"Oh! liebes Fräulein——" began the director, positively scared by my pale face and furious eyes, "Of course we don't want you to sing when you are so hoarse. Doctor—— was quite mistaken; please go home and take care of yourself. We'll get a guest for the Nurse at once!"
"Very well," I said, "I will go home if you say so; but remember Doctor—— says I can sing, and I am ready to do so on his responsibility."
I went back after my illness to see the director, who to my surprise began to attack me violently about my absence. He stormed, and thumped the desk, and would listen to nothing I said. I tried to tell him he had no right to speak to me in that way, as I had really been ill, and had always done my duty when well. He raved back that I had not done my duty, and it seemed to me so futile to argue, that I walked out without answering and left him raving. I went home and stayed there for five days, and at the end of that time the director sent his secretary "to explain" and ask me to return to my duty. It was an awkward interview for him, poor man, so I let him off easily, graciously accepted the somewhat disguised apology, and, as I was quite recovered and eager to sing again, signified my willingness to appear the following night.
To return to my first contract.—There was a formidable list of rôles which I must agree to have ready, and the director also insisted on my studying with a certain well-known woman teacher in Berlin! I conveyed to him as well as I could, that I would settle all this with my agent, as I had no intention of agreeing to all of it, and was afraid to trust my German to say so diplomatically. He added, "Of course you are too good for us, Fräulein." This was the second time I had been told I was too good for an engagement. Every one seemed to think I ought to aim at a secondary position in one of the big opera houses, rather than a leading one in a smaller place. The prospect of singing pages or confidants in a capital city, with perhaps one good rôle in a season, did not meet my needs at all; but no one seemed to sympathize with my ideas. I wanted to make a career in Germany, as if I were a German singer, having my own recognized place in the opera house in which I was engaged, singing the big rôles by right, without intriguing or fighting for them.
On returning to Berlin, I wrote to Herr Harder that I would learn a certain specified number of rôles in addition to those I already knew, making about twelve in all, and ignored the singing-teacher proposition altogether as I had formed the intention of going to coach with Jean de Reszke. On these terms the contract was returned to me signed by the director, and I was engaged.
CHAPTER VIII
MY ONE LONE IMPROPOSITION
“WHEN I make my début” was the phrase that I had heard so often on the lips of my American fellow students. Each one had chosen her opera house, and decided in which rôle she would dazzle a clamouring public. Sometimes one more modest would choose Monte Carlo in preference to Paris, or if she intended to make a career in Germany, she might hesitate between the rival merits of Dresden and Berlin. But that the theatre should be one of the half-dozen leading ones in the world, and the rôle her favourite, were foregone conclusions before she left America.
In this respect, I quite shattered the tradition of the prima donna, for I sang my first part in a small provincial German opera house, at twenty-four hours' notice, and it was one of those which I have least pleasure in singing. I remember that a well-known American writer, living in Paris, said patronizingly to my mother à propos of my first appearance, "Let us hope that she will make a real début later, for this can hardly be called one, can it?" "Well, after all," answered my mother, "who knows where most of the great singers of today made their débuts?"