History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time / With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Madame Pasta having appeared in Paris with success in 1816, was engaged with her husband, Signor Pasta (an unsuccessful tenor), for the following season at the King's Theatre. She made no great impression that year, and was quite eclipsed by Fodor and Camporese, who were members of the same company. The young singer, not discouraged, but convinced that she had much to learn, returned to Italy, where she studied unremittingly for four years. She reappeared at the Italian Opera of Paris in 1821, as "Desdemona," in Rossini's Otello, then for the first time produced in France. Her success was complete, but her performance does not appear to have excited that enthusiasm which was afterwards caused by her representation of "Medea," in Mayer's opera of that name. In Medea, however, Pasta was everything; in Otello, she had to share her triumph with Garcia, Bordogni, and Levasseur. From this time, the new tragic vocalist gained constantly in public estimation. Medea was laid aside; but Pasta gained fresh applause in every new part she undertook, and especially in Tancredi and Semiramide.

PASTA.

Pasta made her second appearance at the King's Theatre in 1824, in the character of "Desdemona." Her performance, from a histrionic as well as from a vocal point of view, was most admirable; and the habitués could scarcely persuade themselves that this was the singer who had come before them four years previously, and had gone away without leaving a regret behind. When Rossini's last Italian opera was produced, the same season, the character of "Semiramide" was assigned to Madame Pasta, who now sang it for the first time. She had already represented the part of "Tancredi," and her three great Rossinian impersonations raised her reputation to the highest point. In London, Madame Pasta did not appear as "Medea" until 1826, when she already enjoyed the greatest celebrity. It was found at the King's Theatre, as at the Italian Opera of Paris, that Mayer's simple and frequently insipid music was not tolerable, after the brilliant dramatic compositions of Rossini; but Pasta's delineation of "Medea's" thirst for vengeance and despair, is said to have been sublime.

A story is told of a distinguished critic persuading himself, that with such a power of pourtraying "Medea's" emotions, Madame Pasta must possess "Medea's" features; but for some such natural conformity he seems to have thought it impossible that she could at once, by intuition, enter profoundly and sympathetically into all "Medea's" inmost feelings. Much might be said in favour of the critic's theory; it is unnecessary to say a word in favour of a performance by which such a theory could be suggested. We are told, that the believer in the personal resemblance between Pasta and "Medea" was sent a journey of seventy miles to see a visionary portrait of "Medea," recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum. To rush off on such a journey with such an object, may not have been very reasonable; to cause the journey to be undertaken, was perfectly silly. Probably, it was a joke of our friend Taylor's.

PISARONI.

Madame Pisaroni made her début in Italy in the year 1811, when she was eighteen years of age. She at first came out as a soprano, but two years afterwards, a severe illness having changed the nature of her voice, she appeared in all the most celebrated parts, written for the musicos or sopranists, who were now beginning to die out, and to be replaced by ladies with contralto voices. Madame Pisaroni was not only not beautiful, she was hideously ugly; I have seen her portrait, and am not exaggerating. Lord Mount Edgcumbe tells us, that another favourite contralto of the day Mariani (Rossini's original Arsace) was Pisaroni's rival "in voice, singing, and ugliness;" adding, that "in the two first qualities, she was certainly her inferior; though in the last it was difficult to know to which the preference should be given." But the anti-pathetic, revolting, almost insulting features of the great contralto, were forgotten as soon as she began to sing. As the hideous Wilkes boasted that he was "only a quarter of an hour behind the handsomest man in Europe," so Madame Pisaroni might have said, that she had only to deliver one phrase of music to place herself on a level with the most personally prepossessing vocalist of the day. This extraordinary singer on gaining a contralto, did not lose her original soprano voice. After her illness, she is said to have possessed three octaves (between four C's), but her best notes were now in the contralto register. In airs, in concerted pieces, in recitative, she was equally admirable. To sustain a high note, and then dazzle the audience with a rapid descending scale of two octaves, was for her an easy means of triumph. Altogether, her execution seems never to have been surpassed. After making her début in Paris as "Arsace," Madame Pisaroni resumed that part in 1829, under great difficulties. The frightfully ugly "Arsace" had to appear side by side with a charmingly pretty "Semiramide,"—the soprano part of the opera being taken by Mademoiselle Sontag. But in the hour of danger the poor contralto was saved by her thoroughly beautiful singing, and Pisaroni and Sontag, who as a vocalist also left nothing to desire, were equally applauded. In London, Pisaroni appears to have confined herself intentionally to the representation of male characters, appearing as "Arsace," "Malcolm," in La Donna del Lago, and "Tancredi;" but in Paris she played the principal female part in L'Italiana in Algeri, and what is more, played it with wonderful success.

The great part of "Arsace" was also that in which Mademoiselle Brambilla made her début in England in the year 1827. Brambilla, who was a pupil of the conservatory of Milan, had never appeared on any stage; but though her acting is said to have been indifferent, her lovely voice, her already excellent style, her youth and her great beauty, ensured her success.

"She has the finest eyes, the sweetest voice, and the best disposition in the world," said a certain cardinal of the youthful Brambilla, "if she is discovered to possess any other merits, the safety of the Catholic Church will require her excommunication." After singing in London several years, and revisiting Italy, Brambilla was engaged in Paris, where she again chose the part of "Arsace," for her début.

Many of our readers will probably remember that "Arsace" was also the character in which Mademoiselle Alboni made her first appearance in England, and on this side of the Alps. Until the opening night of the Royal Italian Opera, 1847, the English public had never heard of Mademoiselle Alboni; but she had only to sing the first phrase of her part, to call forth unanimous applause, and before the evening was at an end, she had quite established herself in the position which she has ever since held.

SONTAG.