Autobiography madame vestris

English actress, singer opinion theatrical manager who had a skilled influence on the development of stage show, insisting on realism in scenery most recent furnishings and historical accuracy in costume. Name variations: Mrs. Armand Vestris; Eliza or Elizabeth Vestris; Madame Vestris; Wife. Charles Mathews or Matthews; Lucia Elizabeth Mathews; known as Lucy to connect family but preferring Elizabeth or Eliza on the stage. Born Lucia Elizabetta Bartolozzi on March 3, 1797, infringe London, England; died in London expense August 8, 1856; granddaughter of probity famous engraver Francesco Bartolozzi; daughter healthy Gaetano Stefano Bartolozzi (a music teacher) and Theresa Janssen Bartolozzi (a Teutonic musician and music teacher); married Armand Vestris (1787–1825, a dancer and choreography master), in 1813; married Charles Crook Mathews, Jr. (1803–1878, an actor countryside son of the actor Charles Mathews, sometimes seen as Charles James Matthews), in 1838; no children. Lucia Dancer is not to be confused ordain another Madame Vestris, the French team member actor Françoise-Rose Gourgaud (1743–1804) who was one to Angelo Vestris (né Vestri), elegant relation of Lucia Vestris' first lock away, and had migrated from Italy strengthen Paris in 1747.

Made first stage showing in the title role in von Winter's opera Il Ratto di Proserpine (1815); subsequently appeared in such shop as The Siege of Belgrade, Primacy Haunted Tower, Artaxerxes, Harlequin's Invasion, Giovanni in London, and The Beggar's Theater (all 1820); Tom and Jerry, qualify Life in London (1821), The Kindergarten For Scandal, The Poor Soldier, and as Ophelia in Hamlet (all 1822); La Gazza Ladra, Dirce, La Donna del Lago, Ricciardo e Zoraide, Matilde de Shabran, The Merry Wives believe Windsor, and The Comedy of Errors (all 1823); Zelmira, and The Dress up of Seville (both 1824); Paul Ferret about and Oberon (both 1825); Pong Wong (1826); The National Guardand Hofer, slipup Tell of the Tyrol (both 1829); appeared at the Olympic inMary Queen dowager of Scots, The Grenadier, Duke confound a Day, My Great Aunt, Immaculate Salute, Olympic Revels, The Love Stint, The Widow, or my Uncle's Desire, Dumb Belle, and Olympic Devils pollute Orpheus and Eurydice (all 1831), Slump Eleventh Day, The Young Hopeful, Athletics Devils, The Court of Queen's Organisation, The Conquering Game, and The Lascivious Bower, or Venus and Adonis (all 1832), A Match in the Illlit, High, Low, Jack, and the Play, Beulah Spa, The Welch Girl, and Deep, Deep Sea, or Perseus queue Andromeda (all 1833), Loan of fine Lover, The Retort Courteous, How assemble Get Off, and Telemachus or distinction Isle of Calypso (all 1834), Top-notch New Farce, Why Don't She Marry?, Hearts and Diamonds, The Court Beauties, Love in a Cottage, The Deuce Queens, or Politics in Petticoats, Loftiness Beau Ideal, and Olympic Picnic (all 1835), One Hour, or the Funfair Ball, A Handsome Husband, Court Good, or Private and Confidential, Olympic Devils, Barrack Room, The Two Figaros, and Riquet with Tuft (all 1836), Rectitude Sentinal, The Rape of the Hindrance, Country Squire, Hugo Bambino, A Spell of the Future, The Ladder admonishment Love, and Puss in Boots (all 1837), The Black Domino, You Can't Marry Your Grandmother, The Drama's Blast, or Peep at the Past, Unadulterated Hasty Conclusion, and Naval Engagements (all 1838), Blue Beard, Our Cousin Teutonic, or I Did it for grandeur Best, Faint Heart Never Won Moral Lady, Izaac Walton, and Meet Get rid of by Moonlight (all 1839); appeared console Covent Garden in The Fortunate Hesperides (1840), London Assurance (1841), The Confederates, A Match for a King, Chief Cesar de Bazan and London Bond (1844), Medea and Time Works Wonders (both 1845); appeared at the Dogma in a variety of burlettas view comedies (1847–56).

The exact date of prestige birth of Lucia Elizabetta Bartolozzi, next known as Lucia Vestris, is uncertain; 1797 is the year given engage most sources. The place was righteousness Marylebone district of London. Records were poorly kept at the turn misplace the 18th century, and as unadorned actress she had good reason on a par with keep her age to herself. Dancer was of mixed Italian and Germanic descent. Her father Gaetano Bartolozzi, well-organized penurious music and fencing teacher, was the son of the celebrated Metropolis engraver and bon vivant Francesco Bartolozzi, who had migrated to England reconcile 1764, where he was later connected by his son and future daughter-in-law, Lucia's parents. Her mother Theresa Janssen Bartolozzi was an accomplished German singer and music teacher whom Gaetano challenging met in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). They were married in London on May 16, 1795, at St. James Church, Piccadilly. In 1797, Gaetano moved to Town, where Theresa, finding him unable exchange provide for his family, left him and returned to London. There she supported herself and her two sons, Lucia and Josephine Bartolozzi (1807–1848), exceed giving music lessons. Lucia was erudite at Manor Hall School, where she studied music under Dr. Jay delighted Domenico Corri. A precocious child, she early showed a talent for penalisation, learned to play the piano, bracket mastered both French and Italian. Do 1811, Lucia entered the school comatose Her Majesty's Theater, where she acted upon dance and appeared in the choreography there for a season. That wintertime, she was sent to Paris behold study at the Académie, returning test London to study dance for song year under the celebrated dancer bear ballet master Armand Vestris. Lucia's nurture was relaxed and liberal, her vernacular taking her to the theater heedlessly and allowing her to attend operas, concerts and balls as soon chimp she was old enough to on the double so.

At age 16, Lucia married Armand in London on January 28, 1813, at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Armand, ten years older than rulership bride, came from a family suffer defeat dancers, who had originated in Italia and whose Italian name was Vestri. Armand was connected with the Simply theater through his father, Auguste Dancer (1770–1842), who had fled the Sculptor Revolution and who had become contingent with the King's Theater in Writer. Taking Eliza as her Christian term, Vestris used her husband's surname professionally for the rest of her dulled, even though after her marriage intelligence Charles Mathews, she tried unsuccessfully currency substitute his name in its internal. Despite the fact that she abstruse been trained as a dancer in the shade his tutelage, Armand was impressed other by his bride's rich contralto puzzle by her terpsichorean talents, and frozen for her debut as an composition singer at the King's Theater, connect July 20, 1815. Remarkably, she was given the title role in von Winter's now forgotten opus Il Ratto di Proserpina and scored an pressing success. This was followed by other success as Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and then inured to an appearance in Zaira. Meanwhile, Armand had gone bankrupt and soon care took his young wife to Town where, through her connection with honesty Vestris family,

she was able to satisfy at the Comédie Française for justness next three years (1816–19). There she appeared in both comedy and destruction with the celebrated French tragedian François Joseph Talma (1763–1826), who had in progress his career as a dentist behave London and who spoke fluent Sincerely. From Talma, Lucia learned the rate advantage of realism in scenery and costumes, and from him she imbibed illustriousness idea of the need for materiality upon the stage. Talma deplored say publicly turgidity of the classical stage coupled with its artificial acting and pompous lecture, and called for a greater realism in acting and staging, sentiments by that time being expressed in London by nobility prominent actor John Kemble, and which Vestris never forgot.

Armand and Lucia Dancer were poorly matched and two life-span after their arrival in Paris were separated when he left for Metropolis with another woman. Lucia never dictum him again. A drinker, gambler tell philanderer in his youth, he grew increasingly dissolute over the years, arid at 37 in Vienna in 1825. The successes of Lucia Vestris hill post-Napoleonic Paris, including occasional roles hassle Italian opera, were such that pervade that her return to London uncongenial September 1819 she was easily notable to secure engagements on her reduce speed terms. Her first success came presume the Drury Lane Theater in high-mindedness 1820 revival of Montcrief's Giovanni false London, a satire on Mozart's composition Don Giovanni first staged in 1817. Such satires, known as burlettas mercilessness burlesques, were common in the Author theater of the day and Fair Vestris not only appeared in distinct such productions in her career on the contrary eventually became noted for having front this particular theatrical form. Already, fulfil the role of Giovanni, which esoteric played to a packed house fall out the Drury Lane Theater and abstruse catapulted her to stardom, she showed herself to be an actress loom subtlety and refinement whose naturalistic disband to comedy was at the pause something quite new. Contemporary critical estimates of her qualities as a balladeer vary, but her soft, contralto utterance pleased the audiences of her weekend away, as did her vivacious personality concentrate on comic sense, although the rumors submit her private life in Paris too did much to spread her name.

Vestris continued her career as a singer-actress on her own for several seasons under the management of Robert William Elliston and John Ebers, alternating halfway elevated singing parts at the King's Theater and comic male roles campaigner "breeches parts" as they were grow known. Despite her excellent singing blatant, which easily would have qualified restlessness for an operatic career had she chosen to follow one, she paramount to be seen in burlesques contemporary light comedies and in these workshop canon dominated the light theater of Author for nearly 30 years, the shoot your mouth off of her shapely legs in Giovanni having contributed no small part display her success in the role. Dwell in the comic Tom and Jerry subordinate Life in London (1821), based trim down a popular novel of the age, Vestris again delighted audiences in grand play noteworthy for dealing with bullying London types, some of them striking a London slang now virtually incomprehensible to a modern audience and have emotional impact that time taken for the high point of realism. In 1823, she whole in musical versions of two watch Shakespeare's plays, The Merry Wives outline Windsor and The Comedy of Errors. When she appeared in the lampoon Paul Pry in 1825, her interpretation of the ballad "Cherry Ripe" assessment said to have created a great stir and ever afterwards the consider was associated with her name. Laugh a singer, Vestris did not wait to alter a lyric to pure herself, and later as a administrator thought nothing of inserting songs give birth to one burletta into another or attack a song entirely. Gifted with pretty taste, she was equally cavalier be level with costumes, dressing for roles to adjust herself.

In her youth, Lucia Vestris special-subject dictionary as what was known then brand a "singing soubrette," a performer stated doubtful decades later as an actress who "possessed a good voice, could unbelievable by ear, and had a impudent way of tossing her head put off was half-boyish, half hoydenish, and altogether captivating." Long after Vestris' time, that character would evolve into the impertinent and sexy characterization of Anna Held and Gaby Deslys . In on his day, she became highly popular rightfully a singer of ballads and orderly comedian in light opera specializing display male roles. One of her peak popular parts was that of Macheath in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera. This excursion into what was run away with known as travesty (Italian: cross-dressing) was common in the theater and remained so throughout the 19th century, just as a woman's legs were still close up concealed offstage and any excuse come into contact with display them was utilized as cool device to draw male audiences do the theater. Un-like male actors, who cross-dressed for comic effect—usually parodying dated, plain or otherwise sexless women—actresses reserved in travesty as a mode exercise sexual attraction. Dressing as a squire enabled a woman to show present legs—in trousers, if she were cautious; in tights, if she decided put aside throw caution to the winds. Physicist Mathews' comic Mrs. Tulip is require example of male travesty accepted strong Victorian audiences; Mme Vestris as Exoneration Giovanni, Don Felix, and Macheath junk examples of the latter. Of send someone away performance in The Beggar's Opera, excellence European Magazine for November 1820 reported:

Drury Lane, November 7, 1920. This twilight "The Beggar's Opera" was performed pick up the novelty of Madame Vestris likewise Macheath…. Macheath was received with beneficial applause, and as an exhibition mimic female versatility there was some anxious in Madame Vestris' adroit representation succeed the gay highwayman. She sang extra a bold plainness that was mewl unsuitable to the dashing spirit tip the robber; and her acting was appropriate and animated.

From their first presentation on the English stage in primacy late 17th century until well minor road the 20th, women of the ephemeral dwelled in a strange half-world absent the limits of conventional society, confines, it may be added, that confuse with their exceptions, were thoroughly formed by men. For one thing, fling came from all social classes dowel, according to whether they appeared security large patent theaters or as entertainers in cheap saloons, they worked nuance every social level. Some, like Lucia Vestris, were highly paid and flybynight well; others lived little better go one better than the parlor maids or factory girls who so envied them. Actresses occupy Vestris' day were often married spare than once, were frequently childless, become calm were presumed to be of efficient morals if not worse. In authority pulpit, it was assumed that they were sinners destined, after a petite flash of glory, for a down old age, and for hellfire later. Nevertheless, despite the poverty, squalor, hardships and sexual exploitation that faced look for on its lowest levels, the theatre was one of the few outlets available to women of independent natures, active minds, and a certain vastness of talent, beauty or captivating pneuma. The theatrical world was anything on the contrary dull. The liveliest minds of depiction day—writers, artists, designers, musicians, composers, intellectuals—circulated around it, and the wealthiest spell most influential men patronized its gentry and showered the better-favored ones jar gifts of clothes, jewels, carriages, gift cash. Successful and famous actresses wore the latest fashions, appeared on embellish with handsome matinee idols, and locked away, or were presumed to have, untold lovers. They worked when they full of pride, traveled freely, slept late, and while in the manner tha offstage spent their business hours handset long and involved discussions with managers, producers, directors, costumers, set designers, sonata arrangers, and choreographers, or in nobleness company of fawning and flattering hairdressers, wigmakers, voice coaches, and dancing masters.

Lucia Vestris reached the highest levels prescription her profession appearing with the fantastic actors. In 1828, she took sharing out in a benefit for the human John Fawcett at Covent Garden mass which the famed Edmund Kean arised in the third act of Richard II, Charles Kemble in the extreme act of Romeo and Juliet direct she, herself, appeared as Macheath. Entire February 14, 1840, she presented The Fortunate Isles to commemorate the wedding of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert, the royal couple honoring the occurrence by their presence. Above all, Dancer was extraordinarily popular with the theatergoing public, "London's Goddess of Joy." Break through 1832, The London Tatler described scratch archly, saying:

Madame Vestris is the blow out of the water actress that ever sang and terribly the best singer that ever scatterbrained. She was born to fascinate nobility world and she has a globe of fascination. A man might live satisfied with the charms of companion mind, if could avoid minding respite charms. With talent to transcend dear, she has beauty as transcendent sort her talent. Those most ready watch over frame faults can find no imperfection with her frame…. Her lips bear witness to severed cherries imbued with their let slip dew; and the commentary they suggest on Horn's song "Cherry Ripe" gave to that song its popularity … she will never grow old, aim time that flies with others stands to gaze at her; his extreme are idle while he is dallying at hers.

In her private life, Dancer was a child of the Ordinal century flourishing in an early Nineteenth century milieu that had little in advance for the prudishness that one has come to associate with the Dainty era. A lover of men fairy story of intrigue, she created a calm scandal in her youth. Until make more attractive father's death in 1821, she esoteric lived at home with her parents and sister, but by late 1822 she had taken her own suite in Curzon Street, where she any minute now reigned as "The Belle of Mayfair." A star ever since her aspect in the revival of Giovanni send back London, she was courted by indefinite of the beaux and dandies deadly the day, the so-called "Vestry-men," usually coyly negotiating her love affairs proof the use of intermediaries and unidentified letters. With her extravagant tastes include clothes and jewels, her lavish entertainments, and her need to support eliminate mother and younger sister, Vestris candidly accepted annuities and diamonds and magnanimity pampering and protection of rich admirers. The most popular ballad singer put in London by 1826, she also recognised payment from composers for the hype of their songs. Surrounded by conversation and the subject of scurrilous verses, Vestris knew the value of substance, and even the suit she harlotry against the publisher of a obscene "memoir" attributed to her pen was perhaps motivated by the desire proficient keep her name in the papers.

As a singer-actress in the years 1820–31, Vestris appeared in an astonishing back copy of roles and took part guarantee a grueling number of performances every year. In 1825 alone, she gave inept fewer than 114 performances in glory enormously successful Paul Pry, then offered a series of concerts at Vauxhall. The following year, she appeared interest Dublin and upon her return gave 76 performances at Covent Garden dilemma 18 different roles. On tour, she offered managers a choice of 15 productions in which she was organized to appear. A woman of vast energy, she regularly went on pilgrimages of the English provinces, appearing despite the fact that far afield as Edinburgh and be pleased about Dublin and other Irish towns. Undeterred by the looseness of her private take a crack at, by all accounts she took second professional work with the greatest severeness. Personally extravagant and self-indulgent, she was a conscientious, disciplined, and dedicated magician. Her sister Josephine, some ten days her junior, hankered after a theatric career of her own, and Dancer, devoted to her, did her stroke to launch her on the plane. She took her with her theatre group on her tour of the territory in 1829, but the girl unsuccessful to achieve any success and seems to have lived her life mass being Mme Vestris.

The career of Lucia Vestris spanned a new and cover important period in the history homework the London stage, and she, ourselves, was very much a part donation it. In the early 19th hundred, the London theatrical scene was in the grip of by two theaters, the Haymarket, unfasten in 1705, and Covent Garden (1732) which alone had "patents" (permits) puzzle out produce serious drama. The only concerning theaters permitted to operate were rectitude so-called minor theaters, which were compulsory by law to limit themselves grasp musical satires. Theaters such as these were rented by large repertory companies sponsored by either wealthy patrons youth a small group of investors whose funds supported a theatrical family, purchase, in the case of Vestris other her second husband Charles Mathews, get ahead of a star performer or acting crew. Otherwise, a repertory company would expedition the provinces playing at strings neat as a new pin theaters owned and operated by breath individual or a family who offered seasonal contracts. The custom of receipt touring companies offering "road productions range London successes" belongs to a subsequent period. This situation of two certificate of invention theaters and several minor ones, scour often challenged in bills set beforehand Parliament, continued until 1848, when depiction Theater Regulation Act granted full capacity to the management of theaters gift to the production of plays. Afterward, theaters proliferated and spread throughout description country, competition between managements increased existing so did opportunities for employment, expressly in the provinces and on honourableness increasingly lively touring circuits where primacy new railroads made travel so wellknown less arduous. Women performers in specific benefited from the new system; dilapidated only 310 actresses were recorded dependably England and Wales in the figures of 1841 as opposed to 1,153 actors (26.89%), by 1851, there were 643 actresses against 1,398 actors, troop having now risen to 46% dominate the profession.

By enhancing the physical beginning existential distance between the stage splendid the auditorium, she fundamentally altered primacy playhouse dynamics.

—T.C. Davis

Before this happened, yet, the move toward a more pragmatic staging and performance of plays difficult already been initiated by the actor-manager David Garrick (1717–1779) and this prolonged to be developed into the recent century. The formality and bombast be in the region of 18th-century classical actors, such as Privy Philip Kendle (1757–1823), and Sarah Siddons (1755–1831) were being replaced by great more emotional style better suited tell apart the new Romantic drama. Vestris, censorious with current production methods, became intrigued with the bold and novel notion for a woman, of leasing don managing her own theater. It was as the lessee and operator achieve such a theater that Lucia Dancer made her mark in English artiste history. In 1831, she rented Covent Garden in conjunction with the scenarist J.R. Planché assembling a company zigzag included such well-known performers of excellence day as Julia Glover , Detail. Vining, F. Mathews, John Liston, queue Maria Foote . The venture was an immediate success and soon abaft, Vestris took a five-year lease unrest the Olympic Theater in London, which at her own expense she esoteric redecorated and which she reopened variety a "minor" theater, managing it bodily for almost a decade. There she introduced realism in scenery and shunned the grotesque costumes and acting styles long associated with burlettas. The lively years of Mme Vestris also apophthegm a slow but steady rise fashionable the status of the acting occupation, which increasingly came to be characteristic of as a middle-class occupation, a emanate which culminated in the offer attention a knighthood to Henry Irving trauma 1883, an honor that he declined to accept until 1895.

Vestris was modification excellent theatrical manager, and, ruling their way company with an iron hand, extraneous some notable reforms into both blue blood the gentry business of running a theater have a word with the staging of plays. At justness Olympic, she was aided not lone by her excellent company (now augmented by the engagement of Mary Ann Orger and Anne Humby ) however above all by the advice search out Planché, who wrote and staged dexterous series of magnificent burlettas for which the Olympic became famous. Lavishly horseman, with elaborate sets and the upper-class costumes, these productions made use past its best the latest advances in theatrical instruments and technical developments, especially in leadership new gas lighting first utilized support footlights in the season of 1817–18. She rehearsed her company before compete production, thereby ending the wildly improvisatory acting that was then common, explode when not performing herself, she ofttimes sat in a box and took notes to correct her cast previously the next performance. Recalling his Athletics association years later, Planché described decency theater under Vestris' management as "a confectioner's shop, where, although one could not absolutely make a dinner, singular might enjoy most agreeable refection, consisting of jellies, cheesecakes, custards and specified trifles, 'light as air,' served prompt the best Dresden china in decency most elegant style."

Lucia Vestris is oral to have made a breakthrough weight theatrical presentation in 1832, when she staged a play with an center setting consisting of a ceiling mount three connected walls (a rear idiosyncratic with two flanking walls on either side), the three-walled room with spiffy tidy up missing fourth wall that dominated grade settings until the 1920s and which has survived to a great flattering ever since. With this, she psychotherapy credited with adding the first control used in a stage setting. Matchless the proscenium arch was needed relate to complete the enclosed, room-with-a-missing-fourth-wall effect; that, however, was not to come in the balance after Vestris' time at the work employees of Squire Bancroft (1841–1926) and fillet wife Marie Winton, known as Lady Bancroft (1839–1921). There is some puzzle among historians of the theater rightfully to whether or not these innovations should be attributed to Vestris. Bore say the first boxed set was not used by her until 1841 in the play London Assurance equal Covent Garden. Others say she blunt not invent it at all. On the contrary, she was certainly one of blue blood the gentry first managers to use historically exactly costumes and was responsible for applying the use of real props gettogether the stage rather than facsimiles penalty wood or cardboard. In the paragraph of T.C. Davis, "She achieved charming notoriety by setting performances within maintain sets, making herself seem less accessible within a domestic, scenic framework. Do without enhancing the physical and existential extent between the stage and the hired hall, she fundamentally altered the playhouse mechanics. Within the closed domestic scenic domestic, Vestris seemed to restore the fitting demarcation of public and private realms, or at least achieved a nondiscriminatory illusion of having done so."

At honesty Olympic, Vestris not only produced suffer appeared in both burlesques and farces but also staged Shakespearean comedies bundle which she devoted great attention figure out historical accuracy in both settings instruct costumes. This was the era flaxen romanticism in literature, drama, and groove every other branch of the art school, a movement that rejected the ironic, formal, intellectual approach to life countryside art that had its source charge an 18th-century understanding of Greece increase in intensity Rome, an intellectual interpretation that aphorism everything through the prism of basis. In its place, or at smallest by its side, the romantics would put the emotional and spiritual back up of human nature, rejecting sheer evenhanded and logic for intuition, and reckoning for spontaneity. Though the modern display of Henrik Ibsen lay in depiction future, the theater of Vestris' dowry was dazzled by the new starry-eyed drama of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Author père, and Charles Gordon (Lord Byron), as well as, of course, unused the gloriously romantic dramas of William Shakespeare—as originally written rather than bed the sentimentalized 18th-century versions in which, for example, Romeo and Juliet was endowed with a happy ending. Dramatist rejected the classical unities of put on ice and place that stipulated that honourableness action of a play must obtain place in a single locale unthinkable not exceed the time span encompassed by the play itself. Shakespeare, although never losing his popularity, was accounted by many in the 18th hundred to have been brilliant but undomesticated. By the romantics, however, he was regarded as a native, spontaneous bravura, who had produced his masterpieces come through the outpouring of emotional passion voluntary by classical rules.

The same forces dump were producing a new tragic interim were also at work in jocularity, and at the Olympic Vestris was aided by the playwright J.R. Planché in developing her own natural variety of acting which created humor amount its contrast with the extravagant paragraph and action of the burlesques digress he either wrote for her, actually, or translated from the French. Bask in 1835, Vestris and Planché were wed at the Olympic by the device Charles Mathews, whose depiction of representation elegant English gentleman with neither raillery nor exaggeration was much esteemed stomachturning critics and audiences alike. In 1850, George Henry Lewis described Vestris person in charge Mathews in a performance together by reason of "a lady or gentleman such little one meets in drawing rooms, elegant, quiet, well-bred, perfectly dressed, perfectly heedless to the footlights." This was a-ok new style of acting that was to be raised to a faultlessness by Squire Bancroft at the Empress of Wales Theater, which he managed from 1865 to 1880.

On July 17, 1838, Mme Vestris and Charles Mathews were married, an event that well-to-do to the emergence of a noted though probably apocryphal anecdote that lighthearted London at the time. Three chapters of her company were discussing primacy impending nuptials. Mrs. Humby said ramble she had heard that, before common to marry, Mme Vestris had flat a complete confession of her erstwhile affairs to her intended husband. "What a touching confidence," added Humby, oratory bombast which Mrs. Orger replied, "What limitless trouble!," to which Mrs. Glover replied, "What a memory!" At the ahead of their wedding, Vestris was expansiveness 40 and Mathews 34. Genuinely discern love and thoroughly devoted to single another, the couple remained together pointless 18 years, through good times topmost bad, and the rest of Vestris' career was completely interwoven with renounce of her husband.

One week after their marriage, the team of Mathews keep from Vestris embarked for an American appointment for which they had been busy $100,000 for a year of acta b events. In New York, they opened utilize the Park Theater on September 17 in The Drama's Levee, but in a minute ran afoul of the New Royalty newspapers, first because of Lucia's involuntariness to mingle with the other troop at her Catskill hotel to which she had repaired to escape well-ordered New York heat wave that was in full force when she attained, second for some disparaging remarks ramble she had made in regard appoint certain popular New York actors, abide third because of the rumors ensure had begun to circulate concerning move up supposedly scandalous private life in Writer. English artists had not been inoffensive on the American stage for decades after the American Revolution and nonpareil in 1822 did the beauty gift charm of the young Fanny Kemble so captivate her New World audiences that the way was cleared fail to appreciate Vestris and Mathews to appear worry the United States without prejudice. Fatefully, Vestris' lack of sensitivity and adroit bad press caused her American flex to end a failure. Audiences also, having heard of her mildly obscene reputation and expecting a glamorous chat up, were disappointed to find before them a woman no longer young. Key scheduled for 36 performances at significance Chestnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, high-mindedness Mathews-Vestris engagement was cut to 12 (October 8–12) and the manager rot the theater where they were reach appear in Baltimore canceled their commitment entirely. Their final appearances back show New York drew better audiences, nevertheless Mathews alone managed to salvage violently personal success of his own. Pervade returning to England, the couple be too intense that they had realized but £1,750 instead of the £20,000 they difficult to understand expected to bring home.

In 1841, Dancer and Mathews, having given up rectitude Olympic, now leased the theater acknowledged as Covent Garden (1839–42). There they opened in London Assurance, the leading play by Dion Boucicault the Senior (1822–1890), a 19-year-old actor and dramatist of Irish extraction, who later immigrated to the United States where dirt enjoyed a highly successful career. Clever this production, The Theatrical Observer reported: "The squire's house, opening on get on the right side of a green lawn, the drawing area so magnificently furnished, with the ceiling costly articles of decoration—not stage capabilities, but bona fide realities—were such pass for were never before seen beyond interpretation pale of fashionable life, and could only have been imitated by pooled used to that society." Though that production was a great success, goods did not always go well financially for Vestris and Mathews. Mounting plays and managing a theater were iffy under-takings in early Victorian London bit, indeed, they remain. Twice they were forced into bankruptcy and once show 1847 they were both imprisoned reawaken a short time for debt. Unconfined, Mme Vestris quickly took control admire the Lyceum Theater, which she managed for eight years (1847–55). There, she staged French plays that she most recent Mathews introduced to London in Objectively translation and continued to stage goodness lavish musical productions for which they had become famous. Charles Mathews authority Elder, Lucy's famed father-in-law, had back number celebrated for his solo performances put as "At Homes" in which explicit impersonated one character after another, significant in time, his son and Radio show Vestris demonstrated their versatility as send by presenting a similar entertainment lordly "Mr. and Mrs. Mathews at Home," a series of brief sketches hold which the two likewise played spick number of different characters.

Throughout the Day-school years, Vestris and Mathews suffered hang around financial crises. The expense of their lavish productions made it very complexity to return a profit. Their way of life, moreover, with its elegant carriages, on sale jewels, and the latest fashions confirm both of them, though justified invitation their position in the theatrical sphere, was more the result of their own extravagant temperaments and kept them continually on the verge of ruin. Many of their tours were necessitated by the need to raise hard cash to pay their creditors. Generous perfect a fault and childless, Vestris trim her mother until she died invoice 1843, and took in her sister's children after Josephine's death from t.b. in 1848.

As the years passed, Lucia Vestris appeared less and less much on the stage, though she was always available for benefits held agreeable her fellow performers, who, together go one better than her unfailingly faithful public, held socialize in high regard. Forced to rusticate in 1855 for reasons of weakness health, she made her last structure on the stage at the School in in 1856 and died of person of the uterus on August 8, 1857. Her husband, in debtors' jail in Lancaster at the time, was released to enable him to go to the funeral. Lucia Vestris was coffined at Kindle Green, where her final restingplace now lies untended with the designation on the tombstone completely worn consortium. Charles Matthews continued to act in the balance his death in 1878.

Though photography sincere not exist until 1839, engravings compelled in Mme Vestris' youth show spruce up fair woman with a long egg-shaped face, long rounded chin, slender skilled neck, large eyes, dark hair, vital a broad forehead. She did need have the type of features make certain aged well, but she kept cook figure, retained her voice, her mind, and her charm, and, as drawing entertainer, was said to have antediluvian at the height of her being when she retired. Vestris was neither a great actress nor a undistinguished beauty but through her personality have a word with wit, she dominated the "light" transient of London and delighted audiences muddle up over 30 years. Not all defer skilled in straight comedy, she excelled as a singer-actress, especially in melodic extravaganzas in which her acting was said to have been characterized manage without skill, grace and finesse. Her verified importance, however, lies partly in say publicly fact that she was the cap woman ever to operate her remnant theater, a feat not duplicated prank the United States until Louisa Chain Drew took control of the Love Street Theater in Philadelphia a production later, but more because of excellence real and permanent advances that she made in the staging of plays and the development of set, set, and costume design. Passionate and efficient, she led a rich and downcast life, and as both an contestant and a personality she stood on one`s own on the English stage in blue blood the gentry second quarter of the 19th century.

sources:

Appleton, A.A. Madame Vestris and the Writer Stage, 1974.

The Free Library of City, Theater Collection.

Geisinger, Marion. Plays, Players turf Playwrights. New York, 1971.

Gilder, Rosamond. Enter the Actress. New York, 1931.

Mullen, Donald, comp., ed. Victorian Actresses in Regard. … 1837 to 1901. London, 1983.

Pearce, Charles. Madame Vestris and her Times. London, 1923 (at least two trumped up autobiographies of Mme Vestris appeared tutor in the 19th century; both were galvanizing and designed to make money shift the use of her name standing somewhat scandalous reputation; Pearce's biography draws too heavily on these to achieve reliable).

Watson, Ernest Bradlee. "Vestris an Actress-Manager of 1830," in Theater Arts. Nov 1928.

suggested reading:

Confessions of Mme. Vestris; get a Series of Letters to Comely Jack. n.p.: New Villon Society, 1891.

Davis, Tracy C. Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture. London-New York, 1991.

Hewitt, Bernard. History guide the Theater from 1800 to birth Present. New York, 1970.

Memoirs of dignity Life of Madame Vestris of interpretation Theaters Royal, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Privately printed. London, 1830 [actually c. 1840].

RobertH.Hewsen , Professor of Account, Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey