The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-12-21
MISS YAW'S CONCERT.
She Appears Before Small Audience at
Auditorium.

Since the last appearance Of Ellen
4 Beach Yaw before a Topeka audience,
ten or twelve years ago, the California
girl with the extraordinary natural
voice has spent years in study abroad
and her art has developed considera bly,
but she is still more the vocal prodigy
than the artistic and her voice astounds
rather than appeals or delights. Her
range is something wonderful as the
musical world discovered years ago.
She sings with perfect facility and
the tones of her upper register are
pure, sweet and flawless. Her lower
ana middle registers are not so pleas
ing, perhaps doubtless due to inn
proper. early training. for it must not
pc forgotten that when Miss Yaw trav-
sled in concert in this country before
, she was doing a sort of Trilby stunt of
vocal gymnastics calculated to display
her remarkable range. but not the best
| thing in the world for a still unde-
veloped voice.
Miss Yaw is a coloratura soprano as
everybody knows, and the concerts of
such singers may best be described as
vocal exhibitions. They are all alike
and when you have heard one you have
heard them all-Melba undoubtedly
the greatest of them all, as well as the
rest They all sing the same things
the numbers on Miss YaW s programme
last night: The Bell song, David's Thou
Brilliant Bird and the Mad Scene from
Lucia di Lammermoor. These give
them an opportunity to show range,
" mechanical qualities of vocalizing=
but of feeling, expression, tempera-
ment woodworking absolutely
nothing. For people who like that
sort of thing Miss Yaw Will undoubt
eddy do" Her performance is inter-
esting as prodigious attainment. It
proves that she has worked hard and
been in the main, we'll taught She
sang last night in four languages, her
enunciatiOn, her phrasing and her
method in general are very good. No
body will deny that her execution is
excellent, but her art never touch es the
heart-for that matter no more does
that of any other singer of her style.
There is nothing in coloratura singing
to appeal to the intellect or the emo
tions. The listener may be amazed by
the perfection of the vocalization but
he will never be moved by it any more
than by a canary's song. To say that
a woman sings like a bird is no great
compliment. 1t m cans merely that she
sings easily. ally-that her voice
is pure and sweet and brilliant and
but it doesn't imply temperamental or
intellectual distinction and the singer.
man or woman, who reaches the
heights must have a mind and a heart
and soul. If he has these he will not
be content with setting pace for
flute in passages no matter how brill
liant and difficult
But lots of people like Miss Yaw's
kind OF singing and the audience at the
Auditorium last night certainly liked
her for she was recalled after every
mum Der and responded very generously
with an encore each time The audi
ence, to use a brOmidiOm, made up
in enthusiasm what it lacked in num-
bers and that is saying a good deal for
its cordially, for it was very small,
and nobody could blame Miss Yaw for
running off the stage, in order to get
away from 1t, as she did after every
song However. it was of no use The