Confessions of an Opera Singer

by Kathleen Howard

It was not by any means my first visit to London, professionally. I had sung in private drawingrooms in previous seasons, and had also given a recital. Her Royal Highness Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, and her daughter, Princess Victoria, graciously consented to be my patronesses at this concert. I had not the slightest idea how to arrange for them, after they had kindly consented to be present, but I gathered that a special pair of comfortable chairs must be put directly below the stage, with a little table. Then I thought "Flowers or no flowers?" I should have loved to send them, but English Royalties are so simple and natural I instinctively felt that any ostentation would be distasteful. Somehow one hates to do the wrong thing in the presence of Personages; it is an un-American feeling, but a human one.

They applauded me a great deal, and after a bow of acknowledgment to the nice audience I gave the Princesses each time an English, straight-up-and-down curtsey, and I hope that was right. In Germany a back-swaying, one-toe-pointed-in-front curtsey was demanded. These things are at once trivial and vastly important.

The decent getting Their Royal Highnesses in and out of the hall I left to the capable manager, to whom Princess Christian said as she passed, "She ought to be singing in Covent Garden." I very soon was.

I was rather nervous at the beginning at Covent Garden. Most of the others were so famous, and all of them so much older than I. However, I soon got recognition and they were all very nice to me. I enjoyed especially talking to Van Rooy. He told me all about the wonderful armour he wore in the "Ring." Never have I seen his equal as the Wanderer. As he himself said, the old line of singers, the giants, the de Reszkes, Terninas, Lehmanns and Brandts, seemed to have died out. I often look for the grand line, the dignity, the flowing, noble breadth of gesture one saw in the older Wagnerian singers, but how often does one see it now? Of course, my memories of them are those of a very young girl, but I saw the same thing in Van Rooy, though his voice showed wear, and the bigness of their impersonations is stamped indelibly on my memory, dwarfing the lesser ones.

Nikisch came for the last few rehearsals. He took that raw, English-sounding orchestra, with its unrelated sounds of blaring brass, and rough strings, and unified and dignified it by his personality, his work and his brain power till it produced what he would have—Wagner in his glory. His gestures were like a sculptor's. My brother, who came to stay with us, also noticed this. Nikisch seemed to sculpt the phrases out of the air, and brought home again to us both the close relation between the lines of music and the lines of noble sculpture. The Parthenon freeze—is it not music? My brother says the Air of Bach is absolutely one with the outlines of this masterpiece, just as pure, noble and majestically simple, moving in slow, stately rhythm.

We gave the "Ring" three times and I sang the Erdas and Fricka and Waltrautes. The latter in "Goetterdaemmerung" I enjoyed doing so much with Nikisch. We only rehearsed it at the piano, and he said as he sat down: "Jetzt bin ich neugierig. Entweder kann die Waltraute wunderschoen sein, oder sehr langweilig." ("Now I am curious. Waltraute can either be very beautiful or very uninteresting.") He did not find it langweilig however.

I had one of my fits of depression I so often get after singing, (when I feel I must leave the stage, I am so hopelessly bad, and nothing any one can do or say cheers me inwardly), and it was particularly abysmal, the day after Waltraute. One never sings just as one would like to, and in my head I hear the phrase so much more beautifully done than any one but Caruso can do it. That day I sat at lunch with my faithful Marjorie, who always puts up with me. We were lunching in a little place near us, and I was deep in the blues. Marjorie's eye fell on the Daily Telegraph and we saw a wonderful criticism by Robin Legge; just a few words, but so sincere and appreciative. It helped such a lot. Criticism can mean so much to one for good or evil. The thought of a cruelly amusing phrase the critic has coined, unable to resist the very human temptation, will come winging to you the next time you step out on the stage to sing the same rôle, and you feel that sardonic wave striking you afresh and jangling your already quivering nerves. It takes courage after that to go on. On the contrary, a few words of appreciation of what you have tried so hard, through such long years to do, will tide you over many black hours of discouragement, and you think: "I can't be so absolutely rotten, didn't X—— write that about me? and he's supposed to know something about it." An intelligent constructive criticism is the most helpful thing possible, and stimulates one to work to correct one's faults. Personal remarks wound one's feelings deeply, and one is obliged to swallow hard and go bravely on, but the policeman's life is not a happy one.

The Royal Opera is in the middle of the vegetable market, and on the days when produce arrives, the streets are full of cockney porters. It was rather amusing one day, going to rehearsal. I was dressed in my new black satin suit from Paris, and a smart little white hat. A porter caught sight of me, pushed back the other men on both sides of me, and said, "Get out of the loidy's wy, cahn't yer, Bill? That's roight, Miss, I always loikes to see the lydies wen Ahm workin', that's right, Miss, very neat, too." The next day it was raining and I was not so smart, and the same man saw me and said with an air of disappointment, "Ah don't like it 'aaf so well as yisterdy, Miss."

I have often heard of American singers who could "bluff" or "hypnotize" directors into giving them chances which they thought they were entitled to, and from which they always emerged with flying colours. This is the tale of how I once, and only once, tried to "bluff," and how I nearly got caught at it.