Part 1 (1/2)
Life of Henriette Sontag, Countess de Rossi.
by Various.
MEMOIR OF THE COUNTESS DE ROSSI.
WHETHER in rapid memoir or in ponderous biography, the life-sketcher or the chronicler must always fain behold the object before him as a model endowed not only with surpa.s.sing moral and physical beauties, but with that individuality of genius, and that peculiar destiny, which separate the few from the crowd. To the readers remains the duty of acting as those did who were wont to attend the triumphs of Roman conquerors, and urge the deduction of their mistakes and misdeeds--or, as the ”Satanic advocate” in the process of canonization in the Pope's court, show how much more of a sinner than of a saint was the mortal about to pa.s.s into the heaven of human invention. Although, thus, well aware of how much our trifling office here is p.r.o.ne to exaggeration, we feel that there is no fear of transgressing in the present case, and that the readers will rather feel how much below than above the truth we remain.
The Countess Rossi is as clearly fitted to be the heroine of a memoir of real life, as she is of being the heroine of a lyrical drama on the fictive scene. Those who will read this sketch will, we think, behold in her all the characteristics of a special and elevated nature--one marked amongst mankind, framed for its admiration and for its model. We have the striking attributes of a special nature manifest and effulgent even in infancy; we see them defying the obstacles of fortune, and constantly rising in power. We behold them in their utmost effulgence--first on the stage, and next in the highest regions of society, and, ultimately, tried by adversity. From beginning to end, the power and the effulgence remain ever the same, fitted for all positions: wherever it is placed, it continues unsullied and undiminished.
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; but to behold her return, after this lapse of time, with all her powers not only unimpaired, but improved by taste, study, and observation, is an event without an example. If, to take the exact measure of this phenomenon by comparison, we turn to the very few who were her contemporaries on the stage, what do we behold? 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 pa.s.sions which most of all beset stages and courts, and are the most insidious and dangerous a.s.sailants of those who are the constant objects of adoration.
To these might be added other aiding causes, but of no little potency.
For the sake of brevity, we shall only mention two: the first is, that the Countess Rossi's voice is a pure and perfect soprano, of the highest register, from the first settlement of her voices--it is ”to the manner born.” Thus she has never been compelled to superadd to her studies of vocal science those efforts by which most of the greatest vocalists have been obliged to trans.m.u.te their contralto or mezzo soprano tones, to polish their guttural or husky tones, and--almost all of them--extend artificially their register. On the other hand, during her long secession from the stage, the love of musical art has always remained predominant, and its science been constantly cultivated, without the necessity of taxing her powers, without the exhausting exertions of other singers; whilst her style of singing is that of the high cla.s.sical Italian school, the only one that nurses the voice, whilst it displays all its melodic power. Had not the Countess Rossi yielded up the German school--had she not resorted to the Italian school to modify her singing--as her great countryman Mozart did, to modify the form his inspirations a.s.sumed--her voice would no doubt have been injured, and she would have lost that marvellous power of overflowing richness of embellishment, requiring purity of tone, agility, and elegance, in which she is unquestionably unrivalled.
HENRIETTE SONTAG was born of a respectable family of artists, of limited means, at Coblentz, Kingdom of Prussia. The old saying of the poet, ”_nascitur, non fit_,” is singularly applicable to this great vocalist.
The strong bent for music which pointed out her ultimate vocation, was observable as early as five years of age. At seven years of age, betwixt her exquisite beauty and her exquisite voice, she was known far and wide in her neighborhood. To gratify the n.o.bility of the district, the authorities of the town, or their friendly neighbors, it was the practice of Henriette Sontag's mother to place her child on the table, and bid her sing.
A distinguished traveller, who afterwards beheld her in all the effulgence of her triumphs, relates having seen her sing in this manner the grand aria of ”The Queen of Night,” in the _Zauberflote_--her arms hanging beside her, her eye following a fly on the window, or a b.u.t.terfly sporting on the flowers without--her voice, so pure, so penetrating, and of angelic tone, flowing as unconsciously, as effortless, and as sportive as a limpid rill from the mountain side.
The circle of her fame spread gradually wider and wider, and the _Impresarii_ of Germany were not long in awakening to the importance of securing the a.s.sistance of the infant wonder. The consequence was, that at eleven years of age she appeared at Darmstadt, in a part written purposely for her, ent.i.tled, _The Little Daughter of the Danube_. In spite of her extraordinary success at Darmstadt, her wise and conscientious parents, knowing the fate of infant prodigies when their natural powers are allowed an untutored growth under the artificial warmth of injudicious admiration and the heat of theatres, withdrew the young _prima donna_ from the first scene of her successes, and conveyed her to a very distant spot, the Conservatoire of Prague.
At the Conservatoire of Prague, the little maiden and her relatives did not cease to be tempted by managers or _Impresarii_. First attracted by her beauty, they were soon astonished by her apt.i.tude. She successively won the prize of every cla.s.s of this great school of music, until she earned the highest position; and, placed at the head of the school, she became one of the marvels of the city.
Scarce three years had elapsed since her matriculation at the Conservatoire, and she had hardly attained the age of fourteen, when she saved the fortunes of that great Imperial Opera of Prague, a.s.sociated with so many glorious memories of music, and which would be immortalized by the fact alone of having been the stage where the _Clemenza di t.i.to_ and the _Marriage of Figaro_ were first produced by Mozart. The favorite _prima donna_ of this n.o.ble theatre was suddenly taken ill, and so seriously, that there was little hope left of her reappearing for some time. The manager, in despair, and at a loss which way to turn, could think of no other resource to retain his audiences than the appearance of the young prodigy of the Conservatoire--little Henriette Sontag. Such was her proficiency in her art, that her parents no longer saw the same danger in allowing their offspring to tread the fictive scene.
If nothing were wanting in courage, natural gifts of voice, and intellectual power on the part of the child, as regards the height of her person there was a _mancamento_ of several inches. As the French proverb says, ”_le temps corrige cela_;” but, in the meantime, the stage-manager, a learned h.e.l.lenist, was not oblivious of the means by which the Greeks gave alt.i.tudes to their scenic heroes and heroines, and the little _prima donna_, to whom was a.s.signed for her _debut_ the part of the heroine in a translation of the favorite French opera, _Jean de Paris_, was supplied with enormous cork heels. There was a time, at the court of Louis XV., when an inch and a half of red heel was the distinctive characteristic of a marquis, or of a lady of sufficient quality to be allowed to sit in the presence of royalty. On the occasion of the _debut_ of Henriette Sontag, four inches of vermillion-colored cork foreshadowed the rank of the little lady, destined to become one of the most absolute mimic queens of the lyrical world, and afterwards a real and much respected countess. When the singer who enacted the pompous seneschal in the opera of _Jean de Paris_ came forward, and announced, ”It is no less a personage than the Princess of Navarre whose arrival I announce!” the applause and laughter were universal. When the little prodigy appeared on her cork pedestal, the house was filled with cheers and acclamations. As the business of the stage proceeded, the auditors found that there was no longer any indulgence necessary on the score of age, but that there were claims on their admiration for a voice which, for its purity, its peculiar flute-like tone, and its agility, has never been surpa.s.sed. The celebrated tenor, Gerstener, who enacted _Jean de Paris_, that night sang better than ever, finding that he had to cope with the attraction of a new melodic power. Many nights successively did she thus sing the Princess of Navarre with increasing success to crowded houses. Her next part was one far more difficult--that of the heroine in Paer's fine opera, _Sargin_.
The capital of Bohemia was not destined long to retain its chief ornament. Long before the conclusion of the season, the Imperial Court had heard of her extraordinary success, and Henriette Sontag was summoned to Vienna, where she appeared, the very next season, at the German Opera.
In our times we have ”Kings of Railways” and ”Colossuses of Roads,”
indebted to good luck for their success. At the time Henriette Sontag _deb.u.t.ted_ at Vienna there existed in Italy also _millionaire Impresarii_, only indebted for pre-eminence to the favors of chance.
That curious original, Barbaja, the lessee at the same time of the largest German and Italian Theatres, was born under the luckiest of stars. Since his day, his successors in Italy, having found talent becoming daily rarer, have watched every young talent as it rose, taken possession of it, and worked them until the death of their voices, before they had a chance of the maturation of their powers, in singing operas of composers, who strive to conceal their sterility under noise and exaggerations both dramatic and instrumental. In our days, to be a successful lessee, you must be possessed of indefatigable genius, as well as industry; Barbaja, on the contrary, found musical genius of all kinds at his command to speculate upon. Not only were there Catalanis, Pastas, Malibrans, Garcias, Donzellis, Rubinis, Lablaches, &c., in ample number, but all the operas that Paer, Winter, Paesiello, Cimarosa, and Mozart had written, were fresh in the lyrical _repertoire_, and composers of equal merit were living, and could be monopolized for money. In the Villa Barbaja, the palace the fortunate _impresario_ had built for himself on the Possilipo, at Naples, you may, half way up the hill, on the third story, see the room where, in the dog-days, Rossini wrote his _Otello_, standing at a desk, in the costume of terrestrial paradise, with a Chucharro boy fanning him behind with the back torn from a large music-book. When managers had such slaves responding to their behests, like the genius to the lamp of Aladdin, they might easily live and rule like sultans, with a Mahomet's paradise upon earth. Thus it was with Barbaja. With the a.s.sistance of the great alchymist Rossini, who turned so readily ”notes into gold,” he thought he knew and mostly had secured all the talent available to his theatre that existed in Europe. In those days not only a northern _cantatrice_ was not dreamt of, but it was thought that the South alone could produce a great singer for the Italian lyrical stage.
When he arrived at Vienna, such was, however, the report of the fame of young Sontag, that the great sybarite of the day condescended at last to visit the German opera, even at the sacrifice of having his ears, accustomed to the melodious ”_lingua Toscana_,” torn by the guttural discordance of the Teutonic tongue. On hearing Henriette Sontag sing, Barbaja was overcome with astonishment. To this feeling succeeded dismay, when, having immediately applied to her parents, he found in them a polite but most unquestionable abhorrence for the Italian stage, which they were afraid would lead their daughter to the land of moral laxity, of _Cicisbei_ and _Pat.i.ti_, of
”Pasteboard triumph, and the cavalcade, Processions formed for piety and love, A mistress and a saint in every grove.”
In vain he tempted them with an _El Dorado_ in perspective--the conscientious Germans would not concede, at first, a single iota of his wishes. The world, to whom she has imparted so much pure enjoyment,--and, fortunately, will now impart so much more in time to come--was near never hearing the great vocalist sing in an euphonious language, in that which made her fame universal, and led her to visit England and France.
At last, however, after repeated efforts, some concession was made, although Barbaja's fate was like that of the hero of the cla.s.sical poet--the G.o.ds vouchsafed but half his prayer. Henriette Sontag was allowed to appear at the Italian Opera at Vienna. But she alone, of all the great singers of those days, never visited Italy. Many an evening the good-natured Neapolitan _Impresario_, a still greater epicure in gastronomy than in music, after enjoying a dinner such as Lucullus was wont to degustate nearly on the same spot, as he walked on his Palace terrace and looked down across the inlet to San Carlo, would grow moody when he thought of what he lost by the rooted aversion of Sontag's parents; and then he would anathematize the _Maledetti Tedeschi_, the born enemies of his country, with an energy, if not with a poetry, worthy of the patriotic _Filicaja_--for they, like all the other invaders of Italy, ”never gave her anything but blows and slavery, and always took away everything they could, not leaving even an Iron Crown, or a funeral urn to preserve the ashes of past greatness.”
The important change for the musical world at large was, however, effected. The next season Henriette Sontag was engaged to sing in Italian at Vienna, and removed to the Carinthia, having for her colleagues vocalists of such a calibre, that one of them, ”_il buon Rubini_,” has never been surpa.s.sed; whilst all those who have enjoyed the talents of the other, Lablache, feel that not only he has never been, but cannot imagine that he ever will be equalled.
Amongst the company at the Carinthia, there was another exquisite artist, who was destined, as a model of style, to exert a great influence on the career of Sontag, who has now risen so much higher in the world's estimation than her fair predecessor has ever attained, eminent as she was. As soon as the young Sontag, the most conscientious of artists (no slight portion of her success being due to her severity of judgment on herself), had heard Madame Fodor, a new light broke upon her; with tears in her eyes she threw her arms round her mother's neck, conjured her to take her home, and give her a piano. Her wish accomplished, she sat at her piano, working night and day at improving herself, and never leaving her home but when there was a rehearsal for Fodor, when she would hide herself in a corner of the house, and her ears would drink up with enthusiasm every note that dropped from the great _prima donna_, who has left a memory still enduring with the old _habitues_ of Her Majesty's Theatre. Madame Fodor, on the other hand, hearing the young inexperienced _prima donna_ sing for the first time, exclaimed, ”Had I her voice, I should hold the whole world at my feet!”
The Prussian _dilettanti_ employed every means to bring Henriette Sontag to their capital. At the end of the Italian Opera season at Vienna, she was persuaded to come to Berlin, to support by her attraction the Koenigstadt Theatre, just opened. There she was joined by distinguished German lyrists, such as Jager, Wachter, Sager, and Spitzeder. She was obliged to sing the translations of the operas of Rossini and of the French _repertoire_, then all the fas.h.i.+on at Berlin.
Her success, however, was immense. Every seat in the house was taken, in antic.i.p.ation, long before the days of performance; and we remember well, being there at the time, that the foreigners of rank who arrived in Berlin, finding it impossible to purchase a seat at any price, were obliged to apply to Count de Bruhl, the minister of the ”_Menus plaisirs du roi_,” to obtain an obscure seat at the back of the Court, or of the diplomatic box.
M. de Talleyrand used to boast, as one of the brightest diplomatic tricks of his tricksy career, that in the settlement of limits of respective dominions at the Congress of Vienna, he had procured that Ferney should be included in the area of France, which made Voltaire a Frenchman _post mortem_. On the same principle, the Prussians having recently secured, at the same Congress, the forced allegiance of Sontag's birth-place, Coblentz, added to the admiration which she commanded wherever she went, a feeling of pride at her being their countrywoman. Hence their enthusiasm knew no bounds.