In private life Materna is simple and unaffected. She is as unpretentious in her personality as she is great in her talent. She has the unassuming manners which so endeared Parepa-Rosa to the hearts of the people.
As an artist she may best be called a vocal musician. She was not a vocal technician of the school of Jenny Lind, Nilsson, Patti, or Gerster. Her voice, though unable to give phenomenal runs, trills, or cadenzas, was adequately trained, and was of remarkable richness and breadth. The work of the poet rather than of the singing teacher was apparent in her interpretations, and the dramatic intensity and passionate force of her delivery were effective even upon the concert stage. It is doubtful whether any[{175}] singer will ever combine more of the qualities which are essential to the perfect interpretation of Wagner's operas, and Materna may, therefore, be set down as the greatest singer of her school.
Materna's original contract for three years at the Imperial Opera House was many times renewed, and she scarcely ever left Vienna during the season. Occasionally she was heard in Frankfort, Berlin, Hamburg, and Leipzig. She also sang in London in the Wagner concerts, and she visited the United States several times. Since her retirement, she has left Vienna to take up her permanent abode in the Château St. Johann, near Gratz, which she has purchased.
When Bizet wrote "Carmen" he intended it for Marie Roze, a versatile artist of the French stage. She, however, had made an engagement in England which prevented her from creating the rôle as intended, and it was re-written for Madame Galli-Marié, but although[{176}] she at first had made some objections to the character which Carmen was supposed to represent, she afterwards became famous in that part.
Marie Roze was born in Paris in 1846, and in 1865 gained first prizes at the Paris Conservatoire in singing and comic opera. In the same year she made her début at the Opera Comique, and was engaged for the following four years, during which she appeared in many rôles. Her operatic career was uniformly successful; she made several tours of Europe, and came to America in 1877, after which she became a member of the Carl Rosa Opera Company.
At the outbreak of the Franco-German war, she left the opera and joined the army, serving with the greatest zeal in the ambulance department. For her services during that struggle and during the siege of Paris, she received the Geneva Cross and a diploma from M. Thiers.[{177}]
Mlle. Roze married Mr. Perkins, a promising American bass singer, but his career was cut short by death in 1875. She afterwards became the wife of Colonel Henry Mapleson, the impresario, but the marriage did not prove to be a happy one, and they separated some years later. One cannot help wondering that Mapleson, whose experience with prima donnas had been so harassing, should have allied himself matrimonially to one of that ilk, but it is probable that his experiences had warped his nature, for in the scandal which the separation caused, public sympathy was with the wife. Madame Roze was the possessor of great personal attractions, and in her early days was once so pestered by an admirer that she sought the protection of the police. The aggressive youth, a French gentleman who had threatened to destroy her beauty with vitriol unless she favored his suit, attempted one night to scale the wall and[{178}] enter her window. The guard fired and the misguided young man dropped dead.
Madame Roze has of late taken up her residence again in Paris, where she teaches, and occasionally sings at concerts.
The year 1868 brought forth another great exponent of Wagnerian characters to whom has been accorded by many good critics a very high rank among dramatic sopranos. Lilli Lehmann was born in 1848 at Wurzburg, and was taught singing by her mother, who was formerly a harp player and prima donna at Cassel under Spohr, and the original heroine of several operas written by that master.
Fraulein Lehmann's position in the operatic world was not won suddenly. She made her first appearance in Prague as the First Boy in "Zauberflöte," after which she filled engagements in Dantzig (1868) and Leipzig (1870). In the latter year she appeared at Berlin as Vielka, and was so successful that[{179}] she received a further engagement. In 1876 she was appointed Imperial Chamber singer.