Chapter IV: “la Sonnambula.” “la Figlia Del Reggimento.”

From this time forward Mdlle. Lind was greeted in London, by all classes of society, with the most flattering marks of esteem and admiration. The Queen received her with marked attention. The Queen-Dowager invited her to visit Her Majesty in private. The Duke of Wellington was most sedulous in his demonstrations of respect and admiration, and, on one occasion, invited her to his country-seat, promising that music should form no topic of the conversation. Invitations poured in, from every side, in numbers which it would have been quite impossible for her to have accepted, even had her time been entirely at her own disposal. But, though compelled by her duties at the theatre to devote so many hours of the day to study and rehearsal, she did not entirely shut herself out from the pleasures of society. Mrs. Grote, who accompanied her one evening to a private concert at Lansdowne House to which she had been invited as an auditor, gives an interesting account, in her MS. _Memoir_, of the excitement caused by her first appearance in the reception-room, when, at the moment of her entrance, all other visitors were forgotten, in the desire to meet her with a cordial welcome.

“I was not a little amused,” she says, “to observe the Duke of
Wellington approach, with the intention of making his bow to Lady
Lansdowne; but, finding it hopeless to catch her attention—so
engrossed was she with Mdlle. Lind—he quietly passed unnoticed into
the Sculpture Gallery, where a vocal concert was about to commence. I
at length proposed to Jenny that we should take our places there,
also; and we soon found ourselves in the middle of a brilliant
company, whose eyes were frequently bent in the direction of our
seats. Jenny, who was always very impatient under this kind of
scrutiny, felt vexed at it; but there was no escape. The concert
proceeded; the artists comprising all the ‘stars’ of the two rival
houses, herself only excepted. The first part over, I was besieged by
persons of my acquaintance, with requests to be introduced to Mdlle.
Lind: Lady Pembroke, and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sidney Herbert,
Lady Lincoln, with one or two other ladies obtained the privilege, and
continued to talk to her, until Jenny, impatient to escape, whispered
to me, ‘Let us go and look at the pictures.’ So we went into the rooms
through which we had entered, and looked at the pictures, which
interested her far more than the music. Meanwhile, the concert had
re-commenced, so that we could not resume our places conveniently;
accordingly Jenny begged me to go away, which we presently did. As we
drove home to Clairville, I expressed myself highly satisfied with the
flattering attentions of which she had been the object during the
evening. She rejoined: ‘Dear Madame, you are much more proud for me
than I am for myself. It certainly was a splendid sight; but I would
rather have been rambling with you among the Burnham beeches, after
all.’”

The rambles under the fine old Burnham beech trees, near Mr. Grote’s country-house, furnished, indeed, a pleasant and highly needful relief to the fatigues of the season, which were very trying to her.

_La Sonnambula_ was announced for performance for the first time, on Tuesday, the 13th of May.

Never, perhaps, was Mdlle. Lind’s detestation of all that bore the stamp of unreality more strongly marked than in this charming Opera. She could not endure a sham—though, the temptation to do so, here, must have been very great.

In the last act of _La Sonnambula_, Amina, walking in her sleep, crosses a crazy wooden bridge, spanning a mill-stream, and hanging in the air, directly over a revolving water-wheel. As she reaches the middle of this frail structure, the worm-eaten planks give way—or rather, by an ingenious stage-device, appear to give way—beneath her feet. She starts— lets the lamp she holds in her hand fall into the stream—and then, without awaking, calmly proceeds on her way, down a rude flight of steps, to the front of the stage, where, taking from her bosom the faded flowers that Elvino has given to her, she sings the beautiful air, ‘_Ah! non credea mirarti_,’ which forms one of the most attractive movements of the _Finale_.

The danger of crossing the mimic bridge is, perhaps, less real than apparent, when proper precautions are taken to ensure the singer’s safety. But, it is a dangerous walk, for a nervous _prima donna_; and very few of our greatest singers have ever attempted it. The usual plan is, to dress up a poor little “supernumerary” in clothes exactly like those of the real representative of “Amina”; to let her perform the perilous feat of crossing the bridge; and, after she has dropped her lamp, and displaced some of the loose stones lying at the edge of her path, to let her pass behind a projecting piece of rock, arranged for the purpose, and there change places with the real _prima donna_, who emerges on the opposite side of the cunningly-constructed screen, and is supposed, by the audience, to have performed the entire journey in her own proper person.

But Mdlle. Lind would never consent to cheat her audience thus. She once told the writer, when conversing with him on the events of that memorable time, that she had never, in her life, let any one cross the bridge for her—not because she was more courageous than other representatives of the village somnambulist; for, she confessed to having been horribly frightened, every time that she had to undergo the trying ordeal—but because, she said, “I should have been ashamed to stand before the audience, pretending that I had crossed the bridge, if I had not really done it.”

So, the boards were marked with chalk, to show the exact lines between which Amina was to walk; and a circle was drawn, at the spot at which the bridge was to give way beneath her, so that she might not be taken unprepared. But, these precautions formed a less efficient safeguard than might have been imagined; for, she had heard that somnambulists always walked straight forward, without looking at their feet, and she risked a fall, night after night, in order that she might act her part with perfect truth to nature.

But her nervous fears did not prevent her from singing her best; for, during the course of the same conversation, she told the writer, that, accidentally looking down at Mr. Balfe, while she was singing ‘_Ah! non credea_,’ she saw that his face was bathed in tears. And he, we may be sure, was not the only listener thus moved by her rendering of that most lovely movement—one of the purest and most touchingly plaintive strains of melody that the modern Italian School has produced.

No one witnessed Mdlle. Lind’s first performance of “Amina” with more rapt attention than the Queen. She was there from the beginning. The ‘_Come per me sereno_,’ with its brilliant opportunities for showing off the voice, was a little too full of ornament altogether to satisfy Her Majesty’s taste; but she expressed unbounded admiration of all that followed, dwelling strongly, according to our information, upon “the exquisite shake, the wonderful clear, sweet _piano_ way of singing in the very highest tones, without losing any of their fulness and freshness.” The ‘_Son geloso_’ and ‘_Prendi l’anel_,’ were felt to be full of a new beauty. But a charm, as exquisite, as it was novel, was recognised by the Royal listener in the soft, touching, half-whispered tones in which “Amina” sang in the scene where she enters the Count’s apartment asleep. Again, the dignified way in which she delivered in the subsequent scene the words, ‘_Rea non sono, no, la fui giammai_,’ giving as it did the idea of complete innocence was noted as exceptionally fine. In this, as indeed throughout the whole performance, the singer was recognised by the Queen as speaking from the heart to the heart.

Of her singing of the Recitative and Adagio, ‘_Ah! non credea mirarti_,’ Signor Lablache said to the Queen, “_Je dois dire que je n’ai jamais rien entendu comme cela_.” In this opinion, according to our information, Her Majesty heartily concurred. She was present, along with the Prince Consort, when _La Sonnambula_ was performed for the second time on Saturday the 15th of May. All Her Majesty’s first impressions were more than confirmed. She spoke with enthusiasm as Lablache had done of the ‘_Ah, non credea_.’ “It was all _piano_,” she said, “and clear and sweet, and like the sighing of a zephyr, yet all heard. Who could describe those long notes, drawn out till they quite melt away, that shake which becomes softer and softer, those very piano and flute-like notes—and those round fresh tones which are so youthful?”[95]

To an English, no less than to a Continental audience, _La Sonnambula_ had ever been welcome; and the nameless charm with which that part was now invested, the enchantment thrown over it by the perfection of Mdlle. Lind’s ideal interpretation of each change and phase of sentiment that rendered its impersonation more life-like and complete, seemed to make the work a greater favourite than ever. The audience were never tired of it. Throughout the season, it was given, again and again, with the certainty of a crowded house, and a triumphant success; and it was not until after its fourth performance, in alternation with four performances of _Roberto il Diavolo_, that the management thought it necessary to announce the production of another Opera.

The new Opera was one entirely unknown, at that time, in England; though we have had occasion to mention it, more than once, in connection with other countries, during the course of our narrative.

It will be remembered, that during Mdlle. Lind’s short but serious illness, at Berlin, in February, 1845, _Die Regimentstochter_ had been presented, with Fräulein Tuczec in the principal part.

Before that time, Mdlle. Lind herself had never undertaken the part of “Marie”; but, as we have already seen, she appeared in it, at Stockholm, on the 9th of June, 1845, with such success, that the Opera was redemanded on every remaining night but one of the summer season—in all, eight times. Since then, it had become a special favourite, in almost every town she visited; and, though the critics of Berlin had not yet had an opportunity of passing their verdict upon it, it had created an absolute _furore_, both at Munich and Vienna. It remained now, to test its capability of attracting the sympathies of an English audience, already predisposed to regard it with favour; and, if it were possible to invent a stronger word than _furore_ for the purpose of describing the result of the experiment, such a word would certainly not be misplaced.

It is not a great work—nor does it pose as one; it betrays no true nobility of purpose; no trace of poetical inspiration, in any one of its scenes, from first to last. How then, it may fairly be asked, did Mdlle. Lind succeed in making it one of the most charming and deservedly popular of her parts?

The question is a very natural one—and the answer equally so.

She breathed a living soul into the form that had left the laboratory of its inventors without one; and substituted this for the jointed lay-figure, the soulless automaton, embodied in the score. And, in her impersonation of the bewitching little heroine into whom this guileless soul had been breathed, the whole interest of the Opera was absorbed. She did not—as the critics would have said—content herself with “creating the _rôle_ of ‘Maria’;” she “created” the whole work. No one gave a thought to the other members of the _dramatis personæ_. The piece was absolutely devoid of attraction, when she was absent from the stage. But, the moment she appeared she held her audience spell-bound.

Never, we may safely say, in the whole history of Art was so brilliant and so legitimate a triumph produced, with such slender means for its foundation. All that was beautiful and attractive, all that was natural and touching in the part, was infused into it by the genius of its interpreter—a genius imaginative enough to invent a _rôle_, full of piquant prettinesses, and abounding in points of perfectly legitimate interest, as a substitute for one that was absolutely colourless—and bold enough to present this charming ideal to the public, with such power of truthfulness, such variety of dramatic effect, such marked individuality of character, that, from first to last, the audience never felt the slightest temptation to wish that the plot of the story, or the _libretto_ founded upon it, or the music adapted to the _libretto_, had been in any respect other than they really were. And this manifestation of dramatic truthfulness addressed itself to all the world; to the ignorant, no less than to the learned; to gentle and simple; to rich and poor; to each and all alike. So true to Nature was the enchanting picture of Maria, that it had something to say to every one. And so it came to pass, that, of all the Operas presented, during this eventful season, _La Figlia del Reggimento_ was the one that spoke most plainly to the general public, and became the greatest favourite with the outer world.

We have heard the Germans speak of Mdlle. Lind, as the “Priestess of Art.” It was as the “Priestess of Nature” that she won the hearts of “the people.”