Читать книгу Canadian Performing Arts Bundle - Michelle Labrèche-Larouche - Страница 7

Maestro Francesco Lamperti always told his new pupils: “If you adopt my method one hundred per cent, you will be able to sing anything.”

Once again, I had to bend my will to a strict and critical disciplinarian. Lamperti refused to teach any members of the aristocracy, because, according to him, they tended to regard singing as a diverting accomplishment rather than as a serious career. He once disparaged a dilettante by saying: “She sings like a countess.”

Prince Poniatowski visited Milan a few months after I had been with Maestro Lamperti and came to evaluate my progress.

“Her trill is faulty,” he remarked to Lamperti.

“It will fall into place, my friend,” answered the maestro. “She is like a bottle of effervescent water: one has only to uncork her and everything gushes out. Moreover, I am writing a treatise on the trill which I will dedicate to her.”

For the first few lessons, Maestro Lamperti concentrated on the syntax of vocal music that all great singers must master: breathing, voice projection, nuance, and phrasing.

I was also instructed on how to strengthen my diaphragm by bending my waist as far as possible to each side, then backward and forward – as far as my corset would allow, that is!

“… seven, eight, nine…” Lamperti called out rhythmically. “Keep going, up to twenty!”

“But I'm exhausted and very hungry!” I protested.

“Madonna mia! There are still two hours left until lunch, Emmina! Lie on your back now.”

I lay down on the carpet. The professor placed a pair of heavy volumes on my abdomen.

“This will strengthen your diaphragm,” he explained, adding yet another large book to the pile. “Lift the books – with your stomach muscles, not by arching your back.”

At first, I thought I would never manage it. My vision began to blur with the effort.

“Loosen up, my dear! Do your relaxation exercises. Breathe; breathe again. You must train yourself to lift the books ten times. When you succeed in doing it easily, we will pass on to the next step. Only after you master it, I will have you sing an aria.”

I accepted his severe regime, dreaming all the while that it was the key that would allow me, the petite Canadienne, to send my voice resonating back to the very last row of seats at La Scala.

Cornélia and I became increasingly fond of life in the northern Italian metropolis, although it was too full of temptations for our meagre means. My immediate goal was to obtain a singing engagement. Several impresarios and owners of concert halls who frequented Lamperti's studio had offered me roles. However, the maestro had his own plan for me: “You will make your debut in Messina. The opera house is small, but the Sicilians are the most difficult to please among opera-lovers.”

In the little apartment we had found in Milan, it was not easy for me to practise my vocalises. Cornélia would be bent over the piano, almost fainting in the hot, closed air of the apartment, with its odour of simmering spaghetti sauce. Our only window looked on to a narrow courtyard; we could not open it often, as several rooms that gave on to the courtyard were occupied by other music students, and they had to practise too.

One day, I stepped onto the tiny balcony outside our window for a breath of fresh air, and a joyous impulse made me launch into O sole mio. Window after window popped open, and when I finished, I was treated to clamorous applause and demands for an encore! A flower seller below took some roses from his cart and threw me a bouquet.

Just at that moment, there was a knock at the door. It was Signor Lamperti. He had come personally to announce that my engagement for the winter opera season in Messina had been confirmed; the only thing needed was my signature on the contract. “You will begin this summer, in a pre-season production, but your real debut will be in December, as Amina in La sonnambula, by Bellini. You remember, of course, that the composer was a native of Sicily; you must be worthy of his memory and rise to the occasion.”

I was overjoyed; my most sanguine hopes had been realized. My career would be launched by performing the principal role in a major work by the most romantic of Italian composers. Besides, I knew that Bellini was born on my birthday, All Saints' Day, and I believed it was a favourable omen for me.

My teacher brought me back down to earth by reminding me that all of Bellini's arias are exceedingly difficult to sing. “La sonnambula requires great vocal prowess and an infinite amount of wind, especially for the aria della follía. However, we have worked together for nine months now, and your technique is extraordinarily good for such a young singer. You are ready, Emmina! Throw your whole heart into winning over the public. You must become Amina and the character will live through you. If you can carry off this role, you are capable of any soprano role in the repertoire and your career is made.”

That evening, I changed my last name. We had heard comments that the name Lajeunesse did not roll of the tongue as musically as it should in the land of bel canto. Among the pseudonyms suggested, I chose Albani: it was the name of a patrician Italian family whose members were all dead, except for one ancient Cardinal. It was also my tribute to the city of Albany, where I had been given the opportunity to spread my wings and set off on my career.

The distance between Milan and Messina is more than 1000 kilometres. Nelly and I made the entire journey in an exceedingly slow train, without stopping anywhere along the way. However, we were compensated for our discomfort by being able to contemplate this marvellous country from north to south.

From the deck of the large steamer that ferried us across the Straits of Messina, we saw our destination nestled at the foot of the Peloritani Hills. The city's streets were aligned with the coastline fringed by cerulean waters. We were billeted with a friend of Maestro Lamperti's: a Sicilian duchess, who, like Baroness de Laffitte, rented out rooms in her home to make ends meet.

I was impatient to arrive at the opera house. During the first rehearsal of Un ballo in maschera at the imposing Teatro Vittorio Emmanuele, the conductor halted the musicians to tell me: “My child, your success is assured, and will be grandiose.”

A few days after Christmas, 1869, it was the night of our first performance of La sonnambula. I was alone onstage, facing the darkened hall and an unpredictable audience that would either acclaim me or shower me with ridicule. I felt a moment of panic. Then, the silence was broken by the orchestra striking up the first bars of the opera. I began to sing – me, the little girl from Chambly, before a large crowd of sophisticated European opera-lovers – and in a foreign language, their language. When the final notes of the last scene were played, I knew that I had triumphed. I was given fifteen curtain calls!

The next morning, a critic wrote in the Gazzetta di Messina: “The audience was so surprised and fascinated that the theatre seemed to have been transformed into a cage of raving madmen, if one is to judge by the shouts, the applause, and the curtain calls. Mademoiselle Albani wept tears of joy.”

I wrote a long letter to Papa in which I entreated him to join us in Messina to share our happiness. “It is the great launch of my career, and I still need your advice if I want to reach the top. You will see: from our windows, we look out at the coast of mainland Italy; it is breathtaking.”

As the season went on, my success increased, as did the compliments and tributes paid me. One afternoon, I received an enormous package containing valuable jewellery. The sender, rendered ecstatic by my performances, had offered me his wife's most prized adornments! They were immediately returned, of course. Another day, an old, almost blind man asked to meet me. He said that he had never heard anyone sing Amina as I did. He owned an orange grove, and every time he came to hear me sing, he had a basket brought to my dressing room, filled with oranges, each one wrapped in silk! On the night of my last performance, he asked me if he could pass his hands over my face, to be able to picture me in his mind.

I received several marriage proposals in Messina. My photograph hung in the windows of all the shops. People imitated my hairstyle and the way I dressed. I had become an idol almost overnight!

My happiness was complete when I heard Cornélia exclaim, “Papa is coming!” as she waved a letter from him in her hand. A few weeks later, Nelly and I escorted our father from the ferryboat to our Sicilian palazzo. He admired everything, from the pink and apricot-painted buildings to the proud peasants and artisans with their large-wheeled carts gaily painted with legends from the Crusades and drawn by little ponies caparisoned with ostrich plumes, pompoms, and tinkling bells. “Albani,” he repeated, bemused. “I'll never get used to it!” But his face glowed when passers-by greeted us with cries of “Brava, l'Albani!”

That day, the Duchessa de Cipriani had invited a few guests for tea and was waiting for us in the garden, amid flowering citrus trees and exotic flora that gave off intoxicating scents. Papa bent low and gallantly kissed the hand of our noble hostess. I remember her face, surrounded by silver curls, and her clothes – the customary outfit of an aristocratic Sicilian widow – black silk gown, black gloves, black fan and black parasol, and a watch fob from which hung a delicate silver timepiece. She was immensely proud of her fluency in French.

Before removing to his hotel, Papa visited our quarters: a big square room with three long windows. He exclaimed over the trompe-l'oeil mural paintings that created the illusion of pilasters, marble balustrades, and flower-filled urns against a background of flitting, round-cheeked cherubs. He gazed at the inevitable religious subject gracing the ceiling: it was the Virgin Mary ascending towards a deep blue heaven that teemed with gravity-defying, acrobatic angels holding flowers and doves. He was also given a tour of the ground floor, where a vast dining room was decorated with murals representing the bloodiest scenes from the opera, guaranteed to kill the appetites of any guests who were not opera fanatics.

My father's greatest surprise was when we took him to mass on Sunday morning. Nelly and I knew what to expect: in Sicily, it is the custom to introduce opera melodies into the sacred liturgy. For example, in the Eucharist, when the priest brings the chalice of holy wine to his lips, the aria Infelice, il veleno bevesti!¹ from Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia Borgia, might be sung. Only the Italians have such an audacious sense of humour!

Papa soon left Messina for Florence; he was travelling ahead of us so that he would have ample time to explore that city.

Before we left to join Papa, the countess lent us her barouche and her coachman so that we could travel down the coast to Acireale, near Catania, where Bellini was born in 1801. I was to sing at the gala opening of the Teatro Vincenzo Bellini. The landscape between Messina and Acireale was striking, with its bare mountain slopes, sheer rock faces and shadowy ravines. This lunar landscape, drier than bones left in the sun, was occasionally relieved by silvery olive trees, refreshing valleys, sweet-smelling orange groves, and pale golden beaches.

Acireale was a good-sized seaport. I was treated like a diva on my arrival there. I was given an official welcome by the local dignitaries, and Cornélia and I were lodged in a venerable palazzo that had been refurbished especially for our stay. On one side, we had a view of the menacing volcano Mount Etna, while on the other, we looked out onto the sea. The best families of Acireale sent us wine, fruit, meat, and poultry, and the nuns from the local convent sent us cakes and sweetmeats.

As the dramatic heroine of La sonnambula, I attracted music-lovers from Catania, Syracuse, and even from distant Palermo. The critics praised me lavishly. “Who is this Albani?” queried Signor Bertolani in Il Corriere Siciliano. “This question will no longer be asked in coming years: Emma Albani is an exceptional creature in whom the woman and the artist attain equal perfection; in whom the singer and the actress vibrate in unison. It is impossible to say whether she is more remarkable by the brilliance of her genius or by her strength of mind, the finesse of her ideas, her perfect pitch or her roundness of melody. Her voice is made to fill the hearts of those who are capable of finding consolation for human misery in art. This singer from across the Atlantic has perfectly understood the Italian art of bel canto.”

On the evening of my benefit night,² I was showered with flowers and jewellery.

We left Sicily with regret. I sang for a short season at Cento, a town near Bologna, the city of arcades that resembles a stage set from a Molière play. Here, I sang the role of Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto for the first time. The audience insisted on encores of Gilda's aria, Caro nome, of one of the duets, and of the quartet, Bella figlia d'amore. Admirers from Bologna presented me with so many large bouquets that they had to be transported on donkeys! The combined scent of all these blossoms was overpowering: I was afflicted by a migraine headache and was forced to abruptly leave the stage.

In Florence, crowds of people awaited me: Maestro Lamperti had proclaimed to the inhabitants of the city that Emma Albani was “the most accomplished musician and the singer with the most perfect style who has ever emerged from my studio.”

The Teatro Politeama in Florence was an outdoor amphitheatre; only the stage was covered. Even a driving rain did not dampen the audience's enthusiasm, and they remained spellbound under their umbrellas. Fortunately, it was the month of July, and very warm! We sang right through the downpour. My performance as Adèle in Rossini's Le comte Ory and my signature role of La sonnambula won me the accolade of having “a silver voice.”

Jenny Lind, “the Swedish nightingale,” was in Florence; she had retired from the stage to dedicate herself to teaching. When she came to congratulate me in my dressing-room, I was overcome with emotion.

Beside the jewels I received, which included a diamond brooch and earrings, I was given an immense laurel wreath of beaten gold. Luckily, my benefit nights had made up for the relatively low amount that I earned for my performances.

Nelly and I, escorted by Papa, spent a delightful time discovering Florence, the city of art. We visited the Uffici Gallery and haunted the Ponte Vecchio, exploring the goldsmiths' and leather-goods shops. I found inspiration for many of my costumes and accessories there.³

Another delightful surprise in Florence was the news that I was engaged to sing in Malta for the five-month winter season of 1870–1871.

The charming island of Malta in the southern Mediterranean had belonged to Great Britain since the beginning of the century and was the most important base in the world for the British fleet. The opera house was in the Maltese capital of Valletta. This city had been fortified by the Knights of St. John, one of the religious and military orders from the era of the Crusades; the Knights had moved to Malta from Rhodes and had defended the island against the Turks in the sixteenth century.

On the billboards, my name, in bold letters, appeared opposite the roles that I would sing in Malta: Amina in La sonnambula; Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia; Lady Harriet in Martha by Von Flotow; the title role in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; and Isabella in Robert le diable by Giacomo Meyerbeer. In addition, I had to sing the role of Inès in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine, at very short notice: I had only two days to master it after the young woman who was to sing the role suddenly fell ill.

As a supplement to the programme, the audience, many of whom were from the British Isles, called on me to sing Home, Sweet Home and The Last Rose of Summer. I found it strange that a Canadienne was indulging their nostalgia for their homeland! On the evening of my farewell performance in Malta, a poem composed by the officers of the Royal Navy was brought to me by a dove!

A few of the higher-ranked English officers made attempts to woo me. One of them did attract me but Cornélia reminded me of my duty. “It would be all right for me to allow myself to be courted, but not you with your responsibilities,” she chided.

Apart from my besotted admirers, I made some good friends on the island, including the Governor, Sir Patrick Grant, and Sir Cooper and Lady Francis Key. At one the receptions given for me, I met Colonel McCrea, who urged me to try my luck in London. He interceded with one of his friends, the impresario James Henry Mapleson, who wrote to invite me to join his Italian opera troupe at Her Majesty's Theatre.

I was eager to try my luck in the English capital, but first, I had a last engagement in Acireale, this time at a charity benefit for the victims of an earthquake that had hit the city. When we left Valletta, Colonel McCrea ordered the navy gunboats to line up for a processional salute as our steamer made its way out of the harbour. “An exceptional tribute,” I thought, too affected to speak.

1. Woe! You have drunk the poison!

2. Benefit nights were given by opera stars at the end of the scheduled performances; the singer was allowed to keep all the proceeds of the performance and also received valuable gifts of appreciation.

3. opera singers were responsible for their own stage outfits; Emma Albani visited museums so that she could create costumes with an air of historical authenticity.