"Her sostenuto is firm, clear, and sonorous; the silver tone of her voice unsurpassed; her method excellent. She is daring, and launches at all hazards into a sea of flourishes, the result of which is always successful, particularly as she concludes them, by darting towards the audience one of those glances which have called down in Berlin, as they will in Paris and London, thunders of applause."
Thus was Henriette Sontag, during the first period of her fame. From Berlin she came to London, where enthusiasm reached a height hitherto unknown, because it included, as well as admiration, respect for the virtues and conduct of the loveliest woman who had ever trod on the stage. Then she went to Paris, and Paris set its seal upon her artistic reputation, classing her with all who had hitherto stood at the head of artistic celebrity. Yet she had powerful competitors to contend with, for she sang with Malibran and Pisaroni. Here it was her marriage (which she had been compelled to keep secret till the end of her engagement) was declared. Certainly few men have been so envied as Count Rossi, when he was known to be the husband of the world's idol. Society, which was as much attached to the woman as to the artist, seemed to think it an injustice, and felt for the first time inclined to quarrel with the actions of her it had proclaimed faultless in both mind and person. Scribe founded the libretto of the Ambassadress on this marriage, but he little thought he should be prophetic in the catastrophe he put to his opera, as he has been; for Henriette Sontag, like the Henriette in the play, has returned to the stage.
The Countess Rossi, though she had no taste for the publicity of the stage, having gone uncorrupted and unscathed through all its glittering temptations, had an innate enthusiasm for her art. The young Countess, therefore, cultivated it as assiduously as the young prima donna; and in Frankfort and in Berlin, where she principally resided, in St. Petersburg, which she visited, her saloon was the resort of all that was renowned in the artistic world. That wondrous voice sang on as admirably as before, following all the progress of musical science, and knowing all the répertoire of the best masters, as their compositions appeared before the world. Her silvery tones now resounded in the halls of palaces; and, instead of a public, she had kings and princes for her guests. Yet she was the same simple-minded and unaffected woman, with a mind pure as in infancy, and a heart beating only with good and tender emotions. Often during these years did she sing for public charities, and her name was sure, as in former days, to fill the coffers of the institution for which she sang.
But this bright destiny, which seemed placed beyond the reach of change, and which time seemed to have consolidated, was, during the revolution of 1848, from circumstances of an entirely private nature, completely destroyed.
Then, with her sweet temper unruffled, her calm, pure mind, undisturbed, the mother and the wife remembered the early days of the prima donna, and how that voice and those talents had achieved fortune and honor. The instant her determination was whispered, all the theatres of Europe were open to her. She chose the Queen's Theatre, in London, and Lumley offered her £7,000 sterling for the season. This she accepted; and once more, she stepped on to those boards, where, twenty years previously, she had stood, in all the freshness of her youth, but in the full maturity of her talent. To say how the house welcomed her would be impossible. It greeted her with shouts, with the waving of handkerchiefs, with tears—for she had many friends, who remembered her hospitality in her high estate. It rose to receive her. She stood before them, gentle, unassuming, as in former years, but lovelier, far lovelier. So youthful was she when she left the stage, that she had not attained her full stature; she had grown considerably now, her form was rounded with the full grace of womanhood. There were the same matchless arms and hands, the proverbially beautiful foot. That countenance had still the purity of outline of former years; but a life, however happy, will, in a high and sensitive nature, leave a thoughtful and pensive look upon the features.
Her beauty had gained what is almost a substitute for beauty—expression. The wavy ringlets which had floated in clouds around her girlish face were now braided over that deep, intellectual brow, on which no evil passion or sordid calculation had ever set one wrinkle. Those who had, in youth, witnessed her first appearance, looked at each other's careworn features with astonishment, and asked if that fair creature were not the daughter of the one enshrined in their memories. But the voice, like which none had ever since been heard, soon proclaimed that it was the Henriette Sontag. Yet that voice had gained in power, in expression, and in tone. What could the happy girl of former days, whose short life had been a series of triumphs, do but carol, like the lark, at the gates of Heaven? For her sin, sorrow, shame, misfortune, were undreamed of. But since, the woman had shuddered at crime, felt and shared sorrow, often consoled shame, was now assailed by misfortune. Now feeling, passion, and deep pathos hallowed every note, inspired each gesture. The Henriette Sontag had outlived her fame, and Madame Rossi Sontag, in her place, was recognised by perhaps the most critical, because the most travelled audience in the world, as the very greatest artist, both as an actress and a singer, ever heard or known.
IS IT THE MOTHER, OR THE DAUGHTER?
IN 1850, when Madame Sontag reappeared as a vocalist in Paris, after a silence of twenty years, Adolphe Adam, the composer of "Le Postillon de Lonjumeau" and other popular music, wrote and published the following pleasant notice of her, in one of the Paris journals. It will be observed that it refers to Mr. Lumley, the once flourishing, but now broken-down Operatic manager.
I thought proper to attack the privilege which has been granted to Mr. Lumley—but since it has been granted, I will say no more about it, but proceed to examine the merits of the artists whom Mr. Lumley has brought us. I have said that Lumley was clever and energetic—cleverer, perhaps, than you thought him. He is a better manager than you would suspect. For the last month, we have been fancying he was going to let us hear the Countess Rossi. I too believed it—but to-day I am convinced he has taken us all in. No! The young girl, whom I heard last Tuesday at the Conservatoire, is not, cannot be, the Countess Rossi. Ten years ago, at St. Petersburg, I had the honor of both seeing and hearing the Countess Rossi. In that lady I perfectly recognised the cantatrice whom I had formerly admired and applauded at the Theatre Italien. But the cantatrice whom I heard the other night cannot be the same. In the first place, she is much younger, more beautiful than the other, and has a great deal more talent. Now these are three qualities which would diminish, rather than increase, in the space of twenty years—unless we dated from the cradles of the prima donnas; and certainly the cantatrice, whom in 1830 we idolized in the Barbière and the Cenerentola, was already some years removed from infancy.