131.—FROM HUMBLE ORIGIN TO WEALTH AND FAME.
The goddess of song seems to have chosen her most talented devotees from the humbler walks of life. Among the prime donne we find some of the greatest to have been children of strolling actors, cooks, shopkeepers, and the like. And among singers of the other sex we find porters, school teachers, valets, and coachmen. Very few of the greater singers have sprung from the higher walks of life. We give the circumstances of the discovery of two renowned sopranos, and the list of similar discoveries might be indefinitely extended had we the space and our readers the patience.
Some time during the middle of the last century, Cardinal Gabrielli, who was attached to the Papal Court, was walking in his garden, when his ears were delighted with a stream of joyous melody which, though evidently coming from an untutored throat, still showed remarkable power and sweetness. On investigation, he found the songstress to be the little daughter of his favorite cook. She had been taken to the theater by her father, and there her ready memory had retained some of the favorite melodies of the operas she had heard.
The cook had not the means to give the girl the education she deserved, and so that was provided by the liberal Cardinal, whose name she afterward took. La Gabrielli became one of the greatest singers of her day, and delighted nearly all of the crowned heads of Europe by her powers and beauty.
She had a large income and traveled with a royal retinue. But when she retired from the stage it had become greatly reduced by her generosity as well as by her luxurious habits.
The discovery of the vocal powers of Angelica Catalani was made in a different way. At the end of the last century there arose a queer kind of complaint in a certain town in Italy, concerning the singing at one of the churches. It was declared that one of the young novices sang with such power and brilliancy that the people gathered at the church for miles around, and the service became more of a concert than a religious service. This came to the ears of the Bishop and he ordered the scandal to be stopped, which was very easily done by not allowing the young girl whose voice made such a commotion to sing, except in the chorus. Angelica's father had destined her for the cloister and could hardly be persuaded to give up his cherished design of making her spend her life in the dark walls of a convent. But, allured by the promise that the girl had a gold mine in her throat, he finally allowed her to be taken from the convent and to be placed in the hands of the best masters for her vocal education.
Thus, snatched from the convent at the age of twelve years, Catalani began her career, which was one of the most brilliant known to art. No more beautiful person has graced the operatic stage, and no more cultivated or flexible voice is recorded in operatic annals. But her very abilities hurt her career as an artist, for she sacrificed true art in her anxiety to display her wonderful powers of vocalization. Her career, like that of Gabrielli, was crowned with riches and fame.