rhythmically. “Keep going, up to twenty!”
“But I'm exhausted and very hungry!” I protested.
“Madonna mia! There are still two hours left until lunch, Emmina! Lie on your back now.”
I lay down on the carpet. The professor placed a pair of heavy volumes on my abdomen.
“This will strengthen your diaphragm,” he explained, adding yet another large book to the pile. “Lift the books – with your stomach muscles, not by arching your back.”
At first, I thought I would never manage it. My vision began to blur with the effort.
“Loosen up, my dear! Do your relaxation exercises. Breathe; breathe again. You must train yourself to lift the books ten times. When you succeed in doing it easily, we will pass on to the next step. Only after you master it, I will have you sing an aria.”
I accepted his severe regime, dreaming all the while that it was the key that would allow me, the petite Canadienne, to send my voice resonating back to the very last row of seats at La Scala.
Cornélia and I became increasingly fond of life in the northern Italian metropolis, although it was too full of temptations for our meagre means. My immediate goal was to obtain a singing engagement. Several impresarios and owners of concert halls who frequented Lamperti's studio had offered me roles. However, the maestro had his own plan for me: “You will make your debut in Messina. The opera house is small, but the Sicilians are the most difficult to please among opera-lovers.”
In the little apartment we had found in Milan, it was not easy for me to practise my vocalises. Cornélia would be bent over the piano, almost fainting in the hot, closed air of the apartment, with its odour of simmering spaghetti sauce. Our only window looked on to a narrow courtyard; we could not open it often, as several rooms that gave on to the courtyard were occupied by other music students, and they had to practise too.
One day, I stepped onto the tiny balcony outside our window for a breath of fresh air, and a joyous impulse made me launch into O sole mio. Window after window popped open, and when I finished, I was treated to clamorous applause and demands for an encore! A flower seller below took some roses from his cart and threw me a bouquet.
Just at that moment, there was a knock at the door. It was Signor Lamperti. He had come personally to announce that my engagement for the winter opera season in Messina had been confirmed; the only thing needed was my signature on the contract. “You will begin this summer, in a pre-season production, but your real debut will be in December, as Amina in La sonnambula, by Bellini. You remember, of course, that the composer was a native of Sicily; you must be worthy of his memory and rise to the occasion.”
I was overjoyed; my most sanguine hopes had been realized. My career would be launched by performing the principal role in a major work by the most romantic of Italian composers. Besides, I knew that Bellini was born on my birthday, All Saints' Day, and I believed it was a favourable omen for me.
My teacher brought me back down to earth by reminding me that all of Bellini's arias are exceedingly difficult to sing. “La sonnambula requires great vocal prowess and an infinite amount of wind, especially for the aria della follía. However, we have worked together for nine months now, and your technique is extraordinarily good for such a young singer. You are ready, Emmina! Throw your whole heart into winning over the public. You must become Amina and the character will live through you. If you can carry off this role, you are capable of any soprano role in the repertoire and your career is made.”
That evening, I changed my last name. We had heard comments that the name Lajeunesse did not roll of the tongue as musically as it should in the land of bel canto. Among the pseudonyms suggested, I chose Albani: it was the name of a patrician Italian family whose members were all dead, except for one ancient Cardinal. It was also my tribute to the city of Albany, where I had been given the opportunity to spread my wings and set off on my career.
The distance between Milan and Messina is more than 1000 kilometres. Nelly and I made the entire journey in an exceedingly slow train, without stopping anywhere along the way. However, we were compensated for our discomfort by being able to contemplate this marvellous country from north to south.
From the deck of the large steamer that ferried us across the Straits of Messina, we saw our destination nestled at the foot of the Peloritani Hills. The city's streets were aligned with the coastline fringed by cerulean waters. We were billeted with a friend of Maestro Lamperti's: a Sicilian duchess, who, like Baroness de Laffitte, rented out rooms in her home to make ends meet.
I was impatient to arrive at the opera house. During the first rehearsal of Un ballo in maschera at the imposing Teatro Vittorio Emmanuele, the conductor halted the musicians to tell me: “My child, your success is assured, and will be grandiose.”
A few days after Christmas, 1869, it was the night of our first performance of La sonnambula. I was alone onstage, facing the darkened hall and an unpredictable audience that would either acclaim me or shower me with ridicule. I felt a moment of panic. Then, the silence was broken by the orchestra striking up the first bars of the opera. I began to sing – me, the little girl from Chambly, before a large crowd of sophisticated European opera-lovers – and in a foreign language, their language. When the final notes of the last scene were played, I knew that I had triumphed. I was given fifteen curtain calls!
The next morning, a critic wrote in the Gazzetta di Messina: “The audience was so surprised and fascinated that the theatre seemed to have been transformed into a cage of raving madmen, if one is to judge by the shouts, the applause, and the curtain calls. Mademoiselle Albani wept tears of joy.”
I wrote a long letter to Papa in which I entreated him to join us in Messina to share our happiness. “It is the great launch of my career, and I still need your advice if I want to reach the top. You will see: from our windows, we look out at the coast of mainland Italy; it is breathtaking.”
As the season went on, my success increased, as did the compliments and tributes paid me. One afternoon, I received an enormous package containing valuable jewellery. The sender, rendered ecstatic by my performances, had offered me his wife's most prized adornments! They were immediately returned, of course. Another day, an old, almost blind man asked to meet me. He said that he had never heard anyone sing Amina as I did. He owned an orange grove, and every time he came to hear me sing, he had a basket brought to my dressing room, filled with oranges, each one wrapped in silk! On the night of my last performance, he asked me if he could pass his hands over my face, to be able to picture me in his mind.
I received several marriage proposals in Messina. My photograph hung in the windows of all the shops. People imitated my hairstyle and the way I dressed. I had become an idol almost overnight!
My happiness was complete when I heard Cornélia exclaim, “Papa is coming!” as she waved a letter from him in her hand. A few weeks later, Nelly and I escorted our father from the ferryboat to our Sicilian palazzo. He admired everything, from the pink and apricot-painted buildings to the proud peasants and artisans with their large-wheeled carts gaily painted with legends from the Crusades and drawn by little ponies caparisoned with ostrich plumes, pompoms, and tinkling bells. “Albani,” he repeated, bemused. “I'll never get used to it!” But his face glowed when passers-by greeted us with cries of “Brava, l'Albani!”
That day, the Duchessa de Cipriani had invited a few guests for tea and was waiting for us in the garden, amid flowering citrus trees and exotic flora that gave off intoxicating scents. Papa bent low and gallantly kissed the hand of our noble hostess. I remember her face, surrounded by silver curls, and her clothes –
