Born at Hamburg of an Hungarian Family.--Her Early Musical Training.--First Appearance in Opera in "Lucrezia Borgia."--Romance of her Youth.--Rapid Extension of her Fame.--Receives a _Conge_ from Vienna to sing in England.--Description of Mlle. Titiens, her Voice, and Artistic Style.--The Characters in which she was specially eminent.--Opinions of the Critics.--Her Relative Standing in the Operatic Profession.--Her Performances of _Semi-ramide_ and _Medea_.--Latter Years of her Career.--Her Artistic Tour in America.--Her Death, and Estimate placed on her Genius GREAT SINGERS, SECOND SERIES, MALIBRAN TO TITIENS. MARIA FELICIA MALIBRAN. The Childhood of Maria Garcia.--Her Father's Sternness and Severe Discipline.--Her First Appearance as an Artist on the Operatic Stage.--Her Genius and Power evident from the Beginning.--Anecdotes of her Early Career.--Manuel Garcia's Operatic Enterprise in New York.--Maria Garcia is inveigled into marrying M. Malibran.--Failure of the Garcia Opera, and Maria's Separation from her Husband.--She makes her _Debut_ in Paris with Great Success.--Madame Malibran's Characteristics as a Singer, a Genius, and a Woman.--Anecdotes of her Generosity and Kindness.--She sings in a Great London Engagement.--Her Eccentric and Daring Methods excite Severe Criticism.--Her Reckless Expenditure of Strength in the Pursuit of her Profession or Pleasures.--Madame Malibran's Attachment to De Beriot.--Anecdotes of her Public and Private Career.--Malibran in Italy, where she becomes the Popular Idol.--Her Last London Engagement.--Her Death at Manchester during the Great Musical Festival. I. With the name of Malibran there is associated an interest, alike personal and artistic, rarely equaled and certainly unsurpassed among the traditions which make the records of the lyric stage so fascinating. Daring originality stamped her life as a woman, her career as an artist, and the brightness with which her star shone through a brief and stormy history had something akin in it to the dazzling but capricious passage of a meteor. If Pasta was the Siddons of the lyric drama, unapproachable in its more severe and tragic phases, Malibran represented its Garrick. Brilliant, creative, and versatile, she sang equally well in all styles of music, and no strain on her resources seemed to overtax the power of an artistic imagination which delighted in vanquishing obstacles and transforming native defects into new beauties, an attribute of genius which she shared in equal degree with Pasta, though it took on a different manifestation.