The year 1600 marked the beginning of a new era in musical history, for in that year the first public performance of regular opera took place in Florence, when the “Eurydice” of Rinuccini and Peri was given in honor of the wedding of Marie de’ Medici and Henry IV. of France. The growth and ever-increasing popularity of the opera, the development of civilization, the increase of wealth and the population of new countries, have led not only to the highest cultivation of the human voice, wherein music exerts its greatest power of fascination, but have brought forward hundreds of competitors for the artistic laurels which are the reward of those who reach the highest state of musical perfection.

For nearly a century opera was confined to the continent of Europe, but in 1691 Margarita de L’Epine, a native of Tuscany, appeared in London. She was remarkable for her plainness of speech and of features, her rough manners and swarthy appearance, and she must indeed have been possessed of a fine voice to have been able to retain her hold on public favor. In 1692 she announced her last appearance, but it was so successful that she kept on giving last appearances and did not leave England for several years, thus inaugurating a custom which is observed to the present day. Margarita married the celebrated Doctor Pepusch.

Contemporary with her was Katharine Tofts, an English woman, for an account of whom we are indebted to Colley Cibber, the great critic and playwright. She was a very beautiful woman with an exquisitely clear, sweet voice. Her career was short, for, after having achieved a tremendous success in one of her parts, she became demented, and, though eventually cured, she never returned to the stage. There was a lively rivalry between the two singers, which furnished gossip for the town.

Anastasia Robinson, mild and pleasing in manners, with great sweetness of expression and large blue eyes, was engaged to sing by George Frederick Haendel, who at that time was the impresario of the London opera. Other singers he engaged in Dresden, of whom Margherita Durastanti was the soprano. Large, coarse, and masculine, she is said to have been distinguished as much for the high respectability of her character as for her musical talent. Senesino was considered the leading tenor singer of his day. He was a man of imposing figure and majestic carriage, with a clear, powerful, equal, and fluent voice. The basso was Boschi, who was chiefly remarkable for a voice of immense volume and a very vigorous style of acting.

Anastasia Robinson was eclipsed, after a career of twelve years, by Francesca Cuzzoni, and married the Earl of Peterborough. She left a reputation for integrity and goodness seldom enjoyed by even the highest celebrities. Cuzzoni made an immediate and immense success, and Haendel took great pains to compose airs adapted to display her exquisite voice. She, in return, treated him with insolence and caprice, so that he looked about for another singer. His choice fell upon Faustina Bordoni, a Venetian lady who had risen to fame in Italy. She was elegant in figure, agreeable in manners, and had a handsome face. Cuzzoni, on the other hand, was ill made and homely, and her temper was turbulent and obstinate. A bitter rivalry at once sprang up, Haendel fanning the flame by composing for Bordoni as diligently as he had previously done for Cuzzoni.

The public was soon divided, and the rivalry was carried to an absurd point. At length the singers actually came to blows, and so fierce was the conflict that the bystanders were unable to separate them until each combatant bore substantial marks of the other’s esteem. Cuzzoni was then dispensed with, and went to Vienna. She was reckless and extravagant, and was at several times imprisoned for debt, finally dying in frightful indigence after subsisting by button making, a sad termination of a brilliant career. Bordoni led a prosperous life, married Adolfo Hasse, the director of the orchestra in Dresden, sang before Frederick the Great, and passed a comfortable old age. Both she and her husband died in 1783, she at the age of eighty-three and he at eighty-four.

Other singers of this period were Lavinia Fenton, who became the Duchess of Bolton, and who is chiefly remarkable for having been the original Polly in Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera;” Marthe le Rochois, who sang many of Lulli’s operas, a woman of ordinary appearance but wonderful magnetism; Madame La Maupin, one of the wildest, most adventurous and reckless women ever on the stage; and Caterina Mingotti, a faultless singer, of respectable habits. Mingotti was seized with the fatal ambition to manage opera, and soon reached the verge of bankruptcy. She contrived, however, to earn enough by singing during the succeeding five years to support her respectably in her old age.

To this period also belongs Farinelli, or Broschi, who was the greatest tenor of his age, perhaps the greatest who ever lived, for we are told that there was no branch of his art which he did not carry to the highest pitch of perfection. His career of three years in London was a continuous triumph, and he is said to have made L5,000 each year, a very large sum in those days. His singing also restored to health Philip V. of Spain, who was a prey to depression, and neglected all the affairs of his kingdom. At the court of Spain his influence became immense until Charles III. ascended the throne, when Farinelli quitted Spain, “at the royal suggestion,” and retired to Bologna.

Of the long list of men who have distinguished themselves as singers in opera, it is curious to note that almost, if not quite, the first were a Mario and a Nicolini, names which are familiar to us as belonging to well-known tenors of this (nineteenth) century. Of Mario but little is recorded; but Nicolini, whose full name was Nicolino Grimaldi Nicolini, and who was born in 1673, is known to have sung at Rome in 1694. He remained on the stage until 1726, but the date of his death is unknown. Nicolini sang in England in 1708, and at several subsequent times, and was well received. Addison wrote of him, concerning his acting, that “he gave new majesty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers.”

Caterina Gabrielli was the daughter of a cook of the celebrated Cardinal Gabrielli, and was born at Rome, November 12, 1730. She possessed an unusual share of beauty, a fine voice, and an accurate ear. She made her first appearance when seventeen years old at the theatre of Lucca, in Galuppi’s opera, “Sofonisba.” She was intelligent and witty, full of liveliness and grace, and an excellent actress. Her voice, though not powerful, was of exquisite quality and wonderful extent, its compass being nearly two octaves and a half, and perfectly equable throughout, while her facility of vocalization was extraordinary. Her fame was immediately established, and soon she had all mankind at her feet; but she proved to be coquettish, deceitful, and extravagant. No matter with whom she came in contact, she compelled them to give way to her whims. On one occasion she refused to sing for the viceroy of Sicily, and was therefore committed to prison for twelve days, where she gave costly entertainments, paid the debts of her fellow prisoners, and distributed large sums amongst the indigent. Besides this, she sang all her best songs in her finest style every day, until the term of her imprisonment expired, when she came forth amid the shouts of the grateful poor whom she had benefited while in jail. Despite her extravagance Gabrielli had a good heart. She gave largely in charity, and never forgot her parents. Having by degrees lost both voice and beauty, Gabrielli retired finally to Bologna in 1780, and died there in April, 1796, at the age of sixty-six.

In the room in Paris in which the unfortunate Admiral Coligny had been murdered, was born on February 14, 1744, the beautiful, witty, but dissipated Sophie Arnould. At the age of twelve her voice, which was remarkable for power and purity, attracted the attention of the Princess de Modena, through whose influence she was engaged to sing in the king’s chapel. In 1757 she made her first appearance in opera, when her beauty and her acting enabled her to carry everything before her.

The opera was besieged whenever her name was announced, and all the gentlemen of Paris contested for the honor of throwing bouquets at her feet. At length she eloped with Count Lauraguais, a handsome, dashing young fellow, full of wit and daring. Her home resembled a little court, of which she was the reigning sovereign, and her salon was always crowded by men of the highest distinction. When Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris, he confessed that nowhere did he find such pleasure, such wit, such brilliancy, as in the salon of Mlle. Arnould. She remained faithful to her lover for four years, when he bestowed on her a life-pension of 2,000 crowns. While she never spared any one in the exercise of her wit, she was occasionally the subject of ridicule herself, as, for instance, when the Abbe Galiani was asked his opinion of her singing, and replied, “It is the finest asthma I ever heard.”

Sophie Arnould appeared in several of Gluck’s operas, and acquitted herself to the satisfaction of the composer. Her voice had not apparently fulfilled early expectations, but her beauty and her acting made her a success. When Voltaire one day said to her, “Ah, mademoiselle, I am eighty-four years old, and I have committed eighty-four follies,” she replied, “A mere trifle; I am not yet forty, and I have committed more than a thousand.”

In 1792 she purchased the presbytere of Clignancourt, Luzarches (Seine-et-Oise). She had a fortune of 30,000 livres and innumerable friends, but in less than two years she had lost her fortune, and her friends being dispersed by exile, imprisonment, and the scaffold during the Revolution, she was reduced to the lowest stage of poverty. She went to Paris and sought an interview with Fouche, now a great man, who had been one of her most ardent admirers. He awarded her a pension of 2,400 livres, and ordered that apartments should be given her in the Hotel d’Angevilliers. In 1803 she died in obscurity.

Among the celebrated male singers of this period were Gasparo Pacchierotti, and Giovanni Battista Rubinelli. The former of these was considered to have been the finest singer of the latter part of the eighteenth century. Endowed with a vivid imagination, uncommon intelligence, and profound sensibility, a tall and lean figure, a voice which was often uncertain and nasal, he required much determination and strength of character to overcome the defects and take advantage of the good qualities which nature had bestowed upon him. Yet he is described by Lord Mt. Edgecumbe as “decidedly the most perfect singer it ever fell to his lot to hear.”

Rubinelli, on the other hand, from his fullness of voice and simplicity of style pleased a greater number than Pacchierotti, though none perhaps so exquisitely as that singer. Rubinelli’s articulation was so pure and well accented that in his recitatives no one conversant with the Italian language ever had occasion to look at a libretto while he was singing. His style was true cantabile, in which he was unexcelled.

Upon the retirement of Sophie Arnould a new star appeared in the person of Antoinette Cecile Clavel St. Huberty, the daughter of a brave old soldier who was also a musician. Her first appearances in opera were made in Warsaw, where her father, M. Clavel, was engaged as repetitor to a French company. From Warsaw she went to Berlin, where she married a certain Chevalier de Croisy, after which she sang for three years at Strasbourg. At last she went to Paris, where she appeared in 1777 in Gluck’s “Armida.” Madame St. Huberty did not rush meteor-like into public favor. Her success was gained after years of patient labor, during which she endured bitter poverty, and sang only minor parts. In person she was small, thin, and fair; her features were not finely formed, and her mouth was of unusual size, but her countenance was expressive. In 1783 she reached the summit of her success, when she appeared in the title role of Piccini’s opera, “Dodon.” Louis XVI., who did not much care for opera, had it performed twice, and was so much pleased that he granted Madame St. Huberty a pension of 1,500 livres, to which he added one of five hundred more from his privy purse. Concerning her performance of this part we are told by Grimm, “Never has there been united acting more captivating, a sensibility more perfect, singing more exquisite, happier byplay, and more noble abandon.”

In 1790 Madame St. Huberty retired from the operatic stage and married Count d’Entraigues. After a political career in Spain and Russia, during which the count and his wife passed through some trying vicissitudes, they settled in England, but on the 22d of July, 1812, both the count and countess were assassinated by a servant, who had been bribed by an agent of Fouche to obtain certain papers in their possession.

Gertrude Elizabeth Mara was the daughter of Johann Schmaling, a respectable musician of Hesse Cassel. Her mother died shortly after her birth in 1749, but her father out of his limited means gave her the best education he could. As she was considered a prodigy her father took her from town to town till they reached Holland, where, after performing for some time, they went to England. Thence, after earning some money by giving concerts, they travelled to Germany, arriving at Leipzig in 1766, where the young singer obtained an engagement at the theatre as first singer, at a salary of six hundred dollars. From this time she continued to prosper, and she quite captivated that opinionated monarch, Frederick the Great.

In 1773 she fell in love with, and married, a handsome violoncellist named Jean Mara. He was a showy, extravagant man, and fell into dissipated habits, but through all Madame Mara was devoted to him.

Her personal appearance was far from striking. She was short and insignificant, with an agreeable, good-natured countenance. Her manner, however, was prepossessing, though she was an indifferent actress. But her voice atoned for everything. Its compass was from G to E in altissimo, which she ran with the greatest ease and force, the tones being at once powerful and sweet. Her success she owed to her untiring industry. Nothing taxed her powers, her execution was easy and neat, her shake was true, open, and liquid, and though she preferred brilliant pieces, her refined taste was well known.

In England she gathered many laurels, as well as in Germany and other countries which she visited, but she came into collision with the authorities at Oxford, on account of her ignorance of the English language and of Oxford customs.

On leaving England she sang at a farewell concert which netted seven hundred pounds, and her rival, Mrs. Billington, generously gave her services. Madame Mara passed the last years of her life at Revel, where she died, January, 1833, at the age of eighty-five. On the celebration of her eighty-third birthday she was offered a poetical tribute by no less a person than Goethe.

Of Madame Mara’s contemporary male singers Luigi Marchesi is entitled to mention, for he had, within three years of his debut, the reputation of being the best singer in Italy. He visited all Europe, even penetrating to St. Petersburg, in company with Sarti and Todi. Besides his wonderful vocal powers, which enabled him to execute the most marvellous embellishments, he was noted for great beauty of person, and for the grace and propriety of his gestures.

Crescentini, too, who was considered the last great singer of his school, sang at all the chief cities of Europe, and was given by Napoleon the Iron Cross, an honor which aroused many jealousies. “Nothing could exceed,” says Fetis, “the suavity of his tones, the force of his expression, the perfect taste of his ornaments, or the large style of his phrasing.” For several years after his retirement he was a professor at the Royal College of Music at Naples.

Mrs. Elizabeth Billington was considered to be the finest singer ever born in England. Her father was a member of the Italian Opera orchestra named Weichsel, and her mother, a pupil of John Christian Bach, was a leading vocalist at Vauxhall, whose voice was noted for a certain reediness of tone, caused, it is said, by her having practised with the oboe, her husband’s instrument.

Elizabeth Weichsel was born in 1770, and began to compose pieces for the pianoforte when eleven years of age. At fourteen, she appeared at a concert at Oxford. She continued her study of the piano under Thomas Billington, one of the band of Drury Lane, to whom she was married in 1785, in opposition to the wishes of her parents. They were very poor, and went to Dublin to seek engagements, and here Mrs. Billington appeared at a theatre in Smock Alley, singing with the celebrated Tenduccini. Her early efforts were not crowned with the greatest success, but she did better at Waterford, and later on, when she returned to London, she was still more successful.

Her voice was a pure soprano, sweet rather than powerful, of extraordinary extent and quality in its upper notes, in which it had somewhat the tone color of a flute or flageolet. In her manner she was peculiarly bewitching. Her face and figure were beautiful, and her countenance full of good humor, but she had comparatively little talent as an actress. In 1786 she first appeared at Covent Garden, in the presence of the king and queen, and her success was beyond her most sanguine anticipations. She sang in a resplendently brilliant style, and brilliancy was an innovation in English singing.

Mrs. Billington one day received a great compliment from Haydn, the composer. Reynolds, the painter, was finishing her portrait, and Haydn, on seeing it, said: “You have made a mistake. You have represented Mrs. Billington listening to the angels; you should have made the angels listening to her.”

In 1796, while in Italy, Mr. Billington died in a sudden and mysterious manner. Soon afterwards his widow went to Milan, where she fell in love with a Frenchman, the son of a banker in Lyons, named Felican. He was a remarkably handsome man, but no sooner were they married (in 1799) than he commenced to treat her most brutally, and eventually she was obliged to run away from him. She returned to London under the care of her brother.

On reaching London, a lively competition for her services began between Harris and Sheridan, the theatrical managers. She gave the preference to Harris, and received L3,000 to sing three times a week, also a free benefit was ensured at L500, and a place for her brother as leader of the band. Eventually, however, the dispute was ended by arbitration, and it was decided that she should sing alternately at each house. At the height of her popularity Mrs. Billington is said to have averaged an income of L14,000 a year.

She retired from the stage on March 30, 1806, on which occasion she was the first to introduce Mozart’s music into England, giving the opera, “Clemenza di Tito,” of which there was only one manuscript copy in England. That belonged to the Prince of Wales, who lent it for the occasion. After a separation of fifteen years, Mrs. Billington was reunited to her second husband, but he at once resumed his brutal treatment, and her death, in 1818, was caused by a blow from his hand.

One of the most popular and charming singers at La Scala, in the Carnival of 1794, was Giuseppa Grassini, the daughter of a farmer of Varese in Lombardy, where she was born in 1775. She received decided advantages by making her debut with some of the greatest artists of her time, Marchesi, Crescentini, and Lazzarini.

Grassini was an exquisite vocalist in spite of her ignorance, and albeit fickle and capricious, a most beautiful and fascinating woman, luxurious, prodigal, and generous, but heavy and dull in conversation. Her voice was originally a soprano, but changed to a deep contralto. It was rich, round, and full, though of limited compass, being confined within about one octave of good natural notes. Her style was rich and finished, and though she had not much execution, what she did was elegant and perfect. She never attempted anything beyond her powers, her dramatic instincts were always true, and in the expression of the subdued and softer passions she has never been excelled. Her figure was tall and commanding, and her carriage and attitudes had a classic beauty combined with a grace peculiarly her own. Her head was noble, her features were symmetrical, her hair and eyes of the deepest black, and her entire appearance had an air of singular majesty.

Napoleon invited her to Paris, where she soon became an object of inveterate dislike to the Empress Josephine. In 1804, returning to Paris after a visit to Berlin, Napoleon made her directress of the Opera. In the same year she visited London, singing alternately with Mrs. Billington. In London she did not make a great success, and when her benefit took place she asked the good-natured Mrs. Billington to sing, fearing that she would not succeed alone. In succeeding seasons, however, Grassini grew in public favor, and on reappearing in England, in 1812, she was rapturously received, but her powers were now on the wane, and at the end of the season she departed unregretted. For some years longer she sang in Italy, Holland, and Austria, retiring about 1823.

She married Colonel Ragani, afterwards director of the Opera in Paris, and resided for many years in that city. She died in Milan in 1850, at the mature age of eighty-five.

Charles Benjamin Incledon and John Braham were two English singers of renown who came into prominence about the same time. Incledon began as a choir boy in Exeter Cathedral, after which he went into the navy, where his voice developed into a fine tenor. Leaving the sea, he studied singing, and soon became popular. His natural voice was full and open, and was sent forth without the slightest artifice, and when he sang pianissimo his voice retained its original quality. His style of singing was bold and manly, mixed with considerable feeling, and he excelled in ballads. In 1817 he visited America, where he was well received.

The career of John Braham is of interest to all who love the traditions of English music. In his early days he was so poor that he was obliged to sell pencils for a living, but his musical talent being discovered by Leoni, a teacher of repute, who took him under his tutelage, he appeared at the age of thirteen at Covent Garden. At the age of about twenty he was fitted for the Italian stage, and at once made his mark. Even Crescentini, who was placed in the background, acknowledged Braham’s talent, and when he sang in Italy his name was freely quoted as being one of the greatest living singers. As he grew older he attained a prodigious reputation, never before equalled in England, and whether singing a simple ballad, in oratorio, or in the grandest dramatic music, the largeness and nobility of his style were matched by a voice which in its prime was almost peerless. Braham amassed a large fortune, and then aspired to be a manager, an experiment which quickly reduced him to poverty. In 1840 he visited America, and made a grand operatic and concert tour. In private life he was much admired, and was always found in the most conservative and fastidious circles, where as a man of culture, a humorist, and a raconteur, he was the life of society.

Braham was frequently associated in opera with Madame Angelica Catalani, the last of the great singers who came before the public in the eighteenth century. She was a woman of tall and majestic presence, a dazzling complexion, large, beautiful blue eyes, and features of ideal symmetry, a woman to entrance the eye as well as the ear. Her voice was a soprano of the purest quality, embracing a compass of nearly three octaves, and so powerful that no band could overwhelm its tones. The greatest defect of her singing was that, while the ear was bewildered with the beauty and tremendous power of her voice, the feelings were untouched, she never appealed to the heart. She could not thrill like Mara, nor captivate her hearers by a birdlike softness and brilliancy, like Billington. She simply astonished her audiences.

Her private life was as exemplary as her public career was dazzling. She was married, after a most romantic courtship, to a M. de Vallebregue, a French captain of Hussars, who turned out to be an ignorant, stupid man, but a driver of hard bargains for his wife’s talents. His musical knowledge is illustrated by an anecdote to the effect that on one occasion, when his wife complained at a rehearsal that the piano was too high, he had the defect remedied by sending for a carpenter and making him cut off six inches from the legs of the instrument. In spite of the reputation for avarice which her husband helped to create, Madame Catalani won golden opinions by her sweet temper, liberality, and benevolence.

Towards the end of her career Catalani drew down on her head the severest reprobation of all good judges by singing the most extravagant and bizarre show pieces, such as variations, composed for the violin, on “Rule Britannia,” “God Save the King,” etc. The public in general, however, listened to her wonderful execution with unbounded delight and astonishment.

In 1831 Madame Catalani retired from the stage. Young and brilliant rivals, such as Pasta and Sontag, were rising to contest her sovereignty, and for several years the critics had been dropping pretty plain hints that it would be the most judicious and dignified course. She settled with her family on an estate near Lake Como; but in 1848 she went to Paris to escape the cholera, which was then raging, and in a few months, notwithstanding her precaution, she fell a victim to that dread disease.