SHE WAS INDISPENSABLE IN “AIDA”
“The same afternoon a message came for me: ‘Would I come?’ and ‘Would I do so and so?’ I would, and did. I sang ‘Aida’ and then other parts, and gradually all the parts but one, which I had longed to try, but had not yet had the opportunity given to me. I was very successful, and Sir Augustus was very friendly.
“The summer after that season, I visited Ems, where the De Reszkes were. One day they said: ‘We are going to Beirut, to hear the music,—don’t you want to go along?’ I thought it over, and decided that I did. My mother and I packed up and departed. When I got there and saw those splendid performances, I was entranced. It was perfectly beautiful. Everything was arranged after an ideal fashion. I had a great desire to sing there, and boasted to my mother that I would. When I came away, I was fully determined to carry it out.”
“Could you speak German?”
“Not at all. I began, though, at once, to study it; and, when I could talk it sufficiently, I went to Beirut and saw Madame Wagner.”