omptu stage "business." She refused to give her fellow-artists any
idea of how she would carry a part through, and as she allowed her
feelings full sway in the matter misunderstandings frequently arose. In
acting Desdemona to the Otello of the tenor, Donzelli, for example, she
would not determine beforehand the exact point at which he was to seize
her. Frequently she gave him a long chase and on one occasion in his
pursuit he stumbled and cut himself on his unsheathed dagger. Often it
has seemed that Mme. Farrar deliberately chose certain stage "business"
with an eye to astounding, and not with any particular care for the
general roundness of her operatic performance. It must also be taken
into consideration that no two of Mme. Farrar's impersonations of any
one role are exactly similar, and that he who may have seen her give a
magnificent performance is not too safe in recommending his meticulous
neighbour to go to the next. Sometimes she is "modern" and "American" in
the deprecatory sense of these words; in some of her parts she exudes no
atmospheric suggestion. There are no overtones. The spectator sees
exactly what is before his eyes on these occasions; there is no
stimulation for the imagination to proceed further. At other times, as
in her characterization of the Goosegirl in _Koenigskinder_, it would
seem that she had extracted the last poetic meaning out of the words and
music, and had succeeded in making her audience feel, not merely
everything that the composer and librettist intended, but a great deal
more.

At times she is a very good singer. Curiously enough, it is classic
music that she usually sings best. I have heard her sing Zerlina in _Don
Giovanni_ in a manner almost worthy of her teacher, Lilli Lehmann. There
is no mention of this role in her book; nor of another in which she was
equally successful, Rosaura in _Le Donne Curiose_, beautifully sung
from beginning to end. Mme. Farrar is musical (some singers are not;
Mme. Nordica was not, for example), and I have witnessed two
manifestations of this quality. On one occasion she played for me on the
piano a good portion of the first act of _Ariane et Barbe-Bleue_, and
played it brilliantly, no mean achievement. Another time I stood talking
with her and her good friend, Josephine Jacoby, in the wings during the
last act of a performance of _Madama Butterfly_ at the Brooklyn Academy
of Music. There was no air of preoccupation on her part, no sense on
ours