New-York tribune., 1920-02-04
gence and high degree Of arti site
zeal. She was a seasoned singer Of
the forid type, though weighted with
GermAn nllnu when har inskinnAs

Eence ana hlEn degree OF arti site
zeal. She was a seasoned singer of
the horid type. though weighted with
German alloy, when her instincts
turned her toward lyric tragedy. "One
gets weary singing nothing but prime
esses,' she wrote to Berlin news
paper when she b. loke her contract with
the Royal Opera so that she might re-
main in America and be a Wagnerian
heroine. When the writer at the mem
orable dress rehearsal for the first
American performance OF "G0tterdam-
merung" cautioned her against singing
IN full voice at every repetition made
necessary BY the eparedness of her
colleagues she quietly remarked:
the three Brtnhildes than the onc
Norma" And then, proudly, 81 can
sing Norma Let any one try TO sing
1T as wcll!' And so she chose Norma
as the opera for her benefit the only
one permitted in the German regime
singing it in German, with Paul kal-
Isch and Emil Fischer as her principal
companions. BY it she demonstrated
not only her great versatility as a
singer, but showed also that devotion
TO the Wagnerian drama does not pre-
c!ude excellence in the old provine of
beautiful song and that a command Of
bel canto is superb, indeed, neces-
sa1y, asset OF the ideal Wagnerian in
terpreter. Afterward Jean de Reszke
taught the public the same lesson.
Perhaps Nine. Lehman rerA mbered
that in 1897, when Richard Wagner was
conductor OF the thcater in Riga. he had
also chosen Norma" for benefit per
tormancc and had written an essay for
the purpose of interesting the public in
the opera, in which be chantcd the
praises of the Italian vocal art "Song.
song, and a third time song, ye Ger
mans." he admonished, and concluding
his ESSAY on what he considered Bel
llN's most successful work he said:
Here, where the poem scars up to the
tragic heights Of the ancient Greeks.
this form q. e., the form of Italian
hni, does but cxalt the solemn. gran
dose character Of the whole; all the
passions which his song so notably
transfgures thereby obtain majestic
background on which they hover, not
liz vague outlines, but shape themselves
to one vast and lucid picture involun-
tarily recalling the creations of Gluck
and Spontini."
We are not prepared to go quite so
far as that in our admiration of the
old work. for its march rhythms seem
somewhat mOnOtonOuS now and its
dialogue tedious, but we do not know
how far We might have gone had we
heard the Italian Normas, Adalgisas,
Polliones and Orovesos of eighty-five
years ago--a Pasta, for instance. Of
whose singing when her voice was
ruin. Madame Viardot, with tears in
her eyes, said: 1T is like the Cenacolo
Of Da Finci at Milan-a wreck of pic
ture, but the picture is the greatest
picture in the world" and Grisi. who
copied her manner and sang with a
better voice.
Changes in Art of Singing
We knew that that art was dead;
we did not know how completely all
conception of it on the part of the
public was also dead until we heard
the noisy rapture which followed Miss
Raisa's singing Of "Casta Diva in
voice that was hard strdent and
stridulous, the melodic line distorted
and broken, without a trace Of the
Greek serenity which is native to this
truly wonderful melody, without
Conference or significance in the orna-
mentation. What was it. then, which
stirred up the tempest of applause
which followed it. the noisy beating of
palms, the frantic shrieks of delight?
only the loudness, the ringing quality
OF few high tones-a physical ex-
hibition which was certainly extraor-
dnary, but only extraordinary, not
excellent That is what the art of
singing has descended to, and we do
not have to go to the Lexington Thea
ter to hear it.
There was still less an echo of the
old art in the singing of Myrna Shar-
low, the Adalzisa, for that. besides
being very imperfect, was also anna
flourish to degree; or in the crude
singing OF Signor Dolci (Pollione)
which was robustious, uneven in vocal
quality and a succession of jumbles
and smears in its passage work; or in
the wabbly utterances of Signor La
2arri, who WAS the Oroveso OF the oc-
casion. No! Signor Marinuzzi's forces
can not cope with Bellini's master
piece. Greater honor would be done
it by leaving its sleep undiSturbed