It is not at all surprising that Madame Sembrich caught on so grandly night before last. She is the most comfortable-looking prima donna that has ever visited Chicago. She is one of your square-built, stout-rigged little ladies with a bright, honest face and bouncing manners. Her arms are long but shapely, and in the last act of Lucia her luxurious black hair tumbles down and envelopes her like a mosquito net. Her audience night before last was a coldly critical one, of course, and it sat like a bump on a log until Sembrich made her appearance in the mad scene, where Lucheer gives her vocal circus in the presence of twenty-five Scotch ladies in red, white, and green dresses, and twenty-five supposititious Scotch gentlemen in costumes of the Court of Louis XIV. Instead of sending for a doctor to assist Lucheer in her trouble, these fantastically attired ladies and gentlemen stand around and look dreary while Lucheer does ground and lofty tumbling, and executes pirouettes and trapeze performances in the vocal art.
Then the audience began to wake up. The comfortable-looking little prima donna gathered herself together and let loose the cyclone of her genius and accomplishments. It was a whirlwind of appoggiaturas, semi-quavers, accenturas, rinforzandos, moderatos, prestos, trills, sforzandos, fortes, rallentandos, supertonics, salterellos, sonatas, ensembles, pianissimos, staccatos, accellerandos, quasi-innocents, cadenzas, symphones, cavatinas, arias, counter-points, fiorituras, tonics, sub-medicants, allegrissimos, chromatics, concertos, andantes, études, larghettos, adagios, and every variety of turilural and dingus known to the minstrel art. The audience was paralyzed. When she finally struck up high F sharp in the descending fourth of D in alt, one gentleman from the South Side who had hired a dress-coat for the occasion broke forth in a hearty "Brava!" This encouraged a resident of the North Side to shout "Bravissimo," and then several dudes from the Blue Island district raised the cry of "Bong," "Tray beang," and "Brava!"
The applause became universal—it spread like wild-fire. The vast audience seemed crazed with delight and enthusiasm. And it argues volumes for the culture of our enterprising and fair city that not one word of English was heard among the encouraging and approving shouts that were hurled at the smiling prima donna. Even the pork merchants and the grain dealers in the family circle vied with each other in hoarsely wafting Italian words of cheer at the triumphant Sembrich. French was hardly good enough, although it was utilized by a few large manufacturers and butterine merchants who sat in the parquet, and one man was put out by the ushers because he so far forgot himself and the éclat of the occasion as to shout in vehement German: "Mein Gott in himmel—das ist ver tampt goot!" It was an ovation, but it was no more than Sembrich deserved—bless her fat little buttons!
Remember, this was nearly twenty years ago. It argues much for the saneness of Field's enthusiasm, as well as for the perfection of Madame Sembrich's methods, that she is still able to arouse a like enthusiasm in audiences where true dramatic instinct and high vocal art are valued as the rarest combination on the operatic stage.
Two manuscript poems in my scrap-book testify that another songster, early in Field's Chicago life, enjoyed his friendship and inspired his pen along a line it was to travel many a tuneful metre. The first, with frequent erasures and interlineations, bears date May 25th, 1894, and was inscribed, "To Mrs. Will J. Davis." It runs as follows:
A HUSHABY SONG
The stars are twinkling in the skies,
The earth is lost in slumber deep—
So hush, my sweet, and close your eyes
And let me lull your soul to sleep;