Giulia Grisi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
M.dlle Giulietta Grisi , around 1835

Giulia Grisi (born May 22, 1811 in Milan , † November 29, 1869 in Berlin ) was an Italian opera singer (dramatic coloratura soprano , soprano sfogato ).

Life

Youth and early career

Giulia was the daughter of Gaetano Grisi, an officer in the Napoleonic Army , and came from a musically gifted family. Her mother Giovanna was a sister of the famous singer Giuseppina Grassini (1773-1850), and Giulia's older sister Giuditta Grisi was a famous mezzo-soprano . Her cousin Carlotta Grisi was one of the most important ballerinas of the Romantic era .

From the age of eleven, Giulia was brought up in a boarding school; She received her first music and piano lessons at the Mantellate convent in Florence. When she was 14 years old, her beautiful natural voice was discovered and her sister Giuditta convinced her father to bring the girl back to Milan, where Giulia was tutored for three years by the tenor Giacomo Guglielmi (son of the composer Pietro Carlo Guglielmi ). She then studied in Bologna with Giacomelli and was trained at the Conservatory in Milan with MA Marliani.

Giulia Grisi as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello , ca.1836

She made her debut in 1828 at the age of seventeen as Emma in Rossini's Zelmira in Bologna. Already in the same season 1828-29 the impresario Lanari had her appear as primadonna in Rossini's operas Torvaldo e Dorliska and Il barbiere di Siviglia . A little overworked from these appearances and with poor health, she temporarily withdrew to her aunt Giuseppina Grassini in Bologna, who gave her valuable tips, so that Giulia could continue her career in the Carnival 1829-30 at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence , among other things as Amenaide in Rossini's Tancredi .

At the same theater in 1830 Giulia Grisi sang alongside the famous tenor Giovanni David in Pacini's Il falegname di Livonia and in Ricciardo e Zoraide by Rossini, who heard her on the occasion and predicted a brilliant career for her. Lanari, however, exploited the young singer and forced her to perform a dangerous stint in a short time, for example in the summer of 1830 in Livorno and Pisa she had to sing the virtuoso title role in Rossini's Semiramide on a single day in the morning and Desdemona in Otello in the evening .

In September 1831 she made her debut at La Scala in Milan and on December 26th was the first Adalgisa in Vincenzo Bellini's Norma , alongside the famous Giuditta Pasta , with whom a few months later she also conte the role of Adelia in the world premiere of Donizetti's Ugo di Parigi sang (March 13, 1832). Giulia Grisi and Pasta were on friendly terms, and the younger one not only benefited from the older singer's advice, but also appeared alongside her in Donizetti's Anna Bolena (as Giovanna Seymour) and in Pacini's Il corsaro (as Gulnara).

Paris and London

Giulia Grisi with Luigi Lablache in I puritani , King's Theater, London 1835

In order to evade her ten-year contract with the exploiter Lanari, Giulia went to Paris , where her sister Giuditta and her aunt Grassini were staying at the time. There, instead of Maria Malibran and under Rossini's direction , she celebrated her debut in the Théâtre-Italien on October 16, 1833 in his Semiramide and delighted the audience with her perfect intonation, the lightness and size of her voice, and her classical beauty. Several times she stood next to her sister on stage in Paris: as Elena in Rossini's La donna del lago (with Giuditta as Malcolm), and as Giulietta in Bellini's I Capuleti ei Montecchi , with Giuditta in her star role as Romeo. Giulia Grisi stayed in Paris until 1848, and then again in 1854 and from 1856 to 1858.

In London she first sang in Rossini's Die derbische Magpie in 1834 . She also became a crowd favorite in England, performing there every year until 1861 (except in 1842).

After appearing in Paris in the world premieres of Bellini's I puritani and Donizetti's Marin Faliero in 1835 with tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini , baritone Antonio Tamburini and bassist Luigi Lablache , these singers lived in the memory of the legendary “Puritani Quartet” Opera friends long gone. Bellini himself reported on Grisi's performance as Elvira in I puritani (January 24, 1835):

“[...] also la Grisi l'ha cantato e l'ha agito come un angelo, tutto il teatro fu costretto a piangere, perché particolarmente l'entrata del 6/8 quando ella si crede andare a nozze ed al ballo, lacera l'anima [...] ”

“[...] Grisi also sang and played like an angel, the whole theater had to cry, because especially her appearance in 6/8 time, when she thinks she would go to her wedding and dance, tears you up the heart [...]"

- Vincenzo Bellini
Giulia Grisi as Norma von Bellini, 1837

In London in the spring of 1835, after brilliant successes at the King's theater as Anna Bolena and Norma , Grisi was invited to the birthday of the future Queen Victoria , along with Malibran (with whom she got along well), her colleagues Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache and the tenor Nicola Ivanoff . Giulia sang her arias “Son vergin vezzosa” and “Vieni al tempio” from I puritani , the virtuoso aria finale “Tanti affetti” from Rossini's La donna del lago , and in a trio from L'assedio di Corinto . The 16-year-old Victoria then wrote in her diary admiringly about Giulia Grisi's beauty and her singing (which she liked better than the Malibran), and her moderate ornamentation in the repetitions; she described the singer as "... very calm, elegant and not affected at all in her manner. I spoke to her and she answered me very nicely".

In 1836 the Grisi sang in addition to the opera in charity concerts in Birmingham in the oratorios Messiah by Handel and Paulus von Mendelssohn .

In 1836 she married the Viscount Auguste-Gérard de Melcy in London , with whom she lived in his castle Vaucressou between Saint-Cloud and Versailles .
In June 1839, during performances of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in London, she met the tenor Mario (actually Giovanni Matteo De Candia (1810-1883)), who became the great love of her life and whom she met after her separation from Melcy in 1856 finally got married. Grisi and Mario had five daughters and one son together.

Giulia Grisi as Anna Bolena by Donizetti, ca.1836

Giulia Grisi's repertoire in her long career in Paris and London included the roles of Rossini and Bellini already mentioned: the title roles in Donizetti's operas Anna Bolena , Lucrezia Borgia , Parisina , Belisario , Fausta and Gemma di Vergy ; the main female roles in Bellini's operas Il pirata , La sonnambula , Beatrice di Tenda and especially Norma . She has also appeared in some classical operas: as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni , as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte , in The Marriage of Figaro and in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto . In London she sang leading roles in Meyerbeer's operas Robert le diable , Les Huguenots (Valentine) and Le prophète (Berta and Fidès (?!)); and in Mercadante's Il giuramento and Il bravo , as well as the role of Alice in Falstaff by the English composer Michael Balfe .

In 1842 in Paris Giulia Grisi sang the soprano solo in Rossini's Stabat Mater . A little later Donizetti composed the role of Norina for her in his opera buffa Don Pasquale , which had its world premiere on January 3, 1843 at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, with Mario, Lablache and Tamburini. Donizetti also wrote some extra arias for the Grisi: in 1840 in London the cabaletta “Si voli il primo a cogliere” for the performance aria of Lucrezia Borgia , and in 1843 the cabaletta “Benigno il cielo arridere” for the Paris premiere of his opera Maria di Rohan .

In September 1844 in Paris she sang the role of Elvira in Verdi's Ernani , and in London on May 1, 1846 in the premiere of Verdi's I Lombardi . In London she also appeared in Verdi's operas I due Foscari and later as Leonora in Il trovatore .

On April 6, 1847, Grisi sang together with Marietta Alboni at the opening of the Covent Garden Opera in Rossini's Semiramide .

Late years

Giulia Grisi as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni , 1850s

Giulia Grisi toured numerous times in the late stages of her career. So she followed from 1850 to 1853 a commitment to St. Petersburg , where she sang in operas by Rossini, Bellini, Meyerbeer and Mozart, and in the premiere of Giulio Alary s Sardanapale (February 16, 1852).
Together with her husband Mario, she traveled to North America in the fall of 1854. She sang in New York in Norma and Lucrezia Borgia (October 1854). The role of Norma was also her draft horse in Washington and Boston (January 1855).
In 1859 she appeared in Friedrich von Flotow's opera Martha in Dublin , and in the autumn of the same year she sang her star role Norma and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots in Madrid .

In July 1861 she announced her retirement from the opera stage, but sang again in London in 1866 in Lucrezia Borgia before she finally retired after the death of two of her daughters.

Giulia Grisi, photo by Disdéri, ca.1860

However, she continued to give concerts, and after Rossini's death in 1868 sang his Stabat Mater at the memorial service in honor of the composer in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, together with Mario, Marietta Alboni and Francesco Graziani .

During her marriage to Mario, she lived in Paris and London and spent summers in the palace of her husband's family in Sardinia .

1869, after a concert with Pauline Viardot in Wiesbaden , she retired during a train trip with her children to her husband to Saint Petersburg a pneumonia and died in a hotel in Berlin.

She was transferred to Paris and buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. Her grave bears a white stone with the inscription "Giulietta de Candia".

Appreciation

Giulia Grisi as Semiramide by Rossini, lithograph after Alexandre Lacauchie

Giulia Grisi's voice was initially a light, later a dramatic coloratura soprano and secured her position as prima donna for decades. In addition, she was an excellent actress and was highly valued by Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. She is said to have been one of the first sopranos to elicit voluminous and penetrating notes from her chest register. According to Chorley, her voice was splendid and sweet and perfectly balanced over the entire range of two octaves (roughly from c to c '' '); he praised her "clear and fast trills " (" Her shake was clear and rapid ") and her security in the runs and intonation :

"Never has a woman mastered every gradation of volume better and more thoroughly than she ... the clear penetrating beauty of her weakened tones ... was so unique that she reconciled the ear with a certain shallow expression of the words and the situation."

- Henry F. Chorley

Since Grisi's career from 1833 largely took place in Paris and London, relatively few roles were written for her directly, as most of the operas were written “on site” in Italy. Nevertheless, she was one of the most important interpreters in the successful operas of her time.

Théophile Gautier wrote about her interpretation of Rossini's Semiramide in 1841 that Grisi was an embodiment of Babylon herself “through the haughty sparkle of her gaze, the majesty of her imperious demeanor and this sovereign expression that gives her the certainty of being perfectly beautiful”.

The title role in Bellini's Norma is considered one of her most important achievements . She is said to have been the first to sing mezza-voce on stage and so delighted the audience. B. in the aria "Casta diva". According to Chorley, Grisi leaned her interpretation on Giuditta Pasta, and:

“Perhaps, in some ways, it was an improvement on the model because there was more animal passion in it; and this (as in the scene of imperious and abrupt anger which closes the first act) could be carried to the extreme without becoming repulsive; because of the absence of even the slightest coarseness in their personal beauty. It contained the wild cruelty of the tigress, but with a certain frenzied charm that carried the listener away - no, which probably even belongs to the true understanding of the character of the druid priestess who is unfaithful to her vow. "

- Henry F. Chorley

In 1844 Gautier described Giulia Grisi's effect as Norma as follows:

“Norma is Giulia Grisi, and Irminsul certainly never had a priestess more beautiful and better inspired. It surpasses the ideal. When she appears, erect and proud in the folds of her tunic, the golden sickle in her hand, a wreath of verbena on her head, her face a mask of pale marble, her black brow and her eyes a greenish blue like the sea, an involuntary cry of admiration fills the theater ...
Norma is Giulia Grisi's triumph. Nobody who has not seen her in this role can say that he knows her; in her she shows herself to be as great a tragedy as she is a perfect singer. The art of song, passion, beauty, it has it all; suppressed rage, sublime violence, threats and tears, love and anger; never has a woman poured out her soul like this when creating a role ...
Giulia Grisi achieves a sublimity in (first scene Act II) that has never been surpassed; that is truly the tragic muse, the Melpomene , of which Aeschylus and Phidias may have dreamed. "

- Théophile Gautier

literature

  • Elizabeth Forbes: "Grisi, Giulia", in: Grove Music Online
  • David RB Kimbell: Vincenzo Bellini - Norma (in the series: Cambridge Opera Handbooks ), Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 112. Online in excerpts as a Google Book (English; accessed on August 16, 2020)
  • Grisi . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 7, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 749.
  • Roberto Staccioli: Grisi , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 59, 2002, article in Treccani (Italian; accessed August 14, 2020)

Web links

Commons : Giulia Grisi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elizabeth Forbes, "Grisi, Giulia" in Grove Music Online ; July 28th is also occasionally mentioned as her birthday; however, this is her sister Giuditta's birthday .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Roberto Staccioli: Grisi , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 59, 2002, article on Treccani (Italian; access on August 13, 2020)
  3. ^ Ugo, conte di Parigi (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  4. ^ I Puritani (Vincenzo Bellini) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  5. ^ Marin Faliero (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  6. ↑ (Letter of January 26, 1835, in: Bellini: Epistolario , pp. 501-503). Here after: Roberto Staccioli: Grisi , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 59, 2002, article in Treccani (Italian; accessed August 13, 2020)
  7. ^ "È molto tranquilla, distinta e non affettata nei modi. Le ho parlato ed essa mi ha risposto in modo molto gradevole ”(originally from: The girlhood of queen Victoria , p. 114; here in Italian translation from Giazotto, p. 487). Roberto Staccioli: Grisi , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 59, 2002, article in Treccani (Italian; accessed August 13, 2020)
  8. ^ Don Pasquale (Gaetano Donizetti) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  9. ↑ a b David RB Kimbell: Vincenzo Bellini - Norma (in the series: Cambridge Opera Handbooks ), Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 111. Online in excerpts as a Google Book (English; accessed on August 16, 2020)
  10. ↑ “Nor has any woman ever more thoroughly commanded every gradation of force than she ... the clear penetrating beauty of her reduced tones ... was so unique, as to reconcile the ear to a certain shallowness of expression in her rendering of the words and the situation. ”(Chorley, 1862, Vol. I, pp. 110-111).
  11. ↑ “ ... par l'éclat superbe de son regard, la majesté de son attitude dominatrice et cette expression sovereign que lui donne la certitude d'être parfaitement belle ”. Here after: Roberto Staccioli: Grisi , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 59, 2002, article in Treccani (Italian; accessed August 13, 2020)
  12. ↑ Grisi . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 7, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 749.
  13. ↑ “perhaps, in some points, was an improvement on the model, because there was more of animal passion in it; and this (as in the scene of imperious and abrupt rage which cloes the first act) could be driven to extremity without its becoming repulsive; owing to the absence of the slightest coarseness in her personal beauty. There was in it the wild ferocity of the tigress, but a certain frantic charm therewith, which carried away the hearer - nay, which possibly belongs to the true reading of the character of the Druid Priestess, unfaithful to her vows. "In: David RB Kimbell: Vincenzo Bellini - Norma (in the series: Cambridge Opera Handbooks ), Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 111-112. Online in excerpts as a Google Book (English; accessed on August 16, 2020)
  14. ^ "Norma is Giulia Grisi, and never, for sure, did Irminsul have a priestess more lovely or better inspired. She surpasses the ideal. When she makes her entrance, upright and proud in the folds of her tunic, the golden sickle in her hand, a coronet of vervain on her head, her face a mask of pale marble, her black brows and her eyes a greenish blue like that of the sea, an involuntary cry of admiration fills the theater ... Norma is Giulia Grisi's triumph. No-one who has not seen her in this role can say that he knows her; in it she shows herself as great a tragédienne as she is perfect a singer. The art of song, passion, beauty, she has everything; suppressed rage, sublime violence, threats and tears, love and anger; never did a woman so pour out her soul in the creation of a role ... Giulia Grisi achieves a sublimity in this (opening scene of act II) which has never been surpassed; truly this is the tragic muse, the Melpomene of whom Aeschylos and Phidias might have dreamed. ”(English translation of the French orig.). In: David RB Kimbell: Vincenzo Bellini - Norma (in the series: Cambridge Opera Handbooks ), Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 112. Online in excerpts as a Google Book (English; accessed on August 16, 2020)
personal data
SURNAME Grisi, Giulia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian opera singer (dramatic soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1869
Place of death Berlin