It was she who by her
magnificent interpretation of Leonore, in Beethoven's "Fidelio," first
revealed the beauty of the part to the public. In Wagner's operas she
appeared as Senta, in the "Flying Dutchman"; Venus, in "Tannhaeuser," and
actually created the role of Adriano Colonna, in "Rienzi." Goethe, who
had earlier failed to appreciate Schubert's matchless setting to his
"Erl King," when he heard Madame Schroeder-Devrient sing it, exclaimed:
"Had music instead of words been my vehicle of thought, it is thus I
should have framed the legend." She died in 1860.
Full of caprice, radiating the fire of genius, wayward and playful as a
child, Maria Felicita Malibran swept like a dazzling meteor across the
musical firmament. M. Arthur Pougin thus epitomizes her story:
"Daughter of a Spaniard, born in France, married in America, died in
England, buried in Belgium. Comedienne at five, married at seventeen,
dead at twenty-eight--immortal. Beautiful, brilliant, gay as a ray of
sunlight, with frequent shadings of melancholy; heart full of warmth and
abandon; devoted to the point of sacrifice; courageous to temerity;
ardent for pleasure as for work; with a will and energy indomitable.
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