Here is the true history of all this mystery. The Countess Rossi has, as it is reported, lost her fortune; but she is still rich in the possession of a daughter—a lovely girl, the very counterpart of her mother—as lovely and as graceful—German by her complexion and waving golden hair; Italian by her voice; French by her inimitable grace and distinction. This charming young girl, notwithstanding the high rank to which she was born—notwithstanding her brilliant education—did not hesitate for an instant to sacrifice herself for her family. She went to Lumley, and entreated him to engage her at his theatre. Imagine her sorrow, when he refused her! Mr. Lumley judiciously thought that, though talent might be hereditary in this family, name and reputation were not. Now what a manager cares most for, is a name—a name which fills at once his house and his money-drawers, and enables him to give (and pay) high salaries.
Overpowered by this unexpected refusal, the young girl sank into a chair—when suddenly, the face of the manager was illumined by a brilliant idea. "All may yet be well, my dear Mademoiselle—we can reconcile every thing. We will at once come to my own relief and that of your mother. I cannot engage you, but I will engage your mother; and I will give her two hundred thousand francs ($40,000) for the first season."
"But, sir," said the young girl, "my mother is now Countess Rossi. It is twenty-two years since she left the stage; and how do we know whether she still possesses the talents which made her once so celebrated?"
"As we cannot tell that, Mademoiselle, we will not ask her either to sing or to appear on the stage. Nominally, I will engage Madame Henriette Sontag; but it is you who will sing in her place."
The affair was at once arranged. All was signed and agreed upon, amidst tears of tenderness and admiration in which Mr. Lumley, though he was a manager, could not help joining. The Countess Rossi consented to the strictest retirement during the engagement of her daughter—or rather her own. The parties were bound to secresy by the most solemn oaths; and this secret has been so well kept that no one has suspected the substitution. My instincts, aided by memory, have enabled me to penetrate this mystery, which I shall perhaps be blamed for revealing. But I confess that I am not a little proud of having found it out. And then I really felt it a matter of conscience not to reveal to the world such an unexampled and unheard of instance of filial devotion.
On her entrance at the Conservatoire, Mademoiselle Sontag imitated so well the manners and grace of her mother—her refinement and her elegance—that the illusion was complete. It was the same smile—the same winning courtesy to the public—the same undulating figure. Her very music books, like those of her mother, were bound in rich crimson velvet. Everybody, excepting myself, was taken in—and, like every one, I too applauded—to the utter destruction of my gloves; and I should certainly have split the skin of my hands as well, had it not been much more solid than kid.
The moment Mademoiselle Sontag began to sing, all doubt—if there ever had been any, that I had really guessed the secret—vanished. It was the same purity of voice—the same charm of style and execution, which I had so much applauded, and which still echoed both in my ears and in my heart. But the voice of this Sontag had more power, more firmness, more body. The higher notes are just as soft and just as clear—but they have more roundness; and the middle register is infinitely better. In a word, this artist unites the qualities of youth and freshness to all the talents of the experienced and finished artist. Rode's variations were a series of vocal wonders. It was impossible to imagine that art or talent could reach so high; and after all, I think we must set it down to one of those prodigies which nature alone can create.
SOUVENIRS OF THE OPERA IN EUROPE.
BY
JULIE DE MARGUERITTES.
C H A P. I.
THE opera was Cenerentola; the overture, chorus, introduction, &c., all were impatiently listened to. At length the scene opened and revealed Cenerentola by her kitchen fire. She lays down her bellows, she advances; even in that assemblage of beauty she was the most beautiful. Her dress is simply a grey merino with a black velvet ribbon round the waist. She is exactly the height of the Medicean Venus, what the moderns call the middle height: her figure, though slight, has the full proportion of womanhood: her skin glows with the soft tint of the China rose; her arms and hands are faultless; her ankle, revealed by the short petticoat, that of the "Danatrice;" the foot, one for which the glass slipper would be too large. Who can describe her face? the soft, pouting lips of infancy, the delicate features, the large melting blue eye, the finely turned oval face, enshrined in a cloud of golden curls. So lovely was she that the audience appeared to forget that she was to do anything more than allow herself to be looked at. But she comes towards the footlights with the modest self-possession of an innocent child. "Una olta c'era un rè," first reveals the sweet tone of her voice. From the first note to the last it is unmistakably a soprano. Her execution, as she advanced into the difficulties of the music, was perfectly supernatural; it resembled an instrument—no bird—but it was the perfection of the loveliest of all instruments, the human voice. With the purity of a silver bell, she reached to the E above the lines; it was perfectly equal, both in the upper and middle registers; it was sweet, soft, and expressive in all its tones. When the public recovered from the first effect, they were obliged to acknowledge that it was wonderful, pleasing, and charming, like the fair creature before them, moving gracefully through her part as she would have done in a drawing-room. Cencrentola (like the Barbière) is an opera which is sung by sopranos and by contraltos; it was originally written for Emilia Bonini, a contralto, who quietly made her fortune in Italy, unknown to Parisian or Londonian fame. It bears transposition without injury, though it contains great difficulties of execution. Madame Albertazzi, an English woman of great beauty, who acquired great celebrity and died very young, was the first who ventured to appear in it after Sontag.