Great Singers, First Series / Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag

by George T. Ferris

III.

The year 1813 was the last season of Catalani's regular engagement on the operatic stage. She continued to sing in "Tito" and "Figaro," but her principal pleasure was in the most extravagant and bizarre show-pieces, such, for example, as variations composed for the violin on popular airs like "God save the King," "Rule Britannia," "Cease your Funning." She carried her departure from the true limits of art to such an outrageous degree as to draw on her head the severest reprobation of all good judges, though the public listened to her wonderful execution with unbounded delight and astonishment. Toward the latter part of the season an extraordinary riot took place in consequence of Catalani's failure to appear two successive evenings. The managers were in arrears, and the diva by the advice of her husband adopted this plan to force payment. There were mutterings of the thunder on the first non-appearance; but when on the following night Catalani was still absent, the storm broke. The opera which had been substituted was half finished when the clamor drowned all the artistic noise behind the footlights. A military guard who had been called in to protect the stage from invasion were overpowered by a throng of gentlemen who leaped on from the auditorium, many of them men of high rank, and the guns and bayonets wrested from the soldiers' hands. Bloodshed seemed imminent; and had it not been for the moderation of the soldiers, who permitted themselves to be disarmed rather than fire, the result would have been very serious. The chandeliers and mirrors were all broken into a thousand pieces, and the musical instruments hurled around in the wildest confusion. Fiddles, flutes, horns, drums, swords, bayonets, muskets, operatic costumes, and stage properties generally were hurled in a heap on the stage. The gentlemen Mohocks, who signalized themselves on this occasion, did damage to the amount of nearly one thousand pounds, though it is said they made it up to the manager afterward by subscription. The theatre was closed for a week; and when it reopened, so great was the magnificent Italian's power over the audience that, though they came prepared to condemn, they received her with the loudest demonstration of applause. But still such conduct toward audiences, if followed up, could not but beget dissatisfaction and wrangling, and the growing impatience of her managers as well as the more judicious public could not be mistaken.

In spite of the fact that several brilliant singers were in England, and of the desire of the public that the splendid talents of Catalani should be appropriately supported, her jealousy and her exorbitant claims prevented such a desirable combination. She offered to buy the theatre and thus become sole proprietor, sole manager, and sole performer; but, of course, the proposition was refused, luckily for the enraged cantatrice, who would certainly have paid dearly for her experiment.

Catalani on closing her English engagement proceeded to Paris. She had been known as an ardent friend of the Bourbon exiles, and so, during the occupation of Paris by the Allies in 1814, she found herself in great favor. After the Hundred Days had passed and the royal house seemed to be firmly seated, she received a government subvention of one hundred and sixty thousand francs and the privilege of the Opera. Catalani's passion for absorbing everything within the radius of her own vanity and her jealousy of rivals operated against her success in Paris, as they had injured her in London; and she was obliged to yield up her privilege in the course of three years, with the additional loss of five hundred thousand francs of her own private fortune, and the loss of good will on the part of the Paris public.

Her grand concert tour through Europe, undertaken with the purpose of repairing her losses, was one of the most interesting portions of her life. Everywhere she was received with abounding enthusiasm, and the concerts were so thronged that there was rarely ever standing-room. She sang in nearly every important city on the Continent, was the object of the most flattering attention everywhere, and was loaded down with the costliest presents, jewels, medals, and testimonials, everywhere. Sovereigns vied with each other in showing their admiration by gorgeous offerings, and her arrival in a city was looked on as a gala-day. In the midst, however, of these the most trying circumstances in which a beautiful and captivating woman could be placed, surrounded by temptation and flattery, her course was marked by undeviating propriety, and not the faintest breath tarnished her fair fame. Such an idol of popular admiration would be sure to exhibit an overweening vanity. When in Hamburg in 1819, M. Schevenke, a great musician, criticised her vocal feats with severity. Mme. Catalani shrugged her beautiful shoulders and called him "an impious man." "For," said she, "when God has given to a mortal so extraordinary a talent as I possess, people ought to applaud and honor it as a miracle; it is profane to depreciate the gifts of Heaven."

It was during this tour that she met the poet Goethe at the court of Weimar, where she was made an honored guest, as she had been treated everywhere in royal and princely circles. At a court dinner-party where she was present, the great German poet was as usual the cynosure of the company. His imperial and splendid presence and world-wide fame marked him out from all others. Catalani was struck by the appearance of this modern Olympian god, and asked who he was. To a mind innocent of all culture except such as touched her art merely, the name "Goethe" conveyed but little significance. "Pray, on what instrument does he play?" "He is no performer, madame—he is the renowned author of 'Werter.'" "Oh yes, yes, I remember," she said; then turning to the venerable poet, she addressed him in her vivacious manner. "Ah! sir, what an admirer I am of 'Werter!'" Flattered by her evident sincerity and ardor, the poet bowed profoundly. "I never," continued she, in the same lively strain, "I never read anything half so laughable in all my life. What a capital farce it is, sir!" The poet, astounded, could scarcely believe the evidence of his ears. "'The Sorrows of Werter' a farce!" he murmured faintly. "Oh yes, never was anything so exquisitely ridiculous," rejoined Catalani, with a ringing burst of laughter. It turned out that she had been talking all the while of a ridiculous parody of "Werter" which had been performed at one of the vaudeville theatres of Paris, in which the sentimentality of Goethe's tale had been most savagely ridiculed. We can fancy what Goethe's mortification was, and how the fair diva's credit was impaired at the court of Weimar by her ignorance of the illustrious poet and of the novel whose fame had rung through all Europe.

Mme. Catalani returned to England in 1821, and found herself the subject of an enthusiasm little less than that which had greeted her in her earlier prime. Her concert tour extended through all the cities of the British kingdom. In this tour she was supported by the great tenor Braham, as remarkable a singer in some respects as Catalani herself, and probably the most finished artist of English birth who ever ornamented the lyric stage. Braham had been brilliantly associated with the lyric triumphs of Mara, Billington, and Grassini, and had been welcomed in Italy itself as one of the finest singers in the world. When Catalani's dramatic career in England commenced Braham had supported her, though her jealousy soon rid her of so brilliant a competitor for the public plaudits. Braham's part in Catalani's English concert tour was a very important one, and some cynical wags professed to believe that as many went to hear the great tenor as to listen to Catalani.

The electrical effect of her singing was very well shown at one of these concerts. She introduced a song, "Delia Superba Roma," declamatory in its nature, written for her by Marquis Sampieri. The younger Linley, brother-in-law of Sheridan, who was playing in the orchestra, was so moved that he forgot his own part, and on receiving a severe whispered rebuke from the singer fainted away in his place. Mme. Catalani returned again on finishing her English engagement to Russia, where she realized fifteen thousand guineas in four months. Concert-rooms were too small to hold her audiences, and she was obliged to use the great hall of the Public Exchange, which would hold more than four thousand people. At her last concert the Emperor and Empress loaded her with costly gifts, among them being a girdle of magnificent diamonds.

IV.

The career of John Braham must always be of interest to those who love the traditions of English music. The associate and contemporary of a host of distinguished singers, and himself not least, his connection with the musical life of Cata-lani would seem to make some brief sketch of the greatest of English tenor-singers singularly fitting in this place. He was born in London in 1773, of Jewish parentage, his real name being Abrams, and was so wretchedly poor that he sold pencils on the street to get a scanty living. Leoni, an Italian teacher of repute, discovered by accident that he had a fine voice, and took the friendless lad under his tutelage. He appeared at the age of thirteen at the Covent Garden Theatre, the song "The Soldier tired of War's Alarms" being the first he sang in public. One of the papers spoke of him as a youthful prodigy, saying, "He promises fair to attain every perfection, possessing every requisite necessary to form a good singer." Braham at one time lost his voice utterly, and his prospect seemed a gloomy one, as his master Leoni also died about the same time. He now found a generous patron in Abraham Goldsmith, however, and became a professor of the piano, for which instrument he developed remarkable talent.