Lina Cavalieri: The Life of Opera's Greatest Beauty, 1874-1944 (review)

With only a few exceptions, a single biography or autobiography has satisfied the curiosity of several generations of operagoers or record collectors regarding a particular opera singer. For those exceptions — Callas, Caruso, Chaliapin, Melba, Patti — whose surnames alone may suffice to identify them, even to the public at large, there is a continuing and apparently insatiable appetite for the biographies or other studies that continue to appear at intervals. Pavarotti may be a future contender for inclusion in this category. While such attention may seem disproportionate when one considers how many notable singers remain undocumented, one might argue that for these luminaries there will always be a need for a biography in print, for every day someone hears them for the first time.

It is, then, distinctly curious that Lina (Natalina) Cavalieri, promoted by others — and by herself — as "the most beautiful woman in the world," has previously been the subject of only two dedicated books, both written by the soprano herself.¹ The earlier, My Secrets of Beauty . . . Including More Than 1,000 Valuable Recipes for Preparations Used and Recommended by Mme. Cavalieri Herself,² running to 317 pages, has not been seen by this reviewer, but it seems unlikely to contain significant artistic insights. The second, Le mie verità [My Truths], edited by Paolo D'Arvanni, is a somewhat slimmer volume of 201 pages.³

Cavalieri led a sensational life, a veritable gift to the society columns and the scandal sheets alike. Born into poverty in a slum in Viterbo, she first sold flowers on the streets of Rome, then packed copies of one of the local newspapers. At the age of thirteen she made her first appearances in a café chantant in Rome's Piazza Navona, where, after her performances, she took round a hat for donations. Thence, while taking vocal lessons, she progressed to the city's grander establishments, adopting more fashionable dresses and replacing the cheapest of costume jewelry with more imaginative and expensive examples supplied, it is hypothesized, by one or other of the wealthy and influential patrons of the arts. Moving to Naples, then among the most fashionable centers for music and home of many of the songs that she sang onstage, she conquered the Salone Margherita, the Circo delle Varietà, the Eldorado, and the Eden before confronting Parisian audiences at the Folies Bergère. There, with outstanding speed, she achieved a remarkable success and came to rank with Cécile Sorel and Caroline Otero as one of the queens of the Belle Époque, and the management quickly renewed her contact. In 1897 she triumphed at London's Empire Theatre. A café singer of world renown, she was also a graceful dancer who could make "the most suggestive movements and gestures with such innocence, child-like simplicity and charm that their pornographic nature was ignored."⁴ In 1897 she also made her Russian debut with a phenomenal success at St. Petersburg. It was only the first of many visits there: her success was constant, although not free from substantial whiffs of scandal, both artistic and personal.

Gabriele D'Annunzio's claim that Cavalieri was "the most perfect personification of Venus on the Earth" and the tenor Leonid Sobinov's description of her as "a marvellous flower, loving, fragrant with spring orchids" were only two of the many fulsome descriptions of her at this time. She became "the most beautiful singer ever to appear on the stage in the 19th century."⁵ Adoring audiences were enslaved by her face, figure, and elegance, natural attributes enhanced by sumptuous gowns and jewels, and brought, through untold numbers of photographs and picture postcards, before the eyes of thousands who would never see her in the theater (pp. 12–13).

Apparently it was in St. Petersburg, during a notorious relationship with Prince Alexander Bariatinsky (whom she claimed to have married), that Cavalieri began to attend Italian opera and to mingle with the...