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The personnel of Mme. Persiani could not be considered highly attractive. She was small, thin, with a long, colorless face, and looked older than her years. Her eyes were, however, soft and dreamy, her smile piquant, her hair like gold-colored silk, and exquisitely long.
Persiani; "but never was there one whose appearance on the stage was less distinguished. She was not precisely insignificant to see, so much as pale, plain, and anxious. She was singularly tasteless in her dress. Her one good point was her hair, which was splendidly profuse, and of an agreeable color."
Edgardo was written for the great French tenor, Duprez, Lucia for Persiani. Donizetti's kindness of heart was illustrated by the interesting circumstances of his saving an obscure Neapolitan theatre from ruin. Hearing that it was on the verge of suspension and the performers in great distress, the composer sought them out and supplied their immediate wants.
Like Catalani, Persiani, and other distinguished singers, she was severely criticised toward the last of her operatic career for sacrificing good taste and dramatic truth to the technique of vocalization, but this is an extravagance so tempting that but few singers have been entirely exempt from it.
She competes favorably in London with Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot. Takes the Place of Jenny Lind as Prima Donna at Her Majesty's. She extends her Voice into the Soprano Register. Performs Fides in "Le Prophète." Visit to America. Retires from the Stage.
Persiani ventured to make her first appearance in Paris, a step which she took with much apprehension, for she had an exaggerated notion of the captious-ness and coldness of the French public. When she stepped on the stage, November 7th, the night of her début in "Sonnambula," she was so violently shaken by her emotions that she could scarcely stand.
By the musician, Persiani will be always more admired, but Jenny Lind will strike the general hearer more."
To cite the names of Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, Malibran, Grisi, Persiani, is to give the highest idea of Italian singing. But although Chopin was more devoted and more happy in his Polish friendships, he had beloved as well as loving friends of all nationalities Germans, English, and even Russians. That as a good Pole he hated the Russians as a nation may be taken for granted.
I thought Rachel's "Marie Stuart" upon the whole her finest performance, though "Adrienne" ran it hard. Persiani, I note, supported by Lablache and Rubini, had a most triumphant reception in Inez de Castro, while Albertazzi was very coldly received in Blanche de Castille. Grisi in Norma was "superb." "Persiani and P. Garcia sang a duet from Tancredi; it was divine!
We who have passed middle age, who have heard Lablache, and Tamberlik, and Jenny Lind, and Viardot Garcia, and Alboni, and Giuglini in their prime, and Grisi, Mario, Sontag and Persiani with voices but a little the worse for wear, can sadly contrast the vocal glories of the past with those of the present. Who are the great singers of to-day? Two or three prime donne and as many baritones.
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