“If every woman who used to fancy herself in love with Brignoli had gone to his funeral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral wouldn’t have held the mourners,” remarked, with a good deal of truth, a friend of Brignoli’s in my hearin’. What Montague used to be among the actors–the women’s actor–Brignoli used to be among the tenors–the women’s tenor. He was especially popular in the city of Philadelphia, where he lived at one time. A young Jewess, now a grandmother, and the wife of one of New York’s leadin’ merchants, fell head over ears in love with the then handsome tenor, and got talked about. Her brother swore to shoot Brignoli at sight, and her father said he would bring a suit for damages against him; but throughout the whole affair the singer acted so much like a gentleman–acted, in fact, so much better than he ever did on the stage–that not only was any scandal avoided, but the father and brother of the lady were ever afterwards numbered among his best friends. His course in this affair was characterized by an almost chivalric delicacy. He protected the lady from herself; and doubtless the news of her preserver’s death has caused sincere grief in the lady’s breast who is under such priceless obligations to the man now dead.
Some fifteen years ago Brignoli was sometimes seen with a very pretty young girl who resided on the east side of town, and who attended a store on Broadway. The gossips tried to make a scandal out of this; but it turned out just the other way, a credit to both parties. The young girl had a fine voice and wanted to turn her gift to advantage, and the tenor did all he could to aid her in her wishes. Their acquaintance was simply platonic and honorable. The young girl was, through Brignoli’s good offices, sent to Milan to study music at its fountainhead, and had a bright personal and professional future before her, but she took a bad cold, developed consumption and died. Her last letter was one of thanks to the devoted, pure, unselfish friend to whom she owed the best part of her life, as the dyin’ girl phrased it.
Of course Brignoli was no saint or anchorite. The divorce suit brought against him by his wife, Miss McCullough, proved that. But the women were more to blame than the man in the case. They would go after him, and, as I hinted before, he deserves the rare credit, like Mr. Harry Montague, of always bein’ a gentleman. In his earlier career Brignoli was lavish with his money, but of late years he has become very close in his personal expenditures, but not from stinginess, but pride–and necessity. He was sensitive on the subject of seemin’ poor, so he would rather appear mean than in want.
His most intimate female friend for years was Emma Abbott, who, with her husband Wetherell, entertained the highest personal regard for the once irresistible tenor. Brignoli and Emma Abbott were often at Saratoga at the same time, and one evenin’ they had a notable discussion in which several literary and musical celebrities took part, about the “morality” of the opera “La Traviata,” and about Emma Abbott appearin’ in that opera.
The fair Emma professed to be terribly shocked at the bare idea of the “goin’s on” of that minx Camille, the basis of the opera, and held that music was debased by illustratin’ such a character; whereas Brignoli hotly contended that art was not a system of morality, and had no sympathy with prudery. The lady and the tenor commenced to talk on that subject about seven in the afternoon, after an early dinner, and the discussion was kept up in the parlors and piazza of the United States Hotel till long after midnight, neither party’s views havin’ been changed, as a matter of course.
Brignoli met Boz durin’ his last series of readin’s in this country. And the two men seemed to take a likin’ to each other. Had Dickens lived a little longer he would probably have served up the tenor in one of his novels–like Bulwer served up Charles Foster in the “Strange Story.” And probably in that case Brignoli would have got as mad as he did at the managers of the Union Square Theatre for allowing him to be burlesqued on the stage as the tenor in “French Flats.”
Brignoli was introduced to Boz by Ben Russell, the New York theatrical lawyer, one of the novelist’s intimate companions in this country; and after Ben’s untimely death, the tenor kept up the intimacy with his widow, whose cozy flat opposite the Victoria Hotel was one of his pet “loafin’ places,” where he would sing and play the piano and compose.
At one time Brignoli tried his hand at composin’ an opera, but he never got any further than the first act. He had a libretto written to order–that is, he ordered a libretto, but like the music it was never carried beyond the first act.
Two of his minor annoyances were a woman and a man who got “stuck on him.” The woman for years kept writin’ him love letters and layin’ for him in the street; and the man kept imitatin’, or trying to imitate, his well-known and peculiar gait. Of these two the man was worse than the woman–the bigger nuisance of the two.
But perhaps of all his troubles the greatest was that, spite of all his efforts, he never was able to cook macaroni as well as some of his musical rivals. This fact, in a born Italian like himself, he considered almost disreputable, but he couldn’t overcome it. He never succeeded in preparin’ macaroni to his entire satisfaction. His triumphs as a tenor did not compensate him for his trials as a cook.
Well, the sweetest–not the greatest, but the sweetest–singer of our time has been laid away in the tomb, and the lyric stage and his own circle will ever miss and mourn Brignoli.
