But this
marvellous voice did not please everyone, for it was by no means smooth
and velvety. Indeed, it was a little harsh and was likened to the taste
of a bitter orange. But it was just the voice for a tragedy or an epic,
for it was superhuman rather than human. Light things like Spanish songs
and Chopin mazurkas, which she used to transpose so that she could sing
them, were completely transformed by that voice and became the
playthings of an Amazon or of a giantess. She lent an incomparable
grandeur to tragic parts and to the severe dignity of the oratorio.
I never had the pleasure of hearing Madame Malibran, but Rossini told me
about her. He preferred her sister. Madame Malibran, he said, had the
advantage of beauty. In addition, she died young and left a memory of an
artist in full possession of all her powers. She was not the equal of
her sister as a musician and could not have survived the decline of her
voice as the latter did.
Madame Viardot was not beautiful, indeed, she was far from it. The
portrait by Ary Scheffer is the only one which shows this unequalled
woman truthfully and gives some idea of her strange and powerful
fascination. What made her even more captivating than her talent as a
singer was her personality--one of the most amazing I have ever known.
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