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Updated: October 24, 2025
Angelica Catalani first created a stir in the world at the age of twelve, when, as a novice in the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, in the duchy of Urbino, she sang for the daily service in the little chapel with such amazing sweetness that people came from all the neighborhood to listen to her.
You must permit me to discriminate between Beethoven and la Catalani: to one belongs the immortal crown of genius and of martyrdom, to the other innumerable five-franc pieces; one we can pay in coin, but the world remains throughout all time a debtor to the other. Each day increases our debt to Moliere, but Baron's comedies have been overpaid."
But the critics began to be very much dissatisfied with the vicious uses to which she put her magnificent voice. In Paris the wags had called her l'instrument Catalani. In London they said her style had become a caricature of its former grandeur, so exaggerated and affected had it grown.
"If you won't let me take part in your singing although I feel that I possess a wonderful talent for it, which only wants the voice of a Catalani to produce itself in the work-a-day world with drastic effect, allow me at least to be your librettist your poet-laureate. And here I hand you your libretto at once."
Lord Mount Edgcumbe tells us: "The great and far-famed Catalani supplied the place of both, and for many years reigned alone; for she would bear no rival, nor any singer sufficiently good to divide the applause. It is well known," he says, "that her voice is of a most uncommon quality; and capable of bearing exertions almost superhuman.
If the tragic genius of Pasta conld have been united with the voice of a Catalani, made as it were of adamant and gold, Cherubini's sublime musical creation would have found an adequate interpreter. Mdlle. Tietjens, indeed, has been the only late dramatic singer who dared essay so difficult a task.
On looking at the greater portion of the music by the execution of which Catalani raised herself to the highest pinnacle of fame, we are compelled to the conclusion, that in the singer lay the charm. The effects said to have been produced by Handel's operas are now inconceivable and unintelligible, so "mechanical and dull" do these works appear, "beyond mere simplicity and traits of melody."
If you want an opera company, my wife with four or five puppets is quite sufficient." So, during the season of 1808, Catalani actually was the whole company, the other performers being literally puppets. She appeared chiefly in operas composed expressly for her, in which the part for the prima donna was carefully adapted to the display of her various powers.
The claims on her purse kept pace with the enormous gains which seemed to increase from year to year. To her large charities and her extravagant habits of living, her husband added the heavy losses to which his passion for the gaming table led him. It was said in after years that Mme. Catalani should have been worth not less than half a million sterling, so immense had been her gains. Mr.
He learned music at the age of nine from Ziwny, a pupil of Sebastian Bach, but does not seem to have impressed any one with his remarkable talent except Madame Catalani, the great singer, who gave him a watch. Through the kindness of Prince Radziwill, an enthusiastic patron of art, he was sent to Warsaw College, where his genius began to unfold itself.
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