ALTHOUGH rÉpertoire forms no integral part of Style, being rather the medium for its practical application, a few words on this important subject may not be out of place. The rÉpertoire necessary for a singer may be divided into two sections, Opera and Concert. The latter includes Oratorio and Cantata.

In spoken Drama, a performer may begin his career by playing the youthful lovers, and end it by impersonating the heavy fathers. He may first sigh as Romeo, and later storm as Capulet. Not so in Opera, or lyric Drama, where the line of work to be followed is determined at the outset by the type of voice possessed by the aspirant, and which line (or emploi, as it is termed) he follows of necessity to the end of his professional career.

I know there are some few instances of artists who, later, have successfully adopted rÔles demanding another range than the one needed for their earlier efforts. But it is an open question whether the performer’s instrument really changed. It must either have been wrongly classified at one of the two periods, or the vocal keyboard—so to speak—transposed a little higher or lower. The character of the instrument remains the same; a viola strung as a violin would still retain its viola quality of tone.

The case is different where a soprano who may have begun by singing the florid rÔles of opera, has so gained in volume of voice and breadth of style as to warrant her devoting these acquisitions to characters requiring more dramatic force than was needed, or could be utilized, in coloratura rÔles. Mlle. Emma CalvÉ, Mesdames Lilli Lehmann and Nordica, are notable examples of this. Each of these distinguished artists began her career by singing what are known as “Princess” rÔles, before successfully portraying Carmen or the BrÜnnhildes. As a rule, it is by singing many different rÔles that the lyric artist gains the skill and sureness that may ultimately render him famous in a few. Mlle. Grandjean, now principal first dramatic soprano at the Paris OpÉra, began her career there—after a few appearances at the OpÉra-Comique—by singing the very small part of the nurse Magdalene in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger. Perseverance, if allied to ability, can accomplish much.

When the type of voice and the natural temperament of the singer do not accord—as sometimes happens—he would be unwise not to adhere to the work for which his vocal means, not his preference, are best adapted. To follow the contrary path, and essay rÔles requiring for their fitting expression more dramatic fire and intensity than his vocal instrument can supply, would be to shorten his career, owing to the certain deterioration and possible extinction of the voice. There are sufficient voiceless examples to prove, were proof needed, the truth of this assertion; and their atonic condition is due to the cause mentioned.

The first requisite for the aspirant who wishes to follow the operatic career is undoubtedly a voice possessed of the three essential factors of Quality, Power and Compass; what is termed in Italy a “voce di teatro,” or voice for the theatre.

But an opera-singer is actor as well as singer, and in this direction more—much more—is now demanded of him than formerly. But to those possessed of what is known as the Instinct of the Theatre, or Scenic Instinct, the gestures and attitudes of the operatic stage, being largely conventional, are soon acquired. Scenic accomplishments are undoubtedly necessary to the stage-singer, but his mimetic studies should not preclude him from making himself a thorough master of the vocal side of his art. There is a difference between an actor who sings, and a singer who acts.

Besides the mimetic faculty, certain physical gifts are also needed by the opera-singer, according to the requirements of the line of rÔles to which he is inevitably assigned by the nature and type of his particular voice. It is true that stage artifice has now reached great perfection; but it has its limits, and cannot accomplish miracles.

It requires much imagination and great generosity on the part of the public to accept a tenor, whose waist-girth would not unfit him for the part of Sir John Falstaff, as a youthful and romantic Romeo, or a half-starved and emaciated Rodolphe. Illusion is rudely shaken, if not absolutely dispelled, in witnessing a soprano, whose age and embonpoint are fully in evidence, impersonate a girlish Gilda or a consumptive Traviata. Such discrepancies may be overlooked by the public in the case of old established favourites, but it would be unfortunate for the dÉbutant to commence with these drawbacks. And yet there have been a few famous artists whose extraordinary vocal talent atoned for other very pronounced defects. Such an one was the Pisaroni, a celebrated contralto, said to have been so ill-favoured that she always forwarded her likeness to any opera director to whom she was personally unknown, who offered her an engagement. But so exceptional were her voice and talent, that certain of her contemporary artists have declared that by the time Pisaroni had reached the end of her first phrase, the public was already conquered.

As personal preference is very often mistaken for aptitude or natural fitness, a lyric artist is not always the best judge as to which of the rÔles in his rÉpertoire are really fitted to display his abilities to the best advantage. The singer combines in himself both instrument and performer; therefore he rarely, if ever, hears himself quite as does another person. Until possessed of the ripened judgment gained by experience, he would do well to be guided in this matter by one who, to the knowledge required, adds taste and discernment. That a liking or preference is sometimes mistaken for the aptitude and gifts necessary for the successful carrying out of certain work, is too well known to be even questioned. It is the constantly recurring case of the low comedian who wishes to play Hamlet. A young tenor whose great vocal and physical advantages made him an ideal Duke in Rigoletto, a fascinating Almaviva in Il Barbiere, found but little enjoyment in life because his director refused to allow him to try Otello and TannhÄuser, for which he was vocally unfitted. Never show the public what you cannot do, is the best advice that can be given in such cases. Even the finest and most experienced singers are occasionally liable to make mistakes in the choice of rÔles. Madame Patti once sang Carmen, and Madame Melba essayed BrÜnnhilde; but I am not aware that either of these famous cantatrices repeated the experiment.

For those who intend to follow a concert-singer’s career, there is a vast literature of vocal music specially written for this purpose, from which to select. There are few modern operatic excerpts which do not suffer somewhat by being transplanted from the stage to the concert-platform. In no case is this more clearly proved than in the selections so frequently given from Wagner’s music-dramas. Of course, I am speaking more particularly of those extracts which require the services of a vocalist. Such selections given in the concert-room are in distinct violation of the composer’s own wishes, frequently expressed. Besides lacking the necessary adjuncts of gesture, costume and scenery, the musical conditions of the concert-room are very unfavourable to the unfortunate singer. He has to struggle to make himself heard above the sonorities of a powerful orchestra generally numbering over a hundred musicians, and placed directly around and behind him, instead of on a lower level, as in the case of a lyric theatre. Besides which, Wagner’s works can now be heard in all large cities under the conditions necessary for their proper presentment, and as intended by their author-composer. Therefore, there is no longer the same reason as may have existed years ago, for the performance of extracts at purely symphonic concerts.

In cases where the singer has to select numbers for a symphonic concert and to be accompanied by an orchestra, there is a mine of wealth, not yet exhausted, in the operas of the older classic composers. These, being less heavily orchestrated than the ultra modern works written for the theatre, do not suffer in the same degree from the different disposition of the orchestral instruments.

There are also a few vocal numbers with orchestral accompaniments written in the form of a “scena,” such as the “Ah, perfido” of Beethoven, and the “Infelice” of Mendelssohn, which might possibly form an agreeable change to the frequenters of symphonic concerts, jaded a little, perhaps, with the oft-repeated “Dich theure Halle” and “Prayer” from TannhÄuser.

In order to render them more in keeping with the conditions of symphonic concerts, orchestral accompaniments, to many songs by the classic composers, have been made by excellent musicians from the original piano-part. The ethical question involved in the presentation of such works in a form other than that written by the composer, need not be considered here. Each artist must decide the matter for himself.

So far as songs with accompaniments for the piano are concerned, there is a mine practically inexhaustible and from which new treasures are constantly brought to light. For Recital purposes, the choice and sequence of a programme is second in importance only to its execution. And although suppleness and adaptability are valuable, even necessary, qualities, in a concert-singer, he will sometimes find that certain songs—admirable in themselves—are unsuited to him, for reasons which it is not always possible to define. In such cases it is not a matter of compass, or tessitura, of voice, or even temperament; there is some hidden lack of sympathy between the composer and his interpreter. A song should seem like a well-fitting garment; not only admirably made, but specially designed for the person who wears it.