Memoirs of an American Prima Donna

by Clara Louise Kellogg

In Paris my mother and I took an apartment on the Rue de Chaillot, just off the Champs Élysées. One of the first things I did in Paris was to refuse an offer to sing in Budapesth. While in Paris I, of course, did sing many times, but it was always unprofessionally. I had a wonderful stay in Paris, and went to everything from horse shows to operas. Those were the charming days when Mme. Adam had her salon. I met there some of the most gifted and brilliant people of the age. She was the editor of the Nouvelle Revue, and it was through her that I met Coquelin. He frequently recited at her receptions; and it was a great privilege to hear his wonderful French and his inimitable intonation in an intime way.

The house where I enjoyed visiting more than any other except the Adams', was that of Theodore Robin, who had married a rich American widow and had a beautiful home on Parc Monceau. His baritone voice was a very fine one, and he had studied at first with a view to making a career for himself; but he was naturally indolent and, having married money, his indolence never decreased. Valentine Black was another friend of ours and we spent many an evening at his house listening to Godard and Widor play their songs. Widor was the organist at Saint Sulpice and had composed some charming lyric music. Godard was a very small man, intensely musical. He had the curious gift of being able to copy another composer's style exactly. Few people know, for instance, that he wrote all the recitative music for Carmen. It is almost incredible that another brain than Bizet's should have so marvellously caught the spirit and the mood of that music.

The Stanley Club gave me a dinner in the following March at which my mother and I were the only ladies present. Mr. Ryan was the President of the Club and represented the New York Herald. The foreign correspondents of the Evening Post and the Boston Advertiser were there, and next to Ryan sat Richard Watson Gilder who was representing the Century Magazine. There were also there several poets and writers, and more than one painter whose picture hung in the Salon of that year. No one asked me to sing; but I felt that I wanted to and did so. After the "Jewel Song" and the "Polonaise," someone asked for "Way Down on the Suwanee River." I sang it, and was struck by the incongruous touch of the little negro melody, the brilliant Stanley Club, and all Paris outside.

No one can live in the atmosphere of artistic Paris without being interested in other branches of art besides one's own. That is a charming trait of French people;—they are not a bit prejudiced when it comes to recognising forms of genius that are unfamiliar. The stupidest Parisian painter will weep over Tschaikowsky's Pathétique Symphony or will wildly applaud one of the rather cumbersome Racine tragedies at the Théâtre Français. I knew Cabanel quite well (not, I hasten to add, that he would be apt to cultivate an artistic taste in anybody) and I met Jules Stewart at the Robins', whose father was the greatest collector of Fortuneys in the world. I think it was he who took me to the Loan Exhibition of the Barbizon School of Painting that year. The pictures were hung beautifully, I remember, so that one could see the stages of their development.

It was about the same time that I first heard Josephine de Reszke in Paris. In any case it was somewhere in the seventies. She was a soprano with a beautiful voice but not an attractive personality. Her neck was exceptionally short and set so far down into her shoulders that she just escaped deformity. She was very much the blonde, northern type, and still a young woman. I have heard that she did not have to sing for monetary reasons. A few years later she married a wealthy Polish banker and left the stage. At the time I first heard her the de Reszke men were not singing. It was in Le Roi de Lahore that I heard her, with Lascelle. I never listened to anything more magnificently done than Lascelle's singing of the big baritone aria. Maurel followed him as a baritone. He was a great artist also, with possibly more intelligence in his singing than Lascelle. Lascelle relied entirely on his glorious voice; in consequence he never realised all in his career that might have been possible. In reality, if you have one great gift, you have to develop as many other gifts as possible in order to present and to protect that one properly! A little later I heard Maurel in Iago. (This reminds me of Othello in Munich, when Vogel, the tenor, sang out of tune and nearly spoiled Maurel's work). What an actor, and what an intelligence! One felt in Maurel a man who had studied his rôles from the original plots. He played a great part in costuming, but, curiously enough, he could never play parts of what I call elemental picturesqueness. His Amonasro in Aïda was good, but it was a bit too clean and tidy. He looked as if he were just out of a Turkish bath, immaculate, in spite of his uncivilised guise. He could, however, play a small part as if it were the finest rôle in the piece; and he had an inimitable elegance and art, even with a certain primitive romantic quality lacking. But what days those were—of what marvellous singing companies! I hear no such vocalism now, in spite of the elaborate and expensive opera that is put on each year.

In my mother's diary of this period I find:

Louise presented to Verdi and we had no idea she would appear in any newspaper in consequence....

She went to hear the damnation of Faust last Sunday and says the orchestra was very fine. The singing is not so much. She went to hear Aïda last night at the Grau Opera House with Verdi to conduct and Krauss as Aïda. Chorus and orchestra fine artists. Well—she was disappointed! Krauss sings so false and has not as much power as Louise. She came home quite proud of herself. Took her opera and marked everything. Says her tempo was very nearly correct; but yet she was disappointed. Krauss changes her dress. Louise does not....

We went to Miss Van Zandt's début. She made a veritable success. Has a very light tone. The Théâtre Comique is small. She is extremely slender and, if not worked too hard, will develop into a fine artist. Our box joined Patti's. I sat next to her and we lost no time in chatting over everything that was interesting to us both. She told me her whole story. I was very much interested; and had a most agreeable evening. Was glad I went.

In a letter written by my mother to my father I find another mention of my meeting Verdi: