieste with Stoltz in 1869. During the rehearsal
period, La Scala presented La forza del destino with Waldmann
 Verdi and Verismo Altos 163

as Preziosilla because Verdi wanted to hear her in the theater [she sang] very well; with that rich even voice she brought forward
before offering her a contract for Amneris. In a letter to Giulio certain effects that even Waldmann could not do because of her
Recordi Verdi described Amneris: “Bear in mind that this Am- voice [which was] not even and was sometimes unmanageable;
neris has a bit of a devil in her, needs a powerful voice, is very while this American woman, with her calmness and unspoiled
voice, was more effective in the Messa than in the Aida. . . . When
emotional and very, very dramatic.”18
the Messa ended the public seemed to have gone mad.19
Maria Waldmann was a beautiful woman and had a reso-
nant dark quality in her lower register. Verdi always insisted
Waldmann wrote to Verdi from Cairo that she was retiring
that she was a contralto. She became Verdi’s favorite Amneris.
from the theater soon to marry Count Galeazzo Massari of
The premiere at La Scala was a huge success and Verdi was
Ferrara. She was only thirty-one. Verdi wrote his congratula-
called out thirty-two times during the evening. Stolz and
tions and said he would see her in Paris. Most of the original
Waldmann remained in the cast when the opera was produced
cast of Aida convened in Paris at the Théâtre Italien on April
in Parma and then in Naples. It was a triumph there despite
22, 1876. Muzio took over the baton from Verdi after the first
the chaotic atmosphere at the San Carlo.
week and wrote:
From 1874 to 1876 Waldmann was engaged in Cairo, where
she appeared in La forza del destino, La favorita, Aida, and Un The success of Aida was immense, unprecedented; Stolz and
ballo in maschera. The story of Maria Waldmann in Aida dur- Waldmann were better received yesterday (the second perfor-
ing this period becomes intertwined with Verdi’s great Messa da mance) than on the first night; and they really sang like angels.20
Requiem because the two works were often performed together
in the same season. Two years after the premiere of Aida, on The Théâtre Italien was then forced to close despite the
May 22, 1874, at the church of San Marco in Milan, Verdi popularity of Aida, and the management defaulted on its pay-
conducted his great Messa da Requiem in memory of Alessan- ment to Verdi. Several years later, Verdi reluctantly agreed to
dro Manzoni (1785–1873), with Waldmann and Stolz among
the soloists. After the Milan performances, the work was given
seven performances at the Opéra Comique in Paris in June.
The only other authorized performance of Aida was in
New York. Emanuele Muzio (1821–1890), Verdi’s pupil,
lifelong friend, and amanuensis, conducted the first perfor-
mance of Aida in America at the Academy of Music in New
York City on November 26, 1873, utilizing the scenery and
costumes by the great Girolamo Magnani (1815–1889) from
the Naples production. The Amneris was Annie Louise Cary
(1841–1921), a popular American contralto from Connecti-
cut. A student of Pauline Viardot, Cary had one of the first
American international careers in opera, concert, and oratorio
in Europe and America. Cary was the alto soloist in the first
performance of the Manzoni Requiem on American soil. She
also sang the first Wagner role in the United States (Ortrud)
and the American premieres of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and
Magnificat, as well.
In 1875 Verdi embarked on a tour of Paris, London, and
Vienna. He planned to conduct his Requiem alternating with
Aida. The original Requiem was as it is performed today ex-
cept for the “Liber scriptus,” which was originally a four-part
fugue for chorus and orchestra. On November 21, 1874, Verdi
informed Maria Waldmann that he had composed the piece
anew as an alto solo for her. This version was given for the
first time in London’s Royal Albert Hall on May 15, 1874.
In Vienna in June, Verdi was elated by the reception and was
decorated by the Emperor Franz Joseph (1830–1916). The
tour concluded in Venice with five performances of Requiem.
Stolz wrote to Verdi from St. Petersburg in 1875 that the
Russian audiences, including the czar and his family, filled
the theater, which “seemed like a holy temple,” for Aida and
Requiem. Stolz reported on Annie Louise Cary, who sang Am-
neris and the alto solos in the Requiem: Figure 20.1.  Maria Waldmann by Mondel and Jacob, Wiesbaden
164 Chapter 20
have the opera translated into French and conducted the first
five performances at the Palais Garnier on March 22, 1880.
Rosine Bloch who, it may be remembered, was originally
scheduled as Princess Eboli in Don Carlos, was Amneris. Maria
Waldmann (Countess Massari) remained a lifelong friend and
correspondent of Verdi and his wife.
Verdi had revised his Simon Boccanegra, Don Carlos, and a
French translation of La forza del destino in the intervening
years, but Otello, premiered at La Scala on February 5, 1887,
was his first new work since Aida in 1871. The only alto role
in the towering masterpiece was the comprimaria Emilia, wife
of Iago and Desdemona’s maid, which was sung by Genevra
Petrovich (fl. 1887). Petrovich was hooted at during the run
at La Scala and apparently had pitch problems brought on by
anxiety.
“At the end of 1890, the seventy-seven-year-old Verdi wrote
to that indefatigable scribbler on matters theatrical, Gino
Monaldi. ‘What can I tell you? I’ve wanted to write a comic
opera for forty years, and I’ve known The Merry Wives of Wind-
sor for fifty; however, the usual “buts” which are everywhere
always prevented me from satisfying this wish of mine.’21
Verdi’s wish came true with a wonderful libretto by his
collaborator on Otello, Arrigo Boito. Falstaff was born on
February 9, 1893, at La Scala. It was truly a masterpiece and
the crowning achievement of Verdi’s career, which blazed new
paths in the history of Italian opera. In Falstaff, with the ex-
ception of the title character, there is no real star of the show
and few arias that slow down the action. Verdi had been stung
by criticism that he had been influenced by Wagner and “The
Music of the Future,” but the concept of the unified drama
was inexorable. The characters are sharply drawn and were
carefully cast.
Guerrina Fabbri (1866–1946) had been considered for the
part of Dane Quickly, but Boito reported that she had no feel-
ing for the Rossini style in a performance of La Cenerentola.
Verdi was very precise in his assessment of the part.
La Fabbri with her fine voice could be successful with melodies
based on agility, as in Cenerentola, etc. But the part of Quickly
is something quite different. You need to sing and to act, to
move with complete assurance on stage, and to put the right
stress on the main syllable. She hasn’t these qualities; and so we
run the risk of sacrificing a part which is the most original and
colorful of the four.
Indeed, the coloring of Dame Quickly’s character—so slippery
and deceitful in The Merry Wives that Meg and Alice refer to
her as “this carrion”—is one of Verdi’s most delightful trans-
formations.22
But Verdi already had his Quickly—Giuseppina Pasqua,
who sang Princess Eboli in the four-act revision of Don Carlos
at La Scala in 1884. Apparently, Pasqua was quite tempera-
mental, as Giacomo Puccini had reported to Ricordi about her
behavior in Madrid while she sang Tigrana, a part that recalls
the character of Carmen, in his Edgar in 1890. Verdi was hav-
ing none of it. He wrote to Ricordi that “there would be no
place for tantrums and high emotional drama in Falstaff. ‘This
is comedy—music, notes and words; no cantabile; mobility on
stage and plenty of dash.’”
Later: “In her heart of hearts perhaps she would have liked
a part which would stand out on its own; but she’s intelligent
and she understands what it’s all about; she will be happy to
do her part and do it well.”23
Giuseppina Pasqua, along with Teresa Stolz and Maria
Waldmann, became a valued member of Verdi’s inner circle at
Montecatini in Tuscany.
Julian Budden takes time out from his monumental study
of Verdi to devote a chapter to “A Problem of Identity (Italian
Opera 1870–1890).” This is the period that saw the rise of the
genre of Italian opera called verismo. Verdi stated that “the age
of Verismo did not have a scrap of verity in it.”24 During this
period, Italian opera lost its way, overwhelmed by the Teutonic
and Gallic influences. In addition, there was a recession that
forced many Italian opera houses to close or to offer curtailed
seasons. When the recession was over, Italian opera houses
reopened, now subsidized by big business. However, they of-
fered mostly works by foreign composers. In the 1880s the
most popular works were Carmen, Lakmé, Die Königen von
Saba, and the early works of Wagner. Later Wagnerian music
dramas, The Ring, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger, and
Parsifal were perceived as being too anti-vocal and harmoni-
cally turgid, with too much emphasis on the orchestra. In a
letter to Franco Faccio, Verdi summed up the essence of this
antithetic view of the subject:
If the Germans, proceeding from Bach, have come to Wagner,
they do so as good Germans and all is well. But when we, as
descendants of Palestrina, imitate Wagner, we are committing
a musical crime, and are doing a useless, nay harmful thing.25
Not counting Verdi, Amilcare Ponchielli was the most
important composer in the interim period before verismo. He
was influential in developing the style of Puccini, Umberto
Giordano (1867–1948), and Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945).
Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito,
which premiered at La Scala on April 8, 1876, was revised
several times. The final version of 1880 is the one used today.
There are roles for all of the six principal voice types, but that
of the alto, Laura Adorno, most concerns us here. The creator
of the role, Marietta Biancolini Rodriguez (1846–1905), made
her debut in 1864 at Novara as Bellini’s Romeo. She then ap-
peared in Florence, Genoa, the San Carlo in Naples, Lisbon,
and Buenos Aires. She also sang Fidès at La Scala. She was a
versatile artist whose vocal flexibility enabled her to have suc-
cess as a Rossini singer. There is another alto role in La Gio-
conda—that of the blind mother of Gioconda, La Cieca, which
was premiered by Eufemia Barlani Dini (fl. 1870–1880). La
Cieca’s aria “Voce di Donna” is a well-known excerpt for the
alto voice. Barlani Dini also sang Signora di Monza in Pon-
chielli’s I promessi sposi (1873) and Nancy in Friedrich von
Flotow’s Marta, as well as Vania in Glinka’s Life for the Czar in
Milan in 1874.
 Verdi and Verismo Altos 165
Perhaps this is the place to discuss an operatic convention
that composers have used for centuries as the basis for conflict
(the very stuff of drama) in their operas. It is the struggle be-
tween the soprano character and her alto counterpart for the
love of the hero. The classic battle is between Aida and Am-
neris. We also have Laura and La Gioconda, Norma and Adal-
gisa, Elisabetta and Eboli, Carmen and Micaela, Maria Stuarda
and Elisabetta, Sara, Duchess of Nottingham, and Elisabetta,
Anna Bolena and Giovanna Seymour, Elsa and Ortrud, and,
in a stranger way, Fricka and Brünnhilde, among many others.
Besides the inherent dramatic situation, this arrangement is
fertile ground for beautiful and dramatic duets and ensembles.
In 1890, Italian opera found a new way out of the gloom
of Nibelheim when Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana burst upon
the operatic scene on May 17, 1890, at the Teatro Costanzi in
Rome. The new genre called verismo could be seen as the logical
extension of the move away from classical subjects toward the
melodrama that began some hundred years earlier. It was musi-
cally and dramatically direct, economical, and vivid. It also did
away with florid singing as a medium of expression and paved
the way for a generation who lost sight of this important aspect
of singing. Julian Budden credits, not an Italian for the inspira-
tion for verismo, but Bizet and his Carmen. I cannot claim that
Santuzza was written for the alto voice, but the role was often
sung by artists at the Metropolitan who were famous Carmens,
such as Emma Calvé, Margarete Matzenauer (1881–1963),
Bruna Castagna (1905–1983), Nell Rankin (1924–2005), Gi-
ulietta Simionato, Rita Gorr (1926–2012), Irene Dalis (1925–
2014), Fiorenza Cossotto (b. 1935), Grace Bumbry (b. 1937),
Mignon Dunn (b. 1931), and Tatiana Troyanos (1938–1993).
Mascagni spent the rest of his life trying to re-create the
sensation of Cavalleria. His next opera, L’amico Fritz (1891), is
rarely performed today but contains some lovely music. Suzel,
the female lead mostly sung by sopranos, was created by Emma
Calvé, the era’s most famous Carmen. There is a supporting
alto trouser role, Beppe, who has a charming aria. Zanetto is
a forty-minute curtain raiser described as a scena lyrica by its
composer. The eponymous role of Zanetto is an alto travesti
part. Jennifer Larmore recorded the opera in 2007.
The other composer most associated with verismo is Rug-
gero Leoncavallo (1857–1919), whose I Pagliacci (1892) is
most often paired with Cavalleria. Like Mascagni, Leonca-
vallo’s fame rests with this single work. Unlike him, Leonca-
vallo wrote no works that featured the alto voice in a leading
role. The other Italian composers of the period starting with
Arrigo Boito, including Umberto Giordano, Alfredo Catalani
(1854–1893), Alberto Franchetti (1860–1942), Francesco
Cilèa (1866–1950), and even Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)
failed to avail themselves of the melodic and dramatic poten-
tial of the lower female voice.
There were several fine Italian altos of this period who were
excellent interpreters of the great roles but not necessarily their
creators. Sofia Scalchi (1850–1922) was a robust contralto
with a wide range who could also sing mezzo-soprano roles.
Scalchi made her debut as Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera at
Mantua in 1866. In 1868 she debuted as Azucena at Covent
Garden, where she remained a member of the company until
1889. She also visited St. Petersburg annually from 1872 to
1881 and 1889 to 1890. Scalchi was also proficient as a col-
oratura alto, for she debuted in New York at the Academy of
Music as Arsace in Semiramide in 1882 and sang Angelina in
La Cenerentola in Florence in 1886.
Scalchi became a valuable member of the Metropolitan
Opera in 1883 and went on to sing 242 performances of
eighteen roles in only five seasons. She was in the inaugural
performance at the Metropolitan, singing the role of Siebel
in Faust on October 22, 1883, along with Italo Campanini
(1845–1896) and Christine Nilsson (1843–1921), her long-
time colleagues in Mapleson’s company in London. Scalchi
was the first Emilia in Otello (1888), the first Mistress Quickly
in Falstaff (1895) in America, and the first Vanya in Glinka’s A
Life for the Tsar in London (1887).
The career of mezzo-soprano Giulia Ravogli (1866–1941)
can hardly be separated from that of her sister Sofia (1865–
1910), a soprano who appeared in tandem with her sister in
such operas as Orfeo ed Euridice, Aida, Carmen, Trovatore,
Lucrezia, and Norma. Giulia was the finer singer of the two,
but she always deferred to her sister, and when Sofia decided
to retire, so did Giulia. Giulia’s performance of Orfeo at Covent
Garden in 1890 had a tremendous impact.
What Berlioz wrote of Madame Viardot-Garcia, the great
Orpheus of thirty years ago, may be applied word-for-word
to her successor of today, Giulia Ravogli: “She has all the
special qualities that the part demands; through mastery of
the music, a simple and severe style, an organ puissant and
noble, profound sensibility, expressive features, natural beauty
of gesture.”26
George Bernard Shaw, during his years as a music critic,
could be merciless to someone he didn’t like, but he was an
enthusiastic admirer of Giulia Ravogli, especially her Orfeo. He
was also a connoisseur of Carmen and especially liked Ravogli’s
portrayal because she was very musical, in contrast to Calvé’s
version, which he praised for its realism but complained that
she was always out of time with the orchestra.27
Giulia Ravogli, along with her sister, was engaged at the
Metropolitan in 1891, where they were heard in Orfeo, which
opened in Chicago. Giulia was praised lavishly, the critic stat-
ing that the expectations raised by her London success were “in
no wise disappointed.”
Vocally and dramatically her treatment of the part is admirable.
She is in everything the thorough, intelligent artist, and there
is no feature of her work which does not reveal this. . . . Her
voice is one of beauty, containing tones whose quality is that
of a mezzo-soprano, rather than contralto, but full, pure, and
warm. She sings with splendid finish, her phrasing and shading
of Gluck’s trying music being in the highest degree artistic and
praise-meriting.28
While in Chicago, Giulia sang Ortrud in Lohengrin in
an all-star cast that included Jean and Èdouard de Reszke
166 Chapter 20
(1853–1917) and Emma Ames (1865–1952). Jean de Reszke
and Ames were judged to be praiseworthy but not up to expec-
tations. “Giulia Ravogli, as Ortrud, displayed histrionic ability
of an exceptionally high order and a mezzo-soprano voice of
extensive compass and considerable power.”29
Giulia Ravogli only remained one season at the Met, where
she sang ten roles in thirty-two performances, which included
Azucena, Amneris, Ortrud, Orfeo, Fidès, and Urbain in Les
Huguenots. With all her success, it is possible that she decided
to leave America because Sofia, whom she idolized, failed to
achieve much appreciation for her work.
Gabriella Besanzoni (1890–1962) made her debut in
Viterbo in 1911 as Adalgisa in Norma. Besanzoni’s voice
was a rich and full contralto, with a smooth transition
between registers and a strong top voice. She was in great
demand in Italy within a few seasons and sang with many
of the great artists of the period—soprano Ester Mazzoleni
(1883–1982), baritones Riccardo Stracciari (1875–1955)
and Mattia Battistini (1857–1928), tenors Enrico Ca-
ruso and Aureliano Pertile (1885–1952), basso Ezio Pinza
(1892–1957), and conductors Pietro Mascagni and Arturo
Toscanini (1867–1957).
Besanzoni’s repertoire was extensive and covered the usual
roles—Amneris, Dalila, Marina, Carmen, Mignon, Leonora
(La favorita), Santuzza, Adalgisa, Preziosilla, Isabella, and
Orfeo. She guested in Mexico City, Havana, Berlin, and was
a great favorite at the Colón in Buenos Aires, where she was
reengaged six times. Besanzoni was engaged at the Metro-
politan in 1919 for a single season, where she sang Amneris,
Preziosilla, Marina, Dalila, and Isabella in the first Met perfor-
mance of L’italiana in Algeri, “where she demonstrated that her
skill for florid music was limited.”30
Michael Scott lists three other Italian altos of this period—
Armida Parsi-Pettinella (1868–1944), the Spaniard Maria
Gay (1879–1943), and the Portuguese alto Eugenia Mantelli
(1860–1926).31 All had substantial European careers and both
Mantelli and Gay had Met careers without arousing much
enthusiasm. Since we are now in the era of recorded perfor-
mance, it is possible to hear these singers on records. In my
opinion, none are up to modern standards of performance,
despite having impressive career credentials.
NOTES
1.  Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (New York:
Knopf, 1926), 185.
2. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, 377.
3.  Elizabeth Forbes, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 1, ed.
Stanley Sedie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1–2.
4.  Philip Gossett, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 288. From Viardot’s
letter to Arditi, 15 March 1859.
5.  Susan Rutherford, The Cambridge Verdi Encyclopedia, ed. Ro-
berta Montemorra Marvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2014), 359.
6.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 126.
7.  Martin Chusid, Verdi’s Il trovatore: The Quintessential Italian
Melodrama (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2012),
28–29.
8.  George Whitney Martin, “Verdi Onstage in the United States:
Le trouvère,” The Opera Quarterly 21 (spring 2005): 285–302.
9.  Julian Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1992), 67–68.
10. Hilary Poriss, The Cambridge Verdi Encyclopedia, ed. Roberta
Montemorra Marvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014),
384.
11.  Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Verdi: A Biography (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1993), 447. From a letter from Verdi to General
Sabouroff, 19 March 1862.
12. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 14.
13. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 13.
14. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 22.
15. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 26. From a letter to T.
Ricordi, 21 April 1868.
16. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 29. The letter to Tornaghi
was dated 9 August 1874.
17.  Elizabeth Forbes, “Eleonora Grossi,” The New Grove Diction-
ary of Opera, vol. 2, 532.
18. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, n. 192. Letter dated 24
May 1871. Recordi’s description of her in the production book is:
“Amneris—20; very lively, impetuous, susceptible.”
19. Phillips-Matz, Verdi, 626. From a letter from Stolz to Verdi
and Strepponi, 2 January 1876.
20. Phillips-Matz, Verdi, 629.
21. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 417.
22. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 431.
23. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 433.
24. Budden, The Operas of Verdi, vol. 3, 29.
25.  Franz Werfel and Paul Stefan, Verdi: The Man in His Letters
(New York: Vienna House, 1973), 392.
26.  F. Foster Buffen, ed., Musical Celebrities (London: Chapman
& Hall, 1893), 228.
27.  James Huneker, ed., Dramatic Opinions and Essays by G. Ber-
nard Shaw (New York: Brentanos, 1922), 12–13.
28.  Anonymous, “Orfeo ed Euridice,” review, Chicago Tribune, 11
November 1891.
29. Anonymous, “Lohengrin,” review, Chicago Tribune, 14 No-
vember 1891.
30.  Michael Scott, The Record of Singing, vol. 2, 1914–1925 (Lon-
don: Duckworth, 1979), 96–97.
31.  Michael Scott, The Record of Singing, vol. 1, to 1914 (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977), 163–67.
21
German Romanticism, Wagner, Strauss, and the Alto Voice
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, German opera
composers were dominated by the influence of the Italians
and, to a lesser extent, the French. Even Beethoven was in-
timidated by the success of the Rossini seasons in Vienna.
Fidelio (1805) was modeled on a French rescue opera with
spoken dialogue. The roots for the mighty tree that became
the Wagnerian canon were planted by Beethoven in Fidelio,
which required heroic voices to compensate for the wall of
orchestral sound. The first truly German Romantic opera was
Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber, which premiered on
June 18, 1821, at the Schauspielhaus in Berlin. The opera was
a great success and played all over Germany.
Although it contains no music for the alto voice, it is
important to understand that, with its mixture of fantasy,
piety, superstition, and battle between good and evil, it was
a forerunner of the fantastic Teutonic world of the music
dramas of Richard Wagner. Oberon, written to an English
libretto, was premiered in London on April 12, 1826, shortly
before the death of the composer on June 4. The character of
Puck was written for a mezzo-soprano, one Harriet Cawse (c.
1812–1889), who apparently was a child of fourteen.
Richard Wagner towered over the middle and late nine-
teenth century like a colossus. Oesterlein’s Katalog, published
in 1927, lists ten thousand books about Wagner published in
his lifetime alone.1 Only Verdi stood his ground against the
Wagnerian onslaught, and even he was forced to admit to the
greatness of Tristan und Isolde.
“An Italian of the Italians, faithful to the instincts of his
race, a clear-sighted and indomitable artist, Verdi maintained,
almost singlehanded, the cause of Italian opera against the tide
of enthusiasm for Wagner and, in the end, vindicated the tradi-
tion of Scarlatti and Rossini alongside that of Reinhard Keiser
(1674–1739) and Weber. The old struggle between Latin and
German, southern and northern music in opera—the singer
against the orchestra, melody against polyphony, simplicity
against complexity—was incarnate in the nineteenth century
in the works of Verdi and Wagner, who represented the two
ideals in all their irreconcilable perfection.”2
167
Indeed, we are at a great crossroads where the singer
becomes less important, the orchestra dominates, and the
conductor and stage director ascend their thrones. Harmony
overcomes melody and coloratura disappears. The recitative is
replaced by sprechgesang, and set numbers (with opportunities
for applause) give way to a more or less continuous flow of
drama and music. In Wagner’s earlier works, the libretti were
not so different from Italian or French models. However, in
the later music dramas, the characters began to represent not
real human beings, but cosmic and philosophical forces. As in
other branches of the arts, the “concept” overcomes the con-
tent. Because of the size and makeup of the orchestra (large
numbers of brass instruments), Wagner was compelled to
invent another category of voice, the “helden,” or heroic voice,
which represents the human limit of loudness and endurance.
To be sure, Wagner recognized the problems to come and de-
signed a cover for the orchestra at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus,
where his works were to be performed.
Following the trend of the times, all of Wagner’s female
leads were sopranos, although most were of the type called
hoch-dramatisch sopran, which would correspond to the Italian
soprano sfogato, having a powerful middle and low voice with
stentorian high notes. Unlike the sfogato, however, an ability
to sing florid music was not required—only amazing endur-
ance and the ability to sustain a high tessitura. Wagner’s early
inspiration and model of heroines to come was Wilhelmine
Schröder-Devrient, whom he had seen performing the epony-
mous role of Fidelio in 1829.
“Toward the end of her (Schröder-Devrient’s) career, when
vocal limitations, if nothing else, forced her to become a
pioneer in the public performance of songs by Beethoven,
Schubert, and Schumann, even German critics were to com-
plain of lieder more acted and declaimed than sung.”
“To say that she was predestined for German opera is not
to suggest that Germans cannot sing or that German opera
cannot be well sung, but rather that the declamatory predilec-
tion of German composers and the emphatic inflection of the
German language favor a kind of singer for whom the wide
168 Chapter 21
range and the plastic melodic line of the older Italian operas
offer only merciless exposure. Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
became the first Adriano in Rienzi, Senta in The Flying Dutch-
man, and the first Venus in Tannhäuser, but while she was
still young, German opera had little to offer beyond Fidelio,
Weber’s operas, Mozart’s two German operas, and Gluck’s in
German translation.”3
Wagner’s alto characters, although few, are interesting both
musically and dramatically. In Der Fliegende Holländer, the
supporting role of Mary, Senta’s nurse, was created by Thérèse
Wächter-Wittman (b. 1802), who was the wife of Johann Mi-
chael Wächter (1794–1853), the first Dutchman. Both were
longtime members of the Dresden Hofoper.
Tannhäuser was problematic from the very first performance
in Dresden on October 19, 1845. It was not as popular as
Rienzi and Wagner continued to revise it until its 1860 pub-
lication known as the Dresden Version. The first Elisabeth was
Wagner’s niece, Johanna Wagner (1826–1894), a mezzo-so-
prano of wide range who had studied with Pauline Viardot and
Manuel Garcia II. Wagner mentioned that he had conducted
her in Dresden as Léonor in Donizetti’s La Favorite, a part that
fitted her voice perfectly, although he hated the opera himself.4
He described her as
a high priestess, played by a young girl, whose exceptional
beauty could not be concealed. This was my niece, Johanna
Wagner, then seventeen years old, whose voice was exceptionally
beautiful at this stage; this, in addition to her looks, and allied
with her superb acting talent, made everybody wish the roles
reversed [with Schröder-Devrient].5
This opinion was, by no means, shared by all. Henry Chorley,
who did not understand the new direction that the Wagnerian
music drama was taking anyway and stung by news that Jo-
hanna’s father had stated “that one only could go to London to
get money,” wrote that
She was one of the many who sing without having learned to
sing. Her voice—an originally limited one, robust rather than
rich in tone—was already strained and uncertain [in 1852]
delivered after a bad method, and incapable of moderate flex-
ibility, as was to be felt when she toiled through Mozart’s air,
“Parto” from La Clemenza, with its clarinet obbligato.6
Chorley’s opinion notwithstanding, Johanna Wagner went
on to a sterling career. After her engagement in Dresden, she
sang in Hamburg as Valentine, Leonore, and Fidès. Meyerbeer
heard her there and engaged her for Fidès in Berlin, as well as
Bellini’s Romeo, Donna Anna, and Reiza in Weber’s Oberon.
In 1856 in London she was heard as Romeo as well as Tan-
credi, Gluck’s Orfeo, and Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia. She also
sang the same roles in Weimar under Liszt’s direction. Johanna
Wagner was the first Berlin Ortrud, as well.
The Venus in the premiere of Tannhäuser on October 19,
1845, was Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Wagner wanted to
conquer the musical world of Paris after his miserable time
there from 1839 until 1842. He arranged for a performance of
Tannhäuser at the Opéra on March 13, 1861, and revised the
part of Venus for a contralto, Fortunata Tedesco (1826–1866).
The performance was a fiasco brought on by members of the
Jockey Club, who were more interested in ogling the girls in
the ballet, which Wagner was forced to add because of the rules
of the Opéra.
The eighteen-year-old Tedesco made her debut at La Scala
in 1844 in Gugliemo Tell and Roberto il diavolo. She was en-
gaged in Vienna, where she had a brilliant success, and then
traveled to the United States and Havana, where she also
triumphed. Her Paris debut was at the Opéra as Catarina in
Halévy’s La reine de Chypre, and she subsequently sang Fidès,
Azucena, Léonor, and created the part of Theodora in Halévy’s
Le juif errant (The Wandering Jew) on April 23, 1852. After
the Paris Tannhäuser, Tedesco had successful seasons in Lisbon
and Madrid, finally retiring in 1866, the year of her death.
Lohengrin was the last of Wagner’s three “Romantic” operas
and was premiered in Weimar, with Franz Liszt conducting,
on August 28, 1850. Because of his political exile, it was
eleven years before Wagner heard a complete performance in
Vienna. Based upon medieval Teutonic tales, Lohengrin was
immediately popular and captivated the young King Ludwig
II (1845–1886) of Bavaria, who bankrupted the kingdom’s
treasury in support of Wagner’s grandiose dreams. The part of
Ortrud, a pagan witch, recalls the character of Medea and is
the most interesting character in the opera. These days, Ortrud
is most often sung by a mezzo-soprano. Liszt had assembled a
cast of obscure singers and directed an unprecedented forty-six
rehearsals for the premiere. The original Ortrud was dramatic
soprano Josephine Fastlinger (b. 1823?–?), who was, even in
Weimar, completely unknown. After training in Munich, she
was engaged at the Hoftheater Stuttgart and then in Munich
for Agathe in Der Freischütz. She joined the company in Wei-
mar in 1849. After the premiere of Lohengrin, Fastlinger went
on to Leipzig, Munich, and then to Freiburg. Among other
roles, she sang Romeo in I Capuleti e Montecchi, Donna Anna,
Venus in Tannhäuser, and the title role in Fidelio.
The Vienna premiere of Lohengrin was in the Burgtheater
on August 19, 1859, with Róza Csillag (1832–1892) as Or-
trud. Csillag’s father, Moritz Goldstein, was a hazzan (cantor)
in Irsa, Hungary. Especially noted for the beauty of her mezzo-
soprano voice, Róza’s debut was as Fidès in Le prophète in 1858
in the court opera of Vienna, where she remained until 1873.
Her roles included Bellini’s Romeo and the eponymous role in
Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia.
The first performance of Lohengrin in Italy was conducted by
Verdi’s erstwhile friend Angelo Mariani on November 1, 1871,
in Bologna. Eight days later, Verdi himself attended what was
assuredly his first exposure to Wagnerian opera. The Ortrud was
Marie Löwe-Destinn (fl. 1870s), a Bohemian mezzo-soprano.
She had been singing in Italy for five years, including La Scala
from 1866 to 1868, before the Lohengrin performance. Verdi
had considered her for Amneris for Cairo’s premiere of Aida. On
June 7, 1871, Giulio Recordi reported to Verdi:
 German Romanticism, Wagner, Strauss, and the Alto Voice 169
Illustrious Maestro,
While Brunello is negotiating with la Waldmann, I am trying
again to find out if there is some other good artist; two names
come to mind: La Destinn and La Giovanone. The first is a
great actress, a fascinating person of most distinguished ability.
Her voice has some strong notes in the middle register (B, C,
E, and F); but her upper register is a bit awkward, and her low
notes are not very sturdy. She has many defects, then, which are
somewhat compensated for by the above-mentioned qualities.
She was liked very much as Eboli at La Scala, however, and had
great success during the last carnival season at La Scala and is
now singing in Budapest with excellent success. The general
word is excellent, but, as I said, I have never heard her.7
Verdi ultimately decided that he needed a stronger lower
voice for Amneris and settled on Maria Waldmann. Löwe-
Destinn ultimately became the teacher of Emílie Pavlína
Věnceslava Kittlová, who adopted the surname of her teacher
in tribute and became the great Emmy Destinn (1878–1930).
Wagner composed his monumental tetralogy Der Ring des
Nibelungen during a period of twenty years. His other mature
music dramas, Tristan und Isolde (1865) and Die Meistersinger
(1868), occupied him during hiatuses in the composition of
the third of these operas, Siegfried. There is no question that
the hoch dramatisch sopran is the lead voice in The Ring as
well as Tristan, but the alto voice has a part to play as well.
However, there is a problem. All of the creators of the parts
chosen by Wagner that we are accustomed to hearing as
mezzo-sopranos were actually sopranos. For example, the first
Fricka in 1869 was Sophia Stehle (1838–1921), who was also
the first Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. In the first complete Ring
in 1876, the Rheingold Fricka was sung by soprano Friederike
Grün (1836–1917), who also sang Elisabeth in the first Ital-
ian performance of Tannhäuser, Norma, Leonore in Fidelio,
Rachel in La Juive, Valentine in Les Huguenots, and Agathe
in Der Freischütz. The Walküre Fricka was Anna Kaufman (fl.
1869–1872), who also sang Eva, Elisabeth, and Elsa at the
Bavarian State Opera.
Das Rheingold, a vorspiel, or introduction to the rest of The
Ring, was completed in 1854. Erda, a small but extremely
important part whose gravitas could only be portrayed by
the contralto voice was sung by Emma Seehofer (d. 1912)
at the first performance on September 22, 1869. Luise Jaide
(1842–1914) played Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, as
well as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung in the first complete
Ring cycle in 1876. The First Norn in Götterdämmerung and
Schwertleite in Die Walküre were sung by Wagner’s niece, Jo-
hanna Jachmann-Wagner. Wagner at first conceived the roles
of Brünnhilde for her, but her voice was on the wane, perhaps
vindicating Chorley’s opinion, and she changed careers and
became a dramatic actress. She continued to sing, however,
and in May 1872, she was alto soloist in the performance of
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the laying of the cornerstone
of the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth.
It is impossible to overestimate the impact, both positive
and negative, that Tristan und Isolde has had on the musical
world. Giuseppe Verdi, who was piqued at the charges that he
was an imitator of Wagner, nevertheless said in a late interview
that he “stood in wonder and terror” before Wagner’s Tristan.8
There is so much legend about Tristan. For example, there
were assertions that the heldentenor who created the title role,
Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1836–1865), had been so
overworked by Wagner that he suffered a stroke and died after
a paroxysm of song, murmuring, “Farewell, Siegfried! Console
my Richard!”9 Wagner, along with Meyerbeer and Verdi, with
the larger orchestras, was blamed for the ruin of young voices,
which were also forced to deal with the rise in pitch of a whole
tone from the beginning of the century. Wagner himself did
not condone the screaming and barking of inadequate voices
trying to penetrate the orchestral screen and treasured the sus-
tained vocal line and sprezzatura that had been the hallmark
of bel canto for more than two hundred years. However, he
recognized that the German language needed an idiom that
was more suited to its characteristics.
As Alice observed, “It gets curiouser and curiouser!” Why,
then, did he cast Anna Deinet (1843–1919) as the first
Brangäne? Deinet was a coloratura soprano, most of whose ca-
reer was spent at the Bavarian State Opera from 1863 to 1878.
Some of the roles she sang were Konstanze in Die Entfürung
aus dem Serail, Susanna in Le nozze de Figaro, and the queen
of the night in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart, Marie in La Fille du
Regiment by Donizetti, and, remarkably, Leonora in Il trovatore
and Venus in Tannhäuser. She was also the first Helmwige in
Die Walküre on June 26, 1870, a part that was taken by the
great Lilli Lehmann at the first performance of the complete
Ring in 1876.
Apparently Wagner and conductor Hans von Bülow (1830–
1892) had wanted Sophie Stehle, whose more powerful voice
was better suited for the part of Brangäne, but she refused,
probably because she thought Brangäne was a secondary role,
which it is not. Brangäne is Isolde’s nurse who accompanies
her throughout the opera, provides the love potion, and is “the
watcher” during the long love scene, “O sink’ hernieder, Nacht
der Liebe.” The premiere of Tristan was on June 10, 1865.
Bülow considered Deinet “very capable.”10
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868) is Richard Wagner’s
only comedy (he repudiated the 1836 Das Liebesverbot) and
one of the longest operas still performed today. Only the role
of Magdalena, Eva’s nurse, concerns us here. Magdalena is a
secondary role, designated soprano in the score, but it is as long
as many a leading role in other operas and most often sung by
a mezzo-soprano these days. She is beloved by David, Hans
Sachs’s apprentice, who is awarded her hand in marriage upon
his graduation from apprenticeship. The Magdalena at the
premiere on June 21, 1868, was Sophie Dietz (1820–1887),
whom Wagner designated as Ortrud in 1867. Dietz was no
comprimaria; she was a veteran of the Munich Hofoper in a
career that spanned forty years. A versatile performer, by 1867
she had sung 122 roles in ninety-four operas, including all the
female roles in Figaro except Marcellina and all six female roles
in Die Zauberflöte. Dietz was designated Kammersängerin by
170 Chapter 21
Figure 21.1.  Marianne Brandt by A. Erlich, repro. Albert H. Payne,
1902.
Prince Luitpold (1821–1912), the prince regent of Bavaria in
1866. She also did gastspiele in the important opera houses of
Stuttgart, Hamburg, Dresden, and Cologne.
Wagner met the contralto who would go on to sing all of
his major alto parts to great renown in the summer of 1875.
Marianne Brandt sang some excerpts from the role of Ortrud
for him. He was only mildly impressed and offered her the role
of Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, which she politely declined
as being “too small” and beneath her dignity.
From her August 1874 letter to Liszt, we gather that she did
not greatly care for a “narrative” part like this; she felt that her
strength lay in dramatic changes of passion. But Wagner had
no use for singers who wanted only to be their usual selves in
the Ring.11
Marianne Brandt was born as Marie Bischof in Vienna, stud-
ied at the conservatory there, and became a student of Pauline
Viardot-Garcia. Her debut was as Rachel in La Juive in 1867 and
she was engaged for the Graz opera. She was then an outstanding
member of the Royal Opera of Berlin from 1868 to 1886.
Like Pisaroni and Viardot, whose pupil she was, Brandt
was almost as celebrated for her lack of physical beauty as for
the beauty of her voice and the compelling quality of her art.
Wagner was supposed to have called her the ugliest woman
he had ever seen walk across the stage, and she was discarded
for the role of Sieglinde at Bayreuth in 1876 because it was
feared that her homeliness would inhibit the ardor of Albert
Niemann’s (1831–1917) Sigmund. Wagner may not have put
his opinion in those words, but whatever he said, his com-
ment got back to Brandt, and there was persistent bad feeling
between them. She was not invited back for the performances
of Parsifal planned for 1883.12
Marianne Brandt’s great role was Kundry in Parsifal, but
she did not sing the premiere or the first performance out-
side Bayreuth at the Metropolitan in 1903. Amalie Materna
(1845–1918) was the first Brünnhilde in the complete Ring
as well as the first Kundry. Milka Ternina (1863–1941), the
great Croatian dramatic soprano, sang the first Kundry at the
Metropolitan, as well as the first Tosca in America. Marianne
Brandt was in the second cast of Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1882
and, despite the personal animosity between her and Wagner,
he grudgingly respected her art and probably considered her
the best Kundry.
“‘I have been in great trouble with regard to my Kundry,’
he told the king (Ludwig II of Bavaria) in June. ‘None of my
former singers is right for the part: none of them has the deep
notes that are indispensable for the demonic character of this
woman. Lately I have been driven to thinking of Marianne
Brandt, who, indeed, is the only woman I know with the stuff
in her for Kundry. . . . She has “le diable au corps,” and will do
her best. Still, I will not give up Materna just yet.’”
“After Wagner’s death, Marianne Brandt confessed to Lud-
wig Schemann that although his sudden end had shaken her,
his personality, as distinct from his art, had never been ‘sym-
pathetic’ to her.”13
The Metropolitan Opera, which opened in 1883, the year
of Wagner’s death, became a German house in 1884 under
the general manager and music director Leopold Damrosch
(1832–1885), who had a long friendship with both Wagner
and Liszt. Damrosch and his sons, Walter and Frank, were pio-
neers in the musical life of New York. Directly from Bayreuth,
Marianne Brandt, Amelie Materna, and Lilli Lehmann were
great stars of the Met during its German period from 1884
until 1891. In four seasons from 1884 until 1888, Brandt
sang 189 performances of twenty works, including thirty-two
Ortruds, fourteen Magdalenas, twenty-six Fidèses, twelve
Adrianos (Rienzi), twenty-seven Frickas and two Brünnhildes
(Walküre), eleven Erdas (Siegfried), ten Brangänes, ten Fidelios,
as well as Amneris, Donna Elvira, and several other roles.
The critic W. J. Henderson, who could be quite caustic at
times, filed the following review of Marianne Brandt’s debut
in Fidelio at the Met:
Fräulein Amelia [sic] Brandt, a mezzo soprano and contralto,
who has long been a favorite with audiences in Germany, ef-
fected her first appearance as Leonore, and wrought an immedi-
ate and decisive impression. Her voice is brilliant and powerful,
her method eclectic, by which we would imply that she has the
vigorous enunciation and accent of the German school of song,
and no little of the fluency and taste of the Italian, and as an
actress she is intelligent, impassioned, and forceful. Three recalls
followed the rendering of “Abscheulicher.”14
 German Romanticism, Wagner, Strauss, and the Alto Voice 171
Almost all of the participants in the Bayreuth festivals
were devoted to Wagner, but Franz Strauss (1822–1905),
whom Bülow called “the Joachim of the horn,” hated “the
music of the future,” although he played the Wagner operas
magnificently. Irascible and incorruptible, upon Wagner’s
death, he was the only one in the orchestra who refused to
stand in silence. However, when Bülow began to show an
interest in the compositions of his son, the hard-nosed old
Münchner relented somewhat. That son was Richard Strauss
(1864–1949), who was brought up by his conservative father
to revere the works of Mozart and Beethoven. It was not until
later that Richard began to break away from the traditional
path and become the greatest exponent of what is often called
post-Wagnerism. Strauss is famous for his compositions for the
soprano voice, both in opera and in song, but he also wrote
significant roles for the alto voice as well.
Fuersnot (1901), Strauss’s second opera, contains three roles
for the alto, although none is the romantic lead. The third
opera, Salome, which premiered on December 9, 1905, at the
Hofoper in Dresden, shocked and intrigued the world with
its mixture of the sacred and profane. The same subject was
treated by Massenet in 1881. In Salome Herodias, the mezzo-
soprano part, is important and was created by the Austrian
Irene von Chavanne (1868–1938). Von Chavanne attended
the Vienna Konservatorium and also studied in Paris. Her
debut came in 1885 at the Hofoper in Dresden, where she
Figure 21.2.  Ernestine Schumann-Heink as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Metropolitan Opera, 1902
spent most of her career. Other roles for von Chavanne include
Fidès, Azucena, Dalila, Amneris, and Adriano (Rienzi).
Strauss’s next shocker was Elektra, which began the long col-
laboration between Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannstahl (1874–
1929), and first saw the boards in Dresden on January 25, 1909.
Perhaps the most noticeable feature of the score is the con-
trast between the dissonant idiom and the occasional stretches
of lush, late-Romantic sentimentality, with cloying sevenths,
ninths, chromatic alterations, and suspensions. Whatever the
composer’s intentions may have been, these portions give the
final dreadful touch of spiritual abnormality to the action, like
something familiar suddenly seen in a ghastly, strange light.15
The first Klytämnestra was, of all people, the great Ger-
man-Bohemian contralto Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861–
1936). The amiable Schumann-Heink had a great career
spanning fifty years, but apparently Strauss did not care for
her voice all that much.
Is it progress to use the human voice as Strauss does? Madame
Schumann-Heink, who is noted for her big, robust voice, found
the strain of singing Klytämnestra in Dresden so great that she
resigned after the first performance. She has related how, at the
rehearsals, when Conductor Schuch, out of regard for the sing-
ers, moderated the orchestral din, Strauss declared: “But my
dear Schuch, louder, louder the orchestra. I can still hear the
voice of Frau Heink!” (I have this from Madame Schumann-
Heink herself.)16
172 Chapter 21
Ernestine Schumann-Heink was a student of G. B. Lam-
perti and made her debut as Azucena in Dresden where she
remained for four seasons, starting in 1878. She married Ernst
Heink and was engaged at Hamburg, where she showed her
mettle by performing Carmen, Fidès, and Ortrud without
rehearsal, replacing a temperamental star. On a trip to London
she had great success as Erda, Waltraute, Brangäne, and Fricka
under the baton of the young Gustav Mahler (1860–1911).
After a divorce from Heink, with whom she had four children,
she married Paul Schumann and bore him three more babies.
She then assumed her familiar hyphenated name and in 1896
she began a long and rewarding relationship in Bayreuth,
where Cosima Wagner always called her “Erda.” From 1897 to
1903 she was a regular at both Covent Garden and the Met,
returning for single seasons for years to come. She became a
naturalized American citizen and for the rest of her long career,
she became an American institution on long cross-country
tours as the motherly Austrian Hausfrau with the great voice.
World War I was an agony for Schumann-Heink, since she had
sons on both sides of the conflict. She supported the Ameri-
can war effort, raising money and singing for the troops, even
though her German son, Ernst, was killed in the war.
From 1926 to 1935, as a weekly radio pioneer, Schumann-
Heink sang “Silent Night” in both German and English,
which became a U.S. Christmas tradition. In 1929 she lost
most of her considerable assets in the stock market crash and
was forced to resume her singing career at the age of sixty-nine.
Her last performance at the Metropolitan was as Erda in 1932,
when she was seventy-one. This is now the era in which we can
hear the actual voices of our subjects. “Silent Night,” “Weiche
Wotan” from Das Rheingold, and a recording of “Parto, parto”
from La clemenza di Tito in which Schumann-Heink displays
the technical virtuosity she must have learned from G. B. Lam-
perti can be heard on YouTube. Ernestine Schumann-Heink
died of leukemia on November 17, 1936, in Hollywood,
California.
Strauss’s next opera, Der Rosenkavalier, occupies a different
world from the horrors of Salome and Elektra. Set in the Vi-
enna of the 1740s during the first years of the reign of Empress
Maria Theresa, Der Rosenkavalier, which premiered on January
26, 1911, in Dresden, is labeled a comedy, but there are serious
issues of young love, lust, and the bittersweet prospect of aging
and loss. Some critics have caviled about Strauss’s use of the
waltz in an eighteenth-century setting, but this material con-
tributes to the atmosphere of the story and never bothers most
listeners. The central character is the Marschallin, of course,
a soprano role created by the astonishing Margarethe Siems
(1879–1952), a student of Aglaja Orgeni of the Garcia-Viardot
line, who also created the roles of Chrysothemis in Elektra and
Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos. The eponymous alto charac-
ter is young Count Octavian Rofrano, a Hosenrolle modeled on
Cherubino, who is the young lover of the Marschallin as the
opera opens but who falls in love with Sophie von Faninal after
the magical scene of “The Presentation of the Rose.” The part
of Octavian has been sung by many of the great alto singers
over the years and some have even ventured to undertake all
three principal female roles. Evelyn Lear (1926–2012), Eliza-
beth Söderström (1927–2009), Lotte Lehmann (1888–1976),
Lisa Della Casa (1919–2012), and Sena Jurinac (1921–2011)
have all accomplished this unusual feat.
The first Octavian was Eva von der Osten (1881–1936), a
German soprano whose career was anchored at the Dresden
Hofoper and was well known for her interpretation of Wagne-
rian parts, notably Isolde. Her career spanned twenty-five years
and included twenty-five hundred operatic performances.
Osten came from a theatrical family, and she also became a
stage director, responsible for the premiere of Strauss’s Ara-
bella (1933). There is a YouTube excerpt of her and Minnie
Nast (1874–1956), the original Sophie, in “Mir ist die Ehre.”
This is interesting because both artists sing with the straight
instrumental tone so characteristic of German sopranos of this
period. Osten’s nephew, Wolfgang Windgassen (1914–1974),
was an important heldentenor during the postwar period.
These days Octavian is generally sung by mezzo-sopranos.
Since the premiere, many of the world’s great alto singers
have excelled in the role. Risë Stevens (1913–2013), the only
mezzo-soprano to command prima donna fees and publicity
during her time at the Metropolitan, was acclaimed for her
Octavian and made a TV film of the opera in 1949. Marga-
rethe Arndt-Ober (1885–1971), contralto, was the first Octa-
vian at the Met in 1913 and had a great international career,
which was interrupted by the Metropolitan’s cancellation of
her contract on the eve of World War I. Ober sued the Met for
$50,000, lost the case, and was detained in the United States
until the end of the war. Other international alto stars in the
role of Octavian over the years have been Maria Olszewska
(1882–1969), Kerstin Thorborg (1896–1970), Mildred Miller
(b. 1924), Christa Ludwig, Rosalind Elias (b. 1929), Yvonne
Minton (b. 1938), Brigitte Fassbaender (b. 1939), Tatiana
Troyanos, Agnes Baltsa (b. 1944), Frederica von Stade, Anne
Sofie von Otter (b. 1955), Susan Graham (b. 1960), and Joyce
DiDonato.
The ink was hardly dry on Der Rosenkavalier when Strauss
and von Hofmannstahl were hard at work on their next of-
fering, Ariadne auf Naxos. This strange artwork was originally
conceived as a thirty-minute divertissement at the end of
von Hofmannstahl’s adaptation of Moliere’s play, Le Bourgois
gentilhomme, which also had incidental music by Strauss.
The entire entertainment, in its original version ran for more
than six hours on October 25, 1912, with the opera alone ac-
counting for ninety minutes. A restive public and production
problems mandated a revision, which produced the version we
are accustomed to today. Ariadne’s second premiere took place
in Vienna on October 4, 1916, at the height of World War I.
The idealistic young composer, one of the greatest hosenrollen,
was designated by Strauss as a soprano and was premiered by
the great Lotte Lehmann, but like Octavian, it is mostly sung
by mezzo-sopranos today. Perhaps following the path set out
by his father many years before, Strauss utilized a Mozartean
stylistic purity and, indeed, the composer’s rapturous paean
 German Romanticism, Wagner, Strauss, and the Alto Voice 173
“Musik ist eine heilige Kunst” could be no greater tribute to
his great Austrian predecessor. Ariadne was not performed at
the Met until 1962, when the composer was sung by Kerstin
Meyer (b. 1928). Most of the altos we mentioned in Der Rosen-
kavalier were also well known as the composer in Ariadne.
The part of the nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten requires a
different type of voice—a dramatic mezzo-soprano. Steeped
in magic and hating humans, she has much in common with
Medea. Written during the great conflagration of World War
I, Die Frau ohne Schatten had to wait until October 10, 1919,
for its premiere in Vienna, where it was received with little
enthusiasm. Requiring five top dramatic singers and excellent
secondary singers, a large orchestra, elaborate scenic effects,
and composed upon a complex libretto, it was not a work
that the average operagoer would immediately appreciate.
The original nurse was Lucie (Lucy) Weidt (1876–1940),
a dramatic soprano who had a substantial career in Paris,
Milan, Amsterdam, Brussels, Buenos Aries, and during the
1910–1911 season at the Metropolitan. However, the Met
did not get around to mounting Die Frau ohne Schatten until
October 2, 1966, but it was a sterling production and Irene
Dalis (1925–2014) was the menacing nurse.
Irene Dalis (born Yvonne Patricia) had a great international
career at the highest levels of operatic performance. Trained
first as a pianist, she began her singing career in Germany, first
in Oldenburg, debuting in what became one of her signature
roles, Princess Eboli, and then in the Berlin Stadtische Oper,
where her performance in Leoŝ Janáček’s (1854–1928) Jenufa
led to a contract from the Metropolitan Opera, where she
debuted in 1957 again as Eboli. Dalis had a twenty-year career
at the Met, singing 274 performances in such dramatic roles
as Amneris, Kundry (the first American to sing the role at
Bayreuth), Brangäne, Herodias in Salome, Ulrica, Lady Mac-
beth, Azucena, Ortrud, and Fricka. Upon her debut as Eboli,
Raymond Erickson wrote the following in Musical America:
Her expert vocalism and musicianship were immediately appar-
ent in the “Veil Song,” which Dalis sang better than I have ever
heard it sung. In the tricky ensemble with Carlo and Rodrigo
in the Queen’s gardens, she was just as impressive, and her
sweeping, almost torrential handling of “O don fatale” won
her a genuine ovation from the capacity audience. Everywhere
Dalis’s acting went hand-in-glove with her singing. Erickson
concluded that Dalis’s debut was “one of the most exciting in
recent seasons.”17
Other engagements were as principal artist at the San Fran-
cisco Opera, Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, and in
Berlin, Rome, Naples, and many others.
In 1984, upon retirement, Irene Dalis founded Opera San
Jose at her alma mater, which offers professional contracts
to young singers for major roles. The company is modeled
on German regional companies that give the young singers
the opportunity to work under professional conditions. The
recipient of many awards and honors, Irene Dalis passed away
on December 14, 2014.
Strauss and von Hofmannstahl collaborated on several more
operas, all of which starred sopranos. None were as successful
as those we have studied.
Before leaving the Strausses, let us visit the world of Vien-
nese operetta and Johann Strauss the Younger (1825–1899),
“the waltz king.” His operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat) has
been a staple repertory item in opera companies since its
inaugural performance on April 5, 1874, at the historic The-
ater an der Wien in Vienna. Twenty years after its premiere,
Gustav Mahler elevated its artistic status by conducting it at
the Hamburg Opera. One of the most famous trouser roles
in all opera is that of Prince Orlofsky, which is usually sung
by an alto. Many famous mezzos (and some sopranos and
tenors) such as Risë Stevens, Jarmila Novotná (1907–1994),
and Wolfgang Windgassen (1914–1974) have enjoyed
playing the role, which was created by Irma Nittinger ( fl.
1870s).
I already mentioned Margarethe Arndt-Ober in connec-
tion to the Met’s first representation of Der Rosenkavalier.
However, her career was much more extensive than that, for
she sang nineteen roles there during four seasons, totaling 182
performances. Ober’s stage debut came in 1906 as Azucena in
Der Troubadour. She became a member of the Berlin Imperial
Opera ensemble within a year and remained a member of that
company, with interruptions, until she retired in 1945. She
performed most of the leading mezzo-soprano and contralto
roles in Berlin, as well as a number of comprimaria parts. At
the Met, Ober sang an Italian Marina in Boris Godunov, Erda
in Siegfried, and doubling Flosshilde and Erda in Das Rhein-
gold and Flosshilde and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung. She
also sang Laura in La Gioconda, Amneris, Nancy in Marta,
Azucena, and the witch in Königskinder. A year after the end of
World War I, she attempted to return to the United States in a
season of German opera at the Lexington Theater, but feelings
were still too high and the venture failed. She continued to
sing in Germany until 1945.
One of the outstanding German altos born in the lat-
ter quarter of the nineteenth century was Ottilie Metzger-
Lattermann (1878–1943). Metzger-Lattermann’s voice was a
strong and colorful contralto, and she became famous for her
interpretations of the Wagner alto parts. She made her debut
in Hamburg in 1898 and was a member of the Cologne opera
from 1900 to 1903, returning frequently thereafter, where
she gained experience and built her repertory, including The
Ring cycle. From 1901 to 1904 and again in 1912, she was ac-
claimed for her interpretations of Erda, Flosshilde, Waltraute,
and a norn at Bayreuth.
Metzger-Lattermann was the principal contralto at Hamburg
from 1903 to 1915, where she sang in Italian as well as German.
She was Amneris in 1912 when Caruso visited Hamburg as a
guest in Aida. During these years she also guested in London
with Beecham’s Covent Garden seasons, where she was the Cly-
temnestra in the first London performances of Elektra. In her
second season there she sang Herodias in Salome and a very suc-
cessful Carmen. Before the war Metzger-Lattermann also visited
174 Chapter 21
Berlin, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Munich, and Frankfurt. In 1915,
she moved to Dresden, where she remained until 1923. From
1922 to 1923, she toured the United States with a German opera
company where she sang Brangäne in Tristan with Eva von der
Osten (1881–1936), Jacque Urlus (1867–1935), and Alexander
Kipnis (1891–1978). Throughout her career, Metzger-Latter-
mann was also a concert artist as well.
After her retirement, Ottilie Metzger-Lattermann taught
in Berlin until Hitler came to power. Being Jewish, she fled
to Brussels but was engulfed by the Nazi occupation. One of
the great artists of the German nation was sent to Auschwitz,
where she perished in 1943.
Sabine Kalter (1890–1957) was a contralto born in Jaro-
slaw, Galicia. She studied at the Vienna Musical Academy and
made her debut at the Volksoper in 1911. In 1913, Kalter
replaced Ottilie Metzger-Lattermann as principal contralto of
the Hamburg State Opera. Her roles included Ortrud, Fricka,
Waltraute, Brangäne, Herodias, Amneris, Lady Macbeth,
Dalila, Orfeo, Marina, Fidès, and Carmen. Kalter was one of
the most popular singers at the Hamburg Stadttheater and
was an accomplished recitalist appearing in the Netherlands,
Spain, Belgium, and Austria.
When the Nazis came to power, Kalter and her husband
Max Aufrichtig, both Jews, moved to London and changed
their name to Andrews. Sabine Kalter then embarked on a suc-
cessful career at Covent Garden, where she sang her familiar
Wagnerian repertoire, along with Hálta in Bedřich Smetana’s
(1824–1884) The Bartered Bride and Hérodiade. In 1939, no
doubt due to prejudice against her beloved Wagnerian music,
Sabine Kalter left the operatic stage and concentrated on
concert and recital work. She also became a fine voice teacher.
Sabine Kalter had a big, beautiful, individual voice. She
sang Brangäne in a historic recording of Tristan und Isolde
with Kirsten Flagstad (1895–1962) and Lauritz Melchior
(1890–1973), conducted by Fritz Reiner, which was recorded
live in 1936. There are also beautiful recordings of Verdi du-
ets with the great tenor, Richard Tauber (1892–1948), also a
Jewish expatriate. These singers manage to combine bel canto
vocalism with German musicality. In such wonderful artists,
Hitler lost more than the war.
NOTES
1.  Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1965), n. 302.
2. Grout, A Short History of Opera, 362.
3.  Henry Pleasants, The Great Singers: From the Dawn of Opera to
Our Own Time (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1966), 155.
4.  Richard Wagner, My Life, trans. Andrew Gray (New York: Da
Capo, 1992), 383.
5. Wagner, My Life, 285.
6. Henry F. Chorley, Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections (New
York: Knopf, 1926), 313.
7.  Hans Busch, trans., Verdi’s Aida: The History of an Opera in
Letters and Documents (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1978), 169.
8.  Barry Millington, ed., The Wagner Compendium: A Guide to
Wagner’s Life and Music (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992), 382.
9. Pleasants, The Great Singers, 229.
10.  Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner, vol. 3 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1976), 367.
11. Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner, vol. 4, 430–31.
12. Pleasants, The Great Singers, 279–80.
13. Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner, vol. 4, 660.
14. W. J. Henderson, “Fidelio, Metropolitan Opera House Pre-
miere,” 19 November 1884, http://archives.metoperafamily.org.
15. Grout, A Short History of Opera, 516.
16.  Henry Theophilus Finck, Richard Strauss: The Man and His
Works (New York: Little, Brown, 1917), 250.
17. Raymond Erickson, “Review,” Musical America, 16 March
1957.
22
The Russian Altos
In the nineteenth century, the rise of nationalism saw the de-
velopment of indigenous opera in many countries that had de-
pended solely upon importing works from the main European
countries. With the exception of Russia, none of these operas,
however deserving, achieved much popularity outside their
own borders.1 Italian opera in Russia dates from 1731 in the
court of Catherine the Great (1729–1796), and many Italian
composers and visiting artists carted home huge fortunes from
St. Petersburg. In addition, composers of lighter fare such as
the German singspiel and the French opéra comique were well
attended. By 1770, operas written to Russian librettos began
to appear, but they were largely ignored by the titled class,
which was the main audience for the lyric theater.
Where the Italian tradition tended to glorify the high
voices of sopranos and tenors, especially in dramas about the
complications of love, the Russian repertory brought out the
potential of the lower voices, both the bass and alto, to project
gravitas and darker emotions, such as conflicts over political
power. Often considered the very foundation of Russian opera,
A Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin) by Mikhail Glinka, was first
produced on November 27, 1836 (Old Style). The alto role of
Vanya, the adopted son of Susanin, a trouser part, was sung by
Anna Vorobieva-Petrova (1816–1901). Vorobieva-Petrova was
the wife of Osip A. Petrov (1806–1878), a great bass-baritone
who created Susanin, as well as characters in many of the one
hundred roles he sang by such composers as Alexander S. Dar-
gomyzhsky (1813–1869), Modest P. Musorgsky (1839–1881),
Nikolai A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908), Anton G. Rubin-
stein (1829–1894), Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), and
others. Vorobieva-Petrova was a great singer on her own merits
and, with her husband, could be said to have developed a dis-
tinctly Russian style of singing. The Petrovs were great friends
of Musorgsky.
Osip Afanasievitch Petrov was sixty-seven when he cre-
ated the part of the drunken friar Varlaam in Boris. He had a
brilliant stage career; on the day memorable in the history of
Russian opera, the great first performance of Glinka’s A Life
for the Tsar on November 27, 1836, he appeared on the stage
175
of the Marie Theater in the part of Susanin. The equally dis-
tinguished singer Anna Yakovlevna Vorobieva, who afterward
became his wife, soon rivalled him in this opera as an unsur-
passed and unequalled Vania. In Glinka’s second opera, Russlan
and Ludmilla (1842), which was almost more important for
the development of Russian operatic art than his first work,
the chief parts (Russlan and Ratmir) were entrusted to the two
Petrovs. Petrov’s “mighty bass,” which Glinka cannot praise
enough in his Recollections, and his wife’s “wonder voice,” a
magnificent contralto whose rich, soft tone, in the opinion of
contemporaries, had no equal in all Europe, vied successfully
with the most remarkable voices of the Italian opera in St. Pe-
tersburg. But the other artistic qualities of this exceptional pair
of singers far surpassed even the wonderful tone of their voices.
The great dramatic talent possessed by both artists, which was
far beyond the average operatic standard—rising to thrilling
heights of tragic pathos, then expressing itself in brilliant, ir-
resistible humor—enabled them to make such memorable and
impressive figures in all the parts they played that Petersburg
theatrical gossip lived on them for many years. “The Petrovs”
passed into legend in the history of Russian opera.2
The next most important opera for the development of the
Russian oeuvre was the unfinished The Stone Guest (1872)
by Dargomyzhsky, finished and orchestrated by Cesar Cui
(1835–1918) and Rimsky-Korsakov. Guest is a retelling of Don
Juan, which was written entirely in recitative style with the
exception of two ariettas sung by the mezzo-soprano character,
Laura. The alto Mariya Ilyina (fl. 1870–1880) created the role.
Mariya Ilyina was a member of the Imperial Opera Com-
pany at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg from Janu-
ary to May 1871 before transferring to the Kiev Opera and
later to Kazan. Tchaikovsky described her as “a singer with a
tremendous, strong, and yet at the same time incredibly pleas-
ant mezzo-soprano voice,” when in 1874 she sang the role of
Boyarina Morozova in his opera The Oprichnik (The Guards-
man) in Kiev.3
Alexander N. Serov (1820–1871) composed only three operas,
but he was a popular composer in Imperial Russia. Serov was an
176 Chapter 22

advocate for the music drama theories of Richard Wagner, which Princess Yevpraksiya Romanovna in The Sorceress (1887) for
were rejected by the other young contemporary composers. His alto voices. His second most popular opera was The Queen of
second opera, Rogneda (1865), was originally written for a Swiss Spades, which premiered on December 7, 1890 (Old Style).
soprano, Valentina Bianchi (1833–?), in the title role. However, The contralto character of the old countess has an impact far
for some reason Bianchi was not available, so Serov was obliged beyond its length. The production by the Met in 1965 starred
to use a substitute who disappointed him. After a year, he revised Jon Vickers and Regina Resnik in the never-to-be-forgotten
the part for his favorite mezzo-soprano, Dar’ya Leonova (1829– confrontation scene. The original countess was Mariya Slavina
1896), who had created the part of the witch Skulda in the (1858–1951), who was Russia’s first Carmen. Slavina made
premiere. Leonova also sang Spiridonovna in Serov’s posthumous her debut in 1879 at the Mariinsky Theater as Amneris. She
The Power of the Fiend (1871). Leonova had an extensive career remained a member of the Mariinsky Opera Company for
that began with Vanya in Life for the Tsar in 1852 in which she almost forty years, where she was called “the queen of the
was prepared by Glinka himself. Leonova had a powerful ringing Mariinsky” by fans in the audience. In her unpublished auto-
contralto voice and was a magnetic actress. She was especially biography, Slavina claimed to have sung “fifty-six roles of the
praised for Azucena and Ortrud and campaigned all over Europe, most diverse character.”4 Besides the countess, she created the
Japan, China, and the United States. Leonova was a champion roles of Hanna in Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night (1880), Kon-
of Russian music and toured with Musorgsky and even gave him chakovna in Borodin’s Prince Igor (1890), and Clytemnestra in
a haven, for a time, allowing him to compose in her dacha. She Sergey Taneyev’s (1856–1918) Oresteia (1895). Slavina was a
also provided him with employment as a supervisor of musical notable Olga, Fidès, Ortrud, Fricka, and Waltraute. She was
studies in her private singing academy founded in 1880. one of the first to recognize the need to improve the acting
From the middle of the nineteenth century, Russian opera skills of the opera singer. Whether this entailed the occasional
composers were divided into two camps: those who, like departure from the singing line in favor of spoken declamation
Glinka and Dargomyzhsky, were interested in developing a that can be clearly heard in the work of Feodor Chaliapin, I do
distinctly Russian style using the Russian language and folk not know. Slavina was known after her marriage as Baroness
idioms, and those who were international composers intent Mariya Aleksandrovna Medem and fled to Paris at the time of
on developing trans-European careers. Anton Rubinstein, the revolution, where she became a singing teacher.
founder of the Imperial Conservatory and a great pianist, was
the leader of the internationalist movement. He composed
nineteen operas, of which The Demon (1875) is the best
known, but none featured an alto in a leading part.
Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky, the greatest of the Russian interna-
tionalists, did compose several outstanding roles for the alto
voice. One of his favorite singers was mezzo-soprano Aleksan-
dra Krutikova (1851–1919), who created the part of Boyarina
Morozova in his early The Oprichnik, which premiered in
1874. Krutikova sang the part of Olga in the Bol’shoy premiere
of Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece Eugene Onegin in 1881 and was
also in the original cast of Mazeppa (1884). The original Olga
(1879) was Aleksandra Levitskaya (fl. 1880s), who, along
with the other cast members, was a student at the Moscow
Conservatory. The performance was conducted by Nicholai
Rubinstein (1885–1931), the younger brother of Anton.
Tchaikovsky’s next opera was The Maid of Orleans, which
premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre on February 13 (Old Style),
1881. The eponymous heroine, Joan of Arc, was sung by mezzo-
soprano Mariya Kaménskaya (1854–1925). The work was a
success, but it ran for only three performances because of the as-
sassination of Tsar Nicholas II on March 1, 1881. Kaménskaya
coped successfully with the part originally written for a soprano,
but was forbidden to sing it again until it was transposed into
her natural alto range. In the autumn of 1882 The Maid had to
be postponed again because Kaménskaya was not well and ulti-
mately had only sixteen performances. The aria “Adieu, forets”
is still a favorite solo for alto singers.
Tchaikovsky cast both the roles of Solokha the witch in
Vakula the Smith (1876, revised as Cherivichki in 1885) and Figure 22.1.  Yulina Platonova
 The Russian Altos 177
Mily A. Balakirev (1837–1910), Cèsar Cui, Musorgsky,
Alexander Borodin (1833–1877), and Rimsky-Korsakov
were amateur (not trained in a German conservatory)
musicians often called “the five” or “the powerful coterie.”
Of these, the most original genius was Modest Petrovitch
Musorgsky, whose monumental Boris Godunov premiered
in its entire first version on January 27, 1874. As originally
conceived in 1869, Boris had no female characters to speak
of and was rejected by the board of directors of the Imperial
Theaters. Musorgsky then made alterations in the score, the
most important of which was the addition of the powerful
alto role of the haughty Polish aristocrat, Marina Mniszek.
Although there is no question that the male roles dominate
Boris, without Yulina Platonova (1841–1892), the original
Marina, perhaps the opera would never have been staged
at all.
Platonova was one of the most popular singers at the
Mariinsky. She created Mary in Cui’s William Ratcliff (1869),
Donna Anna in Dargomyzhsky’s The Stone Guest (1872), Olga
in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Maid of Pskov (1873), and Dasha in
Serov’s The Power of the Fiend (1871).
In the spring of 1873, a performance of three scenes from
Boris, including the Polish set, was given as a benefit for the
manager of the Mariinsky Theatre. After the performance, at
a reception at the home of Rimsky-Korsakov, it was agreed
by all present that the entire opera should be produced.
Yulina Platonova was the most popular singer in Petersburg
at the time and had great influence over Stepan Gedeonov
(1816–1878), the powerful director of the Imperial Theaters.
Platonova refused to renew her contract with the Mariinsky
unless he would mount Boris as the opera produced for her
benefit. Having little choice except capitulating, Gedeonov
submitted the proposal to the production committee, who
turned him down.
In a letter to Stassov dated 1886, Platonova gives a lively
account of how she got around Gedeonov:
On receiving the committee’s refusal Gedeonov sent for Ferrero,
the former bass-viol player, now the chairman of the commit-
tee. When he arrived Gedeonov, pale with anger, met him in
the antechamber.
“Why have you turned this opera down?”
“By your leave, Excellency—the opera is no good!”
“Why not? I have heard excellent accounts of it!”
“By your leave Excellency—another reason: the composer’s
friend Cui is always abusing us in the Petersburg News; only the
day before yesterday . . .” and he drew a crumpled copy from
his pocket.
“Well, your committee can go to blazes, do you hear? I shall
produce this opera without their permission!” shrieked Gede-
onov, beside himself with rage.
The next day his Omnipotence sends for me again. “Now,
my good madam, just see what you have brought me to! I’m
likely to lose my place on account of this Boris of yours! I can’t
for the life of me see what you find in it—and let me tell you I
have no sympathy whatever with these new-fangled fellows, for
whom I shall probably have to suffer!”
“All the more honor to your Excellency,” I replied, “for inter-
esting yourself so energetically on behalf of these young Russian
composers, with whom you are quite unable to sympathize!”5
Musorgsky’s second towering masterpiece was Khovansh-
china, which has a tortured history that perhaps reflects the
anguished life of the composer. Musorgsky completed the op-
era in piano score only, which Rimsky-Korsakov orchestrated
and ultimately revised during 1879 and 1880. The first perfor-
mance of this version did not take place until 1886, five years
after Musorgsky’s death. Khovanshchina was further revised
by Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) in 1913
for Sergey Diaghilev’s (1872–1929) Paris production. Because
of the cuts and alterations in the score, Dmitry Shostakovich
(1906–1975) revised Khovanshchina again in 1960 based on
the original sources. The story concerns the struggle between
the reforms instituted by Peter the Great and a sect of the Rus-
sian Orthodox Church called the Old Believers, who resisted
all change. The title of the opera comes from a supposed
retort from Peter when informed that Prince Khovansky and
his son, members of the sect, were planning a revolt. The pe-
jorative shchina means something like “down with him.” The
Khovanskys ended up losing their heads. Although Dosifey
(bass), the leader of the sect, seemed to be the chief character
in the drama, Musorgsky did not think that Dosifey, the old
religious fanatic, would offer enough interest for audiences
through five long acts. Instead, he wove a love story into the
drama that would strike a chord of sympathy from the audi-
ence. Marfa, a young widow and member of the Old Believers,
has ample precedent as a woman torn between religious ecstasy
and that of forbidden love. Norma, Giulia (La vestale), and
Thais, all sopranos, suffer from the same conflicts. Musorgsky,
however, seized on the power of the contralto voice to express
these emotions, utilizing the special coloristic qualities of the
Russian language. There are excellent recordings of Marfa’s
aria by Elena Obraztsova (1939–2015) and Irina Arkhipova
(1925–2010) on YouTube.
The vocal style of Boris Godunov is a declamatory recita-
tive that is undeniably powerful but not memorably melodic.
Kovanshchina is constructed on a broad flowing melody as a
means of expression that Musorgsky had been searching for all
his life. In a letter to Stassov on December 25, 1876, he wrote:
I am now deep in the study of human speech; I have come to
recognize the melodic element in ordinary speech and have suc-
ceeded in turning recitative into melody. I might call it “melody
justified by the meaning”; diametrically opposed as it is to the
much beloved classical forms, it will one day perhaps be under-
stood by each and all. I should consider that a new conquest for
the field of art if I could only attain it—and attained it must be.
. . . I have already made a start in Khovanstchina.”6
How far we are from the craze for the Italian opera of Ros-
sini and Donizetti, which swept St. Petersburg only twenty-
five years before! The wonder of music is that we can appreci-
ate the kaleidoscopic variety of the different styles for the very
178 Chapter 22
special qualities that each possesses. The Italian vocal tradition
made a big impact on Russian singing that persists to this very
day and, since the end of the cold war, we in the West are being
exposed to the Russian repertoire and singers as never before.
The first Marfa (November 12, 1897) was Serafima Selyuk-
Roznatovskaya (1870–1923). Selyuk-Roznatovskaya also sang
Fyokla Ivanova in the first professional performance of Mu-
sorgsky’s Zhenit’ba (Marriage) (1868), an unfinished comic
opera based on a story by Gogol. The performance of Khovan-
shchina that was produced at the Mariinsky Theatre in 1911
featured Feodor Chaliapin as Dosifey and Evgenia Zbrujeva
(1869–1936) as Marfa. Zbrujeva had perhaps the finest con-
tralto voice in Imperial Russia during this period. She made
her debut at the Bol’shoy as Vanya in A Life for the Tsar in
1894. The Mariinsky became her home base after 1905, where
she sang Carmen, Siebel, Hansel, Lehl in Snegúrochka (The
Snow Maiden), and Svoyatchenitsa in May Night, and she
created Alkonost, Bird of Paradise in The Golden Cockerel by
Rimsky-Korsakov, Ratmir in Russlan and Ludmilla, Khoncha-
kovna in Prince Igor by Borodin, Avra in Serov’s Judith, and
Anne Boleyn in Saint-Saëns’s Henry VIII. Zbrujeva made sev-
eral concert tours of Europe with such luminaries as Chaliapin,
Sergey Rachmaninoff (1873–1943), and Alexander Glazunov
(1865–1936). From 1915 she was a professor of singing in
Petrograd and Moscow.
It is a pity that Musorgsky never finished his return to
comic opera, The Fair at Soróchintsi, during his descent into
despair and alcoholism. The character Khivria, past her prime
but always ready for an amorous adventure, was conceived
for the mezzo-soprano voice and would have provided a rich
opportunity for a great singing actress like Regina Resnik
(1922–2013). The Fair was completed by various other com-
posers but has not found its way into the international reper-
tory. Musorgsky passed away on March 16, 1881, the morning
of his forty-second birthday.
After Musorgsky’s death, all of his manuscripts passed into
the hands of Rimsky-Korsakov, who spent the better part of
two years reconstructing, arranging, and completing his works.
Nowadays the tendency is to revert to the original versions,
which do not strike our modern ears as “incorrect.” One of the
revisions that most interests us is the transposition of the part
of Marfa in Khovanshchina a whole tone higher, which takes
away the earthy quality of the contralto voice.
Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin, a fellow member of “the
powerful coterie,” was also unfinished at Borodin’s death and
completed by Alexander Glazounov and orchestrated by Rim-
sky-Korsakov. Prince Igor has received a number of produc-
tions recently. I mentioned that the alto part of Khonchakovna
was created by Mariya Slavina in the posthumous premiere on
November 4, 1890, in St. Petersburg.
Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakov was a prolific and highly skilled
composer in his own right and, musically, the best educated of
the members of the “powerful coterie.” His interests in Rus-
sian folk legends and fairy tales led him to compose fifteen
operas, many on esoteric librettos. He made liberal use of
the lower female voice in many of these works. Snegúrochka
(The Snow Maiden) had its initial performance on January
29, 1882, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. The
trouser part of Lehl was sung by contralto Anna Bichurina
(1852–1888). Lehl sings three songs with clarinet obligato,
which is reminiscent of the Jewish klezmer tradition. Bichu-
rina, with a wonderful voice and outstanding acting skills, had
an extensive repertoire, especially Russian domestic and comic
roles. She made her debut in 1875 as Vania in A Life for the
Tsar and subsequently sang Ratmir in Russlan and Ludmilla,
Izyaslav in Rogneda, Spiridonova in The Power of the Fiend,
and many other lesser parts. She also successfully portrayed
such formidable foreign parts as Ortrud in Lohengrin and
Fidès in Le prophète. Bichurina also sang the mayor’s sister-in-
law in Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night (1880). Snegúrochka was
subsequently revised in 1898 and remained Rimsky-Korsakov’s
favorite work. There are two other alto roles in the score—
Spring Beauty and Bobylika.
Gathering information about singers who were entrusted
with creating major roles in early Russian operas is sometimes
difficult. Because of the domination of the Russian operatic
landscape by the Italian repertory for most of the nineteenth
century, Russian composers did not have access to the great
stars of the operatic firmament and sometimes had to “make
do” with lesser lights.
The sharp inequity in the financial resources available to
Italian and Russian opera troupes during the nineteenth cen-
tury also made the notion of a “Russian prima donna” seem
oxymoronic. For much of the nineteenth century, Russian
female vocalists employed by the Imperial Theater director-
ate were generally young women of limited means who had
graduated from the state’s Theater Institute. Singers under
contract played the roles that the directorate chose for them,
often performing in multiple theaters during the course of
a single day. Russian female vocalists needed official permis-
sion to leave town for brief periods, to marry, or to change
their names. A social abyss separated these early female stage
professionals from the genteel young ladies who could acquit
themselves creditably if asked to sing, play the piano, or pluck
a harp before company.7
Mezzo-soprano Maria-Vilgelmina Piltz (fl. 1890s) pre-
miered the role of Tsaritsa in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve
on December 10, 1895, while contralto Mariya Kaménskaya
(Tchaikovsky’s Joan of Arc) portrayed Solokha, rumored to be
a witch. Piltz also created the part of Morena, goddess of the
underworld, in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera-ballet Mlada (1892).
Sadko premiered in Mamotov’s Private Theater in Moscow on
January 7, 1898. The story is a fanciful tale and the score is
full of the colorful orchestration for which Rimsky-Korsakov
is famous. The role of Lyubava Buslayevna, the young wife
of Sadko, was created by Aleksandra Rostovtseva (fl. 1890–
1910), a contralto, who was a favorite of Rimsky-Korsakov’s,
for she created parts in four of his operas: Lyubasha in The
 The Russian Altos 179
Tsar’s Bride (1898), Tkachikha in The Tale of Tsar Saltan
(1899–1900), and Amelfa in his best-known work, The Golden
Cockerel (1906–1907).
The contralto Varvara Strakova (fl. 1890–1910) was also
a frequent first interpreter of Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas. She
created Nezhata in Sadko, Babarika in The Tale of Tsar Saltan,
and Dunyasha in The Tsar’s Bride. Vera Petrova-Zvantseva
(1876–1944) portrayed the beautiful daughter of Kaschey
in Kaschey the Deathless, another fantastic opera by Rimsky-
Korsakov, which premiered in Moscow at the Solodovnikov
Theater on December 12, 1902. Petrova-Zvantseva made her
debut in 1897 as Vania in A Life for the Tsar. She had an ex-
tensive career and sang Lyubava in Sadko, and Lyubasha in The
Tsar’s Bride. She also portrayed Tchaikovsky’s Joan of Arc and
Lyubov in Mazeppa. Other foreign roles were Dalila, Amneris,
and Carmen. Petrova-Zvantseva can be heard on early record-
ings, but the results are disappointing. Rimsky-Korsakov’s
final two operas, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and
the Maiden Fevroniya (1903–1904) and The Golden Cockerel
(1906–1907) are great works but do not contain rewarding
parts for the alto voice.
NOTES
1.  One of the difficulties of writing about Russian music is the
transliteration of Russian names from the Cyrillic to the Western
alphabet. For example, we have Mussorgsky, Moussorgsky, and Mu-
sorgsky (or -ski). I have used the spellings in the Merriam-Webster
Biographical Dictionary in the text but have retained the spellings as
given in quotes from other works.
2.  Oskar von Riesemann, Moussorgsky (New York: Knopf, 1929),
293–94.
3.  “The Kiev Opera,” Tchaikovsky-research.net.
4.  Julie A. Buckler, The Literary Lorgnette: Attending Opera in Im-
perial Russia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 204–5.
5. Riesemann, Moussorgsky, 196–97.
6. Riesemann, Moussorgsky, 266.
7. Buckler, The Literary Lorgnette, 70–71.
23
Altos in the English-Speaking World
As we have seen, the national opera in England after 1700
was extinguished by the taste for Italian opera. There was one
native master, Henry Purcell (1658 or 1659–1695), whose un-
timely death “is symbolic of its own fate—‘a spring never fol-
lowed by summer.’”1 His only true opera, (i.e., sung through-
out) Dido and Aeneas, was composed for a performance in a
girls’ school in 1689. The story of Dido, Queen of Carthage,
was set in Metastasio’s libretto more than fifty times by Italian
composers, but none is perhaps more touching than Dido’s
lament, “When I Am Laid in Earth,” which has been sung by
alto singers for more than three hundred years.
The dialogue in the parting scene between Dido and Aeneas
(act 3) and the beautiful arioso phrase that introduces Dido’s
last aria show what can be done by way of dramatic musical
setting of the English language, that despised tongue that has
been so often condemned as “unsuitable for opera.”2
No one knows who created the roles in the first performance
of Dido, but there are four other alto parts (witches and hand-
maidens) besides that of Dido.
Opera in England in the nineteenth century meant mainly
Italian opera, which was both idolized and ridiculed by such
as Joseph Addison (1672–1719) many years before, who wrote
in the Spectator, “nothing is capable of being well set to Musik,
that is not Nonsense.3 The only British composers who made
any headway in England at this time were composers of lighter
fare, such as Michael Balfe and Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900),
who wrote fourteen operas with the collaboration of W. S.
Gilbert (1836–1911) that endure to this very day.
Balfe composed twenty-eight operas during his career and
was a fine baritone and conductor as well. He composed The
Maid of Artois (1836) for his friend, Maria Malibran, based on
the story of Manon Lescaut by Eugène Scribe. Balfe’s most pop-
ular work was The Bohemian Girl (1843), in which the great
Marietta Alboni undertook a very successful run in London
as the gypsy queen in 1858 and Celestine Galli-Marie starred
in a French version conducted by Jules Massenet in 1862.
The Bohemian Girl has played all over the world in various
translations since its inception. The notorious Rosine Stoltz
181
created the part of Estrella in L’étoile de Séville in the premiere
on December 17, 1845, at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale
de Musique in Paris.
The Gilbert and Sullivan operas remain popular to the pres-
ent day and offer a fertile field of repertoire for the alto voice.
In H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), Little Buttercup (Mrs. Cripps), a
“bumboat woman,” or vendor, is “the rosiest, roundest, and
reddest beauty in all Spithead.” Ruth (contralto), a “Pirati-
cal Maid of all work,” is a central character in The Pirates of
Penzance (1879). She had been a nursemaid to young Frederic
long ago, and being hard of hearing, had mistakenly appren-
ticed him to a pirate instead of a pilot. Two of the daughters of
General Stanley, Edith and Kate, are mezzo-sopranos.
The role of Lady Jane, the oldest and plainest of the “twenty
lovesick maidens” who pine for the poet Ned Bunthorne in
Patience (1881) was created by Alice Barnett (1846–1901).
Barnett was best known for her creation of the contralto roles
in Gilbert and Sullivan operas, such as Ruth in Pirates, Lady
Jane, and the fairy queen in Iolanthe (1882). Barnett left the
D’Oyly Carte Opera Company for a while, which gave Rosina
Brandram (1845–1907) the opportunity to become the princi-
pal contralto of the company. Brandram then created the part
of Lady Blanche in Princess Ida (1884), which had a run of
246 performances. She then went on to originate no less than
seven Gilbert and Sullivan operas and was the only company
member to appear in every original Sullivan production at the
Savoy Theater. She also sang contralto roles that were created
by others. After Princess Ida, Brandram was the first Katisha
in The Mikado (1885–1887), Dame Hannah in Ruddigore
(1887), Dame Caruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard (1888),
The Duchess of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers (1888), Baroness
von Krekenfeld in The Grand Duke (1896), and Lady Sophy
in Utopia Unlimited (1893). She also created contralto roles in
operas Sullivan composed with other librettists: Lady Vernon
in Haddon Hall (1892), Inez de Roxas in The Chieftan (1894),
Joan (the weaver’s wife) in The Beauty Stone (1898), “Dancing
Sunbeam” in The Rose of Persia (1899), and the Countess of
Newtown in The Emerald Isle (1901), which was finished by
182 Chapter 23

Edward German (1862–1936) after Arthur Sullivan’s death in in this repertoire. Formerly in great demand for oratorio
1900. performances on the continent before World War I, she bade
In 1906, W. S. Gilbert gallantly paid tribute to Rosina farewell to the opera world as Kundry at Covent Garden in
Brandram, who was too ill to attend a dinner in which she was 1922, although she continued to sing in concerts and recitals
scheduled to speak: for a few more years.
Elena Gerhardt (1883–1961) was an outstanding German
Rosina of the glorious voice that rolled out as full-bodied Bur- alto lieder singer who began her career in Leipzig collaborat-
gundy rolls down—Rosina whose dismal doom it was to rep-
ing with the great conductor Arthur Nikisch (1825–1922) at
resent undesirable old ladies of sixty-five, but who, with all the
resources of the perruquier and the make-up box, could never
the piano. Gerhardt’s career was almost exclusively concert
succeed in looking more than an attractive eight-and-twenty— repertoire and was particularly associated with Schubert’s
it was her only failure.4 Winterreise, unusual for a woman in those days. Gerhardt gave
recitals in all the great capitals of Europe, usually with Nikisch
Antoinette Sterling Mackinlay was an Anglo-American as accompanist. To highlight the difference in interpretation of
contralto student of Pauline Viardot and her brother, Manuel some of the lieder repertoire, Gerhardt’s and Nikisch’s record-
Garcia II. Although she did not star in opera, Mackinlay was ing of An Die Musik of Schubert runs a full forty-five seconds
very popular in America and Victorian England in concert and longer than that of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (1915–2006). Elena
oratorio. She found her signature hit with Arthur Sullivan’s Gerhardt made her American debut in Carnegie Hall in 1912
“The Lost Chord,” which she sang in countless festivals and and performed Wesendonck Lieder with Leopold Stokowski
concerts. (1882–1977) in Philadelphia and Cincinnati and with Max
Sir Edward Elgar (1857–1934) was a Victorian composer Fiedler (1859–1939) with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
whose works epitomized the musical image of the British The same year was her first performance of The Dream of Ge-
Empire before World War I. Elgar composed no operas but rontius in London and other British locations, which became a
his oratorios and vocal works with orchestra have reserved a staple of her repertoire.
special place for him in the repertory for the alto voice. The Another well-known interpreter of the angel in Gerontius
Dream of Gerontius (1900) was premiered at the Birmingham during the same period was Elena Gerhardt’s friend and rival,
Music Festival under the baton of Hans Richter (1843–1916), Julia Culp (1880–1970), a mezzo-soprano called the “Dutch
who had conducted several premieres for Wagner. The role of nightingale” during the first twenty years of the twentieth cen-
the angel was created by Marie Brema (1856–1925). The pre- tury. Culp never sang in opera and did not have a large voice
miere was under-rehearsed and not very successful, but Brema but was an impeccable vocalist and sensitive musician. Culp’s
reprised the part in 1902 under Elgar’s direction and the work
prospered thereafter. Brema was the first English singer to sing
at Bayreuth, where she sang Ortrud and Kundry. In 1894, es-
tablished as a Wagnerian singer, she visited the United States,
where she added Brangäne and Brünnhilde in Die Walküure
to the two previous roles. Returning to Bayreuth, she sang the
Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde and Fricka in Das Rheingold.
At the Metropolitan, Brema had sixty-two performances of
these roles plus Amneris, Orfeo, and Fidès. In Europe, Brema
was especially applauded for her Dalila in Berlin, Paris, and
Brussels.
Another early interpreter of Elgar’s works was Louise Kirkby
(pronounced Kirby) Lunn (1873–1930). Kirkby Lunn was
a contralto who began her career in small parts at Covent
Garden then took leading roles such as Mignon and Carmen
for the Carl Rosa Opera Company. She then assumed leading
roles at Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera. At the
Royal Opera, Kirkby Lunn premiered the London perfor-
mances of Saint-Saëns’s Helene, Massenet’s Hérodiade, Gluck’s
Armide, and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. She was also fa-
mous for Gluck’s Orfeo.
Kirkby Lunn was the principal alto soloist in the Elgar Fes-
tival at Covent Garden in 1904. On the first night, she sang
Gerontius and the second, Mary Magdalene in The Apostles. In
1909, she was the soloist in Sea Pictures with Elgar conducting.
With these performances, she effectively replaced Marie Brema Figure 23.1.  Clara Butt as Brittania
 Altos in the English-Speaking World 183
career began to blossom in 1901 and soon she was sharing the
stage with many of the notables of music of the time, includ-
ing Caruso, Richard Strauss, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Culp
premiered Frederick Delius’s (1862–1934) Songs of Sunset in
1911 at the Queens Hall in London with Thomas Beecham
conducting. Julia Culp was born into a Jewish family but later
converted to Catholicism. However, when the Nazis came to
power in Vienna in 1938, Culp fled to Amsterdam, where she
survived the war in hiding.
Who has not marched to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance at
the high school graduation ceremony? But it was Dame Clara
Butt (1873–1936) who persuaded Elgar to fit the words “Land
of Hope and Glory” to the trio of the first march, thereby
transforming it into a British institution. Dame Clara would
dress in red, white, and blue, as Britannia herself, with helmet,
shield, and spear and hurl her mighty contralto voice out over
the combined bands of grenadiers and a chorus of ten thou-
sand in Hyde Park. One could be forgiven for calling Clara
Butt a “lady baritone,” for she had an easy range of C below
middle C to high B flat. Clara’s audition for the Royal College
of Music has passed into the realm of legend.
“At her audition for the open scholarship at the Royal College
of Music, her singing of Hatton’s song ‘The Enchantress’ created
such a stir among the examiners that she mistook their genuine
astonishment for amusement. Funny, was she? She’d show ’em!
And, pulling out all the stops, she fairly hurled her great voice at
them—‘Kings have trembled when I came, reading doom upon
my face’—letting out a low E like a tolling bell. ‘I don’t know
about kings,’ she remarked afterward, ‘but those examiners they
certainly trembled.’ When they asked her to sing something else,
quieter, she chose the solo from Elijah, ‘Woe unto Them.’ They
got the message; she got the scholarship.”5
In her fourth year at the school, Clara spent three months
studying in Paris, Berlin, and Italy under the sponsorship of
Queen Victoria. Clara Butt made her professional debut on
December 7, 1892, as Ursula in Sullivan’s The Golden Legend.
Three days later, while still in school, she appeared in her only
operatic role, Orfeo. Later, while in Paris, she studied with
Jacques Bouhy (1846–1929), the baritone who created the role
of Escamillo in Carmen. Bouhy was a fine teacher, especially
of alto voices. He also taught Kirkby Lunn and Louise Homer
(1871–1947). While Butt was in Paris, Saint-Saëns expressed
an interest in her singing Dalila, and preparations were begun
at Covent Garden in 1893 but nothing came of it due to a
prohibition of portraying biblical subjects on the stage by Lord
Chamberlain. The edict was finally lifted in 1909 but Kirkby
Lunn was chosen to Clara’s dismay.6
Dame Clara was imposing in stature as well as vocally, hav-
ing one of the biggest voices in the ranks of the altos. Her
métier was the concert stage and her repertoire was mostly
crowd-pleasing Victorian ballads of the day, but Butt had the
ability to modulate her voice to the lightest piano sound and
had excellent coloratura ability in Bach and Handel arias.
During the war, she organized countless benefit concerts for
the war effort, including a week of The Dream of Gerontius. In
1920 she was awarded the honor of Dame Commander of the
Order of the British Empire for her war work.
In 1899 Elgar composed his Sea Pictures for Dame Clara,
although he had originally intended it for a soprano. She pre-
miered the work dressed in a costume that made her appear as a
six-foot-two mermaid. Clara Butt recorded only “Where Corals
Lie” from Sea Pictures. She made many other recordings—the
last of them sitting in her wheelchair while suffering from cancer
of the spine.
Another English (and very Victorian) British alto was Car-
men Hill (1883–?), who ventured upon the stage only once, as
the dew fairy in Hansel and Gretel for Thomas Beecham. Hill
was another indelible angel in The Dream of Gerontius, and she
was a great favorite with the festival-going British public. She
had a sensitive regard for the text and was therefore also an ac-
complished lieder singer. Her voice was beautiful with a solid
technique and her phrasing was an example of the suitability
of the English language for lyric expression.
Leila Megane (1891–1960) was a Welsh mezzo-soprano
pupil of Jean de Reszke, whose mastery of the French lan-
guage and style led to an engagement at the Opéra-Comique
as Charlotte in Werther. Subsequent engagements were in
Milan, Rome, London, and New York. Megane made the first
complete recording of Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the composer
conducting in 1922.
Marguerite d’Alvarez (1883–1953) was a colorful contralto
who was born to a French mother and a Peruvian father in
places variously described as Liverpool, Bootle, and Cuzco, Peru.
D’Alvarez studied in Brussels and made her debut in Rouen in
1907 as Dalila. After appearing as the mother in Louise and a
brief sojourn in Algiers, she was engaged by Oscar Hammerstein
for his Manhattan Opera Company in New York in 1909. There
she sang Fidès, Amneris, Azucena, Divonne in Massenet’s Sapho,
and the title role in his Hérodiade. She traveled with Hammer-
stein’s company to London in 1911. From there, d’Alvarez sang
Léonor in La favorite in Marseilles, Carmen at La Scala, Carmela
in Wolf-Ferrari’s I gioielli della Madonna and Laura in La Gio-
conda with the Boston Opera Company, and in 1914 at Covent
Garden as Amneris. After the war, she was mostly a concert
singer but late in life embarked upon a new career in the movies,
including a part in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman with James
Mason and Ava Gardner. D’Alvarez had a sumptuous contralto
voice, which was evenly produced and had a fine sense of style,
especially in French repertoire.
We have seen how an interest in opera was late in arriv-
ing in the New World, beginning only with the visit by the
Garcia troupe in 1825. The native American composers of the
nineteenth century were either German descended or German
trained. Most of the operatic life of this time was imported
from Europe. Walter Damrosch (1862–1950), conductor of
the New York Philharmonic, composed several operas that
utilized stars of the Metropolitan Opera, but none had leading
roles for alto voices and none have endured.
As for the singers, Americans were obliged to travel to Europe
to study, build their careers, and “beat ’em at their own game.”
184 Chapter 23
One of these pioneers was Annie Louise Carey (1841–1921),
an American contralto born in Norwalk, Connecticut. Carey
studied with Pauline Viardot in Baden-Baden and Maurice
Strakosch in Paris, making her debut as Azucena in Copenhagen
in 1867. Carey remained in Scandinavia until she returned to
New York for her concert debut on September 19, 1870. Her
U.S. opera debut was as Nancy in Martha on October 27, 1871.
Carey was very popular in opera, concert, and oratorio in the
United States and abroad. She was the first Amneris in America
(November 26, 1873) and sang in the American premieres of
the Verdi Requiem, Bach’s Magnificat and Christmas Oratorio,
and was the first American woman to sing a Wagner role in the
United States (Ortrud). Carey had a range of more than three
octaves and knew forty operatic and oratorio roles.
Minnie Hauk (1851–1929) began her career as a soprano
but changed into a dramatic mezzo-soprano later in her career.
She finished her career with a repertoire of more than one
hundred roles. Hauk studied in New Orleans and New York,
making her debut in Brooklyn as Amina in La sonnambula at
the age of fourteen. Hauk sang the first Juliette in Gounod’s
opera in America. She also traveled to Paris in 1869 to study
with Maurice Strakosch.
In her apprentice days in Paris in the late 1860s, Hauk had
the opportunity to attend an important soiree at Théophile
Figure 23.2.  Minnie Hauk as Carmen
Gautier’s. A goodly fraction of “all Paris” would be there, and
Hauk’s manager Maurice Strakosch had arranged for her to
sing. It was quite a turnout: Dumas fils, Daudet, Renan, and
some highly influential musicians, including Mathilde Mar-
chesi and Auber. One of the guests kindly accompanied her at
the piano, and Hauk proceeded to sing herself into renown;
not long after, she became the first American to sing at the
Paris Opéra.
Some years after this, Hauk was thinking how sad it was
that she, the most famous Carmen of her day, should never
have met Bizet. It was sadder yet that he had died so soon after
Carmen’s unsuccessful premiere; if only he had lived a bit lon-
ger, he would have seen his masterpiece prosper. Hauk voiced
these musings to Strakosch, who reminded her of Gautier’s
soiree. “Remember the man who played for you?” he said.
“That was Bizet.”7
Minnie Hauk made her Covent Garden debut in 1869.
She sang Italian opera in Paris, Moscow, and St. Petersburg
(1860–1870) and German opera in Berlin and Vienna from
1870 to 1877. Hauk, who sang Carmen in four languages in
more than five hundred performances, premiered the work
in England and America in 1878. She was at the forefront of
singers who were more interested in the theatrical values of
their performances than their predecessors, and she sometimes
got “carried away” during a show. Hauk appeared at the Met-
ropolitan Opera in 1890 and 1891 as Carmen and as Sélika in
L’Africaine. She then organized her own touring company in
which she gave the Chicago premiere of Cavalleria rusticana.
At the height of her career, she was able to purchase Wagner’s
former home, Triebschen, near Lucerne, Switzerland. Sadly,
Minnie Hauk lost most of her fortune during World War I and
died, nearly blind and almost penniless, at her home in 1929.
Minnie Hauk was not the only American who was famous
for her portrayal of Carmen. Brooklyn-born Zélie de Lussan
(1861–1949) purportedly sang the title role one thousand
times and many considered her to be the equal to Calvé.8 De
Lussan displays a rich mezzo-soprano voice on her few records,
but like Viardot and Malibran, she also insisted on taking on
soprano roles as well. She was the first London Musetta and
gave three command performances for Queen Victoria. In her
three seasons at the Metropolitan (1894–1895, 1898–1900),
she sang Nanetta, Zerlina, and Nedda, as well as Carmen,
Mignon, and Cherubino. There seems to have been a wide
divergence of opinion and not everyone was swept away by de
Lussan’s charm. Willa Cather (1873–1947), during a visit to
Chicago in 1895, heard de Lussan as Nanetta in Falstaff and
penned the following:
Miss Zélie de Lussan who is this season trying to twinkle among
the serene great lights of grand opera, is a striking example of
how comparatively futile is vocal talent without creative power
or what for the lack of a better name we call the “artistic tem-
perament.” Mlle. de Lussan is a graceful and charming little
actress with a sweet and bird-like though rather light voice.
It would be difficult to recall a more winning personality or
charming stage manner. But charm cannot make a great singer.
 Altos in the English-Speaking World 185

The truth is that Mlle. de Lussan has not the first conception
of the meaning of the role. No one in the world could teach her
what it means to be Carmen.9
Herman Klein (1856–1934) quoted George Bernard Shaw
(1856–1950) in May 1890 reviewing de Lussan’s Carmen:
Miss de Lussan is no more like Carmen than her natty stock-
ings are like those “with more than one hole in them” described
by Merimeé. I miss the tragic background and ungovernable
passion and superstitious fatalism to the levity and insolent
waywardness which Miss de Lussan makes so much of.10
However, Klein himself, besides being a critic, was a student
and collaborator of Manuel Garcia II and very knowledgeable
about vocal matters. Klein wrote:
The nearest approach to Minnie Hauk’s unforgettable Carmen
was, in my opinion, that of her still-living and talented country-
woman Zélie de Lussan, who therein certainly succeeded her
in the estimation of English opera-goers. Both exercised the
same fascinating charm, the same freedom from exaggeration;
and both invented much new “business” that has since become
traditional.11
Karl Goldmark (1830–1915). The queen was originally writ-
ten for the alto voice but the role was created by hochdrama-
tischer Sopran Amalie Materna, Wagner’s first Brünnhilde and
first Kundry. Walker did not make much headway at the Met
and returned to Europe. In 1910 she was London’s first Elek-
tra, and it must have been a horror to listen to. In the proper
alto repertory, as in her recording of “Weiche, Wotan,” Edyth
Walker was a worthy rival of Schumann-Heink.
The most notable American of the period was Louise
Homer (1871–1947) from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Homer
was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister who had trepida-
tions about his daughter pursuing a singing career outside the
church. However, Louise convinced her father that she was
not embarking on a life of sin. In Boston, Louise married the
composer Sidney Homer (1864–1953), and they had six chil-
dren together in a marriage that lasted fifty-three years until
her death. She was the aunt of Samuel Barber (1910–1981).
Homer studied in Philadelphia and Boston, where she worked
as a stenographer, sang in vaudeville, and then moved to Paris.
Initially, she studied with Jacques Brouhy but soon moved to
Paul Lhérie (1844–1937), who created Don José in Carmen in

Such divergence of opinion lends itself to speculation about

how much criticism is influenced by the surroundings in
which it was written. George Bernard Shaw was rather a mav-
erick, musically and socially, and Cather was a plain-spoken
Nebraskan who apparently liked large dramatic voices. Her
Song of the Lark (1915) was the thinly disguised story of Olive
Fremstadt (1871–1951), who was an outstanding Wagnerian
soprano. Herman Klein, like Chorley, was a Victorian who
was more interested in proper attention to traditional vocal
and musical niceties than to the new dramatic theatrical values
coming upon the scene.
Another well-known American contralto was Edyth Walker
(1870–1950), born in Hopewell, New York, who unfortu-
nately suffered from the hubris that often afflicts alto sing-
ers—namely, the desire to become a dramatic soprano. Walker,
a student of Aglaja Orgeni, made a successful debut in 1894 as
Fidès in Le prophète at the Berlin Imperial Opera at the age of
twenty-four. She was engaged by the Vienna Hofoper the fol-
lowing year, where she remained until 1903. In 1900 Walker
visited London where she sang the alto repertoire—Erda,
Fricka, Amneris, Urbain, and Waltraute—but in 1908 she had
moved up to Brünnhilde in Die Walküre and Isolde. A critic
complained that “she found the top B a matter of some dif-
ficulty and the high C was distinctly a shriek.”12
This appraisal is borne out by her recording of “Brünnhil-
de’s Battle Cry.” The tone is without vibrato and the breath
sounds squeezed. To be fair, this aria always sounds difficult,
even when sung by the likes of Kirsten Flagstad.
In 1903, Edyth Walker debuted as Amneris at the Metro-
politan where she sang 108 performances of nineteen roles
during three seasons of mostly familiar alto repertoire. New Figure 23.3.  Louise Homer as Amneris in Aida. Collection of
was the queen of Sheba in Die Königen von Saba (1875) by the author.
186 Chapter 23
1875. Homer made her operatic debut in Vichy as Léonor in
La favorite in 1898. At Covent Garden during the 1899–1900
season, Homer sang Amneris, which became her signature
role, as well as Ortrud, Lola, and Maddelena.
In 1900 Louise Homer made her Metropolitan Opera debut
as Amneris and, with Schumann-Heink, soon became one of
the alto mainstays of the company, racking up 734 perfor-
mances of forty-six roles. Homer was versatile and would sing
anything from witches (she created the role of the witch in
Englebert Humperdinck’s Königskinder [1854–1921]) to the
Wagner and Verdi alto heroines. Homer was stately onstage,
had artistic integrity, and thus was not as effective in roles that
called for sexy cuteness. She did not sing Carmen at the Met
but did perform Venus, Dalila, and Laura in La Gioconda with
Caruso. She had a vast range and could sing mezzo-soprano
roles as easily as the contralto ones. Homer remained at the Met
until 1919 and then again from 1927 to 1930. From 1909 to
1915 she was also a member of the Boston Opera Company,
appearing at the grand opening of the Boston Opera House as
La Cieca in La Gioconda with Lillian Nordica (1857–1914).
Homer was also engaged by the Chicago Civic Opera from
1922 to 1931 and sang Dalila at the San Francisco Opera.
This time was called the “golden age” at the Metropolitan, and
Louise Homer was counted as one of the stars, often singing with
Caruso, Geraldine Farrar (1882–1967), Lillian Nordica, Milka
Ternina, Marcella Sembrich (1858–1935), Riccardo Stracciari,
Pol Plançon, and Emmy Destinn, among many others. Homer
sang in the first performance of Parsifal outside of Bayreuth in
1903 and was the first U.S. Suzuki in Madama Butterfly (1907)
with the composer in attendance. On December 19, 1912,
Louise Homer assumed the role that brought so much fame to
Pauline Viardot: Orfeo in Orfeo ed Euridice, conducted by Arturo
Toscanini. However, “Divinités du Styx” from Alceste was sub-
stituted for “Amour viens render á mon âme,” probably because
of the florid nature of the original aria. In 1913 Homer was the
first Marina in the U.S. premiere of Boris Godunov. A curious
facet of Homer’s career was that sometimes she sang the part of
Schwertleite under the assumed names of Miss Remi or L. Law-
rence in performances of Die Walküre. The Met paybook reveals
that Homer was paid for these performances just the same.
If Sara Charles-Cahier (1870–1951) had done nothing more
than to premiere the alto part in Mahler’s posthumous Das
Lied von der Erde in 1911 with Bruno Walter(1876–1962), she
would deserve to be included in these pages. Charles-Cahier
was born Sara Jane Layton Walker in Nashville, Tennessee.
She studied with Jean de Reszke in Paris and made her debut
as Orphée in Nice in 1904. She was engaged by the Vienna
Hofoper in 1907, then Munich, often singing under Mahler’s
baton, in standard roles such as Amneris, Carmen, Dalila,
Fidès, Ortrud, and Santuzza. Charles-Cahier also sang in Italy,
Germany, France, and England with eminent conductors such
as Strauss and Edvard Grieg (1843–1907). She debuted at the
Metropolitan Opera in 1911 but sang only four performances.
Sara married the Swede Charles Cahier and acquired Swedish
citizenship. She was very popular in Stockholm from 1915
to 1917. After retirement she became a voice teacher at the
Curtis Institute of Music, where her students included Marian
Anderson, Göta Ljungberg (1923–1999), and Rosette Anday
(1903–1977). It was Charles-Cahier who advised Lauritz Mel-
chior to change from baritone to heldentenor.
NOTES
1.  Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1965), 135.
2. Grout, A Short History of Opera, 144.
3. Grout, A Short History of Opera, 147.
4.  London Times, December 31, 1906.
5.  Michael Scott, The Record of Singing, Vol. 1, 46–48. Quoted
from Herman Klein, Great Women Singers of My Time (London,
1931).
6.  Maurice Leonard, Hope and Glory (Brighton, UK: Victorian
Secrets, 2012), 66–67.
7.  Ethan Mordden, Opera Anecdotes (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988), 125–26.
8.  J. B. Steane, “Zélie de Lussan,” The New Grove Dictionary of
Opera, vol. 1, ed. Stanley Sedie (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997), 1117.
9.  Willa Cather, The Kingdom of Art: Willa Cather’s First Prin-
ciples and Critical Statements, 1893–1896 (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1967), 133.
10.  Herman Klein, Herman Klein and the Gramophone (New York:
Hal Leonard, 1990), 353.
11. Klein, Herman Klein and the Gramophone, 94.
12. Scott, The Record of Singing, Vol.1, 193. Quoted from Har-
old Rosenthal, Two Centuries of Opera at Covent Garden (London:
1958, 310).
III
ALTOS AFTER 1900
24
Twentieth-Century Altos
A sea change in opera became evident as the twentieth century
dawned. An important event was the invention of the phono-
graph by Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931) in 1877. Around
the turn of the century, recordings of famous artists began to
be readily available. Most of the alto singers discussed from
here on can be heard on various media. Gradually opera began
to morph from “the latest thing” into a historical art form.
Artists began to be noted less for “creating” new roles than for
their interpretations of existing masterpieces. Marilyn Horne
is fond of saying that she only created two new roles—she was
too busy “resurrecting.”1 New works continued to be created,
but there was, for the most part, no attempt to glorify the
individual artist as in bygone centuries. The distinctly national
styles of composers in the twentieth century began to blur and
an eclectic international quality emerged. I cannot cite many,
but there were several memorable works created in the century.
We will visit some that feature the alto voice and then will
cover some individual artists who have come to prominence
in recent times.
FRANCE
Pélleas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy (1902) was a landmark
in the music of the twentieth century. Based on a Symbolist
drama by Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949), it was a French
reaction to the Wagnerian juggernaut dominating the musical
landscape, but it was also a response to the Italian emphasis on
the voice and music always occupying a commanding position.
In Pélleas Debussy turned the Mozartean dictum “the words
must always be the obedient handmaiden to the music” on
its head, for surely in this opera, this mysterious text must be
understood as much as possible. These days, subtitles contrib-
ute to the appreciation of Pélleas for non-French audiences. In
keeping with this de-emphasis on pure vocalism, the casting
in Pélleas has been very fluid. Both tenors and baritones have
both sung Pélleas and although Mélisande was created by the
great soprano Mary Garden, in later years she has often been
189
interpreted by alto singers. Frederica von Stade, Maria Ewing
(b. 1950), Anne Sophie von Otter (b. 1955), and Lorraine
Hunt Lieberson (1954–2006) have all sung Mélisande.
One of the great operatic works of the twentieth century is
Les Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc (1899–1963),
whose searing final scene tears at the heart. The premiere of
Dialogues took place in the Italian translation at La Scala on
January 26, 1957, and featured not one, but three great roles
for the alto voice. La Scala did not stint on stars and cast Gi-
anna Pederzini (1900–1988) as Madame de Croissy, the old
prioress of the convent, Gigliola Frazzoni (b. 1927) as subpri-
oress Mother Marie, and Fiorenza Cossotto (b. 1935) in her
operatic debut as Sister Mathilde. These artists, from Pederzini
to Cossotto, covered most of the the first part of the century of
the Italian alto repertory. Pederzini studied with the great tenor
Fernando de Lucia in Naples and appeared in operas in Mes-
sina, Rome, Covent Garden, and La Scala in all the great Ital-
ian mezzo-soprano roles like Amneris and Azucena. She was
also well known for travesty parts such as Cherubino, Urbain,
Maffeo Orsini, Hänsel, and Octavian. A more contemporary
role was Lady Macbeth in Ernest Bloch’s setting of the Shake-
speare drama. Her last performance was as Madame Flora in
Gian Carlo Menotti’s (1911–2007) The Medium.
Gigliola Frazzoni was always characterized as a soprano,
but she had a rich-sounding middle voice and ample chest
tones. In the original French version, dramatic mezzo-soprano
Rita Gorr (1926–2012) sang Mother Marie, under Poulenc’s
supervision, so the role is rightly assigned to the alto category.
Fiorenza Cossotto began at the top of her profession with her
inclusion in the Italian premiere of Dialogues. Her repertoire
has consisted of all the major Verdi roles and her performance
in La favorita at La Scala led to her engagement for the same
role at the Chicago Lyric Opera. Cossotto debuted as Amneris
at the Metropolitan in 1868 and subsequently appeared in
148 performances there. Her other roles were wide ranging,
including Carmen, Mozart’s Cherubino, Urbain in Meyerbeer’s
Les Huguenots, Bellini’s Romeo, and Marfa in Khovanshchina.
Fiorenza Cossotto often sang with Maria Callas. She has been
190 Chapter 24
criticized by some fans who accused her of trying to sabotage
Callas in the latter’s last Norma during the “Mira, O Norma”
duet by holding high notes when Callas was ill and in poor
form, a charge Cossotto vehemently denies.
The inaugural French performance of Les Dialogues des
Carmélites took place six months after the La Scala premiere. It
was again stocked with great performers. Madame de Croissy
was sung by contralto Denise Sharley (1917–2011), who had
debuted as Geneviève in Pélleas et Mélisande at the Opéra
Comique in 1942. Sharley, who had a dramatic temperament,
became a mainstay at the Paris Opéra in 1951 and had a wide-
ranging repertoire that included everything from the Orpheé
of Gluck to Erda in Siegfried and Ulrica in Ballo in Maschera.
She also performed a lot of modern repertoire, such as Flora in
Menotti’s The Medium, Baba the Turk in Igor Stravinsky’s The
Rake’s Progress, and Renata in Sergey Prokofiev’s (1891–1953)
L’Ange de feu.
I mentioned Rita Gorr as Mother Marie in the Paris pre-
miere (she later assumed the role of Madame de Croissy).
Gorr was a Belgian dramatic mezzo-soprano who was born
Marguerite Geirnaert. She made her professional debut as
Fricka in Die Walküre in Antwerp in 1946. She was engaged in
Strasbourg and then the Opéra Comique and the Paris Opéra
in 1952. Her roles included Charlotte in Werther, Dalila,
Venus in Tannhäuser, Carmen, Amneris, and Eboli, which
she also sang at the Metropolitan along with Santuzza, Dalila,
and Azucena. Rita Gorr had a long career and sang well into
her seventies. Her final role was the countess in Tchaikovsky’s
Pique Dame.
Giséle Desmoutiers (fl. 1950s) was Sister Mathilde in the
Paris premiere. She is listed as a soprano in every reference
I can find, although Cossotto created the premiere. Régine
Crespin (1927–2007) sang the role of Madame Lidoine
while she was still singing soprano roles during the period
between 1950 and the early 1970s, when she began to sing the
mezzo-soprano repertoire. She had sung Kundry from 1958,
when she was chosen by Wieland Wagner (1917–1966) for
Bayreuth. As a mezzo-soprano, Crespin sang the alto roles of
Charlotte, Carmen, Madame Flora in The Medium, Cassandre
and Didon in Les Troyens, the eponymous roles of Métella in
The Grand Duchess of Gérolstein and La Pericole by Offenbach,
and Dulcineé in Massenet’s Don Quichotte. Like many other
altos, her final performance was in the role of the old countess
in Pique Dame in 1989.
Mezzo-soprano Claire Croiza (1882–1946) was born in
Paris to an American father and an Italian mother. She studied
with Jean de Reszke and made her operatic debut in Messaline
by Isidore de Lara (1835–1935) in Nancy, France, in 1905.
In 1906, Croiza made her debut at La Monnaie as Dalila.
Other roles followed there—Dido (Les Troyens), Klytämnestra
(Elektra), Erda, Carmen, Léonor, Charlotte, and the title role
in Pénelope by Gabriel Fauré. In 1908 Croiza debuted at the
Opéra in Paris as Dalila.
Although beginning as an operatic singer, Croiza began to
find her true niche as a recitalist. Judging from her recordings
I think she understood that hers was a light and delicate instru-
ment and that further singing of the dramatic operatic reper-
toire would be damaging. As a recitalist of melodies, Claire
Croiza was an excellent exemplar of the French style, clearly
enunciating the text with a great feeling for the poetic and
musical meaning of the phrase. Several eminent composers ac-
companied Croiza in performances of their songs—Ravel (in
Shéhérazade), Fauré (in the premiere of Le jardin clos), as well
as Poulenc, Albert Roussel (1869–1937), and Arthur Honeg-
ger (1892–1965). From 1922 she was a teacher at the Ècole
Normale, where she taught Gérard Souzay (1918–2004), a
fine baritone who carried on the great tradition of his teacher.
Bela Bartók’s (1881–1945) sole opera, Duke Bluebeard’s
Castle, premiered on May 18, 1918, based on another Maeter-
linck play, Ariane et Barbe-bleue (also set by Paul Dukas). The
character of Judith in this two-character drama was created by
Olga Haselbeck (1884–1961), a zwischenfach singer who sang
both hochdramatischer sopran parts such as Isolde, Brünnhilde,
and Kundry and mezzo-soprano roles—Dalila, Amneris, and
Ortrud. Judith has been sung on records by altos Tatiana
Troyanos, Rosalind Elias, Christa Ludwig, Herta Töpper (b.
1924), Elena Obraztsova, Sally Burgess (b. 1953), and Ildikó
Komlósi (b. 1959).
ITALY
In Italian opera, Giacomo Puccini continued to dominate,
and several of his operas premiered in the twentieth century,
culminating in Turandot in 1921. None featured altos in lead-
ing roles although Suzuki in Madama Butterfly (1904), created
by Giuseppina Giaconia (fl. 1900–1910), is an important part
often sung by frontline mezzo-sopranos. Rita Fornia (1878–
1922), an American mezzo-soprano who created the abbess in
Puccini’s Suor Angelica in 1918 and Giulia in Giordano’s Ma-
dame Sans-Gêne (1915), was a well-known Suzuki at the Met.
Fornia sang in more than four hundred performances in large
and small roles at the Met. She also created the part of Beatrice
in the first Italian performance of Le donne curiose by Ermanno
Wolf-Ferrari (1876–1948), conducted by Arturo Toscanini.
Wolf-Ferrari also composed I quarto rusteghi (The Four
Curmugeons), which premiered at the Hoftheater in Munich
on March 19, 1906. The comic opera starred the great alto
Margaret Matzenauer (1881–1963) as Margarita. Matzenauer,
born in what is now Romania, was an extraordinary artist who
sang a wide variety of roles, both mezzo-soprano and soprano.
She made her operatic debut in Strasbourg as Puck in Weber’s
Oberon in 1901. Matzenauer sang major roles right away, in-
cluding Azucena, Carmen, and Mignon, Waltraute, and Erda
in the Ring operas in Bayreuth in 1911. On November 13,
1911, she made her Metropolitan debut as Amneris opposite
Caruso and Emmy Destinn and went on to sing 380 perfor-
mances there. She was very versatile; for example, she sang
both Isolde and Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, both Brünnhil-
des and Erda, Eboli in Don Carlos, as well as Marina in Boris
 Twentieth-Century Altos 191

Godunov. Matzenauer had a photographic memory—in 1912

she sang Kundry on only twenty-four hours’ notice, having
never sung the part before.
After the decline of verismo, Italian composers became
more interested in other forms of composition and became
more eclectic, often taking inspiration from composers from
other lands. Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) is best known
for his symphonic poems. He wrote nine operas, but the last,
finished posthumously by his wife Elsa and his student Ennio
Porino, is of most interest here. Lucrezia (1937) was based
on the Rape of Lucrece by Shakespeare. The character of “the
voice” was created by mezzo-soprano Ebe Stignani (1903–
1974), who sings from within the orchestra in the manner of a
Greek chorus and describes what is happening onstage and the
emotions of the characters.
Stignani made her debut at the San Carlo as Amneris in
1925. In 1926 Toscanini engaged her for Eboli at La Scala, and
in subsequent seasons she sang all the dramatic Italian parts,
in addition to Dalila, Ortrud, Brangäne, and Gluck’s Orpheus.
It was in Verdi’s tragic characters, especially Azucena, that she
had her greatest successes. Ebe Stignani was the reigning Ital-
ian dramatic mezzo for more than thirty years. As late as 1957,
Stignani was Adalgisa to Callas’s Norma. Lanfranco Rasponi,
in his informative book, The Last Prima Donnas, included
Stignani in his chapter “The Huge Voices.” Impeded from
leaving Italy during the war years by the Mussolini fascist gov-
ernment, Stignani never sang at the Metropolitan, but Rasponi
describes her Carnegie Hall recital thus:
Figure 24.1.  Conchita Supervia by Antonio Esplugas (1852–1929)
The Carnegie Hall recital was a triumph that those that at-
tended will never forget. This simple woman walked out on that
bare stage and all she had to do was open that golden mouth as the nurse in Ariane et Barbe-bleue, the witch in Engelbert
to leave everyone astounded at the beauty of the timbre, the Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, and Margarita in I quarto
enormous control, the stunning facility with which she went rusteghi.
up and down the scale, and the purity of the vocal line. And,
The most vivacious mezzo-soprano of the Italian school
supposedly, she was not a recital singer. At least she did not
during the first half of the twentieth century was Conchita
think she was, having sung, until then, few concerts. Actually,
she was a natural, for she could reveal the extraordinary gamut Supervia (1895–1936), who was born in Barcelona. Supervia
of her styles; and the lack of personality of which she had been accentuated the soprano quality in her voice, but she had
so conscious could not have mattered less. And there, in a way, strong middle and chest voices that she traversed with ease.
was her form of sorcery. As she had so correctly diagnosed, it Some complain about the strong vibrato in her voice, but I
was the voice and voice alone that mattered.2 believe that she shared an intense way of singing with tenors
Aureliano Pertile, Alessandro Bonci (1870–1940), and Fer-
Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880–1968) was a member of gener- nando de Lucia, which was not a vocal fault but an expressive
azione dell’ottanta (the generation of 1880), along with device. Usually someone with a tremolo (not Supervia) reflects
Respighi, Alfredo Casella (1883–1947), and Gian Francesco muscular tension, but Supervia’s complete control of the voice
Malipiero (1882–1973), whose main musical body of work from top to bottom shows that this is not the case. Further-
was nonoperatic. Nevertheless, Pizzetti’s opera Débora e Jaéle more, like some other intense singers such as Birgit Nilsson
premiered at La Scala on December 16, 1922, and featured (1918–2005), the voice on the record is not the same as the
contralto Elvira Casazza (1887–1965) as Débora. Casazza one in the opera house. Nevertheless, there is no one recorded
was one of Toscanini’s favorite singers and was known for the who communicates such a joy in singing and such an infinite
strength of her lower register, which sounded almost baritonal. palette of coloring to every phrase.
Casazza was one of the finest singing actresses in Italy during Conchita Supervia was probably mostly an autodidact
the years between the world wars. She was especially known for because she made her debut at the Teatro Colón at the age of
her Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff. Among the standard fourteen in minor roles with a touring Spanish opera com-
Italian alto roles, she also sang more contemporary fare such pany. In November 1911, not yet sixteen, she was chosen as
192 Chapter 24

Octavian for the Rome premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, which tried the dramatic soprano repertoire but returned to the alto
was probably the only time that Octavian actually looked like roles a short time later. Her international career took her to
a teenage character. In 1912, Supervia took on the role of Car- Germany, Austria, Egypt, Greece, France, and Switzerland.
men at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, a hefty assign- Minghini-Cattaneo retired in 1941 and was killed in a bomb-
ment for a seventeen year old. Supervia became identified with ing attack by allied forces at her villa in Rimini, Italy.
the role her whole career, but her playful interpretation had Giulietta Simionato was a late bloomer who endured years
more in common with Calvé than some of the dramatic altos of obscurity singing comprimaria roles at La Scala before finally
of today. For Supervia, her musicality was a given, while her breaking through with Cherubino, Dorabella, and Fidalma in
concentration on the text in whatever language she was singing Il matrimonio segreto in a season in Switzerland. The news of an
was very natural and similar to speaking. Indeed, sometimes artist having to go elsewhere to make a name for herself before
she passes into the speaking voice without a perceptible change being accepted as a leading singer by the management of her
in her vocalism, an important feature of her expression that she home theater is a familiar but doleful story. La Scala, receiving
shared with the great basso, Feodor Chaliapin. reports of Simionato’s success, engaged her for Dorabella, but
Supervia’s additional repertoire for a decade in Spain, Italy, it was her triumph in Genoa as Mignon that really made her a
and Havana was Dalila, Leonora in La favorita, Maddalena in star. She returned to La Scala to sing a series of Mignons with
Rigoletto, and Marguerite in Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust. Giuseppe Di Stefano (1921–2008) and Cesare Siepi (1923–
She sang Rosina in Barcelona in 1915, but it was not a regular 2010) under Tullio Serafin (1878–1968), who then engaged
feature of her repertoire. her to sing Carmen. She then sang Valentine in Les Huguenots,
Conchita Supervia (only twenty years old) made her Ameri- with Corelli and Sutherland, which had not been done at
can debut in 1915 as Charlotte in Werther at the Chicago Lyric La Scala in sixty-three years, and then Dido in the La Scala
in 1915 and also sang the eponymous roles in Carmen and premiere of Les Troyens. Simionato had an excellent technique
Mignon. After the war, she assumed the repertoire in Rome and a voice comfortable in its upper reaches, so she did sing
that made her world famous—Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, some soprano repertoire, though she understood the cost of
Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri, and Angelina in La Cenerentola. stretching the voice too high. About her versatility, she stated:
I think Rossini would have enjoyed her sense of fun and love of
singing. Strangely enough, although Supervia sang at La Scala
until 1929, she never performed the Rossini repertoire there.
Supervia made more than two hundred recordings in Span-
ish, English, Catalan, French, and exemplary Italian, in song
repertoire as well as from her operatic roles. Her recording of
“When I Bring to You Coloured Toys” by John Alden Carpen-
ter (1876–1951) is all the more poignant when one considers
that Conchita Supervia died in childbirth on March 30, 1936,
only a few years after recording the excerpt.
Irene Minghini-Cattaneo (1891–1944) could not have
been more different from Conchita Supervia. Hers was a “big
momma” type of mezzo-soprano voice with a booming chest
register and a top that tended toward shrillness. She made her
debut at the Teatro Carcano in Milan as Madelon in Andrea
Chenier in 1918, soon followed by Amneris, her favorite
role and one for which she is most remembered. In the next
few years she added Azucena, Adalgisa, Eboli, La Cieca (La
Gioconda), Dalila, Laura, Elena, L’Innocente (L’arlesiana),
Preziosilla, Giglietta from Mascagni’s Isabeau, Maddalena,
Ulrica, and Dame Quickly at leading theaters all over Italy. In
1928, Irene Minghini-Cattaneo debuted at Covent Garden as
Amneris with Dusolina Giannini (1902–1986) and Pertile, as
well as Marina in Boris Godunov with Chaliapin. Later she sang
opposite Rosa Ponselle in Norma and La Gioconda. Minghini-
Cattaneo had a reputation of being difficult and apparently she
and Ponselle did not get along backstage. However, Minghini-
Cattaneo garnered good reviews for being able to keep up
with Ponselle. Occasionally, she ventured into the Wagnerian
repertoire with Brangäne and Ortrud to Beniamino Gigli’s Figure 24.2.  Giulietta Simionato as Santuzza by Louis Melan-
(1890–1957) Lohengrin. Later, like some other mezzos, she çon. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives.
 Twentieth-Century Altos 193

There were four parallel roads I followed, and I loved them
all. There was the coloratura repertoire, consisting of the Ros-
sini operas (Cenerentola, Italiana, Tancredi, Barbiere, Arsace
in Semiramide), along with Bellini’s I Capuleti ed i Montecchi,
Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena, and
Preziosilla in Forza. Then the heavy dramatic repertory: Ulrica
in Ballo, Amneris, Azucena, Eboli, Marfa in Khovanshchina,
Dalila, La favorita, and the Princess in Adriana. And the many
lyric parts, such as Adalgisa, Charlotte in Werther, Mignon,
Dorabella, Cherubino, Hansel, Octavian, Orfeo, Ifigenia, Fen-
ena in Nabucco, Neris in Medea. And then the verismo roles like
Santuzza, Fedora, Carmen, Zanetto and many others.3
Besides La Scala, Simionato was a regular member of the
Vienna Staatsoper, Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric, and San
Francisco Operas and sang in many other locations including
Tokyo and Edinburgh. She sang only five roles at the Metro-
politan in the early sixties—Amneris, Rosina, Santuzza, Dalila,
and Azucena. She was forced to withdraw in 1961 because of
an attack of trigeminal neuralgia and finally retired in 1966.
She continued to live an active life, teaching and directing, into
her nineties. Simionato had an extensive discography, record-
ing with the greatest artists and conductors of her time. She
died in Rome one week short of her one hundredth birthday.
GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIA
San Francisco in 1964. Maria Ewing (b. 1950), who has sung
both soprano and mezzo repertoire, was a prominent Marie,
known especially for her acting. Her other alto roles included
Carmen and Dorabella.
Despite the restive political climate of the German-speaking
countries, they produced a number of outstanding alto singers
during the period between the wars. One of the most impres-
sive was Sigrid Onégin née Elizabeth Hoffmann (1889–1943),
who was born in Stockholm but was, in fact, German French.
Onégin was from the Orgeni-Viardot school, having studied
with Margarethe Siems and Lilli Lehmann. Alto is the best
description of Onégin’s voice, for she had a range of more
than three octaves and sang both contralto and mezzo parts.
Her virtuosity can only be compared to Schumann-Heink.
Onégin debuted in Stuttgart in 1912 as Carmen, where she
was subsequently partnered with Caruso. In Stuttgart Onégin
created the role of dryad in the original version of Strauss’s
Ariadne auf Naxos.
From 1919 to 1922 Onégin was a member of the Munich
Hofoper and simultaneously began to build the recital career
for which she was perhaps more famous than her opera sing-
ing. In 1922 she toured the United States as a recitalist and de-
buted in New York at Carnegie Hall with Leopold Stokowski.
Her Metropolitan engagement began on November 22 as
Amneris with Elisabeth Rethberg (1894–1976) and Giovanni

Among the many currents of opera in the twentieth century

was that of “political” opera or “epic theater,” which was
rooted in the bitterness and despair of Germany between the
wars. Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) headed the movement, and
two operas (or music theater pieces) based on his librettos,
Dreigoschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) (1928) and Austeig
und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (The Rise and Fall of the City
of Mahagonny) (1930) by Kurt Weill (1900–1950) were the
greatest examples of this point of view. Weill’s wife Lotte Leyna
(1898–1981), an actress and contralto singer, was the chief in-
terpreter of his work and after his death administered the Kurt
Weill Foundation for Music. Leyna was the original Low-Dive
Jenny in Dreigoschenoper and assumed the part of Jenny Smith
in Mahagonny (originally a soprano role) after a substantial
transposition down.
The threatening and gloomy atmosphere of the interwar
years in Europe gave rise to the Expressionist movement in
all the arts, which was represented in opera in the works of
Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) and his pupil Alban Berg
(1885–1935). Not only was there a revolution in the organiza-
tion of the music by the use of the twelve-tone or serial system,
but a different vocal technique called Sprechstimme, or speech
song, was called for, although such a vocal delivery has been
utilized for centuries in various cultures. Clearly, the parts for
the protagonists in these works were written for the soprano
voice but occasionally mezzo-sopranos have achieved notable
successes in these roles. Marilyn Horne scored early triumphs Figure 24.3.  Sigrid Onégin as Lady Macbeth by Schneider, Ber-
as Marie in Wozzeck in Gelsenkirche, Germany, in 1960 and in lin. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives.
194 Chapter 24
Martinelli (1885–1969). Her other roles were Fricka and
Brangäne. She appeared regularly in America until 1938. Her
sole engagement at Covent Garden took place in 1927 in the
same repertoire. From 1920 to 1931 Onégin was a member
of the Städische Oper in Berlin and guested at Zurich from
1931 to 1935. From 1931 to 1932 she sang Gluck’s Orpheus
in Salzburg and appeared at Bayreuth in 1933 and 1934. She
was also engaged at the Opéra in Paris and the Vienna Sta-
atsoper during these years. Besides the repertoire previously
mentioned, Sigrid Onégin also sang Lady Macbeth, Erda,
Princess Eboli, and Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia. As a recitalist her
repertory included more than five hundred songs in thirteen
languages. To get an idea of Onégin’s astonishing mastery of
vocal technique, I recommend her recording of “O prêtres de
Baal” from Le prophète, the vocalise written to Chopin’s Im-
promptu in A flat and Arditi’s salon piece Leggiero invisibili. I
would venture that Sigrid Onégin probably sounded more like
Pauline Viardot than any other singer on record.
The era between the wars was a rich trove of great Wagne-
rian singers, and none were more accomplished than the altos.
Three of the dominant Wagnerian contraltos of the period
were the Swedes Karin Branzell (1891–1974) and Kerstin
Thorborg (1896–1970) and the German Margarete Klose
(1902–1968). Branzell studied in Stockholm and made her de-
but there as Prince Sarvilaka in Eugen d’Albert’s (1864–1932)
Izeyl at the Swedish Royal Opera in 1912. She also appeared
as Nancy in Marta and as Amneris. The Garcia influence has
spread wide, for one of her teachers was Anna Eugénie Schön-
René (1864–1942), who had studied with Pauline Viardot.
Branzell remained with the Royal Theater during the war years
until she began an engagement at the Berlin State Opera from
1920 to 1934, where she sang Azucena, Laura (La Gioconda),
Fidès, Dalila, and Carmen, as well as the nurse in Strauss’s Die
Frau ohne Schatten in the first Berlin performance with Strauss
conducting. At Covent Garden in 1935 and from 1937 to
1938, she sang Konchakovna in a German language version of
Prince Igor conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.
On February 6, 1924, Karin Branzell began her long asso-
ciation with the Metropolitan Opera, where she was a stalwart
for twenty years, especially in the German wing. Her debut
was as Fricka in Die Walküre and she went on to sing most
of the Verdi repertoire as well as the Wagnerian repertoire
and also Klytämnestra in Elektra and Herodias in Salome,
among other roles. Her frequent partners in the Wagnerian
repertoire were Kirsten Flagstad and her lifelong friend Lau-
ritz Melchior. In all, Branzell sang for twenty-two seasons at
the Met in twenty-one roles and 413 performances. When
she retired, she became a respected teacher at Juilliard, where
Nell Rankin, Jean Madeira (1918–1972) and Mignon Dunn
(1931– ) were counted among her students. Although her
career was mostly at the Metropolitan, Branzell also appeared
at the Teatro Colón, Munich State opera, San Francisco opera,
and Bayreuth. Karin Branzell had a sumptuous contralto, an
unerring musicality, and a majestic stage presence, admirably
suited to big, dramatic roles.
Kerstin Thorborg made her debut in 1923 at the Swedish
Royal Opera but served an apprenticeship of supporting roles
for a number of years. Beginning with Countess Ceprano in
Rigoletto, she emerged as Fricka, Amneris, Ortrud, Brangäne,
and Ulrica. In 1930, she was in Nuremberg. Bruno Walter then
brought her to the Städische Oper in Berlin (1932–1935), the
Vienna Staatsoper, and the Salzburg Festival (1935–1938).
From 1936 to 1939 Thorborg sang the Wagnerian repertoire
at Covent Garden, where Ernest Newman (1868–1959), the
renowned authority on Wagner, described her as “the greatest
Wagnerian actress of the present day.”4 Also in 1936, Thorborg
began an association with the Met that lasted fifteen years.
Since she could also sing mezzo-soprano roles, Thorborg also
sang Octavian and Marina in Boris in her 350 performances of
twenty roles at the Metropolitan. Thorborg was a prolific re-
cording artist. Her concert recordings of Das Lied von der Erde
(1936) from Vienna with Walter conducting and her Verdi Re-
quiem (London, 1938) with Toscanini are classics. Thorborg’s
voice was opulent like Branzell’s but had a somewhat more
brilliant quality.
Margarete Klose (1899–1968) was considered the leading
German mezzo-soprano during the interwar years and contin-
ued her career until 1961. Like Louise Homer and Kathleen
Ferrier, she was obliged to work as a secretary until she got
a scholarship at the Klindworth-Scharwenka conservatory in
Berlin, where she studied for five rewarding years. In 1927,
Klose made her stage debut in Ulm in a supporting role in an
operetta, Countess Mariza, by Emmerich Kalman (1882–1953)
and then her next role was Azucena. From 1928 to 1931, she
was a member of the Mannheim Opera, where she developed
her repertoire of the big alto roles. Klose became a member of
the Berlin State Opera from 1931 to 1949 and 1955 to 1961
and the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1949 to 1958. She was
acclaimed as Klytämnestra in Elektra under Wilhelm Furtwän-
gler (1886–1954), Ortrud under Erich Kleiber (1890–1956),
and Adriano in Rienzi under Leo Blech (1871–1958). In 1935,
Klose sang Ortrud with Thomas Beecham at Covent Garden
and from 1936 to 1942 regularly sang at Bayreuth, especially
esteemed for her portrayal of Brangäne, which lies higher than,
for instance, Erda.
Margarete Klose also had a great international career
as an esteemed guest at La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Sä-
chische Staatsoper in Dresden, National Theater, München,
Hamburgische Staatsoper, Hungarian State Opera, Budapest,
Teatro Colón, Le Monnaie, and in Los Angeles and San Fran-
cisco. Her beautiful, clear, and resonant voice can be heard
to advantage in recordings of Gluck’s Orpheus and Iphigénie
en Aulide, Kostelnička Buryjovka in Jenüfa by Leoš Janáček,
as well as Carmen and the Verdi repertoire. In addition, her
performances of the great oratorio and recital repertoire were
considered models of style.
Klose retired in 1961 and became a venerated teacher,
regularly giving master classes at the Mozarteum in Salzburg
during the summer. In 1968, she passed away suddenly at the
age of sixty-nine.
 Twentieth-Century Altos 195
Like Margarete Klose, Maria Olszewska (1892–1969)
began her career in operetta, where her striking beauty was
a distinct advantage. Her operatic debut was in a small part
in Tannhäuser at the Krefeld Opera in 1915, after which she
was in Leipzig until 1919. She was then engaged by the Ham-
burgische Staatsoper, where she participated in the premiere
of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s (1897–1957) Die tote Stadt
(1920). Olszewska was then contracted to the Vienna State
Opera from 1921 to 1923 and 1925 to 1930. In Vienna she
participated in memorable performances of Der Rosenkavalier
with Lotte Lehmann, Elisabeth Schumann (1888–1952), and
Richard Mayr (1877–1935), and from 1923 to 1925 she was
a member of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. As a guest
artist, Olszewska appeared at the Teatro Colón and frequently
at the Royal Opera in London from 1924 to 1932, where
her Wagnerian portrayals, as well as Orlofsky and Octavian,
were acclaimed and her Carmen and Amneris less so. From
1928 to 1932, she sang at the Chicago Lyric and made her
Met debut on January 16, 1933, as Brangäne in Tristan und
Isolde with Melchior and Frida Leider (1888–1975). At the
Metropolitan, Maria Olszewska sang twelve roles in fifty-seven
performances over a period of three seasons. Additional guest
appearances were at La Scala, La Monnaie, and successful tours
of North and South America. From 1951 to 1955, Olszewska
returned to the stage at the Volksoper, where she went back to
her beginnings, singing character parts in operettas. After her
retirement in 1955, she became a voice teacher. Olszewska’s
recordings are somewhat uneven; for the most part, the voice
is a resonant contralto but the top is often a bit shrill.
Rosette Anday (1903–1977) was a Hungarian contralto
who had an opulent voice with the powerful chest register well
integrated into the middle voice. In the aria “Ach, mein Sohn”
from Der Prophet, she descends to a baritonal F below middle
C. Like many of the German singers of the period on records,
she phrases instrumentally and the top voice is held tightly in
the grip of the stauprinzip (congestion method) of breathing.
Nevertheless, Anday was an effective performer and had an ex-
tensive career, which began in Budapest in 1920. Within a year
she made her debut as Carmen at the Vienna State Opera and
remained on the roster for thirty years, singing all the big alto
repertoire such as Azucena, Amneris, and Dalila. At Salzburg
from 1922, Anday sang Fatima in Weber’s Oberon, Dorabella
in Cosi fan tutte, Cherubino, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus,
Orfeo, Brangäne, and Klytämnestra in Elektra. Her Covent
Garden repertoire during 1928 and 1929 was Erda, Fricka,
Waltraute, and Hate in Gluck’s Armide.
Rosette Anday was also a fine oratorio and lieder singer.
She was dedicated to the music of Gustav Mahler and sang a
matinee performance of Das Lied von der Erde at the Vienna
State Opera in 1923 and the Paris and London premieres of
Mahler’s great work. Richard Strauss accompanied her first
lieder recital at the Grosse Musikvereinssaal—a great honor.
Anday was also one of the youngest recipients of the Kam-
mersängerin award. Rosette Anday’s final performance at the
Vienna Staatsoper in 1961 was Klytämnestra.
RUSSIA
Sergey Prokofiev was the outstanding composer of Soviet Rus-
sia who saw himself first and foremost as a composer for the
lyric stage. If this seems surprising, it is not only because of
Prokofiev’s great success in the realm of instrumental concert
music, but also because of the singularly unlucky fate of his
operas. Of the seven he completed, he saw only four produced;
of the four, only two survived their initial production; and of
the two, only one entered the repertory.5
Prokofiev composed The Gambler in 1915 and 1916 at the
behest of conductor Albert Coates (1882–1915), who assured
him a production at the Mariinsky Theatre. However, the up-
heaval of the Russian February Revolution prevented that from
happening. The revised Gambler finally received its premiere at
the Monnaie in 1929. The major female role, Polina, is sung
by a soprano, but there are two interesting alto roles: Blanche,
a beautiful demimondaine and Babulenka (Grandma). Blanche
was created by Yvonne Andry (1894–1973), a Belgian mezzo-
soprano who also was an affecting Charlotte in Werther. Babu-
lenka was created by Simone Ballard (1897–?) The daughter of
professional singers, Ballard was a French mezzo-soprano who
made her debut at the Monaie as Amneris in 1921. She took
part in the premieres of several contemporary operas: the sister-
in-law in Darius Milhaud’s (1892–1974) chamber opera Les
Maleurs d’Orpheé (1926) and the title part in Antigone (1927)
by Arthur Honegger. She also premiered the French versions
of Debora in Pizzetti’s Debora e Jaele (1927), the aforemen-
tioned Gambler, and Donna Mercedes in Riccardo Zandonai’s
(1883–1944) La farsa amorosa (1933). Simone Ballard had a
repertoire of seventy roles in three different languages including
the standards of Verdi and Wagner. The Gambler finally had its
New York premiere in 1975 in a visit from the touring Bol’shoy
company. Despite the declamatory style and lack of “showstop-
per” arias, Prokofiev’s operas offer interesting opportunities for
singing actors in roles such as Babulenka.
Because of the turmoil in Russia, Prokofiev decided to move
to the United States, arriving in San Francisco in 1918. He
gave a debut recital in New York and was commissioned to
compose an opera to a Gozzi commedia del arte tale, The Love
for Three Oranges, by the Chicago Lyric Opera. The premiere
was postponed and the opera was not given until December
30, 1921, under the composer’s direction. Because Prokofiev
was not fluent in English and American audiences would not
accept a Russian language opera, the initial version was set in
French. Until recently, The Love for Three Oranges was the only
opera of Prokofiev’s produced with any regularity. There are
four alto parts, but because there are few extended vocal lines,
only Princess Clarice, who was created by Irène Pavlovska
(fl. 1920s), a Canadian mezzo-soprano of Polish descent, has
much singing to do. Unlike The Gambler, the orchestration for
The Love for Three Oranges is sparse and allows the singers to
project without forcing. One of the surprises of the surrealistic
and fantastic libretto is that oranges 1 and 2, when opened,
contain mezzo-sopranos!
196 Chapter 24
Prokofiev became interested in the novel The Fiery Angel in
1919, after completing The Love for Three Oranges in America.
The violent story of demonic possession was not accepted
by anyone, either in Europe or the Soviet Union, and the
world premiere did not take place until 1954 in a concert
performance in Paris. The possessed Renata is sung by a dra-
matic soprano, but the sorceress is a contralto that was sung
(in English) in the American premiere at the New York City
Opera on September 22, 1965, by Muriel Costa-Greenspon
(1937–2005). Costa-Greenspon had a thirty-year career at the
City Opera, appearing in forty-five roles.
Prokofiev made a series of trips to Russia and began to
repudiate his earlier acerbic, ironic, and dissonant works in
favor of a simpler and more sincere style. He settled his family
permanently in Moscow in 1936. In 1938 Prokofiev collabo-
rated on a film about Alexander Nevsky with Sergey Eisenstein
(1898–1948). He then adapted the music from the film into
a large-scale cantata for mezzo-soprano, choir, and orchestra,
which premiered in Moscow on May 17, 1939, with Valentina
Gagrina (fl. 1930s–1940s) as soloist. The searing subject of the
sixth movement is “The Field of the Dead,” in which a girl
searches through the corpses on a battlefield for the body of
her lost lover. The scene is a chilling precursor of the carnage of
the German invasion of Russia in 1941 in which thirty million
lives were lost. The American premiere was a radio broadcast
by the NBC Symphony conducted by Leopold Stokowski and
featuring Jennie Tourel (1900–1973) as alto soloist. Tourel
was born with the surname Davidovich in Russia but settled
in Paris after the revolution. She sang Carmen and Charlotte
among other roles at the Opéra-Comique in the early thirties
and, after emigrating to America, Rosina, Carmen, and Adal-
gisa at the Metropolitan. In 1951 she created Baba the Turk
in Igor Stravinsky’s (1882–1971) The Rake’s Progress. In later
years Tourel was mostly known for concert work, especially
Ravel’s Schéhérazade with Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990),
and she premiered his song cycles I Hate Music (1943) and La
Bonne Cuisine (1949). Tourel also gave the first performance
of the revised Das Marienleben (1948) by Paul Hindemith
(1895–1963).
Prokofiev’s comic opera Betrothal in a Monastery (The Du-
enna) was first performed in Leningrad on November 3, 1946.
After all the traumas suffered by the composer, Betrothal is a
“charming modern descendant of the classical opera buffa.”6
There are two characters of interest to us: the eponymous
Duenna, contralto, and Clara d’Almanza, mezzo-soprano, the
“other” female romantic lead. In the classic buffa style, the
plot, based on Richard Sheridan’s (1751–1816) libretto, goes
through many convolutions, disguises, and misunderstandings
and finally comes out all right with the betrothals of all of the
main characters. I have not been able to determine the origi-
nal cast, but the opera has been performed numerous times
in the West. During the Kirov Opera Festival’s visit to the
Metropolitan Opera in 1998, Nadezhda Vasilieva (fl. 1990s)
was the duenna and Marianna Tarasova (fl. 1990s) sang Clara.
Vasilieva sang frequently with the St. Petersburg Symphony
and included Carmen, Olga, Lyubasha in The Tsar’s Bride,
Sonyetka in Dimitri Shostakovich’s (1906–1975) Katarina Is-
mailova, and Azucena in her repertoire. Tarasova, a member of
the Mariinsky Theatre Company, has had an impressive career
in all the major opera houses of the world, including La Scala,
the Metropolitan, and Covent Garden. Her repertoire includes
Marfa in Khovanshchina, Konchakovna in Prince Igor, Dalila,
Santuzza, Eboli, Carmen, Amneris, and Ulrica.
Prokofiev began his War and Peace in 1942 from an interest
in the subject that went back to 1935. He was inspired by the
parallel stories of the Nazi invasion of Russia and Napoleon’s
ill-fated adventure in 1812. An enormous work, it underwent
several revisions and is no less a masterpiece than the great
novel upon which it was based. In thirteen scenes, with an
epigraph, the libretto lists more than seventy characters, some
artists singing more than one role. Though I am not claiming
that the alto characters are central to the story (there are nine),
three—Hélène Bezukova, Maria Dmitrievna Akhrosimova,
and Sonya, Natasha’s cousin—play important parts in the plot.
In the NBC premiere telecast of the entire opera in 1959,
Hélène was played by Gloria Lane (b. 1930), a distinguished
American mezzo-soprano mainstay of the New York City Op-
era from 1952 to 1960 who created two roles in Gian-Carlo
Menotti’s operas—the secretary of the consulate in The Consul
(1950) and Desideria in the Saint of Bleeker Street (1954). Lane
also sang a wide range of repertoire in Europe for La Scala,
Vienna Staatsoper, Berlin Deutsche Oper, and Glyndebourne.
She sang more than five hundred performances of Carmen in
the 1950s and 1960s to critical acclaim. One performance
in Chicago in 1953 is the subject of operatic legend. The
famously temperamental tenor David Poleri (1921–1968) was
angry at the conductor and strode off the stage in the middle
of the last act, and Lane was forced to sing his part as well as
her own and to kill herself to bring down the curtain!
The great Irina Arkhipova sang Hélène Bezukova in the
first relatively complete performance of War and Peace at the
Bol’shoy on December 15, 1959. She also created the part of
Klavdiya in Prokofiev’s Story of a Real Man (1960) and several
lesser-known Soviet operas. Arkhipova began her career as a
mezzo-soprano and finished as a contralto. Her debut was as
Carmen at the Bol’shoy in 1956. Arkhipova had an exemplary
technique, a wide range, and an emotional warmth and variety
of color in her voice. Besides the gamut of leading Russian
alto roles, Arkhipova was a fine Verdi singer. After her Carmen
in Naples in 1960, she sang Hélène at La Scala in 1964 and
returned as Marfa (1967) and Marina (1968). She was praised
for her role as Azucena in Covent Garden in 1975 and finally
made her belated debut at the Metropolitan in 2010 at the age
of seventy-two. Arkhipova was the most decorated artist in the
Soviet Union and had a minor planet, number 4424, named
after her.
Igor Stravinsky was one of the outstanding composers of
the twentieth century. He was Russian born, but later a citizen
of France and the United States. In 1909 Sergey Diaghilev
invited him to Paris where he composed the sensational ballets
 Twentieth-Century Altos 197
The Firebird (1910) and The Rite of Spring (1913) for the Bal-
lets Russes. Opera was a small part of Stravinsky’s catalog, but
he composed the mini-opera Mavra in 1921 and 1922. The
part of the neighbor was sung by Hélène Sadoven (1894–19?),
who also created the lead female part of Jocasta, Oedipus’s
mother, in Stravinsky’s dramatic opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex in
1927. Stravinsky knew what he was doing, but Sadoven, in my
opinion, is unjustly forgotten these days, possibly due to the
alternate spellings of her name (e.g., Sadowen). There are nu-
merous pictures of the beautiful Sadoven on the Internet, and
there is a recording of excerpts from Massenet’s Don Quichote
from 1931, which reveal a big and beautiful mezzo-soprano
voice with a fine technique and a musical and expressive in-
terpretation.
Hélène Sadoven was born in Finland and made her way to
Paris in 1917. There she guested at the Opéra and the Opéra
Comique. At the Opéra from 1922 to 1924, she sang Amneris
with Claudia Muzio as Aida, Marina in Boris Godunov, and
the title roles in Hérodiade and Samson et Dalila. As a member
of the Opéra Russe, she appeared at La Scala and in London,
Holland, and South America. Her further credits include
Cairo, Vienna, and Berlin. In 1931 Sadoven appeared in the
English premieres of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride and
Sadko at London’s Lyceum Theater. In 1938 she was still sing-
ing at the Monnaie in Brussels.
The Rake’s Progress premiered at La Fenice with Stravinsky
conducting on September 11, 1951. As noted, the surrealistic
part of Baba, the Turkish bearded lady, was created by Jennie
Tourel. Baba’s aria and monologue “As I Was Saying, Both
Brothers Wore Moustaches” requires an alto who has a Rossin-
ian command of coloratura and a Gilbert-and-Sullivan gift of
patter. The Metropolitan’s premiere was in 1953 with Blanche
Thebom (1915–2010) as Baba. Thebom was an elegant beauty
who was one of the postwar wave of American singers who
established international careers. She was best known for her
Wagner portrayals of Fricka, Ortrud, and Brangäne, but in
twenty-two years at the Met in 357 performances, she sang
everything from Handel and Mozart to Musorgsky and Verdi.
Blanche Thebom sang eighty performances of Amneris alone.
Her last performance, like that of many older altos, was as the
old countess in Pique Dame at the new Met in 1967.
Stravinsky had a fondness for opulent alto voices. In
1954, he “discovered” Marilyn Horne, then a twenty-year-
old soprano who was often a guest at his home in southern
California. Horne was a member of the “Gesualdo Madrigal-
ists,” a group formed by Robert Craft (b. 1923), Stravinsky’s
amanuensis, for the study of the music of the radical Baroque
composer Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613). Horne never did sing
in The Rake’s Progress but she was an exemplary Jocasta.
THE UNITED KINGDOM
By any standard, Benjamin Britten was one of the most suc-
cessful composers of the twentieth century. According to
Operabase, Britten’s operas are performed worldwide more
than any other composer born in the twentieth century and
are exceeded only by Strauss and Puccini for operas composed
after 1900.7 Although he generally followed the convention of
casting the female leads in his operas with sopranos, he also
composed several outstanding alto parts and concert pieces
and utilized some of the greatest singers of his time. Britten’s
masterpiece Peter Grimes premiered on June 7, 1945. The title
character was created by Peter Pears (1910–1986) but was rei-
magined by the dramatic tenor Jon Vickers at the Metropoli-
tan in 1966. The part of auntie was sung by mezzo-soprano
Edith Coates. Coates began her career singing dramatic alto
parts such as Lehl in The Snow Maiden and Tkachikha in The
Tale of Tsar Saltan by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1933 and had a
triumph as Eboli in 1937 at the Sadler’s Wells Theater. During
the war years, her career was curtailed because all the theaters
were closed. Coates reappeared in Covent Garden in 1947,
where she remained for two decades, appearing as Carmen,
Fricka, Amneris, and Azucena. In the fifties she began to sing
character roles. She participated in several world premieres
including Arthur Bliss’s (1891–1975) The Olympians (1948),
Britten’s Gloriana (1953), Michael Tippett’s (1905–1998) The
Midsummer Marriage (1955), and the Welsh composer Grace
Williams’s (1906–1977) The Parlour (1966). There is a curi-
ous recording of Coates singing “Habanera” from Carmen in
English (“Love resembles a willful bird!”).
Britten’s chamber opera, The Rape of Lucretia, was first per-
formed at the Glyndebourne Festival on July 12, 1946. The
title part was written for Kathleen Ferrier (1912–1953), an
English contralto singer whose only other role (by her choice)
was Orfeo in Gluck’s opera Orfeo ed Euridice. Ferrier was
trained as a pianist and in 1926, due to family financial prob-
lems, she left school to begin training for a decade-long job as a
Figure 24.4.  Kathleen Ferrier
198 Chapter 24
telephone operator. She won several minor piano competitions
and both piano and vocal competitions at the Carlisle Festival
in 1937. In 1942 she decided to move to London, where she
met Britten during a Messiah performance with Peter Pears in
Westminster Abbey the next year. Despite her early misgivings,
he persuaded her to create Lucretia, in which she triumphed,
although the initial response to the opera itself was muted.
Ferrier built a great career of radio broadcasts and concert
performances of orchestral works such as The Dream of Ge-
rontius and Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar, Bach’s Mass in B
Minor, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. After Ferrier’s performance
of Orfeo at Glyndebourne, Rudolf Bing (1902–1997), then the
manager of Glyndebourne, recommended her to Bruno Walter
(1876–1962), who recognized the greatness of her voice and
engaged her to sing the contralto solos in Mahler’s Das Lied von
der Erde. Walter and Ferrier formed a warm partnership that
lasted until her death. In 1948, Ferrier performed Brahms’s
Alto Rhapsody and joined John Barbirolli (1899–1970) and
the Hallé Orchestra in a broadcast performance of another
Mahler masterpiece, Kindertotenlieder. In July 1949, Ferrier
premiered Britten’s Spring Symphony with Eduard van Beinum
(1901–1959) and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. In Vienna
in 1950, she joined Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Herbert von
Karajan (1908–1989) for a recording of Bach’s Mass in B Mi-
nor with the Vienna Philharmonic.
In 1951, shortly after performing Ernest Chausson’s (1855–
1899) Poème de l’amour et de la mer with Sir John Barbirolli
(1899–1970), Ferrier was operated on for breast cancer.
Resuming her career even while battling cancer, she traveled
to the Holland Festival to sing in Mahler’s Second Symphony
with Otto Klemperer (1885–1973) and the Concertgebouw.
In 1952, she premiered Canticle II Abraham and Isaac, which
Benjamin Britten had written for Peter Pears and her as a
fundraiser for the English Opera Group. Despite continuing
health problems, she performed in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion
at the Royal Albert Hall and traveled to Vienna to record
Mahler’s Rückert Leider with her great partner, Bruno Walter.
Finally, during a performance of Orfeo in 1953, weakened by
prolonged radiation treatments, her left femur partially disin-
tegrated. Supported by cast members, she finished the perfor-
mance, her last. Kathleen Ferrier died on October 8, 1953,
her death a great shock to her public, which had never been
informed of her illness. Of all the many tributes to Kathleen
Ferrier, the one from Bruno Walter is the most profound: “The
greatest thing in music in my life has been to have known
Kathleen Ferrier and Gustav Mahler—in that order.”8 As for
me, I can think of nothing more beautiful in the universe than
Kathleen Ferrier singing the music of Gustav Mahler.
In 1947, Britten composed the song cycle A Charm of Lul-
labies, Op. 41 for Nancy Evans (1915–2000), a British mezzo-
soprano who also created the role of Nancy in the composer’s
Albert Herring the same year. At Glyndebourne, she alternated
with Kathleen Ferrier as Lucretia. She also sang Polly in Brit-
ten’s version of The Beggar’s Opera in 1948. Evans and her sec-
ond husband, Eric Crozier (1914–1994), were the cofounders
of the Aldeburgh Festival with Britten and Pears.
Benjamin Britten composed Gloriana in 1953 as part of the
celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The part
of Frances, Countess of Essex, was created by the contralto
Monica Sinclair (1925–2002), who created a number of roles
for contemporary composers including the heavenly body in
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s (1872–1958) The Pilgrim’s Progress
(1951), Evadne in William Walton’s (1902–1983) Troilus and
Cressida (1954), and Yelena Popova in The Bear (1967).
Noye’s Fludde, a fifty-minute chamber opera based on a fif-
teenth-century Chester mystery or “miracle” play was intended
to be performed by largely amateur singers, with only Mr. and
Mrs. Noah to be sung by professionals. Mrs. Noah, a cantan-
kerous and obstreperous termagant, was sung by the contralto
Gladys Parr (1892–1988) in the premiere on June 18, 1958,
at Aldeburgh. Parr joined the Carl Rosa Company in 1915
and sang at Covent Garden in such roles as Siébel, Nicklausse,
Frédéric, and Suzuki. Later she moved up to Carmen, Dalila,
Azucena, Magdalena in Die Meistersinger, and Dame Quickly.
Parr also created the parts of Florence Pike in Albert Herring
and Miss Baggott in The Little Sweep (1949) for Britten.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was first performed on June
11, 1960, and soon entered the standard repertory. It has been
one of the most performed operas written since World War II.
The role of Oberon was performed by Alfred Deller (1912–
1979), a contralto countertenor who was a pioneer in popular-
izing the use of the countertenor voice in early music. The role
of Hermia was created by Marjorie Thomas (1923–2008), a
British contralto who was well known for her concert work as
well as opera. At Covent Garden, Thomas performed several
Wagnerian roles, including Magdalena in Die Meistersinger.
She recorded Mahler’s Third Symphony with Rafael Kubelik
(1914–1996), her conductor in Wagner performances. She
was also a favorite soloist of the conductor Malcolm Sargent
(1895–1967), with whom she recorded a series of Gilbert and
Sullivan operas and was especially admired for Edward Elgar’s
The Dream of Gerontius and Gloria, which was composed
for her by William Walton in 1961. Marjorie Thomas was a
distinguished head of vocal studies at the Royal Academy of
Music until 1990.
Britten’s penultimate opera, Owen Wingrave (1971), based
on a story by Henry James (1843–1916), was originally
intended for television, and was Britten’s response to the
Vietnam War. Janet Baker (b. 1933) created the part of Kate
Julian at the premiere and in the original cast recording. Baker,
who had a rich-sounding voice that was flexible and expres-
sive, began her career with Handel roles. In 1959 she sang
Eudige in Rodelinda for the Handel Opera Society and added
Ariodante (1964) and Orlando (1966) at the Barber Institute
in Birmingham. She became associated with Britten’s English
Opera Group at Aldeburgh as early as 1961, where she sang
Dido in Purcell’s opera Lucretia and Polly in The Beggar’s Op-
era. For Glyndebourne, Baker reprised Dido and sang Diana/
Jupiter in Calisto by Cavalli and Penelope in Il ritorno d’Ulisse
 Twentieth-Century Altos 199
in patria by Monteverdi. For the Scottish Opera she expanded
her range of repertoire by taking on Dido in Les Troyens by
Berlioz and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and the composer
in Ariadne aud Naxos by Strauss. Baker debuted at Covent
Garden in 1966 as Hermia and also sang Kate Julian, as well as
what was becoming her signature role, Berlioz’s Dido. She also
sang Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito and Idamante in Idomeneo
by Mozart, as well as Walton’s Cressida and Gluck’s Alcestis. In
Britain, where orchestral works and oratorio are very popular,
Janet Baker also sang many of the works made famous by her
alto predecessors such as Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius and Sea
Pictures, Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody, and Mahler’s Rückert Lieder.
Benjamin Britten composed his last vocal work, the cantata
Phaedra (1975), for Baker, who premiered the work at Alde-
burgh.
THE UNITED STATES
Marc Blitzstein (1905–1964) was a political activist composer
whose pro-union musical, The Cradle Will Rock, directed by
Orson Welles (1915–1985), was shut down by the Works
Progress Administration in 1937, after which the cast per-
formed the work without sets, costumes, or lights, with
only Blitzstein at the piano. The principal character Moll, a
prostitute, is cast as an alto, as are two other characters, Ella
Hammer and Mrs. Mister. Leonard Bernstein has stated that
Blitzstein’s influence on American musical theater has been
“incalculable.”9
Regina (1949) was Blitzstein’s best known work, and the
title role was designated mezzo-soprano for Jane Pickens
(1908–1992), a Broadway singer who created it. However, it
was soprano Brenda Lewis (b. 1921), the original Birdie, who
became most identified with the title role in a more “operatic”
version with an expanded orchestra at the New York City Op-
era in 1953. Blitzstein also translated and arranged Kurt Weill’s
The Three Penny Opera with Lotte Lenya as Jenny.
In 1952, Leonard Bernstein, heavily influenced by Blitz-
stein, composed Trouble in Tahiti, a domestic opera with the
mezzo-soprano Nell Tangeman (1914–1965) as Dinah. The
aria by the same name has been delighting audiences ever
since. Tangeman was in the beginning of a successful career
that was cut short by her early death. She had studied with
the great Wagnerian baritone Friedrich Schorr (1888–1953),
Margarete Matzenauer, and Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979).
Tangeman made her New York debut as Jocasta in Stravinsky’s
Oedipus Rex with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic in
1946. The following year she sang the New York premiere of
In the Beginning by Aaron Copeland (1900–1990) and created
the role of Mother Goose in the world premiere of Stravinsky’s
The Rake’s Progress in 1951 at La Fenice in Venice.
Bernstein’s sequel to Trouble in Tahiti was A Quiet Place,
which premiered on June 17, 1983, at the Houston Opera.
The original version was unsuccessful and after several revi-
sions was premiered at the Vienna State Opera with Wendy
White (b. 1953) as Dinah in 1986. White had a record of 499
performances at the Met in largely supporting roles. In 2011
she was injured by a falling platform there and never recovered
her voice. She has since sued the company.
Gian Carlo Menotti was the most successful and certainly
most prolific composer during the middle years of the twen-
tieth century. Menotti considered himself to be an American
composer although he was an Italian citizen. Menotti com-
posed some twenty-eight operas beginning with Amelia Goes to
the Ball (Amelia al Ballo) in 1937, and many have roles for the
alto voice. The Old Maid and the Thief (1939) was composed
as a radio opera and received its first New York performance
in 1948 at the New York City Opera with Marie Powers
(1910–1973) as Miss Todd, the old maid. However, Powers
will be most remembered as the creator of Madame Flora in
the The Medium in 1947, a strange tale with supernatural
overtones that played on Broadway as a double bill with The
Telephone or L’Amour á trois for 212 performances and was
recorded on film and television. Her performance of “Afraid?
Am I Afraid?” from the film is one of the most powerful per-
formances on record.
Marie Powers had one of the strangest careers in opera. She
left home at seventeen to study singing in Milan. She wrangled
an audition with Arturo Toscanini and was cast in a small part
in a Wagner opera at La Scala. According to Bruce Eder (b.
1955), Marie Powers married an Italian nobleman and, now
a countess, sang Dalila and Orfeo in Paris and Monte Carlo
in the 1930s. In the late 1930s, her husband died, war clouds
were gathering, and her personal life as well as her career was
in shambles. According to her own account, she returned to
the United States with 28 cents to her name. She auditioned
for the Met but was not successful. In the 1940s Powers toured
the country with the San Carlo Opera as Azucena, Amneris,
and La Cieca and Laura in La Gioconda.
In 1947, Lanfranco Rasponi (1914–1983) introduced her
to Menotti, who was casting for The Medium and he, en-
thralled by her strangeness, immediately engaged her.
Her eccentricities were already pronounced, including
her insistence upon being addressed as “Countess.” She was
personally tempestuous in her expressions of faith and impa-
tient—most especially with herself—but Menotti was sold on
her from the start in her role as Madame Flora in The Medium.
Once she was cast in the part, other eccentricities became ap-
parent: her devout Catholicism motivated Powers to openly
offer thanks to the statuette of the Madonna on stage nightly,
and she was known for traveling through midtown Manhattan
on roller skates, even on her way to Mass. But she won rave
reviews as much for her acting as for her singing and became
a Broadway star in The Medium when it opened in 1946. She
owned the role for years after, not only giving more than two
thousand performances as Madame Flora onstage, but also
starring in the movie version, as well. Her portrayal was also
preserved on a Columbia Masterworks cast recording of the
work from 1947. Her other stage credits included Menotti’s
The Consul and Nettie Fowler in a revival of Carousel in 1957.10
200 Chapter 24
The Consul, which many consider to be Menotti’s greatest
work, also opened on Broadway on March 15, 1950, and ran
for almost eight months. The lead character, Magda Sorel, was
written for a soprano, Patricia Neway (1919–2012), but the
equally important alto role of the secretary was sung by Gloria
Lane in the premiere in Philadelphia, with Marie Powers as the
mother. On Broadway, the secretary was sung by Rosemary
Kuhlmann (b. 1922), who also created the role of the mother
in Amahl and the Night Visitors, the first opera commissioned
for television, which premiered live on NBC on Christmas Eve
in 1951. Amahl, a superbly crafted work, directly reaches the
heart of the listener and is one of the most performed operas
of the present era. The opera was broadcast live for twelve
consecutive Christmases with Kuhlmann as the mother. With
a viewership of five million—very large for the time—Rose-
mary Kuhlmann became famous almost instantly. In 1952
she toured Europe with Menotti, reprising the secretary, and
debuted with the New York City Opera, again as the mother in
Amahl and added Carmen, Meg Page in Verdi’s Falstaff, Ange-
lina in La Cenerentola, Nicklausse in Les contes d’Hoffman, and
the tsarina in Tchaikovsky’s The Golden Slippers (Cherefvichki).
As incredible as it may seem today, in the 1950s and early
1960s, the major television networks broadcast major cultural
events. NBC supported a symphony orchestra with Toscanini
as conductor and also the NBC opera. Rosemary Kuhlmann
starred in a CBC telecast as Giorgetta in Puccini’s Il Tabarro and
three more NBC telecasts: Desideria in Menotti’s The Saint of
Bleeker Street, Mother Marie in Les Dialogues des Carmélites, as
well as Brigham Young’s wife Sarah in Deseret by Leonard Kastle
(1929–2011) in 1961. Soon after that, she retired to raise a fam-
ily and later worked as an executive at the Pepsi Cola Company.
Menotti composed twenty-eight operas in all and served as li-
brettist for Samuel Barber’s Vanessa, which premiered on January
15, 1958. The alto role of Erika was created by Rosalind Elias (b.
1930), whose aria “Must the Winter Come So Soon?” is a staple
in many altos’ repertoires. Elias, who also created Charmian in
Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, which opened the new Met on
September 16, 1966, was a mainstay at the Metropolitan, sing-
ing for thirty seasons in fifty-three roles in 687 performances.
Her major roles included Rosina, Cherubino, Dorabella, Octa-
vian, and Carmen, as well as many supporting parts.
The last fifty years, 1965 to 2015, has seen a burgeoning
of opera companies and performances around the globe. Ac-
cording to Operabase, since 1996 there have been 370,000
performances by more than nine hundred opera companies.
Works from 1,257 different composers were played, of whom
more than 630 are living. A total of 2,581 different works were
given, including more than three hundred world premieres. Of
the top thirty composers played (the most by Verdi at 3,335),
there were no living composers. Of living composers, Philip
Glass (b. 1937) was played the most at seventy-nine times.11
So it is clear that modern altos do not make their reputations
with contemporary opera. There is an acerbic adage in the
opera world: those who sing contemporary opera sooner or
later wish they hadn’t. The next chapter mentions some of the
outstanding alto singers of the modern era who are not neces-
sarily known for the roles they create.
NOTES
1.  Marilyn Horne with Jane Scovell, The Song Continues (Fort
Worth, TX: Baskerville Publishers, 2004), 218.
2. Lanfranco Rasponi, The Last Prima Donnas (New York:
Knopf, 1982), 37–38.
3. Rasponi, The Last Prima Donnas, 382–83.
4.  Carl L. Bruun and Alan Blyth, “Kerstin Thorborg,” The New
Grove Dictionary of Opera, vol. 4, ed. Stanley Sadie (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1997), 731.
5.  Richard Taruskin, “Sergey Prokofiev,” The New Grove Diction-
ary of Opera, vol. 3, 1135.
6.  Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1965), 554.
7.  www.operabase.com/visual.cgi?lang=en&splash=t (accessed 21
June 2015).
8. Maurice Leonard, Kathleen: The Life of Kathleen Ferrier,
1912–1953 (London: Hutchinson, 1988), 246.
9.  Howard Pollack, Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1975.
10. Bruce Eder, www.allmusic.com/artist/marie-powers-mn000209
5935/biography (accessed 6 August 2015).
11.  www.operabase.com/visual.cgi?lang=en&splash=t (accessed 12
August 2015).
25
Contemporary Alto Singers

There are literally hundreds of fine contemporary alto singers perhaps the most remarkable feature of the performance . . .
enumerated in various media throughout the world. In this rarely, if ever, has a young singer made so impressive a debut.
chapter, I list some of them with special attention to those who She has everything required in an operatic artist, youth, a beau-
are particularly outstanding but with the full realization that I tiful voice, which was exceedingly well used; a fine dramatic
talent which was skillfully employed; a most attractive stage
have had to omit some who are special favorites of some of my
presence and a keen feeling for the histrionics of the role . . .
readers. For this I apologize.
[her] success was all the more remarkable because she was play-
The best-known alto singer at the Metropolitan in the ing in the same cast with Lotte Lehmann.1
1940s and 1950s was the elegant mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens
(1913–2013), whose first name is pronounced with the accent On December 17, Stevens sang Mignon in her house debut,
on the first syllable and with an s, not a z, in the second, as she which was broadcast over the radio, but it was Octavian that
would always inform visitors. Risë means “laughter” in Norwe-
gian. Stevens was born Risë Gus Steenberg of a Norwegian Lu-
theran father and a Jewish mother. Her early training was with
Anna Schön-René at Juilliard, who had studied with Francesco
Lamperti, Pauline Viardot, and Manuel Garcia II. Stevens
declined an offer from the Metropolitan Opera and traveled
to Vienna, where she continued her studies, especially coach-
ing Octavian with Marie Gutheil-Schroder (1874–1935), who
had created Schoenberg’s Erwartung in 1924.
Risë Stevens made her European debut as Mignon in 1936
in the Neue Deutches Theater in Prague and also did guest
performances of Orfeo and Octavian in Egypt in 1937. In
September 1937, with war clouds lowering over Prague, she
sang the first of what was to become her signature role—Car-
men, to ecstatic notices. Stevens also sang Fricka successfully,
but soon decided that Wagner was not for her. In March
1938 she also sang her only known Amneris. She then ap-
peared as Octavian at the Vienna Staatsoper in the midst of
the Anschluss and then returned to Prague, where Stevens
remained until the summer of 1938, when she left for Bue-
nos Aires, where she sang Octavian under Erich Kleiber, and
then on to New York to begin her Metropolitan career. On
November 22, she made her debut with the Met on tour in
Philadelphia as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier with Lotte
Lehmann as the Marschallin. Her performance was enthu-
siastically reviewed. Samuel L. Lacier in the Evening Public
Leger hailed Stevens’s contribution as Figure 25.1.  Risë Stevens as Octavian by Bender. Courtesy Met-
ropolitan Opera Archives.

201
202 Chapter 25
“put her on the map” at the Metropolitan—that is, until her
first Carmen, which premiered on December 28, 1945.
For more than twenty years Risë Stevens was the outstand-
ing alto singer at the Metropolitan where, probably as a pub-
licity stunt, her voice was insured for $1 million. As the most
famous Carmen of her day, she created a sensation in 1951
in the Tyrone Guthrie production, and twenty years later, her
final performance at the Met was as the gypsy firebrand. Ste-
vens sang 124 performances of Carmen at the Met alone, in a
total of 324 appearances. Octavian (thirty-eight), Cherubino
(twenty-five), Orfeo (ten), and Dalila (thirty-two) were also
very successful. As a descendant of Pauline Viardot through
Schön-René, it was Orfeo (February 24, 1955) that meant the
most to her. A curiosity was casting her in two performances
of Erda in Siegfried in 1939.
Due to the shrewd management of her husband and
manager, Walter Surovy (1910–2001), Risë Stevens was
probably the best-known opera singer of her generation. Her
Oscar-winning film Going My Way (1944) with Bing Crosby
(1903–1977) and Barry Fitzgerald (1888–1961) was a big
hit. Stevens also made several TV movies including Carmen,
Hansel und Gretel, Der Rosenkavalier, and The Chocolate Soldier
(1941) with Nelson Eddy (1901–1967). She also had popular
NBC radio shows, Music from Hollywood, The Risë Stevens
Show, and later, The Family Hour. She was also one of the first
classical artists to be featured on the early days of television.
Because of her connection with films and other media, Ste-
vens, like Geraldine Farrar before her, was criticized as being
too “Hollywood.”
After her retirement Stevens’s stature grew in a different
direction. Always well connected with the Metropolitan Guild,
especially Mrs. August Belmont (1879–1979) and the power
elite that keeps the wheels turning, Risë Stevens singlehand-
edly saved the Metropolitan’s 1961–1962 season. After the
musicians demanded a salary increase and Rudolf Bing refused
to negotiate, the board of directors announced the cancellation
of the season on August 7, 1961. Stevens, all too aware of the
seriousness of the situation, sent a telegram to President John
F. Kennedy the same day the season was cancelled, appealing
to his sense of national pride in saving a cultural organization
that was esteemed worldwide.
With Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg acting as me-
diator at Kennedy’s request, the impasse was breached and the
season saved. “Soprano Risë Stevens, who had been the most
active artist in seeking Presidential intervention declared: ‘Isn’t
it exciting. . . . I’m happy of course and so grateful the Presi-
dent stepped in. . . . This is the American way. If you want to
get something done, go directly to the President.’”2
Whether or not this had anything to do with Stevens’s
next endeavor, she was named the co–general manager of
the Metropolitan National Company, which, comprised of
young singers with full orchestra and chorus, toured the
United States, Canada, and Mexico from 1965 to 1967. The
inaugural concert was on May 3, 1965, at the State Depart-
ment in Washington, D.C. Some of the young singers she
nurtured became valued members of the parent company. The
National Company closed down after only two years for two
reasons—Bing’s antipathy and the anticipated financial drain
on the parent company in the midst of preparing for the move
to Lincoln Center, despite the offer of a gift of $1 million from
Lila Acheson Wallace (1889–1984).
In 1975 Risë Stevens became the president of the Mannes
College of Music in New York City. Her tenure lasted just
three years but she is credited with infusing new life into
an institution tottering on the brink of collapse due to her
fundraising efforts and the attention her celebrity attracted.
For example, she persuaded Vladimir Horowitz to become
a member of the piano faculty. In 1978, when she was given
no support from the board of directors, she saw fit to resign.
Ironically, after Stevens’s departure, in a disastrous move, the
board attempted to merge Mannes with the Manhattan School
of Music and was removed by the New York State Board of
Regents, an event unprecedented in the history of the state. In
the fall of 1980 and until 1988, Risë Stevens returned to the
Met family as adviser to the young artist development program
and executive director of the Metropolitan Opera regional au-
ditions. In 1990 Stevens was honored at the Kennedy Center
Awards. In 2013, like her colleague Giulietta Simionato, she
passed away just before her one hundredth birthday.
Christa Ludwig, a German mezzo-soprano born in Berlin,
surely must be counted as one of the greatest altos of the
twentieth century. Ludwig, another artist who was trained by
her mother, made her debut in postwar Frankfurt as Orlovsky
in Die Fledermaus. She was a member of the Frankfurt com-
pany until 1952, when she was engaged at Darmstadt, then
Hannover. In 1955 Ludwig became a member of the Vienna
State Opera, where she remained for thirty years and was ap-
pointed Kammersängerin in 1962. She debuted in Salzburg in
1954 as Cherubino and was a distinguished performer there
until 1981. Her Bayreuth debut came in 1966 as Brangäne in
Tristan und Isolde.
Christa Ludwig became a favorite in the United States after
her debut at the Chicago Lyric as Dorabella and at the Met-
ropolitan as Cherubino. Soon she moved into more dramatic
repertoire, such as the dyer’s wife in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne
Schatten, both Octavian and the Marschalin in Der Rosenkava-
lier, Klytämnestra in Elektra, Ortrud in Lohengrin, Brangäne
in Tristan, Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre,
Kundry in Parsifal, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Leonore in
Fidelio, Charlotte in Werther, and Dido in Les Troyens. Ludwig
also ventured into the Verdi repertoire with Amneris in Aida
at Covent Garden in 1969 and Eboli at La Scala, Ulrica in Un
ballo in maschera, and Lady Macbeth. At the Metropolitan,
Christa Ludwig sang 121 performances of fifteen roles, the
last being Fricka in Die Walküre during the 1994–1995 season.
Besides opera, Ludwig was a great interpreter of lieder
(Leonard Bernstein was often her accompanist) and performed
most of the great orchestral repertoire, especially Bach and
Mahler. In recent years she has been teaching and giving mas-
ter classes all over the world.
 Contemporary Alto Singers 203

On January 6, 1949, an event that changed the course of

opera performance in the world occurred at the Teatro La
Fenice in Venice. Maria Callas, a soprano sfogato who was en-
gaged to sing Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, had been persuaded
by the conductor, Tullio Serafin, to learn and perform the
taxing bel canto role of Elvira in Bellini’s I puritani in only five
days. Callas brought an uncompromising integrity, expressiv-
ity, and musicality to the part, and suddenly, a vast repertory
that had been neglected for a century was seen in a new light.
Far from being merely decorative and amusing, the bel canto
repertoire—especially the serious works of Rossini, Bellini,
and Donizetti—began to be seen as vessels containing dra-
matic truth, and vocal embellishments, which had been mere
vehicles for egoistic display, were appreciated as logical exten-
sions of the dramatic situation. Monserrat Caballé has written
a heartfelt tribute to Callas:

She opened a new door for us, for all the singers in the world,
a door that had been closed. Behind it was sleeping not only
great music but great ideas of interpretation. She has given us
the chance, those who follow her, to do things that were hardly
possible before her.3

Rodolfo Celletti has also given credit where credit is due and elu-
cidates the importance of proper vocal technique and musicality.
“Bringing Rossini back into favor, which failed in the 1930s
and 1940s, was successful from the early 1950s on, simply and
solely because the key to the interpretation of certain aspects of
the repertoire was furnished for us first by Maria Callas in Ar-
mida and Il turco in Italia, and then by Sutherland and Horne
in Semiramide, Tancredi, and L’assedio di Corinto. Stendhal had
realized intuitively what even today escapes the bigots and ped-
ants. The act of creativity is not exhausted with the writing of
the opera by the composer; it is crystallized and made manifest
in the course of its execution. If the vocal performance is inad-
equate, the so-called musical values remain either unexpressed
or misunderstood.”4
It should be added that the critical editions of Rossini and
Verdi operas by Philip Gossett, the writings of Rodolfo Cel-
letti, and the care in musical preparation of Richard Bonynge
(b. 1930) have been very important in this effort.
For me, the outstanding artist in this bel canto renaissance
is Marilyn Horne. If we must categorize her, I would call her a
Rossini contralto because of her rich vocal timbre, but mezzo-
soprano also fits, because of her fine top notes. Horne’s com-
plete command of technique, expressive musicianship, imagi-
nation, integrity, beauty of tone, and personal magnetism are
the most impressive things about her. I remember reading her
statement that she “pored” over the works of Manuel Garcia II.
I believe that Horne understands registration completely as the
only way to negotiate bel canto literature, which typically calls
for extremes of power and range as well as complete control of
dynamics. Celletti’s “pedants” who complain about the differ-
ences between the powerful chest register, the middle, and the
top of voices like Horne’s do not understand that the pattern
of overtones causes the chest voice to sound “bassier” while
Figure 25.2.  Marilyn Horne as Adalgisa in Norma by Louis
Melançon. Courtesy Metropolitan Opera Archives.
the head voice is more treble or flute-like. Playing these notes
on a piano will illustrate the truth of this statement. The bel
canto adage that “the scale must be even” does not mean that
it should sound the same from top to bottom. With Marilyn
Horne, the transitions between these registers is impeccable.
During Rossini’s time, Marilyn Horne’s power and agility
would have been considered great but normal. The term “col-
oratura,” as in “coloratura soprano,” is a relatively late term
coined to dignify the limitations of small-voiced singers who
sing florid music well. Amelita Galli-Curci comes to mind. We
have noticed that Callas and Sutherland started as Wagnerians.
Horne’s subsequent fame in the bel canto repertoire somewhat
obscures the fact that she got her start in contemporary lit-
erature.
Horne’s European debut came in 1956 at La Fenice in
Venice, where Igor Stravinsky invited her to sing Jocasta in his
Oedipus Rex. She then embarked on a three-year engagement
in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, where she sang soprano roles.
Horne’s performance as Marie in Wozzeck led to an engage-
ment in the same opera at the San Francisco Opera in 1960.
In 1961, a glimpse of future glory came when, as Agnese,
she teamed with Joan Sutherland in concert performances of
Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda at Carnegie Hall. Further pairings
with Dame Joan came as Arsace in Semiramide in Boston in
1965 and Adalgisa in Norma at Covent Garden (1967) and her
Metropolitan debut (1970).
204 Chapter 25
In 1969 Marilyn Horne made her debut at La Scala, again
as Jocasta in Oedipus Rex. She then sang Néocles in Rossini’s Le
siège du Corinth with Beverly Sills, where she received an unprece-
dented seven-minute ovation in mid-act. Her other Rossini roles
included Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Malcom in La donna del
lago, Falliero in Bianca e Falliero, Andromache in Ermione, Calbo
in Maometto II, Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri, and Angelina in
La Cenerentola. In twenty-four seasons at the Met, Horne sang
252 performances of an extremely varied repertoire. Besides her
deserved fame in the bel canto roles, she also sang an acclaimed
Fidès in Le prophète, Amneris, Carmen, Eboli, Gluck’s Orfeo, and
the title role in Handel’s Rinaldo, the first Handel opera ever sung
at the Met. Horne also recorded Anita in Massenet’s La Navar-
raise, Laura in La Gioconda, Juno in Handel’s Semele, Giovanna
Seymour in Anna Bolena and Maffeo Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia
by Donizetti, Verdi’s Requiem, Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, and
Azucena in Il trovatore. In concert, she once achieved the feat of
singing, in a single program, Rossini arias and Brünnhilde’s im-
molation scene, proof of her exceptional versatility.5
Since her retirement in 1999, Marilyn Horne has been busy
working with young singers through her foundation devoted
to the art of the recital. She also teaches master classes at the
Music Academy of the West in California and various other
schools in the country.
One of the memories of my time at the Met is of an elegant
Cherubino sung by Teresa Berganza, a Spanish mezzo-soprano
Figure 25.3.  Frederica von Stade as Rosina by Heffernen. Cour-
tesy Metropolitan Opera Archives.
who had a very brief career there, possibly because her voice
was rather lyric for the cavernous theater. However, Berganza
had a flawless technique that projected very well and impecca-
ble taste and musicality. Her other role at the Met was Rosina,
which was a model of Rossini style and expressive fioratura. I
have always believed that a singer trained on Mozart would
learn musical taste and take lessons learned on to other com-
posers, especially Rossini, and even Verdi and Wagner. Teresa
Berganza made her debut in 1957 in Aix-en-Provence as Dora-
bella and was also a well-known Sesto in La clemenza di Tito
as well as Zerlina. Her Rossini roles included La Cenerentola,
Isabella, Tancredi, and Isolier in La comte Ory. Older repertoire
was Dido in Purcell’s opera, Octavia in L’incoronazione di Pop-
pea, Ruggerio in Alcina, Orontea by Cesti, and Neris in Médée
by Cherubini. Berganza sang at La Scala, Covent Garden,
Vienna, Salzburg, Dallas, Chicago, and the Met. As her voice
became weightier, she took on Carmen and Charlotte, which
she sang in Edinburgh, Hamburg, San Francisco, Covent
Garden, and Paris. As always, she relied on her musicality and
beguiling stage presence for these roles. Not to be overlooked
are her recordings of music of her native land—Enrique Gra-
nados (1867–1916), Manuel De Falla (1876–1946), Xavier
Montsalvatge (1912–2002), José Serrano (1873–1941), Jésus
Guridi (1886–1961), Joachin Turina (1882–1949), and the
wonderful Carcelaras of Ruperto Chapi (1851–1909). John
Steane writes that Teresa Berganza is as individual with this
repertoire as Concita Supervia and Victoria de los Angeles
(1923–2005).6 In 1992, Berganza took part in the opening
ceremonies at the Barcelona Olympic Games. In recent years
she has been teaching at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina
Sofía in Madrid and giving master classes all over the world.
In 1969, Sebastian Engleberg (1899–1979), a distinguished
voice teacher at the Mannes College of Music, challenged an
incredulous young mezzo-soprano named Frederica von Stade,
called “Flicka” by friends and family, to enter the Metropoli-
tan Opera National Competition. Bing was impressed by the
beauty of Frederica’s voice and radiant personality and offered
her a contract for 1970. Von Stade made her Met debut at the
age of twenty-five as the third boy in Die Zauberflöte, and for
three years she dutifully performed an array of comprimaria
assignments along with the more substantial roles of Nick-
lausse and Suzuki. In the summer of 1971 at Santa Fe, she
began to find her several career paths when she assumed one
of her signature roles, Cherubino, along with Mélisande in
Pelleas et Melisande, which revealed her affinity for the French
repertoire, and where, with her innate understanding of con-
temporary music, she created the role of Maria in Heitor Villa-
Lobos’s (1887–1959) Yerma.
In 1973, von Stade was invited by Giorgio Strehler (1921–
1997), the preeminent Italian opera and theater director, to
sing Cherubino for the reopening of the Paris Opera. She had
an enormous success and became the definitive Cherubino
of her generation, which was validated by engagements with
Peter Hall (b. 1930) at Glyndebourne and Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
(1932–1988) in Salzburg. She returned to the Met intermit-
 Contemporary Alto Singers 205

tently until 1976, where, besides Cherubino, she sang Adal-

gisa, Rosina, Zerlina, and Hänsel, among some lesser roles.
Always aware of the lyric nature of her instrument, she turned
down assignments like Eboli and Amneris and began to carve
out a career of lesser-known lyric roles in smaller houses. She
took on such roles as Sesto and Idamante by Mozart, Cendril-
lon and Cherubin of Massenet, Thomas’s Mignon, Penelope
in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria by Monteverdi, and Vénus in
Jean-Philippe Rameau’s (1683–1764) Dardanus (1739). In
1975 Flicka learned Octavian in just ten days for the Houston
Grand Opera and added it to her list of trouser roles for which
she became justly famous, but she considered Octavian and
Charlotte in Werther “a stretch.” Of course, Rossini’s Rosina
and Angelina have been featured prominently in her reper-
toire, as well as Arsace in Semiramide, and she has made an
elegant recording of Desdemona in his Otello.
Von Stade has shown her versatility by appearing in such
musicals as Jerome Kern’s (1885–1945) Show Boat, A Little
Night Music by Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930), and The Sound
of Music by Richard Rodgers (1902–1979). She has appeared
numerous times on television in such programs as A Carnegie
Hall Christmas Concert and The Kennedy Center Honors.
As the exception that proves the rule alluded to in the
beginning of this chapter, Frederica von Stade has created a
number of memorable roles in contemporary operas. Early on
(1974), she originated the role of Nina in Thomas Pasatieri’s
(b. 1945) The Seagull at the Houston Grand Opera, then Tina Figure 25.4.  Cecilia Bartoli as Rosina by Minnie Klotz. Courtesy
in Dominick Argento’s (b. 1927) The Aspern Papers (1988) Metropolitan Opera Archives.
at Dallas. She also created Marquise de Merteuil in Danger-
ous Liaisons by Conrad Susa (1935–2013), a part that was also repeated history by performing Norma, which was Pauline
definitely against type for the genial von Stade. The opera Viardot’s obsession. Her prolific recording output has made
premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 1994. In 2008 von her today’s bestselling classical recording artist with more than
Stade originated Madeline in Jake Heggie’s (b. 1961) Three ten million in sales.
Decembers and Mrs. Patrick de Rocher in his Dead Man Walk- Cecilia Bartoli was born in Rome and first studied to be a
ing (2011) for the Houston Grand Opera. Of late, Ricky Ian flamenco dancer. When she began singing, she studied only
Gordon (b. 1956) composed A Coffin in Egypt, which pre- with her mother, Silvana Bazzoni, who was a chorister at the
miered in 2014 at Houston, especially for von Stade. Perhaps Rome Opera. Following time-tested procedure, Cecilia was
the most poignant of her premieres was Elegies, a concert piece kept on vocalises for more than a year before being permitted
for mezzo-soprano, baritone, and orchestra by Richard Dan- to sing a song. Bartoli’s technique is very much old school,
ielpour (b. 1956), written in memory of von Stade’s father based on a mastery of the breath and a commitment to the
who was killed in World War II two months before her birth. even scale. These virtues are not understood by the vast ma-
Frederica von Stade is a prolific recording artist, with more jority of teachers today. For example, the even scale is often
than sixty CD and DVD recordings in all genres including described as singing with the same voice for the entire range of
complete operas, aria albums, recitals, and crossover albums. the voice. Bartoli is a master of the stile martellato (hammered
She is particularly esteemed for her interpretations of French style) with which she executes rapid fiorature. This is often
mélodies. erroneously described as “aspirated singing,” which it most
Of the younger group of altos, the Italian Cecilia Bartoli (b. assuredly is not.7
1966) has to be considered as among the very best. I especially Bartoli’s stage debut was at the age of nine as the shep-
admire her scholarship and technical command that enables herd boy in Tosca, then she went on to further study at the
her to revive some of the forgotten masterpieces of the past. Accademia di Santa Cecilia, a venerable institution that has
Her album Sacrificium, which features music written for the produced many of the world’s greatest musicians. At the age
castrati, is impressive. She also has made a study of the career of nineteen, Cecilia attracted the attention of Christopher
of Maria Malibran in her album Maria, recorded in 2007, Raeburn (1928–2009), a producer for Decca Records who
which includes “Qui la voce” from I puritani, which Bellini became her trusted adviser. Her professional debut was in
wrote for Malibran but never was performed by her. She has Verona in 1987, and the following year she sang Rosina at
206 Chapter 25
the Schwetzingen Festival, the Zurich Opera, and the Co-
logne Opera. Bartoli soon attracted the attention of Herbert
von Karajan (1908–1989), Daniel Barenboim (b. 1942), and
Nikolaus Harnoncourt (b. 1929), with whom she was soon
working. At first she concentrated on Mozart roles such as
Dorabella and Zerlina with these conductors, which deepened
her already innate musicality and soon attracted international
attention. In 1990 she made her debut at the Opéra Bastille
as Cherubino and at the Hamburg State Opera as Idamante
in Idomeneo. Bartoli’s La Scala debut as Isolier in Le Comte
Ory in 1991 placed her firmly among the great Rossini singers
of her time, although she was only twenty-five. In 1996 she
debuted at the Metropolitan as Despina in Cosi fan tutte and
the following year returned as Angelina in La Cenerentola. To
demonstrate her versatility, Cecilia also sang Susanna there in
1998. In 2000 she sang Donna Elvira for the Deutsche Oper
in Berlin. These are roles that are listed as soprano but that lie
well within the alto range.
In 2005 Bartoli took on the role of Cleopatra in Handel’s
Giulio Cesare and has increasingly collaborated with eminent
Baroque ensembles such as Il Giardino Armonico and Les Arts
Florissants and performed and recorded music from classi-
cal composers such as Gluck, Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741),
Haydn, and Salieri. We have mentioned Bartoli’s interest
in early-nineteenth-century repertoire. In 2008, she revived
Halévy’s Clari (written for Malibran) at the Zurich Opera.
In 2012, Cecilia Bartoli was named the artistic director of
the Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Under her direction and with
her own performances, the festival has flourished, resulting in
record ticket sales. In 1995, she was awarded the title Chevalier
de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France.
As I write in 2015, there is an all-American alto who, at
the zenith of her worldwide career, is making friends for
classical music in such unlikely venues as the World Series.
Kansas City is proud of Joyce DiDonato (b. 1969), born Joyce
Figure 25.5.  Joyce DiDonato as Rosina by Ken Howard. Cour-
tesy Metropolitan Opera Archives.
Flaherty, who performed “The Star Spangled Banner” for her
hometown team, the Royals, in the seventh game of the 2014
World Series. DiDonato projects a sincerity and infectious
enthusiasm for her work that is truly arresting. Her exemplary
technique, especially in repertoire by Handel and Rossini,
places her on the highest levels of her art.
Joyce’s early career is a familiar American story of a girl who
became interested in opera only in her junior year in college,
attended the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, and then
went through several apprentice programs singing supporting
roles and winning important competitions. Her professional
career began in 1998 when she was engaged by several regional
opera companies where she created roles in Mark Adamo’s
(b. 1962) Little Women and Tod Machover’s (b. 1953) Resur-
rection. However, the paths leading to her future reputation
began with Cherubino for Santa Fe and Isabella in L’Italiana
in Algeri for the New Israeli Opera.
DiDonato’s career took a quantum leap when she appeared
at La Scala as Angelina in La Cenerentola in the 2000–2001
season. The following year featured DiDonato’s debuts for
several opera companies, including Dorabella in Washington,
Sesto in Handel’s Giulio Cesare for the Netherlands Opera, Ro-
sina for the Opéra National de Paris, Cherubino for the Bavar-
ian State Opera in Munich under Zubin Mehta (b. 1936), as
well as a return to Santa Fe for Annio in Mozart’s La clemenza
di Tito. The concert highlight was a performance of Vivaldi’s
Gloria at La Scala.
During 2002 and 2003, Joyce debuted in Jake Heggie’s
Dead Man Walking at the New York City Opera, Sharp Ears
in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen with John Eliot Gardiner
(b. 1943) at the Royal Opera House in London, and Rosina
in Tokyo. In the same year, DiDonato began her relationship
with the Rossini Festival in Pesaro with the eponymous role
of Adina and also reprised Cherubino with the Opéra Bastille.
Her concert duties included a tour with Les Musiciens de
Louvre in Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été and her Carnegie Hall debut
in Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
The following season (2003–2004), Rosina was the role in
which DiDonato made her San Francisco debut, as well as in
a return to Houston. She appeared at the Netherlands Opera
and the festival in Aix-en-Provence as Idamante in Mozart’s
Idomeneo. The season also included many concert perfor-
mances such as those with the Orchestre National de France
and the Hollywood Bowl.
Continuing her bel canto success, Joyce sang Elisabetta in
Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda for the Grand Théâtre de Genève,
La Cenerentola at La Scala, and Rosina in a new production
at Pesaro during the 2004–2005 season. The following season
she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cherubino and
also sang Stéphano in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. After Rosina
at the Royal Opera House in London, DiDonato returned to
Geneva for her first Sesto in La clemenza di Tito and began a
collaboration with William Christie (b. 1944) and Les Arts
Florissants in Handel’s oratorio Hercules (1745) at the Brook-
lyn Academy of Music and the Barbican Theater in London.
 Contemporary Alto Singers 207
She then assumed the eponymous role in Cendrillon by Mas-
senet in Santa Fe.
Strauss was the centerpiece of DiDonato’s 2006–2007 sea-
son when she sang the composer in Ariadne auf Naxos at the
Teatro Real in Madrid and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier in
San Francisco. She returned to the Met as Rosina and reprised
Idamante for the Opera National in Paris and Angelina for
Houston. She also did an extensive recital tour of the United
States and Europe. In the following season, DiDonato debuted
at the Liceu in Barcelona as Angelina and as Rosina at the
Lyric Opera of Chicago. She continued her forays into the
Handel repertoire with Ariodante (1735) and Alcina (1735) in
Geneva and also recorded a recital of Handel arias in Brussels.
DiDonato also sang a role that was to become a favorite of hers
(and many other great altos), Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e I
Montecci with the Opéra Bastille.
In 2009, DiDonato was performing Rosina at Covent Gar-
den when she slipped and broke her right fibula. She finished
the performance on crutches and sang the remaining five
performances from a wheelchair, a feat that surely earned her
the title of “trooper.” She returned to Houston for Berlioz’s
Béatrice et Bénédict and back to the Opéra National in Paris for
Idamante, then debuted at the Vienna State Opera as Rosina.
DiDonato also sang several orchestral concerts, including the
New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Orches-
tra with James Levine.
In 2011, DiDonato reprised Isolier in Le comte Ory at the
Met and in 2012 took over the role of Mary Stuart in Maria
Stuarda at Houston. In 2013 she began a series of perfor-
mances of what has become a signature role of hers, Elena in
Rossini’s La donna del lago with a new production at Covent
Garden. She reprised the role at Santa Fe and then in 2014 had
a triumph singing the part at the Metropolitan Opera. Elena
was created by the great Isabella Colbran and Joyce DiDonato
recorded a wonderful CD of Colbran arias called Colbran
the Muse. She is a prolific recording artist and has won many
awards and honors—a great artist indeed.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF
CONTEMPORARY ALTO ARTISTS
The following are brief thumbnail sketches of well-known
alto artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, some
of whom have been briefly mentioned in the preceding text.
All are worthy of mention, but space limitations prevent more
thorough investigation of their careers. However, since we now
live in the Information Age, I invite readers to follow up by
reading about and listening to their favorites in greater depth.
Betty Allen (1927–2009) was an operatic mezzo-soprano
who helped break down many racial barriers in the world of
classical music. A special favorite of Leonard Bernstein, Allen
appeared many times with the New York Philharmonic, where
she was known for her performances of the works of American
composers. Allen also appeared with many of the great artists
of her time. In later years she founded the Harlem School for
the Arts and taught at the Manhattan School of Music.
Marian Anderson (1897–1993) was an iconic artist whose
rich, resonant contralto voice was counted among the great-
est of the century. Having no dramatic training, Anderson
refused numerous European operatic assignments, appearing
only in recital and orchestral performances between 1925 and
1965. In 1939 she was denied permission by the Daughters of
the American Revolution to sing a concert for a mixed audi-
ence in Constitution Hall. An indignant Eleanor Roosevelt
arranged for an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial,
instead, for an audience of 75,000, and millions on the radio.
This concert was one of the turning points against racism in
America. In 1955 Rudolf Bing engaged Marian Anderson as
Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera, breaking the color barrier at
the Metropolitan.
Agnes Baltsa (b. 1943) is a leading Greek mezzo-soprano
who debuted in Frankfurt as Cherubino in 1968. She was a
favorite of Herbert von Karajan at Salzburg and was named
Kammersängerin by the Vienna Staatsoper in 1980. Baltsa’s
best-known role is Carmen, and she has also appeared in a
wide variety of parts such as Dorabella, Rosina, Angelina,
Arsace in Semiramide, Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri, Santuzza,
Dalila, and the Verdi heroines Amneris, Preziosilla in La forza
del destino, Azucena, Eboli, Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i
Montecchi, and the title role in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda.
Fedora Barbieri (1920–2003) was an Italian mezzo-so-
prano with one of the longest careers in operatic history. She
made her debut in 1940 and sang into the 1990s. Barbieri
made her Met debut on Rudolf Bing’s opening night on No-
vember 6, 1950, as Eboli in Don Carlo and subsequently sang
ninety-six performances of eleven operas there. Fedora Barbieri
was a frequent partner of as well as a close friend to Maria Cal-
las in the 1950s. Her portrayal of Amneris on the recording of
Aida with Jussi Björling (1911–1960) and the Verdi Requiem
conducted by Toscanini are classics.
Cathy Berberian (1925–1983) was born in Attleboro,
Massachusetts, to Armenian parents. She was a force in
contemporary avant-garde music as a singer, composer, and
author. Berberian was married to the composer Luciano Be-
rio (1925–2003) from 1950 to 1964. Berio, Igor Stravinsky,
William Walton, Hans Werner Henze (1926–2012), Sylvano
Bussotti (b. 1931), Anthony Burgess (1917–1993), and John
Cage (1912–1992) composed music written for her special vo-
cal abilities. These included a three-octave range and an assort-
ment of shrieks, hisses, grunts, growls, and shouts. Although
a resident of Italy for most of her life, Berberian was also a
teacher at Vancouver University and the Rheinische Musik-
schule in Cologne as well as in master classes all over the world.
Jane Berbié (b. 1931) is a French mezzo-soprano par-
ticularly associated with the lyric roles of Mozart and Rossini.
She made her debut in Toulouse as Nicklause in Les contes
d’Hoffmann in 1954. From then on she appeared in the stan-
dard French repertoire such as Carmen, Mignon, and Roméo
et Juliette and made her debut at the Paris Opéra in 1959
208 Chapter 25
as Concepción in Ravel’s L’heure espagnole. In the 1960s her
other roles included several characters in Ravel’s L’enfant et
les sortilèges, Gontran in Emmanuel Chabrier’s (1841–1994)
Une éducation manquée, and Ascanio in Benvenuto Cellini by
Berlioz. From then on Berbié began engagements at La Scala,
the Royal Opera House in London, the Liceau in Barcelona,
and the festivals in Salzburg and Glyndebourne.
Frances Bible (1919–2001), an American mezzo-soprano
born in Sackets Harbor, New York, would be my candidate
for the most underappreciated alto artist of the twentieth
century. Bible had a thirty-year career at the New York City
Opera where she sang a vast range of repertoire. She did sing
in other companies, such as Houston and San Francisco and
very briefly in Europe, but was basically a hometown girl.
Martin Bernheimer (b. 1936) neatly summed up her career in
an obituary in Opera News:
Frances Bible was cheated by destiny. She never quite achieved
the international recognition she deserved. Bible had it all—a
mellow, wide-ranging mezzo-soprano, an attractive stage pres-
ence, genuine theatrical flair, a probing mind and a technique
that allowed her to sing bel canto filigree one night, Verdian
drama the next. She was one of the rare American singers
who savor the English language. She understood the value of
economy, never stooping to easy effects. Perhaps she was too
versatile, too tasteful and—dare one say it?—too intelligent for
her own good.8
Bible was known for trouser roles such as Cherubino,
Octavian, Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Nicklausse, Siebel, Hänsel, and of course, Cherubino, but she
was also appreciated as Amneris, Azucena, Ulrica, Ottavia in
Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex
of Stravinsky, the title role in The Rape of Lucretia by Britten,
and Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, among many other
parts. Frances Bible also created several roles in the adventure-
some repertory of the New York City Opera.
Elaine Bonazzi (b. 1936) is another versatile alto performer
whose major career was centered on the New York City Opera,
as well as the Sante Fe and the Washington National Opera.
An excellent actress, Bonazzi specialized in character parts
such as Gertrude Stein in Virgil Thompson’s (1896–1989)
The Mother of Us All, Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress by
Stravinsky, and the secretary in Menotti’s The Consul, among
many other parts. Bonazzi created several roles in contempo-
rary operas by Dominick Argento (b. 1927), David Carlson
(b. 1952), Carlisle Floyd (b. 1926), Gian Carlo Menotti, Ned
Rorem (b. 1923), and Thomas Pasatieri.
Olga Borodina (b. 1963) is a Russian dramatic mezzo-
soprano who has established an outstanding career in all the
major opera houses of the world. She joined the Kirov opera in
the role of Siebel while still a student. Borodina won interna-
tional competitions and made television broadcasts as Marina
in Boris Godunov and Hélène Buzekova in War and Peace,
which brought her to the attention of Western producers. Ma-
rina was the role she sang in her debuts in Paris in 1992 and
Salzburg and the Metropolitan Opera in 1997. Further Rus-
sian roles include Lyubasha in The Tsar’s Bride, Laura in The
Stone Guest by Dargomyzhsky, and the title role in Musorgsky’s
Salammbô (in concert).
Borodina is esteemed in French repertoire and made her
Covent Garden debut in 1992 as Dalila opposite Placidó Do-
mingo (b. 1941). She also sang Carmen at the Met to acclaim
but walked out of La Scala when asked to sing the original ver-
sion with spoken dialogue. She sang Angelina at Covent Gar-
den in 1994 and in her debut at San Francisco in 1995. Verdi
was represented by her first Amneris in Vienna in 1998 and
the Met in 2001. On the night of the premiere of L’italiana
in Algeri at the Vienna Staatsoper in 2006 it was announced
from the stage that
Unfortunately, during the rehearsals an atmosphere developed
which has made the Vienna State Opera, the management, de-
cide to distance itself from an engagement [with Borodina], not
just for this production, but also for all others.9
Agnes Baltsa, although having an injured leg, graciously
agreed to sing the performance.
Grace Bumbry (b. 1937) was another alto who was not
satisfied with the range of repertoire afforded mezzo-sopranos
and who ventured into the higher realms. Her wide range and
excellent coloratura technique enabled her to emulate the feats
of some of her predecessors like Pasta, who created the role
of Norma. We would probably not be amiss if we categorized
Bumbry as a soprano sfogato. However, for my taste, I prefer
her in the alto roles that required less physical effort for her.
Nevertheless, her achievements in the soprano repertoire dur-
ing the 1970s and 1980s was impressive, with title roles in Tu-
randot, Salome, Medea, Norma, and Aida, as well as Elisabeth
in Tannhäuser, both of the Verdi Leonoras (Il trovatore and La
forza del destino), Lady Macbeth, Elvira in Ernani, and Chi-
méne in Massenet’s Le Cid and Bess (Porgy and Bess).
Bumbry was probably the outstanding Carmen of her
generation and in the alto repertoire to which she returned
in the 1990s. She scored many successes, especially as Venus
in Tannhäuser, which garnered a thirty-minute ovation at
Bayreuth. Other alto parts were Dalila, Cassandre and Didon
in Les Troyens, the eponymous Hérodiade, and Gluck’s Orfeo,
Azucena, Ulrica, Poppea, and Baba, and the Turk in Stravin-
sky’s The Rake’s Progress.
Viorica Cortez (b. 1935) was born in Romania and later
naturalized as a French citizen. Cortez had a big, dark-colored,
resonant voice, sang with great passion, and was a beautiful
woman as well. Living in Romania, which may have been the
most hardline of the communist countries, she had great dif-
ficulty in gaining traction at the beginning of her career. She
graduated from the Bucharest Conservatory in 1964, won
important competitions, and was engaged by the Romanian
National Opera in 1967. She toured the country and several
neighboring lands as Mignon, Princess Eboli, Amneris, Azu-
cena, Leonora in La Favorita, and Charlotte in Werther. In the
 Contemporary Alto Singers 209
same year Georg Solti (1912–1997) engaged Cortez for a new
production of Carmen at Covent Garden in London, a part she
subsequently sang 278 times. By 1970 Cortez was in demand
in opera houses worldwide, but like other artists in Eastern
Bloc countries, she had grave difficulty in getting out of Roma-
nia and lost many engagements for political reasons. She was
in Naples for a series of performances of Samson et Dalila with
Mario del Monaco (1915–1982) and decided not to return to
Romania. From then on, her career accelerated with debuts
at La Scala (Samson et Dalila), the Metropolitan (Carmen),
and Chicago, where she began a rewarding partnership with
Monserrat Caballé as Elisabetta in Maria Stuarda and subse-
quently in Norma, Don Carlo, and Il trovatore in many opera
houses. During the 1970s Cortez added such divergent roles
as Klytämnestra in Elektra, Jocasta in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex,
Marina in Boris Godunov, and Tancredi in Tancredi.
The frenetic activities of the previous two decades began
to catch up with Cortez in the 1980s and she was frequently
indisposed. However, she was still able to fulfill many impor-
tant engagements and became more cautious with her sched-
ule. Cortez sang seven seasons with the Met with sixty-four
performances of six works, including Giulietta in Les contes
d’Hoffmann. In Paris she took on Fenena in Nabucco with
Grace Bumbry and Sherrill Milnes (b. 1935), as well as Ulrica
in Un ballo in maschera. During the 1980s and 1990s, Cortez
began to transition into less vocally demanding but more the-
atrical parts such as La Cieca in La Gioconda, Madame Flora in
The Medium, La Principessa in Suor Angelica, La Marquise de
Berkenfield in Donizetti’s La fille du regiment, Dame Quickly,
and Madame de Croissy in Les dialogues des Carmélites. Cortez
was still singing into the 2000s with several character roles
including that favorite of older altos—the old countess in
Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame.
Jan DeGaetani (1933–1989) was an alto singer known
for her exceptional musicianship, accuracy, intelligence, wide
range, and technique, which enabled her to be the go-to singer
of contemporary music of the 1960s and 1970s. DeGaetani
recorded a definitive rendition of Perriot Lunaire, Arnold
Schoenberg’s great cycle that utilizes Sprechstimme or speech
song. She also premiered George Crumb’s (b. 1929) Ancient
Voices of Children, among many other works the composer
wrote for her. DeGaetani, a student of Sergius Kagen (1909–
1964) at Juilliard, was also a great lieder singer but appeared in
opera very rarely. DeGaetani taught at Eastman and numbered
Dawn Upshaw (b. 1960) and René Fleming (b. 1959) among
her pupils. She died in Rochester, New York, of leukemia at
the age of fifty-six.
Helge Dernesch (b. 1939) is an Austrian alto singer who
also ventured into soprano territory, first as a lyric, then dra-
matic, and ultimately returned to more comfortable territory
as a mezzo-soprano. Her voice has great richness and power,
and her strikingly handsome stage appearance and intense act-
ing make her a compelling performer.10
Dernesch made her debut as Marina in Boris Godunov at the
Berne Opera, and Wiesbaden, Cologne, and Bayreuth soon
followed. At the Wagner Festival she sang Freia, Guntrune, and
Eva, followed by the Scottish Opera, where she sang Fidelio
(1970), Brünnhilde, Isolde, Ariadne, the Marschallin, and
Cassandra in Les Troyens. At Salzburg she sang Brünnhilde in
Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, Leonore (Fidelio), and Isolde.
At Covent Garden she added Sieglinde, the dyer’s wife, the nurse
(Die Frau ohne Schatten), and Chrysothemis. Fidelio was the role
for her Chicago (1971) and Vienna Staatsoper (1972) debuts.
Dernesch then returned to alto roles like Klytämnestra and
Mistress Quickly. In 1985 she sang Marfa in Khovanshchina
for her debut at the Met, and subsequently Olovsky in Die
Fledermaus, Herodias in Salome, Erda and Fricka (Das Rheingold
and Die Walküre), Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Adelaide in
Strauss’s Arabella, the nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten, Madame
de Croissy in Les Dialogues des Carmélites, and Leocadia Begbick
in The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Kurt Weill.
Mignon Dunn (b. 1928) was born in Tennessee and made
her official debut in 1955 with the New Orleans Opera as Car-
men along with the great bass Norman Treigle (1927–1975)
in his first Escamillo. The following year Dunn debuted at the
New York City Opera as the fourth lady in Troilus and Cres-
sida by William Walton, returning sporadically to the New
York City Opera over the years. In 1958 Mignon Dunn sang
the first of her 658 performances, both large and small, as a
pillar of the Metropolitan Opera. She debuted in the role of
the nurse in Boris Godunov and went on to sing all the major
roles in the operatic canon for mezzo-soprano—Amneris,
Ulrica, Santuzza, Eboli, Klytämnestra, the nurse, Laura (La
Gioconda), Waltraute, Kundry, Herodias, Venus, Brangäne,
and Dalila, to name a few. Dunn also sang with the Teatro
alla Scala, Vienna Staatsoper, Covent Garden, Paris Opéra,
Bol’shoy Opera, Teatro Colón, and the Verona Arena. Mignon
Dunn has been a member of the faculty at the Manhattan
School of Music since 1988.
Brigitte Fassbaender (b. 1939) is a distinguished Ger-
man mezzo-soprano who studied voice with her father, Willi
Domgraf-Fassbaender (1897–1978), a fine baritone known
particularly for his performances of Mozart. Brigitte made her
debut at the Bavarian State Opera as Nicklausse in The Tales
of Hoffmann in 1961. She sang one of her signature roles,
Octavian, in Munich in 1967 and debuted with it at Covent
Garden in 1971 and the Metropolitan in 1974. She has por-
trayed Prince Orlofsky in the movies, appeared frequently on
television, and recorded numerous lieder, concert works, and
also speaking roles since her retirement from opera.
Fassbaender has many talents. She was opera director at the
Staatstheater Braunschweig from 1995 to 1997 and became
the Intendantin (managing director) of the Tiroler Landres-
theater in Innsbruck from 1999 to 2012, where she wrote
the libretti for two successful musicals. Fassbaender holds the
title Kammersängerin from both the Vienna Staatsoper and
the Bavarian State Opera and is an honorary Chevalier of the
Légion d’honneur.
Maureen Forrester (1930–2010) was a distinguished Ca-
nadian singer who had much in common with Kathleen
210 Chapter 25
Ferrier. Both had extraordinary contralto voices, came from
modest circumstances, left school early to go to work to con-
tribute to the family finances, were esteemed by Bruno Walter,
and were famous for their performances of Gustav Mahler’s
works. Forrester made her concert debut in the Beethoven
Ninth with the Montreal Symphony under Otto Klemperer in
December 1953.11 She then toured Canada and Europe with
Jeunesses Musicales. Forrester’s New York debut in 1956 was
an extraordinarily successful Town Hall recital that garnered
engagements with several American symphony orchestras.
She was engaged by Bruno Walter for a recording of Mahler’s
Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) and worked with Walter on the
interpretation of Mahler’s works.
Forrester did perform opera and one of her most successful
operatic stints was as Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at the
New York City Opera with Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle
in 1966, which was recorded. In 1975 she also sang Erda in
Das Rheingold and Siegfried and Ulrica in Ballo in maschera
at the Met. Maureen Forrester was a champion of works by
Canadian composers. One of my enduring memories was her
performance of the searing cycle I Never Saw Another Butterfly
by Srul Irving Glick (1934–2002) set to poems by the children
of the Terezin concentration camp in what is now the Czech
Republic. Maureen Forrester died in Toronto on June 16,
2010, after a long battle with dementia.
Elïna Garanča (b. 1976), a Latvian lyric mezzo-soprano, is
having an outstanding career, especially in operas of Mozart
and Rossini. Garanča’s performance of Annio in La clemenza
di Tito at Salzburg attracted international attention, and she
was engaged by the Vienna Staatsoper for Charlotte in Werther
and Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, repeating Dorabella in Paris
directed by Patrice Chéreau (1944–2013). Garanča’s Metro-
politan Opera debut came in 2008 as Rosina in Il barbiere di
Siviglia to enthusiastic reviews, and she stepped up to Carmen
in 2010.
Vivica Geneaux (b. 1969) is a light mezzo-soprano from
Fairbanks, Alaska, who has specialized in Baroque opera with
an emphasis on musico repertoire. Of her twenty-eight major
parts, twenty are pants roles. Geneaux also ventures into the
Rossini repertoire with Rosina, Angelina, and Isabella—roles
she has sung in more than two hundred performances all over
the world. Like Cecilia Bartoli, Geneaux is a musical scholar
and has performed and recorded works commemorating leg-
endary artists of the distant past such as Farinelli and Faustina
Bordoni and reviving forgotten works by Hasse and Vivaldi.
Gail Gilmore (b. 1950) is an American mezzo-soprano who
was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in New Orleans.
After graduating from the Music School of Indiana University
with a master’s degree, Gilmore began her stage career in Gies-
sen, Germany, as Eboli in Don Carlos and soon moved on to
Krefeld, where she was assigned Kavalier roles such as Cheru-
bino, Hänsel, and Octavian. However, the direction of her
future career became apparent when Gilmore sang Brangäne in
Tristan und Isolde. She moved on to the Hessisches Staatsthe-
ater Wiesbaden, where she added Adriano in Wagner’s Rienzi
and Venus in Tannhäuser to her repertoire. Gilmore first sang
the role she became best known for—Kundry in Parsifal—in
Nürnberg. Her performance of Kundry in Frankfurt led to
engagements at La Fenice in Venice and then on to the Met-
ropolitan in 1986. She added Venus in Tannhäuser, Fricka in
Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, and the composer in Ariadne
from 1987 to 1988 at the Met. In the Arena di Verona, Gil-
more sang Amneris, Ulrica, and Carmen opposite José Car-
reras (b. 1946). Gail Gilmore could probably also be classified
as a soprano sfogato since she had an exceptionally wide range
in more than forty roles and took on Ortrud as well as Le-
onore in Fidelio, Tosca, Turandot, Elektra, and Salome. Since
2010, in addition to teaching voice, Gilmore has been a guest
professor of social psychology at the University of Würzburg-
Schweinfurt in Germany.
Susan Graham (b. 1960) from Roswell, New Mexico, is
one of the outstanding artists at the Metropolitan Opera and
also one of the most versatile singers on the contemporary
scene. An excellent musician, Susan studied piano for thirteen
years. She was a winner of the National Council Auditions in
1988 and has since made 158 appearances at the Met, first
singing supporting roles and then many important parts such
as Cherubino, Octavian, Charlotte in Werther, the title role in
Iphigénie en Tauride, Hanna in The Merry Widow, and many
others. She created Jordan Baker in 1999 in The Great Gatsby
by John Harbison (b. 1938) to excellent reviews.
Graham’s international debut came in 1993 at Salzburg as
Cecilius in Mozart’s Lucio Silla and then on to Covent Garden
in 1994 as Chérubin in Massenet’s opera. She also appeared
at La Scala, the Vienna Staatsoper, Glyndebourne, and the
Paris Opéra, where her affinity for the French repertoire was
appreciated in Berlioz’s Béatrice and Bénédict and Marguerite
in La damnation de Faust as well as Charlotte in Werther. The
personable Susan Graham is often called upon to host events
like the Metropolitan Council’s National Auditions and Ken-
nedy Center Awards. She sang for George W. Bush’s second
inauguration and Senator Edward Kennedy’s funeral. She is
also a U.S. delegate to UNESCO, the United Nations Educa-
tional, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Julia Hamari (b. 1942) is a Hungarian alto who has had an
extensive career in both opera and concert repertoire. Hamari
made her solo debut in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion conducted
by Karl Richter (1926–1981) in 1966 and has been at the
highest levels of the musical world ever since. An admired
musician as well as a great singer, Hamari has collaborated
with the world’s greatest conductors. She has had a prolific
career in performing and recording the music of Bach with
conductors Helmuth Rilling (b. 1933), Helmut Winscher-
mann (b. 1920), Wolfgang Gönnenwein (1933–2015), Karl
Münchinger (1915–1990), Karl Böhm, Lamberto Gardelli
(1915–1998), and Carlo Maria Giulini (1914–2005).
Hamari’s operatic debut was Mercedes in Carmen, which
she sang with Grace Bumbry and Jon Vickers conducted by
Herbert von Karajan. Later she assayed the title role at the
Staatsoper Stuttgart under Carlos Kleiber (1930–2004).
 Contemporary Alto Singers 211
Hamari was well known for Rossini and Mozart roles: Malcom
in La donna del lago, Angelina in La Cenerentola, Rosina in Il
barbiere di Siviglia, Dorabella, Despina, Cherubino, and Sesto
in La clemenza di Tito. Her Met debut was as Rosina in 1982.
In 1989 Hamari began teaching at the Hochschule für Musik,
Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, and the Oregon Bach
Festival (since 1982).
Margaret Harshaw (1909–1997) was an American mezzo-
soprano who moved up to dramatic soprano, where she
remained. Harshaw was also a renowned teacher at Indiana
University and the Curtiss Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
She was another alto singer who worked for the telephone
company upon graduation from high school. Harshaw en-
tered the Curtiss School of Music in 1932 and won several
competitions. Her professional debut was as Azucena for the
Philadelphia Operatic Society in 1934. Harshaw entered the
graduate program at Julliard in 1936, where she studied with
Anna Schön-Rene. For the next few years she sang at small
venues like Chautauqua, and in 1942 she won the Metropoli-
tan Opera’s “Auditions of the Air.”
Margaret Harshaw debuted at the Met as the second norn
in Götterdämmerung on November 23, 1942, and for nine sea-
sons became the mezzo-soprano pillar of the Wagnerian wing
at the Met. Her roles included Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde,
Erda, Flosshilde and Fricka in Das Rheingold, Erda in Siegfried,
the first norn and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Fricka and
Schwertleite in Die Walküre, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger,
Mary in Der Flegende Holländer, Ortrud in Lohengrin, Venus in
Tannhäuser, and Kundry in Parsifal. In addition, she was a pow-
erful Verdi mezzo as Azucena, Ulrica, Amneris, and Mistress
Quickly, besides a number of other roles by various composers.
In 1950 Harshaw moved up into the hochdramatischer sopran
category as Senta in Der Flegende Holländer and became the
leading Wagnerian soprano from 1954 to 1964 at the Metro-
politan as Brünnhilde in all the Ring operas, Elisabeth, Isolde,
Sieglinde, as well as Kundry and Ortrud. With a total of thirty-
nine roles in twenty-five works at the Metropolitan for a total
of 375 performances, Margaret Harshaw portrayed more Wag-
nerian heroines than any other singer in history.12 She was also a
guest artist in many opera houses in the United States, Europe,
and South America, such as the Opéra National de Paris, San
Francisco, Royal Opera in London, the Glyndebourne Festival,
and the opera companies in Philadelphia.
Elisabeth Höngen (1906–1997) was a German mezzo-
soprano who was known for her expressive musicality and
arresting stage presence. She made her debut in Wuppertal
in 1933 and sang Lady Macbeth during her first season. She
was engaged at Düsseldorf and Dresden and then joined the
Vienna Staatsoper in 1943. After the war Höngen appeared
at Covent Garden in 1947 as Dorabella and Herodias and at
Salzburg from 1948 to 1950, where she sang Orpheus, Clairon
in Strauss’s Capriccio, Lucretia in Britten’s opera, and created
the role of Bebett in Julietta by Heimo Erbse (1924–2005). In
1950 Höngen participated in the famous live recording of The
Ring from La Scala with Kirsten Flagstad and Wilhelm Furt-
wängler conducting. In 1951 she sang at Bayreuth as Fricka
and Waltraute and joined the Metropolitan in 1952, where she
sang Herodias, Klytämnestra, and Waltraute. Besides the roles
mentioned, her repertoire included Amneris, Eboli, Venus and
Adriano (Rienzi), Carmen, the nurse and the dyer’s wife (Die
Frau ohne Schatten), and Baba the Turk (The Rake’s Progress).
Vesselina Kasarova was born in 1969 in Stara Zagora, Bul-
garia, and began the study of piano at the age of four, earned her
degree as a concert pianist, and switched to the study of voice
in 1987. Kasarova made her debut at the Zurich Opera in 1989
singing Waltraute and the second norn in Götterdämmerung.
She then moved on to the Vienna Staatsoper in 1991 where she
debuted as Rosina and, in Salzburg in the same year, as Annio
in La clemenza di Tito under Sir Colin Davis (1927–2013).
From 1992 in Salzburg she performed in several other Mozart
operas—Idomeneo, Mitridate, Cosi fan tutte, Ombra felice (a pas-
ticcio)—and Berlioz’s Le damnation de Faust. In her later years,
Vesselina Kasarova took on Carmen and other heavier parts such
as Eboli, Dalila, Charlotte, Venus, and Marina, while continu-
ing to sing bel canto repertoire. She was named Bayerische Kam-
mersängerin in 2005 and Östereichische Kammersängerin in 2010.
Ildikó Komlósi (b. 1959), a Hungarian mezzo-soprano,
began her career at the very top as the winner of the Pavarotti
International Competition in 1986 with a performance of
the Verdi Requiem opposite the great tenor. Soon important
engagements followed at the Vienna Staatsoper, La Scala,
Frankfurt Staatsoper, Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile,
the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall in New York, the
Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
in Florence, the Arena di Verona, the Royal Opera House Cov-
ent Garden, and Théâtre de La Monnaie in Brussels.
Komlósi’s repertoire is eclectic: Judith in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s
Castle, Elvira in Don Giovanni, Carmen, Santuzza in Cavalleria
Rusticana, Amneris, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Kundry in Parsifal,
Princess Eboli, Preziosilla in La forza del destino, the nurse in
Die Frau ohne Schatten, Cassandre in Les Troyens, Laura in La
Gioconda, and Charlotte in Werther.
Magdalena Kožená (b. 1973), a Czech lyric mezzo-
soprano, is the daughter of two scientists and is married to Sir
Simon Rattle (b. 1955). Kožená (Lady Rattle) was signed by
Deutsche Grammophon early in her career and has made a
number of recordings featuring Baroque composers with emi-
nent conductors such as Marc Minkowski (b. 1962). Kožená
has presented recitals all over the world including Tokyo, New
York, and all the major cities of Europe.
In opera, the music of Mozart is featured in Kožená’s career—
Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito at Edinburgh, Cherubino at the
Aix-en-Provence Festival, Zerlina at Salzburg under Nicolaus
Harnoncourt, Idamante at Glyndebourne, and Dorabella,
Zerlina, and Cherubino at the Metropolitan. She has also been
featured in earlier works—Gluck’s Orphée under John Eliot Gar-
diner, Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea in Vi-
enna, and both Sesto and Cleopatra in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. A
completely different genre for Kožená is Melisande in Debussy’s
masterpiece, which she reprised in several different productions,
212 Chapter 25
including the centenary performance at the Opéra Comique in
Paris under Minkowski.
Jean Kraft (b. 1940) is another gifted alto who began as a pia-
nist and became enthralled with singing at a young age. In 1960
Kraft made her professional debut at the New York City Opera
as the mother in Hugo Weisgall’s (1912–1997) Six Characters in
Search of an Author and continued with the company during the
1960s. Kraft was an outstanding musician who played clarinet
and trumpet as well as the piano and was assigned a number of
contemporary parts as well as the traditional ones. While at the
New York City Opera she sang Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn
of the Screw, Maud Lowder in Douglas Moore’s (1893–1969)
The Wings of the Dove, death in Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, Sara
Chicken in Robert Ward’s (1917–2013) The Lady from Colorado,
and Penelope in Help, Help, the Globolinks! by Menotti.
Jean Kraft was also very active at the Sante Fe Opera for
twenty-four years starting with her debut in 1965 as Adelaide
von Waldner in Strauss’s Arabella. Among many outstand-
ing appearances, Madame de Croissy in Les Dialogues des
Carmélites, Mother Goose in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress,
Margaret in Wozzeck and the Countess Geschwitz in Lulu by
Alban Berg, Ninon in the U.S. premiere of The Devils of Lou-
dun by Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933), Lapérouse in the U.S.
premiere of Aribert Reimann’s (b. 1936) Melusine, Kate Julian
in Britten’s Owen Wingrave, Genevieve in Pelléas et Mélisande,
Miss Pick in Paul Hindemith’s (1895–1963) News of the Day,
May in Hans Werner Henze’s We Come to the River, and Juno
in the world premiere of The Tempest by John Eaton (b. 1935)
are worthy of special attention.
Although never considered a star, Jean Kraft was extremely
valuable to the Metropolitan Opera, where she sang 784 per-
formances of forty-four roles in the 1970s and 1980s. Most
were comprimaria parts, but she did have the opportunity
to sing leading roles: Herodias in Salome, Ulrica, Federica in
Verdi’s Luisa Miller, Gertrud in Hänsel und Gretel, and Ma-
dame de Croissy, which could be considered her signature role.
Jennifer Larmore (b. 1958) is an American mezzo-soprano
from Atlanta, Georgia. Larmore has built an enviable reputa-
tion in the bel canto repertoire in important opera houses
throughout the world. Larmore made her professional debut
at the Opéra de Nice as Sesto in La clemenza di Tito in 1986
and sang her signature Rosina at Strasbourg in 1988. In 1992
Larmore made her Covent Garden debut as Rosina and at La
Scala as Isolier in Le comte Ory.
In 1994, Larmore won the prestigious Richard Tucker
Award and made her debut at Carnegie Hall as Romeo in Bell-
ini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi. She made her Metropolitan Op-
era debut as Rosina in 1995 and has followed with Angelina
in La Cenerentola, Hansel, Giulietta in Les contes d’Hoffmann,
the title role in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Isabella in L’italiana in
Algeri, Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Gertrude in Hamlet
by Ambroise Thomas, and Elizabeth Griffiths in the world
premiere of An American Tragedy by Tobias Picker (b. 1954).
Following the example of many other alto singers, Jennifer
Larmore began to move into the dramatic soprano territory
in 2012 with Lady Macbeth in Geneva and Kostelnicka in
Janáček’s Jenufa at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (1954–2006), whose life was
tragically cut short by breast cancer at the age of fifty-two,was
an artist whose total immersion in a work’s musical and dra-
matic content invited comparison to Magda Olivero (1910–
2014) and Maria Callas. Her portrayal of Myrtle Wilson in
the premiere of The Great Gatsby by John Harbison at the Met
elicited the following review in Opera News:
By far the the strongest characterization goes to Myrtle Wilson,
the floozy with whom Tom is having an affair. Lorraine Hunt
Lieberson, in an auspicious Met debut, made the most of this,
adapting the intensity and charisma that has made her the dar-
ling of Baroque-opera enthusiasts.13
Lieberson’s career was unusual in that she was the principal
violist of the San Jose Symphony and did not begin her profes-
sional singing career until she was in her thirties. She preferred
to work with ensembles that shared her artistic convictions and
that featured both Baroque opera and the works of living com-
posers. Lorraine met Peter Lieberson (1946–2011) at Santa Fe
where she was in his Ashoka’s Dream. Peter composed his Rilke
Songs and Neruda Songs for her, which both won posthumous
Grammy awards in 2007 and 2008 as best classical vocal
performances. Peter was diagnosed with cancer the year after
Lorraine’s death and passed away in 2011.
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s operatic career was quite
eclectic—she sang Theodora and Irene in Theodora, the title
roles of Ariodante and Serse, and Sesto in Giulio Cesare, all
by Handel, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Sesto in La
clemenza di Tito of Mozart, both Phèdre by Jean-Phillipe
Rameau and Phaedra by Benjamin Britten, Minerva in Il
ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and Ottavia in L’incoronazione di
Poppea by Monteverdi, Médée by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
(1643–1704), as well as Carmen, Mélisande, Charlotte in
Werther, Béatrice in Béatrice and Bénédict, and “a magnetic,
sensual Dido”14 in Les Troyens both by Berlioz.
Hunt Lieberson’s performances of concert repertoire were
acclaimed as much, if not more, than her appearances in opera.
Her interpretation of Bach’s Ich habe genug in Peter Sellars’s
(b. 1957) staging was memorialized in a loving obituary by
Anthony Tommasini (b. 1948).
In Cantata No. 82, “Ich Habe Genug” (“I Have Enough”) Ms.
Hunt-Lieberson, wearing a flimsy hospital gown and thick
woolen socks, her face contorted with pain and yearning, por-
trayed a terminally ill patient who, no longer able to endure
treatments, wants to let go and be comforted by Jesus. Dur-
ing one consoling aria, “Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen”
(“Slumber now, weary eyes”) she yanked tubes from her arms
and sang the spiraling melody with an uncanny blend of en-
nobling grace and unbearable sadness.15
Martha Lipton (1913–2006) was a familiar name to opera
listeners on the Met radio broadcasts of the 1940s and 1950s.
In her career from 1944 to 1961, Lipton sang 401 perfor-
 Contemporary Alto Singers 213
mances of twenty-nine works, often in supporting parts, but in
many leading roles as well. Her repertoire included Amneris,
Ulrica, Marina in Boris Godunov, Laura in La Gioconda, Mag-
dalene in Die Meistersinger, Hänsel, Brangäne, and Geneviéve
in Pelléas et Mélisande. In 1956 Lipton created the role of
Augusta Tabor in Baby Doe at the Central City Opera House.
Lipton was also a recording artist with Columbia Records
where she recorded Messiah with Eugene Ormandy (1899–
1985) and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Mahler’s Third
Symphony with Leonard Bernstein, and Anton Bruckner’s
(1824–1896) Te Deum with Bruno Walter. She joined the
faculty of Indiana University in 1960 where she was named
professor emeritus, teaching full time until 1983.
Jean [Browning] Madeira (1918–1972), an American con-
tralto, was born in Centralia, Illinois, and was a solo pianist
with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, then studied voice
at the Juilliard School, and made her professional debut as
Nancy in Martha by Friedrich von Flotow at the Chautauqua
Summer Opera in 1943. In 1947 Menotti chose her to alter-
nate with Marie Powers for a tour of Europe in The Medium.
Madeira made her debut at the Metropolitan the following
year as the first norn in Götterdämmerung, where she subse-
quently sang 368 performances of forty-four roles in thirty-
three works. Her career spanned from 1948 to 1971.
In 1955 Madeira sang in Europe with the Vienna Staatsoper
(Carmen, Azucena, Amneris, etc.) and Erda at Covent Garden,
Paris Opéra, and Bayreuth (1956). She sang Klytämnestra at
Salzburg (1956), which became one of her most memorable
roles. In 1958 Madeira created the role of Circe in Luigi Dal-
lapiccola’s (1904–1975) Ulisse.
Bernadette Manca di Nissa (b. 1954), an Italian contralto,
has sung leading roles at La Scala, San Carlo in Naples, La
Fenice, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, as well as Covent Garden
and the Liceu in Barcelona. Manca di Nissa studied at the
Mozarteum in Salzburg and developed a repertoire special-
izing in the music of Baroque composers as well as Rossini.
Her Handel roles include Ottone in Agrippina, Bradamante in
Alcina, Ino and Juno in Semele, and the eponymous Rinaldo,
while the Rossini parts are Arsace in Semiramide, Isaura as
well as the title role in Tancredi, Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri,
Pippo in La gazza ladra, and Modesta in Il viaggio a Reims.
Manca di Nissa is a prolific recording artist. Her recording of
“Dolci d’amore parole”( the original aria for Tancredi) is ex-
emplary. She has sung several world premieres of the music of
Luigi Nono (1924–1990), including Quando stanno morendo
(1982), Guai ai gelide mostri (1983), and Prometto, Tragedia
dell’ ascolto (1984), which was influential in avant-garde musi-
cal circles. Bernadette Manca di Nissa retired from singing in
2007 and is now a professor of singing at the Conservatorio di
Cagliari in the city of her birth.
Susanne Marsee (b. 1941) is an American lyric mezzo-
soprano who had a twenty-five-year career at the New York
City Opera and many other opera companies throughout the
United States and abroad. Marsee is an accomplished musi-
cian and an excellent actress who sang most of the lyric mezzo
repertoire such as the Rossini and Mozart heroines at the New
York City Opera. One of her most important accomplish-
ments was the creation of many parts in contemporary opera
such as Estella Drummle in Miss Havisham’s Fire and Bellino
in Casanova’s Homecoming by Dominick Argento, Mariana in
The Student from Salamanca by Jan Bach (b.1937), Rose in
Marilyn by Lorenzo Ferrero (b. 1951), Doña Manuela in La
loca by Menotti, and Shelly Ward in Angle of Repose by Andrew
Imbrie (1921–2007). Since her retirement in 1995, Susanne
Marsee has been a distinguished teacher at several institutions
of higher learning.
Franca Mattiucci (b. 1938) is an Italian mezzo-soprano
who also had a long international opera career from 1963 to
1987. She sang on all the important Italian stages such as La
Scala, La Fenice, the San Carlo, and Arena di Verona, as well
as other international venues—the Chicago Lyric, Hamburg,
Teatro Colón, Vienna Staatsoper, and so on. Her repertoire
included Verdi—Amneris, Azucena, Preziosilla in La forza
del destino, Fenena in Nabucco, Princess Eboli, Federica in
Luisa Miller, and Ulrica—as well as Carmen, Dalila, Mignon,
Climene in Pacini’s Saffo, Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena,
Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Lenora in La Favorita, and Santuzza.
After her retirement, Mattiucci began a second career as a voice
teacher.
Waltraud Meier (b. 1956) was born in Würtzburg, Ger-
many, and began her career as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana in
1976 at the local opera house and was engaged at Mannheim
(1976–1978) and then at Dortmund (1980–1983). She
made her international debut as Fricka at the Teatro Colón
in 1980 and continued to build her repertoire, technique,
and reputation in Hanover and Stuttgart until 1988. Meier’s
repertory then numbered thirty-five roles including Carmen,
Octavian, Fricka, Santuzza, and Azucena. In 1983 she debuted
at Bayreuth as Kundry, which became her signature role and
established her as one of the world’s leading Wagnerian sing-
ers. Meier added Waltraute and Brangäne to her Bayreuth
repertoire and continued to sing Kundry there until 1983.
She was engaged at Covent Garden in 1984 as Eboli and the
Metropolitan as Fricka in 1985 with James Levine. She has
since added Carmen, Marie in Wozzek, Santuzza, Leonore in
Fidelio, Sieglinde, Waltraute, Kundry, Venus, and Isolde at the
Met. Meier also debuted at La Scala with Riccardo Muti (b.
1941), the Opéra National in Paris, the Vienna Staatsoper, and
the Bavarian State Opera in Munich during the 1980s.
Waltraud Meier’s first soprano role was Venus in Tannhäuser
at the Vienna State Opera in 1988. Her exemplary vocal
technique enabled her to move upward without losing the
power and color of her lower and middle voice. She became
one of the definitive Isoldes of her era. I imagine that she is
what Wagner had in mind when he created the category of
hochdramatischer sopran. Amalie Materna, Wagner’s original
Brünnhilde and Kundry, had a career that spanned three
decades but still retained her bright, youthful voice. Dare we
compare this to the disputed Italian term soprano sfogato? I do
not have space to describe Waltraud Meier’s entire career but
214 Chapter 25
on August 22, 2009, she appeared as Fidelio in a televised
concert from London conducted by Daniel Barenboim. It was
reported to be Waltraud Meier’s two-thousandth professional
engagement.
Susanne Mentzer (b. 1957) is a mezzo-soprano who made
her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cherubino on January 4,
1989. She is well-known for her portrayal of youthful male
characters such as Cherubino, Idamante, the composer in
Ariadne, Octavian, and Nicklausse in Les contes d’Hoffmann,
all of which she has sung at the Met in addition to Rosina,
Dorabella, Mélisande, and Meg Page in Falstaff. Mentzer cre-
ated the role of the mother of Yueyang in The First Emperor
by Tan Dun (b. 1957) at the Met on December 21, 2006, and
is slated to return to the Met in 2016. She has also appeared
at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the
Houston Grand Opera, La Scala, Covent Garden, Vienna
State Opera, the Cologne Opera, the Opéra National of Paris,
and at the Salzburg Festival.
Besides opera, Mentzer is active in contemporary concert
repertoire, especially works by women composers such as Libby
Larsen (b. 1950) and Sharon Isbin (b. 1956), and premiered
concert works of Carlisle Floyd, Daniel Brewbaker (1951),
Stephen Bachicha (b. 1980), and Matteo d’Amico (b. 1955).
After serving on the faculties of Rice University and DePaul
University, Mentzer is now located in San Francisco, where she
is associated with the Merola program. Susanne Mentzer is also
an advocate for better vocal health and received the USA Thelan
Award for her help in raising more than $1 million for AIDS
research through gala concerts in Chicago.
Katherine Ann “Nan” Merriman (1920–2012) was an
American mezzo-soprano from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who
studied with Lotte Lehmann in Los Angeles. She began sing-
ing for Hollywood soundtracks at the age of twenty and toured
with Lawrence Olivier’s (1907–1989) and Vivian Leigh’s
(1913–1967) performance of Romeo and Juliet, where she sang
songs during set changes. Merriman was chiefly known for
her performances with Arturo Toscanini between 1944 and
1952, especially in his only studio recording of Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony and the title role of Gluck’s Orfeo. In the
1950s Merriman appeared in many of Europe’s opera houses
in Milan, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, and Amsterdam. She sang
Dorabella at La Scala, which she recorded twice, and Baba
the Turk in the inaugural British performance of The Rake’s
Progress at Edinburgh.
Kerstin Meyer (b. 1928) is a Swedish mezzo-soprano from
Stockholm. Her debut was as Azucena at the Royal Swedish
Opera in 1952. She has had a close association with the com-
pany as well as the Hamburg State Opera, where she appeared
as Carmen in 1959. Meyer has created a number of contem-
porary roles at Hamburg—Mrs. Claiborne in The Visitation
(1966) by Gunter Schuller (1925–2015), Alice Arden in Alex-
ander Goehr’s (b. 1932) Arden Must Die (1967), and Gertrude
in Hamlet (1968) by Humphrey Searle (1915–1982).
In 1960 Kerstin Meyer made her debut at Covent Garden
as Didon in Les Troyens and subsequently sang Octavian and
Klytämnestra in Elektra there, as well as the composer in Ari-
adne auf Naxos, Carmen, and Orfeo at the Metropolitan Op-
era. In 1974 she created the British premiere of the title role in
Gottfried von Einem’s (1818–1896) The Visit of the Old Lady
at Glyndebourne and the West German premiere at Munich in
1975. In 1976 Meyer sang Jocasta in Oedipus Rex at the Royal
Festival Hall, London. She served as rector of the Operahögs-
kolan (opera school) in Stockholm from 1984 to 1994.
Solange Michel née Boulesteix (1912–2010) was a French
lyric mezzo-soprano who was perhaps better known as a con-
cert artist from the 1930s to the 1970s but was one of the best
interpreters of Carmen in postwar France. Michel gave her
first performance on French radio in 1936 but did not make
her operatic debut until 1942 as Charlotte in Werther. In 1945
she sang Mignon at the Opéra Comique and then was invited
to the Paris Opéra, where she was appreciated in the French
repertoire—notably Carmen, Charlotte, Dalila, Geneviève in
Pelléas et Mélisande, Marguerite in Berlioz’s La damnation de
Faust, Orphée in Orphée et Eurydice, and Dulcinée in Mas-
senet’s Don Quichotte in her repertoire list of sixty-eight roles.
Michel created the title role of Pierre Wissmer’s (1915–1992)
Marion in 1951 and La Maharanée in The Last Savage by
Menotti in 1965.
Although her career was mostly in France, Solange Michel
made guest appearances at La Scala, the Royal Opera House in
London, the San Carlo in Naples, the Teatro Colón, and the
Liceu in Barcelona, among other important theaters.
Mildred Miller (b. 1924) is a familiar name to audiences
familiar with the Met, where she sang 338 performances of
twenty-one roles from 1951 through 1974. Miller was born
in Cleveland to immigrant German parents named Müller.
When she was hired by Rudolf Bing for the Met, he suggested
that she change her name to Miller to avoid any postwar anti-
German sentiment. The now Mildred Miller made her Met
debut as Cherubino on November 17, 1951. The Metropoli-
tan remained the home base for Miller, who sang the composer
in Ariadne, Dorabella, Magdalene in Die Meistersinger, Meg
Page in Falstaff, Nicklausse, Siebel in Faust, Orlovsky, Rosina,
and Carmen, as well as several supporting roles.
Miller was a guest artist at Frankfurt from 1959 to 1973 and
also appeared at the San Francisco Opera, the Chicago Lyric,
Cincinnati, Bavarian State Opera, Glyndebourne, Stuttgart
Staatsoper, Vienna Staatsoper, and other venues throughout
the United States and Europe. Mildred Miller was also a busy
recitalist and appeared frequently on The Bell Telephone Hour,
The Voice of Firestone, and the Ed Sullivan Show on television.
After her retirement, Miller founded the Opera Theater of
Pittsburgh and for many years served as artistic director of the
company. She is still involved with the company, teaches at
Carnegie Mellon University, and gives master classes through-
out the world.
Sara Mingardo (b. 1961) is a soulful Italian contralto who
has an active career in concert work as well as opera. Mingardo
made her operatic debut at Avezzano as Fidalma in Il matri-
monio segreto by Cimarosa in 1987 after winning first prize at
 Contemporary Alto Singers 215
both the Toti del Monte and the Giulietta Simionato competi-
tions. Having appeared at major Italian opera theaters—La
Scala, San Carlo, La Fenice, and the Teatro Reggio in Turin
as well as the Salzburg Festival—Mingardo was already well
established by 1989. As a true contralto, she has a varied rep-
ertoire ranging from L’incoronazione di Poppea by Monteverdi
to Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, including La straniera by
Bellini, Anna Bolena of Donizetti, and the title roles of Rinaldo
and Riccardo Primo, re d’Inghilterra (1727) by Handel. Sara
Mingardo has appeared at most of the major opera houses of
Europe and America and has sung with important orchestras
including the Boston Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, and
the London Symphony in concert.
Yvonne Minton (b. 1938), born in Sydney, Australia,
moved to London in 1960 and carried on the great tradi-
tion of British alto singers, especially in concert works. Her
recording of “Softly and Gently” from Elgar’s The Dream of
Gerontius (conducted by Benjamin Britten) is truly beautiful.
Variously described as a contralto, mezzo-soprano, and even
soprano, Minton exemplifies the difficulty of categorizing
the lower female voice but fits the term “alto” nicely. In 1961
Yvonne Minton won the Kathleen Ferrier Prize for the best
contralto at the International Vocalist Competition at ’s-Her-
togenbosch in the Netherlands. She made her operatic debut
in 1964 as Britten’s Lucretia at the City Literary Institute
and in the same year created the part of Maggie Dempster in
Nicholas Maw’s (1935–2009) One Man Show. As a member
of the Covent Garden Opera from 1965 to 1977, she created
Thea in The Knot Garden by Michael Tippett and became
known for her portrayal of Octavian, in which she debuted at
the Chicago Lyric (1970), the Metropolitan (1973), and the
Paris Opéra (1976). Minton sang Brangäne, Waltraute, and
Fricka at Bayreuth starting in 1974 and Kundry at Covent
Garden in 1979.
Yvonne Minton made a number of recordings with great
conductors: Dorabella under Klemperer, Sesto in La clemenza
di Tito with Colin Davis, Geneviève in Pelléas with Pierre
Boulez (b. 1925), and Fricka under Marek Janowski (b. 1939).
In 1979 she recorded the Countess Geschwitz in Berg’s Lulu,
which was also filmed. In 1980 Yvonne Minton was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Ann Murray (b. 1949) is an Irish mezzo-soprano with the
emphasis on soprano. Murray made her debut at Aldeburgh
as Alceste in Gluck’s opera in 1974. In 1976 she embarked
on a coloratura career with the English Music Theater in La
Cenerentola and was engaged by Covent Garden for Siebel
in Faust. Murray subsequently became known for Mozart
roles—Cherubino, Idamante, Xiphares in Mitridate, Despina,
and Donna Elvira, as well as Octavian and The Composer of
Strauss. At the English National Opera, Murray sang the title
roles in Handel’s Xerxes and Ariodante as well as Bradamante
in Alcina at Aix-en-Provence (1978) and Giulio Cesare at Mu-
nich (1994). She sang Sesto in La clemenza di Tito at the New
York City Opera in 1979 and the Met in 1984. Ann Murray’s
Salzburg debut was as Nicklausse, followed with appearances
as Dorabella, Sesto, Octavian, and Angelina. In addition to
some of the roles already mentioned, Murray recorded Polly
in Britten’s arrangement of The Beggar’s Opera, Purcell’s Dido,
and Hänsel, as well as Shubert lieder and English and Irish
songs. Besides her singing ability, Murray is also known for
her sense of humor.
Ella Némenthy (1896–1961) was a Hungarian mezzo-
soprano who was a student of conductor Ettore Panizza
(1875–1967) in Milan. Musicologist Péter P. Várnai states that
Némenthy was the leading mezzo-soprano in the interwar years,
especially in Wagnerian roles such as Brünnhilde, Isolde, and
Kundry. Her interpretations were characterized by vocal ampli-
tude, rich coloring, and grand declamation.16
Némenthy made her debut at the Hungarian State Opera
as Dalila in 1919 and remained there for thirty years. Her
repertoire included the three Brünnhildes in which she tri-
umphed at La Scala in 1937 and 1938, Venus in Tannhäuser,
Kundry, Ortrud in Lohengrin, Amneris and Eboli, Leonore in
Fidelio, and Santuzza. She was a guest artist at major opera
houses including the Berlin State Opera and the Teatro Colón.
Némenthy was the Judith in the Italian premiere of Bartók’s
Bluebeard’s Castle at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1938.
Upon her retirement in 1948 Ella Némenthy was named a
lifelong member of the Hungarian State Opera.
Anne Sofie von Otter (b. 1955) is a Swedish lyric mezzo-
soprano for whom the adjective versatile is hardly adequate,
for she not only excels in early music and standard classical
repertoire, but has also recorded rock and pop songs. Von
Otter studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
in London and made her operatic debut in 1983 at the Basel
Opera as Alcina in Orlando paladino by Josepf Haydn. She de-
buted at Covent Garden (1985) and the Metropolitan (1988)
as Cherubino. In 1987 she sang Ismene in Alceste by Gluck
conducted by Riccardo Muti at La Scala. European and Ameri-
can audiences have heard her as Purcell’s Dido, Idamante,
Dorabella, Sesto, Tancredi, Bellini’s Romeo, Octavian, Hänsel,
Charlotte, and Gluck’s Alcestis and Orpheus. Her recorded
repertoire includes Octavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di
Poppea, Handel’s Ariodante, Aggripina, Giulio Cesare, Hercules,
and Serse, Clytemnestra in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide, Olga
in Eugene Onegin, Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, and Jocasta.
Eminent conductors in these enterprises include John Eliot
Gardiner, William Christie, Marc Minkowski, Claudio Ab-
bado (1933–2014), and Myung-whung Chung (b. 1953).
Besides opera, von Otter is well known as an interpreter
of orchestral repertoire and lieder, especially songs of Mahler,
Brahms, Grieg, Wolf, and Jean Sibelius (1865–1957). In 1993
she won the Gramophone record of the year award for her re-
cording of Grieg songs. In 2006 she sang the evangelist in the
premiere of Order—en passion by Sven-David Sandström (b.
1942). In 2007 she recorded music written by composers in-
terned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp by the Nazis.
In 2001 Anne Sofie von Otter recorded an album of rock and
pop songs called For the Stars with Elvis Costello (b. 1954).
216 Chapter 25
In 1995 von Otter was appointed Hovsångerska by Carl XVI
Gustav (b. 1946), the king of Sweden.
Flora Perini (1887–1975) was an Italian mezzo-soprano
who created the role of the principessa in the world premiere
of Suor Angelica at the Metropolitan in 1918. Perini studied at
the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and made her profes-
sional debut at La Scala as Anacoana in Franchetti’s Christoforo
Colombo. She began her career in many of the major opera
houses in Europe and South America—Nice, Turin, Trieste,
Bologna, Madrid, Barcelona, Saint Petersburg, Rio de Janeiro,
and Montevideo. She sang Herodias in Salome at the Teatro
Colón in 1914 as well as the world premiere of Carlos López
Buchardo’s (1881–1948) El sueño de Alma.
In 1915 Perini sang the first of her 338 performances at the
Metropolitan as Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana. Her repertoire
was quite varied: Amneris, Nancy in Martha, Maddalena
in Rigoletto, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Rossweise in Die
Walküre, Hedwige in Guillaume Tell, and the spring fairy in
Snegurochka of Rimsky-Korsakov, among others. She created
the roles of Konchakovna in the American premiere of Prince
Igor by Borodin in 1915, Smaragdi in the first American
performances of Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, Pantasilée
in La reine Fiamette (1919) by Xavier Leroux, and Larina in
Eugene Onegin (1920). Perini sang in several world premieres
at the Met—Suor Angelica, already mentioned, Pepa in Goyes-
cas (1916) by Enrique Granados, and “light” in L’oiseau bleu
(1919) by Albert Wolff (1884–1917). She joined the Chicago
Lyric in 1924 and then returned to Italy at the Teatro Costanzi
until her retirement.
Ewa Podleś (b. 1953) is a Polish contralto who, in my
opinion, is the only artist who could inherit Marilyn Horne’s
mantel as the supreme interpreter of the Rossini dramatic col-
oratura repertoire of our time. Podleś’s voice spans more than
three octaves, has great power, and outstanding coloratura abil-
ity. After studying at the Frédéric Chopin Academy of Music,
Podleś made her debut as Rosina in 1975. She was engaged at
the Teatr Wielki-Opera in Warsaw where she sang a wide range
of repertoire from the Rossini standards to Konchakovna in
Prince Igor. Podleś sang Rosina at the Aix-en-Provence Festival
and made her Met debut as Handel’s Rinaldo in 1984. She
sang only two performances at the house, the other two being
in Queens and Staten Island. Ewa Podleś did not return to the
Metropolitan for twenty-four years. In the meantime she sang
Cornelia in Giulio Cesare in Rome, Malcom in La donna del
lago in Trieste, and Adalgisa in Norma in Vancouver. In 1990
Podleś debuted at Covent Garden as Hedwige in Guillaume
Tell and in 1991 at La Scala as Ragonde in La Comte Ory. The
same year she also sang Dalila at the Opéra Bastille as well as
Arsace in Semiramide at La Fenice.
In 2008 Podleś returned to the Met as La Cieca in La Gio-
conda. Other engagements include Handel’s Tancredi in Bos-
ton, Bertarido in Rodelinda, the title roles in Giulio Cesare and
Ciro in Babilonia, Azucena in Poznań, Klytämnestra in Elektra
at the Nice Opéra, and Madame de la Haltière in Massenet’s
Cendrillon at Covent Garden and the Opéra Comique in Paris.
Ewa Podleś is also an acclaimed concert artist with major or-
chestras and a fine recitalist who has toured with Garrick Ols-
sohn (b. 1948). Podleś is a prolific recording artist, especially
in Rossini repertoire but also in Mahler repertoire and Russian
and Baroque composers. Her recording of the battlefield scene
from Prokoviev’s Alexander Nevsky is truly moving.
Sonia Prina (b. 1975) is an Italian contralto whose career
has similarities to that of Ewa Podleś. Prina is known for her
performances of Baroque repertory in both opera and concert.
She also has an instrumental background, studying both trum-
pet and voice from the age of thirteen at the Milan Conserva-
tory and, in 1994, the La Scala Academy. By 1997 she had
already established herself in the Baroque repertory. She sang
the title role of Giuseppe Sarti’s 1781 Giulio Sabbio (a role that
was created by the great castrato Gasparo Pacchierotti) at the
Teatro Alighieri, Ravenna, Ottone in L’incoronazione di Poppea
at the Teatro Communale in Bologna, the title role in Amadigi
by Handel at the San Carlo, Pompeo in Farnace by Vivaldi in
Madrid and Bordeaux, the title role in Ottone in villa by Viv-
aldi, Cunegonda in Alessandro Scarlatti’s La Principessa Fedele,
La Speranza and Messaggera in L’Orfeo by Monteverdi in Lon-
don, Maria in Scarlatti’s oratorio La Vergine dei Dolori at the
San Carlo, and Galatea in Aci, Galatea e Polifemo by Handel at
Salzburg. Other Handel roles are Amastre in Serse, Bradamante
in Alcina, Carilda in Arianna in Creta, Cornelia in Giulio Ce-
sare, Polinesso in Ariodante, Valentiniano in Ezio, and the title
roles in Orlando, Partenope, Rinaldo, Tamerlano, and Tolomeo.
Familiar Rossini roles are Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri at
Torino and Rosina at La Scala. Sonia Prina has also appeared
in many orchestral concerts throughout the world, especially
in Baroque repertoire with such conductors as Riccardo Muti,
Riccardo Chailly (b. 1953), and Myung-whung Chung. She is
a sought-after recitalist and has recorded extensively.
Florence Quivar (b. 1944) is an American mezzo-soprano
who made her professional debut in Philadelphia, her home-
town, in 1976. She won the Baltimore Lyric Opera competi-
tion the same year and went on to win the Marian Anderson
Award, where she attracted the attention of the noted manager
Harold Shaw (1924–2014). Quivar made her Metropolitan
Opera debut as Marina in Boris Godunov in 1977 and went
on to a twenty-year career with the company, singing 101 per-
formances, the last being the alto soloist in the Verdi Requiem
under James Levine in 1997. Important roles for Quivar dur-
ing her career at the Met were Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Isabella
in L’italiana in Algeri, Federica in Luisa Miller, Fidès in Le
prophète, Frugola in Il tabarro, Mother Marie in Dialogues des
Carmélites, Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera, and Serena in Porgy
and Bess.
Quivar’s other engagements include appearances with the
Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera, Opera di Roma,
Teatro Colón, Teatro Municipal in Rio, Covent Garden, La
Scala, Seattle Opera, and Los Angeles Opera. In these theaters
and others, Quivar performed Adalgisa in Norma, Erda in
Siegfried and Das Rheingold, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde,
and Orfeo in Gluck’s opera, which was especially successful.
 Contemporary Alto Singers 217
She created the role of the goddess of the waters in the world
premiere of Amistad by Anthony Davis (b. 1951) at the Chi-
cago Lyric.
Florence Quivar is also a distinguished orchestral soloist
whose credits include performances with the New York Philhar-
monic, Chicago Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Los Angeles
Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra,
San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Philhar-
monic, London Philharmonic, and the BBC Symphony.
Regina Resnik (1922–2013)was one of the few mezzo-
sopranos/contraltos who began her career as a successful dra-
matic soprano. Resnik, a product of the New York City public
school system, was gifted academically and skipped several
grades. In her adult career, besides having a fine voice, Resnik
was both an excellent musician and a magnetic actress and
became a stage director, appeared on Broadway, and shared
her multifaceted knowledge with students as a brilliant teacher.
The twenty-year-old Resnik made her professional debut
in a recital of art songs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on
October 27, 1942. Two months later she sang Lady Macbeth
with the New Opera Company. In 1943 Resnik sang Leonore
in Fidelio and Micaela in Carmen in Mexico City under the
baton of Erich Kleiber. In 1944 Resnik was a member of the
company for the New York City Opera’s first season, portray-
ing Santuzza and both Frasquita and Micaela in Carmen. In
the same year, she won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions
of the Air and made a dramatic debut in December 1944,
substituting for Zinka Milanov as Leonore in Il trovatore on
one day’s notice, with only one hour’s rehearsal. Interestingly
enough, Margaret Harshaw, who moved up to the soprano
category while Resnik ultimately moved down to alto, was
Azucena in this performance.
For the next decade at the Met, Resnik appeared in soprano
roles—Donna Elvira and Donna Anna, Leonore in Fidelio,
Sieglinde in Die Walküre, Gutrune in Götterdämmerung,
Chrysothemis in Elektra, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Aida,
Alice Ford in Falstaff, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Musetta, and
the Met’s first Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes.
In 1953, while Resnik was singing Sieglinde at Bayreuth,
the conductor Clemens Krauss (1893–1954) advised her to
retrain her voice as a mezzo-soprano, and by 1956 she had
eliminated all the soprano roles from her repertory. In 1955
her first two alto roles were Amneris and Laura in La Gioconda.
Her first alto role at the Met was as Marina in Boris Godunov
in 1956 with George London (1920–1985) in the title role.
The following year was her successful debut at Covent Garden
as Carmen where, over the years, she also sang Azucena, Am-
neris, Marina, Ulrica, the nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten, the
old prioress in Les Dialogues des Carmélites, Mistress Quickly,
Klytämnestra in Elektra, and the old countess in Pique Dame.
Regina Resnik had a prolific international career at the Paris
Opéra (acclaimed as Carmen), La Scala, La Fenice, Naples,
Vienna Staatsoper, Lisbon Buenos Aires, Madrid, Salzburg,
Bayreuth, Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Marseilles, Chicago, Stutt-
gart, Hamburg, Edinburgh, and Santiago. However, the Met
was always home to Resnik, and audiences enjoyed her awe-
some performances of Klytämnestra, Mistress Quickly, and
the old countess in Pique Dame in the 1960s. In thirty years
at the Metropolitan, Regina Resnik sang thirty-eight roles in
thirty-one works for a total of 335 performances. In 1987, she
inhabited Broadway as Mrs. Schneider in Cabaret and Mme.
Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, earning Tony and Drama
Desk Award nominations. Resnik was a master class teacher for
the Metropolitan, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and several other
institutions. In 2004 she was named master teacher-in-residence
in the opera department at the Mannes College of Music, where
she helped prepare students for professional careers.
Regina Sarfaty (b. 1934) is an American mezzo-soprano
who had an extensive career with the Santa Fe Opera and the
New York City Opera through the late 1950s. In the 1960s
and 1970s she had an international career, especially at the
Zurich Opera. Sarfaty graduated from Juilliard School in 1957
and immediately began a professional career with Santa Fe in
the same year, appearing as Rosina, Suzuki, Baba the Turk,
and Tabitha in the world premiere of Marvin David Levy’s
(1932–2015) The Tower. Other roles with the Santa Fe Opera
included the title roles in Carmen and Regina by Marc Blitz-
stein, Clarion in Capriccio by Strauss, Dorabella, Meg Page in
Falstaff, Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena, and Prince Or-
lovsky. Sarfaty also created the role of Nelly in Wuthering
Heights by Carlisle Floyd and the American premiere of Agave
in The Bassarids by Hans Werner Henze at Santa Fe.
As a regular at the New York City Opera, Regina Sarfaty
sang Cherubino, Angelina in La Cenerentola, the eponymous
role in Maria Golovin by Menotti, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, as
well as the world premieres as “the mezzo” in Six Characters
in Search of an Author by Hugo Weisgall and as Kate Croy in
Douglas Moore’s The Wings of the Dove.
In Europe, Sarfaty debuted as Octavian at Glyndebourne
in 1960 and sang Adelaide in Arabella there in 1964. She ap-
peared as Carmen and Octavian at Frankfurt, Carmen at the
Opéra National in Paris, and also sang at the Vienna Staatsoper
and the Bavarian State Opera. She had a long career at Zurich,
where she was in the world premiere of Rudolf Kelterborn’s (b.
1931) Die Befreiung Thebens and had a special success as the
Countess Geschwitz in Lulu by Alban Berg.
Barbara Scherler (b. 1933) is not a name familiar to
American audiences but is well known to European devotees
of contemporary opera. Scherler studied at the Berlin Musik-
hochschule and made her professional debut at Hannover as
Cherubino in 1959. After a stint at Cologne, she became a
longtime member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin where she par-
ticipated in the premieres of Kinkakuji (1976) by Toshiro Ma-
yuzumi (1929–1997), Wilhelm Dieter Siebert’s (1931–2011)
Der Untergang der Titanic (1979), and Die Gespenstersonate
(1984), based on August Strindberg’s (1849–1912) The Ghost
Sonata. Scherler sang in recordings of Lulu (1965) and Wozzek
(1968) by Alban Berg conducted by Karl Böhm. In 1973 she
recorded the part of Meroe in Penthesilea by the Swiss com-
poser Othmar Schoeck (1886–1957), and in 1978 she sang
218 Chapter 25
the role of Elsbeth in Fuersnot of Strauss conducted by Erich
Leinsdorf (1912–1993) with the Berliner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-
Orchester. Finally, in 1990 she participated in the recording of
Franz Schrecker’s (1878–1934) Der ferne Klang conducted by
Gerd Albrecht (1935–2014).
Gladys Swarthout (1900–1969), an American mezzo-
soprano, had a career that somewhat mirrored that of Risë
Stevens, for she was also well known to the general public
through her work in movies and on the radio. Swarthout
became a member of the Chicago Civic Opera while still a
student at the Bush Conservatory of Music and then joined
the Ravinia Opera Company of Chicago for three seasons. Her
debut at the Metropolitan came in 1929 as an elf in La Cam-
pana Sommersa by Ottorino Respighi. Most of her twenty-four
roles at the Met were minor but she sang 264 performances.
Swarthout was a Southern beauty and she made five movies for
Paramount Pictures: Rose of the Rancho, Romance in the Dark,
Give Us This Night, Ambush, and Champagne Walz. Swarthout
was a familiar voice on the radio in The Voice of Firestone, The
Bell Telephone Hour, The Camel Caravan, The Ford Symphony,
and The Prudential Family Hour and was a regular on the
Armed Forces Radio Network during World War II. She also
appeared on television on occasion, including a spot on What’s
My Line and Martha presented by The Railroad Hour in 1954.
Lucia Valentini Terrani (1946–1998) was an Italian mezzo-
soprano, particularly identified with the Rossini canon, whose
career was cut short by leukemia at the age of fifty-one. Val-
entini Terrani made her debut in Brescia as Angelina in La
Cenerentola, a role that she repeated in her initial performance
at La Scala. She soon followed her success with Isabella in
L’italiana in Algeri, in which she made her Met debut in 1974,
Rosina, Marchesa Melibea in Il viaggio a Reims, and a suc-
cession of trouser roles—Tancredi, Malcom in La donna del
lago, Pippo in La gazza ladra, Calbo in Maometto II, Arsace
in Semiramide, and Isolier in Le comte Ory. Valentini Terrani
extended her coloratura ability in Baroque opera as well as
Medea in Cavalli’s Giascone, Dido in Dido and Aeneas by Pur-
cell, Alcina in Orlando Furioso by Vivaldi, and Bradamante in
Handel’s Alcina. There were also many standard roles in Val-
entini Terrani’s repertoire including Carmen, Eboli, Quickly,
Mignon, Charlotte, Marina, Jocasta, and Dulcinée in Mas-
senet’s Don Quixote.
Huguette Tourangeau (b. 1938), a Canadian mezzo-
soprano who specialized in French and Italian repertoire, was
often associated with Dame Joan Sutherland and Richard
Bonynge. She graduated from the Montréal Conservatoire
in 1958 and won the Metropolitan Opera National Council
Auditions in 1964. She also sang Cherubino under Bonynge’s
baton in the same year. Tourangeau became a member of the
Met’s National Company during the 1965–1966 season and
sang Carmen fifty-six times on the company’s tour. With
Sutherland and Bonynge she performed Malika in Lakmé
in Seattle, Urbain in Les Huguenots in London, Elisabetta in
Maria Stuarda, Adalgisa in Norma, and Prince Orlovsky in
Die Fledermaus in San Francisco. Tourangeau appeared as
Carmen with the New York City Opera in 1967 and 1968
and made her debut at the Metropolitan as Nicklausse in Les
contes d’Hoffmann in 1973. She later sang 107 performances as
Suzuki, Carmen, Mercedes, muse, Dorabella, Zerlina, Cheru-
bino, and Parsèïs in Esclarmonde by Massenet with Sutherland
and Bonynge at the Met. In 1973 Tourangeau sang the title
role in Carmen: The Dream and the Destiny opposite Placido
Domingo, a film by Christopher Nupen (b. 1935), which
documents a production directed by Regina Resnik.
Tatiana Troyanos (1938–1993) was a beloved mezzo-
soprano artist at the Metropolitan Opera who died of breast
cancer at the age of fifty-four but who nevertheless had a great
career. James Levine was one of Tatiana’s greatest supporters.
A concert at the Met was given in her memory on April 24,
1994. Levine wrote:
The idea that we are gathered here . . . to pay memorial tribute
to Tatiana Troyanos is incomprehensible. What it means of
course, is that our Metropolitan Opera family has lost one of
the most important, beloved artists and friends in its entire
history.17
Tatiana Troyanos was the child of divorced parents who had
pretensions of operatic careers. Growing up she was looked
after by Greek relatives and lived for ten years in the Brooklyn
Home for Children in Forest Hills, New York. Troyanos, like
many other successful vocal artists, studied piano for seven
years at the home. She attended the Juilliard Preparatory
School and eventually the college, where she studied with
Hans Heinz (1905–1982). She was in the chorus of The Sound
of Music on Broadway when she was engaged at the New York
City Opera. Troyanos made her operatic debut as Hippolyta
in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in April 1963. The
New York City Opera took advantage of Troyanos’s versatility
and musicianship, for she also sang Jocasta in Oedipus Rex and
Marina in Boris Godunov with Norman Treigle in the title role
until 1965.
Troyanos was then offered a comprimaria contract by the
Metropolitan, but like other young American artists, she chose
to go to Europe for seasoning and repertoire building. She was
engaged at the Hamburg Staatheater where she remained as a
member of the ensemble and later as a guest artist for the next
ten years. She built an extensive repertoire at Hamburg, and
she gained international attention in 1966 in what would be-
come her signature roles at the Aix-en-Provence festival as the
composer in Ariadne auf Naxos and Covent Garden in her first
Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. With a home base at Hamburg,
Troyanos guested at most of the major opera houses in Europe.
She attracted special attention as Baba the Turk in The Rake’s
Progress on a visit by the Hamburg company to the new Met-
ropolitan Opera in 1967. In the opening week of the Kennedy
Center in 1971, Tatiana Troyanos as Handel’s Ariodante op-
posite Beverly Sills was especially acclaimed. Other important
U.S. engagements were Charlotte in Werther at the Chicago
Lyric, Dido in Dido and Aeneas at Dallas, Romeo in Bellini’s I
Capuletti e I Montecchi at the Opera Company of Boston, and
 Contemporary Alto Singers 219
at San Francisco, Poppea in L’incoronazione di Poppea by Mon-
teverdi. Robert Commanday’s review in the Chronicle stated
The means by which Poppea seduces Nero . . . could liquefy
even stone the way the sensational new mezzo Tatiano Troyanos
sang. The rich variety of her tone by itself would be enough,
from the voluptuous lower register to the beaming, thrilling
highs. But how Miss Troyanos turned the exquisitely etched
dissonant tones in Monteverdi’s harmony, how she caressed her
imperial lover with vocal phrases, poisoned his mind against
Seneca, exulted in triumph—these things elevated Miss Troya-
nos’s Poppea from mere courtesan to a woman who shaped
history.18
In the spring of 1976, Tatiana Troyanos made her debut at the
Metropolitan Opera as Octavian, with the composer following
closely. At the Met, the homeless girl from Queens finally found
her home. Troyanos sang 276 performances at the Met of twenty-
two roles in an incredible variety of styles and periods. Strangely
enough, she sang only four Carmens there. The trouser roles of
Octavian, the composer, Sesto, Giulio Cesare, Hänsel, and Or-
lovsky account for 114 performances. Other roles that required
more dramatic singing were Amneris, Santuzza, Eboli, Waltraute
in Götterdämmerung, Kundry in Parsifal, Venus in Tannhäuser,
Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, and Dido in Les Troyens.
Troyanos created two roles—Sister Jeanne in Penderecki’s
The Devils of Loudun (Hamburg, 1969) and Queen Isabella
in Phillip Glass’s (b. 1937) The Voyage (The Metropolitan,
1992). In her La Scala debut in 1977, she sang Adalgisa op-
posite Monserrat Caballé in Norma, the first worldwide opera
telecast. In 1984 she sang in the world premiere of act 1 of
Rachmaninoff ’s unpublished Monna Vanna with the Philadel-
phia Orchestra. Troyanos also sang in concert performances
of rare operas such as Handel’s Deidamia (1741), Mozart’s
Mitridate (1770), Roberto Devereux by Donizetti, and Bartók’s
Bluebeard’s Castle (in the original Hungarian) with major or-
chestras.
Claramae Turner (1920–2013) was an American contralto
who was best known for her portrayal of Nettie Fowler in the
1956 Richard Rogers (1902–1979) and Oscar Hammerstein
(1895–1960) film Carousel. Her rendition of “You’ll Never
Walk Alone” provided inspiration for countless moviegoers
and, later, television viewers. The San Francisco Opera was
Turner’s artistic home where she debuted as a voice in Italo
Montemezzi’s (1875–1952) L’amore dei tre re conducted by the
composer in 1942. During the 1940s Turner sang a variety of
supporting roles, finally graduating to major parts at the San
Francisco Opera—Hérodiade, Carmen, Azucena, Amneris,
Ulrica, Klytämnestra, Neris in Medée by Cherubini, and Ma-
dame de Croissy in Les Dialogues des Carmélites in the U.S.
premiere of Poulenc’s masterpiece. In 1946 Turner created the
role of Madame Flora in the first performance of Menotti’s
The Medium at Columbia University. The first professional
performance came in 1947 with Marie Powers in the title role.
In November 1946 Claramae Turner made her debut at the
Met as Marthe in Faust. In four seasons there she sang 105
performances, almost all in supporting roles. In 1953 Turner
made her debut at the New York City Opera as Madame Flora.
While there she sang many leading roles, including Carmen,
The Witch in the company’s premiere of Hänsel und Gretel, Jo-
casta, Katisha in The Mikado, la principessa, Frugola, and Zita
in Il Trittico by Puccini, the mother in Louise by Charpentier,
Madame de Croissy in Les Dialogues des Carmélites, and Diana
Orsini in Bomarzo by Alberto Ginastera (1916–1983).
Turner also sang Fricka in the Chicago Lyric’s first Die
Walküre in 1956, Ulrica, Azucena, and the matron from
Milwaukee in Lord Byron’s Love Letter by Rafaello de Banfield
(1922–2008). At San Diego she sang Baroness Grunwiesel
in the U.S. premiere of Der Junge Lord by Henze. Claramae
Turner was what is called a “crossover artist” these days. She
often sang a popular song that was written for her about her
love for San Francisco as an encore at her recitals. She never
recorded the tune, but ten years later Tony Bennett (b. 1926)
recorded “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” The rest, as they
say, is history.
Josephine Veasey (b. 1930) is an English mezzo-soprano
who began in the chorus of Covent Garden in 1949 and
returned in 1955 to make her solo debut as Cherubino. Her
roles at the Royal Opera House included Magdalene in Die
Meistersinger, Rosina, Marina in Boris Godunov, Dorabella,
Carmen, Waltraute, Fricka, Amneris, Preziosilla in La Forza
del Destino, Dido and Cassandra in Les Troyens, Princess Eboli,
the title role in Iphigénie en Aulide, Brangäne, and Venus in
Tannhäuser. In 1962 Veasey created the role of Andromache
in King Priam by Michael Tippett and in 1976 the emperor in
the premiere of Henze’s We Come to the River.
At Glyndebourne, Veasey sang Zulma in L’italiana in Algeri
in 1957, then Cherubino, Clarice in Rossini’s La pietra del
paragone, Charlotte, and Octavian. At Salzburg she sang the
Rheingold Fricka and then both Frickas at the Metropolitan in
1968. In 1969 Veasey debuted at the Paris Opéra as Dido and
returned as Kundry in 1973. She also sang at La Scala and the
Vienna Staatsoper. Although particularly associated with Ber-
lioz and Wagner, Veasey sang in a famous production of Norma
at the Théâtre Antique d’Orange in France as Adalgisa opposite
Monserrat Caballé and Jon Vickers in 1974. She made her final
appearance as Herodias at Covent Garden in 1982.
Dunja Vejzović (b. 1943) is a Croatian mezzo-soprano
who studied at the Zagreb Academy of Music and made her
professional debut as Ariel in Oluja (The Tempest) by Stjepan
Šulek (1914–1986). In 1971 Vejzović became a member of the
Nuremberg Opera where she built her repertoire in a number
of major roles—the title role in Orfeo, Carmen, Venus in
Tannhäuser, a woman in Intolleranza by Luigi Nono, Charlotte
in Die Soldaten by Bernd Alois Zimmerman (1918–1970),
Dido, Klytämnestra in Elektra, Azucena, Marina in Boris
Godunov, Marie in Wozzek, Amneris, Countess Geschwitz in
Lulu, and Dalila.
In 1978 Dunja Vejzović made her Bayreuth debut as Kun-
dry and her Metropolitan Opera initial performance as Venus.
In 1980 and 1984 she sang Kundry and Ortrud at Salzburg
220 Chapter 25
under von Karajan. In 1982, Vejzović began a relationship
with La Scala where she sang Didon in Les Troyens, la princi-
pessa in Suor Angelica, Venus in Tannhäuser, Senta in Der flieg-
ende Holländer, and Kundry in Parsifal conducted by Riccardo
Muti. Vejzović has collaborated with famed director Robert
Wilson (b. 1941) on Alceste and Kundry. Other roles include
Brünnhilde in Die Walküre (Monte-Carlo, 1979), Hérodiade
(Barcelona, 1983), Médée (Paris, 1986), and Wozzeck (Berlin,
1987) under Claudio Abbado.
Other operas in Dunja Vejzović’s repertoire are Schoenberg’s
Erwartung, Wagner’s Rienzi, Tristan und Isolde (Brangäne), and
Siegfried, Massenet’s Le Cid and Thérèse, Bluebeard’s Castle by
Bartók, Oedipus Rex, Verdi’s Attila, Don Carlo, I due Foscari,
Macbeth, and Nabucco, Fidelio, Gounod’s Sapho, and Fierra-
bras by Schubert.
Shirley Verrett (1931–2010) was born in New Orleans and
grew up in Los Angeles. She attended the Juilliard School and
won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in
1961. Like Grace Bumbry and Christa Ludwig, Verrett was
one of the mezzo-sopranos who successfully moved up to the
soprano category later in her career. Her professional debut (as
Shirley Carter) was as Britten’s Lucretia in 1957. Verrett played
Irina in Weill’s Lost in the Stars during the New York City
Opera’s American opera season in 1958. She then traveled to
Europe where she debuted in Nicolas Nabokov’s (1903–1978)
Rasputins Tod at Cologne. Verrett became one of the outstand-
ing Carmens of her time, first performing the opera at Spoleto
in 1962, then at the Bol’shoy in 1963, the New York City
Opera in 1964, La Scala in 1966, the Metropolitan in 1968,
and Covent Garden in 1973, where she had debuted as Ulrica
in 1966.
Verrett’s other notable alto roles were Elizabeth in Maria
Stuarda, Gluck’s Orfeo, Léonor in La favorite, Amneris, Eboli,
Azucena, Lady Macbeth, Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, Neocle
in The Siege of Corinth, and Dalila. At the first Metropolitan
Opera performance of Les Troyens, Verrett accomplished a Lilli
Lehmann–like feat. Because of Christa Ludwig’s illness, she
played both Dido and Cassandra.
In the 1970s Shirley Verrett began to sing some soprano
roles such as Tosca, Aida, and Norma, while retaining most of
her alto parts. In 1990 she sang Dido in Les Troyens at the in-
auguration of the Opéra Bastille and sang her first Santuzza at
Sienna. In 1994 she debuted on Broadway as Nettie Fowler in
Carousel. Her autobiography is entitled I Never Walked Alone.
In 1996 Verrett joined the faculty of the University of Michi-
gan School of Music in Ann Arbor, where she died in 2010.
Thelma “Tippy” Votipka (1906–1972) was not a head-
liner, but she was one of the most valuable members of the
Metropolitan Opera Company. Votipka studied with Anna
Schön-Rene and made her debut as a member of Vladimir
Rosing’s (1890–1963) American Opera Company as the
countess in The Marriage of Figaro in Washington, D.C., on
December 14, 1927. Her debut at the Met was on December
16, 1935, as Flora in La Traviata, and she went on to sing
1,422 performances there, more than any other woman in
the company’s history. Her final performance was as Mamma
Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana on May 11, 1963. For the final
gala performance at the old house in 1966, Thelma Votipka
returned to take part in the quintet from Carmen.
Beverly Wolff (1928–2005) was an American mezzo-
soprano during the great years of the New York City Opera
who had a long career from the early 1950s to the early 1980s.
Wolff was one of a golden generation of American singers who
dominated the New York City Opera roster during the general
directorship of Julius Rudel (1921–2014). Her combination of
stylish, intelligent singing and “big brass sound,” as she termed
it, was a key element in some of the company’s most celebrated
productions.19
Wolff ’s career was largely confined to the United States
because she put her life as a wife and mother ahead of her
career. She generally spent three weeks at home for every two
weeks of work. Wolff was also among the large number of fine
alto singers who began musical careers as instrumentalists. She
was a trumpeter who was a soloist with the Atlanta Symphony
while still a teenager. Encouraged to begin a singing career,
Wolff attended the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia
where she appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra
while still a student. In 1952 she made her professional debut
as Dinah in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti on CBS television. In
1953 Wolff sang Idamante in Mozart’s Idomeneo and Mistress
Quickly for the New England Opera Theater. After taking
time out to start a family, Beverly Wolff made her debut with
the New York City Opera in 1958, reprising Dinah in the
Bernstein work. During the next thirteen years at the New
York City Opera, Wolff took part in several important produc-
tions. She sang Sesto in Handel’s Giulio Cesare with Beverly
Sills, Maureen Forester, and Norman Treigle and Sara in
Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux with Sills and Domingo. Other
roles were the title part of Carry Nation by Douglas Moore,
which she created in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1966 and subse-
quently sang at San Francisco as well as at the New York City
Opera. Wolff created the part of Leonora in Menotti’s The
Most Important Man in 1971 and sang Carmen, Cherubino,
Siebel, and Desideria in Menotti’s The Saint of Bleeker Street.
In March 1963 she created the part of the executive director
in Menotti’s Labyrinth for the NBC Opera and in 1973 sang
the first performance of the title role in Ned Rorem’s Berthe.
Beverly Wolff also sang important performances with other
American opera companies. At San Francisco she appeared as
Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann,
Marfa in Kát’a Kabanová by Leoš Janáĉek (1854–1928), and
Ottavia in L’incoronazione di Poppea. She sang Amneris with
the Philadelphia Opera Company, Adalgisa opposite Beverly
Sills’s Norma at the Opera Company of Boston, and Ulrica at
the Chicago Lyric.
Beverly Wolff was a fine Handel singer as well. She sang the
U.S. premiere of the eponymous Rinaldo in a concert perfor-
mance at Carnegie Hall in 1972, Daniel in Belshazzar in 1973,
and Ruggiero in Alcina in 1974, all with the Handel Society
of New York. She sang the U.S. premieres of the title roles of
 Contemporary Alto Singers 221
Poro and Radamisto at the Kennedy Center Handel Festival. In
1972 she performed Clarice in Rossini’s La pietra del paragone
at Alice Tully Hall. Wolff sang a total of twenty-five perfor-
mances with the New York Philharmonic from 1965 to 1978,
making her debut in Rossini’s Stabat Mater. Beverly Wolff
retired from singing in the early 1980s and began teaching at
Florida Southern College in 1981. She died of complications
from heart surgery on August 14, 2005.
Dolora Zajick (b. 1952) is last, but certainly not least, in
our survey of contemporary alto artists. Zajick is a mezzo-
soprano who is identified with the great dramatic alto parts
of Giuseppe Verdi. One might say that she owns the role of
Azucena, for she has sung it more times (fifty-four) than any
other artist in the Met’s history. In October 2015, Peter Gelb,
the manager of the Met, presented Zajick with a commemora-
tive golden anvil to mark her achievement. It should be noted
that she has also sung Amneris seventy-six times in her career
at the Metropolitan, for a total of almost 250 performances of
various roles.
Dolora Zajick was born in Salem, Oregon. She was a pre-
med student at the University of Nevada, Reno, and was a
member of the Nevada Opera chorus when her talent was no-
ticed by Ted Puffer (1928–2003), a voice teacher and conduc-
tor. She switched majors and graduated with a master’s degree
in music. Zajick went on to study at the Manhattan School of
Music. In 1982 she won the bronze medal in the Tchaikovsky
Competition in Moscow and entered the Merola Program at
the San Francisco Opera. In 1986 Zajick debuted at the San
Francisco Opera as Azucena, and her international career was
established.
Besides Azucena and Amneris, Dolora Zajick is renowned
for Princess Eboli, Ulrica, and Lady Macbeth, as well as Marfa
in Khovanshchina by Musorgsky, Ježibaba in Antonin Dvořak’s
(1841–1904) Rusalka, the princess in Francesco Cilea’s (1866–
1950) Adriana Lecouvreur, Santuzza, Adalgisa, Joan of Arc in
The Maid of Orleans, and The Countess in Pique Dame by
Tchaikovsky, Dalila, Hérodiade, Léonor in La favorite, La Zia
Principessa in Suor Angelica, Ortrud, and Madame de Croissy in
Les Dialogues des Carmélites. In 2005, Dolora Zajick created the
part of Elvira Griffiths in Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy.
Besides being a pillar of the Metropolitan Opera, Dolora Za-
jick has appeared in many of the great opera houses of the world,
including La Scala, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Houston Grand
Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Arena di Verona, Opéra Bastille,
Teatro Real Barcelona, Teatre del Liceu, Madrid, Covent Gar-
den, the Salzburg Festival, and the Chorégies d’Orange Festival.
In addition to her performing career, Zajick is an accom-
plished visual artist, an author on the science and technique
of music, a gardener, and has established an institute to train
young dramatic voices to cope with the dramatic works of
Wagner and Verdi.
NOTES
1.  John Pennino, Risë Stevens: A Life in Music (Fort Worth, TX:
Baskerville Publishers, 2005), 98–99.
2. Pennino, Risë Stevens, 294
3.  John Ardoin, Callas: The Art and the Life (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1974), 4.
4.  Rodolfo Celletti, A History of Bel Canto (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991), 178–79.
5. Alan Blyth, “Marilyn Horne,” http://oxfordmusiconline
.com:80/article/grove/music/13359 (accessed 24 August 2015).
6. J. B. Steane, The Grand Tradition (London: Duckworth,
1974), 396–97.
7. Alan Blyth, “Cecilia Bartoli,” http://oxfordmusiconline.
com:80/article/grove/music/41895 (10 October 2015).
8.  Martin Bernheimer, “Obituaries: Frances Bible,” Opera News
(May 2001).
9. Matthew Westphal, “Vienna State Opera Fires Olga Boro-
dina,” Playbill, 20 June 2006.
10.  Harold Rosenthal, “Helga Dernesch,” The New Grove Diction-
ary of Opera, vol. 1, ed. Stanley Sedie (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1997), 1128.
11.  Sandra Martin, Working the Dead Beat: 50 Lives That Changed
Canada (Toronto, ON: House of Anansi, 2012), 3.
12. Alan Kozinn, “Margaret Harshaw Dies at 88, A Wagnerian
Opera Singer,” New York Times, 11 November 1997.
13. John Freeman, “The Great Gatsby,” Opera News (March
2000).
14. Alan Blyth, “Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson,” http://oxfordmusi
conline.com.80/article/grove music/46063 (accessed 12 November
2015).
15. Anthony Tommasini, “Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson, Luminous
Mezzo, Dies at 52,” The New York Times, 5 July 2006.
16.  Péter P. Várnai, “Ella Némenthy,” The New Grove Dictionary
of Opera, vol. 3, 570.
17.  James Levine, “Remembering Tatiana,” program booklet for
“Music in Memory of Tatiana Troyanos, Concert at the Metropolitan
Opera,” 24 April 1994.
18. Quoted in Robert Wilder Blue, “Remembering Tatiana
Troyanos,” http://reocities.com/Vienna/6754/blue2.html (accessed 6
December 2015).
19.  Anonymous, “Obituaries: Beverly Wolff,” Opera News 75, no.
9 (March 2011).
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Alto Singer Index

Abbadia, Luigia, 159 Brambilla, Marietta, 87, 153

Alboni, Marietta, 77, 92, 118, 181 Branchu, Alexandrine Carolina, 134
Allen, Betty, 207 Brandi, Antonio, 23
d’Alvarez, Marguerita, 183 Brandt, Marianne, 130, 170
Anday, Rosina, 195 Branzell, Karin, 194
Anderson, Marian, 186, 207 Braunhofer, Maria Anna, 44
Andry, Yvonne, 195 Brema, Maria, 182
Anibaldi, Domenico, 40, 41 Brohly, Suzanne, 147
Appiani, Giuseppe, 26 Buccini, Eloisa, 156
Arbell, Lucy, 146 Bulgarelli, Mariana Benti (La Romania), 26
Arkhipova, Irina, 177 Bumbry, Grace, 3, 60, 165, 208–10
Arndt-Ober, Margarete, 172–77 Burgess, Sally, 190
Bussani, Dorothea, 45
Bailac, Germaine, 134 Butt, Clara, 43, 183
Baker, Janet, 47, 198–99
Baldi, Antonio, 32 Caffarelli, (Gaetano Majorano), 7, 25–26, 35, 40, 42–43
Ballard, Simone, 195 Calvé, Emma, 144–45, 165, 192
Baltsa, Agnes, 160, 172, 207–8 Campioli, Antonio, 40
Bandram, Rosina, 181 Canonici, Giacinta, 151
Barbier, Jane, 31 Carestini, Giovanni, 7, 20, 25–26, 30, 34–35, 40, 42–43
Barbieri, Fedora 207 Carey, Annie Louise. 163, 184
Barnett, Alice, 181 Carpano, Adelaide, 63
Bartoli, Cecilia, xv, 3, 6, 7, 20, 23, 39–42, 45, 47, 61–63, 149–50, Casaloni, Annetta, 160
204–6 Castagna, Bruna, 165
Basmon, Rosa, 13 Catalani, Adelaide, 151
Bedini, Domenico, 47 Cawse, Harriet, 167
Bellinzaghi, Giovannina, 159 Cecconi, Teresa, 149, 151
Berbié, Jane, 207–8 Chabert, Marguerite, 141
Berenstadt, Gaetano, 24 Chabrand-Albani, Margherita, 63, 65
Berganza, Teresa, 47, 62, 204 Charbonnel, Marie,147
Bernacchi, Antonio, 20, 23–24, 29, 32–33, 43 Charles-Cahier, Sara, 186
Berselli, Matteo, 32–33 Charton-Demeur, Anne-Arsène, 134
Bertolli, Francesco, 33 Chavanne, Irene von, 171
Besanzoni, Gabriella, 166 Cibber, Susanna, 37
Bible, Francis, 208 Coates, Edith, 197
Bichurina, Anna, 178 Cocognani, Giuseppe, 44
Bloch, Rosine, 161, 164 Colbran, Isabella, 58, 62–63, 66, 69–79, 83–84, 86, 88, 92, 96,
Bonazzi, Elaine, 208 101–102, 152, 207
Bordoni, Faustina, 7, 25, 26, 31, 39–42, 52 Comelli (Chaumel) Rubini, Adelaide, 74, 88, 149, 152
Borghi-Mamo, Adelaide, 125–160 Console, Tommaso, 45
Borodina, Olga, 208 Cortez, Viorica, 208–9

229
230 Alto Singer Index

Cosotto, Fiorenza, 160, 165, 189, 190 Hasselbeck, Olga, 190

Cosselli, Anna Scudellari, 151 Hauk, Minnie, 184
Costa-Greenspon, Muriel, 196 Hill, Carmen, 183
Crescentini, Girolamo, 50, 58, 71–72, 87, 89 Homer, Louise, 185–86, 194
Crespin, Régine, 190 Höngen, Elisabeth, 211
Croiza, Claire, 190 Horne, Marilyn, xv, 6, 20, 29, 61–62
Csillag, Róza, 168
Culp, Julia, 182 Ilyina, Mariya, 195

Dalis, Irene, 165, 173 Kalter, Sabine, 174

Deller, Alfred, 198 Kaménskaya, Mariya, 176
Dernesch, Helge, 209 Kasarova, Vessalina, 211
Deschamps-Jéhen, Blanche, 144, 147 Klose, Margarete, 194
Dietz, Sophie, 169 Komlósi, Ildikó, 190, 211
Dini, Eufemia Barlani, 164 Kožená, Magdalena, 211
Donato, Joyce Di, xv, 27, 31, 61–62, 70, 72, 74, 150, 172, 206–7 Kraft, Jean, 212
Dufflot-Maillard, Hortense, 134 Krutikova, Aleksandra, 176
Dunn, Mignon, 65, 208 Kuhlmann, Rosemary, 199
Durastanti, Margherita, 19, 31–32, 43, 60
Lane, Gloria, 196, 199
Eckerlin, Fanny, 51 Larmore, Jennifer, xv, 160, 165, 212
Elias, Rosalind, 172, 190, 199 Leonova, Dar’ya, 176
Ernst, Johann, 44 Levitskaya, Aleksandra, 176
Evans, Nancy, 198 Leyna, Lotte, 193, 198
Ewing, Maria, 193 Lieberson, Lorraine Hunt, 212
Lipton, Martha, 212
Fabbri, Guerrina, 164 Löwe-Destinn, Marie, 168–69
Fassbaender, Brigitte, 172, 209 Ludwig, Christa, 3, 172, 190, 202, 220
Ferrier, Kathleen, 194, 197–98 Lunn, Louise Kirkby, 182
Fontana, Giacinto (Farfallino), 26 Lussan, Zélie de, 183
Fornia, Rita, 190
Forrester, Maureen, 209, 220 Macé-Montarouge, Marguerite, 141
Fricci, Antonietta, 162 Mackinlay, Antoinette Sterling, 182
Madiera, Jean, 213
Gaetani, Jan De, 209 Mailac, Pauline, 135
Gafforini, Elisabetta, 64 Malanotte, Adelaide, 60–61, 84
Gagrina, Valentina, 196 Malibran, Maria, (Garcia), 3, 62–63, 66, 77, 85, 91–92, 96, 99–
Galli, Catarina, 36, 44 111, 113–14, 149–50, 152, 154–55, 181, 205
Galli-Marié, Celestine, 142–44, 181 Manca di Nissa, Bernadette, 213
Garanča, Elina, 210 Manna, Carolina Bassi, 74
Gay, Maria, 166 Mantelli, Eugenia, 166
Geneaux, Vivica, xv, 25, 62, 210 Manzuoli, Giovanni, 44–45
Georgi-Belloc, Teresa, 58, 60, 62, 66 Manzzochi, Almerinda, 155
Gerhardt, Elena, 182 Marchesina, Maria Antonia, 37
Gerville-Réache, Jeanne, 147 Marchesina, Santa, 123
Giaconia, Giuseppina, 190 Marchetti-Fantozzi, Maria, 47
Gilmore, Grace, 210 Marchisio, Barbara, 149–50
Gizziello, Gioachino, 29 Marcolini, Marietta, (Maria), 59–63, 70
Goggi, Emilia, 160 Mariani, Rosa, 58, 76, 133
Goldberg, Fanny, 157 Marsee, Susan, 213
Gorr, Rita, 165, 189–90 Mattiucci, Franca, 213
Graham, Susan, 172, 210 Matzenauer, Margarete, 165, 190–91, 198
Grandi, Margherite, 146–47 Mazzanti, (first name unknown), 151
Grassini, Josephina (Giuseppina), 51, 58, 82 Mazzarella, Rosina, 156
Grisi, Giuditta, 149 Megane, Leila, 183
Grossi, Eleanora, 162 Meier, Waltraud, 213
Guadagni, Antonio, 37, 43–44 Menghini-Cattaneo, Irene, 192
Guéymard-Lauters, Pauline, 135, 161 Mentzer, Susanne, 214
Merighi, Antonia, 25–26, 33
Hamari, Julia, 210 Merriman, Katherine Ann (Nan), 214
Harshaw, Margaret, 211 Metzger-Lettermann, Ottilie, 173
 Alto Singer Index 231

Meyer, Kerstin, 172, 214 Robinson, Anastasia, 31–32

Michel, Solange, 214 Rodriguez, Marietta Biancolini, 164
Miller, Auguste von, 134 Ronzi de Begnis, Giuseppina, 76, 92, 152–54
Miller, Mildred, 172, 214 Royer, Jacqueline, 147
Minelli, Giovanni Battista, 29
Mingardo, Sara, 214 Sadoven, Hèléne, 197
Minton, Yvonne, 172, 215 Sala, Adelaide, 64
Molé-Truffier, Marie, 141 Santoline, Diomilla, 153
Mombelli, Maria Ester, 59–61, 75, 151 Sarfaty, Regina, 217
Mombelli, Mariana (Anna), 61 Savanelli, Anna, 60
Monticelli, Angelo, 37 Sbriscia, Zelina, 161
Morandi, Rosa, 59, 74, 151 Scalchi, Sofia, 165
Scherler, Barbara, 217
Nantiér-Didieé, Constance, 161 Schneider, Hortense, 141
Neghi, Caterina Maria, 34, 41 Schumann-Heinke, Ernestine, 171, 186
Némenthy, Ella, 215 Schütz-Oldosi, Amalie, 75, 155
Nicolino (Nicoló Grimaldi), 25–26, 32, 35 Seehofer, Emma, 169
Nittinger, Irma, 173 Selyuk-Roznatovskaya, Serafina, 178
Senesino, (Francesco Bernardi), 7, 26, 31–36, 43
Obraztsova, Elena, 177, 190 Sharley, Denise, 190
Olezewska, Maria, 172, 195 Shaw, Mary, 159
Onégin, Sigrid, 193–94 Simionato, Giuletta, 62, 165, 192–93, 202
Orlandi, Elisa, 152–53 Sinclair, Monica, 198
Otter, Ann Sofie von, 172, 189, 215 Slavina, Mariya, 176, 178
Spech, Adelina, 153
Pacchierotti, Gasparo, 7, 18, 50, 69 Stade, Frederica von, 172, 189, 204–5
Paolelli, Giulia Saus, 23 Stevens, Risë, 172, 201–2
Parlamagni, Annetta, 75 Stignani, Ebbe, 191
Parsi-Pettinella, Armida, 166 Stoltz, Rosine, 122, 137–39, 156–57, 181
Pasqua, Giuseppina, 162, 164 Strakova, Varvara, 179
Pasta, Giuditta, 47, 52, 58, 61, 66, 70–71, 74, 81–93, 96, 101– Supervia, Concita, 191–92
102, 109, 115, 117, 149, 152 Swarthout, Gladys, 218
Pavlovska, Irène, 195
Pederzini, Gianna, 189 Tangeman, Nell, 199
Perini, Carolina (Anchulina), 47 Tarasova, Marianne, 196
Perini, Flora, 216 Tedesco, Fortunata, 168
Petrovitch, Genevra, 164 Terrani, Luisa Valentini, 218
Petrova-Zvantseva, Vera, 179 Tesi, Victoria, (Tramontini), 7, 26, 39, 40, 43
Pickens, Jane, 199 Thebom, Blanche, 197
Piltz, Maria Vilgelmina, 178 Thomas, Marjorie, 198
Pina, Sonia, xv, 216 Thorberg, Kerstin, 172
Pinotti, Elisabetta, 73 Todi, Luisa, 52
Pisaroni, Benedetta Rosmunda, 61, 63, 73–74, 88, 105, 133, 151, Töpper, Herta, 190
170 Tourangeau, Hugette, 218
Pistocchi, Antonio, 27 Tourel, Jennie, 196
Platanova, Yulina, 177 Troyanos, Tatiana, 165, 172, 190, 218–19
Podleś, Ewa, xv, 61–62, 216 Turner, Claramae, 219
Posi, Antonio, 29, 34
Powers, Marie, 199, 219 Ugalde, Marguerite, 141
Pozzi, Nicolo, 40 Unger (Ungher), Carolina, 75, 86, 95–98, 109, 149, 151–154
Puzzi-Toso, Giacinta, 154
Vanini, Francesca (Boschi), 31
Quivar, Florence, 216 Varobieva-Petrova, Anna, 175
Vasiliéva, Nadezhda, 196
Rankin, Nell, 165 Veasey, Josephine, 219
Rastovtseva, Aleksandra, 178 Vejzovic, Dunja, 219
Ravogli, Giulia, 165 Velluti, Giovanni Battista, 58–59, 62–63, 85, 87, 102, 111, 133
Renard, Marie, 145 Verrett, Shirley, 3, 160, 220
Resnick, Regina, 3, 176–77, 217–18 Viardot, Pauline, 3, 46, 62, 70–71, 92–93, 98, 100, 111, 113–30,
Reuss-Belce, Luise, 135 133–34, 144, 156, 159–60, 168, 170, 194, 201–2
Righetti-Giorgi, Geltrude, 64–65, 70 Villanueve, Louise (Luisa), 46
232 Alto Singer Index

Vonterthon, Joseph, 44 Walker, Edyth, 185

Votipka, Thelma “Tippy”, 220 White, Wendy, 199
Wolff, Beverly, 220
Wächter-Wittman, Thérèse, 168
Wagner, Johanna, 168 Zajick, Dolora, 160–221
Waldmann, Maria, 162, 164, 168 Zbrujeva, Eugenia, 178
General Index

Abbado, Claudio, 215, 220 Barbieri-Nini, Marianna, 159

Adam, Adolphe, 141 Barbot-Douvry, Carolina, 161
Adamo, Mark, 206 Bardari, Giuseppe, 154
Addison. Joseph, 181 Barenboim, Daniel, 206, 214
Adés, Thomas, 39 Barroilhet, Paolo, 139
Agujari, Lucrezia, 50 Bartók, Bela, 190, 211, 215, 219–20
d’Albert, Eugen, 194 Bartolini, Lorenzo, 76
Albinoni, Tommaso, 32, 40 basses-dessus, 43
Albrecht, Gerd, 218 Battistini, Mattia, 166
Ambrosi, Antonio, 66, 75 Bazin, François, 138
Amicis, Anna Lucia, 43–44 Beale, Thomas Willert, 127
d’Amico, Matteo, 214 Beard, John, 36
Amorevoli, Angelo, 40 Beaudelaire, Charles, 98
Andreozzi, Gaetano, 50–52, 62 Beaumarchais, Pierre, 45, 117
Angeles, Victoria de los, 204 Beecham, Sir Thomas, 147, 173, 183, 194
Ansani, Giovanni, 100 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 53, 63, 95, 105, 110, 116, 118, 129, 142,
Arditi, Luigi, 128, 160, 194 167, 169, 171, 210, 214
Arfvidsson, Ulrica, 161 Begnis, Giuseppe de, 65
Argento, Dominick, 205, 213 Bellini, Vincenzo, 24, 26, 73, 77–78, 81, 86, 88, 89–92, 98, 101,
aria agitato, 19 109–10, 119, 149–50, 207, 212, 215, 218
Ariosti, Attilio, 33 Belmont, Mrs. August (Eleanor Robson), 202
arresti (arbitri), 62 Bendidio, Isabella, 5
Artôt, Désirée, 130 Bendidio, Lucrezia, 5
Astrua, Giovanna, 25 Bene, Adriana Ferrarese del, 46–47
Auber, Daniel François Espirit, 133 Benedetti, Michele, 73
Augier, Emile, 123 Benedict, Sir Julius, 96, 126
Bennett, Tony, 219
Bach, Jan, 213 Berg, Alban, 193, 212, 215, 217
Bach, Johann Christian, 44 Berio, Luciano, 207
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 40, 129, 198, 202, 206, 210, 212 Bériot, Charles August de, 106, 109–10, 113, 117
Bachicha, Stephen, 214 Berlioz, Hector, 105–6, 114–15, 120–22, 128–29, 133–35, 138,
Balakirev, Mily A., 177 141–42, 146, 165, 192, 198–99, 206–8, 210–12, 214, 219
Balducci, Giuseppe, 96 Bernhardt, Sara, 146
Balfe, Michael William, 111, 125, 127, 138, 142, 181 Bernheimer, Martin, 208
Banderale, David, 96 Bernstein, Leonard, 196, 199, 202, 207, 213, 220
Banfield, Rafaello de, 219 Berselli, Matteo, 32
Barbaja, Domenico, 57, 63, 65, 70, 72–74, 75–76, 85–87, 96, 108, Bertoni, Ferdinando, 51
137, 151–52, 155–56 Billington, Elizabeth, 52
Barbarolli, Sir John, 198 Bing, Rudolf, 198, 202, 204, 207, 214
Barber, Samuel, 185, 200, 229 Bizet, Georges, 141–44, 184
Barbier, Jules, 141–42 Björling, Jussi, 207

233
234 General Index

Blake, Rockwell, 73 Casaccia, Carlo (Casaccello), 65

Blech, Leo, 194 Castellan, Jeanne, 118, 122, 126
Bliss, Arthur, 197 Catalani, Adelaide (Adel), 151
Blitzstein, Marc, 199, 217 Catalani, Alfredo, 165
Bloch, Ernest, 147, 189 Catalani, Angelica, 51–52, 59, 62, 82, 84, 86, 100, 102, 108
Böhm, Karl, 47, 210, 217 Cather, Willa, 183–84
Boito, Arrigo, 72, 145, 147, 164–65 Cavalli, Francesco, xv, 23–24, 218
Bonaparte, Lucien, 60 Cesti, Antonio, xv, 23
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 51–53, 76, 82 Chabrier, Emmanuel, 208
Bonci, Alessandro, 191 Chailly, Riccardo, 216
Bond, Dorothy, 147 Chaliapin, Feodor, 106, 146–47, 176, 178, 192
Boniventi, Giuseppe, 33 Chapi, Roberrto, 204
Bononcini, Giovanni, 26, 32–33 Charpentier, Gustave, 141, 147, 212, 219
Bordogni, Marco, 77, 83, 105 Charpentiér, Marc Antoine, 212
Borodin, Alexander, 125, 176–78, 216 Chausson, Ernest, 198
Bouhy, Jacques, 183 Chelard, Hippolite, 108
Boulanger, Nadia, 199 Chéreau, Patrice, 210
Bouquet, August, 100 Cherubini, Luigi, 50, 52–53, 84, 134
Braga, Gaetano, 160 Chopin, Frédéric, 113, 115–16, 120–24, 127, 194, 216
Brahms, Johannes, 129–30, 198–99, 213, 229 Chorley, Henry F., 78, 84, 88–89, 90–92, 100, 110, 115–16, 122–
Braunhofer, Maria Anna, 44 24, 129, 159, 168–69, 185
Brecht, Bertold, 193 Christie, William, 206
Brewbaker, Daniel, 214 Chung, Myung-Whung, 215
Britten, Benjamin, 3, 197–99, 208, 211–12, 215, 218, 220 Cilea, Francesco, 175, 177
Brivio, G.F., 36 Cimarosa, Domenico, 46, 51, 57, 63, 70, 107, 114–15
Broschi, Riccardo, 7, 33 Cinti-Damoreau, Laure, 66, 77
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 98 Clementi, Muzio, 121
Buchardo, Carlos López, 215 Coates, Albert, 195, 197
Bülow, Hans von, 169, 171 Coccia, Carlo, 87, 96, 108, 154–55
buffo opera, 25 Coltellini, Marco, 45
Bunn, Alfred, 109 Commetant, Oscar, 143–44
Burgess, Anthony, 207 contra alto, 5
burletta. See opera buffa contratenor altus, 5
Burney, Dr. Charles, xv, 7, 27, 34–35, 37, 44, 50 Cooper, James Fenimore, 103
Busotti, Sylvano, 207 Copeland, Aaron, 199
Bussani, Francesco, 46 Corelli, Franco, 26, 91, 192
Byron, Lord George, 74, 153, 219 Corsi, Jacopo, 23
Cosselli, Domenico, 151
Caballé, Monserrat, 73, 107, 154, 156, 203, 209, 219 Costa, Sir Michael, 90, 122, 126
Caccini, Giulio, 5 Costello, Elvis, 215
Cage, John, 207 Courbet, Gustave, 98
Caldara, Antonio, 31, 33 Craft, Robert, 197
Callas, Maria, 70, 72, 83–84, 88, 114, 149–150, 152, 190–91, 203, Crivelli, Gaetano, 58
207, 212 Crosby, Bing, 202
Calzabigi, Raniero, 44 Crosnier, François-Louis, 160
cambio voce, 27 Crumb, George, 209
Camerata, 23 Cui, Cesar, 175, 177
Cammarano, Salvatore, 122, 156 Curioni, Alberico, 86, 91
Campanini, Italo, 165 Cuzzoni, Francesca, 7, 19, 32–33, 35, 39, 41, 52, 154
Campeggi, Francesco, 43
Camporési, Violante, 74 da capo aria, 25
Caradori-Allen, Maria, 111 Dallapiccola, Luigi, 213
Carafa, Michele, 73, 86 Damrosch, Leopold, 170
Carlson, David, 208 Damrosch, Walter, 183
Carpenter, John Alden, 192 Daniels, David, xv
Carré, Michel, 142 Dardanelli, Girolama, 71
Carreras, José, 210 Dargomyzhski, Alexander S., 124, 175
Caruso, Enrico, 87, 161, 166, 173, 183, 186, 190, 193 David (Davide), Giacomo, 50, 58
Carvalho, Léon, 128–29, 142, 144–45 David (Davide), Giovanni, 58, 72–74, 87, 108
Carvalho, Maria Carolina, 128–29, 145 David, Felicién, 160
 General Index 235

Davis, Anthony, 217 Fétis, François-Joseph, 104, 107

Davis, Sir Colin, 211, 215 Fiedler, Max, 182
Debussy, Claude, 106, 141, 147, 189, 211 Fioratura, 70–71, 101, 205
Deinet, Anna, 169 Fioravanti, Valentino, 59, 63, 70
Delacroix, Eugène, 115–16, 119, 122, 155 Fitzgerald, Barry, 202
Della Casa, Lisa, 172 Flagstad, Kirsten, 74, 185, 194, 211
De Moyana, Pietro Antonio, 152 Fleming, Renée, 209
Desmoutiers, Giséle, 190 Florez, Juan Diego, 64
Destinn, Emmy, 169, 186, 190 von Flotow, Friederich, 164, 213
Diaghilev, Sergey, 177, 196 Floyd, Carlisle, 208, 214, 217
Di Stefano, Giuseppe, 192 Fo, Dario, 65
divisions from the chest, 29 Fodor-Mainvielle, Josephine, 65, 82–83, 85, 96
Domingo, Plácido, 208, 220 Folignatus, Petrus Paulus, 5
Donizetti, Gaetano, 24, 26, 37, 73–74, 76–77, 81, 88–90, 92, 96, Formes, Karl Johann, 126
110, 117–18, 122, 137–38, 150–57, 162, 168–69, 177, 203–4, Franchetti, Alberto, 165, 128, 216
206–7, 209, 215, 219, 220 Freschi, Giovanni Domenico, 24
Donzelli, Domenico, 64, 85, 91, 106, 151, 153 Furtwängler, Wilhelm, 194, 211
dramma semiserio, 63
Duende, 101 Gabrielli, Caterina, 43–44
Dukas, Paul, 147, 190 Galerati, Caterina, 32
Dumas, Alexandre, 97 Galant style, 25, 39
Dun, Tan, 214 Galli, Filippo, 66, 74, 90, 104
Duni, Egidio, 33 Galli-Curci, Amelita, 149, 150, 213
Dupin, Amantine Lucille-Aurore. See Sand, George Galuppi, Baldassare, 36, 57
Duponchel, Henri, 138 Garcia, Manuel del Popolo Vicente, 58, 62, 64–65, 71, 75, 82–85,
Duprez, Gilbert-Louis, 87, 96, 109, 122, 137–39, 153–55 99, 100, 102–3, 105
Duse, Eleanora, 145 Garcia, Manuel Patricio Rodriguez, 75, 99 104, 130, 203, 302
Gardelli, Lamberto, 210
Eames, Emma, 166 Garden, Mary, 149, 189
Eaton, John, 212 Gardiner, John Eliot, 206, 211, 215
Eddy, Nelson, 202 Gasbarri, Gaetano, 60
Edison, Thomas A., 189 Gasparini, Francesco, 32
von Einem, Gottfried, 214 Gasparini, Michaelangelo, 40
Elgar, Sir Edward, 182–83, 198–99, 215 Gaveaux, Pierre, 137
Engleberg, Sebastian, 204 Gedenov, Stephan, 177
Enzinger, Christian, 44 Gencer, Leyla, 156
Erbse, Heimo, 211 gender switching (En travesti), 3
Erlanger, Camille, 147 génie oblige, 116
Escudier, Leon, 100, 124, 137, 139 Gesualdo, Carlo, 197
Escudier, Marie-Pierre Pascal, 100 Giacomelli, Geminiano, 35
Essler, Fanny, 105 Gibelli, Lorenzo, 50
Gigli, Beniamino, 192
Fabri, Annibale Pio, 27 Gilbert , W. S., 181–82, 197–98
Faccio, Franco, 161–62, 164 Ginastera, Alberto, 219
falcon soprano, 133 Giordano, Umberto, 164–65, 190
Falcon, Marie Cornélie, 96, 123, 133 Giulini, Carlo Maria, 210
Falla, Manuel de, 204 Gizzi, Domenico, 29
falsetto singing, 5 Glass, Philip, 200, 218
Farinelli, (Carlo Broschi), 7, 26–27, 30, 33, 39, 50, 69 Glazunov, Alexander, 178
Farinelli, Giuseppe, 71, 82–83 Glick, Srul Irving, 210
farsa, 62 Glinka, Mikhail, 90, 124, 164–65, 175–76
Fassbaender, Willi-Domgraf, 209 Gluck, Christoph Willibald (Ritter von), 37, 43–44, 49, 70, 114,
Fastlinger, Josephine, 168 119, 126–27, 129, 134, 141, 168, 182, 190–91, 194–95, 197,
Fauré, Gabriel, 130, 190 199, 204, 206, 208, 211, 214–16, 220
Federici, Vincenzo, 51, 63 Gnecco, Francesco, 90
Fermata, 62 Goehr, Alexander, 214
Ferrar, Geraldine, 186, 202 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 6, 45, 129, 130, 133, 142, 144
Ferrero, Lorenzo, 213 Gogol, Nicholai, 124
Ferretti, Jacopo, 65, 73, 151, 153–54 Golden Age of Singing, (First), 26
Ferrucci, Luigi Christosomo, 59, 69 Golden Age of Singing, (Second), 49
236 General Index

Goldoni, Carlo, 45, 65

Gönnenwein, Wolfgang, 210 Kagen, Sergius, 209
Gordon, Ricky Ian, 205 Kaiser, Reinhard, 167
Gossett, Philip, xiii, 61–62, 65–66, 85, 150, 203 Kalman, Emmerich, 194
Gounod, Charles, 114–15, 122–24, 135, 143, 146–47, 184, 206, von Karajan, Herbert, 198, 206–7, 210, 220
220 Kastle, Leonard, 200
Granados, Enrique, 204, 216 Kaufmann, Anna, 169
Granara, Antonio, 96 Kelterborn, Richard, 217
Graun, Karl Heinrich, 42, 127 Kemble, Adelaide, 87
grazie soprafine, 29 Kern, Jerome, 205
Grieg, Edvard, 186, 215 Kipnis, Alexander, 174
Grisar, Albert, 142 Kleiber, Erich, 194, 201, 217
Grisi, Giulia, 52, 77–78, 88, 91, 93, 96, 109, 114–17, 120–21, Klein, Herman, 185
124, 127–28, 153–54, 156 Klemperer, Otto, 198, 210, 215
Grün, Friederike, 168 Korngold, Erich Wolfgang, 195
Guardasoni, Domenico, 47 Krauss, Clemens, 217
Guglielmi, Alessandro, 51
Guglielmi, Giacomo, 65, 102 Lablache, Luigi, xii, 3, 77, 86, 90, 107–8, 111, 114–16, 123, 149,
Guiraud, Ernest, 143–44 152–54
Guridi, Jésus, 204 Laborde, Rosine, 145–147
Gutheil-Schroder, Marie, 201 Lafayette, Gilbert Motier, Marquis de, 107–8
Lalo, Edouard, 147
Hahn, Renaldo, 146 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 104
Halévy, Fromenthal, 104, 114, 119, 122–23, 133, 138, 142, 150, Lamperti, Francesco, 162, 201
160, 168, 206 Lamperti, Giovanni Battista, 172
Halévy, Ludovic, 142 Larson, Libby, 214
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 103 Lasalle, Jean, 134
Hammerstein I, Oscar, 147, 183, 219 Latilla, Gaetano, 25
Hammerstein II, Oscar, 219 Lavigna, Vincenzo, 70
Handel, George Friederic, 23, 31–37, 39, 49, 57, 60, 116, 121, Lear, Evelyn, 172
125, 133, 198, 204, 207–8, 210, 215–16, 218, 220–21 Legrenzi, Giovanni, 24
Hanslick, Edward, 98 Legros, Joseph, 52
Harbison, John, 210, 212 Lehmann, Henri, 97
Harnoncourt, Nikolaus, 206 Lehmann, Lilli, 154, 170, 193, 220
Hasse, Johann Adolf, xv, 25, 33, 35, 37, 39–42, 210 Lehmann, Lotte, 172, 193, 201, 214
haut-contre, 43, 52 Leigh, Vivian, 214
Haydn, Joseph, 57, 105, 121, 206, 215 Leinsdorf, Erich, 218
Hayes, Catherine, 122 Lenau, Nikolaus, 97
Heggie, Jake, 205–6 Leo, Leonardo, xv, 25, 32, 40
Heine, Heinrich, 121 Leroux, Xavier, 216
Heinz, Hans, 218 Lescuyer, Alphonse, 137
Helden voice, 167, 169, 172, 186 Leslie, Henry, 127
Henze, Hans Werner, 207, 212, 217, 219 Levasseur, Nicholas Prosper, 122
Hérold, Ferdinand, 100 Levine, James, 26, 213, 216
Hindemith, Paul, 212 Levy, Martin David, 217
hoch-dramatisch Sopran, 167, 169, 185, 190, 211 Lewald, Fanny, 98
Homer, Sidney, 185 Lewis, Brenda, 199
Honneger, Arthur, 190, 195 Lhérie, Paul, 185
Horn, Charles Edward, 108 Lieberson, Peter, 212
Horowitz, Vladimir, 83, 202 Lillo, Giuseppe, 96
Lind, Jenny, 78, 118, 120, 127
Imbrie, Andrew, 213 Liparini, Caterina, 151
Intermedii, 5 Lipparini, Ludovico, 71, 78
Isbin, Sharon, 214 Liszt, Franz, 85–86, 95–98, 104, 110, 113, 116, 127, 134
Ivanoff, Ivan, 77 Ljungberg, Göta, 186
Locle, Camille du, 142–44, 161
Janáček, Leoš, 173, 194, 206, 212, 220 London, George, 217
Janowski, Marek, 215 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 78
Jaubert, Carolina, 114 Lotti, Antonio, 26, 33
Jommelli, Niccoló, 44, 57 Lougouvé, Ernest, 106
Jurinac, Sena, 172 Louzières, Achille de, 143
 General Index 237

Lucca, Pauline (Paolina), 162 Milhaud, Darius, 195

Lucia, Fernando de, 145–46, 189, 191 Milnes, Sherrill, 209
L’vov, A, 118 Mingotti, Regina, 41
Lynch, Dominick, 102 Minkowski, Marc, 211–12, 215
Molière, (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), 52
Machover, Tod, 206 Mombelli, Andrea, 58, 60
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 189 del Monaco, Mario, 209
Magnani, Girolamo, 163 Monelli, Savino, 66
Magnard, Lucien, 147 Montagna, Antonio, 33
Mahler, Gustav, 172–73, 186, 195, 198–99, 202, 210, 213, 215–16 Montemezzi, Italo, 219
Maillart, Aimé, 142–43 Monteverdi, Claudio, 23, 198, 205, 208, 211–12, 215–16, 219
Malibran, Eugéne François, 103, 105–6, 108–10 Montsalvatge, Xavier, 204
Mancini, Giambattista, 30, 32, 40, 43 Moore, Douglas, 212, 219–20
Manzoni, Alessandro, 163 Morales, Manuela, 101
Mapleson, Colonel James Henry, 127 Moreschi, Antonio, 5
Mara (Gertrude Elizabeth Schmelling), 52 Moriani, Napoleone, 97
Marcello, Benedetto, 40 Morlacchi, Francesco, 62
Marchesi, Luigi, 53, 58, 78n4 Mosca, Giuseppe, 70
Marchesi, Mathilde, 145, 162, 184 Moscheles, Ignaz, 86, 113
Marchisio, Carlotta, 149 Mottl, Felix, 135
Mario, Giovanni Matteo de Candia, 116, 120–24, 128 Mount-Edgecombe, Lord Richard, 50, 60
Marliani, Marco Aurelio, 138, 168 Mozart, Franz Xavier Wolfgang, 95
martellato, 205 Mozart, Leopold, 41
Martinelli, Giovanni, 193 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 41, 44–47, 49, 52, 57, 59–60, 69, 82,
Mascagni, Pietro, 145, 164–66, 192 89, 95, 98, 103, 123, 160, 168–69, 171–72, 189, 197, 199,
Massé, Victor, 144, 147 204–7, 209–13, 215, 219–21
Massenet, Jules, 130, 133, 141, 144–47, 171, 181–83, 190, 197, Münchinger, Karl, 210
204–5, 207–8, 210, 214, 216, 218, 220 musico, 6, 60, 74, 78, 84–85, 88
Materna, Amalie, 170, 185, 213 musico assoluto, 86
Maurel, Victor, 72, 145 Musorgsky, Modest, 175–78, 179n1, 197, 208
Maw, Nicholas, 215 de Musset, Alfred, 114–15
Mayr, Giovanni Simone, 51, 57–58, 60, 63, 70, 82, 84, 87–89, 91, Mustafá, Domenico, 145
151 Muti, Riccardo, 213, 215
Mayr, Richard, 195 Muzio, Claudia, 160, 197
Mazzola, Caterina, 47 Muzio, Emanuele, 163
Mazzoleni, Ester, 166 Myuzumi, Toshiro, 217
Mehta, Zubin, 206
Meilhac, Henri, 142, 144 Nabokov, Nicholas, 22
Melba, Nellie, 144, 147 Nasolini, Sebastiano, 51, 82
Melchior, Lauritz, 174, 186, 194–95 Nast, Minnie, 172
melodramma eroico, 62, 151 National Enquirer, 35
melodramma giocoso, 62, 70 Neumann, Johann Gottlieb, 53
Mendelssohn, Fanny, 98 Neway, Patricia, 200
Mendelssohn, Felix, 117, 123 Nicolai, Otto, 96
Menotti, Gian Carlo, 189–90, 196, 199, 200, 208, 212–14, 217, Nicolini, Giuseppe, 62, 82, 89
219–20 Niedermeyer, Louis, 138
Mercadante, Saverio, 59, 77, 84, 92, 96, 152, 154, 156, 160–61 Niemann, Albert, 170
Méric, Josephine de, 92 Nikisch, Arthur, 182
Méric-Lalande, Henriette, 96–97, 106, 149, 153 Nilsson, Birgit, 191
Mérimée, Prosper, 142, 144, 185 Nilsson, Christine, 165
Merlin, Countess Maria de, 99–102, 104–5, 109, 111, 114 Nono, Luigi, 213, 219
Mermet, August, 138 Nordica, Lillian, 186
Merritt, Chris, 73 Nourrit, Adolf, 77, 96, 113, 122–23, 137
Méry, Joseph, 161 Novello, Clara, 126
Metastasio, (Piero Antonio Domenico Trapassi), 26, 39–41, 45, 87 Novotná, Jarmila, 173
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 63, 78, 85–87, 89, 96, 102, 114, 117–122, Nozzari, Andrea, 58, 71–74, 85
133, 152, 160, 168–69, 190 Nupin, Christopher, 218
Meysenberg, Charles, 105, 113
Micheroux, Alexandre, 89 Offenbach, Jacque, 141–42, 144, 190
middle register, 29 Olivier, Lawrence, 214
Milanov, Zinka, 70, 150, 217 Oliviero, Magda, 212
238 General Index

Olssohn, Garrick, 216 Pucitta, Vincenzo, 52

opera buffa, 45, 57 Puffer, Ted, 221
orchiectomy, 6 Pugni, Cesare, 152
Orgeni, Agalia, 130, 172, 185, 195 Purcell, Henry, 181, 198, 204, 215, 218
Orlandi, Ferdinando, 82 Puzzi, Giovanni, 116, 154
Orlandini, Giuseppe Maria, 40
Ormandy, Eugene, 213 Quanz, Johann Joachim, 31, 43
ospedali, 6
Raaf, Anton, 30, 52
Pacini, Giovanni, 74, 81–82, 86, 95–96, 108, 117, 152, 156, 160, Rachmaninoff, Sergey, 178, 219
213 Raeburn, Christopher, 205
de Padilla, Désirée Artôt, 98 Raimondi, Pietro, 87, 96
Paer, Ferdinando, 52, 57, 62, 70, 82–84, 100 Rameau, Jean-Phillippe, 205, 212
Paganini, Niccoló, 75, 78n25 Rattle, Sir Simon, 211
Paget, Violet (Vernon Lee), 50 Ravel, Maurice, 84, 177, 190, 196, 208
Paisiello, Giovanni, 45, 51, 57, 64, 70, 83–84, 100 Ravogli, Sofia, 165
Pallavicino, Carlo Francesco, 24–25, 40 recitativo secco, 74
Panizza, Ettore, 215 Reeves, Sims, 126
particelle, 66 Reicha, Antoine, 105
Pasatieri, Thomas, 205 Reichardt, Johann Friederich, 53
Pasquini, Giovanni Claudio, 41 Reimann, Aribert, 212
Paterni, Giovanni, 153 Reina, Domenico, 96
Patti, Adelina, 77–78, 93 Reiner, Fritz, 174
Pavarotti, Luciano, 161, 211 Respighi, Ottorino, 191, 218
Pavesi, Sefano, 65, 70, 82 de Reszke, Edouard, 165
Pears, Peter, 197–98 de Reszke, Jean, 144, 146–47, 166, 183, 186, 190
Pélissiér, Olympe, 76, 84, 92 Rethberg, Elisabeth, 193
Penderecki, Krzysztof, 212, 218 Ricci, Luigi, 96, 109
Peperara, Laura, 5 Richter, Hans, 182
Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista, 57 Richter, Karl, 210
Peri, Achille, 160 Rieschi, Luigi, 96
Peri, Jacopo, 23 Rietz, Julius, 127, 129
Perrin, Émil, 161 Rilling, Helmut, 210
Persiani, Fanny Tacchinardi, 114–16, 120, 156, 165 Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, 147, 175, 177–79, 197, 216
Persiani, Giuseppe, 96, 109 Rinucchini, Ottavio, 23
Pertile, Aureliano, 166, 191 Rococo style, 25
Pescetti, Giovanni Battista, 33 Rode, Pierre, 51
Petrov, Osip, 175 Roger, Gustave, 120–22
Pianizza, Giacomo, 153 Rogers, Richard, 205, 219
Picker, Tobias, 212, 221 Romani, Felice, 74, 89, 90–91, 149, 151, 153–54
Pillet, Léon, 115, 122, 137, 139 Ronconi, Georgio, 123, 125, 153, 155–56
Pinotti, Elisabetta, 73 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 207
Pinza, Ezio, 160 Roqueplan, Nestor, 123
Pisaroni, Benedetta Rosmunda, 61, 63, 73–74, 88, 104, 105, 133, Rorem, Ned, 208, 220
151, 170 Rosing, Vladamir, 220
Pizzetti, Ildebrano, 191, 195 Rosponi, Lanfranco, 199
Plançon, Pol, 147, 186 Rossi, Lauro, 109, 160
Poggi, Antonio, 156 Rossini, Gioachino, 3, 39, 44, 50, 57, 59–78, 81–93, 95, 97, 100–
Poleri, David, 196 2, 104, 108, 111, 114, 116–17, 119, 121–22, 127, 133–34,
Pollarollo, Carlo Francesco, 24, 32–33, 35, 40 138, 151–52, 161, 203–4, 206–7, 210, 213, 216, 218
Ponchielli, Amilcare, 147, 164 Rossini, Giuseppe, 76
Ponnelle, Jean-Pierre, 204 Rossinus, Hieronymous, 5
da Ponte, Lorenzo, 45–46, 103 Roussel, Albert, 190
Porpora, Niccoló, xv, 6, 26, 35–36, 39, 41 Royer, Alphonse, 139
Portugal, Marcos Antonio, 51 Royer, Ernest, 146–47
Poulenc, François, 189–90, 213 Rubini, Giovanni Battista, 58, 63, 72, 74, 77, 84–86, 88–90, 96,
Price, Stephen, 102 113, 116–18, 126, 151–54, 156
prima donna assoluto, 63, 86 Rubinstein, Anton, 124, 129, 174, 176
primo musico (musichetto), 61, 88 Rubinstein, Nicholai, 176
Prokofiev, Sergey, 190, 195–96 Rudel, Julius, 220
Puccini, Giacomo, 57, 73, 147, 164–65, 197, 200, 219 Ruffo, Tita, 147
 General Index 239

Ruggeri, Giovanni Maria, 33 Solti, Sir Georg, 209

Ruiz-Garcia, Josefa, 99 Sondheim, Stephen, 205
Russ, Giannina, 147 Sonntag, Henriette, 74, 87–88, 95, 104–6, 109, 119, 127
soprano sfogato, 69, 81, 87, 99, 152, 161, 167, 203, 208, 210, 213
Sabatier, François, 97 Souzay, Gérard, 190
Sainton-Dolby, Charlotte, 126 Spohr, Louis, 64, 125
Saint-Saëns, Camille, 113–14, 129–30, 133, 147, 178, 182–83 Spontini, Gaspare, 63, 74, 134, 152
Sala, Martin, 45–46 Sprechstimme, 193, 209
Salieri, Antonio, 45, 134, 206 Steele, Richard, 32
Salimbeni, Felice, 41 Steffani, Agostino, 24–25
Salvi, Matteo, 157 Stehle, Sophia, 169, 207, 214
Sanctis, Giovanni de, 5 Stendhal, (Marie-Henri Beyle), 50, 52, 57, 60, 62, 64, 66, 70,
Sand, George, 107, 114–16, 118–20, 123–24 72–76, 81, 85, 88–89, 104, 147, 151, 203
Sandström, Sven-David, 215 Stiches (Briones) Joachina, 99, 114
Sargent, Sir Michael, 198 Stokowski, Leopold, 182, 193, 196, 229
Sarro, Domenico, 32, 35 Stolz, Teresa, 162–64
Sarti, Giovanni Vincenzo, 44, 50, 216 Storace, Nancy, 69, 78n4
Sarti, Giuseppe, 52–53 Stracciari, Riccardo, 166
Sartorio, Antonio, 24 Strada del Pò, Anna Maria, 33
Sbigioli, Amerigo, 151 Strakosch, Maurice, 93, 184
Scarlatti, Alessandro, 25–26, 32–33, 39, 167, 216 Strauss, Franz, 170
Scheffler, Ary, 115, 124 Strauss, Johann the Younger, 173
Schiller, Friederich, 154, 161 Strauss, Richard, 26, 167, 169, 172–73, 183, 186, 193–95, 197,
Schmidt, Giovanni, 156 199, 202, 207, 209, 211–12, 215, 217–18
Schnorr von Carolsfield, Ludwig, 169 Stravinsky, Igor, 177, 190, 196–97, 199, 203, 207–9
Schoeck, Othmar, 217 Strehler, Georgio, 204
Schoenberg, Arnold, 193, 210, 209, 220 Strepponi, Feliciano, 96
Scholl, Andres, xv Strepponi, Giuseppina, 156
Schön-René, Anna Eugénie, 194, 210–12, 220 Strindberg, August, 217
Schopenhauer, Artur, 50 Sulek, Stjepan, 219
Schorr, Friederich, 199 Sullivan, Arthur, 181–83, 197–98
Schröder-Devrient, Wilhelmine, 88, 97, 107, 110, 167–68 Susa, Conrad, 205
Schubert, Franz, 76, 95, 97–98, 126, 129, 142 Süssmayer, Franz, 47
Schuller, Gunter, 214 Sutherland, Joan, 70, 91, 150, 192, 203
Schumann, Clara, 114, 117, 119, 127
Schumann, Robert, 76, 98, 117, 121, 127, 142 Tacchinardi, Niccola, 58
Schumann, Elisabeth, 195 Tadolini, Eugenia, 128, 156
Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth, 182, 198 Taglioni, Maria, 105
Scolari, Giuseppe, 52 Talma, François Joseph, 51, 86
Scribe, Eugène, 122 Tamagno, Francesco, 162
Searle, Humphrey, 214 Tamberlik, Enrico, 125–26
Sellars, Peter, 212 Tamburini, Antonio, 77, 88, 92, 96, 116, 118, 150, 152, 154
Sembrich, Marcella, 149, 186 Tartini, Giuseppe, 29
Serafin, Tullio, 192, 213 Tasso, Torquato, 61, 72, 153
Serov, Alexander N., 175–78 Tattola, Andrea Leone, 73
Serrano, José, 204 Tauber, Richard, 194
Shakespeare, William, 117 Tchaikovsky, Pyotor Illyich, 125, 130, 142, 144–45, 175–76, 178–
Shaw, George Bernard, 165, 185 79, 182, 190, 200, 209, 221
Shaw, Harold, 216 Tebaldi, Renata, 83
Sheridan, Richard, 196 tempest aria, 19
Shostakovich, Dmitry, 177, 196 Ternina, Milka, 170, 186
Sibelius, Jean, 215 tessitura, 23, 25, 29, 69, 71, 90, 152, 160, 169
Siddons, Sara, 86, 128 Thomas, Ambroise, 135, 142, 144–47, 205, 212
Siebert, Wilhelm Dieter, 217 Thompson, Virgil, 208
Siems, Margarethe, 172 Tichatschek, Joseph Alois, 119
Siepi, Cesare, 182 Tieck, Ludwig, 97, 98
Sills, Beverly, 156, 204, 210, 218, 220 Tippet, Michael, 197, 215, 219
Smart, Sir George, 111 Tommasini, Anthony, 212
Smetana, Bedřich, 174 Toscanini, Arturo, 166, 186, 190–91, 194, 199, 200
Söderstrom, Elizabeth, 172 Tottola, Andrea Leone, 73
Soler, Vicente Martin y, 45–46 Tourel, Jennie, 196–97
240 General Index

Traetta, Tommaso, 44 Wagner, Wieland, 190

travesti roles, 82 Walpole, Horace, 34, 37
Treigle, Norman, 209–10, 218, 220 Walter, Bruno, 186, 194, 198, 210, 213
Tritto, Giacomo, 62 Walton, William, 198–99, 207, 209
Turgenev, Ivan Sergeyevich, 117–20, 130, 133, 147, 178, 182–83 Ward, Robert, 212
Turina, Joachim, 204 Warren, Leonard, 161
Weber, Aloysia, 95
Unger, Karl, 95 Weber, Carl Maria von, 121, 138, 145, 167–68, 190–195
Upshaw, Dawn, 209 Weidt, Lucie (Lucy), 173
Urlus, Jacque, 174 Weigl, Joseph, 152
Usiglio, Emilio, 160 Weill, Kurt, 193, 199, 209, 220
Weisgall, Hugo, 212, 217
Vaccai, Nicola, 78, 96, 108, 110 Wellesley, Arthur, Duke of Wellington, 52
Veracini, Francesco Maria, 33 Whitman, Walt, 78
Verdi, Giuseppe, 26, 57, 72–73, 77, 87, 118–19, 121–22, 125–26, Wieck, Clara. See Schumann, Clara
128, 133, 135, 146, 150–51, 153, 156, 159–64, 167–69, 184, Williams, Grace, 197
186, 189, 191, 194–98, 200, 202–4, 207–8, 211–13, 216, 220, Williams, Ralph Vaughan, 198, 229
221 Wilson, Grant, 103
Verni, Andrea, 65 Wilson, Robert, 220
Vianese, Auguste, 128 Windgassen, Wolfgang, 172–73
Viardot, Louis, 106, 108, 114, 116, 120, 124, 130 Winschermann, Helmut, 210
Vickers, Jon, 89, 176, 197, 210, 219 von Winter, Peter, 52, 63
Vieuxtemps, Henri-François Joseph, 116 Wissmer, Pierre, 214
Villa-Lobos, Heitor, 204 Wolf, Hugo, 142, 215
Vinci, Leonardo, xv, 25–26, 40 Wolff, Albert, 216
Vivaldi, Antonio, 206, 210, 216, 218 Wolf-Ferrari, Ermanno, 183, 190
Vivekananda, Swami, 146
Vogl, Johann Michael, 95
Vogler, Abbé Georg, 121 Zandonai, Riccardo, 185, 216
Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 61, 75, 84 Zeani, Pietro Andrea, 24
Zecchini, Amalia, 159
Wagner, Richard, 26, 44, 97, 121, 126, 129, 133, 146–47, 153, Zelter, Carl Friederich, 121
160, 163–64, 167, 171, 173, 184–86, 194–95, 197–99, 201, Zimmermann, Bernd Alois, 219
204, 209–10, 213, 219–21 Zuchelli, Carlo, 86
About the Author

Dan H. Marek has appeared as a principal tenor with leading opera companies including
the Metropolitan Opera, where he sang nineteen roles, including the inaugural perfor-
mance of the Met at Lincoln Center in Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra. Other companies
include the New York City Opera, the Salzburg Opera in Austria and France, the Baltimore
Opera, Central City Opera, the Southern California Opera, and the Kentucky Opera.
Marek is also a versatile orchestral soloist, chosen by Leopold Stokowski for a memorable
Beethoven Ninth in Carnegie Hall and for many performances of Messiah in such venues
as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Mormon Tabernacle to critical acclaim.
As a recitalist, Dan Marek is equally at home in French, Italian, German, or English
Dan H. Marek by Louis Marek repertoire. He has sung many of the great song cycles including such diverse works as
Beethoven’s An Die Ferne Geliebte, Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, Die Winterreise, and
Schwanengesang, Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Brahms’s Four Serious Songs, Vaughan-William’s On Wenlock Edge and Four Hymns, and
Gruenberg’s Animals and Insects. Marek has also commissioned Three Marian Eulogies by Daniel S. Godfrey, performed for the
College Music Society Convention.
Current and former voice students of Dan H. Marek perform at major opera houses (Metropolitan, New York City Opera, San
Francisco, Chicago, Houston, La Scala, Berlin Komische, Bonn, and Royal Opera, Stockholm, Sweden). Marek has been on the
voice faculty of Mannes College of Music since 1974 and was appointed chairman of the voice department, a newly created post.
Marek was formerly adjunct associate professor of voice at City University of New York. He was also on the faculty of the American
Institute of Musical Studies, Graz, Austria, and formerly head of the voice department at Syracuse University, where he held the rank
of associate professor. Syracuse students of Professor Marek won several important national competitions including the National
Opera Association and the Chicago Lyric Competition.
In 1979, Dan H. Marek founded the Mozart Opera Project at Mannes whose graduates are singing in major opera houses the
world over. In 2004, Dan Marek began a series of annual master classes at the Opera På Skäret Festival in Sweden, and students of
the classes are singing professionally in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe.
Articles by Dan H. Marek on vocal subjects appear regularly in The Classical Singer magazine and have been published in The
Music Journal and The NATS Journal. In January 2007, Mr. Marek published a comprehensive book on vocal history and singing
technique, Singing: The First Art, published by Scarecrow Press. In 2013, Dan H. Marek published Giovanni Battista Rubini and
the Bel Canto Tenors: History and Technique, also by Scarecrow Press.

241