Pauline Garcia was the daughter of the Spanish tenor Manuel García, one of the creators of The Barber of Seville, and the sister of Maria, also a singer, better known as Maria Malibran, who died in 1836 at the age of 28.
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Pauline began her music studies with the piano, under the tutelage of Franz Liszt, and attended her father's singing lessons, which contributed to her training. She gave her first recital in 1838, at the age of 16, and made her operatic debut the following year in London as Desdemona in Gioachino Rossini's Otello.
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Less virtuoso on the strictly vocal level than her late sister, whom she was supposed to take over, she managed to impose herself through dramatic, intellectual and musical gifts. Her son Louis, in his memoirs1, indicates that she had a particularly wide vocal range. She also continued to work as a pianist, playing several times with Clara Schumann and accompanying her sister Maria and her brother-in-law, the violinist Bériot.
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Courted by Alfred de Musset, whom she rejected and who would harbor a strong resentment, she married, in 1840, on the advice of George Sand - who adored her and with whom she remained very close until her death in 18762 - to Louis Viardot, critic and director of the Théâtre des Italiens, 20 years her senior. Ary Scheffer then painted his portrait in his studio on rue Chaptal3. She has a happy family life; his children also pursued artistic careers: his son Paul as a violinist, his daughter Louise as a composer and writer, and his two other daughters as singers.4 Louis Viardot resigned from his position some time after the marriage to devote himself to his wife's career.
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A few years were enough for Pauline to make her mark. In 1849, Giacomo Meyerbeer offered him his most crushing role, Fidès in The Prophet; Hector Berlioz premiered for her a French version for mezzo-soprano of Gluck's Orpheus in 1859; Charles Gounod composed the opera Sappho for him, and his famous aria "Ô ma lyre immortelle"; Camille Saint-Saëns dedicated his Samson and Delilah to him; Frédéric Chopin admires his mastery of the piano. At his funeral on 30 October 1849, she was one of two female performers, along with the soprano Jeanne Castellan, of Mozart's Requiem in the Church of the Magdalen (hidden by a black curtain behind the altar, as at that time women were not allowed to sing in churches5,6). An intimate member of all these musicians, she brings together the art world in her private mansion in the Nouvelle Athènes district in the 9th arrondissement, or in her property in Seine-et-Marne: the Château de Courtavenel.
