page_title: Marietta Alboni
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Marietta Alboni / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Pauline Viardot as Valentine (left) and Marietta Alboni as Urbain in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, Act 1 scene ix (Covent Garden, 1848), lithograph by John Brandard
context_page_description: Marietta Alboni was a renowned Italian contralto opera singer. She is considered as 'one of the greatest contraltos in operatic history'.
context_section_description: Alboni was born at Città di Castello, in Umbria. She became a pupil of Antonio Bagioli of Cesena, Emilia–Romagna, and later of the composer Gioachino Rossini, when he was 'perpetual honorary adviser' in (and then the principal of) the Liceo Musicale, now Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini, in Bologna. Rossini tested the humble thirteen-year-old girl himself, had her admitted to the school with special treatment, and even procured her an early engagement to tour his Stabat Mater around Northern Italy, so that she could pay for her studies. After she achieved her diploma and made a modest debut in Bologna, in 1842, as "Climene" in Pacini's Saffo, she obtained a triennial engagement thanks to Rossini's influence on the impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, Intendant at both Milan's Teatro alla Scala and Vienna's Imperial Kärntnertortheater. The favourable contract was signed by Rossini himself, "on behalf of Eustachio Alboni", father of Marietta, who was still a minor. The singer remained, throughout her life, deeply grateful to her ancient "maestro", nearly a second father to her.
  Her debut at Teatro alla Scala took place in December 1842 as "Neocle" in the Italian version of Le siège de Corinthe, which was followed by roles in operas by Marliani, Donizetti (as "Maffio Orsini" and "Leonora" in the Scala premiere of an Italian version of La favorite), Salvi and Pacini. In the season 1844–1845 she was engaged in the Saint Petersburg Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre; later, in 1846–47, she toured the principal cities of Central Europe, finally reaching London and Paris, where she settled permanently. In London, "she appeared in leading roles by Rossini and Donizetti (where she outshone Giulia Grisi and Jenny Lind) and also sang Cherubino (performing with Henriette Sontag)". For the 1848 London run of Les Huguenots, Meyerbeer transposed the role of the page "Urbain" 'from soprano to contralto and composed the aria "Non! – non, non, non, non, non! Vous n'avez jamais, je gage"  in Act 2' for her. On 28 August 1848, she sang at a concert in Manchester's Concert Hall, sharing the stage with Lorenzo Salvi and Frédéric Chopin. She toured the United States in 1852–53, appearing there with Camilla Urso.
  In 1853 she wed a nobleman, Count Carlo Pepoli, of the Papal States, but she kept her maiden name for the stage. In 1863 she had to retire the first time on account of her husband's serious mental illness. He died in 1867. A year later, in 1868, Alboni would take part in the funeral of her beloved master and friend, Rossini, in the Église de la Sainte-Trinité. There she sang, alongside Adelina Patti, the leading soprano of the time, a stanza of Dies irae, "Liber scriptum", adjusted to the music of the duet "Quis est Homo" from Rossini's own Stabat Mater. Out of deference to her master, she also accepted to resume her singing career mainly in order to tour the orchestral version of the Petite messe solennelle around Europe. Rossini had once expressed his hope that she would take upon herself to perform it when he was dead. He had said that he had composed it, and especially the new section "O salutaris", just having her voice in mind.
  In 1872 she permanently retired from the stage with four performances of "Fidalma" in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto, at the Paris Théâtre des Italiens but, in fact, she never gave up singing in private and in benefit concerts. When in 1887 the French and Italian Governments agreed upon moving the mortal remains of Rossini into the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Alboni, then a sixty-one-year-old lady living in seclusion, wrote to the Italian Foreign Minister, Di Robilant, proposing that the Petite Messe Solennelle, "the last musical composition by Rossini", be performed in Santa Croce the day of the funeral, and "demanding the honour, as an Italian and a pupil of the immortal Maestro," of singing it herself in her "dear and beloved homeland". Her wish, however, never came true and she was just given the chance of being present at the exhumation ceremony in Paris. The Paris correspondent of the Rome n
caption: Viardot and Alboni in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, Covent Garden 1848
exif: {}