Memoirs of an American Prima Donna Part 32

Later, that same year, I went South again on another concert tour. All through the State of Mississippi there was a strange, horrible flavour to the food, I recall, and, so all-pervading was this flavour that finally I could hardly eat anything. The contralto and I were talking about it one day on the train and saying how glad we should be to get away from it. There being no parlour-cars, we were in an ordinary coach, and a woman who sat in front of me and overheard us, turned around and said:

"_I_ know what you mean! _I_ can tell you what it is. It's cotton seed.

Everything tastes of cotton seed in this country. They feed their cows on it, and their chickens. _Everything_ tastes of it; eggs, b.u.t.ter, biscuits, milk!"

This was true. The only thing, it seems, that could not be raised on cotton seed was fruit; and unfortunately it was not a fruit season when I was there.

The recollection of this trip necessitates my saying a little something of Southern hospitality. I was not satisfied with any of the arrangements that had been made for me. I had also taken a severe cold, and, when we reached Charlottesville, where we were to give a concert, I said I would not go on. This brought matters to a climax. I simply would not and could not sing in the condition I was; and declared I would not be subjected to any such treatment at the insistence of the management.

The end of it was that I took my maid and started for New York.

The trip at first promised to be a very uncomfortable one. Travelling accommodations were poor; food was difficult to obtain, and I was nearly ill. At one point, where the opening of a new bridge had just taken place, we stopped, and I noticed a private car attached to our train, which I coveted. Imagine my grat.i.tude and pleasure, therefore, when the porter presently came to me and said courteously that "Colonel Cawyter"

sent his compliments and invited me into his private car. I accepted, of course. But this was not all. As I was making inquiries about train connections and facilities for food, of one of the gentlemen in the car, he realised what was before me, and said that I could go to his home where his wife would care for me. I protested, but he insisted and gave me his card. When we reached the station, I took a carriage and drove to the house, where I was received very courteously. It was a simple household of a mother, grandmother, and children, and they had already lunched when I got there. But they piled on more coal, and in a very short time made me a lunch that was simply delicious--all so easily, simply, and naturally, in spite of the haphazard fashion in which they seemed to live, as to quite win my admiration. And this incident of Southern hospitality enabled me to proceed on my way nourished and restored.

Another incident that I recall was of a similar nature in its fundamental kindness. I had no money with which to pay for my berth, and was asking the conductor if there was anyone who would cash a check for me, when a perfect stranger offered me the amount I needed. At first I refused, but finally consented to accept the loan in the same spirit in which it had been offered.

On the reorganised version of this trip we went down into Texas, giving concerts in Waco, Dallas, Cheyenne, San Antonio, and Galveston, among other places. This was before the wonderful railroad had been built that runs for miles through the water; and before the tidal wave that wiped the old Galveston out of existence. At Cheyenne, I remember, we had to ford a river to keep our engagement. At Waco a negro was found under the bed of one of the company; a bridge was burning; and a _posse_ of men, with bloodhounds, was starting out to track the incendiaries. I remember speaking there with a negro woman who had a white child in her charge.

The child was busily chewing gum and the woman told me that often the child would put her hand on her jaw saying, "Oh, I'm _so_ tired!" But she could not be induced to stop chewing! At Dallas we sang in a hall that had a tin roof, and, during the concert, a terrific thunderstorm came on, so that I had to stop singing. This is the only time, I believe, that the elements ever succeeded in drowning me out. I never before had seen adobe houses, and I found San Antonio very interesting, and drove as far as I could along the road of the old Spanish Missions that maintain the traditions and aspects of the Spanish in the New World. The Southern theatres are the dirtiest places that can be imagined; and I recall eating opossum that was served to us with great pride by my waiter.

From this time on I did not contemplate any long engagements. I did not care for them, although I sometimes went to places to sing--and to collect pewter!

I never formally retired from public life, but quietly stopped when it seemed to me the time had come. It was a Kansas City newspaper reporter who incidentally brought home to me the fact that I was no longer very young. I had a few grey hairs, and, after an interview granted to this representative of the press--a woman, by the way--I found, on reading the interview in print the next day, that my grey hairs had been mentioned.

"They'll find that my voice is getting grey next," I said to myself.

I really wanted to stop before everybody would be saying, "You ought to have heard her sing ten years ago!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Carl Strakosch=

From a photograph by H. W. Barnett]

The last time I saw Patti I said to her:

"Adelina, have you got through singing?"

"Oh, I still sing for _mes pauvres_ in London," she replied; but she didn't explain who were her poor.

On my last western concert tour I sang at Oshkosh. A special train of three cars on the Central brought down a large delegation for the occasion from Fond du Lac, Ripon, Neenah and Menasha, Appleton and other neighbouring towns. The audience was in the best of humour and a particularly sympathetic one. At the close of the concert I remarked that it was one of the finest audiences I ever sang to. And I added, by way of pleasantry, that, having sung at Oshkosh, I was now indeed ready to leave the stage!

But there were even more serious reasons that influenced me in my decision, one of which was that my mother had for some time past been in a poor state of health. More than once, when I went to the theatre, I had the feeling that she might not be alive when I returned home; and this was a nervous strain to me that, combined with a severe attack of bronchitis, brought about a physical condition which might have had seriously lasting results if I had not taken care of myself in time.

It was not easy to stop. When each autumn came around, it was very difficult not to go back to the public. I had an empty feeling. There is no sensation in the world like singing to an audience and knowing that you have it with you. I would not change my experience for that of any crowned head. The singer and the actor have, at least, the advantage over all other artists of a personal recognition of their success; although, of course, the painter and writer live in their work while the singer and the actor become only traditions. But such traditions! On the subject of the actor's traditions Edwin Booth has written:

In the main, tradition to the actor is as true as that which the sculptor perceives in Angelo, the painter in Raphael, and the musician in Beethoven.... Tradition, if it be traced through pure channels and to the fountainhead, leads one as near to Nature as can be followed by her servant, Art. Whatever Quinn, Barton Booth, Garrick, and Cooke gave to stagecraft, or as we now term it, "business," they received from their predecessors; from Betterton and perhaps from Shakespeare himself, who, though not distinguished as an actor, well knew what acting should be; and what they inherited in this way they bequeathed in turn to their art and we should not despise it. Kean knew without seeing Cooke, who in turn knew from Macklin, and so back to Betterton, just what to do and how to do it. Their great Mother Nature, who reiterates her teachings and preserves her monotone in motion, form, and sound, taught them. There must be some similitude in all things that are True!

The traditions of singing are not what they used to be, however, for the new school of opera does not require great finish, although it does demand greater dramatic art. It used to be that Tetrazzinis could make successes through coloratura singing alone; but to-day coloratura singing has no great hold on the public after the novelty has worn off.

But it does very well in combination with heavier music, as in Mozart's _Magic Flute_ or _The Huguenots_, and so modern singers have to be both coloraturists and dramaticists. _A propos_ of singing and methods, I append a newspaper interview that a reporter had with me in Paris, 1887.

He had been shown a new dinner dress of white _moire_ with ivy leaves woven into the tissue, and writes:

[Ill.u.s.tration: =Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg=]

I examined the rustling treasure critically and decided it was a complete success. The train was long, the stuff rich, the taste perfect, and yet--the great essential was wanting. I could not but reflect on the transformation which would come over that regal robe were it once hung on the shapely shoulders of the famous _prima donna_.

"You see, there is nothing like singing to fill out dresses where they should be filled out, and conversely," said Sbriglia, who happened to be present as we came back into the _salon_; "consequently my advice to all ladies who wish to improve their figure is to take vocal lessons."

"Yes," agreed Miss Kellogg, "if they can only find right instruction. But, unfortunately good teachers nowadays are rarer than good voices. Even the famous Paris Conservatory doesn't contain good vocal instruction. If there be any teaching in the world which is thoroughly worthless, it is precisely that given in the Rue Bergere. But I cannot do justice to the subject. Do give us your ideas, Professor, about the Paris Conservatory and the French School of voice culture."

"As to any French vocal school," replied Sbriglia, "there is none.

Each professor has a system of his own that is only less bad than the system of some rival professor. One man tells you to breathe up and down and another in and out. One claims that the musical tones are formed in the head, while another locates them in the throat.

And when these gentlemen receive a fresh, untrained voice, their first care is to split it up into three distinct parts which they call registers, and for the arrangement of which they lay down three distinct sets of rules.

"As to the Conservatory, it is a national disgrace; and I have no hesitation in saying that it not only does no good, but is actually the means of ruining hundreds of fine voices. Look at the results.

It is from the Conservatory that the Grand Opera chooses its French singers, and the simple fact is that in the entire _personnel_ there are no great French artists. There are artists from Russia, Italy, Germany and America, but there are none from France. And yet the most talented students of the Conservatory make their _debuts_ there every year with fine voices and brilliant prospects; but, as a famous critic has well said, 'after singing for three years under the system which they have been taught, they acquire a perfect "style" and lose their voice.'

"You ask me what I consider to be the correct method. I dislike very much the use of the word 'method,' because it seems to imply something artificial; whereas in all the vocal processes, there is only a single logical method and that is the one taught us all by nature at our birth. Watch a baby crying. How does he breathe?

Simply by pushing the abdomen forward, thus drawing air into the lungs, to fill the vacuum produced, and then bringing it back again, which expels the air. And every one breathes that way, except certain advocates of theoretical nonsense, who have learned with great difficulty to exactly reverse this operation. Such singers make a bellows of the chest, instead of the abdomen, and, as the strain to produce long sounds is evidently greater in forcing the air out than in simply drawing it in, their inevitable tendency is to unduly contract the chest and to distend the abdomen."

"Let me give you an ill.u.s.tration of the truth of M. Sbriglia's argument," said Miss Kellogg, rising from her seat. "Now watch me as I utter a musical note." And immediately the rich voice that has charmed so many thousands filled the apartment with a clear "a-a-a-a" as the note grew in volume.

"You see Miss Kellogg has little to fear from consumption!"

exclaimed Sbriglia. "And I am convinced that invalids with disorders of the chest would do well to stop taking drugs and study the art of breathing and singing."

"And even those who have no voice," said Miss Kellogg, "would by this means not only improve in health and looks, but would also learn to read and speak correctly, for the same principles apply to all the vocal processes. It is astonishing how few people use the voice properly. For instance I could read in this tone all the afternoon without fatigue, but if I were to do this" (making a perceptible change in the position of her head), "I should begin to cough before finishing a column. Don't you notice the difference?

In the one case the sounds come from here" (touching her chest) "and are free and musical; but in the other, I seem to speak in my throat, and soon feel an irritation there which makes me want the traditional gla.s.s of sugar and water."

"The irritation which accompanies what you call 'speaking in the throat,'" explained Sbriglia, "is caused by pressing too hard upon the vocal cords, that become, in consequence, congested with blood, instead of remaining white as they should be. Persons who have this habit grow hoa.r.s.e after very brief vocal exertion, and it is largely for that reason that American men rarely make fine singers.

On the other hand, look at Salvini, who, by simply knowing how to place his voice, is able to play a tremendous part like Oth.e.l.lo without the slightest sense of fatigue.

"About the American 'tw.a.n.g'? Oh, no, it does not injure the voice.

On the contrary, this nasal peculiarity, especially common among your women, is of positive value in a proper production of certain tones."

CODA

The Coda in music is, literally, the tail of the composition, the finishing off of the piece. The influence of Wagner did away with the Coda: yet, as my place in the history of opera is that of an exponent of the Italian rather than the German form, I feel that a Coda, or a last few words of farewell, is admissible.

In some ways the Italian opera of my day seems ba.n.a.l. Yet Italian opera is not altogether the thing of the past that it is sometimes supposed to be. More and more, I believe, is it coming back into public favour as people experience a renewed realisation that melody is the perfect thing, in art as in life. I believe that _Mignon_ would draw at the present time, if a good cast could be found. But it would be difficult to find a good cast.

Italian opera did what it was intended to do:--it showed the art of singing. It was never supposed to be but an accompaniment to the orchestra as German opera often is; an idea not very gratifying to a singer, and sometimes not to the public. Yet we can hardly make comparisons. Personally, I like German opera and many forms of music beside the Italian very much, even while convinced of the fact that German critics are not the whole audience. At least, the opera could not long be preserved on them alone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ="Elpstone"=

New Hartford, Connecticut]

It seems to me as I look back over the preceding pages that I have put into them all the irrelevant matter of my life and left out much that was important. Many of my dearest _roles_ I have forgotten to mention, and many of my most ill.u.s.trious acquaintances I have omitted to honour.

But when one has lived a great many years, the past becomes a good deal like an attic: one goes there to hunt for some particular thing, but the chances are that one finds anything and everything except what one went to find. So, out of my attic, I have unearthed ever so many unimportant heirlooms of the past, leaving others, perhaps more valuable and more interesting, to be eaten by moths and corrupted by rust for all time.

There is very little more for me to say. I do not want to write of my last appearances in public. Even though I did leave the operatic stage at the height of my success, there is yet something melancholy in the end of anything. As Richard Hovey says: