Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

“My work made a distinct impression on the audience and pleased Mr. Gilmore wonderfully. After the second night, when all was over, he came to me, and said: ‘Now, my dear, of course there is no more concert this summer, but I am going West in the fall. Now, how would you like to go along?’

“I told him that I would like to go very much, if it could be arranged; and, after some negotiation, he agreed to pay the expenses of my mother and myself, and give me one hundred dollars a week besides. I accepted, and when the Western tour began, we went along.”

“How did you succeed on that tour?”

“Very well indeed. I gained thorough control of my nerves in that time and learned something of audiences and of what constitutes distinguished ‘stage presence.’ I studied all the time, and, with the broadening influence of travel, gained a great deal. At the end of the tour my voice was more under my control than ever before, and I was a better singer all around.”

HER FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR.

“You did not begin with grand opera, after all?”

“No, I did not. It was not a perfect conclusion of my dreams, but it was a great deal. My old instructor, Mr. O’Neill, took it worse than I did. He regarded my ambitions as having all come to naught. I remember that he wrote me a letter in which he thus called me to account:

“After all my training, my advice, that you should come to
this! A whole lifetime of ambition and years of the hardest
study consumed to fit you to go on the road with a brass
band! Poh!

“I pocketed the sarcasm in the best of humor, because I was sure of my dear old teacher’s unwavering faith in me, and knew that he wrote only for my own good. Still, I felt that I was doing wisely in getting before the public, and so decided to wait quietly and see if time would not justify me.

“When the season was over Mr. Gilmore came to me again. He was the most kindly man I ever knew. His manner was as gentle and his heart as good as could be.

“‘I am going to Europe,’ he said. ‘I am going to London and Paris and Vienna and Rome, and all the other big cities. There will be a fine chance for you to see all those places and let Europeans hear you. They appreciate good singers. Now, little girl, do you want to come? If you do, you can.’

“I talked it over with my mother and Madame Maretzek, and decided to go; and so, the next season, we were in Europe.”

“Did it profit you as you anticipated?”

“Very much. We gave seventy-eight concerts in England and France. We opened the Trocadero at Paris, and mine was the first voice of any kind to sing there.

“This European tour of the American band really was a great and successful venture. American musicians still recall the _furore_ which it created and the prestige which it gained at home. Mr. Gilmore was proud of his leading soloists. In Paris, where the great audiences went wild over my singing, he came to praise me personally in unmeasured terms. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you are going to be a great singer. You are going to be crowned in your own country yet. Mark my words: they are going to put diamonds on your brow!’

“At the end of that tour I decided to spend some of my earnings on further study in Italy. Accordingly, I went to Milan, to the singing teacher San Giovanni. On arriving there, I visited the old teacher and stated my object. I said that I wanted to sing in grand opera.

“WHY DON’T YOU SING IN GRAND OPERA?”

“‘All right!’ he answered; ‘let me hear your voice.’

“I sang an _aria_ from ‘Lucia’; and when I was through, he said dryly: ‘You want to sing in grand opera?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Well, why don’t you?’

“‘I need training.’

“‘Nonsense!’ he answered. ‘We will attend to that. You need a few months to practice Italian methods—that is all.’

“So I spent three months with him. After much preparation, I made my _début_ as Violetta in Verdi’s opera, ‘La Traviata,’ at the Teatro Grande, in Brescia.”

The details of Madame Nordica’s Italian appearance are very interesting. Her success was instantaneous. Her fame went up and down the land, and across the water—to her home. She next sang in Gounod’s “Faust,” at Geneva, and soon afterwards appeared at Navarro, singing Alice in Meyerbeer’s “Roberto,” the enthusiastic and delighted subscribers presenting her with a handsome set of rubies and pearls. After that she was engaged to sing at the Russian capital, and accordingly went to St. Petersburg, where, in October, 1881, she made her _début_ as La Filma in “Mignon.”

There, also, her success was great. She was the favorite of the society of the court, and received pleasant attentions from every quarter. Presents were made her, and inducements for her continued presence until two winters had passed. Then she decided to revisit France and Paris.

THIS WAS HER CROWNING TRIUMPH.

“I wanted to sing in grand opera at Paris,” she said to me. “I wanted to know that I could appear successfully in that grand place. I counted my achievements nothing until I could do that.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. In July, 1882, I appeared there.”

This was her greatest triumph. In the part of Marguerite she took the house by storm, and won from the composer the highest encomiums. Subsequently, she appeared with equal success as Ophélie, having been specially prepared for both these rôles by the respective composers, Charles Gounod and Ambroise Thomas.

“You should have been satisfied after that,” I said.

“I was,” she answered. “So thoroughly was I satisfied that, soon afterwards, I gave up my career and was married. For two years I remained away from the public, but, after that time, my husband having died, I decided to return. I made my first appearance at the Burton Theater in London, and was doing well enough when Colonel Mapleson came to me. He was going to produce grand opera—in fact, he was going to open Covent Garden, which had been closed for a long time, with a big company. He was another interesting character. I found him to be generous and kind-hearted and happy-spirited as anyone could be. When he came to me it was in the most friendly manner. ‘I am going to open Covent Garden,’ he said. ‘Now, here is your chance to sing there. All the great singers have appeared there—Patti, Gerster, Nilsson, Tietjens—now it’s your turn—come and sing.’

“‘How about terms?’ I asked.

“‘Terms!’ he exclaimed; ‘terms! Don’t let such little details stand in your way. What is money compared to this? Ignore money. Think of the honor, of the memories of the place, of what people think of it;’ and then he waved his arms dramatically.

“Well, we came to terms, not wholly sacrificial on my part, and the season began. Covent Garden had not been open for a long time. It was in the spring of the year, cold and damp. There was a crowded house, though, because fashion accompanied the Prince of Wales there. He came, night after night, and heard the opera through with an overcoat on.

“It was no blessed task for me, or healthy, either, but the Lord has blessed me with a sound constitution. I sang my parts, as they should be sung, some in bare arms and shoulders, with too little clothing for such a temperature. But it was Covent Garden, and so I bore up under it.”

“What was the next venture?”

“Nothing much more interesting. The summer after that season I visited Ems, where the De Reszkes were. One day they said: ‘We are going to Bayreuth to hear the music, don’t you want to go along?’

“I thought it over, and decided that I did. My mother and I packed up and departed. When I got there and saw those splendid performances I was entranced. It was perfectly beautiful. Everything was arranged after an ideal fashion. I had a great desire to sing there, and boasted to my mother that I would. When I came away I was fully determined to carry out that boast.”

“Could you speak German?”

“Not at all. I began, though, at once, to study it; and when I could talk it sufficiently I went to Bayreuth and saw Madame Wagner.”

THE KINDNESS OF FRAU WAGNER.

“Did you find her the imperious old lady she is said to be?”

“Not at all. She welcomed me most heartily; and when I told her that I had come to see if I could not sing there she seemed much pleased. She treated me like a daughter, explained all that she was trying to do, and gave me a world of encouragement. Finally I arranged to sing and create ‘Elsa’ after my own idea of it during the season following the one then approaching.”

“What did you do meanwhile?”

“I came to New York to fulfil my contract for the season of 1894-1895. While doing that I made a study of Wagner’s, and, indeed, of all German music; and when the season was over went back and sang it.”

“To Frau Wagner’s satisfaction?”

“Yes.”

“Have you found your work very exacting?”

“Decidedly so. It leaves little time for anything else.”

“To do what you have done requires a powerful physique, to begin with?”

“Yes, I should judge so.”

“Are you ever put under extraordinary mental strain?”

“Occasionally.”

“In what manner?”

“Why, in my manner of study. I remember once, during my season under Augustus Harris, of an incident of this order. He gave a garden party one Sunday to which several of his company were invited, myself included. When the afternoon was well along he came to me and said: ‘Did you ever sing “Valencia” in “The Huguenots”?’ I told him I had not.

“‘Do you think you could learn the music and sing it by next Saturday night?’

“I felt a little appalled at the question, but ventured to say that I could. I knew that hard work would do it.

“‘Then do,’ he replied; ‘for I must have you sing it.’

“Let me ask you one thing,” I said. “Has America good musical material?”

THE MUSICAL TALENT OF AMERICAN GIRLS.

“As much as any other country, and more, I should think. The higher average of intelligence here should yield a greater percentage of musical intelligence.”

“Then there ought to be a number of great American women singers in the future?”

“There ought to be, but it is a question whether there will be. They are not cut out for the work which it requires to develop a good voice.”

“You think there is good material for great voices in American women, but not sufficient energy?”

“That is my fear, not my belief. I have noticed that young women here seem to underestimate the cost of distinction. It means more than most of them are prepared to give; and when they face the exactions of art they falter and drop out. Hence we have many middle-class singers, but few really powerful ones.”

“What are these exactions you speak of?”

“Time, money, and loss of friends, of pleasure. To be a great singer means, first, to be a great student. To be a great student means that you have no time for balls and parties, very little for friends, and less for carriage rides and pleasant strolls. All that is really left is a shortened allowance of sleep, of time for meals and time for exercise.”

“Did you ever imagine that people leaped into permanent fame when still young and without much effort on their part?”

“I did. But I discovered that real fame—permanent recognition which cannot be taken away from you—is acquired only by a lifetime of most earnest labor. People are never internationally recognized until they have reached middle life. Many persons gain notoriety young, but that goes as quickly as it comes. All true success is founded on real accomplishment, acquired with difficulty; and so, when you see some one accounted great, you will usually find him to be in the prime of life or past it.”

“You grant that many young people have genius?”

“Certainly I do. Many of them have it. They will have waited long, however, before it has been trained into valuable service. The world gives very little recognition for a great deal of labor paid in; and when I earn a thousand dollars for a half hour’s singing sometimes it does not nearly average up for all the years and for the labor much more difficult, which I contributed without recompense.”