Pauline Viardot-Garciaaus romantic

Michelle Ferdinande Pauline Viardot-García (* 18 July 1821 in Paris; † 18 May 1910 ibid.) was a French-German opera singer (mezzo-soprano), vocal coach, composer and one of the most versatile artists of the 19th century.

Life

Pauline Viardot-García was born in Paris in 1821, the daughter of the Spanish tenor Manuel del Pópulo Vicente García. Raised in a family of musicians – her sister was the singer and composer 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 switch effortlessly from soprano to alto. She celebrated triumphant successes on all the great opera stages of Europe. She performed not only in Paris, London and Berlin, but also in St. Petersburg, where she made the acquaintance of the Russian poet Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev during a guest performance in 1843, which developed into a lifelong intense friendship. On 18 April 1840 she married Louis Viardot (1800-1883), a much older Parisian theatre director and art writer. He then gave up his position as director at the Théâtre-Italien and became her manager. Their daughter Louise Héritte-Viardot (1841-1918) also became a singer and composer. Her other children, who were also musically educated, were Claudie (b. 1852), Marianne (b. 1854) and Paul (b. 1857).

Viardot also spoke five languages: Spanish because of her family; French because of her birth and home country France; Italian because of 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 her close relationship with the Russian cultural scene. In addition to her career as a singer, she also excelled as a pianist, having been taught by Franz Liszt. She also arranged music by musician friends and composed herself. Viardot had studied composition in Paris with Anton Reicha, who was also the teacher of Franz Liszt, Hector Berlioz and César Franck.

In 1859 she performed for the first time in Baden-Baden in a concert conducted by Hector Berlioz, giving the town a special artistic status. In 1863 Viardot moved to Baden-Baden with her husband and four children, thus ensuring the development of the spa town into an international cultural city. Musicians, poets, painters and other important personalities of their time, such as Wilhelm and Augusta of Prussia and Otto von Bismarck, met in their Baden-Baden domicile, which included a villa, a garden theatre and an art and lecture hall. Viardot and Clara Schumann, with whom she had been close friends from 1838 onwards, arranged for the presentation of the musical works of Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin and Johannes Brahms. At Viardot’s famous matinees, the also world-famous pianist Anton Rubinstein, among others, performed piano pieces. Her former piano teacher Franz Liszt was one of the guests at Viardot’s house in Baden-Baden, as were Richard Wagner and the poet Theodor Storm. Camille Saint-Saëns dedicated his opera Samson et Dalila to her.

When Viardot’s voice lost its radiance, she devoted herself more to composition and teaching, thereby nurturing many later celebrities. She enjoyed a legendary reputation as a singing teacher. One of her compositions is the operetta Le Dernier Sorcier (“The Last Sorcerer”), which was conducted by Johannes Brahms at Viardot’s house in 1869. In 1870 she took the solo part in the premiere of Johannes Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody. She set texts by the German poets Eduard Mörike and Heinrich Heine to music, wrote songs based on French, Italian, Spanish and Russian texts (Pushkin, Turgenev) and arranged musical works by Haydn, Chopin and Brahms for piano and voice, among others. One composition that is still performed occasionally today is the original Marche Militaire.

Until the Franco-German War of 1870/1871, a multifaceted art and cultural scene developed from the Viardot house, adding to the attractiveness of the spa town. After the war began, the Viardot family moved back to Paris. There she helped Jules Massenet, among others, to his breakthrough, singing the title role (soprano) in his oratorio Marie-Magdeleine at its premiere on 11 April 1873.

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

Source Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Viardot