Antoinette Saint-Huberty
| Antoinette Saint-Huberty | |
|---|---|
Pastel portrait of Mme. Saint-Huberty by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, c.1780. (Private collection; formerly in the museum of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.)
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| Born |
Anne-Antoinette Clavel 15 December 1756 Strasbourg |
| Died | 22 July 1812 Barnes, Surrey |
| Other names |
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| Occupation | Opera singer (soprano) |
| Years active | c.1774-1790 |
Anne-Antoinette-Cécile Clavel, better known by her stage name Madame Saint-Huberty or Saint-Huberti (Strasbourg, 15 December 1756 - 22 July 1812, Barnes, London) was a celebrated French operatic soprano whose career extended from c.1774 until 1790. After her retirement from the stage and the publicising of her second marriage, she was also known as the Comtesse d'Antraigues from around 1797. She was murdered in England at the same time as her second husband.
Antoinette Clavel (later known professionally as Madame Saint-Huberty) was the daughter of Jean-Pierre Clavel, a musician employed as a répétiteur in the private opera troupe of Charles IV Theodore, Elector Palatine. Clavel's wife was Claude-Antoinette Pariset, who was the daughter of a grocer from Sélestat.
Over the years her biographers have often been at variance regarding Saint-Huberty's actual place of birth. Renwick, for example, found instances of it being indicated as Toul, Thionville, or Mannheim, and Clayton gives it as Toulouse - presumably after having interpreted "Toul" as an abbreviation. However, after discovering her baptismal certificate in the Archives nationales, de Goncourt was able to establish that she was born in Strasbourg, where she was baptized Anne-Antoinette (or Anna-Antonia on the certificate, which is written in Latin) at the church of Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune on the day after her birth. There is no mention of the name "Cécile" on her baptismal certificate, and de Goncourt suggests that this is a name which she adopted only in the latter part of her life. Dorlan, whose career included considerable work on the history of Alsace, traced her birthplace to 131 Grand'rue (modern spelling Grande Rue), Strasbourg (near the junction with rue Sainte-Barbe), and his article is accompanied by a photograph of the house, which, he maintains, was once owned by Pierre Clavel. Antoinette had at least three siblings: a brother named Jean-Pierre (after his father) who became a gilder and a seller of prints from a shop beneath the house in the Grand'rue; Pierre-Étienne, who became a pork butcher; and a sister who appears to have been living in or near Paris during the early 1790s.
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