Alexandria Gazette

FEMALE SINGERS.

A very entertaining sketch of some of the female singers of modern times appears in a late number of the Day Book, styled "Souvenirs of the Opera in Europe."

We regret that we have only room for the following extract, which we are sure will at least interest our fair readers:

"The enthusiasm for Sontag increased every night Her gentle, unassuming manners, her youth—she was but twenty, and looked eighteen—her surprising beauty, the maidenly reserve of her conduct, brought to her feet the homage of all London: the Princess's robe was more than once offered her for acceptance: a royal widower, allied with the English throne, though a countryman of her own and now a king, offered his hand at the risk of immense sacrifices: but she was never coquettish—never prudish—never vain, and never swerved from her allegiance to the one whose name she now bears, and to whom she was secretly engaged before coming to England. She went everywhere with her merry little sister, and her stately dame de compagnie, stepped from the stage to the saloons of Devonshire House, where amongst the most courteous guests, she waltzed with the joyousness of a German girl, but none ever presumed to pollute her ear with an impure word. There was at this time in London another remarkable cantatrice, the most wonderful contralto who had ever been heard since the days of Banti, of whom none but Italians ever heard, and whom they have now forgotten. Her style and voice were considered without equal, but nature had disdained to complete her work Pisarotti was little, crooked, awkward, and united in her features and complexion every species of ugliness—but all this was forgotten when, from that ungraceful mouth issued low mellifluous notes, producing on her hearers the thrilling effect of a sudden burst from an organ in a still moonlit cathedral. At one morning concert, at the close of the season, Pisarotti, Malibran and Sontag sang the trio (from Meyerbeer's Crociato) "Giovinetto cavaliere" and never was such music heard since. Nina Sontag sung in German with her sister, Mozart's 'Sa l'aria with the greatest perfection, Nina merely sang in public from caprice and a real love of music. Malibran and Sontag sang together the duett from Andronico, each vying with the other in the variations they introduced, until the audience were literally "drunk with music" and longed for the silence of their homes to recover from their over-wrought imaginations. Sontag and Malibran sang together a few months after at the theatre Favart in Paris. There, nightly triumphs awaited them. One night Malibran was playing Tancredi. Sontag, Amenaide: they were made to repeat the cabaletta of the duet in the 2d act, a third time the audience demanded it, then Malibran coming forward sang the solo with such a wonderful cadence at the end, including a marvellous descending gamma from the C in alto to the lower G, that the orchestra forgot to play and shouted bravo. —then Sontag began and ended her cabaletta with another wonderful cadenza terminating with the same gamma and for the first time urged by the excitement of the moment touching distinctly the low contralto notes on which her companion had finished.— Malibran herself cried bravo, clasped Sontag in her arms, dragged her forward, and encircled in each other's arms these sang the ensemble, the audience listening to them standing, for they had all risen en masse. An enthusiastic audience make great artists."