Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Part 10

Something of this has been already alluded to in setting down the experience of Manuel's early studies. There is, further, a well-known story, doubtless authentic, of a stranger pa.s.sing near their house in Paris, and hearing sobs and objurgations proceeding from within. He at once inquired what was the meaning of these noises, and was answered, "Ce n'est rien. C'est Monsieur Garcia, qui fait chanter ses demoiselles." However that may be, there can be no question of the excellent results of his teaching.

As regards the accusations of violence, strictness, and tyranny which were brought against him, Madame Viardot a.s.serts that he was much calumniated both as a father and as a man. "How often," she says, "have I heard my sister Maria remark, 'Si mon pere n'avait pas ete si severe avec moi, je n'aurais rien fait de bon; j'etais paresseuse et indocile.' As for myself," she adds, "I never saw my father lose his patience with me while he taught me the solfege, music and singing."

When Manuel Garcia returned to France after his _debut_ at Naples, he did not immediately begin teaching at the vocal conservatoire which his father had started. His predilections had always been scientific, and he was pa.s.sionately fond of all such studies, but specially of anatomy and all that had to do with the human body. On his arrival he was suddenly seized with an idea that he would prefer a seafaring life, and without thinking the matter over twice he resolved to become an officer in the French mercantile marine. With this object in view he began the study of astronomy and navigation, and pursued the work with so much diligence that he obtained a post on a s.h.i.+p. He was, in fact, on the point of going on board to take up this new career when his mother and sisters besought him with tears and supplications to relinquish his intentions.

So ardently did they implore him, that when actually starting he was overcome with emotion and gave way to their entreaties.

Upon this he settled down with his parents in the Rue des Trois Freres in Montmartre, and was of great a.s.sistance in helping the elder Garcia to give lessons at the vocal conservatoire. The hall porter of their house was no less a person than the father of Henry Murger! Manuel often used to catch up the boy Henry in his arms and kiss him as he ran about the pa.s.sages. "Little Murger was a most charming child," recalls Mme.

Viardot, "full of fun and the pet of the house. At that time he was winning prizes at school, and used to arrive home with his arms full of them. Perhaps he was rather ashamed of his origin, for in the day of his success he never came to see us. We should have been so happy if he had."

And what a day of success it was! After having commenced as a notary's clerk, he gave himself to literature, and led the life of privation and adventure described in his first and best novel, 'Scenes de la Vie de Boheme,' published in the year when Manuel Garcia was celebrating his fortieth birthday. During Murger's later years his popularity was secure and every journal open to him, but he wrote slowly and fitfully in the intervals of dissipation, and died in a Paris hospital over forty-five years ago.

Unhappily Manuel with his nature found, on settling down in Paris with his parents, that the somewhat overbearing manner of his father was difficult to get on with, considering that he himself was now twenty-five years of age.

At last, after a few months, he made up his mind that it would be best to absent himself from Paris for a time, in the hopes that this might result in a pleasanter state of things on his return.

It happened that the turn which events took in Algiers brought an opportunity for carrying out this desire. A dispute arose about the payment of seven million francs,--a debt incurred by France in the Egyptian expedition. Of this sum 4-1/2 millions had been paid, but the balance remained unsettled till certain counter-claims could be adjusted.

"After a tedious delay, Ha.s.sein, the Dey of Algiers, the princ.i.p.al creditor, became impatient,"--I quote from Dr Brewer--"and demanded immediate payment. To this request no answer was vouchsafed; and the next time the French consul presented himself at court Ha.s.sein asked him why his master had not replied to his letter. The consul haughtily replied, 'The King of France holds no correspondence with the Dey of Algiers'; upon which the governor struck him across the face and fiercely abused the king.

"An insult like this could not, of course, be overlooked; and it was at once decided by the French Government that a squadron should be sent to receive the consul on board, and revenge the insult."

As soon as this news became known Manuel talked the matter over with his sister, Maria Malibran, and through her influence with the Commander-in-chief he was enabled to obtain an appointment in the commissariat of the army which was to accompany the expedition.

Accordingly he embarked at Toulon on May 11, 1830, and took part in the severe conflicts which ended in less than two months with the bombardment of Algiers and its surrender to the French armament under Bourmont and Duperre, the deposition of the Dey, and the total overthrow of the barbarian government. After the fall of Algiers the young Spaniard returned to Paris to find the capital in a state of uproar.

On July 26 the obnoxious ordinances were made known regarding the press and the reconstruction of the Chamber of Deputies, which had been dissolved in May. This at once let loose the furies of revolution, and hostilities were commenced with the raising of barricades on the very next day. Repeated conflicts took place between the army and the police, the latter ultimately aided by the National Guard. On the last day of the month Charles X. retired to Rambouillet, and the flight of the Ministry took place. On August 2 Charles abdicated, and five days later the Duke of Orleans accepted the crown as Louis Philippe I.

These events were quickly followed by the publication of the Const.i.tutional Charter of July and the retirement of the ex-King to England. The closing scene of the drama took place in the December of the year, when Polignac and the other Ministers, who had been members of the administration of 1829, were tried and sentenced to life-long imprisonment.

During the last months of 1830 Manuel Garcia attached himself to the military hospitals. His reason for taking this step was that he had determined to go through a course of preliminary study in the scientific side of singing before devoting his life to the career of teaching. At the hospitals he took up medicine and some specialised studies which embraced the physiology of everything appertaining to the voice and the larynx, for he had already perceived the importance of physiology as an aid to the rational development of the voice. His labours were crowned with success, and contributed much to the determination of the exact anatomy of the vocal cords.

During this time he used to carry home in his pockets the most extraordinary things from his anatomy cla.s.s. Madame Viardot speaks of it thus:--

"What do you think he brought? You would never guess. The throttles of all kinds of animals,--chickens, sheep, and cows. You would imagine that these would have disgusted me. But it was not so. He would give me a pair of bellows, which I would insert in these windpipes, one after another, and blow hard. Heavens! what extraordinary sounds they used to emit. The chickens' throttles would cluck, the sheep's would bleat, and the bulls' would roar, almost like life."

At the remembrance of these rather gruesome incidents Madame Viardot laughs, much in the spirit, one may suppose, of the delicate Spanish beauty who applauds the thrusts of the matador at a bull-fight.

With the end of the year 1830 we find the first portion of Manuel Garcia's life brought to a close, the period of preparation. During the first twenty-five years we have found him brought up in music, learning the old Italian method of singing from his father and Zingarelli, with a few lessons from Ansani; while harmony he has studied under Fetis. He has acquired practical knowledge as an actor and singer upon stage and concert platform: he has heard nearly all the greatest operatic artists in Italy, France, and England: he has already had some experience of teaching, and is well acquainted with the lines followed by the famous maestri who have gone before him. Moreover, when he makes his regular start as _professeur de chant_ in 1831, he is able to apply his medical knowledge to the greatest advantage.

With all these advantages, added to a fine intellect, intuitive perception, and extraordinary patience, what wonder that when once he embarks on his career as a singing-master he never again looks back, but speedily establishes himself as a scientific teacher, with a reputation unequalled by any of his contemporaries?

SECOND PERIOD

PARIS

(1830-1848)

CHAPTER VIII.

MALIBRAN'S TRIUMPHS.

(1830-1836.)

And now let us take up the career of Maria Malibran, since the next six years of Manuel Garcia's life are chiefly concerned with the triumphs of this his first pupil. We have already seen how, shortly after her return from America in the early autumn of 1827, she had been joined in Paris by Manuel; how the two lived there together for some months, while he helped his sister with her singing and coached her in her operatic work, and how, after a brilliant _debut_ at Galli's benefit in the January of 1828, the youthful contralto was engaged for the Italian Opera season in Paris, commencing in the following April.

In 1829 Maria Malibran returned to London, where she had made her _debut_ at the King's Theatre four years previously. On this second visit she received from Laporte sixty-six pounds a performance for a three months' season, two appearances a-week (40,000 francs in all); while the princ.i.p.al parts which she undertook were Desdemona, Semiramide, Romeo, Tancredi, Ninetta, and Zerlina.

This was the scene of that rivalry with Mme. Sontag which wrung from her the words, "Pourquoi chante-t-elle si bien, mon Dieu?" During the London season they shared the success, which brought about such coldness between them that it took all the tact and diplomacy of the Countess Merlin to persuade them to sing the duet from "Tancredi" together in her drawing-room.

On January 3 of the following year the two stars again appeared together in Paris in "Il Matrimonio segreto," given at the benefit of Mme.

Damoreau-Cinti. A few days later they took part in "Tancredi." Rarely had Sontag given so beautiful a performance as she did in this her last appearance in the part before retiring into private life. At the close of the evening, as if to beg her rival's forgiveness for her triumph, she offered to Malibran, with a charming gesture, the flowers which had been thrown at her feet on the stage.

On the 18th of the month Henriette Sontag made her last bow before the public, and retired from the operatic world upon her marriage to Count Rossi. Thus Maria Malibran found the field clear, and remained without a rival among the contralti of her time. After this she appeared regularly each season in Paris and London during that brief career in which she took the world by storm. Like a meteor she dazzled all by a brilliancy beside which other stars seemed dim, and like a meteor she was to pa.s.s away as suddenly as she had arrived, within nine years of her _debut_ in Paris.

The salary which the famous contralto used to receive was for those days almost unprecedented.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Maria F. Malibran

(FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING WHICH BELONGED TO MANUEL GARCIA.)]

Having received in the operatic season of 1829 sixty-six pounds a performance, as already stated, the following year found her salary increased to 125 a-night, nearly double what she had had, while in the next one she was paid 2775 for twenty-four performances.

Her tours through Italy were a series of triumphs. In Rome she was overwhelmed with praise; at Bologna the enthusiasm was such that the public subscribed for a bust to be executed in marble and placed in the theatre; while at Naples, her grandest triumph of all was achieved on the night when she took leave of the audience in the character of Ninetta. Six times after the fall of the curtain was she called forward to receive the reiterated plaudits and adieus of a public which seemed unable to bear the idea of separation from its new idol. The singer, for her part, had only strength and spirits left to kiss her hand to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, and indicate by expressive gestures the degree to which she was overpowered by fatigue and emotion. Nor did the scene end within the theatre, for a crowd rushed to the stage-door from all parts of the house, and as soon as their favourite's sedan-chair came out they escorted it, with loud acclamations, to the Palazzo Barbaja, and renewed their salutations as the artist ascended the steps.

Of her first appearance in Milan Senor Garcia gave me a delightful account. At that time Pasta was a great favourite in the city, her most effective part being Norma. Such enormous success had she made in this _role_, in fact, that the Milanese always used to allude to her as "Norma" instead of making use of her own name.

Upon her arrival Maria Malibran was asked by the director of the Opera House in what part she would like to make her first appearance. She at once replied, "Norma, signor."

"But, madame, do you forget Pasta?"

"Eh, bien? I am not afraid of Pasta. I will live or die as Norma."

Bellini's opera was therefore announced.

At the opening night Pasta came to hear the newcomer, and took up her position in the middle box of the grand tier amidst loud applause from the populace. Maria Malibran made her first entrance without any sound of encouragement, and the aria was received in deliberate, stony silence. Her next number was the terzetto. After one of the pa.s.sages which she had to render the audience suddenly forgot themselves and shouted out, "Bravo!" This was instantly followed by cries of "Hus.h.!.+"

"Silence!" The trio came to an end. Not a hand! Instead were heard sounds of dispute from all parts of the house: "She is great;" "She is nothing of the kind;" "She is better than Pasta;" "She is not;" and these remarks went on for the rest of the evening.

Upon the second night Pasta did not come to hear her new rival. This time, when Malibran entered and sang her aria, her rendering was greeted with immense applause, which continued throughout the evening in ever-increasing enthusiasm. At the close she was called before the curtain again and again, and when she left the Opera House to drive home, the populace took out the horses and themselves dragged her to the hotel. From that moment she was the pet of the Milanese public: Pasta's reign was over. Senor Garcia added that the latter was a most finished vocalist, but cold, whereas the singing of his sister was full of warmth and fire.

Strange to say, Maria Malibran soon found herself mixed up with the Italian Liberal politics. At Naples already her sympathy for the Carbonari had excited some talk. At Milan she was _feted_ by all the aristocracy, who hated the Austrian rule. On the first night of Donizetti's "Marie Stuart," while taking the t.i.tle-_role_, she had to reproach Elizabeth with her irregular birth, calling her "vile b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

The whole audience at once saw in this expression an allusion to the usurpation of Lombardy, and broke out into loud shouts. Next day the Austrian governor ordered the scene to be suppressed, and at the same time threatened Maria Malibran with prison if she did not submit. The singer, however, resisted, declaring that the composer alone could make alterations in his work; and in consequence of this action the opera was withdrawn from the bill. This only increased her popularity, and in all political manifestations the cry would be raised, "Vive Malibran," as in after years "Vive Verdi" became synonymous with "Vive Victor-Emmanuel."