not they who give success. When I
sing for you, I will sing very differently." Mme. Malibran, buoyed up
on the passionate enthusiasm of the French public, essayed the most
wonderful and daring flights in her song. She appeared as _Desdemona,
Rosina_, and as _Romeo_ in Zingarelli's opera--characters, of the most
opposing kind and two of them, indeed, among Pasta's masterpieces. It
was said that, "if Malibran must yield the palm to Pasta in point of
acting, yet she possessed a decided superiority in respect of song";
and, even in acting, Malibran's grace, originality, vivacity, piquancy,
spontaneity, feeling, and tenderness, won the heart of all spectators.
Such was her versatility, that the _Semi-ramide_ of one evening was the
_Cinderella_ of the next, the _Zerlina_ of another, and the _Desdemona_
of its successor; and in each the individuality of conception was
admirably preserved. On being asked by a friend which was her favorite
role, she answered, "The character I happen to be acting, whichever it
may be."

In spite, however, of the general testimony to her great dramatic
ability, so clever and capable a judge as Henry Chorley rated her
musical genius as far higher than that of dramatic conception. He
says: "Though creative as an executant, Malibran was not creative as
a dramatic artist. Though the fertility and audacity of her musical
invention had no limits, though she had the power and science of a
composer, she did not establish one new opera or character on the stage,
hardly even one first-class song in a concert-room." This criticism,
when closely examined, may perhaps indicate a high order of praise. Mme.
Malibran, as an artist, was so unique and original in her methods, so
incomparable in the invention and skill which required no master to
prompt or regulate her cadences, so complex in the ingenuity which
blended the resources of singing and acting, that other singers simply
despaired of imitating her effects, and what she did perished with her,
except as a brilliant tradition. In other words, her utter superiority
to the conventional made her artistic work phenomenal, and of a style
not to be perpetuated on the stage. The weight of testimony appears to
be that Mme. Malibran was, beyond all of her competitors, a singer of
most versatile and brilliant genius, in whom dramatic instincts reigned
with as dominant force as ability of musical expression. The fact,
however, that Mme. Malibran, with a voice weak and