In the 19th century, anyone who was anyone came knocking at her door. In his new book, Roger Neill considers Marchesi’s legacy.
When Mrs Helen Armstrong auditioned for Mathilde Marchesi in Paris in 1886, Marchesi immediately called out to her husband Salvatore, “J’ai trouvé une étoile” – “I’ve found a star”. Mrs Armstrong was to become the world’s most celebrated diva, Dame Nellie Melba.
In fact Marchesi had already been turning out leading prima donnas from around the world for three decades at that point and she was to continue to do so for a further 20 years – so many of them from North America and Australasia. Her 50-year-plus career was altogether an astonishing achievement, one completely unmatched by any other singing teacher before or since.
A signed photo of Mathilde Marchesi and Nellie Melba, circa 1897.
Although her own early teachers included composers Felix Mendelssohn and Otto Nicolai, the turning point in the German-born Marchesi’s life came when in 1845 she became a pupil of the younger Manuel García in Paris. The consequence of her years with him was that she was to devote her...
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