The voice of Mlle. Titiens was a pure soprano, fresh, penetrating, even, powerful, unusually rich in quality, extensive in compass, and of great flexibility.  It had a bell-like resonance, and was capable of expressing all the passionate and tender accents of lyric tragedy.  Theresa Titiens was, in the truest, fullest sense of the word, a lyric artist, and she possessed every requisite needed by a cantatrice of the highest order—­personal beauty, physical strength, originality of conception, a superb voice, and inexhaustible spirit and energy.  Like most German singers, Mlle. Titiens regarded ornamentation as merely an agreeable adjunct in vocalization; and in the music of Valentine she sang only what the composer had set down—­neither more nor less—­but that was accomplished to perfection.

As an actress, her tall, stately, elegant figure was admirably calculated to personate the tragic heroines of opera.  Her face at this time was beautiful, her large eyes flashed with intellect, and her classical features were radiant with expression; her grandeur of conception, her tragic dignity, her glowing warmth and abandon rendered her worthy of the finest days of lyric tragedy.  She was thoroughly dramatic; her movements and gestures were singularly noble, and her attitudes on the stage had classical breadth and largeness, without the least constraint.

As Leonora, in “Trovatore,” she was peculiarly successful, and her Donna Anna literally took the audience by storm, through the magnificence of both the singing and acting.  In June she made her appearance as Lucrezia Borgia.  The qualities which this part demands are precisely those with which Mlle. Titiens was endowed—­tragic power, intensity, impulsiveness.  Her commanding figure and graceful bearing gave weight to her acting, while in the more tender scenes she was exquisitely pathetic, and displayed great depth of feeling.  “Com’ e bello” was rendered with thrilling tenderness, and the allegro which followed it created a furore; it was one of the most brilliant morceaux of florid decorative vocalism heard for years, the upper C in the cadenza being quite electrical.  At the end of the first and second acts, the heartrending accents of a mother’s agony, wrung from the depths of her soul, and the scornful courage tempered with malignant passion, were contrasted with consummate power.  It was conceded that Grisi herself never rose to a greater pitch of dramatic truth and power.

Mlle. Titiens was unable to get an extension of her conge, and, much to the regret of her manager and the public, returned to Vienna early in the autumn.  Instantly that she could free herself from professional obligation, she proceeded to Italy to acquire the Italian language, a feat which she accomplished in a few months.  Here she met Mr. Smith, the manager of the Drury Lane Theatre, and effected an arrangement with him, in consequence of