"Pauline Viardot, On Rivalry"

9 DocMus Research Publications TRACING OPERATIC PERFORMANCES IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY Practices, Performers, Peripheries Edited by Anne Kauppala, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager 9 DocMus Research Publications TRACING OPERATIC PERFORMANCES IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY Practices, Performers, Peripheries Edited by Anne Kauppala, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager TRACING OPERATIC PERFORMANCES IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY: PRACTICES, PERFORMERS, PERIPHERIES On the cover: Hugo Rahm’s watercolor (20.5 x 25cm) from 1892 showing a scene from Lohengrin as well as the audience and orchestra in Gustav III’s Opera House (Stockholm), demolished in 1892. Scenkonstmuseet (Swedish Museum of Performing Arts), K1396. Graphic design BOND Creative Agency Layout Paul Forsell Cover Jan Rosström Printed by Unigrafia, Helsinki, 2017 ISBN 978-952-329-089-1 (bound) ISBN 978-952-329-090-7 (PDF) ISSN 2341-8257 http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-329-090-7 DocMus Research Publications 9 © The authors and the Sibelius Academy (University of the Arts Helsinki) 5 Table of Contents 7 Introduction Anne Kauppala, Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen and Jens Hesselager I ON STAGE 15 Pauline Viardot, on rivalry Hilary Poriss 43 Parodying opera in Paris: Tannhäuser on the popular stage, 1861 Clair Rowden 83 Tracing Lohengrin at the Royal Opera of Sweden, 1874 Göran Gademan 113 The first Swedish performance of a Verdi opera and the Italian Opera Company in Stockholm, 1848–1849 Göran Tegnér II STAGE AND NATION 169 Grand opera and Finnish nationalism in Helsinki, 1876–1877 Ulla-Britta Broman-Kananen 215 Høstgildet by J. P. A. Schulz: A national Singspiel? Randi M. Selvik 249 Staging state patriotism: Høstgildet of 1790 Ellen Karoline Gjervan 269 The premiere of Pohjan neiti at the Vyborg Song Festival, 1908 Hannele Ketomäki 289 Abstracts 15 Pauline Viardot, on rivalry HILARY PORISS Introduction On Tuesday, 9 May 1848, Pauline Viardot (1820–1921) made her long-anticipated debut to an overflowing audience at the Royal Italian Theatre, Covent Garden, as Amina in Bellini’s La sonnambula. Among the various and varied operatic debuts that she had over the course of her career, this one ranked among the most legendary, as raked over by biographers as were her first performances in St Petersburg in 1843 and her initial appearances as Fidès in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète (16 April 1849), Gounod’s Sapho (16 April 1851) and Gluck’s Orphée (18 November 1859). Distinguishing her Covent Garden debut from these others was the fact that she began the evening a nervous wreck, trembling visibly onstage, singing nearly inaudibly and causing the audience to wonder whether her artistic powers had abandoned her. Over the course of the production, however, Viardot gradually regained her poise and by the end, the audience applauded her wildly, demanding an encore of Amina’s final aria, “Ah! non giunge.” Fraser’s Magazine summarised the evening concisely: Madame Viardot’s first night was extraordinary, – verging, for nearly two acts of La sonnambula, on failure, and then in the last act exhibiting a great reputation, saved as if from fire.1 1 Fraser’s Magazine 8/1848, 230–231. Here and elsewhere throughout this article, I have benefitted from Patrick Waddington’s “A Chronology of the Life of Pauline ViardotGarcia (1821–1910)”. This unpublished work, over 800 pages in manuscript, documents Viardot’s life and career on a daily basis, including references to hundreds of contemporary reviews. I am deeply indebted to him for allowing me to consult this “Chronology”. 16 Hilary Poriss What might account for Viardot’s momentary crisis of confidence? This was not her first experience in London, after all, having appeared in concert there as well as in operatic performances at Her Majesty’s Theatre as early as 1839, nor was she unaccustomed to performing for audiences filled with luminaries, as this one was.2 What might have tipped Viardot over the edge on this occasion was the particularly intense accumulation of rivalries and comparisons that swarmed around the performance. Among the most intimidating was the near simultaneous appearance at Her Majesty’s Theatre of Jenny Lind (1820–1887), the world-renowned soprano who, in 1848, was far more beloved than Viardot. Only a few days prior, Lind had performed the role of Amina to enormous acclaim. Viardot did herself no favours, in other words, by courting direct comparison with this popular contemporary. To make matters worse, Mario (1810–1883), the mid-century tenor who was supposed to sing Elvino to Viardot’s Amina, announced only a few hours prior to curtain that he was ill and would not be able to fulfil his obligations. Most critics at the time and hence have assumed that he faked a cough and cold at the behest of his lover, the beautiful soprano Giulia Grisi (1811–1869), whose desire to retain her own supremacy at Covent Garden was well known. Whether or not Grisi was to blame, Mario’s absence was unquestionably effective: the role of Elvino went instead to the deficient Spanish singer, Marquis Bernardo-Calvo de Puig, alias Flavio, whose poor acting and singing managed to throw Viardot off her game. Perhaps intending to make her even more uncomfortable, moreover, Grisi and a second prima donna, Marietta Alboni (1826–1894), attended the performance, both visible to the stage in their boxes. Lastly, a final rival figure hovered close by, as she did frequently throughout Viardot’s career: her older sister and the legendary prima donna Maria Malibran (1808–1836) with whom Viardot was frequently equated. Even though Malibran had passed away over a decade earlier, 2 Her first appearance on the London operatic stage was on 9 May 1839 at Her Majesty’s Theatre as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello. According to the Illustrated London News, the performance was attended by “a great assemblage of Royalty, rank, fashion, and artistic celebrities” (Illustrated London News 13 May 1848, p. 312). Pauline Viardot, on rivalry her memory lingered in London where she had once performed the role of Amina, as well as many others, to rapturous acclaim. On the occasion of Viardot’s debut, therefore, comparisons were inevitable. J.W. Davison of The Times, for example, made this observation: The great drawback for Madame Viardot lies in the fact that she forcibly recalls her late sister, the unrivalled Malibran, without being exactly Malibran, and the comparison suggested is too often unfavourable. 3 It is little wonder that Viardot was nervous. Tales of diva comparisons (both negative as well as positive) and rivalries are by no means new, of course. Viardot’s near-disastrous evening at Covent Garden is indicative of the types of pressures that women of the stage have faced – and still do face – on a regular basis. As Susan Rutherford and Suzanne Aspden have explored, however, stories of rivalries between star singers of the past are rarely conveyed in unmediated form. Instead, they are frequently enhanced and even manufactured by critics and historians determined to exaggerate negative personality traits and convey to readers lessons of the “self-aggrandizing diva.”4 The case of Grisi and Mario’s alleged attempt to sabotage Viardot’s debut at Covent Garden serves as a fine example. The “facts” of Grisi’s jealousy and her manipulation of Mario had been reported by the Reverend John E. Cox and Henry F. Chorley, both of whom published their accounts years after Viardot’s debut at Covent Garden. Rumours of Grisi’s malfeasance in this instance subsequently wove their way into future writings without further question or investigation. 5 As Tom Kaufman has illustrated by consulting media reports written at the time, however, Mario might have genuinely been ill on the evening of 9 May, rendering him 3 “Royal Italian Opera,” The Times 10 May 1848 (p. 5 col. g). 4 Quotation from Aspden 2006, 302; see also Rutherford 2006. 5 Cox 1872 and Chorley 1862, rpt. 1926. Cox and Chorley’s reviews are cited, often verbatim, in Rosenthal 1958, 76–78, 82, 90–91 and 98. This information comes from Kaufman 1997, 7. 17 18 Hilary Poriss and Grisi blameless for his absence.6 In fact, Kaufman concludes that while most accounts of the Grisi–Viarot rivalry place blame squarely on Grisi’s shoulders, claiming that she was threatened by Viardot’s superior artistry, the catalyst for their bitterness was just as likely grounded in Viardot’s “frustration at being unable to break into Grisi’s core repertory in London and Paris early in her career.”7 The nature of diva rivalry, in other words, is complex and stories of antagonism are often shrouded in misinformation. This situation arises, in part, from a lack of sources that speak directly to diva jealousies. In the case of Pauline Viardot, for example, the biographical literature contains some evidence regarding the competitive spirit in which she engaged with a few of her contemporaries. However, while it is clear that she was often the object of envy, these overviews of her life provide only a few examples of her exhibiting unpleasant emotions towards her peers. 8 She frequently emerges, in other words, as too high-minded – too good – to harbour ill will. The new availability of a collection of Viardot’s archival materials housed at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, however, opens windows onto her personal feelings towards some of the musicians with whom she worked, not all of which were uniformly positive. This archive, previously owned by Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, more than doubles the Houghton’s already plentiful holdings of Viardot documents, including hundreds of her musical manuscripts (songs – some hitherto unknown, cadenzas and pedagogical materials), costume designs, journals and, most relevant for this study, letters both to and from the singer.9 Collectively, these materials leave behind traces of 6 Kaufman 1997, 7–10. 7 Ibid., 21. 8 See, for instance, FitzLyon 1964, Kendall-Davies 2003, and Steen 2007. 9 The complete catalogue of Viardot holdings at Houghton, both older and more recently acquired, are listed here: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/deepLink?_collection=oasis&uniqueId=hou01978. When Pauline Viardot died, most of her papers, as well as those of her longtime companion Ivan Turgenev, went to her two younger daughters Claudie and Marianne, and from them to their daughters. Claudie’s were Jeanne Decugis and Marcelle Maupoil; Marianne’s daughter was Suzanne Beaulieu. From there, these Pauline Viardot, on rivalry this performer in particular and of nineteenth-century diva culture in general that will continue to yield new findings for years to come. In this essay, I dip into this new collection in order to explore one simple question: how did Viardot negotiate feelings of rivalry and comparison over the course of her career? Viardot wrote candidly about many musicians in at least two types of documents: letters to her husband, Louis Viardot, and the memoir that she began but neither completed nor published, her “Souvenirs”. In each case, I provide only a partial glimpse of what these documents have to offer, but in doing so I hope to broaden the biographical picture of this diva, focusing on issues of comparison and rivalry and the ways in which they manifested themselves within the private thoughts of one of the nineteenth century’s most important musical and cultural figures. Pauline’s Letters to Louis Viardot Pauline Garcia married Louis Viardot on 18 April 1840, a few months shy of her nineteenth birthday. Twenty-one years her senior, he has often been depicted as too old and stodgy for the artistic firebrand, someone she could love but with whom she would never find herself truly in love.10 One of Viardot’s biographers, April FitzLyon, for instance, commented that [f]or a woman the presence of the man whom she does not love is often more intolerable than the absence of the man she loves. Louis Viardot’s three collections of Viardot materials had very different destinies. The letters to her husband Louis Viardot (1800–1883) were by no means hidden from Viardot and Turgenev scholars. André Mazon, Gustave Dulong, Thérèse Marix-Spire, April FitzLyon, Alexandre Zviguilsky, Patrick Waddington and Nicholas Zekulin obtained partial or full access, and as a result, a few important excerpts have made their way into books and articles. In the mid to late 1980s, however, after a considerable portion of the letters was purchased by Bonynge and Sutherland, only limited access to the collection was given. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Patrick Waddington, who has generously shared his knowledge of the history of this collection with me. 10 For a summary of the manner in which biographers have written about Viardot and Louis, as well as her close relationship with Ivan Turgenev, see Everist 2001–2002, 174– 175. 19 20 Hilary Poriss very unhappiness was a reproach to her, and his love must have been unbearable.11 Notwithstanding this and other dire pronouncements about their relationship, Pauline and Louis were married for over forty years, and while she might have downplayed the bond she shared with him in the midst of various flirtations, the letters she wrote while they were apart reveal a deeper picture of a relationship in which she clearly relied on him as her closest confidant. The new Viardot collection contains over fifty letters from Pauline to Louis.12 Unfortunately, his responses are not preserved here, and relatively few of his letters to his wife are known. Therefore, her missives represent a one-way conversation, albeit a vivid one. Viardot penned these letters between 1841 and 1861 from a variety of locations, including Moscow and St Petersburg where she toured in 1853, and Warsaw and various German cities in 1857–1858. Some of the letters mark singular moments when the couple was apart, mostly during the latter part of her career. The earliest letter, however, was written during Viardot’s second professional trip to England on 11 May 1841.13 Louis had accompanied her for most of this journey, which began in February, but he returned to France for ten days on business in May. Since the couple had been married a little over a year, this may be one 11 FitzLyon 1964, 199. 12 The shelf number for the letters is MS Mus 264 (76). Viardot’s devotion to writing is well known, and many of her letters have been published in part or in full. See, for instance, Sonneck, ed. 1915, 350–80, 526–59 and 1916, 32–60; Marix-Spire 1959; Friang 2008. Since Viardot had hundreds of correspondents who lived throughout Europe and beyond, the full extent and reach of her missives is still not fully understood. Patrick Waddington has compiled a database of most of Viardot’s known letters, which includes full transcriptions and introductions providing detailed context for each autograph. These missives are located in archives throughout the world. Both the scope and significance of Waddington’s work cannot be exaggerated. 13 Viardot’s first trip to London was in the spring of 1839. See FitzLyon 1964, 62–68. During this second trip, in 1841, she performed at Her Majesty’s Theatre; her first appearance was as Camilla in Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi ed i Curiazi on 11 March 1841. Other roles included Rossini’s Cenerentola, Tancredi, Arsace (Semiramide) and Desdemona (Otello), as well as Cimarosa’s Fidalma (Il matrimonio segreto). She also made a number of concert appearances. Pauline Viardot, on rivalry of the first letters, if not the first, that Pauline ever wrote to him. It is also the only communication to Louis in the Houghton collection that records a time before they had children.14 Indeed, she herself was still something of a chld – just a few months shy of twenty – and she opens this missive with a touchingly youthful gesture of empathy towards her new husband, an imaginary account of his travels back to France (see also Figure 1):15 My poor friend, what a rough crossing you had and you suffered so much! My heart told me so. I spent all day and evening on Saturday in a terrible anxiety, and I didn’t close my eyes all night – I only started to calm down on Sunday around midday, when I said to myself: “whatever type of crossing he has had, whatever delays he had to go through, he has arrived.[”] Finally, praise God, you are now fully recovered from your suffering, and without a doubt, probably already out and about – only, don’t push yourself too much I beg you! It’s better to stay another day in Paris than it is to expose yourself to being sick due to exhaustion and bowel irritation.16 She notes that she too had been physically unwell, referring to a cough that she contracted while he was still in London, but she remarks with some pluck that her voice “will definitely have to be back at its 14 The Viardots had four children: Louise-Marie-Pauline Héritte (1841–1918), ClaudiePauline-Marie Chamerot (1852–1914), Maria-Anne-Félicité (Marianne) Duvernoy (1854– 1919) and Paul-Louis-Joachim Viardot (1857–1941). 15 All transcriptions and translations are my own. I have transcribed Viardot’s writings exactly as she penned them, including her mistakes. I have left her small errors (missing accents, omitted hyphens and incorrect punctuation) unmarked; the larger errors (such as spelling mistakes) are noted with a sic. The English translations attempt to echo the original as closely as possible. 16 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (76), 11 May 1841: “Comment, mon pauvre ami, tu as fait une si mauvaise traversée, et tu as tant souffert ! le coeur me le disait. J’ai été toute la journée et la soirée du samedi dans une inquiétude affreuse, et je n’ai pas fermé l’œil de toute la nuit – je n’ai commencé à me calmer que le Dimanche vers midi, quand je me disais : ‘quelque traversée qu’il ait eu, quelque retard qu’il ait éprouvé, il est arrivé.[’] Enfin, Dieu soit loué, te voilà bien remis de tes souffrances, et sans doute déjà en courses – seulement ne te fatigue pas trop, je t’en prie ! il vaut mieux rester un jour de plus à Paris, que de t’exposer à être malade par suite d’épuisement et d’irritation d’entrailles.” 21 22 Hilary Poriss Figure 1. Pauline Viardot to Louis Viardot, London, 11 May 1841, p. 1 MS Mus 264 (76), folder 2, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Pauline Viardot, on rivalry post tomorrow, standing guard from morning to night, from Madame Caradori’s concert until that of Lord Burghersh.”17 Viardot refers here to two professional obligations that she was scheduled to fulfil on 12 May. The first was a grand morning concert given at Her Majesty’s Theatre for the benefit of Maria Caradori Allan (1800–1865); the second was an evening event, the sixth of a series of Ancient Concerts directed by Lord Burghersh (1784–1859).18 Viardot’s participation in the first of these events opens an interesting window on her time in London and her interactions with a potential rival. The soprano Maria Caradori Allan had a unique association with Viardot and her family, for she was the last singer to appear on stage with Maria Malibran. The story of Malibran’s death is well known: following a brutal fall from a horse in July 1836, she refused to rest or curtail any of her scheduled performances despite having sustained significant internal injuries. Her final appearance took place in a concert in Manchester, England, and the last piece she sang was the duet “Vanne se alberghi in petto” from Mercadante’s opera Andronico. Her partner was none other than Caradori Allan. According to Sir George Smart who conducted the performance, Malibran was caught off guard when Caradori Allan improvised a set of ornaments that they had not rehearsed, forcing Malibran to do the same, a stressful competition in front of a live audience. When the spectators demanded an encore, Malibran, past the point of utter exhaustion, opted to perform again rather than rest. It is possible that this contest was staged and that Malibran and Caradori Allan were merely feigning their ornamental rivalry. Regardless, at the conclusion of the encore, Malibran fainted 17 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (76), 11 May 1841: “…il faudra bien qu’elle soit au poste demain et qu’elle monte la garde du matin au soir, depuis le concert de Mme Caradori, jusqu’a celui de Lord Burghersh.” 18 Lord Burghersh, an amateur composer and founder of the Royal Academy of Music, frequently hosted concerts such as the one Viardot describes in this letter. For information on Lord Burghersh, see Garlington 2006, especially 20–27. At this concert, Viardot sang three numbers: the aria “Se cerca, se dice” from Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade, the aria “Verdi prati” from Handel’s Alcina and the duet (with Grisi) “Prenderò quel brunettino” from Mozart’s Così fan tutte. For a full programme of this concert and a list of the participants, see Morning Post 13 May 1841, p. 5. 23 24 Hilary Poriss and was carried offstage, never again to regain full consciousness. She died a few days later in her hotel room.19 Given this emotionally charged history and the role that Caradori Allan played during Malibran’s final moments, it is fascinating to learn that Viardot contributed willingly, and probably without pay, to this benefit concert. Foremost, her appearance indicates that neither Viardot nor other members of the Garcia clan held Caradori Allan to account for Malibran’s untimely demise. Indeed, accompanying Viardot on this trip to London was her mother, Joaquina Garcia (1780–1864). It is highly unlikely that the family matriarch would have allowed Pauline to participate in Caradori Allan’s benefit had there been any question of guilt. More interestingly, the choice to perform “Vanne se alberghi in petto” must be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to resurrect Malibran via direct comparison with the voice of her younger sister. The gesture is as macabre as it is compelling, appealing as it would have to a group of spectators for whom the memory of Malibran’s death was still fresh and whose beloved voice still resonated throughout London’s halls. Indeed, this was not the first time during the season that Viardot had courted comparison with her sister. Only a few days earlier, on 6 May 1841, she did the same as Fidalma in Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto. As John E. Cox recounted, [t]hose who remembered Malibran’s “make up” for that character were startled by the appearance of the sister upon her entrance upon the scene, and not a few of the oldest habitués exclaimed, loudly enough to be heard almost everywhere throughout the house, “Why, what does this mean? It cannot be Malibran.”20 Comparisons, in other words, could sometimes be useful, enhancing ticket sales as well as Viardot’s own reputation. Her casual reference to Caradori Allan in the letter of 11 May stands in stark contrast to the 19 For a contemporary description of Malibran’s final performance, see the first-hand account by Sir George Smart in Cox and Cox (eds.) 1907, 282–283. See also Castle 2012. 20 Cox 1872, vol. 2, 111. Pauline Viardot, on rivalry spiteful comments that she made in the same letter about a second musician, the pianist and composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886). The backdrop was a dinner party she attended on 10 May at the home of the conductor Julius Benedict whose guests also included the conductor Michael Costa and the bass Luigi Lablache as well as Liszt. Viardot and Liszt were old friends, having met many years earlier when she studied piano with him following the death of her second piano teacher, Charles Meysenberg.21 She and Liszt remained close throughout their lives, a friendship that ended only when he passed away.22 Their relationship had become strained in 1841, however, because Viardot’s close friend, George Sand, and Liszt’s mistress, Marie d’Agoult (1805–1876), disliked each other intensely, an animosity that rendered interactions between Viardot and Liszt awkward.23 Owing, perhaps, to this underlying tension, she penned the following to Louis: We had dinner on Sunday at Benedict’s house in the company of Costa, father Lablache, and Liszt. The latter did nothing but spout nonsense for six hours, six long hours! Here is one example among others that comes to mind and that I have to tell you: “a man” he says “is not a man if he takes back one word, one single word in his entire life, even if he were a hundred times wrong – a man must never admit to being wrong, neither in actions nor in words. He loses honour the moment that he asks forgiveness.” What do you think? Isn’t this a kind of monstrosity? There you have it, word for word, a sample of the one-sided and monotonous conversation by 21 Both the cause of Meysenberg’s death and the precise date are unknown, although his passing occurred around 1829, when he was approximately forty-five years old. Viardot’s first piano lessons occurred in Mexico City where she lived with her parents for approximately two years between 1826 and 1828. Her teacher there was Marcos Vega, the organist of the Catedral de la Asunción de María. 22 A memento of their long friendship is found in a journal that Viardot kept and that is now housed in Houghton’s collection. This document contains eighteen pages of handwritten text in which she recounted a few events that occurred during the 1880s, including a short, yet touching reminiscence of her final encounters with Liszt in 1886. The Houghton Library, Pauline Viardot-García Collection, MS Mus 264 (366). 23 FitzLyon 1964, 99–101. Dulong (1987, 51, especially nt 41) also mentions the strain between the two friends, citing a portion of the 11 May letter. For information on the friendship between Viardot and Sand, see Marix-Spire 1959. 25 26 Hilary Poriss that person – you can’t imagine the pain that it caused me – everyone’s nerves were on edge from listening and seeing him talk. Lablache was suffocating, Costa was muttering Neapolitan curses, and making horns at him – it would have been very amusing if it hadn’t been [so] painful.24 Why does Viardot evince such strong disappointment in Liszt, a man with whom she shared a lifelong friendship and on whom she once had a schoolgirl crush? It is possible that she exaggerated her negative feelings in an attempt to prevent Louis from growing jealous, a technique that biographers have argued Liszt himself employed when he described the evening to Marie d’Agoult.25 It is just as likely, however, that the disdain Viardot described in this letter was genuine, that she really thought he was acting like a bore. This is Viardot uncensored, in other words, a side of her personality that emerges more often in missives to her husband than to others. The inclination to pull no punches with Louis is even more pronounced in comments she made about many of the singers with whom she came into contact over the course of her travels. In a letter from September 1860, written in the midst of a tour through the United Kingdom that also included soprano Grisi and Mario, for instance, Viardot records this impression of another one of her co-stars, the soprano Josepha Gassier (1821–1866): 24 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (76), 11 May 1841: “Nous avons diné dimanche chez Benedict en compagnie de Costa, du père Lablache et de Liszt. Ce dernier n’a fait que débiter des sottises pendant six heures, six grandes heures ! en voici une, entr’autres qui me revient à l’esprit et qu’il faut que je te dise, c’est : ‘un homme’ dit il ‘n’en est pas un, s’il retraite un mot, une parole de sa vie, eut il cent fois tort – un homme ne doit jamais convenir de n’avoir pas raison, de faits et de paroles. il perd l’honneur du moment qu’il demande pardon.’ Que t’en semble ? n’est [ce] pas une espèce de monstruosité ? voilà mot à mot un spécimen de la conversation monologue et monotone de cet être là – tu ne peux te figurer la peine que cela m’a faite – tout le monde avait mal aux nerfs de l’entendre et le voir parler. Lablache étouffait, Costa marmottait des imprécations Napolitaines, et lui faisait les cornes – c’eut été très plaisant, si ce n’eut été pénible.” I must extend my gratitude to Kimberly Brown, who helped polish the translation of this passage. 25 See Liszt’s letter to d’Agoult, 10 May 1841, Ollivier (ed.) 1933, 134. In this letter, Liszt does not mention his monologue, but he does inform d’Agoult that he spoke with Viardot about Sand, warning his friend about Sand’s “love of intrigue and gossip and [her] deplorable lack of sincerity.” See FitzLyon 1964, 101–102. Pauline Viardot, on rivalry Madame Gassier is a spoiled child of the first magnitude. Everything she says, everything she does, and I’ll even bet everything she thinks stinks of prima donna assolutissima. Nothing is good enough, nothing is beautiful enough for her – she is always sacrified, etc. She is always complaining on top of everything else – I think that [the impresario Willert] Beale is fed up with her – and that he would pay a big tip to whoever would take her off his hands – .26 Later in the letter, her criticism becomes even more withering: “Madame Gassier is cold and stupid on stage.”27 Viardot’s honesty serves as a refreshing counterbalance to much biographical writing depicting her as almost uniformly angelic. Nowhere is this ambiguity between “good” and “bad” more pronounced than in an outburst regarding one of her most important contemporaries and competitors, Jenny Lind. As noted at the opening of this chapter, Lind and Viardot came into contact with one another in London in 1848 when they both performed the role of Bellini’s Amina at competing venues. Despite the awkwardness that this overlap must have generated, there is little evidence that the two divas bore one another ill will. In fact, in a letter to her friend Amalia Wichmann written in December 1847, Lind alluded to potential tensions but dismissed them quickly, adding that she was looking forward to seeing Viardot over the summer: 26 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (76), 18 September 1860: “Mme Gassier est un enfant gâté de prima sfera. Tout ce qu’elle dit, tout ce qu’elle fait, et je parie même tout ce qu’elle pense pue la prima donna assolutissima. Rien n’est assez bien, ni assez beau pour elle – elle est toujours sacrifiée etc. Elle est très plaignarde avec cela – Je crois que Beale en a par dessus la tête – et qu’il donnerait un fameux pourboire à celui qui l’en débarrasserait –”. 27 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (76), 18 September 1860: “Mme Gassier est froide et bête en scène.” Viardot’s animosity might have stemmed from the fact that Gassier, having recently returned from a successful tour through the United States, was capturing top billing in some of the provincial newspapers advertising the concert tour. See, for instance, the announcements published in Leamington Spa Courier 18 August 1860, p. 2, and Birmingham Post 29 August 1860, p. 1. Earlier, moreover, Gassier had achieved enormous success as Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (one of Viardot’s signature roles) at the Théâtre-Italien, Paris. See Le Ménestrel 15 October 1854, p. 1, and 17 December 1854, p. 3. 27 28 Hilary Poriss Give my warm greetings to Viardot. Tell her that I have never doubted that she is a splendid and magnificent woman, and that it never occurred to me to compare her with the vast majority of ordinary artists, that is, with most of the women singers of today. I am delighted that we shall see each other in London.28 A few months later, moreover, also in a letter to Wichmann, Lind alluded to a subpar performance on Viardot’s part: “Well, our friend Pauline Viardot did not do too well with the opera.”29 Lind, in other words, gave voice to minor complaints, but nothing that would indicate serious animosity between the two prima donnas. It is surprising, therefore, to read a very different assessment by Viardot, albeit written many years later, in a letter to Louis from Berlin dated 31 January 1858. Here, she unleashed a tirade of a wholly different magnitude against her rival, as well as against her older brother Manuel Garcia, fils, Lind’s vocal teacher: Manuel is happy with his Lind and his never-ending comparison with her career. He imagines that I could do in England what she has done there, and it seems to me that he is strangely deceiving himself. For this to happen, my career would have had to have been built on Piles of Puff – and nothing is further from the truth. I never had to be pushed when I felt like going somewhere […] I have never tried to convert anyone. I was not afraid to get married first, I never wanted to be considered a saint, and therefore I have never deceived anyone. While it is true that I never made 100 £ donations to hospitals, I do not despise mankind – I try to make myself useful to a few people without the accompaniment of trumpets and fanfares, and I try to make myself loved a little, all of this silently and without any show. I rarely read the Bible – I am not humbled by pride – in a word, I don’t do a lot of things that she does, and I do a lot of things that she doesn’t, what the heck! Everyone pur- 28 Lind 1966, 55. 29 Ibid., 59. Letter to Amalia Wichmann from London, 21 June 1848. Pauline Viardot, on rivalry sues their work in their own way – the work that Jenny Lind does outside of her art is neither within the means nor the tastes of everyone. 30 This passage is notable for the manner in which Viardot articulates the distance between herself and her rival, a chasm that she digs using a carefully selected collection of dichotomies: Lind carries herself as a saint and therefore she deceives, Viardot does not; Lind attempted to convert others to Christianity, Viardot was not interested in spreading the faith; Lind waited to get married, Viardot made the leap when she was only eighteen; and so on. One of the most interesting features of this excerpt is that Viardot’s complaints are grounded almost entirely in the personal. Despite the fact that Lind was still a major competitor in 1858, she had already retired from the operatic stage, rendering her less threatening on a professional level. National and religious differences might have also helped stoke a sense of rivalry. Although both singers’ origins and backgrounds were complex and the customary French/English and Catholic/Protestant dichotomy did not literally apply, Lind’s status as an honorary Englishwoman who was well regarded by the royal family and Viardot’s strong French alliances were undoubtedly responsible for some fraction of this animosity. There is more than a touch of defensiveness sprinkled throughout Viardot’s description, moreover, no doubt heightened by the fact that her brother, the famous vocal ped- 30 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (76), 31 January1858: “Manuel est bon avec sa Lind et son éternelle comparaison avec sa carrière. Il s’imagine que je pourrais faire en Angleterre ce qu’elle y a fait, et il me semble qu’il s’abuse étrangement – Pour cela il faudrait que ma carrière à moi eut été bâtie sur Pilotis de Puff – et rien n’y ressemble moins. Je ne me suis jamais fait prier quand j’ai eu envie d’aller quelque part […] je n’ai jamais essayé de convertir personne, je n’ai pas eu peur de me marier tout d’abord, je n’ai jamais voulu passer pour une sainte, aussi je n’ai trompé personne. Il est vrai que je n’ai jamais donné des 100 £ à des hôpitaux – je ne méprise pas l’humanité – je tâche de me rendre utile à quelques personnes sans accompagt de trompettes et de fanfares, et de me faire aimer un peu, tout silencieusement et sans démonstrations. Je lis peu la bible – je ne suis pas humble par orgueil – enfin je ne fais pas des tas de choses qu’elle fait, et j’en fais qu’elle ne fait pas que Diable ! Chacun son métier – Le métier que fait Jenny Lind en dehors de son art, n’est pas dans les moyens ni dans les goûts de tout le monde.” This excerpt has been quoted previously, although until now, it has been mistaken as having originated in a letter that Viardot wrote to her mother. (See Dulong 1987, 77.) 29 30 Hilary Poriss agogue, was an unwavering supporter and teacher of Lind. 31 That he wanted his sister to emulate Lind, rather than the other way around, must have generated no small amount of tension at the family table. 32 Despite depicting herself as a sort of anti-saint, there is no mistaking that Viardot also adopted a tone in this letter that is distinctly holier-than-thou. She dismissed Lind’s career as having been built on “Piles of Puff,” for instance, a reference to the adulatory newspaper and periodical articles that rained down on Lind throughout her career, but Viardot was not entirely sheltered from such praise, and she could not have been displeased when puff pieces came her way. 33 Moreover, her reference to charitable work is intriguing, for it provides rare insight into a contemporary’s impressions of Lind’s famous philanthropic gestures. Although her giving undoubtedly stemmed from a genuine sense of duty towards the poor and infirm, there can be no question that her efforts were also the product of carefully constructed publicity stunts geared to raising her to a saintly status in the eyes of an adoring public. Viardot refers subtly to this possibility in her letter, but she becomes disingenuous when she characterises herself as miserly in contrast, claiming that she “never made 100 £ donations to hospitals.” Louis himself must have recognised his wife’s insincerity, in part because he helped coordinate their finances, but also because in a letter she had sent to him from Warsaw only a few weeks earlier on 9 January 1858, Viardot admits to a charitable act that would have rivalled any that Lind herself had committed. Describing a concert in which she had performed the previous evening, Viardot first commented on how graciously the women of Polish high society had acted towards her, and then she wrote the following: 31 Garcia’s most important pedagogical accomplishment was the publication of his Traité complet de l’art du chant 1840 and 1847. For a compelling perspective on his influence as a teacher, see Bloch 2007, 11–31. 32 I must extend my gratitude to George Biddlecombe and Patrick Waddington, whose thoughts on this passage have helped frame this discussion of Lind. 33 Perhaps the best-known and most highly influential “puff pieces” about Viardot were written by two of her close acquaintances at the earliest stage of her singing career: de Musset (1839, 110–116) and Sand (1840, 580–590). Pauline Viardot, on rivalry I took advantage of this fine moment, when the ladies were overwhelming me with kindness, in order to make a small collection to benefit a poor young woman who found herself in profound misery with a dead husband and five small children on her hands. This little collection, made in my little home, produced 63 silver roubles! It’s nice, isn’t it? I’ll bring it to my poor victim tomorrow – it’s a surprise that she is certainly not expecting […]34 Ultimately, Viardot’s character sketch of Lind, as well as her descriptions of other singers compels one to question how easy it was for her to have liked any of her fellow performers. To what extent does Viardot’s antipathy indicate a sense of mutual suspicion that permeated the world of all singers during the nineteenth century and how far does this suspicion extend? Although this question might appear nebulous and ultimately unanswerable, it is worth raising because Viardot’s letters provide unique descriptions of what life was like on the road for a nineteenth-century prima donna, setting a backdrop against which to ponder this issue and the implications that such nascent animosity might have had for the opera industry in general. 35 Similarly useful in addressing this issue, albeit from a more sedentary perspective, is Viardot’s unfinished and unpublished memoir. Viardot’s “Souvenirs” My first memory. A very well-lit salon, many ladies and gentlemen lined up, seated in tight rows – a large, lit chandelier. Under the chandelier, a table; on that table, a small child’s chair – on that small chair, a little girl. A play is being performed in a puppet theatre. The characters, at 34 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (76), 9 January 1858: “J’ai profité d’un bon moment où ces dames m’accablaient de douceurs pour faire une petite collecte en faveur d’une pauvre jeune femme qui se trouvait dans une profonde misère avec un mari mourant et 5 petits enfants sur les bras. Cette petite quête, faite dans mon petit foyer a produit 63 roubles argent ! C’est joli, n’est ce pas ? je vais les porter dès demain à ma pauvre protégée – C’est une surprise à laquelle elle ne s’attend certainement pas […].” 35 In Poriss 2015, I speak at greater length about the letters that Viardot wrote to Louis during her trip to Warsaw in 1857–58 and in particular about her life on the road. 31 32 Hilary Poriss least those who make them move, are singing quartets intermingled with dialogue. The artists are: Manuel Garcia père, Manuel Garcia fils, Madame Garcia and my sister Maria Félicité Garcia. I am the heroine of the party. I perfectly remember that in the first row of spectators in front of me, one could see heads of the Dukes of Wellington and Cambridge. I was 4 years old. 36 Thus opens Viardot’s memoir. She began writing this official story of her life as an older woman, in December 1879, and continued to work on it at least until 1884. Viardot also kept private diaries, but this project was different—an autobiographical account that she intended to make public. Unfortunately, she never completed her “Souvenirs” and it was not published, but the unfinished document is revealing nevertheless. Over the course of ninety-three, neatly handwritten pages, Viardot initiated what was clearly meant to be a measured history of her whole career beginning with her earliest childhood memories. In it, she deals with painful moments from her past, including the deaths of her father and of Maria Malibran, and she recalled a variety of pleasant vignettes about people who were important to her such as Clara and Robert Schumann, members of the Mendelssohn family and the bass Luigi Lablache. Viardot cut off this reconstruction of her life at a frustratingly early moment in her career: following a discussion of the 1843–44 season when she made her victorious debut in St Petersburg, Russia, she stopped writing. This incomplete autobiography, in other words, covers only a small portion of her life, an uneven story that captures too little and ends too soon. 36 Houghton Library, Harvard, MS Mus 264 (365). “Mon premier souvenir. Un salon très eclairée, beaucoup de dames et de messieurs, assis en rangs d’oignons presses – un grand lustre allumé. Sous le lustre une table sur cette table, une petite chaise d’enfants – dans cette petite chaise, une petite fille. On joue une pièce sur un theâtre de marionettes [sic]. Les personnages, du moins ceux qui les font mouvoir, chantent des quatuors entremeles au dialogue. Les artistes sont : Manuel Garcia père, Manuel Garcia fils, Mme Garcia et ma sœur Maria Félicité Garcia. L’héroine de la fête c’est moi. Je me souviens parfaitement qu’au 1er rang du spectateur devant moi [offset : se voyaient], des tetes des Ducs de Wellington et de Cambridge. J’avais 4 ans.” Viardot’s “Souvenirs” is located in a notebook that consists of two parts: in the first, she kept a journal on and off between 1863 and 1878; the second contains her “Souvenirs”. Pauline Viardot, on rivalry Nevertheless, Viardot’s “Souvenirs” is significant, for not only does it reveal some new details of her life, it also sheds light on her feelings towards a few of her contemporaries. For the purpose of this exploration, I would like to unpack only one passage of the “Souvenirs”, the final section where Viardot penned an impressionistic description of the German soprano Henrietta Sontag (1806–1854). In it, one finds a multilayered discussion of a singer who was once closely associated with Maria Malibran and whose influence was clearly felt by Viardot. Tinges of rivalry and strokes of comparison are scattered throughout the discussion, although not all are negative. Sontag achieved her greatest fame throughout Europe in the 1820s, but she retired prematurely in 1830 because her husband’s rank and position in the Sardinian diplomatic service did not permit his wife to appear on the public stage. 37 Nevertheless, she maintained her vocal health throughout retirement, performing in private affairs and practising consistently enough that she was able to return to the stage in 1849 when it became financially necessary for her to do so. According to Viardot’s memoir, she encountered Sontag in Berlin in the later part of 1843 when they spent a leisurely afternoon together talking and singing. 38 The five-paragraph description of Sontag, which occasionally reads like an encyclopedia entry, begins with an assessment of her reputation and voice: The most famous singer, and rightly so, of which Germany can boast. She could be compared in every way to Mme Damoreau. Same type of voice, light soprano [petit soprano]. Nice voice but without strength – same precise intonation, same perfection down to the smallest details. 37 For more on Sontag, see Russell 1964. 38 In the “Souvenirs”, Viardot incorrectly dates this meeting as having occurred during the 1841–42 season. This was not the first time the two prima donnas had met. In 1838, when Sontag was on her way to St Petersburg and Viardot (still Pauline Garcia) was on tour in Germany, they performed a duet together in Frankfurt, most likely at a private gathering. According to Ellen Creathorne Clayton, “[p]robably Henrietta recalled the days of her glorious rivalry with the dead sister of Pauline, when they had walked on flowers to receive the ovations offered by Paris and London” (Clayton 1863, 404). 33 34 Hilary Poriss Mme Sontag had, in addition, German “Schwämerei,” that is to say a certain poetic reverie that came over her face as soon as she sang – she could be pathetic at times, never dramatic – and it seems to me that Madame Damoreau could be neither one nor the other. 39 Although this description is largely complimentary, there are a few turns of phrase that are not entirely kind. While granting Sontag her fame (albeit solely in the context of German singers), and commenting on her “nice voice” and “precise intonation,” for instance, Viardot nevertheless leaves the vague impression that her subject may not have been entirely first-rate. She accomplishes this directly, informing the reader that Sontag was an un-dramatic performer and that her voice lacked strength, as well as indirectly, couching a hint of sarcasm in her comment about poetic reverie overcoming Sontag’s facial expressions. Significantly, moreover, the entire description is predicated on a comparison between Sontag and a second important prima donna, soprano Laure Cinti-Damoreau (1801–1863), whose career flourished in the 1830s. Sontag comes out ahead, but what is interesting is not who wins or loses; it is that Viardot felt compelled to introduce a competition into a context that could just as easily have done without. Her impulse to compare these divas came naturally, a standard manner of thinking and writing about prima donnas that emerged from a world in which singers were continually being held up to (and often against) one another. Just as Viardot was often compared to her predecessors and contemporaries in the press, so too did she adopt this rhetorical technique when describing others in her own writing. Significantly, the person with whom Sontag was most frequently compared during the early part of her career was none other than 39 “Souvenirs” (Houghton Library, Harvard Library, MS Mus 264 [365], p. 91). “La plus célèbre cantatrice, et à juste titre, dont l’Allemagne puisse s’enorgueillir. On pourrait la comparer en tous points à Mme Damoreau. Même genre de voix, petit soprano. Voix sympathique mais sans force – même justesse d’intonation, même perfection jusque dans les moindres détails. Mme Sontag avait en plus la ‘Schwämerei’ allemande, c’est-à-dire une certaine rêverie poëtique [sic] qui s’emparait de sa physionomie dès qu’elle chantait – elle pouvait être pathétique par moments, dramatique jamais – et il me semble que Mme Damoreau ne pouvait être ni l’un ni l’autre.” Pauline Viardot, on rivalry Maria Malibran. Their encounters in Paris in the 1820s began as highly rancorous. According to Ellen Creathorne Clayton, “The rivalry between Malibran and Sontag […] reached such a height that they would not even meet in the same salon; the partisans of each, as it always happens, contributed to give to this rivalry an aspect of vindictiveness, and on the stage, when they sang in the same opera, their jealousy was scarcely disguised.”40 In May 1828, however, when Sontag and Malibran were both in London, they were persuaded to perform duets together and, “the effect of the fusion of the two voices, so different in tone, character, and expression, was so fine, that a complete triumph sealed their reconciliation.”41 From then on, they shared the stage in numerous operas and concerts, their performances of bel canto duets enrapturing spectators throughout Paris and London.42 In Viardot’s next paragraph, Sontag’s former relationship with Malibran takes on a special significance: Together we sang all of the duets that she had sung so often with Maria – and she was continually surprised by the resemblance between my voice and my sister’s, and by our perfect ensemble in those duets even though we had never rehearsed them. I believe that in the andantes she sang the changes and the cadenzas that Maria had taught her, just like Mme Grisi, who had passed them on to me! Ah, but […] very musical and imaginative, she [Malibran] constantly varied her vocal lines, while Mme Sontag would perform at the end of her life the same way that she had been taught at her debut.43 40 Clayton 1863, 306. 41 Ibid., 307. 42 See Davies 2012, 123–146. 43 “Souvenirs” (Houghton Library, Harvard Library, MS Mus 264 [365], p. 92). “Nous avons chanté ensemble tous les duos qu’elle avait tant chantés avec Maria – et elle [était] toujours étonnée de la ressemblance de ma voix avec celle de ma sœur, et de l’ensemble parfait de ces duos que nous n’avions pourtant jamais répété[s]. Je le crois, elle faisait dans les andantes les changements et les points d’orgue que Maria lui avait enseignés, tout comme Mme Grisi, qui me les avait repassés ! Ah par exemple […] très musicienne et avec de l’imagination, elle variait sans cesse ses traits, tandis que Mme Sontag faisait à la fin de sa vie les traits qu’on lui avait appris à ses débuts.”. 35 36 Hilary Poriss This anecdote is touching as well as reminiscent of Viardot’s earlier appearance with Caradori Allan. In both instances, Viardot sang in place of her departed sister, resurrecting her memory by performing Malibran’s repertory with her former partners. Tucked into this passage, moreover, is a fascinating clue regarding nineteenth-century diva culture: that Malibran taught Sontag certain ornaments and cadenzas and that Grisi did the same for Viardot indicates that the line between rivalry and pedagogy may have been frequently blurred. While it should come as no surprise that these women learned much from one another, tales of their rivalries are so prevalent that accounts of collaborations have largely been hidden from view. Nevertheless, Viardot’s reference to this sort of cooperation quickly morphs once again into a vaguely aspersive sentiment: Malibran, able to creatively alter her ornaments and cadenzas, emerges as superior to Sontag who, Viardot projects, will continue to sing the same alterations to her dying days. Viardot continues this mixed discourse in her next two paragraphs, weaving together both positive and negative impressions of Sontag: She was a beautiful woman, blonde, with big beautiful sentimental eyes, a little nose, a little mouth with which she smirked very pleasantly, friendly, benevolent to young artists, she loved them less and less as they grew in talent and success. Such is the old rat always nibbling at the heart of artists! She went regularly to my performances – and just as regularly she would have some sort of soirée, which forced her to leave her loge at the moment of the final aria of Sonnambula or of the Barbier (Variations from Cenerentola).44 44 “Souvenirs” (Houghton Library, Harvard Library, MS Mus 264 [365], pp. 92-93). “Elle était jolie femme, blonde, avec de grands beaux yeux sentimentals [sic], un petit nez[,] une petite bouche avec laquelle elle minaudait fort agréablement[,] aimable, bienveillante pour les jeunes artistes, elle les aimait de moins en moins à mesure qu’ils grandissaient en talent et en succès. Ça, c’est toujours le vieux rat qui grignotte [sic] le cœur des artistes ! Elle suivait mes représentations régulièrement – et assez regulièrement aussi, elle avait quelque soirée qui l’obligeait à quitter sa loge au moment de l’air final de la Sonnambula, ou du Barbier. (Var : de Cenerentola).” Pauline Viardot, on rivalry What began as a straightforward description of Sontag’s famous good looks modulates, via the diva’s mouth, to a generalised statement regarding artistic patronage and jealousy, camaraderie and rivalry, all mingling conspicuously close. According to Viardot, Sontag possessed a Janus-faced personality that emerged most perceptibly in her interactions with young talent. She could be supportive of fledgling artists, but only up to a point—once they began to exhibit gifts that approached her own, niceties would cease. Viardot implies that she, too, experienced Sontag’s reprisals, noting that the senior diva would absent herself from the theatre as soon as Viardot’s moment to shine at the end of La Sonnambula or during the lesson scene in the second act of the Il barbiere di Siviglia arrived. This recollection is fascinating in light of an event that occurred a few years following Viardot and Sontag’s meeting in St Petersburg, on 12 July 1849. On this evening, Sontag, who had been in semi-retirement for nineteen years, made her comeback appearance at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London. The opera was Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and she starred in the role of Rosina. According to press reports, Viardot imitated Sontag’s own actions, attending the performance, but leaving midway through the first act, right after Rosina’s cavatina, “Una voce poco fa.” Whether or not she exited in full view of Sontag, drawing attention to herself, is unknown. What is certain, however, is that Viardot went next to Covent Garden where another important contemporary and rival, Giulia Grisi, was performing in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. It was reported that Grisi “seemed to gather new strength and fire from the fact that Pauline Garcia had arrived in London.”45 On this particular evening in July, in other words, Viardot reversed the tables on her contemporaries – instead of Sontag walking out on her, she walked out on Sontag; instead of Grisi sitting nearby as she did on that fateful night in 1848 when Viardot made her debut at Covent Garden, this time it was Viardot who sat close to Grisi. The meaning of these gestures might have been grounded in rivalry, but they just as easily could have 45 Waddington “Chronology, ” 232. Musical World 14 July 1849, p. 433, and 21 July 1849, p. 451; Examiner 14 July 1849, p. 438. 37 38 Hilary Poriss been borne in a burst of generosity – one performer doing her best to support two of her most important colleagues on an evening when they happened to be competing against one another. There might be no better illustration of the fluidity with which sentiments such as rivalry were likely felt by Viardot and her contemporaries, a powerful emotion at times and absent at others. Viardot concludes her assessment of Sontag with a paragraph that is out of character with everything that preceded it, veering into an unfriendly description of Sontag’s husband: Count Rossi, the Italian ambassador to Berlin, was one of the most unpleasant men in the world – false air, sickly sweet, handsome infatuated old man and all too banal. I would not be surprised if there were some truth to the rumours that circulated at the time of the sudden death of his wife. Suddenly dead in Mexico, around the same time as a young tenor with whom she sang at the theatre, they say it was because of iced drinks … (by Count Rossi) they would add in hushed tones.46 In one fell swoop, Viardot depicts Rossi as possessing a highly unpleasant personality, implies that Sontag had an affair with a young tenor, and accuses Rossi of poisoning both his wife and her alleged lover. The fact that Viardot does not mention the cause of Sontag’s death as reported by every newspaper and journal at the time (cholera) is odd. She allowed gossip and slander to overtake this brief discussion of her elder rival, and then, just as suddenly as she began, she cut it off. Abruptly and inexplicably, Viardot ceased working not just on this description of Sontag, but also on the memoir itself. What should have been a minor section in the book becomes its final gesture, leaving 46 “Souvenirs” (Houghton Library, Harvard Library, MS Mus 264 [365], p. 93). “Le Cte Rossi, ministre d’Italie à Berlin, etait l’homme du monde le plus désagréable – l’air faux, doucereux, vieux beau fat et tout ce qu’il y a de plus banal. Je ne serais pas étonnée qu’il y eut du vrai dans les bruits qui ont couru lors de la mort subite de sa femme. Morte subitement au Mexique, presqu’en même temps qu’un jeune ténor avec qui elle chantait au Théâtre[,] on a dit que c’etait par suite de boissons glacées … (par le Comte Rossi) ajoutait-on tout bas.” Pauline Viardot, on rivalry the reader stranded, deprived of a complete discussion of Viardot’s career as singer, composer and teacher. It also leaves the reader with the distinct impression that her feelings towards Sontag were far more adversarial than sympathetic. Why did Viardot terminate her memoir at this moment? Maybe she became distracted by other activities; maybe the act of recording her life stopped interesting her; or maybe a combination of these and other reasons compelled her to set the document aside. Ultimately, the question of why she stopped is unanswerable, although in this context, it is instructive to speculate on one other possible factor: perhaps Viardot’s decision to stop writing had something to do with the nature of her description of Sontag. Maybe Viardot looked over what she had written and was struck by the mixture of disdain and nostalgia with which she described her sister’s former rival, a singer whose return to the stage in 1849 meant that she became a direct competitor as well. Perhaps Viardot recognised a side of herself that she viewed as vaguely unpleasant, and more importantly, maybe she saw that this passage exposed a facet of her character that she felt was better left hidden from potential readers. Not moving forward with this memoir, in other words, might have represented an attempt to distance herself from a sense of rivalry and to make amends with the diva competitors of her past. Perhaps she decided it best to rewrite history by leaving this particular history unwritten. As Pauline Viardot’s letters and memoirs illustrate, Franz Liszt, Josepha Gassier, Jenny Lind, Giulia Grisi, Henriette Sontag and a host of others crowded Viardot’s thoughts during her career and thereafter, her relationship with each occasionally contentious, sometimes loving, never uncomplicated. There is, perhaps, no better demonstration of the difficult nature of rivalry and comparison than Viardot’s relationship with her departed sister. As demonstrated at various moments throughout this chapter, Malibran, who died when Viardot was only fifteen years old, remained a continuous presence. Comparisons between the two sisters saturated the initial stages of Viardot’s career, and although they tapered off as the younger sister developed her own unique reputation, they never ceased entirely. Viardot actively courted 39 40 Hilary Poriss this association at the beginning of her career, moreover, and in an interview with the musician Reynaldo Hahn that occurred toward the end of her life – in 1901 or 1902 – she still spoke about her voice in reference to Malibran’s. In particular, she pointed out that Malibran’s voice was deeper than her own and that a pair of notes in her sister’s middle register gave her an enormous amount of trouble. Viardot later attempted to overcome this difficulty in her own voice, for as Hahn wrote, “Viardot still remembers studying these two notes stubbornly and exclaiming ‘Malditas notas!’”47 There is no doubt that these comparisons and attempts to overcome her sister’s legacy were borne of rivalry, but they were also rooted in admiration and adulation. Indeed, as this example and the others provided above illustrate, prima donna rivalries were by no means cut-and-dried. Rather, their relationships were often an intricate mix of distaste and admiration, distrust and loyalty. In most cases, it is inaccurate to assume that one diva was more pure of heart than another – in most cases, the situation lay somewhere in between. Bibliography Archival sources and other unprinted sources Pauline Viardot-García additional papers, Houghton Library, Harvard Library, Harvard University, MS Mus 264. Patrick Waddington’s “A Chronology of the Life of Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910)”. Patrick Waddington’s home archive. Newspapers and Magazines Birmingham Post Examiner Fraser’s Magazine Illustrated London News Leamington Spa Courier 47 Hahn 1933, 7: “Mme Viardot se la rappelle encore étudiant ces deux notes obstinément et s’écriant: ‘Malditas notas !’” Pauline Viardot, on rivalry Le Ménestrel Morning Post Musical World The Times Literature Aspden, Suzanne 2006. The ‘Rival Queans’ and the Play of Identity in Handel’s Admeto, Cambridge Opera Journal 18: 301–331. Bloch, Gregory 2007. The Pathological Voice of Gilbert Louis-Duprez, Cambridge Opera Journal 19: 11–31. Castle, Terry 2012. Breath’s End: Opera and Mortality, in Rachel Cowgill and Hilary Poriss (eds.), Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century, 206–213, New York: Oxford University Press. Chorley, Henry F. 1862; rpt 1926. Thirty Years’ Musical Recollections, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Clayton, Ellen (Eleanor) Creathorne 1864. Queens of Song, New York: Harper & Brothers. Cox, H. Bertram and G. L. E. Cox, eds 1907. Leaves from the Journal of Sir George Smart, London: Longmans, Green. Cox, John E. 1872. Musical Recollections of the Last Half Century, 2 vols, London: Tinsley Brothers. Davies, J. Q. 2012. Gautier’s ‘Diva’: The First French Uses of the Word, in Rachel Cowgill and Hilary Poriss (eds.), Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century, 123–146, New York: Oxford University Press. Dulong, Gustave 1987. Pauline Viardot, tragédienne lyrique, Paris: Association des amis d’Ivan Tourgueniev, Pauline Viardot et Maria Malibran. Everist, Mark 2001–2002. “Enshrining Mozart: Don Giovanni and the Viardot Circle,” 19thCentury Music, 25: 165–89. FitzLyon, April 1964. The Price of Genius: A Life of Pauline Viardot, London: John Calder. Friang, Michèle 2008. Pauline Viardot au miroir de sa correspondance, Paris: Hermann. Garcia, Manuel, fils 1840 and 1847. Traité complet de l’art du chant, 2 vols., Paris: Schott and Mainz. Garlington, Aubrey S. 2006. Society, Culture and Opera in Florence, Aldershot: Ashgate. Hahn, Reynaldo. 1933. Notes (Journal d’un musicien), Paris: Librairie Plon. Kaufman, Tom 1997. The Grisi-Viardot Controversy, 1848–1852, Opera Quarterly 14: 7–22. Kendall-Davies, Barbara 2003. Life and Work of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, vol. I: The Years of Fame, 1836–1863, Amersham: Cambridge Scholars. Lind, Jenny 1966. The Lost Letters of Jenny Lind, translated from the German and edited with commentaries by W. Porter Ware and Thaddeus C. Lockard, Jr., London: Gollancz. Marix-Spire, Thérese 1959. Lettres inédites de George Sand et de Pauline Viardot 18391849, Paris: Nouvelles Éditions latines. 41 42 Hilary Poriss Musset, Alfred de 1839. Concert de Mademoiselle Garcia, Revue des deux mondes, 1 January: 110–116. Ollivier, Daniel, ed. 1933. Correspondance de Liszt et de la Comtesse d’Agoult, 1833–40, vol. 2, Paris: B. Grasset. Poriss, Hilary 2015. Pauline Viardot, Travelling Virtuosa, Music & Letters 96: 185–208. Rosenthal, Harold 1958. Two Centuries of Opera, London: Putnam. Russell, Frank 1964. Queen of Song: The Life of Henrietta Sontag, New York: Exposition Press. Rutherford, Susan 2006. The Prima Donna and Opera, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sand, George 1840. Le Théâtre-Italien de Paris et Mlle Pauline Garcia, Revue des deux mondes 15 February: 580–590. Sonneck, Oscar, ed. and Theodore Baker, trans., Pauline Viardot-Garcia to Julius Rietz: Letters of Friendship, Musical Quarterly 1 (1915): 350–80, 526–59 and 2 (1916): 32–60. Steen, Michael 2007. Enchantress of Nations, Pauline Viardot: Soprano, Muse and Lover, Cambridge: Icon Books.