Mathilde Marchesi
Encyclopedia
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
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...
, a renowned teacher of singing, and a proponent of the bel canto
Bel canto
Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...
vocal method.
Biography
Marchesi was born in Frankfurt-am-Main (now in the GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
state of Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
). Her father's name was Graumann. In her adolescence her family fortunes failed, so she travelled at the age of 22 to Vienna to study voice. Thereafter she went to Paris and studied with Manuel García II
Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García
Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García , was a Spanish singer, music educator, and vocal pedagogue.-Biography:García was born on 17 March 1805 in the town of Zafra in Badajoz Province, Spain. His father was singer and teacher Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García...
, who was to have the foremost influence on her. She made her debut as a singer in 1844, and had a short career in opera
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...
and recital. Her voice, however, was only adequate, so she moved to teaching in 1849. In 1852, she married Italian baritone Salvatore Marchesi, Cavaliere de Castrone (d. 1908).
It was in this field that she would become famous. She taught at conservatories in Cologne and Vienna and in 1881 opened her own school on the Rue Jouffroy in Paris, where she was to remain for most of her life. Ultimately, she was best known as the vocal teacher of a number of great singers. The most famous among them is perhaps Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
, but she also trained such illustrious singers as Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...
, Frances Alda
Frances Alda
Frances Alda was a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised operatic soprano. She achieved fame during the first three decades of the 20th century due to her outstanding singing voice, fine technique and colourful personality—and frequent onstage partnerships at the New York Metropolitan Opera with the...
, Ellen Gulbranson
Ellen Gulbranson
Ellen Gulbranson was a Swedish operatic soprano with a strong, dramatic voice best suited to the works of Richard Wagner. She was a leading figure among the second generation of Bayreuth singers and her voice is preserved on a few acoustic recordings that she made for Edison Records and Pathé...
, Selma Kurz
Selma Kurz
Selma Kurz was an Austrian operatic soprano known for her brilliant coloratura technique.-Background:...
and Emma Eames
Emma Eames
Emma Eames was an American soprano renowned for the beauty of her voice. She sang major lyric and lyric-dramatic roles in opera and had an important career in New York, London and Paris during the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.-Early life:The daughter of...
. Marchesi died in London in 1913.
Today Marchesi is remembered not at all for her singing career. Rather, she is known first and foremost as the teacher of a surprising number of great singers, and also as the person who carried the bel canto technique into the 20th century. Her ideas are still studied, primarily by female singers, especially those with voices in the 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...
range, in which Marchesi had specialized.
Teachings
Marchesi was clearly committed to the bel canto style of singing. Despite this, she did not particularly identify herself as a bel canto teacher. She asserted that there were only two styles of singing: "the good...and the bad" and argued that a properly trained vocalist could sing the old bel canto style just as easily as the then newer, more dramatic style.She was generally an advocate of a naturalistic style of singing: she called for a fairly instinctive method of breathing and argued against the "smiling" mouth position that many teachers of her day preferred. She was particularly concerned with vocal registration
Vocal registration
A vocal register is a particular series of tones in the human voice that are produced by one particular vibratory pattern of the vocal folds and therefore possess a common quality....
, calling it "the Alpha and Omega of the formation and development of the female voice, the touchstone of all singing methods, old and new." She also repeatedly expressed disdain for the teachers of her day who offered methods that they asserted would fully develop the voice in only a year or two. Instead, she felt that vocal training was best approached at a slow and deliberate pace.
Two of the most distinctive features of her teachings were her "analytical method" and her insistence on very short practice times for beginners. Her "analytical method" placed great importance on intellectually understanding both the technical and the aesthetic nature of everything sung, from grand arias to simple vocal exercises. She argued that rote practice without understanding was ultimately harmful to the artistic use of the voice. Most distinctively, though, she insisted on very short practice times for beginners, as little as five minutes at a stretch three or four times a day for absolute beginners. Of course, as the voice matured those times could and should be expanded.
Pupils
Among her pupils were;- Suzanne AdamsSuzanne AdamsSuzanne Adams was an American lyric coloratura soprano. Known for her agile and pure voice, Adams first became well known in France before establishing herself as one of the Metropolitan Opera's leading sopranos at the beginning of the twentieth century.-Biography:Adams was born in Cambridge,...
- Frances AldaFrances AldaFrances Alda was a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised operatic soprano. She achieved fame during the first three decades of the 20th century due to her outstanding singing voice, fine technique and colourful personality—and frequent onstage partnerships at the New York Metropolitan Opera with the...
- Sigrid ArnoldsonSigrid ArnoldsonSigrid Arnoldson was a Swedish opera singer with an active international career at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th. Possessing a fine coloratura soprano voice with a range of three octaves, music critics believed she was Jenny Lind's successor and dubbed her "the new Swedish...
- Blanche ArralBlanche ArralBlanche Arral was a Belgian coloratura soprano. Born Clara Lardinois, she studied under Mathilde Graumann Marchesi in Paris. She debuted in a small part in the 1884 world premiere of Jules Massenet's Manon. Arral performed in various opera houses in Brussels, Paris and St. Petersburg before moving...
- Kate Bensberg
- Nadina Bulcioff
- Emma CalvéEmma CalvéEmma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...
- Ada CrossleyAda CrossleyAda Jemima Crossley was an Australian singer.Crossley was a daughter of E. Wallis Crossley, a farmer. She was born at Tarraville, Gippsland, Victoria...
- Ilma Di Murska
- Marie Duma
- Emma EamesEmma EamesEmma Eames was an American soprano renowned for the beauty of her voice. She sang major lyric and lyric-dramatic roles in opera and had an important career in New York, London and Paris during the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.-Early life:The daughter of...
- Rose Ettinger
- Antonietta Fricci
- Mary GardenMary GardenMary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...
- Etelka GersterEtelka GersterEtelka Gerster was a Hungarian soprano. She debuted in Italy in 1876 and sang in London the following year.In 1878 she was performing in the Academy of Music in New York City where she was considered one of the leading singers of her time...
- Katharina KlafskyKatharina KlafskyKatharina Klafsky was a Hungarian operatic singer whose acclaimed international career was cut short by a chronic illness which proved fatal.Klafsky was born at Szent-János, Wieselburg, of humble parents...
- Gabrielle Krauss
- Selma KurzSelma KurzSelma Kurz was an Austrian operatic soprano known for her brilliant coloratura technique.-Background:...
- Miriam LicetteMiriam LicetteMiriam Licette was an English operatic soprano whose career spanned 35 years, from the mid-1910s to after World War II. She was also a singing teacher, and created the Miriam Licette Scholarship.-Career:...
- Estelle LieblingEstelle LieblingEstelle Liebling was a vocal coach who taught singing using the three-register method. She stressed the "unmusicalness" of the seventh octave, as well as the avoidance of the head register in men. One of Liebling's most famous pupils was Beverly Sills, a coloratura soprano...
- Blanche Marchesi (her daughter)
- Dame Nellie MelbaNellie MelbaDame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
- Yevgeniya MravinaYevgeniya MravinaYevgeniya or Evgenia Mravina , real name Yevgeniya Konstantinova Mravinskaya ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source...
- Louise Natali-Graham
- Emma NevadaEmma NevadaEmma Nevada was an American operatic soprano particularly known for her performances in operas by Bellini and Donizetti and the French composers Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod, and Léo Delibes...
- Aglaja OrgeniAglaja OrgeniAglaja Orgeni, real name Anna Maria von Görger St. Jörgen , was a Hungarian operatic coloratura soprano.-Biography:Orgeni was born in Rimászombat, Galicia...
- Gina OselioGina OselioGina Oselio was a Norwegian operatic mezzo-soprano. Her signature role was the title heroine in Georges Bizet's Carmen....
- Ema PukšecEma PukšecEma Pukšec , also known as Ilma de Murska, as well as Ilma di Murska, was a famous 19th century soprano opera singer from Croatia.-Life:...
(known as Ilma de Murska) - Regina Pacini
- Rosa Papier
- Marta Petrini
- Louise Rieger
- Caroline Salla
- Sybil Sanderson
- Frances Saville
- Nadina Slaviansky
- Maggie Stirling
- Florence Toronta
- Guillaume Tremelli
- Inez McCune Williamson
- Ellen Beach YawEllen Beach YawEllen Beach Yaw was an American coloratura soprano, best known for her concert singing career. She had an extraordinary vocal range and could produce unusually high notes. Known as "Lark Ellen" or "The California Nightingale," she was reportedly the only known soprano of her era who could sing...
- Nadezhda Zabela-VrubelNadezhda Zabela-VrubelNadezhda Ivanovna Zabela-Vrubel was a Russian opera singer. Vocally, she is best described as a lyrical soprano, with a particularly high tessitura....
(Some pupils were noted on an 1899 dedicatory poster, Anniversary Fete - fifty years professorship, Mathilde Marchesi, 1849-1899):
Family
Her daughter, Blanche MarchesiBlanche Marchesi
Blanche Marchesi was a French mezzo-soprano and voice teacher best known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Wagner...
(1863-1940), a contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
, also a noted singer and teacher, made her début at a young age. She first appeared in opera at Prague in 1900, and subsequently sang at Covent Garden in 1902 and 1903. She was an admired concert singer.
External links
- The Marchesi Collection contains many papers of Mathilde Marchesi, in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
- Madame Marchesi - Some of Her Teaching Principles, from The Etude Magazine, April, 1904.
- Truths for Singing Teachers and Students, by Mme. Mathilde Marchesi, from The Etude Magazine, October, 1913.