Pauline Garcia-Viardot (July 18, 1821 - May 18, 1910) was a 19th century French mezzo-soprano and composer. Pauline Garcia was born in Paris to a Spanish family of singers. As a young woman, she was professionally trained as a pianist. Her father, Manuel Garcia, also gave her singing lessons but after his death in 1832 her mother took over. Her sister, Maria Malibran, was the singing star of the family until her untimely death in 1836.
In 1837 16-year-old Pauline Garcia gave her first concert performance in Brussels and in 1839, made her opera debut as Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello in London.
In 1840, she married Louis Viardot, an author and the director of the Théatre Italien in Paris, who would eventually manage her career.
Renowned for her wide range and her dramatic roles on stage, Viardot's performances inspired composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Giacomo Meyerbeer, for whom she created Fidès in Le prophète and others.
While she never considered herself a composer, she in fact composed a number of songs and also assisted with the writing of music for the roles that were created specifically for her. Later in life, after retiring from the stage, she wrote an opera titled Le dernier Sorcier.
She spoke fluent French, Italian , Spanish, English, German and Russian, and composed songs in a variety of national techniques. Her career took her to the best music halls across Europe, and from 1843 to 1846 she was permanently attached to the Opera in St. Petersburg, Russia. Such was her popularity that writer George Sand made her into the heroine of her 1843 novel "Consuelo."
Pauline Garcia-Viardot kept a very close lifetime friendship with Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev and adopted his love child Pelgaja (later called Paulinette).
In 1863 Pauline Viardot-Garcia retired from the stage. She and her family left France due to her husband’s public opposition to Emperor Napoleon III and settled in Baden-Baden, Germany. After the fall of Napoleon III, they returned to France where she taught at the Paris Conservatory and, until the time of her husband’s passing in 1883, also conducted a music salon in the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Pauline Viardot-Garcia's body is interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris, France. The VILLA VIARDOT in Bougival, near Paris, a gift to the Viardots by Ivan Turgenev in 1874, in where so many musicians, painters and poets came has now, since 2001, been restored thanks to the actions of Georges Bizet Association and Patrimoine et Urbanisme. The famous baritone Jorge Chaminé frequently gives master classes there.
