London, daughter of Gaetano Bartolozzi, artist, and grand-daughter of Francesco Bartolozzi, the celebrated engraver. On Jan. 28, 1813, she married Armand Vestris, dancer and ballet-master at the King's Theatre, and grandson of the celebrated Vestris. [See Ballet, i. p. 132.] It was on the occasion of his benefit at that theatre (July 20, 1815) that his wife, having received instruction in singing from Corri, made her first appearance in public as Proserpine in Winter's 'Il Ratto di Proserpina.' Her success that season was great, in spite of her then limited ideas of acting and want of vocal cultivation. She re-appeared in 1816 in Winter's 'Proserpina' and 'Zaira,' Martini's 'Cosa Rara,' and Mozart's 'Così fan Tutte' and 'Nozze' (Susanna), but with less success, her faults becoming more manifest with familiarity. In the winter she appeared at the Italian Opera, Paris, and at various theatres there, including the Français, where she played Camille in 'Les Horaces,' with Talma as Horace. About this time Vestris deserted her. (He died in 1825.) On Feb. 19, 1820, she made her début at Drury Lane as Lilla in 'The Siege of Belgrade'; made an immediate success in that and in Adela ('The Haunted Tower'), Artaxerxes, Macheath, and 'Giovanni in London,' and remained for many years a favourite at the patent theatres, not only in opera, but in musical farces and comedies. In certain of these she introduced well-known songs 'Cherry ripe,' 'I've been [1]roaming,' 'Meet me by moonlight alone,' and others, which gained their popularity at the outset through her very popular ballad singing. On April 12, 1826, she played Fatima on the production of 'Oberon.' With her subsequent career as manager of the Olympic, Covent Garden, and Lyceum, we cannot deal, save to mention that during her tenancy of Covent Garden, in conjunction with Charles Mathews the younger (whom she married July 18, 1838), opera was occasionally performed, viz. 'Artaxerxes,' 'Comus,' etc., English versions of 'Norma,' 'Elena di Feltre' (Mercadante), and 'Figaro,' with Miss Kemble, Miss Rainforth, etc., and with Benedict as conductor. In Figaro she played Cherubino, but resigned 'Voi che sapete' to Miss Kemble. She died at Fulham Aug. 8, 1856.
'As a girl she was extremely bewitching, if not faultlessly beautiful—endowed with one of the most musical, easy, rich contralto voices ever bestowed on singers, and retaining its charm to the last—full of taste and fancy for all that was luxurious, but either not willing, or not able to learn, beyond a certain depth.' (Athenæum, Aug. 17, 1856.) At the Italian Opera, says Chorley (Musical Recollections), 'if she had possessed musical patience and energy, she might have queened it, because she possessed (half Italian by birth) one of the most luscious of low voices, great personal beauty, an almost faultless figure, which she adorned with consummate art, and no common stage address. But a less arduous career pleased her better; so she could not—or perhaps would not—remain on the Italian stage.'
VEUVE DU MALABAR, LA. A French novel, by Lemiere, from which Spohr took the plot of his 'Jessonda.'[2] It has been burlesqued in 'Le Veuf du Malabar' by Siraudin and Busset, music by Doche (Opera Comique, May 27, 1846); and under its own title by Delacour and Cremieux, music by Hervé (Varietés, April 26, 1873).
VIADANA, Ludovico, was born at Lodi about 1565. Of his education we know nothing save that he adopted the monastic profession. In or before 1597 he was in Rome, to which city his musical style is properly affiliated. He was chapelmaster in the cathedral of Fano in Urbino, and at Concordia in the states of Venice; but the order of his preferments is doubtful. All that is certain is that he occupied the same office ultimately at Mantua, where he is known to have been living as late as 1644. He composed and published a number of volumes of canzonets, madrigals, psalms, canticles, and masses: but the work upon which his historical significance rests is a collection of 'Cento concerti ecclesiastici a 1, a 2, a 3, e a 4, voci, con il basso continuo per sonar nell' organo. Nova invenzione comoda per ogni sorte di cantori e per gli organisti,' Venice 1603 (or, in some copies, 1602) in five volumes. In consequence of this publication Viadana has been commonly regarded as the inventor of the (unfigured) basso continuo to accompany the voice on an instrument—a judgment expressed, but, as [3]Ambros thinks, unfairly, in the remark of a contemporary, Prætorius. As a matter of fact, basso continuo had been employed in the accompaniment of recitative some years earlier by Caccini and Peri and others before them. Viadana however was the first thus to accompany solemn church-compositions, and therefore the first to use the organ for the purpose. He is also the inventor of the name basso continuo. Nor had any one previously thought of writing pieces for a solo voice, or for two or three voices, expressly with the object of their being accompanied by a thorough-bass.[4] The way thus opened by Viadana enabled him to employ a freer and lighter style than his contemporaries of the Roman school. Building up his compositions (in his 'Cento concerti') from the bass instead of from a cantus firmus, he succeeded in creating real self-contained melodies; and if he cannot be justly regarded as the inventor of the notion of basso continuo, he at least was led by it to a not far-off view of the modern principle of melodic, as opposed to contrapuntal, composition.
VIAGGIO A REIMS, IL, ossia l'albergo del giglio d'ora. Opera in one act; words by Balocchi, music by Rossini. Produced, with a wonderful cast, at the Théâtre Italien at Paris, June 19, 1825, as part of the festivities at the
