Garcia the Centenarian And His Times Part 14

"Such training she had never had. She had formed her own ideal of the difficult _roles_ that had been entrusted to her at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm, and had tried to reach that ideal by the only means she knew of--very pernicious means indeed. The result was that the voice had been very cruelly injured. The mischief had been seriously aggravated by the fatigue consequent upon a long and arduous provincial tour; and the effect was a chronic hoa.r.s.eness, painful enough to produce marked symptoms of deterioration upon the fresh young voice which had never been taught either the proper method of singing or the cultivation of style necessary for the development of its natural charm.

"Manuel Garcia was not slow to perceive all this, and he afterwards told a lady who questioned him upon the subject that the Swedish soprano was at that time altogether wanting in the qualities needed for presentation before a highly cultivated audience.

"Soon after this Mademoiselle Lind called by appointment upon the maestro, who then occupied a pleasant _deuxieme etage_ in a large block of houses in the Square d'Orleans, near the Rue Saint Lazare. It was a handsome residence, built around a turfed courtyard, with a fountain in the centre and a large tree on each side.

"As on this occasion she formally requested the great teacher to receive her as a pupil, he examined her voice more carefully than he had been able to do at Madame Soult's party.

"After making her sing through the usual scales and forming his own opinion of the power and compa.s.s of her organ, he asked her for the well-known scena from 'Lucia di Lammermoor'--'Perche non ho.' In this, unhappily, she broke down completely--in all probability through nervousness, for she had appeared in the part of Lucia at the Stockholm Theatre no less than thirty-nine times only the year before, and the music must therefore have been familiar to her. However, let the cause have been what it might, the failure was complete, and upon the strength of it the maestro p.r.o.nounced his terrible verdict: 'It would be useless to teach you, mademoiselle; you have no voice left.'

"It is necessary that these words should be distinctly recorded, for their misquotation in the newspapers and elsewhere has led to a false impression, equally unjust to master and pupil. The exact words were--'Vous n'avez plus de voix,' not 'Vous n'avez pas de voix.' Jenny Lind had once possessed a voice, as Garcia realised perfectly clearly, but it had been so strained by over-exertion and a faulty method of emission that for the time being scarcely a shred of it remained.

"The effect of this sentence of hopeless condemnation upon an organisation so highly strung as hers may be readily conceived. But her courage was equal to the occasion, though she told Mendelssohn, years afterwards, that the anguish of that moment exceeded all that she had ever suffered in her whole life. Yet her faith in her own powers never wavered for an instant. There was a fire within her that no amount of discouragement could quench. Instead, therefore, of accepting his verdict as a final one, she asked, with tears in her eyes, what she was to do. Her trust in the maestro's judgment was no less firm than that which she felt in the reality of her own vocation. In the full conviction that if she could only persuade him to advise her, his counsel would prove invaluable, she did not hesitate to make the attempt, and the result fully justified the soundness of her conclusions.

"Moved by her evident distress, he recommended her to give her voice six weeks of perfect rest,--to abstain during the whole of that time from singing even so much as one single note, and to speak as little as possible. Upon condition that she strictly carried out these injunctions, he gave her permission to come to him again when the period of probation was ended, in order that he might see whether anything could be done for her. Intense indeed must have been the relief when these six weeks had at last expired.

"Once more Mdlle. Lind sought an interview with the master, and this time her hopes were crowned with success. Signor Garcia found the voice so far re-established by rest that he was able to give good hope of its complete restoration, provided that the faulty methods which had so nearly resulted in its destruction were abandoned. With the view of attaining this end he agreed to give her two lessons of an hour each regularly every week--an arrangement which set all her anxieties at rest.

"The delight of the artist at being once more permitted to sing may be readily imagined. Though discouraged sometimes by the immense amount she had to learn--and, with still greater difficulty, to unlearn--she never lost heart; and so rapidly did the vocal organs recover from the exhaustion from which they had been suffering, that before long she was able to practise her scales and exercises daily for the fullest length of time which a singer could manage without over-exerting the voice."

The lessons were commenced about the 25th of August, and were continued without a break from then until the month of July, 1842.

Jenny Lind thus describes her first introduction to the new system in a letter to her friend, Froken Marie Ruckman:--

"PARIS, _Sept. 10, 1841_.

"I have already had five lessons from Signor Garcia, the brother of Madame Malibran. I have to begin again from the beginning, to sing scales up and down slowly and with great care, then to practise the shake--awfully slowly, and to try to get rid of the hoa.r.s.eness if possible. Moreover, he is very particular about the breathing. I trust I have made a happy choice. Anyhow, he is the best master, and expensive enough--twenty francs for an hour! But what does that signify if only he can teach me to sing?"

A fortnight later she writes to Madame Lindblad:--

"I am well satisfied with my singing-master. With regard to my weak points especially, he is excellent. I think it very fortunate for me that there exists a Garcia. And I believe him also to be a very good man. If he takes but little notice of us apart from his lessons, well--that cannot be helped; but I am very much pleased, nay, enchanted, with him as a teacher."

And again to Herr Forsberg:--

PARIS, _February 1, 1842_.

"Garcia's method is the best of our time, and the one which all here are striving to follow."

In a still later letter she writes:--

PARIS, _March 7, 1842_.

"To-day, four years ago, I made my _debut_ in 'Der Freischutz.'

"My singing is getting on quite satisfactorily now. I rejoice heartily in my voice,--it is clear and sonorous, with more firmness, and much greater agility. A great, great deal still remains to be done; but the worst is over. Garcia is satisfied with me."

The teaching she now received was evidently the exact thing she needed; for of the management of the breath, the emission of the voice, the blending of its registers, and other technical details upon which even the most perfect singers must depend in great measure for success, she knew nothing.

We have seen Jenny Lind's opinion of her master: what of Garcia's opinion of his pupil? During my own lessons with him he would often speak of the Swedish Nightingale, and hold her up as an example in the most embarra.s.sing way. Among other things he remarked that he had never heard her sing even a hair's-breadth out of tune, so perfect was her natural ear. Moreover, when she made a mistake, he only had to point it out once, explain the cause of the error, and show how it could be rectified: the fault would never be repeated.

Mdlle. Lind's course of study under Garcia lasted in all ten months, by which time she had learned all that it was possible for any master to teach her. After this period she had improved so wonderfully under his magical tuition that, as he himself picturesquely expressed it, she was able to look down on her former efforts as from a mountain to a plain.

The result for which she had so ardently longed, so patiently waited, so perseveringly laboured, was attained at last. Her voice, no longer suffering from the effects of the cruel fatigue and the inordinate amount of over-exertion which had so lately endangered, not merely its wellbeing, but its very existence, had now far more than recovered its pristine vigour,--it had acquired a rich depth of tone, a sympathetic sweetness, a bird-like charm in the silvery clearness of its upper register, which at once impressed the listener with the feeling that he had never before heard anything in the least degree resembling it.

Few human organs are perfect. It is quite possible that other voices may have possessed qualities which this did not--for voices of exceptional beauty are nearly always characterised by an individuality of expression which forms by no means the least potent of their attractions. But the listener never stopped to a.n.a.lyse the qualities of Mdlle. Lind's voice, the marked individuality of which set a.n.a.lysis at defiance. By turns full, sympathetic, tender, sad or brilliant, it adapted itself so perfectly to the artistic conception of the song it was interpreting, that singer, voice, and song were one.

"With such rare power at command, she was able, without effort, to give expression to every phase of the conception which she had originally formed by the exercise of innate genius alone. Her acting had grown up with her from infancy, and formed part of her inmost being. She had found no one in Paris capable of teaching her anything that could improve that, though she thought it necessary to take lessons in deportment. The rest she had studied for herself, though she had naturally gained experience by observation of others.

"She had acted to herself the part of Norma, which had been the last _role_ she had undertaken in Stockholm before setting out for Paris, and calmly pa.s.sed judgment upon her own performance. That she was satisfied with it one cannot doubt, for she had studied the difficult character of her heroine to such good purpose that she had reconciled all its apparent incongruities, and elevated it into a consistent whole, dramatic and musical, breathing poetry and romance from beginning to end, yet as true to nature as she was herself, and no longer fettered by the fatal technical weakness which had so long stood between her ideal and its perfect realisation. There was no weakness now. The artist was complete."

When Jenny Lind was drawing near the close of her studies under Garcia, the crucial question arose, Should the finished artist make her _debut_ in Paris? Or should she return at once to Sweden, and reappear in all the glory of her newly acquired powers in her beloved Stockholm? There were arguments to be brought forward on both sides. The problem was no new one. It had been frequently discussed, but her own feeling on the subject was very strong indeed. She could not reconcile herself to Paris. From the very first she had suspected the hollowness of its social organisation. In the September of 1841 she writes--

"There might be much to say about Paris, but I put it off until I am better able to judge. This much, however, I will say at once, that if good is sometimes to be found, an immeasurable amount of evil is to be found also. But I believe it to be an excellent school for any one with discernment enough to separate the rubbish from that which is worth preserving--though this is no easy task.

To my mind the worst feature of Paris is its dreadful selfishness, its greed for money. There is nothing to which the people will not submit for the sake of gain. Applause here is not always given to talent, but often enough to vice,--to any obscure person who can afford to pay for it. Ugh! It is too dreadful to see the _claqueurs_ sitting at the theatre, night after night, deciding the fate of those who are compelled to appear,--a terrible manifestation of original sin."

Six weeks later she writes: "All idea of appearing in public here has vanished. To begin with--I myself never relied upon it; but people said so many silly things about just one performance, that at last I began to feel as if I were in duty bound to try. But monstrous and unconquerable difficulties are in the way. In any case I want to go home again. But if I can arrange to sing at a concert before leaving, I will do so, in order that I may not return home without having at least done something."

All through the ensuing months she was still tortured by doubts as to the best course to pursue. In the following May she received from the directors of the Royal Theatre at Stockholm the offer of a definite and official engagement at the Opera House in which her early triumphs had been made, but this was not at once accepted.

At the end of June her studies with Garcia came to an end.

During this month it happened that Meyerbeer was in Paris on business connected with the production of "Le Prophete." Of the first performance of this opera Garcia retained a vivid memory, and, in speaking of it to me one day, recalled how, during the preliminary rehearsals, the singers all grumbled at its great length. Yet for the memorising and rehearsing of this, previous to its being put on the stage, they were given only eighteen days,--the same period as for that other lengthy work, "William Tell."

On June 15 Herr Lindblad arranged an interview with Meyerbeer, and Jenny Lind sang for him the aria from "Roberto" and from "Norma." The composer was much pleased with her voice, but seems to have entertained doubts as to whether it was powerful enough to fill the auditorium of the Grand Opera.

Garcia himself considered her voice still somewhat _fatiguee_, and not quite attained to the quality of which in a few months it would be capable.

It may have been this which Meyerbeer noticed. At any rate, in order to satisfy himself upon the point, he wished to hear her sing on the stage of the theatre itself. Accordingly, on the 24th an _audition_ took place, in which she gave the three grand scenes from "Der Freischutz, "Robert le Diable," and "Norma." Meyerbeer was delighted, and made such comments as, "Une voix chaste et pure, pleine de grace et de virginalite," while the next day he spoke of her to Berlioz with the greatest enthusiasm. He was anxious for her to make her appearance in London soon. Garcia, however, feared that the fame of Grisi would hinder his pupil from receiving a real chance. He therefore prevented her from making her _debut_ there till five years later, when she achieved a veritable triumph.

On October 10, 1842, the prima donna opened at the Stockholm theatre with a performance of "Norma,"--the very opera in which she had closed her appearances on June 19, 1841.

It must have been a direct challenge to the critical world of Stockholm, to recognise the change that had intervened between the two performances. What that change was we learn from an estimate supplied by a most competent and judicious critic, who sang with her often, both before and after her visit to Paris. He writes as follows:--

"When, during the years 1838-40, Jenny Lind enraptured her audience at Stockholm by her interpretation of the parts of Agathe, Pamina, Alice, Norma, or Lucia, she succeeded in doing so solely through her innate capacity for investing her performances, both musically and dramatically, with truthfulness, warmth, and poetry.

"The voice and its technical development were not, however, in sufficiently harmonious relation with her intentions.

"In proof of this it was noticed that the artist was not always able to control sustained notes in the upper register--such, for instance, as the A flat above the stave in Agathe's cavatina, 'Und ob die Wolke'--without perceptible difficulty; and that she frequently found it necessary to simplify the _fioritura_ and _cadenza_ which abound in florid parts like those of Norma and Lucia.

"Nay, there were not wanting some who, though they had heard her in parts no more trying than that of Emilia in Weigl's 'Swiss Family,'--a _role_ which, in many respects, she rendered delightfully,--went so far as to doubt the possibility of training the veiled and weak-toned voice in a wider sense.

"Yet, in spite of this, Jenny Lind, when resuming her sphere of action at the Stockholm theatre, proved not only to have acquired a soprano voice of great sonority and compa.s.s, capable of adapting itself with ease to every shade of expression, but to have gained also a technical command over it great enough to be regarded as unique in the history of the world. Her _messa di voce_ stood alone--unrivalled by any other singer.

"In like manner, in her shake, her scales, her legato and staccato pa.s.sages, she evoked astonishment and admiration no less from competent judges than from the general public; and the more so since it was evident that, in the exercise of her wise discrimination, the songstress made use of these ornaments only in so far as they were in perfect harmony with the inner meaning of the music.

"The incredibly rapid development of her voice and technique caused many people to question the value of the instruction she had originally received before going to Garcia. Such doubts, however, must be dismissed as unjustifiable. The true reason why Jenny Lind's singing before she went abroad could not be said to flow in the track which leads to perfection is undoubtedly to be found in the fact that she was a so-called _theatereler_--a pupil educated at the expense of the directors of the theatre itself--and, as such, was unable to escape from the necessity of appearing in public before her preparatory education was completed,--a proceeding no less disastrous to the pupil than contrary to the good sense of the teacher."