The Grand Duke Nicholas has been here in our hotel a month, and his two sons and suite, doctor, Aide-de-camp. and servants. There is an inside balcony running two sides of the hotel which is lovely: but the whole is square with other rooms—this width carpeted—sofa—chairs—table—a glass roof. We all assemble there after dinner, and sit around and talk, take café and tea on little tables.... We sat every day after dinner close to the Grand Duke (the Czar's brother) and his suite; knew his doctor and finally the Duke and his sons. I was sitting on the balcony, because I could see everybody who came in or who went out, and I was looking down and saw the Grand Duke receive the despatch of the assassination—and the commotion and emotion was the most exciting thing I ever witnessed. The Grand Duke is a most amiable gentleman, sweet and good as a man can be; his son, sixteen, was the loveliest and most gentle and affectionate of sons. I looked at the Duke all the time. I was almost upset myself by the excitement. Despatches came every twenty minutes. I looked on—sat there seven hours. As the Russians outside heard of it they would come in—I saw two women cry—the Duke stayed in his room—I heard that he had fainted—he is in somewhat delicate health.... It seemed as if the others were looking around for their friends and for sympathy, as was natural. I had not talked much with the Doctor because I never felt equal to it in French—especially on ordinary subjects of conversation—but he looked up and saw me on the balcony and came directly to me. I took both his hands—the tears came into his eyes—and we talked—the words came to me, enough to show him we were his friends. I said America would sympathise with Russia. He seemed pleased and said, "Yes; but Angleterre, no!" I did not have much to say to that. But I did him good. He told Louise and me the particulars. We both knew the very spot near the bridge where the Czar had fallen. Our sympathy was mostly with the man whose brother had been murdered and his friends. There was a long book downstairs in which people who came in wrote their names from time to time. I do not understand it exactly, but Louise says it contains the names of those who feel an allegiance. Many Russians came in the day of the assassination and wrote their names. Our Consul wrote his, and a beautiful sentence of sympathy. He wanted to lower our flag, but dared not, quite. Louise and I went down and wrote ours—and, while standing, the Duke's physician said to us that there had not been one English name signed. The hotel is all English, nearly. It was an interesting, eventful day. The Duke was pleased when Louise told him his people had been very kind to her in Russia at Petersburg. They all left day before yesterday at 6 P.M.
The assassination of the Czar took place three weeks to the day from that Sunday when I had seen him. It all came back to me very clearly, of course—the troops, the crowding people, and the snow. No wonder they were watchful of him, poor man!
The bottom dropped out of the season at Nice and people began to flit away. The tragedy of the Czar's death spread a shadow over everything. Nobody felt much like merry-making or recreation, and, again, I was becoming restless—restless in a new way.
"Mother," I said, "let's go back to America. I have had enough of Nice and Petersburg and Paris and Vienna and London. I'm tired to death of foreign countries and foreign ways and foreign audiences and foreign honours. I want to go home!"
AT Villefranche, on our way to Nice, I had been given a formal reception by the officers of the flagship Trenton, that was then lying in the harbour. Admiral Dahlgren was in command, and the reception was more of a tribute to the prima donna than a personal tribute. It was arranged under the auspices of Lieutenant Emory and Lieutenant Clover; and I did not sing. Emory was a natural social leader and the whole affair was perfect in detail. A much more interesting reception, however, arranged by Lieutenant Emory, was the informal one given me by the same hosts not long after. Although informal, it was conducted on the same lines of elegance that marked every social function with which Emory was ever connected. As soon as we appeared on the gun deck, accompanied by Lieutenant-Commander Gridley, to be presented to Captain Ramsay, the orchestra greeted us with the familiar strains of Hail, Columbia! At the end of the déjeuner the whole crew contemplated us from afar as I conversed with our hosts, and, realising what might be expected of me, I sang, as soon as the orchestra had adjusted their instruments, the solo of Violetta from Traviata: Ah force e lui che l'anima. As an encore I sang Down on the Suwanee River. The orchestra not being able to accompany me, I accompanied myself on a banjo that happened to be handy. I was told afterwards that "the one sweet, familiar plantation melody was better to us than a dozen Italian cavatinas." After the Suwanee River, I sang yet another negro melody, The Yaller Gal Dressed in Blue, which was received with much appreciative laughter.
On our way from Nice we went to Milan to visit the Exposition, which was an artistically interesting one, and at which we happened to see the father and mother of the present King of Italy. From Milan we went to Aix-les-Bains; and from there to Paris.
I returned to America without an engagement; but on October 5th the Kellogg Concert Company, under the management of Messrs. Pond and Bachert, gave the first concert of a series in Music Hall, Boston. I was supported by Brignoli, the "silver-voiced tenor," Signer Tagliapietra, and Miss Alta Pease, contralto. With us, also, were Timothie Adamowski, the Polish violinist; Liebling, the pianist, and the Weber Quartette. My reception in America, after nearly two years' absence abroad, was, really, almost an ovation. But I want to say that Boston has always been particularly gracious and cordial to me. By way of showing how appreciative was my reception, I cannot resist giving an extract from the Boston Transcript of the following morning:
Her singing of her opening number, Filina's Polonaise in Mignon, showed at once that she had brought back to us unimpaired both her voice and her exquisite art; that she is now, as formerly, the wonderfully finished singer with the absolutely beautiful and true soprano voice. Her stage experience during the past few years, singing taxing grand soprano parts, so different and more trying to the vocal physique than the light florid parts, the Aminas, Zerlinas, and Elviras, she began by singing, seems to have had no injurious effect upon the quality and trueness of her voice, which has ever been fine and delicate; just the sort of beautiful voice which one would fear to expose to much intense dramatic wear and tear. Its present perfect purity only proves how much may be dared by a singer who can trust to a thoroughly good method.
In the following May I sang with Max Strakosch's opera company in Providence to an exceptionally large audience. One of the daily newspapers of the city said, in reference to this occasion:
Miss Kellogg must take it as a compliment to herself personally, for the other artists were unknown here, and therefore it must have been her name that attracted so many. She has always been popular here, and has made many personal as well as professional friends. She must have added many more of the latter last night, for she never appeared to better advantage. She was well supported by Signor Giannini as Faust [we gave Faust and I was Marguerite] and Signor Mancini as Mephistopheles.
This same year, 1882, I went on a concert trip through the South. In New Orleans I had a peep into the wonderful pawnshops, large, spacious, all filled with beautiful things. I had long been a collector of pewter and silver and old furniture and, on this trip, took advantage of some of my opportunities. For instance, I bought the bureau that had belonged to Barbara Frietchie, and a milk jug and some spoons that had belonged to Henry Clay. Also, I visited Libby Prison and various other prisons, a battle-field, and several cemeteries. One cemetery was half filled with the graves of boys of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years of age, showing that in the Civil War the South could not have kept it up much longer. The sight was pitiful!
In 1884 I went on a concert tour with Major Pond in the West, making of it so far as we could, as Pond said, something of a picnic. We crossed by the Northern Pacific, seeing, I remember, the ranch of the Duc de Morney, son of the Duc de Morney who was one of Louis Philippe's creations, and who had married the daughter of a wealthy ranchman, Baron von Hoffman. The house of his ancestor in the Champs Élysées and the house next door that he built for his mistress were points of interest in Paris when I first went there. In Miles City, on the way to Helena, Montana, we visited some of the gambling dens, and were interested in learning that the wildest and worst one in the place was run by a Harvard graduate. The streets of the town were strangely deserted and this we did not understand until a woman said to me:
"Umph! they don't show themselves when respectable people come along!"
My memory of the trip and of the Yellowstone Park consists of a series of strangely beautiful and primitive pictures. We passed through a prairie fire, when the atmosphere was so hot and dense that extra pressure of steam was put on our locomotive to rush our train through it. Never before had I seen Indian women carrying their papooses. I particularly recall one settlement of wigwams on a still, wonderful evening, the chiefs gorgeous in their blankets, when the fires were being lighted and the spirals of smoke were ascending straight up into the clear atmosphere. One day a couple of Indians ran after the train. They looked very fine as they ran and finally succeeded in getting on to the rear platform, where they rode for some distance. At Deer Lodge I sang all of one evening to two fine specimens of Indian manhood. We went down the Columbia River in a boat, greatly enjoying the impressive scenery. One of my most vivid mental impressions was that of an Indian fisherman, standing high out over the rushing waters, at least forty feet up, on a projection of some kind that had been built for the purpose of salmon fishing, his graceful, vigorous bronze form clearly silhouetted against the background of rock and foliage and sky. On the banks of the river farther along we saw a circus troupe boiling their supper in a huge caldron and smoking the kalama or peace pipe. I was so hungry I wanted to eat of the caldron's contents but, on second thoughts, refrained. And we stopped at Astoria where the canning of salmon was done, a town built out over the river on piles. The forest fires had caused some confusion and, for one while, we could hardly breathe because of the smoke. Indeed we travelled days and days through that smoke. The first cowboy I ever saw drove me from the station of Livingston through Yellowstone Park. In Butte City my company went down into the Clarke Copper Mine, but I did not care to join them in the undertaking. Our first sight of Puget Sound was very beautiful. And it was at Puget Sound that I first saw half-, or, rather, quarter-breeds. I remember Pond saying how quickly the half-breeds die of consumption.
Later, that same year, I went South again on another concert tour. All through the State of Mississippi there was a strange, horrible flavour to the food, I recall, and, so all-pervading was this flavour that finally I could hardly eat anything. The contralto and I were talking about it one day on the train and saying how glad we should be to get away from it. There being no parlour-cars, we were in an ordinary coach, and a woman who sat in front of me and overheard us, turned around and said:
"I know what you mean! I can tell you what it is. It's cotton seed. Everything tastes of cotton seed in this country. They feed their cows on it, and their chickens. Everything tastes of it; eggs, butter, biscuits, milk!"
This was true. The only thing, it seems, that could not be raised on cotton seed was fruit; and unfortunately it was not a fruit season when I was there.
The recollection of this trip necessitates my saying a little something of Southern hospitality. I was not satisfied with any of the arrangements that had been made for me. I had also taken a severe cold, and, when we reached Charlottesville, where we were to give a concert, I said I would not go on. This brought matters to a climax. I simply would not and could not sing in the condition I was; and declared I would not be subjected to any such treatment at the insistence of the management. The end of it was that I took my maid and started for New York.
The trip at first promised to be a very uncomfortable one. Travelling accommodations were poor; food was difficult to obtain, and I was nearly ill. At one point, where the opening of a new bridge had just taken place, we stopped, and I noticed a private car attached to our train, which I coveted. Imagine my gratitude and pleasure, therefore, when the porter presently came to me and said courteously that "Colonel Cawyter" sent his compliments and invited me into his private car. I accepted, of course. But this was not all. As I was making inquiries about train connections and facilities for food, of one of the gentlemen in the car, he realised what was before me, and said that I could go to his home where his wife would care for me. I protested, but he insisted and gave me his card. When we reached the station, I took a carriage and drove to the house, where I was received very courteously. It was a simple household of a mother, grandmother, and children, and they had already lunched when I got there. But they piled on more coal, and in a very short time made me a lunch that was simply delicious—all so easily, simply, and naturally, in spite of the haphazard fashion in which they seemed to live, as to quite win my admiration. And this incident of Southern hospitality enabled me to proceed on my way nourished and restored.
Another incident that I recall was of a similar nature in its fundamental kindness. I had no money with which to pay for my berth, and was asking the conductor if there was anyone who would cash a check for me, when a perfect stranger offered me the amount I needed. At first I refused, but finally consented to accept the loan in the same spirit in which it had been offered.
On the reorganised version of this trip we went down into Texas, giving concerts in Waco, Dallas, Cheyenne, San Antonio, and Galveston, among other places. This was before the wonderful railroad had been built that runs for miles through the water; and before the tidal wave that wiped the old Galveston out of existence. At Cheyenne, I remember, we had to ford a river to keep our engagement. At Waco a negro was found under the bed of one of the company; a bridge was burning; and a posse of men, with bloodhounds, was starting out to track the incendiaries. I remember speaking there with a negro woman who had a white child in her charge. The child was busily chewing gum and the woman told me that often the child would put her hand on her jaw saying, "Oh, I'm so tired!" But she could not be induced to stop chewing! At Dallas we sang in a hall that had a tin roof, and, during the concert, a terrific thunderstorm came on, so that I had to stop singing. This is the only time, I believe, that the elements ever succeeded in drowning me out. I never before had seen adobe houses, and I found San Antonio very interesting, and drove as far as I could along the road of the old Spanish Missions that maintain the traditions and aspects of the Spanish in the New World. The Southern theatres are the dirtiest places that can be imagined; and I recall eating opossum that was served to us with great pride by my waiter.
From this time on I did not contemplate any long engagements. I did not care for them, although I sometimes went to places to sing—and to collect pewter!
I never formally retired from public life, but quietly stopped when it seemed to me the time had come. It was a Kansas City newspaper reporter who incidentally brought home to me the fact that I was no longer very young. I had a few grey hairs, and, after an interview granted to this representative of the press—a woman, by the way—I found, on reading the interview in print the next day, that my grey hairs had been mentioned.
"They'll find that my voice is getting grey next," I said to myself.
I really wanted to stop before everybody would be saying, "You ought to have heard her sing ten years ago!"
Carl Strakosch From a photograph by H. W. Barnett
Carl Strakosch
From a photograph by H. W. Barnett
The last time I saw Patti I said to her:
"Adelina, have you got through singing?"
"Oh, I still sing for mes pauvres in London," she replied; but she didn't explain who were her poor.
On my last western concert tour I sang at Oshkosh. A special train of three cars on the Central brought down a large delegation for the occasion from Fond du Lac, Ripon, Neenah and Menasha, Appleton and other neighbouring towns. The audience was in the best of humour and a particularly sympathetic one. At the close of the concert I remarked that it was one of the finest audiences I ever sang to. And I added, by way of pleasantry, that, having sung at Oshkosh, I was now indeed ready to leave the stage!
But there were even more serious reasons that influenced me in my decision, one of which was that my mother had for some time past been in a poor state of health. More than once, when I went to the theatre, I had the feeling that she might not be alive when I returned home; and this was a nervous strain to me that, combined with a severe attack of bronchitis, brought about a physical condition which might have had seriously lasting results if I had not taken care of myself in time.
It was not easy to stop. When each autumn came around, it was very difficult not to go back to the public. I had an empty feeling. There is no sensation in the world like singing to an audience and knowing that you have it with you. I would not change my experience for that of any crowned head. The singer and the actor have, at least, the advantage over all other artists of a personal recognition of their success; although, of course, the painter and writer live in their work while the singer and the actor become only traditions. But such traditions! On the subject of the actor's traditions Edwin Booth has written:
In the main, tradition to the actor is as true as that which the sculptor perceives in Angelo, the painter in Raphael, and the musician in Beethoven.... Tradition, if it be traced through pure channels and to the fountainhead, leads one as near to Nature as can be followed by her servant, Art. Whatever Quinn, Barton Booth, Garrick, and Cooke gave to stagecraft, or as we now term it, "business," they received from their predecessors; from Betterton and perhaps from Shakespeare himself, who, though not distinguished as an actor, well knew what acting should be; and what they inherited in this way they bequeathed in turn to their art and we should not despise it. Kean knew without seeing Cooke, who in turn knew from Macklin, and so back to Betterton, just what to do and how to do it. Their great Mother Nature, who reiterates her teachings and preserves her monotone in motion, form, and sound, taught them. There must be some similitude in all things that are True!
The traditions of singing are not what they used to be, however, for the new school of opera does not require great finish, although it does demand greater dramatic art. It used to be that Tetrazzinis could make successes through coloratura singing alone; but to-day coloratura singing has no great hold on the public after the novelty has worn off. But it does very well in combination with heavier music, as in Mozart's Magic Flute or The Huguenots, and so modern singers have to be both coloraturists and dramaticists. A propos of singing and methods, I append a newspaper interview that a reporter had with me in Paris, 1887. He had been shown a new dinner dress of white moire with ivy leaves woven into the tissue, and writes:
Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg
Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg
Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg
Letter from Edwin Booth to Clara Louise Kellogg
I examined the rustling treasure critically and decided it was a complete success. The train was long, the stuff rich, the taste perfect, and yet—the great essential was wanting. I could not but reflect on the transformation which would come over that regal robe were it once hung on the shapely shoulders of the famous prima donna.
"You see, there is nothing like singing to fill out dresses where they should be filled out, and conversely," said Sbriglia, who happened to be present as we came back into the salon; "consequently my advice to all ladies who wish to improve their figure is to take vocal lessons."
"Yes," agreed Miss Kellogg, "if they can only find right instruction. But, unfortunately good teachers nowadays are rarer than good voices. Even the famous Paris Conservatory doesn't contain good vocal instruction. If there be any teaching in the world which is thoroughly worthless, it is precisely that given in the Rue Bergère. But I cannot do justice to the subject. Do give us your ideas, Professor, about the Paris Conservatory and the French School of voice culture."
"As to any French vocal school," replied Sbriglia, "there is none. Each professor has a system of his own that is only less bad than the system of some rival professor. One man tells you to breathe up and down and another in and out. One claims that the musical tones are formed in the head, while another locates them in the throat. And when these gentlemen receive a fresh, untrained voice, their first care is to split it up into three distinct parts which they call registers, and for the arrangement of which they lay down three distinct sets of rules.
"As to the Conservatory, it is a national disgrace; and I have no hesitation in saying that it not only does no good, but is actually the means of ruining hundreds of fine voices. Look at the results. It is from the Conservatory that the Grand Opera chooses its French singers, and the simple fact is that in the entire personnel there are no great French artists. There are artists from Russia, Italy, Germany and America, but there are none from France. And yet the most talented students of the Conservatory make their débuts there every year with fine voices and brilliant prospects; but, as a famous critic has well said, 'after singing for three years under the system which they have been taught, they acquire a perfect "style" and lose their voice.'
"You ask me what I consider to be the correct method. I dislike very much the use of the word 'method,' because it seems to imply something artificial; whereas in all the vocal processes, there is only a single logical method and that is the one taught us all by nature at our birth. Watch a baby crying. How does he breathe? Simply by pushing the abdomen forward, thus drawing air into the lungs, to fill the vacuum produced, and then bringing it back again, which expels the air. And every one breathes that way, except certain advocates of theoretical nonsense, who have learned with great difficulty to exactly reverse this operation. Such singers make a bellows of the chest, instead of the abdomen, and, as the strain to produce long sounds is evidently greater in forcing the air out than in simply drawing it in, their inevitable tendency is to unduly contract the chest and to distend the abdomen."
"Let me give you an illustration of the truth of M. Sbriglia's argument," said Miss Kellogg, rising from her seat. "Now watch me as I utter a musical note." And immediately the rich voice that has charmed so many thousands filled the apartment with a clear "a-a-a-a" as the note grew in volume.
"You see Miss Kellogg has little to fear from consumption!" exclaimed Sbriglia. "And I am convinced that invalids with disorders of the chest would do well to stop taking drugs and study the art of breathing and singing."
"And even those who have no voice," said Miss Kellogg, "would by this means not only improve in health and looks, but would also learn to read and speak correctly, for the same principles apply to all the vocal processes. It is astonishing how few people use the voice properly. For instance I could read in this tone all the afternoon without fatigue, but if I were to do this" (making a perceptible change in the position of her head), "I should begin to cough before finishing a column. Don't you notice the difference? In the one case the sounds come from here" (touching her chest) "and are free and musical; but in the other, I seem to speak in my throat, and soon feel an irritation there which makes me want the traditional glass of sugar and water."
"The irritation which accompanies what you call 'speaking in the throat,'" explained Sbriglia, "is caused by pressing too hard upon the vocal cords, that become, in consequence, congested with blood, instead of remaining white as they should be. Persons who have this habit grow hoarse after very brief vocal exertion, and it is largely for that reason that American men rarely make fine singers. On the other hand, look at Salvini, who, by simply knowing how to place his voice, is able to play a tremendous part like Othello without the slightest sense of fatigue.
"About the American 'twang'? Oh, no, it does not injure the voice. On the contrary, this nasal peculiarity, especially common among your women, is of positive value in a proper production of certain tones."
THE Coda in music is, literally, the tail of the composition, the finishing off of the piece. The influence of Wagner did away with the Coda: yet, as my place in the history of opera is that of an exponent of the Italian rather than the German form, I feel that a Coda, or a last few words of farewell, is admissible.
In some ways the Italian opera of my day seems banal. Yet Italian opera is not altogether the thing of the past that it is sometimes supposed to be. More and more, I believe, is it coming back into public favour as people experience a renewed realisation that melody is the perfect thing, in art as in life. I believe that Mignon would draw at the present time, if a good cast could be found. But it would be difficult to find a good cast.
Italian opera did what it was intended to do:—it showed the art of singing. It was never supposed to be but an accompaniment to the orchestra as German opera often is; an idea not very gratifying to a singer, and sometimes not to the public. Yet we can hardly make comparisons. Personally, I like German opera and many forms of music beside the Italian very much, even while convinced of the fact that German critics are not the whole audience. At least, the opera could not long be preserved on them alone.
"Elpstone" New Hartford, Connecticut
"Elpstone"
New Hartford, Connecticut
It seems to me as I look back over the preceding pages that I have put into them all the irrelevant matter of my life and left out much that was important. Many of my dearest rôles I have forgotten to mention, and many of my most illustrious acquaintances I have omitted to honour. But when one has lived a great many years, the past becomes a good deal like an attic: one goes there to hunt for some particular thing, but the chances are that one finds anything and everything except what one went to find. So, out of my attic, I have unearthed ever so many unimportant heirlooms of the past, leaving others, perhaps more valuable and more interesting, to be eaten by moths and corrupted by rust for all time.
There is very little more for me to say. I do not want to write of my last appearances in public. Even though I did leave the operatic stage at the height of my success, there is yet something melancholy in the end of anything. As Richard Hovey says:
| There is a sadness in all things that pass; |
| We love the moonlight better for the sun, |
| And the day better when the night is near. |
| The last look on a place where we have dwelt |
| Reveals more beauty than we dreamed before, |
| When it was daily ... |
In our big, young country of America there are the possibilities of many another singer greater than I have been. I shall be proud and grateful if the story of my high ambitions, hard work, and kindly treatment should chance to encourage one of these. For, while it is true that there is nothing that should be chosen less lightly than an artistic career, it is also true that, having chosen it, there is nothing too great to be given up for it. I have no other message to give; no further lesson to teach. I have lived and sung, and, in these memories, have tried to tell something of the living and the singing: but when I seek for a salient and moving word as a last one, I find that I am dumb. Yet I feel as I used to feel when I sang before a large audience. Somewhere out in the audience of the world there must be those who are in instinctive sympathy with me. My thoughts go wandering toward them as, long ago, my thoughts would wander toward the unknown friends sitting before me in the theatre and listening. So poignant is this sense within me that, halting as my message may have been, I feel quite sure that somehow, here and there, some one will hear it, responsive in the heart.
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