224.—A GREAT GERMAN SONGSTRESS.
Henrietta Sontag had to combat a great prejudice from her very first appearance on the stage. This was the idea held by the musical world of that day that a German could not sing. Old Frederick the Great was not alone in this prejudice. Sontag made her début in 1820, when but fifteen years of age; and so short of stature was she at that time, that they had her wear shoes with heels four inches high. As time went on, she became one of a group of great sopranos, of which the others were Fodor, Pasta, Malibran, and Catalani.
In Berlin Sontag met Count Rossi, and, as an ardent attraction sprang up between them, they became engaged, but the engagement was kept a secret for some time, owing to the probable opposition of the Count's relations, the Bonapartes. In Paris she captivated the heart of Charles DeBeriot; but, true to Count Rossi, she refused the hand of this celebrated violinist.
DeBeriot was greatly dejected at his refusal. Mme. Malibran, meeting him shortly after this event, exerted herself to arouse him from his melancholy; and, in fact, she succeeded so well that his admiration and regard turned to this beautiful Spanish singer, and he consoled himself for the loss of Sontag by marrying Malibran. In after years Malibran was a bitter rival of Sontag, as she never forgot that the latter was DeBeriot's first love.
A year or two after Sontag's marriage to Rossi the union was made public, and, as Countess Rossi, she bade farewell to the stage. Then came a period of twenty years of happy life with her husband at the different European capitals. But, in 1849, her husband having lost his property by political changes, Sontag returned to the operatic stage, where, although she had to enter the lists against the talents and popularity of Jenny Lind, she renewed her triumphs both in Europe and America. She had restored the family fortune by her income on the stage, and was about to leave it forever, when she was attacked by the cholera in our southern climate, at the City of Mexico, and in a few hours was dead.