The Czar of Russia now wished to hear this incomparable singer, so he sent a polite message to the King of Prussia, requesting that she be allowed to sing at St. Petersburg, and offering her a salary of eighty thousand rubles for the season of four months. The King of Prussia had not the same scruples concerning Russia that he had about France, so his gracious consent was given, as it was, also, on the following season.
Lucca made an immense impression at St. Petersburg, where at the end of the season[{123}] she was serenaded by the band of the Imperial Guards. The streets were illuminated from the theatre to her house at the orders of the Crown Princess Dagmar, the Empress gave her a priceless and beautiful pair of diamond earrings, the public, through the leader of the orchestra, presented her with a splendid diadem covered with precious stones, and the members of the orchestra subscribed and made her a present of a laurel wreath in gold. But the greatest demonstration in her honor occurred when she organized a concert for the benefit of indigent students, the receipts of which exceeded ten thousand rubles. Then she was called forward thirty times, and the students unharnessed her horses and dragged her carriage home. They seized her shawl and tore it into fragments for mementos, and she also had to give up her gloves and handkerchief for the same purpose.
Similar demonstrations have taken place[{124}] at different times, and in other cities, in honor of other singers. It is quite an ordinary matter in Russia for a singer to be called forward ten or twenty times, and even thirty times is not by any means so extraordinary as it would be in London or New York, or, more particularly, in Boston.
Jenny Lind lost a shawl in New York through the enthusiasm of the public, and in 1881 Patti enjoyed the experience in Brooklyn of being dragged home by a crowd of enthusiasts.
Perhaps Patti had the most curious demonstration in London, just before she sailed for New York under Mapleson's management, and Mapleson is the authority for the anecdote.
After the last performance of the season, Patti was escorted from the theatre to the train en route for Liverpool by a procession of theatrical people in costume, with a brass band. This was at one o'clock in the morning.[{125}] Full accounts of it were, of course, obtained somehow by the American papers.
In 1865 Pauline Lucca had married a German military officer, Baron von Rahden, who, when the Franco-German war broke out, went to the front, and was severely wounded in the celebrated charge of Mars-La-Tour. Lucca, hearing of his misfortune, made her way to the scene of the conflict, and sought him out in the military hospital, where she tenderly nursed him until he could be taken home. Her devotion to him was admirable; but, unfortunately, a change in her feelings seems to have occurred before very long, for when in 1872 she was in New York she brought suit for divorce against the Baron, and he, being unaware of the proceedings, made no defence, so that rightly or otherwise Madame Lucca secured her divorce. Later on, when von Rahden forwarded papers which were supposed to establish his innocence of the charges made[{126}] against him by his irate and jealous spouse, the case was closed, and no notice was taken of the defence. Matters seem, however, to have arranged themselves to the satisfaction of all concerned, for the Baron married the young lady who had been the cause of Lucca's jealousy, and Lucca married Baron von Wallhofen, an intimate friend of Von Rahden, who, also, had been wounded at Mars-La-Tour, and who had followed her to America.
Pauline Lucca was one of the few singers gifted with original genius, and she imparted specific individuality to each of her characters, even the most colorless. Her versatility was very great, and she had a repertoire of fifty-six rôles. Her voice was a full soprano of sympathetic quality, and with a range of two and a half octaves, extending to C in alt, and capable of expressing every kind of emotion. Like Patti she was of slender figure, and at one time she played[{127}] Marguerite in "Faust" on alternate nights with her. Lucca was essentially a lyric actress rather than a singer pure and simple, and had the power of realizing the highest dramatic conception both of poet and composer; she was able to draw inspiration from the abstract idea, and she has been called "transcendentally human."
After her memorable tour in the United States, in 1872, Madame Lucca continued before the public in Europe until 1884, since which time she has lived in Vienna, and devoted herself chiefly to teaching.
While Lucca was thus rising to the highest pinnacles of fame, Patti also was scoring great successes. In London she had become a permanent favorite, and from the year 1861, in which she made her European début, for more than twenty years she was engaged every season at Covent Garden.