Chapter III

In the following year (1833), Mme. Schröder-Devrient sang under Mr. Bunn at the Covent Garden Theatre, appearing in several of Weber's and Mozart's masterpieces. She was becoming more and more of a favorite with the English public. The next season she devoted herself again to the stage of Germany, where she was on the whole best understood and appreciated, her faults more uniformly ignored. She appeared in twelve operas by native composers in Berlin, and thence went to Vienna and St. Petersburg. She proceeded to Italy in 1835, where she sang for eighteen months in the principal cities and theatres of that country, and succeeded in evoking from the critical Italians as warm a welcome as she had commanded elsewhere. In one city the people were so enthusiastic that they unharnessed her horses, and drew her carriage home from the theatre after her closing performance. Although she never entirely mastered the Italian school, she yet displayed so much intelligence, knowledge, and faculty in her art-work, that all catholic lovers of music recognized her great talents. She appeared again in Vienna in 1836, with Mme. Tadolini, Genaro, and Galli, singing in "L'Elisir d'Amore," and works of a similar cast, operas unsuited, one would think, to the peculiar _cachet_ of her genius, but her ability in comic and romantic operas, though never so striking as in grand tragedy, seemed to develop with practice.

Her last English engagement was in 1837, opening the season with a performance of "Fidelio" in English. The whole performance was lamentably inferior to that at the Opera-House in 1832. "Norma" was produced, Schröder-Devrient being seconded by Wilson, Giubilei, and Miss Betts. She was either very ill advised or overconfident, for her "massy" style of singing was totally at variance with the light beauty of Bellini's music. Her conception of the character, however, was in the grandest style of histrionic art. "The sibyls of Michael Angelo are not more grand," exclaimed one critic; "but the vocalization of Pasta and Grisi is wholly foreign to her." During this engagement, Mme. Schröder-Devrient was often unable to perform, from serious illness. From England she went to the Lower Rhine.

In 1839 she was at Dresden with Herr Tichatschek, one of the first tenors of Germany, a handsome man, with a powerful, sweet, and extensive voice. In June, 1841, she gave a performance at Berlin, to assist the Parisian subscription for a monument to Cherubini. The opera was "Les Deux Journées," in which she took her favorite part of _Constance_. The same year she sang at Dresden with the utmost success, in a new _rôle_ in Goethe's "Tasso," in which she was said to surpass her _Fidelio_. For several years Mme. Schröder-Devrient resided in perfect seclusion in the little town of Rochlitz, and appeared to have forgotten all her stage ambition. Suddenly, however, she made her reappearance at Dresden in the _rôle_ of _Romeo_ in Bellini's "I Montecchi ed i Capuletti." She had lost a good deal of her vocal power and skill, yet her audiences seemed to be moved by the same magic glamour as of old, in consequence of her magnificent acting. Among other works in which she performed during this closing operatic season of her life was Gluck's "Iphigenie en Aulis," which was especially revived for her. Johanna Wagner, the sister of the great composer, was also in the cast, and a great enthusiasm was created by a general stage presentation of almost unparalleled completeness for that time.

Mme. Devrient retired permanently from the stage in the year 1849, having amassed a considerable fortune by her professional efforts. She made a second matrimonial venture with a rich Livonian proprietor named Bock, with whom she retired to his estate. Her retirement occasioned profound regret throughout Germany, where she was justly looked on as one of the very greatest artists, if, indeed, even this reservation could be made, who had ever shone on their lyric stage. The Emperor Francis I. paid Mme. Schröder a compliment which had never before been paid to a German singer. He ordered her portrait to be painted in all her principal characters, and placed in the collection of the Imperial Museum. Six years after her farewell from the stage, an Italian critic, Scudo, heard her sing in a private house in Paris, and speaks very disparagingly of her delivery of the melodies of Schubert in a weak, thin voice. She, like Malibran, possessed one of those voices which needed incessant work and practice to keep it in good order, though she did not possess the consummate musical knowledge and skill of Malibran. She was a woman of great intelligence and keen observation; an artist of the most passionate ardor and impetuosity, always restrained, however, by a well-studied control and reserve; in a word, a great lyric tragedienne rather than a great singer in the exact sense of that word. She must be classed with that group of dramatic singers who were the interpreters of the school of music which arose in Germany after the death of Mozart, and which found its most characteristic type in Carl Maria von Weber, for Beethoven, who on one side belongs to this school, rather belonged to the world, like Shakespeare in the drama, than to a single nationality. Mme. Schröder-De-vrient died February 9, 1860, at Cologne, and the following year her marble bust was placed in the Opera-House at Berlin.

GIULIA GRISI.

The Childhood of a Great Artist.--Giulietta Grisi's Early Musical Training.--Giuditta Grisi's Pride in the Talents of her Young Sister.--Her Italian _Début_ and Success.--She escapes from a Managerial Taskmaster and takes Refuge in Paris.--Impression made on French Audiences.--Production of Bellini's "Puritani."--Appearance before the London Public.--Character of Grisi's Singing and Acting.--Anecdotes of the Prima Donna.--Marriage of Mlle. Grisi.--Her Connection with Other Distinguished Singers.--Rubini, his Character as an Artist, and Incidents of his Life.--Tamburini, another Member of the First Great "Puritani" Quartet.--Lablache, the King of Operatic Bassos.--His Career as an Artist.--His Wonderful Genius as Singer and Actor.--Advent of Mario on the Stage.--His Intimate Association with Mme. Grisi as Woman and Artist.--Incidents of Mario's Life and Character as an Artist.--Grisi's Long Hold on the Stage for more than a Quarter Century.--Her American Tour.--Final Retirement from her Profession.--The Elements of her Greatness as a Goddess of Song.