3-039-246 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mdlle. Marimon, 1871. 'Mdlle. Marie Marimon made her first appearance [at Her Majesty's Opera] as Amina, in "La Sonnambula," with a result which fully indorsed all that had been said in her favour, based on her successes during recent seasons in Paris and Brussels. The quiet, natural grace of manner, the utter absence of all effort at meretricious display and of those ad captandum arts by which a general public is sometimes dazzled, may, perhaps, render some members thereof insensible to the full amount of the merits of Mdlle. Marimon; but all who sufficiently value genuine art applied to high natural gifts and intelligence must recognise in this lady a singer of a very exceptional order. The voice is purity itself in quality and in capacity for the expression of all that is gentle and tender, either in gladness or in pathos, while still being capable of considerable brilliancy and power in bravura singing...the final rapturous outburst of joy at restored happiness, embodied in the bravura air "Ah! non giunge," having displayed the cultivation of the singer in all the elaborations of the most florid vocal art. The performance was repeated with enhanced success to a crowded house on Tuesday'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.