Désirée Artôt
Encyclopedia
Désirée Artôt was a Belgian soprano
(initially a mezzo-soprano
), who was famed in German and Italian opera and sang mainly in Germany. In 1868 she was engaged, briefly, to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
, who claimed she was the only woman he ever loved, and who may have coded her name into works such as his First Piano Concerto
and the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture
. After her 1869 marriage to the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos
, she was known as Désirée Artôt de Padilla or Désirée Artôt-Padilla.
in Brussels
and professor at the Brussels Conservatory. Her uncle was the violinist Alexandre Artôt (1815–1845). He had been born Alexandre Joseph (or Joseph-Alexandre) Montagney, but adopted the surname Artôt professionally, and the rest of his family followed suit. Another uncle was the Belgian portrait painter Charles Baugniet
(1814–1886).
in London and Paris. She appeared in concerts in Belgium, Holland and on 19 June 1857 at a State Concert in England. Giacomo Meyerbeer
engaged her for the Paris Opéra, where she made her debut on 5 February 1858 as Fidès in his Le prophète
, to great success. She also sang the title role in a condensed version of Gounod
’s Sapho
. Hector Berlioz
and others praised her singing in the Journal des Débats on 17 February. However, she abandoned the French repertoire and went to sing in Italy in 1859. She also sang in Berlin that year, at the opening of the Victoria Theatre with Lorini’s Italian company. She was highly successful in The Barber of Seville
, La Cenerentola
, Il trovatore
and other roles there.
Artôt sang in London in 1859-60 and again in 1863 (at Her Majesty's Theatre
), in La fille du régiment
, La traviata
, and Norma
(as Adalgisa, with Thérèse Tietjens in the title role). In 1861, she was briefly engaged to the Welsh harp
ist John Thomas
.
She returned to England in 1864, where she sang at Covent Garden
, and 1866, in Gounod's Faust
and other roles.
. She captivated Moscow: at a reception for her at the home of Maria Begicheva, the hostess knelt before Artôt and kissed her hand. (Maria Begicheva was the wife of the repertory director of the Moscow state theatres, and the mother, from her first marriage, of one of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
's future lovers, Vladimir Shilovsky.)
Désirée Artôt met Tchaikovsky briefly at a party at the Begichevs in the spring. He also visited her after her benefit performance, for which he wrote additional recitatives for a production of Daniel Auber
's opera Le domino noir
. They again met by chance at a musical party, where she expressed her surprise that he had not visited her more often during the autumn. He promised he would do so, but he did not intend to keep his promise, however Anton Rubinstein
persuaded him to see her at the opera. She then started to send him invitations every day, and he became accustomed to visiting her every evening. He later described her to his brother Modest
as possessing "exquisite gesture, grace of movement, and artistic poise". He had put aside his work on his symphonic poem
Fatum
in order to give her all his attention. It seems plausible that Tchaikovsky was more captivated in her as a singer and actor than as a romantic interest, and had difficulty in separating the artist from the person. Tchaikovsky dedicated his Romance in F minor for piano, Op. 5, to Artôt.
By the end of the year, marriage was being considered. It has been said that this was Tchaikovsky’s first serious attempt to conquer his homosexuality. Her mother, who was travelling with her, opposed the marriage. There were three reasons for this: a certain unnamed Armenian man who sat in the front seat at all Artôt's performances, and was in love with her himself, told her mother lies about Tchaikovsky's background and his financial status which, being a stranger to Russian customs, she had no reason to disbelieve; then there was Tchaikovsky's age - he was five years Artôt's junior; and finally, she may have heard rumours about Tchaikovsky's sexual practices. Tchaikovsky's father, on the other hand, supported his son's plans. Artôt herself was not prepared to abandon her career to support a struggling composer, and neither was Tchaikovsky prepared to become merely a prima donna's husband, despite saying he could scarcely imagine living the rest of his life without her. Some of Tchaikovsky's friends, such as Nikolai Rubinstein, advised him against the marriage because being the husband of a foreign singing celebrity would mean he would have to forego his own musical career. The matter was left undecided, and no formal announcement was made, but they planned to meet again in the summer of 1869 at her estate near Paris to finalise the question of their marriage. Then the opera company left to continue its tour in Warsaw
. By the beginning of 1869, however, Tchaikovsky was having second thoughts. He wrote to his brother Anatoly that it was doubtful the marriage would ever take place. He wrote "... this affair is beginning to fall apart somewhat".
Although she did not communicate this fact to Tchaikovsky, as the social conventions of the time would have demanded, Artôt also changed her mind. (One source claims it was her singing teacher Pauline Viardot who persuaded Artôt not to marry Tchaikovsky.) On 15 September 1869, either in Sèvres
or Warsaw
, Artôt married a member of her company, the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos
. Padilla was seven years her junior, and he was someone she had previously ridiculed to Tchaikovsky. Nikolai Rubinstein was advised of the marriage by telegram, and he went to inform Tchaikovsky straight away. He was in the midst of a rehearsal for his opera The Voyevoda, and when he heard Rubinstein's news, he became quite upset, abandoned the rehearsal, and left immediately.
While the general view has been that Tchaikovsky got over the affair fairly quickly, it has been suggested that he kept Artôt in his heart for a long time. When writing his Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor
in 1874, he included in the slow movement the tune of a popular French song Il faut s’amuser et rire, which Artôt had in her repertoire. The flute solo that starts the movement may also be a reference to her. The second subject of the first movement starts with the notes D flat–A (in German Des–A), which the musicologist David Brown
argues is a musical cipher on Artôt’s name, Désirée Artôt. The use of initials spelled out in musical pitches is a device often used by Robert Schumann
(for example, in his Carnaval
), and Tchaikovsky was a great admirer of Schumann's music. The sequence D flat–A is naturally resolved by a B flat, which, according to Brown, determined the overall key of the entire concerto, B flat minor, a very unusual key for a concerto or symphony. The famous opening theme of the first movement is written in the relative major key, D flat major (Des), and after being played twice, it never reappears (perhaps an echo of Artôt’s sudden disappearance from his life). The theme is introduced by a descending minor key gesture (F–D flat–C–B flat) on the horns, which might be a reference to Artôt's father, a professor of horn, but is more likely a reference to the composer himself: he used the sequence E–C–B–A as his own signature in other works, and the horn gesture is E–C–B–A transposed from A minor to B flat minor. There are other suggestions that Tchaikovsky coded his own name into the concerto, and Artôt's name into the symphonic poem Fatum
, the Symphony No. 3
, and the Romeo and Juliet
Fantasy-Overture. He never revealed the program of Fatum, and later even destroyed the score (although it was reconstructed from the orchestral parts and published posthumously as Op. 77).
The Artôt episode was very fresh in Tchaikovsky's mind at the time he wrote Romeo and Juliet. He could easily have drawn a parallel between his personal loss and the tragedy of Shakespeare’s drama. Mily Balakirev
praised Romeo and Juliets love theme (written in D flat = Des) with an extraordinary choice of words: "... the second D flat tune is delightful ... It is full of tenderness and the sweetness of love ... When I play it I imagine you are lying naked in your bath and that the Artôt-Padilla herself is washing your stomach with hot lather from scented soap". It was Balakirev who had first suggested Tchaikovsky write a Romeo and Juliet piece, in May 1869 (or August). The work (in its first version) was completed on 29 November 1869, just two months after Artôt’s marriage to Padilla.
On her December 1870 Moscow visit, Tchaikovsky went to hear her as Marguerite in Gounod
's Faust
. He was reported to have had tears streaming down his cheeks (although he was often moved to tears by music); they did not meet on this occasion. In 1875 she was again in Moscow, singing in Meyerbeer
's Les Huguenots
. Calling on Nikolai Rubinstein one day at the Conservatorium, Tchaikovsky was asked to wait because "a foreign lady" was with Rubinstein in his office. The foreign lady soon emerged, and it turned out to be Désirée Artôt. Both she and Tchaikovsky were so flustered that they exchanged no words, and she left. Tchaikovsky burst out laughing, saying "And I thought I was in love with her!".
In December 1887, she had a chance encounter with Tchaikovsky in Berlin, at a performance of Berlioz
's Grande Messe des morts
, and they were glad to renew their acquaintaince, but there was no mention of past events. On 4 February 1888, Artôt met Tchaikovsky again in Berlin. Tchaikovsky spent a part of each of the five days he had there with her, and spent an evening with her on 7 February at 17 Landgrafstrasse, during which she asked him to write a romance for her. He wrote in his diary: "This evening is counted among the most agreeable recollections of my sojourn in Berlin. The personality and the art of this singer are as irresistibly bewitching as ever". In May he wrote to her, promising the song by August. During the summer, the composer’s time was taken up with various major works, including the Hamlet overture-fantasia
, which was completed on 19 October. By now, he had decided to write not one song for Artôt, but six, keeping in mind the present range of her voice. He chose untranslated French texts by three poets. The Six French Songs, Op. 65, were finished on 22 October, and the set was dedicated to Désirée Artôt-Padilla. He concluded his 29 October letter to her with the hope that she would like them and "... one is a little intimidated when one is composing for a singer one considers the greatest among the great".
, she was often known as Désirée Artôt de Padilla or Désirée Artôt-Padilla. Artôt appeared with Padilla in Italian opera in Germany, Austria, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Russia, and Finland. She appeared in Moscow in 1868-70 and again in 1875-76, and in Saint Petersburg in 1871–72 and 1876–77. She had a tempestuous temperament and her onstage battles with Minnie Hauk
in Moscow in the 1870s are well documented.
Artôt retired in 1884, but on 22 March 1887 she and Padilla appeared in a scene from Don Giovanni
in a celebration of the Emperor's birthday at the Imperial Palace in Berlin; it was also the centenary year of Don Giovanni. She became a singing teacher in Berlin until 1889, before moving to Paris. She died in 1907 in Paris (or Berlin), just four months after her husband died.
Artôt's and Padilla's daughter Lola Artôt de Padilla
had a highly successful career as an operatic soprano, creating Vreli in Delius
's A Village Romeo and Juliet
.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
(initially a mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
), who was famed in German and Italian opera and sang mainly in Germany. In 1868 she was engaged, briefly, to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
, who claimed she was the only woman he ever loved, and who may have coded her name into works such as his First Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between November 1874 and February 1875. It was revised in the summer of 1879 and again in December 1888. The first version received heavy criticism from Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's desired pianist....
and the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture
Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)
Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The...
. After her 1869 marriage to the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos
Mariano Padilla y Ramos
Mariano Padilla y Ramos was a Spanish operatic baritone who excelled in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni.- Life :...
, she was known as Désirée Artôt de Padilla or Désirée Artôt-Padilla.
Family background
Marguerite-Joséphine-Désirée Montagney Artôt was the daughter of Jean Désiré Montagney Artôt, a horn player at La MonnaieLa Monnaie
Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie , or the Koninklijke Muntschouwburg is a theatre in Brussels, Belgium....
in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
and professor at the Brussels Conservatory. Her uncle was the violinist Alexandre Artôt (1815–1845). He had been born Alexandre Joseph (or Joseph-Alexandre) Montagney, but adopted the surname Artôt professionally, and the rest of his family followed suit. Another uncle was the Belgian portrait painter Charles Baugniet
Charles Baugniet
Charles-Louis Baugniet , was a Belgian painter, lithographer and aquarellist.He attended the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels during 1827-29, where he studied under Joseph Paelinck and Florent Willems...
(1814–1886).
Early career
She studied with Pauline Viardot and Francesco LampertiFrancesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti was an Italian singing teacher.A native of Savona, Lamperti attended the Milan Conservatory where, beginning in 1850, he taught for a quarter of a century. He was director at the Teatro Filodrammatico in Lodi. In 1875 he left the school and began to teach as a private tutor...
in London and Paris. She appeared in concerts in Belgium, Holland and on 19 June 1857 at a State Concert in England. Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
engaged her for the Paris Opéra, where she made her debut on 5 February 1858 as Fidès in his Le prophète
Le prophète
Le prophète is an opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe.-Performance history:...
, to great success. She also sang the title role in a condensed version of Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
’s Sapho
Sapho (Gounod)
Sapho is a 3-act opera by Charles Gounod to a libretto by Émile Augier which was premiered by the Paris Opéra at the Salle Le Peletier on 16 April 1851. It was presented only 9 times in its initial production, but was a succès d'estime for the young composer, with the critics praising Act 3 in...
. Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
and others praised her singing in the Journal des Débats on 17 February. However, she abandoned the French repertoire and went to sing in Italy in 1859. She also sang in Berlin that year, at the opening of the Victoria Theatre with Lorini’s Italian company. She was highly successful in The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
, La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
, Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
and other roles there.
Artôt sang in London in 1859-60 and again in 1863 (at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
), in La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
, La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, and Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
(as Adalgisa, with Thérèse Tietjens in the title role). In 1861, she was briefly engaged to the Welsh harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
ist John Thomas
John Thomas (harpist)
John Thomas was a Welsh composer and harpist. The bardic name Pencerdd Gwalia was conferred on him at the 1861 Aberdare Eisteddfod....
.
She returned to England in 1864, where she sang at Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, and 1866, in Gounod's Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
and other roles.
Russia and Tchaikovsky
In 1868 she visited Russia with a touring Italian company that also include Roberto StagnoRoberto Stagno
Roberto Stagno , was a prominent Italian opera tenor. He became an important interpreter of verismo music when it burst on to the operatic scene during the 1890s; but he also possessed an agile bel canto technique which he employed in operas dating from earlier periods...
. She captivated Moscow: at a reception for her at the home of Maria Begicheva, the hostess knelt before Artôt and kissed her hand. (Maria Begicheva was the wife of the repertory director of the Moscow state theatres, and the mother, from her first marriage, of one of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's future lovers, Vladimir Shilovsky.)
Désirée Artôt met Tchaikovsky briefly at a party at the Begichevs in the spring. He also visited her after her benefit performance, for which he wrote additional recitatives for a production of Daniel Auber
Daniel Auber
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
's opera Le domino noir
Le domino noir
Le domino noir is an opéra comique by the French composer Daniel Auber, first performed on 2 December 1837 by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris. The libretto to the three-act piece is by Auber's usual collaborator, Eugène Scribe. It was one of Auber's most successful works,...
. They again met by chance at a musical party, where she expressed her surprise that he had not visited her more often during the autumn. He promised he would do so, but he did not intend to keep his promise, however Anton Rubinstein
Anton Rubinstein
Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...
persuaded him to see her at the opera. She then started to send him invitations every day, and he became accustomed to visiting her every evening. He later described her to his brother Modest
Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian dramatist, opera librettist and translator.-Early life:Modest Ilyich was born in Alapayevsk, the younger brother of the future composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He graduated from the School of Jurisprudence with a degree in law...
as possessing "exquisite gesture, grace of movement, and artistic poise". He had put aside his work on his symphonic poem
Symphonic poem
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...
Fatum
Fatum (Tchaikovsky)
Fatum, Op. 77, is a symphonic poem by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was written in 1868 and performed in 1869, but Tchaikovsky later destroyed the score, and it was published only three years after his death, with a posthumous opus number.-History:...
in order to give her all his attention. It seems plausible that Tchaikovsky was more captivated in her as a singer and actor than as a romantic interest, and had difficulty in separating the artist from the person. Tchaikovsky dedicated his Romance in F minor for piano, Op. 5, to Artôt.
By the end of the year, marriage was being considered. It has been said that this was Tchaikovsky’s first serious attempt to conquer his homosexuality. Her mother, who was travelling with her, opposed the marriage. There were three reasons for this: a certain unnamed Armenian man who sat in the front seat at all Artôt's performances, and was in love with her himself, told her mother lies about Tchaikovsky's background and his financial status which, being a stranger to Russian customs, she had no reason to disbelieve; then there was Tchaikovsky's age - he was five years Artôt's junior; and finally, she may have heard rumours about Tchaikovsky's sexual practices. Tchaikovsky's father, on the other hand, supported his son's plans. Artôt herself was not prepared to abandon her career to support a struggling composer, and neither was Tchaikovsky prepared to become merely a prima donna's husband, despite saying he could scarcely imagine living the rest of his life without her. Some of Tchaikovsky's friends, such as Nikolai Rubinstein, advised him against the marriage because being the husband of a foreign singing celebrity would mean he would have to forego his own musical career. The matter was left undecided, and no formal announcement was made, but they planned to meet again in the summer of 1869 at her estate near Paris to finalise the question of their marriage. Then the opera company left to continue its tour in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
. By the beginning of 1869, however, Tchaikovsky was having second thoughts. He wrote to his brother Anatoly that it was doubtful the marriage would ever take place. He wrote "... this affair is beginning to fall apart somewhat".
Although she did not communicate this fact to Tchaikovsky, as the social conventions of the time would have demanded, Artôt also changed her mind. (One source claims it was her singing teacher Pauline Viardot who persuaded Artôt not to marry Tchaikovsky.) On 15 September 1869, either in Sèvres
Sèvres
Sèvres is a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.The town is known for its porcelain manufacture, the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, making the famous Sèvres porcelain, as well as being the location of the International Bureau of Weights...
or Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Artôt married a member of her company, the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos
Mariano Padilla y Ramos
Mariano Padilla y Ramos was a Spanish operatic baritone who excelled in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni.- Life :...
. Padilla was seven years her junior, and he was someone she had previously ridiculed to Tchaikovsky. Nikolai Rubinstein was advised of the marriage by telegram, and he went to inform Tchaikovsky straight away. He was in the midst of a rehearsal for his opera The Voyevoda, and when he heard Rubinstein's news, he became quite upset, abandoned the rehearsal, and left immediately.
While the general view has been that Tchaikovsky got over the affair fairly quickly, it has been suggested that he kept Artôt in his heart for a long time. When writing his Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between November 1874 and February 1875. It was revised in the summer of 1879 and again in December 1888. The first version received heavy criticism from Nikolai Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky's desired pianist....
in 1874, he included in the slow movement the tune of a popular French song Il faut s’amuser et rire, which Artôt had in her repertoire. The flute solo that starts the movement may also be a reference to her. The second subject of the first movement starts with the notes D flat–A (in German Des–A), which the musicologist David Brown
David Brown (musicologist)
David Brown is an English musicologist, most noteworthy for his major study of Tchaikovsky’s life and works.Brown studied English, Latin and music at the University of Sheffield, graduating in 1951, and took his MusB there . During national service he studied Russian and was commissioned in the...
argues is a musical cipher on Artôt’s name, Désirée Artôt. The use of initials spelled out in musical pitches is a device often used by Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
(for example, in his Carnaval
Carnaval (Schumann)
Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes . It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent...
), and Tchaikovsky was a great admirer of Schumann's music. The sequence D flat–A is naturally resolved by a B flat, which, according to Brown, determined the overall key of the entire concerto, B flat minor, a very unusual key for a concerto or symphony. The famous opening theme of the first movement is written in the relative major key, D flat major (Des), and after being played twice, it never reappears (perhaps an echo of Artôt’s sudden disappearance from his life). The theme is introduced by a descending minor key gesture (F–D flat–C–B flat) on the horns, which might be a reference to Artôt's father, a professor of horn, but is more likely a reference to the composer himself: he used the sequence E–C–B–A as his own signature in other works, and the horn gesture is E–C–B–A transposed from A minor to B flat minor. There are other suggestions that Tchaikovsky coded his own name into the concerto, and Artôt's name into the symphonic poem Fatum
Fatum (Tchaikovsky)
Fatum, Op. 77, is a symphonic poem by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It was written in 1868 and performed in 1869, but Tchaikovsky later destroyed the score, and it was published only three years after his death, with a posthumous opus number.-History:...
, the Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 in D major, Op. 29, was written in 1875. He began it at Vladimir Shilovsky's estate at Ussovo on 5 June and finished it on 1 August at Verbovka. It is dedicated to Shilovsky.The Symphony No...
, and the Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)
Romeo and Juliet is an orchestral work composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. It is styled an Overture-Fantasy, and is based on Shakespeare's play of the same name. Like other composers such as Berlioz and Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky was deeply inspired by Shakespeare and wrote works based on The...
Fantasy-Overture. He never revealed the program of Fatum, and later even destroyed the score (although it was reconstructed from the orchestral parts and published posthumously as Op. 77).
The Artôt episode was very fresh in Tchaikovsky's mind at the time he wrote Romeo and Juliet. He could easily have drawn a parallel between his personal loss and the tragedy of Shakespeare’s drama. Mily Balakirev
Mily Balakirev
Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...
praised Romeo and Juliets love theme (written in D flat = Des) with an extraordinary choice of words: "... the second D flat tune is delightful ... It is full of tenderness and the sweetness of love ... When I play it I imagine you are lying naked in your bath and that the Artôt-Padilla herself is washing your stomach with hot lather from scented soap". It was Balakirev who had first suggested Tchaikovsky write a Romeo and Juliet piece, in May 1869 (or August). The work (in its first version) was completed on 29 November 1869, just two months after Artôt’s marriage to Padilla.
On her December 1870 Moscow visit, Tchaikovsky went to hear her as Marguerite in Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
's Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
. He was reported to have had tears streaming down his cheeks (although he was often moved to tears by music); they did not meet on this occasion. In 1875 she was again in Moscow, singing in Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
's Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots
Les Huguenots is a French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, one of the most popular and spectacular examples of the style of grand opera. The opera is in five acts and premiered in Paris in 1836. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps....
. Calling on Nikolai Rubinstein one day at the Conservatorium, Tchaikovsky was asked to wait because "a foreign lady" was with Rubinstein in his office. The foreign lady soon emerged, and it turned out to be Désirée Artôt. Both she and Tchaikovsky were so flustered that they exchanged no words, and she left. Tchaikovsky burst out laughing, saying "And I thought I was in love with her!".
In December 1887, she had a chance encounter with Tchaikovsky in Berlin, at a performance of Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
's Grande Messe des morts
Requiem (Berlioz)
The Grande Messe des morts, Op. 5 by Hector Berlioz was composed in 1837. The Grande Messe des Morts is one of Berlioz's best-known works, with a tremendous orchestration of woodwind and brass instruments, including four antiphonal offstage brass ensembles placed at the corners of the concert stage...
, and they were glad to renew their acquaintaince, but there was no mention of past events. On 4 February 1888, Artôt met Tchaikovsky again in Berlin. Tchaikovsky spent a part of each of the five days he had there with her, and spent an evening with her on 7 February at 17 Landgrafstrasse, during which she asked him to write a romance for her. He wrote in his diary: "This evening is counted among the most agreeable recollections of my sojourn in Berlin. The personality and the art of this singer are as irresistibly bewitching as ever". In May he wrote to her, promising the song by August. During the summer, the composer’s time was taken up with various major works, including the Hamlet overture-fantasia
Hamlet (Tchaikovsky)
Hamlet provided material for two works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his fantasy overture after Shakespeare Hamlet, Op. 67a, and the incidental music he composed for Shakespeare's Hamlet, Op. 67b.-Overture-Fantasia, Op. 67a:...
, which was completed on 19 October. By now, he had decided to write not one song for Artôt, but six, keeping in mind the present range of her voice. He chose untranslated French texts by three poets. The Six French Songs, Op. 65, were finished on 22 October, and the set was dedicated to Désirée Artôt-Padilla. He concluded his 29 October letter to her with the hope that she would like them and "... one is a little intimidated when one is composing for a singer one considers the greatest among the great".
Later career
After Artôt's marriage to Mariano Padilla y RamosMariano Padilla y Ramos
Mariano Padilla y Ramos was a Spanish operatic baritone who excelled in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni.- Life :...
, she was often known as Désirée Artôt de Padilla or Désirée Artôt-Padilla. Artôt appeared with Padilla in Italian opera in Germany, Austria, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Russia, and Finland. She appeared in Moscow in 1868-70 and again in 1875-76, and in Saint Petersburg in 1871–72 and 1876–77. She had a tempestuous temperament and her onstage battles with Minnie Hauk
Minnie Hauk
thumb|Minnie Hauk in a [[cabinet card]] photograph, ca. 1880Amalia Mignon Hauck , was an American operatic soprano....
in Moscow in the 1870s are well documented.
Artôt retired in 1884, but on 22 March 1887 she and Padilla appeared in a scene from Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
in a celebration of the Emperor's birthday at the Imperial Palace in Berlin; it was also the centenary year of Don Giovanni. She became a singing teacher in Berlin until 1889, before moving to Paris. She died in 1907 in Paris (or Berlin), just four months after her husband died.
Artôt's and Padilla's daughter Lola Artôt de Padilla
Lola Artôt de Padilla
Lola Artôt de Padilla was a French-Spanish soprano, renowned in Germany, where she mainly sang.-Biography:...
had a highly successful career as an operatic soprano, creating Vreli in Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
's A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet is an opera by Frederick Delius, the fourth of his six operas. The composer himself, with his wife Jelka, wrote the English-language libretto based on the short story Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. The first performance was at the...
.