III.
Mme. Alboni's great success, it is said, made M. Vatel, the manager of the Italiens, almost frantic with disappointment, for, acting on the advice of Lablache, he had refused to engage her when he could have done so at a merely nominal sum, and had thus left the grand prize open to his rival. Her concert engagement being terminated, our prima donna made a short tour through Austria, and returned to Paris again to make her début in opera on December 2d, in "Semiramide," with Mme. Grisi, Coletti, Cellini, and Tagliafico, in the cast. The caprice of audiences was never more significantly shown than on this occasion. Alboni, on the concert stage, had recently achieved an unmistakable and brilliant recognition as a great vocalist, and on the night of her first lyric appearance before a French audience a great throng had assembled. All the celebrities of the fashionable, artistic, and literary world, princes, Government officials, foreign ministers, dilettanti, poets, critics, women of wit and fashion, swelled the gathering of intent listeners, through whom there ran a subdued murmur, a low buzz of whispering, betraying the lively interest felt. Grisi came on after the rising of the curtain and received a most cordial burst of applause. At length the great audience was hushed to silence, and the orchestra played the symphonic prelude which introduces the contralto air "Eccomi alfin in Babilonia." Alboni glided from the side and walked slowly to the footlights. Let an eye-witness complete the story: "There was a sudden pause," says one who was present; "a feather might almost have been heard to move. The orchestra, the symphony finished, refrained from proceeding, as though to give time for the enthusiastic reception which was Alboni's right, and which it was natural to suppose Alboni would receive. But you may imagine my surprise and the feelings of the renowned contralto when not a hand or a voice was raised to acknowledge her! I could see Alboni tremble, but it was only for an instant. What was the reason of this unanimous disdain or this unanimous doubt? call it what you will. She might perhaps guess, but she did not suffer it to perplex her for more than a few moments. Throwing aside the extreme diffidence that marked her entrée, and the perturbation that resulted from the frigidity of the spectators, she wound herself up to the condition of fearless independence for which she is constitutionally and morally remarkable, and with a look of superb indifference and conscious power she commenced the opening of her aria. In one minute the crowd, that but an instant before seemed to disdain her, was at her feet! The effect of those luscious tones had never yet failed to touch the heart and rouse the ardor of an audience, educated or uneducated." Alboni's triumph was instantaneous and complete; it was the greater from the moment of anxious uncertainty that preceded it, and made the certainty which succeeded more welcome and delightful. From this instant to the end of the opera, Alboni's success grew into a triumph. During the first act she was twice recalled; during the second act, thrice; and she was encored in the air "In si barbara," which she delivered with pathos, and in the cabaletta of the second duet with Semiramide. She followed in "La Cenerentola," and it may easily he fancied that her hearers compensated in boisterous warmth of reception for the phlegmatic indifference shown on the first night.
The English engagement of Mlle. Alboni the following year at Covent Garden was at a salary of four thousand pounds, and the popularity she had accomplished in England made her one of the most attractive features of the operatic season. Her delicious singing and utter freedom from aught that savored of mannerism or affectation made her power of captivation complete in spite of her lack of dramatic energy. She sang in the same company with Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot, while Mario and Tamburini added their magnificent voices to this fine constellation of lyric stars. When she returned to London in 1849, Jenny Lind had retired from the stage where she had so thoroughly bewitched the public, and Mlle. Alboni became the leading attraction of Her Majesty's Theatre, thus arraying herself against the opera organization with which she had been previously identified. Among the other members of the company were Lablache and Ronconi. Mlle. Alboni seemed to be stung by a feverish ambition at this time to depart from her own musical genre, and shine in such parts as Rosina, Ninetta, Zerlina ("Don Giovanni ") and Norina ("Don Pasquale"). The general public applauded her as vehemently as ever, but the judicious grieved that the greatest of contraltos should forsake a realm in which she blazed with such undivided luster.
It is difficult to fancy why Alboni should have ventured on so dangerous an experiment. It may be that she feared the public would tire of her luscious voice, unperturbed as it was by the resistless passion and sentiment which in such singers as Malibran, Pasta, and Viardot, had overcome all defects of voice, and given an infinite freshness and variety to their tones. It may be that the higher value of a soprano voice in the music market stirred a feeling in Alboni which had been singularly lacking to her earlier career. Whatever the reason might have been, it is a notorious fact that Mlle. Alboni deliberately forced the register upward, and in doing so injured the texture of her voice, and lost something both of luscious tone and power. In later years she repented this artistic sin, and recovered the matchless tones of her youth in great measure, but, as long as she persevered in her ambition to be a soprano, the result was felt by her most judicious friends to be an unfortunate one.
A pleasant incident, illustrating Alboni's kindness of heart, occurred on the eve of her departure for Italy, whither she was called by family reasons. Her leave-taking was so abrupt that she had almost forgotten her promise to sing in Paris on a certain date for the annual benefit of Filippo Galli, a superannuated musician. The suspense and anxiety of the unfortunate Filippo were to be more easily imagined than described when, asked if Alboni would sing, he could not answer definitively—"Perhaps yes, perhaps no." He sold very few tickets, and the rooms (in the Salle Hera) were thinly occupied. She, however, had not forgotten her promise; at the very moment when the matinée was commencing she arrived, in time to redeem her word and reward those who had attended, but too late to be of any service to the veteran. Galli was in despair, and was buried in reflections neither exhilarating nor profitable, when, some minutes after the concert, the comely face and portly figure of Alboni appeared at the door of his room. "How much are the expenses of your concert?" she kindly inquired. "Mia cara," dolorously responded the bénéficiaire, "cinque centifranci [five hundred francs]." "Well, then, to repair the loss that I may have caused you," said the generous cantatrice, "here is a banknote for a thousand francs. Do me the favor to accept it." This was only one of the many kind actions she performed.
Mlle. Alboni's Paris engagement, in the spring of 1850, was marked by a daring step on her part, which excited much curiosity at the time, and might easily have ended in a most humiliating reverse, though its outcome proved fortunate, that undertaking being the rôle of Fides in "Le Prophète," which had become so completely identified with the name of Viardot. It was owing as much, perhaps, to the insistance of the managers of the Grand Opéra as to the deliberate choice of the singer that this experiment was attempted. Meyerbeer perhaps smiled in his sleeve at the project, but he interposed no objection, and indeed went behind the scenes to congratulate her on her success during the night of the first performance. Alboni's achievement was gratifying to her pride, but it need not be said that her interpretation of Fides was radically different from that of Mme. Viardot, which was a grand tragic conception, akin to those created by the genius of Pasta and Schröder-Devrient. The music of "Le Prophète" had never been well fitted to Viardot's voice, and it was in this better adaptation of Alboni to the vocal score that it may be fancied her success, such as it was, found its root. It was significant that the critics refrained from enlarging on the dramatic quality of the performance. Mlle. Alboni continued her grasp of this varied range of lyric character during her seasons in France, Spain, and England for several years, now assuming Fides, now Amino, in "Sonnambula," now Leonora in "Favorita," and never failing, however the critics might murmur, in pleasing the ultimate, and, on the whole, more satisfactory bench of judges, the public. It was no new thing to have proved that the mass of theatre-goers, however eccentric and unjustifiable the vagaries of a favorite might be, are inclined to be swayed by the cumulative force of long years of approval. In the spring of 1851, Mlle. Alboni, among several of her well-established personations, was enabled to appear in a new opera by Auber, "Corbeille d'Oranges," a work which attained only a brief success. It became painfully apparent about this time that the greatest of contralto singers was losing the delicious quality of her voice, and that her method was becoming more and more conventional. Her ornaments and fioriture never varied, and this monotony, owing to the indolence and insouciance of the singer, was never inspired by that resistless fire and geniality which made the same cadenzas, repeated night after night by such a singer as Pasta, appear fresh to the audience.
Mlle. Alboni's visit to the United States in 1852 was the occasion of a cordial and enthusiastic welcome, which, though lacking in the fury and excitement of the "Jenny Lind" mania, was yet highly gratifying to the singer's amour propre. There was a universal feeling of regret that her tour was necessarily a short one. Her final concert was given at Metropolitan Hall, New York, on May 2, 1852, the special occasion being the benefit of Signor Arditi, who had been the conductor of her performances in America. The audience was immense, the applause vehement.
The marriage of Alboni to the Compte de Pepoli in 1853 caused a rumor that she was about to retire from the stage. But, though she gave herself a furlough from her arduous operatic duties for nearly a year, she appeared again in Paris in 1854 in "La Donna del Lago" and other of the Rossinian operas. Her London admirers, too, recognized in the newly married prima donna all the charm of her youth.
In July, 1855, she was at the Grand Opéra, in Paris, performing in "Le Prophète," etc., with Roger, having contracted an engagement for three years. In 1856 she was at Her Majesty's Theatre with Piccolomini, and made her first appearance in the character of Azucena in "Il Trovatore." Her performances were not confined to the opera-house; she sang at the Crystal Palace and in the Surrey Music Hall. In October she was again at the Italiens, commencing with "La Cenerentola." She then, in conjunction with Mario, Graziani, and Mme. Frezzolini, began performing in the works of Verdi. "Il Trovatore" was performed in January, 1857, and was followed by "Rigoletto," which was produced in defiance of the protestations of Victor Hugo, from whose play, "Le Roi s'amuse," the libretto had been taken. Victor Hugo declared that the representation of the opera was an infringement of his rights, as being simply a piracy of his drama, and he claimed that the Theatre Italiens should be restrained from performing it. The decision of the court was, however, against the irascible poet, and he had to pay the costs of the action.
But why should the reader be interested in a yearly record of the engagements of a great singer, after the narrative of the early struggles by which success is reached and the means by which success is perpetuated has come to an end? The significance of such a recital is that of ardent endeavor, persistent self-culture, and unflagging resolution. Mme. Alboni continued to sing in the principal musical centers of Western Europe till 1864, when she definitely retired from the stage, and settled at her fine residence in Paris, midst the ease and luxury which the large fortune she had acquired by professional exertion enabled her to maintain. She occasionally appeared in opera and concert to the great delight of her old admirers, who declared that the youthful beauty and freshness of her voice had returned to her. Since the death of her husband she has only sung in public once, and then in Rossini's Mass, in London in 1871.