George T. Ferris

“ As an artist who could transform natural faults into the rarest beauties, who could make the world forgive the presence of other deficiencies which could not thus be glorified by the presence of genius, thought, and truth—as one who engraved deeper impressions on the memory of her hearers than any other even in an age of great singers—Mme. Pasta must be placed in the very front rank of art. The way by which this gifted woman arrived at her throne was long and toilsome. Nature had denied her the ninety-nine requisites of the singer (according to the old Italian adage) . ”

“ He was, moreover, endowed with a creative genius which inspired him with embellishments so new and so astonishing that no one was able to imitate them. The art of taking and keeping the breath so softly and easily that no one could perceive it, began and died with him. The qualities in which he excelled were the evenness of his voice, the art of swelling its sound, the portamento, the union of the registers, a surprising agility, a graceful and pathetic style, and a shake as admirable as it was rare. There was no branch of the art which he did not carry to the highest pitch of perfection.... ”

“ Essentially a singer and not a declamatory artist, the sentiment of grace was carried to such a height in her art, that it became equivalent to the more robust passion and force which distinguished some of her great contemporaries. As years perfected her excellence into its mellow prime, emotion and warmth animated her art work. But at the outset Mile. Sontag did little more than look lovely and pour forth such a flood of silvery and delicious notes, that the Italians called her the "nightingale of the North." ”

“ We have now reached a period of Pasta's life where its chronicle becomes painful. It is never pleasant to watch the details of the decadence which comes to almost all art-careers. Her warmest admirers could not deny that Pasta was losing her voice. Her consummate art shone undimmed, but her vocal powers, especially in respect of intonation, displayed the signs of wear. For several years, indeed, she sang in Paris, Italy, and London with great eclat, but the indescribable luster of her singing had lost its bloom and freshness. ”

“ One sees actresses nearly in convulsions, tearing yelps and howls violently out of their lungs, closed hands pressed on their breasts, heads thrown back, faces inflamed, veins swollen, and stomach panting. I know not which of the two, eye or ear, is more agreeably affected by this display.... For my part, I am certain that people applaud the outcries of an actress at the opera as they would the feats of a tumbler or rope-dancer at a fair.... Imagine this style of singing employed to express the delicate gallantry and tenderness of Quinault. ”

“ The career of Henrietta Sontag, born at Cob-lenz on the Rhine in 1805, the child of actors, was so picturesque in its chances and changes that had she not been a beautiful and fascinating woman and the greatest German singer of the century, the vicissitudes of her life would have furnished rich material for a romance. Nature gave her a pure soprano voice of rare and delicate quality united with incomparable sweetness. ”

“ Frederick the Great loved war and music with equal fervor, and possessed talents for the one little inferior to his genius for the other. He played with remarkable skill on the flute, of which instrument he possessed a large collection, and composed original music with both science and facility. This royal connoisseur carried his despotism into his love of art, and ruled with an iron hand over those who catered for the amusement of himself and the good people of Berlin. ”

“ Artlessness and naivete were joined with such fine breeding of manner that it seemed as if the blue blood of centuries must have coursed in her veins instead of the blood of obscure actors, whose only honor was to have given to the world one of the paragons of song. Sontag never aspired to the higher walks of lyric tragedy, as she knew her own limitation, but in light and elegant comedy, the Mosinas and Susannas, she has never been excelled, whether as actress or singer. ”

“ It was then "wild and wandering," but of singular sweetness. "Its agility," says Mount Edgcumbe, "was very great, and everything she sang was executed in the neatest manner and with the utmost precision. Her knowledge of music enabled her to give great variety to her embellishments, which, as her taste was always good, were always judicious." In her cadenzas, however, she was obliged to trust to her memory, for she never could improvise an ornament. Her ear was so delicate that she could instantly detect any instrument out of tune in a large orchestra; and her intonation was perfect. ”

“ She could not, like Mara, thrill, nor, like Billington, captivate her hearers by a birdlike softness and brilliancy; she simply astonished. "She was a florid singer, and nothing but a florid singer, whether grave or airy, in the church, orchestra, or upon the stage." With a prodigious volume and richness of tone, and a marvelous rapidity of vocalization, she could execute brilliantly the most florid notation, leaving her audience in breathless amazement; but her intonation was very uncertain. ”

“ On being ushered in, the timid stranger, who showed a plain but pleasant face, knelt at her feet and said falteringly, "I am Jenny Lind, madame—I am come to ask your blessing." A few days afterward Catalani was stricken with the cholera, which she so much dreaded, and died on June 12th, at the age of sixty-nine.
It is not a marvel that the public was captivated with Catalani. She had every splendid gift that Nature could lavish—surpassing physical beauty, a matchless voice, energy of spirit, sweetness of temper, and warm affections. ”

“ The opera at Paris passes for the most pompous, the most voluptuous, the most admirable spectacle that human art has ever invented. It is, say its admirers, the most superb monument of the magnificence of Louis XIV. Here you may dispute about anything except music and the opera; on these topics alone it is dangerous not to dissemble. French music, too, is defended by a very vigorous inquisition, and the first thing indicated is a warning to strangers who visit this country that all foreigners admit there is nothing so fine as the grand opera at Paris. ”

“ Few composers have had during their lifetime such world-wide celebrity, and of these few none are so completely forgotten now. The facile powers of Hasse seem to have reflected the most genial though not the deepest influences of his time. He had nothing in common with the grand German school then rising into notice, or with the simple majesty of the early Italian writers. Himself originally a singer, and living in an age of brilliant singers, he was one of the first representatives of that school of Italian opera which was called into being by the worship of vocal art for its own sake. ”

“ She was no exception to the rule that very great tragic actors are rarely devoid of a strong comic individuality. In Erreco's "Prova d'un Opera Seria," an opera caricaturing the rehearsals of a serious opera at the house of the prima donna and at the theatre, her performance was so arch, whimsical, playful, and capricious, that its drollery kept the audience in a roar of laughter, while Lablache, as "the composer," seconded her humor by that talent for comedy which Ronconi alone has ever approached. ”

“ The first notes of the "polacca" were sufficient to show that the great artist was in her true place again, and that the mature woman had lost but little of the artistic fascinations of the gifted girl. Of course, time had robbed her of one or two upper notes, but the skill, grace, and precision with which she utilized every atom of her power, the incomparable steadiness and finish with which she wrought out the composer's intentions, the marvelous flexibility of her execution, she retained in all their pristine excellence. ”

“ But exquisite as were, undoubtedly, Mme. Pasta's vocal exertions, her histrionic powers, if possible, surpassed them. It would be difficult for those who have seen her represent, in Donizetti's excellent opera, the unfortunate Amina, with a grandeur and a dignity above all praise, to conceive that she could so change (if the expression may be allowed) her nature as to enact the part of a simple country girl. But she has proved her powers to be unrivaled; she personates a simple rustic as easily as she identifies herself with Medea, Semiramide, Tancredi, and Anna Bolena. ”

“ Her astonishing dexterity seemed rather the result of the natural aptitude of genius than of study and labor, and her most brilliant ornaments more the fanciful improvisations of the moment than the roulades of the composer. Of her elocution in singing it is said: "She was articulate, forcible, and powerful; occasionally light, pleasing, and playful, but never awfully grand or tenderly touching to the degree that the art may be carried." ”

“ But the beautiful Gabrielli was then a little on the wane both in personal loveliness and charm of voice; and, though her fame as a coquette and an artist had preceded her, she met with an indifference that was almost languor. The young Englishmen of the period, though quick to draw blade as any gallants in Europe, did not feel inspired to fight for her smiles, as had been the case with their compeers in the Continental cities, which rang with the scandals, controversies, and duels engendered by her numerous conquests. ”

“ Her transition from hope to terror, from supplication to scorn, culminating in the vehement outburst "sono innocente," her last frenzied looks, when, blinded by her disheveled hair and bewildered with her conflicting emotions, she seems to seek fruitlessly the means of flight, were awful. The varied resources of the great art of tragedy were consummately drawn forth by her Desdemona, in this opera, though she was yet to astonish the world with that impersonation imperishably linked with her name in the history of art. ”

“ Davide excites among the dilletanti of this town an enthusiasm and delight which can hardly be conceived without having been witnessed. He is a singer of the new school, full of mannerism, affectation, and display, abusing like Martin his magnificent voice with its prodigious compass (three octaves comprised between four B flats) . He crushes the principal motive of an air beneath the luxuriance of his ornamentation, which has no other merit than that of a difficulty conquered. But he is also a singer full of warmth, verve, expression, energy, and musical sentiment. ”

“ To the director of the opera, De Vismes, who, enraged at some want of respect, said to him, "Do you know who I am?" he drawled, "Yes! you are the farmer of my talent." On one occasion Auguste refused to obey the royal mandate, and Gaétan said to him with some reproof in his tones: "What! the Queen of France does her duty by requesting you to dance before the King of Sweden, and you do not do yours! You shall no longer bear my name. I will have no misunderstanding between the house of Vestris and the house of Bourbon; they have hitherto always lived on good terms." ”

“ After brilliant triumphs at Vienna, Rome, Naples, and Parma, where he surpassed the most formidable rivals and was heaped with riches and honors, he appeared before the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany, a momentous occasion in his art-career. "You have hitherto excited only astonishment and admiration," said the imperial connoisseur, "but you have never touched the heart. It would be easy for you to create emotion, if you would but be more simple and natural." The singer adopted this counsel, and became the most pathetic as he continued to be the most brilliant of singers. ”

“ Yet when she appeared in Paris, in spite of hostile anticipation, in spite of her reserve, timidity, and coldness on the histrionic side of her art, she soon made good her place by the side of such remarkable artists as Mme. Pasta and Maria Malibran. She never transformed herself into an impassioned tragedienne, but through the spell of great personal attraction, of an exquisite voice, and of exceptional sensibility, taste, and propriety in her art methods, she advanced herself to a high place in public favor. ”

“ We know more of him from his various critics as an artist than as a man.
"Pacchierotti's voice," says Lord Mount Edgcumbe, who contributed so richly to the literature of music, "was an extensive soprano, full and sweet in the highest degree; his powers of execution were great, but he had far too good taste and good sense to make a display of them where it would have been misapplied, confining it to one bravura song in each opera, conscious that the chief delight of singing and his own supreme excellence lay in touching expression and exquisite pathos. ”

“ The intense interest appertaining to all things connected with music and the theatre noticeable in the French of to-day, was tenfold as eager a century ago. Passionate curiosity, even extending to enthusiasm, with which that worn-out and utterly corrupt society, by some subtile contradiction, threw itself into all questions concerning philosophy, science, literature, and art, found its most characteristic expression in its relation to the music of the stage. ”

“ Here she met the brilliant Mme. Fodor, then singing an engagement in the Austrian capital. So great was this distinguished singer's admiration of the young girl's talents that she said, "Had I her voice I should hold the whole world at my feet."
Mlle. Sontag had the advantage at this period of singing with great artists who took much interest in her career and gave her valuable hints and help. Singing alternately in German and English opera, and always an ardent student of music, she learned to unite all the brilliancy of the Italian style and method to the solidity of the German school. ”

“ To him she confesses herself to have been most indebted for what one of her admirers called "that pointed expression, neatness of execution, and nameless grace by which her performance was so happily distinguished."
Kelly, the Irish actor and singer, who made her acquaintance about this time, said he thought her an angel of beauty and the St. Cecilia of song. Her loveliness enchanted even more by the sweetness and amiability of its expression than by symmetry of feature, and everywhere she was the idol of an adoring public. ”