Pauline Viardot-García

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Pauline Viardot-García

Michelle Ferdinande Pauline Viardot-García , née García, (born July 18, 1821 in Paris ; † May 18, 1910 there ) was a French opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ), composer, pianist, vocal teacher and editor.

Life

Pauline Viardot-García was born in Paris in 1821 as the daughter of the Spanish tenor Manuel del Pópulo Vicente García (1775-1832) and the Spanish singer Maria Joaquina Sitchèz (1780-1854; stage name: Joaquina Brionès). Growing up in a family of musicians - her sister was the singer Maria Malibran , her brother the baritone Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García  - she developed into a singer with an extraordinary mezzo-soprano voice, described by many admirers as charismatic , who could easily switch from soprano to alto .

She first received piano lessons from Franz Liszt and probably also composition lessons from Anton Reicha , who was also the teacher of Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz and César Franck . After the early accidental death of her sister Maria Malibran, Pauline was trained as a singer. with her brother Manuel García. On May 9, 1839, she made her debut as an opera singer in London as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello and a few months later received her first engagement at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, of which her future husband Louis Viardot was the director.

Viardot 1860 in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice

She celebrated triumphant successes on all the major opera stages in Europe. In her 23-year international career, she not only performed in Paris, Madrid , Vienna , London , Berlin and Dresden , but also in Saint Petersburg , where she made the acquaintance of the Russian poet Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev during a guest performance in 1843 , who closed a lifelong, intense friendship. On April 18, 1840, she married the much older Parisian theater director, art writer and art collector Louis Viardot (1800-1883). He then gave up his position as director at the Théâtre-Italy and became its manager. Their daughter Louise Héritte-Viardot (1841-1918) also became a singer and composer. Her other musically educated children were Claudie (* 1852), Marianne (* 1854) and Paul (* 1857).

Viardot spoke five languages: Spanish was her mother tongue; French because of her country of birth and home country France; Italian for her career as an opera singer; German, because she not only gave guest performances in Germany, but also lived in Germany for several years; and Russian because of its close relationship with the Russian cultural scene. In addition to her career as a singer, she was trained as a pianist at a high level and performed several times as a duo with her long-time artist friend Clara Schumann . In addition, she created a diverse oeuvre of compositions, including numerous songs, piano pieces, chamber music works, and song arrangements.

Bust of Viardot in the Baden-Baden spa gardens

In 1859 she appeared for the first time in a concert conducted by Hector Berlioz in Baden-Baden , thereby giving the city a special artistic status. As early as 1862, at the age of 42, Viardot had withdrawn from the stage, but still performed sporadically until 1873 and in private settings until the 1880s. In 1863 Viardot moved with her husband and four children to Baden-Baden, thereby ensuring that the spa town developed into an international city of culture. Here she concentrated on composing and teaching, organized matinees and soirees. In addition, she founded her own opera house, the Théâtre Viardot . Musicians, poets, painters and other important personalities of their time, such as Wilhelm and Augusta von Prussia and Otto von Bismarck , met in their Baden-Baden domicile, which included a villa, a garden theater and an art and lecture hall . Viardot and Clara Schumann, with whom she was close friends from 1838, performed works by Robert Schumann , Frédéric Chopin and Johannes Brahms in this context . At Viardot's famous matinees, the world-famous pianist Anton Rubinstein performed piano pieces. Her former piano teacher Franz Liszt was one of the guests of the Viardot family in Baden-Baden, along with Richard Wagner and the poet Theodor Storm . Camille Saint-Saëns dedicated his opera Samson et Dalila to her .

Viardot's grave on the Cimetière de Montmartre

Her compositions include the operetta Le Dernier Sorcier (“The Last Magician”), which was conducted in 1869 by Johannes Brahms in the Viardot house. In 1870 she took over the solo part in the world premiere of the Alto Rhapsody by Johannes Brahms. She set texts by the German poets Eduard Mörike and Heinrich Heine to music, wrote songs based on French, Italian, Spanish and Russian texts (Puschkin, Turgenew) and arranged, among other things, musical works by Haydn, Chopin and Brahms for piano and voice. A composition that has been performed occasionally to this day is the original Marche Militaire AM II, 203 AMS .

Pauline Viardot-García, 1908

Up until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/1871 , a multi-faceted art and cultural scene developed from the Viardot House, which made the spa town even more attractive. After the war began, the Viardot family moved back to Paris. There she helped Jules Massenet's breakthrough, among others , in whose oratorio Marie-Magdeleine she sang the title role (soprano) at the premiere on April 11, 1873. In Paris Viardot composed and taught until her death and ran a musical salon.

When Pauline Viardot-García died in Paris on May 18, 1910, she left behind a number of musical works of art that have only recently been rediscovered in addition to the memory of her much-praised vocal appearances and her commitment as an extremely competent singing teacher.

reception

Théophile Gautier on Pauline Viardot's debut in the opera Otello by Gioachino Rossini on October 12, 1839 at the Théâtre-Italy in Paris : “She has a voice that is one of the most splendid musical instruments that can be heard. Her timbre, which is neither too bright nor occupied, is admirable. It's not a metallic voice like that from Grisi; but the tones of the medium have something soft and sharp that touches the heart. Your size is wonderful. In the fermata of the Andantes of the cavatina inserted by Elisabetta in Otello , she emphasized two octaves and a fifth, i. H. from the low F of the tenor to the high C of the soprano. "

Commenting on her piano playing, Saint-Saëns said: “As a great friend of Chopin, she kept a very precise memory of Chopin's playing, and she gave the most precise instructions on how to interpret his works. Through them I understood that performing the works of the great pianist (or rather, the great musician!) Is much easier than one might think, and that it is as far removed from tasteless mannerism as it is from cold correctness. Through them I got to know the secrets of the real Tempo rubato without distorting Chopin's music and without resembling the contortions with which one all too often makes a caricature out of it ”.

The Wiener Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung wrote in 1843 on the occasion of an appearance by Viardot as a raisin in Rossini's opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia : “Mad. Viardot-Garcia has an excellent voice, it is always full, even and sure; it has a pure metal sound, especially in the middle and lower tones, it has a range from the small f to the three-stroke c, which makes two and a half octaves. She was amazed by the floral embroidery of the singing, these coloratura arabesques, by the admirable precision, security, boldness and violence of her voice, which is just as versatile for performing in ensemble pieces as for solo parts. [...] "

Student (selection)

gallery

  • Paris Salon of the Viardot, 1853

  • Pauline Viardot-García, painting by A. Scheffer (1840)

  • Photography, Pauline Viardot-García

  • Pauline Viardot-García, painting by Carl Timoleon von Neff (1842)

  • Pauline Viardot as Fidès in Meyerbeer's opera Le prophète (1849)

  • Pauline Viardot-Garcia as Tancredi in Rossini's opera of the same name - Théâtre-Italien Paris (1840)

  • Pauline Viardot as Valentine (left) and Marietta Albon i as Urbain in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots , 1st act, 9th scene (Covent Garden, 1848), lithograph by John Brandard

  • Pauline Viardot and Michot in Alceste , photograph by Eugène Disdéri (1861)

  • Pauline Viardot's mother Joaquina Sitchèz

  • Pauline Viardot-García, photograph by Pierre Petit (1860)

literature

(chronologically)

  • Madame Pauline Viardot-Garcia in Leipzig . In: Illustrirte Zeitung . No. 11 . J. J. Weber, Leipzig September 9, 1843, p. 169-170 ( books.google.de ).
  • April Fitzlyon: The Price of Genius. A Biography of Pauline Viardot . London 1964.
  • Jürgen Kesting: The great singers . Claassen, Düsseldorf 1986.
  • Gustave Dulong: Pauline Viardot, tragédienne lyrique 2e éd. revue et corr. Association des amis d'Ivan Tourgueniev, Pauline Viardot et Maria Malibran , 1987. ISBN 2-903597-01-4 .
  • Jamée Ard and April Fitzlyon: Art. "Viardot [née García], (Michelle Ferdinande) Pauline". In: Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel (eds.): The New Grove Dictionary of Women Composers . London: Macmillan, 1995. pp. 474-478.
  • Ute Lange-Brachmann and Joachim Draheim (eds.): Pauline Viardot in Baden-Baden and Karlsruhe . Nomos, Baden-Baden 1999. ISBN 3-7890-6372-X .
  • Karl-Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens: Large Singer Lexicon , 7th vol., 4th, ext. u. act. Ed., Munich 2003, pp. 4887-4889.
  • Beatrix Borchard : Art. "Pauline, Viardot". In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Music in the past and present , Cologne and others. 2006, col. 1537-1539.
  • Michael Steen: Enchantress of Nations, Pauline Viardot: soprano, muse and lover . Icon books, Thriplow 2007. ISBN 978-1-84046-843-4 .
  • Michèle Friang: Pauline Viardot au miroir de sa correspondance . Hermann, Paris 2008. ISBN 978-2-7056-6568-5 .
  • Patrick Barbier: Pauline Viardot. Biography . Grasset, Paris 2009. ISBN 978-2-246-71741-6 .
  • Beatrix Borchard: “An 'anti-diva'? To the reception of Pauline Viardot-Garcias in the 19th century ”. In: Rebecca Grotjahn, Dörte Schmidt and Thomas Seedorf (eds.): Investigations into a cultural phenomenon of the 19th and 20th centuries , Schliengen 2011, pp. 114–125.
  • Miriam-Alexandra Wigbers : Johannes Brahms and Pauline Viardot - the summer of 1869: encounters, the lost morning serenade, the old rhapsody. In: Brahms studies, publications of the Brahms Society Hamburg e. V. Volume 16.2011. Tutzing 2011, pp. 67-89.
  • Melanie Stier: Pauline Viardot-Garcia in Great Britain and Ireland. Forms of cultural action (= Viardot-Garcia studies 3). Olms, Hildesheim 2012. ISBN 978-3-487-14698-0 .
  • Silke Wenzel: Cultural transfers in music and musical life of the 19th century using the example of the singer and composer Pauline Viardot , Hildesheim 2015 (= Viardot Studies 1).
  • Miriam Alexandra: Pauline Viardot. In: Lexicon of the Singing Voice. History - Scientific Basics - Singing Techniques - Performers. Laaber 2016, pp. 667-669. ISBN 978-3-89007-546-4
  • Klaus-Dieter Fischer / Nicholas Zekulin / Katrin Müller-Höcker (eds.): Pauline Viardot's and Ivan S. Turgenev's relationship with Weimar - Pauline Viardot's Orpheus interpretation in the Berlioz version of Gluck's Orphée (= Viardot-Garcia studies 5 ), Hildesheim u. a. 2016.
  • Beatrix Borchard: “Inherit, carry on, transform - the way to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career  strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91.
  • Beatrix Borchard: Pauline Viardot-Garcia: Abundance of life . Cologne et al. Böhlau Verlag 2016. ISBN 978-3-412-50143-3
  • Beatrix Borchard: Article “Pauline Viardot” . In: MUGI. Music education and gender research: Lexicon and multimedia presentations , ed. by Beatrix Borchard and Nina Noeske, University of Music and Theater Hamburg, 2003ff. As of April 25, 2018.
  • Eberhard Steindorf: The concert activities of the royal musical band in Dresden (1817-1858) , Baden-Baden 2018, p.  410.
  • Désirée Wittkowski (ed.): Sisters of the heart of music: Pauline Viardot and Clara Schumann. Letters of a lifelong friendship , Lilienthal 2020.
  • Beatrix Borchard / Miriam-Alexandra Wigbers (eds.): Pauline Viardot-Garcia - Julius Rietz . The correspondence 1858–1874. With the collaboration of Juliette Appold, Regina Back, Martina Bick and Melanie Stier (= Viardot-Garcia-Studien 1), Hildesheim and others. 2021.

Web links

Commons : Pauline Viardot  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

German National Library:

Online dictionaries

  • Midori Kobayashi: Article: Viardot-Garcia, Pauline . [Translation: Yuko Tamagawa]. In: European female instrumentalists of the 18th and 19th centuries . 2010. Online encyclopedia of the Sophie Drinker Institute, ed. by Freia Hoffmann .
  • Multimedia presentation by Pauline Viardot . In: MUGI. Music education and gender research: Lexicon and multimedia presentations , ed. by Beatrix Borchard and Nina Noeske, University of Music and Theater Hamburg, 2003ff.
  • Beatrix Borchard: Article “Pauline Viardot” . In: MUGI. Music education and gender research: Lexicon and multimedia presentations , ed. by Beatrix Borchard and Nina Noeske, University of Music and Theater Hamburg, 2003ff. As of April 25, 2018.

DFG research project:

Catalog of works:

Music book of Pauline Viardot-Garcia:

Web links for the 200th birthday

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Beatrix Borchard: Pauline Viardot-Garcia: Fullness of Life . Cologne et al. Böhlau Verlag 2016, p. 80.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: The music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 124 .
  3. ↑ Cf. Eberhard Steindorf: The concert activities of the royal musical band in Dresden (1817-1858) , Baden-Baden 2018, p. 410; see also Beatrix Borchard: “Inheriting, carrying on, transforming - the way to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91, here p. 77f.
  4. ↑ See Beatrix Borchard: Art. "Pauline, Viardot". In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Music in the past and present , Cologne and others. 2006, col. 1537-1539; see also Beatrix Borchard: “Inheriting, carrying on, transforming - the way to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91, here p. 79.
  5. ↑ Cf. Eberhard Steindorf: The concert activities of the royal musical band in Dresden (1817-1858) , Baden-Baden 2018, p. 410.
  6. ↑ Cf. Beatrix Borchard: “To inherit, carry on, transform - the way to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91, here p. 82.
  7. ↑ Cf. Eberhard Steindorf: The concert activities of the royal musical band in Dresden (1817-1858) , Baden-Baden 2018, p. 410.
  8. ↑ Cf. Beatrix Borchard: “To inherit, carry on, transform - the way to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91, here pp. 82, 84.
  9. ↑ See Beatrix Borchard: Art. "Pauline, Viardot". In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Music in the past and present , Cologne and others. 2006, col. 1537-1539.
  10. ↑ Cf. Beatrix Borchard: “To inherit, carry on, transform - the path to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91, here p. 78.
  11. ↑ See Christin Heitmann: Pauline Viardot. Systematic-bibliographical catalog of works (VWV) , University of Music and Theater Hamburg, since 2012, online database https://www.pauline-viardot.de/1Werkgruppen.php (last accessed on April 14, 2021).
  12. ↑ Cf. Beatrix Borchard: “To inherit, carry on, transform - the path to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91, here p. 86f.
  13. ↑ Cf. Beatrix Borchard: “To inherit, carry on, transform - the path to self-determination of a singer. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821–1910) “In: Nicole K. Strohmann and Antje Tumat (eds.); with the collaboration of Lukas Kurz and Juana Zimmermann : stage roles and identity concepts. Career strategies of women artists in the theater of the 19th century , Hannover 2016, pp. 73–91, here p. 88.
  14. ↑ See Beatrix Borchard: Art. "Pauline, Viardot". In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Music in the past and present , Cologne and others. 2006, col. 1537-1539, here col. 1537.
  15. ↑ See Beatrix Borchard: Art. "Pauline, Viardot". In: Ludwig Finscher (ed.): Music in the past and present , Cologne and others. 2006, col. 1537-1539, here col. 1537.
  16. ↑ Théophile Gautier, quoted after Patrick Berthier, in: La Presse , features section published on October 14, 1839, in: Oeuvres complètes , Critique théâtrale, t. II, (1839-1840) Champion 2008.
  17. ↑ Quoted from Midori Kobayashi: Article: Viardot-Garcia, Pauline . [Translation: Yuko Tamagawa]. In: European female instrumentalists of the 18th and 19th centuries . 2010. Online encyclopedia of the Sophie Drinker Institute, ed. by Freia Hoffmann.
  18. ^ Wiener Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung of July 22, 1843, p. 363 ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Viardot-García, Pauline
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Viardot-García, Michelle Pauline (full name); García (maiden name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION French opera singer (mezzo-soprano), vocal teacher and artist
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1821
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1910
PLACE OF DEATH Paris