iapine Basilio you'll do as the rest do--roar.
It is as sensational in its way as the Chaliapine Mephisto."

It was hard to reconcile Chaliapine's conception of Mephistopheles with
the Gounod music, and I do not think the Russian himself had any
illusions about his performance of _Leporello_. It was not his type of
part, and he was as good in it, probably, as Olive Fremstad would be as
Nedda. Even great artists have their limitations, perhaps more of them
than the lesser people. But his Mefistofele, to my way of
thinking,--and the anxious reader who has not seen this impersonation
may be assured that I am far from being alone in it,--was and is a
masterpiece of stage-craft. However, opinions differ. Under the alluring
title, "Devils Polite and Rude," W. J. Henderson, in the "New York Sun,"
Sunday, November 24, 1907, after Chaliapine's first appearance here in
Boito's opera, took his fling at the Russian bass (was it Mr. Henderson
or another who later referred to Chaliapine as "a cossack with a
cold"?): "He makes of the fiend a demoniac personage, a seething
cauldron of rabid passions. He is continually snarling and barking. He
poses in writhing attitudes of agonized impotence. He strides and
gestures, grimaces and roars. All this appears to superficial observers
to be tremendously dramatic. And it is, as noted, not without its
significance. Perhaps it may be only a personal fancy, yet the present
writer much prefers a devil who is a gentleman.... But one thing more
remains to be said about the first display of Mr. Chaliapine's powers.
How long did he study the art of singing? Surely not many years. Such an
uneven and uncertain emission of tone is seldom heard even on the
Metropolitan Opera House stage, where there is a wondrous quantity of
poorly grounded singing. The splendid song, _Son lo Spirito Che Nega_,
was not sung at all in the strict interpretation of the word. It was
delivered, to be sure, but in a rough and barbaric style. Some of the
tones disappeared somewhere in the rear spaces of the basso's capacious
throat, while others were projected into the auditorium like stones from
a catapult. There was much strenuosity and little art in the
performance. And it was much the same with the rest of the singing of
the role."

Chaliapine calls himself "the enemy of tradition." When he was singing
at the Opera in Petrograd in 1896 he found that every detail of every
characterization was prescribed. He was directed to m