Our first queen of song was Vittoria Archilei, that Florentine lady of noble birth who labored faithfully with the famous "Academy" to discover the secret of the Greek drama. It was she who furthered the success of the embryo operas of Emilio del Cavalieri, late in the sixteenth century, and roused enthusiasm by her splendid interpretation for Jacopo Peri's "Eurydice," the first opera presented to the public. She was called "Euterpe" by her Italian contemporaries because her superb voice, artistic skill, musical fire and intelligence fitted her to be the muse of music. Her memory has been too little honored.

When Lully was giving opera to France he secured the co-operation of Marthe le Rochois, a gifted student of declamation and song at the Paris AcadÉmie Royale de Musique, for whose establishment he had obtained letters patent in 1672. So great was his confidence in her judgment that he consulted her in all that pertained to his work. Her greatest public triumph was in his "Armide." This earliest French queen of song is described as a brunette, with mediocre figure and plain face, who had wonderful magnetism and sparkling black eyes that mirrored the changeful sentiments of an impassioned soul. Her acting and voice-control were pronounced remarkable. Her superior powers, unspoiled simplicity, frankness and generosity are extolled by that quaint historian of the opera, Dury de Noinville. On her retirement from the stage, in 1697, the king awarded her a pension of 1,000 livres in token of appreciation, and to this the Duc de Sully added 500 livres. She died in Paris in the seventieth year of her age, her home having long been the resort of eminent artists and literary people.

Katherine Tofts, who made her dÉbut in Clayton's "Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus," about 1702, was the first dramatic songstress of English birth, and is described by Colley Cibber as a beautiful woman with a clear, silvery-toned, flexible soprano. Her professional career brought her fortune as well as fame, but was short-lived. In the height of her bloom her reason gave way, and although judicious treatment restored it for a time, she did not return to the stage. As the wife of Mr. Joseph Smith, art connoisseur and collector of rare books and prints, she went to Venice, where her husband was British Consul, and lived in much state until, her malady returning, it became necessary to seclude her. Wandering through the garden of her home she fancied herself the queen of former days. Steele, in the "Tattler," attributes her disorder to her stage habit of absorbing herself in imaginary great personages.

While Mrs. Tofts reigned in Clayton's opera, Signora Francesca Margarita de l'Epine, a native of Tuscany, sang Italian airs before and after it. Tall, swarthy, brusque in manner, she had a voice and a style that made her famous. It was she who inaugurated the custom of giving farewell concerts. Meeting with brilliant success at a performance announced as her last appearance, "she continued," says Dr. Burney, "to sing more last and positively last times and never left England at all." There was a rivalry between the two queens of song, which being a novelty, furnished gossip and laughter for all London. Hughes, that "agreeable poet," wrote of it:

Retiring in 1722 with a fortune of ten thousand pounds, Margarita married the learned Dr. Pepusch, who was enabled by her means to pursue with ease his scientific studies. In his library she found Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, and being a skilled harpsichordist, she so well mastered its intricacies that people thronged to her home to hear her play.

London was divided by another pair of rival queens of song in 1725-6. One of these, Francesca Cuzzoni, a native of Parma, had created such a furore on her first appearance, three years earlier, that the opera directors who had engaged her for the season at two thousand guineas were encouraged to charge four guineas for admission, and her costumes were adopted by fashionable youth and beauty. Although ugly and ill-made, she had a sweet, clear dramatic contralto with unrivalled high notes, intonations so fixed it seemed impossible for her to sing out of tune, and a native flexibility that left unimpeded her creative fancy. Handel, in whose operas she sang, composed airs calculated to display her charms, but she, confident of her supremacy, rewarded him with conduct so capricious that, finding her at last intolerable, he sent to Italy for the noble Venetian lady, Faustina Bordoni. She was elegant in figure, handsome of face, had an amiable disposition, a ringing mezzo-soprano, with a compass from B-flat to G in altissimo, and was renowned for her brilliant execution, distinct enunciation, beautiful shake, happy memory for embellishments and fine expression.

However pleased the directors may have been at first to have two popular songstresses, they were soon dismayed at the fierce rivalry that sprang up between them and was fanned to flames by Master Handel himself, who now composed exclusively for Faustina. By increasing the salary of her more tractable rival they finally disposed of Cuzzoni, who thenceforth through her exaggerated demands, managed to disgust her patrons wherever she appeared. Her reckless extravagance left her wholly destitute after losing her voice and her husband, Signor Sandoni, a harpsichord-maker. She passed her last years in Bologna, subsisting on a miserable pittance earned by covering buttons.

Faustina married Adolphe Hasse, the German dramatic composer, and at forty-seven sang before Frederick the Great, who was charmed with the freshness of her voice. The couple lived until 1783, the one eighty-three, the other eighty-four years of age. Dr. Burney visited them when they were advanced in the seventies and found Faustina a sprightly, sensible old lady, with a delightful store of reminiscences, and her husband a communicative, rational old gentleman, quite free from "pedantry, pride and prejudice."

Gertrude Elizabeth Mara, Germany's earliest noted queen of song, began her public career in 1755 as a child violinist of six, traveling with her father, Johann SchmÄling, a respectable musician of Hesse-Cassel. In London her musical gifts proved to include a phenomenal soprano voice, which developed a compass from G to E altissimo, unrivalled portamento di voce, pure enunciation and precise intonation. She became skilled in harmony, theory, sight-reading and harpsichord playing. When she sang, her glowing countenance, her supreme acting and the lights and shades of her voice made people forget the plainness of her features and the insignificance of her form and stature. Her rendering of Handel's airs, especially "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth," was pronounced faultless.

Frederick the Great, who as soon expected pleasure from the neighing of a horse as from a German songstress, vanquished on hearing her, retained her as court singer. While in his service she became the wife of Jean Mara, a handsome, dissipated court violoncellist, whom she loved devotedly, but who led her a sorry life. Returning to London later she taught singing at two guineas a lesson. Upon fear being expressed that her price, double that of other teachers, would limit her class, she said her pupils having her voice as a model could learn in half the time required for those who had only the tinkling of a piano to imitate. Though she believed singing should be taught by a singer, a tenderness for her own experience made her insist that the best way to begin the musical education was by having the pupil learn to play the violin. When she heard a songstress extolled for rapid vocalization she would ask: "Can she sing six plain notes?" This question might afford young singers food for reflection. Madame Mara passed her declining years teaching singing near her native place, and died at Reval, in 1833. Two years earlier, on her eighty-third birthday, Goethe offered her a poetic tribute.

At a London farewell concert given by Madame Mara in 1802, she was assisted by Mrs. Elizabeth Billington, who has been ranked first among English-born queens of song. Her pure soprano had a range of three octaves, from A to A, with flute-like upper tones. She sang with neatness, agility and precision, could detect the least false intonation of instrument or voice, and was attractive in appearance. Haydn eulogized her genius in his diary, and in the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was painting her portrait as St. Cecilia, exclaimed: "You have represented Mrs. Billington listening to the angels, you should have made them listening to her." It was she who introduced Mozart's operas into England. She only lived to be forty-eight, breaking down in 1818, from the effects of brutal treatment of her second husband, a Frenchman, named Felissent.

Last of the eighteenth century queens of song was Angelica Catalani, born some forty miles from Rome in 1779, destined by her father, a local magistrate, for the cloister, and borne beyond its walls by her magnificent voice, with its compass of three octaves, from G to G. She is described as a tall, fair woman with a splendid presence, large blue eyes, features of perfect symmetry and a winning smile. So great was her natural facility she could rise with ease from the faintest sound to the most superb crescendo, could send her tones sweeping through the air with the most delicious undulations, imitating the swell and fall of a bell, and could trill like a bird on each note of a chromatic passage. She dazzled her listeners, but left the heart untouched.

Her domestic life was a happy one, and her husband, Captain de Vallebregue, adored her, although he knew so little about music that once when she complained that the piano was too high he had six inches cut off its legs. Surrounded by adulation at home and abroad, her self-conceit became inordinate, tempting her to the most absurd feats of skill. Her excessive love of display and lack of artistic judgment and knowledge finally led her so far astray in pitch that she lost all prestige. After seventeen years of retirement, she died of cholera in 1849, in Paris. A few days before she was stricken with the dire epidemic Jenny Lind sought and received her blessing.

A queen of song who profoundly impressed her age was Giuditta Pasta, born near Milan in 1798, of Hebrew parentage. For her Bellini wrote "La Sonnambula" and "Norma," Donizetti his "Anna Bolena," Pacini his "Niobe," and she was the star of Rossini's leading operas of the time. Her voice, a mezzo-soprano, at first unequal, weak, of slender range and lacking flexibility, acquired, through her wonderful genius and industry a range of two octaves and a half, reaching D in altissimo, together with a sweetness, a fluency, and a chaste, expressive style. Although below medium height, in impassioned moments she seemed to rise to queenly stature. Both acting and singing were governed by ripe judgment, profound sensibility and noble simplicity. She died at Lake Como in 1865.

So many queens of song have reigned from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present time that only a few brilliant names may here be mentioned. Among these Henrietta Sontag was the greatest German singer of the first half of the century. A distinguished traveler tells of having found her when she was eight years old, in 1812, sitting on a table, where her mother had placed her, and singing the grand aria of the Queen of the Night from the "Magic Flute," her voice, "pure, penetrating and of angelic tone," flowing as "unconsciously as a limpid rill from the mountain side." At fifteen she made her regular dÉbut, and we are told that she sang "with the volubility of a bird." During her four years at the Conservatory of Prague she had won the prize in every class of vocal music, piano and harmony.

Acquitting herself with ease in both German and Italian, and being exceedingly versatile, she won equal renown in the operas of Weber, Mozart, Rossini, and Donizetti. Paris, in special, marveled at the little German who could give satisfaction in Grand Opera. Her voice, a pure soprano, reached to D in alt., with upper notes like silvery bell-tones, and its natural pliability was cultivated by taste and incessant study. She was of medium stature, elegant form, with light hair, fair complexion and soft, expressive blue eyes that lent an enchantment to features that were not otherwise striking. In demeanor she was artless, unaffected and ladylike. Romantic stories were continually in circulation regarding suitors for her hand. As the wife of Count Rossi, an attachÉ of the Sardinian legation, she retired to private life in 1830, and passed many happy years with her husband in various capitols of Europe. When, in 1848, owing to financial shipwreck, she returned to the stage her voice still charmed by its exquisite purity, spirituelle quality and supreme finish. In 1852 she came to America and created an immense furore in the musical and fashionable world. She died of cholera in Mexico in 1854.

Born the same year as Madame Sontag was Wilhelmine SchrÖder-Devrient, one of the world's noblest interpreters of German opera and German Lieder, although surpassed by others in vocal resources. She grew up on the stage, and was trained by her father, Friedrich SchrÖder, a baritone singer, and her mother, Sophie SchrÖder, known as the "Siddons of Germany." Her dramatic soprano was capable of producing the most tender, powerful, truthful and intensely thrilling effects, although it was not specially tractable and was at times even harsh. It was she who by her magnificent interpretation of Leonore, in Beethoven's "Fidelio," first revealed the beauty of the part to the public. In Wagner's operas she appeared as Senta, in the "Flying Dutchman"; Venus, in "TannhÄuser," and actually created the rÔle of Adriano Colonna, in "Rienzi." Goethe, who had earlier failed to appreciate Schubert's matchless setting to his "Erl King," when he heard Madame SchrÖder-Devrient sing it, exclaimed: "Had music instead of words been my vehicle of thought, it is thus I should have framed the legend." She died in 1860.

Full of caprice, radiating the fire of genius, wayward and playful as a child, Maria FelicitÀ Malibran swept like a dazzling meteor across the musical firmament. M. Arthur Pougin thus epitomizes her story:

"Daughter of a Spaniard, born in France, married in America, died in England, buried in Belgium. Comedienne at five, married at seventeen, dead at twenty-eight—immortal. Beautiful, brilliant, gay as a ray of sunlight, with frequent shadings of melancholy; heart full of warmth and abandon; devoted to the point of sacrifice; courageous to temerity; ardent for pleasure as for work; with a will and energy indomitable. A singer without a peer, and a lyric tragedienne capable of exciting the instinctive enthusiasm of the masses and the reasonable admiration of connoisseurs. Pianist, composer, poet, she drew and painted with taste; spoke fluently five languages; was expert in all feminine work, skilled in sport and outdoor exercises, and possessed of a striking originality. Such was Malibran in part, for the whole could never be expressed."

Her genius developed under the iron control of her father, Manuel del Popolo Garcia, who compelled to submission her seemingly intractable voice until it became sonorous, superb, a brilliant and fascinating contralto, with a range of over three octaves, reaching E in alt. Her own indomitable will and exceptional artistic intelligence were prime factors in the training. In her heart-searching tones and passionate acting her glowing soul was felt. When she was but seventeen, her father, seeking an ideal climate, started with his family for Mexico. In New York she contracted her unfortunate marriage with the French banker, M. Malibran. She soon returned to Paris and the stage, and later having obtained a divorce, married the famous violinist De Beriot, with whom she had a brief but happy union.

Madame Malibran was said to be equally at home in any known school of her time. Mozart and Cimarosa, Boieldieu and Rossini, Cherubini and Bellini were all grasped with the same sympathetic comprehension. Sontag was her rival, Pasta was yet in the height of her fame, but no contrasts whatever dimmed the glory of Malibran. A rare personal charm added to her artistic graces. Mr. Chorley describing her, in his recollections, said that she was better than beautiful, insomuch as a "speaking Spanish human countenance by Murillo is ten times more fascinating than many a faultless face such as Guido could paint." When her death was announced, in 1836, Ole Bull, who had known her well, exclaimed: "I cannot realize it. A woman with a soul of fire, so highly endowed, so intense. How I wept on seeing her as Desdemona! It is not possible she is dead."

Pauline Garcia, thirteen years younger than her remarkable sister, and with a voice similar in quality, also did justice to her father's rigorous discipline and became famous. She married M. Viardot, opera director and critic, and after a brilliant career as a singer, gave long and valuable service as a vocal teacher in Paris. She remained in the full tide of her activity until she was long past the allotted threescore years and ten. It is an interesting fact that Madame Mathilde Marchesi, author of a noted vocal method, 24 books of Vocalises, a volume of reminiscences, and other works, and once famed as a singer, is only five years younger than Madame Viardot-Garcia, but at seventy-six is still teaching—still shining as an authority on the art of song. Singers seem often to have been long-lived. In truth, there is that in music which is life-giving.

A songstress whose name will always be mentioned in the same breath with that of the tenor Mario, who became her husband, and with whom she toured the United States in 1854, was Giulia Grisi. She was born in Milan in 1812, made her dÉbut at sixteen, and had an undisputed reign of over a quarter of a century. Her voice, a pure soprano of finest quality, brilliant and vibrating, spanned two octaves, from C to C. She possessed the gift of beauty, and was said to unite the tragic inspiration of Pasta with the fire and energy of Malibran. A favorite rÔle with her was that of the Druid priestess in "Norma." Her delivery of "Casta Diva" was said to be a transcendant effort of vocalization.

Living to-day in London at the advanced age of ninety-seven is the elder brother of Malibran and Viardot-Garcia, Manuel Garcia, the inventor of the laryngoscope, author of the renowned "Art of Song," and teacher of Jenny Lind. It was in 1841 that the ever-beloved Swedish Nightingale, then twenty-one years old, sought him in Paris, with a voice worn from over-exertion and lack of proper management. In ten months she had gained all that master could teach her in tone production, blending of the registers and breath-control. Her own genius, her splendid individuality, her indefatigable perseverance, did the rest in investing her dramatic soprano with that sympathetic timbre, that power of expressing every phase of her artistic conception, that bird-like quality of the upper notes, that marvelous beauty and equality of the entire range of two octaves and three quarters (from B below the stave to G on the fourth line), that exquisite sonority, that penetrating pianissimo, that unrivalled messa di voce, that mastery over technique of which so much has been written and said.

Jenny Lind was to Sweden what Ole Bull was to Norway, the inspirer of noble achievement. The faithful interpreter of the acknowledged masterpieces of genius in opera, oratorio and song, she also freely poured forth in gracious waves the poetic, the rugged, and the exquisitely polished lays of the Northland, making them known for the first time to thousands of people. It was through her pure and noble womanhood, quite as much as through her artistic excellence that she swayed the public and left so deep and enduring an impression. True to the backbone in her artistic allegiance, she believed that art, the expression and embodiment of the spiritual principle animating it, could not fail to elevate to a high spiritual and moral standard the genuine artist.

She had lived thirty-five happy years with her husband, Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, pianist, conductor and composer, who still survives her, when death overtook her at their home on the Malvern Hills, November 2, 1887. When the end drew near, one of her daughters threw open the window shutters to admit the morning sun. As it came streaming into the room, Jenny Lind uplifted her voice, and it rang out firm and clear as she sang the opening measures of Schumann's glorious "To the Sunshine." The notes were her last. A bust of her was unveiled in Westminster Abbey in 1894.

A Swedish songstress with a powerful, well-trained voice, who before Jenny Lind won operatic laurels in foreign lands, was Henrietta Nissen-Saloman, also a pupil of Garcia. Later, the brilliant Swedish soprano, Christine Nilsson, with a voice of wonderful sweetness and beauty, reaching with ease F in alt., with the most thorough skill in vocalization, with dramatic intuitions, expressive powers and magnetic presence, charmed the public on two continents in such rÔles as Marguerite, Mignon, Elsa, Ophelia and Lucia. She, too, bore through the world with her the northern songs she had learned to cherish in childhood.

Still another delightful dramatic soprano from the land of Jenny Lind is Sigrid Arnoldson, who has a beautiful voice, winning personality, and pronounced musical intelligence. She is still in her prime.

When the name of Adelina Patti is mentioned, we always think of long enduring vocal powers, many farewells and high prices. Catalani, in her full splendor, earned about $100,000 a season. Malibran's profits for eighty-five concerts at La Scala ran to $95,000. Jenny Lind received $208,675 for ninety-five concerts under Barnum's management. Patti has had as much as $8,395 for one performance, and long received a fee of $5,000 a night. In coloratura rÔles she has been pronounced the greatest singer of her time, both in opera and concert. Her voice, noted for its wide compass, exceeding sweetness, marvelous flexibility and perfect equality, has been so wonderfully well cared for that even now, in her sixtieth year, she enjoys singing, although she rarely appears in public. Her sister, Carlotta, was also a coloratura vocalist of exquisite technique.

Queens of song now pass in swift review before the mind's eye. We recall Marietta Alboni, the greatest contralto of the middle of the last century, with a voice rich, mellow, liquid, pure and endowed with passionate tenderness, the only pupil of Rossini; Theresa Tietiens, with her mighty dramatic soprano, whose tones were softer than velvet, and her noble acting; Marie Piccolomini, a winning mezzo-soprano; Parepa Rosa, with her sweet, strong voice and imposing stage presence; Pescha Leutner, the star of 1856; Louisa Pyne, the English Sontag; Parodi, pupil of Pasta; Etelka Gerster, whose beautiful soprano could fascinate if it could not awe; Pauline Lucca, whose originality, artistic temperament and intelligence placed her in the front rank of dramatic sopranos, and many others.

Amalie Materna, dramatic soprano at the Vienna Court Theatre from 1869 to 1896, with great musical and dramatic intelligence, with a voice of remarkable compass, volume, richness and sustaining power, vibrant with passionate intensity, and with a noble stage presence, proved to be Wagner's ideal BrÜnnhilde and introduced the rÔle at Bayreuth in 1876. She was also the creator of Kundry at the same place in 1882. She aroused unbounded enthusiasm as Elizabeth in "TannhÄuser," and as Isolde in "Tristan and Isolde." She is not forgotten by those who heard her in various cities of this country.

The same may be said of Marianne Brandt, who sang the part of Kundry at the second "Parsifal" representation at Bayreuth, having been Frau Materna's alternate in 1882. With her superbly rich, deep-toned voice and her splendid vocal and dramatic control she thrilled her audiences in her Wagnerian rÔles, in Beethoven's "Fidelio," and in all she attempted, whether in opera or concert. She was a magnificent horsewoman, and was perhaps the only BrÜnnhilde who was able to give full play on the stage to her Valkyrie charger. It is told by an eye witness that before a first appearance in a German city she was borne furiously on the stage at rehearsal by her spirited, prancing steed, and when she drew him up suddenly, rearing and pawing the air, near the footlights, the members of the orchestra dropped their instruments and fled affrighted. It was not long, however, before she succeeded in winning their confidence, and all went well at the evening performance.

Six more radiant queens of song whose reign belongs to these modern times must be mentioned in conclusion: Sembrich, Nordica, CalvÉ, Melba, Sanderson and Eames. These are but a few of the many present day rulers in the realms of song.

Marcella Sembrich, a coloratura soprano from Galicia, has a light, penetrating, marvelously sweet, and exceedingly flexible voice, with an almost perfect vocal mechanism. As one of her admirers has said, her tones are as clear as silver bells, and there is something buoyant and jubilant in her mode of song. With her genuine art and engaging personality she holds her audiences entranced and, being wise enough to keep within her special genre, she always succeeds as an actress. She is a pupil of the Lampertis, father and son, studied the piano with Liszt, becoming an excellent interpreter of Chopin, and is no mean violinist.

An American, born in Farmington, Me., Lillian Nordica pursued her vocal and musical studies at the New England Conservatory, in Boston, and after much experience in church, concert and oratorio singing, studied for the opera in Milan, under Signor Sangiovanni. She made her operatic dÉbut at Brescia in "Traviata," and in Paris as Marguerite, in "Faust." Her superb, liquid soprano is pure, smooth and equal throughout its entire large compass. She combines feeling with that artistic understanding which regulates it, and has been pronounced one of the most conscientious and intelligent singers of the day. An admirable actress and extremely versatile, she has been successful in Mozart's operas, and has won high renown in her Wagnerian rÔles.

Emma CalvÉ, a Spaniard, possessed of all a Spaniard's fire, thrills, bewilders, her hearers, though the more thoughtful among them wonder if they were not moved rather by her tremendous passionate force and powerful magnetism than by her vocal and histrionic art. Her voice is superb, yet she often loses a vocal opportunity for dramatic effect, often mars its beauty in the excitement that tears a passion to tatters. Withal there is a charm to her singing that can never be forgotten by those who have heard it. Her first triumph was won as the interpreter of Santuzza, in "Cavalleria Rusticana," Mascagni himself preparing her for the rÔle. She next created a furore as Carmen, and with her fascinating gestures, complete abandon, grace, and dazzling beauty made the part one of the most original and bewitching impersonations on the stage.

The Australian, Nellie Melba, who takes her stage name from Melbourne, her birthplace, has been compared to Patti as a vocal technician. Her voice is divine, but she seems powerless to animate her brilliant singing with the warmth that glows in her eyes. As an actress she completely veils whatever emotions she may feel, and while her marvelous vocalization overwhelms her audiences, she meets with her greatest triumphs in operas that make the least demands on the dramatic powers.

Massenet wrote the title rÔles of his "Esclarmonde" and his "Thais" for a California girl, Sybil Sanderson, and himself trained her for their stage presentation. Her success was assured when she made her dÉbut in the first-named opera at the Opera Comique, in Paris, in 1889. She has a voice of that light, pure, flexible quality so characteristic of our countrywomen, and is an admirable actress. She is a pupil of Madame Marchesi.

Another distinguished pupil of the same teacher is Emma Eames, who was born in China of New England parents, and was educated in Boston and in Paris. Her voice too is exceedingly flexible, is fresh, pure and clear, her intonations are correct and her personality most attractive. She has been very successful in Wagnerian rÔles, makes a superb Elsa, and, in the "Meistersinger," an ideal Eva. During her early years on the stage her extreme calmness amounted almost to aggravating frigidity, but with time she has thawed. She may well be considered a conscientious artist endowed with rare musical intuition.

There is no possession more perishable, more delicate, than the human voice. When one considers the joy it is capable of shedding about it, the blessings that may follow in its train, it seems sad to think of the reckless waste caused by its neglect and mismanagement. Its life is brief enough at best. Let it be cherished to the utmost.

In America where there are to-day more fine voices among women than in any other country and where time and means are so freely expended on the musical education of girls, the twentieth century should produce nobler queens of song than the world has yet known. First, the American girl must learn that the real things of life are more to be prized than false semblances, and that genuine musical culture resting on a foundation built with painstaking care and consecrated artistic zeal, is of far higher and more enduring value than the most dazzling feats of display which lack solid, intrinsic support.