Marie-Cornélie Falcon
Encyclopedia
Cornélie Falcon was a French soprano
who sang at the Opéra
in Paris. Her greatest success was creating the role of Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
. She possessed "a full, resonant voice" with a distinctive dark timbre and was an exceptional actress. She and the tenor Adolphe Nourrit
are credited with being primarily responsible for raising artistic standards at the Opéra, and the roles in which she excelled came to be known as "falcon soprano" parts. She had an exceptionally short career, essentially ending about five years after her debut, when at the age of 23 she lost her voice during a performance of Niedermeyer's Stradella
.
and Adolphe Nourrit, and won first prizes in singing and lyric declamation.
's Robert le diable
(20 July 1832). The cast included Nourrit and Julie Dorus (who had premiered the role in 1830). The director of the Opéra, Louis Véron, had made certain there was plenty of advance publicity, and the auditorium was packed. The audience included the composers Rossini, Berlioz, Cherubini, Halévy
, and Auber
, the singers Maria Malibran
, Caroline Branchu, and Giulia Grisi
, and two of France's greatest actresses from the Comédie-Française
, Mademoiselle Mars
and Mademoiselle Georges
. Other audience members included the painters Honoré Daumier
and Ary Scheffer
, the librettist Eugène Scribe
, and the critics and writers Théophile Gautier
, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo
, and Alfred de Musset
. Although understandably suffering from stage fright, Falcon managed to sing her first aria without error, and finished her role with "ease and competence." Her tragic demeanor and dark looks were highly appropriate to the part, and she made a vivid impression on the public.
Meyerbeer himself came to Paris to see Falcon as Alice, but after her fifth performance on 24 August she had to withdraw due to illness, and he did not get to hear her until 17 September. The following day Meyerbeer wrote to his wife: "The house was as full as it ever could be, 8700 francs (without subscription) and many people could not find seats. The performance was ... so fresh ... like the first performance of the work, not a trace of being played out. About Falcon I dare not reach any definite conclusion, ... only it is evident that she has a strong and beautiful voice, not without agility, at the same time that she is a vividly expressive (but somewhat overcharged) actress. Unfortunately her intonation is not completely pure, and I fear she will never overcome these weaknesses. In sum, I think that she could be an outstanding star, and I will certainly in any case write a principal role for her in my new opera." Meyerbeer's new opera would become Les Huguenots
, in which Falcon was to achieve the greatest success of her career.
Luigi Cherubini
asked Falcon to create Morgiana in his new 4-act tragédie lyrique Ali Baba, ou Les quarante voleurs (Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves). The premiere was on 22 July 1833, and, as Spire Pitou tells us, "his invitation was more flattering than substantial, because the part of Morgiana hardly constituted a real challenge to a young and ambitious singer".
Falcon's next real opportunity to shine came with a new revival of Don Juan. This was a 5-act adaptation in French by Castil-Blaze
, his son Henri Blaze, and Émile Deschamps of Mozart's Don Giovanni
. The all-star cast included Falcon as Donna Anna and Nourrit as Don Juan with Nicolas Levasseur
as Leporello, Marcellin Lafont as Don Ottavio, Prosper Dérivis
as the Commandeur, Henri Dabadie as Masetto, Julie Dorus-Gras as Elvire, and Laure Cinti-Damoreau
as Zerline. Berlioz, who must have attended a dress rehearsal, had some reservations about Falcon's performance, writing in Rénovateur (6 March 1834):
Berlioz was rather more frank in a letter in which he wrote "my position [as a critic] has not allowed me to admit that without exception all the singers, and Nourrit most of all, are a thousand miles below their roles." Nevertheless, Falcon was admirably suited to the part, and her reception after the opening on 10 March 1834, was even more favorable than that which she had received for Alice.
On 3 May 1834 Falcon sang Julia in a revival of Spontini's La vestale
which was a benefit performance for Adolphe Nourrit. The cast, besides Nourrit as Licinius, included Nicolas Levasseur as Cinna, Henri Dabadie as the High Priest, and Zulmé Leroux-Dabadie as the Grand Vestal. The second act was repeated as an excerpt five more times that season. Falcon's portrayal of Julia was received favorably.
conducting. Falcon sang Berlioz's new orchestrations of the songs La captive and Le Jeune Pâtrie breton, and earned an encore in which she sang an aria by Bellini. The concert also featured the premiere of Berlioz's new symphony Harold en Italie, and the audience included the Duc d'Orléans, Chopin, Liszt
, and Victor Hugo
. With the new symphony and Falcon as the star singer, the receipts were more than double those of the first concert on 9 November, which had featured the Symphonie fantastique
and the overture Le Roi Lear. However, La captive, and not Harold, was the hit of the show, with the Gazette Musicale (7 December 1834) calling it "a masterpiece of melodic skill and orchestration." Falcon also appeared the following year in a concert on 22 November 1835 which was organized jointly by Girard and Berlioz, in which she again sang Berlioz's Le Jeune Pâtre breton and an aria from Meyerbeer's opera Il crociato in Egitto
.
(23 February 1835), Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
(29 February 1836), the title role in Louise Bertin
's La Esmeralda
(14 November 1836), and Léonor in Louis Niedermeyer
's Stradella
(3 March 1837). She also appeared as the Countess in Rossini
's Le comte Ory
and Pamira in Rossini's Le siège de Corinthe
(1836).
By 1835 Falcon was earning 50,000 francs/year at the Opéra, making her the highest paid artist there, earning nearly twice as much as Nourrit and three times as much as Dorus.
, guttural, whistling notes that quickly faded like those of a flute filled with water". Falcon resumed performances, but her vocal difficulties continued, and she gave her last regular performance there in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
on 15 January 1838. She resorted to all sorts of bogus treatments and remedies and moved to Italy for 18 months in the hope that the climate would have a beneficial effect.
She returned for a benefit at the Opéra on 14 March 1840 in which she was to sing selections from Act 2 of La Juive and Act 4 of Les Huguenots with Gilbert Duprez
, Jean-Étienne Massol, and Julie Dorus-Gras. She was calm and received a warm ovation at her entrance, but it soon became apparent that her voice was gone. As Spire Pitou relates: "She wept at her own pathetic fate but continued despite her inability to do much else besides make the audience regret the loss of her gifts. When she came to the painfully poignant words in Les Huguenots, 'Nuit fatale, nuit d'alarmes, je n'ai plus d'avenir' ('Fatal night, night of alarms, I have no longer a future'), she could not support the dreadful irony of the line. She had no choice but to retire ..." There followed a few performances in Russia in 1840–1841, but after that, except for a few private performances in Paris at the court of Louis-Philippe and for the Duc de Nemours, she definitively quit the stage.
Many explanations have been offered for Falcon's loss of voice, including the enormous demands of the music of Grand Opera
, the "ill-effects of beginning to sing in a large opera house before her body was fully mature", Falcon's attempts to lift her range above its natural mezzo-soprano
range, and nervous fatigue brought on by her personal life. Benjamin Walton has analyzed the music written for her and has suggested there was a break in her voice between a' and b'. Gilbert Duprez
, who sang with her on several occasions, speculated that her inability to negotiate this transition was a factor in her "vocal demise".
Falcon married a financier, becoming Madame Falcon-Malançon and a grandmother, and continued to live, reclusively, near the Opéra in the Chaussée d'Antin, until her death. At the end of 1891, she agreed to appear on stage at the Opéra on the occasion of a celebration of the centenary of Meyerbeer, "with three of her surviving contemporaries". She died in 1897 and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery
.
with a strong lower register (and lighter upper register) reflects this. Castil-Blaze described her voice in 1832:
Falcon's personal reputation was also relevant to her career. "Perhaps the only singer of the time to maintain a reputation for chastity", this perception carried over to appreciation of her performances of the ingénue roles for which she was famed.
In 1844, Chorley
wrote of Falcon as:
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who sang at the Opéra
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
in Paris. Her greatest success was creating the role of Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
. She possessed "a full, resonant voice" with a distinctive dark timbre and was an exceptional actress. She and the tenor Adolphe Nourrit
Adolphe Nourrit
Adolphe Nourrit was a French operatic tenor, librettist, and composer. One of the most esteemed opera singers of the 1820s and 1830s, he was particularly associated with the works of Gioachino Rossini....
are credited with being primarily responsible for raising artistic standards at the Opéra, and the roles in which she excelled came to be known as "falcon soprano" parts. She had an exceptionally short career, essentially ending about five years after her debut, when at the age of 23 she lost her voice during a performance of Niedermeyer's Stradella
Stradella (opera)
Stradella is a Grand Opera in five acts by Louis Niedermeyer to a libretto by Emile Deschamps and Emilien Pacini. Based on a highly romanticized version of the life of the composer Alessandro Stradella , it was premiered at the Paris Opéra on 3 March 1837.-Background:The storyline of the opera is...
.
Early life and training
She was born Marie-Cornélie Falcon in Paris to Pierre Falcon, a master-tailor and his wife Edmé-Cornélie. Falcon was one of three children; her sister Jenny Falcon was to marry a Russian nobleman and appear on the stage at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Cornélie was enrolled at the Paris Conservatory from 1827 to 1831. There she first studied with Felice Pellegrini and François-Louis Henry, and later with Marco BordogniMarco Bordogni
Giulio Marco Bordogni , usually called Marco Bordogni, was an Italian operatic tenor and singing teacher of great popularity and success, whose mature career was based in Paris.-Biography:...
and Adolphe Nourrit, and won first prizes in singing and lyric declamation.
Debut in Robert le diable
At the invitation of Nourrit she made her debut at the age of 18 at the Opéra as Alice in the 41st performance of MeyerbeerGiacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
's Robert le diable
Robert le diable (opera)
Robert le diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, often regarded as the first grand opera. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne and has little connection to the medieval legend of Robert the Devil. Originally planned as a three-act opéra comique, "Meyerbeer persuaded...
(20 July 1832). The cast included Nourrit and Julie Dorus (who had premiered the role in 1830). The director of the Opéra, Louis Véron, had made certain there was plenty of advance publicity, and the auditorium was packed. The audience included the composers Rossini, Berlioz, Cherubini, Halévy
Fromental Halévy
Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy , was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.-Early career:...
, and Auber
Daniel Auber
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
, the singers Maria Malibran
Maria Malibran
The mezzo-soprano Maria Malibran , was one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death at age 28...
, Caroline Branchu, and Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi, also known as Madame De Candia was an Italian opera singer...
, and two of France's greatest actresses from the Comédie-Française
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française or Théâtre-Français is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris....
, Mademoiselle Mars
Mademoiselle Mars
Mademoiselle Mars, , French actress, was born in Paris, the natural daughter of the actor-author named Monvel and Jeanne-Marie Salvetat , an actress known as Madame Mars, whose southern accent had made her Paris debut a failure.Mlle Mars began her stage career...
and Mademoiselle Georges
Marguerite Georges
Marguerite Georges was a French stage actor. She belonged to the most famous French actors of her time. She is also known for her affair with Napoleon.- Biography :...
. Other audience members included the painters Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....
and Ary Scheffer
Ary Scheffer
Ary Scheffer , French painter of Dutch and German extraction, was born in Dordrecht.-Life:After the early death of his father Johann Baptist, a poor painter, Ary's mother Cornelia, herself a painter and daughter of landscapist Arie Lamme, took him to Paris and placed him in the studio of...
, the librettist Eugène Scribe
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe , was a French dramatist and librettist. He is best known for the perfection of the so-called "well-made play" . This dramatic formula was a mainstay of popular theater for over 100 years.-Biography:...
, and the critics and writers Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, and Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
. Although understandably suffering from stage fright, Falcon managed to sing her first aria without error, and finished her role with "ease and competence." Her tragic demeanor and dark looks were highly appropriate to the part, and she made a vivid impression on the public.
Meyerbeer himself came to Paris to see Falcon as Alice, but after her fifth performance on 24 August she had to withdraw due to illness, and he did not get to hear her until 17 September. The following day Meyerbeer wrote to his wife: "The house was as full as it ever could be, 8700 francs (without subscription) and many people could not find seats. The performance was ... so fresh ... like the first performance of the work, not a trace of being played out. About Falcon I dare not reach any definite conclusion, ... only it is evident that she has a strong and beautiful voice, not without agility, at the same time that she is a vividly expressive (but somewhat overcharged) actress. Unfortunately her intonation is not completely pure, and I fear she will never overcome these weaknesses. In sum, I think that she could be an outstanding star, and I will certainly in any case write a principal role for her in my new opera." Meyerbeer's new opera would become Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
, in which Falcon was to achieve the greatest success of her career.
Other early roles at the Opéra
Her first creation at the Opéra came on 27 February 1833 when she sang Amélie in Auber's Gustave III. Ellen Creathorne Clayton has described the performance as follows:
Unfortunately, the part of the Countess Amélie, with its powder and hoops, and pretty coquetry, was not suited to the dark and mystic style of Cornélie. "Alas, Mdlle. Falcon!" cried Jules JaninJules JaninJules Gabriel Janin was a French writer and critic.-Biography:Born in Saint-Étienne , Janin's father was a lawyer, and he was educated first at St. Étienne, and then at the lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris...
; "this young creature, of such great hopes, sang without voice, without expression, without exertion, without energy, without point." She was stifled amid the mad gayety, the whirl of the dancers, the glare and splendor of the scenes. The singers in Gustave indeed were "nowhere;" the dancers reigned supreme.
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....
asked Falcon to create Morgiana in his new 4-act tragédie lyrique Ali Baba, ou Les quarante voleurs (Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves). The premiere was on 22 July 1833, and, as Spire Pitou tells us, "his invitation was more flattering than substantial, because the part of Morgiana hardly constituted a real challenge to a young and ambitious singer".
Falcon's next real opportunity to shine came with a new revival of Don Juan. This was a 5-act adaptation in French by Castil-Blaze
Castil-Blaze
François-Henri-Joseph Blaze, known as Castil-Blaze , was a French musicologist, music critic, composer, and music editor.-Biography:...
, his son Henri Blaze, and Émile Deschamps of Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. The all-star cast included Falcon as Donna Anna and Nourrit as Don Juan with Nicolas Levasseur
Nicolas Levasseur
Nicolas Levasseur was a French bass, particularly associated with Rossini roles.Born Nicolas-Prosper Levasseur at Bresle, Somme, he studied at the Paris Music Conservatory from 1807 to 1811, with Pierre-Jean Garat. He made his professional debut at the Paris Opéra in 1813, as Osman Pacha, in La...
as Leporello, Marcellin Lafont as Don Ottavio, Prosper Dérivis
Prosper Dérivis
Nicolas-Prosper Dérivis was a French operatic bass. He possessed a rich deep voice that had a great carrying power. While he could easily assail heavy dramatic roles, he was also capable of executing difficult coloratura passages and performing more lyrical parts...
as the Commandeur, Henri Dabadie as Masetto, Julie Dorus-Gras as Elvire, and Laure Cinti-Damoreau
Laure Cinti-Damoreau
Laura Cinti-Damoreau was a French soprano particularly associated with Rossini roles.- Life and career :...
as Zerline. Berlioz, who must have attended a dress rehearsal, had some reservations about Falcon's performance, writing in Rénovateur (6 March 1834):
Mlle Falcon, so energetic in Robert le Diable, was physically speaking, with her contenance "pale as a beautiful autumn evening", the ideal Donna Anna. She had fine moments in the accompanied recitative sung over her father's body. Why then did she all at once go off the boil in the great aria of the first act, "Tu sais quel inflâme"? Oh! Mlle Falcon, with those black eyes of yours and the incisive voice your possess, there is no need to be afraid. Let your eyes flash and your voice ring out: you will be yourself, and you will be the incarnation of the vengeful Spanish noblewoman whose principal features your timidity veiled from us.
Berlioz was rather more frank in a letter in which he wrote "my position [as a critic] has not allowed me to admit that without exception all the singers, and Nourrit most of all, are a thousand miles below their roles." Nevertheless, Falcon was admirably suited to the part, and her reception after the opening on 10 March 1834, was even more favorable than that which she had received for Alice.
On 3 May 1834 Falcon sang Julia in a revival of Spontini's La vestale
La vestale
La vestale is an opera composed by Gaspare Spontini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy. It was first performed at the Paris Opéra in Paris on December 15, 1807 and is regarded as Spontini's masterpiece...
which was a benefit performance for Adolphe Nourrit. The cast, besides Nourrit as Licinius, included Nicolas Levasseur as Cinna, Henri Dabadie as the High Priest, and Zulmé Leroux-Dabadie as the Grand Vestal. The second act was repeated as an excerpt five more times that season. Falcon's portrayal of Julia was received favorably.
Concerts with Berlioz
Berlioz's admiration for the singer was considerable, however, and with Véron's permission he engaged her for one of his concerts which he organized that winter in the hall of the Paris Conservatory. It was the second in the series and was presented on 23 November 1834 with Narcisse GirardNarcisse Girard
Narcisse Girard was a French conductor and composer.Girard was born in Nantes. A pupil of Pierre Baillot , and Anton Reicha at the Conservatoire, after completing his studies there he went to Italy for a year to further his training...
conducting. Falcon sang Berlioz's new orchestrations of the songs La captive and Le Jeune Pâtrie breton, and earned an encore in which she sang an aria by Bellini. The concert also featured the premiere of Berlioz's new symphony Harold en Italie, and the audience included the Duc d'Orléans, Chopin, Liszt
Liszt
Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...
, and Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
. With the new symphony and Falcon as the star singer, the receipts were more than double those of the first concert on 9 November, which had featured the Symphonie fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...
and the overture Le Roi Lear. However, La captive, and not Harold, was the hit of the show, with the Gazette Musicale (7 December 1834) calling it "a masterpiece of melodic skill and orchestration." Falcon also appeared the following year in a concert on 22 November 1835 which was organized jointly by Girard and Berlioz, in which she again sang Berlioz's Le Jeune Pâtre breton and an aria from Meyerbeer's opera Il crociato in Egitto
Il crociato in Egitto
Il crociato in Egitto is an opera in two acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer, with a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. It was first performed at La Fenice theatre, Venice on 7 March, 1824. The part of Armando was sung by the famous castrato, Giovanni Battista Velluti; the opera was probably the last ever written...
.
Further roles at the Opéra
Falcon's other creations at the Opéra included the roles of Rachel in Halévy's La JuiveLa Juive
La Juive is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on February 23, 1835.-Composition history:...
(23 February 1835), Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
(29 February 1836), the title role in Louise Bertin
Louise Bertin
Louise-Angélique Bertin was a French composer and poet.Louise Bertin lived her entire life in France. Her father, Louis-François Bertin, and also her brother later on, were the editors of Journal des débats, an influential newspaper. As encouraged by her family, Bertin pursued music...
's La Esmeralda
La Esmeralda (opera)
La Esmeralda is a grand opera in four acts composed by Louise Bertin. The libretto was written by Victor Hugo, who had adapted it from his novel Notre-Dame de Paris . The opera premiered at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris on 14 November 1836 with Cornélie Falcon in the title role...
(14 November 1836), and Léonor in Louis Niedermeyer
Louis Niedermeyer
Abraham Louis Niedermeyer was a composer chiefly of church music but also of a few operas, and a teacher who took over the Ecole Choron, duly renamed École Niedermeyer, a school for the study and practice of church music, where several eminent French musicians studied including Gabriel Fauré and...
's Stradella
Stradella (opera)
Stradella is a Grand Opera in five acts by Louis Niedermeyer to a libretto by Emile Deschamps and Emilien Pacini. Based on a highly romanticized version of the life of the composer Alessandro Stradella , it was premiered at the Paris Opéra on 3 March 1837.-Background:The storyline of the opera is...
(3 March 1837). She also appeared as the Countess in Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
's Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...
and Pamira in Rossini's Le siège de Corinthe
Le siège de Corinthe
Le siège de Corinthe is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Luigi Balocchi and Alexandre Soumet, based on Maometto II by Cesare della Valle...
(1836).
By 1835 Falcon was earning 50,000 francs/year at the Opéra, making her the highest paid artist there, earning nearly twice as much as Nourrit and three times as much as Dorus.
Vocal demise and final years
However, Falcon's singing career was remarkably short. She lost her voice catastrophically during the second performance of Stradella at the Opéra in March 1837. When Nourrit as Stradella asked her "Demain nous partirons – voulez-vous?" ('We leave tomorrow, are you willing?'), Falcon was unable to sing her line "Je suis prêt" ('I am ready'), fainted, and was carried offstage by Nourrit. Berlioz, who was present, describes "raucous sounds like those of a child with croupCroup
Croup is a respiratory condition that is usually triggered by an acute viral infection of the upper airway. The infection leads to swelling inside the throat, which interferes with normal breathing and produces the classical symptoms of a "barking" cough, stridor, and hoarseness...
, guttural, whistling notes that quickly faded like those of a flute filled with water". Falcon resumed performances, but her vocal difficulties continued, and she gave her last regular performance there in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
on 15 January 1838. She resorted to all sorts of bogus treatments and remedies and moved to Italy for 18 months in the hope that the climate would have a beneficial effect.
She returned for a benefit at the Opéra on 14 March 1840 in which she was to sing selections from Act 2 of La Juive and Act 4 of Les Huguenots with Gilbert Duprez
Gilbert Duprez
Gilbert Duprez was a French tenor, singing teacher and minor composer who famously pioneered the delivery of the operatic high C from the chest. He also created the role of Edgardo in the popular bel canto-era opera Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835.-Biography:Gilbert-Louis Duprez, to give his full...
, Jean-Étienne Massol, and Julie Dorus-Gras. She was calm and received a warm ovation at her entrance, but it soon became apparent that her voice was gone. As Spire Pitou relates: "She wept at her own pathetic fate but continued despite her inability to do much else besides make the audience regret the loss of her gifts. When she came to the painfully poignant words in Les Huguenots, 'Nuit fatale, nuit d'alarmes, je n'ai plus d'avenir' ('Fatal night, night of alarms, I have no longer a future'), she could not support the dreadful irony of the line. She had no choice but to retire ..." There followed a few performances in Russia in 1840–1841, but after that, except for a few private performances in Paris at the court of Louis-Philippe and for the Duc de Nemours, she definitively quit the stage.
Many explanations have been offered for Falcon's loss of voice, including the enormous demands of the music of Grand Opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
, the "ill-effects of beginning to sing in a large opera house before her body was fully mature", Falcon's attempts to lift her range above its natural mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
range, and nervous fatigue brought on by her personal life. Benjamin Walton has analyzed the music written for her and has suggested there was a break in her voice between a' and b'. Gilbert Duprez
Gilbert Duprez
Gilbert Duprez was a French tenor, singing teacher and minor composer who famously pioneered the delivery of the operatic high C from the chest. He also created the role of Edgardo in the popular bel canto-era opera Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835.-Biography:Gilbert-Louis Duprez, to give his full...
, who sang with her on several occasions, speculated that her inability to negotiate this transition was a factor in her "vocal demise".
Falcon married a financier, becoming Madame Falcon-Malançon and a grandmother, and continued to live, reclusively, near the Opéra in the Chaussée d'Antin, until her death. At the end of 1891, she agreed to appear on stage at the Opéra on the occasion of a celebration of the centenary of Meyerbeer, "with three of her surviving contemporaries". She died in 1897 and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
.
Reputation
Having sung many of the important roles of early Grand Opera, Falcon was closely associated with the genre by contemporary audiences. The designation of the voice timbre "falcon", a dramatic sopranoDramatic soprano
A dramatic soprano is an operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually mean less agility than lighter voices but a sustained, fuller sound. Usually this voice has a lower tessitura than...
with a strong lower register (and lighter upper register) reflects this. Castil-Blaze described her voice in 1832:
...A range of two octaves extending from b to d, and resonating at all points with an equal vigour. A silvery voice, with a brilliant timbre, incisive enough that even the weight of the chorus cannot overwhelm it; yet the sound emitted with such force never loses its charm or purity.
Falcon's personal reputation was also relevant to her career. "Perhaps the only singer of the time to maintain a reputation for chastity", this perception carried over to appreciation of her performances of the ingénue roles for which she was famed.
In 1844, Chorley
Henry Fothergill Chorley
Henry Fothergill Chorley was an English literary, art and music critic and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics....
wrote of Falcon as:
… the ill-starred Mademoiselle Falcon, the loved and the lost one of L'Académie.
She, indeed, was a person to haunt even a passing stranger. Though the seal of her race was upon her beauty, and it wore the expression of a DeborahDeborahDeborah was a prophetess of Yahweh the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, counselor, warrior, and the wife of Lapidoth according to the Book of Judges chapters 4 and 5....
or a Judith, rather than of a MelpomeneMelpomeneMelpomene , initially the Muse of Singing, she then became the Muse of Tragedy, for which she is best known now. Her name was derived from the Greek verb melpô or melpomai meaning "to celebrate with dance and song." She is often represented with a tragic mask and wearing the cothurnus, boots...
, I have never seen any actress, who in look and gesture so well deserved the style and title of the Muse of Modern Tragedy. Large, dark, melancholy eyes, – finely cut features, – a form, though slight, not meagre, – and, above all, an expressiveness of tone rarely to be found in voices of her register, which was a legitimate soprano, – the power of engaging interest by mere glance and step when first she presented herself, and of exciting the strongest emotions of pity, or terror, or suspense, by the passion she could develope [sic] in action – such were her gifts. Add to these the charms of her youth, the love borne to her by all her comrades; – and the loss of her voice, followed by the almost desperate efforts made by her to recover it, and her disastrous final appearance when no force of will could torture destroyed Nature into even a momentary resuscitation, – make up one of those tragedies into which a fearful sum of wrecked hope and despair and anguish enters. Hers is a history, if all tales are true, too dark to be repeated, even with the honest purpose, not of pandering to an evil curiosity, but of pointing out the snares and pitfalls which lie in wait for the artiste, and of inquiring, for the sake of Art as well as of Humanity (the two are inseparable), if there be no protection against them, – no means for their avoidance?