A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Persiani, Fanny
PERSIANI, Fanny, one of the most accomplished and artistic singers of this century, was born at Rome on Oct. 4, 1812. She was the second daughter of Tacchinardi, who made her begin to study at a very early age. He had fitted up a little theatre for the use of his pupils at his country house, near Florence, and here, at eleven years of age, Fanny played a prima donna's part. While still quite young, she sang on several occasions in public, with success, but had then no intention of adopting the stage as a profession.
In 1830 she married the composer, Giuseppe Persiani (1804–1869), and in 1832 made her début at Leghorn, in 'Francesca da Rimini,' an opera by M. Fournier, where she replaced Madame Caradori. Her success was sufficient to lead to her subsequent engagement at Milan and Florence, then at Vienna, where she made a great impression, afterwards at Padua and at Venice. Here she played in 'Romeo e Giulietta,' 'Il Pirata,' 'La Gazza Ladra,' 'L' Elisire d'Amore,' and 'Tancredi,' in the last two of which she performed with Pasta. Her success was complete. In 1834, at Naples, Donizetti wrote for her his 'Lucia di Lammermoor,' which always remained a favourite part with her.
When she first appeared at the Opera in Paris (in Lucia, Dec. 12, 1837), she was much admired by connoisseurs, but her talents hardly met with the recognition they deserved until after her excellent performance of the part of Carolina in the 'Matrimonio Segreto.' From that time not even Grisi herself enjoyed such unbounded favour with Parisian audiences as did Madame Persiani.
Her first appearance in London (1838) was as Amina in the 'Sonnambula,' and, although she had been preceded in the part by Malibran and Grisi, she achieved a success which increased at each performance. She was always, however, a greater favourite with artists and connoisseurs than with the public at large. This was partly due to the poverty of her stage-presence. She was exceedingly refined in appearance, but small and thin, with a long colourless face, not unsightly, like her father, but, as Chorley puts it, 'pale, plain, and anxious,' with no beauty but her profusion of fine fair hair, while in her dress she was singularly tasteless. Her voice, too, was against her rather than in her favour; it was a thin, acute soprano, of great range upwards, clear and penetrating, but not full or mellow, blending ill with other voices, and always liable to rise in pitch. But the finish of her singing has been rarely equalled, probably never surpassed. 'Every conceivable passage was finished by her to perfection, the shake, perhaps, excepted, which might be thought indistinct and thin.' Her execution was remarkable for velocity, 'poignant, clear, audacious.' Her resources were vast and varied, and when encored she rarely sang a piece again without adorning it with fresh fioriture, more dazzling than the first. 'She had the finest possible sense of accent … From her every phrase had its fullest measure. Every group of notes was divided and expressed by her with as much precision as the best of violinists brings into his bowing. And this was done with that secure musical ease which made her anxious, mournful face, and her acute, acid voice, forgotten.' Whether in rapid, florid passages, or in large and expressive movements, 'Madame Persiani's attack was not more unfailing than the delicate sensibility with which she gave every note its fullest value, never herself becoming breathless, rarely heavy' (Chorley). As an actress she preserved sensibility, grace, and refinement, but lacked passion and animation.
From 1838 she sang alternately in London and Paris for many years. Fétis says that a sudden hoarseness, which attacked her in London in 1843, proved the beginning of a throat-complaint that forced her to quit the stage for ever. But she sang in London, in opera, in 1847, 48, and 49, and at the 'Italiens' in Paris in October, 1848. In 1850 she went to Holland, and subsequently to Russia. After performing in almost all the principal countries of Europe, she, in 1858, accepted an engagement from Mr. E. T. Smith and appeared at Drury Lane in several of her old parts,—Linda, Elvira in 'I Puritani,' Zerlina in 'Don Giovanni,' etc. Never were her rare accomplishments as a singer more perceptible; compared with her, 'her younger successors sounded like so many immature scholars of the second class.' (Chorley.) In December of that year, Madame Persiani took up her residence in Paris, but afterwards removed to Italy, and died at Passy May 3, 1867. Her portrait, by Chalon, in water-colours, is in the possession of Julian Marshall, Esq.