Vocal Mastery

NECESSARY FOR A

r birthright. Her blue sky, flowers and olive trees-her old palaces, hoary with age and romantic story, her fountains and marbles, her wonderful treasures of art, set her in a world apart, in the

ppe D

ew York, can do so. Gifted with a naturally fine organ, he has cultivated it arduously and to excellent purpose. He began to study in early yo

nest and intelligent work. Painstaking to a degree, there is no detail of his art that he neglects or slights-so that one hesitates to decide whether he is greater as a singer or as

carefully thought out until it is as perfect as can be." So

is fine voice, his true bel canto style, and his versatile dramatic skill. He has never disappoin

twenty years, will surely have much to tell which can help those who are farther down the line. If he is willing to do so, can speak the vernacular

USICA

His genial manner makes one feel at home immediately. Although he had just come from the Opera Hous

was always acting out in pantomime or mimicry what I had seen and felt. If I was taken to the theater, I would come home, place a

RKABLE

, that wonderful singer, whose voice to-day, at the age of sixty-five, is as remarkable as ever, is one of his pupils. We know that if a vocal teacher sings himself, and has faults, his pupils are bound to copy those faults instinctively and unconsciously. With Persischini

the student was obliged to do it exactly right and must keep at it till it was right. He would let nothing fa

RTIST

Faust, November 6th, 1897. Then, you may remember, I came to the Metropolita

be always ready, never to disappoint. I think I have never disappointed an audience and have always be

antly and systematically that

e necessity of doing exercises every day; I am not one of those. I always sing my scales, first with full power, then taking each tone softly, swelling to full stre

TLY ON

rect to me as to placement, or production, I try to correct the fault at once. I can tell just how I am singing a tone or phrase by the feeling and sensation. Of course I c

NG A N

e. Then comes the real work-the memorizing and working out the conception. I first commit the words, and know them so well I can write them out. Next I join them to the music. So far

NG SURE OF

the words must always be in mind. I have never yet forgotten a word or phrase. On one occasion-it was in the Damnation of Faust, a part I had already sung a number of times-I thought of a word that was coming, and seemed utterly una

AL AN

's best; and the responsibility increases as one advances, and begins to realize more and more keenly how much is expected and what depen

French operas to my list. Samson and Delilah, which I had always done in Italian, I had to relea

out at the Metropolitan. Verdi's Don Carlos, for instance, has a beautiful baritone part; it is really one of the fine operas, though it might be considered a bit old-fashioned to-d

jotted down the following: Don Carlos, Don Giovanni, Hamlet, Rigolet

ICAL APPRECIA

had advanced during his residence in America,

spoke to me of the opera Marouf. I was surprised, for this modern French opera belongs to the new idiom, and is difficult to understand. 'Do yo

I feel the singer needs a period of rest each year. To show you how necessary it is for the singer to do daily work on the voice, I almost feel I cannot sing at all during the summer, as I do no practicing, and without vocal

ce to attain the goal, then to hold what you h