On January 7, 1841, the poet, dramatist, and cultural critic Théophile Gautier reviewed a performance of La Juive (The Jewess) at the Paris Opera. Writing in La Presse, France's largest newspaper, he focused on the debut of Catinka Heinefetter in the lead role of Rachel. He began with “a physical portrait” of the twenty-oneyear- old prima donna, lamenting that “[t]oday we do not attach much importance to the beauty of actresses”, a category that included opera singers. Mademoiselle Heinefetter had “large, well-formed shoulders, a majestic figure”, a slender waist, and ample bosom. “Her whole person had something robust and energetic about it.” Gautier admired “her regular and beautiful features, her black eyebrows, her brilliant eyes, her straight nose”, all of which produced “an effect” even at a distance. He was more circumspect about her hands, which were “rather beautiful, though somewhat big”, and her feet, which he “suspect[ed] of being German”, by which he seems to have meant overly large. He quipped that “throughout the opera we were diligently on the lookout” for the singer's feet “without succeeding in seeing them”, and he believed that the length of her dress was at least in part designed to occlude them. Nevertheless, Gautier wrote, “Since Mademoiselle [Cornélie] Falcon, no one has represented the beautiful Jewess Rachel with a more satisfying and realistic physical appearance, and this for the excellent reason that Mademoiselle Heinefetter is a Jewess herself and very beautiful.” Her coreligionists were proud of her: “Israelite applause was not lacking”, as “[t]he twelve tribes had their representatives” at the opera, but Gautier insisted that “Christians mixed their bravos [with those of the Jews] at numerous points.”

Only after describing Heinefetter's physical appearance and Jewishness did Gautier come to the matter of the singer's voice. He characterized it as “grand, skillful, remarkable above all in the high and low tones” but “less satisfying” in the middle range and overall “capricious and inconstant”. In the first act Heinefetter was nervous, an understandable condition in one “who has never appeared in the theater before”, but by the second act she had “conquer[ed] her fear” and sang “with much vigor and energy”. Gautier also approved of her use of gesture, which in his view was more natural and believable than the hackneyed movements supposedly favored by declamation instructors.