"Dear Master," said the younger woman with a slight accent, "I have been asked to come to this friendly house this evening to have the honor of seeing you and to let you hear my voice. I am the daughter of a supreme court judge in America and I have lost my father. He left my mother, my sisters, and me a fortune, but I want to go on the stage. If they blame me for it, after I have succeeded I shall reply that success excuses everything."
Without further preamble I granted her desire and seated myself at the piano.
"You will pardon me," she added, "if I do not sing your music. That would be too audacious before you."
She had scarcely said this than her voice sounded magically, dazzlingly, in the aria, "Queen of the Night," from the Magic Flute.
What a fascinating voice! It ranged from low G to the counter G—three octaves—in full strength and in pianissimo.
I was astounded, stupefied, subjugated! When such voices occur, it is fortunate that they have the theater in which to display themselves; the world is their domain. I ought to say that I had recognized in that future artiste, together with the rarity of that organ, intelligence, a flame, a personality which were reflected luminously in her admirable face. All these qualities are of first importance on the stage.
The next morning I hurried to my publisher's to tell him about the enthusiasm I had felt the previous evening.
I found Hartmann preoccupied. "It concerns an artist, right enough," he said. "I want to talk about something else and ask you, yes or no, whether you will write the music for the work which has just been brought me." And he added, "It is urgent, for the music is wanted for the opening of the Universal Exposition which takes place two years from now, in May, 1889."
I took the manuscript and I had scarcely run through a scene or two than I cried in an outburst of deep conviction, "I have the artiste for this part. I have the artiste. I heard her yesterday! She is Mlle. Sibyl Sanderson! She shall create Esclarmonde, the heroine of the new opera you offer me."
She was the ideal artiste for the romantic work in five acts by Alfred Blau and Louis de Gramont.