It was my good fortune to sing in the space of a year three delightful rôles in "opéra comique," each of which I enjoyed hugely. They were Zerlina in Fra Diavolo; Rosina in Il Barbiere; and Annetta in Crispino e la Comare. Fra Diavolo was first produced in Italian in America during the autumn of 1864, the year after I appeared in Marguerite, and it remained one of our most popular operas throughout the season of '65-66. I loved it and always had a good time the nights it was given. We put it on for my "benefit" at the end of the regular winter season at the Academy. The season closed with the old year and the "benefit" took place on the 28th of December. The "benefit" custom was very general in those days. Everybody had one a year and so I had to have mine, or, at least, Maretzek thought I had to have it. Fra Diavolo was his choice for this occasion as I had made one of my best successes in the part of Zerlina, and the opera had been the most liked in our whole répertoire with the exception of Faust. Faust had remained from the beginning our most unconditional success, our cheval de bataille, and never failed to pack the house.
I don't know quite why that Fra Diavolo night stands out so happily and vividly in my memory. I have had other and more spectacular "benefits"; but that evening there seemed to be the warmest and most personal of atmospheres in the old Academy. The audience was full of friends and, what with the glimpses I had of these familiar faces and my loads of lovely flowers and the kindly, intimate enthusiasm that greeted my appearance, I felt as if I were at a party and not playing a performance at all. I had to come out again and again; and finally became so wrought up that I was nearly in tears.
As a climax I was entirely overcome when I suddenly turned to find Maretzek standing beside me in the middle of the stage, smiling at me in a friendly and encouraging manner. I had not the slightest idea what his presence there at that moment meant. The applause stopped instantly. Whereupon "Max the Magnificent" made a little speech in the quick hush, saying charming and overwhelming things about the young girl whose musical beginning he had watched and who in a few years had reached "a high pinnacle in the world of art. The young girl"—he went on to say—"who at twenty-one was the foremost prima donna of America."
"And now, my dear Miss Kellogg," he wound up with, holding out to me a velvet case, "I am instructed by the stockholders of the Opera Company to hand you this, to remind you of their admiration and their pride in you!"
I took the case; and the house cheered and cheered as I lifted out of it a wonderful flashing diamond bracelet and diamond ring. Of course I couldn't speak. I could hardly say "thank you." I just ran off with eyes and heart overflowing to the wings where my mother was waiting for me.
The bracelet and the ring are among the dearest things I possess. Their value to me is much greater than any money could be, for they symbolise my young girl's sudden comprehension of the fact that I had made my countrymen proud of me! That seemed like the high-water mark; the finest thing that could happen.
Annetta was my second creation. There could hardly be imagined a greater contrast than she presented to the part of Marguerite. Gretchen was all the virtues in spite of her somewhat spectacular career; gentleness and sweetness itself. Annetta, the ballad singer, was quite the opposite. I must say that I really enjoyed making myself shrewish, sparkling, and audacious. Perhaps I thus took out in the lighter rôles I sang many of my own suppressed tendencies. Although I lived such an essentially ungirlish life, I was, nevertheless, full of youthful feeling and high spirits, so, when I was Annetta or Zerlina or Rosina, I had a flying chance to "bubble" just a little bit. Merriment is one of the finest and most helpful emotions in the world and I dare say we all have the possibilities of it in us, one way or another. But it is a shy sprite and does not readily come to one's call. I often think that the art, or the ability,—on the stage or off it—which makes people truly and innocently gay, is very high in the scale of human importance. Personally, I have never been happier than when I was frolicking through some entirely light-weight opera, full of whims and quirks and laughing music. I used to feel intimately in touch with the whole audience then, as though they and I were sharing some exquisite secret or delicious joke; and I would reach a point of ease and spontaneity which I have never achieved in more serious work.
Crispino had made a tremendous hit in Paris the year before when Malibran had sung Annetta with brilliant success. It has been sometimes said that Grisi created the rôle of Annetta in America; but I still cling to the claim of that distinction for myself. The composers of the opera were the Rice brothers. I do not know of any other case where an opera has been written fraternally; and it was such a highly successful little opera that I wish I knew more about the two men who were responsible for it. All that I remember clearly is that they both of them knew music thoroughly and that one of them taught it as a profession.
Our first Cobbler in Crispino e la Comare ("The Cobbler and the Fairy") was Rovere, a good Italian buffo baritone. He was one of those extraordinary artists whose art grows and increases with time and, by some law of compensation, comes more and more to take the place of mere voice. Rovere was in his prime in 1852 when he sang in America with Mme. Alboni. Later, when he sang with me, a few of the New York critics remembered him and knew his work and agreed that he was "as good as ever." His voice—no. But his art, his method, his delightful manner—these did not deteriorate. On the contrary, they matured and ripened. Our second Cobbler, Ronconi, was even more remarkable. He was, I believe, one of the finest Italian baritones that ever lived, and he succeeded in getting a degree of genuine high comedy out of the part that I have never seen surpassed. He used to tell of himself a story of the time when he was singing in the Royal Opera of Petersburg. The Czar—father of the one who was murdered—said to him once:
"Ronconi, I understand that you are so versatile that you can express tragedy with one side of your face when you are singing and comedy with the other. How do you do it?"