MALIBRAN, MARIE FELICITE operatic singer, daughter of Manoel Garcia (q.v.), was born in Paris on March 24, 18°8. Her father was then a member of the company of the Theatre des Italiens, and she accompanied him to Italy and London. She possessed a soprano voice of unusual beauty and phenomenal compass, which was carefully cultivated by her father. She was only seventeen when she was suddenly asked to take Pasta's place in The Barber of Seville at Covent Garden. She was engaged for the remaining six weeks of the season, and then appeared in New York in Othello, The Barber of Seville, Don Juan, Romeo and Juliet, Tancred. Her gifts as an actress were on a par with her magnificent voice, and her gaiety made her irresistible in light opera, although her greatest triumphs were obtained in tragic parts. She married a French banker of New York, named Malibran, who was much older than herself. The
marriage was an unhappy one, and Mme. Malibran returned alone to Europe in 1828, when she began the series of representations at the Theatre des Italiens, which excited an enthusiasm in Paris only exceeded by the reception she received in the principal towns of Italy. She was formally divorced from Malibran in 1835, and married the Belgian violinist, Charles de Beriot. She died on Sept. 23, 1836.
See Memoirs of Mme. Malibran by the comtesse de Merlin and other intimate friends, with a selection from her correspondence (2 vole., 1840) ; M. Teneo, La Malibran, d'apres des documents inedits, in Sam melbdnde der internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft (Leipzig, 19°6) ; L. Heritte de la Tour, Une famille de grands musiciens memoires de Louise Heritte Viardot (1923).