Pauline Viardot

Pauline Viardot (1821 – 1910), was a famous French mezzosoprano, vocal teacher and composer. She is considered one of the most influential opera singers of the 19th century.

Full name: Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García / Michelle Ferdinande Pauline Viardot

Born: July 18, 1821 Paris, France

Died: May 18, 1910 (aged 88) Paris, France

Life

Pauline was the daughter of the famous vocal pedagogue, impresario, composer and singer Manuel García (1775 - 1832) and Joaquina Sitches (1780 - 1864), who was an actress and opera singer. Music and especially singing played a central role in the García family and the children were all thoroughly trained in music. In the 1820ies the family troupe travelled to the United States, where they performed Barbiere de Sevilla and Don Giovanni. The big star of the family was Pauline’s older sister Maria Malibran, who was a world famous opera diva. In 1836 Maria, aged 28, got into a horse riding accident and died. Pauline was 15 years old at the time. Pauline was studying piano with Meysenberg and Liszt and voice with her parents, at first trained by father and after his death by her mother. Initially, Pauline wanted to become a concert pianist, but her mother steered her into a singing career after Maria’s death. She did stay an outstanding pianist all her life. Furthermore, she was fluent in Spanish, French, English and Italian. Later in her career she was also praised for singing arias in Russian.

Pauline made her concert debut as a singer at 16 years old and her operatic debut as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello two years later in London. In Paris she met the theater director Louis Viardot (1800-1883) whom she married in 1840. Their house in Paris became an important centre for writers, musicians and artists, including George Sand, Chopin, Turgenev, Clara Schumann, Berlioz, Gounod, and many others. In 1863 Pauline retired from the stage and the Viardot family however moved to Baden-Baden to escape the regime of Napoleon III. Finally, in 1871 they returned to Paris, where Pauline stayed for the rest of her life while teaching and composing.

‘‘What I have always said has been confirmed again: she is the most brilliant woman I have ever met’’

Clara Schumann about Pauline Viardot

Career

After her operatic debut in London Pauline had quickly become a sensation and she maintained her international stardom for most of her adult life. In 1843 she visited Russia for the first time, where she performed the Italian repertoire and Russian music (Glinka, Dargomïzhky). She was the first foreigner who sang in Russian and from this moment onwards she became a channel through which Russian music reached the west.

Pauline inspired a lot of composers to write for her and she helped to launch the careers of Gounod (Sapho), Massenet (Marie-Magdeleine) and Fauré. In 1849 Pauline performed the role of Fidès in Meyerbeer’s Le profète at the Paris Opéra. This role was especially written for her. In 1851 Gounod wrote Sapho in which she was to sing the title role. Also Schumann’s op.24, Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila and Fauré’s songs op.4 and 7 are dedicated to her.

In 1859 Berlioz prepared an edition of Gluck’s Orfeo in which Pauline Viardot was to sing the title role. Pauline was said to have reached rarely seen tragic heigts in these performances (around 150 in three years). This was the summit and end of Paulines operatic career. Later on, she only appearded in Alceste and Fidelio, in oratorio and in concerts. Her song repertory included Marcello, Paisello, Schubert, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. Though she didn’t have the succes of her sister La Malibran in the Italian repertory, Pauline had no equal in highly dramatic parts, in the works of Meyerbeer, Halévy and Gluck. Her intellectual approach to art and her artistic integrity did much to raise the status of singers.

Influence

As a singer, composer and teacher, Pauline Viardot had a lasting influence on the cultural life of nineteenth-century Europe. Throughout her singing career, Pauline wrote her own cadenzas and decorations to arias and songs. Furthermore she collected, edited and arranged music of others. Her best-known arrangements are her vocal versions of twelve Chopin mazurkas (VWV 4020–4031) and she made major contributions to Hector Berlioz’s new arrangement of the French version of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orphée. Moreover, Pauline was a very productive composer. She wrote mainly for voice and piano (opera, choral, songs), but also some instrumental pieces. Interestingly, Pauline wrote opera’s especially for her students. For the salon opera’s Trop de femmes (1867), L’ogre (1868) and Le dernier sorcier (1869) she used a libretto by her good friend, the Russian writer Turgenev, but for Le conte de fées (1879) and Cendrillon (1904) Pauline wrote the libretto herself. In her book Une heure d’étude (1880) she wrote down the very influential singing method Garcia. Altogether Paulines method, compositions and arrangments became very important for the performance practice of the nineteenth century. Among Paulines students were Désirée de Artôt, Aglaja Orgeni, Marrianne Brandt and Antoinette Sterling. Finally, Paulines children continued the musical familiy legacy. Her eldest doughter Louise Héritte became a contralto, teacher and composer, her son Paul became a violinist, conductor and composer, and her third doughter Marianne was for a time engaged to Fauré, but married the pianist and composer V.A. Duvernoy.

References

Esse, M., 'Chapter 5: A Sapphic Orpheus: Pauline Viardot and the Sexual Politics of Operatic Collaboration"’, in: Singing Sappho. Improvisation and Authority in Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2021)

Figes, O., The Europeans: three lives and the making of a cosmopolitan culture (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2019)

Sadie, S. (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicions, vol.19 (Macmillan, 1980), pp. 694–695.

Viardot, P., Une Heure d’Étude. Exercices pour Voix de Femme (1880)

BBC podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1rkx

IMSLP for compositions and works of Pauline Viardot: https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Viardot,_Pauline

Britannica.com https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pauline-Viardot (consulted 26-05-2023)

Opera Magazine https://www.operamagazine.nl/achtergrond/56060/wat-je-moet-weten-over-pauline-viardot/ (consulted 26-05-2023)

De Nieuwe Muze https://denieuwemuze.nl/200-jaar-pauline-viardot-garcia/ (consulted 26-05-2023)

A Modern Reveal https://www.amodernreveal.com/pauline-viardotgarcia (consulted 01-06-2023)

Heitmann, C., ‘Pauline Viardot. Systematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis (VWV)’, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, seit 2012, Online-Datenbank https://www.pauline-viardot.de/Komponistin_englisch.htm (consulted 26-05-2023)