Henriette Sontag was born at Coblentz in Prussia, of one of those families of German comedians of which Goethe has given us such a poetic description in his Wilhelm Meister. Coming to the light like the halcyon, upon the crests of stormy waves, she early knew the vicissitudes and trials of an artist's life. At the age of six years she made her first appearance at Darmstadt in Das Donauweibchen (The Daughter of the Danube), an opera very popular in Germany, where, in the character of Salomé, she won admiration for her childish grace and just intonation. Three years afterwards, having lost her father, Henriette Sontag went to Prague with her mother, where she played children's parts, under the direction of Weber, who was then director of the orchestra of the theatre. Her precocious success obtained for her, by singular favor, permission to enter the Academy of Music of that City, although she had not yet reached the age required by its rules. There, for four years she studied vocal music, the piano-forte, and the elements of vocalization. An indisposition of the prima donna of the theatre gave her the opportunity to appear for the first time in a part of some importance, that of the Princess of Navarre in Boildieu's opera, John of Paris. She was then fifteen. The flexibility of her voice, her budding charms which announced her future beauty, the agitation which stirred her heart and filled it with mysterious presentiments, secured for her a success which augured well for the future of her professional life. From Prague, Henriette Sontag went to Vienna, where she met Madame Mainville-Fodor, whose example and good counsels developed the rich gifts which she had received from nature. Singing alternately German and Italian opera, she was able to prove her powers in these two strongly contrasting languages, and to choose with deliberation between the dazzling caprices of Italian music and the sober and profound accents of the new German school. An engagement having been offered her, to sing in German opera, at the theatre of Leipzig, she went to that city, the centre of the philosophical and literary discussion, and acquired a great reputation by the manner in which she interpreted Weber's Der Freyschutz and Euryanthe.

The admirers of the genius of this great composer were chiefly the young men of the Universities, and all those ardent and generous spirits who wished to disenthral Germany from foreign rule, as well in the realm of fancy as in that of politics; they sounded with enthusiasm the praises of Mademoiselle Sontag, whose name was known throughout Germany as that of a virtuoso of the first order, born to renew the marvels of Mara. It was at Leipzig that Mara, that famous German singer of the close of the eighteenth century, was educated under the care of the venerable Professor Hiller. It was vouchsafed to M'lle Sontag to dedicate a magnificent organ and a vocalization almost unknown on that side of the Rhine, to the performance of the vigorous and profound music of Weber, Beethoven, Spohr, and all those new German composers who, severing all alliance with foreign scepticism, had given freedom to the national genius. Overwhelmed with homage, celebrated by all the brilliant men of the day, the students singing her praises, and followed by the hourras of the German press, Mademoiselle Sontag was called to Berlin, where she appeared with immense success at the theatre of Koenigstadt. It was at Berlin, it will be remembered, that Der Freyschutz was represented for the first time. It was at Berlin, a protestant and rationalistic city, the centre of an intellectual and political movement which sought to concentrate within itself the life of Germany, at the expense of Catholic Vienna, in which reigned the spirit of tradition, sensuality, the gaiety and the light melodies of Italy; it was at Berlin, we say, that the new school of dramatic music founded by Weber, had taken foothold. Mademoiselle Sontag was received with enthusiasm as an inspired interpretress of the national music. The Hegelian philosophers found in her a subject for their learned commentaries, and they recognised in her limpid and sonorous voice "the subjective blended with the objective in an absolute unity." The old King of Prussia received her at court with parental kindness. It was there that diplomacy had occasion to make approaches to M'lle Sontag, and to effect a breach in the heart of the muse.

Availing herself of a leave of absence which had been granted her, M'lle Sontag came finally to Paris, and appeared at the Italian Theatre on the fifteenth of June, 1826, in the part of Rosina in Il Barbière di Seviglia. Her success was brilliant, especially in Rode's variations, which she introduced in the second act during the singing lesson. This success she at once confirmed and increased in La Donna del Lago and L'Italiana in Algieri; many passages of which, written for a contralto voice, she was obliged to transpose. Upon her return to Berlin she was received with redoubled manifestations of interest. She remained in this city until the close of the year 1826; when, abandoning Germany, and the school which had formed her in the very sanctuary of its nationality, she fixed herself at Paris. M'lle Sontag first appeared in the character of Desdemona in the opera Otello, on the second of January, 1828. She was one of that constellation of admirable virtuosos who at that epoch charmed Paris and London; and among whom Madame Pasta, Mad. Pisaroni, Mad. Malibran, and M'lle Sontag shone as stars of the first magnitude.

Between the last two vocalists, so different in their styles, there was declared one of those fruitful rivalries of which Hoffman has given us so dramatic a picture. This rivalry was pushed so far between the imperious Juno and the blonde Venus that they could not remain together in the same room. Upon the stage, when they sang in the same opera, which happened in Don Giovanni or Semiramide, their stupendous jealousy manifested itself by malicious cadenzas and rockets of sound which inflamed their hearers. Now it was the Trojans burst all bonds, and now the Greeks. The parterre rose and fell like the waves of the sea under the touch of the divinities of Olympus. At last, one day Mad. Malibran and M'lle Sontag having to sing a duett at a princely mansion, the fusion of two voices so different in quality and in the character of their expression, produced so grand an effect that the success of the two great vocalists worked their reconciliation. From that moment a calm rested sul mare infido.

Even in the midst of such successes and festivals of art, a black spot shows itself upon the horizon: diplomacy labored secretly to work confusion—its protocols became menacing, and it was suddenly announced that M'lle Sontag was about to quit the stage to devote herself to more serious duties. For a year past she had been secretly married to a Count de Rossi, who was no longer willing to share his happiness with the world. M'lle Sontag took leave of the Parisian public at a performance for the benefit of the poor, which was given at the opera, in January of 1830. Upon her return to Berlin, her friends and numerous admirers won her consent to give a few representations, and she quitted the stage definitively two months before the revolution of July. But before entering upon the new path of life which she had chosen, and before laying aside the brilliant renown which had been so justly acquired, M'lle Sontag went a journey to Russia, giving at Warsaw, Moscow, St. Petersburgh, and afterwards at Hamburg and other principal cities of Germany, concerts equally brilliant and profitable.

It was after this journey that, under the name of the Countess de Rossi, following the fortunes of her husband, she passed successively many years at Brussels, the Hague, Frankfort, and Berlin, heard only in those assemblies of the distinguished societies of Europe which the revolution of February has shaken to its very foundations.

Mademoiselle Sontag possesses a soprano voice of unusual compass, of great equality, and of a marvellous flexibility. From the middle Do to that in alt, this voice has the sweet ring of a silver bell, and never need we fear either a doubtful intonation or an ill-balanced phrase in her wonderful displays of vocalization. This rare flexibility of organ is the result of incessant labor, judiciously directed to the development of the munificent gifts of nature. Until her arrival at Vienna, where she had opportunity to hear the great virtuosos of Italy, M'lle Sontag had been guided only by her own happy instincts, and the tastes, more or less cultivated, of the public before whom she sang. It is to the counsels of Madame Maineville-Fodor, and yet more to the example which the admirable talent of this exquisite singer set daily before her, that M'lle Sontag owes the expanding of those native powers which till then had rested, folded as it were, within their bud. The contest with such rivals as Mad. Pisaroni and Mad. Malibran—those heroic combats which she had to sustain upon the stages of Vienna, Paris, and London—accomplished for her talent that degree of full and satisfying maturity which has made M'lle Sontag one of the most brilliant singers of Europe.

Amid the dazzling vocal displays of all kinds which M'lle Sontag pours forth every evening before her admirers, attention is chiefly claimed by the limpidity of her chromatic scales and the brilliance of her trills which scintillate like rubies lying on velvet. Each note of these long descending flights stands out as if it alone was struck and is linked to the following note by a delicate and imperceptible transition; and all these marvels are accomplished with perfect grace, and without ever distorting the countenance by the least appearance of effort. The charming face of M'lle Sontag, the clearness and sweetness of her lovely eyes, her elegant outlines, and her figure lithe and slender as the stem of a young poplar, finish the picture and complete the enchantment.

M'lle Sontag has essayed all styles. Born in Germany at the commencement of this tumultuous era, she was developed by the vigorous and powerful music of the new German school, and achieved her first success in the masterpieces of Weber. At Paris she attempted successively the characters of Desdemona, Semiramide, and that of Donna Anna in the chef d'œuvre of Mozart. In spite of the enthusiasm which she seems to have excited in her countrymen by the manner in which she was enabled to render the dramatic inspiration of Weber—an enthusiasm the echo of which is found in the works of Louis Boerne—in spite of the brilliant endowments which she displayed in the character of Desdemona, and above all in that of Donna Anna, which was forced upon her almost by the jealousy of Mad. Malibran—it is in light music and in the placid style that M'lle Sontag finds her true superiority. The music of Rosina in Il Barbière de Seviglia, that of Ninetta in La Gazza Ladra, of Amenaide in Tancredi, and Elena in La Donna del Lago, have afforded her the fields for her greatest success.

The cry of pathos never escapes from those delicate lips on whose gently parted loveliness grace sits smiling; bursts of passion never distort the classic contour of that visage, or crimson the satin-like surface of that white and polished skin. No; in that elegant form, which flits before the eager eye like an airy cloud, nature never rouses the magnificent tempests of passion. This is the reason why Mademoiselle Sontag consented to bow her lovely head under the yoke of matrimony, and to descend from a throne to which she had been elevated by the omnipotence of talent, to become the Countess de Rossi. Who knows if, after all, bitter regrets did not follow to disturb the repose which she had promised herself? Who can tell if the ambassadress, in the midst of her sombre grandeur, has not turned a regretful glance upon those bright years of her youth, when a whole nation of admirers crowned her with roses and perennial wreaths? Have not Auber and Scribe, in their pretty opera L'Ambassadrice, given us the story of Mademoiselle Sontag transformed into the Countess de Rossi?