Giulietta Borsi-Deleurie: from where did she come?

 

My huge folder of Victorian Vocalists holds a fair number of stories which have remained unpublished for the reason that I have not yet succeeded in unearthing some basic fact. I think the time has come to send these out into the world, where they may find their missing part. I shall start with 

BORSI-DELEURIE, Giulietta (b c 1831; d Naples 19 January 1877).

Asti, 1862

I have tried. For years. But I still don’t know where Giulietta (or Giulia, or Juliette) Borsi came from. She appeared in London, in 1849, billed as being ‘of the Teatro Malibran, Venice’ or ‘of the Fenice, Milan’ making ‘her debut in this country’ at a very long and very minor concert given by one Fanny Wheadon at Crosby Hall (19 February). She sang ‘O mio Fernando’ and a piece called ‘E vero’ composed by one Louis Deleurie, who was apparently her husband, was encored in both, and praised for ‘a voice of considerable power and capable of great execution’. Someone in high places clearly agreed. The 18 year-old singer made her second London appearance in very different circumstances: on 2 April she was up on the stage at Exeter Hall, on the occasion of a Sacred Harmonic Society concert. Charlott Ann Birch sang The Creation, but Madame Borsi (sic) sang outside the oratorio, a rare thing in such a concert. She gave Handel’s ‘Holy, holy’ and a piece by Neukomm, and it was noted that she gave her pieces in clear, unaccented English. Was she actually English? If she were not, she apparently had intentions of being. When she sang at the Halle and Ernst concerts (23 May, ‘O mio Fernando’, ‘Il Segreto’) at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, the press announced her intention of settling there. Perhaps the wars in Italy were too pressing?

As it happened, they stayed only a few months. Mons Deleurie jumped into to play Basilio with Madame Montenegro’s touring opera, with which his wife was also billed, and I see her singing ‘By the Margin of Zurich’s Fair Waters’ and ‘Il segreto’ at Signor Paltoni’s benefit (9 July), and again at Liverpool’s Queen’s Hotel, where the local critic grumbled that she was not a soprano and was forcing her high notes. Dummy. The couple joined Paltoni in concert at York, and in operatic performances and concerts at Hull (L’Elisir d’amore, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Linda di Chamounix aria), and on 10 and 15 September the little team appeared with Pischek at the Liverpool Concert Hall.

 

And then they were gone. The rest of Giulietta’s busy career would be in Italy. Mostly, it seems, without Mons Deleurie, who ended up teaching music in Philadelphia and died at Valparaiso 1 June 1868. But she kept his name.

 

9 May 1850, they are in Florence – she soprano, he baritone – singing at trombone-teacher, Attilio Romani’s concert – she singing ‘Ah, mon fils!’ (‘voce robusta ed estesa’) and they duetting L’Elisir d’amore, and I spot our prima donna – labelled already as ‘egregia’ but also as ‘esordiente’– at the Teatro Alfieri, in August 1850, singing Il Prigione d’Edimborgo and her Barbiere (plus the Linda aria, and the Elisir duet) to considerable praise (‘avvenante giovane che mette i primi passi nella carriera teatrale e dotata d’una voce estremamente simpatico et estesa e di un sentire squisito…’). She stayed awhile, studying with the Florentine teacher Pietro Romani, and in 1852, was engaged at Milan’s Teatro Carcano, to perform Anna Bolena (‘giovane e bella cantatrice’) and for Carnevale at Modena’s Teatro Communale in Il Corsaro (Medora). 

 

She took some further time out for study in 1853, but at Autumn and Carnevale time she was back, singing the role of Leonora in the new hit, Il Trovatore, at the Teatro Santa Elisabetta in Messina. The cholera plague upset everyone’s plans in the year of 1854, but in October she joined the company at the Carlo Felice in Genoa, where she won rave reviews for her performance as Giovanna in Ricci’s Il Prigione d’Edimborgo, followed up by the same composer’s Gli Esposti and Il Birraio di Preston, and by La Cenerentola.

At Carnevale, this year, she visited Novara (Il Trovatore, Maria di Rohan), before moving on to the Teatro Naum, Constantinople (Macbeth, Poliuto, Il Trovatore, Marco Visconti) where she scored something of a triumph. But sometime, between her Turkish appearances, she returned to Britain. A little squib in the press noted that she had appeared in a private matinee at Her Majesty’s Theatre in July, and that manager Lumley had expressed his sorrow that he had only heard her when the season was all but over. He would have engaged her.

Instead of remaining in London, she returned to Bari (Poliuto, La Traviata, Il Birraio di Preston, Il Folco d’Arles) for Carnevale, and then was signed one more time for Constantinople where she opened to a ‘luminoso successo’ in Ernani and scored again in Macbeth (‘successo veramente completo’). 1858 also saw her at the Italian Opera of Odessa (Poliuto. I due Foscari, Attila) and the Teatro Apollo in Venice (Ernani with Pavani, Poliuto with Joseph Swift), and in 1859 at Pisa’s Teatro di Ravvivati, scoring a ‘lietissimo successo’ in local composer, Luigi Marcori’s new opera seria Nelinda (9 February 1859) and in I due Foscari (‘applausi e chiamati senza fine’) before being hired for the Fondo at Naples. The Naples season included performances of Ruta’s Diana di Vitry (Diana) and Michele Sansone’s Ruggiero di Sangineto (Silvia), but the critics were, characteristically, not impressed by the execution: ‘A l'exception de la Borsi-Deleurie, qui possède une belle voix et une bonne méthode; soprano, mezzosoprano, contralto, ténors et barytons, tout est au-dessous du médiocre …’.

She seems to have been next engaged at the Teatro Principale in Barcelona before, on 24 November she opened at La Scala, Milan, alongside della Costa and Cotogni, playing Odabella in Attila. The production was well liked and the press wrote: ‘The two artists who best sustained themselves in the favor of the public, were the Signora Borsi-Deleurie, and the basso Dalla Costa: a brave Amazon, and a most respectable King of the Huns. Signora Borsi-Deleurie, with her voice of extraordinary extent and volume, with her energetic singing and animated acting, had a general ovation […] receiving the most prolonged applause. She may be proud of her success, as she had to conquer so much opposition and present herself in a theatre where bad humour is always ready to explode like a mine’. On 26 December the theatre mounted Mose with Giulietta, cast as Sinaide alongside Tiberini and Beneventano, scoring yet another success.

 

Primavera 1861 saw her at Ferrara (Isaura in Isaura di Firenze) and at Parma (Maria in Vittorio Pisani, Marco Visconti, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth), 1862 at Asti and Cremona, 1863 at the Teatro Paganini in Genoa, before she encountered more problems in Naples. However, Naples got its act together and she remained at the San Carlo into 1864 (Norma).

 

In 1865, she was prima donna at Trieste, where, apart from giving her Lady Macbeth, Odabella and Abigaille – for if Giulietta was now allowed to be (mostly) a soprano, it was a soprano of the most dramatic kind – she created the leading role in Nikola Strmic’s opera La madre slava.

Macerata and Bucharest followed, then a cancellation at Rome when she and the management couldn’t agree on what she would play. In the summer season of 1867 she took up the role of Leonora in Petrella’s La Contessa d’Amalfi, created by Luigia Bendazzi in 1864, at Livorno’s Teatro di Floridi, and went on to play it again, over Carnevale 1867-8, at the Communale, Cesena. She also played La Favorita. On 7 November 1868, Giulietta appeared in Pacini’s Saffo at Bergamo’s Teatro Riccardi … and then, nothing.

 The next mention of her which I find is her obituary, eight years later. She died at Naples ‘at the age of 45’. She had, it was reported ‘left the theatre several years before her death because of illness’. Died: Madame Giulietta Borsi Deleurie Petrella. Petrella? I know that she, laterly, played first lady in his operas, but did she marry Errico Petrella? Reportedly, the composer liked fast women and the high life … but I don’t know about marriage. Another annoyingly untied end in this lady’s life.

 

Well, I’ve started. Maybe someone else can tie up the details of the life and career of this successful prima donna of the 1850s and 1860s …

 

If she were genuinely a ‘Borsi’, Giulietta could have been connected to any of a number of Borsis in the Italian theatre, beginning with choreographer and composer Alessandro Borsi and the producer Antonio Borsi and his wife, the celebrated soprano known as Teres[in]a di Giuli Borsi. But if she were, surely someone would have said? Often ...

So, who will find out for me the wherefrom and whomfrom of this lady?  And Petrella ...?

 

William F Brough: a British bass in America

 

BROUGH, William Francis (b nr Byker, Newcastle on Tyne 10 July 1797; d Bee Hotel, Queen Square, Liverpool 20 May 1867).

 

A decidedly useful bass singer, in metropolitan and provincial theatres, on both sides of the Atlantic during the early-to-mid 19th century.

 

‘Mr Brough’ was born in the Newcastle area, one of the sons of an engine-wright, William Brough, and his wife Mary née Trotter. This family was to find considerable fame in the Victorian theatre, although not principally through our William. His elder brother, Barnabas, auctioneer and a sometime stage writer (‘Barnabas de Burgh’), fathered a dynasty of theatrical Broughs, including the celebrated burlesque and extravaganza writers, William and Robert Barnabas Brough, and the outstanding comic actor Lionel Brough. But uncle William also strutted the stage for more than a quarter of a century before abandoning performing for agenting.

 

Small parenthesis to say that a number of reference works, including Grove and Kutsch and Riemens, state that Brough was born in Wexford, Ireland. They have evidently culled this ‘information’ from the same place, or each other, but the parish records of the Salem Methodist Chapel, Newcastle on Tyne, for 1801, bear witness to the baptism of William and Mary’s first four children; other local records, for 1791 (22 January), to the wedding of the couple … so, why Wexford?

 It was said that William began his performing career at Worthing, and thence progressed to London’s Haymarket Theatre. Well, I hav'n't found him at Worthing, but I have picked him up at Bath, in November 1820, playing Don Caesar in The Castle of Andalusia ('sang 'Flow thou purple stream' and the 'Wolf song' extremely well), Derncleugh in The Falls of Clyde, Gabriel in Guy Mannering, Augustine in The Duenna, Diego in Paul and Virginia. In December he was Jupiter in Midas, Basil in The Barber of Seville, Flavius in Julius Caesar, Orasmin in Timour the Tartar, A Gamekeeper in A Roland for an Oliver, High Priest in Pizzaro and 2nd Robber in The Iron Chest, in regular stock company fashion. He can be spotted still in Bath into the new year: Tyrrell in Richard III, Compton in An Agreeable Surprise...

He was engaged for the Haymarket, so it is said, for three (some say, preposterously, eight!) years. Well, three is perfectly possible. He was certainly at the Haymarket in 1821 (the new theatre opened 4 July), and he ended his time there in late 1824. But it was not a continuous engagement. The Haymarket seasons were, often, only of a number of months duration, and in between, the actor had to find other work. In fact, even though he is ‘of the Haymarket’, one of my first veritable sightings of our Mr Brough is in March 1822, guesting at the Aberdeen Theatre: ‘The principal parts were divided between Mr Broughand Mr Williamson. The former of these gentlemen, I had before heard at the Haymarket, and think he possesses decidedly the best bass voice on the English Stage. I was agreeably surprised to find him not only an excellent singer, but a very respectable actor. His Inkle, and many other parts, were highly creditable to his talents, but his Malcolm in The Falls of Clyde was as bold and as manly a specimen of melodramatic acting as could be witnessed. I was delighted with a song of his which was deservedly encored every time it was sung called ‘The Martial Spirit of Caledonia’…’

Mr Brough was, in the manner of the day, hired at the Haymarket as a ‘singing gentleman’. In other words, he played bit parts and walk-ons in the comedies and dramas (‘a Mandingo Warrior’ in The Africans, A gentleman in The Belle Stratagem), and rather better ones in the operas. In 1822-3, these included Matt o’ the Mint in The Beggar’s Opera alongside Miss Paton and Leoni Lee, McStuart in Rob Roy, Basil in The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, the Genius in the pantomime Harlequin Hoax, Glumdalca in Tom Thumb, Gabriel in Guy Mannering, as well as lesser roles in pieces such as Love, Law and Physick (John Brown, Ali Beg in The Mountaineers, and Flint (with song ‘The Wolf’) in Morning, Noon and Night.

 

On 14 November 1823 he opened at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, again playing Don Caesar in The Castle of Andalusia, and was again most successful: ‘Mr Brough’s voice is remarkably deep-toned at the same time void of all harshness’, ‘Mr Brough makes an excellent Don Caesar; and we think we may now fearlessly hazard an opinion which we have deliberately formed, that as a general actor Mr Brough will be very respectable. As a singer, he is, next to Home, the most scientific we have heard within the walls of our Theatre …’, ‘Mr Brough has very speedily made himself a favourite with the public, and he deserves to continue so. As a singer, he is certainly the first who has had a permanent engagement in our Theatre.’

So he was Stauncheon in Rob Roy, alongside Mr Bing and Miss Halford, Hecate in Macbeth, Little John in Ivanhoe, Zadak in The Forty Thieves, Tom Swivel in Robinson Crusoe, sang in Cherry and Fairstar and Harlequin’s Olio … as well as Orson in The Iron Chest, Hempseed in George Heriot, Saucy Dick in Life in London, Paulo in The Hunter of the Alps, not to mention taking part in Julius Caesar (Soothsayer), King Lear (Burgundy), King John (Leopold of Austria), Hamlet (Player King) et al, in the quickly turning repertoire. For his Benefit he played Gabriel in Guy Mannering, and Lucy Bertram was played by ‘Mrs Brough’.  Mrs Brough was one Elizabeth Hobley, and the couple were wed in Arbroath on 17 February 1823. Unfortunately, as the reviewer commented, she could ‘neither sing nor act’.

 

Back at the Haymarket, he returned to playing supporting basso roles in musical plays – Rob Roy, The Lord of the Manor, The Beggar’s Opera, The Marriage of Figaro, Rosina, No Song No Supper – and bits in a variety of comedies through the second half of 1824, before, this year, he took off in the off-season for the Theatre Royal in Dublin, ‘engaged to fill Mr [Paul] Bedford’s situation’ as the bass singer of the establishment. He made his first appearance as Hecate in Macbeth, and the local press nodded ‘His voice is good though not at all equal in point of volume and richness to Bedford’s ...’, but when he appeared as Don Caesar, opposite Sally Forde, in The Castle of Andalusia they were more enthusiastic: ‘Mr Brough made his second appearance in Don Caesar, and was favourably received... His voice is good, though not remarkable for particular excellence in either the lower or upper-tones, and we have to state, that in point of acting, he is very superior to many musical performers.' He went on to repeat his performances in such as The Iron Chest, Kenilworth, his perennially lukewarm Basil in The Marriage of Figaro et al, as he settled in for what was to be a lengthy engagement. The biographical notes and obituaries say ‘twelve years’, and that seems to be just about right. I make it eleven. Eleven years acting and singing as a member of the stock company, in both plays and the usual English operatic pieces, until, latterly, the star touring system brought guests stars to play the Italian repertoire.

The list of pieces in which he appeared was vast, but during 1830-1 alone, on the musical front, it included The Siege of Belgrade (duetting ‘All’s Well’ with Braham, and giving his favourite ‘The Breaking of the Day’ and ‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’) repeated Hecates in Macbeth, Dorrington in Englishmen in India, Farmer Giles in The Maid of the Mill, Guns Without Shot (‘Harry Bluff’), The Dumb Girl of the Inn (‘Who drinks deeply of wine’), Kenilworth (‘The Lincolnshire Poacher’), The Maid of Judah, as Cedric of Rotherwood, with Wood and Miss Paton, Hawthorn in Love in a Village with Miss Betts and Sapio, Brusque in The Invincibles, Dandini in Cenerentola, Don Alfonso in the first Irish Cosi fan tutte, Charles in The Haunted Tower, Scander in Azor and Zemir, Jacob Barezzi in The Evil Eye, and Gregory in John of Paris, as well as appearing in a variety of concerts. Between 10-13 September 1831, he sang with other local artists in support of Paganini (‘The Breaking of the day’, ‘O Mighty Jove’, ‘Rest, Weary Traveller’,  ‘When Vulcan forged the bolts of Jove’), and he performed such as the scena ‘The Pirate, or the Phantom Ship’ (Haydn Corri) in concert.

 In 1832, he played Crop in No Song, No Supper, Owen in Samuel Lover’s Grana Uile, Major Galbraith in Rob Roy, Gabriel in Guy Mannering (‘Safely follow him’), Matt o’ the Mint in The Beggar’s Opera, Tropic in Paul and Virginia, Chanteloupe in Victorine, Jupiter in Midas, but his best opportunities came when the now Mr and Mrs Wood guested at the theatre with their repertoire including Oberon (Sherasmin), Malvina (Starso), The Barber of Seville (Basil), The Devil’s Bridge, Guy Mannering, Robert the Devil et al. The Woods were regular visitors to Dublin, and it would be they who would change Brough’s career and life. But not just yet.

 

For the moment, through 1833-4, it carried on as before: more Jupiter in Midas, more Charles in The Haunted Tower, Citizen in John of Paris and Aladdin with Mrs Waylett, The Beggar’s Opera with Collins, Captain Cannonade in The Pet of the Petticoats; Artabanes in Artaxerxes, Dandini in Cinderella, more Beggar’s Opera and Love in a Village all with Fanny Healy, Don Guzman in the Don Giovanni burlesque, in which Mrs B walked on as Squalling Fan, Shirro in The Dumb Brigand with Celeste, Somerdyke in The Slave, Don Diego in The Padlock, Brun in The Lady of the Lake; Third Muleteer (Bedford and George Horncastle were the other two, so I suspect an incidental trio) in The Mountaineers, Major Galbraith in Rob Roy, John Dory in Wild Oats and Rubaldo in The Brigand with the guesting Wallack, and Giacomo when the Woods presented Fra Diavolo. Neukomm’s ‘The Sea’ was rolled out repeatedly in both the theatre and in concert, and ‘Rolling in foaming billows’ on sacred occasions …

 

Brough played at the Theatre Royal with the Woods in June 1835 – taking, on the occasion, the role of Hela in The Mountain Sylph – and, then, in July, he and the star couple together boarded the George Washington for America and New York’s Park Theatre. They opened there with Cinderella, and followed up with their repertoire as known – The Mountain Sylph, La Sonnambula, Fra Diavolo, The Maid of Judah, Masaniello, The Barber of Seville, Robert the Devil – and, in the shadow of the two big names, Brough provided fine support: ‘a baritone of rather extraordinary power, whose efforts, both as an actor and singer, have met with the encouragement and applause which their decided excellence fully merited’. 

 

William returned to Britain in 1836, and played a series of dates, both with and without the Woods, including a Dublin Benefit (26 January 1837) in which he performed The Castle of Andalusia, interpolating alongside ‘Flow, thou regal purple stream’ and ‘The Wolf’, both ‘The Light of Other Days’ and ‘Farewell to the Mountain’, and an 1837 season at Liverpool, Manchester et al with tenor Templeton and prima donna Jane Shirreff (La Sonnambula, Rob Roy, Pietro in Masaniello, Anackstroem in Gustavus III, Robin in No Song, No Supper).

 

However, he was back in America soon afterwards for another considerable visit, during which he performed in opera with Rosalbina Caradori Allan, (La Sonnambula, Michel in The Siege of Rochelle) with Miss Shirreff and Wilson, with Madame Otto and Tom Bishop in the south, and, once again, with the Woods (Beppo in Fra Diavolo, Alphonso in Masaniello, Matt o’ the Mint, Captain Fitzroy in The Poor Soldier &c), as well as in some less starry local combinations and concerts. When he took a Benefit at the Park Theatre 2 February 1838, he took on the title-role of Fra Diavolo. Presumably transposed down! When Cinderella was given at Niblo’s, with him as Dandini, he sang his own arrangement of ‘Oh, 'Twas not my own native land’ as an afterpiece. 

 

By 1841, he was once more back in England, and once more supporting the Woods, as they toured the major dates (Oroveso in Norma, Caspar in Der Freischütz, Bijou in The Postillon de Lonjumeau et al). Returning to Dublin, he sang with Adelaide Kemble and Elizabeth Rainforth in their local season, but, soon afterwards, he announced his retirement. It was an operatic retirement. He would not give up performing for a while yet. But he did return to America.

 

While he began a bundle of alternative activities – agent for the London Illustrated News, agent for hunting, fishing and shooting products (‘The Merchant Vocalist’), agent for various performers, songwriting etc – he still appeared in various concerts (New York Sacred Music Society et al) and, in 1845, he got involved with the operatic company set up by Rophino Lacy to feature his daughter, Miss Delcy, as prima donna (La Sonnambula, Fra Diavolo, Der Freischütz, Lucia di Lammermoor, Love in a Village). At one stage, the company was billed as the ‘William F Brough Opera Company’ which is possibly why some commentators refer to Brough as an ‘operatic producer’. He wasn’t. Merely a wheeler-dealer, agent and still useful basso.

 

In 1847, he paid one further visit to Britain in his latest capacity, as the umpteenth imitator of Henry Russell, with an American Entertainment. He presented his first programme, featuring ‘It was not my own native land’, ‘I am bidding you a lone farewell’, ‘The Deserted Wreck’, ‘She Lay on the Roll of the Sea’, ‘My Ancestors were British Men (Yankee Doodle)’, ‘Mein Herz ist am Rhein’, ‘The Poisonous Serpent’, ‘Across the Waves of Waters’, ‘Did you ebber see a gin sling made out of brandy’, ‘De old Mississippi’, ‘Long time ago’ and ‘My Fader come from the Coast of Guinea’ at the Dublin Music Hall on 11 March 1847, and gave a handful of performances there before moving on to Liverpool, where Henry Russell just happened to be appearing. At Liverpool he joined the Cambria, for one more Atlantic crossing.

 

He toured, in America, with the tenor Manvers and his stepdaughter in 1848, but, soon, his appearances did become intermittent, as he devoted himself to working as an agent for artists such as Braham, Catherine Hayes, Alboni, Jullien and Louis Gottschalk. In 1856, long settled in Brooklyn, he became a naturalised American citizen. He and Elizabeth, his wife, are to be seen in the Brooklyn census of 1865. He admits to 65 and ‘first marriage’, she to 40 and ‘second marriage’. Which, of course, doesn’t add up at all.

 

He toured, in America, with the tenor Manvers and his stepdaughter in 1848, but, soon, his appearances did become intermittent, as he devoted himself to working as an agent for artists such as Braham, Catherine Hayes, Alboni, Jullien and Louis Gottschalk. In 1856, long settled in Brooklyn, he became a naturalised American citizen. He and Elizabeth, his wife, are to be seen in the Brooklyn census of 1865. He admits to 65 and ‘first marriage’, she to 40 and ‘second marriage’. Which, of course, doesn’t add up at all.

 

William Brough died in 1867. Some folk insist he died ‘at sea’. He didn’t. He had gone to Britain as business agent for Ada and Emma Webb, and was taken ill during the passage. He was stretchered ashore in Liverpool and died in an hotel there, three days later. The event was chartered in detail in the Liverpool press. Elizabeth returned to their Brooklyn home where she died, 2 January 1875, aged 74. Which is more like it than the numbers in 1865 census listing.

 

He may have been far from the most famous of the Brough family of Byker, but William Francis, nevertheless, had a solid, extensive and well-liked career as a vocalist and an actor on two continents.

 

 

 

 

 

Harry Burgon: the bass who was boss

 

BURGON, William Henry (b Croydon 5 January 1858; d 8 Marlborough Rd, Bedford Park, Acton 24 April 1898).

 

Bass-baritone Burgon had a somewhat curious career, quitting the forefront of the regular musical scene to tour his own modest, little operatic concert party around Britain.

 

‘Harry’ Burgon was born in Croydon, the son of solicitor William Burgon and his wife Anne Rabbeth née Gill, and he was musically educated at the London Academy of Music, studying under Gustave Garcia. He made his earliest appearances while still a young student: I see him appearing at Rivière’s Covent Garden Proms (13 October 1879) and at the Crystal Palace Wednesday morning concerts, as well as at Garcia’s own concert (15 June 1880), alongside Saint-Saens, Mrs Osgood, Shakespeare, Foli et al.

 

During the latter months of 1880, he was seen at the Promenade Concerts at both the Crystal Palace (to which he would regularly return over the years) and Covent Garden (‘I shot an arrow’), at the Glasgow Saturdays and at de Jong’s Free Trade Hall concerts in Manchester (‘Qui sdegno’, Mattei’s ‘Oh, hear the wild wind blow’, ‘The Yeomen’s Wedding’, ‘I fear no foe’) alongside Albani. The propinquity of the star was a little much for the local critic, who referred to the 22 year-old bass as a ‘foil’ for the soprano and spoke of his ‘moderate capabilities’. Derby was a little more reasonable: when he sang there in Engedi and The May Queen, with Annie Marriott and Barton McGuckin, he was credited with ‘decided promise’.

He sang in several London concerts, gaining notice when he joined Mme Lemmens-Sherrington, Mrs Fassett and Shakespeare in the Bach Choir’s performance of the Mass in B Minor, and took the music of the principal bass in the Sacred Harmonic Society’s Judas Maccabeus (11 November 1881). Come the festive season, he teamed with Annie Marriott/Mme Nouver, Hope Glenn and Joseph Maas in a series of Messiah performances (Sunderland, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen etc).

 

During 1882, he appeared in Solomon at what was announced as the last performance of the debilitated Sacred Harmonic Society, and fulfilled another oratorio and concert tour, with Helen Lemmens-Sherrington, Eliza Enriques and Vernon Rigby which included performances of the Stabat Mater, The Messiah, Samson and a variety of concerts (Barri’s ‘The Olden Time’, Behrend’s ‘Tell her from me’, ‘The Moon has raised’, ‘Yeoman’s Wedding’, ‘A si questa di mia vita’).

 

He was recalled to the reconstituted Sacred Harmonic Society to sing second to Santley in Redemption (23 February 1883), before in January 1884 he joined the ‘Royal English Opera Co’, for a Covent Garden season, in which he was seen as Mephistopheles in Faust and Arimanes in Satanella. This appears to have led directly to an engagement with the Carl Rosa Opera Company, for which his engagement was announced a few months later.

He opened with the Rosa 14 August 1884, at Dublin, cast as Gubetta in Lucrezia Borgia, and carried on as Zuniga in Carmen, Ferrando ‘very capably indeed’ in Il Trovatore, Arnheim in The Bohemian Girl, Baldassare in La Favorita (behind Ludwig), Count des Grieux in Manon, Father Tom in The Lily of Killarney, and King Charles in Maritana, as well as joining in a Christmas Stabat Mater in Liverpool with Marie Roze, Marian Burton and Barton McGuckin. It was a series of roles which hardly gave him the chance to make a sensation, but he was judged ‘most satisfactory’.

 

During the Rosa’s 1885 Drury Lane season, he created the role of Ostap in Nadeshda, and was a ‘capital’ Bartolo in The Marriage of Figaro, and back on the road, repeated his Mephistopheles, and appeared as the Pastor in Fadette (Les Dragons de Villars), Lothario in Mignon and Don Guritano in Ruy Blas. However, when the company completed its 1886 season, Burgon left.

 

He appeared in concert through 1887, and in December visited Dublin for a series mounted by W Houston Collisson. It seems to have been here that the Burgon Operatic Recital Company was born. On 9 December, Collisson, in his third concert of his season, devoted half a concert to a concert of an act of Faust. Burgon took up his old role of Mephistopheles, Henry Beaumont sang Faust, local soprano Marie du Bedat was Marguerite and Amelia Sinico sang Siebel. The next night the concert was repeated as Dublin’s Leinster Hall. The singers went their ways – Burgon back to London to sing The Messiah and Moses in Egypt with the Sacred Harmonic Society – but, in May 1888, Collisson brought out his Faust concert again, this time with Madame Clarice Sinico replacing her daughter, and all three acts being sung in costume, back at the Ulster Hall. ‘Collisson’s concert party’ with Mrs Beaumont (Adelaide Mullen) and a couple of comprimarii added to their forces, Il Trovatore and Maritana added to their repertoire, and the manager at the piano, headed again for Dublin and spots beyond. By June, those ‘spots’ included the mainland of England, by September the troupe was installed at the York Exhibition and, now billed as ‘Mr W H Burgon’s Operatic Company’, at the Scarborough Spa. When the two ladies left the group, Miss Mullen and Joyce Maas took their places.

The company, with changing personnel, would survive for more than twelve years, until and after Burgon’s death, and in 1900 could still be seen, playing the Crystal Palace. For now, Burgon kept it staunchly alive, in between his other occasional engagements, usually with a company of little- and unknown artists – Kate McKrill, Claude Ravenhill, Margaret Ormerod, John Probert, Annie Lea, Eugenia Morgan, Charles Ellison, Mrs Graham Coles, Annie Layton, Hilton St Just, Jessie King – but, almost always, the familiar Mr Burgon.

Occasionally Mr Burgon was, however, otherwise engaged. He had not quite finished with the stage. After taking part in the tryout of Slaughter’s comic opera Marjorie, he joined D’Oyly Carte at the Palace Theatre to play Cedric of Rotherwood in Sullivan’s Ivanhoe and Louis XII in La Basoche. Carte double-cast his shows, so Mr Burgon carried right on touring his Operatic Recitals, and Henry Pope, and doubtless others, depped for him on Palace nights. His reviews in the Carte shows were excellent, but Burgon didn’t continue in that line. He went back to his team, playing operatic excerpts, concerts and even propelling his team into provincial oratorios on his coat-tails. The Bohemian Girl and Cavalleria rusticana were added to the regulars, then The Daughter of the Regiment, while The Sleeping Queen and I Pagliacci were given on occasions, as were selections from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

 

Burgon’s Crystal Palace and Promenade Concert dates continued in between time, and in 1894 (24 March) he took time out to appear as the King in performances of Maritana given by Augustus Harris at Drury Lane. In 1895, he was announced for the Boosey Ballad concerts, in 1897 (28 May) he sang at Crystal Palace one last time, before heading for the seaside and his company…

 

Harry Burgon died at the official age of 39. He left a wife, Zoe Joséphine Philomène née Chatenet (1862-1950), a son, Adrien or Adrian (1888-1970) and a daughter Edith Lina (Mrs Beecroft 1890-1963). Both the young people went into showbusiness, Edith – as Adeline Burgon – into music halls and musical comedy, up till her marriage in 1920, and Adrian with Harry Day’s companies and, latterly, as a radio vocalist.

 

 

 

 

 

TAGLIAFICO: half a century of opera

 

TAGLIAFICO, [Joseph] Dieudonné (b Toulon 1 January 1821; d 33 Avenue de Beaulieu, Nice 27 January 1900)

 

He wasn’t Lablache. He wasn’t Ronconi. He wasn’t a star bass. Or a star baritone. He wasn’t a comprimario. He was somewhere in the middle of all that. But Diedonné Tagliafico, the slim, likeable, French bass-baritone did have a full and very fine career in the great opera-houses of the world for a extraordinarily large part of the Victorian era.

 He was born in Toulon, out of wedlock. His father was one Laurent Honoré Augustin Marie Tagliafico (b Savona 11 October 1784), a taxation director in the Royal department of Finance, his mother one Mlle Cécile Claire Méric. He was officially legitimised the year after his birth, which may mean the two later married. I presume it was his father’s position which secured him a place in the Collège royale Henri IV, from where he graduated, with a prize in philosophy, in 1838. 

 

He had worked his way into the musical world by 1841. As a lyricist, he supplied the words for a scena ‘Myrtha, où la reine des Willis’, music by Jules de Glimes, and a performer, I see him at the concert of MM Herz and Labarre (February) singing two of Glimes' songs, at the soirée of the Escudier brothers ('on a admiré aussi [la voix] d'un jeune homme, M Tagliafico, qui promet à l'Opéra ou aux Italiens un excellent chanteur. Il a produit beaucoup d'effet dans une composition très remarquable de M de Glimes’) and at concert given by Messrs Mühlenfeldt and Willent, ‘Sa voix de basse est agréable, ductile et imperssionante’ nodded the reviewer after his performance of de Glimes’s ‘La Tombe et la rose’ and Meyerbeer’s ‘Le Moine’ or ‘La Cantique du Trappiste’ (14 March). In April, he can be seen at the Cercle des Amateurs (‘Il est dans les étoiles’) and in June singing the William Tell with the ill-fated young tenor Delahaye (‘voix vibrante, accentuée et qui paraît bon musicien’). When he sang at G A Osborne’s concert, the critic used him as a whipping boy, for singing, too often, de Glimes’s composition, but should have been pleased after César Franck’s soirée, when the young man gave Delsarte’s ‘Les Stances à l’éternité’. ‘Les stances à l'Eternité, de Delsarte, morceau bien choisi pour la circonstance, furent admirablement bien chantées par Tagliafico, qui nous rappela la belle voix d'Alizard’. And already the gossip music press had him ‘on dit, engagé à l’Opéra’.

 

Tagliafico’s popularity spread quickly. In the new season he was seen widely in concert (Gazette musicale, the pianist Schad, Alard’s, Alexandre Batta’s, Hippolyte Armand’s, Conservatoire concerts, his own concert with the violinist Cellier) singing the popular chansons of the time and baritone arias, before, at the end of the season heading for the provinces: Cambrai (M Tagliafico, jeune chanteur d'un talent distingué, qui a dit avec verve et entraînement, et dans un style excellent, l'air d'OEdipe, et un air de la Sonnambula’), Clermont Ferrand, Brussels, Le Mans, Laval …

 

1843 saw him taking place as one of the most fashionable young singers in Paris. (‘Géraldy, Ponchard, Roger et Alexis Dupont tiennent toujours le premier rang parmi les chanteurs de concert; Tagliafico, Boulanger, Albertini, Mecatti, viennent après eux’). In the early months of the year I see him singing alongside Geraldy, Ponchard, Mme Sabatier, Iweins d’Hennin, Lia Duport, Ronconi and Dolores Nau, but also, in March, at the soirée of a Mme Lemoine alongside a young lady, ‘Mlle Cotti’, with whom he sang duets. ‘Une jeune cantatrice qui a une très jolie voix et que l'on applaudira souvent dans les salons’.

 

‘Mlle Cotti’ stays in this story till its end, for she became Madame Tagliafico. Legally, for some reason, not until 1855, but she was referred to as such well before. In fact, she had already been thus surnamed in 1844 when the gossip press announced Tagliafico’s ‘marriage’ to an heiress named Lacoste. ‘Mlle Cotti’ was, according to her marriage registration, Aimée Isabelle Cottiau, daughter of one Joseph Cottiau and his wife Marie-Antoinette Corpe. The only reference I can find to her background is in a ‘satirical’ magazine which is, I fear, the equivalent of modern days’ phony posts on facebook. And which also rubbishes Tagliafico. So I shall ignore it.

 

At the height of the season, in April, ‘la basse cantante de tous les concerts’ was singing sometimes twice daily. On April 2nd he appeared at Jacques Offenbach’s concert where he and the tenor Roger introduced a new bouffe scena ‘Le moine bourru’ composed by the concert-giver to a text by Edmond Plouvier. It was a great success, and can be considered Offenbach’s first venture into the bouffe genre. Less success greeted an excerpt from Castil-Blaize’s Pigeon volé.

On 7 April, ‘le baryton en vogue’ gave his own concert, with Mme Rossi-Caccia, Roger, Offenbach and Mlle Cotti, the next day his Oedipe à Colonne aria at Herman’s concert, then, in a first venture into a theatre, at the Opéra-Comique at Madame Rossi-Caccia’s Benefit. He sang ‘Vi ravviso’ and the William Tell duet with Roger and, the press commented, seemed surprised to be singing in a large auditorium.

 

Alongside the arias, the new songs kept coming out: Vogel’s ‘Satan’, Morel’s ‘Le Chrétien mourant’, Joseph Vimeux’s ‘Fleur de l’âme’ and ‘Le Cavalier Hadjoute’… before he left for the provinces with the tenor Révial … Angers, Tours, Nantes, Lille …

 

Towards the end of the year, he and Aimée were engaged for Elwart’s Concerts Vivienne, where they had a particular success (Leprévost’s Les Croises au St-Sepulcre). ‘His voice has developed into a double aspect of bouffe and sentimentale in an amazing way’. The concerts proliferated into the new year, but this time the gossips had their news right: the ‘roi des Concerts Vivienne’ was engaged for the Italian opera.

 

Tagliafico made his debut on 1 October 1844, in Linda di Chamonix, in the role of Marquis de Boisfleury in which Agostino Rovere had ‘saved the show’ in its Vienna premiere. It was a bass-baritone buffo part, and not one which appealed to many of his admirers. ‘A serious concert singer playing the farcical character of the Marquis’ Boisfleury...’ ‘Tagliafico a chanté mollement et s'est égaré plusieurs fois au milieu de fioritures maladroites et d'intonations douteuses. Nous l'attendons à son début dans un autre rôle’. ‘débutant Tagliafico dans un rôle bouffe qu demande une grande vivacité de débit et d’action; soyez certain qu’il eût choisi toute autre pièce s’il en avait eu la licence. Tagliafico a chanté très convenablement sa partie; on ne doit pas le juger encore comme acteur’. ‘His voice agreeable in a salon or a concert room is not sufficiently powerful in a theatre to admit of his attempting leading characters with success but as a second singer he is a useful acquisition’.

He appeared as Gubetta in La Rinnegata (Lucrezia Borgia) and the Commendatore inDon Giovanni, and scored a decided success playing Rodolfo to the La Sonnambula of Persiani and the Elvino of Mario. ‘Questo giovino artista … possiede una magnifica voce di basso ha fatto dei grandi progressi’.

 

In June, he and Aimée played an Italian Opera season at Brussels and Antwerp (Belcore, Ashton, Rodolfo &c), and in October returned for a new season. There were a few grumbles that he wasn’t Lablache, wasn’t Ronconi, but young Tagliafico was engaged as second bass, not first and the theatre had Morelli, Dérivis et al on their books. And it was second parts that he was allotted in I Puritani (Walton), Il Proscritto (Ernani), Oroe in Semiramide and as Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. His Basilio was a genuine hit, and he was cheered (‘s’en est acquitté à merveille’) alongside the stars of the evening. 

He had his chance to be not-Lablache when the bass fell ill during the run of Scaramuccia, and Tagliafico was switched from his little part to take over, he played more Sonnambula with Persiani, Oroveso in Norma with Grisi, and was Rolando to her Gemma di Vergy, Tobianchi in Le Fidanzata Corsa, and then got his best chance to date when he succeeded Dérivis in the role of Zaccaria in Nabucco. His performance was hailed as ‘un pas important dans sa carrière d’artiste’, he was preferred to his senior, and praised for singing it in the original key. ‘Tagliafico ha ottenuto un grande e legittimo successo nella parte di Zaccaria’. But there was more to come. He gave his Belcore alongside Persiani and Gardoni, and it was cheered as  ‘his best character yet’. He sang BidetheBent in Lucia di Lammermoor (‘Tagliafico n'a qu'un seul air, et il l'a chanté de maniére de mériter les suffrages de tous les connaisseurs éclairés’), switched to Masetto in Don Giovanni, played Count Robinson in Il Matrimonio segreto and a thankless role in I due Foscari, and the operatic press nodded ‘Il nostro secondo basso Tagliafico, divenuto primo nel Matrimonio e nel Nabucodonosor, ha secondato benissimo il suo capo Lablache’.

 

In April 1847, Tagliafico played his first season in London, at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden. To start with, he faced, all over again, the same situation: he wasn’t Lablache. He wasn’t Ronconi or Tamburini. When he gave his Oroe he was dubbed ‘a sorry substitute for Lablache’, but when he deputised for Ronconi as Riccardo in I Puritani he was judged a ‘grande successo’ ‘sempre applaudito in unione a suoi tre celebri compagni la Grisi, Salvi, e Tamburini’. He appeared as Masetto, Gubetta and Rochefort in Anna Bolena, and visited the provinces in a concert party with Alboni and Corbari. Liverpool voted ‘a young and apparently not a very powerful man but he possesses a fine full voice of the quality of a true bass and is an accomplished and pleasing singer’. Manchester called him a baritone.

 

Back in Paris, he took up his old roles, and when La Cenerentola was produced he found himself cast alongside both Lablache (Don Magnifico) and Ronconi (Dandini) in the role of Alidor. The role was enlivened by an extra number: ‘Tagliafico (Alidor) a été mieux inspiré en choisissant un air de Pellegrini qu'il rend d'ailleurs avec un remarquable talent et qui lui a valu une double salve de bravos’. Nabucco was repeated, too, with Tagliafico billed alongside Ronconi and Mme Castellan.

As always, he played a parallel series of concerts and had notable success with Vimeux’s ‘Le Montagnard’ and, especially, Arnaud’s ‘Le Royal Tambour’.

 

The Covent Garden season of 1848 saw him, again, as Masetto and later the Commendatore, as Oroveso, Oroe, Basilio, Gubetta, plus a Bard in La Donna del lago, Fabrizio in La gazza ladra, Nevers in Les Hugenots and Gessler in William Tell but, when the company, headed by Grisi and Mario, headed for Dublin he found himself as first bass, with a basket of roles including the title-role in Don Pasquale. It was a position he would soon be used to. From England, he headed to St Petersburg, engaged as first bass for the fashionable winter season. 

 

Over the following seasons, the Covent Garden and St Petersburg/Moscow seasons would be regular engagements. In London, he was still not a star, and was not paid like one, but when he appeared as Bartolo to Ronconi’s Figaro and Tamburini’s Almaviva the press expressed themselves in a less aggressive manner than they had a couple of years: ‘[he] did all a singer could be expected to do after Lablache’, as Oroe he ‘surpassed himself … this excellent basso is an invaluable acquisition; he is so generally available’, as San Bris in Les Huguenots ‘though lacking the experience of Tamburini he has passion a good method, a fresh voice and is never oblivious  of the action of the scene’ and now, in Linda di Chamonix ‘exceedingly amusing’. He  played Il Matrimonio segreto again, the Commendatore, Oberthal in Le Prophète and when the Rossini Stabat Mater was given, and Tamburini gave the ‘Pro peccatis’, Tagliafico sang the bass concerted solos. The Italian artists performed at the Liverpool Festival , and Mario, Grisi and Alboni played La Sonnambula, La fille du régiment, Don Pasquale, Lucia di Lammermoor and Cenerentola at Manchester, Dublin and Birmingham. Tagliafico played the bass roles and culled ‘we have rarely seen a more talented Dandini’.

 

Aimée had been there, all along, singing with her husband in concert (‘Madame Tagliafico, who is a most charming and interesting person, sang in the most attractive manner a pretty trifle by Clapisson, ‘ Le secret, le moulin.’), but the time was coming when she, too, would be included in the casts, as an ever-useful comprimaria. I see her listed, in the 1850-1 cast for Alina regina di Goloconda in Russia.

 

1851 saw Tagliafico appearing as Pizzaro to the Rocco of Formes in Fidelio, Baldassare in La Favorita, ll Priore in Roberto il diavolo,  and Elmiro in Otello, in 1852 Ruggeiro in La Juive and Pietro in Jullien’s disastrous Pietro il grande, and 1853 Fieramosca in the one performance of Benvenuto Cellini and Sparafucile in Rigoletto. He also sang in the Bradford, Birmingham, and Three Choirs Festivals, but only in the concerts, leaving Elijah to Formes and Weiss.

 

In 1854, Lablache played at Covent Garden, but Tagliafico was well on display as Belcore (‘now the best representative of Belcore extant’), as Basilio to Lablache’s Bartolo (‘by many degrees the best we have ever seen’ ‘most masterly in expression … original humour’), Sparafucile, Pizzaro, Elmiro, Aliprando in Matilda di Shabran, the Commendatore, Oberthal, Gubetta, Raimbaldo in Le Comte Ory and Pietro in Masanielloduetting the hit of the night with Tamberlik. ‘It is not so very long since this gentleman had much need of his good voice to excuse an awkward presence on the stage. He is now necessary to the filling of a secondary part in almost every opera and acts and sings so well as to materially strengthen any cast in which he is included.’

When the company went to the provinces with Sofie Cruvelli, he got promoted to primo, and played Iago, Don Silva (Ernani) and Figaro, before the couple departed for Russia.

 

1855 saw L’Etoile du nord (Yermoloff) and the first British production of Il Trovatore, in which Tagliafico was Ferrando (‘parfaitement chanté et joué,’), while the tour had him as Leporello and Giorgio Walton and the tail end of the year a visit to Salzburg and Russia (Macbeth &c).

 

The destruction by fire of Covent Garden Theatre, saw the 1856 London season played at the Lyceum. If the loss of the theatre’s library and wardrobe limited the repertoire given, the press were now thoroughly on his side: ‘[He] shows every year more clearly that he has in him the true spirit of an artist’. And Aimée was now well installed as Gianetta in L’Elisir d’amore, Inez in Trovatore, Inez in  La Favorita and other such roles. 1856 was, too, the year of the coronation of the Czar, and the Tagliafici made the journey for the occasion and for the season.

 

In the 1857 Lyceum season, the pair played Duphol and Flora in La Traviata, Aimée was Lisa to Victoire Balfe’s Sonnambula, and Dieudonné got to show his comic side in Fra Diavolo: ‘Signor Tagliafico’s creation for himself of the part of a supple, graceless scamp, out of the ragged bandit Beppo was noticeable as an achievement worthy of the rank he has of late years been winning as an artist’, ‘an artist of great versatility and merit’. But this year they did not return to Russia. They went the other way, and headed for America.

 

They played a three-months season in Havana, with Frezzolini as star, and some dates in America, but Tagliafico didn’t win many Havanese hearts in retrospect when he wrote back to Europe about the local opera scene: ‘everyone smoking, hopeless orchestra and chorus, end of career artists… only Bosio is any good and the press don’t care for her and say she’s cold’. Our bass-baritone was accustomed to Covent Garden, the Italiens and the rich royal theatres of Russia. 

They were soon on their way home, ready for the 1858 season at the rebuilt Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. On opening night, Les Huguenots was given, with Tagliafico as Nevers and Madame as the Dama d’onore. The only new roles the season brought was that of Daniele to the Zampa of best-friend Tamberlik, and the foolish Sir Tristan in Martha. 1859 was another year of little novelty, although the spouses got to play stage spouses as Fabrizio and Lucia in La Gazza ladra and he appeared as the Hunter in  Dinorah. Winter, he took part in a concert party tour for Beale. 

 

By now, the Taglificii were firmly ‘of Covent Garden’, and surely enough soon they were re-engaged for three years. Little changed: in 1860 they were seen as Bertha and Basilio, Beppo, Pizzaro, the Commendatore, Fabrizio and Lucia, Ferrando, Nevers, Oroveso, Oberthal, Sparafucile, Gubetta (‘faultless’, 'Tagliafico has long been one of out favourites. He is a genuine artist full of humour, sings in a thoroughly manly style and conscientiously studies his composer'), but Madame T began to be seen a little more often, and in 1861 she took up the role of Edwige in William Tell, to go with the Sonnambula Lisa and her Barbiere Berta, in the following seasons she would add Thisbe in Cenerentola and, above all, the Marchioness in La Fille du régiement to her roles. The French press gasped: ‘The excellent little marchioness! dit le Times, la petite marquise par excellence, la nouvelle et non dernière étoile de la saison a fait preuve d'un talent peu commun de comédienne et de chanteuse’. Tagliafico teamed with Zelger as the conspirators in Un Ballo in maschera.

 

1861 also saw the couple return to the Paris Italiens for the season. He made his rentrée in La Sonnambula with Belart and Marie Battu. Some welcomed him back: ‘Tagliafico n'est pas pour nous une nouvelle connaissance. Il a dit avec goût et sûreté son air d'entrée, et il a joué avec une aisance qui n'est pas commune aux Italiens
…’. Others were less willing: ‘une ancienne basse qui a eu un certain succès à Londres, et qui vient à Paris pour remplacer Graziani. Tagliafico a du talent, mais il est loin de valoir Graziani et même Badiali qui chantait Sonnambula l'année dernière’. But the Parisian press were unanimous in welcoming his Don Basilio (‘a real Basilio’), Sparafucile and Samuele, while Aimée took the part of Marcella in Donizetti’s Il Furioso all’isola San-Domingo. 

 Tagliafico’s career, well-established, continued for another 14 years on the same lines. A commentator in 1863 wrote ‘Signor Tagliafico has been, as ever, invaluable in the varied repertory of quasi-subordinate parts that fall within his sphere—such, for example, as Rodolfo (La Sonnambula), Basilio (ll Barbiere), Gcssler (Guillaume Tell) Sparafucile (Riqoletto), Lord Tristan (Marta), Count Oberthal (the Prophète), Belcore (L’Elisir) not to mention his unequalled Commendatore … ' A decade later, another referred to him as ‘Tagliafico, the baritone, of Protean cleverness in all sorts of characters … Sig Tagliafico, who seems to be clever in all sorts of parts suited to a baritone, or even ponderous basso’.

He added a few more roles to his mostly short-time schedule: Horatio in Hamlet, Babekan in Oberon, Wagner in Faust and, when a temporary star came along, he dropped back from years of playing Pizzaro to appearing as Il Ministro in Fidelio. But when Graziani fell ill, he went on to play Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro in his place. In Paris, he played Laertes to the Mignon of Christine Nilsson. 

Tagliafico recommends a throat sweet to Ciampi!

 In 1873, he was appointed régisseur at the Paris Italiens and, in his thirtieth year at Covent Garden, he succeeded to the post of stage director. His productions (Le Roi de Lahore) were exceedingly well noticed. He also directed the productions at the Opéra at Monte-Carlo. However, in 1881 he was affected with a heart complaint, which put an end to his active career.

 

He spent the last years of his life in Nice, teaching music. I spot Madame Tagliafico there too, at a society do in 1899, and when Dieudonné died it was said that he had done so ‘surrounded by his family’. The only family I am aware of is a daughter, Julie [Giulia] Marie, Madame Jean-François Oller, until her divorce in 1878. She seems to have remarried in 1900. The letters of Taine refer explicitly to ‘Tagliafico, his wife and his daughter’ in London during the war.

 

Dieudonné Tagliafico had a splendid career as a vocalist and a man of the theatre. But, alongside it he ran a second career, as a writer and composer. From his earliest days, he penned lyrics and translations of lyrics to songs and scenas of the type that he delivered in the Parisian concert. Later in life he turned out words and music for a large number of highly popular songs of which the ‘pensée du paysan’ ‘Pauvres fous’, ‘La chanson de Marinette’ and ‘Je n’ose’ were the most enduring. Others included ‘Quand l’oiseau chante’, ‘La Saint-Janvier’, ‘Bonnes Gens’, ‘Par-ci, par-là’, ‘Les deux roses’, ‘Vous aimerez’, ‘La Chanson des mariniers’,‘Le secret Colombine’, ‘L’angelus de la mer’, ‘La fin du monde’, ‘Rien à vous dire’, ‘Cherchez’,  ‘Dites-moi vos chagrins’, J'aime à rêver’, ‘Toute chose a du bon’, ‘Et pourquoi pas’, ‘Si vous saviez’, ‘Gazouillis d'Oiseaux’, ‘C’est le Printemps’, ‘Voulez-vous [bien] ne plus dormir’, ‘Vous êtes si Jolie’  and ‘Sur l’eau’.

‘Pauvre fous’ was recorded by Delmas and Fred Gouin on Pathé, and it remained in the baritone repertoire, professional and amateur, for more than half a century. Tagliafico apparently asked that it be sung at his funeral. Maybe it was. ‘La Chanson de Marinette’ was also recorded by Fred Gouin and by tenor Aimé Doniat and has reached the heights of youtube where one can also find his ‘Quand l’oiseau chante’.

 

He was a prolific writer as well, and if I have quoted few reviews re the Tagliaficii written by the London correspondent of Le Menestral, that is because that correspondent was he. I also see a report of Patti’s wedding where ‘la ravissante Giulia Tagliafico’ was present ‘avec son père’. Father is described as a writer for the Times. So maybe he was that too.