a superhuman effort to keep a straight face!”
In May, Albani was Elsa in the English premiere of Lohengrin; in keeping with Covent Garden tradition, the work was sung in Italian. Emma had insisted on performing it, despite Frederick Gye's fears that the British public would find Wagner too forbidding. With her fine musical instinct, Emma realized that the German composer was ushering in a completely new style. Among other Wagnerian innovations, she appreciated his inventive use of leitmotif to reinforce the dramatic significance of the opera's themes and characters.
Albani plunged deeply into the study of her Wagnerian roles – Elsa in Lohengrin and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, which was scheduled to open in London the following season. She was helped in this by Franz Wüllner, conductor of the Munich opera house orchestra and one of Wagner's close friends. While in Munich, Emma fell under the spell of the city's great parks, the half-timbered Bavarian houses, and the town hall with its façade of animated figures that come alive to mark the hour.
The director of Covent Garden was indeed taking a risk by including Wagner in the season's programme, but his audacity was well rewarded. The production was a wild success. It didn't hurt that the stage sets were grandiose and the entire performance outstanding from an artistic point of view. Albani was obliged to sing Elsa's prayer over and over again before the audience would allow the opera to continue. Hans von Bülow, another well-known Wagnerian conductor and a pupil of Franz Liszt, declared, “If Miss Albani comes to perform in Germany, she'll show the Germans how Wagner can be sung!”
In September, at the beginning of the English festival season, Albani was asked to perform a quite different repertoire from that of grand opera: at the Norwich Festival, she sang a choral work by Mendelssohn, Hymn of Praise, and created2 a cantata composed by her friend, Sir Julius Benedict: The Legend of St. Cecilia.
The autumn festivals in England are triennial, except for the Preston Festival, which only takes place every two decades. The residents of the host towns and regions look forward to these events and turn themselves inside out to be hospitable. Parties of festival-goers throng to the churches and cathedrals where concerts of sacred music are performed; profane works figure much less frequently on festival programmes. Banners are hung and period costumes are worn, creating a truly festive atmosphere, which continues for a whole week.3
Albani rounded off her professional activities in 1875 by a tour of England and Ireland. In Dublin one evening, her hotel was surrounded by six thousand people, who refused to disperse until she had sung The Last Rose of Summer from her balcony.
In 1876, the London critics expressed golden opinions of Albani's interpretation of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. That same year, when Queen Victoria was consecrated Empress of India, her subjects in the great subcontinent saluted the mythical British Empire as incarnated in her small, dumpy person.
Albani was in increasing demand. The entire season's programme of the Théâtre Italien in Paris revolved around her; she sang her ever-successful favourite roles, in Rigoletto, La sonnambula, and Lucia di Lammermoor. She also sang Elvira in I puritani, another well-loved Bellini opera, and Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni. All of this was a sweet victory over the xenophobia she felt she had encountered during her Parisian debut eight years before.
“Nelly, please ask the chambermaid to lay out my most beautiful gown for tonight,” Emma ordered her sister. “And don't forget to keep a close eye on my costumes while we're in Paris. Remember how they were almost stolen last time?”
Cornélia was not the only member of the diva's coterie when she went on tour.
Albani now employed a secretary and a personal maid. There was also Beauty, the Maltese terrier that followed Emma everywhere and waited for her backstage during her performances. “You're my only pet, now that my nightingale, Philomèle, who echoes my voice, can't sing anymore: he's ill and had to stay home,” Emma told the little dog. “But I'm warning you, don't come onstage barking and jump on me, like you did at Covent Garden!”
The press kept Albani's London fans up to date on her Parisian performances. A British correspondent wrote:
“Miss Albani's success at the Théâtre Italien in Paris grows with every performance. It is a great pity that French fanaticism prevents the presentation of Lohengrin here: Albani's sweet rendering of Elsa would reconcile the Parisians to Wagner.”
When she was not performing, the young diva was invited to various society receptions. She met members of the great aristocratic families of France, as well as eminent republican personalities. She was received at the Élysée Palace, where she sang before the President and his guests. She wrote to her father: “The Marshall of France, Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta and President of the French Republic, received me at his official residence, for a recital. He and his wife paid me very generously and presented me with a lovely little Sèvres porcelain sculpture group4 from the last century. I was extremely flattered and deeply honoured.”
Like many notables of the day, Albani decided that it was fitting to have her portrait painted.
“By whom?” asked her sister.
“Will Hicock Low. Don't you remember him?”
Low, who hailed from Albany, was currently living in Paris.5 Emma arrived at his studio accompanied by Mary, her maid, who lugged carpetbags stuffed with opera costumes. Emma tried the costumes on, and they discussed the merits of each for the purposes of Albani's portrait.
The prima donna and the painter finally chose the costume from Lucia di Lammermoor, for its pleasing combination of aquamarine, burgundy, and white. With it, Emma wore the pearl cross and necklace that Queen Victoria had given her two years before. The background of the painting would be plain, to make the subject stand out better.
The artist perfectly captured the steely determination in Albani's eyes, the slightly childish pout of her mouth, and her luxuriant dark curly hair.6
Years later, giving an account of the numerous sittings that had been necessary for the portrait, Emma said: “It was so draughty in that studio that I caught a terrible cold. Fortunately, it was during a two-week holiday from my schedule!”
In June 1877, Emma sang the role of Senta in Die fliegende Holländer (known in English as The Flying Dutchman). She was fascinated by the poetic aspect of Wagnerian opera: its otherworldly atmosphere inundated by light and colours; its fantastically costumed heroines in enchanted, epic settings. Wagner's celestial harmonies transported the audience into a phantas-magorical world that echoed the taste of the times for spiritism. Rapid technological advances in the nineteenth century had allowed possibilities never dreamed of before. Stage designers were now able to create sets and effects of imaginative splendour, bringing onto the stage real ships, live horses, railway cars, hot-air balloons, cannons and smoke, rain, snow, waterfalls, stormy seas, lightning bolts, fires, and even earth-quakes. It happened occasionally that, when faced with such realistic catastrophes, opera-goers would panic and flee the theatre!
At the Handel Festival held in London's Crystal Palace, Albani was engaged to sing a main role in a majestic work: the Messiah. Twenty-one thousand people crowded into the gigantic glass structure to attend performances by four thousand choral singers and musicians. Considering the monumental size of the Palace and the number of people in the choir and orchestra, Emma wondered if her voice would carry sufficiently. However, her fears were allayed during rehearsals. Emma remembered what Clara Novello, the great oratorio singer, had said: “Oratorio supplies no fictitious aids of scenery, impersonation, or story to bring the audience into sympathy with the singer. It is just music in its purest, boldest form.”
