New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1882-03-22
Patti'a Mistake.

~ 10 AOO SuA pIASNlS CudG L dGtl SuOulu
suppose that she had returned to the
America that she left so many years ago,
nor that the career of Jenny Lind in this
country should seem to her the career
which every great prima donna might
expect. She knew that the excited
youth of New York, forty years ago, un-
hitched the horses from Fanny Elsller's
carriage, and drew her home in triumph
from the old Park Theater. She knew
not knowing, perhaps, his kinship to
the excellent manager of Jenny Lind's
concerts-that Genin had paid some
hundreds of dollars for the first choice
of seats at Jenny Lind's first concert.
She knew that the Philharmonic Con-
certs at that time were a highly merit
orious aspiration of select circle, but
that they were not the delight of the
great public. She knew also thatJenny
Lind sang only in concerts, in supposed
Difference to the great '.serious'' public
sentiment of the country, which was not
friendly to the theater. This was the
America that Patti knew, and to which
she proposed to return-she the acknowl-
edged diva of the hour, who sang to APP
plauding Europe the songs that the
elder diva had sung. Why in America
should she not have her own sweet way?
Why not sing in concerts, and charge
enormous prices, and bring tenor or
virtuoso or two, and witch the Western
World with her magical vocalization,
and turn the heads of the sons and
daughters of Jenny Lind's votaries, and
embroider her vast pockets with gold?
Why not, indeed? If only the sun
stood still once more, and the river of
time would stop! Could Patti have
come to the America of Jenny Lind.
she might have renewed Jenny Lind's
American career. But even then she
must have had Jules Benedict and Bell
ETH, and every artist must have been of
the best. Jenny Lind did not presume
to conquer even the wild hordes of New
York without adequate weapons. She
did not enter upon her victorious cam
paign with a questionable tenor, and q
worthy but not SURPRISING violinist
Even the rude and primitive people to
whom she sang did not feel that they
were condemned, if not despised, and
although the prices they paid for their
pleasure were large, they were paid
that the barter was fair.
But it was another America to which
Patti came. 1t was an America which
had half out-grown the Italian opera,
and which listened with delight to the
music of the future. It was indeed the
cultivated, intelligent, unsteady devel-
oped America accustomed to hear the
works OF the greatest masters performed
in a manner which would not discredit
the Academic in Berlin, the Gewand-
haus in Leipsic, the Conservatoire in
Paris. 1t was an America glad to well
come once more the charming singer
whom it had heard at her girlish debut,
and who returned prinaa donna asso-
luto. Yet while she had been enchant-
ing Europe she had not known the mar
Vicious growth of the land that she had
left. Jenny Lind-even Jenny Lind
had become tuneful tradition heard by
the newest America not without head
shakes aud murmurs of incredulity, and
when in this year of grace it was offered
something less than Jenny Lind's con-
certs for. four or five times the price, the
amused incredulity became SO excessive
that the hall was left half empty.
There is much money in New York,
but there is also some taste, some sense
of proportion, some knowledge of the
fitness of things. 1t is not altogether
miners camp upon the frontier. It
will pay generously for the good things
that it desires. But the queen of the
Italian lyric stage, warblingl a ballad at
the piano to-day, ought not to have ex-
pected to take the place of Jenny Lindin
the colcert-room Of thirty years ago. 1t
was an error. 1t was presently repaired.
Il will not be repeated. But for a mo-
sment It seemed as If the charming diva
were disposed to wrestle with a continent
and to insist that she. would be heard
upon her. own terms or not at all. But
divas, like mere humAn beings, learn,
and sometimes by ungrl lions experience,
that the world listens oily upon its own
terms. 8 Editor s Easy Char, IN Harper's
Magazine for February,