Laurent, the manager of the Theatre Italien, succeeded in making a contract by which Sontag was to sing in Paris for fifty thousand francs a year, with a congé of three months. It was at this period that she commenced seriously to study tragic characters, and, though she at first failed in making a strong impression on her audiences, her assiduous attention to sentiment and passion wrought such fruits as to prove how far study and good taste may create the effect of something like inspiration, even on the part of an artist so cool and placid as the great German cantatrice. Her efforts were stimulated by the rivalry of Mali-bran, and this contest was the absorbing theme of discussion in the Paris salons and journals. It reached such a height that the two singers refused to meet each other socially, and on the stage when they sang together their jealousy and dislike showed itself in the most undisguised fashion. Among the incidents related of this interesting operatic episode, the following are specially worthy of mention: An Italian connoisseur, who had never heard Sontag, and who firmly believed that no German could sing, was induced to go one night by a friend to a performance in which she appeared. After listening five minutes he started up hastily in act to go. "Stay," urged his friend; "you will be convinced presently." "I know it," replied the Italian, "and therefore I go."
One evening, at the termination of the performance, the two rivals were called out, and a number of wreaths and bouquets were flung on the stage. Malibran stooped and picked up one of the coronals, supposing it designed for her, when a stern voice cried out: "Rendez-la; ce n'est pas pour vous!" "I would not deprive Mlle. Sontag of a single wreath," said the haughty Spaniard in a loud voice which could be heard everywhere through the listening house. "I would sooner bestow one on her!"
This quarrel was afterward made up between them when they were engaged together in London the following year, 1828. This reconciliation was brought about by M. Fetis, who had accompanied them from Paris. He proposed to them that they should sing for one of the pieces at a concert in which they were both engaged, the duo of Semiramide and Arsace, in Rossini's opera. For the first time in London their voices were heard together. Each outdid herself in the desire to excel, and the exquisite fusion of the two voices, so different in tone and character, was so fine that the hearts of the rivals melted toward each other, and they professed mutual friendship. The London public got the benefit of this amity, for the manager of the King's Theatre was able to produce operas in which they sang together, among them being "Semiramide," "Don Giovanni," "Nozze di Figaro," and "Romeo e Giulietta"—Malibran playing the hero in the latter opera. The following year Sontag also sang with Malibran in London, her greatest success being in Carolina, the principal character of Cimarosa's "Il Matrimonio Segreto."
Mile. Sontag was now for the first time assailed by the voice of calumny. Her union with Count Rossi, consummated more than a year before, had been kept secret on account of the dislike of his family to the match. Born in Corsica, Count Rossi was a near relative of the family of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his sister was the Princess de Salm. His relations were opposed to his marriage with one whom they considered a plebeian, though she had been ennobled by the Prussian King, under the name of Von Lauenstein, with a full patent and all the formalities observed on such occasions. Mile. Sontag determined to make a farewell tour through Europe, and retire from the stage. She paid her adieux to her public in the different great cities of Europe—London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Leipsic, etc.—with incredible success, and the sums she realized are said to have been enormous. On returning from Russia she gave a concert at Hamburg; and it was here that she took the occasion at a great banquet given her by a wealthy merchant to make the public and formal announcement of her marriage to Count Rossi. It was remarked that during this farewell concert tour her powers, far from having declined, seemed to have gained in compass, brilliancy, and expression.
Countess Rossi first lived at the Hague, and then for a short time at Frankfort. Here she took precedence of all the ladies of the diplomatic corps, her husband being Minister Plenipotentiary to the Germanic Diet. In Berlin she was a familiar guest of the royal family, and sang duets and trios with the princes and princesses. She devoted her leisure hours to the study of composition, and at the houses of Prince Esterhazy and Prince Metternich, in 1841, at Vienna, she executed a cantata of her own for soprano and chorus with most brilliant success. The Empress herself invited the Countess to repeat it at her own palace with all the imperial family for listeners. Thus courted and flattered, possessed of ample wealth and rank, idolized by her friends and respected by the great world, Henrietta Sontag passed nearly twenty swift, happy years at the different European capitals to which her husband was successively accredited.
III.
Countess Rossi was never entirely forgotten in her brilliant retirement. Her story, gossips said, was intended to be shadowed forth "with a difference" in "L'Ambassadrice" of Scribe and Auber, written for Mme. Cinti Damoreau, whose voice resembled that of Sontag. Travelers, who got glimpses of the august life wherein she lived, brought home tales of her popularity, of her beauty not faded but only mellowed by time, and of her lovely voice, which she had watched and cultivated in her titled leisure. It can be fancied, then, what a thrill of interest and surprise ran through the London public when it was announced in 1848 that the Countess Rossi, owing to family circumstances, was about to resume her profession. A small, luxuriantly bound book in green and gold, devoted to her former and more recent history, was put on sale in London, and circulated like wildfire. The situation in London was peculiar. Jenny Lind had created a furor in that city almost unparalleled in its musical history, and to announce that the "Swedish nightingale" was not the greatest singer that ever lived or ever could live, before a company of her admirers, was sufficient to invite personal assault. Mlle. Lind had just departed for America. It was an adventure little short of desperate for a singer to emerge from a retirement of a score of years and measure her musical and dramatic accomplishments against those of a predecessor whose tantalizing disappearance from the stage had rendered her on so many grounds more than ever the object of fanatical worship.
The political storm of 1848 had swept away the fortune of Countess Rossi, and when she announced her intention of returning to the stage, the director of Her Majesty's Theatre was prompt to make her an offer of seventeen thousand pounds for the season. She had not been idle or careless during the time when the Grisis, the Persianis, and the Linds were delighting the world with the magic of their art. She had assiduously kept up the culture of her delicious voice, and stepped again before the foot-lights with all the ease, steadiness, and aplomb of one who had never suffered an interregnum in her lyric reign. She came back to the stage under new and trying musical conditions, to an orchestra far stronger than that to which her youth had been accustomed, to a new world of operas. The intrepidity and industry with which she met these difficulties are deserving of the greatest respect. Not merely did she go through the entire range of her old parts, Susanna, Moslna, Desdemona, Donna Anna, etc., but she presented herself in a number of new works which did not exist at her farewell to the stage—Bellini's "Sonnambula," Donizetti's "Linda," "La Figlia del Reggimento," "Don Pasquale," "Le Tre Nozze" of Alary, and Ilalévy's "La Tempesta"; indeed, in the latter two creating the principal rôles. Her former companions had disappeared. Malibran had been dead for thirteen years, Mme. Pisaroni had also departed from the earthly scene, and a galaxy of new stars were glittering in the musical horizon. Giulia Grisi, Clara Novello, Pauline Viardot, Fanny Per-siani, Jenny Lind, Maretta Alboni, Nantier Didier, Sophie Cruvelli, Catherine Hayes, Louisa Pyne, Duprez, Mario, Ronconi, and others—all these had arisen since the day she had left the art world as Countess Rossi. Only the joyous and warmhearted Lablache was left of her old comrades to welcome her back to the scene of her old triumphs.
Her reappearance as Linda, on July 7, 1849, was the occasion of a cordial and sympathetic reception on the part of a very brilliant and distinguished audience. The first notes of the "polacca" were sufficient to show that the great artist was in her true place again, and that the mature woman had lost but little of the artistic fascinations of the gifted girl. Of course, time had robbed her of one or two upper notes, but the skill, grace, and precision with which she utilized every atom of her power, the incomparable steadiness and finish with which she wrought out the composer's intentions, the marvelous flexibility of her execution, she retained in all their pristine excellence. The loss of youthful freshness was atoned for by the deeper passion and feeling which in an indefinable way permeated all her efforts, and gave them a dramatic glow lacking in earlier days. She was rapturously greeted as a dear friend come back in the later sunny days. In "La Figlia del Reggimento," which Jenny Lind had brought to England and made her own peculiar property, Mme. Sontag was adjudged to be by far the greater, both vocally and dramatically. As a singer of Mozart's music she was incomparably superior to all. Her taste, steadiness, suavity, and solid knowledge suited a style very difficult for a southern singer to acquire. Chorley repeated the musical opinion of his time in saying: "The easy, equable flow demanded by Mozart's compositions, so melodious, so wondrously sustained, so sentimental (dare I say so rarely impassioned?); that assertion of individuality which distinguishes a singer from a machine when dealing with singers' music; that charm which belongs to a keen appreciation of elegance, but which can only be perfected when Nature has been genial, have never been so perfectly combined (in my experience) as in her." If Sontag did not possess the highest genius of the lyric artist, she had un-equaled grace and sense of artistic propriety, and with that grace an untiring desire and energy in giving her very best to the public on all occasions when she appeared. Her constancy and loyalty to her audience were moral qualities which wonderfully enhanced her value and charm as a singer.
During this season Mme. Sontag appeared in her favorite character of Rosina, with Lablache and Gardoni; she also performed Amina and Desdemona. Had it not been that the attention of the public was absorbed by "the Swedish Nightingale" and the "glorious Alboni," Mme. Sontag would have renewed the triumphs of 1828. The next season she sang again at Her Majesty's Theatre as Norina, Elvira ("I Puritani"), Zerlina, and Maria (in "La Figlia del Reggimento"). The chief novelty was "La Tempestà," written by Scribe, and composed by Halévy expressly for Her Majesty's Theatre, the drama having been translated into Italian from the French original. It was got up with extraordinary splendor, and had a considerable run. Mme. Sontag sang charmingly in the character of Miranda; but the greatest effect was created by Lablache's magnificent impersonation of Caliban. No small share of the success of the piece was due to the famous danseuse Carlotta Grisi, who seemed to take the most appropriate part ever designed for ballerina when she undertook to represent Ariel.