and up to the advent of Marietta Alboni on the stage was unquestionably
without a rival in the estimate of critics as the artist who surpassed
all the traditions of the operatic stage in this peculiar line of
singing. But her memory was dethroned from its pedestal when the
gorgeous Alboni became known to the European public.

Thomas Noon Talfourd applied to a well-known actress of half a century
since the expression that she had "corn, wine, and oil" in her looks.
A similar characterization would well apply both to the appearance
and voice of Mlle. Alboni, when she burst on the European world in the
splendid heyday of her youth and charms--the face, with its broad, sunny
Italian beauty, incapable of frown; the figure, wrought in lines
of voluptuous symmetry, though the _embonpoint_ became finally too
pronounced; the voice, a rich, deep, genuine contralto of more than
two octaves, as sweet as honey, and "with that tremulous quality which
reminds fanciful spectators of the quiver in the air of the calm,
blazing summer's noon"; a voice luscious beyond description. To this
singer has been accorded without dissent the title of the "greatest
contralto of the nineteenth century."

The father of Marietta Alboni was an officer of the customs, who lived
at Casena in the Romagna, and possessed enough income to bestow an
excellent education on all his family. Marietta, born March 10, 1822,
evinced an early passion for music, and a great facility in learning
languages. She was accordingly placed with Signor Bagioli, a local
music-teacher, under whom she so prospered that at eleven she could read
music at sight, and vocalize with considerable fluency. Having studied
her solfeggi with Bagioli, she was transferred to the tuition of Mme.
Bertoletti, at Bologna. Here she had the good fortune to make the
acquaintance of Rossini, in whom she excited interest. Rossini gave