Great Singers, Second Series | Page 5

autumn with her father at the Manchester, York, and Liverpool Festivals, where she sang some of the most difficult pieces from the "Messiah" and the "Creation." Some said that she failed, others that she sang with a degree of mingled brilliancy, delicacy, and sweetness that drew down a storm of applause.
II.
Garcia now conceived a project for establishing Italian opera in the United States, and with characteristic daring he set sail for America with a miserable company, of which the only talent consisted of his own family, comprising himself, his son, daughter, and wife, Mme. Garcia having been a fairly good artist in her youth. The first opera produced was "Il Barbiere," on November 29, 1825, and this was speedily followed by "Tancredi," "Otello," "Il Turco in Italia," "Don Giovanni," "Cenerentola," and two operas composed by Garcia himself--"L'Amante Astuto," and "La Figlia dell' Aria," The young singer's success was of extraordinary character, and New York, unaccustomed to Italian opera, went into an ecstasy of admiration. Maria's charming voice and personal fascination held the public spellbound, and her good nature in the introduction of English songs, whenever called on by her admirers, raised the delight of the opera-goers of the day to a wild enthusiasm.
The occurrence of the most unfortunate episode of her life at this time was the fruitful source of much of the misery and eccentricity of her after-career. M. Fran?ois Eug��ne Malibran, a French merchant, engaged in business in New York, fell passionately in love with the young singer, and speedily laid his heart and fortune, which was supposed to be great, at her feet. In spite of the fact that the suitor was fifty, and Maria only seventeen, she was disposed to accept the offer, for she was sick of her father's brutality, and the straits to which she was constantly put by the exigencies of her dependent situation. Her heart had never yet awakened to the sweetness of love, and the supposed great fortune and lavish promises of M. Malibran dazzled her young imagination. Garcia sternly refused his consent, and there were many violent scenes between father and daughter. Such was the hostility of feeling between the two, that Maria almost feared for her life. The following incident is an expressive comment on the condition of her mind at this time: One evening she was playing _Des-demona_ to her father's Othello, in Rossini's opera. At the moment when Othello approaches, his eyes sparkling with rage, to stab Desdemona, Maria perceived that her father's dagger was not a stage sham, but a genuine weapon. Frantic with terror, she screamed "Papa, papa, for the love of God, do not kill me!" Her terrors were groundless, for the substitution of the real for a theatrical dagger was a mere accident. The audience knew no difference, as they supposed Maria's Spanish exclamation to be good operatic Italian, and they applauded at the fine dramatic point made by the young artist!
At last the importunate suitor overcame Gar-cia's opposition by agreeing to give him a hundred thousand francs in payment for the loss of his daughter's services, and the sacrifice of the young and beautiful singer was consummated on March 23, 1826. A few weeks later Malibran was a bankrupt and imprisoned for debt, and his bride discovered how she had been cheated and outraged by a cunning scoundrel, who had calculated on saving himself from poverty by dependence on the stage-earnings of a brilliant wife. The enraged Garcia, always a man of unbridled temper, was only prevented from transforming one of those scenes of mimic tragedy with which he was so familiar, into a criminal reality by assassinating Malibran, through the resolute expostulations of his friends. Mme. Malibran instantly resigned for the benefit of her husband's creditors any claims which she might have made on the remnants of his estate, and her New York admirers had as much occasion to applaud the rectitude and honor of the woman as they had had the genius of the artist. Garcia himself, hampered by pecuniary difficulties, set sail for Mexico with his son and younger daughter, to retrieve his fortunes, while Maria remained in New York, tied to a wretch whom she despised, and who looked on her musical talents as the means of supplying him with the luxuries of life. Mme. Malibran's energy soon found a vent in English opera, and she made herself as popular on the vernacular as she had on the Italian stage. But she soon wearied of her hard fate, which compelled her to toil without ceasing for the support of the man who had deceived her vilely, and for whom not one spark of love operated to condone his faults. Five months utterly snapped her patience, and she determined to return to Paris. She arrived there in September, 1826,