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Updated: May 15, 2025
Rubini's voice was an organ of prodigious range by nature, to which his own skill had added several highly effective notes. His chest range, it is asserted by Fetis, covered two octaves from C to C, which was carried up to F in the voce di testa.
The circumstances were as follows: He was singing at La Scala, Milan, in Pacini's "Talismano." In the recitative which accompanies the entrance of the tenor in this opera, the singer has to attack B flat without preparation, and hold it for a long time. Since Farinelli's celebrated trumpet-song, no feat had ever attained such a success as this wonderful note of Rubini's.
The details of Rubini's early life seem to be involved in some obscurity. He was engaged in several wandering companies as second tenor, and in 1814, Rubini then being nineteen years of age, we find him singing at Pavia for thirty-six shillings a month. In the latter part of his career he was paid twenty thousand pounds sterling a year for his services at the St. Petersburg Imperial Opera.
Then we had flute-playing by the first flute-player in England, and pianoforte-strumming by the first pianoforte-strummer in England, and singing by all the first singers in England, and Signor Rubini's incomparable tenor, and Signor Curioni's incomparable counter-tenor, and Pasta's incomparable expression.
Here the singer studied, as they were produced, the simple, touching airs which he afterward delivered on the stage with such admirable expression. With this friendship began Rubini's art connection with the Italian composer, which lasted till the latter's too early death.
It is remarkable that it was largely owing to Rubini's suggestions and singing that Bellini made his first great success, and that Donizetti's "Anna Bolena," also the work which laid the foundation of this composer's greatness, should have been written and produced under similar conditions. The immense power, purity, and sweetness of his voice probably have never been surpassed.
Rubini's countenance was mean, his figure awkward, and lacking in all dignity of carriage; he had no conception of taste, character, or picturesque effect.
From what has been said of Rubini's lack of dramatic talent, it may be rightfully inferred, as was the fact, that he had but little power in musical declamation.
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