Garcia the Centenarian And His Times

1-18

n it is my intention to devote a chapter to the events which led up to her coming to him for lessons, to the period of study which she spent under his guidance, and to the success which followed on the completion of t

he Royal Theatre. Of the incident which brought about her removal and fixed for ever the lines of her future career, it is possibl

f the forms which the perpetual song assumed was addressed to a blue-ribboned cat,

sang to the cat; and the people passing in the street used to hear and wonder. Amongst others was the maid of Mdlle. Lundberg, a dancer at the Royal Oper

is a genius! you must have her educated for the stage." But Jenny's mother, as well as her grandmother, had an old-fashioned prejudice against the stage, and would not hear of such a thing. "Then you must, a

ike of the burgher families for the dramatic life. But little Jenny eagerly urged her to go on; and so they entered the room where the teacher sat. The child sang him something out of an opera

ok at her, she being, moreover, at that time what she herself has called "a small, ugly, broad-nosed, shy, gauche, under-grown girl." "Well," said the other, "if you will not hear her, then I will teach her gratuitously myself, and sh

e crucial event of her life

rain, partly through ignorance of the true principles of voice-emission. As soon as she realised what had happened she determined to go to Paris, for she had been long convinced that there was one man alone from whom she could learn all th

On Thursday, July 1, 1841, Mdlle. Lind, now in her twenty

nt she proceeded to Havre by steambo

e narrative as it is t

(Madame la Maréchale Soult) from her relative, Queen Desideria, the wife of Maréchal Bernadotte

on at Madame Soult's house. It was understood that she would be asked to sing, and Signor Ga

e done herself justice, and her singing did not produce a very favourable effect upon the assembled guests. Her voice was worn not only fr

us 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 hoarseness,

questioned him upon the subject that the Swedish soprano was at that time altogether

uxième étage in a large block of houses in the Square d'Orleans, near the Rue Saint Lazare. It was a hands

er to receive her as a pupil, he examined her voice more ca

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 t

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 re

hole 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 judgm

ngle 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 o

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 aband

ith 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,

of August, and were continued without a br

troduction to the new system in a lett

Sept.

h great care, then to practise the shake-awfully slowly, and to try to get rid of the hoarseness if possible. Moreover, he is very particular about the breathing. I tru

r she writes to

rtunate 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

to Herr

February

our time, and the one which al

ater letter

March

ago, I made my début

it is clear and sonorous, with more firmness, and much greater agility. A great, gre

he breath, the emission of the voice, the blending of its registers, and other technical details u

her up as an example in the most embarrassing 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 natura

s 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

y of expression which forms by no means the least potent of their attractions. But the listener never stopped to analyse the qualities of Mdlle. Lind's voice, the marked individuality of which set ana

nius 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 improv

, 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 b

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 f

rnment 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

t 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 wan

wing May she received from the directors of the Royal Theatre at Stockholm the offer of a definite and offici

her studies with Ga

ned 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 memo

a from "Roberto" and from "Norma." The composer was much pleased with her voice, but seems to have

at fatiguée, and not quite attained to the quali

m "Der Freischütz, "Robert le Diable," and "Norma." Meyerbeer was delighted, and made such comments as, "Une voix chaste et pure, pleine de grace et de virginalité," while the next day he spoke of her to Berlioz with the greatest enthusiasm. He was anxious for

olm theatre with a performance of "Norma,"-the very opera

vened between the two performances. What that change was we learn from an estimate supplied by a most competent

he parts of Agathe, Pamina, Alice, Norma, or Lucia, she succeeded in doing so solely through her innate cap

nt were not, however, in sufficiently

instance, as the A flat above the stave in Agathe's cavatina, 'Und ob die Wolke'-without perceptible difficulty; and that she

of Emilia in Weigl's 'Swiss Family,'-a r?le which, in many respects, she rendered delightfully,-w

oice of great sonority and compass, capable of adapting itself with ease to every shade of expression, but to have gained also a technical co

competent judges than from the general public; and the more so since it was evident that, in the exercise of her wise discriminat

eason 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 directo

of Norma. No wonder that Stockholm went wild with enthusiasm, and

, mental and physical, enabled her to overcome every obstacle which crossed her path, and to reach the lofty position which she retained up to the time of her retirement from

correspondent of the University of Stockholm, while the Swedish

prized more than all else was th