Maria Malibran is one of the most intriguing and tragic figures in nineteenth-century operatic history, whose biography reads like an opera synopsis.
Maria Malibran
She came from a renowned, influential, and extremely dysfunctional musical family. Her career was staggeringly successful. She sang in the American premiere of Don Giovanni. She married (or maybe was sold to) an extremely wealthy man and, later, one of the great violin virtuosos of her generation. She endured a number of shocking injuries. And in the end, despite her extraordinary talent, she was never able to find peace and died in agony after a horrifying accident.
Today, we’re looking at the life and death of soprano Maria Malibran.
Maria’s Childhood
María Felicitas García Sitches was born on 24 March 1808 in Paris.
Both of her parents were Spanish musicians. Her father, Manuel García, was a tenor and sang in the premiere of The Barber of Seville, and her mother, Joaquina Sitches, was a soprano.
Maria had two siblings, a brother named Manuel, Jr., who was four years older than her and who would become one of the great vocal teachers of his generation, and a sister named Pauline, who was thirteen years her junior, who became one of the most influential singers of the nineteenth century.
All three children were taught by her father. Manuel was demanding and abusive. A decade before his daughter’s birth, he had actually been jailed in Madrid after getting into a fight with a military guard.
In his 2020 book, author Orlando Figes writes:
“From an early age, the Garcia children were taught to sing by their father. He was a hard taskmaster and was said to hit them when they did not get their repetition right. Maria, who was as fiery as her father, suffered most on this account.
After their father died, Manuel, Jr. gave a firsthand account of what happened during the children’s lessons with their father. He claimed that their father would stand beside them and then slap them if they sang out of tune or out of time.
Maria made her stage debut with her father in Naples when she was only eight years old.
When she was seventeen, her family was in London. Her colleague Giuditta Pasta had to withdraw from a production of The Barber of Seville, and, with her father’s encouragement, Maria stepped up to take her place. She proved to be a huge success.
Beginning Her Career in New York City
In 1825, Manuel, Sr., embarked with his family on a trip to New York City on a mission to bring Italian opera to America, as it had never been performed there before.
Lorenzo Da Ponte, the librettist of various Mozart operas and, by that time, a teacher at Columbia College in New York City, had partnered with a wine merchant to make the project happen.
In 1825 and 1826, the Garcia family gave eighty performances of eight different Italian operas in New York, including the first unabridged American performance of Don Giovanni. Her father played Don Giovanni, her mother played Donna Elvira, her brother played Leporello, and she played Zerlina.
Mozart: La Ci Darem La Mano
In New York, Maria survived a terrifying onstage incident. In February 1826, during a production of Rossini’s Otello, her father was playing the titular character and she was playing his wife, Desdemona. In the opera, Otello stabs Desdemona.
But as her father stepped across the stage, Maria realised that her father wasn’t carrying a prop dagger; he was carrying a real one. She screamed, which, of course, the audience just thought was exceptionally realistic acting. Manuel later insisted that he had just lost the prop knife and never meant to hurt her, but Maria was deeply shaken by the incident.
Her Marriage to François Eugene Malibran
Maria Malibran
While the family was in New York, she met and married a banker named François Eugene Malibran. He was forty-five years old, and she was eighteen.
There are dueling legends about this marriage. One story says that Manuel basically sold his daughter to Malibran for 100,000 francs. Another says that Maria married him willingly despite the age difference just to get away from her father. Maybe both stories are true.
Predictably, the marriage was a disaster. To make matters worse, her family left her with her new husband in New York and traveled to perform in Mexico, leaving her behind.
Unfortunately, it soon became clear that Mailbran was not nearly as wealthy as he’d initially seemed; in fact, he was nearing insolvency and was using her money to pay his bills. Just a few months after the wedding, he was forced to declare bankruptcy.
Maria fled to Europe, and eventually, the marriage was annulled.
Life in Europe
When she returned to Paris, she went to Rossini, who advocated for her. By this time, her father had returned from his North American trip and was often cast alongside her, which she found distressing.
Nevertheless, her reputation soared, and she became known as one of the great singers of Europe.
In 1829, she met violinist and composer Charles Auguste de Bériot and fell in love with him. De Bériot was one of the best-known violinists of the day. Together, they were a bit of a Parisian power couple.
Felix Mendelssohn wrote a piece for them, an aria called “Infelice”, for soprano, violin, and orchestra.
Mendelssohn: Infelice. Scena ed Aria for Soprano, Violin, and Orchestra. Original version from 1834
They had a son together in 1833 named Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, who would later become a pianist, teacher, and composer.
In 1836, Maria was finally able to finalise the annulment of the union with Malibran, and she and de Bériot were married. She was pregnant at the time.
Her Tragic, Terrifying Injuries
For whatever reason, Maria had always been prone to accidents.
In 1829, she was injured onstage, possibly as a result of a curtain malfunction.
In 1830, she fell down a flight of stairs or through a trapdoor (the record is unclear) at the Théâtre Italien in Paris.
In 1835, she was in a carriage accident so severe that it was reported in the press: “The horses ran away with her carriage, the wheels of which were dashed against the curb-stone, and broken in pieces. She was thrown out, had her wrists sprained, her whole body bruised, and received many severe contusions.” She went onstage later that year using crutches. Some critics were skeptical that the injuries were real.
A few months after her wedding, in July 1836, a pregnant Maria went horseback riding with friends. She fell from the saddle and was dragged by the stirrups.
She survived but was gravely injured. Astonishingly, she kept performing even as the effects of her injuries grew more and more debilitating.
Her Death
Beethoven: Fidelio – Mir ist so wunderbar
She gave her final concert in Manchester, England, on 14 September 1836. She sang the quartet from Beethoven’s Fidelio called “Mir ist so wunderbar,” as well as a duet called “Vanne se alberghi in petto” from composer Saverio Mercadante’s opera Andronica. The duet was with a rival singer, a French soprano named Rosalbina Caradori-Allan.
Caradori-Allan challenged her to a duel, a common performance practice of the time.
Conductor Sir George Smart later wrote, “During the well-deserved encore [Malibran] turned to me and said, ‘If I sing it again it will kill me.’ ‘Then do not,’ I replied, ‘let me address the audience.’ ‘No,’ said she, ‘I will sing it again and annihilate her.’”
One critic wrote, “The fearful shake at the top of her voice will never be forgotten by those who heard it. It was a desperate struggle against sinking nature; it was the last vivid glare of the expiring lamp.” She collapsed onstage and was carried off back to her hotel.
Chillingly, a critic reported, “We write this with her shrieks and groans resounding in our ears, for they can be heard distinctly through the hotel.” She was bled by doctors, but it was no use. She died on 23 September 1836.
Charles Auguste de Bériot was so devastated at his wife’s death that he left town and delegated all responsibility for his wife’s funeral to his younger sister, the great singer Pauline Viardot, who was only fifteen years old at the time.
It was an extraordinary loss to the art of music. One wonders what magnificent roles she would have created had she survived.
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