Sophie Cruvelli's engagement at the Grand Opéra in Paris in January, 1854, filled Paris with the deepest excitement, for she was to make her appearance in the part of Valentine in "Les Huguenots." The terms given were one hundred thousand francs for six months. Meyerbeer, who entertained a great admiration for Sophie's talents, set to work on "L'Africaine" with redoubled zeal, for he destined the rôle of Selika for her. A fortnight ahead orchestra stalls were sold for two hundred francs, and boxes could not be obtained. The house was crowded to the ceiling, and the Emperor and Empress arrived some time before the hour of beginning on the night of "Les Huguenots." Everywhere the lorgnette was turned could be seen the faces of notabilities like Meyerbeer, Auber, Benedict, Berlioz, Alboni, Mme. Viardot, Mario, Tamburini, Vivire, Théophile Gautier, Fiorentino, and others. The verdict was that Cruvelli was one of the greatest of Valentines, and Meyerbeer, who was morbidly sensitive over the performance of his own works, expressed his admiration of the great singer in the most enthusiastic words.
Soon after this, she appeared as Julia in Spontini's "Vestale," and, as a long time had elapsed since its production, there was aroused the most alert curiosity to hear Cruvelli in a great part, in which but few singers had been able to make a distinguished impression. She acted the rôle with a vehement passion which aroused the deepest feeling in the Parisian mind, for it was a long time since they had heard an artist who was alike so great an actress and so brilliant a vocalist. One writer said, "She is the only cantatrice who acts as well as sings"; said one critic, "She would have made a grand tragedienne." Fickle Paris had forgotten Pasta, Malibran, and even Mme. Viardot, who was then in the very flush of her splendid powers.
IV.
From Paris Mlle. Cruvelli went to London, where she sang an engagement at the Royal Italian Opera, making her opening appearance as Desdemona, in the same cast with Tamburini and Ronconi. Her terms during the season were two hundred and fifty pounds a night. Her other parts were Leonora ("Fidelio"), and Donna Anna ("Don Giovanni"), and the performances were estimated by the most competent judges to be on a plan of artistic excellence not surpassed, and rarely equaled, in operatic annals. Mlle. Cruvelli revived the Parisian excitement of the previous season by her appearance at the Grand Opéra, as Alice in "Robert le Diable." The audience was a most brilliant one, and their reception of the artist was one of the most prolonged and enthusiastic applause. She continued to sing in Paris during the summer months and early autumn, and was the reigning goddess of the stage. All Paris was looking forward to the production of "Les Huguenots" in October with a great flutter of expectation, when Sophie suddenly disappeared from the public view and knowledge. The expected night of the production of "Les Huguenots" on a scale of almost unequaled magnificence arrived, and still the representative of Valentine could not be found. Sophie had treated the public in a similar fashion more than once before, and it may be fancied that the Parisians were in a state of furious indignation. Great surprise was felt that she should have forfeited so profitable an engagement—four thousand pounds for the season, with the obligation of singing only two nights a week. She had abandoned everything, injured her manager, M. Fould, and insulted the public for the gratification of a whim. No adequate reason could be guessed at for such eccentricity, not even the excuse of an affaire de coeur, which would go further in the minds of Frenchmen than any other justification of capricious courses. Her furniture and the money at her banker's were seized as security for the forfeit of four thousand pounds stipulated by her contract in case of breach of engagement, and her private papers and letters were opened and read.
About a month after her sudden flight, M. Fould received a letter from the errant diva, in which she demanded permission to return and fill her contract. M. Fould consented, and accepted her plea of "a misunderstanding," but the public were not so easily placated, and when she appeared on the stage as Valentine the audience hissed her violently. Sophie was not a whit daunted, but, confident in her power to charm, put all the fullness of her powers into her performance, and she soon had the satisfaction of learning by the enthusiasm of the plaudits that the Parisians had forgiven their favorite.
Sophie Cruvelli continued on the stage till 1855, and, although her faults of violence and exaggeration continued to call out severe criticism, she disarmed even the attacks of her enemies by the unquestionable vigor of her genius as well as by the magnificence of a voice which had never been surpassed in native excellence, though many had been far greater in the art of vocalization. Her last performance, and perhaps one of the grandest efforts of her life, was the character of Helene in Verdi's "Les Vêpres Siciliennes," the active principal parts having been taken by Bonnehée, Gueymard, and Obin. The production of the work was on a splendid scale, and the opera a great success. "The audience was electrified by the tones of her magnificent voice, which realized with equal effect those high inspirations that demand passion, force, and impulse, and those tender passages that require delicacy, taste, and a thorough knowledge of the art of singing. No one could reproach Mlle. Cruvelli with exaggeration, so well did she know how to restrain her ardent nature." "Cruvelli is the Rachel of the Grand Opéra!" exclaimed a French critic. From these estimates it may be supposed that, just as she was on the eve of passing out of the profession in which she had already achieved such a splendid place at the age of twenty-five, a great future, to which hardly any limits could be set, was opening the most fascinating inducements to her. The faults which had marred the full blaze of her genius had begun to be mellowed and softened by experience, and there was scarcely any pitch of artistic greatness to which she might not aspire.
Rumors of her approaching marriage had already begun to circulate, and it soon became known that Sophie Cruvelli was about to quit the stage. On January 5, 1856, she married Baron Vigier, a wealthy young Parisian, the son of Count Vigier, whose father had endowed the city of Paris with the immense bathing establishments on the Seine which bear his name, and who, in the time of the Citizen King, was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and afterward a peer of France. Mme. Vigier resides with her husband in their splendid mansion at Nice, and, though she has sung on many occasions in the salons of the fashionable world and for charity, she has been steadfast in her retirement from professional life. She has composed many songs, and even some piano-forte works, though her compositions are as unique and defiant of rules as was her eccentric life.
Sophie Cruvelli was only eight years on the operatic stage, but during that period she impressed herself on the world as one of the great singers not only of her own age, but of any age; yet far greater in her possibilities than in her attainment. She had by no means reached the zenith of her professional ability when she suddenly retired into private life. There have been many singers who have filled a more active and varied place in the operatic world; never one who was more munificently endowed with the diverse gifts which enter into the highest power for lyric drama. She had queenly beauty of face and form, the most vehement dramatic passion, a voice alike powerful, sweet, and flexible, and an energy of temperament which scorned difficulties. Had her operatic career extended itself to the time, surely foreshadowed in her last performances, when a finer art should have subdued her grand gifts into that symmetry and correlation so essential to the best attainment, it can hardly be questioned that her name would not have been surpassed, perhaps not equaled, in lyric annals. A star of the first magnitude was quenched when the passion of love subdued her professional ambition. Sophie Cruvelli, though her artistic life was far briefer than those of other great singers, has been deemed worthy of a place among these sketches, as an example of what may be called the supreme endowment of nature in the gifts of dramatic song.