Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

Recognition, however, was slow to come. In 1778, the Mercure only mentions her as singing in unimportant parts in three or four operas, although she appears to have greatly pleased the musical critic of that journal by her rendering of an Italian arietta of Gluck, at a “concert spirituel” in December. During the whole of the following year, when the theatre was under the direction of Devismes, there is no reference to her whatever, except in a letter of Devismes’s successor, Dauvergne, in which he speaks of the young singer as weeping with despair, because she had not been allotted a part; and she seems, about this time, to have had serious thoughts of leaving the Opera altogether.[179] However, her perseverance was not wasted, for, towards the end of that year, she was received as a permanent member of the company, though less, it is believed, on account of her talent, than her willingness to do whatever was required of her. This was a great step gained, and, at length, in November 1780, she reaped the reward of all her labours and self-denial by being entrusted with the part of Angélique in the Roland (Orlando) of Piccini.

No one seems to have expected this opera to succeed. The composer himself believed its failure inevitable. The evening of the first representation, when he was about to start for the theatre, his family refused to accompany him, and, aware of his extremely sensitive nature used every persuasion to induce him to remain at home. His wife, his children, his friends were in tears. “One would have imagined that he was on his way to the scaffold.”

Piccini endeavoured to reassure them. “My children,” said he, “we are not in the midst of barbarians, but of the politest people in the world. If they do not approve of me as a musician, they will at least respect me as a man and a foreigner.” And he tore himself away.

A delightful surprise awaited him. Roland, so far from being a failure, was an unqualified triumph, and, at the conclusion of the performance, Piccini was escorted home by an enthusiastic crowd of admirers. This happy result was undoubtedly due, in the first instance, to Madame Saint-Huberty’s admirable rendering of the part of Angélique. “Where is Saint-Huberty? where is she?” cried the grateful composer, as the curtain fell to the accompaniment of round upon round of applause. “I wish to see her, to embrace her, to thank her, to tell her that I owe to her my success!”

The critic of the Mercure expresses himself as follows on the acting and singing of Madame Saint-Huberty in this her first important part:

“Having spoken of Roland, we shall seize this opportunity to say something of Madame Saint-Huberty, whose progress, every day more marked, merits a special mention. We have seen her with pleasure in the rôle of Angélique, in which she has, in many respects, acquitted herself very well. We invite her only to be careful of her articulation; she neglects it so far as to cause us to lose part of what she says. The fault is common to foreign singers or to those trained abroad.”

And the critic concludes by recommending her to be less prodigal of her gestures and not to raise her arms higher than was necessary.[180]

A month later, the singer gained another success, as Lise, in Le Seigneur bienfaisant, an indifferent work by Rochon de Chabannes and Floquet, when she rendered with such fiery energy the despair of the heroine that she fell ill from excess of emotion and was absent from the theatre for several weeks.

On her return, fresh triumphs awaited her. After successfully impersonating Églé, in the Thésée of Quinault, which had been set to music by Gossec, she replaced Rosalie Levasseur in the name-part in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride (March 10, 1782),[181] in which, the Mercure declares that “she acquitted herself very well and deserved the praise which she received.” Next, she created the rôle of Laurette, in l’Inconnue persécutée, “with as much taste as intelligence,” and made an heroic, though unsuccessful, attempt to secure a favourable reception for the Électre of her old master Lemoine, the one-time conductor of the Strasburg orchestra.

Not content with doing her utmost on the stage on her old friend’s behalf, Madame Saint-Huberty employed the influence she was beginning to possess in the coulisses to compel the administration of the Opera to prolong the run of this very indifferent work, notwithstanding the unfavourable verdict of the public and the disastrous results such a course was likely to have upon the receipts. The administration resolved not to yield to such a preposterous demand, but, at the same time, unwilling to offend an actress who was becoming every day more necessary to them, had recourse to stratagem. They represented that they were perfectly willing to oblige Madame Saint-Huberty by continuing the representations of Électre; but, since the opera was not in itself a sufficient attraction to secure a full house, it would be advisable to wait for a few days, until the ever-popular ballet of Ninette à la Cour, in which Mlle. Guimard, it will be remembered, secured one of her greatest triumphs, could be given with it. Madame Saint-Huberty consented to the postponement, and the administration made use of the respite granted them to induce the Minister of the King’s Household, the supreme authority in matters concerning the Opera, “to order that the opera of Électre should be absolutely withdrawn from the theatre.”[182]