Marie Sasse
Encyclopedia
Marie Constance Sasse [Sax, Saxe, Sass] (26 January 1834 – 8 November 1907) was a Belgian opera
tic soprano
. "Her voice was powerful, flexible, and appealing", and she was one of the leading sopranos at the Paris Opéra
from 1860 to 1870. She created the roles of Elisabeth in the Paris premiere of Wagner's Tannhäuser
, Sélika in the world premiere of Meyerbeer's L'Africaine
, and Elisabeth de Valois in the world premiere of Verdi's Don Carlos
.
, to a father who was a military band-master, she studied music at the Ghent Conservatory with François-Auguste Gevaert
and in Milan with Francesco Lamperti
, and made her debut in Venice
as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto
in 1852.
happened to hear her at the Café Géant in Paris. Ugalde gave her singing lessons and brought her to the attention of Léon Carvalho
, who at that time was the director of the Théâtre Lyrique
. Sasse made her debut at that theatre using the stage name Marie Sax on 27 September 1859, performing Rosine (Countess Almaviva) in Mozart's Les noces de Figaro
. One reviewer wrote: "Mlle Sax possesses a magnificent voice, but both as a vocalist and as an actress, she is in the state of raw material—material however of undeniable quality and extraordinary aptitude, and which will undoubtedly reward the discoverer. ... It is fortunate that Mlle Sax's talents were discovered at an early stage as her voice is still fresh, and she has not been long enough in the exercise of her calling to form any vicious habits. Everything is, therefore, in her favor, and, launched in her present school, time and experience will ere long render her a valuable acquisition to the lyrical stage."
. The version of the opera which was used in this landmark revival was especially prepared by the composer Hector Berlioz
, who also coached and rehearsed the singers, with Camille Saint-Saëns
as his assistant. The opera had originally been written in Italian as Orfeo ed Euridice for Vienna in 1762, and the role of Orfeo was performed by the mezzo-soprano
castrato
Gaetano Guadagni
. Gluck had decided to bring the opera to Paris in 1774, but castrato singers were unusual in France and sometimes objects of ridicule. Heroic lovers were generally played by high tenors, a voice type referred to in French as haute-contre
, so Gluck transposed and adapted the role of Orphée for the haute-contre Joseph Legros
. Unfortunately, the rise in standard pitch over the years had made the French version for haute-contre impractical, and the opera was rarely performed.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
suggested to the Spanish mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot that she should sing the role. Carvalho, who had heard Viardot in a concert, decided he wanted her to perform the opera in his theatre. Berlioz, a close friend of Viardot and an expert on the music of Gluck, was engaged to prepare the new adaptation. Initially Berlioz was enthusiastic, but when he heard that Carvalho was casting Mademoiselle Sax, a singer, as Berlioz described her, "from a café chantant in the other Champs-Elysées", he suggested that Carvalho's "good intentions" could "pave the way to hell". Sasse's inexperience became quite evident during the rehearsals: Berlioz thought her "ignorant as a carp of everything to do with art", although Viardot allowed she had "a beautiful voice without art". Subsequently Sasse became rather famous for a question she asked Viardot at one of the rehearsals, during which in typical fashion Berlioz kept interrupting the proceedings to make suggestions: "That's Monsieur Gluck, isn't it?" "No, it's one of his friends." "Well, he's got a nerve – in his absence!" (At the time, Gluck had already been dead for nearly 72 years.) In the event, the performances, which began on 18 November 1859, were enormously successful, both critically and commercially, and were attended by many of the important musicians in Paris. The production received 138 representations between 1859 and 1863. Although Viardot was the star of the show, Mlle Sax did not go entirely unnoticed, and the role proved to be the beginning of her rise to stardom.
. This production was less successful: "it merely fizzled out after 13 indifferent performances." Probably at least partly because of this failure, Carvalho resigned as director of the company on 1 April, and the quality of performances at the theatre began to decline. Sasse also appeared at the theatre in a revival of Robin des bois (Robin Hood), which was a renowned and highly altered French travesty of Weber's Der Freischütz
, originally translated and adapted by Sauvage and Castil-Blaze
in 1824. There were also two concerts: the first a benefit for Viardot on 20 April, in which Sasse and Viardot sang an excerpt from Gluck's Armide
; and the second, a benefit for Ugalde on 14 May, in which Sasse and Viardot sang in the last act of Orphée.
Sasse's success at the Théâtre Lyrique had been substantial, and she was engaged by the Paris Opéra
to sing Alice in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable
, making her house debut in the role on 3 August 1860. "Her voice was not yet mature, but it showed ample promise, and she was retained."
himself selected her to perform Elisabeth in what would become the notorious Paris premiere of Tannhäuser
on 13 March 1861 at the Opéra's Salle Le Peletier. Although the presentation was a fiasco, Wagner praised Sasse's performance. She later related that Wagner had made some alterations to the part to accommodate her vocal range. She also possessed a score of the opera inscribed in the composer's hand:
) in 1861, Laura in Jósef Poniatowski's Pierre de Médicis in 1862, and Rachel in Halévy's La juive
in 1863.
In September of 1863 Verdi decided to make a valiant attempt to resuscitate the sagging fortunes of Les vêpres siciliennes
. After the precipitous retirement of the soprano Sophie Cruvelli
at the end of the first run of performances in the fall of 1855, the opera had done poorly. He pinned his hopes on casting the new stars at the Opéra: Sasse as Helène, and the tenor Villaret as Henri. The previous season Villaret had been well received in his debut, as Arnold in Rossini's Guillaume Tell. Verdi personally coached the singers, and wrote some new music, replacing Henri's "O jour de peine" with "O toi que j'ai chéri". The original aria had not satisfied Verdi when Louis Guéymard
had sung it at the premiere.
In her memoirs Sasse described preparing the role with Verdi:
However, the performances had failed to generate much enthusiasm for the opera. The press reported that with the exception of Mlle Sax the singers had been "out of voice". After a few more performances the opera was replaced with Il trovatore. There was one more revival in 1865, after which it vanished from the repertoire of the company entirely.
Sasse married the French bass Armand Castelmary in 1864, but they divorced in 1867. In March 1865 the instrument maker Adolphe Sax
brought suit against her demanding that she refrain from using Sax as her stage name. She complied by changing it to Saxe, prompting the periodical Le Ménestrel to conjecture that she might now be sued by "le Roi de Saxe, le duc de Saxe-Coburg-Gothe, le duc de Saxe-Meiningen", among others, for using this esteemed surname.
During this period she was selected by Giacomo Meyerbeer
to create the role of Sélika in his new opera L'Africaine
. She worked with him for three months preparing her part, and he agreed to some minor modifications to accommodate her capabilities. She sang the role at the premiere at the Paris Opéra on 28 April 1865.
In 1866 she performed Anna in Don Juan, a 5-act adaptation in French by Henri Blaze de Bury (son of Castil-Blaze
) and Émile Deschamps
which deviated significantly from the original, Mozart's Don Giovanni
. First performed at the Opéra in March 1834, this version was very popular and continued to be performed there up to 1934, when it was replaced with a new version by Adolphe Boschot. In the year 1866 no fewer than three productions of Don Juan were presented in Paris, each using a different edition: besides the one at the Opéra, there was another at the Théâtre-Italien and a third at the Théâtre Lyrique. The year was made even more memorable for the singer, when the persistent Adolphe Sax again brought suit contesting her new stage name and insisting that his "individuality would suffer if she were allowed to continue using the name of Saxe." It was at this time that she began to use the stage name Sass. Walsh speculates "she may have disliked her real name because the word sasse in French means bailing scoop."
. The Opéra's director Émile Perrin
was having difficulty in casting the role of Eboli. He removed the original singer he had chosen for the part, the contralto Rosine Bloch
, in order to spare her voice for the role of Fidès in a revival of Meyerbeer's Le prophète
. He hoped to replace Bloch with the soprano Pauline Guéymard-Lauters, whose vocal range was exceptionally wide. In rehearsals she had proved herself capable of performing music with rather low notes. Unfortunately, Guéymard, who had sung Léonore in the 1857 revival of Le trouvère, was also a rival of Sasse.
Perrin wrote to Verdi about Guéymard: "If she commits herself firmly to undertake deep mezzo-soprano roles you might perhaps entrust her with the part of Eboli without changing a note of the tessitura, and we should gain by having two proven artists of incomparable cast." Verdi wrote back: "If you are not afraid of embarrassment resulting from rivalry between Mme Sass and Mme Gueymard, nothing could be better than Mme Gueymard for Eboli."
After the rehearsals began, Verdi realized he would have to make adjustments to the part of Eboli to accommodate Guéymard. Relations between the singers became strained, and Verdi stayed away at least once, on 18 October, as the librettist Camille du Locle
reported to Perrin, "mainly because he was annoyed by Mme Sass's grimacing at the alterations made for Mme Gueymard." Julian Budden
suggests "this was one of the factors which led to the eventual dropping of their one duet."
The rehearsals were endless, and the preparations for Don Carlos kept Verdi in Paris for nearly a year. By the time of the premiere on 11 March 1867, "all spontaneity had been lost." The production was not a success, although it did achieve 43 performances before disappearing from the repertoire until modern times. Some reviews specifically mentioned that the voice of Morère in the role of Don Carlos was inadequate for the part and characterized Mme Sass's portrayal as "bored" and "listless". Verdi later wrote to Du Locle (14 March 1868): "Ah, if only Sasse could be persuaded that the part is better than she believes. In Italy Stolz
turned it into the main role." However, it should also be remembered that in 1867 Marie Sasse's marriage fell apart, and she divorced Armand Castelmary.
Other roles at the Opéra included Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet
and Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
(1868). She appeared at La Scala
during the 1869–1870 season, but was back in Paris when the Franco-Prussian War
broke out in the summer of 1870. Daniel Auber's La muette de Portici
was performed "with the 'Marseillaise' interpolated into the third act and sung by Mme Sass with far more conviction than she had ever brought to Verdi's Elisabeth." After the French defeat at Sedan, as Prussian troops began to approach Paris, plans were made to convert the nearly finished, but still unoccupied new opera house, the Palais Garnier
, into an emergency hospital. Sasse decided to quit the Opéra and emigrated to Italy. She appeared in Saint Petersburg
during the 1870–1871 season.
In April 1871 Paul Drahnet, the general manager of the Cairo Opera, negotiated with Sasse about the possibility of appearing as Amneris in the world premiere of Verdi's new opera Aida
which was to be performed in Cairo
later that year. He wrote about this to Verdi, who then wrote to Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, the theatrical agent in Milan: "I have no use for her — either as Amneris, who is a mezzo-soprano, or as Aida, for other reasons." Drahnet visited Verdi at his home in Sant' Agata
in May, where they discussed her further. Drahnet, having been unaware of Verdi's opposition, had already signed her to sing Amneris. Verdi was adamantly opposed, not only because the part was too low, but because "I know from experience that it is in the interest of both the management and the composer to give her operas in which she is the only soprano, or at least an opera which has no other role equal or superior to hers."
Drahnet was in a bad position: the opera was completely cast, and, as the artist's fees had been exceptionally high, the budget for singers had been expended. In order to hire another singer for the role, Drahnet would need the approval of the Viceroy of Egypt
. The Viceroy, who had hired Italian architects to build the Cairo Opera House
in six months in 1869, was underwriting the entire cost of the Aida production. His tendency to spend lavish amounts of money on inessential projects was later to drive Egypt into bankruptcy. Drahnet tried to persuade Verdi that the mezzo-soprano Eleonora Grossi, who was already under contract with the company, would be able to sing the role, but Verdi resisted. Eventually Verdi received good reports about Grossi from other sources and relented.
W. E. Haslam, in his 1911 book Style in Singing, relates that Marie Sasse later stated that she had tried to prepare the role of Aida for the Cairo production, but found that at certain points the part was too high for her range. "As she was compelled by her contract to sing the opera, she asked Verdi to make some slight changes to bring the music within her reach. But he refused absolutely to make the least alteration." In speaking of it she said: "'Why should Verdi have shown himself more unreasonable or less yielding than Meyerbeer or Wagner?' (plus intransigent, plus intraitable que Meyerbeer ou Wagner?)."
During the course of her career Sasse had also sung the title role in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia
and Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera
, and appeared in Brussels, Madrid, and Barcelona. She retired from the stage in 1877 at the age of forty-three, tried to make a living teaching voice, and in 1902 published her memoirs under the title Souvenirs d'une artiste (Recollections of an artist). She died in Paris in "abject poverty" at the age of 73.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
. "Her voice was powerful, flexible, and appealing", and she was one of the leading sopranos at the Paris Opéra
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
from 1860 to 1870. She created the roles of Elisabeth in the Paris premiere of Wagner's Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, Sélika in the world premiere of Meyerbeer's L'Africaine
L'Africaine
L'africaine is a grand opera, the last work of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French libretto was written by Eugène Scribe. The opera is about fictitious events in the life of the real historical person Vasco da Gama...
, and Elisabeth de Valois in the world premiere of Verdi's Don Carlos
Don Carlos
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
.
Biography
Born Marie Constance Sasse in OudenaardeOudenaarde
Oudenaarde is a Belgian municipality in the Flemish province of East Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Oudenaarde proper and the towns of Bevere, Edelare, Eine, Ename, Heurne, Leupegem, Mater, Melden, Mullem, Nederename, Welden, Volkegem and a part of Ooike.From the 15th to the 18th...
, to a father who was a military band-master, she studied music at the Ghent Conservatory with François-Auguste Gevaert
François-Auguste Gevaert
François-Auguste Gevaert was a Belgian composer.His father was a baker, and he was intended for the same profession, but better counsels prevailed and he was permitted to study music. He was sent in 1841 to the Ghent Conservatory, where he studied under Edouard de Sommere and Martin-Joseph Mengal...
and in Milan with Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti was an Italian singing teacher.A native of Savona, Lamperti attended the Milan Conservatory where, beginning in 1850, he taught for a quarter of a century. He was director at the Teatro Filodrammatico in Lodi. In 1875 he left the school and began to teach as a private tutor...
, and made her debut in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
in 1852.
Early career at the Théâtre Lyrique
After the death of her father she found it necessary to work as a vocalist in the cafés of Brussels and Paris. The French soprano and vocal teacher Delphine UgaldeDelphine Ugalde
Delphine Ugalde, née Beaucé, was a French soprano. She was the mother of Marguerite Ugalde....
happened to hear her at the Café Géant in Paris. Ugalde gave her singing lessons and brought her to the attention of Léon Carvalho
Léon Carvalho
Léon Carvalho was a French impresario and stage director.-Biography:Born Léon Carvaille in Port-Louis, Mauritius, he came to France at an early age...
, who at that time was the director of the Théâtre Lyrique
Théâtre Lyrique
The Théâtre Lyrique was one of four opera companies performing in Paris during the middle of the 19th century . The company was founded in 1847 as the Opéra-National by the French composer Adolphe Adam and renamed Théâtre Lyrique in 1852...
. Sasse made her debut at that theatre using the stage name Marie Sax on 27 September 1859, performing Rosine (Countess Almaviva) in Mozart's Les noces de Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
. One reviewer wrote: "Mlle Sax possesses a magnificent voice, but both as a vocalist and as an actress, she is in the state of raw material—material however of undeniable quality and extraordinary aptitude, and which will undoubtedly reward the discoverer. ... It is fortunate that Mlle Sax's talents were discovered at an early stage as her voice is still fresh, and she has not been long enough in the exercise of her calling to form any vicious habits. Everything is, therefore, in her favor, and, launched in her present school, time and experience will ere long render her a valuable acquisition to the lyrical stage."
Berlioz and Gluck's Orphée
Sasse followed her initial success at the Théâtre Lyrique with performances as Eurydice in Gluck's OrphéeOrfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...
. The version of the opera which was used in this landmark revival was especially prepared by the composer Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
, who also coached and rehearsed the singers, with Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
as his assistant. The opera had originally been written in Italian as Orfeo ed Euridice for Vienna in 1762, and the role of Orfeo was performed by the mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
castrato
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...
Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni was an Italian mezzo-soprano castrato singer, most famous for singing the role of Orpheus at the premiere of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice in 1762.- Career :...
. Gluck had decided to bring the opera to Paris in 1774, but castrato singers were unusual in France and sometimes objects of ridicule. Heroic lovers were generally played by high tenors, a voice type referred to in French as haute-contre
Haute-contre
The haute-contre is a rare type of high tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera until the latter part of the eighteenth century.-History:...
, so Gluck transposed and adapted the role of Orphée for the haute-contre Joseph Legros
Joseph Legros
Joseph Legros was a French singer and composer of the 18th century. He is best remembered for his association with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck...
. Unfortunately, the rise in standard pitch over the years had made the French version for haute-contre impractical, and the opera was rarely performed.
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
suggested to the Spanish mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot that she should sing the role. Carvalho, who had heard Viardot in a concert, decided he wanted her to perform the opera in his theatre. Berlioz, a close friend of Viardot and an expert on the music of Gluck, was engaged to prepare the new adaptation. Initially Berlioz was enthusiastic, but when he heard that Carvalho was casting Mademoiselle Sax, a singer, as Berlioz described her, "from a café chantant in the other Champs-Elysées", he suggested that Carvalho's "good intentions" could "pave the way to hell". Sasse's inexperience became quite evident during the rehearsals: Berlioz thought her "ignorant as a carp of everything to do with art", although Viardot allowed she had "a beautiful voice without art". Subsequently Sasse became rather famous for a question she asked Viardot at one of the rehearsals, during which in typical fashion Berlioz kept interrupting the proceedings to make suggestions: "That's Monsieur Gluck, isn't it?" "No, it's one of his friends." "Well, he's got a nerve – in his absence!" (At the time, Gluck had already been dead for nearly 72 years.) In the event, the performances, which began on 18 November 1859, were enormously successful, both critically and commercially, and were attended by many of the important musicians in Paris. The production received 138 representations between 1859 and 1863. Although Viardot was the star of the show, Mlle Sax did not go entirely unnoticed, and the role proved to be the beginning of her rise to stardom.
Final season at the Théâtre Lyrique
Sasse next appeared at the Théâtre Lyrique beginning on 18 February 1860 as Bacchante in Gounod's Philémon et BaucisPhilémon et Baucis
Philémon et Baucis is an opera in three acts by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. The opera is based on the tale of Baucis and Philemon as told by La Fontaine...
. This production was less successful: "it merely fizzled out after 13 indifferent performances." Probably at least partly because of this failure, Carvalho resigned as director of the company on 1 April, and the quality of performances at the theatre began to decline. Sasse also appeared at the theatre in a revival of Robin des bois (Robin Hood), which was a renowned and highly altered French travesty of Weber's Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
, originally translated and adapted by Sauvage and Castil-Blaze
Castil-Blaze
François-Henri-Joseph Blaze, known as Castil-Blaze , was a French musicologist, music critic, composer, and music editor.-Biography:...
in 1824. There were also two concerts: the first a benefit for Viardot on 20 April, in which Sasse and Viardot sang an excerpt from Gluck's Armide
Armide (Gluck)
Armide is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, his fifth for the Parisian stage and the composer's own favourite among his works. It was first performed in Paris at the Académie Royale on 23 September 1777....
; and the second, a benefit for Ugalde on 14 May, in which Sasse and Viardot sang in the last act of Orphée.
Career at the Paris Opéra
----Sasse's success at the Théâtre Lyrique had been substantial, and she was engaged by the Paris Opéra
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
to sing Alice in Meyerbeer's Robert le diable
Robert le diable (opera)
Robert le diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, often regarded as the first grand opera. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne and has little connection to the medieval legend of Robert the Devil. Originally planned as a three-act opéra comique, "Meyerbeer persuaded...
, making her house debut in the role on 3 August 1860. "Her voice was not yet mature, but it showed ample promise, and she was retained."
Wagner's Tannhäuser
Richard WagnerRichard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
himself selected her to perform Elisabeth in what would become the notorious Paris premiere of Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
on 13 March 1861 at the Opéra's Salle Le Peletier. Although the presentation was a fiasco, Wagner praised Sasse's performance. She later related that Wagner had made some alterations to the part to accommodate her vocal range. She also possessed a score of the opera inscribed in the composer's hand:
"A ma courageuse amie
|
"To my courageous friend
|
A leading soprano at the Opéra
She went on to successfully sing many of the important soprano roles in the company's repertoire at the time, including Léonore in Verdi's Le trouvère (the French version of Il trovatoreIl trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
) in 1861, Laura in Jósef Poniatowski's Pierre de Médicis in 1862, and Rachel in Halévy's La juive
La Juive
La Juive is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on February 23, 1835.-Composition history:...
in 1863.
In September of 1863 Verdi decided to make a valiant attempt to resuscitate the sagging fortunes of Les vêpres siciliennes
Les vêpres siciliennes
Les vêpres siciliennes is an opéra in five acts by the Italian romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi set to a French libretto by Charles Duveyrier and Eugène Scribe from their work Le duc d'Albe, which was written in 1838 and offered to Halevy and Donizetti before Verdi...
. After the precipitous retirement of the soprano Sophie Cruvelli
Sophie Cruvelli
Sophie Johanne Charlotte Crüwell, vicountess Vigier, stage name Sophie Cruvelli was a German opera singer. She was a dramatic soprano who had a brief but stellar public career especially in London and Paris in the middle years of the 19th century. She was admired for her vocal powers and as a...
at the end of the first run of performances in the fall of 1855, the opera had done poorly. He pinned his hopes on casting the new stars at the Opéra: Sasse as Helène, and the tenor Villaret as Henri. The previous season Villaret had been well received in his debut, as Arnold in Rossini's Guillaume Tell. Verdi personally coached the singers, and wrote some new music, replacing Henri's "O jour de peine" with "O toi que j'ai chéri". The original aria had not satisfied Verdi when Louis Guéymard
Louis Guéymard
Louis Guéymard was a French operatic tenor. Born in Chapponay, his parents were farmers and he worked on his family's farm until the age of 19. He then received voice taining at the Opéra National de Lyon...
had sung it at the premiere.
In her memoirs Sasse described preparing the role with Verdi:
I have always loved working with authors and composers listening to their instructions trying to grasp their meaning…. Ah, but it was not the same as singing to Wagner or Meyerbeer! They were always patient, most careful to in no way hurt the feelings of an artiste. How different Verdi! He was exigeant hard, at times, I say it, almost cruel. Sharp words escaped him, and many times I have cried at the end of one of these hearings.Then the master, having cooled down would apologize for his roughness, speak kind words of encouragement, and we would begin all over again with enthusiasm.These lessons were of inestimable value to me, and, thanks to Verdi's counsel, my voice, still somewhat rough, became most flexible, and as a result of his teachings I achieved one of the greatest successes of my career.
However, the performances had failed to generate much enthusiasm for the opera. The press reported that with the exception of Mlle Sax the singers had been "out of voice". After a few more performances the opera was replaced with Il trovatore. There was one more revival in 1865, after which it vanished from the repertoire of the company entirely.
Sasse married the French bass Armand Castelmary in 1864, but they divorced in 1867. In March 1865 the instrument maker Adolphe Sax
Adolphe Sax
Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax was a Belgian musical instrument designer and musician who played the flute and clarinet, and is best known for having invented the saxophone.-Biography:...
brought suit against her demanding that she refrain from using Sax as her stage name. She complied by changing it to Saxe, prompting the periodical Le Ménestrel to conjecture that she might now be sued by "le Roi de Saxe, le duc de Saxe-Coburg-Gothe, le duc de Saxe-Meiningen", among others, for using this esteemed surname.
During this period she was selected by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
to create the role of Sélika in his new opera L'Africaine
L'Africaine
L'africaine is a grand opera, the last work of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French libretto was written by Eugène Scribe. The opera is about fictitious events in the life of the real historical person Vasco da Gama...
. She worked with him for three months preparing her part, and he agreed to some minor modifications to accommodate her capabilities. She sang the role at the premiere at the Paris Opéra on 28 April 1865.
In 1866 she performed Anna in Don Juan, a 5-act adaptation in French by Henri Blaze de Bury (son of Castil-Blaze
Castil-Blaze
François-Henri-Joseph Blaze, known as Castil-Blaze , was a French musicologist, music critic, composer, and music editor.-Biography:...
) and Émile Deschamps
Émile Deschamps
Émile de Saint-Amand Deschamps was a French poet. He was born at Bourges. Deschamps was one of the chiefs of the Romantic school. To further the cause of romanticism he founded with Victor Hugo La Muse Française , a journal to which he contributed verses and stories signed "Le Jeune Moraliste." ...
which deviated significantly from the original, Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. First performed at the Opéra in March 1834, this version was very popular and continued to be performed there up to 1934, when it was replaced with a new version by Adolphe Boschot. In the year 1866 no fewer than three productions of Don Juan were presented in Paris, each using a different edition: besides the one at the Opéra, there was another at the Théâtre-Italien and a third at the Théâtre Lyrique. The year was made even more memorable for the singer, when the persistent Adolphe Sax again brought suit contesting her new stage name and insisting that his "individuality would suffer if she were allowed to continue using the name of Saxe." It was at this time that she began to use the stage name Sass. Walsh speculates "she may have disliked her real name because the word sasse in French means bailing scoop."
Verdi's Don Carlos
In the last months of 1866 Sasse was selected to create the role of Elisabeth de Valois in Verdi's Don CarlosDon Carlos
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
. The Opéra's director Émile Perrin
Émile Perrin
Émile-César-Victor Perrin was a French painter, mainly known as a theatre director and impresario, born in Rouen on 9 January 1814, died 8 October 1885. His son-in-law was Camille du Locle....
was having difficulty in casting the role of Eboli. He removed the original singer he had chosen for the part, the contralto Rosine Bloch
Rosine Bloch
Rosine Bloch was a French operatic mezzo-soprano of Jewish descent who had a successful stage career in Europe between 1865 and 1891. She not only possessed a beautiful, warm, and lyrical voice but was also a remarkably beautiful woman physically...
, in order to spare her voice for the role of Fidès in a revival of Meyerbeer's Le prophète
Le prophète
Le prophète is an opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe.-Performance history:...
. He hoped to replace Bloch with the soprano Pauline Guéymard-Lauters, whose vocal range was exceptionally wide. In rehearsals she had proved herself capable of performing music with rather low notes. Unfortunately, Guéymard, who had sung Léonore in the 1857 revival of Le trouvère, was also a rival of Sasse.
Perrin wrote to Verdi about Guéymard: "If she commits herself firmly to undertake deep mezzo-soprano roles you might perhaps entrust her with the part of Eboli without changing a note of the tessitura, and we should gain by having two proven artists of incomparable cast." Verdi wrote back: "If you are not afraid of embarrassment resulting from rivalry between Mme Sass and Mme Gueymard, nothing could be better than Mme Gueymard for Eboli."
After the rehearsals began, Verdi realized he would have to make adjustments to the part of Eboli to accommodate Guéymard. Relations between the singers became strained, and Verdi stayed away at least once, on 18 October, as the librettist Camille du Locle
Camille du Locle
Camille du Locle was a French theatre director and a librettist. He was born in Orange, France. From 1862 he served as assistant to his father-in-law, Émile Perrin at the Paris Opéra, moving in 1870 to the Opéra-Comique....
reported to Perrin, "mainly because he was annoyed by Mme Sass's grimacing at the alterations made for Mme Gueymard." Julian Budden
Julian Budden
Julian Medforth Budden, BA, BMus was a British opera scholar, radio producer and broadcaster. He is particularly known for his three volumes on the operas of Giuseppe Verdi , a single volume biography in 1982 and a single volume work on Giacomo Puccini and his operas in 2002...
suggests "this was one of the factors which led to the eventual dropping of their one duet."
The rehearsals were endless, and the preparations for Don Carlos kept Verdi in Paris for nearly a year. By the time of the premiere on 11 March 1867, "all spontaneity had been lost." The production was not a success, although it did achieve 43 performances before disappearing from the repertoire until modern times. Some reviews specifically mentioned that the voice of Morère in the role of Don Carlos was inadequate for the part and characterized Mme Sass's portrayal as "bored" and "listless". Verdi later wrote to Du Locle (14 March 1868): "Ah, if only Sasse could be persuaded that the part is better than she believes. In Italy Stolz
Teresa Stolz
Teresa Stolz was a Bohemian soprano, long resident in Italy, who was associated with significant premieres of the works of Giuseppe Verdi, and may have been his mistress...
turned it into the main role." However, it should also be remembered that in 1867 Marie Sasse's marriage fell apart, and she divorced Armand Castelmary.
Late career
----Other roles at the Opéra included Ophélie in Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet
Hamlet (opera)
Hamlet is an opéra in five acts by the French composer Ambroise Thomas, with a libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier based on a French adaptation by Alexandre Dumas, père and Paul Meurice of Shakespeare's play Hamlet.- Ophelia mania in Paris:...
and Valentine in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
(1868). She appeared at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
during the 1869–1870 season, but was back in Paris when the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
broke out in the summer of 1870. Daniel Auber's La muette de Portici
La muette de Portici
La muette de Portici originally called Masaniello, ou La muette de Portici, is an opera in five acts by Daniel Auber, with a libretto by Germain Delavigne, revised by Eugène Scribe...
was performed "with the 'Marseillaise' interpolated into the third act and sung by Mme Sass with far more conviction than she had ever brought to Verdi's Elisabeth." After the French defeat at Sedan, as Prussian troops began to approach Paris, plans were made to convert the nearly finished, but still unoccupied new opera house, the Palais Garnier
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
, into an emergency hospital. Sasse decided to quit the Opéra and emigrated to Italy. She appeared in Saint Petersburg
Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre
The Saint Petersburg Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre was a theatre in Saint Petersburg.- History :It was built in 1783 to Antonio Rinaldi's Neoclassical design as the Kamenny Theatre. It was rebuilt in 1802 and renamed the Bolshoi, but burned down in 1811. The building was restored in 1818, and...
during the 1870–1871 season.
In April 1871 Paul Drahnet, the general manager of the Cairo Opera, negotiated with Sasse about the possibility of appearing as Amneris in the world premiere of Verdi's new opera Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
which was to be performed in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
later that year. He wrote about this to Verdi, who then wrote to Giovanni Battista Lampugnani, the theatrical agent in Milan: "I have no use for her — either as Amneris, who is a mezzo-soprano, or as Aida, for other reasons." Drahnet visited Verdi at his home in Sant' Agata
Villa Verdi
Villa Verdi is the house that composer Giuseppe Verdi owned from 1848 to the end of his life in 1901. Itis located in the village of Sant'Agata in the commune of Villanova sull'Arda in the Italian province of Piacenza less than two miles from the village of Le Roncole, where he was born in 1813,...
in May, where they discussed her further. Drahnet, having been unaware of Verdi's opposition, had already signed her to sing Amneris. Verdi was adamantly opposed, not only because the part was too low, but because "I know from experience that it is in the interest of both the management and the composer to give her operas in which she is the only soprano, or at least an opera which has no other role equal or superior to hers."
Drahnet was in a bad position: the opera was completely cast, and, as the artist's fees had been exceptionally high, the budget for singers had been expended. In order to hire another singer for the role, Drahnet would need the approval of the Viceroy of Egypt
Isma'il Pasha
Isma'il Pasha , known as Ismail the Magnificent , was the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of the United Kingdom...
. The Viceroy, who had hired Italian architects to build the Cairo Opera House
Cairo Opera House
The Cairo Opera House , part of Cairo's National Cultural Center, is the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital. Home to most of Egypt's finest musical groups, it is located on the southern portion of Gezira Island in the Nile River, in the Zamalek district west of and near downtown...
in six months in 1869, was underwriting the entire cost of the Aida production. His tendency to spend lavish amounts of money on inessential projects was later to drive Egypt into bankruptcy. Drahnet tried to persuade Verdi that the mezzo-soprano Eleonora Grossi, who was already under contract with the company, would be able to sing the role, but Verdi resisted. Eventually Verdi received good reports about Grossi from other sources and relented.
W. E. Haslam, in his 1911 book Style in Singing, relates that Marie Sasse later stated that she had tried to prepare the role of Aida for the Cairo production, but found that at certain points the part was too high for her range. "As she was compelled by her contract to sing the opera, she asked Verdi to make some slight changes to bring the music within her reach. But he refused absolutely to make the least alteration." In speaking of it she said: "'Why should Verdi have shown himself more unreasonable or less yielding than Meyerbeer or Wagner?' (plus intransigent, plus intraitable que Meyerbeer ou Wagner?)."
During the course of her career Sasse had also sung the title role in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia (opera)
Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with...
and Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, and appeared in Brussels, Madrid, and Barcelona. She retired from the stage in 1877 at the age of forty-three, tried to make a living teaching voice, and in 1902 published her memoirs under the title Souvenirs d'une artiste (Recollections of an artist). She died in Paris in "abject poverty" at the age of 73.
Cited sources
- Budden, Julian (1978). The Operas of Verdi: 2. From Il Trovatore to La Forza del destino. London: Cassell. ISBN 9780195200683.
- Budden, Julian (1981). The Operas of Verdi: 3. From Don Carlos to Falstaff. London: Cassell. ISBN 9780304307401.
- Busch, Hans (1978). Verdi's Aida. The History of an Opera in Letters and Documents. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816607983 (hardcover); ISBN 9780816657155 (paperback).
- Cairns, David (1999). Berlioz. Volume Two: Servitude and Greatness 1832–1869. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520222007 (hardcover); ISBN 9780520240582 (paperback).
- Conati, Marcello, editor (1984). Encounters with Verdi. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801417177.
- Haslam, W. E. (1911). Style in Singing. New York: G. Schirmer. . View at Google Books.
- Holoman, D. Kern (1989). Berlioz. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674067783.
- Kobbé, Gustav (1976). The New Kobbé's Complete Opera Book, edited and revised by the Earl of Harewood. New York: Putnam. ISBN 9780399116339.
- Kuhn, Laura, editor (1992). Baker's Dictionary of Opera. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 9780028653495.
- Pitou, Spire (1990). The Paris Opéra: An Encyclopedia of Operas, Ballets, Composers, and Performers. Growth and Grandeur, 1815–1914. New York: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313262180.
- Rushton, Julian (2001). "Christoph Willibald Gluck" in Holden, Amanda, editor. The New Penguin Opera Guide, pp. 313–327. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140514759 (paperback).
- Sadie, Stanley, editor (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (4 volumes). London: Macmillan. ISBN 9781561592289.
- Sadie, Stanley, editor; John Tyrell; executive editor (2001). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition. London: Macmillan. ISBN 9781561592395 (hardcover). (eBook).
- Visetti, Albert (1905). Verdi. London: George Bell. View at Google Books.
- Walsh, T. J. (1981). Second Empire Opera: The Théâtre Lyrique, Paris, 1851–1870. London: John Calder. ISBN 9780714536590.
- Warrack, John; West, Ewan (1992). The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198691648.
Other sources
- Sasse, Marie (1902). Souvenirs d'une artiste . Paris: Librairie Molière. .