T is remarkable how much foreign singers dislike the English language. They are quite too courteous to say so while here, but abroad they are almost unanimous in expressing this antipathy. They will converse fluently in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and even Russian, but English, though it may be required, and reluctantly acquired, is always kept in the background.

Dear old Signor Errani, who lived in America twenty-five years and whose memory is sacred in the hearts of many pupils, used to sway off into French or Italian, if he found that you could understand so much as a shrug of the shoulder. He once tried to explain the absolute soullessness of our language compared to others.

Take just the verb 'to love' in Italian, how beautiful it is, 'io t'amo!" " and he proclaimed it as in grand opera; "or in French," he continued, "je t'aime!' how musical. But in English, how can one be thrilled with 'I luf you!'"

In all seriousness, however, and in spite of the fact that "I love you" may sound pleasant at times, we must concede that our language is not the best for singing. This probably explains why Mme. Calvé, after three seasons in the États-Unis," still ignores English.

66

It was the evening after one of her great Carmen performances, when a knock at the prima donna's door elicited the Parisian response, "Entrez !" Mme. Calvé's salon was brilliantly lighted and richly furnished, but it seemed only a somber setting to the

singer's radiant self. Not that she was gaudily gowned; on the contrary, her dress was simple, relieved only by a vest of rose velvet with gold buttons, but her personality, her smile, her animation, are a constant delight and surprise.

Mme. Calvé is thoroughly French, and thoroughly handsome, and appears even younger off the stage than on. She is tall, and of splendid figure, her complexion fresh and clear with an interesting tinge of olive, and her eyes are black as her hair, which was arranged very Pompadour. A lady and gentleman, spending the evening with her, were introduced as "Mme. et Mon. Salignac."

The Don José of the evening before! It seemed like a fifth act to Bizet's opera; Carmen had not died after all, and to atone for her past outrageous treatment, she has invited Don José to dine, and he brings his wife, whose first name I have no doubt is Michaela!

Mme. Calvé seated herself with a half-serious, half-amused expression, as though to recite a lesson, and announced that she was ready and willing to answer "toutes les questions que vous voulez." This seemed a golden opportunity to inquire how to sing.

It stands to reason that the most direct and easy method of learning this art is simply to ask one of the greatest singers of the day how she does it. Some one found out how to play the piano, by asking Rubinstein, who said, "All you have to do is to select the right keys, and strike them at the right time."

So, with this idea in view, Mme. Calvé was asked first of what she thinks when she steps before the public-her voice, her acting, or the music?

"I think of Carmen," she answered, "if that is the opera. I try to be Carmen that is all." But then she added, "Unless, of course, I am not feeling well and fear my voice is not in good condition; then I think of my tones."

When asked if she practises her voice much during the day, Mme. Calvé shook her head.

No, not now. You see, I must have mercy on my poor voice and save it for the evenings when I sing. Formerly, of course, I practised every day, but not more than an hour with full voice. Yes, an hour at one time, once a day, that is all. But I studied much besides. At first I wanted to be an actress, and for this purpose gave much time to dramatic art. It was my mother, a fine musician, who urged me to sing."

"What did you practise when you first began with the voice? Just single tones?"

Mme. Calvé looked thoughtful. She could hardly recall, until Mon. Salignac suggested: "It was rather intervals and arpeggios, n'est-ce pas?" Then the great Carmen quickly nodded.

"Yes, you are right; intervals at first, and not until later on, sustained tones. I do not consider single sustained tones good for the beginner."

In reply to a question about breathing, she answered: "Oh, yes, all singers must practise special exercises for the breath. With me it was not easy, as I did not naturally have a full breath; but with some it is no trouble. What else did I do? Well, I hardly remember. I never had any

trouble with my throat nor my tongue -no, I never thought much of that.” She was then asked by way of suggestion: "Did you ever hum in your practice?"

Now her face lighted up. "Yes," she replied, all animation, "and do you know that is splendid! I do it a great deal even yet, especially for the high tones like this "—and there and then, without moving a muscle, like a conjurer materializing a flock of birds, she showered upon us a bevy of humming tones. They were soft, of course, but clear and perfect as though made with full voice, and you wanted to wrap each one in cotton and take it home. But they were gone! and the singer went on speaking.

'With Mme. Marchesi I used to hum a great deal, and there was also another teacher in Paris-Professor Wartel, who, by the way, taught Mme. Nilsson, and he, too, had all his pupils sing with closed mouth.' Yes, it is an excellent practice, for it brings the tone forward right here," and she touched the bridge of her nose.

Mme. Calvé is so genial and vivacious in conversation that you are led to forget her position and wonderful attainments. But now and then it comes over you that this is the woman whose manifold art has astonished two continents, a singer who makes any rôle she undertakes so distinctly her own that other singers hardly dispute her right to monopolize it. Her Carmen is a creation. Ophelia, too, she has imbued with new interest.

"I love that rôle!" she remarked, as the subject came up; "the mad scene. Ah, it is superb!"

Her gesture somehow presented the picture of this "scène superbe;" the woodland setting, the wandering Ophelia singing in haphazard fashion snatches of old songs intermingled

with peals of mirthless laughter, followed by lapses of listening silence, until from out the stillness there softly soars the wooing song of the unseen water-nymphs.

Here, even in grand opera, occurs the hum, so extolled by Mme. Calvé, for behind the scenes the entire chorus are required to hum with "bouche fermée" that refrain which lures the unhappy Ophelia to her death. It is an effect faint and weird as the Undine's singing.

66

Faust is another opera Mme. Calvé has surprised us with, although it is a work that every musician of any description has performed in some way or other. The pianist flourishes with the waltz or a general fantasia of the opera on every and all occasions. The organist delights in the churchscene music, while the violinist rhapsodizes with the love duet or a potpourri of all the arias. Concert sopranos never cease to exploit the Jewel song, while the contralto's audience never tires of the famous Flower song. “O Sancta Medaglia" is dear to the heart of the barytone, and the tenor has a choice of beautiful solos from the first act to the last. Bass singers, too, can find nothing better as a medium for public favor than Mephisto's song to the "God of Gold." Even flute and clarinet soloists resort to "Faust," the Imperishable, when they want something sure to please; and last but not least the cornet. Ask Mr. Levy what piece he has played most often, and I warrant you he will answer, "My Faust Fantaisie!""

The opera singer who does not have in her scrap-book some account of her performance as Marguerite can hardly

count herself a prima donna. No other opera is so essentially a piece of common property as is this Gounod's "Faust."

So much the more is Mme. Calvé's achievement to be wondered at. When asked how she ever thinks of such innovations as dropping her prayer-book in the first act, knotting her spinningthread in the second, and especially that inspiration of inserting little ecstatic laughs in the Jewel song, she smiled prettily, and shrugged her shoulders.

"It just comes to me in the acting. I don't know how. But I never change the music."

She wished it impressed that, whatever her innovations, she maintains a reverence for all the composer's injunctions.

Some further conversation brought forth the fact that there is another Calvé in Paris; a café-chantant singer.

"I have noticed that her name sometimes passes for mine," the prima donna explained, "and this accounts for some strange reports that get circulated about me."

Whatever mistakes of this sort occur, there is, at any rate, no error in the reports of Mme. Calvé's great generosity, of the orphan school she supports at her home at Aveyron, France, nor of the devotion which amounts to worship bestowed upon her by all the peasants round about. Mme. Calvé does not impart such information, but all is well known in Paris.

She is more than a great artist, for she possesses the higher attributes of true greatness, and you feel in her presence the subtle influence of a large heart and a grand soul.

NOT

OTHING has yet been definitely settled in regard to this question of comedians. It is a subject of perpetual discussion. Certain classes of people, imbued with old-fashioned ideas, maintain that comedians occupy a position peculiar to themselves, both in art and society. These same good people hesitate to call us merely "parrots"—although that is sometimes what they think. I shall attempt to prove to you that the comedian is an artist, and, further, that his status in the domain both of art and society in general is the same as that of any other artist or citizen.

Art is art. And we understand by that, the picturing of nature in its various forms and moods, with a radiance which does not distort its proportions, but which gives to it its proper artvalue, which sets off life in such a way that our mind is more readily and more deeply reached by the picture than by that which it is intended to portray. Does the comedian not produce such effect?

The materials of a poet's work are words; those of the sculptor, marble or bronze; those of the painter, his paints and his canvas; the musician, sound. The actor's material is himself.

You may think that the actor does not exercise any creative power, that he is not the author; but to that objection let me reply that the actor's art is creation, and that this creation is essential to the proper rendering of any rôle which he may be called upon to assume. If you doubt this, listen to what Victor Hugo says of Mademoi

selle George, in "Marie Tudor": "Elle crée dans l'imagination du poète quelque chose qui étonne et ravit l'auteur lui-même." ["She created in the imagination of the poet, something which astonished and enraptured the author himself."] What higher compliment could be paid to the actor?

The actor creates even when he interprets the dream of a genius, such as a Racine, or a Hugo, or the characters of Shakespeare and Molière, these two being both dramatists and actors. There is always a certain gulf which when we read separates the type we dream of from the type in real life. That gulf is spanned by the talent of the actor.

How often do we come across chefs d'œuvre that we admire, but as we read them, it appears to us that their dramatic representation must be impossible-nay, positively wearisome, which, indeed, they would be if interpreted by ordinary players; but let a comedian of talent come along who takes hold of the part, gives it life and fire, and you see the chef d'œuvre, once forgotten by the stage, now makes money-and why? Because the actor has made it a success. Very frequently, in certain plays written by second or third-rate authors, the greatest latitude has been allowed the interpreters of the rôles. What remains to-day of all the pieces and plays of the Empire and the Restoration? Charles VI., and countless others that I could mention? Try to read them now to the end-it would be almost impossible. You know that Talma was sublime in