successfully.

"The two scenes which I have particularly in mind are those of the first
act of _Tannhaeuser_ and the second act of _Parsifal_. Both of these
scenes, it seems to me, should be arranged with the most undreamed of
beauty in colour and effect. Venus should not pose for a long time in a
stiff attitude on an uncomfortable couch. I don't object to the couch,
but it should be made more alluring.

"The same objection holds in the second act of _Parsifal_, where Kundry
is required to fascinate Parsifal, although she is not given an
opportunity of moving from one position for nearly twenty minutes. When
Klingsor calls Kundry from below in the first scene of that act, she
comes against her will, and I think she should arise gasping and
shuddering. I try to give that effect in my voice when I sing the music,
but, following Bayreuth, I am standing, motionless, with a veil over my
head, so that my face cannot be seen for some time before I sing.

"One singer can do nothing against the mass of tradition. If I changed
and the others did not, the effect would be inartistic. But if some
stage manager would have the daring to break away, to strive for
something better in these matters, how I would love to work with that
man!"

Departing from the Wagnerian repertoire, Mme. Fremstad has made notable
successes in two roles, Salome and Armide. That she should be able to do
justice to the latter is more astonishing than that she should emerge
triumphant from the Wilde-Strauss collaboration. _Armide_, almost the
oldest opera to hold the stage to-day, is still the French classic
model, and it demands in performance adherence to the French grand
style, a style implying devotion to the highest artistic ideals. Mme.
Fremstad's artistic ideals are perhaps on a higher plane than those of
the Paris Conservatoire or the Comedie Francaise, but it does not follow
that she would succeed in moulding them to fit a school of opera with
which, to this point, she had been totally unfamiliar. So far as I know,
the only other opera Mme. Fremstad had ever sung in French was _Carmen_,
an experience which could not be considered as the training for a
suitable delineation of the heroine of Gluck's beautiful lyric drama.
Still Mme. Fremstad compassed the breach. How, I cannot pretend to say.
No less an authority than Victor Maurel pronounced it a triumph of the
French classic style.

The moods of Quinault's heroine, of course, suit this singing ac