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Of two books by women, one, Sunlight and Song, by Maria Jeritza, is the great singer’s autobiography; while Frances Parkinson Keyes’s Letters from a Senator’s Wife is autobiographical only incidentally.
Mme. Jeritza is not only the foremost feminine personality in grand opera in America today, but by her concert tours she has become known throughout the United States. Her Sunlight and Song is a book pretty certain to interest everyone who has heard her—or heard of her. It is written with directness, in a thoroughly popular vein, and is utterly free from affectations or pose. An Austrian by birth, she sang in Olmütz while in her teens, living on the hope of an engagement in Vienna. At length she came to the capital and waited her turn in the trying-out of voices. She was engaged for the municipal opera and afterward for the Court Opera House. Her rôles from operas by Richard Strauss and Puccini were rehearsed under the personal direction of the composers; she met Caruso and dozens of other musical celebrities; she sang before and met the Emperor; and in 1921 she came to America. One of the most interesting bits of her book concerns a rehearsal of “Tosca” at which she slipped and fell. She sang “Vissi d’arte” where she lay, exciting Puccini’s enthusiasm. He exclaimed that always he had needed something to make the aria stand out and command attention; and this did it! When it was announced that Jeritza was to sing in “Tosca” in New York, there was a noticeable wave of hostility from those who associated the rôle exclusively with Geraldine Farrar. It vanished after she had appeared.
Among the photographs with which Jeritza’s book is illustrated are many extremely beautiful pictures of the singer in her various rôles. The chapters on “How an Opera Singer Really Lives,” “Studying with Sembrich,” “Singing for the Phonograph,” and “Some Guest Performances” will especially repay students of the voice.
The book by Mrs. Keyes, wife of the United States Senator from New Hampshire, is in a class by itself. Letters from a Senator’s Wife consists entirely of actual letters written to old friends who were some distance away from Washington and who had a full feminine curiosity about life there. Taken as they stand, Mrs. Keyes’s letters form a pretty complete record of social and political life in the capital as seen from the inner official circle. Beginning with her first impressions of Washington, Mrs. Keyes goes on to describe the Harding inauguration, the burial of the Unknown Soldier, the arms conference, the agricultural conference in 1922 and the industrial conference in 1923; the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial; the presentation of a gram of radium to Madame Curie; the diplomatic and New Year’s receptions at the White House; the convention of women’s organizations at which Lady Astor was conspicuous; dinners, teas, an afternoon cruise as Mrs. Harding’s guest on the Mayflower and social affairs innumerable.
The result is a picture of Washington exactly as a woman in Mrs. Keyes’s place would be privileged to see it; women readers will have a sense of participating in the things described. It is, I should say, exclusively a woman’s book; but no one who appreciates the average woman’s enjoyment of social detail will underestimate what Mrs. Keyes has accomplished. But in addition to telling the reader what she would have to do, whom she would meet, and what functions she would attend if she were in the Washington circle, the book does really constitute an attractive record of current history in the making and as made. Women who read it can scarcely fail to become more intelligent than before.