Part 15

Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink (nee Roessler) was born near the city of Prague, July 15, 1861. She relates that her father was a Czech and her mother was of Italian extraction. She was educated in Ursuline Convent and studied singing with Mme. Marietta von Leclair in Graz. Her first appearance was at the age of 15, when she is reported to have taken a solo part in a performance of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, at an important concert in Graz. Her operatic debut was made at the Royal Opera, Dresden, in _Trovatore_. There she studied under Krebs and Franz Wuellner. It is impossible to detail Mme. Schumann-Heink's operatic successes here, since her numerous appearances at the leading operatic houses of the world have been followed by such triumphs that she is admittedly the greatest contralto soloist of her time. At Bayreuth, Covent Garden, and at the Metropolitan her appearances have drawn multitudes. In concert she proved one of the greatest of all singers of art songs. In 1905 she became an American citizen, her enthusiasm for this country leading her to name one of her sons George Washington. During the great war (in which four of her sons served with the American colors) she toured incessantly from camp to camp, giving her services for the entertainment of the soldiers and winning countless admirers in this way. Her glorious voice extends from D on the third line of the bass clef to C on the second leger line above the treble clef.

[Illustration: MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK.]

KEEPING THE VOICE IN PRIME CONDITION

MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK

THE ARTIST'S RESPONSIBILITY

Would you have me give the secret of my success at the very outstart? It is very simple and centers around this subject of the artist's responsibility to the audience. My secret is absolute devotion to the audience. I love my audiences. They are all my friends. I feel a bond with them the moment I step before them. Whether I am singing in blase New York or before an audience of farmer folk in some Western Chautauqua, my attitude toward my audience is quite the same. I take the same care and thought with every audience. This even extends to my dress. The singer, who wears an elaborate gown before a Metropolitan audience and wears some worn-out old rag of a thing when singing at some rural festival, shows that she has not the proper respect in her mind. Respect is everything.

Therefore it is necessary for me to have my voice in the best of condition every day of the year. It is my duty to my audience. The woman who comes to a country Chautauqua and brings her baby with her and perchance nurses the little one during the concert gets a great deal closer to my heart than the stiff-backed aristocrat who has just left a Pekingese spaniel outside of the opera house door in a $6000.00 limousine. That little country woman expects to hear the singer at her best. Therefore, I practice just as carefully on the day of the Chautauqua concert as I would if I were to sing _Ortrud_ the same night at the Metropolitan in New York.

American audiences are becoming more and more discriminating. Likewise they are more and more responsive. As an American citizen, I am devoted to all the ideals of the new world. They have accepted me in the most whole-souled manner and I am grateful to the land of my adoption.

THE ADVANTAGE OF AN EARLY TRAINING

Whether or not the voice keeps in prime condition to-day depends largely upon the early training of the singer. If that training is a good one, a sound one, a sensible one, the voice will, with regular practice, keep in good condition for a remarkably long time. The trouble is that the average student is too impatient in these days to take time for a sufficient training. The voice at the outstart must be trained lightly and carefully. There must not be the least strain. I believe that at the beginning two lessons a week should be sufficient. The lessons should not be longer than one-half an hour and the home practice should not exceed at the start fifty minutes a day. Even then the practice should be divided into two periods. The young singer should practice _mezza voce_, which simply means nothing more or less than "half voice." Never practice with full voice unless singing under the direction of a well-schooled teacher with years of practical singing experience.

It is easy enough to shout. Some of the singers in modern opera seem to employ a kind of megaphone method. They stand stock still on the stage and bawl out the phrases as though they were announcing trains in a railroad terminal. Such singers disappear in a few years. Their voices seem torn to shreds. The reason is that they have not given sufficient attention to _bel canto_ in their early training. They seem to forget that voice must first of all be beautiful. _Bel canto_,--beautiful singing,--not the singing of meaningless Italian phrases, as so many insist, but the glorious _bel canto_ which Bach, Haydn and Mozart demand,--a _bel canto_ that cultivates the musical taste, disciplines the voice and trains the singer technically to do great things. Please understand that I am not disparaging the good and beautiful in Italian masterpieces. The musician will know what I mean. The singer can gain little, however, from music that intellectually and vocally is better suited to a parrot than a human being.

Some of the older singers made _bel canto_ such an art that people came to hear them for their voices alone, and not for their intellectual or emotional interpretations of a role. Perhaps you never heard Patti in her prime. Ah! Patti--the wonderful Adelina with the glorious golden voice. It was she who made me ambitious to study breathing until it became an art. To hear her as she trippingly left the stage in Verdi's _Traviata_ singing runs with ease and finish that other singers slur or stumble over,--ah! that was an art!

[Illustration: musical notation: Ex. 1

il mio pen sier, il mio pen-sier___

il mio pen-sier. ]

Volumes have been written on breathing and volumes more could be written. This is not the place to discuss the singer's great fundamental need. Need I say more than that I practice deep breathing every day of my life?

THE AGE FOR STARTING

It is my opinion that no girl who wishes to keep her voice in the prime of condition all the time in after years should start to study much earlier than seventeen or eighteen years of age. In the case of a man I do not believe that he should start until he is past twenty or even twenty-two. I know that this is contrary to what many singers think, but the period of mutation in both sexes is a much slower process than most teachers realize, and I have given this matter a great deal of serious thought.

LET EVERYBODY SING!

Can I digress long enough to say that I think that everybody should sing? That is, they should learn to sing under a good singing instructor. This does not mean that they should look forward toward a professional career. God forbid! There are enough half-baked singers in the world now who are striving to become professionals. But the public should know that singing is the healthiest kind of exercise imaginable. When one sings properly one exercises nearly all of the important muscles of the torso. The circulation of the blood is improved, the digestion bettered, the heart promoted to healthy action--in fact, everything is bettered. Singers as a rule are notoriously healthy and often very long lived. The new movement for community singing in the open air is a magnificent one. Let everybody sing!

A great singing teacher with a reputation as big as Napoleon's or George Washington's is not needed. There are thousands and thousands of unknown teachers who are most excellent. Often the advice or the instruction is very much the same. What difference does it make whether I buy Castile soap in a huge Broadway store or a little country store, if the soap is the same? Many people hesitate to study because they can not study with a great teacher. Nonsense! Pick out some sensible, well-drilled teacher and then use your own good judgment to guide yourself. Remember that Schumann-Heink did not study with a world-famed teacher. Whoever hears of Marietta von Leclair in these days? Yet I do not think that I could have done any more with my voice if I had had every famous teacher from Niccolo Antonio Porpora down to the present day. The individual singer must have ideals, and then leave nothing undone to attain those ideals. One of my ideals was to be able to sing pianissimo with the kind of resonance that makes it carry up to the farthest gallery. That is one of the most difficult things I had to learn, and I attained it only after years of faithful practice.

THE SINGER'S DAILY ROUTINE

To keep the voice in prime condition the singer's first consideration is physical and mental health. If the body or the mind is over-taxed singing becomes an impossibility. It is amazing what the healthy body and the busy mind can really stand. I take but three weeks' vacation during the year and find that I am a great deal better for it. Long terms of enforced indolence do not mean rest. The real artist is happiest when at work, and I want to work. Fortunately I am never at loss for opportunity. The ambitious vocal student can benefit as much by studying a good book on hygiene or the conservation of the health as from a book on the art of singing.

First of all comes diet. Americans as a rule eat far too much. Why do some of the good churchgoing people raise such an incessant row about over-drinking when they constantly injure themselves quite as much by over-eating? What difference does it make whether you ruin your stomach, liver or kidneys by too much alcohol or too much roast beef? One vice is as bad as another. The singer must live upon a light diet. A heavy diet is by no means necessary to keep up a robust physique. I am rarely ill, am exceedingly strong in every way, and yet eat very little indeed. I find that my voice is in the best of condition when I eat very moderately. My digestion is a serious matter with me, and I take every precaution to see that it is not congested in any way. This is most important to the singer. Here is an average menu for my days when I am on tour:

_BREAKFAST Two or more glasses of Cold Water (not ice water) Ham and Eggs Coffee Toast._

_MID-DAY DINNER Soup Some Meat Order A Vegetable Plenty of Salad Fruit._

_SUPPER A Sandwich Fruit._

Such a menu I find ample for the heaviest kind of professional work. If I eat more, my work may deteriorate, and I know it.

Fresh air, sunshine, sufficient rest and daily baths in tepid water night and morning are a part of my regular routine. I lay special stress upon the baths. Nothing invigorates the singer as much as this. Avoid very cold baths, but see to it that you have a good reaction after each bath. There is nothing like such a routine as this to avoid colds. If you have a cold try the same remedies to try to get rid of it. To me, one day at Atlantic City is better for a cold than all the medicine I can take. I call Atlantic City my cold doctor. Of course, there are many other shore resorts that may be just as helpful, but when I can do so I always make a bee line for Atlantic City the moment I feel a serious cold on the way.

Sensible singers know now that they must avoid alcohol, even in limited quantities, if they desire to be in the prime of condition and keep the voice for a long, long time. Champagne particularly is poison to the singer just before singing. It seems to irritate the throat and make good vocal work impossible. I am sorry for the singer who feels that some spur like champagne or a cup of strong coffee is desirable before going upon the stage.

It amuses me to hear girls say, "I would give anything to be a great singer"; and then go and lace themselves until they look like Jersey mosquitoes. The breath is the motive power of the voice. Without it under intelligent control nothing can be accomplished. One might as well try to run an automobile without gasoline as sing without breath. How can a girl breathe when she has squeezed her lungs to one-half their normal size?

PREPARATION FOR HEAVY ROLES

The voice can never be kept in prime condition if it is obliged to carry a load that it has not been prepared to carry. Most voices that wear out are voices that have been overburdened. Either the singer does not know how to sing or the role is too heavy. I think that I may be forgiven for pointing out that I have repeatedly sung the heaviest and most exacting roles in opera. My voice would have been shattered years ago if I had not prepared myself for these roles and sung them properly. A man may be able to carry a load of fifty pounds for miles if he carries it on his back, but he will not be able to carry it a quarter of a mile if he holds it out at arm's length from the body, with one arm. Does this not make the point clear?

Some roles demand maturity. It is suicidal for the young singer to attempt them. The composer and the conductor naturally think only of the effect at the performance. The singer's welfare with them is a secondary consideration. I have sung under the great composers and conductors, from Richard Wagner to Richard Strauss. Some of the Strauss roles are even more strenuous than those of Wagner. They call for great energy as well as great vocal ability. Young singers essay these heavy roles and the voices go to pieces. Why not wait a little while? Why not be patient?

The singer is haunted by the delusion that success can only come to her if she sings great roles. If she can not ape Melba in _Traviata_, Emma Eames as Elizabeth in _Tannhaeuser_ or Geraldine Farrar in _Butterfly_, she pouts and refuses to do anything. Offer her a small part and she sneers at it. Ha! Ha! All my earliest successes were made in the smallest kinds of parts. I realized that I had only a little to do and only very little time to do it in. Consequently, I gave myself heart and soul to that part. It must be done so artistically, so intelligently, so beautifully that it would command success. Imagine the roles of Erda and Norna, and Marie in _Flying Dutchman_. They are so small that they can hardly be seen. Yet these roles were my first door to success and fame. Wagner did not think of them as little things. He was a real master and knew that in every art-work a small part is just as important as a great part. It is a part of a beautiful whole. Don't turn up your nose at little things. Take every opportunity, and treat it as though it were the greatest thing in your life. It pays.

Everything that amounts to anything in my entire career has come through struggle. At first a horrible struggle with poverty. No girl student in a hall bedroom to-day (and my heart goes out to them now) endures more than I went through. It was work, work, work, from morning to night, with domestic cares and worries enough all the time to drive a woman mad. Keep up your spirits, girls. If you have the right kind of fight in you, success will surely come. Never think of discouragement, no matter what happens. Keep working every day and always hoping. It will come out all right if you have the gift and the perseverance. Compulsion is the greatest element in the vocalist's success. Poverty has a knout in its hand driving you on. Well, let it,--and remember that under that knout you will travel twice as fast as the rich girl possibly can with her fifty-horse-power automobile. Keep true to the best. _Muss_--"I MUST," "I will," the mere necessity is a help not a hindrance, if you have the right stuff in you. Learn to depend upon yourself, and know that when you have something that the public wants it will not be slow in running after you. Don't ask for help. I never had any help. Tell that to the aspiring geese who think that I have some magic power whereby I can help a mediocre singer to success by the mere twist of the hand.

DAILY EXERCISES OF A PRIMA DONNA

[Illustration: musical notation]

Daily vocal exercises are the daily bread of the singer. They should be practiced just as regularly as one sits down to the table to eat, or as one washes one's teeth or as one bathes. As a rule the average professional singer does not resort to complicated exercises and great care is taken to avoid strain. It is perfectly easy for me, a contralto, to sing C in alt but do you suppose I sing it in my daily exercises? It is one of the extreme notes in my range and it might be a strain. Consequently I avoid it. I also sing most of my exercises _mezza voce_.

There should always be periods of intermission between practice. I often go about my routine work while on tour, walking up and down the room, packing my trunk, etc., and practicing gently at the same time. I enjoy it and it makes my work lighter.

Of course I take great pains to practice carefully. My exercises are for the most part simple scales, arpeggios or trills. For instance, I will start with the following:

[Illustration: musical notation]

This I sing in middle voice and very softly. Thereby I do not become tired and I don't bother the neighborhood. If I sang this in the big, full lower tones and sang loud, my voice would be fatigued rather than benefited and the neighbors would hate me. This I continue up to _D_ or _E_ flat.

[Illustration: musical notation]

Above this I invariably use what is termed the head tone. Female singers should always begin the head tone on this degree of the staff and not on _F_ and _F#_, as is sometimes recommended.

I always use the Italian vowel _ah_ in my exercises. It seems best to me. I know that _oo_ and _ue_ are recommended for contraltos, but I have long had the firm conviction that one should first perfect the natural vocal color through securing good tones by means of the most open vowel. After this is done the voice may be further colored by the judicious employment of other vowels. Sopranos, for instance, can help their head tones by singing _ee_ (Italian _i_).

I know nothing better for acquiring a flexible tone than to sing trills like the following:

[Illustration: musical notation]

and at the same time preserve a gentle, smiling expression. Smile naturally, as though you were genuinely amused at something,--smile until your upper teeth are uncovered. Then, try these exercises with the vowel _ah_. Don't be afraid of getting a trivial, colorless tone. It is easy enough to make the tone sombre by willing it so, when the occasion demands. You will be amazed what this smiling, genial, _liebenswuerdig_ expression will do to relieve stiffness and help you in placing your voice right. The old Italians knew about it and advocated it strongly. There is nothing like it to keep the voice youthful, fresh and in the prime of condition.

THE SINGER MUST RELAX

Probably more voices are ruined by strain than through any other cause. The singer must relax all the time. This does not mean flabbiness. It does not mean that the singer should collapse before singing. Relaxation in the singer's sense is a delicious condition of buoyancy, of lightness, of freedom, of ease and entire lack of tightening in any part. When I relax I feel as though every atom in my body were floating in space. There is not one single little nerve on tension. The singer must be particularly careful when approaching a climax in a great work of art. Then the tendency to tighten up is at its greatest. This must be anticipated.

Take such a case as the following passage from the famous aria from Saint-Saens' _Samson et Delila_, "_Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix_." The climax is obviously on the words "Ah!--verse moi." The climax is the note marked by a star (_f_ on the top line).

[Illustration: musical notation:

Reponds a ma ten-dres-se, Re-ponds a ma ten-dress-s!

Ah!--ver-se-moi--ver-se-moi.. l-i-vres-se!]

When I am singing the last notes of the previous phrase to the word "tendresse," anyone who has observed me closely will notice that I instinctively let my shoulders drop,--that the facial muscles become relaxed as when one is about to smile or about to yawn. I am then relaxing to meet the great melodic climax and meet it in such a manner that I will have abundant reserve force after it has been sung. When one has to sing before an audience of five or six thousand people such a climax is immensely important and it requires great balance to meet it and triumph in it.

ANTONIO SCOTTI

BIOGRAPHICAL

Antonio Scotti was born at Naples, Jan. 25, 1866, and did much of his vocal study there with Mme. Trifari Paganini. His debut was made at the Teatro Reale, in the Island of Malta, in 1889. The opera was _Martha_. After touring the Italian opera houses he spent seven seasons in South America at a time when the interest in grand opera on that continent was developing tremendously. He then toured Spain and Russia with great success and made his debut at Covent Garden, London, in 1899. His success was so great that he was immediately engaged for the Metropolitan in New York, where he has sung every season since that time. His most successful roles have been in _La Tosca_, _La Boheme_, _I Pagliacci_, _Carmen_, _Falstaff_, _L'Oracolo_ and _Otello_. His voice is a rich and powerful baritone. He is considered one of the finest actors among the grand opera singers. During recent years he has toured with an opera company of his own, making many successful appearances in some of the smaller as well as the larger American cities.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ANTONIO SCOTTI IN THE COSTUME OF HIS MOST FAMOUS ROLE, SCARPIA, IN "LA TOSCA," BY PUCCINI.]

ITALIAN OPERA IN AMERICA

ANTONIO SCOTTI