was far inferior to the other two in creative intellectuality, appeared
on the scene. Chorley asserts that Du-prez was the only artist he had
ever seen and heard whose peculiar qualities and excellences would
have enabled him to do entire musical and dramatic justice to the
arduous part of _John of Leyden_.... "I have never seen anything like a
complete conception of the character, so wide in its range of emotions;
and might have doubted its possibility, had I not remembered the
admirable, subtile, and riveting dramatic treatment of _Eleazar_ in 'La
Juive' (the _Shyloch_ of opera) by M. Duprez."

This artist may be also included as belonging largely to the sphere
of Pauline Viardot's art-life. Albert Duprez, the son of a French
performer, was born in 1806, and, like his predecessor Nourrit, was a
student at the Conservatoire. At first he did not succeed in operatic
singing, but, recognizing his own faults and studying the great models
of the day, among them Nourrit, whom he was destined to supplant, he
finally impressed himself on the public as the leading dramatic singer
of France. According to Fetis and Castil-Blaze, he never had a superior
in stage declamation, and the finest actors of the Comédie Française
might well have taken a lesson from him. His first great success, which
caused his engagement in grand opera, was the creation of _Edgardo_ in
"Lucia di Lammermoor" at Naples in 1835.

Two years later he made his _début_ at the Académie in "Guillaume
Tell," and his novel and striking reading of his part on this occasion
contributed largely to his fame. He was a leading figure at this theatre
for twelve years, and was the first representative of many important
tenor rôles, among which may be mentioned those of "Benvenuto Cellini,"
"Les Martyrs," "La Favorita," "Dom Sebastien," "Otello," and "Lucia."
Duprez was insignificant, even repellent in his appearance, but, in