# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Lablache, Luigi

From volume 2 of the work.
​LABLACHE, Luigi, was born at Naples, Dec. 5, 1794. His mother was Irish, and his father, Nicolas Lablache, a merchant of Marseilles, had quitted that place in 1791 in consequence of the Revolution. But another Revolution, in 1799, overwhelmed him with ruin in his new country, and he died of chagrin. His family was, however, protected by Joseph Buonaparte, and the young Luigi was placed in the Conservatorio della Pietà de' Turchini, afterwards called San Sebastiano. He was now twelve years old. Gentilli taught him the elements of music, and Valesi instructed him in singing; while, at the same time, he studied the violin and violoncello under other masters. His progress was not at first remarkable, for he was wanting in application and regularity; but his aptitude was soon discovered by a singular incident. One day a contrebassist was wanted for the orchestra of S. Onofrio. Marcello-Perrino, who taught young Lablache the cello, said to him, 'You play the cello very well: you can easily learn the double bass!' The boy had a dislike for that instrument, in spite of which he got the gamut of the double bass written out for him on a Tuesday, and on the following Friday executed his part with perfect accuracy. There is no doubt, in fact, that, had he not been so splendidly endowed as a singer, he might have been equally brilliant as a virtuoso on any other instrument that he chose (Escudier). At this period his boy's voice was a beautiful contralto, the last thing that he did with which was to sing, as it was just breaking, the solos in the Requiem of Mozart on the death of Haydn in 1809. He was then 15, and his efforts to sing to the end of the work left him at last without power to produce a sound. Before many months were passed, however, he became possessed of a magnificent bass, which gradually increased in volume until, at the age of 20, it was the finest of the kind which can be remembered, with a compass of two octaves, from E♭ below to E♭ above the bass stave.
Continually dominated by the desire to appeal ​on the stage, the young Lablache made his escape from the Conservatorio no less than five times, and was as often brought back in disgrace. He engaged himself to sing at Salerno at 15 ducats a month (40 sous a day), and received a month's salary in advance; but, remaining two days longer at Naples, he spent the money. As he could not, however, appear decently without luggage, he filled a portmanteau with sand, and set out. Two days later he was found at Salerno by the vice-president of the Conservatorio, while the Impresario seized the effects of the young truant in order to recoup himself the salary he had advanced, but found, to his horror, nothing in the portmanteau … but what Lablache had put there! (Escudier). To these escapades was due, however, the institution of a little theatre within the Conservatorio; and Lablache was satisfied for a time. A royal edict, meanwhile, forbade the Impresario of any theatre, under severe penalties, to engage a student of the Conservatorio without special permission.
Having at length completed his musical education, Lablache was engaged at the San Carlino Theatre at Naples, as buffo Napolitano, in 1812, though then only 18. He made his début in 'La Molinara' of Fioravanti. A few months later, he married Teresa Pinotti, the daughter of an actor engaged at the theatre and one of the best in Italy. This happy union exercised a powerful and beneficial influence over the life of Lablache. Quickly seeing his genius and capacity for development far beyond the narrow sphere in which she found him, his young wife persuaded Lablache, not without difficulty, to quit the San Carlino, a theatre in which two performances a day were given, ruining completely within a year every voice but that of her robust husband; to re-commence serious study of singing, and to give up the patois in which he had hitherto sung and spoken. Accordingly, a year later, after a short engagement at Messina, he went as primo basso cantante to the Opera at Palermo. His first appearance was in the 'Ser Marc-Antonio' of Pavesi, and his success was so great as to decide him to stay at Palermo for nearly five years. But it was impossible that he should remain there unknown; and the administration of La Scala at Milan engaged him in 1817, where he made his début as Dandini in 'Cenerentola,' with great success, due to his splendid acting and singing, and in spite of the provincial accent which still marred his pronunciation. Over the latter defect he soon triumphed, as he had over his want of application a few years before. In fact, perhaps the most remarkable things about Lablache were the extent to which he succeeded in cultivating himself, and the stores of general knowledge which he accumulated by his own unaided efforts. It is said that at Naples he had enjoyed the great advantage of the society and counsels of Madame Mericoffre, a banker's wife, known in Italy before her marriage as La Coltellini, but then quite unknown in England, though described as one of the finest artists belonging to the golden age of Italian singing. To such influence as this, and to that of his intelligent wife, Lablache perhaps owed some of the impulse which prompted him to continue to study when most singers cease to learn and content themselves with reaping the harvest; but much must have been due to his own desire for improvement.
The opera 'Elisa e Claudio' was now (1821) written for him by Mercadante; his position was made, and his reputation spread throughout Europe. From Milan he went to Turin; returned to Milan in 1822, then appeared at Venice, and in 1824 at Vienna, and always with the same success. At the last city he received from the enthusiastic inhabitants a gold medal bearing a most flattering inscription. After twelve years absence he returned to Naples, with the title of singer in the chapel of Ferdinand I., and with an engagement at the San Carlo. Here he created a great sensation as Assur in 'Semiramide.' Two years later we find him at Parma, singing in Bellini's 'Zaira.' Although Ebers had endeavoured, as early as 1822, to secure him for London, on the strength of his reputation as 'perhaps even excelling Zucchini,' Lablache did not tread the English boards till the season of 1830, when he made his début on the 30th March in the 'Matrimonio segreto.' Here, as elsewhere, his success was assured from the moment when he sang his first note, almost from the first step he took upon the stage. It is indeed doubtful whether he was greater as a singer or as an actor. His head was noble, his figure very tall, and so atoning for his bulk, which became immense in later years: yet he never looked too tall on the stage. One of the boots of Lablache would have made a small portmanteau; 'one could have clad a child in one of his gloves' (Chorley). His strength was enormous. As Leporello, he sometimes carried off under his arm, apparently without effort, the troublesome Masetto, represented by Giubilei, a man of the full height and weight of ordinary men! Again, in an interval of tedious rehearsing, he was once seen on the stage to pick up with one hand a double bass that was standing in the orchestra, examine it at arm's length, and gently replace it where he had found it! The force of his voice exceeded, when he chose, the tone of the instruments that accompanied it and the noise and clamour of the stage; nothing drowned his portentous notes, which rang through the house like the booming of a great bell. On one occasion, indeed, his wife is said to have been woke up by a sound, in the middle of the night, which she took for the tocsin announcing a fire, but which turned out to be nothing more than Lablache producing in his sleep these bell-like sounds. It was during the great popularity of 'I Puritani,' when Grisi, accompanied by Lablache, was in the habit of singing the polacca thrice a week at the Opera, and frequently also at concerts. After performing his staccato part in the duet thrice within nine hours, Lablache was haunted by it even in his sleep. This power was wisely used by the great artist on the right occasions, and only then—as ​the deaf and angry Geronimo, or as Oroveso in 'Norma'; but at other times his voice could 'roar as sweetly as any sucking dove,' and he could use its accents for comic, humorous, tender, or sorrowful effects, with equal ease and mastery.
Like Garrick, and other great artists, Lablache shone as much in comic as in tragic parts. Nothing could exceed his Leporello; of that character he was doubtless the greatest known exponent. But he had, at an earlier date, played Don Giovanni. As Geronimo, the Podestà in 'La Gazza Ladra,' again, in 'La Prova d'un' Opera Seria,' as Dandini and the Barone di Montefiascone, he was equally unapproachable; while his Henry VIII. in 'Anna Bolena,' his Doge in 'Marino Faliero,' and Oroveso in 'Norma,' were splendid examples of dignity and dramatic force. He appeared for the first time in Paris, Nov. 4, 1830, as Geronimo in the 'Matrimonio Segreto,' and was there also recognised immediately as the first basso cantante of the day. He continued to sing in Paris and London for several years; and, it may be mentioned that his terms were in 1828, for four months, 40,000 frs. (£1,600), with lodging and one benefit-night clear of all expenses, the opera and his part in it to be chosen by himself on that occasion, as also at his début. The modest sum named above, in no degree corresponding with the value of Lablache in an operatic company, was a few years later (1839) the price paid by Laporte to Robert, to whom Lablache was then engaged at Paris, for the mere cession of his services to the London Opera.
In 1833 Lablache sang again at Naples, renewing his triumphs in the 'Elisire d'amore ' and 'Don Pasquale.' He returned to Paris in 1834, after which he continued to appear annually there and in London, singing in our provincial festivals as well as at the Opera, for many years. In 1852 he sang at St. Petersburg with no less éclat than elsewhere. In London, near the close of his career, at a time when most artists are liable to become dull and mechanical, he broke out into the personification of two beings as different from each other and from the types hitherto represented by him as Shakspere's Caliban and Scribe's Calmuck Gritzonko, in 'L'Étoile du Nord,' with a vivacity, a profound stage-knowledge, and a versatility, which were as rare as they were strongly marked (Chorley). But he had qualities as sterling as others which were fascinating. Whether in comic opera, in the chromatic music of Spohr, or in that of Palestrina, he seemed equally at home. Let it be never forgotten that he sang (April 3, 1827) the bass solo part in Mozart's Requiem after the death of Beethoven, as he had, when a child, sung the contralto part at the funeral of Haydn; and let the former fact be a sufficient answer to those who say he had no notes lower than A or G. Be it recorded, at the same time, that he paid Barbaja 200 guldens for the operatic singers engaged on that occasion. He was also one of the 32 torch-bearers who surrounded the coffin of Beethoven at its interment. To him, again, Schubert dedicated his three Italian songs (op. 83), written to Metastasio's words, and composed in 1827, showing thus his appreciation of the powers of the great Italian.
In 1856, however, his health began to fail, and he was obliged in the following spring to drink the waters of Kissingen, where he was met and treated with honour by Alexander II. of Russia. Lablache received the medal and order given by the Emperor with the prophetic words, 'These will do to ornament my coffin.' After this he returned for a few days in August to his house at Maisons-Laffitte, near Paris; but left it on the 18th, to try the effect of his native climate at his villa at Posilipo. But the bright, brisk air was too keen for him, and he had to take refuge in Naples. The relief, however, served only to prolong his life a short while, and he died Jan. 23, 1858. His remains were brought to Paris, and buried at Maisons-Lafitte.
Lablache had two sisters, the elder of whom became Marchesa de Braida, and the younger Abbess of Sessa. He had many children, among whom Frederick, the eldest son, followed his father's steps, but not with the same success. The youngest is an officer in the French army. Of his daughters, one married the great pianist, Thalberg. A Méthode de chant, written by Lablache, was published chez Mme. V$^{ve}$ Canaux, at Paris; but it rather disappointed expectation.
[ J. M. ]
He was the Queen's singing master, and the esteem and even affection which that intercourse engendered are expressed more than once in warm terms in her Majesty's published Diaries and Letters.