Sophie Cruvelli
Encyclopedia
Sophie Johanne Charlotte Crüwell, vicountess Vigier, stage name Sophie Cruvelli (b. 12 March 1826, Bielefeld, Prussia
; d. 6 November 1907, Monte Carlo
) was a German opera singer. She was a dramatic soprano
who had a brief but stellar public career especially in London and Paris in the middle years of the 19th century. She was admired for her vocal powers and as a tragédienne. Both Verdi
and Meyerbeer
created operatic roles with the intention that she should first perform them.
family of comfortable means. She showed an early disposition towards music, and she and her sister Marie (later a mezzo-soprano) and her brother (later a baritone) were encouraged and assisted to training by the family. Sophie and Marie commenced their vocal studies with Louis Spohr
in Kassel
.
In 1844 their mother took the girls to Paris to continue their studies, first with Francesco Piermarini, and then with the distinguished tenor Marco Bordogni
. Bordogni thought highly of Sophie: it is said that he allowed her to sing only scales and solfeggi which he composed for her, for two whole years. After that time mother Crüwell wanted to remove her, saying that she had learnt scales enough and that if she was going to do nothing else she might as well get married and give it up. Bordogni persuaded mother that she would have a wonderful career, and that she should go on to complete her studies in Milan. A first public appearance in January 1846 was reported in the musical journal Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris.
In Milan she first went to audition with the impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, but was so struck with fright that she could not produce any sound at all. After this she resolved to return to Bielefeld: but the (later famous) teacher Francesco Lamperti
took the situation in hand, and under his guidance her voice and powers returned and flourished.
Some sources attribute her debut to Venice
at La Fenice
, as Odabella in Verdi's Attila
. She appeared in that role at Udine
on 24 July 1847, and later as Lucrezia in I due Foscari
in the same theatre. Later in 1847 she was singing Odabella in Rovigo
, and it was there, at the end of that year, that Benjamin Lumley
heard and ('struck with the splendid voice, the impulsive dramatic temperament, the spirit, and the captivating person') recruited her for the season of 1848 at Her Majesty's Theatre
in London, of which he was the impresario. The family objected that she was too young to face the English public, but Lumley was urged to proceed by the tenor Rubini
: 'I tell you plainly, and with deep conviction, that you are making an excellent acquisition. A most beautiful voice - give her good models and a good maestro'. Sophie herself was delighted with the proposals. In the winter of 1847 she made several appearances at La Fenice
.
Cruvelli, who was becoming a distinctly striking and beautiful woman, developed a reputation for romantic eccentricity. It was related that she was one of those young women who followed Franz Liszt
'from city to city, attending his concerts in a front row seat, much to his annoyance. Her prima donna rivals had nicknamed her "Mme. Hinterlist" - meaning both "after Liszt" and "perfidious".' If the depth of her friendship with Liszt was unproven, her relations with the married singer Agardi Metrovich are more directly in evidence.
with two other debutants, Signor Cuzzani (a Berlin favourite) as Ernani, Giovanni Belletti as Silva, and the tenor Italo Gardoni
, London's young favourite, in the baritone role of the King (for good measure). Cruvelli at first experienced 'sudden and awful nervousness' before the thronged audience, but soon settled and was a decided success.
Next she appeared as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Gardoni, Belletti (as Figaro) and Federico Lablache as Bartolo. There followed (14 March) the British premiere of Attila (in which Cruvelli had already distinguished herself), with Belletti, Gardoni and Cuzzani. If Italy thought the work Verdi's masterpiece, London didn't like it. H. F. Chorley wrote:
So instead, I due Foscari was revived for Cruvelli's appearance with Filippo Coletti. A brief illness delayed her performance of Lucrezia Borgia
, but the cast of Gardoni (Gennaro), Luigi Lablache
(Alfonso) and the debutante Mlle Schwarz (Orsini) made it worth waiting for. All this occurred before Easter 1848. H. F. Chorley at this time said she had 'youth - a presence commanding, if somewhat peculiar - a superb voice, almost three octaves in compass - and a fervour and ambition which it could not then be foreseen would take their after-forms of reckless and perverse eccentricity.'
Jenny Lind
was then the London rage, and Cruvelli now appeared as the Countess to Lind's Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, with Lablache, Coletti, Belletti and Bouche, and with Mlle Schwartz as Cherubino. Later that season Cruvelli sang Abigaille in Nabucco
. Eugenia Tadolini
was also making her debut, but did not maintain the foothold in London which Cruvelli achieved. 'It was difficult, indeed almost impossible, both for Cruvelli and Tadolini to shed their really bright rays, whilst the great planet Jenny Lind was in the ascendant.' The whole season culminated in Lind's Farewell.
Cruvelli had a short spell in Bellini's Norma
at the Royal Opera House in Berlin, and then sang from November 1848 until March 1849 at the Teatro Grande in Trieste
, mainly in Verdi's Attila, Ernani and Macbeth
, and in Don Pasquale
. At the end of 1849 she sang Odabella in Verdi's Attila as the leading lady at the opening night of La Scala
in Milan, and through the ensuing season (1850) made no fewer than sixty appearances there in Attila, Nabucco, Ernani, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Norma and Vincenzo Capecelatro's David Riccio
. In the same year she appeared at the Teatro Carlo Felice
in Genoa
in Verdi's new opera Luisa Miller
, and repeated her Ernani, Nabucco, Attila, and Norma. In Milan and Genoa she made a great sensation.
for both London and Paris. Reeves made his own Paris debut in the winter season in Linda di Chamounix
, with Henrietta Sontag, and then went on to partner Cruvelli in her debut there, in April 1851, in Ernani. This was a sensation, and in Paris she also sang Norma, La Sonnambula, Fidelio and Semiramide.
It was however at Her Majesty's, London on 20 May 1851, that she and Reeves won very great acclaim for their Fidelio
, the first of five performances which established her in the public mind as a leading tragédienne: critics compared her with her great predecessors in the role, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
and Maria Malibran
. Gardoni and Calzolari led the Chorus of Prisoners. For this production, musical recitatives were composed by Michael Balfe imitating Beethoven's style, pointing the content of the dialogue with motifs drawn from the principal arias. Most appreciated them, but James William Davison, critic of The Times
, was angered because he claimed that Cruvelli had altered the music 'in such a way as to bring it within range of mediocre capabilities.' Chorley, never an admirer, thought this was the turning-point, where her decline began. Then three performances of Norma, in which Cruvelli gave herself free rein, generated much enthusiasm in London. Cruvelli sang at Buckingham Palace
on 7 June 1851, and was invited again the following year.
The London season included the première of Sigismond Thalberg
's opera Florinda, which did not survive despite a cast including Cruvelli, Reeves, Calzolari, Coletti and Lablache, and despite a royal visit to the performance. This was the London debut of Sophie's sister Maria Cruvelli, in a contralto role. But Cruvelli's successes continued there with Le nozze di Figaro with Sontag, Fiorentini, Coletti, Ferranti and Lablache, and in Ernani with Sims Reeves. Linda di Chamounix was given with both Cruvelli sisters, 'which was less congenial to the wild and passionate nature of the charming Sophie than any of her more tragic parts.'
Michael Balfe's opera Les quatre fils d'Aymon was given, as I quattro fratelli as a benefit for the composer, and was a triumph: 'Cruvelli, aided by Gardoni, Pardini, Coletti, and Massol, secured a most effective and spirited execution for the work.' The Her Majesty's concerts took place, including a notable performance of the trio 'Don't tickle me I pray' with each part triplicated, with sopranos Cruvelli, Sontag and Jenny Duprez, tenors Reeves, Calzolari and Gardoni, bassi Lablache and others. Cruvelli had 'extra' performances of Il barbiere and La Sonnambula (sung during the season by Sontag), and was considered to have been the star of the very illustrious 1851 season at Her Majesty's.
Late in 1851 Cruvelli went to the Théâtre-Italien for the winter, and the following spring returned to London to sing with Gardoni and Lablache, appearing in La Sonnambula and Il barbiere di Siviglia, Ernani and Fidelio. However, the affairs of the theatre were failing, a situation fed by rumour and despondency. Lumley's company made valiant efforts: the stalwarts, Cruvelli, Lablache, and Gardoni sang Norma, and were powerful attractions. Lumley had achieved the remarkable coup of booking the soprano Johanna Jachmann-Wagner
to sing at Her Majesty's in May 1852, but she (or her father and agent Albert, Richard Wagner
's brother) were bribed by a better offer from the Covent Garden management and broke their contract. A law-suit followed.
, and then that she was singing Fidès in Le prophète
at Aix-la-Chapelle. This was the original so-called "Flight of Cruvelli", and for the time being put an end to her London appearances. Yet when Verdi wanted to cast Cruvelli as Violetta for the première of La traviata
, which was presented with a different singer in Venice in March 1853, he was unable to do so because she was still under contract to Lumley.
before the Emperor and an audience of the great and famous, scored a triumph, and continued with Julia in Spontini's La vestale
and with Rachel in Halévy
's La Juive
. With each role, Cruvelli's stature as a tragédienne was increasing.
Early in 1854 she was offered the title role in a new opera by Charles Gounod
, La nonne sanglante
, but declined it. The role was instead offered to Palmyre Wertheimber, a new singer from the Opéra-Comique who had made her debut at the Opéra as Fidès in Le prophète and was much admired and praised by Théophile Gautier
. Cruvelli, meanwhile, returned to London for engagements at Covent Garden
, where she sang Desdemona in Rossini's Otello
(with Antonio Tamburini
and Giorgio Ronconi
), Leonore (in Fidelio) and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni
). Chorley, who never admired her, called it 'an inroad, the result of which in no respect bore out her popularity in the Haymarket.' She then went back to Paris to sing Alice in Robert le diable
, and through that summer and autumn was the reigning goddess at the Opéra. She was required to sing only two nights a week and was receiving a very substantial fee for each performance. By autumn, rehearsals were under way for a new Verdi opera written specially for her, Les vêpres Siciliennes
. Her performance of Les Huguenots , scheduled for the beginning of October 1854, was eagerly awaited.
Achille Fould, a senior political minister, increasingly involved himself in her public and private affairs. Wertheimber's première of La nonne sanglante, with Louis Guéymard
, was set for 18 October 1854. The Opéra administration under Nestor Roqueplan was fragile, despite having had direct State funding; a recent series of new productions had all done poorly. A crisis was therefore precipitated when, just before the performance of Les Huguenots scheduled for 9 October, Cruvelli drew her fees and disappeared (her second "Flight"), taking with her some compromising letters from M. Fould. A distraint was put on Cruvelli's possessions, and a forfeit of 300,000 francs was threatened, but she did not reappear for a month. La nonne sanglante was performed and was moderately successful with receipts averaging over 6,000 francs per evening, but was widely condemned for its libretto. The absence of Cruvelli prompted Verdi to threaten to cancel the première of the Sicilian Vespers, and on 6 November Roqueplan, who had run up a deficit of 900,000 francs, was asked to resign, and his adversary Louis Crosnier (former director of the Opéra-Comique) replaced him on the 11th.
Cruvelli reappeared as miraculously as she had gone, and on 13 November she sang Les Huguenots: at first there was some hissing, but she rapidly won over the audience by the power of her performance, and triumphed magnificently with receipts climbing to more than 9,000 francs for her first few appearances. The distraints and threats of fines were forgiven. Crosnier withdrew La nonne sanglante after its eleventh performance on 17 November, saying that 'such filth' would not be tolerated. Wertheimber departed the Opéra to sing outside of Paris and only returned later, after Cruvelli's retirement. Gann has speculated that the closure of Gounod's opera may have been at least partly motivated by prima donna politics.
Meyerbeer maintained steady contact with Cruvelli: he intended the character of Selika, his 'L'Africaine
', to be performed by her, and was working on the score during her final season. However, when she withdrew from the stage he set it aside and did not return to it for long afterwards.
, en route to Italy to commence his own studies with Lamperti or Nava, delayed in Paris for a day to hear Cruvelli in the Sicilian Vespers on 31 October 1855. On first hearing her, he had thought her a goddess: now he was somewhat disenchanted.
in her Salon, the 'Cercle de la Méditerranée'. These concerts included an annual performance of Norma, the proceeds of which were given to the poor. This was the reason why, in 1874, Pope Pius IX
awarded to her, the papal Golden Rose
(Rose of Virtue), though she was a lifelong confirmed Protestant. At one such charity concert in 1881 she became indisposed, and Emma Calvé
stepped in and sang in her place, giving her first public performance.
In 1881 in Nice, Cruvelli organised the first performance of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin
in France, and herself sang the role of Elsa. It was a bold and sumptuous presentation, and took place in the context of a benefit performance.
She remained a figure of public importance into her later life, and was presented to H.M. Queen Victoria (at whose invitation she had sung in 1851, 1852 and 1854) once more in 1895. After a visit to the Opera House
in Monaco
(then newly set up under Raoul Gunsbourg
), Sophie Cruvelli died aged 81 on 6 November 1907 in the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Her grave memorial is in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
; d. 6 November 1907, Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
) was a German opera singer. She was a dramatic soprano
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 had a brief but stellar public career especially in London and Paris in the middle years of the 19th century. She was admired for her vocal powers and as a tragédienne. Both Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
and Meyerbeer
Giacomo 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...
created operatic roles with the intention that she should first perform them.
Origins and training
Sophie Crüwell was the daughter of a Protestant BielefeldBielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
family of comfortable means. She showed an early disposition towards music, and she and her sister Marie (later a mezzo-soprano) and her brother (later a baritone) were encouraged and assisted to training by the family. Sophie and Marie commenced their vocal studies with Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...
in Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
.
In 1844 their mother took the girls to Paris to continue their studies, first with Francesco Piermarini, and then with the distinguished tenor Marco Bordogni
Marco 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:...
. Bordogni thought highly of Sophie: it is said that he allowed her to sing only scales and solfeggi which he composed for her, for two whole years. After that time mother Crüwell wanted to remove her, saying that she had learnt scales enough and that if she was going to do nothing else she might as well get married and give it up. Bordogni persuaded mother that she would have a wonderful career, and that she should go on to complete her studies in Milan. A first public appearance in January 1846 was reported in the musical journal Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris.
In Milan she first went to audition with the impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, but was so struck with fright that she could not produce any sound at all. After this she resolved to return to Bielefeld: but the (later famous) teacher Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti was an Italian singing teacher.A native of Savona, Lamperti attended the Milan Conservatory where, beginning in 1850, he taught for a quarter of a century. He was director at the Teatro Filodrammatico in Lodi. In 1875 he left the school and began to teach as a private tutor...
took the situation in hand, and under his guidance her voice and powers returned and flourished.
Some sources attribute her debut to Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
at La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...
, as Odabella in Verdi's Attila
Attila (opera)
Attila is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the play Attila, König der Hunnen by Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner. Initially, Verdi had enlisted Francesco Maria Piave to prepare the libretto, after Verdi's own scenario...
. She appeared in that role at Udine
Udine
Udine is a city and comune in northeastern Italy, in the middle of Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic sea and the Alps , less than 40 km from the Slovenian border. Its population was 99,439 in 2009, and that of its urban area was 175,000.- History :Udine is the historical...
on 24 July 1847, and later as Lucrezia in I due Foscari
I due Foscari
I due Foscari is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on a historical play, The Two Foscari by Lord Byron....
in the same theatre. Later in 1847 she was singing Odabella in Rovigo
Rovigo
Rovigo is a town and comune in the Veneto region of North-Eastern Italy, the capital of the eponymous province. -Geography:...
, and it was there, at the end of that year, that Benjamin Lumley
Benjamin Lumley
Benjamin Lumley, opera manager and solicitor, was born Benjamin Levy, in 1811, the son of a Jewish merchant Louis Levy, and died 17 March 1875 in London.-Beginnings at His Majesty's Theatre:...
heard and ('struck with the splendid voice, the impulsive dramatic temperament, the spirit, and the captivating person') recruited her for the season of 1848 at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
in London, of which he was the impresario. The family objected that she was too young to face the English public, but Lumley was urged to proceed by the tenor Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini was an Italian tenor, as famous in his time as Enrico Caruso in a later day. His ringing and expressive coloratura dexterity in the highest register of his voice, the tenorino, inspired the writing of operatic roles which today are almost impossible to cast...
: 'I tell you plainly, and with deep conviction, that you are making an excellent acquisition. A most beautiful voice - give her good models and a good maestro'. Sophie herself was delighted with the proposals. In the winter of 1847 she made several appearances at La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...
.
Cruvelli, who was becoming a distinctly striking and beautiful woman, developed a reputation for romantic eccentricity. It was related that she was one of those young women who followed Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
'from city to city, attending his concerts in a front row seat, much to his annoyance. Her prima donna rivals had nicknamed her "Mme. Hinterlist" - meaning both "after Liszt" and "perfidious".' If the depth of her friendship with Liszt was unproven, her relations with the married singer Agardi Metrovich are more directly in evidence.
London, Milan, Trieste
Cruvelli made her London (Her Majesty's) début for Lumley on 19 February 1848 as Elvira in Verdi's ErnaniErnani
Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The first production took place at La Fenice Theatre, Venice on 9 March 1844...
with two other debutants, Signor Cuzzani (a Berlin favourite) as Ernani, Giovanni Belletti as Silva, and the tenor Italo Gardoni
Italo Gardoni
Italo Gardoni was a leading operatic tenore di grazia singer from Italy who enjoyed a major international career during the middle decades of the 19th century...
, London's young favourite, in the baritone role of the King (for good measure). Cruvelli at first experienced 'sudden and awful nervousness' before the thronged audience, but soon settled and was a decided success.
Next she appeared as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Gardoni, Belletti (as Figaro) and Federico Lablache as Bartolo. There followed (14 March) the British premiere of Attila (in which Cruvelli had already distinguished herself), with Belletti, Gardoni and Cuzzani. If Italy thought the work Verdi's masterpiece, London didn't like it. H. F. Chorley wrote:
So instead, I due Foscari was revived for Cruvelli's appearance with Filippo Coletti. A brief illness delayed her performance of Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia (opera)
Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with...
, but the cast of Gardoni (Gennaro), Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache
Luigi Lablache was an Italian opera singer of French and Irish heritage. He was most noted for his comic performances, possessing a powerful and agile bass voice, a wide range, and adroit acting skills: Leporello in Don Giovanni was one of his signature roles.-Biography:Luigi Lablache was born in...
(Alfonso) and the debutante Mlle Schwarz (Orsini) made it worth waiting for. All this occurred before Easter 1848. H. F. Chorley at this time said she had 'youth - a presence commanding, if somewhat peculiar - a superb voice, almost three octaves in compass - and a fervour and ambition which it could not then be foreseen would take their after-forms of reckless and perverse eccentricity.'
Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind
Johanna Maria Lind , better known as Jenny Lind, was a Swedish opera singer, often known as the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she is known for her performances in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and for an extraordinarily...
was then the London rage, and Cruvelli now appeared as the Countess to Lind's Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, with Lablache, Coletti, Belletti and Bouche, and with Mlle Schwartz as Cherubino. Later that season Cruvelli sang Abigaille in Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
. Eugenia Tadolini
Eugenia Tadolini
Eugenia Tadolini was an Italian operatic soprano. Admired for the beauty of her voice and stage presence, she was one of Donizetti's favourite singers. During her career she created over 20 leading roles, including the title roles in Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Maria di Rohan and Verdi's...
was also making her debut, but did not maintain the foothold in London which Cruvelli achieved. 'It was difficult, indeed almost impossible, both for Cruvelli and Tadolini to shed their really bright rays, whilst the great planet Jenny Lind was in the ascendant.' The whole season culminated in Lind's Farewell.
Cruvelli had a short spell in Bellini's Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
at the Royal Opera House in Berlin, and then sang from November 1848 until March 1849 at the Teatro Grande in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
, mainly in Verdi's Attila, Ernani and Macbeth
Macbeth (opera)
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...
, and in Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
. At the end of 1849 she sang Odabella in Verdi's Attila as the leading lady at the opening night of La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan, and through the ensuing season (1850) made no fewer than sixty appearances there in Attila, Nabucco, Ernani, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Norma and Vincenzo Capecelatro's David Riccio
Andrea Maffei
Andrea Maffei was an Italian poet, translator and librettist.-Life:Maffei was born in Molina di Ledro, Trentino.A follower of Vincenzo Monti, he formed part of the 19th century Italian classicist literary culture. Gaining laurea in jurisprudence, he moved for some years to Verona, then to Venice...
. In the same year she appeared at the Teatro Carlo Felice
Teatro Carlo Felice
The Teatro Carlo Felice is the principal opera house of Genoa, Italy, used for performances of opera, ballet, orchestral music, and recitals. It is located on the Piazza De Ferrari....
in Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
in Verdi's new opera Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich von Schiller. The first performance was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on December 8, 1849...
, and repeated her Ernani, Nabucco, Attila, and Norma. In Milan and Genoa she made a great sensation.
1851-1852: Théâtre-Italien (Paris) and Her Majesty's (London)
When Benjamin Lumley also became impresario of the Paris Théâtre-Italien in 1851, he engaged Cruvelli and the tenor Sims ReevesSims Reeves
John Sims Reeves , usually called simply Sims Reeves, was the foremost English operatic, oratorio and ballad tenor vocalist of the mid-Victorian era....
for both London and Paris. Reeves made his own Paris debut in the winter season in Linda di Chamounix
Linda di Chamounix
Linda di Chamounix is an operatic melodramma semiserio in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The Italian libretto was written by Gaetano Rossi. It premiered in Vienna, at the Kärntnertortheater, on May 19, 1842.-Performance history:...
, with Henrietta Sontag, and then went on to partner Cruvelli in her debut there, in April 1851, in Ernani. This was a sensation, and in Paris she also sang Norma, La Sonnambula, Fidelio and Semiramide.
It was however at Her Majesty's, London on 20 May 1851, that she and Reeves won very great acclaim for their Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
, the first of five performances which established her in the public mind as a leading tragédienne: critics compared her with her great predecessors in the role, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient
Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, born Wilhelmine Schröder , was a German operatic soprano. As a singer she combined a rare quality of tone with dramatic intensity of expression, which was as remarkable on the concert platform as in opera.- Biography :Schröder was born in Hamburg, the daughter of the...
and 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...
. Gardoni and Calzolari led the Chorus of Prisoners. For this production, musical recitatives were composed by Michael Balfe imitating Beethoven's style, pointing the content of the dialogue with motifs drawn from the principal arias. Most appreciated them, but James William Davison, critic of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, was angered because he claimed that Cruvelli had altered the music 'in such a way as to bring it within range of mediocre capabilities.' Chorley, never an admirer, thought this was the turning-point, where her decline began. Then three performances of Norma, in which Cruvelli gave herself free rein, generated much enthusiasm in London. Cruvelli sang at Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace, in London, is the principal residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality...
on 7 June 1851, and was invited again the following year.
The London season included the première of Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg was a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.- Descent and family background :...
's opera Florinda, which did not survive despite a cast including Cruvelli, Reeves, Calzolari, Coletti and Lablache, and despite a royal visit to the performance. This was the London debut of Sophie's sister Maria Cruvelli, in a contralto role. But Cruvelli's successes continued there with Le nozze di Figaro with Sontag, Fiorentini, Coletti, Ferranti and Lablache, and in Ernani with Sims Reeves. Linda di Chamounix was given with both Cruvelli sisters, 'which was less congenial to the wild and passionate nature of the charming Sophie than any of her more tragic parts.'
Michael Balfe's opera Les quatre fils d'Aymon was given, as I quattro fratelli as a benefit for the composer, and was a triumph: 'Cruvelli, aided by Gardoni, Pardini, Coletti, and Massol, secured a most effective and spirited execution for the work.' The Her Majesty's concerts took place, including a notable performance of the trio 'Don't tickle me I pray' with each part triplicated, with sopranos Cruvelli, Sontag and Jenny Duprez, tenors Reeves, Calzolari and Gardoni, bassi Lablache and others. Cruvelli had 'extra' performances of Il barbiere and La Sonnambula (sung during the season by Sontag), and was considered to have been the star of the very illustrious 1851 season at Her Majesty's.
Late in 1851 Cruvelli went to the Théâtre-Italien for the winter, and the following spring returned to London to sing with Gardoni and Lablache, appearing in La Sonnambula and Il barbiere di Siviglia, Ernani and Fidelio. However, the affairs of the theatre were failing, a situation fed by rumour and despondency. Lumley's company made valiant efforts: the stalwarts, Cruvelli, Lablache, and Gardoni sang Norma, and were powerful attractions. Lumley had achieved the remarkable coup of booking the soprano Johanna Jachmann-Wagner
Johanna Jachmann-Wagner
Johanna Jachmann-Wagner or Johanna Wagner was a mezzo-soprano singer, tragédienne in theatrical drama, and teacher of singing and theatrical performance who won great distinction in Europe during the third quarter of the 19th century...
to sing at Her Majesty's in May 1852, but she (or her father and agent Albert, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's brother) were bribed by a better offer from the Covent Garden management and broke their contract. A law-suit followed.
The "Flight of Cruvelli"
In the midst of this crisis Sophie Cruvelli, the surviving mainstay of the company, suddenly disappeared from London, on the day she was to have sung Lucrezia Borgia. "Where's Cruvelli?" became a burlesque by-word. She had fled to Germany, and in time reports came in that she was singing in WiesbadenWiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
, and then that she was singing Fidès in Le prophète
Le prophète
Le prophète is an opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe.-Performance history:...
at Aix-la-Chapelle. This was the original so-called "Flight of Cruvelli", and for the time being put an end to her London appearances. Yet when Verdi wanted to cast Cruvelli as Violetta for the première of La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, which was presented with a different singer in Venice in March 1853, he was unable to do so because she was still under contract to Lumley.
1854-1855: L'Opéra and Covent Garden
During 1853, Sophie Cruvelli made appearances at the Théatre-Italien and became a favourite of Emperor Napoléon III, despite, or perhaps assisted by, her reputation for mischievous ill-temper and unreasonableness. She was increasingly admired by Giacomo Meyerbeer, and in January 1854 she was (with his support) engaged by the Paris Opéra at the hitherto highest ever fee of 100,000 francs (about 600,000€) for eight months. She sang Valentin in Les HuguenotsLes 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....
before the Emperor and an audience of the great and famous, scored a triumph, and continued with Julia in 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...
and with Rachel in 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:...
's La Juive
La 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:...
. With each role, Cruvelli's stature as a tragédienne was increasing.
Early in 1854 she was offered the title role in a new opera by Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
, La nonne sanglante
La nonne sanglante
La nonne sanglante , is a five-act opera by Charles Gounod to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne. Written between 1852 and 1854, it was first produced on 18 October 1854 at the Salle Le Peletier by the Paris Opéra. It received 11 performances between October and November 1854...
, but declined it. The role was instead offered to Palmyre Wertheimber, a new singer from the Opéra-Comique who had made her debut at the Opéra as Fidès in Le prophète and was much admired and praised by Théophile Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
. Cruvelli, meanwhile, returned to London for engagements at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, where she sang Desdemona in Rossini's Otello
Otello (Rossini)
Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Berio di Salsi, based on Shakespeare's play Othello....
(with Antonio Tamburini
Antonio Tamburini
Antonio Tamburini was an Italian operatic baritone.Born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States, Tamburini studied the orchestral horn with his father and voice with Aldobrando Rossi, before making his debut as a singer, aged 18, in La contessa di colle erbose . He went on to become one of the...
and Giorgio Ronconi
Giorgio Ronconi
Giorgio Ronconi was an Italian operatic baritone celebrated for his brilliant acting and compelling stage presence. In 1842, he created the title-role in Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco at La Scala, Milan.-Career:...
), Leonore (in Fidelio) and Donna Anna (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...
). Chorley, who never admired her, called it 'an inroad, the result of which in no respect bore out her popularity in the Haymarket.' She then went back to Paris to sing Alice in 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...
, and through that summer and autumn was the reigning goddess at the Opéra. She was required to sing only two nights a week and was receiving a very substantial fee for each performance. By autumn, rehearsals were under way for a new Verdi opera written specially for her, Les vêpres Siciliennes
Les vêpres siciliennes
Les vêpres siciliennes is an opéra in five acts by the Italian romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi set to a French libretto by Charles Duveyrier and Eugène Scribe from their work Le duc d'Albe, which was written in 1838 and offered to Halevy and Donizetti before Verdi...
. Her performance of Les Huguenots , scheduled for the beginning of October 1854, was eagerly awaited.
Achille Fould, a senior political minister, increasingly involved himself in her public and private affairs. Wertheimber's première of La nonne sanglante, with Louis Guéymard
Louis Guéymard
Louis Guéymard was a French operatic tenor. Born in Chapponay, his parents were farmers and he worked on his family's farm until the age of 19. He then received voice taining at the Opéra National de Lyon...
, was set for 18 October 1854. The Opéra administration under Nestor Roqueplan was fragile, despite having had direct State funding; a recent series of new productions had all done poorly. A crisis was therefore precipitated when, just before the performance of Les Huguenots scheduled for 9 October, Cruvelli drew her fees and disappeared (her second "Flight"), taking with her some compromising letters from M. Fould. A distraint was put on Cruvelli's possessions, and a forfeit of 300,000 francs was threatened, but she did not reappear for a month. La nonne sanglante was performed and was moderately successful with receipts averaging over 6,000 francs per evening, but was widely condemned for its libretto. The absence of Cruvelli prompted Verdi to threaten to cancel the première of the Sicilian Vespers, and on 6 November Roqueplan, who had run up a deficit of 900,000 francs, was asked to resign, and his adversary Louis Crosnier (former director of the Opéra-Comique) replaced him on the 11th.
Cruvelli reappeared as miraculously as she had gone, and on 13 November she sang Les Huguenots: at first there was some hissing, but she rapidly won over the audience by the power of her performance, and triumphed magnificently with receipts climbing to more than 9,000 francs for her first few appearances. The distraints and threats of fines were forgiven. Crosnier withdrew La nonne sanglante after its eleventh performance on 17 November, saying that 'such filth' would not be tolerated. Wertheimber departed the Opéra to sing outside of Paris and only returned later, after Cruvelli's retirement. Gann has speculated that the closure of Gounod's opera may have been at least partly motivated by prima donna politics.
Meyerbeer maintained steady contact with Cruvelli: he intended the character of Selika, his 'L'Africaine
L'Africaine
L'africaine is a grand opera, the last work of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French libretto was written by Eugène Scribe. The opera is about fictitious events in the life of the real historical person Vasco da Gama...
', to be performed by her, and was working on the score during her final season. However, when she withdrew from the stage he set it aside and did not return to it for long afterwards.
Les vêpres Siciliennes
The delayed première of Les vêpres Siciliennes, in which she sang Hélène, took place on 13 June 1855 at the Opéra, with Marc Bonnehée and Louis Guéymard. This was her last great triumph on the public stage. Performances continued through the year: Charles SantleyCharles Santley
Sir Charles Santley was an English-born opera and oratorio star with a bravuraFrom the Italian verb bravare, to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era...
, en route to Italy to commence his own studies with Lamperti or Nava, delayed in Paris for a day to hear Cruvelli in the Sicilian Vespers on 31 October 1855. On first hearing her, he had thought her a goddess: now he was somewhat disenchanted.
Retirement
In January 1856 Sophie Cruvelli married Baron Vigier (who later became viscount)and retired from the public stage, at the height of her powers. However she did make further appearances after 1858, mainly in splendid Benefit concerts at her winter residence, the Villa Vigier in Nice, where for many years she drew together the international high-society of the Second EmpireSecond French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
in her Salon, the 'Cercle de la Méditerranée'. These concerts included an annual performance of Norma, the proceeds of which were given to the poor. This was the reason why, in 1874, Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
awarded to her, the papal Golden Rose
Golden Rose
The Golden Rose is a gold ornament, which popes of the Catholic Church have traditionally blessed annually. It is occasionally conferred as a token of reverence or affection...
(Rose of Virtue), though she was a lifelong confirmed Protestant. At one such charity concert in 1881 she became indisposed, and Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...
stepped in and sang in her place, giving her first public performance.
In 1881 in Nice, Cruvelli organised the first performance of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
in France, and herself sang the role of Elsa. It was a bold and sumptuous presentation, and took place in the context of a benefit performance.
She remained a figure of public importance into her later life, and was presented to H.M. Queen Victoria (at whose invitation she had sung in 1851, 1852 and 1854) once more in 1895. After a visit to the Opera House
Opéra de Monte-Carlo
The Opéra de Monte-Carlo is an opera house located in the principality of Monaco.With the lack of cultural diversions available in Monaco in the 1870s, Prince Charles III, along with the Société des Bains de Mer, decided on the construction of an opera house. Initially, it was Charles III's...
in Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
(then newly set up under Raoul Gunsbourg
Raoul Gunsbourg
Raoul Samuel Gunsbourg was a Jewish-Romania-born opera director, impresario, composer and writer...
), Sophie Cruvelli died aged 81 on 6 November 1907 in the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Her grave memorial is in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Sources
- Nino Bazzetta de Vemenia, Le cantante italiane dell'Ottocento: ricordi - annedotti - intimità - amori (Edizioni Giulio Volante, Novara 1945).
- Julian Budden, The Operas of Verdi: 2. From Il Trovatore to La Forza del destino (Cassell, London, 1978). ISBN 9780195200683.
- John Edmund Cox, Musical recollections of the last half-century 2 vols (Tinsley Brothers, London 1872), II.
- Georges Favre, Une grande Cantatrice Niçoise: La Vicomtesse Vigier (Sophie Cruvelli) 1826-1907 (Éditions A. et J. Picard, Paris 1979).
- The Musical World, years 1848, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1855.
- Georges Titus Ferris, Great Singers: Malibran to Titiens (Second Series) (Appelton and Co., New York 1891).
- Jean Gourret, Dictionnaire des cantatrices de l'Opéra de Paris (Albatros, Paris 1987). ISBN 9782727301646.
- James Harding, Gounod (Stein and Day, New York, 1973). ISBN 9780306797125.
- Steven Huebner, The Operas of Charles Gounod (Oxford University Press, 1990). ISBN 9780193153295.
- Adolph Kohut, Die Gesangsköniginnen in den letzten drei Jahrhunderten, 2 vols (Verlag Hermann Kuhz, Berlin, 1906).
- K. J. Kutsch and Leo Riemens, Grosses Sängerlexikon, fourth edition, in German (K. G. Saur, Munich, 2003). ISBN 9783598115981.
- Piotr Kaminsky, Mille et un Opéras (Éditions Fayard, 2003).
- Alicia C. Levin, "A Documentary Overview of Theaters in Paris, 1830–1900", pp. 379–402 in Annegret Fauser and Mark Everist (Eds.), Music, Theater, and Cultural Transfer: Paris, 1830–1914, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2009). ISBN 9780226239262.
- Benjamin Lumley, Reminiscences of the Opera (Hurst and Blackett, London 1864).
- Leo Riemens, Karl J. Kutsch, Grosses Sängerlexikon (Franke, Bern 1987).
- Antje Sieker, 'Die Crüwelli 1826–1907. Operndiva aus Bielefeld,' in Ilse Brehmer and Juliane Jacobi-Dittrich (Eds.), Frauenalltag in Bielefeld (Bielefeld 1986), 201-210.
- Christian Springer, Verdi und die Interpreten seiner Zeit (Verlag Holzhausen, Wien 2000).
- Gisbert Strotdrees, Es gab nicht nur die Droste. Sechzig Lebensbilder Westfälischer Frauen (Münster 1992), 23-26.
- Anne Williams, "Lewis/Gounod's Bleeding Nonne: An Introduction and Translation of the Scribe/Delavigne Libretto" in Gillen D'Arcy Wood (Ed.), Opera and Romanticism (University of Maryland website; accessed 15 July 2011).
External links
- http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bielefeld.de/ftp/bilder/aemter_rathaus/stadtarchiv/011107_1_235.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.bielefeld.de/de/biju/stadtar/rc/rar/01112007.html&usg=__7UIdL3We_ouE7PK2TT6irRx_61k=&h=262&w=235&sz=8&hl=en&start=51&um=1&tbnid=fk9v8MPuy2MYMM:&tbnh=112&tbnw=100&prev=/images%3Fq%3DSophie%2BCruvelli%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D36%26um%3D1Dagmar Giesecke, German article on Cruvelli on Bielefeld webpage (Copyright reserved).]
