Act III. pictures the Elysian fields, the abode of the blest where "calm

and eternal rest" pervade even the music. The orchestral introduction is saintly, with its religious harmonies and classic purity. It is simple, but yet so interesting that we can imagine the immortal spirits hearing forever and never weary, for classical music is always new and always beautiful. The flute and stringed instruments perform the great part of this Elysian music. White-robed spirits glide about, and one soprano voice starts up a happy, flowing melody that inspires a chorus of others. It is Eurydice who leads this singing of the blest.

There is dancing as well as singing, and during this divertisement the instruments weave out a new musical fabric. The steady accompaniment and firm legato theme are the woof and warp through which, around which, and over which a little five-note appoggiatura sports like a weaver's shuttle. It appears four times in every measure, but never twice in the same place.

With wonder and admiration comes Orpheus upon the scene. The orchestra continues its blithe harmonies while Orpheus sings of the beauteous sight. But not even such surroundings can quell his longing for Eurydice. Unlike the Furies, who only granted his prayer because compelled by his wondrous music, the spirits of the blest can not see any one suffer. With one voice and immediately they tell him to take Eurydice. To the strains of softest music Orpheus approaches the various spirits. He harkens to their heart-beats, and finally recognizes his loved one without seeing her.

The scene changes to another part of the nether world, a forest through which Orpheus is leading Eurydice back to earth. A nervous, anxious instrumental passage precedes the opening recitative dialogue. Eurydice at first rejoices over her new-found life, but then forgets all else in surprise and grief because Orpheus will not look at her. She questions him, entreats him, fears she is no longer beautiful, or that his heart has changed. Orpheus explains that he dare not look at her, but Eurydice is not satisfied. She refuses to go farther, for if he can not look at her she does not wish to live. The ensuing duet is intense and full of climacteric effects. The voices chase each other like clouds before a storm, low down and hovering near that sea of sound, the orchestra, over which the conductor rules with his wand like Neptune with his trident.

Orpheus firmly resists the pleadings of Eurydice until she declares that his coldness will break her heart,--she will die of grief if he does not look at her. Little wonder that he flings prudence to the winds and impulsively turns to embrace her.

But no sooner has he looked upon Eurydice than she droops and sinks from his arms like a blighted flower. Death has again come between them. Orpheus cries aloud his grief, and there springs from his heart a song of lamentation surpassing any other as a geyser does a fountain. "Ach, ich habe sie verloren!" is the German and "Che in faro" the Italian name of this great song that is the standard classical contralto program piece. It is full of sobbing cadenzas and sighing intervals that express more than words or deeds.

Grief at last gives place to desperation: He is on the point of killing himself when Amor reappears. The gods are again moved to pity by his enduring love, and Amor with a touch of her wand revives Eurydice.

The opera closes with a trio between Amor and the reunited pair, an ode to the power of love. It is a sort of musical apotheosis. The orchestral accompaniment has a steady, revolving movement that might suggest the wheel of time tuned and turned in harmony with the voice of love.

The Genius of Geraldine Farrar

THE GENIUS OF GERALDINE FARRAR

Some half-dozen years ago rumors, vague as perfume from an unfolding flower, began to reach America about a new prima-donna; a Boston girl, very young and very beautiful; singing at the Berlin Royal Opera-house. No American before had ever held such a position--life-member of the opera company which Kaiser Wilhelm supervises, and the Great Frederick founded.

Years went by and still the name of Geraldine Farrar was wafted across the waters--and still she was spoken of as "very young."

American critics grew somewhat incredulous; Germany, of course, is musical and deep-rooted in the science of the art, but New York holds a record of her own in matters operatic, and is not disposed to accept unchallenged a verdict from the land of beer and thorough-bass.

At last the hour came when Geraldine Farrar appeared as a star in her native land. It was a momentous occasion--the opening of the season; a brilliant audience, diamond-glinting and decollete; an audience familiar with the value of Tiffany tiaras, but inclined to be dubious about Berlin laurels.

The curtain arose upon the first act of Romeo and Juliet; a blaze of color and a whirl of gay music. Soon the dancers dispersed, and a slender figure in saphire satin sauntered down the Capulet stairs, came forward with quiet confidence, and commenced the famous Waltz Song--slowly--dreamily.

With these very first notes Geraldine Farrar revealed originality; she sang them as tho thinking aloud; the words fell from her lips like a tender caress--

"I would linger in this dream that enthralls me."

She closed the aria with brilliant tones, a high note--and a smile. Geraldine Farrar's smile is something to drive a poet to sonnets--and a prince to sighs!

One paper the next morning declared: "From that moment she could have wrapped the whole audience around her little finger."

There followed a "Farrar furor," tho cautious critics were careful to point out that her performance as yet evinced nothing more than "a lovely voice, a peculiarly gifted dramatic temperament, youth, beauty, and considerable experience!" That's all!

"She is not yet a finished artist," these critics say, but at four-and-twenty what would you? Her voice is "golden," and no one denies that her histrionic gifts are phenomenal.

It is strange--this quality of native _greatness_. In the case of these famous singers, one almost feels that the _greatness_ makes the voice. The _mind_ is what counts, after all. Geraldine Farrar impresses one forcibly with this fact. Her mind is alert, keen, observant, thoughtful, quick at reaching conclusions, widely interested, eager to learn, but at the same time self-contained and firmly poised.

When talking about music her face lights up. She has much to say; she has thought and studied deeply; she is intense, enthusiastic, full of her subject, aglow with earnestness and vitality.

From early childhood she was always singing, always acting, and always _intending to be a prima-donna_.

"I began voice-study when I was twelve, but before that had sung all of Faust in Italian, and acted it according to my own imagination."

When asked if she had not run some risk of harming the vocal cords by beginning so young, she explained that her voice at this age was remarkably mature and full. She was possessed, besides, with an irresistible desire to sing, so it seemed both prudent and wise to commence serious study thus early.

"A born singer is _instinctive_, and selects, almost instinctively, her individual means of expression, avoiding, in the main, what is distinctly harmful. But practice and study are continuously and always necessary. I work faithfully every day with scales and trills and intervals. Before a performance I go over my part, mentally, from beginning to end."

In reply to a question about her ambition, she answered promptly and impressively:

"Yes, I have one very decided ambition: I wish to develop my powers to the fullest extent and most complete beauty, and then--I wish to have the _courage_, when physical strength no longer responds to the creative demands, to _abdicate in favor of Youth_! Youth must be recognized, enjoyed, encouraged! We should have more of this God-given fragrance in our mimic world, and less of hard-earned, middle-aged experience."

Miss Farrar's favorite recreation is "_sleep_--and much of it!"

As for books, she likes "everything."

"I read a great deal," she commented. "When I was studying 'Madame Butterfly,' I read everything I could find about the Japanese. I tried to imbue myself with their spirit. I bought up old prints, and pictures, and costumes; I learned how they eat, and sleep, and walk, and talk, and think, and feel. I read books on the subject in French and German, as well as in English."

Incidentally it came out that she memorized this most difficult of operas in fifteen days.

"No, I am never afraid of forgetting my lines." Then, tapping her forehead lightly, she added: "When a thing is once learned, it seems to stick in a certain corner of your brain and stay there."

There was youth and girlishness in her off-hand manner of making this remark. In fact, the artist and girl are constantly alternating in the play of her features, and it is fascinating to watch this hide-and-seek of youth and maturity.

The girl-spirit was uppermost now, as she sank back comfortably in her big arm-chair, drew her Frenchy peignoire more snugly about her, and related some of the droll _contretemps_ that occur on the opera-house stage.

"The audience never seems to see them, but the most ridiculous things happen, and then it is terrible when you want to laugh, but dare not."

A mention of Lilli Lehmann suddenly sobered the conversation. Lilli Lehmann is Geraldine Farrar's teacher--"and a very severe one"--her pupil asserts.

"But she--and all Germans--appreciate _personality_. That is why I have been allowed to develop my own ideas--to be individual. That is, to me, the most interesting part of the art. I am keenly interested in observing life--the expression of people's faces, their way of saying and doing things. Wherever I am, whatever I see, I am always finding something to use in my art.

"I once saw a death--it sounds unfeeling to say it, but I now use the very expression I saw then in the finale of 'Boheme.'"

Geraldine Farrar's realism is a well-known phase of her art. A striking instance is her performance in the last act of Romeo and Juliet: she sings almost the entire scene _lying down_! An amazing innovation.

"Perhaps it is unusual," she commented, "but the simple repose seems to me more fully to accentuate the sublime and lyric climax of the tragedy."

This is a little rift into the prima-donna's viewpoint. She believes that "vocal intensity and dramatic value should so merge one into the other that they produce equalized sincerity of expression and constant changing of color, movement, and sentiment."

"Give your best always; take _Sincerity_ for your guide, and _Work_, never-ending, for your master."

This is Geraldine Farrar's creed.

"Madame Butterfly"

MADAME BUTTERFLY

Beauty of plot and great music are to an opera what fair features and a noble soul are to woman. "Madame Butterfly" possesses these attributes, and has consequently won that instant success which only true beauty, in either art or nature, calls forth.

Very seldom is the story of an opera so intensely thrilling that the original author is borne in mind; but it may be stated as a fact that no one applauds Giacomo Puccini's splendid music without also thinking "All Hail!" to John Luther Long, who wrote this strangely tender tragedy.

Distinctly unique as a grand opera setting is the Land of Cherry-blossoms. Never before have the higher harmonies been blended in with embroidered kimonas and chrysanthemum screens. The innovation is delightful, however; refreshing, uplifting, enlarging. By means of great music we are enabled to understand great emotion in the Little Land.

In this opera the hero is the villain, if one may so express it. He is also an American; a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, and from first to last he seems blandly unconscious of his villainy. This is distressing morally, but musically one could wish it no different. As the rainbow-mist rises out of the whirlpool, so the beautiful in art is most often evolved from a maelstrom of sin and tragedy.

A flowered veranda to a tiny house, a lilac-garden that overlooks a far, fair view of Nagasaki, the bright blue bay and azure sky--this is the opening scene of Puccini's opera.

The brief orchestral prelude is a pretty piece of fugue work, four-voiced and accurately constructed. A fugue is unusual in grand opera, but Puccini has a purpose in everything, and his music is essentially descriptive. The opening conversation in this opera concerns the construction of the tiny villa, and as a fugue is the one music-form suggestive of rules and measurements--a secure foundation and precise superstructure--it is clear that this bit of musical masonry, with its themes overlapping but carefully joined, is intended to represent the house.

On the stage the dainty dwelling is glowingly described by Goro, a Japanese marriage-broker; very obsequious in manners, but characterized in the orchestra by a most energetic, business-like theme that follows him around like a shadow.

A wedding of his arranging is soon to take place, and this house has been rented for the honeymoon. The bridegroom, Lieutenant Pinkerton, of the U. S. Navy, is viewing the abode for the first time. He wears a handsome uniform, and serves the opera as tenor, hero, lover, villain--all in one.

Goro makes him acquainted also with the house-servant, Susuki, a solemn-faced, saffron-colored maiden, whose name means "Gentle-breeze-of-the-morning." Pinkerton prefers to call her "Scare-crow."

The first invited guest to arrive is the U. S. Consul. A sympathetic and genuinely tender theme announces this character's approach. Always listen to the orchestra if you would know the real nature of these people of the play. In grand opera, as in real life, _words_ very often conceal thought; but by the power of music the listener is endowed with a temporary sense of omniscience; he can read the hearts and motives of the creatures he observes.

It being still early, Pinkerton and the Consul seat themselves while the hero explains this marriage he is entering upon. But first he orders a "whisky and soda."

There is apparently no translation for this barroom barbarism, so the English words are used, and their effect is noticeably jarring. No critic has failed to remark this surprising debut of fire-water on the lyric stage! There is charm and poetry in the Italian wine-glass, and we have grown accustomed to see that mingled with melody--but the American whisky-bottle stands remote from music as a pig from Paradise. Puccini seems to realize this, for he accompanies the obnoxious word with a discord!

There is nothing discordant, however, in Pinkerton's description of his bride--the lovely lady Butterfly--"dainty in stature--quaint little figure--seems to have stepped down, straight from a screen."

The music here is delicate and frail, like an exquisite tracery of gold lacquer.

He intends to marry this Japanese bride in Japanese fashion, thereby making the tie unbinding in America--a slip-knot adjustment that she, poor thing, is unaware of.

The Consul remonstrates with Pinkerton over his "easy-going gospel" of free love, but this light-hearted villain will not listen. He holds up his glass instead, and to a buried accompaniment of the "Star-spangled Banner," he proposes a toast to America--and also to the day on which he shall wed in _real_ marriage a _real_ wife of his own nationality.

With this atrocious toast scarcely uttered, poor little trusting Butterfly is heard in the distance with her bridesmaids, singing as they approach. A delirium of joy breathes through this song, which is a weird succession of Oriental intervals, strange as an opium dream. As the harmonies grow firmer, Butterfly's voice rings out above the others, while in the orchestra the conductor with his baton slowly unearths, like a buried diamond, the great love-theme of the opera. It beams forth in sultry splendor, a cluster of chords with imprisoned tones that flash forth unlooked-for harmonies.

At last she enters--this Japanese heroine, her brilliant draperies as bright as her name. Her maidens all carry huge paper parasols and fluttering fans--a merry group of girls, filled with varied emotions of timidity, envy, curiosity, and fun. They courtesy, and smile, and sing, and sigh, and lower their eyes with knowing charm.

Throughout this scene it is interesting to note the different themes and their consistent use. A phrase of the opening fugue invariably appears whenever the _house_ is mentioned; still another architectural motif protrudes into prominence every time the town Nagasaki is referred to. Susuki has a theme of her own; so has the Consul. When the relations of the bride troop in, we recognize the fact that they, too, have a theme; we learned it when Goro, some time back, was enumerating the expected guests.

This theme now asserts itself in the orchestra as the grotesque company assembles. There is nothing great about this melody: it is a mincing, thin-bodied affair, but disports itself with much confidence during its little hour of importance; it shoves out every other theme from the orchestra and demands undivided attention. But at last the director's stick chases it out of the enclosure.

The guests in the meantime have been gossiping among themselves, disparaging the bride, criticizing the groom--and partaking of his refreshments.

All flats and sharps and accidentals are suddenly dropt from the score when the official registrar reads in monotone voice, and plain C major, the simple marriage form.

The ceremony is soon over, but the guests linger on. Pinkerton plies them with wine, but makes little headway in hurrying the festivities to an end. He has grown heartily tired of these new relations, and longs to see them go, but, instead of any one leaving, another one suddenly arrives, an absent uncle, who plunges amongst them in a frenzy of wrath and excitement. He has learned at the American Mission that Butterfly, without telling her family, has changed her religion and cast off the faith of her fathers.

Cries of horror, moans, and execrations follow this announcement. Butterfly is denounced by her family--abjured and disowned. She cowers before them, distressed, but not utterly crushed, for love remains to console her.

The tragic theme of the opera; a gruesome sequence of minor thirds, takes this opportunity to stalk into the orchestra and reconnoiter, like an undertaker looking over the premises before he is really needed. This theme has active work to do later on, but as yet does not seem very terrifying.

When the relations and guests are gone, Butterfly is soon persuaded to forget the "stupid tribe."

Evening has come; there is a twilight tinge to the music; it is "_dolce_," "_expressione_," and "_rallentando_."

Puccini is a master of modulations. He employs large, full harmonies, soul-asserting, all-engulfing chords, that feel their way from one key to another, and burst forth in new glory with every transition. This persistent progress through varying keys has an effect of leading the listener through different rooms in some palatial edifice. In the hands of a great composer, each key of the scale unlocks a new vista in the enchanted palace of music.

Behind a screen on the veranda, Butterfly changes her chromatic kimona to one of white silk. She emerges with garments all soft and fluttering, like the trembling white wings of a night-moth.

Pinkerton leads her into the garden, and there, under the spell of the silent stars, they sing of love and of the glorious mystic night, with its gentle breeze that passes like a benediction over the bending lilacs. Fire-flies (cleverly imitated) hover in the air and flicker faintly, like candles in a distant chancel. The conductor waving his wand, like a priest the swinging censor, evokes a wreathing mist of music that enwraps the lovers in a drapery of dreams.

Melodies and harmonies rise into being and pass away like phantoms floating by, until at last the great love-theme of the opera once again is flashed upon us. The _diamond_, scarce revealed before, is now in its proper setting. It is displayed in solemn glory by the dignitary at the desk, who, with upraised, swaying hands, holds aloft this precious theme, as a priest does the sacred emblem.