A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Unger, Caroline

by George Grove

UNGER, Caroline, [App. p.806 "Add that the name is also spelt Ungher"] a great singer of the last generation, was born Oct. 28, 1805, at Stuhlweissenburg, near Pesth, where her father was master of the household (Wirthschaftsrath) to Baron Hakelberg. Unger was one of Schubert's friends, and recommended him to Count Johann Esterhazy in 1818, so that his daughter must have been brought up in the midst of music. She was trained by no meaner singers than Aloysia Lange, Mozart's sister-in-law, and Vogl, Schubert's friend and best interpreter,^[1] and is said to have made her début at Vienna, Feb. 24, 1821, in 'Così fan tutte.' Early in 1824 Sontag and she came into contact with Beethoven in studying the soprano and contralto parts of his Mass in D and Choral Symphony. No efforts or representations could induce the master to alter the extreme range of their parts. 'I remember once saying to him,' writes Unger, 'that he did not know how to write for voices, since my part in the Symphony had one note too high for my voice.' His answer was, 'Learn away, and the note will soon come.' On the day of performance, May 7, the note did come; the excitement of the audience was enormous, and it was then, at the close of the Symphony, that the happy idea occurred to Unger of turning the deaf Beethoven round to the room, in order that he might see the applause which he could not hear, and of which he was therefore unaware. After this she took an engagement from Barbaja in Italy, and sung there for many years, during which Donizetti wrote for her 'Parisina,' 'Belisario,' and 'Maria di Rudenz'; Bellini, 'La Straniera'; Mercadante, 'Le due illustre Rivali'; Pacini, 'Niobe,' etc., etc. In October 1833 she sang in Paris at the Théâtre Italien for one season only. It was perhaps on this occasion that Rossini is said to have spoken of her as possessing 'the ardour of the South, the energy of the North, brazen lungs, a silver voice, and a golden talent.' She then returned to Italy, but in 1840 married M. Sabatier, a Florentine gentleman, and retired from the stage. In 1869 she was in London, and at one of the Saturday Concerts at the Crystal Palace confirmed to the writer of this article the anecdote above related of her turning Beethoven round. Her dramatic ability and intelligence, says Fétis, were great; she was large, good-looking, and attractive; the lower and middle parts of her voice were broad and fine, but in her upper notes there was much harshness, especially when they were at all forced. She died at her villa of 'La Concezione,' near Florence, March 23, 1877. Mad. Regan Schimon was one of her principal pupils.

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1. Her own statement, in Nohl's 'Beethoven.' iii. 486.