Laure Cinti-Damoreau

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Laure Cinti-Damoreau, around 1820–1825

Laure Cinti-Damoreau , also Laure Damoreau-Cinti , née Laure Cinthie Montalant ( February 6, 1801 in Paris - February 25, 1863 in Chantilly (Oise)) was a French opera singer and vocal teacher. She became particularly famous in Paris as the prima donna of Rossini and Aubers , and was one of the first to embody the coloratura soprano type imported from Italy in romantic French opera .

biography

childhood

She was born as Laure Cinthie Montalant as the daughter of François-Parfait Montalant and his wife Marie-Victoire Bougy; her father was a language teacher and her mother carved inscriptions on monuments. Her parents lived in Paris at the time of her birth on the Rue du Petit-Pont-Notre-Dame on the Ile de la Cité . Laure also had an older sister, Pensée-Euphémie Montalant, who was a painter and a student of Redouté. Laure kept a kind of diary (French: "Journal") all her life , and therefore left behind many valuable records not only of a personal nature, but also for the history of the opera of her time; the theater and music critic Pier-Angelo Fiorentino used these records for a biography of Cinti-Damoreau, which appeared in six episodes in the newspaper Le Ménestrel after her death , from October 25, 1863 to November 29, 1863.

Laure was an imaginative child who attracted attention from an early age with a musical and theatrical talent and a pretty voice. Despite the initial skepticism of the directors Sarette and Catel, she was accepted at the Paris Conservatory when she was only 7 years old , where she initially received lessons in piano and harmony . Having already received an award for her piano playing - at the same time as Jacques Halévy and Ferdinand Hérold - she also wanted to study singing, but the Committee of the Conservatoire, to which Cherubini belonged, said she did not have enough voice and declined from. So her parents turned to a Mr. Plantade who led a singing class at the Opéra ; he was completely convinced of the girl's vocal possibilities and accepted her as a student.

At the Théâtre Italy

In the salon of a musical friend, Laure met the famous Italian singer Angelica Catalani , who was also the director of the Théâtre-Italien at the time. She made her debut on January 8, 1816 as Lilla in Una cosa rara by Vicente Martín y Soler . At the suggestion of the Catalani, the singer, who was not even 15 years old, changed her middle name Cinthie to the Italianized Cinti; under this name she would later become famous.

Laure Cinti-Damoreau, around 1820 (?). Engraving by Devéria, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

Initially, the Cinti sang with consideration for her young age and her still immature voice, especially in small and easy parts. When Catalani's management went bankrupt in 1818, the Cinti was reinstated in the same company at the Théâtre Louvois . a. who belonged to the Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro . She now had a contract as Seconda Donna, but occasionally stepped in as Prima Donna . She was discovered by the tenor and singing teacher Manuel García , who took her under his wing and encouraged her; he appeared with her both in a benefit concert (November 24, 1818), as well as on the opera stage, and gave her the main role of Zetulbè in his opera Il califfo di Bagdad, which he had originally composed in 1813 for Isabella Colbran . As a result, the voice of the Cinti blossomed more and more, gained in volume, strength and softness, so that she got a new contract as prima donna, and was now allowed to sing other leading roles, such as Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia , Ninetta in La gazza ladra or Aménaide in Tancredi .

On a personal level, the young singer had to put up with a number of tragic experiences and disappointments. About this time she met a young man named Hippolyte Caylus, who wanted to marry her and whose feelings she reciprocated; but since both parents were against it, the young man committed suicide with a pistol shot. Laure was so shaken by this that she fell ill and "hovered between life and death" for weeks. Another gentleman named Torri, a singer and alleged count, courted her violently and eloquently, but when she fell seriously in love with him, he disappeared overnight to London and never was heard from again.

Although the Cinti was a popular member of the troupe and was now very successful and recognized as a singer, Giovanni Battista Viotti , who was director of both the Paris Opéra and the Italian Opera at the time , wanted to dismiss her out of personal dislike. She was already holding the resignation in her hand when a friend informed her that Viotti had been replaced by habeneck on the same day , who immediately hired her again. This event was kept strictly secret by all those involved, especially by her family, and the public never heard of it during her lifetime.

In 1822 Laure Cinti performed at the King's Theater in London.

Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Pamyra in Rossini's Le siège de Corinthe, 1826. Costume figure by Hippolyte Lecomte, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

At the Opéra

Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde in Rossini's Guillaume Tell, 1829. Costume figure by Hippolyte Lecomte, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Isabelle in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable , 1831. Engraving by Maleuvre, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris

In 1825 she made her debut at the Opéra de Paris in Le rossignol by Louis-Sébastien Lebrun ; she was so successful in this that they wanted to hire her immediately, but the singer herself hesitated and wanted a "second attempt" in the serious genre; and so she was given the role of Amanzili in Fernand Cortez von Spontini , while at the same time she sang Rosina in Rossini's Barbers at the Théâtre Italien . She then became a permanent member of the Opéra for the next nine years.

After further studies with Gioachino Rossini, who had come to Paris in August 1824, she sang the Paris premieres of his Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra and his Mosè in Egitto and in 1825 was the first Contessa Folleville in Rossini's coronation opera Il viaggio a Reims in a luxurious, many-headed and unrepeatable star cast alongside Giuditta Pasta , Ester Mombelli , Domenico Donzelli , Nicholas-Prosper Levasseur and others. a.

She subsequently sang other demanding prima donnas in operas by Rossini: the title role in La Cenerentola , and especially the French versions of Le siège de Corinthe (1826), Moïse et Pharaon (1827) and Le comte Ory (1828). She also created the role of Mathilde in his last opera Guillaume Tell (1829), where she appeared on stage with tenor Adolphe Nourrit and again with bassist Nicolas Levasseur. Laure Cinti also sang in Halévy's Pygmalion

On Friday, November 13, 1827, Laure married the tenor Charles-Vincent Damoreau (1793–1863), who lived in Brussels , but this marriage was not to be particularly happy. Immediately after the marriage, the new Mme. Damoreau moved to her husband in Brussels for a while, and also earned a lot of applause at her performances and concerts in various cities in Belgium and Holland.

After her return to the Paris Opéra, she was the first Elvire in Aber's La muette de Portici (1828) and the first Isabelle in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable (1831), also these operas alongside Nourrit. She also created the leading female roles in Le Dieu et la Bayadère (1830), Le Philtre (1831), and Le Serment (1832) for Auber , and sang in older works such as Mozart's Don Giovanni , Rousseau's Le devin du village and Spontinis Olimpie .

According to Fiorentino, Laure Cinti-Damoreau was widely admired for "... her wonderful technique, grace and taste ...":

"Les traits qu'elle ajoutait á ses roles, et qui était toujours d'une légèreté, d'une finesse et d'une justesse incomparables, doublaient la valeurs des morceaux qu'on lui confiait. Rossini était ravi… "Son chant, disait Garat, est insolemment juste". Boieldieu la remerciait plus tard avec effusion, des fioritures exquises dont elle avait embelli les charmants couplets du “Nouveau seigneur”. Ses traits n'altéraient jamais le charactère d'un morceau, et si l'auteur avait dû les noter lui-même, il ne les eût pas mieux choisis. Elle avait fait de l'air du "Serment" une telle merveille d'exécution, qu'après la chute du rideau, la salle entière le redemanda avec des cris d'enthousiasme, et qu'elle du le répéter ce qui ne s' était jamais vu á l'Opéra. “C'est de la dentelle de Chantilly”, disait Auber en parlant de quelques vocalises qu'elle avait brodées dans sa dernière retraite. »

“… The traits that she gave her roles, and which were always of an incomparable lightness, finesse and accuracy, doubled the value of the pieces that were entrusted to her. Rossini was enchanted… Garat said: 'Your singing is insolently accurate'. Boïeldieu later thanked her wholeheartedly for the exquisite fioritures with which she embellished the charming couplets of the 'Nouveau Seigneur'. Its ornamentation never changed the character of a piece, and if the writer had to write it down himself, he could not have chosen it better. She made such a miracle of execution out of the aria of 'Serment' that after the curtain fell, the whole hall demanded a repetition with screams of enthusiasm - and that she had to repeat something that had never before been seen at the Opéra would have. "They are tips from Chantilly," said Auber of some of the vowels with which she adorned her last repetition. "

- Pier-Angelo Fiorentino : Le Ménestrel of November 22, 1863

At the Opéra-Comique

1833 and the two following years were a sad low point for Laure Cinti, because of the separation from her husband, to whom she left "everything she owned". She temporarily withdrew to Rouen, and even turned down an offer from Rossini who wanted to hire her again at the Théâtre-Italien.

In early 1836 she moved to the Opéra-Comique , and left her own leading position at the Opéra to the younger Julie Dorus-Gras and the very popular Cornélie Falcon (who, however, embodied a completely different vocal type). On this stage, the Cinti-Damoreau shone above all in new operas by Auber: In his L'ambassadrice (1836), as Lucrezia in Actéon (1836), and as Angèle in Le domino noir (1837). Its last premiere at the Opéra-Comique was Adolphe Adams La rose de Péronne . She left the Opéra-Comique in 1841, apparently for health reasons on the one hand, and on the other hand because Auber had promised her the lead role in his new opera Les diamants de la couronne , but instead gave this role to Anna Thillon, with whom he is said to have been in love .

Laure Cinti-Damoreau 1834. Portrait bust by Louis Desprez. Collection of the Musée de l ' Opéra , Paris (inv p. 3517)

Her farewell performance on May 8, 1841 consisted of an act from Auber's L'ambassadrice, an excerpt from Le domino noir, and the second act of Rossini's Guillaume Tell.The grateful audience reacted so emotionally and showered them with flowers that they went to the last The curtain collapsed fainted from emotion; When she came home that evening, the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique, to her surprise, played the overture to Le domino noir as a farewell serenade under her window .

After that, Laure Cinti-Damoreau sang in concerts for a few years and went on several tours: From September 1841 to 1842 to Russia (especially St. Petersburg), where she was very alienated by the other customs and traditions, but had great success. At the end of 1842 she sang performances of her two draft horses Le domino noir and L'ambassadrice in Brussels and, after a concert on November 12th, wrote only this one time in her diary: “Pyramidal success”.

At the end of 1843 to 1844, accompanied by the violinist Alexandre-Joseph Artot , she ventured a tour through the still “half barbaric” America, where she performed in Washington , New York , Pennsylvania , Maryland , Virginia , South Carolina , Havana and New Orleans . In New York she appeared in Rossini's La gazza ladra (“La pie voleuse”) and in the Barbiere di Siviglia . Shortly after the dancer Fanny Elßler and several years before Jenny Lind and Henriette Sontag, she was one of the first European artists to undertake such a grueling trip to America.

Back in Paris she only gave concerts, a. a. on November 6, 1846, a charity concert in the Salle Pleyel for the victims of the Loire floods . Her last public concert was in 1848 in the Salle Herz.

In the summer of 1849 she was in London, where she sang in front of the ex-King Louis-Philippe , his wife and the Duc d'Aumale , who was living there in exile .

Pedagogical work and end of life

From 1833 to 1856 Laure Cinti-Damoreau taught at the Paris Conservatoire and published a Méthode de chant (= singing method) in 1849 , which is still available today as the "Classic Bel Canto Technique" (= classical bel canto technique); A few years later she followed up with a special method for young voices, which she advised to be more careful with, avoiding the low and high registers. While she was still at the Opéra, some of the romances she had composed were published. She also wrote down her own ornaments in numerous “notebooks” for many of the arias and roles she sang; these records are currently in the Lilly Library at Indiana University and are an important primary source for studying bel canto performance practice and Rossini research.

Laure Cinti-Damoreau retired to Chantilly in 1855, where she died on February 25, 1863.

Her husband Charles Damoreau, who lived separately from her in Écouen , died there in the same year. The two had a daughter Fanny-Marie Cinti (1834-1906), who was also a soprano and on January 31, 1856 married the librarian and composer Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin .

Grave of Laure Cinthie Montalant, called Laure Cinti-Damoreau, on the Cimetière Montmartre in Paris

literature

  • Giorgio Appolonia: Le voci di Rossini. EDA, Turin 1992, pp. 300-309.
  • Jeremy Commons & Don White: Manuel Garcia: Il Califfo di Baghdad. Booklet text for the CD box: A Hundred Years of Italian Opera 1810–1820. Opera Rara ORCH 103, pp. 60-63.
  • Pier-Angelo Fiorentino: Laure Cinti-Damoreau , 6-part biography in: Le Ménestrel , October 25 to November 29, 1863 ( online at Gallica ; more detailed information in the footnotes; French).
  • Wilhelm Keitel, Dominik Neuner: Gioachino Rossini. Albrecht Knaus, Munich 1992.
  • Roland Mancini, Jean-Jacques Rouveroux (French edition of the original by H. Rosenthal & J. Warrack): Guide de l'opéra, Les indispensables de la musique. Fayard, 1995, ISBN 2-213-59567-4 .
  • Philip Robinson: Cinti-Damoreau. In: Laura Macy (Ed.): The Grove book of opera singers. Oxford University Press, New York 2008, pp. 88-89.

Web links

Commons : Laure Cinti-Damoreau  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Before her marriage, she was best known as "Laure Cinti" or "Mademoiselle Cinti", and after the marriage also as "Madame Damoreau" or "Damoreau-Cinti".
  2. ↑ All of the following personal information about the singer is based on Fiorentino's biography in the six different editions of Ménestrel .
  3. ↑ In order to be able to read the continuations, one only has to click on the next date in the line for the date.
  4. ↑ According to Commons and White, Garcias Califfo was given as early as 1817 with Garcia and Laure Cinti at the Théâtre-Italien (that would be before the "Catalani bankruptcy").
  5. ↑ Although Garcia's Italian opera was definitely given at the Théâtre-Italien, Fiorentino names the opera - as is usually the case - with its French title Le calife de Bagdad ; However, this creates the question or the misleading impression that it could have been Boieldieu's somewhat older one-act play of the same name , which is illogical here.
  6. ↑ Fiorentino, strangely enough, does not mention this in his much more detailed biography in the Ménestrel of October-November 1863.
  7. ↑ As usual, Fiorentino only mentions the opera, but it can only be about these three works by Auber.
  8. ^ As usual, Fiorentino only mentions the opera, not a composer; Don Giovanni appears as "Don Juan".
  9. ↑ "... la méthode admirable, la grâce et le goût de la cantatrice furent un objet d'admiration ...".
  10. ^ Fiorentino names all three of Auber's operas.
  11. ↑ She needed a cure and spent a whole season in Eaux-Bonnes .
  12. ↑ "Succès pyramidal".
  13. ↑ So wrote the Cinti-Damoreau herself in a letter - rightly so, since most of America at that time was relatively provincial and uncultivated in comparison with Europe and especially Paris.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Pier-Angelo Fiorentino: Laure Cinti-Damoreau. Part 1. In: Le Ménestrel of October 25, 1863 (French, online at Gallica ).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Pier-Angelo Fiorentino: Laure Cinti-Damoreau. Part 2. In: Le Ménestrel of November 1, 1863, pp. 381-382 (French, online at Gallica ).
  3. ↑ Jeremy Commons & Don White: "Manuel Garcia: Il Califfo di Bagdad", booklet text on the CD box: A Hundred Years of Italian Opera 1810–1820, Opera Rara ORCH 103, pp. 62–63.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Pier-Angelo Fiorentino: Laure Cinti-Damoreau. Part 3. In: Le Ménestrel of November 8, 1863, pp. 389-391 (French, online at Gallica ).
  5. ↑ Philip Robinson: Cinti-Damoreau. In: Laura Macy (Ed.): The Grove book of opera singers. Oxford University Press, New York 2008, pp. 88-89.
  6. ^ A b Wilhelm Keitel, Dominik Neuner: Gioachino Rossini. Albrecht Knaus, Munich 1992.
  7. ↑ a b Pier-Angelo Fiorentino: Laure Cinti-Damoreau. Part 4. In: Le Ménestrel of November 15, 1863, pp. 397-399 (French, online at Gallica ).
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Pier-Angelo Fiorentino: Laure Cinti-Damoreau. Part 5. In: Le Ménestrel of November 22, 1863, pp. 405-406 (French, online at Gallica ).
  9. ^ Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber: Actéon - Edited and Introduced by Robert Ignatius Letellier. Cambridge Scholars Publishing ( online ).
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Pier-Angelo Fiorentino: Laure Cinti-Damoreau. Part 6. In: Le Ménestrel of November 29, 1863, pp. 413-415 (French, online at Gallica ).
  11. ↑ Lilly Library Manuscript Collections , accessed October 21, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Cinti-Damoreau, Laure
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Damoreau-Cinti, Laure; Montalant, Laure Cinthie (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French opera singer and vocal teacher
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1863
Place of death Chantilly (Oise)