The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1886-10-30
MODERN SCHOOL OF FRENCH OPERA


Frenchmeu are Driving at.
Once upon a time, long time ago, a
writer for "A fash weekly wrote a novel
called The Dunno SINGER An old miner
in the Sierra, who had not changed his name
when he came to California, who kept up
his correspondence with his family long
after he had left home, who chung 70 the
mines long after they We're abandoned, who
lived in a cabin long after other people had
begun to live in villas. and who did various
other things not found in Bret Harte or the
annals Of California, introduced me to this
most eccentric person. the Dumb Singer.
At the same time 1 made the acquaintance
of The Woman in Whit Our miner had
papered his wa Is VITA the pictoriais which
came TO him in patches from his home. 1t
was his custom TO open the paper fairly,
s4uarely. and honestly, without any regard
to the sequence Of pages, and paste 1t on the
wall, so that TO this day l know but one
side of The Dumb Singer.
was one a little group of children who
used 70 60 hunting pine nuts Like many
a Nimrod and fisherman OF good reputation,
we knew lust where to ind them IN quantity.
We loved to stroll laziIy thr ugh the big
pines, to ear the crisp crunch OF the pine
needles under our feet to scent the sweet,
balsamic, wholesome breath of the pine IN
the air. to string the perfect C mes on our
through the long -tress- led branches; but
when it came to downright hard pine mutt
ing. we always went to Dams cabin He
always kept a bagful for the children
which he in turn got from the Indians, Tor
your pine-nut, ike your \ osemite trout IS
a little shy of anything but Indians.
When Dan was not at home, we waited
for him-these desuitOrY miners never work
long-and read The Woman in White and
ba
The Dumb Singer, a beautiful, dark
haired creatare-in the picture she looked
like Pendenuis's Miss Eotherlngay-had a
nervous affection which had entire possess
ion of her vocal chords, so that In the most
critical moments Of life this curious young
woman used to peal cut her emotions in a
rich, high soprano, and never came to her
speaking voice till the last chapters. As
these were on the pasted side OF tle wall, we
never had the pleasure Of reading them
But we took the keenest delight IN as much
of the novel as we could get at. By one of
the iuscrutable processes OF childhood S
reasoning we determined that it was an
opera, and used to set the Dumb Singer 5
vocal outbreaks to music of our own com
posing Our favorite morceau was selected
from peculiarly tragic episode.
The young lady's father being ruined
with that expedition in ruin peculiar to
novels he took advantage of the occasion to
fall in al apopIetic tit. h Dumb Singer
thereupon arose and burst forth into a food
of melody to the simple words, Run for the
doctor run for the dOctOr!'
Perhaps it was their simplicity which re
commended them to US. Perhaps their
adaptability to the ROUNDED, of viii h we
were very fond. At all events when
we said to each other in our inspired
moments, Let 5 make an opera, this being
the modest manner in which we always ex
pressed ourselves, it was our first impulse tc
timber our voices with Run for the doctor.
l am quite certain now that we were al
the root of the modern school of French
opera There We're no dashing, brilliant
engrossing solos in our opera, but we used tx
take the most laudable pride in inventinG
pretty tunes for short and unimportan
sentences, and that seems to be exactly the
idea these inspired Frenchmen are driving
at.-"Eetsy B. - in The ArgOnaut.