Her genius developed under the iron control of her father, Manuel del Popolo Garcia, who compelled to submission her seemingly intractable voice until it became sonorous, superb, a brilliant and fascinating contralto, with a range of over three octaves, reaching E in alt.  Her own indomitable will and exceptional artistic intelligence were prime factors in the training.  In her heart-searching tones and passionate acting her glowing soul was felt.  When she was but seventeen, her father, seeking an ideal climate, started with his family for Mexico.  In New York she contracted her unfortunate marriage with the French banker, M. Malibran.  She soon returned to Paris and the stage, and later having obtained a divorce, married the famous violinist De Beriot, with whom she had a brief but happy union.

Madame Malibran was said to be equally at home in any known school of her time.  Mozart and Cimarosa, Boieldieu and Rossini, Cherubini and Bellini were all grasped with the same sympathetic comprehension.  Sontag was her rival, Pasta was yet in the height of her fame, but no contrasts whatever dimmed the glory of Malibran.  A rare personal charm added to her artistic graces.  Mr. Chorley describing her, in his recollections, said that she was better than beautiful, insomuch as a “speaking Spanish human countenance by Murillo is ten times more fascinating than many a faultless face such as Guido could paint.”  When her death was announced, in 1836, Ole Bull, who had known her well, exclaimed:  “I cannot realize it.  A woman with a soul of fire, so highly endowed, so intense.  How I wept on seeing her as Desdemona!  It is not possible she is dead.”

Pauline Garcia, thirteen years younger than her remarkable sister, and with a voice similar in quality, also did justice to her father’s rigorous discipline and became famous.  She married M. Viardot, opera director and critic, and after a brilliant career as a singer, gave long and valuable service as a vocal teacher in Paris.  She remained in the full tide of her activity until she was long past the allotted threescore years and ten.  It is an interesting fact that Madame Mathilde Marchesi, author of a noted vocal method, 24 books of Vocalises, a volume of reminiscences, and other works, and once famed as a singer, is only five years younger than Madame Viardot-Garcia, but at seventy-six is still teaching—­still shining as an authority on the art of song.  Singers seem often to have been long-lived.  In truth, there is that in music which is life-giving.

A songstress whose name will always be mentioned in the same breath with that of the tenor Mario, who became her husband, and with whom she toured the United States in 1854, was Giulia Grisi.  She was born in Milan in 1812, made her debut at sixteen, and had an undisputed reign of over a quarter of a century.  Her voice, a pure soprano of finest quality, brilliant and vibrating, spanned two octaves, from C to C. She possessed the gift of beauty, and was said to unite the tragic inspiration of Pasta with the fire and energy of Malibran.  A favorite role with her was that of the Druid priestess in “Norma.”  Her delivery of “Casta Diva” was said to be a transcendant effort of vocalization.