Great Singers, First Series | Page 2

in Paris.--Her Escape from France and Appearance in
London.--Opinions of Lord Mount Edgcumbe and other
Critics.--Anecdotes of herself and Husband.--The Great Prima Donna's
Character.--Her Gradual Divergence from Good Taste in singing.--Bon
Mots of the Wits of the Day.--The Opera-house Riot.--Her Husband's
Avarice.--Grand Concert Tour through Europe.--She meets
Goethe.--Her Return to England and Brilliant Reception.--She sings
with the Tenor Braham.--John Braham's Artistic Career.--The
Davides.--Catalani's Last English Appearance, and the Opinion of

Critics.--Her Retirement and Death
GIUDITTA PASTA.
Greatness of Genius overcoming Disqualification.--The Characteristic
Lesson of Pasta's Life.--Her First Appearance and Failure.--Pasta
returns to Italy and devotes herself to Study.--Her First Great Successes
in 1819.--Characteristics of her Voice and Singing.--Chorley's Review
of the Impressions made on him by Pasta.--She makes her Triumphal
_Début_ in Paris.--Talma on Pasta's Acting.--Her Performances of
"Giulietta" and "Tancredi."--Medea, Pasta's Grandest Impersonation, is
given to the World.--Description of the Performance.--Enthusiasm of
the Critics and the Public.--Introduction of Pasta to the English Public
in Rossini's "Otello."--The Impression made in England.--Recognized
as the Greatest Dramatic Prima Donna in the World.--Glances at the
Salient Facts of her English Career.--The Performance of "Il Crociato
in Egitto."--She plays the Male _Rôle_ "Otello."--Rivalry with
Malibran and Sontag.--The Founder of a New School of
Singing.--Pasta creates the Leading _Rôles_ in Bellini's "Sonnambula"
and "Norma" and Donizetti's "Anna Bolena."--Decadence and
Retirement
HENRIETTA SONTAG.
The Greatest German Singer of the Century.--Her Characteristics as an
Artist.--Her Childhood and Early Training.--Her Early Appearances in
Weimar, Berlin, and Leipsic.--She becomes the Idol of the Public.--Her
Charms as a Woman and Romantic Incidents of her Youth.--Becomes
affianced to Count Rossi.--Prejudice against her in Paris, and her
Victory over the Public Hostility.--She becomes the Pet of Aristocratic
Salons.--Rivalry with Malibran.--Her _Début_ in London, where she is
welcomed with Great Enthusiasm.--Returns to Paris.--Anecdotes of her
Career in the French Capital.--She becomes reconciled with Malibran
in London.--Her Secret Marriage with Count Rossi.--She retires from
the Stage as the Wife of an Ambassador.--Return to her Profession after
Eighteen Years of Absence.--The Wonderful Success of her Youth
renewed.--Her American Tour.--Attacked with Cholera in Mexico and
dies.

GREAT SINGERS, FROM FAUSTINA BORDONI TO HENRIETTA
SONTAG.

FAUSTINA BORDONI.
The Art-Battles of Handel's Time.--The Feud between Cuzzoni and
Faustina.--The Character of the Two Rivals as Women and
Artists.--Faustina's Career.--Her Marriage with Adolph Hasse, and
something about the Composer's Music.--Their Dresden
Life.--Cuzzoni's Latter Years.--Sketch of the Great Singer
Farinelli.--The Old Age of hasse and Faustina.
I.
During the early portion of the eighteenth century the art of the stage
excited the interests and passions of the English public to a degree
never equaled since. Politics and religion hardly surpassed it in the
power of creating cabals and sects and in stirring up animosities. This
was specially marked in music. The great Handel, who had not then
found his true vocation as an oratorio composer, was in the culmination
of his power as manager of the opera, though he was irritated by hostile
factions. The musical quarrels of the time were almost as interesting as
the Gluck-Piccini war in Paris in the latter part of the same century, and
the literati took part in it with a zest and wit not less piquant and
noticeable. Handel, serenely grand in his musical conceptions, was
personally passionate and fretful; and the contest of satire, scandal, and
witticism raged without intermission between him and his rivals,
supported on each hand by princes and nobles, and also by the great
dignitaries of the republic of letters. In this tumult the singers (always a
genus irritabile, like the race of poets) who belonged to the opera
companies took an active part.
Not the least noteworthy episode of this conflict was the feud between
two foremost sirens of the lyric stage, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina
Bordoni. When the brilliant Faustina appeared in London, as a fresh

importation of Handel, who was as indefatigable in purveying novelties
as any modern Mapleson or Strakosch, Cuzzoni was the idol of the
public, having succeeded to that honor after Anastasia Robinson retired
from the stage as Countess of Peterborough. Handel some years before
had introduced Cuzzoni to the English stage, and, though kept in
constant turmoil by her insolence and caprice, had taken great pains to
display her fine voice by the composition of airs specially suited to her.
It is recorded that one morning, after she had refused at rehearsal to
sing a song written for her by the master, such rage took possession of
Handel that he seized her fiercely, and threatened to hurl her from the
window unless she succumbed. One of the arias composed for this
singer extorted from Main-waring, a musician bitterly at odds with
Handel, the remark, "The great bear was certainly inspired when he
wrote that song."
Cuzzoni's popularity with the public had so augmented her native
conceit and insolence as to make a rival unbearable.