singer to making the music of Donizetti popular throughout Europe.




MARIETTA ALBONI.

The Greatest of Contraltos.--Marietta Alboni's Early
Surroundings.--Rossini's Interest in her Career.--First Appearance on
the Operatic Stage.--Excitement produced in Germany by her Singing.--Her
Independence of Character.--Her Great Success in London.--Description
of her Voice and Person.--Concerts in Taris.--The Verdicts of the Great
French Critics.--Hector Berlioz on Alboni's Singing.--She appears in
Opera in Paris.--Strange Indifference of the Audience quickly turned to
Enthusiasm.--She competes favorably in London with Grisi, Persiani,
and Viardot.--Takes the Place of Jenny Lind as Prima Donna at Her
Majesty's.--She extends her Voice into the Soprano Register.--Performs
_Fides_ in "Le Prophète."--Visit to America.--Retires from the Stage.


I.

There was a time early in the century when the voice of Rosamunda
Pisaroni was believed to be the most perfect and delightful, not only
of all contraltos of the age, but to have reached the absolute ideal of
what this voice should be. She even for a time disputed the supremacy
of Henrietta Sontag as the idol of the Paris public, though the latter
great singer possessed the purest of soprano voices, and won no less
by her personal loveliness than by the charm of her singing. Pisaroni
excelled as much in her dramatic power as in the beauty of her voice,