1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Malibran, Marie Félicité

MALIBRAN, MARIE FÉLICITÉ (1808–1836), operatic singer, daughter of Manoel Garcia, was born in Paris on the 24th of March 1808. Her father was then a member of the company of the Théâtre des Italiens, and she accompanied him to Italy and London. She possessed a soprano voice of unusual beauty and phenomenal compass, which was carefully cultivated by her father. She was only seventeen when, in consequence of an indisposition of Madame Pasta, she was suddenly asked to take her place in The Barber of Seville at Covent Garden. She was forthwith engaged for the remaining six weeks of the season, and then followed her father to New York, where she appeared in Othello, The Barber of Seville, Don Juan, Romeo and Juliet, Tancred. Her gifts as an actress were on a par with her magnificent voice, and her gaiety made her irresistible in light opera, although her great triumphs were obtained chiefly in tragic parts. She married a French banker of New York, named Malibran, who was much older than herself. The marriage was an unhappy one, and Mme Malibran returned alone to Europe in 1828, when she began the series of representations at the Théâtre des Italiens, which excited an enthusiasm in Paris only exceeded by the reception she received in the principal towns of Italy. She was formally divorced from Malibran in 1835, and married the Belgian violinist, Charles de Beriot; but she died of fever on the 23rd of September 1836.

See Memoirs of Mme Malibran by the comtesse de Merlin and other intimate friends, with a selection from her correspondence (2 vols., 1840); and M. Teneo, La Malibran, d’après des documents inédits, in Sammelbände der internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft (Leipzig, 1906).