“ PRIMA DONNA AND THE COUNTESS. OF all the artists there is none who so appeals to our hearts and our imaginations as Henriette Sontag. Her romantic history, her recent and great misfortunes, her far-famed beauty, her supreme talent, and her untarnished reputation, make her certainly one of the most remarkable women of the present century. Madame Sontag has had, as it were, two lives; twice she has achieved—what so few are ever destined to achieve at all—fame and fortune. ”

“ The Duke of Devonshire, for so many years the liberal and tasteful patron of every kind of art, was the first to make society enjoy the talents of the wonderful artist.
Her début took place at a concert at Devonshire-house, in the Easter week. Such was her reputation, not only for musical genius, but for beauty, elegance, and fascination of every kind, that the crowds of eager spectators in the streets equalled the throng of nobility, rank, and fashion under the roof of the great dilettante and patron of art, the Duke of Devonshire. ”

“ With what inimitable art you represent that inimitable Rosina, at once so innocent and so cunning, committing with such reckless grace those little sins which make youth so happy, and revealing at the same time the woman who attracts us by the qualities we love and the faults we adore. Ah, whether you express either joy or sorrow, you charm equally—like those privileged natures, you can feel everything, because you can understand everything. You are merciful and charitable—misfortune has never applied to you in vain—never has the cry of the sufferer been listened to by you without reply. ”

“ AMONG the rare consolations which have lately been vouchsafed to the devotees of music, is the reappearance upon the world's stage of a celebrated artist who had been its ornament. Mademoiselle Sontag, after having enchanted Europe by the beauty of her voice, by her marvellous vocalization, and the charms of her person, suddenly disappeared from the eyes of her numerous admirers, and hid the splendor of an incontestable and painfully acquired reputation under the veil of matrimony. ”

“ We were young then, and our admiration of the beautiful in art was, perhaps, stronger than our judgment; for, in youth, enthusiasm is but rarely under the control of reason; and in good truth the beauty of Mademoiselle Henriette Sontag was something so spirituelle, seemingly, to us, so far elevated above common mortality, that reason was the slave of sensation—a double entrancement of the eye and the ear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Looking at American life and manners from no distant point, but as one who has been in, and of, and through it all, pausing now and then to take down a jotting here, put in a bit of shadow there, making more of life than 'John Timon;' not mere squints through a Lorgnette, but broad, steady stares with the naked eye, with now and then the help of a quizzing-glass."—New-York Evening Mirror. ”

“ She always SINGS, and does not depend on mere strength of lungs—erroneously called "power." She never strains her delicate organ—that sweet instrument so susceptible of every shade of expression. How fortunate for our young singers that, like the nuns in Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable, she left the tomb of the seven ancestors, bestowed by the King of Prussia upon the Countess de Rossi, to teach them the wide difference between singing and screaming, and to show how we all, during the last ten years, have been listening to and adoring false prophets. ”

“ After having astonished the fashionable world of London, which received her during the past winter with great distinction, Mademoiselle Sontag has determined to present herself also, after a silence of twenty years, before that Parisian public whose discriminating acclamations formed then the most brilliant portion of her fame. We have heard her at six concerts which she has given at the Conservatoire; but before expressing our appreciation of a talent yet so admirable, we may be permitted, perhaps, to speak briefly of the youth of this celebrated woman, who has been so tried by destiny. ”

“ Most of the great prime donne of our times have been compelled, in soprano parts, to compensate by their genius and science for the want of compass in their voices—as, for example, in the case of Pasta, whose natural voice was a rugged mezzo-soprano; and of Malibran, who was a real contralto. In Madame Sontag, the public found a real soprano, "to the manner born," enabling her to perform with certainty of tone, and with exquisite ease, purity, and delicacy, the most intricate passages and original embellishments, whether in full tone or mezzo voce. ”

“ At the Hague, whether in the intercourse of the courtly personages, or in the calm enjoyment of beautiful scenery and rural diversions, no thought but of the present appeared ever to intrude upon the memory of one, since her earliest years, accustomed to sway the audiences of every capital, as if it were with the wand of an enchanter—the crowds alternately hushed to dead silence—a moment later excited to the loudest and most enthusiastic applause. ”

“ Having set forth our claims to the attention of those to whom we address ourselves, we shall now rapidly trace the outline of the singularly eventful career of Countess Rossi. The interest its moving incidents, so singularly varied, have always inspired, are now increased tenfold by new features, totally unparalleled in the history of the lyrical stage. To behold this distinguished lady return to the stage, after enjoying undisturbed for many years, and in the most exalted rank, the love and esteem of the greatest personages of Europe, is a truly singular and affecting event ”

“ If there could be any one so devoid of love for what is really good and really great, as not to be inspired by interest in the eventful life we have so very superficially sketched, they need only to repair to the theatre where our heroine appears, for them to change their disposition. Nothing ever could resist, off the stage or on it, the sterling merit either of Countess Rossi, or of Madame Sontag. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who visited Vienna before the late revolution, cannot forget the state of society which prevailed in the Austrian capital, the chief abode of taste and pleasure in that quarter of the globe. The circles of society were defined as rigorously and irrevocably as the boundaries of the little principalities on a German map, and with this difference that there was no debatable land. Amidst the nobility itself resident at Vienna, there was an exclusive circle formed, whose exclusiveness was two-fold, being in the ratio not only of rank, but of fashion. ”

“ That ineffable voice, which goes directly to the heart, and dwells for ever in the memory of those who hear it—those ever-changing shades of expression—those bold and brilliant embellishments created by good taste, softened by grace, and made inimitable by art—you possess all. ”

“ After many years of undimmed happiness and prosperity, changes take place, and by one of those extraordinary freaks of fortune by which the highest and the lowest reverse their positions, we find the Countess Rossi—the Sontag of our youth—compelled to have recourse to that profession of which she had been so immaculate an ornament, to retrieve a broken fortune and re-erect the altars of her home. ”

“ Madame de Rossi dropped as naturally into her position, amidst the votaries of court and politics, as she had done into her parts on the stage, with this difference, that here nothing was studied, not even the words she uttered, but she found herself in the natural element of one whose mind and tastes were plainly created for the enjoyment of everything that is tasteful, refined, and truthful. If her reception at first was most kindly courteous, in a very short time it was friendly in the extreme, and she became the idol of the society of the Hague. ”

“ But the first station at the opera cannot be had on such easy terms. The time necessary for acquiring declamation, expression, and pathos, has been spent by this prodigy in receiving unbounded applause for this one dazzling gift of nature, a flexible and brilliant voice, rendered irresistible by great personal beauty. The part of Mirrha is suited to Henriette Sontag in all but the last two scenes, where she is required to represent acute feeling and distress of mind. ”

“ If asked how so extraordinary a fact happens to exist, those who have had the good fortune to know the Countess Rossi will readily explain it. The first reason and first cause are, that this lady possesses a remarkably well regulated mind—gentle in all things, ever resigned, and possessed of unruffled patience; and her feelings, controlled by the most virtuous sense of right, have never been agitated by those passions which most of all beset stages and courts, and are the most insidious and dangerous assailants of those who are the constant objects of adoration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mademoiselle Sontag became Madame de Rossi. She exchanged a diadem for the coronet of a countess, and the graceful Muse became an humble ambassadress. A political revolution, which overturned society, was necessary to restore to us the eminent vocalist whom we have so much admired. Madame de Rossi, who, most happily for our enjoyment, has lost her embassy and a part of her fortune, as we are assured, has again become Mademoiselle Sontag. ”

“ But as in the twilight of a dream I remember, that before my soul's transmigration I was of the opinion that we Germans, who are so hard to rouse to enthusiasm, who begin to be intoxicated when others are getting over the headache,—it was my opinion that we ought not to yield up our virgin hearts to the first charming apparition. For though beautiful, it is not unfading; though delightful, it does no solid good. ”

“ We remember well how loud, indignant, and regretful were the universal exclamations at the presumption of any one man appropriating to himself one in whom the whole civilized world held so dear an interest. But the fiat had gone forth; Love pleaded and Hymen sanctioned the engagement; the world looked on wonderingly, scarcely realizing the extent of the loss. The star that but yesterday beamed in all its radiant effulgence, had suddenly set, and would appear no more. And so Sontag disappeared ”

“ Accordingly, they have flourished long, for they have never undergone those paroxysms which break and consume a feeble woman as a diamond is devoured in the crucible of the chemist. We delight to bring Mad. Sontag before our mind's eye decked in a white robe, listening to harmless thoughts, moving placidly through a leafy vista, and in her bosom a cluster of Forget-me-not. ”

“ Oh, music of the spheres, of which we dream but never hear!—you alone have revealed it, for you alone possess that touching language, at once radiant and heart-thrilling, yet penetrating, like all real beauty, like that divine essence whence you emanate. ”

“ If there had existed the slightest hesitation as to the cordiality with which so bright a character should be received, the first sight, and the first moments spent with Madame de Rossi convinced the most stilted and hypercritical personages that, in her, they beheld one destined to adorn every position in life in which she might be placed, and who, fortunately for them, was about to bring them, whether in their official réunions, or in the private intimacy of life, a great accession of pleasure. ”