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Deferent Daisies: Caroline Miolan Carvalho, Christine Nilsson and Marguerite, 1869

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2019

Clair Rowden
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Abstract

This article explores a slice of the careers of two ‘rival’ coloratura singers – the Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson and the French soprano Caroline Miolan Carvalho – during the period 1867 to 1870, and considers the internationalisation of singing careers, women's choices and negotiation of their career paths, and fortunes made and lost. With both singers employed at the Paris Opéra from November 1868 onwards as Gounod's Faust went into rehearsal, the focus falls on the ‘Battle of the Marguerites’ in the Parisian press in spring 1869, which raised heated questions of dramatic and vocal interpretation and style, often linked to cultural stereotypes, as well as artistic legitimacy and stature. Through examination of previously overlooked archival financial and legal records, this article also reveals for the first time that Miolan Carvalho was indentured to the director of the Opéra Emile Perrin during this period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 2-3: Prima Donnas and Leading Men on the French Stage , November 2018 , pp. 237 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

*

Clair Rowden, Cardiff University, UK; rowdencs@cardiff.ac.uk.

References

1 Nilsson later recounted the story of meeting Ambroise Thomas in the shop of the editor Henri Heugel, where Heugel proposed to Thomas that he should have her for his Ophélie. She then implied that Heugel and Thomas worked behind the scenes to get her the offer of a contract from Emile Perrin at the Opéra. Christine Nilsson, comtesse de Casa-Miranda, ‘Quelques souvenirs de ma carrière artistique’, Le Gaulois (24 November 1913), 1.

2 Paris, Archives nationales (hereafter Pan), sub-series AJ13: Archives du Théâtre national de l'Opéra, AJ13 476: unsigned and undated copy of Nilsson's contract, which ran from 15 November 1867 to 30 April 1869. The role of Marguerite is mentioned in the context of Faust being transferred (from the Théâtre-Lyrique) to the Opéra, a reality which only came into being in the wake of the collapse of the Théâtre-Lyrique in May 1868 (see below) and was made official by an agreement signed between Gounod, his librettists and Emile Perrin on 31 July 1868. See Prévost, Paul, ‘Introduction’, in Gounod, Charles, Faust (Version Opéra) (Kassel, 2016)Google Scholar, xiii. Two other roles in operas whose programming was not yet confirmed were also mentioned in Nilsson's contract: the title role in Psyché, the opéra comique by Thomas, and Rezzia (Reiza) in Weber's Oberon.

3 Lagenevais, F. de, ‘Les Cantatrices suédoises: Jenny Lind et Christine Nilsson’, Le Ménestrel 1080/28 (9 June 1867), 217Google Scholar: ‘cette reine de la nuit avait au front le scintillement glacé de l’étoile polaire, et l'aimant tout de suite vira vers elle. Du soleil d'Italie, on en avait assez!’

4 See Parr, Sean M., ‘Caroline Carvalho and Nineteenth-Century Coloratura’, Cambridge Opera Journal 23 (2012), 83–117CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 The Salle Ventadour, originally built for the Opéra-Comique in 1828, permanently housed the Théâtre-Italien from 1841 to 1878. Carvalho mounted performances three days a week there on the nights the Théâtre-Italien did not perform from March to May 1868, under the banner of the Théâtre de la Renaissance. See Wild, Nicole, Dictionnaire des théâtres parisiens (1807–1914) (Lyon, 2012), 228–33Google Scholar, 378–9, 422–5.

6 Walsh, T.J., Second Empire Opera: The Théâtre lyrique, Paris 1851–1870 (London and New York, 1981), 120Google Scholar, 236. Vapereau, Gustave, Dictionnaire universel des contemporains (Paris, 1880), 369Google Scholar, recounts how the Carvalhos’ financial assets were legally declared separate (‘séparation des biens’) following judiciary procedures in the wake of the collapse of the Théâtre-Lyrique which established that Miolan Carvalho had not received a salary during the four previous years.

7 Pan AJ13 475: unsigned copy of the contract, dated 15 November 1868, and due to run from 1868 until 14 November 1871. No mention of repertoire is made in Carvalho's contract but the press looked forward to hearing her sing (for the first time) the classic roles of the Opéra repertory: Mathilde in Guillaume Tell, Isabelle in Robert le diable, Marguerite de Valois in Les Huguenots.

8 Prévost (‘Introduction’, xiii) recounts the negotiations for the transferral of Faust to the Opéra repertoire, which included a payment of 20,000 francs by Perrin to Léon Carvalho for the privilege of performing Faust.

9 Pan AJ13 476, letter from Nilsson to Perrin, dated ‘Vendredi soir 20 Novembre [1868]’; ‘Correspondance’, Le Figaro (21 November 1868), 2.

10 Pan AJ13 476, letter from Perrin to Nilsson, 21 November 1868: ‘Permettez-moi de vous dire aussi, la distribution des rôles est un acte de pure administration et vous empietez un peu ici sur les attributions du Directeur. Que diriez-vous, mon Dieu, que dirait surtout le Public s'il me prenait la fantaisie de chanter Ophélie.’ Several drafts and clean copies of this letter exist in the archive.

11 Jules Prével, ‘Petit courrier des théâtres’, Le Figaro (22 November 1868), 3.

12 Jules Prével, ‘Petit courrier des théâtres’, Le Figaro (23 November 1868), 3.

13 Prévost also gives an overview of press coverage of the March 1869 Opéra premiere in his introduction to the recent Bärenreiter critical edition (‘Introduction’, xv–xvii).

14 For example, Hippolyte Prévost, ‘Revue musicale’, La France (7 March 1869); Jules de Leers, Le Sport (17 March 1869). On the other hand, Gustave Chadeuil (‘Revue musicale’, Le Siècle, 9 March 1869) saw the work as now being in its rightful place, and that it had previously been squeezed into too tight a frame.

15 See Parr, ‘Caroline Carvalho’, 104, 116.

16 See, for example, Bertrand, Gustave, ‘Le Faust de Gounod à L'Opéra’, Le Ménestrel 1171/14 (7 March 1869), 107–8Google Scholar; Flavio, ‘Faust et les deux Marguerites’, La Bourse comique: Politique, philosophique et littéraire 12, BnF Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra (hereafter BnF Opéra), Dossier d'artiste, Christine Nilsson; Ernest Feydeau, ‘Christine Nilsson’, La Revue internationale de l'art et de la curiosité 4 (15 April 1869), 281; Benedict [Jouvin], ‘Opéra. Reprise de Faust’, Le Figaro (6 March 1869), 3.

17 Léon Garnier, ‘Premières représentations’, L'Europe artiste (14 March 1869).

18 Gaston Zap, ‘Les Deux Marguerites de Faust ’, Le Monde pour rire (13 March 1869).

19 Jules Comte, ‘Théâtres’, La Chronique (11 March 1869). Parr (‘Caroline Carvalho’, 89, fn. 15) refers to Carvalho's rare ability to combine agility with gracefully spun, musical phrasing.

20 Jules de Leers, ‘Bruits du monde’, Le Sport (10 March 1869).

21 See, for example, Prévost, ‘Revue musicale’.

22 Théodore de Banville in Le National, quoted in ‘Semaine théâtrale. Les Deux Marguerite[s] de Faust ’, Le Ménestrel 1172/15 (14 March 1869), 116–17.

23 Paul de Saint-Victor in La Liberté, quoted in ‘Semaine théâtrale. Les Deux Marguerite[s] de Faust’, Le Ménestrel; Gaston Péroleaud, ‘Chronique des théâtres. Opéra, Faust ’, Le Yacht (14 March 1869).

24 Pierre Véron, ‘Théâtres’, Le Charivari (6 March 1869).

25 Prévost, ‘Revue musicale’: ‘balancer l'effet des élans dramatiques, des trésors de jeunesse, des grandes phrases dites d'une voix forte, étendue et suave, sans manière et d'un style toujours large … La scène de la prison a révélé chez elle une rare puissance de sentiment et d'expression. Elle a parfois, dans ce caractère aux teintes multiples, touché au sublime et réalisé l'idéal.’ Or as Eugène de Fère put it in his article ‘Opéra’, L'Indépendance dramatique (17 March 1869): ‘we will sigh with Mme Carvalho, then soar to redemption with Mlle Nilsson’ (‘on soupirera avec Mme Carvalho pour voler à la rédemption avec Mlle Nilsson’).

26 Véron, ‘Théâtres’.

27 See, for example, Bertrand, ‘Le Faust de Gounod à L'Opéra’, 108; Garnier, ‘Premières représentations’.

28 Parr, ‘Caroline Carvalho’, 107, fn. 57.

29 E[douard]. D[rumont]., ‘Trois portraits. Mademoiselle Nilsson’, La Chronique illustrée 41 (11 March 1869): ‘ Ne lui demandez ni les rugissements de la passion ardente, ni les violences, ni les colères, ni tous les transports de l'âme humaine agitée, remuée, secouée. La femme ne connaît aucune de ces crises et l'artiste ne se rend même pas compte intellectuellement. Ce n'est pas le fleuve sonore, mugissant, grondant, entraînant dans sa course retentissante les arbres et les débris; – c'est le lac d'argent miroitant doucement et que ride à peine la brise mélancolique qui fait gémir les branches des bouleaux. Ce n'est pas le soleil du midi implacable, ruisselant, chauffant à blanc les cerveaux et desséchant les herbes.’

30 Rutherford, Susan, The Prima Donna and Opera, 1815–1930 (Cambridge, 2006), 262–3Google Scholar. Klein, Citing Herman, The Golden Age of Opera (London, 1933), 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Rutherford affirms that Nilsson was applauded as a ‘dreamy poetic’ Marguerite.

31 Anon., Memoir of Mdlle. Christine Nilsson (London, [1869]), 21.

32 While the adjective Latin was easily ascribed to singers from Italy and Spain, the French use of Latin is a little more complicated. During this period the French were continuously reinforcing their Latin heritage, and commonly anyone from south of the Loire river was seen to be of Latin blood. To be Latin, therefore, was to be quintessentially French, and Carvalho was ‘marseillaise’ to boot. This did not stop critics, however, from distinguishing between cultivated, sophisticated French performers others, predominantly those from Italy.

33 See, for example, Garnier, ‘Premières représentations’.

34 Comte, ‘Théâtres’.

35 Garnier, ‘Premières représentations’.

36 See, for example, Flavio, ‘Faust et les deux Marguerites’, 12.

37 Gustave Chadeuil, ‘Revue musicale’, Le Siècle (4 May 1869). Carvalho was given a standing ovation before she sang a note (see M. de Thémines, ‘Revue musicale’, La Patrie, 3 May 1869), she was recalled at the end of each act, and one critic even suggested that the public admiration went as far as delirium, or that it had at least exceeded the limits of truth and legitimacy. See H. Dumont, ‘Semaine musicale’, La Comédie 333 (2 May 1869), 1–3.

38 More than one critic (even Léon Garnier, ‘L'Académie impériale de musique’, L'Europe artiste (2 May 1869)) suggested a fading brilliance to Carvalho's voice. See also de Thémines, ‘Revue musicale’; Dumont, ‘Semaine musicale’, 1–3; X., ‘Notes de musique’, Le Gaulois (30 April 1869), 3. While a detailed analysis of the vocal traits and capabilities of the two Marguerites is beyond the scope of this article, Nilsson possessed a clear, bel canto voice with a high extension at the top which meant she was widely acclaimed as a Queen of the Night. From 1861 she studied with the tenor Pierre François Wartel, a former student of Adolphe Nourrit, and later took lessons from Manuel Garcia fils: see Björklund, Ingegerd, The Compelling: A Performance-Orientated Study of the Singer Christina Nilsson (Göteborg, 2001), 40Google Scholar, 70. Despite the numerous and detailed accounts of Nilsson's great technical assurance and subtle artistry across the course of her career, reports of her performance of Marguerite are mixed, and it seems that her crystalline tone failed to sparkle or carry in the middle register in the vast house of the Opéra (Feydeau, ‘Christine Nilsson’, 275). There must have been a spinto quality in the upper register, and critics after Faust were split between those who marvelled at the evenness of tone across the whole range, and others who found the middle of the voice weak.

39 Garnier, ‘L'Académie impériale de musique’: ‘Marguerite, la vraie Marguerite … nous est enfin revenue, avec sa grâce douce et simple, sa chaleur communicative et sa résignation mélancolique … sa nature d'artiste, c'est la douceur exquise du sentiment qui la transfigure; c'est la communication rapide de l’émotion qu'elle ressent; c'est la puissance de la diction remplaçant la puissance de l'organe; c'est le cri de l'âme, se substituant au cri de la poitrine, et atteignant au cœur le public qui l’écoute.’

40 Miolan Carvalho was actually singing Marguerite de Valois in Les Huguenots sporadically throughout the period of Nilsson's twenty performances of Faust from 3 March to 24 April 1869. See BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-21 (1869). Nevertheless, she still had time to sing in both Monaco and Brussels. See Spoll, Edouard-Auguste, Madame Carvalho: Notes et souvenirs (Paris, 1885), 87–8Google Scholar. Yet Gustave Vapereau reports that Carvalho refused to honour a contract at La Monnaie in Brussels during March 1869 and was condemned by the Tribunal de la Seine to pay 600 francs damages per day of absence, although this sentence was not upheld on appeal. See Vapereau, Dictionnaire universel, 370.

41 BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-21 (1869).

42 A number of variant spellings exist for Rouzaud in the press, archives and general literature on Nilsson: Rozaud, Rozeaud and Rouzeaud are all present.

43 Pan AJ13 476 contains a number of letters (in impeccable French) from Ann Richardson to Georges Colleuille, stage manager at the Opéra, excusing Nilsson from performances due to illness. The Musical World (31 December 1870, 864) described Ann Richardson as ‘a devout English lady’, and Lillie de Hegermann-Lindencrone remarked on Nilsson's astuteness at having provided herself with a chaperone-cum-surrogate-mother figure. She described Ann Richardson as ‘primness personified, and so comme il faut that it is actually oppressive to be in the same room with her’. See Hegermann-Lindencrone, In the Courts of Memory, 1858–1875 (New York, 1911), 72–3, cited in Rutherford, The Prima Donna, 129.

44 Franzén, Nils-Olof, Christina Nilsson: en svensk saga (Stockholm, 1976), 179Google Scholar.

45 Björklund, The Compelling, 68.

46 Rutherford, The Prima Donna, 248 where she quotes Klein, Hermann, Great Women Singers of My Time (London, 1931), 76Google Scholar.

47 Nilsson sang her very last Hamlet in Paris on 2 May 1870. BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-22 (1870).

48 Maurice Strakosch, Souvenirs d'un impresario (Paris, 1887), 38. Strakosch was Patti's brother-in-law and agent.

49 Hilary Poriss explores the tensions between touring and family life in relation to Pauline Viardot and her husband Louis, when Viardot went on a rare unaccompanied tour to Warsaw and Germany in 1857–1858, relatively soon after the birth of her fourth child. See Poriss, Hilary, ‘Pauline Viardot, Travelling Virtuosa’, Music & Letters 96 (2015), 204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Wilder, Victor, ‘Christine Nilsson’, in Les Actrices de Paris (Paris, 1882), 15–16Google Scholar, reporting on performances in St Petersburg: ‘Les uns tenaient pour la blonde Suédoise, les autres pour la brune Espagnole; c’était une bataille où les bouquets et les couronnes servaient de projectiles et pleuvaient comme une mitraille parfumée.’

51 BnF Opéra NLAS-193 (5), letter from Auguste Vaucorbeil to Jacques-Léopold Heugel, 19 June 1879: ‘voix merveilleuse – chanteuse médiocre dans L'Africaine et comédienne nulle – ’.

52 Halévy, Ludovic, Carnets I: 1862–1869 (Paris, 1935), 84Google Scholar: ‘J'hésite très sincèrement entre l'Italienne et la Suédoise, et je crois que j'aime encore mieux la Suédoise. Elle n'a pas l'entrain et l'enjouement de Mlle Patti, elle n'a pas sa crânerie et son audace, mais quelle grâce étrange et pénétrante, quelle façon de chanter qui n'appartient qu’à elle. Je n'ai jamais vu artiste être plus complètement elle-même. Elle chante moins purement que madame Carvalho, moins brillamment que mademoiselle Patti, mais comme elle va à l’âme, cette petite voix de cristal, d'un timbre à la fois doux et perçant!’

53 Receipt books show that Violetta was performed fourteen times at the Théâtre-Lyrique between 29 October and 29 November 1864, with average takings of 3,690 francs per night. The average receipt for the first fourteen performances of La Flûte enchantée, given between 23 February and 20 March 1865, was 5965 francs, and frequent performances continued to bring in around 6,000 francs each, right up until the end of May. See Pan AJ13 459.

54 A further example of Miolan Carvalho's professional practices and business sense can be seen by her ceding the role of Marguerite at the Théâtre-Lyrique to Caroline Vandenheuvel-Duprez in June 1867 while she sang Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. See Prévost, ‘Introduction’, xiii.

55 Lewenhaupt, Inga, Signe Hebbe (1837–1925). Skådespelerska, operasångerska, pedagog (Stockholm, 1988), 99–106Google Scholar. My thanks to Anne Kauppala for drawing my attention to this source.

56 Soubies, Albert, Histoire du Théâtre-Lyrique 1851–1870 (Paris, 1899), 47Google Scholar.

57 In a letter to his wife Wilhelmina, dated 1 November 1867, Hierta reported Carvalho's response to his question: ‘C'est très difficile de répondre à cette question, Monsieur, seulement je peux dire, que Mademoiselle Nilsson est plus finotte que moi et tous les directeurs de Paris ensemble.’ Ambiguity exists because the word used for crafty is finot (feminine version, finotte) rather than the expected spelling and homophone finaud, which would give the feminine version finaude, which is no longer a homophone for finotte. Quoted in Lewenhaupt, Signe Hebbe, 105.

58 Pan AJ13 476, letter from Nilsson to Perrin, 29 September 1868: ‘Comment concilier toutes ces obligations avec le nouvel engagement que vous voulez bien me proposer de signer dès aujourd'hui?’

59 Pan AJ13 476, letter from Nilsson to Perrin, 29 September 1868: ‘les services que je puis être appelée à rendre à l'Opéra français’. Nilsson did return to the Paris Opéra from January to 2 May 1870, singing Ophélie, Alice (in Robert le diable to Miolan Carvalho's Isabelle) and then replacing Miolan Carvalho as Marguerite for one of her last performances (22 April 1870) which was attended by the emperor. Nilsson did not perform in Paris again until 1883, after the death of her first husband Rouzaud.

60 Parr, ‘Caroline Carvalho’, especially 84 and 110. Nilsson only premiered three roles in her career: Ophélie, Myrrha and Estelle in Cohen's Les Bleuets (Théâtre-Lyrique, 23 October 1867).

61 Strakosch, Souvenirs, 79, 154. Strakosch admitted that impresarios had effectively created the star system but then had to suffer it as they needed the stars to bring in the public, and he blamed American houses for taking down more than one director of a traditional troupe-based Italian opera company who could no longer compete in terms of singers’ fees.

62 Contracts already cited in AN AJ13 476 and AJ13 475. BnF Opéra, Journal de Régie, RE-21 (1869).

63 E[douard]. D[rumont]., ‘Trois Portraits. Mademoiselle Nilsson’, La Chronique illustrée 41 (11 March 1869). Drumont suggests that in 1869, Nilsson could already command sums of at least 100 guineas (c.2,500 francs) just to appear in salons, and 5,000 francs for a concert. These figures are corroborated by Henry Mapleson, who affirms he paid Nilsson £200 per show during the 1872 Drury Lane season. This sum was supposed to have been a bone of contention between Patti and the impresario Gye at Covent Garden when Patti insisted on being paid more than Nilsson. Gye eventually settled on the slightly higher figure of 200 guineas (rather than pounds) per performance with Patti. See J.H. Mapleson, The Mapleson Memoirs 1848–1888, 2 vols (London, 1888), 1:153.

64 François Oswald, ‘Bruits de coulisse’, Le Gaulois (21 January 1875), 4. It appears that Nilsson's tour to Russia was organised by the impresario Bernard Ullman, who also managed Nilsson during the 1876–1877 season in collaboration with Henry Jarrett. See Laurence Marton Lerner, The Rise of the Impresario: Bernard Ullman and the Transformation of Musical Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (Ann Arbor, 1972), 198.

65 Strakosch, Souvenirs, 112–13. The Musical World (31 December 1870, 864) also gives a set of figures (in francs and dollars) for Nilsson's earnings on her first American tour of 1870. Lerner (The Rise of the Impresario, 123) affirms that Nilsson's three American tours between 1870 and 1874 represented the height of Max Strakosch's managerial career, making him the most popular American impresario with public and artists alike, and financially more succesful than any of his predecessors.

66 There was much debate in Le Figaro and Le Ménestrel as to the programming and casting of the inaugural spectacle of the Palais Garnier. It appears that Halanzier did indeed want the inauguration to be a performance of Hamlet, but that the Theatre Commission imposed a varied gala programme, thought to be fairer and to better represent the best of French opera. When Halanzier informed Nilsson that she would not be singing the whole role of Ophélie (the excerpted third and fourth acts were suggested), nor Marguerite (which Nilsson suggested), she politely withdrew, quoting artistic scruples as a reason for not performing excerpts. Nevertheless, the editor in chief of Le Figaro, Hippolyte de Villemessant, implored Nilsson to sing the two acts of Hamlet, to which she agreed as long as Halanzier also added the Church scene from Faust. Halanzier was much indebted to the intercession of de Villemessant. See H. Moreno, ‘Semaine théatrale et musicale’, Le Ménestrel 2317/2 (13 December 1874), 11–13; H. Moreno, ‘Semaine théatrale et musicale’, Le Ménestrel 2318/3 (20 December 1874), 19–20; Masque de Fer, ‘Echos de Paris’, Le Figaro (17 December 1874), 1; Masque de Fer, ‘Echos de Paris’, Le Figaro (18 December 1874), 2. Moreno (Heugel) also suggests that Nilsson was making a huge financial sacrifice by accepting to sing in Paris due to lost earnings in Russia from where all these negotiations took place.

67 Björklund, The Compelling, 83, fn. 238.

68 BnF Opéra NLAS-193 (4 and 5), two letters from Vaucorbeil to J.-L. Heugel, 13 and 19 June 1879.

69 Strakosch, Souvenirs, 90–3. Adelina Patti went to the higher bidder and old friend Mapleson who was organizing the season at the rival Academy of Music where she could earn in the region of 20,000 francs per night. However, Mapleson's venture soon went bankrupt. Strakosch (17) affirms that Mapleson paid Patti the even larger sum of 25,000 francs per night for a series of concerts in San Francisco in 1885. Parr (‘Caroline Carvalho’, 115) affirms that Carvalho was the highest paid French singer of her generation, and in his ‘Melismatic Madness: Coloratura and Female Vocality in Mid Nineteenth-Century French and Italian Opera’ (PhD thesis, Columbia University, 2009, 103), writes that she could earn 20,000 francs per evening, although he does not specify where and when.

70 B[énédict] Jouvin, ‘Théâtres. Opéra – Reprise de Faust ’, La Presse (8 March 1869).

71 See ‘Deras Favoritroller’, published in a Swedish periodical and reproduced in Björklund, The Compelling, 298.

72 Joseph Bennett, Forty Years of Music 1865–1905 (London, 1908), 250.

73 Björklund, The Compelling, 84–5.

74 Strakosch, Souvenirs, 108.

75 Franzén, Christina Nilsson, 212–3.

76 Charles Limet, Tribunal civil de la Seine. Première chambre observations pour Mme Christine Nilsson contre Héritiers Rouzaud (Paris, 1885).

77 Franzén, Christina Nilsson, 234–6.

78 Björklund, The Compelling, 103. Nilsson came out of retirement to sing at the English tenor John Sims Reeves's farewell concert on 11 May 1891.

79 On Léon Carvalho's career at the Opéra-Comique, see Lesley Wright, ‘Carvalho and the Opéra Comique: l'art de se hâter lentement ’, in Music, Theater and Cultural Transfer: Paris 1830–1914, ed. Annegret Fauser and Mark Everist (Chicago, 2009), 99–126.

80 See Parr, ‘Caroline Carvalho’, 91.

81 Parr, ‘Melismatic Madness’, 97.

82 Pan AJ13 475.

83 See Steven Huebner, The Operas of Charles Gounod (Oxford, 1992), 53–4. Choudens's interest in keeping Faust on the Opéra stage cannot be overestimated.

84 The wording used on these receipts varies little from ‘Reçu de l'administration du Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra la somme de … pour le compte de Madame Carvalho.’

85 One month after the deeds of the original debt agreement had been obtained at the end of February 1872, Léon Carvalho was quickly back on his feet again with a new venture at the Théâtre du Vaudeville (until December 1873). Following this short period, he became Stage Director to the Opéra, as discussed below.

86 BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-22 (1870). Archival documents show that during 1869 Carvalho performed a lead role in 101 of the 181 performances given at the Opéra, three times as many as any other prima donna. The only other leading singer who gave similar service was Jean-Baptiste Faure with 102 performances. See BnF Opéra, Archives, 19e siècle, 135, ‘Relevé du travail pendant l'année 1869’. My thanks to Kimberly White for drawing this document to my attention.

87 Pan AJ13 475.

88 The different roles played by a singer's prized possessions were discussed in the session ‘Operatic Objects’ at the Royal Musical Association Annual Conference, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London in September 2016. This session, convened by Dr Alexandra Wilson, examined the relationship between physical artefacts and historical narratives within the field of opera studies, and considered how cultures and individuals create fluid meanings through objects.

89 Lesley Wright (‘Carvalho and the Opéra-Comique’, 102) mentions that Léon served a short stint directing the theatre in Cairo at this time. The detailed movements and/or performances of both Léon and Caroline Miolan Carvalho after September 1870 go beyond the scope of this article.

90 During her career, Nilsson sang relatively few roles; see the repertoire list in Appendix B of Björklund, The Compelling.

91 BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-27 (1875). From the Journal de régie, RE-26 (1874) and RE-27 (1875), it appears that Nilsson arrived for a first rehearsal of the Hamlet ensemble on 29 December, but that rehearsals in the New Year ran into problems: the stage rehearsal with Faure of Faust on 1 January was cancelled due to the new scenery order from Cambon not being ready, and the general rehearsal of Faust on 3 January did not take place because Nilsson was ill. An entry for 4 January reported that Nilsson had been ordered by Doctor Guerin to take several days rest. Since the inauguration of the new Opéra was due to take place the following day and could not be postponed, the programme had to be modified. The two acts of Hamlet were replaced by the ‘Bénédictions des poignards’ scene from Les Huguenots, and the Church scene of Faust by the overture to Guillaume Tell. See also Björklund, The Compelling, 76–7.

92 H. Moreno [H. Heugel], ‘Semaine théatrale et musicale’, Le Ménestrel 2317/2 (13 December, 1874), 12: ‘nous pensons … comme nous l'avons toujours pensé, qu'une artiste de la valeur de Mme Nilsson ne peut rentrer à L'Opéra de Paris que par une nouvelle création.’

93 Jules Guillemot, ‘Revue dramatique’, Journal de Paris (26 October 1874): ‘Il ne faut pas nous dissimuler que nous avons en France, dans M. Faure et Mme. Carvalho, les deux premiers chanteurs du monde. La foule, attirée par la curiosité, travaillée par la réclame, pourra payer plus cher pour entendre tel ou tel artiste; mais, pour les connaisseurs, je crois que l'assertion que je formule est hors de discussion.’

94 BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-26 (1874).

95 BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-27 (1875): ‘La Rentrée de Mme Carvalho a été saluée par les bravos de la salle entière. Du reste la soirée n'a été qu'une longue suite d'ovations pour Mme Carvalho qui peut ajouter le rôle d'Ophélie qu'elle chantait pour la première fois au nombre de ses belles créations.’

96 BnF Opéra, Journal de régie, RE-27 (1875): ‘A voir l'enthousiasme qui régnait dans la salle, on sentait que le Public était heureux de saluer par ses applaudissements ces dignes représentants de l’école française.’

97 www.nationalmuseum.se/Global/Publikationer/DetModernaLivet_ENG.pdf, 84–9.

98 Aino Ackté, Taiteeni Taipaleelta (Helsinki, 1935), 42–4. This section of Ackté’s biography is dedicated to her encounters with and gossip about Nilsson. Nilsson apparently reserved 60,000 francs of her yearly interest on investments to spend in casinos. My thanks to Anne Kauppala for drawing this source to my attention.

99 Catalogue of Jewels, the Property of the Late Dowager Countess de Casa Miranda (Madame Christine Nilsson), the Lady Alexandra Palmer and from Various Sources (London, 1929). BnF Estampes, Mfiche CVE 36344.

100 Nilsson, ‘Quelques souvenirs de ma carrière artistique’, 1.

101 Carlsson, Beyron, Kristina Nilsson. Grevinna de Casa Miranda. Minnen och upplevelser (Stockholm, 1921)Google Scholar.

102 There was, of course, a series of short biographical articles of Nilsson which appeared in the press in the late 1860s and which repeated the standard story of her origins and early musical life. Nilsson apparently distrusted journalists, feeling that they twisted her views, and she was not above bringing lawsuits against them (Björklund, The Compelling, 284).

103 Despite her extremely humble beginnings there are reports of Nilsson's natural nobility and ease in fashionable high Parisian society, not just as a sought-after guest for a musical turn, but on an equal footing with that society. See de Leers, Le Sport. Her natural nobility and reserve, one might surmise loftiness, may be a characteristic which did not disappear on stage and could therefore hinder and/or influence her performance of certain characters. Björklund and others comment on her frank and refreshing naturalness, even before royalty, making them wait if she had good cause (such as a benefit commitment to fulfil), and chiding royalty when the boot was on the other foot.

104 See particularly the work of Sean M. Parr.

105 See Charle, Christophe, Théâtres en capitales: Naissance de la société du spectacle à Paris, Berlin, Londres et Vienne, 1860–1914 (Paris, 2008)Google Scholar; Yon, Jean-Claude, Une Histoire du théâtre à Paris: de la Révolution à la Grande Guerre (Paris, 2012)Google Scholar.

106 Joy H. Calico examines the ways in which three German sopranos negotiated public image as loving wives and mothers (in comparison to their femme fatale operatic roles) in her chapter ‘Staging Scandal with Salome and Elektra’, in The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Rachel Cowgill and Hilary Poriss (Oxford, 2012), 61–82.