occasion to escape of adding a new charm and pleasure to the brilliant fêtes they were giving to their illustrious guests, Tamburini, at the very moment of departure, was detained by superior orders, and conducted with all the consideration due to his talent, to the opera house. There he was kept prisoner two days, to assist in the performances which their majesties were to honour with their presence. His success was immense. Rome, Palermo, and Naples, which were subsequently the theatres of his triumphs, still preserve the memory of his passage. It is related that at Palermo and at Naples he took the places of Mesdames Linarini and Boccabadati, who, from timidity or caprice, refused to execute their cavatinas. This tour de force, says a writer of Palermo, provoked thunders of phrenetic applause, fifteen times. At the conclusion of the opera he was called out to receive the bravos of the audience.

After making for two or three years the delight of the Neapolitan dilettanti, Tamburini resumed his peregrinations, and in 1827 and 1828 we find him at Vienna. The unrivalled troupe which combined David, Rubini, Donzelli, Lablache, Cicimara, Ambroggi, Botticelli, Bassi, Mesdames Main viella, Rubini, Mombelli, Ungher, Sontag, Giudetta Grisi, Dardanelli, and Grimbaun, had just left that capital. Tamburini nevertheless succeeded in enthusiasmizing a public still agitated by their incomparable performances; and he shared with Rubini the honour of being decorated with the medal of the Saviour by the royal and imperial municipality of Vienna. This was no ordinary compliment; for, among strangers, Wellington was the only one who had previously received it.

England next welcomed the artist, and confirmed the brilliant reputation he had earned in Italy and Austria. It was during his stay in London that M. Robert, then director of the opera in Paris, succeeded in engaging him for several years. His début at the Salle Favart was made in October 1832, and the enthusiasm of the Parisian dilettanti, which six years have not exhausted, definitively established the claims of superiority of the Rubini of basse-tailles.

Of all the great Italian singers, Tamburini is perhaps the one whom nature has most favoured with her gifts. It is to her that he owes that exquisite organization which has rendered him one of the first artists of the epoch. One may be a great singer and yet meet with but mediocre success on the stage, if the exterior of the individual be not, in a musical point of view, in harmony with the moral qualities of the vocalist. Now, Tamburini unites in the highest degree the various qualities which constitute a perfect artist. In his whole person there is a symmetry, à désinvolture, which at once prepossesses you in his favour; his figure, without being too tall or too broad, is well knit, and displays both grace and strength; his features are mild and intelligent; his head is finely placed on his shoulders; and in all his movements there is ease and elegance. It may easily be comprehended what benefit Tamburini must derive from these physical advantages, which are enhanced by the good taste and correctness of his costumes; for he is one of the actors who in this respect have been most laborious in their researches. His by-play and his pantomime are not less excellent; in his most vehement, as in his most buffoon parts, there is never the slightest exaggeration, the least incongruity. His performance in serious operas is dignified and earnest; in tragic characters he is impassioned-to use a theatrical phrase, he burns the boards.

Those who have met Tamburini in society, have never found the man inferior to the artist. The esteem which he enjoys, and the numerous friends whom he possesses, are an unequivocal tribute to his worth.

As a singer he belongs to that description of basses which reach neither the extreme heights of the upper nor the extreme depths of the lower notes; his voice is a barytone, but of the kind calculated to sing bass parts. It descends to la below, and ascends to fa above, embracing thirteen sounds, the true compass of a barytone. It is especially remarkable for its truth of intonation, its sonorousness, fulness, clearness, and purity. It is of remarkable equality; there is no singer who can boast of an organ more even than his in all its notes. Take it in its various parts, you can find nothing in it to object to; take it as a whole, you will be compelled to admit that nothing more perfect can exist. Analysis and synthesis have simultaneously guided his studies, and given him all that it is possible to attain by this double labour. To this he owes that expression, that precision, which are to be perceived in his manner of sending forth his voice. The sound which he emits is always pure, delicate, and mellifluous; his inflections are always accurate and light. In our opinion, his voice is better adapted to the brilliant and graceful than to the strong and tragic style; but it is not less admirable in the sentimental and passionate cantilena, which is now one of the most decided characteristics of the Italian school.

In

the former, his peformance of the parts of Dandini and Figaro are models; and in the latter, he cannot be surpassed in Lucia di Lammermoor and the Puritani. He is not, however, by any means unable to rise to the most powerful efforts of tragedy. After hearing him in the last adagio of Lucia:

"Ella è mio sangue
Io l'o tradita,"

and in the famous duo of Otello, it is not permissible to doubt that he could attain, if he pleased, the highest dramatic expression.

All that the study of vocalization can effect in the way of finish, all that method can accomplish in the way of correctness, are to be found in this admirable singer. We know of no one who possesses in so high a degree the art of swelling, sustaining, and diminishing a note. He leaves nothing to be desired in regard to intonation and portamento. The power of his voice is always graduated in such a way as never painfully to affect the ear, and he throws it out with vigour, without ever allowing the least effort to be perceived. He does not domineer over the choruses and orchestra like Lablache, but he makes himself heard through them both, and though his voice vibrates strongly and brilliantly, it never loses that velvetness which constitutes its principal charm. His portamento is preserved equally pure throughout the diatonic scale. Whatever he sings, his style is always marked by excellent taste and an excellent method. What has especially rendered him popular is the torrent of fioriture which pour from his throat, and spread themselves, as it were, over the audience; the volubility and flexibility of his organ are marvellous; he embroiders and entangles notes and passages with as much success as the most daring tenors or sopranos. One must have been present at the incredible contest of vocalization in which Rubini and Tamburini engage in the duo of Mosé, to obtain an idea of the wondrous flexibility of the latter's voice. What Rubini can do in this way is well known. He is the finest pearl of that bracelet of which Tamburini is one of the most beautiful diamonds. There is no hardihood which Rubini does not attempt, no difficulty or caprice which he does not achieve with a perfection that it would seem impossible to approach; nevertheless, Tamburini, in this piece, does not yield to his rival either in agility, boldness, or precision.

But the most richly adorned singing, the most exquisite embellishments, would be only an insipid play of notes, were they not accompanied by sentiment and dramatic expression; and it is by these latter qualities that Tamburini has caused himself to be enrolled among the most accomplished singers of the epoch.

GRISI.

In the family of Giulia Grisi, singing is not, as has been asserted, an hereditary talent. The parents of this cantatrice were altogether strangers to the stage, and we are not aware that in ascending higher, any vestige of musical celebrity will be found among her ancestors. We only know that Madame Grassini, who had great success in her day upon the boards of the Italian Opera, is the aunt of Giulia and Giudetta Grisi; and perhaps the two sisters owe to the encouragements of the celebrated artist, a portion of their talent.

Giulia Grisi was born at Milan in 1812. The daughter of M. Gaëtano Grisi, a distinguished topographical officer of the empire, and of a sister of Madame Grassini, she manifested at an early age the most brilliant dispositions for vocal music, and often astonished her family by the fidelity with which she imitated gestures, the demeanour, and even the singing of the artists whom she happened to hear.

It was at Bologna, in the house of her uncle, that she began her musical studies; and when sixteen, she made her début in the theatre at that city, in the Zelmira of Rossini. Her success justified the hopes which had prompted the choice of her profession, and earned for her the honour of a partition composed expressly for her by the Maestro Mililloti.

In 1828, Florence, the city of the arts, robbed the Bolognese of their youthful wonder, and admired in her the loveliest Juliet that had ever been seen in the Capuletti of Vaccai. The following year, the part of Zoraïde, in Rossini's Ricciardo é Zoriade, was a splendid revelation of the glory which was to be achieved by the young songstress.

After delighting the inhabitants of Pisa, and a second time those of Florence, where she was solicited to accept a third engagement, Grisi went to Milan,

appeared at the theatre de la Scala, in company with Donzelli and Madame Pasta, and shared with those two great artists the honour of attaching her name to the production upon the lyric stage of Norma, that magnificent composition which crowned the glory of Bellini. It is said, that Madame Pasta was so struck during the first rehearsals of the opera, with the resources of the débutante, that, influenced by apprehension or inexcusable jealousy, she induced Bellini to suppress the solo of Adalgisa in the trio of the first act.

Grisi was in Corsica, reposing after the fatigues and labours which had injured her health, when the directors of the Italian Opera in Paris, succeeded, in securing her services. She was adopted by France in 1832; and eight years, during which she has sustained the most difficult rôles of the buffo and serious repertory, have not yet exhausted the lively sympathy with which the severe public of the Italian theatre welcomed her débuts. From that period Grisi has not left France, except to go with Lablache, Rubini, Tamburini, and her other comrades, to England, and reap two or three rich harvests of wreaths and guineas.

It is to the Italian school that the reputation of Grisi as a great singer must be ascribed. She cannot be said to have had any particular master; by her admirable faculty of imitation she derived from an association with great singers that assemblage of different qualities which has given her a place by herself amid contemporary artists. Thus, she owes to her contemplative admiration of Madame Malibran, the first revelation of those dramatic bursts which she has since so splendidly developed; to her study of Madame Pasta, that nobleness, that tragic severity, that full, powerful expression, which she carries into the parts of the new Italian repertory, more especially. But, every allowance made in favour of the rights of the genius that creates, Madame Pasta had not that limpidness of voice which charms us in Grisi and Madame Malibran, that incredible agility which we admire in our great cantatrice. For, once for all, we should well understand what is meant by a fine voice. A fine voice is one which, in the proper extent of its register, is powerful, clear, round, vibrating, and flexible. This is the natural beauty of the voice. These qualities should be found in all the notes of the vocal scale of every singer, and it is art which gives this perfection. But it should not be supposed that the finest voice is that which has the greatest extent. An artist might possess the greatest number of imaginable octaves and yet have a bad voice, if destitute of that equality which, in our opinion, is the most admirable attribute of vocal organization. Thus, Madame Malibran was assuredly a great singer, but no one will deny that her voice, though very extensive, was almost defective in some other respects. She would go lower than Grisi, and higher also; but her upper tones, and the middle ones which connect the voce di testa with the voce di petto, were not always agreeable, and it was to cover these defects that she employed all the resources of her art, or rather the artifice of her method. She was frequently obliged to change whole phrases into some partitions; and more than once we have heard Rossini, with that caustic wit which characterizes him, allude to the manner in which she arranged certain passages of Otello, calling her arrangements chemins de traverse.

The voice of Madame Grisi embraces two octaves. It reaches from ut below to ut above the staff a fine extent in the register of a perfect soprano, which enables the composer to develope all the beauties of melody, and even the caprices of fantasy. And in this compass, greater certainly than usual, what justness, what purity, what strength, what morbidezza, what roundness, what velvetness of tone! If, as we have reason to believe, our theory upon the beauty of the voice is admitted by the professors of the art, it must be acknowledged that a voice more completely beautiful than that of Grisi has never been heard.

Intonation is another essential quality which merits all the attention of criticism. It is not every one who can recognise, not absolute truth of intonation, but those delicate, almost imperceptible, shades, which make the fourths or demi-fourths of tones. Madame Pasta, that great artist, had the fault of singing too low. In France this was remarked by few; but in Italy, where ears are more exercised, the public needed to accustom itself to hear her to forget this imperfection, abundantly compensated for, as it was, by so many natural and acquired merits. Now, the intonation of the voice of Grisi is as sure, as true, as finished as possible; and it is well that it is so, for if the defect just alluded to disfigured her organ, it would be much more perceptible and painful than in the case of Madame Pasta, from the vigour with which she attacks her notes. Her voice is especially remarkable for its precision and finish; never does a doubtful note mar her vocalization. As to her method, it is the nature

of her voice which indicated to her, as if by instinct, the manner she ought to adopt. Her powerful organization, the scope of her tones, led her evidently to a broad, declamatory, dramatic style, and it is by this path that she reached the heights of her art, considered in its relations with tragedy. Thus, whatever appertains to the stronger passions, as anger, fiery love, jealousy, rage, finds an admirable interpreter in her. Her voice, her method, her beautiful, expressive, majestic countenance, are all noble and theatrical; one sees that she neither can nor should sing for the mere object of singing; her element is the drama in its loftiest and most sublime parts. It is for this reason she so affects the rôles of Desdemona, Anna Bolena, and Norma, which exhibit the three most striking aspects of love-love in all its fervour and despair, love in all its melancholy and regrets, love in all its jealousy and fury. It is not astonishing that Pasta, Malibran, Ronzi, and Grisi, should have had a predilection. for these three eminently tragic parts, in which the three shades of the passion are depicted with Michael-Angelesque colours. Find in the old repertory a single opera that presents as many strong situations as Otello, Norma, and Anna Bolena. What now signifies the reproach cast upon Grisi, of not liking in the same degree the part of Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni. Assuredly her musical organization does not conceal from her any of the numerous beauties which abound in this masterpiece; but, we repeat, it is not in the nature of Giulia Grisi to sing for the mere purpose of singing. And what situation does the insipid poem of Don Juan offer to the genius of the beautiful cantatrice? Imagine Talma playing Figaro, or Mlle. Rachel the part of Columbine. And yet, are there many singers who have performed, or who now perform, as well as Grisi, the light, brilliant, coquettish parts of Rosina in the Barber of Seville, of Ninetta in the Gazza Ladra, and of Donna Anna in Don Juan? We are not afraid to say, that if she is naturally disposed to tragic rôles, the marvellous flexibility of her organization enables her to execute simple, light, and graceful music with the same excellence, if not with the same satisfaction to herself. It was the same with Malibran, Pasta, and Ronzi.

Like her predecessors, Grisi possesses a perfect method of vocalization. The multitude of delicate shades, of happy traits, of graceful inflections, of evolutions of voice, by means of which she surmounts every difficulty, distinguish her among the most celebrated singers in this style. But what elevates her above all the rest, is her mezza-voce singing, her extraordinary smorzature. What efforts, what labour, what perseverance must have been requisite to obtain a mastery over that formidable power of voice, so as to be able to restrain and diminish it, and give it in the weakest sounds that equality, that clearness, and that soft vibration, which is one of the distinctive characteristics of her at once graceful and impassioned style.

As an actress, it must be acknowledged that Grisi has rarely had an equal in the combination of qualities which constitute a great tragedian. France, England, Italy, have paid homage to her beauty. Every one admires the purity of her features, the severe and at the same time harmonious contour of her face, the eloquence of her eyes, the expressiveness of all her motions, and her glossy, raven hair, so effective in scenes of desperation and frenzy. Her acting, her singing, her look, all reveal inspiration and spontaneousness; rarely is she found in the same part to go through in the same manner the different dramatic situations.

Let it not, however, be supposed that the diva of the Théâtre-Italien is an irreproachable singer. We have sedulously studied all the aspects of this artistical physiognomy, and by the side of the rarest and most beautiful qualities we have discovered some little blemishes which should be pointed out. She may thus be reproached with the exaggeration of her qualities. The impulse of her powers hurries her, in spite of herself, into excess. She often succeeds in overcoming it, but she oftener yields to it, and then she is carried away beyond the bounds of truth. This, in fact, is the defect of all strong organizations, on whatever steps of the social ladder they may be placed. When Grisi, also, begins a long phrase, it might be thought that she finds difficulty in putting her voice forth and giving it the movement required by the measure. This does not proceed, as has been said, from the dryness of her throat and mouth; it is, on the contrary, a super-abundance of saliva which causes the voice to hesitate, as it were on its first start. Once, however, that the impulse is given, her mouth and her throat serve her admirably; she sustains the longest and most arduous parts without fatigue; her débit is always sure, and never does the slightest relaxation endanger the measure.

Having thus done homage to the genius and skill of the artist, let us in conclusion pay a merited tribute to the heart of the woman. Every one is familiar with the beautiful actions of Madame Malibran, the generous use which she made of the money

lavished upon her wonderful talents. Those who have the happiness to be intimate with Grisi, and from whom she cannot completely conceal her acts, have related to us some of them which do the highest honour to her character and her feelings. We regret that they cannot be made public, to oppose them to the timid echoes which have been given sometimes to gross malevolence. We may say, however, without violence to her modesty, that nowhere can be found a woman more generous, more disinterested, more compassionate to misery.

PERSIANI.

MADAME TACCINARDI-PERSIANI is the daughter of the tenor Taccinardi, who enjoyed great celebrity in his day. He sang with considerable success at the Italian theatre of Paris, and is said to have exhibited some whimsical caprices as an artist. Having observed the unfortunate influence which the defects of his physiognomy exerted upon the public at his entrance on the stage, he requested the composers and poets employed to write for him, to seek out parts which would permit him to begin to sing behind the scenes, and by this means cause him to be heard before he was seen; but as this expedient could not always be resorted to, he invented another stratagem to hide a portion of his body from the spectators, that of having himself drawn upon the stage in a triumphant car. His beautiful voice, however, which was one of the truest tenors ever heard, his fine dramatic intelligence, and admirable method, abundantly compensated for his defects. No singer since his time, has declaimed recitative with that simple and natural expression which has become one of the secrets of the vocal art. It is but just, also, to add that the conditions of the lyric drama are not now such as they then were; it may be even said that they are entirely changed.

Madame Persiani is thus a musician by inheritance, if we may so speak. There is artist blood in her veins, and she worthily sustains the honour of her name. She received from her father her whole musical education. Nature bestowed upon her an organ of great extent, but deficient, perhaps, in some parts, in pliability and sweetness. Earnest study, incessant labour, have almost entirely remedied the defects. Her operatic career began upon the stage of Leghorn in Italy, but her débuts were by no means brilliant, and did not presage the triumphs she was afterwards to achieve. It was at Milan that she laid the foundations of her fame, which increased with great rapidity at Florence, and reached its highest point in 1835 at Naples, where she created with great eclat the fine part of Lucia di Lammermoor.

Since that period her dramatic life has been an uninterrupted succession of trumphs. After appearing upon the principal theatres of Italy, she was called to Vienna, where she left the most flattering recollections. At length she came to Paris, and the select public of the Teatro dei Buffi did not hesitate to sanction with its high approbation the brilliant renown which had preceded her arrival. At present, Madame Persiani is one of the most splendid jewels of that superb crown of artists which constitutes the glory of Italy and the pride of the musical world.

The voice of Madame Persiani is one of the most extensive with which we are acquainted in the register of the true soprano. It rests with great firmness upon the lower si, and ascends to mi, comprising eighteen notes, which surpasses the ordinary soprano limits; add to this a suppleness and flexibility unrivalled. It is one of those obedient voices, which lend themselves, not only to the execution of the greatest difficulties, but also to the most daring caprices of vocalization. It is not from nature, as we have intimated, that she derives these qualities; to study she is indebted for a large share of them. It is study which enabled her to rinforzare and smorzare, that is to say, to swell and diminish her voice, by sending it forth full, pure, and free from all nasal and guttural influence; to manage her respiration, prolong it beyond the usual duration, and render it almost imperceptible; to execute with so much precision and success those ascending and descending chromatic gamuts, which she casts like so many glittering sheaves at her astonished auditors. Admire also her exquisite taste in the choice of embellishments, her delightful manner of linking sounds together "by the most felicitious transitions, of swelling and diminishing them by insensible shades; see in the boldest attempts the difficulty vanquished by apparently the simplest means, and always with grace, elegance, ease. Her voice is a prodigy of pliability and fascination; in two words, it astonishes and charms.

It must not, however, be supposed that the voice of Madame Persiani is perfect.