A few days after Christmas, 1869, it was the night of our first performance of La sonnambula. I was alone onstage, facing the darkened hall and an unpredictable audience that would either acclaim me or shower me with ridicule. I felt a moment of panic. Then, the silence was broken by the orchestra striking up the first bars of the opera. I began to sing – me, the little girl from Chambly, before a large crowd of sophisticated European opera-lovers – and in a foreign language, their language. When the final notes of the last scene were played, I knew that I had triumphed. I was given fifteen curtain calls!
The next morning, a critic wrote in the Gazzetta di Messina: “The audience was so surprised and fascinated that the theatre seemed to have been transformed into a cage of raving madmen, if one is to judge by the shouts, the applause, and the curtain calls. Mademoiselle Albani wept tears of joy.”
I wrote a long letter to Papa in which I entreated him to join us in Messina to share our happiness. “It is the great launch of my career, and I still need your advice if I want to reach the top. You will see: from our windows, we look out at the coast of mainland Italy; it is breathtaking.”
As the season went on, my success increased, as did the compliments and tributes paid me. One afternoon, I received an enormous package containing valuable jewellery. The sender, rendered ecstatic by my performances, had offered me his wife's most prized adornments! They were immediately returned, of course. Another day, an old, almost blind man asked to meet me. He said that he had never heard anyone sing Amina as I did. He owned an orange grove, and every time he came to hear me sing, he had a basket brought to my dressing room, filled with oranges, each one wrapped in silk! On the night of my last performance, he asked me if he could pass his hands over my face, to be able to picture me in his mind.
I received several marriage proposals in Messina. My photograph hung in the windows of all the shops. People imitated my hairstyle and the way I dressed. I had become an idol almost overnight!
My happiness was complete when I heard Cornélia exclaim, “Papa is coming!” as she waved a letter from him in her hand. A few weeks later, Nelly and I escorted our father from the ferryboat to our Sicilian palazzo. He admired everything, from the pink and apricot-painted buildings to the proud peasants and artisans with their large-wheeled carts gaily painted with legends from the Crusades and drawn by little ponies caparisoned with ostrich plumes, pompoms, and tinkling bells. “Albani,” he repeated, bemused. “I'll never get used to it!” But his face glowed when passers-by greeted us with cries of “Brava, l'Albani!”
That day, the Duchessa de Cipriani had invited a few guests for tea and was waiting for us in the garden, amid flowering citrus trees and exotic flora that gave off intoxicating scents. Papa bent low and gallantly kissed the hand of our noble hostess. I remember her face, surrounded by silver curls, and her clothes – the customary outfit of an aristocratic Sicilian widow – black silk gown, black gloves, black fan and black parasol, and a watch fob from which hung a delicate silver timepiece. She was immensely proud of her fluency in French.
Before removing to his hotel, Papa visited our quarters: a big square room with three long windows. He exclaimed over the trompe-l'oeil mural paintings that created the illusion of pilasters, marble balustrades, and flower-filled urns against a background of flitting, round-cheeked cherubs. He gazed at the inevitable religious subject gracing the ceiling: it was the Virgin Mary ascending towards a deep blue heaven that teemed with gravity-defying, acrobatic angels holding flowers and doves. He was also given a tour of the ground floor, where a vast dining room was decorated with murals representing the bloodiest scenes from the opera, guaranteed to kill the appetites of any guests who were not opera fanatics.
My father's greatest surprise was when we took him to mass on Sunday morning. Nelly and I knew what to expect: in Sicily, it is the custom to introduce opera melodies into the sacred liturgy. For example, in the Eucharist, when the priest brings the chalice of holy wine to his lips, the aria Infelice, il veleno bevesti!1 from Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia Borgia, might be sung. Only the Italians have such an audacious sense of humour!
Papa soon left Messina for Florence; he was travelling ahead of us so that he would have ample time to explore that city.
Before we left to join Papa, the countess lent us her barouche and her coachman so that we could travel down the coast to Acireale, near Catania, where Bellini was born in 1801. I was to sing at the gala opening of the Teatro Vincenzo Bellini. The landscape between Messina and Acireale was striking, with its bare mountain slopes, sheer rock faces and shadowy ravines. This lunar landscape, drier than bones left in the sun, was occasionally relieved by silvery olive trees, refreshing valleys, sweet-smelling orange groves, and pale golden beaches.
Acireale was a good-sized seaport. I was treated like a diva on my arrival there. I was given an official welcome by the local dignitaries, and Cornélia and I were lodged in a venerable palazzo that had been refurbished especially for our stay. On one side, we had a view of the menacing volcano Mount Etna, while on the other, we looked out onto the sea. The best families of Acireale sent us wine, fruit, meat, and poultry, and the nuns from the local convent sent us cakes and sweetmeats.
As the dramatic heroine of La sonnambula, I attracted music-lovers from Catania, Syracuse, and even from distant Palermo. The critics praised me lavishly. “Who is this Albani?” queried Signor Bertolani in Il Corriere Siciliano. “This question will no longer be asked in coming years: Emma Albani is an exceptional creature in whom the woman and the artist attain equal perfection; in whom the singer and the actress vibrate in unison. It is impossible to say whether she is more remarkable by the brilliance of her genius or by her strength of mind, the finesse of her ideas, her perfect pitch or her roundness of melody. Her voice is made to fill the hearts of those who are capable of finding consolation for human misery in art. This singer from across the Atlantic has perfectly understood the Italian art of bel canto.”
On the evening of my benefit night,2 I was showered with flowers and jewellery.
We left Sicily with regret. I sang for a short season at Cento, a town near Bologna, the city of arcades that resembles a stage set from a Molière play. Here, I sang the role of Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto for the first time. The audience insisted on encores of Gilda's aria, Caro nome, of one of the duets, and of the quartet, Bella figlia d'amore. Admirers from Bologna presented me with so many large bouquets that they had to be transported on donkeys! The combined scent of all these blossoms was overpowering: I was afflicted by a migraine headache and was forced to abruptly leave the stage.
In Florence, crowds of people awaited me: Maestro Lamperti had proclaimed to the inhabitants of the city that Emma Albani was “the most accomplished musician and the singer with the most perfect style who has ever emerged from my studio.”
The Teatro Politeama in Florence was an outdoor amphitheatre; only the stage was covered. Even a driving rain did not dampen the audience's enthusiasm, and they remained spellbound under their umbrellas. Fortunately, it was the month of July, and very warm! We sang right through the downpour. My performance as Adèle in Rossini's Le comte Ory and my signature role of La sonnambula won me the accolade of having “a silver voice.”
Jenny Lind, “the Swedish nightingale,” was in Florence; she had retired from the stage to dedicate herself to teaching. When she came to congratulate me in my dressing-room, I was overcome with emotion.
Beside the jewels I received, which included a diamond brooch and earrings, I was given an immense laurel wreath of beaten gold. Luckily, my benefit nights had made up for the relatively low amount that I earned for my performances.
Nelly and I, escorted by Papa, spent a delightful time discovering Florence, the city of art. We visited the Uffici Gallery and haunted the Ponte Vecchio, exploring the goldsmiths' and leather-goods shops. I found inspiration for many of my costumes and accessories there.3
Another delightful surprise in Florence was