Lina Cavalieri was one of the defining icons of the Belle Époque era, and the longevity of her image even from beyond the grave defies belief. She was the woman writer Gabriele D’Annunzio called the personification of Venus on earth. Born in Rome, Natalina Cavalieri was of humble origins, she worked as a flower girl and then in a factory packing newspapers. Lina’s rise as a café chanteuse was fast. She quickly graduated to become the star of variety halls and eventually performing at the Folies Bergère. Paris’s reaction to her debut was extreme: she went to bed one night and woke up a star. Her career at this point saw her dividing her time mostly between Paris and St Petersburg, always to sold-out houses singing Neapolitan songs. In St Petersburg she became the consort of a Russian prince, Alexandre Bariatinsky. She married him and bore him a son. Now with this noble title she no longer desired to be queen of variety halls. She wanted to conquer the operatic stage. She worked for three years and made her debut as Nedda (I Pagliacci) at the Theatro San Carlos in Naples 1900 with no less famous a singer than Enrico Caruso as her Canio. It was a disaster: she wasn’t ready yet. She took the role to Lisbon and was met with similar reaction. Bariatinsky made matters worse by abandoning her at this low point. The limitations of her vocal natural resources were one thing – but at this stage her musicianship was barely developed and she was easily confused on stage especially in ensemble numbers. In solos she would suddenly change her tempi without warning, throwing the conductor into a panic. She was nervous and often sang off-key or wrong notes. As an actress she was reported to be cold and unfeeling. Despite all this, the paradox is that her beauty made people think she performed better than she did. The Metropolitan Opera contracted her to debut in Fedora for $1,000 a night opposite Caruso – a sum far exceeded that paid to Geraldine Farrar, the Met’s reigning diva. That was how much they wanted Lina Cavalieri. On the first night she pulled a stunt by kissing Caruso full on the lips just as the curtain came down. She certainly knew the value of publicity. The Met then put her in the New York premiere of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, with the composer in attendance. The notice for her performance was decidedly mixed, but that didn’t prevent her from scoring major points from the composer himself. Cavalieri was magnificent! he proclaimed. By now Lina was cosy with the New York society set. In 1910 she entered into a notorious marriage with the mural painter Robert Winthrop Chanler, who was a member of the Astor and Dudley-Winthrop families. He pursued her to Paris. The marriage effectively ended during their honeymoon, when it was discovered that Bob Chanler had signed over his entire fortune to Lina in the pre-nup. After a long legal battle with his family Lina accepted a cash settlement of $80,000, and Bob Chanler was disowned by his family, cast out of society. As for Lina, this episode effectively ended her career in New York, for both the Met and Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Opera Company were wary of offending the enormously powerful Astor family. Around this time Lina start a little perfumery business on Fifth Avenue. She set up the shop to see cosmetics made in her own laboratory, based on secrets of Catherine de Medici. Over the ensuing years this grew to be a string of beauty salons all over France and Monte Carlo.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:23:04 +0000
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