ever induce him to return to it." You perhaps have heard rumours that
Giuseppe Campanari prefers _spaghetti_ to Mozart, especially when he
cooks it himself. When this baritone was a member of the Metropolitan
Opera Company his paraphernalia for preparing his favourite food went
everywhere with him on tour. Heinrich Conried (or was it Maurice
Grau?) once tried to take advantage of this weakness, according to a
story often related by the late Algernon St. John Brenon. Campanari
was to appear as Kothner in _Die Meistersinger_, a character with no
singing to do after the first act, although he appears in the
procession in the third act. The singer told his impressario that he
saw no reason why he should remain to the end and explained that he
would leave his costume for a chorus man to don to represent him in
the final episode. "What would the Master say?" demanded Conried,
wringing his hands. "Would he approve of such a proceeding? No. That
would not be truth! That would not be art!" Campanari was obdurate.
The Herr Direktor became reflective. He was silent for a moment and
then he continued: "If you will stay for the last act you will find in
your room a little supper, a bottle of wine, and a box of cigars,
which you may consume while you are waiting." In sooth when Campanari
entered his dressing room after the first act of Wagner's comic opera
he found that his director had kept his word.... The baritone ate the
supper, drank the wine, put the cigars in his pocket ... and went
home!

If some singers are good cooks it does not follow that all good cooks
are singers. Benjamin Lumley, in his "Reminiscences of the Opera,"
tells the sad story of the Countess of Cannazaro's cook, which should
serve as a lesson to housemaids who are desirous of becoming moving
picture stars. "This worthy man, excellent no doubt as a _chef_, took
it into his head that he was a vocalist of the highest order, and that
he only wanted opportunity to earn musical distinction. His strange
fancy came to the knowledge of Rubini, and it was arranged that a
performance should take place in the morning, in which the cook's
talent should be fairly tested. Certainly every chance was afforded
him. Not only was he encouraged by Rubini and Lablache (whose gravity
on the occasion was wonderful), but by a few others, Costa included,
as instrumentalists. The failure was miserable, ridiculous, as
everybody expected." Frederick Crowest describes a certain Count
C