Sontag and Malibran both made their first appearance in England as "Rosina," in the Barber of Seville. Several points of similarity might be pointed out between the romantic careers of these two wonderfully successful and wonderfully unfortunate vocalists. Mademoiselle Garcia first appeared on the stage at Naples, when she was eight years old. Mademoiselle Sontag was in her sixth year when she came out at Frankfort. Each spent her childhood and youth in singing and acting, and each, after obtaining a full measure of success, made an apparently brilliant marriage, and was thought to have quitted the stage. Both, however, re-appeared, one after a very short interval, the other, after a retirement of something like twenty years. The position of Mademoiselle Garcia's husband, M. Malibran, was as nothing, compared to that of Count Rossi, who married Mademoiselle Sontag; the former was a French merchant, established (not very firmly, as it afterwards appeared) at New York; the latter was the Sardinian Ambassador at the court of Vienna; but on the other hand, the Countess Rossi's end was far more tragic, or rather more miserable and horrible than that of Madame Malibran, itself sufficiently painful and heart-rending.
Though Rosina appears to have been one of Mademoiselle Sontag's best, if not absolutely her best part, she also appeared to great advantage during her brief career in London and Paris, in two other Rossinian characters, "Desdemona" and "Semiramide." In her own country she was known as one of the most admirable representatives of "Agatha," in Der Freischütz, and she sang "Agatha's" great scena frequently, and always with immense success, at concerts, in London. She also appeared as "Donna Anna," in Don Giovanni, (from the pleasing, graceful character of her talent, one would have fancied the part of "Zerlina" better suited to her), but in Italian opera all her triumphs were gained in the works of Rossini.
MALIBRAN.
When Marietta Garcia made her début in London, in the Barber of Seville, she was, seriously, only just beginning her career, and was at that time but seventeen years of age. She appeared the same year in Paris, as the heroine in Torvaldo e Dorliska (Rossini's "fiaschetto," now quite forgotten) and was then taken by her father on that disastrous American tour which ended with her marriage. Having crossed the Atlantic, Garcia converted his family into a complete opera company, of which he himself was the tenor and the excellent musical director (if there had only been a little more to direct). The daughter was the prima donna, the mother had to content herself with secondary parts, the son officiated as baritone and bass. In America, under a good master, but with strange subordinates, and a wretched entourage, Mademoiselle Garcia accustomed herself to represent operatic characters of every kind. One evening, when an uncultivated American orchestra was massacring Mozart's master-piece, Garcia, the "Don Giovanni" of the evening, became so indignant that he rushed, sword in hand, to the foot lights, and compelled the musicians to re-commence the finale to the first act, which they executed the second time with care, if not with skill. This was a severe school in which poor Marietta was being formed; but without it we should probably never have heard of her appearing one night as "Desdemona" or as "Arsace," the next as "Otello," or as "Semiramide;" nor of her gaining fresh laurels with equal certainty in the Sonnambula
and in Norma. But we have at present only to do with that period of operatic history, during which, Rossini's supremacy on the Italian stage was unquestioned. Towards 1830, we find two new composers appearing, who, if they, to some extent, displaced their great predecessor, at the same time followed in his steps. For some dozen years, Rossini had been the sole support, indeed, the very life of Italian opera. Naturally, his works were not without their fruit, and a great part of Donizetti's and Bellini's music may be said to belong to Rossini, inasmuch as Rossini was clearly Donizetti's and Bellini's progenitor.
CHAPTER XVII.
OPERA IN FRANCE UNDER THE CONSULATE, EMPIRE, AND RESTORATION.
THE History of the Opera, under the Consulate and the Empire, is perhaps more remarkable in connexion with political than with musical events. Few persons at present know much of Spontini's operas, though la Vestale in its day was celebrated in Paris, London and especially in Berlin; nor of Cherubini's, though the overtures to Anacreon and les Abencerrages are still heard from time to time at "classical" concerts; but every one remembers the plot to assassinate the First Consul which was to have been put into execution at the Opera, and the plot to destroy the Emperor, the Empress and all their retinue, which was to take effect just outside its doors. Then there is the appearance of the Emperor at the Opera, after his hasty arrival in Paris from Moscow, on the very night before his return to meet the Russians with the allies who had now joined them, at Bautzen and Lutzen—the same night by the way on which les Abencerrages was produced, with no great success. Then again there is the evening of the 29th of March, 1814, when Iphigénie en Aulide was performed to an accompaniment of cannon which the Piccinnists, if they could only have heard it, would have declared very appropriate to Gluck's music; that of the 1st of April, when by desire, of the Russian emperor and the Prussian king, la Vestale was represented; and finally that of the 17th of May, 1814, when Œdipe à Colone was played before Louis XVIII., who had that morning made his triumphal entry into Paris.
AN OPERATIC PLOT.
On the 10th of October, 1800, a band of republicans had sworn to assassinate the First Consul at the Opera. A new work was to be produced that evening composed by Porta to a libretto founded on Corneille's tragedy of les Horaces. The most striking scene in the piece, that in which the Horatii swear to conquer or perish, was to be the signal for action; all the lights were to be put out at the same moment, fireworks and grenades were to be thrown into the boxes, the pit and on to the stage; cries of "fire" and "murder" were to be raised from all parts of the house, and in the midst of the general confusion the First Consul was to be assassinated in his box. The leaders of the plot, to make certain of their cue, had contrived to be present at the rehearsal of the new opera, and everything was prepared for the next evening and the post of each conspirator duly assigned to him, when one of the number, conscience smitten and unable to sleep during the night of the 9th, went at daybreak the next morning to the Prefect of Police and informed him of all the details of the plot.
The conspiracy said Bonaparte, some twenty years afterwards at St. Helena, "was revealed by a captain in the line.[87] What limit is there," he added, "to the combinations of folly and stupidity! This officer had a horror of me as Consul but adored me as general. He was anxious that I should be torn from my post, but he would have been very sorry that my life should be taken. I ought to be made prisoner, he said, in no way injured, and sent to the army to continue to defeat the enemies of France. The other conspirators laughed in his face, and when he saw them distribute daggers, and that they were going beyond his intentions, he proceeded at once to denounce the whole affair."