A TALK WITH LILLIAN NORDICA
It was during one of Patti's farewell seasons at the old Academy of Music that a young American girl, by the name of Lillian Norton, first appeared as a prima donna. She made a success, but not a sensation, for she had not then the halo of a European glory, and people were in those days too intent on the passing star to note any rising one.
But later on, when she Italianized her name, they applauded the same voice more loudly, tho their attention was still more directed to the foreign artists who appeared every year.
The American girl all this time never relaxed her determination, but kept on working with a will, learning rôles there was no prospect of using, and studying all things in her line. At last she was engaged by the Metropolitan Opera Company; but her name was not printed at the top of the list, and she was not held out as the magnet to fill the house on the opening night. In the end, tho, she sang oftener than any of the other sopranos, for when they were indisposed she it was that always came forward. There was never a rôle she could not sing, and never a time she was not ready.
The dormant appreciation of her countrymen became at last thoroughly aroused. Since then her success has swept onward with unabating force. The following season in New York the enthusiasm she inspired was so great that one large club of opera-goers presented her with a diamond tiara, and the people that year had to stand in line when buying seats to hear Madame Lillian Nordica.
The Waldorf-Astoria, where she lives when in New York, is quite a contrast to the humble New England home in Farmington, Me., where she was born. This hotel is a city in itself, and the visitor who inquires for some distinguished resident is conducted personally along the marble avenues and carpeted byways and through the beautiful "palm-garden." The door of Madame Nordica's apartment was opened by a white-capped maid, who seated the caller and then left the room. It was the day of a blizzard, and from this sixth-floor elevation the snow-storm without was of superb fury. It battered against the window as tho maddened by the sight within of the prima donna's cosy parlor, of the shaded electric lights, the wide-open grand piano, and the numerous long-stemmed roses, in various tall jars, fragrant and peaceful as a summer's day. Through the silken draperies of a doorway could be heard the sound of voices, of occasional laughter, and then—a scale, a trill, and a soft high note. It was an exquisite grand-opera effect with the whistling storm by way of orchestral accompaniment.
Soon the curtains were parted and Madame Nordica entered—a woman of regal height and figure, but with manners thoroughly American and democratic.