"This summer I asked a distinguished singer and teacher of Philadelphia in what language the 'Scarlet Letter' was sung in that city. She replied, 'Oh, German, of course.' 'Did you hear it?' I asked. 'Yes, and I enjoyed it very much, and it was sung in German,' she replied. 'It said in English on the programme,' I said. 'Well, if I was fooled, a great many more were fooled—beside myself, all our party thought so too. What are you going to do about it?' Gounod says: 'I did not like Italian singing; their tones were attacked so differently from the French method of singing that it was unpleasant at first, but I went again and again, for I could not stay away. I enjoyed it so much.'"
This is what Frau Johanna Gadski had to say in an interview printed in Werner's Magazine:
"I have never had any lessons in acting. The director of the Choral Opera told me at the outset that it was better to act by feeling when singing than by instruction. If one studies only acting and singing, one is not always natural. That is the reason why one who does not speak German does not understand the German people and their spirit, is not a German, and cannot sing the Wagner rôles. One must have the German spirit. Sometimes you write here in your papers that German singers cannot sing. I think they sing German rôles very well. One must sing, act, and, above everything, feel at the same time, and then one can speak to the heart of the listener."
Singing in a foreign tongue is, and must be, and always will be (until these things are more thoroughly understood), to a large extent, simply mechanical. Until then, the soul-stirring depth (der Zauber) of the native composition will always be wanting. The Anglo-Saxon race has been altogether too dependent upon European continental nations for its examples, its support, and its development in all branches of art. This has been more particularly the case in regard to music and song. Though German music, for obvious reasons, which give Germans the preponderance on this field of art, ranks first among nations, still there should be among English-speaking nations a greater native development thereof in harmony with the national expression.
Song, above all, must be national; it must be in harmony with the genius of a nation to attain its highest development. It is too closely allied to a nation's speech to be separated therefrom without doing violence to both its music and its meaning. The music and the words must go together; their union is as indispensable as it is indissoluble. While we have excellent vocal material in this country, it lacks the proper food for its nourishment. There is no want of poetic compositions. No nation has their superior, or has them in greater abundance. We have the words and the singers; but there is a woful lack of a higher class of compositions for singing. The latter are not at all commensurate with the abundance and the superiority of the talent that is awaiting their appearance.
With compositions on a par with its vocal talent, this nation might rank first among nations in the art of singing. It must stand on its own footing. It must sing its own songs and must be taught by its own teachers. This dictum may provoke indignation in "foreign" vocal teachers. Though I regret the possible consequences to them, this cannot be helped. Science is synonymous with knowledge, and knowledge with truth, and "the truth must be told if the heavens should fall."
BREATHING
All of the preceding, in a manner, may be said to be a preliminary argument for the great truth I claim to have discovered, namely, that in the sphere of the trunk of our body the material part of our nature is represented by the hemisphere of the abdomen, its immaterial part by that of the thorax; that in the sphere of the head a similar division obtains, in conformity with which it is also divided into hemispheres representing material and immaterial issues; and that every faculty, and the exercise thereof, have their being in a dual action, in close succession, emanating from these hemispheres.
The first proposition to be proven was that we breathe through the œsophagus, conjointly with the trachea. If all I have said in the preceding has not already convinced the reader of the truth of this statement, I trust the following experiments will thoroughly convince him thereof. These experiments will also furnish additional proof of the fact that English and German modes of respiration are of an inverse order.
Not the slightest fear need be entertained as to the result of these experiments. I have made the same, and others of a similar nature, over and over again, without being in the least discomfited thereby; and I may add that to the fact of having been entirely divested of fear, I largely owe my success in all these undertakings.