Like all great prima-donnas, Madame Melba has a beautiful home of her own, and a country place to which she hies in the summer. Her town house is near Hyde Park, London.
We imagine these song-birds during the hot months resting luxuriantly in their various retreats—Melba in her river residence, Calvé in her French chateau, Jean de Reszke on his Polish estate, Eames in her Italian castle, and Patti at "Craig y Nos." But it is hardly an accurate picture, for rest to the artist still means work. They study all summer, every one of them, and entertain other artists, who work with them, or, at any rate, contribute to the perpetual whirl of music in which they live.
A very good idea of the home life of these song-queens was given to me by a young lady who visited one of them for several months.
"Do you know," she said, "it was positively depressing to be near so much talent and genius.
"Why, in the drawing-room they would be talking seven or eight languages; and some one would improvise at the piano, while another would take a violin and join in with the most wonderful cadenzas, and then, perhaps, the piano-player would step aside and some one else would slide into his place and continue the improvisation the first one had begun; and so on all the time, until really I began to feel just about as small and worthless as a little pinch of dust."
"Lakme"