  COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To FOREWORDSo many fantastic tales have come to us of students' life abroad, of their temptations, trials, finances, successes and failures, that I have attempted to give here the true story of the preparation for an operatic career, and its fruition. My road leads from New York to Paris, to Germany and thence to London, and back to the Metropolitan Opera House. My operatic experiences in Germany are inalienably associated with the lives of the people, particularly with the German officer class, viewed publicly and privately; in fact in the town where I was first engaged, Metz, I found they were as vital a part of the Opera house life as the singers themselves. Their arrogance tainted the town life as well, and here I first became acquainted with the pitiful attempt at swagger and brilliancy which often covered a state of grinding poverty, or the thwarted natural domestic instincts which were ruthlessly sacrificed to the "uniform"—the all-desirable entrÉe to society, for which no price was too high to pay. I hope this book will be of interest not only to those whose goal is the operatic or concert stage, but to those to whom "human documents" appeal. It is a story of real people, real obstacles overcome, and contains much intimate talk of back-stage life in opera houses. CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER ITHE WAY IT ALL HAPPENEDI WAS very young and I was engaged to be married. We had just lost our money in rather dramatic fashion, and we were all doing what we could to supply the sudden deficit. My sister began to prepare herself to be a teacher, my brother left his boarding school and came home to go into a friend's office, and I—well, I accepted the hand and heart of the young man in our set with whom I had had most pleasure in dancing in winter and sailing in summer. My heart didn't lose a beat and turn over when I saw him coming as did those of the heroines in Marion Crawford's novels, but we were the best friends in the world, and I thought that anything else must be a literary exaggeration, put in to make the story more exciting; just as the heroine's eyelashes were usually exaggerated to the abnormal length of an inch to make her more beautiful, though none of the girls I knew had them like that. He was a young business man, just starting as assistant to his father whose business was an old established, comfortable sort of family affair, big enough to supply, in time, an extra income for an unambitious young couple like ourselves. Every one congratulated us heartily, and I began to embroider towels and hem table napkins and to dream about patterns of flat silver. The whole arrangement was satisfactory to the point of banality, and I might be quite an old married woman by this time, but—I had a voice. Nine-tenths of me, at this age, were the normal, rational characteristics of a well-brought up, bright, good looking girl. But the last tenth was an unknown quantity, a great big powerful something which I vaguely felt, even then, to be the master of all the other tenths, a force which was capable of having its own way with the rest of me if I should ever give it a chance. My voice, the agent of this vague power, had developed rather late. It is true that our whole childhood had been coloured by music, that we read notes before we could read letters, and that music was our earliest and most natural mode of expression. My father's greatest joy in life was music, and he always played imaginative musical games with us in the evenings. The earliest one I remember was when we were tiny tots. He used to improvise on the small organ we had and ask us questions which we had to answer, singing to his accompaniment. I was Admiral Seymour and Marjorie was General Wolsey. I remember his singing,
I sang solemnly, "I'd shubble them along with shubbles." Afterwards when I began to sing from printed music with him I remember saying one evening as he was playing hymns and unfamiliar English ballads for me to sing, "Papa, please let me look at the music and follow the notes up and down." I really began reading music at four years old. We played and sang all our childhood. When Marjorie was seven and I was six we sang Even-song at the village church, as the members of the regular choir were ill or absent. Marjorie had a heavenly childish soprano and I a heavy nondescript voice. But I always pleased my father by singing real "second voice" and not just following the soprano in thirds. He used to give us a note, and we then had to run round our rather large house humming it. It was the deepest disgrace we ever knew if we had sharped or flatted when we got back to the starting point. He taught us musical terms by making us dance to different rhythms he played, and would call out "Allegro," "Vivace," "Adagio," "Molto allegro," "Legato," and so forth, to which we had to change instantly. Whenever any one came to the house, we played and sang for them, and though it might have been rather awful for the visitors it was very good for us to get used to an audience. He used to arrange fairy tales like "Bluebeard" in doggerel verses and write accompaniments to them, and we then learned them by heart and rehearsed them, and some grand night played them for all the neighbours. I remember the way we showed Bluebeard's chamber where the heads of his wives were kept. We hung a sheet on the wall and Marjorie and I stood in front of it, with pale faces, closed eyes and open mouths, and our long hair pinned up high above our heads on the sheet. Another sheet was then stretched across us, just below our chins, and the effect was rather ghastly in a dim light. I remember we sang at the last:
When school was over we always gave a dramatic performance; if the weather was fine enough we held them in the big garden that was our childhood's playground. We dressed behind a huge flowering-currant bush, and I can remember a performance of an act of "Twelfth Night," in which I, aged about seven, was Malvolio, Lal, my brother, Maria, and Marjorie, Olivia. I had always been able to sing, but the sudden growth of my voice was a surprise. One day, in school, we were asked to write a composition on our favourite wish. All the other girls said they wished for curly hair, for pretty dresses, for as much candy as they could eat, for any other frivolous thing that came into their heads. But I took it seriously and told my dearest wish in all the world—a great voice, a voice with which I could make audiences cry or laugh at my will. And, strangely enough, from that time my girlish voice began to grow stronger and stronger, until I could proudly make more noise with it than any other girl in school. Then it grew louder and higher, until it was impossible to ignore such a big possession any longer, and the family decreed that I must have singing lessons. I took lessons accordingly from an excellent local teacher, practised scales and exercises and later studied the classic songs and arias as seriously as I could, but it was so fatally easy to be interrupted. We were all out of school for the first time and enjoying our freedom. It was so much more chic to go down to Huyler's in the mornings, when the girls only a year younger were hard at their lessons, than in the afternoon when the whole girl world was at liberty. I would just begin a morning's work when some one would call me on the telephone to go to the dressmaker's with her, or help arrange the flowers for a dinner party. I loved both flowers and dresses, and it was easy to think, "Oh! I'll practise this afternoon!" and fly off to be gone all day. In the evening there was my fiancÉ who had to tell me all the absorbing details of his office, or there was a dance, or a theatre party, and I took everything that came my way and enjoyed it all equally. But all the time my voice was really first in my thoughts, and I longed to study seriously and intensely, to arrange my whole life for it and its proper development. The family, it seemed to me, was more interested in my trousseau than in anything else. They had scraped together five hundred dollars, and I was to have it all, incredible as it sounded, to buy clothes with. Subconsciously all day, and compellingly in bed at night, the thought of what I could do for my voice with that five hundred dollars was with me. I saw myself only as a singer, and knew that I could never be happy unless I were allowed first to get my instrument in thorough working order and then to use it. The phrases, "working out your own salvation," "fulfilling your own destiny," "the necessity of self-development," and all those other nicely turned expressions which most students have at their tongues' end, were unknown to me. I just felt, inarticulately. But my feeling was strong enough to carry me into action, the step which phrasemakers, who find complete satisfaction in their phrases, often omit. New York was my Mecca. I talked it all over with my fiancÉ, told him what a year there would do for me, making it clear that I expected to sing professionally after our marriage. He agreed to everything and promised that I should do as I wished. His possible objection disposed of, only the financial difficulty remained, looming large before me. Deeply and more deeply I was convinced in my own mind that I might marry in old clothes, but not with my voice untrained. I finally summoned courage to propose to my family that I should use the precious five hundred for a year's study in New York instead of a trousseau. Miraculous to relate they agreed, and I was boundlessly happy and saw my path golden ahead of me. We all spoke and thought of my future as that of a concert singer. My intention of marrying seemed to make anything else out of the question. Indeed, at that time, the Metropolitan in New York formed the only oasis in the operatic desert of America. There were spasmodic attempts at travelling companies in English, but no other sign of a permanent institution throughout the length and breadth of the country. I must confess, however, that the operatic bee buzzed considerably at times in the less conspicuous portions of my bonnet. One or two musicians of standing, who heard me sing, pronounced mine "an operatic voice," and strange longings stirred inside me when I saw the Metropolitan singers on the boards. CHAPTER IIA STRUGGLE AND A SOLUTIONTHAT winter in New York was a revealing experience to me in many ways. Numbers of things assumed different values in my estimation. One of the first new things I learned was the comparative insignificance of $500 as a provision for a year's expenses. I lived at one of those boarding houses which are called both "reasonable" and respectable, but are vastly inferior in both comfort and society to the European pension which costs a good deal less. I had lessons in singing, diction and French, all of which counted up to a great many dollars a week. My five hundred began to shrink at an alarming rate, and I don't know what I should have done if a friend had not advised me to try for a "church position," that invaluable means of adding to the resources of a student, which is possible only in America. Besides offering a splendid chance of financial assistance, the church position system is an infallible test of the money value of one's voice. How many girls have I known in Europe embarking upon the expensive and dreadfully laborious preparation for an operatic career, without possessing a single one of the qualifications necessary to success, without even an adequate, to say nothing of an unusual, voice! Their singing of "Because I love you!" has been the admiration of their local circle, even less musical than themselves, and this little success has been enough to start them on a career, doomed to certain failure. If they had only tried for church positions in a large city in America, had competed in the open market of their own country, they would have been saved a heartbreak and much good money besides. I won a $1000 position almost at once, over the heads of many older and more experienced competitors, on the merits of my voice alone. The salary was my financial salvation, but, besides this, my general musicianship was much improved by the practice in sight-reading and ensemble singing. I grew used to facing an audience, and found a chance to put into use what I learned in my singing lessons. Blessed be the quartet choir of America, say I; an invaluable institution for the musical sons and daughters of our country. The church in which I sang had many wealthy members, and the dress-parade on Sundays used to be quite a sight. Our place, as choir, was directly facing the congregation, in a little gallery, so that our hats and dresses were subjected to very searching scrutiny. The furnishing of suitable garments for such an exalted position became quite a problem. The soprano was a well-known singer, who, in addition to a good salary, had many concert and oratorio engagements; and her furs and ostrich feathers were my despair. I would sit up half the night to cover a last-year's straw hat with velvet. I made an endless succession of smart blouses which, as we were hidden below the waist by the railing, I wore with the same "utility" black broadcloth skirt. I constructed the most original collars and jabots for them out of odds and ends. I remember one was made of a packet of silver spangles sewn in rows overlapping each other like fish scales. One of my engagement presents had been a silver mesh bag, and when I wore it at my belt, and the collar round my neck, the choir used to call me "Mrs. Lohengrin." As we took off our outdoor wraps to sing, my smartness in the gallery was assured, but the cleverest manager can't contrive at home a substitute for furs, and the soprano had chinchilla! I was years younger than the others and they were very sweet to me. Living at my boarding house was a young doctor, who also would have liked to be nice to me. But my exaggerated conscientiousness would not allow me to have anything to do with one man while I was engaged to another, and I refused all his invitations to the theatre and to Saturday afternoon excursions. My one indulgence was in standing-room tickets for the Metropolitan. What a boon to girls in my situation would be the inexpensive municipal opera and endowed theatres of Germany with their system of Schule Vorstellungen (students' performances) of standard plays and operas at prices that put a comfortable seat within the means of even the most humble purse! This was the lack the Century Opera would have supplied. My church engagement was to come to an end May first. The thought of turning my back on the start I had made depressed me fearfully. I had given my word to marry and did not think of wavering. But the letters of my fiancÉ and his rare visits to New York had not helped us to understand each other better. Many hours I walked the floor longing for advice, and wrestling with myself. I said to my sister, "I have my foot on the first rung of the ladder and now I must take it off." It all seems so simple now. Almost any other girl would have broken her engagement without much thought. But I had not been brought up that way, and so I had hours and days of misery. The one thought that comforted me was that I could go on at any rate as well as it was possible in my own town, and though it would be much harder to make a career from there, it could be done with the co-operation of my husband. It was hard for me to talk in those days, but one day driving down Fifth Avenue in a hansom, a rare treat, I remember my feelings were too much for me, and I burst through my repression and told him how I must develop that side of me, and he said, "And I'll help you, little girl; you can count on me." I believed him of course. But while I was dreadfully serious, he, as I learned later, ranked my singing with the china-painting and fancy-work of his relations, as a sort of harmless pastime, to occupy my leisure moments. The truth was, of course, that, as often happens, he had entirely mistaken my character, had made his ideal woman out of his head, given her my outward appearance, and fallen in love with her. The real "me" was a disconcerting stranger, of whom he caught only occasional glimpses. About the first of May, I returned home. They were all at the station to meet me; my fiancÉ had even broken into his office hours to be there too. We had seen each other seldom during my absence from home, for New York was a long way off, and he was saving his pennies religiously for the great event. When we married, our income would be a tight fit in any case, and I could not help rejoicing that my singing might add considerably to it. There were no $1000 church positions in our town, but one or two of the churches paid respectable salaries to their quartets, and I hoped soon to begin to make a concert career. For a little while after my return I was very happy. Every one was so nice to me and seemed to think I had done remarkable things already. Our church asked me to sing a solo the Sunday when the bishop was expected, and I held a sort of reception afterwards and heard many pleasant things about my progress. After my hard work and self-denial, the rest, the gentle flattery, and the comfort of home surroundings were very welcome. Only with my fiancÉ things were not so satisfactory. Something, I did not know what, was the matter; but it all culminated one evening in his saying that no married woman should follow a profession, that she should find "occupation enough in her own home." This was really a great shock to me, as he had promised me his support in my work so often. Imagine my surprise after a three years' engagement, when he had his family tell me just three weeks before the wedding that I was to give up all hope of singing professionally after encouraging me in it during the entire time. I knew by then that I could never be happy nor make him happy if I gave up all thought of singing professionally. I asked him very quietly if those were his convictions, and, on his affirmative answer, I took off his ring, returned it to him, and went upstairs without one more word, feeling as if I had been awakened out of a nightmare, and though still palpitating from the shock was experiencing relief at finding it over. In my own room I stretched my arms above my head and said, "Free!" A marvellous vista of freedom opened to me after the months of strain. I could hardly bear to go to sleep; it was so wonderful to plan how I could go ahead and study, study. The next morning I saw my mistake in supposing the affair to be over, for there ensued many trying days and floods of tears all round. Then came the solemn and awkward returning of all the engagement cups and saucers and knicknacks, to nearly our whole circle of acquaintance. My family stood by me and performed this unattractive task, while I packed up to return to New York. I had given up my choir, and now found it a difficult matter to get another. All the churches had made their arrangements for the year and the best I could hope for was occasional substituting in case one of the altos was unable to sing. I made the round of the agents' offices. Some heard me and were complimentary, some refused as their lists were full. But when I mentioned the word "engagement," I was always met by the rejoinder "No experience." I used to say to them, "But how can I ever get experience if you won't give me a chance?" They would shrug and answer that that wasn't their affair. It seemed a hopeless deadlock. No one would engage me without experience and no one would give me an opportunity to become experienced. I knew that the one way out of the difficulty was to go abroad and get experience there. I have said that the idea of singing in opera had always made a strong appeal to me, and I knew that I had some of the qualifications necessary for the stage—a big voice, good stage-appearance, and ability to act (we had always acted) as well as a great capacity for hard work. But the essential qualification, without which the others were all ineffective, was the financial support necessary to get me there and to provide means of studying and of living adequately while I prepared myself for opera. I despaired of obtaining this, but the way was suddenly opened for me in what seemed a miraculous manner. Friends of mine in the church, Frank Smith Jones and his wife, offered to finance me through my years of preparation and for as long afterwards as I might need their aid. These real friends were behind me for years, and I owe them more than I could ever repay. They made it possible for me to have my sister with me, for me, a rather delicate girl, an inestimable benefit. In the seventh heaven of joy, I prepared to go to Paris to study with Jacques Bouhy, recommended to me by my New York teacher. I packed my few clothes, some songs, and a boundless enthusiasm, and set sail. CHAPTER IIIPARIS AT LASTI CROSSED on one of the steady big boats of the Atlantic Transport Line. I remember only one passenger, a boy of even then such personal magnetism that he stands out in my recollection as clearly as any one I have ever met, though he was then only a young fellow and unknown to fame. His name was Douglas Fairbanks and his ambition was to go on the stage. He said as we neared England: "Well, some day we'll read, 'Conried of the Metropolitan Opera House presents Miss Kathleen Howard,' and 'Charles Frohman presents Mr. Douglas Fairbanks.'" His prophecy, which I recall even to the spot on the boat where he made it, and the expression of his eyes which matched mine at that moment, has almost been fulfilled. I reached Paris in the beginning of September with "my instrument" in working order, with a smattering of French, a letter of credit for $1000, and a large supply of courage. I found my voice adequate to all my demands upon it, but the money just half enough (it was increased the next year). As for my courage, I have had to go on renewing that ever since, until it has become the largest factor in my success. Emma Juch told me once that she always said it was not difficult to attain success and make a career. Perhaps her success was made at a time when the competition was less keen, but I at any rate could never agree with her. I arrived in Paris early in the morning and went to a small hotel in the rue Cambon. It quite thrilled me to ask the chambermaid for eau chaude instead of "hot water"; and I felt proud of knowing that the midday meal was called dÉjeuner À la fourchette. I remember that meal to this day—it began with radishes and butter, those inseparable companions in France, went on to omelette, then cold meat and salad, with small clingstone peaches and little white grapes for dessert. Red or white wine was "compris," and the bread was a yard long, cut half through into sections, and laid down the middle of the table. It was all half-miraculous to me, and afterwards when I went out to stroll under the arches of the rue de Rivoli I thought myself in fairyland. The jewelry, lingerie and photograph shops delighted me, as they have innumerable tourists, and the name "Redfern" over a doorway gave me a thrill. The Place de la Concorde seemed one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen, an opinion which I still hold, by the way, and I felt like a queen when I called an open fiacre and drove in state toward the Arc de Triomphe, stopping to buy a big bunch of red roses for twenty cents from a ragged man who ran shouting beside my carriage. In the evening I went to the opera and wondered at the great stairway and at the big auditorium, and still more at the poor performance I saw there but which I accounted for by the fact that September is the dull season. That first day was all thrills. The next was spent in arranging hours for lessons, and collecting pension addresses from all my acquaintances, as I saw that it would be impossible to do my work in a hotel. I set bravely out on my hunt for a dwelling place. Prices have increased considerably since those days, for at that time it was possible to get very good board and lodging on the left bank of the Seine for five francs a day. My professor, Jacques Bouhy, however, lived near the Arc de Triomphe, and I wished to be within walking distance. I toiled up and down a great many stairs, and peeped into a great many rooms without finding what I sought. I could not bear to wait a day to begin working, and was just a bit discouraged, when I had the good fortune to meet two girls from home, who gave me the address of the pension where they had stayed. I rushed off at once to see it, and found a very nice house of several floors, situated in a citÉ, a sort of garden behind the first row of houses on the street, so that its windows faced a view of trees and flowerbeds with circular gravel walks around them, instead of cobblestones. The head of the pension was an old woman who looked like a Bourbon but was really a bourgeoise. It was nearly noon when I arrived, but she was still in a wonderful dressing gown of purple and yellow stripes, with chaussons, cloth slippers, on her feet, and an elaborate coiffure of dyed black hair above her yellow old face. She came to me in the salon, a long narrow room with French windows framing tree-tops, the windows and doors all hung with rose-red velvet which looked as if it had been in place since the First Empire. There were sofas of rose, and chairs of the same with black wooden rims, tables and mantel-pieces with thousands of things on them, and an old-fashioned square piano in the corner. Madame was most gracious, remembered the name of her former lodgers, said they were trÈs gentilles, turned a neat compliment to the American nation, and showed me the rooms herself. I chose a back one of good size, nicely furnished and hung with a pretty chintz. It had a cabinet de toilette, or large cupboard for washstand and trunks, opening off it, and I was to have it with complete board, for two hundred francs a month ($40). The price was really higher, but my arrangement was for the winter. I was to pay extra for light and heat. The room had an open fireplace with a grille or fire-basket in it, for which I could buy boulets, coal dust pressed into egg-shaped balls, for three francs a sack. Later, I could have had a salamandre, one of the excellent small stoves which fit into the fireplace, really warm a room, and require filling only once in twenty-four hours. But I wanted something to poke, and I had an idea that Paris winters were not very formidable. As a matter of fact, anything more penetrating than their damp sunless cold it is impossible to imagine. For light, there was a huge lamp for which I could buy luciline, a kind of highly refined kerosene which has no odour and burns well. I made my bath arrangements with Jean, Madame's old servant, who with his wife, EugÉnie, was the real head of the establishment. I had bought a collapsible rubber tub, and Jean was to bring me a big can of hot water every morning. I found that I had to tip occasionally or the water became as cool as Jean's manners. Madame showed me her dining room, and told me with pride that her cuisine was of an excellence renowned. I went to fetch my trunks and hire a piano, glad that my long search was over. The piano was a small upright, a tin pan for tone, as are all Parisian pianos en location, and it was to cost me ten francs a month, with eight francs for carting. They are more expensive now. When it was installed, my Lares and Penates on top of it, and my music on a stool beside it, I felt that my feet were firmly planted on the ladder leading to success. Then I began to work. And how I did work that winter! I had two singing lessons a week, and a session with the opera class lasting three hours in which we went through the dramatic action of our rÔles. I slaved at my repertoire working three hours a week with a coach, and spending hours and hours a day learning by heart at home. Of course I began with the very biggest rÔles—we all do. The personalities of Amneris, Carmen, Dalila, Azucena in turn, all in their French version of course, occupied my mind waking and sleeping. Jacques Bouhy was always kind, grave and courteous with me. The thought of his having created Escamillo and his real knowledge of French traditions thrilled me. He lent me his copy of "Samson et Dalila" from which to copy the French words. It had an inscription from Saint-Saens "À M. Bouhy, grand prÊtre et grand artiste." He created the rÔle of the Grand Priest. The only time I ever saw him upset was one day after the Opera class. We all thought him safely out riding as he always was on Mondays. My letter, written at that time to my mother, says: "This morning in the opera class we had rather an unpleasant time. Little N., with the beautiful tenor voice, has learned in one week the first half of the Samson duet for me. He has had to learn it from a score which has only his voice part written in it. He is frightfully down on his luck and with the gorgeous voice and speaking French can't get anything to do, and has no money, not a cent to his name. We had done that, some one else had sung, and having ten minutes left, Valdejo told N. to sing again if he would. He was tired, but jumped up and began the first part of "Faust." He kept forgetting it. Suddenly the door opened and in walked Bouhy as white as a sheet. He commanded N. to stop singing and to learn his things before coming again to the class. Said, why did he sing like a baritone when he was a tenor, mocked him, told him he was ashamed to have such sounds made chez lui, that he had been a year on "Faust." What example was he to the others? Every one else had always worked seriously. He stormed for five long minutes, N. standing quite still, with his brown dog's eyes fixed on him—then he left the room. It was frightfully uncomfortable for us too. I am sure I have done just such rotten work so it may be my turn next. Of course Bouhy was right. N. has been there a year and ought to know it; but he is just tired out, and never sleeps he says. They say Bouhy is beginning to show his age. This week he bounced his cook whom he has had for years." I had two French lessons a week, and should have had at least one diction lesson besides, but for an invaluable course which I had taken in New York with the Yersin sisters. These lessons were a nerve-racking experience from which I used to emerge with my feathers all rubbed the wrong way from the strain of trying to imitate the intangible differences between the various French "e's." But I have always been grateful for this rigid training, from the time when I first reached Paris, and, though speaking very little French, could give an address to a cocher without having to repeat it, until now, when I can thank my trained ear for a perfect accent in singing foreign languages. I think no one ever studied more unrelentingly than I, during that first year of hot enthusiasm. I began early in the morning, and the only reason that I did not burn the midnight oil was that I found it cost me too much in kerosene and firing. I could keep warm in bed for nothing, and boulets were my pet economy. Coming from a country where a warm room was taken for granted, and where the furnaces in hotels and boarding houses might have been supplied by Elijah's ravens for all I knew about it, I just couldn't bear to see my money burning away bit by bit in a grate; and many a time I have put on my fur-lined coat rather than add fuel to the dying heap of dreadfully expensive ashes in the grille. CHAPTER IVPENSION PERSONALITIESAT first I had no companionship and very little recreation, beyond the ever fresh wonder and delight of the Paris streets as I saw them in my daily constitutional. One day I went with a girl friend to visit her atelier. I wrote to my mother: "We spent a long time in the life-class room—nude, (not us but the model). It was a mixed class. A large oblong room, filled with I should think over a hundred students, mostly men. They sat in a circle facing the model throne. The floor is not raised, but the effect of an amphitheatre is produced by rush bottom stools of different heights. They rest their pads or drawing portfolios on a railing in front of them. The room is intolerably hot because of the model. What struck us most was the intense silence and atmosphere of earnestness; no one speaks and there is only the gentle rub-rub of the charcoal, crayon, or pencil against the paper. The students look quickly up and down and never move their glance except from their sketch to the model and back again. She was a very pretty young girl and took graceful half-hour poses. The one interruption was a quiet voice at the end of a half-hour, 'C'est l'heure'; and they stopped for a few minutes' rest. We went into another room, where a picturesque old wretch with long black curls, red velvet waist-coat, long blue cape, well thrown back, black, grimy hands clasped around his knee, and clumsy, rusty boots stuck out in front of him, was seated." Later one of these old models used to come to my brother. He had a card on which was printed the list of poses he was prepared to take.—"The twelve Apostles," "The Eternal Father" and "The God Jupiter." I found a little English tea-room about a mile away, and often went there for tea and muffins which in those days were hardly procurable in French places. The tea-habit is only about ten years old in France. The people in the shop soon knew me by sight, which was just as well, as I would begin going over the words of some part in my head and walk out serenely, quite forgetting to pay for my tea. I still go there occasionally when I am in Paris and remind them of that. I sometimes went to the two operas and to the theatre, but not nearly often enough, as I could spare neither time nor money, and the late hours made a concentration on the next morning's work more difficult. The concert world was a great disappointment to me. I think I longed for nothing so much that year, as to hear great orchestral music well performed; but the Lamoreux and Chevillard concerts did little to satisfy this craving, and I was amazed at the roughness of the strings and the narrow scope of the programs. Many of the great artists avoided Paris in their tours, the reason given being lack of suitable concert halls. On the other hand, a whole new school of composition was opened to me that winter by a fellow pensionnaire. Charles Loeffler and Henry Hadley spent part of the winter in our pension, and Mr. Loeffler introduced me to the French modernists. Later in the winter we often talked over their works together. He used to stroll into my room about tea time, saying he liked to watch me make tea for I had such attractive fingers. He used to take me to the odd corners of his beloved Paris, cafÉs haunted by long-haired Sorbonne students, and cafÉs chantants, where the frank improprieties of the ditties were for me so impenetrably disguised by the argot in which they were written that I did not understand a word of them. "When your French gets more colloquial," he used to say, "I shan't be able to bring you here any more. Oh! if you were only a man!" He always ended with this exclamation, and I never knew why, for my woman-hood did not seem to disturb him particularly. Perhaps he felt the want of a sort of Fidus' Achates to confide in. He took me to two famous places, and this is my description of them in a letter to my mother: "We went first to the famous 'Noctambules' in the Quartier Latin. It is where the wittiest men of their genre are to be found. They are many of them decorated by the government. One hears witty topical songs, chansons d'amour, and absurdities telling of the eels and fishes in amorous conversation, such extravagances as the French love. There is no vulgarity. Their diction is marvellous, and of course they sacrifice, entirely, their tone to their words. All around the walls are posters and drawings of famous artists and caricatures of Parisians. The performers are called on in turn by the master of ceremonies, and take their stand on a little platform in front of the piano half way up the room. When they have finished, if they have been popular, we are all called on to join in the doublement for Monsieur so and so. This consists of clapping to a certain rhythm, which is thumped on the piano: 1 2 3 4 5,—1 2 3 4 5,—1 2 3 4 5—1 2 3—and over again." In those days Charles Fallot was still at the "Noctambules" and used to arise, very black and white and thin, and gaze at himself in the big mirror opposite, while he gestured with his long, skinny arms and thoroughly French hands, and delivered himself of his witty double entendre chansons. Another night we went to a famous Montmartre place, Boite À Fursy, but it was not at all the same thing, and we neither of us liked it. Henry Hadley had the room above me, and often told me my hours of playing "Carmen," etc., nearly maddened him. I always studied in bed or at the piano, without singing, and rarely used my voice when committing rÔles to memory. Hadley often had Cyril Scott, the English composer, in his rooms, and I used to listen with joy to Scott's imaginative playing. It was like birds sweeping and swooping, all keys and intervals were interwoven. He always said, one hand on his forehead, "I have no understanding for limitations of harmony or rules of tempo." And indeed why should one have? He liked nothing older than Debussy and was unspeakably bored by Gluck or Beethoven and their ilk, though he loved "Carmen." Hadley still retained a strong admiration for Wagner and respect for the old school, though he much appreciated the moderns and the modern orchestra. I first saw Mary Garden as MÉlisande with him. We both sat rapt and spellbound to the end, transported by what was to me a perfect revelation as to scoring for modern orchestra, the intangible operatic form, and most of all the subtle imaginative acting of Mary Garden. Her power of suggestion in those days was capable of conveying any shade of thought or delicate mood to the spectator. That performance has always been and will always be an inspiration to me. Hadley was always starting off on impossible journeys to Egypt and the Orient, in search of "material." His talk was filled with the strangest scraps of out-of-the-way information, like bright-coloured rags in a dust heap. Bauer lived a door or two away, and I used to hear him practising and then hear his concerts. A wordy war would rage at our end of the table at dinner, while old Madame, from her seat of honour in the centre, would cry, "Mais franÇais, parlez franÇais, mes enfants! You crush my ears with your English!" Of course, no attention was paid to her. Joining passionately in the discussions, though not themselves of the mÉtier, were two American girls, living on the top floor, who were supposed to be writing a play together. One or another of the composers was usually more or less in love with one or other of the girls, and they took sides accordingly, for and against the recognized masters of the past. The two were amusing, always doing something eccentric. At one time they had an incubator in their room, the gift of a passing admirer, and we engaged passionately in raising chickens. The machine was heated by a huge kerosene lamp, and they were always turning it too high and having it fill the room with blacks and smoke, or letting it go out altogether. However, two or three chicks, more strenuously determined to live than the rest, managed to struggle out at length, and their advent was heralded by the whole pension. We had marked our initials on the eggs, one egg each, and when mine showed the first signs of life, I held it in my hand till it was partly hatched. The little pecks inside the shell were fascinating to feel in one's palm. As soon as the chicks could walk, they were taken downstairs into the citÉ, and their attempts to scratch gravel were hailed by the assembled inhabitants of the garden in a rapture of several languages. One Englishman wanted to make them little jackets, so he could take them for walks in the Bois. Discussion was meat and drink to all these people. Their cry was "Sensations, sensations! Let the artist experience everything in his own person!" This doctrine sounded rather a menace to conduct, but talking endlessly about sensations seemed to be equivalent in most cases to experiencing them. Nevertheless, some of them indulged in desperate orgies of black coffee and cigarettes as an invocation to their muse; and one of the composers assured me that the great symphonic poem on which he was at work, had been inspired by breaking a bottle of Houbigant's IdÉal in a closed cab and driving for hours in the Bois, inhaling the perfume. They loved to recount these Gargantuan excesses, and were extravagant in praise of midnight oil, attic windows, and the calm inspiration of early dawn after nights of frantic toil. They were dreadfully sincere, and very amusing to watch, but it seemed to me that there was a great deal of stage setting for very little play. They tended the green shoot of their artistic development with such fantastic care, that it was in danger of dying from too much consideration. Personally, I was too busy, either for sensations or the analysis of them, though I used to wonder what this Paris could be like into which they journeyed and from which they returned full of tales of affairs and lovely women and gorgeous houses. It all seemed most romantic and interesting to me. The other end of the dinner table represented staid conventionality in contrast to our anarchism. In the centre sat Madame and beside her her life-long friend, the editor of one of the Paris newspapers. Some hinted that he was something more than a friend, in spite of Madame's seventy years. Opposite her, was Madame M——, once an American in the days of long ago, but with no trace of it left except in her persistent accent. She was reputed to possess one hundred dresses, and certainly the variety of her costume was amazing; but as she was at least fifty-five and had preserved every gown for the last thirty years, her annual dress expenditure, after all, was probably not extravagant. Her old husband was never allowed a word when she was present, so he revenged himself for the privation by interfering with every game started after dinner in the salon—bridge, poker, patience, no matter what it was, he always insisted that the players were quite wrong and that he could show them how it was done in the clubs. There was a young Russian girl with a pretty face and pretty clothes, whose hands, however, betrayed her peasant origin. Her beautiful sister was engaged at the Grand Opera, so she was an object of great interest to me. There were some Swedes, and nondescript Americans, and a charming French family, a mother and two daughters, bearers of an historic name, who had come up from their chÂteau in the South of France that the girls might have masters in various "accomplishments," and were living in the pension from motives of economy. On Sundays their brother, a young naval officer, used to dine with them. With his pale, aristocratic face, and with little side-whiskers, the high stock of his uniform, his strapped trousers and narrow, arched feet, he was like a John Leech drawing come to life. Then there was a large Frenchwoman, Madame la Marquise de Quelquechose, who lent the lustre of her title and her ancestral jewels to our bourgeois board. At least, she said her jewels were heirlooms, but her ancestors must have had a prophetic taste in jewelry, as I often saw replicas of her ornaments in the shops of the rue de Rivoli. An old Englishwoman completed our list of permanencies. In spite of twenty years' residence in Paris, she would still ask for "oon petty poo de pang" in a high, drawling voice. There were transients of many nationalities, but these were our regular inmates. An interesting man sometimes dined with us. Writing my mother about him I say: "Last night Mr. H—— dined here and told us many yarns about Sarah Bernhardt. He said once when he was in California he was asked to meet her and they all went on a hunting picnic together. She dropped her robe when she got to the island where they had dÉjeuner, undoing a wide, heavy, Egyptian gold and precious-stone belt, and appeared attired in a man's velvet hunting-suit. He says she adores to talk cancan, and referred to the manager as 'that cochon.' After breakfast, she threw the champagne bottles far into the lake and shot them to pieces at the first shot. The only posey thing she did was when she undid her belt and threw it far across the road, and when he asked her if that was the way she treated such beautiful things, she said that the man who gave it to her was domestic!... It is colder than charity here at present, at least I feel it so in the house. I shall start my fire today for the first time. Yesterday I bought a bunch of violets, and do you know why? To keep myself from buying chestnuts, which are bad for the voice. You see, if I spent my sous for violets I could not afford more for chestnuts. Thus prevented I myself." CHAPTER VOPERATIC FRANCE VERSUS OPERATIC GERMANYAFTER a few months of strenuous endeavour on my part, I began to be a little dissatisfied and restless. I saw clearly that in a year's time, working at such pressure, I should have a sufficient repertoire to begin my apprenticeship on the stage; but I did not see my way to a dÉbut quite so clearly. I talked with the other pupils, to get their ideas of progression. They all said, "When I make my dÉbut at the Opera," or "the Comique." They were all sure of an opening at the top and apparently would consider nothing less than leading rÔles in a world capital. That was not my idea at all. I did not care about a dÉbut. I wanted to learn to act, to do my big parts over and over again before an audience, to sing them into my voice, to learn to make voice, face, and my whole body an articulate expression of all that the rÔle had to say. I tried to find out how the singers of the two operas had made their careers. Some, I learned, though doing leading work, still paid for their performances by taking so and so many francs worth of seats every time they sang. Some had gained a hearing by the influence of their teachers. Some were there by "protection." The Russian girl's sister was very beautiful, but she was not very gifted either vocally or histrionically, and I wondered at her engagement, until I heard that she was the protÉgÉe of a certain rich man. The winners of the first prize at the Conservatoire had a chance given them, and one or two had made good to a certain extent, and still sang occasionally. But, I thought, if the dÉbutantes of the Conservatoire must be given an opportunity, there can be very little room for other inexperienced singers, and certainly none for foreigners. The "France for the French" spirit had impressed me tremendously, as it must all foreigners in Paris. Generous as the city is to them, she rightly gives her rewards to those of her own race first. The opera class was another source of annoyance to me. The one idea was "copy what I show you"—make a faithful imitation whether it expresses what you feel or not; it doesn't matter what you feel so long as you pour everything into the same moulds and turn out neat little shapes, labelled "love," "hate," "despair," all ready for use, and all "true to the traditions of the French school." The first lessons of all were in standing and walking, and there began my sadness. The traditions demanded that one's feet be set eternally at "ten minutes to two." Mine would deviate from this rule, and I aided and abetted them in their mutiny. My instinct was to sit down occasionally with my knees together, instead of always draping one leg at the side of the chair. I often felt like singing quite a long phrase with no gestures at all, instead of keeping up a succession of undulating arm-movements. Our dramatic coach, a fiery individual, who chewed coffee-berries persistently, struggled in vain to teach me to lay one hand on my heart in the traditional manner, two middle fingers together, little one crooked, thumb in. Sometimes mine looked like a starfish, and sometimes like a fist, and both were taboo. Gestures had to melt into each other; there were different ones for different emotions, and woe betide you if you mixed them! There was a sort of test speech beginning, "Moi, qui vous parle." The hand at "moi" had to be laid upon the chest in the approved manner. I have forgotten the middle, but the end was, "Et vous jure, que je le ferai jamais!" At jure one elevated the right hand, the first two fingers raised, and at jamais the right arm described a figure eight across the upper half of the body, with the gesture of tearing away a long beard. We did this all winter and never reached perfection, that is, an exact copy of Valdejo, our instructor. We had to practice the classic walk—slowly advancing, foot dragging, stomach out, very lordly to see, one arm bent from the elbow with the forearm and hand resting against the body—a most difficult thing. The different versions were very comic, but the idea was excellent and I used it later in "Orfeo." Certainly a pulled back tummy would not be in character in a Greek tunic. Later, we had to act scenes from our operas, and there I got on better. I used to get absorbed in the character to the extent of becoming perfectly oblivious of my surroundings. I remember once, as Dalila, throwing myself so hard upon the supposed couch of Dalila, that I thumped my head on the marble mantel behind me. My watching class mates burst into a snicker, and I into real tears of anger, not of pain. I had entirely forgotten them when their giggles wrenched me back into the present; but their great pride was never to forget themselves and always to be ready to imitate the coach in cold blood. He, however, appreciated that I had something in me, and used to thump me on the back, and call me "Canaille!" when I did anything that pleased him—a curious expression of approval. I am not denouncing the ordinary "opera class." This method of slavish imitation doubtless has its usefulness for some people. The old order of opera singer was often trained by such schooling. But Mary Garden had opened my eyes to the new order of singing actors, and the old method was no help to me. I longed for a real stage on which to try out my own ideas, and find by experience whether they were right or wrong. I wanted to gain that subtle quality, "authority," which is nearly as important as voice itself, that routine which makes one forget the four long bones of the body, and blends all its members into an instrument of expression, homogeneous and harmonious. In my researches into the life-stories of French singers, I heard much of "the French provinces" as a training school, and turned my attention to accumulating all the information on that subject that I could gather. I heard tales of southern audiences who cheered their singers to the echo, waited in a mob to tear the horses from their carriages after a performance, pelted them with flowers and expressed their approval in other picturesque fashions. The reverse side of these tales is of directly opposite character, when benches are torn up and flung over the gallery by the "gods," disappointed at not hearing a favourite singer, and the head of the unlucky substitute is the target for their missiles till he makes good with a high note loud enough to pierce the din of their protestation. If a wretched singer clears his throat loud enough to be heard, he will be greeted at each entrance by a chorus of throat-clearing from the gallery. If his acting of a part strikes them as being pretentious or over-solemn, groans and cries of "Shakespear-r-r-e" reward his efforts. To crack on a high note is the certain signal for a riot of yelling and jeers, but the unhappy singer must stick it out at any cost, for if he leaves the stage, they wait for him outside and set upon him bodily. "If you've made the round of the Provinces," as Harry Weldon, who has done so, once said to me, "you can sing in Hell!" Of course, not all provincial audiences are so "temperamental" as the southerners, but, as far as I could learn, paid performances and protection seemed to exist everywhere in greater or less degree. The repertoire was limited and old-fashioned—the standard French operas, "Faust," "Mignon," "Carmen," "Hamlet," were performed, with "Traviata," "Trovatore," "Aida," "The Barber," some Meyerbeer, and many of the lighter works, like "La Fille du Regiment." Among the more modern works were "Werther" and "Manon" of Massenet, with "BohÈme" and "Butterfly" and perhaps "Louise." "Lohengrin" and "TannhÄuser" were sometimes given, but the big Wagner dramas, the classics of Mozart, Weber and Gluck, and the moderns like Debussy, Dukas, Strauss, Humperdinck, seemed neglected. Over all there hung a general lack of method, musical thoroughness and discipline. I must confess that I judge largely by hear-say, as the only provincial French opera house of which I have any personal knowledge is that of Nancy. So it may be that I do "The Provinces" an injustice. Of course, both Monte Carlo and Nice offer many novelties. But then Monte Carlo is not a provincial French opera at all. On the other hand, the stories I heard of the great operatic machinery of Germany began to attract me irresistibly. The organized system of opera, the great chain of opera houses, the discipline of their rigid schooling, the concentration and deep musical sincerity of their musicians, the simplicity of German life, all seemed to offer what I was looking for. The dramatic quality of my voice would have more scope in their more varied repertoire, while surely in their hundred-odd opera houses I might find a place to work out my ideas in peace. Every one thought me crazy. My teachers tried their hardest to dissuade me, promising me a great career in France. But I felt a call to Germany where I hoped to find the right conditions for my own development which seemed lacking in France. The great barrier was the language—the difficulty of singing in it, to say nothing of learning it, for I did not know one word. Jean de Reszke said to me later, speaking of German as a language for singing: "Avec cette langue, vous n'arriverez jamais." (With that language, you will never succeed.) However, I have said that I had a good deal of courage in those days, and I determined to go to Berlin to try my luck. Not that I was tired of Paris. It is still my favourite city offering a wonderful opportunity for broadening culture to those who can get into touch with its art life. I owe it a great debt for deepening my artistic perception, and developing that sense of true proportion which keeps one from exaggeration on the one hand and pedantry on the other. But I should not recommend Paris as the best school for the ordinary American student of singing, who has no opportunity to penetrate into real French life. There is no lack of sincerity in the real French institutions, the Conservatoire, the schools of art, the Sorbonne—there are found concentration, competition, and keenness enough. But the foreign student of singing does not ordinarily come into contact with these institutions. In the Paris vocal studios, as I know them, there is a dissipation instead of a conservation of energy. The students expect to win the crown without running the race, and money and influence play too great a rÔle. They (vocal students, I mean) tend to exaggerate their little emotions into grandes passions, and hold the most disproportionate views of their own importance. I do not mean to say that I agree with a certain singer who brought back harrowing tales of immorality among American students in Europe. Amongst all the hundreds of vocal students I have known, I never met one case of flagrant misbehaviour. In general the girls live quietly and strive according to their lights, though there is not one in twenty with resolution enough to concentrate on the hard work necessary for a great career. The temptation is to fritter away both time and money on the things that don't matter. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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