Genius, Scandal and Death: Maria — Singer and Diva
What was Maria Malibran, scion of the illustrious García family,
really like? The archetypal Romantic woman, she was brilliant,
possessed of the most exceptional and varied talents, generous,
sentimental and tragic, devoted, ardent and passionate,
indomitable, insouciant yet earnest, emancipated and independent
... in a word: modern. Yet she was also proud, obstinate and
foolhardy; a woman whose flamboyant character compelled her to
subordinate everything to her unbending will and to what she
regarded as her personal freedom.
Wherever
the young Spanish woman with the svelte figure, big eyes and
long dark hair appeared, she created an atmosphere and an
outburst of emotion that plunged the cultivated society of
Europe and America into an unprecedented frenzy. With her
enthralling vocalism, her open-mindedness and her wholly
unconventional lifestyle, this young “gypsy” — the daughter of a
renowned Andalusian musician and archetypal Romantic artist —
transformed not only the aesthetics of singing and acting, but
also the attitude of society towards artists in general. For the
first time a woman — a musician at that — left her mark on the
world of art, on everyday life and on the attitudes of her
contemporaries, with far-reaching consequences for succeeding
generations. She became the first diva in theatre history; the
first goddess of Romanticism.
However, any attempt to pin down this extraordinary woman and
her artistic legacy must be based on a thorough study of the
period and most importantly — because she was first and foremost
an unrivalled singer — on an investigation of her vocalism, the
instruments and the timbres favoured in the early decades of the
nineteenth century.
Maria
Felicia García was born into a remarkable musical family on 24
March 1808 in Paris. Her father was the famous Andalusian tenor,
composer and singing teacher Manuel del Pópolo Vicente García
and her mother was the soprano Joaquina Sitches (Briones).
Maria’s older brother Manuel was a baritone and is still known
today for his seminal treatise on singing. Her much younger
sister Pauline Viardot-García was also a singer, composer and
patron of the arts.
As a sought-after tenor, García père travelled with his wife and
children from one musical capital to another. Young Maria was
only four when she began the itinerant existence in France,
Italy and England that would characterise the rest of her life.
In Naples, aged eight, she made her first appearance on the
opera stage alongside her father in Paër’s Agnese. That same
year, 1816, she accompanied him to Rome for the premiere of
Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, where García created the role
of Almaviva. The composer, disappointed by the performance’s
lack of success, was consoled by the child, who — as Rossini
reported years later — told him (in French): “Don’t be sad, just
wait; when I’m a grown-up I’ll sing the Barber everywhere, but (stamping
her foot) never, ever in Rome, even if the Pope himself begs me
on bended knee.”
This encounter with Rossini and his music proved as fateful for
Maria as it was for her father: Rosina, Cenerentola, Tancredi,
Ninetta (in La gazza ladra), Semiramide, Arsace and, above all,
Desdemona in Otello would all accelerate her meteoric rise. The
influence was personal, too; for the rest of his life, the great
composer remained extremely sympathetic to the García family and
opened many doors for them.
Maria
made her official stage debut as Rosina in London on 11 June
1825, standing in at short notice for Giuditta Pasta. She became
the talk of the town. Yet before long her adventure-seeking
father was on the move again. This time he decided on the spur
of the moment to leave Europe altogether and try his luck on a
new continent, taking the first Italian opera company to America.
Largely comprising García family members, it presented the
obligatory Rossini operas at New York’s Park Theatre with Maria
in the leading female roles. Here the young woman took part for
the second time in her life — following the Rome Barber premiere
— in a historic musical event: with support from Lorenzo da
Ponte, then living in New York, the Garcías staged the first
American production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, with Maria as a
delightful Zerlina. It was not long before “the Signorina” was
making a similarly strong impression in other parts, including
two operas composed specially for her by her father. Soon Maria
was the first star of the nascent American music scene.
Her relationship with her father was troubled. There are
numerous anecdotes about the sometimes violent clashes between
the adolescent Maria and her short-tempered parent, who was also
her sole, relentlessly strict singing teacher and earliest stage
partner. Just six months after arriving in New York, the
seventeen-year-old Maria rushed into marriage with a man
twenty-eight years her senior — Eugène Malibran, a Frenchman of
Spanish descent — and she even withdrew from the stage for a
time. Giuditta Pasta’s husband, Giuseppe, in New York as part of
the García company, wrote to his wife in Paris that “in a few
days Marietta Garzia [sic] is to marry a merchant who is over
forty, though still quite good-looking and, they say, rich. She
will reportedly end her commitment to Garzia and leave the
theatre. If that is true, then it’s goodbye to the Italian Opera
of New Jorck [sic]” (14 March 1826).
Whether it was an escape or a marriage of love, Maria’s
relationship with Eugène was strained almost from the start. A
contributory factor may have been his dodgy business dealings,
which brought him close to bankruptcy. It was not long before
Maria began singing again, even organising concerts in
Philadelphia and singing concerts again in New York. Ultimately,
the only solution to her financial difficulties and
deteriorating private life was a return to Europe — without her
husband, who was under house arrest. At the end of 1827 the
emancipated, self-confident young woman set sail for France to
advance her extraordinary singing career.
Maria’s relations with her husband Eugène Malibran had long
since cooled when, in the French capital, she met the attractive
Belgian violinist Charles de Bériot and became openly involved
with him. In an age when female artists were only considered
socially acceptable in certain circumstances (sought after, for
example, as entertainment at social occasions but not invited as
guests), Paris was divided over the relationship between these
two soulmates; for enthusiastic French youth Maria was now a
genuine romantic icon, but scandalised high society punished her
with cold disdain. Although still celebrated and honoured, the
singer yielded to social pressure and left France. From 1832
until her death she never sang in public in Paris again. Her
rehabilitation had to wait until posterity put her on a pedestal
after her untimely death.
Even after her hasty departure from France, Malibran fever in
Europe did not subside — it spread like wildfire across Italy
and into Belgium and England too. In Italy she conquered the
important musical centres of Rome, Naples, Bologna, Milan and
Venice and numerous smaller cities. Here she sang roles by
Vincenzo Bellini for the first time, which suited her nature and
her voice better than virtually any other music she had sung
before. As Amina in Sonnambula, but also as Norma and Romeo, she
drove Italian audiences wild.
While
in France she was elevated to the status of a romantic goddess,
in Italy she was treated by the people as one of their own. She
was recognised everywhere she went and was often not allowed to
proceed until she had sung a little. In Naples she bravely
defied the king (by refusing to appear before him until he
lifted the ban on applause at the Teatro San Carlo), while in
Milan she fought with officials to be able to perform the title
role in Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda without censorship. In the
Austrian-ruled Po valley and Bologna she became a figurehead of
the Risorgimento, and in Venice she saved a theatre from closure
by giving a benefit concert. It was promptly named after her:
Teatro Malibran.
Her hair-raising travels on land were no less impressive than
her wearying Atlantic crossings. Love of speed and eagerness to
reach her destination often led the young woman, usually
travelling in men’s clothes, to consign her drivers to the
inside of the carriage while she occupied the coach box alone
and whipped the horses on herself. One anecdote tells how, to
avoid a cholera epidemic, she undertook a dangerous journey on
foot from Lucca to Milan, another relates a “quick” excursion
from Milan to Brussels and back to settle a family matter.
Maria
had what it takes to be a superstar. She became the first woman
to rival the adulation accorded those operatic heroes of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the castrati, but with the
difference that her fame spread over several continents. The
fuss made over her became ever greater. Her fees became
astronomical. Society and the press took an increasingly avid
interest in both her public and her private life. Numerous
composers wrote operas for her and she inspired artists and
poets. Her powers of dramatic and musical expression, her slim,
delicate figure, her highly emotional acting, her turbulent life
and her physical vulnerability (fainting spells and
indisposition were the order of the day) led the world to
consider her the archetype of romantic womanhood. Easily missed
underneath all the clichés, however, was a strong-willed,
independent, modern woman, who was also difficult, lonely, often
in despair, physically exhausted and ill.
Today we appreciate how subjective contemporary reports can be, and yet we are able to recognise the uniqueness of Maria’s mezzo-soprano voice in the music she sang, the roles conceived for her and her own compositions. Her extensive, exceptionally varied repertoire also demanded a range of emotional and dramatic expressiveness to which only an outstanding talent could do justice. Further testimony to the young woman’s extraordinary personality are the whimsical and passionate letters she wrote in a hotchpotch of different languages, her acutely observed caricatures and her tasteful drawings.