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
Pauline Garcia's voice was a rebel which she had had to subdue, not a
vassal to command, like the glorious organ of Mme. Grisi, but her harsh
and unmanageable notes had been tutored by a despotic drill into great
beauty and pliancy. Like that of her sister in quality, it combined the
two registers of contralto and soprano from low F to C above the lines,
but the upper part of an originally limited mezzo-soprano had been
literally fabricated by an iron discipline, conducted by the girl
herself with all the science of a master. Like Malibran, too, she had in
her voice the soul-stirring tone, the sympathetic and touching character
by which the heart is thrilled. Her singing was expressive, descriptive,
thrilling, full, equal and just, brilliant and vibrating, especially in
the medium and in the lower chords. Capable of every style of art, it
was adapted to all the feelings of nature, but particularly to outbursts
of grief, joy, or despair. "The dramatic coloring which her voice
imparts to the slightest shades of feeling and passion is a real
phenomenon of vocalization which can not be analyzed," says Escudier.
"No singer we ever heard, with the exception of Malibran," says another
critic, "could produce the same effect by means of a few simple notes.
It is neither by the peculiar power, the peculiar depth, nor the
peculiar sweetness of these tones that the sensation is created, but by
something indescribable in the quality which moves you to tears in the
very hearing."
Something of this impression moved the general mind of connoisseurs on
her first dramatic appearance. Her style, execution, voice, expression,
and manner so irresistibly reminded her fellow-performers of the
lamented Malibran, that tears rolled down their cheeks, yet there
was something radically different withal peculiar to the singer. This
singular resemblance led to a curious incident afterward in Paris. A
young lady was taking a music-lesson from Lablache, who had lodgings in
the same house with Mlle. Garcia. The basso was explaining the manner in
which Malibran gave the air they were practicing. Just then a voice was
heard in the adjoining room singing the cavatina--the voice of Mdlle.
Garcia. The young girl was struck with a fit of superstitious terror as
if she had seen a phantom, and fainted away on her seat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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