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 blasé 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.