I
adopted in full consciousness ever afterward in this part."

Not even Malibran could equal her in the impersonation of this
character. Never was dramatic performance more completely, more
intensely affecting, more deeply pathetic, truthful, tender, and
powerful.

Some critics regarded her as far more of the tragedian than the singer.
"Her voice, since I have known it," observes Mr. Chorley, in his "Modern
German Music," "was capable of conveying poignant or tender expression,
but it was harsh and torn--not so inflexible as incorrect. Mme.
Schroeder-Devrient resolved to be _par excellence_ 'the German dramatic
singer.' Earnest and intense as was her assumption of the parts she
attempted, her desire of presenting herself first was little less
vehement: there is no possibility of an opera being performed by a
company, each of whom should be as resolute as she was never to rest,
never for an instant to allow the spectator to forget his presence.
She cared not whether she broke the flow of the composition by some cry
heard on any note or in any scale--by even speaking some word, for
which she would not trouble herself to study a right musical emphasis
or inflection--provided, only, she succeeded in continuing to arrest the
attention. Hence, in part, arose her extraordinary success in "Fidelio."
That opera contains, virtually, only one acting character, and with her
it rests to intimate the thrilling secret of the whole story, to develop
this link by link, in presence of the public, and to give the drama the
importance of terror, suspense, and rapture. When the spell is broken
by exhibiting the agony and the struggle of which she is the innocent
victim, if the devotion, the disguise, and the hope of Leonora, the
wife, were not for ever before us, the interest of the prison-opera
would flag and wane into a cheerless and incurable melancholy. This
Mme. Schroeder-Devrient took care that it should never do. From her first
entry upon the stage, it might be seen that there was a purpose at her
heart, which could make the weak strong and the timid brave; quickening
every sense, nerving every fiber, arming its possessor with disguise
against curiosity, with persuasion more powerful than any obstacle, with
expedients equal to every emergency.... What Pasta would be in spite
of her uneven, rebellious voice, a most magnificent singer, Mme.
Schroeder-Devrient did not care to be, though nature, as I have heard
from those who heard he