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Henriette Sontag
Birth: 1-3-1806
Death: 6-17-1854
Biography
"In 1828 Sontag was secretly married to Count Carlo Rossi of Sardinia, whose diplomatic career as ambassador to The Hague was jeopardized by the marriage until a patent of nobility was bestowed on her by the King of Prussia. After the marriage was publicly acknowledged in 1830, she yielded to pressure from her husband’s colleagues and renounced the stage. For 19 years she appeared only rarely in private and charity concerts. In 1849, however, political upheaval in Sardinia ended both her husband’s diplomatic career and Sontag’s retirement. She accepted a six-month contract to sing at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London, and then toured Great Britain and France. In 1850 she created the role of Miranda in Fromental Halévy’s La tempesta in London, and, after a triumphal tour of Germany, she went in 1852 to the United States. She made her last appearance, as Lucrezia Borgia in the Gaetano Donizetti opera, during a tour of Mexico, where she succumbed to cholera during an epidemic. " From Britanica entry
Referred to in 18530107LEW_FMS. LEW talks of wanting to hear MAdam Sontag, and describes an article she read about Sontag and Alboni in Putnam's Monthly. (link to article below)
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=putn;cc=putn;rgn=full%20text;idno=putn0001-1;didno=putn0001-1;view=image;seq=00123;node=putn0001-1%3A1
Letter References
Letter from Laura Esther Watrous to Frances Miller Seward, January 7, 1853
Letter from Frances Miller Seward to Lazette Miller Worden, December 15, 1852
Letter from Frances Miller Seward to Augustus Henry Seward, January 6, 1854
Citations
"In 1828 Sontag was secretly married to Count Carlo Rossi of Sardinia, whose diplomatic career as ambassador to The Hague was jeopardized by the marriage until a patent of nobility was bestowed on her by the King of Prussia. After the marriage was publicly acknowledged in 1830, she yielded to pressure from her husband’s colleagues and renounced the stage. For 19 years she appeared only rarely in private and charity concerts. In 1849, however, political upheaval in Sardinia ended both her husband’s diplomatic career and Sontag’s retirement. She accepted a six-month contract to sing at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London, and then toured Great Britain and France. In 1850 she created the role of Miranda in Fromental Halévy’s La tempesta in London, and, after a triumphal tour of Germany, she went in 1852 to the United States. She made her last appearance, as Lucrezia Borgia in the Gaetano Donizetti opera, during a tour of Mexico, where she succumbed to cholera during an epidemic. " From Britanica entry
Referred to in 18530107LEW_FMS. LEW talks of wanting to hear MAdam Sontag, and describes an article she read about Sontag and Alboni in Putnam's Monthly. (link to article below)
http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=putn;cc=pu...