A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Schröder-Devrient, Wilhelmine

by Louisa M. Middleton

SCHRÖDER-DEVRIENT, Wilhelmine, a highly-gifted dramatic singer, was born at Hamburg, December [App. p.786 "Dec. 6"] 1804.^[1] Her father, Friedrich Schröder—who died in 1818—had been an excellent baritone singer, a favourite in many operas, especially in Mozart's 'Don Juan,' which he was the first to act in German. Her mother was Antoinette Sophie Bürger, a celebrated actress, sometimes called 'die grosse Schröder' and 'the German Siddons.'

Wilhelmine was the eldest of four children. She enjoyed great advantages of training; dancing lessons, and public appearances in ballets in early childhood, helped her to mastery of attitude and elasticity of movement; afterwards, when her parents' wanderings led them to Vienna, she took such parts as Ophelia, and Aricia (Schiller's 'Phädra'), at the Hofburgtheater, receiving careful instruction in gesture and delivery from her mother, who afterwards superintended her study of operatic parts.

Thus there was no trace of the débutante, when, in 1821, Wilhelmine made a brilliant first appearance at the Vienna opera-house in 'Die Zauberflöte.' The freshness of her well-developed soprano, her purity of intonation and certainty of attack, astonished the public. 'It was as if a singer had fallen from the clouds.' Other early triumphs were Emmeline (Weigl's 'Schweizerfamilie'), where the representation was described as 'masterly, ideal and full of truth; in dress and bearing idyllically picturesque'; Marie (Grétry's 'Barbe bleu'^[2]), where she showed herself worthy of all praise 'as well in singing as in acting, especially in parts demanding passionate expression.' As Agathe (Der Freischütz) her glorious voice and charming appearance won great approval, not only from the public 'who already loved her,' but from Weber, who presided over the performance at Vienna, March 7, 1822. But her great achievement was the creation of the part of Leonore, on the revival of 'Fidelio' at Vienna later in the year. Hitherto connoisseurs had failed to discover the merits of Beethoven's opera. Mdlle. Schröder's impersonation of the heroine, besides laying the foundation of her own fame, redeemed the music from the imputation of coldness, won for the work the praise so long withheld, and achieved its ultimate popularity by repeated performances in Germany, London, and Paris. The story of her first appearance in the part has often been quoted from Gliimer's 'Erinnerungen an Wilhelmine Schröder Devrient.' Beethoven was present at the performance. 'He sat behind the conductor, and had wrapped himself so closely in the folds of his cloak than only his eyes could be seen flashing from it.' Schröder's natural anxiety only heightened the effect of her play. A breathless stillness filled the house until Leonore fell into the arms of her husband, when a storm of applause broke out which seemed unceasing. To Beethoven also had his Leonore been revealed in the glowing life of Schröder's representation. He smilingly patted her cheek, thanked her, and promised to write an opera for her. Would that he had!

In 1823 she went to Dresden to fulfil a contract to sing at the Court Theatre for two years, at a salary of 2000 thalers. (At a later period she received 4000 thalers at the same house, for her connection with Dresden never entirely ceased as long as she was on the stage.) She married Karl Devrient, an excellent actor whom she met in Berlin during an engagement there that year. Four children were born, but the marriage was not a happy one, and was dissolved in 1828. During the next eight years she delighted her audiences by her appearance in the great classical characters which ever remained her most successful parts. In Weber's operas, as Preciosa, Euryanthe and Reiza, she is said to have thrown a new light over both story and music, gradually heightening the interest of the work until a torrent of inspiration carried all before it. In Spontini's 'Vestale,' she was the very personification of the spirit of the antique. Yet no less did she succeed, in Paer's comic opera, 'Sargino,' in singing with so much finish, and acting with so much humour, that it became a matter of dispute whether tragedy or comedy was her forte.

In 1820 she passed through Weimar and sang to Goethe on her way to Paris to join Röckel's German company. With an exalted sense of the importance of her mission, she wrote: 'I had to think not only of my own reputation, but to establish German music, My failure would have been injurious to the music of Beethoven, Mozart and Weber.' This date was an epoch in the history of music in Paris. Bouquets—then an extraordinary manifestation of approval—were showered upon the triumphant singer. In her subsequent visits to Paris, 1831 and 32, she sang in Italian opera.

In 1832, Schröder-Devrient was heard at the King's Theatre in London, engaging with Mr. Monck Mason to sing ten times monthly during May, June and July, for £800 and a benefit. Chelard was conductor. 'Fidelio,' 'Don Juan,' and Chelard's 'Macbeth' were repeatedly given, but Chorley ('Musical Recollections') says, 'Fidelio was the solitary success of a disastrous enterprise.… The sensation is not to be forgotten. The Italians (not very strong that year), were beaten out of the field by the Germans. The intense musical vigour of Beethoven's opera was felt to be a startling variety, wrought out as it was in its principal part, by a vocalist of a class entirely new to England. This was Madame Schröder-Devrient. Within the conditions of her own school she was a remarkable artist.… She was a pale woman; her face, a thoroughly German one, though plain, was pleasing, from the intensity of expression which her large features and deep tender eyes conveyed. She had profuse fair hair, the value of which she thoroughly understood, delighting, in moments of great emotion, to fling it loose with the wild vehemence of a Mænad. Her figure was superb though full, and she rejoiced in its display. Her voice was a strong soprano, not comparable in quality to some other German voices of its class.… but with an inherent expressiveness of tone which made it more attractive on the stage than many a more faultless organ.… Her tones were delivered without any care, save to give them due force. Her execution was bad and heavy. There was an air of strain and spasm throughout her performance.'

The 'Queen of Tears' (so she was styled) was heard next season in 'Der Freischütz,' 'Die Zauberflöte,' 'Euryanthe,' and 'Otello.' The engagement was to sing for Mr. Bunn at Covent Garden twenty-four times at £40 a night, and once for the benefit of the speculators. However, all London was under the spell of Taglioni and of Fanny Elsler. Malibran in the English opera; Pasta, Cinti-Damoreau, Rubini, and Tamburini, in the Italian opera, sang to empty houses. Again in 1837, after Malibran's death, Mr. Bunn engaged Schröder-Devrient at a double salary. 'Fidelio,' 'La Sonnambula' and 'Norma' were performed in English. She broke down in health before the season was over. It is said that Bunn forced himself into her sick-room one night, to insist on her showing herself in character upon the stage for one moment, to enable him to put off the performance 'on account of the sudden indisposition of the singer' and yet keep the entrance money. After a rest, too short to be beneficial, she resumed her work, and was carried home insensible from the theatre. She was able however to give a farewell performance of 'Fidelio,' with the last act of the 'Montecchi e Capuletti,' and then discovered that Mr. Bunn had declared himself bankrupt and could pay her nothing. In his book, 'The Stage both before and behind the Curtain,' Mr. Bunn complains of the singer's attempts at extortion; says that she demanded the fourth part of the proceeds of each night, but on this sum proving to fall short of the fixed salary, asked for £100.

From 1837 a gradual decline in power was observed in Madame Schröder-Devrient, though she continued to delight her audiences all over Germany in the parts she had identified herself with. Of Wagner's operas she only appeared in 'Rienzi,' as Adriano Colonna, in 'Der fliegende Hollander,' as Senta, and in 'Tannhäuser,' as Venus. His later dramas would have been a fitting field for her dramatic genius. Gluck's masterpieces were among her latest studies. Her last appearance in Dresden was in his 'Iphigenie in Aulis,' in 1847; her last appearance on any stage took place at Riga, where she played Romeo. Her concert singing was greatly admired, and one of the liveliest passages in Mendelssohn's letters^[3] describes the furore caused by her impromptu execution of 'Adelaide' in her ordinary travelling dress at the Gewandhaus Concert of Feb. 11, 1841.

Madame Schröder-Devrient had made a second marriage with Herr von Döring, a worthless person, who immediately seized upon his wife's earnings and pension, and left her almost destitute, to recover what she could in a long lawsuit. The marriage was dissolved at her wish. In 1850 she again married Herr von Bock, a man of culture, who took her to his property in Livonia. The union promised great happiness, and Madame von Bock entered with ardour on her new duties. But she found herself unfitted for a quiet country life, and sought relief in travelling. Passing through Dresden, she was arrested on account of the sympathy she had shown with the revolution of 1848. An examination in Berlin resulted in her being forbidden to return to Saxony: in the meantime she was exiled from Russia. Her husband's exertions and sacrifices secured a reversal of this sentence. In 1856 she visited some German towns, singing Lieder in public concerts. Her interpretations of Beethoven's 'Adelaide' and of Schubert's and Schumann's songs were immensely admired, though by some thought too dramatic. When at Leipzig her strength succumbed to a painful illness. She was devotedly nursed by a sister and a friend at Coburg, and died Jan. 21, 1860.

Schroder-Devrient's voice, even in her best days, was of no extraordinary compass, but, to the last, the tones of the middle notes were of exceptionally fine quality. Mazatti's teaching, with further instruction from Radichi and from Miksch (the Dresden Chorus-master), had not been sufficient training for the young girl, who had besides been disinclined to the drudgery of scale-singing. The neglect of system and of careful vocal exercise resulted in faulty execution and too early loss of the high notes. This might have been less observable had she kept to such simple rôles as Pamina and Agathe. But there seemed a discrepancy between the delicate organization of her voice and the passionate energy of her temperament. By force of will she accomplished more than was warranted by her natural powers. 'A portion of her life was exhausted in every song.' As a musical instrument the voice was not under her command; as a vehicle of expression it was completely so. It was the dramatic genius of this artist which won for her an European reputation. She infused a terrible earnestness^[4] into the more pathetic impersonations, while an almost unerring instinct of artistic fitness, combined with a conscientious study of the parts, secured a perfection of performance which reached every detail of bye-play. It could be said of her that she never ceased learning, for she toiled at her art to the end. She once wrote as follows: 'Art is an eternal race, and the artist is destroyed for art as soon as he entertains the delusion that he is at the goal. It were certainly comfortable to lay down the task with the costume, and let it rest until its turn comes round again in the répertoire. I have never been able to do this. How often, when the public have shouted approval and showered bouquets on me, have I retired in confusion, asking myself: "Wilhelmine, what have you been about again?" then there would be no peace for me, but brooding the livelong days and nights until I had hit upon something better.'

Her good faith and earnestness led her to condemn a fellow-actress for disrespect to her art when she carelessly threw down behind the scenes a handkerchief which had served on the stage as a Signal of Love. Schröder-Devrient's play generally inspired others with her own spirit. On one occasion it moved a Bluebeard to forget the ordinary artifice used in dragging his Marie off the stage, and to take her literally by the hair. 'Almost unconscious with pain and covered with blood, the artist endured this torture rather than spoil the effect of the tableau.' It was easier for her to forgive an injury arising thus from excess of feeling, than to tolerate the inadequate support of a first tenor, 'half sponge, half wood'; or to allow the sleepy play of a prima donna to go unpunished: as when, in Romeo, she was guilty of tickling the feet of a too unemotional Giulietta, during the caresses of the last scene of Bellini's opera. (See also Moscheles' Life, i. 270.) An audience of 'lederne Seelen' was her abhorrence, and the ignorance of fashionable London forty years ago tried her sorely. (Ib. 263.)

In his 'Modern German Music,' Chorley enters upon an analysis of some of Madame Schröder-Devrient's parts. He and Berlioz (the latter in letters to the Journal des Débats, 1843) concur in condemning the mannerisms which grew upon her as time went on. Rellstab has devoted an article to her ('Ges. Schriften,' ix.). A. von Wolzogen's 'Wilh. Schroeder-Devrient' (Leipzig, 1863) is the best life, and gives a circumstantial, impartial, and interesting account; while Wagner's 'Ueber Schauspieler und Sänger' eulogises her depth of feeling and power of interpretation.

[ L. M. M. ]

1. According to her own account, as quoted in Glümer's 'Erinnerungen,' and not in October 1805, as stated by Fétis.
2. 'Raoul Barbe bleu' (1789), Germanized into 'Raoul der Blaubart.'
3. Letter, Feb. 14, 1841.
4. Sometimes perhaps a trifle too much, as indeed Mendelssohn hints in the sequel of the passage quoted above. Even in the Concert-room this was so. 'The old Declamatrice,' writes Mendelssohn. on Nov. 28. 1842, 'thoroughly delighted us all by the great strength and vigour of her voice and her whole style.'