Anecdotes of Great Musicians/Anecdote 98
98.—A FRIGHTENED DESDEMONA.
Manual Garcia possessed, besides a beautiful voice, a furious temper. His daughter, Maria, destined in later years to become one of the world's most celebrated prima donnas, inherited somewhat of this feature of her father's character, and the result was not conducive of domestic tranquillity. When Monsieur Malibran made her an offer of marriage, Garcia was enraged, and declined to sanction the engagement. The result was that there was an uproar in the establishment. As luck would have it, that night father and daughter were to sing together in "Othello," and so, for the time being, though wrath was in their hearts, the father must appear as the swarthy Moor, and the daughter as Desdemona.
In the course of the opera it becomes necessary for Othello to stab Desdemona, and at this point Maria saw her father approach and brandish over her, not the stage dagger of cardboard covered with silver paper, but a real dagger which her father had recently bought.
Terrified at what she thought was her father's revenge for her opposition to him, she shrieked out: "Father, father, for God's sake do not kill me!"
But her alarm was needless. Garcia had in his haste been unable to lay his hand on the pasteboard dagger, which was one of the stage "properties," and was forced to substitute his own. It might be added that the affrighted Desdemona afterward married Malibran and by this name scored her remarkable triumphs.