MONBELLI, Marie [née RABOU, Marie Désirée Françoise] (b Vincennes 19 May 1845; d Cannes 8 January 1913).
‘Madame Monbelli’ had a short, highly successful, and extremely odd musical life of just half a dozen years as a public vocalist. Effectively, her career came between two high society marriages, the stories of which would make up, with ease, into a novel or a moving picture.
Usually, such ‘aristocratic’ and Jewish careers and lives are documented minutely, especially when those concerned have been involved in scandal and court cases, but Marie Rabou has got the compilers of the world’s reference works into a total muddle.
Marie’s parents were Louis Marie René Rabou (b Orleans 9 August 1798), a well-known lawyer, and his wife, Victorine Pierrette Royer de Montbé (m 6 September 1834), and Marie was born … well, that’s what the pundits don’t agree on. One says she was born in Caen, Baker and Kutsch and Riemans and the thousands whom have copied them say she was born in Cadiz, for heaven’s sake, on 15 February 1843. But her first marriage certificate (Caen, 12 November 1860) retails, in good, accurate French mairie detail, that she was born at Versailles, 19 May 1845, and that she was fifteen years old when she married Adolph Gustave Crémieux (b Paris 20 October 1831; d Nyon 17 January 1872), double her age, and son of Isaac Jacob Moïse Adolphe Crémieux, sometime lawyer, politician and French Minister of Justice. By which time her own father was Procurer générale of the Court of Caen. So we are dealing with the rich and the powerful here.
Young Madame Crémieux produced a daughter, [Amélie Mathilde] Louise (b Le Havre, 4 March 1862; d Paris, 26 January 1925), and apparently a son, before something went wrong. What it was must be documented somewhere in the French judiciary records, because, in 1867, the young wife and mother succeeded in obtaining a legal separation from her husband. Plus 50,000 francs and the return of her dowry. But the Crémieux family dug in when she asked for a pension alimentaire as well, and took her twice to court, complaining that her father was rich and could support her.
Sides were taken vehemently in the press, but nobody seemingly said (or asked) just why Madame Marie Crémieux had taken the huge step of taking on the Minister of Justice and his family in court. And winning her freedom. ‘Separée corps et biens de son mari par jugement du tribunal du Havre’. Odd, if there were not something scandalous or unsavoury to hide. I wonder what Adolph[e] had been up to …
Marie Crémieux, however, had a second string to her bow. A singing pupil of Eugénie Garcia, she had discovered a beautiful soprano voice, and now determined to use it. The announcement appeared in the press: ‘Une jeune femme du monde, artiste depuis longtemps par le talent, et élève de Mme Eugénie Garcia, est engagée à l'Opéra-Comique, sous le nom de Mme Monbelli, et doit y débuter dans l'opéra qu'achève M. Auber’. The work in question was Le Premier Jour du Bonheur.
The Crémieux family flung frantic injunctions at Marie and at the theatre. Yes, the Code Napoléon allowed a separated woman to earn her living, but the Minister thought that he and the dreadful stage should be exempted from the Code. The courts upheld Marie (with costs against her husband), but the family didn’t give up pulling every string in sight, and, come February 1868, the Opéra Comique gave way, and it was Marie Cabel who created the role of Hélène in Auber’s decidedly successful opéra-comique.
If her husband’s family – after eighteen months of machinations -- had somehow been able to prevent her from going on the stage, they could not prevent her from singing in the salons of Paris, and, equipped with her outstanding voice, a decidedly pretty face and form, and two years’ worth of notoriety (‘la grande célebrité du jour’), Madame Monbelli (the name taken from her mother’s ‘Montbé’ and, also, from a star singer of the 1820s) was launched on fashionable Paris. And with what success, what rave reviews (‘la nouvelle Sontag’, ‘elle fait sensation à Paris’, ‘l’étoile nouvelle’)! I spot ‘la gracieuse et très remarquable élève de Mme Garcia’ first chez la Comtesse Anaïs Perrière-Pilté, singing that lady’s songs and the aria which would become her passe-partout, ‘Una voce poco fa’; at the Salle Herz for Mélanie Waldor (Roméo et Juliette, ‘Una voce’, Lucia di Lammermoor), at the Salle Pleyel, chez Mons Guzman, for the pianist Marmontel (Barbiere duet with Agnesi), de Beriot (L’Elisir duet with Géraldy, Philemon et Baucis duet, ‘Zingara’, ‘Una voce’, Boléro de Desssauer) …
In the season, she headed for Baden, where she gathered more laurels (Vaccai Roméo et Juliette, ‘Una voce’, Mignon duet with Troy) and even shared a platform with Viardot Garcia, with whom she duetted La Gazza ladra. Back in Paris, the superlatives continued, with only the odd critic complaining of her lack of warmth (‘elle chante comme on doit chanter en paradis’, ‘superbement belle, mais c’est une statue de neige’ .. ‘l’étoile brillante de tous nos concerts’, ‘elle aurait pu, si elle eût été libre, occuper une très belle place aux Italiens’), as reports of engagements for Moscow, St Petersburg and London flourished. ‘Exilée du theatre par autorité de justice et vengée par les succès de salon’, she tripped to Lille and Arras with Bonnehée, and sang La Sonnambula at Mme Garcia’s concert ‘just like her teacher at the age of 23’.
In May of 1869, Mme Monbelli arrived in London, well-boosted by the Parisian mega-critic Jules Janin, and she triumphed all over again. She made her first appearance at the Philharmonic Society, alongside Gardoni (17 May 1869) with her inevitable ‘Una voce’, and ‘created a sensation’. ‘Her voice is a genuine soprano of rich and mellow quality and her execution is as fluent as her phrasing is natural and expressive…’.
Society leaped for her – she and Gardoni were whisked to Lady Dashwood’s home 48 hours later with the Philemon et Baucis duet and ‘Una voce’ at the head of their repertoire, she appeared at the Crystal Palace (22 May) where ‘her bright voice rang through the great area of the concert room and roused the audience to the greatest enthusiasm of the day’ in ‘Una voce’ and the Rigoletto quartet, she joined Gardoni, Santley and Christine Nilsson in the same quartet at Mrs Cooper’s, adding her aria and her other favourite, Yradier’s ‘Juanita’, and ‘repeated her triumph of the previous concert’ at the Crystal Palace (‘Come per me sereno’, ‘Dove prende’ with Verger, ‘Dunque io son’ with Gassier). The engagements piled up for the soprano ‘who has suddenly become a great favourite in London’ – Madame Puzzi’s gala, the French plays Benefit, the Newspaper Press Fund, the New Philharmonic Society, a repeat appearance at the Philharmonic Society with Verger (‘Caro nome’ ‘in her exquisitely clear soprano’), more Crystal Palace (‘Qui la voce’, ‘Bel raggio’), Ganz’s, Benedict’s, Kowalski’s, Arditi’s, Tito Mattei’s, Ciabatta’s concerts, and a command performance at Buckingham Palace alongside Titiens, Patti, Trebelli, Santley et al (23 June) with her ‘Una voce’ and the Lucrezia Borgia trio.
At the end of the season, she headed again for Wiesbaden’s Casino and for Baden where she sang in Félicien David’s ode-symphonie Christoph Colomb and made her stage debut – safely on the right side of the border – in La Sonnambula. The operatic offers from France quickly followed, but legal snarls from husband and father-in-law were immediately forthcoming, and the operatic offers which Mme Monbelli accepted were those from Britain.
In fact, Crémieux fils was already in a nursing home in Switzerland, in prey to the disease that would soon kill him (he died, officially, ‘of pneumonia’), and which I suspect may have had a little something to do with the grounds for the separation, so it seems that the objections and interdictions came not from him, but from Monsieur le Ministre. But M le Ministre had no power outside France.
Marie Monbelli made her next stage appearance, under the management of Wood, at Glasgow, 7 March 1870 as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia to delighted reviews (‘we cannot remember a performance of the part equal to Mme Monbelli’s’) alongside Gardoni, and followed up as Cherubino and Papagena, then, on 19 April, repeated her Rosina at Drury Lane. The notices were a bit mixed. Not for her singing, but some grouched she has ‘no pretensions as an actress’. ‘… very successful appearance of Mme Monbelli, whose delightful concert room singing had already attracted great attention. That Mme Monbelli rivalled upon the stage her success in the concert room cannot fairly be said, but her acting was not without promise and her singing was as charming as ever’. ‘The charming concert singing of Madame Monbelli (daughter-in-law of M Crémieux, the Minister of Justice of Republican France at Tours) had led to the expectation of a triumph for her on the stage, but her acting was most disappointing’.
She repeated her Papagena to delighted notices, and her Cherubino (‘refined and artistic singing’ ‘musically perfect’) and ‘sang most beautifully’ and now ‘acted with saucy grace’ as Fatima to Trebelli’s Abu Hasan.
During the season, she kept up her concert singing at the Crystal Palace, the Philharmonic, at the fashionable concerts, including Madame Sainton Dolby’s Farewell, and various royal occasions, including another State Concert (6 July 1870).
The summaries of the operatic season were critical of her stage deportment (‘as coldly correct as Mme Lucca is impulsively incorrect’), but agreed that ‘she threw something like animation’ into her Papagena. Next season, they would be calling her ‘a brilliant success’ in the part, under Gye at Covent Garden.
Her roles in 1871 included Inez in L’Africaine and Prascovia in L’Étoile du nord. And it was agreed she was ‘fast improving’ as an actress and that her Inez was ‘an attractive and successful effort’, although one tenacious critic insisted ‘Madame Monbelli made no progress as a stage singer; she was superseded in the Étoile du Nord by Fräulein Liebhart who, with a far inferior voice and less-refined method, made much more of the part of Prascovia than the French artiste.’
At the end of the London season of 1871, Marie was engaged by the impresario Ullman as prima donna for an extensive concert tour in Europe, and specifically in Germany. The ‘patriotic’ Figaro was outraged. How dare she, a Frenchwoman, sing to the Prussians, and above all given the name of her father-in-law! The less one-eyed pointed out that it was as much her name as his, she was billed as Monbelli, and the Figaro was still selling in Germany.
Marie toured on, in the company of Sivori, Anna Mehlig et al, through Berlin, Schwerin, Hamburg (‘her voice and style captivated all listeners’) and was in Hungary when, with the help of the grim reaper, she was permanently freed of Monsieur Crémieux. Onwards then, to the Netherlands, amid rumours that she was about to debut at Cologne’s Thalia Theater as Rosina.
1872 saw her add Countess Almaviva to her Covent Garden list, and none were found to say nay (‘nothing could have been purer’, ‘charming and sympathetic’, ‘in excellent voice and more charming than ever’), and undertake further concert tours for Ullman, and 1873 found her playing Diana to the Cattarina of Patti in Les Diamants de la Couronne. Her secondary role, famed, nevertheless, for its duet bolero ‘Dans les défilées de la montagne’, was enlargened by the interpolation of an aria from La Neige.
Later in the season, she appeared in her third role in Le Nozze di Figaro, when she was cast as Susanna to the Countess of Albani and the Cherubino of Smeroschi. She ‘acted with a refinement and propriety for which we were not altogether prepared’. It was to be her last London role. There were rumours, this time, that she was to accompany von Bulow to America, but it was to Europe she returned, to sing Amina and Marguerite at Strasbourg and at Halle … and, a few weeks after the Halle engagement, she retired from the stage. And remarried. And her new husband loved her singing as much as the first (and his father) had disliked it.
Her new husband (Passy May 1874) was the General Henri Jules Bataille (b Bourg L’Oisans, 6 September 1816; d Paris 10 January 1882), at the time, General of the 5th corps at Orleans, and who had been a prisoner-of-war while Crémieux languished in his Swiss sanatorium. So ‘Madame Monbelli’ became ‘Mme la Générale Bataille’ and left the stage. She did not, however, cease to sing. She was to be heard in the salons and charity concerts of French society in Paris, in Orleans, where the couple made a home, and as late as 1888, widowed once more, I see her appearing in the charity production of an opérette, Barberine, by Mons St-Quentin, at the Legation de France in Brussels.
The widowed Marie later founded a singing class, and finally removed to the South of France, where she died in 1913.
Marie’s daughter, Louise, was to go on to make as much of a stir, and even more of a mark in Paris society, than her mother. Actress, singer, playwright (La Repudiée, about divorce), feminist, activist, the dedicatee of Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole, she married lawyer and politician [Charles Marie] Jules Cruppi, a cabinet minster under Clemenceau.
Oh, by the way, Mons Crémieux sr – the baddie of this story -- got a state funeral when he died in 1880. I hope the theatrical profession which he so despised boycotted it.
May his bones lie uneasily ... and as for his very peculiar son ...
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