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Marie Heilbron (1849-1866), photographed as Juliette at the Opéra-Comique in 1885.

From Musical Courier 1886-03-24: Vol 12 Iss 319: MARIE HEILBRON, PRIMA DONNA.—A London despatch announces the death, at Nice, of Mme. Marie Heilbron, also known in Europe as Viscountess de la Panouse. Mme. Heilbron was born in Brussels, of Jewish parentage, about thirty-seven years ago. Her earliest efforts as a songstress were made in the performance of operetta ; later on success stimulated her to study for the Italian stage, and after some brief experiences in France and Italy she signed an engagement with Max and Maurice Strakosch for an Amencan tour. Her début in this country was 1874, "La Traviata” being the opera. Mlle. Heilbron, who was comely and sympathetic in appearance and possessed of a voice of pleasant quality and considerable skill as a songstress and actress, was received with favor, and her subsequent perform. | ances during the progress of a season in which even Mme. | Albani failed to attract large audiences had critical and popular commendation, After returning to Europe in the following spring, Mlle. Heilbron figured as prima donna in sundry operatic enterprises, some of which were carried on in Paris, while others were organized for the entertainment of provincial dilettanti, She accomplished nothing that caused inordinate ex citement, however, until she abandoned the stage to marry Viscount de la Panouse, a very wealthy Frenchman, whose love for the prima donna was so ardent that he insisted upon claiming the paternity of ason born to her some years before she met the viscount. The nobleman’s family objected to this proceeding, and the interference of the courts prevented M. de la Panouse from fulfilling his intentions. A year or two afterward the Viscount lost heavily in speculation on the Paris Exchange, and made over the remnants of his fortune to his wife, who managed to keep them out of the hands of his creditors. A recollection of this fact explains the statement embodied in the despatch, to the effect that the Viscountess de la Panouse leaves a fortune of £120,000, Late French papers report that disagreements between the songstress and the Viscount led to their separation. The funeral of the dead songstress will take place in Paris tomorrow.

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From Musical Courier 1884-01-30: Vol 8 Iss 207: Marie Heilbron, on her first appearance, in the first act at the inn at Amiens, dressed in a simple, modest traveling costume, was greeted with murmurs of admiration. She has grown somewhat thinner, but not too much so, Her dimples are as pretty as ever. Talazac is simply superb in his role. The orchestra of the Opéra Comique is really marvelous. Marie Heilbron revealed herself in the role of Manon as a consummate actress as well as a brilliant diva. Manager Carvalho, as usual, gave proof of his taste and skill in mounting in a princely manner this new work. The scenery was beautiful and all the costumes were gems of good taste. The third tableau ends with a divertisement danced by the corps de ballet in costumes of the period with the paniers of the Regency. The effect was a novel.and pleasing change from the eternal gauze petticoats. The house was filled with an extremely brilliant audience. All circles of society were represented —political, aristocratic, financial and artistic. Mmes. Gustave de Rothschild and Edmond Adam, Mlle. Blanche Pierson, Mlle. Broisat, General de Gallifet, Alexander Dumas, About, Gounod, Délibes and Halévy were among those present.— Sunday Herald.

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From Musical Record and Review (1878): HOW SHE FOUND HER VOICE Mlle Marie Heilbron who has just created the rôle of Juliet in the Marquis d Ivry's new Les Amants de Verone is celebrated for being a decidedly uncertain young lady much given to sudden colds and hoarseness which have caused the postponement of first nights and the despair of many an im presario Some time ago Capoul her present manager announced a dress rehearsal of the new opera to which all the musical journalis fie celebrities of Paris were invited True to last moment and the rehearsal had to be post last custom Heilbron was indisposed at the poned A second time was the rehearsal an nounced a second time were the guests bidden and a second time at the last minute came a certificate from a complaisant physician that Mlle Heilbron's throat was etc etc and that she was quite unable to sing But Capoul was not to be caught twice he had secured a young and pretty soprano with a lovely voice Mile Rey to whom he taught the role of Juliet so when Heilbron failed him he brought out his new singer with an apology to the audience and the performance went on The new soprano was a great success with that most critical of audiences it is hardly neces sary to say that when the first night of the new opera came Heilbron did not have a sore throat the least in the world and wonderful to tell an opera in which she was cast did not have to be postponed.

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From The Athenæum (1874):THE autumn and winter season of Italian opera in New York commenced in the Academy of Music on the 28th ult under the direction of Herr Max Strakosch with Signor Verdi's Traviata the part of Violetta being taken by the Dutch prima donna Mdlle Marie Heilbron who sang it twice last season at Covent Garden Theatre the tenor was Signor Benfratelli and the baritone Signor Del Puente Signor Muzio is the musical director and conductor Mdlle Albani was to make her debut during November Mdlle Heilbron did not at all satisfy the American amateurs as Margherita in Faust. [...] With more control over her voice and with more If sustained style Miss Marie Henderson may prove a valuable actress.

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From Benham's Musical Review (1874): MLLE MARIE HEILBRON PRIMA DONNA We present this month a picture of Mlle Heilbron the prima donna who will ap pear in the opera of Lohengrin in this city under the management of Mr Strakosch She will be supported by Miss AL Cary contralto Sig Carpi tenor Sig Del Puente baritone and Sig Fiorini basso with a full chorus and orchestra Mlle Heilbron is a native of Brussels and is about twenty three years of age When she was twelve years of age Mlle Heilbron's voice had made such progress that she successfully passed the examina tion for admission into the Royal Conservatory of her native place and attracted so much attention from the examiners that she was permitted to enter as a pupil not withstanding the bar of her extreme youth At the end of the first year she was awarded the highest prize for singing and piano playing The King was present at her second year's examination and so pleased was he with her rich voice and its trained powers that he advised her father to send her to Paris to study under Duprez the famous French tenor She made her debut at the Op era Comique in the winter of 1869 when she won success Content with this opening success in Paris she responded to a call to sing in the royal theatres of the Hague and Amsterdam in Holland At the close of that season she went to Italy to study and immediately on her return to Paris she sang in a soiree where Maurice Strakosch the director of the Italian opera in Paris recognizing her as an artist of great ability secured her under his management to open an Italian opera and early in the winter a most modest reserve and an utter sim plicity of manner particularly noticeable She is a brunette a shade or two lighter than Lucca with brilliant black eyes that sparkle with animation when she talks Mlle Heilbron speaks only a little English but converses fluently in French.

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Today a evening Program July 16.1910 from Puccini Opera „Madama Butterfly” at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden with a great cast.

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OTD in Music History: Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) moves his family into a custom-built Bayreuth villa named "Wahnfried" in 1874. "Wahnfried" is actually a compound of the German words "Wahnen" (meaning expectation or hope) and "Fried(e)" (meaning peace or freedom). Financed by "Mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria (who was deeply in love with Wagner's music and quite possibly also with Wagner himself), Wahnfried has the follow motto engraved over the front entrance: "Hier wo mein Wähnen Frieden fand – Wahnfried – sei dieses Haus von mir benannt" ("Here where my delusions have found peace, let this place be named ‘Wahnfried’") Along with the "Bayreuth Festspielhaus" (an opera house that Wagner designed to his own specifications for the purpose of serving as a permanent "temple" for his music), Wahnfried has become a veritable shrine for modern-day Wagner devotees. Ironically, Wagner didn’t get to spend his own final days in his beloved villa -- beset by health problems, he travelled to Venice in September 1882 in a futile effort to “recover his health,” and while there he suffered a massive heart attack and died in a rented apartment in early 1883. Wagner's body was repatriated back to Wahnfried, where he now rests in the garden next to his second wife Cosima (1837 - 1930), his famous father-in-law, Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886), who died of pneumonia while attending the 1886 Bayreuth Festival at the behest of Cosima (who was his daughter), and his beloved Newfoundland dog named Russ... (Russ's grave is marked with the following epitaph: "Here Guards and Watches Wagner’s Russ". Wagner was a lifelong dog enthusiast whose behavior strongly suggests that he probably preferred canine companionship to human companionship in most cases…) PICTURED: Three c. early 20th Century real photo postcards -- the first showing Wagner and Cosima posing together (c. 1870s), the second showing Wagner alone (c. 1880), and the third showing Cosima during her long widowhood (c. 1920s) following Wagner's death, throughout which she almost exclusively wore black mourning clothes.

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From Musical America 1914-10-31: Vol 20 Iss 26:

NATIVE COLORATURA WINS PRAISE ON BOSTON STAGE

Miriam Ardini Sings Florid Réles with Success in New Organization of That City

Though the city of Boston has no opera this year unde: Henry Russell’s direction, it has for the last three weeks been enjoying satisfying performances given by the Leahy Opera Company at the Boston Theater. The company was organized this Summer by Alessandro Bevani, who for several years gave opera at popular prices on the Pacific Coast. Mr. Bevani was looking for a prima donna of the colorature type for the company this Summer when he heard a young American girl, Miriam Ardini, who had but recently come back from Italy, where she had been singing in opera for the last four years. He engaged her at once. Miss Ardini is a pupil of William S. Brady, the New York vocal teacher, and she restudied her réles with him this Summer to prepare for her season.

Miss Ardini made her American début in Donizetti’s “Lucia” on October 7 and proved herself a_ truly ety artist, her audience receiving her wit great enthusiasm. Several of the leading Boston critics in speaking of her work have pointed out that in addition to her vocal ability she possesses a really musical sense which lends distinction to her singing of the pyrotechnics of the old Italian music. As Rosina in Rossini’s “Barber” she scored last week and also as Oscar in the revival of Verdi’s “Masked Ball.” Her Gilda in “Rigoletto” has also brought her much praise.

From Musical America 1913-08-02: Vol 18 Iss 13:

WHEN THE AMERICAN GIRL SINGS IN OPERA IN ITALY

Miriam Ardini, Just Back from Season Abroad, Brings No Tale of Woe About Discrimination Against Americans — Some Advice for Her Countrywomen Who Contemplate Operatic Careers Abroad.

ONE of the youngest of American aspirants for operatic honors returned to her native country last week, after a period of three years in the most operatic of operatic lands, namely, Italy. Had she been given to conduct herself in a way other than that which befits a serious student she might have figured in long, sensational newspaper stories while she was singing abroad. But her one aim was to “make good,” to prove again the existence of real artistic ability in the American singer.

The bleakness of Maine and the formal manner of New England in general have claimed some of our most’ famous American women singers, Nordica and Geraldine Farrar being two shining examples. The Empire State — in _ particular the city of New York—lays claim to this singer , who is Miriam Ardini, having latinized her name from the original “Arndt.” She is one of the few out of the many who have gone abroad who have made a successful début, filled engagements and moved on in the procession which winds its way to the coveted goal.

Comforting indeed is it to meet one of our native singers who has been abroad and who returns with favorable reports. The habit of coming home with tales of woe, with stories of discrimination against Americans and the like has been practised frequently, so that a large number of persons have come to believe that there actually exists a prejudice against Americans in European opera houses. Miss Ardini can answer only for Italy, for her appearances have been made there.

“I cannot tell you emphatically enough,” she declared to a Musitcat AMERICA representative last week on her return for a Summer’s visit to her family in this country, “how splendidly the Italians treated me. I am free to admit that I went abroad in June, 1910, filled with premonitions of terrible things. Numerous friends _ had spoken to me of the difficulties which an Miriam Ardini, American Soprano, Who Has Just Returned from Italy, Where She Sang in Opera with Success—Inset: Miss Ardini as “Amina”

American girl had to encounter in making an operatic career. It all seemed pretty black and I was prepared for the worst. But it all turned out so differently that | almost doubted whether what I had been told had ever occurred at all.

“Of course, the trouble lies often in young singers getting to Italy and wishing to make a début at once. This is foolhardy, for it is impossible to begin work without preparation in acting, stage deportment and kindred matters, all of which go to make up an able operatic artist. As to the question of morals I am happy to say that I found the Italians courteous and respectful wherever I sang; pitfalls lie only for those who encourage attentions. And further, those who cannot win their way by their voices have to supplement their chances by gaining the influence of some one, often dishonorably. Take the girl who goes to Italy to sing; with a good voice, intelligence and musicianship the road is not hard! That, at any rate, was my experience.

Miss Ardini is to be commended further for giving credit to her American teacher, William S. Brady, of New York, with whom she studied before departing for Italy. One cannot emnhasize this point too strongly, since so many singers forget the

benefits which they derive in the early stage of their careers and credit their success, if they win it, to the teacher with whom they last worked. This young singer was encouraged to make her Italian venture by Mr. Brady. Then she . sang for Bonci, who recognized in her a candidate for operatic honors and gave her his advice in the words “On to Italy!” In Milan she worked with Maestro Guagni, and this Italian teacher found her voice placed to his entire satisfaction, complimenting her on the manner in which she had been taught by Mr. Brady. With such conditions it is easily seen that the American teacher to-day need take second place to none. The reason for fewer illustrations of this kind coming to light is to be charged only to the unfairness of many young singers and their lack of verity in reporting what their Italian teachers had to say about their American instruction.

“Was it difficult to make a début?” was asked. “It requires thorough preparatory work,” answers Miss Ardini. “Maestro Guagni works so hard and is so patient. We studied roles and then | studied acting with Signor Mottino. (I think he must be about one hundred and five years old!) Every now and then he takes sick and everybody thinks he is going to die. But he comes out of it. He was, by the way, the first Italian to sing in English in England and knows the old operas from first to last. My début came in April, 1912. It was as Amina, in Bellini’s ‘La Sonnambula,’ at the Teatro Sociale, in Magenta, near Milan. I found out later that it was in this opera house that the great Tamagno made his first public appearance. Things went off successfully and then came engagements. I sang Lucia in ‘Lucia’ and Gilda in ‘Rigoletto’ and more _ performances of ‘La Sonnambula.’ It seemed as if | was beginning my career. And I learned from both the press and the public that my work was liked.

“An incident which illustrates well the attitude of Italian audiences—and here I want to tell you that they are most interesting—occurred in Trecate. Trecate is a little town quite near Magenta and we were to go over and sing there. Its inhabitants were quite jealous that Magenta should have an opera company, since they had none. A _ demonstrazione had _ been planned. We knew nothing about it until it was all over. Later we learned policemen had been stationed all around the house in case of need. Of course it required only a single act for us to realize that something was wrong, for at the end of the first act there was not a hand of applause. We went ahead, did our best and at the end of the next act there was some applause, though even with the greatest desire to be optimistic: it could not be called ‘enthusiastic. The final act, however, brought down the house. The applause sounded and resounded and there were innumerable recalls for the principals.

“And so the performance was a success despite the attitude which the Trecate au dience assumed on coming to the theater They had planned to whistle, hiss, etc.; but our performance pleased them. Being loath to applaud and too much pleased to whistle they remained perfectly silent after the first act, gradually beginning to express their feelings after the second. But these Italian audiences are discriminating. They know exactly what they like, and when they do not they let the artist know it. We have no such thing in America, where we contain ourselves whether an artist sings well or badly.”

All this happened at a performance of “La Sonnambula,” in which Miss Ardini relates that the bridge in the first act was built or rather improved in the following manner: Boxes were placed one on top of the other and with the right amount of imagination persons in front could make it out to be a bridge. Getting over it was another difficult task, for the young soprano admits that the tricky colorature music of Bellini taxes one sufficiently when singing it and that it is no easy thing to sing it and at the same time walk over boxes placed none too securely together in a few minutes’ time. She is the authority for the news that a new society is being founded in Milan, to be known as “Filodrammatici,” the purpose of which is to give performances of many of the old operas, such as Rossini’s “Barbiere,” Cimarosa’s “Matrimonio Segreto,” Donizetti's “Don Pasquale” and the old-new “Le Donne Curiose” of Wolf-Ferrari. She wasto appear in the leading colorature soprano parts of all of these works, but her visit to America interfered with it, her home-coming being imperative and rendering her taking on these engagements as impossible. Miss Ardini returns to Italy, however, in the Fall and has numerous offers for next season from the various impresarii and an important engagement for carnival season.

Miss Ardini wants American girls con templating operatic careers in Italy to know a few things which may aid them “Go well supplied with money,” she exhorts, “for to live comfortably one must be able to afford living in a hotel. The pensione in Milan are all unsatisfactory, and with a lot of students stopping there it is almost out of the question to try to practice. Besides, the food is not the kind American girls like, and without proper food it is impossible to work. And when you have to learn four or five roles in a limited period of time you suddenly realiz« how important a factor your health is And then the language! Without it one cannot get anywhere. I learned quite readily, but I had to study my verbs dili gently. These Italian verbs—verbs are sco important in all conjugated languages—ar: the very backbone of one’s vocabulary, Master them and the language is not s difficult.”

Miss Ardini was always interested in things musical long before she went abroad. She plays the piano well, is a good musician and reads quickly. But she will not talk about these things.

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1933 The Metropolitan Opera Association New York as Guest in The Academy of Music Philadelphia with „Lakmé“ from Léo Delibes.

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Today an old advertisement from Lady's Own Paper 1866-1872 [Aprit 16, 1870.]

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From Lady's Own Paper 1866-1872:

As ur readers are aware, the opening night of Messrs. Gye and Maplegon’s season at Coventgarden, on the 29th ult., was distinguished, contrary to precedent, with an important debut. The opera was Lucia di Lammermoor, and the debutante Mdlle. Sessi, whose career in Paris awakened so much interest, and whose fame of voice and of wonderful hair was borne hither by French journals and stray visitors to the Italiens.

Mdlle. Mathilde Sessi is an Austrian, or, as one might almost say, AustroItalian singer, her birthplace being Trieste. She commenced her public career, we believe, in Germany, but has also sung in Italy, and quite recently in France, where, at the Paris Opéra Italien, she had to fill the place (no grateful task) of Madame Adelina Patti during the engagement of that wonderfully popular artist at the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg. That she should have succeeded in doing this with a certain amount of credit says no little in the favour of one as yet necessarily inexperienced. Like Adelina Patti, however, Mdlle. Sessi—a pupil, we understand, of Herr Maurice Strakosch — has enjoyed uncommon advantages. At any rate, judging from her first night’s performance in Londen, her essay before the most difficult, because, perhaps, the most blasé, audience in Europe, was one of such promise that we can safely predict for her an honourable career. Let us say at once that Mdlle. Sessi shines fir more as a singer than as an actress ; but, calling to mind the many notable instances of operatic aspirants who began by singing more or less well, and took long years to master that scarcely less essential accomplishment which leads to undisputed eminence on the lyric stage, we have no reason to doubt that time will bring what is at present wanting to the dramatic side of her art.

She is a blonde of the Teutonic type, with a profusion of golden locks, which quite obviates the necessity of “ Lucia” in the mad scene having to be “chignonified.” It is a hard necessity for all prime donne who have to go mad on thie stage to let down their back hair, if they have any, and if not, they must resort to the property coiffeur ‘for tails. It is equally imperative that a lunatic heroine should be dressed in white. The cheveluwre of Sessi here in the Insane scena made as marked a sensation as it has done in Berlin, in Frankfort, and in Paris ; but the talented little lady is entitled to higher consideration than that based on the luxuriant length of {her hair. She has a bright, pure soprano voice, of good compass, capable of expression to a degree not yet reached by its owner, and flexible enough for any reasonable purpose. On the whole Mdlle. Sessi uses it well. Her execution of the florid music abounding in Donizetti’s opera was marked by neatness and accuracy of intonation. Though free from the vibrato as a vice, she can employ it as an ornament withyeth and, what is more than all, she sings with intelligence. Thus endowed, it was not surprising to find Mdlle. Sessi at once in favour with her audience. Her progress during the evening was steady, and at the climax, in the music of the third act, the new comer had secured a position.

The opera selected for her first appearance before the most critical audience in the world was what, under any other than exceptional circumstances, might fairly be styled the “hackneyed ” Lucia de Lammermoor. But only let some new prima donna of capacity be put forward as the heroine, and Donizettis Lucia invariably proves attractive, the opening night of the present season being certainly no exception to the rule. Since then, in two further representations of the wellknown opera, Mdlle. Sessi has maintained, and, indeed, may be said to have improved, her position. Nevertheless, it is rather in comic than in serious operas that the talent of the fairhaired Austrian songstress is said to lie, and of this an opportunity was afforded her admirers of judging on Thursday night last, when Donizetti's Figlia del Reggimento, which had been got up expressly for Mdlle. Sessi, was _ performed. As, however, we were compelled to go to press some hours before, we are unable to state the result in this article. On Saturday (to-night) she appears as the “Queen of Night” in Mozart's Flauto Magico, the music of which the compass of her voice should enable her to render most effectively.

In referring to her début the Times remarked: “She has even now both earnestness and intelligence ; but more than this is indispensable to make a genuine actress, and it remains with herself to acquire the rest. Mdlle. Sessi is petite in stature ; nor does her facial physiognomy appear to lend itself with readiness to mobility of expression. Admitting this, however, together with other physical conditions, apparently drawbacks, there remains an indefinable something which justifies a belief in future progress. ee Sessi’s voice is a pure soprano, especially telling i ae higher register, and therefore favourable to the ¢ pr tive enunciation of such music as that which Don has put into the mouth of his romantic herome.

From The Musical World 1870-04-09: Vol 48 Iss 15:

“It was in the Lucia of the evening, however, that the interest of the public was above all centred. We have heard so much of Malle. Sessi’s golden hair, and have been kept so well informed by foreign journals of the excellent jualities of Mdlle. Sessi's voice, that the effect she produced last night, personally and artistically, had nothing in it which could, strictly speaking, be called surprising. We were prepared for a success, and a success was indeed achieved. Mdlle. Sessi’s hair is long, plentiful, and beautifully fair, while her voice is extensive, sympathetic, and something more than fair. It is, indeed, a soprano voice of the purest and finest quality; deficient perhaps in power, but certainly not wanting in sweetness. Without following Malle. Sessi too closely through the various pieces in which Lucia takes part, we will simply say that she sang the cavatina of the first act gracefully, and that she was becomingly sentimental in the well-known duet which closes that act ; that she again distinguished herself in the dramatic duet with Ashton, and above all in a well-developed and highly dramatic concerted piece which forms so effective a termination to Act 2; but that it was not until Act 3 that she displayed all her hair, and with it all her power. Not that the force of Malle. Sessi resides (Samson-like) in her hair alone; but personal appearance is always something in a prima donna, and if the back hair is to be let down at all, it is well, no doubt, it should be bright and beautiful. For this mad scene Malle. Sessi had also reserved her voice, which, alike resonant and flexible, seemed to lend itself easily to the feats of ‘agility’ required by a due performance of the music. In fine the débutante made a success. The audience appreciated her, applauded her, and (what is sometimes even more important) appeared to like her.”

“ Nobody acquainted with what goes on in the artistic world of Paris needs information about the antecedents of Mdlle. Mathilde Sessi. How she recently succeeded in making for herself a good position in the French capital, and among those who boast that they are hard to please, is pretty well known. Mdlle. Sessi came to us, therefore, with a certain character to sustain, and with the task before her of having to satisfy decided expectations. Let us say at once that she has done both. Her choice of a work was well advised. Lucia di Lammermoor is familiar and popular ; its music proved thoroughly adapted to the new-comer’s voice and style; and the work secured an incidental advantage which, though trifling, must not be overlooked. The fame of Malle. Sessi’s hair is nearly as great as that of her voice. In Paris the ‘glory’ of the young Austrian has not been her least attraction; and who can tell how many in the crowded audience of last night waited impatiently for the. mad scene which was to display its full extent? These were not disappointed, if there be anything in luxuriant growth and uncommon length. Malle. Sessi’s hair is a decided feature in her representation of Donizetti’s distraught heroine. As a singer, the débutante was not long in finding favour. Her opening phrase was somewhat marred by the nervousness incidental to her position ; but towards the end of ‘ Regnava nel silenzio’ it became evident that an artist of no ordinary kind was in presence. Malle. Sessi has a pure soprano voice of bright quality, fairly sympathetic, and free from the vibrato which constitutes the fushionable vice of singers now-a-days. Moreover, her voice has considerable compass and flexibility. So far the new-comer is well endowed ; and of her endowments she appears to have made much, if not the most. Her phrasing affords as little reasonable ground for complaint as do the precision and neatness with which she executes rapid passages. The latter merits were, of course, most evident in the ‘mad music,’ which was given with a success not unworthy of comparison with that achieved on the same stage by other artists. As regards expressive power, it can hardly be supposed that Malle. Sessi has attained her maximum. She has reached just far enough to warrant a hope that she can go further. As an actress, some may hold that Mdlle. Sessi falls short of what she is as a singer. They may say, for example, that her features lack mobility ; but it can no more be denied that they are always agreeable to look at than that, in other respects, physical disadvantage is amply counterbalanced. It must be said, however, that throughout the scene of the malediction, Mdlle. Sessi showed, at most, but a promise of future dramatic excellence. Happily, her career is all before her, and that promise may be fulfilled. The young artist, as we have hinted above, was quite successful in winning the favour of her audience. Called on after each act, she was frequently applauded with an enthusiasm about which there could be no mistake.”

The directors followed up the production of Mdlle. Sessi on the opening night by playing Les Huguenots on Saturday, in order that Herr Wachtel might appear as Raoul, for the first time in England. This is vigorous work ; and shows pretty clearly that Covent Garden means to make an impression while yet it has everything its own way. The public are not likely to grumble in consequence, for they will reap advantage, whatever may be the resultant good or ill fortune of the housa. There was a crowded audience to hear the second, and, as not a few think, the greatest of the triad of great works which, written in Meyerbeer’s prime, will carry Meyerbeer’s name down to posterity.

From Dwight's Journal of Music: a Paper of Art and Literature 1870-07-30: Vol 30 Iss 10:

[...] We have had a new seconda donna—Mlle. Olma; a new contralto—Mlle. Cari; a new tenor—Signor Vizzani ; a new comprimaria—Miss Maddigan ; and anew prima donna assoluta—Mlle. Mathilde Sessi. The seconda donna is so completely a novice that th The soprano (Mlle. Sessi ), although at present little of an actress and hardly a singer of the first class, has done valuable service. Mile. Mathilde Sessi, if she does not warrant theithusiastic laudation of French critics, boasts undeniable qualifications. Much has been said and written about her profusion of fair hair, the charm of which, unlike that of Horace’s Pyrrha, is not so much in the binding up as in the letting loose ; but she has other things besides an abundant natural head-dress to recommend her. Hor voice is of agreeable quality, especially good in the up~er tones, and flexible enough to cope with the most elaborate passages of the Italian school. The music of Donizetti seems to come to her quite naturally. Her most effective display, vocally considered, is that of Lucia’s madness, her least effective, perhaps, that of the signing of the contract. Without going into further details, we may add that the impression created by Mlle. Sessi has been generally favorable. She does not shine as an actress ; nor are her personal endowments such as to lend poetical illusion to the scene. That she is small in stature, however, says nothing—Mme. Patti and Mlle. Lucca being equally under the middle size; but there is q want of mobility in her features, which under all circumstances wear a stereotyped expression. Though by no means over-well supported by her associates, Mlle. Sessi on the night of her first appearance was received with every token of encouragement.

The few words of criticism we have given to her Lucia may apply with equal fairness to the various parts she has since essayed, ample as they prove her title to consideration. It hus been asserted that Mlle. Sessi shines more in comic than in serious opera. We confess our inability to see the distinction. She has no histrionic genius; and, were it not that neither actually represents anything, her comedy might be tragedy and her tragedy might be comedy. As Maria in La Figlia del Reggimento, or as Norina in Don Pasquale, her physiognomy is as perversely immobile and her gestures are as perversely conventional as in Lucia, Astraffiamante, or Ophelia. Yet about Mile. Sessi’s versatility there cannot possibly be a question. Every part seems to come ready to her hands. She has not only successfully essayed the characters we have enumerated, but has added to them the lachrymose Violetta of Verdi’s Traviata, and the lively Susanna in Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro —furthermore, on a recent occasion, appearing substitute for Mme. Adelina Patti, as Zerlina, in Don Giovanni, and issuing from the ordeal with untarnished laurels. That Mlle. Sessi will ever be an actress is hard to believe ; dramatic instinct seems to be denied her; but that she has the means of becoming, with perseverance, a singer of almost, if not absolutely, the first class, we are convinced. It has been within the province of few to execute the difficult bravura music of the “Queen of Night,” in Mozart’s Flauto Magico, and that of the operas of the modern Italian school with equal facility. Such, nevertheless, is Mile. Sessi; and as such it behoves amateurs to watch with interest her future career.

Her almost only chance of new distinction this season has been afforded by Meyerbeer’s Dinorah, in her assumption of the demented heroine of which, Mile. Ilma di Murska excepted, she is unrivalled. To Mile. Patti rather than to Mlle. Sessi—who, by the way, has been taking from her many of her best characters, Lucia, Norina (Don Pasquale), and Maria (Za Figlia del Reggimento) among the rest—should have been assigned the part of Ophelia, as to the only singer who had a chance of equalling, if not, indeed, of surpassing, the remarkacle inpersonation of Mile. Christine Nilsson, and thus of keeping upon the stage of Covent Garden (it cannot be given at Drury Lane, being the exclusive property of the rival theatre) the grave and elaborate opera of M. Ambroise Thomas.

Mlle. ‘Tietjens is now what Mlle. Tietjens has been for some time—in certain respects the finest dramatic singer on the stage. It is no little to say of her that, when she retires, such operas as Fidelio and Medea must inevitably be laid upon the shelf. That this unquestionable great artist should have made herself so common by singing in and out of season is much to be regretted ; and if she forms no longer the popular attraction she used to be it can only be thus explained. Mlle. Tietjens, however, has earned new honors recently by consenting to play the part of Gertrude in Humlet—one undeniably of the first order. Last year, it is true, the Ophelia was Mlle. Nilsson; this year it is Mlle. Sessi: but Mlle. Tietjens, in her own department, that of high tragedy, had as little to fear from Mlle. Nilsson as she had to fear from Mlle. Sessi. We have no wish to probe the question farther. Enough that Mlle. Tietjens now represents the Queen, and represents it so admirably that she not only creates the strongest impression, but, in one scene (the great scene between Hainlet and his Mother), almost, by force of example, makes an actor of Signor Cotogni—the Hamlet of the period.

From The Musical World 1871-04-08: Vol 49 Iss 14:

The opera on Thursday night week was La Traviata, which, though a work of unequal merit, contains some of Signor Verdi's best dramatic music. ‘The first act, from the duet, with chorus, ‘« Libiam ne’ lieti calici,” to the soliloquy of Violetta, ‘‘ Ah forse e lui,” with its brilliant sequel, ‘‘ Sempre libera,” is brimful of animation ; the whole scene in the drawing-rooms of Flora Bervoix (Act 2), including the gambling, the insult offered by Alfred Germont to Violetta, and Violetta’s consequent despair, is in its way a masterpiece. ‘The third act, although comprising many beauties, is, perhaps, not equal to the situation ; nevertheless, it has moments of pathos which are undeniable, and cannot fail to enlist sympathy Merits and demerits, however, taken into consideration, the 7raviata, while the story may displease and its tendency be justly arraigned, has, thanks to the genius of the Italian composer, taken root. ‘That so much attractive music should have been allied to so questionable a libretto is certainly to be regretted; but the fact of the popularity of La Traviata cannot be denied. Produced in 1856, with Mdlle. Piccolomini as Violetta, it created a ‘+ furore; almost every great prima donna,from Bosio to Adelina Patti and Christine Nilsson, has essayed the part of the heroine with more or less success ; and now, in 1871, the opera is still brought forward as an admitted requirement of the season. All this, we must persist in saying, is due to the music of Verdi, and not to the morbid interest excited by a revolting story.

There is little to be recorded about the performance, which, while in many respects good, was not altogether first-rate. That Violetta Valery is Mdlle. Sessi’s best part seems to be a very general opinion. It lies more easily within her resources than the simple and yet elevated personage of Lucia, which she assumed on the opening night of the season. She enters thoroughly into the spirit of the character, and understands as thoroughly the situations out of which its various phases are evolved. ‘The music, too, suits the capabilities of her voice, as well as her peculiar means of expression. ‘Thus, if by no meansa performance of the highest class, Mdlle. Sessi’s Violetta can hardly fail to win sympathy of a certain kind. Her most striking vocal displays were ‘Sempre libera "—the florid cabaletta upon which the curtain falls in Act 1; the duet in Act 2, when Germont the Elder, with the earnest eloquence of a father disturbed in his calculations as to the advantages to be derived from his son’s marriage to a lady of competence, induce: Violetta to renounce Germont the Younger ; and the soliloquy beforethe looking-glass, ‘* Addio del passato,” where the poor abandoned creature takes a despairful last glance at the happiness of which she had once dreamed, but which it is not her destiny to realize. In ‘“Parigi 0 cara” —the well-known duet with Alfredo, who, hearing that Violetta cannot outlive the day, comes to console her witha vision of future happiness, which he, no less than she, must know to be impossible —the accustomed effect was produced, and the first movement was encored. Into all this Mdlle. Sessi threw real earnestness, which is the more worthy notice inasmuch as she by no means generally shines as an actress.

From The Musical World 1870-04-23: Vol 48 Iss 17:

[...] To Lucrezia succeeded the same composer's lively Figlia del Reggimento, which, though originally composed for the Opéra-Comique, is just as popular in Italian as it ever was in French, and, indeed, through the medium of the Italian version, has chiefly been saved from oblivion. The opinion of those who, previously acquainted with Mdlle. Mathilde Sessi’s talent, maintain that comic, rather than serious, opera is her forte was in a great measure confirmed on the occasion under notice. Her Maria is a more finished, as well as a more spirited, assumption than her Lucia, and her success was proportionately greater. We can remember impersonations of the devoted Vivanditre more characteristically marked ; and we have heard the music given with better sustained vivacity ; but, eschewing comparisons, we may describe Mdlle, Sessi’s general performance as one of far more than average merit. Her voice is powerful as well as flexible to an extent that her first essay had not led us to imagine. About its agreeable quality there could have been no more question than about the fact of its being a pure and legitimate soprano. In the first duet with Sulpizio, Mdlle. Sessi seemed, in a measure, to be feeling her way ; but in the subsequent duet with Tonio (Maria’s lover), which followed, she was quite at home, and her utterance of the well-known phrase—“ Vediam, udiam, Ascoltiam e giudichiam.” ; was marked by an archness thoroughly in keeping, and accompanied by appropriate and significant gesticulation. ‘lhe military air, “ Ciascun lo dice, ciaseun lo sa,” in which Maria dwells upon the somewhat questionable virtues of her beloved regiment, exhibited both force and character. Best of all, however, was ‘* Convien partir ; addio”—in the first jinale—when the Vivanditre weepingly takes leave of her soldier friends. The feeling with which this touching and beautiful passage was delivered produced such an impression on the audience as could only have been created by true and genuine earnestness, and had Malle, Sessi been so inclined she might have repeated it with the unanimous approval of the house. We thought the second act less equally balanced, and were somewhat disappointed with parts of the scene in which, the Marchioness of Berkenfield at the piano, Maria rehearses the old air of Caffariello, terminating with the unexpected cadenza, the throwing away of the music, the horror of the Marchioness, and the marching trio, in which much against her will, that stately lady is compelled by Maria and Sulpizio to take part, to the vocal refrain of the “ Rataplan.” The trio, nevertheless, was encored as usual, and, as a matter of course, repeated. At the conclusion of the opera, in place of the original finale, Mdlle. Sessi introduced the popular valse, by Ricci, which Mdme. Adelina Patti on more than one occasion, has substituted for the original finale of Don Pasquale. The general impression derived from this performance is that Mdlle, Sessi has at present the capacity to shine rather as a singer than as an actress ; but that she has undoubted promise, which, backed by youth, has every chance of ripening into excellence, we have no doubt whatever, Nothing could be more encouraging than her reception by the audience. The other parts in the opera were represented by Signor Ciampi (Sulpizio), Signor Larocca, or Della Rocca—les deux se disent— (Tonio), and Mdlle, Anese (the Marchioness). The grouping of the soldiers and mise-en-scéne generally of the finale to Act 1, embodying the departure of Maria, were as picturesque and effective as of old. The choruses were effectively given almost without exception ; and the orchestral accompaniments, under Signor Vianesi’s direction, left very little to desire.

About the perrormance of Mozart’s Flauto Magico at this theatre on Saturday night we can only say at present that, in the character of Astrifiammante, “ Queen of Night,” Malle. Sessi achieved a new success, being encored in her second and most trying air, “ Gli angui d’inferno” —transposed, as customary ever since the time of Anna Zerr,* a note lower (which brings it considerably nearer to the pitch imagined by Mozart himself), and given by the new singer with remarkable animation. We shall recur to J? Flauto Magico, which was given again on Thursday. On Monday night Guillaume Tell was repeated—a better opera than which, taking into account its gorgeous music, beautiful scenery, picturesque costumes, and general stage effect, as represented at Covent Garden, could hardly have been selected for Easter-Monday. La Figlia del Reggimento was repeated on Tuesday. Tonight, Mdlle. Sessi is to appear as the heroine of the Zraviata. On Tuesday week Signor Mario will make his first appearance, after a year’s absence, as the Duke in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera.

From The Musical World 1871-07-29: Vol 49 Iss 30:

We have had “ benefits” of late, in rapid succession. For the “ benefit” of M. Faure, the Hamlet of M. Thomas was selected ; for that of Mdlle. Pauline Lucca, Le Nozze di Figaro ; but about the Hamlet of the accomplished French baritone, as about the Cherubino of the vivacious little Teutonic soprano, we have already spoken. The opera chosen for the ‘ benefit” of Malle. Mathilde Sessi was Faust e Margherita, in which the fair-haired Austrian assumed the character of the heroine. There was much to praise in Mdlle. Sessi’s assumption, the least satisfactory part of which was her delivery of the “ Air des Bijoux.” In the Garden duet with Faust (played, for the first time this season, by the always ready and competent Signor Naudin) she evinced extreme sensibility, imparting full meaning to some of the most touching and beautiful passages; while in the Cathedral scene, where Margaret vainly strives to pray, interrupted at intervals by the voice of conscience, mysteriously conveyed through the sepulchral tones of the, to her, invisible Mephistopheles, she surprised many by her earnest intelligence. M. Faure (Mephistopheles) was never more impressive in this strikingly dramatic situation. But no more need be said about Faust e Margerhita, already frequently referred to, except that Mdlle. Scalchi played Siebel, and Signor Cotogni played Valentine, with their accustomed ability.

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This is the original program exactly 100 years ago from The Metropolitan Opera. April 11.1925. Also see the weekly plan and the casts.

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Amy Castles - Angels Guard Thee (Berceuse) ('Jocelyn' - Godard) (1907)

“Amy Castles - The Bendigo Nightingale” -

From Melba: a biography by Hetherington, John, 1907-1974:

The pupil was the Australian soprano, Amy Castles, who was born in 1882 in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, perhaps three or four miles distant from Melba’s birthplace in Richmond. She came under notice in Australia when only about sixteen, and, after raising £2, 000 for her studies abroad by giving a series of concerts in Melbourne, Sydney and other Australian cities, arrived in Paris in 1899. The only European singing teacher most Australians knew at that time was Mathilde Marchesi, who had put Melba into opera, and it was to the Ecole Marchesi that Amy Castles went— a wideeyed seventeen-year-old from the Antipodes, hoping she would impress the great teacher. To her delight Marchesi accepted her as a pupil. The results were all but disastrous.

Marchesi did not agree with Amy Castles’s Australian teacher, E. Allan Bindley, that her voice was a soprano; after a few weeks she was training the Australian girl as a mezzo-soprano, and after a few weeks more as a contralto. Eighteen months of Marchesi’s training nearly sufficed to destroy Amy Castles s voice, but just in time her mother arrived in Paris and made her leave the Ecole Marchesi and put herself under Bouhy. From London Melba, who had previously taken little interest in Amy Castles, sent a message to her saying in effect, ‘Unless you return to Marchesi at once you will never be heard of again.’ This was a terrifying threat from the unofficial ruler of Covent Garden, but Amy Castles stayed with Bouhy. He restored her voice but took some years to do it, and, although she made a concert tour of Australia and also appeared as a concert artist in London, she was not ready for grand opera until 1907. She made her debut in Hamlet in Cologne, and also sang there in two of Melba’s own favourite operas, Romio et Juliette and Faust. She was never called to Covent Garden, which astonished connoisseurs of the soprano voice who heard her at that time; the best of them believed her to be within measurable distance of Melba, if not quite Melba’s equal. Landon Ronald, who was then closely in touch with Melba, admired Amy Castles as a singer, but once told her, ‘You’ll never get to Covent Garden, you know.’ He did not ela¬ borate, but she interpreted his words as meaning that Melba was incurably hostile toward her. In some departments of singing Amy Castles was possibly Melba’s superior. The Australian critic, Thorold Waters, who said her voice ‘combined the attributes of a dramatic and coloratura soprano’, believed that the only tones re¬ sembling hers in quality ‘were the gorgeous ones of Emmy Destinn, but even that dramatic soprano’s exploits did not extend to coloratura flights’. Melba either never shared these opinions, or did not admit to sharing them.

Events did not bear out Melba’s poor opinion of Amy Castles. She never did scale the ultimate heights, but this was not due to any shortcomings either of her voice or the way she used it. In 1913 the Imperial Opera House, Vienna, gave her a five-year contract to sing Mimi, Butterfly, Desdemona, Marguerite, Juliette, Tosca, and other roles. She was doing well when war in Europe became inevitable and she had to leave Austria, abandoning her contract, and as it turned out her career as an opera singer in Europe. A woman dedicated to success would have waited for the war to end, then picked up her career where it had been cut short. Amy Castles had more than enough talent to re-establish herself, but by the time the war ended she had lost interest. She was a timid woman, with none of the driving egoism which was a strong ele¬ ment in Melba’s success, nor even much appetite for fame. She loved singing, and at her best sang magnificently, but she was as happy singing to the Castles family circle as to a great opera house blazing with diamond tiaras and snowy shirtfronts. Soon after the outbreak of war she went home to Australia to be with her ageing two of her sisters, Dolly and Eileen, and a brother, George, were also talented professional singers. None of them was in Amy’s class, but Eileen, a soprano, went abroad and made a small name in opera, and sang secondary roles at Covent Garden. Eileen was also a student of Jacques Bouhy, but Melba did not appear to hold that against her. She was perhaps influenced by the thought that Eileen Castles was a lesser soprano than her older sister, and never could be any kind of rival.

For all her unhelpfulness to Amy Castles, Melba always seemed to be busy, from the time she went back to London in 1903 until she retired nearly twenty-five years later, guiding the feet of one or another promising young musician along the slippery profes¬ sional paths. She was consistently helpful to young artists with the exception of sopranos having both voices and personalities of the highest quality. With her own reputation established and consoli¬ dated she had time to play the role of the supreme prima donna, off the stage as well as on it. A word from her was enough to assure a hearing in London for any young singer or instrumentalist. She was not infallible in separating the musical sheep from the goats, and many of those she sponsored were politely listened to, then allowed to sink back into obscurity. Melba never made a mistake in assessing the quality of a voice or the technical possibilities of an instrumentalist, but she often went wrong in estimating character, and that was why many of the young people for whom she predicted brilliant futures were forgotten within a few months of making a professional debut. Now and then, however, one of them produced the stuff of lasting success.

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Clothilde de Barili Thorne – Houghton Library, Harvard University

From Verdi at the Golden Gate : opera and San Francisco in the Gold Rush years by Martin, George Whitney:

Barili-Thorn, born into a family of Italian musicians, most of them singers, had made her professional debut in Italy at least as early as 1845, and two years later, while still not yet twenty, she had created a stir in New York. Remarkably pretty, she soon married a rich and socially prominent New Yorker, but continued to sing; and though her voice was considered to lack brilliance and power, it was much ad¬ mired for its purity and range. As an actress, however, she was thought to be cold and tame. Unfortunately, while in San Francisco she seems In Italy, New York, Mexico City, and Lima she had grown up with Verdi’s music, and though her voice was too light for much of it, she evidently understood its style. This seems to have been true also of her colleagues, especially perhaps of the baritone Alessandro Lanzoni, who, if identity of name is equivalent to identity of person, in Rome in 1849 had sung a small solo role under Verdi’s direction at the rehearsals and early performances of La battaglia di Legnano. But more than just Barili-Thorn, Leonardi, or Lanzoni, the troupe as a whole consistently was praised for making of its productions something more than merely concerts in costume. Of the opening-night Emani, with “augumented” chorus, the critic for Wide West concluded: “Taken as a whole, it is the best attempt at opera we have yet had.” And Pioneer Magazine, in summarizing the troupe’s virtues, reported: “It is capable of presenting an opera without giving one part an undue preponder¬ ance over the others, or leaving the principal lacking the support necessary from the subordinate characters.” In San Francisco, with the Barili-Thorn season, opera as drama took a step forward.

In several respects, Barili-Thorn’s Ernani could not fail to improve on Pellegrini’s. It had the larger chorus and orchestra, which now were becoming usual, and for the baritone role of Don Carlos it could cast a baritone, Lanzoni, in place of Von Gulpen, a mezzo-soprano, thus regaining for several scenes the desired weight and quality of voice. In other ways, however, it did no better, and perhaps worse. It, too, lacked a women’s chorus, and Barili-Thorn had that “hoarseness,” while the tenor, Carlo Scola, who in the title role was supposed to project manly pride, beauty, and daring, “falters in his steps, stands nerveless and unsteady, with knees inclining towards each other, and his whole system relaxed and feeble.”

Indeed, Ernani proved so popular that the company extended its season, repeating the opera three times before the end of the year and then, with a change in cast, once again in January 1833, as well as performing Acts I and III in an evening of excerpts — all in all, a strong exposure in a city of no more than 40,000. Meanwhile, only three months after Bishop and Bochsa’s Judith, Barili-Thorn staged three performances of Nabucco. Thus Verdi’s music suddenly flooded the ears and minds of the city’s music-lovers, who confirmed at the box office.

She was a creature “ of fire and dew,” and so enraged aristocratic old Colonel Thorne of New York by marrying his son, that the young pair fled from his wrath to Peru. Little was heard of them afterwards, except that the husband died at sea and Clotilde followed him a few years later at Matanzas, Cuba.

From The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 1882:

[...] Clotilde Barili was a vocalist with a pure soprano voice remarka ble only for its compass in the upper register. She could give F sharp above the lines and gracefully. But her voice was thin and so was her figure and she was cold and tame and produced little impression on the York public. Her pretty face however ere won her a husband the son of a rich man well known in New York and she disappeared from public life. Her brother Antonio was an excel lent maestro and for some fifteen years was teacher of singing in New York and there hardly have been a better After all his success he returned to Italy in disgust He not find the New York public to his taste.

From The Pioneer 1854-12: Vol 2 Iss 6:

The personal appearance of the Prima Donna, Signora Clotilde Barili, disposes the audience in her favor. An exquisitely moulded form, a graceful motion, a queenly dignity, eyes large, dark and lustrous, a mouth of faultless perfection, artistically chiseled lips, drooping lids, arching brows, hair dark and abundant, and an enchanting smile, that in an instant irradiates the whole face like a sunbeam ;—such charms, and more, she possesses, which go far to insure success.

As an artist, she is finished and elegant, rather than forcible. Her voice is a mezzo soprano of moderate register and volume. Its tone is pure, but it is thin and uncertain. Its greatest excellence is in the rendition of simply beautiful music. It is not sufficiently flexible to execute the most elaborate passages with artistic finish, and it does not possess the requisite strength and volume to give the proper effect to passionate or highly-wrought conceptions. Indeed, she does not herself possess the requisite physique for such réles. It is but justice, however, to say that Barili is evidently laboring under the effects of a severe cold, such as would prevent almost any artiste from appearing; and the faults which

we have noticed may be the result of this cause alone. We doubt whether, if her interests only were to be consulted, she would make her appearance under such unfavorable circumstances; but, probably she prefers to risk her reputation by an unfavorable first appearance, rather than prejudice the interests of her associates by causing them a loss of time.

Measuring her merits by her success, she should be awarded a very high position. Her first night was not an ovation. The audience were coldly critical. Yet there was what a true artist loves,—appreciation. The applause, though not enthusiastic, was frequent and judicious. At the subsequent representations, the applause was warmer, and on the third opera night, it became really enthu siastic, while the house was as crowded as at the first. Signora Barili will take hold upon the hearts of the audience, and establish a sympathy calculated to inspire her with that energy which she lacks.

We should not have chosen the operas which have thus far been produced. The leading performers, with the exception of Leonardi, have not been equal to the réles they have been compelled to assume. Signor Scola has no conception of the part of Ernani, nor of Gennaro. Lanzoni made but a tolerable Don Carlos, and only a fair Duke Alfonzo, And Leonardi was the only one, on either oceasion, who filled his ré/e satisfactorily. In both operas the part of the prima donna demanded a passionate energy, which Barili does not possess.

From Musical Discourse (1928) by Richard Aldrich:

Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the American pianist, with whom Patti made a short tour of the West Indies in 1856, before her operatic debut, has left in his book, " Notes of a Pianist," some interesting remarks about Adelina's family, which included an extraordinary number of fine artists : what he calls "a dynasty of distinguished singers." The father, Salvatore, was an "excellent tenore di forza."His wife, Caterina, mother of Adelina, (whose first husband was one Barili), was in 1863, when Gottschalk wrote, "still celebrated in Spain, Portugal, and Naples as a 'fiery actress,'" who sometimes had transports not connected with her art, and denounced violently audiences that did not listen with all the attention and respect she considered due her and her art. She had lived in New York for a number of years. Ireland, in his "Records of the New York Stage," mentions her debut there as Romeo in Bellini's opera of "I Capuleti ed i Montecchi" (in which the hero's part is written for a soprano). He calls her "a vocalist and actress of great skill and accomplishment" but, he adds, "with advancing years and failing voice, her undoubted merits were insufficient to keep her permanently before the public." Her eldest daughter, Clotilde Barili, was successful as a singer: "young, pretty, and interesting," says Ireland, "and, for a short period, regarded as little less than a divinity by the dilettanti of New York."

***

Clotilde made her operatic debut at nineteen. She was a creature “ of fire and dew,” and so enraged aristocratic old Colonel Thorne of New York by marrying his son, that the young pair fled from his wrath to Peru. Little was heard of them afterwards, except that the husband died at sea and Clotilde followed him a few years later at Matanzas, Cuba.

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On April 8. 1876 the first performance of the Opera „La Gioconda" from Amilcare Ponchielli was placed in Scala di Milano. Here we see the original evening cast from the first performance of this Opera in America in the opening Season from The Metropolitan Opera 1883.

The Tenor repeat the aria „Cielo e mar"

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From Adelina Patti : queen of hearts by Cone, John Frederick:

Superior to her husband as singer and artist, Adelina’s mother, Caterina Barili-Patti, was an illustrious soprano born in Rome, the daughter of Giovanni Chiesa and Luisa Caselli. For her, music cast its spell early; entering her teens, she had a promising voice. According to family tradition, one day in Rome, as she drew water from a well, singing all the while, vocal teacher and composer Francisco Barili heard her and was so impressed he urged her to study with him. At fifteen, she married this man and subsequently launched a career on stage and bore him three sons—Antonio, Nicolo, Ettore—and a daughter, Clotilda. As a young woman and mother, Caterina, according to an old Italian maestro, was beautiful, lively, daring, and vain, with a golden voice. Whatever dissipation or waywardness she indulged in, he said, never affected her singing. Then Barili died, leaving his widow and children devastated; but Caterina persevered and resumed her career, which provided Patti as a romantic colleague and ardent suitor.

As a leading artist, Caterina sang such principal and demanding roles as Elvira in Bellini’s I puritani and the titular heroine in his Norma. Family tradition has it that at one performance she so overshadowed the internationally acclaimed soprano Giulia Grisi that Grisi refused to perform again on the same stage with this potential rival. Caterina’s abilities so impressed Donizetti that he offered her the leading role of Isabella in his recently completed Lassedio di Calais, which premiered at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 19 November 1836. Though initially well received, this opera was not destined to join two earlier works ensuring the composer’s lasting fame: Lucia di Lammermoor and L’elisir d'amore. That, however, the first performance of L’assedio had pleased Donizetti is evident in a letter he wrote three days later: “L‘assedio di Calais went well. I was called out six times.... It is my most carefully worked-out score. Barroilhet, la Manzocchi, la Barili, Gianni, everyone applauded.

As a colleague, Caterina at times left much to be desired with her irascibility and pathological jealousy occasionally creating havoc in the theater. One audience’s enthusiasm for the great basso Luigi Lablache so aroused her envy that she seized a wreath intended for him and claimed it as her own. At another presentation, Caterina became so jealous of anothef soprano’s reception that she told the woman her right eyebrow had fallen off, custom then being shaving off natural brows to replace them with artificial ones. Horrified, this soprano tore off her left eyebrow to match, no doubt stimulating quite a different audience reaction. Then, too, Caterina sometimes exploded on stage with fulminations and exclamations, a veritable virago, hurling apostrophes against an audience not giving her its undivided attention.

At home Caterina carried over this imperiousness. In her household her will prevailed, and in a rage “the extremely nervous madame” often “seized upon the fire-tongs or some other object at hand in order to enforce... her will.’5 Caterina’s jealousy, in an artist's world an emotion potentially stronger than even maternal love, extended to members of her own family. Thus, home life was often stormy. Her vehemence, nervousness, and resentments possibly increased after she and Salvatore became parents. Their first child, Amalia, was born in 1831; Carlotta in 1835; Carlo in 1842; and Adelina in 1843. The births, save the last two, were in different locales: Amalia’s occurred in Paris; Carlotta’s in Florence; and Carlo’s and Adelina’s in Madrid.

Apparently, while no unusual happenings heralded the first three Patti arrivals, several fanciful tales concern the fourth and place Caterina on stage in the demanding title role of Bellini’s Norma moments before Adelina’s birth. Suddenly indisposed, she was taken to the theater’s greenroom, where she gave birth and where the principal tenor tore a portion of his wardrobe to provide baby wraps. The stories apparently originated in the fecund imagination of this tenor, José Sinico, with possible help from Adelina’s brother-in-law and early manager, Maurice Strakosch, always keenly aware of the value of such publicity.

The new year 1843 found Salvatore and Caterina in Madrid, where she had been engaged as a principal prima donna at the Teatro del Circo. After several postponements Caterina appeared there on 31 January, according to Madrid journal Revista de Teatros, as Elena in Donizetti's Marino Faliero several weeks before giving birth to Adelina. That she, heavy with child, performed on this occasion no doubt reflected her proverbial iron will. She never assumed the part of Norma during this Madrid season. When Norma was presented at Circo in April, the Spanish soprano Cristina Vill6 sang the title role.

After Adelina’s christening Salvatore and Caterina returned to Italy to pursue professional interests and familial duties. Clotilda Barili developed into an attractive young lady with a lovely soprano voice and began singing publicly. Not to be outdone, her brothers and the oldest Patti sisters sedulously applied themselves to musical matters. Carlo and Adelina no doubt awaited their time as well in this competitive household of emotional outbursts and even physical abuse.

However settled and routine the Pattis’ life in Italy appeared, an individual from abroad ultimately altered it, prompting the family to plunge into a new life thousands of miles from home. The harbinger of change was an opera singer performing in the United States, basso Antonio Sanquirico, who had effected a favorable New York debut at Palmo’s Opera House on Chambers Street in April 1844 and continued to make excellent impressions in the eight-hundred-seat theater. Proposing to manage an opera season there, he invited Salvatore and another Italian named Pogliani to direct the undertaking to begin after the new year 1847. This offer held powerful appeal, as both Caterina and Salvatore must have realized their singing days neared an end, while as an impresario, Salvatore might make an adequate living indefinitely.

Caterina appeared as Romeo once again, on 31 January, in her last New York seasonal opera performance. Antonio assisted as accompanist and occasional conductor throughout the series, which by its conclusion in April signaled the end of Salvatore as an opera manager. His enterprise had become a financial failure. The New York Spirit of the Times summarized its failings: “There were too many stars and too little brilliancy. ... The great variety that could have been presented was neglected, and two or three operas forced upon the subscribers. The bon ton or the dilettanti, or both, were ennuied to death.”

Seven months later Salvatore resumed his stage career at the Astor Place Opera House, where for over two years he generally performed only supporting roles, one of these being Di Fieschi in the American premiere on 10 December 1849 of Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan, and where during these years his principal conductor and manager was Max Maretzek, who enlivened the American opera world as an enterprising impresario. Though Clotilda left New York City after her marriage in March 1848, Amalia repeatedly appeared at Astor Place in both leading and secondary parts, at times alongside her father. Caterina performed there in February 1850, in the title role in three presentations of Norma, with Amalia as Adalgisa. A year later Caterina made her final opera appearance in New York in a scene from Donizetti's Marino Faliero.

** Some months after Adelina had begun lessons with Ettore, the family moved from New York City to a small town near the metropolis, Wakefield in Westchester County. Here Caterina bought land in May 1855 for $625 with profits from Adelina’s tour. Caterina and Salvatore later erected the first brick house in the area, a dwelling now located at 4718 Matilda Avenue in the Bronx. This property remained in the family’s possession until May 1867. Before Adelina’s departure from the city, Katherine Foot recalled seeing her on East Tenth Street for the last time: “I remember perfectly how she looked that afternoon with two long, black braids hanging far below her waist, very black eyes and a slightly protruding under jaw.

Though Jerome’s interest in Patti created gossip, an incipient romance with Maurice Strakosch’s brother Max did not. He was eight years older than she, and several of her early letters to him attest to an intense affair. Caterina, however, did not share her daughter's fervor for Max and was vehemently opposed to marital plans with him, as she had earlier objected to Amalia’s marriage to Maurice. A devout Catholic, Caterina preferred that her daughters not marry Jewish.

[...] Still, in the midst of artistic and social triumphs, Patti and De Caux experienced personal disasters. Berlioz died on 8 March 1869. Five months later Salvatore Patti succumbed to a stroke. After Patti’s marriage he had gone to Paris to live with Amalia, Maurice, and their two children; and there, on 23 August 1869, he breathed his last. Approximately a year later, on 7 September 1870, Caterina Patti died in Rome.

From The Reign of Patti by Herman Klein:

Truth to tell, Signora Caterina Barili, née Chiesa, was no longer in the first flush of youth, but a widow with three boys and a girl. These were the children of her brief but happy marriage with a well-known singing master and composer named Barili. He had seen her one day when, like another Rebecca, she was drawing water from a well (otherwise a Roman fountain) and singing blithely over her task. Struck by her voice and good looks, he married her and trained her for opera. She quickly made her début and won an emphatic success.

Then Barili died, leaving behind him only a name and the aforesaid children, Ettore, Antonio, Nicolo, and Clotilda. With such a burden upon her shoulders, the widow was only too glad to continue the pursuit of her profession. -Fortunately, hers was an increasing reputation, especially in southern Italy. In Naples she was a favorite; so much so that (according to a proud family tradition) she made even the illustrious Grisi jealous, and the latter, ‘‘having on one occasion been thrown into the shade by her, would not again appear in the same town with her.’’ Be this as it may, history vouches for the fact that when Donizetti produced his opera, “The Siege of Calais,’’ at Naples in 1836, he wrote the part of the heroine for Signora Barili, who duly created it.

In the following year she married Salvatore Patti. The two artists continued their careers for three or four years in Italy, where their first two children, Amalia and Carlotta, were born. Later they began an annual engagement for the season of Italian opera at Madrid; and there, in 1842, Signora Barili-Patti gave birth to her son Carlo,* who, with the four small Barili children and the Patti girl babies, brought the juvenile family up to a total of seven.

Happily, the tale was not to end at the magic number. In February of 1843 this industrious mother was again singing in opera at Madrid, and even now another addition to the growing circle was known to be close at hand. However, little affairs of this kind seem to have made no difference to her; so long as her voice remained in good order—and evidently it did—nothing else mattered. The shadow of the coming event did not deter her from undertaking, on the evening of the 9th, the tolerably exacting réle of Norma.

Otherwise the appropriateness of the character was beyond question. Norma is essentially a motherly sort of person; albeit at one moment of the opera an unkind fate well-nigh impels her to the desperate expedient of taking her children’s lives. Whether the latter were represented in this instance by a couple of the Barili boys or by the usual borrowed mites (Amalia and Carlotta being still too tiny for the purpose), history does not relate. But it is certain that the excellent prima donna went through her part with courage and her wonted energy to the end—or very nearly to the end—of the opera. It was only then that trouble began.

Many pretty variations have been invented to lend color to a sufficiently interesting episode. One of these, which obtained considerable currency in the sixties, declared that ‘‘the diva was actually born in the green-room of an operahouse. Her mother, a prima donna of some talent, was singing with the celebrated Signor Sinico, when she was suddenly taken ill and carried to the green-room, where Adelina Patti was born. Sinico has related how in haste he tore up his wardrobe to find wraps for the infant, little guessing it would be the greatest singer in the world.’’

It is scarcely necessary to say that the ‘‘celebrated’’ author of this story evolved it from what Americans call ‘‘whole eloth’’; and, for a person of such vivid imagination, it is a wonder his ‘‘guessing’’ powers were not yet more enterprising. When he related this version of the occurrence Signor Sinico? had for some years been a teacher of singing in London, and possibly his memory had begun to play him tricks. The legend at the wraps, apart from its inherent improbability, was as far from the truth as the statement regarding the locale of the event itself.

For, to be strictly accurate, the baby was not born until four o’clock on the following afternoon. That ‘‘Norma’’ was first of all carried to the green-room, there is no reason to doubt; but it passes the limits of ordinary credence that she should be allowed to remain there for some sixteen or seventeen hours, even with the resources of Signor Sinico and his wardrobe at hand. As a matter of fact, the worthy Salvatore was also on the spot, and lost no time in having his wife removed to their lodgings—a proceeding fraught with little risk in the case of so robust a mére de famille. And there, on the afternoon of the 10th of February, the tiny stranger duly made her first appearance and improvised her first cadenza on the world’s stage.

Naturally, an event of such engrossing interest and importance, taking place under unusual conditions, was narrated in after years by others besides Signor Sinico. His account, however, is noted here not merely because of its picturesqueness, but because he, of all men, was most under a moral obligation to state the exact facts and not glorify himself at the expense of truth. The reason for this is that some two months after the birth of the wonder-child whose future he could not ‘‘guess,’’ Sinico and his wife were standing as sponsors for her at the baptismal font of a neighboring church.

[...] The real beginning of Patti’s home life in England must be dated from her return to London—after her triumphal visit to Vienna—for the season of 1863. An intimate friend had advised the family not to stay at a hotel in town, but to live in one of the suburbs. The ‘‘family’’—which now included, in addition to ‘‘Papa’’ and ‘‘Maurice,’’ a German demoiselle de compagnie of whom we shall have something to say directly—accepted the advice and took, to begin with, part of a house at 22 High Street, Clapham. There they formed a simple but comfortable ménage.

It should be noted that Adelina’s mother never came to England. Mme. Barili-Patti, as she was generally called, at about this period, left New York and returned to her native city, Rome, where she settled down and remained until she died some few years later. Her part in this story is practically limited to the dramatic prologue in which she enacted a role of such supreme importance. Her influence over her famous daughter did not extend beyond early childhood, and in some measure—indirectly, perhaps, rather than otherwise —as one of the models whom the tiny singer had sought to imitate. For she undoubtedly heard her mother in New York in several of her operas, though not for long. It used to be said that Mme. Barili-Patti’s voice had never survived the strain of the ‘‘Norma’’ performance in which she sang on the night that Adelina was born. But the statement wag not true. What is beyond question, however, is that the mother and daughter saw very little of each other in after years.

From Alfredo Barili and the rise of classical music in Atlanta by Orr, N. Lee, 1949-:

The true and significant story of Alfredo Barili begins long before this, however. Caterina Chiesa, a young Italian girl of much musical talent went singing her way one morning to a water fountain south of Rome. Hearing her, Francesco Barili, a musician became first her teacher and then her husband. Caterina gave birth to three Barili sons (among them Ettore) and one daughter. After Francesco died, Caterina married Salvatore Patti. Together they produced one son and three daughters, the last of whom was Adela, to be known to the world as Adelina Patti. Here you have the story of one Italian woman who produced the entire Barili/Patti clan: the only description is How amazing.

Caterina Chiesa, Barili ’s paternal grandmother, was raised in southern Italy — land of song, passion, and splendidly handsome people. She bequeathed to her family looks, talent, and temperament. Bom in Rome about 1810 to Giovanni Chiesa and Luisa Caselli, she was singing before she was in her teens. According to family accounts, as a young girl she was singing one day on her way to the well to draw water when she was overheard by Francesco Barili, a “composer of merit and the author of fine masses,” as well as a vocal teacher. He began giving her voice lessons and then married her when she was fifteen. Francesco’s instruction apparently did much for Caterina’s voice as she soon began attracting attention with her singing. After Francesco’s death (1829), she used her impressive talent to support their four children, Antonio (1826-76), Clotilda (1827-56), Nicolo (1828-1878), and Ettore (1828-85), the youngest, who was bom on 5 November 1828 in Rome. All would become distinguished musicians.

Caterina impressed Donizetti with her voice, so much so that he asked her to introduce the role of Isabella in his L’assedio di Calais for its premiere at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples 19 November 1836. He wrote three days after the performance: “ L’assedio di Calais went well. I was called out six times - It is my most carefully worked-out score. Barroilhet, la Manzocchi, a Barili, Gianni, everyone applauded.” Caterina likewise sang the Naples’s premieres of Elvira in Bellini’ (1836), Donizetti’s Gemma di Vergy (1837), and Pacini’s Valerie ossia La Cieca (1838) in addition to the demanding role of high priestess Norma in the opera of the same name. She reportedly outshone the celebrated Giulia Grisi so during one performance that Grisi refused to appear on stage with her again. The colorful nineteenth-century pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who knew the whole family, said that Caterina “was a fiery lyric tragic actress . . . .still celebrated in Portugal, Spain, and Naples .

While singing in Naples, Caterina Barili met Salvatore Patti, leading tenor of the company with which she was working. Considering the dates of Ettore’s birth (1828) and Amalia Patti’s (1831), Caterina and Salvatore must have been married sometime near the end of 1830. Salvatore Patti was bom to Pietro Patti and Concepcion Marino in Catania, Sicily. By the 1825-26 season, Patti, a tenore robusto, was singing at the Teatro Carolino in Palermo where Gaetano Donizetti — not yet thirty himself — was musical director. That season, which extended from May to February, proved trying for everyone because of personnel intrigues, mediocre musical quality, jealous singers, and financial problems, all of which forced the house to close on 19 February. Despite these problems, Donizetti managed to stage a number of admirable productions along the way. Patti sang Pipetto in Donizetti’s L’ajo nell’imbarazzo on 5 September to good reviews for everyone; early the next year, on 7 January 1826 he created the role of Ismaele in the premiere of Donizetti’s Alahor in Granata. This performance also enjoyed a positive reception. After marrying Caterina he appeared at other theaters in Sicily, Italy, and Spain. In 1836, for the Teatro Valle, Rome, he sang Ugo in Donizetti’s Parisina as well as other roles. One listener described him as “a respectable tenor singer, with a smooth, soft, piping voice, a correct style of singing, and very good stage manner.” Even though his roles consisted of supporting tenor parts, Patti was lauded as a competent singer, good actor, and solid musician. His handsome, strapping physique likewise added to his stage presence.

After their marriage the couple continued singing across Europe. Their first child, Amalia, was born in Paris in 1 83 1 ; Carlotta in Florence in 1 835 ; and Carlo in Madrid in 1842. The year 1843 found Caterina and Salvatore in Madrid, where she sang Elena in Donizetti’s Marino Faliero on 3 1 January. Contrary to the numerous legends, anecdotes, incorrect dates, and downright fabrications circulated since then, she did not complete the taxing role of Norma , walk into the theater’s green room, and deliver her next child. Nor was the child then wrapped in the leading tenor’s cloak.

The family life in Italy continued for the next two years without much professional change. With that amazing amount of talent under one roof, however, in an era when the popularity of Italian opera was increasing daily, it did not take a prophet to predict that something would soon happen. First, it was clear that Clotilda stood ready for her musical debut at any time. Her splendid voice was maturing quickly. Moreover, her three step-sisters Carlotta, Amalia, and Adelina showed even more promising vocal talent. Also, few other families had a mother still holding the musical reputation of Caterina, married to someone with the operatic experience of Salvatore Patti. Stir in the impressive vocal talents of the older boys, Ettore and Nicolo, in addition to the instrumentally skilled Antonio and Carlo, and you have much more than simply a family — you have an opera company. That’s exactly what Antonio Sanquirico realized when he met them.

Basso buffo Sanquirico had first appeared at Palmo’s Opera House in New York on Chambers Street 29 April 1844 as Don Bartolo in II barbiere di Siviglia. This was the first of a number of successful performances. Shortly thereafter he returned to Europe where he intended to stay, until he met the Barili-Patti family in the summer of 1846. The encounter was propitious for both sides. Sanquirico undoubtedly recognized the untapped goldmine onto which he had stumbled. Caterina and Salvatore, realizing that their own singing careers had all but run their course in Europe, likewise saw that they could extend their performing pursuits in America.

It seems that neither Caterina, Nicolo, nor Ettore Barili — Alfredo’s father — accompanied the family to the United States on this trip. Ettore’s name disappears from the record until 1854 when he brought his wife and young Alfredo to New York to join the rest of the Barili-Pattis. Unsure of the success of the new venture, Caterina had chosen to remain in Italy with Ettore and the three younger Patti sisters. When Salvatore returned in the spring 1847 for a second recruiting trip, Caterina and the girls came to the United States, leaving Ettore behind in Europe. Nearly twenty, Ettore was able be on his own. As the young lady he would marry was from Barcelona, one can conjecture that he continued travelling and singing on the continent. He met Antoinetta Sampo (1839-1893) and they were married in Spain about 1853. Alfredo was bom in Florence the next year and shortly afterward the young family emigrated to America and joined the others on East Tenth Street.

The opening production of Verdi’s Ernani received generally positive reviews, though the critics disagreed on the merits of specific singers. George Templeton Strong delayed his appearance at the new Astor Place House until 1 December when he attended the troupe’s second production of Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda. While he liked the opera house, he stayed true to form and sneeringly described the work as “stupid and silly and the poorest, weakest, shallowest, and most wearisome production I ever was bored by. Perhaps I did it injustice, but I think not, and I won’t undergo the dose again.” Soprano Teresa Truffi’s debut brought sensational reviews, especially from White, who admired her regal bearing, expressive vocal sentiments, tragic demeanor, and long blond hair. But he thought Clotilda, the former toast of New York, as Beatrice, miscast. While “charming and sweet as ever,” her angelic, small voice lacked the vocal depth and volume necessary for the star role. Even worse, she possessed “no dramatic power to supply her vocal deficiencies.” The role of Beatrice, White thought, should have been sung by her mother Caterina, who, even though her voice was not as fresh, still could produce a “splendid and truly imposing display,” and “certainly even in her decadence [was] one of the finest singers in the grand style heard in this country.”

Alas, this was not to be the case. As in some fate-filled Greek tragedy, Sanquirico and Patti were destined to see their initial success start flagging, just as the first company’s fortunes had declined the season before at Palmo’s following its auspicious beginning. Lucrezia Borgia opened on 12 January and enjoyed a modestly successful run at the Astor Place Opera House. But then things went downhill. Even the introduction of new works for the second season did not help. Bellini’s I Capuletti ed i Montecchi, enthusiastically received the September before, was now “heavy as lead” and sank like a stone. Caterina Barili -Patti made her New York debut in the performance on 28 January 1 848, playing Romeo to Clotilda’s Juliet. Unfortunately for the company, even with her impressive stage presence and strong deportment, she was past her prime. The critic for the Albion admitted that her voice once must have possessed beauty and power, but now lacked depth and splendor. The Herald meanly wrote the next day that “Madame Patti makes an elegant looking young man, performs tolerably well in the old style, but her voice is a mere wreck — a ruin.” The Mirror (1 February 1848) reported that the second and final performance on 3 1 January drew the worst house yet seen at Astor Place. Even the American premiere of Mercadante’s II giuramento (which Strong surprisingly found “worth all the operas they have produced in Astor Place knocked into one”) on 14 February did little to help; by the middle of the month the company had serious financial problems. Poor management, flaring tempers and jealousies so rife in Italian opera companies all contributed, causing the singers to become ill — or so they claimed. Bickering by the vocalists sabotaged the operas, the performances deteriorated, the audiences stopped coming, and by early March the unfinished season ground to an inglorious halt.

Salvatore soon returned to the stage at the Astor Place Opera House, where he sang supporting roles for two years, one being di Fieschi in the American premiere on 10 December 1849 of Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan. In March 1848 Clotilda married the son of a wealthy New York Colonel Thome and formed the Barili-Thome Opera Company. They later appeared in San Francisco during December 1854 where they remained for almost a year while performing. Dwight’s Journal of Music reported that they left California en route to Peru “with the design of making a professional visit to all principal South American cities.” The next year, 1856, Madame Clotilda Barili-Thome died in Lima in August or early September. Amalia appeared frequently at Astor Place in both leading and secondary parts, sometimes with her father. Caterina sang her last complete lead role there for three performances of Norma in February 1850, with Amalia as Adalgisa. “The audience was taken by surprise by the excellence of the performance,” the New York Evening Post observed (18 February 1850). “Madame Patti, who it was understood had retired from the stage, on the contrary, acted and sang the part of Norma with an energy, a feeling, and a correctness that created more enthusiasm than we have seen evinced for a long period.” It impressed Richard Grant White as well, who remembered years later that “It was the last time that the grand old Italian style of singing was heard in America; — that large simplicity of manner, severe and yet not hard; that thoroughness, that constantly present sense of the decomm of art, died out before we, who were brought up on Donizetti and on Verdi, came to the enjoyment of operatic delights.

Maurice Strakosch (1825-87), thought by many to be a Russian or Pole, was in reality, like Maretzek, a Moravian. Trained as a pianist, he made his debut at eleven years of age, and won a reputation throughout Germany and Austria. Billed as the “Pianist to the Emperor of Russia,” the handsome and flamboyant Strakosch not only became one of the most important impresarios in nineteenth-century America but also played a major role in the lives of the Barili-Patti family. He had met Salvatore Patti in 1843 when Patti’s step¬ daughter, Clotilda Barili, sang in a concert with Strakosch in Vicenza. Upon arriving in America, he sought Patti out and the two became reacquainted. Following Strakosch’s spectacular debut at Niblo’s Astor Place House on 10 June 1 848, he enlisted the aid of family members Caterina, Amalia, and Antonio in his next concert at the Tabernacle later that month on the 22nd. Antonio conducted, Maurice played, and mother and daughter sang the duet from Norma. Unfortunately, Maurice’s musical charm ran out the following September when his gala concert flopped; one reviewer declared that each member of the orchestra must have had a different part, “for nothing but a mistake of that kind could cause a party of New York musicians to make such a hideous discord.” Seeing the handwriting on the wall for his success in the city, Strakosch organized a concert troupe and toured throughout North and South America for two years.

Later that year on 8 May 1852 Strakosch married Amalia Patti, which made him an official member of musical America’s most celebrated family. It is fitting that a person who came from another artistically significant family enterprise, the “Strakosch Arts Management,” and who would play a critical role in the shaping of America’s musical life, should marry into a household even more musically celebrated in this country. The marriage completed the cast of America’s most eminent musical family. All the roles were now filled: impresarios, pianists, conductors, composers, and spilling over the floodlights, singers — singers everywhere. From Caterina, whose reputation still lived on in southern Italy and New York, through her Barili daughters who were still holding the boards, on to her Patti daughters, one of whom already enjoyed celebrity status, few families in this country’s cultural history have ever been so active in so many arenas of its musical life. During the 1850's in the Northeast, where our musical institutions took firm shape, one could not listen, perform, or read about music very long without running into a Barili or a Patti. And had the Barili-Patti-Strakosch clan produced no further notable musicians, these achievements alone would have earned them lasting esteem. But there was more to come. Younger Barilis and Pattis were waiting in the wings, ready to step onstage and bring even more prominence to a remarkable family.

By 1852 the youngest of the Patti sisters (she was nine at the time) was also singing in public — to unrivalled praise. Adelina, already billed as “the wonder of the age,” sang in a “Grand Vocal and Instrumental Festival” at Metropolitan Hall on 5 "May 1852. “Little Patti, or La Petite Lind gave the Nightingale’s ‘Echo Song’ with wonderful effect,” the Mirror reported (6 May 1852), “and the tiny prima donna was the star of the evening. She was encored with a furore that we have seldom witnessed at a concert.” Caterina sang in the concert as well, and also impressed the Mirror. “Signora Patti, the mother of La Petite and of several full-grown prima donnas, sang a cavatina from Gemma di Vegy with exquisite taste, and with a freshness of voice that gave no evidence of decay. It is to be regretted that we do not more frequently hear this accomplished artiste on the stage or in the concert-room. Signora Patti and ‘ La Petite Lind ’ are, in themselves, attraction enough to fill the largest Concert Hall in America.

For the next two years few Barili-Pattis participated in the New York musical life, largely because the core of the family was out of town on tour. Salvatore, pressed by financial reverses in 1 852, began planning a tour that fall for his youngest daughter, nine-year-old Adelina, whose concerts in the city had proven very successful. With the assistance of Maurice Strakosch and his wife Amalia (Caterina appears to have remained in New York), the troupe set out in the fall of 1852, traveling first to Connecticut (New Haven and Hartford), Massachusetts (Springfield), Philadelphia, and Baltimore, where the Sun (13 October) reported that “the most prominent prima donna might take a lesson in style and execution from the exquisite warblings of this gifted child.” As fate would have it, the Norwegian violinist, Ole Bull, whose playing had earned him world-wide renown, happened to be in Baltimore at the same time as the Pattis. Sensing a ripe financial opportunity, he contracted with Adelina and Maurice to join the troupe. Their travels for the next two years took them as far south as New Orleans and west to St. Louis and Chicago. Already Adelina’s willful ways kept the troupe stirred up. Years later she said of Bull, that he had been “a gentle, kind man, and like a mother” to her. She continued, “What a little child I was to be going about with only those men! Not a woman . . . only papa — poor papa! — and Maurice and Ole Bull, and I was a little tyrant, I dare say, to all three of them.” By the beginning of 1855 the group was back in New York where Adelina sang on 20 and 27 January and 27 February. Not to be missed was the fact that the Pattis — Adelina and Salvatore — were richer by $20,000.

By this time Ettore, Antoinetta, and young Alfredo had settled in with Caterina, Salvatore, and the two young Patti daughters at the residence at 170 East Tenth Street next to Third Avenue. In the 1 850’s the area was an exclusive part of town, near such New York landmarks as Grace Church and St. Mark’s in the Bowery, as well as tempting ice cream and candy stores. Unfortunately, the neighbors were not at all pleased to see immigrant Italians move in, and musical Italians as well, something they made clear to the Pattis and Barilis. Soon thereafter the family decided to move to what is now the Bronx. In May 1855 Caterina bought land near the city of Wakefield in Westchester County for $625 with money that Adelina had made on her tour. Salvatore and Caterina built the first brick house in the area, which is now at the address of 4718 Matilda Avenue. They would remain there until May 1867.

Patti’s debut that Thanksgiving only served to confirm brilliantly for her generation what previous generations of the Barili-Pattis had been demonstrating since Caterina had similarly impressed Donizetti and his audiences nearly thirty years earlier. The Tribune (25 November) reported “her voice is clear and excellent; the brilliant execution which she begins with at the outset of her career . . . ranks with that where the best singers end.” It also lauded her succeeding on her own merits, and as “an American without a transatlantic puff’ that accompanied so many debutantes. The Herald (25 November) pointed out how she sang a difficult cavatina “perfectly, displaying a thorough Italian method and a high soprano voice, fresh, full and even throughout,” which finally “increased the enthusiasm of the audience to a positive furore . . . .” The NewYork Illustrated News critic proclaimed that “the most fastidious could find no flaw” in her voice and that “the most experienced could remember no superior.” Even with her young age and initial dramatic reticence, she “took the house by storm; she not only sang as only she can sing, but looked lovely and acted well. Though a little timid at first, she displayed her great dramatic powers in the Mad Scene,” as the Musical Courier observed.

Another pervasive family trait was one of unrelenting perfectionism. In music this did much to account for the family’s professional excellence, generation after generation. Ettore possibly inherited it from his overpowering mother and bequeathed it to the succeeding Barilis and Pattis. One sees Virtually every one of them obsessed with faultless performing, which many in the family amazingly achieved. Accounts of nearly every Barili-Patti performance from Caterina through the next three generations (even on to Alfredo Barili, Jr. who studied architecture in New York) relate how doggedly they worked in preparing their music. The press accounts, from whatever source, continually talk about their “old world training,” or in the style of the “grand old masters,” “faultless performance,” or “undisturbed elegance,” which seems to point, in part, to this passionate commitment to perfect their preparation. For each member it was simply assumed that you left no stone unturned in laying your musical groundwork. The Barili reputation for consistent musical excellence (in addition to his considerable talent) is what clearly elevated Alfredo above nearly every other southern musician when he moved to Atlanta in 1880.

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Phoebe Strakosch (1868-1952) was a soprano, sometimes credited as Febea Strakosch. Her singing teacher was Carlotta Patti, whose sister Amalia married Strakosch's uncle Maurice. Her father, Ferdinand, as well as her uncles Maurice and Max Strakosch, were all impresarios. She made her American debut as Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust at the Metropolitan Opera (1 October 1900).

From Musical America 1907-10-26: Vol 6 Iss 24:

A New “Butterfly” in the Henry W. Savage Company

On Tuesday night two of the newcomers in the strong personnel of Butterflies and Pinkerton were heard, Mme. Phoebe Strakosch and Vernon Stiles.

Miss Strakosch is a niece both of Adelina Patti and of Maurice Strakosch, who introduced the famous diva to New York and who afterwards married her sister. She is also a niece of Clara Louise KelloggStrakosch, one of the early exponents of grand opera in English and one of the bestloved American operatic stars in the early days grand Miss Strakosch gained her early musical education under Carlotta Patti, who took the gifted child in hand while her parents still resided in her native city of Stockholm. Her voice studies were finished under Sbriglia in Paris, where she was regarded as one of his most talented pupils.

She first learned to speak the Danish language and then the French tongue, after which she was educated in English at a London convent. Her stage début was made in Trieste in 1896 as Marguerite in “Faust.” The next year Mr. Savage brought her to America for a brief season and she now returns after eight years grand opera triumph in the leading opera houses in Europe. She was a member of the Covent Garden company in 1904 and then sang in Milan, creating the title role in “Sappho.” Since then she has been a favorite in Egypt, Spain and France, the past year appearing in Lisbon and Madrid. Miss Strakosch studied the title rdle of “Madam Butterfly” last Summer in Paris with Composer Puccini himself, and was especially coached by Mme. Carré, who created the rdle at the Opéra Comique. She alternates in the English grand opera company with Rena Vivienne, Elisabeth Wolff and Dora de Fillippe.

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Phoebe (Febea) Strakosch was described in The Maitland Weekly Mercury (New South Wales, Australia), June 20, 1896:

A NEW SOPRANO. Le Petit Niçois gives an interesting account of a new soprano, Mlle. Febea Strakosch, who seems to have made a phenomenal success at the Nice Opera House. The young singer, who was born at Stockholm but was educated in France, is the daughter of Ferdinand Strakosch, at one time the director of Italian opera in Pans, and the niece of the more famous Maurice Strakosch, who married Amalia Patti and first introduced her sister, Adelina Patti, to the musical world. After preparatory lessons fiom her aunt, Carlotta Patti, Mlle. Strakosch was placed for some years under the care of Giovanni Sbriglia, the great teacher of Paris, and she has since made successes at Buda-Pesth, Trieste, Turin, and Nice. The voice is a brilliant soprano of fine quality . . . Mademoiselle Strakosch is a cousin of Mr. Alexander, of West Maitland, himself noted in the musical world as a violinist.

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Febea is mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald of October 17, 1903: Mlle. Febea Strakosch, who has been singing during the Italian season at Covent Garden this year, has recently been presented to the Queen at Windsor Castle, where she sang Elizabeth's Prayer from "Tannhauser." The young soprano was born at Copenhagen, and was accordingly able to speak to the Queen in Danish. Mlle. Strakosch might visit Australia, as she has near relatives both in Melbourne and in Sydney. Miss Grace Alexander, of Mosman's, one of the "first violins" of the Amateur Orchestral Society, is her first cousin, and Mr. H. Walter Barnett, now In London, but at one time head of Falk's here, is also a cousin. Mlle. Strakosch is the daughter of the American entrepreneur Ferdinand Strakosch, whose brother, Maurlce, married Amalia Patti, sister of Adelina, whom he taught, and all of whose early concert and operatic tours he directed. Febea Strakosch, whose debut was at Genoa four years ago, In now singing at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels.

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OTD in Music History: Russian composer, pianist, and mystically-inclined artistic visionary Alexander Scriabin (1871 - 1915) makes his final public concert appearance, performing a program of his own works in St. Petersburg in 1915. Within two weeks, Scriabin would lie dying in his Moscow apartment at the age of 43. Scriabin wrote of this final concert that he “completely forgot that I was playing in a hall with people around me, something that happens very rarely to me on the platform.” Soon after Scriabin triumphantly returned to Moscow, however, he began complaining about the return of a very large and painful pimple on his right upper lip. (He had previously complained about an earlier iteration of this troublesome zit in 1914.) Scriabin’s condition worsened over the next few days, and he took to bed. Scriabin's doctor later recalled that an uncontrollable blood-borne infection began to spread across his face "like a purple fire,” and as Scriabin’s temperature soared up to 41 °C (106 °F) he grew delirious and eventually began to hallucinate. In those days, before antibiotics, there was little that medicine could offer him… In his early years, the young Scriabin wrote works that were heavily inspired by Frederic Chopin (1810 - 1849). Later on, however, he developed a very personal musical language drawn from his mystical inclinations which pushed tonality right up to the breaking point. Scriabin’s stock plummeted after the tragedy of his early death was further compounded by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917... only to rise once again in the 1960s, when he was rediscovered by a new generation of music lovers who were fascinated by this most “psychedelic” of composers... PICTURED: A photo portrait of Scriabin (c. 1910s). Also shown is an original copy of the program that was handed out at a concert which Scriabin gave at Odessa's "Union Hall" in October 1911. Much like his final concert in 1915, this 1911 concert saw Scriabin focused exclusively on performing his own music.

Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990) famously praised Scriabin's thematic material as being "truly individual and truly inspired,” although he also simultaneously criticized Scriabin for putting "this really new body of feeling into the strait-jacket of the old classical sonata-form, recapitulation and all” – and even went so far as to declare that this decision constituted "one of the most extraordinary mistakes in all musical history."

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943) and Scriabin knew each other for decades (they had effectively grown up together from their early teenage years) and they maintained an uneasy friendship which was frequently tested because they often found themselves at odds in their approach to composing and performing, to say nothing of fundamental differences regarding matters of faith, finances, and personal relationships. Nevertheless, Rachmaninoff spent most of the year following Scriabin’s sudden death programming Scriabin’s music in a series of public recitals that he arranged to help raise funds for Scriabin’s two widows and children. This was a truly selfless act, especially because many of Scriabin’s devoted fans strongly disapproved of Rachmaninoff’s style of playing the piano and were *not* afraid to loudly say so in the critical press…

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OTD in Music History: Legendary composer, conductor, and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943) is born in Russia. An amusing (if possibly apocryphal) story highlights the tremendous sense of humor that lurked just beneath Rachmaninoff's famously dour exterior: The great Austrian violinist-composer Fritz Kreisler (1875 - 1962) and Rachmaninoff were very good friends and frequently enjoyed performing chamber music together; indeed, they bequeathed several recordings of their collaborations to posterity. On one memorable occasion, however, Kreisler suffered a monumental memory lapse during a live performance with Rachmaninoff at the piano. When Kreisler attempted to improvise his way out of the predicament, Rachmaninoff -- an extremely facile improvisor with an incredible ear -- was so amused that he quickly began to make up an accompaniment that matched Kreisler's increasingly frantic noodlings. Annoyed by these counterproductive antics and desperate to get the piece back on track, Kreisler inched his way over to the piano... and when he finally got close enough, he whispered angrily (while they were both still playing): “Sergei, where the hell are we?!” Barely repressing a smirk, Rachmaninoff allegedly glanced up from the keyboard before solemnly intoning: “We're in Carnegie Hall." A recording of Kreisler and Rachmaninoff performing Franz Schubert's (1797 - 1828) 5th Violin Sonata can be enjoyed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-f1WTItB_w PICTURED: A portrait photograph showing the very young Rachmaninoff posed in front of a remarkably ornate little piano (c. 1880). Also shown is a later-edition printed score for Rachmaninoff's early "Serenade in b flat minor" (1892), which is actually the final piece in a set of short piano solos that also includes one of the most famous pieces he ever wrote, the "Prelude in c# minor." Rachmaninoff signed this copy across the front cover.

The story of Rachmaninoff’s Op. 3 "Serenade" is itself interesting and worth briefly recounting: Rachmaninoff’s original intention was actually to compose a set consisting of four short pieces, but he ended up adding a fifth piece (this "Serenade") after he read a November 1892 interview in which his musical idol, Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893), singled him out as one of the most promising young composers in Russia. As Rachmaninoff later recalled: "I immediately sat down at the piano and composed a fifth piece (the ‘Serenade’) for the set in celebration." Rachmaninov premiered the completed set (which he entitled "Morceaux de Fantaisie”) in December 1892, and two months later he presented Tchaikovsky with one of the first copies of the newly-published score. Shortly thereafter, Tchaikovsky wrote to Alexander Siloti (1863 - 1945), Rachmaninoff's old teacher and friend (and first cousin), to relay how impressed he was with the music. When Tchaikovsky passed away just a few months later, his sudden death came as a tremendous blow to the young Rachmaninoff. Later in his own life, Rachmaninoff substantially revised several pieces in this set, including the "Serenade"… but the copy of the score shown here was actually even *further* revised by Siloti!

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OTD in Music History: Historically important conductor Hans Richter (1843 - 1916) is born in what is now Hungary. After completing his studies at the Vienna Conservatory, Richter was introduced to Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883), and he was soon tapped to play the solo trumpet part in the private premiere of Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll" at Wagner's private residence on Christmas Day 1870. By 1876, however, Richter was being charged with a far more daunting task: mounting the world premiere performance of Wagner’s monumental operatic tetralogy “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (“The Ring of The Nibelung”) at the inaugural “Bayreuth Music Festival.” This production turned out to be a resounding artistic success, and Richter went on to serve as principal conductor at the Bayreuth Festival for many years to come. In 1877, Richter shared the podium with Wagner at a “Wagner Festival” put on in London. In 1882, he also led the British premieres of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” (1865) and “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg” (“The Mastersingers of Nuremberg”) (1868). Thereafter, Britain would remain at the center of Richter’s professional activities. Richter served as Principal Conductor of the Birmingham Music Festival from 1885 to 1909, and he held permanent appointments with both the Halle Orchestra (1899 - 1911) and the London Symphony Orchestra (1904 - 1911). Perhaps not surprisingly, Richter became a staunch champion of Edward Elgar (1857 - 1937), even leading the world premiere performances of Elgar’s much-loved “Enigma Variations” (1899), “Dream of Gerontius” (1900), and “1st Symphony” (1908). Much more surprisingly, Richter was *also* able to count Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) as a close friend and associate. This was surprising because Wagner and Brahms typically operated as mutually-exclusive bipodal titans within the 19th Century German musical world... PICTURED: A bold autograph musical quotation – the famous motif from Wagner’s “Ride of The Valkyries” – which Richter wrote out and signed for a fan at the Birmingham Music Festival in 1891.

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Jean de Reszke and his wife, Marie de Mailly-Nesle

Great Britain was, along with Paris and New York, one of the most important operatic centres for the De Reszke brothers’ careers. They appeared in London, often together, during almost every season in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Edward performed a record 460 times to English audiences, and Jan over 300 times. Indeed, their performances were so popular that many scholars believe that they were largely responsible for the revival of opera in Britain at the end of the century. They made some very noteworthy admirers, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and were frequent visitors to Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace, giving private performances for the royal family and their guests. They performed at the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne (1897) and at her 80th birthday (1899). Queen Victoria mentions these performances several times in her diaries:

Queen Victoria's Diary, 17 July 1894 A fine day after rain in the night. — Breakfast in the Colonnade at Frogmore. — After luncheon Jean & Edouard de Reszke sang in the Red Drawingroom. Edouard's voice is marvellous, so powerful & deep. The 2 brothers sang together a duet from "Carmen" (part of a chorus) unaccompanied. They are most gentlemanlike, fine men & their voices (though Jean's is tenor) have a great likeness. Tosti played the accompaniments. It was indeed an immense treat. I told them I hoped I might some day have the pleasure of seeing them act... Portraits of Jean and Edouard still hang at the Covent Garden opera house today. Their fame is also immortalised in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles, where Holmes says to Watson, “And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box for 'Les Huguenots'. Have you heard of the De Reszkes?”