with its lights, its pictures and flowers, is even more lasting than any
to be remembered on the operatic stage.

XVI

=CLAUDIA MUZIO=

A CHILD OF THE OPERA

[Illustration: CLAUDIA MUZIO]

In tales of romance one reads sometimes of a gifted girl who lives in a
musical atmosphere all her life, imbibing artistic influences as
naturally and almost as unconsciously as the air she breathes. At the
right moment, she suddenly comes out into the light and blossoms into a
full fledged singer, to the surprise and wonder of all her friends. Or
she is brought up behind the scenes in some great Opera House of the
world, where, all unnoticed by her elders, she lives in a dream world of
her own, peopled by the various characters in the operas to which she
daily listens. She watches the stage so closely and constantly that she
unconsciously commits the roles of the heroines she most admires, to
memory. She knows what they sing, how they act the various parts, how
they impersonate the characters. Again, at the right moment, the leading
prima donna is indisposed, there is no one to take her place; manager
is in despair, when the slip of a girl, who is known to have a voice,
but has never sung in opera, offers to go on in place of the absent one.
She is finally permitted to do so; result, a popular success.

Some pages of Claudia Muzio's musical story read like the romantic
experiences of a novel-heroine. She, too, was brought up in great opera
houses, and it seemed natural, that in due course of time, she should
come into her own, in the greatest lyric theater of the land of her
adoption.

When she returned to America, a couple of years ago, after gaining
experience in Europe, she arrived toward the end of the season preceding
her scheduled debut here, to prepare herself more fully for the coming
appearance awaiting her.

I was asked to meet and talk with the young singer, to ascertain her
manner of study, and some of her ideas regarding the work which lay
before her.

* * * * *

"It was always my dream to sing at the Metropolitan, and my dream has
come true."

Claudia Muzio said the words with her brilliant smile, as her great soft
dark eyes gazed luminously at the visitor.

The day was cold and dreary without, but the singer's apartment was of
tropical warmth. A great bowl of violets on the piano exhaled delicious
fragrance; the young Italian in the bloom of her oriental beauty, see