The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-01-23
THE VOICE.
ny Riehara Harold warner.

| fCopyrIght. 1906. Daily story Pub. Col
 All New York has gone mad--rav- ing Ynad---over the new opera, Tht Island of preams' Uniting. as 1t did | the ,best features of both grand and comic opera, it could scarcely have been said to belong to either of these divisions. The public has been won 10 large degree. by voice--a wom ans voice--of marvellous quality, ana heart -breaking sweetness.
 In the second act, when Alma Vern' on invoked the song Rf the. night ingal.e a woman leaned over the bal nstrade of a scenic gallery and sanl wild Spanish song in voice so won derful so fraught with emotion, ~tha the audience was spellbound. It wa not so much technique--not any grea tralning--which made this voice $ thrilling. as q certain plaintiv' cadence which each night seemed f tell anew the, abiding sorrow of thu woman who sang.
 No mention of the unknown singer was found on the playbills. and scarce ly single member of the company was acquainted with the identity oi this strange woman who paid the the atre such a ieeting visit each even ing
 The management carefully fostered the mystery. and the box-ofice re- ceipts were of ever-increasing magni- tude
 Scores of men crowded into the the atre at the beginning of the second act, and remained only during the song from the gallery. Among those who fiAcked to the theatre night after night. was Hugh DAlbert. the cynic- DAlbert, the artist who had created some 6f the most beautiful women that had ever smiled from canvass yet each one. no matter what the sub 5ect of the painting might be, as oe- Ruiling daughter of Eve as ever fempted--and fiouted-man.
 DtA1bert secuted the idea of a good woman. He declared that he had snent years, in his role of artist among the most celebrated beauties or the old world, and had found them ; all bad. or nearly so. When he first heard of this wonderful voice which had so infatuated his companions he laughed silently, contemptuously and went along, too, that he might wfther them, in their imbecility, bS his manly scorn.
 He returned home. however. some what dazed and for nearly a weei afterward moped about by himself rolling countless cigarettes and ap' pArentiy plunged in deep thought.
 Before long he ventured again tC the AIhambra. and soon. almost be fore he realized it, every night found him in the same place. & slave to thu insidioua sweetness and haunting sad ness of the voice which had brough him, for the first time, to a realizing sense of the loneliness and hunger o his existence.
 For a time he kept his whereabouts each evening a secret from the rest not 80 much from shame as hecaus' he feared the amused surprise 1T their eyes, and the pointed remarks which would inevitably follow. Grad uaily, however, he became bolder ant defled everybody.e with an oath, tt crttieise his conduct, or way of seek ing amusement.
 Slowly it dawned. first upon D'Al bert himself. then upon the others that he was in love--in love with { woman's voice.
 With much cynical laughter and no over-delicate mirth, mingled with req regret, the convfYial souls. who gath cred nightly at ,Gaspard's accustomed themselves to this new state of af y fairs, and the increasing ab nences of their comrade. They re Rarded him as man deluded-gon' wrong---but even they could not doub the sincerity of his devotion.
 Sf1H more dSIOnfSneQl tndn HI friends. D'Albert realized that a grea upheavaI of his whole mode of lif { had taken place. He perceived tha he must readjust his habits to mee the requirements of a new universe that he could never return 10 the olt loose existence. The optimism O youth had sprung up within him. In stead of Teviling woman, he rever enced her. The dominant chord o ,g,,1. he ED. thought forever sllenced; the bes side of his character had reasserteC itself And all this through the powel of a voice!
 He had been working for weeks or < picture he intended to show in thu spring exhibition. It was a mag nificent piece of work, and by far thu most ambitious thing he had yet at tempted.
 True to his past perverted ideal! and sordid,' experiences, he had de plcted the only kind of woman h. knew, the only kind he believed exist ad, and had called his picture "Th Temptress." :.~.
 Mimi Monaldi, pretty Jewess wh freauented the studies In DAlbert neiEhborhood. had been the model and she was well chosen, for she ha only to be hSr own evil self to fulfil completely the conception Of the art fist.
 one day, when the masterpiece wa nearly completed, the Voluptuou Mimi glided into D'Albert's studio fo a final sitting. but what was her hor Tor to see the artist seize sma stiletto and slit the wonderful can vas into a dozen strips; at the sam time muttering incoherently to him self.
 This episode. which lost no sensa tional detail through Minis recita afterward confirmed the impressio that D'Albert was irrevocably los to the joyous land of Bohemia.
 And. in the main, this was tru' He took to staying alone in his studio where he sat for hours at tint