32 Facts About Pauline Viardot

Pauline Viardot began performing as a teenager and had a long and illustrious career as a star performer.

Pauline Viardot achieved initial fame as "Pauline Garcia"; the accent was dropped at some point, but exactly when is not clear.

Pauline Viardot's father, Manuel, a tenor, was a Spanish singing teacher, composer and impresario.

Pauline Viardot's mother was Joaquina Sitches, a Spanish actress and operatic singer.

Pauline Viardot's godparents were Ferdinando Paer and Princess Pauline Galitsin, who provided her with her middle names.

Pauline Viardot was 13 years younger than her sister, Maria Malibran, a highly acclaimed and famous diva.

Pauline Viardot's father trained her on the piano and gave her singing lessons.

Pauline Viardot had wanted to become a professional concert pianist.

Pauline Viardot had taken piano lessons with the young Franz Liszt and counterpoint and harmony classes with Anton Reicha, the teacher of Liszt and Hector Berlioz and friend of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Pauline Viardot remained an outstanding pianist all her life, and often played duets with her friend Frederic Chopin, who approved of her arranging some of his mazurkas as songs, and even assisted her in this.

In 1837,16-year-old Pauline Viardot Garcia gave her first concert performance in Brussels.

Pauline Viardot made her opera debut as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello in London in 1839.

Pauline Viardot was devoted to her and became the manager of her career.

Pauline Viardot's marriage did not stop the steady stream of infatuated men.

Pauline Viardot spoke fluent Spanish, French, Italian, English, German, and Russian, and composed songs in a variety of national techniques.

Pauline Viardot's career took her to the best music halls across Europe, and from 1843 to 1846 she was permanently attached to the Opera in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Pauline Viardot spent many happy hours at George Sand's home at Nohant, with Sand and her lover Frederic Chopin.

Pauline Viardot was given expert advice by Chopin on her piano playing, her vocal compositions, and her arrangements of some of his mazurkas as songs.

Pauline Viardot in turn derived from her some firsthand knowledge about Spanish music.

Pauline Viardot tried to heal the rift and get the two back together, but to no avail.

Pauline Viardot arranged instrumental works by Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms as songs.

Pauline Viardot was the mezzo-soprano in the Tuba mirum movement of Mozart's Requiem at Chopin's funeral at Eglise de la Madeleine in Paris on 30 October 1849, which she performed together with a soprano, incognito behind a black curtain.

Pauline Viardot sang the title role of Gluck's opera Orphee et Eurydice at Theatre Lyrique in Paris in November 1859, directed by Hector Berlioz who arranged the opera, and she sang this role over 150 times.

Pauline Viardot was well acquainted with Jenny Lind, the Swedish soprano and philanthropist, who had been a student of her brother.

Pauline Viardot's students included Ada Adini, Desiree Artot, Selma Ek, Emma Engdahl-Jagerskiold, Marie Hanfstangl, Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya, Felia Litvinne, Emilie Mechelin, Aglaja Orgeni, Anna Eugenie Schoen-Rene, Mafalda Salvatini, Raimund von zur-Muhlen, and Maria Wilhelmj.

Pauline Viardot was the godmother of Artot's daughter Lola Artot de Padilla.

Pauline Viardot preserved it in a shrine in her Paris home, where it was visited by many notable people, including Rossini, who genuflected, and Tchaikovsky, who said he was "in the presence of divinity".

Pauline Viardot's body is interred in the Montmartre Cemetery, Paris, France.

Pauline Viardot began composing when she was young, but it was never her intention to become a composer.

Pauline Viardot's compositions were written mainly as private pieces for her students with the intention of developing their vocal abilities.

Pauline Viardot did the bulk of her composing after her retirement at Baden-Baden.

Pauline Viardot is a character in Alexander Chee's 2016 novel The Queen of the Night, appearing in her retirement at Baden-Baden as a teacher and mentor to the fictional narrator.