Garrick declared her a better actress than
Clairon. She was as famous for her wit as for her singing and acting.
When Mme. Laguerre appeared drunk in _Iphigenie en Tauride_ she
exclaimed, "Why this is _Iphigenie en Champagne_!" Indeed, she made so
many remarks worthy of preservation that shortly after her death in
1802, a book called "Arnoldiana," devoted to her epigrams, was
issued.... Nevertheless, this lady was hissed at the age of 36, when,
after a short absence from the stage she reappeared as Iphigenie in
1776. She was neither old nor ugly and if her voice may have lost
something her nineteen years of stage life in Paris might have weighed
against that. On one occasion, according to La Harpe, when she had the
line to sing, "You long for me to be gone," the audience applauded
vociferously. To protect Sophie, Marie Antoinette sat in a box on
several nights and stemmed the storm of disapproval, but in the end
even the presence of the queen herself was insufficient to quell the
hissing. One sad story completes the picture. In 1785, when her
financial troubles were beginning, her two sons, who bore her no love,
called for money. She had none to give them. "There are two horses
left in the stable," she said. "Take those." They rode away on the
horses.

Latin audiences are notoriously unfaithful to their stage favourites.
In "The Innocents Abroad" Mark Twain tells us of the bad manners of an
Italian audience. The singer he mentions is Erminia Frezzolini, born
at Orvieto in 1818. She sang both in England and America. Chorley said
of her: "She was an elegant, tall woman, born with a lovely voice, and
bred with great vocal skill (of a certain order); but she was the
first who arrived of the 'young Italians'--of those who fancy that
driving the voice to its extremities can stand in the stead of
passion. But she was, nevertheless, a real singer, and her art stood
her in stead for some years after nature broke down. When she had left
her scarce a note of her rich and real soprano voice to scream with,
Madame Frezzolini was still charming." She died in Paris, November 5,
1884. Now for Mark Twain:

"I said I knew nothing against the upper classes from personal
observation. I must recall it. I had forgotten. What I saw their
bravest and their fairest do last night, the lowest multitude that
could be scraped out of the purlieus of Christendom would blush to do,
I think. They assembled by hundreds, and even thousands, in the gre