When she returned to America, a couple of years ago, after gaining experience in Europe, she arrived toward the end of the season preceding her scheduled début here, to prepare herself more fully for the coming appearance awaiting her.
I was asked to meet and talk with the young singer, to ascertain her manner of study, and some of her ideas regarding the work which lay before her.
"It was always my dream to sing at the Metropolitan, and my dream has come true."
Claudia Muzio said the words with her brilliant smile, as her great soft dark eyes gazed luminously at the visitor.
The day was cold and dreary without, but the singer's apartment was of tropical warmth. A great bowl of violets on the piano exhaled delicious fragrance; the young Italian in the bloom of her oriental beauty, seemed like some luxuriant tropical blossom herself.
Claudia Muzio, who was just about to take her place among the personnel of the Metropolitan, is truly to the manner born,—a real child of the opera. She has lived in opera all her life, has imbibed the operatic atmosphere from her earliest remembrance. It must be as necessary for a singer who aspires to fill a high place in this field of artistic endeavor, to live amid congenial surroundings, as for a pianist, violinist or composer to be environed by musical influences.
"Yes, I am an Italian," she began, "for I was born in Italy; but when I was two years old I was taken to London, and my childhood was passed in that great city. My father was stage manager at Covent Garden, and has also held the same post at the Manhattan and Metropolitan Opera Houses in New York. So I have grown up in the theater. I have always listened to opera—daily, and my childish imagination was fired by seeing the art of the great singers. I always hoped I should one day become a singer, so I always watched the artists in action, noting how they did everything. As a result, I do not now have to study acting as a separate branch of the work, for acting comes to me naturally. I am very temperamental; I feel intuitively how the rôle should be enacted.
"All tiny children learn to sing little songs, and I was no exception. I acquired quite a number, and at the age of six, exhibited my accomplishments at a little recital. But I never had singing lessons until I began to study seriously at about the age of sixteen. Although I did not study the voice till I reached that age, I was always occupied with music, for I learned as a little girl to play both harp and piano.
"We lived in London, of which city I am very fond, from the time I was two, till I was fourteen, then we came to America. After residing here a couple of years, it was decided I should make a career, and we went to Italy. I was taken to Madame Anna Casaloni at Turino. She was quite elderly at that time, but she had been a great singer. When she tried my voice, she told me it was quite properly placed—so I had none of that drudgery to go through.
"At first my voice was a very light soprano, hardly yet a coloratura. It became so a little later, however, and then gradually developed into a dramatic soprano. I am very happy about this fact, for I love to portray tears as well as laughter—sorrow and tragedy as well as lightness and gayety. The coloratura manner of singing is all delicacy and lightness, and one cannot express deep emotion in this way.