The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-01-24

AiC1 ICpQtdllOls anu 10 pay llG GuDllllOQS
expenses which are hers.
Consequently the box office is the
most important matter at all times,
and she has two men who travel with
her to attend to the business.
Her manager and treasurer are very
careful not to overlook any of the dol
lars, and it would be objectionable for
them to fail to get all or practically all
of the money in sight.
Melba pays for IS full fare first class
tickets to have her car hauled by the
railroads. The remainder of her com
pany, including h piano tuner, the
treasurer, manager, and the artists,
numbering ten IN all. are each furnish
ed with other railway tickets.
At Kansas City tickets were bought
to pay for the trip from the Missouri
river to the Pacific coast
the IS fares for the car, the 10 other
tickets, the excess baggage, and ex-
press on the piano, the tickets aggre-
gated an expense of about 1,500. The
tickets were made to read to the coast,
Lake and Portland, the only places
where she sings on the outbound trip
A Critical Review
An audience of over three thousand
people,, part of them from towns tribu-
tary to Topeka, for his was the great
musical e of the year in Kansas,
greeted Madame Melba and her con-
cert at the Auditorium last
AAA5@LGs Ill ~@1S $1,000 N&-E
other singers who, if not of her rank,
are at least grand opera celebrities,
Monsieur Charles Gilbert, baritone, and
Mr.. Ellison Van Hose, tenor. All three
were heard for the first time in To-
peka last night
Good music. OF at least greatperform-
erS, are heard so rarely in Topeka and
their occasional visits are events OF
momen that their audiences for
get criticism and discrimination in the
effervescence of their gratitude and en-
With second thoughts
one may qualify and compare, but at
last analysis sincere t~hankfuelss for
the aesthetic benefits of the visit of an
artist, great in any kind, overpowers
every other feeling. So, whether one
a musician or whether ones en-
joyment of her singing was emotional
and sensuous rather than intellectual,
whether one preferred some other to
the c~OlOratura style of singing or could
have chosen a program more to ones
liking-regardless Of all the distinctions
musical appreciation, Madame Mel
ba's audience last night was one in ad-
miration and delight. No matter what
mental reservations one may hold as to
her style or the sort of music h sings,
nor how one may personally prefer an
other prima donna it is certain that
preference must be for the tenn
permanent or the training or the musical
ideals of the other, for Madam Melba
is u~ndeniably the creates lyric soprano
now singing. She has the most marvel
Gus natural voice of any singer on the
today, a voice so perfectly placed
that no matter what b sings it is
All the usual adjectiVeS
seem Inadequate to describe it, and in
deed praise of it's exquisite quality was
long 6 exhausted by the most COM
petent musical critics in the world who
agree as completely in their wOnde at
marvellous sweetness, smoOthnesS
and hexibility as they do in their judg-
that with all her natural advan-
tages she is not a dramatic singer OF
the first order. Melba can not sing a
Wagnerian role. She essayed Brun-
hide once but it was a notable failure
Since then she has remained faithful to
the ~colOratura roles which best suit her
scores which bristle with vocal
difficulties, with trills and roulades and
cadenzas, impossible to many voices
but which the latest word in musical
criticism says ere inartistlc.
Melba is the only soprano since
Patti who could sing the mad scene
from Lucia di Lammermoor, when
was her first number last night, with
wonderful cadenza in which her
voice is -Pacemaker for the flute, with
absolute correctness and smoothness.
Apostles of the principles of the mod
ern music drama, which put passion,
and dramatic characterization
above beauty, sheer at DOni-
zetti and declare that the mao scene
in Lucia, one of the few operas by this
composer which is retained in modern
operate repertoires, is preposterous-
a demented woman singing a slow
waltz, richly embroidered with most
painstaking and artificial musical
embellishments, the most anxiOusly
prepared and carefully executed
f%iOrturi. But these objections are not
so potent when the mad scene is used
as a concert number. Then the Doni-
zetti theory of the opera as a mere peg
which to hang f1orid tunes for
unfeeling vocal display becomes less
distasteful.
Many of the great grand opera stars
are heard to decided disadvantage in
This is true of Nordica and
Schumann-Heink, both of whom have
sung in Topeka. They are great dra-
matte singers and one misses half the
effect of their genius unless one sees
them in one of their famous roles and
marks the subtlety, vigor and passion
of their Characterization. But
Aelba is almost as good in concert as
in opera for. after all, with her what
astOniSheS and delights is not her
emotional expression or dramatic
power but her voice itself-'la vcix
blanche" the Partisan critics called it
its marvellous s~pontaniety, agility.
S~uppleneSS. n and above all, its
equability. Walter Damrosch said of
it when he first heard it, There are
no registers in that voice. 1t is all
one" And one marvels at the per-
feet control with which, without
she passes from a low note to
a high one, from piano to forte.
gradually Or suddenly without an
parent effort, h notes as easy and
natural as those of a nightingale. The
Of Melba's singing has been
called audacioUs. She starts a high
note h preparation, with appar-
entity no breath and without
the lips At first faint, it sweIls grad
ually to the crescendo with astound-