VI.
About the time of Mara's departure from England Mrs. Billington was wonderfully popular. No fashionable concert was complete without her, and the constant demand for her services enabled her to fix her own price. Her income averaged fifteen thousand pounds a year, and at one time she was reckoned as worth nearly one hundred thousand pounds. She spent her large means with a judicious liberality, and the greatest people in the land were glad to be her guests. She settled a liberal annuity on her father. Having no children, she adopted two, one the daughter of an old friend named Madocks, who afterward became her principal legatee. Her hospitality crowded her house with the most brilliant men in art, literature, and politics; and it was said that the stranger who would see all the great people of the London world brought together should get a card to one of Billington's receptions. Her affability and kindness sometimes got her into scrapes. An eminent barrister who was at her house one night gave her some advice on a legal matter, and sent in a bill for services amounting to three hundred pounds. Mrs. Billington paid it promptly, but the lawyer ceased to be her guest. As a hostess she was said to have been irresistibly charming, alike from her personal beauty and the witchery of her manners.
Her kindness and good nature in dealing with her sister artists Avere proverbial. When Grassini, who at first was unpopular in England, was in despair as to how she should make an impression, Mrs. Billington proposed to sing with her in Winter's opera of "Il Ratto di Proserpina," from which time dated the success of the Italian singer. Toward Mara she had exerted similar good will, ignoring all professional jealousies. Miss Parke, a concert-singer, was once angry because Billington's name was in bigger type. The latter ordered her name to be printed in the smallest letters used; "and much Miss Parke gained by her corpulent type," says the narrator. Lord Mount Edgcumbe tells us that the operas in which she specially excelled were "La Clemenza di Scipione," composed for her by John Christian Bach; Paesiello's "Elfrida"; "Armida," "Castore e Polluce," and others by Winter; and Mozart's "Clemenza di Tito." For her farewell benefit, when she quitted the stage, March 30, 1806, she selected the last-named opera, which had never been given in England, and existed only in manuscript form. The Prince of Wales had the only copy, and she played through the whole score on the pianoforte at rehearsal, to give the orchestra an idea of the music. The final performance was immensely successful, and the departing diva sang so splendidly as to prove that it was not on account of failing powers that she withdrew from professional life. It is true that Mrs. Billington continued to appear frequently in concert for three years longer, but her dramatic career was ended. A curious instance of woman's infatuation was Mrs. Billington's longing to be reunited to her brutal husband; and so in 1817 she invited him to join her in England. Felican was too glad to gain fresh control over the victim of his conjugal tyranny, and persuaded her to leave England for a permanent residence in Italy. Mrs. Billington realized all her property, and with her jewels and plate, of which she possessed a great quantity, departed for the land of song, taking with her Miss Madocks. She paid a bitter penalty for her revived tenderness toward Felican, for the ruffian subjected her to such treatment that she died from the effects of it, August 25, 1818. In such an ignoble fashion one of the most brilliant and beautiful women in the history of song departed from this life.
ANGELICA CATALANI.
The Girlhood of Catalani.—She makes her Début in Florence.—Description of her Marvelous Vocalism.—The Romance of Love and Marriage.—Her Preference for the Concert Stage.—She meets Napoleon in Paris.—Her Escape from France and Appearance in London.—Opinions of Lord Mount Edgcumbe and other Critics.—Anecdotes of herself and Husband.—The Great Prima Donna's Character.—Her Gradual Divergence from Good Taste in singing.—Bon Mots of the Wits of the Day.—The Opera-house Riot.—Her Husband's Avarice.—Grand Concert Tour through Europe.—She meets Goethe.—Her Return to England and Brilliant Reception.—She sings with the Tenor Braham.—John Braham' s Artistic Career.—The Davides.—Catalani's Last English Appearance, and the Opinions of Critics.—Her Retirement and Death.
About the year 1790 the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, in the duchy of Urbino, was the subject of a queer kind of scandal. Complaint was made to the bishop that one of the novices sang with such extraordinary brilliancy and beauty of voice that throngs gathered to the chapel from miles around, and that the religious services were transformed into a sort of theatrical entertainment» so entranced were all hearers by the charm of the singing, and so forgetful of the religious purport of these occasions in the fascination of the music. His Reverence ordered the lady abbess to abate the scandal; so the young Angelica Catalani was no longer permitted to sing alone, but only in concert with the other novices. Her voice at the age of twelve, when she began to sing, already possessed a volume, compass, and sweetness which made her a phenomenon. The young girl, who had been destined for conventual life, studied so hard that she became ill, and her father, a magistrate of Sinigaglia, was obliged to take her home. Signor Catalani was a man of bigoted piety, and it was with great difficulty that he could be induced to forego the plan which he had arranged for Angelica's future. The idea of her going on the stage was repulsive to him, and only his straitened circumstances wrung from him a reluctant consent that she should abandon the thought of the convent and become a singer. From a teacher and composer of some reputation the young girl received preliminary instruction for two years, and from the hands of this master passed into those of the celebrated Marchesi, who had succeeded Porpora as chief of the teaching maestri. This virtuoso had himself been a distinguished singer, and his finishing lessons placed Angelica in a position to rank with the most brilliant vocalists of the age. It was somewhat unfortunate that she did not learn under Marchesi, who taught her when her voice was in the most plastic condition, to control that profuse luxuriance of vocalization which was alike the greatest glory and greatest defect in her art.
While studying, Angelica went to hear a celebrated cantatrice of the day, and wept at the vanishing strains. "Alas!" she said with sorrowing naivete. "I shall never be able to sing like that." The kind prima donna heard the lamentation and asked her to sing; whereupon she said, "Be reassured, my child; in a few years you will surpass me, and I shall weep at your superiority." At the age of sixteen she succeeded in getting an engagement at La Fenice in Venice to sing in Mayer's opera of "Lodoiska" during the Carnival season. Carus, the director, accepted her in despair at the very last moment on account of the sudden death of his prima donna. What were his surprise and delight in finding that the debutante was the loveliest who had come forward for years, and the possessor of an almost unparalleled voice. Of tall and majestic presence, a dazzling complexion, large beautiful blue eyes, and features of ideal symmetry, she was one to entrance the eye as well as the ear. Her face was so flexible as to express each shade of feeling from grave to gay with equal facility; and indeed all the personal characteristics of this extraordinary woman were such as Nature could only have bestowed in her most lavish mood. Her voice was a soprano of the purest quality, embracing a compass of nearly three octaves, from G to F, and so powerful that no band could overwhelm its tones, which thrilled through every fiber of the hearer. Full, rich, and magnificent beyond any other voice ever heard, "it bore no resemblance," said one writer, "to any instrument, except we could imagine the tone of musical glasses to be magnified in volume to the same gradation of power." She could ascend at will—though she was ignorant of the rules of art—from the smallest perceptible sound to the loudest and most magnificent crescendo, exactly as she pleased. One of her favorite caprices of ornament was to imitate the swell and fall of a bell, making her tones sweep through the air with the most delicious undulation, and, using her voice at pleasure, she would shower her graces in an absolutely wasteful profusion. Her greatest defect was that, while the ear was bewildered with the beauty and tremendous power of her voice, the feelings were untouched: she never touched the heart. She could not, like Mara, thrill, nor, like Billington, captivate her hearers by a birdlike softness and brilliancy; she simply astonished. "She was a florid singer, and nothing but a florid singer, whether grave or airy, in the church, orchestra, or upon the stage." With a prodigious volume and richness of tone, and a marvelous rapidity of vocalization, she could execute brilliantly the most florid notation, leaving her audience in breathless amazement; but her intonation was very uncertain. However, this did not trouble her much.
In the season of 1798 she sang at Leghorn with Crivelli, Marchesi, and Mrs. Billington, and thence she made a triumphal tour through Italy. From the first she had met with an unequaled success. Her full, powerful, clear tones, her delivery so pure and true, her instinctive execution of the most difficult music, carried all before her. Without much art or method, that superb voice, capable by nature of all the things which the most of even gifted singers are obliged to learn by hard work and long experience, was sufficient for the most daring feats. The Prince Regent of Portugal, attracted by her fame, engaged her, with Crescentini and Mme. Gafforini, for the Italian opera at Lisbon, where she arrived in the year 1804.
The romance of Catalani's life connects itself, not with those escapades which furnish the most piquant tidbits for the gossip-monger, but with her marriage, which occurred at Lisbon. Throughout her long career no breath of scandal touched the character of this extraordinary artist. Her private and domestic life was as exemplary as her public career was dazzling. One night, as Angelica was singing on the stage, her eyes met those of a handsome man in full French uniform, and especially distinguished by the diamond aigrette in his cap, who sat in full sight in one of the boxes. When she went off the stage she found the military stranger in the greenroom, waiting for an introduction. This was M. de Vallebrègue, captain in the Eighth Hussars and attache of the French embassy, who in after years received his highest recognition of distinction as the husband of the chief of living singers. They were both in the full flush of youth and beauty, and they fell passionately in love with each other at first sight. When the lover asked Signor Catalani's consent, the latter frowned on the scheme, for the golden harvest was too rich to be yielded up lightly for the asking. He coldly refused, and bade the suitor think of his love as hopeless, though he found no objection to M. Vallebrègue personally. Poor Angelica was thoroughly wretched, and day after day pined for her young soldier-lover, who had been forbidden the house by the father. For several days she was in such dejection that she could not sing, and the romance became the talk of Lisbon. One day an anonymous letter was received by Papa Catalani charging M. Vallebrègue with being a proscribed man, who had committed some mysterious crime vaguely hinted at. Armed with this, her father sought to reason Angelica out of her passion; but she clung to her lover with more eagerness, and was rewarded, to her great joy, by learning that the crime was only having fought a duel with and severely wounded his superior officer—an offense against discipline, which had been punished by temporary relief from military duty and a pleasant exile to Lisbon. The young beauty wept, sighed, pouted, and could be persuaded to sing only with much difficulty. All day long she said with deep mournfulness, "Ma che bel uffiziale" and pined with genuine heart-sickness. At last Vallebrègue smuggled a letter to his discouraged mistress, in which he said in ardent words that no one had a right to separate them, and urged her to lend all her energies to her professional work, so that, being a favorite at court, she might induce the Prince to intercede in the matter. Angelica tried in vain to get an interview with the Prince, and found that he was at his country villa twenty miles away. Her accustomed energy was equal to the difficult. Calling a coach, she drove out to the royal villa. Trembling with emotion and fatigue, she threw herself at the feet of the good-natured Prince, whom she found in the garden, and told her story as soon as her timidity could find words. He could hardly resist the temptation to badinage which the lively Angelica had hitherto been so ready to meet with brilliant repartee, but the anxious girl could only weep and plead. It was such a genuine love romance that the Prince's heart was touched, and, after some argument and advice to return to her father, he yielded and gave his sanction to the match. He accompanied the now radiant Angelica back to Lisbon, and in an hour's time a ceremony in the court chapel made her Madame de Vallebrègue, in presence of General Lannes, the French envoy, and himself. Signor Catalani was enraged at the turn which things had taken, but he could only acquiesce in the inevitable, especially as his daughter and her husband settled on him a country estate in Italy and a comfortable annuity for life.