Cornélie Falcon

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Cornélie Falcon as Rachel in Fromental Halevy's La Juive .

Cornélie Falcon (born January 28, 1814 in Paris , † February 25, 1897 ibid) was a legendary French opera singer who u. a. appeared in operas by Halévy and Meyerbeer . Although she only had a very short career, a type of voice was named after her in France (" Falcon ").

Life

She was the eldest of three daughters of the tailor Pierre Falcon and his wife; her younger sisters were named Jenny and Elisabeth.

Cornélie studied with Felice Pellegrini and Adolphe Nourrit at the Paris Conservatoire and received a. a. 1831 premiers prix for song and lyric declamation . She made her debut at the Opéra in 1832 as Alice in Giacomo Meyerbeer's Robert le diable . Her repertoire also included Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni , Julie in Gaspare Spontini's La vestale and heroines in Gioachino Rossini's French operas.

Falcon's special vocal sound, her expressive dramatic singing in combination with a special acting talent were so impressive that within a very short time musicians, writers, artists, in short: the “beautiful world” of all of Paris was at her feet. In addition, there was a special beauty, an appearance that matched her tragic roles, and a virtuous behavior that was unusual in the theater environment of the epoch and earned her the respect for her environment, which she sometimes referred to as a “ vestal virgin ”.

Cornélie Falcon as Esmeralda in Louise Bertin's opera of the same name, 1836 (costume design by Louis Boulanger)

At the height of her career, the Falcon made twice as much at the Opéra as the star tenor (and her teacher) Adolphe Nourrit. The most important roles created for Cornélie Falcon are Rachel in Fromental Halévy's La Juive (premiered February 25, 1835) and Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots (February 29, 1836). Louise Bertin also wrote the title role for her in Esmeralda (premiered November 14, 1836; based on Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris ) and Louis Niedermeyer wrote the leading female role Léonor in Stradella (1837).

Maria Malibran , after hearing the Falcon in the duet of the 4th act of Meyerbeer's Huguenots , was so “enthusiastic ...” that she “... with the charm of an interpretation without equal, trembling with unspeakable joy, gave her the famous duet made, where Mlle Falcon soared to never-before-seen (artistic) heights, went on stage, approached the young singer from behind and hugged her with intense emotion, in the midst of prolonged applause from an audience that was both bewitched and confused by the spontaneity this scene and pretty gesture. "

Cornélie Falcon's great success at the Opéra, however, apparently led to an overexertion of her vocal possibilities with tragic consequences. In the middle of a performance of Niedermeyer's Stradella in March 1837, her voice broke and she had to stop the performance. Despite her vocal problems, she tried to continue her career after a short break and continued to sing strenuous performances at the Opéra until she could no longer in October 1837. After a last performance of Les Huguenots on January 15, 1838, she made two trips to Italy in the hope that her voice would recover in the warmer climate.

On March 14, 1840, she returned to the Opéra to sing parts from La Juive and Les Huguenots in a charity event , but her voice was permanently damaged. In the winter of 1841–42, Cornélie Falcon went on tour of Russia with Laure Cinti-Damoreau and then appeared in several private concerts in Paris; there were also rumors of miraculous cures, but Falcon never appeared on the operatic stage again.

She later married a Monsieur Malançon and lovingly looked after his sons from their first marriage, whom she gave piano and singing lessons. After a completely withdrawn and simple bourgeois life, she died almost forgotten in June 1897 and was buried on the Père Lachaise .

Voice ("Falcon")

Cornélie Falcon around 1835

Cornélie Falcon's voice cannot be clearly classified in the modern vocal ranges of soprano or mezzo-soprano . It had a large range of more than two octaves, ranging from the low a flat to the high d '' ' in Rachel's role in Halévy's La Juive , with the high c' '' being used relatively frequently. Her voice was described as full, her timbre as dark. Although she must have had a certain ability to coloratura (she sang Mozart's Donna Anna and French roles by Rossini), the roles composed for her, such as Halévy's Rachel or Meyerbeer's Valentine in Les Huguenots, above all require lyrical gifts and great dramatic power and expressiveness.

Henri Blaze wrote about them:

“Mlle Falcon shone in the full splendor of youth and success. A soprano voice of greater scope, clearer, even more admirably beautiful and authentic, and at the same time more capable of the most grandiose exertions, could not be imagined: it was an incomparable metal, a timbre as one had never heard it before and how one probably one will never hear again. Because, to use the words of a famous poet: nature is similar, but it does not repeat itself . "

An enthusiastic description of Cornélie Falcon's art and voice can be read in the biography des acteurs de Paris of 1837:

“... Mlle Falcon suddenly rose like a shining meteor on the horizon of the Académie royale de musique. Today Mlle Falcon is one of the queens of song. ... Great and wonderful, the voice of Mlle Falcon shakes your deepest inner being through its powerful tones, wrests and commands admiration. It is a strong, colossal voice, of supernatural splendor, whose dramatic vibrations give you goose bumps, send cold chills down your spine, and how everything that is big and beautiful is crushed and destroyed. Full of verve and temperament, her singing addresses the masses through her warm eloquence; she trembles with her lively energy. She has such heartbreaking accents, gestures that are so terrifyingly true that the electrified audience spontaneously gets up, as if hit by an electric shock. Mlle Falcon can be proud of all the screams of admiration, all the "Bravos", all the flowers, all the delirium in honor of her talent. With the help of Nourrit's lessons, Mlle Falcon learned to become a great tragedy. "

There have been various suspicions about the cause of her premature and tragic loss of voice: possibly vocal or breathing difficulties; or that she was actually a mezzo-soprano who was blown up; the voice being overwhelmed by the fact that the parts she sang were (still?) too dramatic for her at this point; or that she performed too many gigs and didn't take enough breaks. In addition or in addition, psychological factors would also be conceivable which in the long term could not be reconciled with an opera career.

gallery

  • Costume design for Cornélie Falcon as Valentine in Les Huguenots by Meyerbeer, 1836

  • Costume design for Cornélie Falcon as Léonore in Stradella von Niedermeyer, 1837

  • Cornélie Falcon's funerary chapel on the Père-Lachaise (Division 55), in Paris

literature

  • Barthélémy Braud: "Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon", in: Bulletin historique 3 , Société Scientifique & Agricole de la Haute-Loire, Le-Puy-en-Velay, 1913, pp. 73-108. Online on Wikimedia (French; last seen on July 21, 2019)
  • Philip Robinson: "Falcon, (Marie) Cornélie", in: "The New Grove Dictionary of Opera" (4 volumes), London: Macmillan, 1992. Here: Volume 2, p. 110

Web links

Commons : Cornélie Falcon  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Mark Pullinger: "You can't put voices in boxes: Corinne Winters discusses Falcon and Zwischenfach roles", interview about the Falcon voice and the role of Rachel in La Juive , May 28, 2019, in Bachtrack.com (English; seen on July 21, 2019)

Individual notes

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i "Cornélie Falcon" in (English; Oxford Index , viewed on July 20, 2019)
  2. ↑ Barthélémy Braud: "Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon", in: Bulletin historique 3 , Société Scientifique & Agricole de la Haute-Loire, Le-Puy-en-Velay, 1913, pp. 73-108, here: pp. 77. Online on Wikimedia
  3. ↑ Barthélémy Braud: “Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon”, in: Bulletin historique 3 , ... 1913, pp. 73–108, here: p. 100. Online on Wikimedia
  4. ↑ a b Mark Pullinger: "You can't put voices in boxes: Corinne Winters discusses Falcon and Zwischenfach roles", Interview about the Falcon voice and the role of Rachel in La Juive , May 28, 2019, in Bachtrack.com ( English; last seen on July 21, 2019)
  5. ↑ Original French in: Barthélémy Braud: “Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon”, in: Bulletin historique 3 ,…, 1913, ... here: p. 90. Online on Wikimedia
  6. ↑ Barthélémy Braud: "Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon", in: Bulletin historique 3 , Société Scientifique & Agricole de la Haute-Loire, Le-Puy-en-Velay, 1913, pp. 73-108, here: pp. 94-95. Online on Wikimedia
  7. ↑ Barthélémy Braud: “Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon”, in: Bulletin historique 3 ,…, 1913, ... here: p. 95. Online on Wikimedia
  8. ↑ Barthélémy Braud: “Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon”, in: Bulletin historique 3 ,…, 1913, ... here: pp. 101 and 103. Online on Wikimedia
  9. ↑ Barthélémy Braud: "Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon", ... 1913, ... here: p. 106. Online on Wikimedia
  10. ↑ " Mlle Falcon brillait alors tout de l'éclat de la jeunesse et du succès. De voix de soprano plus étendue, plus limpide, plus admirablement belle et génuine, et en même temps plus capable d'efforts grandioses, on ne saurait s'en imaginer: c'était un métal incomparable, un timbre comme on n'en avait jamais entendu, et comme il pourrait bien se faire qu'on n'en entendìt plus, car la nature pour me servir de la parole d'un illustrious poète, s'égale mais ne se répète pas. ". Here to :: Barthélémy Braud: “Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon”, in: Bulletin historique 3 ,…, 1913, ... here: p. 97. Online on Wikimedia
  11. ^ " ... Mlle Falcon a jailli subitement comme un météore lumineux sur l'horizon de l'Académie royale de musique. Aujourd'hui, Mlle Falcon est une des reine du chant. … Magnifique et superbe, la voix de Mlle Falcon ébranle vos plus profondes entrailles par ses intonations puissantes, arrache, commande l'admiration. C'est une voix forte, colossale, aux éclats surnaturels, dont la vibration dramatique donne la chair de poule, fait courir un frissons par le corps, et comme tous qui est grand et beau écrase, anéantit. Plein de fougue et d'entrainement, son chant s'Adresse aux masses, par sa chaleureuse éloquence, elle fait tressaillir par sa remuante énergie. Elle a des accents si déchirants, des gestes si effrayants de vérité, que le public électrisé se lêve spontanément, comme frappé d'une commotion électrique. Mlle Falcon doit être fière de tous ces cris d'admiration, de tous ces bravos, de toutes ces fleurs, de tous ce délire jeté en hommage á son talent. En recevant des lecons de Nourrit, Mlle Falcon a appris de lui á devenir une grande tragédienne . ”(In: Biographie des acteurs de Paris , 1837). See: Barthélémy Braud: “Une reine du chant: Cornélie Falcon”, in: Bulletin historique 3 ,…, 1913, ... here: p. 97, footnote 1. Online on Wikimedia
personal data
SURNAME Falcon, Cornélie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1897
Place of death Paris