in triumph to Paris to perform La traviata. “Violetta is a superb role, but a dangerous one,” she confided to a French newspaper reporter. “The aria of the first act ends in a high half-tone. If a singer doesn't carry it off, nothing can save the rest of the performance: the audience will lose interest.”
She did carry it off. Albani's Violetta was praised to the skies. This particular character, dear to French hearts, is modelled after Marguerite Gauthier, the heroine of the novel, La Dame aux camélias, by Alexandre Dumas Fils. All French-speaking actresses dream of being able to play Marguerite one day.
Albani was at the height of her glory. Still in Paris, she created Alma Incantatrice, written for her by Friedrich von Flotow, the composer of Martha. She also sang in Rigoletto and several other operas. One evening, a group of art students in the audience executed a set of sketches of Emma performing, and presented them to her as a tribute. One of the drawings was signed Sargent.7
An anecdote was doing the rounds of the Parisian cafés and salons:
A young dandy called his friend on that new invention, the telephone – a machine with bells and a crank, which transmitted nasal tones on a line that frequently went dead. “Allô, mon cher; are you going to the Baronne's tonight?” “No, my friend,” was the reply. “I have been Albanized: I'm going back to the Théâtre Italien!”
Was the idolization of Albani in Paris glibness, or was it sincere admiration? It was certainly a bit of both. At that moment, however, the object of the adulation did not really care one way or the other, for she was preoccupied by a matter of a completely different nature. On her return to London, she would make a surprise announcement to her public.
1. Napoléon Legendre was a poet and journalist, and a founding member of the Royal Society of Canada.
2. Singers and musicians “create” a work when they perform it in public for the first time.
3. Over her career, one of Albani's most popular successes at the English festivals was her rendering of Angels, Ever Bright and Fair from Handel's oratorio, Theodora.
4. Now in the collection of the Société d'histoire de la Seigneurie de Chambly.
5. Low (1853–1932) studied under Gérôme from 1873 to 1877. He is known for his stained glass work and mural panels.
6. The portrait is now part of the collection of the Musée du Québec.
7. British painter John Singer Sargent.
8
Happiness in London, Fiasco in Milan
Emma was returning to London for a particularly personal reason: her approaching marriage. Her fans were taken completely unawares by the announcement; the letters and cheques the diva received from her numerous admirers had always been promptly sent back, with her father, Joseph Lajeunesse, usually carrying out that duty. Even so, rumours had been circulating that Albani was betrothed to a worldly Italian prince who had occasionally been privileged to escort her out to supper. The English public had been disconcerted by the danger of losing their favourite songstress to a foreigner. On the other hand, in the Victorian era, a woman who had not married before the age of thirty was viewed as an old maid, and Emma would turn thirty that November.
Albani on vacation in Scotland, with her husband Ernest Gye and their son Ernest Frederick, who was born in 1879.
Although she turned the tables on the gossips by revealing that they had been a long way off base, Albani provided more fodder for speculation by choosing Ernest Gye for her life's companion. She had known Frederick Gye's son since she first arrived in London, and the two had become well acquainted during Emma's tour of the United States. Ernest had taken over from his father as her impresario, and they had naturally grown closer to each other. Ernest had discreetly courted Emma for several months before asking her to marry him one evening as they sat together on a loveseat in the Gyes' drawing room. He punctiliously observed the proper form by asking her father to bless their union.
In the London artistic milieu, tongues wagged. “She's marrying him to advance her career”; “Gye Senior arranged the match to keep his star attraction at Covent Garden”; and “It's pure humbug! Ernest is really in love with Albani's sister – that's why Cornélia was sent off to teach music to the children of the Spanish Royal Family” were among the comments heard.
In spite of these malicious darts, the wedding took place as planned in London on August 6, 1878, at the Catholic Church of the Assumption, an imposing eighteenth-century building. The ceremony itself was simple, with only a few friends, relatives, and fellow singers in attendance.
A larger number of people were invited to Ernest and Emma's wedding reception held outdoors at the Gyes' country house, under a grand striped pavilion. Guests strolled among rosebushes on emerald-green lawns, and the couple received sumptuous wedding gifts, crystal and silverware vying in elegance.
The newlyweds set up residence at Boltons, a well-appointed house in Kensington, London. Their staff consisted of a secretary, a cook, and a chambermaid. When Cornélia's contract at the Spanish Court ended, she moved in with her sister and her husband and resumed her duties as Albani's accompanist. Nelly also gave piano lessons, receiving her pupils at home. “My sister is perched at the top of the ladder; I must hold it steady down below,” she would say.
Joseph Lajeunesse returned to Canada to spend the last years of his life in Chambly, in the comfortable little house that Emma had bought for him. He left England with his daughter's single-row harp; Queen Victoria had given her a magnificent two-row instrument a few years before.
In October, Albani suddenly felt ill after a performance; she barely managed to reach her dressing room before falling onto a sofa in a dead faint. After reviving her sister, Cornélia anxiously told her that she must see a doctor.
“No, Nelly, please, I'm fine – it's just a bit of over-work.”
“Could our prima donna be expecting a happy event?” asked the tenor of that evening's programme, with a wink at Cornélia.
The next morning, as well as the following three mornings, Emma felt distinctly nauseated. She consented to be examined by Dr. Bryant of Harley Street,who cheerfully confirmed her suspicions. “Congratulations, Madame Albani. You are expecting a child!”
Emma replied distractedly to the physician's warm good wishes, thinking: I'm leaving on tour to Moscow soon… I have a tendency to gain weight: will I ever get my figure back after a pregnancy? She comforted herself by thinking of the faithful Cornélia. Nelly will take care of it. She loves to knit. We'll have a nanny, of course, but Nelly will be quite happy to manage the baby, as she does the rest of the household. Emma also pictured the exquisite christening robe that the cloistered Sisters of the Sacred Heart would surely sew and embroider for the baby. A fleeting smile played about her lips, but abruptly, sharp anxiety halted her imaginings. Maman died in childbirth… the same thing might happen to me! As Emma and Ernest returned home in their carriage, Ernest was perplexed by his wife's apparent lack of excitement at the prospect.
Backstage, it was whispered that the diva did not want a child, at least not at that moment, when her career was at its height.
Albani
