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Updated: October 24, 2025
As Catalani said of singing, it is much more difficult to descend than to ascend well.
Baroski vaunted her everywhere as the great rising genius of the day, bade Catalani look to her laurels, and questioned whether Miss Stephens could sing a ballad like his pupil. Mrs. Howard Walker arrived, and created, on the first occasion, no small sensation.
The loose wits of the town had all day been straining their ingenuity to invent new ones. Among them were, "Come forth, O Kemble! come forth and tremble!" "Foolish John Kemble, we'll make you tremble!" and "No cats! no Catalani! English actors for ever!" Those who wish to oppose a mob successfully, should never lose their temper.
The younger Linley, brother-in-law of Sheridan, who was playing in the orchestra, was so moved that he forgot his own part, and on receiving a severe whispered rebuke from the singer fainted away in his place. Mme. Catalani returned again on finishing her English engagement to Russia, where she realized fifteen thousand guineas in four months.
He had tried cajolery, pathos, threats; he had called together a chosen company of critics to hear the future Catalani, and had been forced to send them home empty, having heard no note of the marvellous voice! The child would not sing, she would not even speak, save in the briefest possible fashion, little beyond "yes" and "no." What was a poor impresario to do?
"Yes, Sir," he went on, "I have seen and heard them all, Catalani, Pasta, Pezzaroni, Grisi, and all the rest of them, even Sonntag, though not in her very best estate; but I give you my word there is none that has taken lodgings here," tapping his forehead, "so permanently as the Signorina G , or that I can see and hear so distinctly, when I am in the mood of it, by myself.
Next he heard, in rapid succession, the names of Tenducci, Pachierotti, Marchesi, Viganoni, Braham, Gabrielli, Mara, Banti, Grassini, Billington, Catalani. Imagine our young barrister's sense of his profound ignorance, whilst he heard the merits of all dead and living composers, singers, and masters, decided upon by the Miss Falconers.
Catalani, in addition to her operatic performances, frequently sang at the Ancient Concerts and in oratorio; but she lacked the devotional pathos and tenderness which had given Mara and Mrs. Billington their power in sacred music. Yet she possessed strong religious sentiments, and always prayed before entering a theatre.
It must have transported itself to Ludlow for the season in rumbling coaches and heavyish curricles and there entertained itself in decent emulation of that metropolis which a choice of railway-lines had not as yet placed within its immediate reach. It had balls at the assembly-rooms; it had Mrs. Siddons to play; it had Catalani to sing.
She was invited, with her husband, to pass some time at Stowe, where a numerous but select party had been invited; and Madame Catalani, being asked to sing soon after dinner, willingly complied. When the day of her departure came, her husband placed in the hands of the Marquis of Buckingham the following little billet: "For seventeen songs, seventeen hundred pounds."
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