IS IT THE MOTHER, OR THE DAUGHTER?

IN 1850, when Madame Sontag reappeared as a vocalist in Paris, after a silence of twenty years, Adolphe Adam, the composer of "Le Postillon de Lonjumeau" and other popular music, wrote and published the following pleasant notice of her, in one of the Paris journals. It will be observed that it refers to Mr. Lumley, the once flourishing, but now broken-down Operatic manager.

I thought proper to attack the privilege which has been granted to Mr. Lumley—but since it has been granted, I will say no more about it, but proceed to examine the merits of the artists whom Mr. Lumley has brought us. I have said that Lumley was clever and energetic—cleverer, perhaps, than you thought him. He is a better manager than you would suspect. For the last month, we have been fancying he was going to let us hear the Countess Rossi. I too believed it—but to-day I am convinced he has taken us all in. No! The young girl, whom I heard last Tuesday at the Conservatoire, is not, cannot be, the Countess Rossi. Ten years ago, at St. Petersburg, I had the honor of both seeing and hearing the Countess Rossi. In that lady I perfectly recognised the cantatrice whom I had formerly admired and applauded at the Theatre Italien. But the cantatrice whom I heard the other night cannot be the same. In the first place, she is much younger, more beautiful than the other, and has a great deal more talent. Now these are three qualities which would diminish, rather than increase, in the space of twenty years—unless we dated from the cradles of the prima donnas; and certainly the cantatrice, whom in 1830 we idolized in the Barbière and the Cenerentola, was already some years removed from infancy.

Here is the true history of all this mystery. The Countess Rossi has, as it is reported, lost her fortune; but she is still rich in the possession of a daughter—a lovely girl, the very counterpart of her mother—as lovely and as graceful—German by her complexion and waving golden hair; Italian by her voice; French by her inimitable grace and distinction. This charming young girl, notwithstanding the high rank to which she was born—notwithstanding her brilliant education—did not hesitate for an instant to sacrifice herself for her family. She went to Lumley, and entreated him to engage her at his theatre. Imagine her sorrow, when he refused her! Mr. Lumley judiciously thought that, though talent might be hereditary in this family, name and reputation were not. Now what a manager cares most for, is a name—a name which fills at once his house and his money-drawers, and enables him to give (and pay) high salaries.

Overpowered by this unexpected refusal, the young girl sank into a chair—when suddenly, the face of the manager was illumined by a brilliant idea. "All may yet be well, my dear Mademoiselle—we can reconcile every thing. We will at once come to my own relief and that of your mother. I cannot engage you, but I will engage your mother; and I will give her two hundred thousand francs ($40,000) for the first season."

"But, sir," said the young girl, "my mother is now Countess Rossi. It is twenty-two years since she left the stage; and how do we know whether she still possesses the talents which made her once so celebrated?"

"As we cannot tell that, Mademoiselle, we will not ask her either to sing or to appear on the stage. Nominally, I will engage Madame Henriette Sontag; but it is you who will sing in her place."

The affair was at once arranged. All was signed and agreed upon, amidst tears of tenderness and admiration in which Mr. Lumley, though he was a manager, could not help joining. The Countess Rossi consented to the strictest retirement during the engagement of her daughter—or rather her own. The parties were bound to secresy by the most solemn oaths; and this secret has been so well kept that no one has suspected the substitution. My instincts, aided by memory, have enabled me to penetrate this mystery, which I shall perhaps be blamed for revealing. But I confess that I am not a little proud of having found it out. And then I really felt it a matter of conscience not to reveal to the world such an unexampled and unheard of instance of filial devotion.

On her entrance at the Conservatoire, Mademoiselle Sontag imitated so well the manners and grace of her mother—her refinement and her elegance—that the illusion was complete. It was the same smile—the same winning courtesy to the public—the same undulating figure. Her very music books, like those of her mother, were bound in rich crimson velvet. Everybody, excepting myself, was taken in—and, like every one, I too applauded—to the utter destruction of my gloves; and I should certainly have split the skin of my hands as well, had it not been much more solid than kid.

The moment Mademoiselle Sontag began to sing, all doubt—if there ever had been any, that I had really guessed the secret—vanished. It was the same purity of voice—the same charm of style and execution, which I had so much applauded, and which still echoed both in my ears and in my heart. But the voice of this Sontag had more power, more firmness, more body. The higher notes are just as soft and just as clear—but they have more roundness; and the middle register is infinitely better. In a word, this artist unites the qualities of youth and freshness to all the talents of the experienced and finished artist. Rode's variations were a series of vocal wonders. It was impossible to imagine that art or talent could reach so high; and after all, I think we must set it down to one of those prodigies which nature alone can create.