VOLPINI, Elisa (née VILLAR Y JURADO, Elisa Margarida) (b Madrid ?20 July 1835; d unknown)
VOLPINI, Ambrogio (b Cremona c1826; d 9 Boulevard des Italiens, Paris 14 September 1871)
Two splendid artists: one, indeed, the lady, frankly famous. Much has been written about her, but facts, of the personal variety, are few to find. I have done my best.
This little piece is really about the lady, but the gentleman, who was something like a decade older than she, had already been a well-liked leading tenor on European stages well before their marriage, so I’ll start with him.
I don’t know much about his background, just that he came from Cremona, learned his music from one Wenceslao Cattaneo, apparently in Milan, and had what appears to have been his first engagement at Carnevale 1844-5, at the Teatro della Società at Bergamo, where I spot him singing in I Lombardi (‘giovane che assai promette di sè’) and the contralto role in Mercadante’s Il Reggente. A season at Civitavecchia (May 1846) seems to have gone carrot-shaped, but he went on to Pavia for Primavera (Arvino in I Lombardi ‘ha sorpresi’), and, 1 July, he began a term at Milan’s Teatro Re, alongside another Cattaneo debutante, Angiolina Bosio, and the baritone Corsi. They began with I due Foscari (‘che già in questa parte ha colte bella palme’) and followed up with Giuseppe Devasini’s new Le due Sorelle di Corinto, in which he played the hero, Nettoleno. The young singers were greeted with a splendid reception. When he sang at Bassano (I due Foscari, Linda di Chamounix) with Guiseppina Leva, he was acclaimed as ‘il secondo Fraschini’.
He and Corsi both continued to Piacenza (‘giovine tenore che bene annunziadi sè’) and joined Annunciata Tirelli in I Due Foscari, Beatrice di Tenda, I Puritani and Giovanna d’Arco before, in March 1847, Volpini made an appearance at La Scala, creating the role of Volmiro (as a replacement for Moriani) in Carlo Boniforti’s opera Velleda alongside Eugenia Tadolini. It was a Benefit performance and the opera seems to have been played but once. However, he appeared in I due Foscari, and in Giovanna d’Arco and as Publio Ebuzio in Uranio Fontana’s I Baccanti at the Carcano, with Ersilia Ranzi, before leaving Milan, this time for Spain and Portugal.
I see him at Lisbon’s San Carlo, singing in Lucrezia Borgia, Giovanna d’Arco, Lucia di Lammermoor, I due Foscari, Attila, La fidanzata Corsa, Battista's Anna la prie and Ricci’s Gli esposti and soon the announcement appeared ‘L'Agenzia Verger e Co è esclusivamente incaricala di trattare gli affari … dal tenore Ambrogio Volpini che tanto si è distinto sui teatri di Spagna e Portogallo’. And he was re-signed for Lisbon (Eran due ed ora son tre, Lucia di Lammermoor, Macbeth, I Masnadieri, Lucrezia Borgia). The Verger family would have much to do with the Volpinis over the coming years. And so would the Iberian peninsula.
In 1849-50 I see our tenor singing I Lombardi, I due Foscari, Attila and Macduff in Verdi’s new Macbeth at Oporto, and at the Teatro San Fernando in Seville, in Cadiz (Lucia di Lammermoor, I due Foscari, Maria Padilla) and at Gibraltar; in 1851 I spot 'il bravo tenore' at Valenza (Beatrice di Tenda, Linda di Chamounix, La Favorita), in September at Alicante and in 1853-4 he’s back in Seville again, alongside the Sulzer sisters. Then Madrid with Gazzaniga, Nantier-Didiée, Prudenza, Malvezzi in Nabucco, Rigoletto, Lucrezia Borgia. In 1855-6, there he is again at Seville and Lisbon, giving Il Trovatore, Marco Visconti and Maria di Rohan, with Marietta Spezia and Mauro Assoni. And having his portait, by Greppi, lithographed.
And somewhere in there is where Elisa Villar enters the story. Elisa had apparently been born in Madrid on a date which we are assured was 21 July 1835, to German Villar of Toledo, a music master, and his wife Maria Dolores née Jurado from Cartagena. The parentage, if not the date, are confirmed by her (second) marriage registration. The family removed early on to Seville, and settled, so an enthusiastic blogger tells us, in the Calle Betis. The teenaged Elisa apparently sang in the chorus and in small roles in the operas at the San Fernando Theatre. I see an Isabel Villar listed as comprimaria in the company there, but another biographical note assures us that this was her sister.
Anyway, in 1854, at Cadiz, Signor Volpini married Elisa Villar. Which seems odd, because, in 1860, she (‘age 28’) sailed to New York with her husband (admitting to 33), plus a 10 year-old Juan and 5 year-old Marie. But we know that Marie de la Espectacion Rosa Volpini y Villar was born in Vera Cruz 18 December 1858. So perhaps that New York document (or my eyesight) isn’t to be relied upon. In 1862, 'Ambroise' is said to be 35, and Elisa .. 21.
Anyway, it is a few years before Elisa makes an official stage debut, and, in the meanwhile, Ambrogio is going strong: further seasons at Madrid and Lisbon (Maria di Rohan, La Traviata Marco Visconti, Il Trovatore, a season at London’s Drury Lane, followed by a visit to Liverpool, Dublin and spots beyond. London was fairly impressed. He opened as Gennaro to the Lucrezia Borgia of Grisi and they nodded ‘Signor Volpini is supplying the place vacated by Mario, with a degree of success beyond expectation’. ‘To appear immediately after Mario in one of that great artist’s finest parts is a severe trial, but Signor Volpini stood it well. He is young, somewhat slight in figure, but well made and of an altogether agreeable aspect. His voice is sweet, mellow and what is called ‘sympathetic’ … his lower noted are veiled and deficient in clearness, but in the higher region of the scale there is a degree of volume and power which reminded us of Tamberlik, His intonation is irreproachable … taken altogether he is a performer of uncommon merit’. He followed up as Manrico to Grisi’s Leonora to more cheers ‘We make little doubt that this gentleman will become a great public favourite. There is a freshness on his voice that is especially charming, sweetness and strength being happily combined with a perfect mastery over the best forms of Italian vocalism’. He also sang Edgardo to the Lucia of Madame Gassier (‘... a tragedian, who has few superiors on the musical stage’).
After London, he went to the provinces as ‘the new tenor who made so successful a debut at Drury Lane’, repeating his roles and also giving Alfredo to Mme Gassier’s La Traviata, Raoul in Les Huguenots and, in Dublin, he paired with Catherine Hayes in Lucia, Norma, La Sonnambula and Linda di Chamounix. They subsequently played a few performances at London’s Princess’s Theatre, in August 1857, before the British interlude was over.
A little parenthesis here. Once upon a time, there was a Liverpudlian tenor named Henry Croft who, the Liverpool press claimed, was actually the Volpini of Drury Lane. He was not.
I don’t know exactly when the South American trip was set up. I don’t know precisely when they went. The tale is told that Elisa was along with them as wife and mother, and not as a member of troupe but, one night the star was ill and she went on as Tremocolada in Marco Visconti and .. etc etc. Maybe so, maybe not. The end-of-career Cortesi was prima donna, Tomassi [Sra Ardavani] was second, her husband the baritone, and a certain Sra Enrichetta Figlioli Fattori, of whom I know nothing, was also of the trip with her conducting husband.
Anyhow, they arrived in Mexico, before September of the year, and Ambrogio can be seen there singing Pollio to Adelaide Cortesi’s Norma and the Adalgisa of Elisa Tomassi in the capital and in Vera Cruz, with great success, in the final weeks of 1857.
I have few records of their activity in South America, but it seems that Ambrogio sang all the tenor leads, at some stage (early, I suspect) a female ‘de Volpini’ was listed at the bottom of a company list, and only later Elisa Villar de Volpini was billed third behind Cortesi and Tomassi-Ardavani. The only actual sighting of her, on stage, that I have exhumed from the mass of Mexican reporting is dated 28 September 1859. That date was the premiere of local composer Cenobio Paniagua’s Marco Visconti remake as Catalina di Guisa, in which Elisa took the title-role opposite her husband.
In 1860 and 1861, Signor Volpini produced seasons in Havana. The first featured the Heron (Natali) sisters, with Elisa billed next, the second toplined Frezzolini and Lotti, and Elisa sang La Traviata and Maria di Rohan. An American paper, summing up, as they ended their sojourn noted: ‘She is an artist much like Piccolomini and has just been engaged for three years for the Italian Theatre in Paris’. She. Not he.
The couple travelled back to Europe on the Adriatic in May, (and I notice that, since the early months of 1860, they are down to one child) and, in October 1861, Elisa made her debut at the Italiens, in the role of Lady Henrietta in Marta (29 October 1861) ‘mit bestem Erfolge’. Her colleagues were a mighty team: Alboni, Mario, delle Sedie, Zucchini. But Elisa Volpini came through splendidly: ‘Mme Volpini est ce qu'on peut appeler une jolie femme, elle a du feu, de l'intelligence, et sa voix, sans être forte, est des plus fraîches et des plus agréables à entendre’, ‘[Marta] ….. de Flotow était d'ailleurs représentée par une débutante dont la voix et la physionomie ont excité là sympathie générale’.
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Zucchini |
She continued her ‘debuts’ the next season as Adalgisa to the popular Norma of Rosina Penco, and the approval continued: ‘Mme Volpini qui débutait dans le rôle d'Adalgise, dut être satisfaite de sa première épreuve, ainsi que de l'accueil qu’elle a reçcu’ ‘Elle a su se faire applaudir à outrance … Mme Volpini nous paraît intelligente, sa méthode est excellente, elle vocalise avec charme et légèreté, et dans les passages un peu doux, sa voix est des plus sympathiques, Si Mme Volpini se montre dans d'autres rôles ce qu'elle a été dans celui d'Adalgise, nous lui prédisons un fort beau succès …’. ‘un veritable talent … Mme Volpini a fait applaudir au contraire des qualités simples et naturelles qui ne demandent qu'à grandir'.

She visited Lille for a concert, Barcelona for a brief season with Mario (Rigoletto, Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and completed her Paris ‘debuts’ in Don Pasquale. Then, in June 1863, she made a first appearance in London, in the Italian Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Still, she trod carefully. She began as Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, alongside Titiens and delle Sedie and was immediately declared a ‘valuable acquisition’. ‘Her well-trained high soprano voice is beautifully clear and brilliant and she sings with true Italian feeling and sentiment’, ‘took the honours’, ‘a young singer of great mark and likelihood ..’. But Spanish, of course!
She was scheduled to sing the Mermaid in Oberon, but in the event Rose Hersee did that, and the new little favourite’s only other role for the season was Zerlina alongside Titiens and Louise Michal.
When the company went on the road in August, Ambrogio joined them. In Dublin, in the missed-train (?) absence of Titiens, Elisa, regarded as an Oscar-Zerlina-Marta performer, made an unscheduled (?) appearance as Lucia di Lammermoor alongside none less than Sims Reeves and Santley. A ‘great success’ was recorded and Elisa’s career took a sharp upwards turn. She continued in Marta and Ballo as intended, and then came out as La Traviata to a huge reaction: ‘We question if we ever witnessed so perfect an impersonation of this character even with the recollection of Maria Piccolomini … with a voice of infinitely greater volume, tone and richness … Mme Volpini united all the dramatic force and reality of style …’
Across the channel, Paris thought they hadn’t had enough chance to see this new star: ‘Il y a un mois, à Dublin, Mme Volpini, obligée de chanter à l'improviste le rôle de Lucia, en remplacement de Mme Titiens, y obtint un tel succès que de ce jour, par toute l'Angleterre, elle est réclamé pour des concerts ou des représentations sans nombre (...) Attendrons-nous quinze ans pour réentendre Mme Volpini à Paris et pour connaître M Volpini?’.
Well, it wouldn’t be fifteen years. But Mme Volpini was now the rage (‘one of the favourites last season at Her Majesty’s Italian Opera’, ‘a genine furore’). She starred in the Jullien concerts at Her Majesty’s Theatre (‘Saper vorreste’, ‘Leggero invisibile’, ‘O, luce di quest’anima’, ‘Il Bacio’, Venzano waltz, ‘Last Rose of Summer’) where she shared the honours with violinist Sivori, then set off for another 'brilliant' Verger engagement at Barcelona (Marta, Faust). In April and May she was engaged at Vienna (Lucia di Lammermoor, La Sonnambula), before it was time to return to London.
She sang Marta with Giuglini and Santley, the Mermaid in Oberon, Andeluno in Mireille (making a hit with the Savoyard song ‘L’alba tranquilla’) and the last act of La Sonnambula in a spectacle coupé, she sang at the Crystal Palace and at Benedict’s and Arditi’s grand concerts and was judged, again, ‘one of the great successes of the season’.

In later 1864, she sang at Lisbon (Rigoletto, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, Semiramide, La Sonnambula, Don Pasquale, Marta, Otello) alongside Mongini, Borghi Mamo and Squarcia, and impressed so strongly that she was named as a Court Singer to the King of Portugal. Thence, she proceeded to the Hofoper in Vienna (Un Ballo in maschera, Don Pasquale, La Preziosilla in Forza del destino, Vittoria in Tutti in Maschera) and the Rossini-theater, Madrid (Faust, Marta), and back to Lisbon again (Faust ‘elle fait fanatisme’, ‘one of the best Marguerites ever heard’). Oporto, Liège, Ghent (Don Pasquale) followed, and in winter 1867 she was engaged for the first time at St Petersburg and Moscow. And here, in spite of sharing the bills with Pauline Lucca, she scored as great a hit as she had in Portugal. For a decade, except when not in Europe, Elisa Volpini would spend most of her winters in Russia, feted as a star alongside the great names of the period.
She did spend some time in Paris, however, 2 rue Rossini, where her last child, Pierre César Volpini, was born 19 November 1867.
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Moscow 1868 |
In August 1868 she sang at Baden, then, at a vastly increased salary, at St Petersburg, where, this year, both Lucca and Patti were engaged. In 1869, she accepted an engagement in a new opera company at the Lyceum, London. The company collapsed quickly. Elisa sang at a few, mostly high-class, concerts (Philharmonic Society, Benedict’s, Crystal Palace), and then hied her to Baden for the season and back to Russia. This year Patti, Artôt, Fricci and Hauck were there, and the programme included a new opera by Fabio Campana, Nostra Dama di Parigi. Adelina Patti declined to learn a new role, and so it was ultimately Elisa Volpini who played the role of Esmeralda (1 January 1870) alongside Trebelli, Bettini and Graziani. And the piece was successful. When Don Giovanni was played, Patti was, as usual, Zerlina and Mme Volpini sang Elvira, when Rigoletto was given ‘Cette représentation n'a été qu'un long triomphe pour l'éminente cantatrice, qui a été comblée d'applaudissements, de rappels, de bouquets et de cadeaux’. The cantatrice in question was Madame Volpini. When the company played Moscow, Elisa scored an 'indescrivibile successo' in I Puritani.
This year, she was enrolled for the regular London opera, at Drury Lane, and the British press mused ‘a very sprightly lady with a clear and resonant soprano voice who may be remembered at Her Majesty’s Theatre … singing a small part and a pretty song in Mireille. Since 1864, Mme Volpini has been winning laurels abroad, more particularly at St Petersburg where she is reported to stand almost as well in public favour as Mdlle Adelina Patti herself’.
Elisa had certainly risen in stature since her earlier London performances, and she confirmed her new position in Marta, as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro (‘a lively natural actress and a thoroughly competent musician’, ‘surpassed Mme Sinico’) and particularly in the role of Filina in Mignon (‘Mme Volpini joue le rôle de Filina avec beaucoup d'animation, vocalisant avec une facilité et un goût à ne rien laisser à désirer’). When Campana's Esmeralda (ex-Nostra Dama di Parigi) was produced, however, la Patti now found the time to learn it.
The St Petersburg season began in October, and Madame Volpini was to the fore, giving her Rigoletto, I Puritani and La Traviata, the last named opposite the Spanish tenor, Andres Marin (ka Andrea Marini).
Now, Ambrogio Volpini seems to have vanished from operatic annals for some years by this stage. His name doesn’t surface again. But we know that he died. For his tomb can be seen in Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery. Apparently it has no inscription. But there is a stonemason’s mark of 1872 on the verso of the monument. It is possible – it was, after all, wartime – that the stone and the mark may post-date the burial slightly. And, yes ... 14 September 1871 aged 45 ... rentier .. 9 Boulevard des Italiens .. and what? 'son of Madame Elisabeth Ferrari de Garcia'?
Anyway, Andres Marin would become, eventually (29 November 1880), Elisa’s second husband.

In 1871, the pair can be seen at Seville’s San Fernando, where the repertoire included Martha, La Favorita, I Puritani, La Traviata, before a return to Russia, now under the management of superagent Merelli (Il Matrimonio Segreto, I Puritani, William Tell as Carlo il temerario). In 1872 she made a brief return to the Paris Italiens, now under the management of Amedée Verger, to sing Don Pasquale with Gardoni and the younger Verger, and Lucrezia Borgia with Nicolini, before hurrying on to her engagement at the Teatro Jovellanos in Madrid (La Traviata 3 April, Don Pasquale, Rigoletto, Faust, Lucia di Lammermoor) with Marin and Napoleone Verger, thence to Hamburg, and another season at St Petersburg. 1873 saw her at Seville and Barcelona (La Traviata, Linda di Chamonix, Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and, of course, her seventh successive year in Russia (Roberto il diavolo, William Tell, La Traviata), while in 1874 she again shared her time between Spain and Russia (Der Freischütz). However, there was a management change in the freezing north. Signor Ferri now took over proceedings at St Petersburg and, when the 1875 prospectus came out, Mme Volpini was not included in the listings. There was an outcry from the subscribers and, when the season opened, Mme Volpini and Signor Marini were there.
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Faust |
In 1875, I spot her at Bordeaux; in 1876, at Monte Carlo, Barcelona (La Traviata with Tamagno) and Trieste (Ophelia in Thomas's Hamlet, I Puritani 'immenso successo' with Campanini, Moriami, Castelmary' 'La signora Volpini è una celebrità...', La Sonnambula with Campanini and Tamburini), before, in 1877, Amedée Verger put together a company, with Madame Volpini and Monsieur Marin at its head, to go to South America. Elisa gave her Traviata, Puritani, Don Pasquale, Lucia di Lammermoor and her first Aida at the Teatro Payet, to spectacular response (‘Mme Volpini est adorée dans ces régions où l'on aime le chant brillant, coloré, chaleureux. Jamais cantatrice n'électrisa autant les dilettantes havanais..’). Verger died in the south in 1878, and in March the little team -- including Elisa, who had been reported, also, to have died from the yellow fever, returned home.
And come the winter, there the pair are singing William Tell, Traviata and I Puritani at St Petersburg and Warsaw …
They visited South America once more, in 1880, where Elisa shared the soprano repertoire with Maria Louisa Durand, but thereafter, married now (26 November 1880), they seem to have limited their activities to Spain. I see them, in 1884, with Napoleone Verger, performing in Alicante, Murcia, Cadiz, Oporto, Vigo …
My last stage sighting is an engagement at Malaga in 1886.
And I mean ‘last stage sighting’. Andres Marin y Estevan went on to have a second career, as the mayor of the city of Teruel, and has in consequence been much biographised. These biographies mention, of course, that he was the husband of ‘la Volpini’, and they record Marin’s death in 1896, but not one among them can I find which tells what became of the lady. An English article of 1895 refers to her as ‘retired’, a slightly later Diccionario encyclopedic hispano-americano de literature, ciencias y artes says she is living, widowed, in Madrid. The Bibliothèque National Française tidies her up as dead in 1887. A website, mundoclasico.com, say she died in February 1907. They can’t all be right. But this last one has the flavour of fact...
'Elisa murió en Madrid en febrero de 1907. La crónica de su muerte del diario El Diluvio y de otras publicacione indicaba que murió con 67 años, lo que haría que hubiera nacido hacia el 1839, reforzando el año que se deduce de los registros de nacimiento de sus hijos y de defunción de su primer marido'.
So she married at fourteen? I think not.
I will keep looking...
Articles on Lorenzo Pagans and Uranio Fontana credit both musicians as being, at some stage, a teacher of Elisa Villar de Volpini.
Their elder son, Alfredo [recte Alfred] Volpini y Villar (b 15 January 1862) was, in the late 1890s and the 1900s, the impresario of the Barcelona Liceo and the Teatro Real, Madrid.