Great Singers, Second Series: Malibran To TitiensFerris, George T. (George Titus)
History
Great Singers, Second Series: Malibran To Titiens
Ferris, George T. (George Titus)
Singers -- Biography
Like so many of the foremost artists, Lablachc shone alike in comic and
tragic parts. Though he sang successfully in all styles of music
and covered a great dramatic versatility, the parts in which he was
peculiarly great were _Leporello_ in "Don Giovanni"; the _Podesta_ in
"La Gazza Ladra"; _Geronimo_ in "Il Matrimonio Segreto"; _Caliban_ in
Halevy's "Tempest"; _Gritzonko_ in "L'Etoile du Nord"; _Henry VIII_ in
"Anna Bolena"; the _Doge_ in "Marino Faliero"; _Oroveso_ in "Norma";
and _Assur_ in "Semiramide." In thus selecting certain characters as
those in which Lablache was unapproachably great, it must be understood
that he "touched nothing which he did not adorn." It has been frankly
conceded even among the members of his own profession, where envy,
calumny, and invidious sneers so often belittle the judgment, that
Lablache never performed a character which he did not make more
difficult for those that came after him, by elevating its ideal and
grasping new possibilities in its conception.
Lablache sang in London and Paris for many years successively, and his
fame grew to colonial proportions. In 1828 his terms were forty thousand
francs and a benefit, for four months. A few years later, Laporte, of
London, paid Robert, of Paris, as much money for the mere cession of his
services for a short season. In 1852 when Lablachc had reached an age
when most singers grow dull and mechanical, he created two new types,
_Caliban_, in Halevy's opera of "The Tempest," and _Gritzonko_, in
"L'Etoile du Nord," with a vivacity, a stage knowledge, and a brilliancy
of conception as rare as they were strongly marked. He was one of the
thirty-two torch-bearers who followed Beethoven's body to its interment,
and he sung the solo part in "Mozart's Requiem" at the funeral, as he
had when a child sung the contralto part in the same mass at Hadyn's
obsequies. He was the recipient of orders and medals from nearly every
sovereign in Europe. When he was thus honored by the Emperor of Russia
in 1856, he used the prophetic words, "These will do to ornament my
coffin." Two years afterward he died at Naples, January 23, 1858,
whither he had gone to try the effects of the balmy climate of his
native city on his failing health. His only daughter married Thalberg,
the pianist. He was the singing master of Queen Victoria, and he is
frequently mentioned in her published diaries and letters in terms of
the strongest esteem and admiration. His death drew out expressions
of profound sorrow from all parts of Europe, for it was felt that, in
Lablache, the world of song had lost one of the greatest lights which
had starred its brilliant record.
IV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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