The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1915-08-14
THE CRITIC.


My dear young friends, be careful
not to fall into the bad habit of crit
icizing and making fun of your absent
neighbors. Many people are under the
mistaken impression that by doing
so they are showing their own clever
ness and superiority, whereas it only
proves the smallness and arrogance of
their own nature and very often turns
to their shame and humiliation.
A friend of mine told me the fol-
lowing good story, which is quite
case in point:
About forty years ago." said she,
Il happened to be staying in London
with some friends of mine, who had
many other guests at the time.
Among them was a lady who had
once studied to be a professional
singer and thought no end of herself
in consequence. In point of fact she
had been a complete failure as a
professional, but she never owned to
this, and gave out as a contrary that
her only reason for not having be-
come famous was that her family had
most cruelty and foolishly objected
to her going on the stage. She con-
stantly inflicted her third rate singing
upon us and talked voice production,
musical culture, and so forth till we
were sick of the subject. Her chief
delight, however, seemed to be in
running down everybody, and more
especially every other musician.
1T so happened that just at that
time a singer came to live in house
few doors off, and we could hear
her practicing studiously several
times a day. Personally, was struck
not only with the rich beauty of her
voice, but more particularly by her
painstaking perseverance, for she
would often repeat the same passage
thirty or forty times before passing to
another AS for our musical guest,
she was ceaseless in her sarcasms
about this girl who evidently thought
she could sing She criticized her
voice, her information, she made fun of
her trills and slakes, initiated her
way of getting her high notes, and
declared: L only wish / could give
her some slight notion of how to
produce her voice, though to be sure
she has but very poor voice to
produce, and not a very true one at
that
"One day that she had been holding
forth in this style at dinner, the
master of the house suddenly turned
to her with rather amused smile,
saying: L presume, Mrs. X, that you
don't happen to know the name of the
singer whose voice and methods you
find so poor?
Indeed, I DON'T answered the
critic scornfully. L am not acquainted
with singers of that class
Perhaps not answered her host,
still with the same amused smile.
This one happens to be Albani, the
great prima DONNA
-'Afbani was at that time one of
the greatest of the operatic stars.
Few, if any, excelIed her, and her
magnificent voice and exquisitely
sympathetic rendering were famous
the world over. l am glad to say
that besides being great singer, she
was a most devOut Catholic, fire.
uuent communicate, and most exem-
plary woman in every way, and when
a few years later she married the
wealthy manager of the opera COM
pany, she retired almost completely
from the stage, only rarely charming
the world by appearing for some
charity concert or benefit for fell
low musician.
You can imagine the discontinue
of our satirical guest when she found
whom it was that she had been max
ing fun of! She turned almost purple
with modification, then partly recov-
ering herself, began vOlubly to ex.
plain how strange it was that one
could judge so little of the human
voice at certain distance and
Through closed windows. Still she
must have seen that we were uncon-
WINGED and not a little amused at the
notion of her having wished to teach
voice production to the world-renown-
ed Albani! She was unusually silent
for the rest of the day, and on the
morrow found it necessary to hurry
away on important business, much to
our relief.
Il hope this had given her lesson
she so badly needed. In any case
never hear anyone run down their
neighbor without thinking with a
smile of the great prima donna Albani
and her sarcastic critic, the unsuc.
cessful singer"